I’ve just been quietly minding my business. Being the change I want to see in the world (sarcasm) and generally living my best life when it happened. Over the last 2-3 years. All video  coverage from the years 1988-2000 or so turned into a grainy, shaky Zapruder film and I don’t recognize anything. 

Yeah I complain about getting old all the time. Of course I understand that 1989 was 30 years ago and I also understand that this is a sizable amount of time. But you people look really young in these videos and your hair looks suspect at best. 

Just this morning I watched a clip of Jane’s Addiction from Lolopolooza 92. Perry Farrel looks like a cross between Medusa and Beetlejuice and the crowd looks to making questionable life choices. The video looks of no better quality than Woodstock footage from 60 years ago.   Perry’s also now 60 and looks mysteriously no worse for wear. Behold the only case of cocaine being an age preservative. 

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I grew up in the age of accelerated technological growth.  I got to see 8-tracks go to cassettes go to CD’s to MP3’s to streaming. I sound like my damn dad.  Now we all want our records back so I guess that these Betamax tapes didn’t hold their “superior clarity” like we thought. Oh and prepare yourself for all of my posts to feature at least one “Back in my day”.

I’ve always felt like everything was like 5 years ago. 10 tops.  This is not just my history degree talking. I understand how math works. It’s just not how it feels. Thankfully feeling is bigger part of perception than reality. Then videos went grainy and my eyes went blurry and did I mention my aching back. In my brain we can still go to

Murphy’s for $1 calls. Though there’s some crappy apartments there now, and thankfully no video evidence of the years 89-94. 

I am slightly amused at the realization that this is how my parents must have felt. To me, the Beatles and Led Zepplin were some old band in 1984. Five years or so later they were called “classic rock”. The reality is that I still listen to Smashing Pumpkins songs that have been around equally as long and the video of said songs are just as old. 

Thankfully I still have how I feel. Which mentally is like everything yesterday. Physically and in reality the rest of me is also pretty grainy. 

#hugsandhi5s