Old Dogs are a Dying Breed

I am not that old, but I sure feel disconnected these days. Nostalgia has been washing over me and I feel like an old man with archaic ideas. Here are a few of my thoughts.

Points and condensers are a thing of the past, but what about the old “Condenser trick”. You know, you grab a condenser, ground the body on the frame of the car, pull a plug wire and with the engine running, arc a couple thousand volts into that bad boy. Throw it to a buddy and when he touches both ends…Yowzer. That is a shock. It is a classic…and it is gone.

Muscle cars – No 4 cylinder car is ever going to be a muscle car. Displacement, noise, and power are prerequisite. I know, I saw The Fast and the Furious and your Rice-burner may blow my doors off, but a muscle car it is not, and will never be. Remember when you bragged about your cam and carb? No, I guess you wouldn’t.

Semi-Classic movies – Everything is getting remade, which makes the original obsolete or at least tainted by the remake. Another 10 years and nobody will ever remember Jamie Lee Curtis as the “Queen of Scream”. Rob Zombie did a much better job with Halloween…but in doing so, he buried history. Even the movies that don’t get remade have crappy sequels. Disney classics have cartoon TV series and 16 sequels that make the original masterpiece nothing but a little white noise in the monstrous engine that is marketing. BTW, if you didn't know, Zach Effron is Ren in the new Footloose remake....way to kill a classic with a High School Musical nightmare.

Oak Furniture – What the hell are people going to buy as antiques 100 years in the future? “Next up for auction is this classic do it yourself oak veneer desk from Wal-Mart that remarkably still has the cardboard backing intact….do I hear $4?” Here’s an experiment, go to Oak Express and try to find anything that is solid oak. You won’t find it, they may tell you it is solid, but if you look, only the trim is solid wood. “Packing significant lumber” means something entirely different these days.

Big Mac – Remember when a Big Mac was big? Compare that to the Double Six Dollar Burger from Carl’s and it isn’t even a warm-up. Perception is an amazing thing. No wonder our kids out weigh us by the age of seven.

Gym class – Back in my day we were required to do push-ups, sit-ups, and run to pass the class. Now, I actually have an in-law whose child is taking her high school gym class via internet. No joke. She doesn’t even go to a gym, or a school.

Military – Remember when the military kicked your ever-loving ass to train you. Made you enter a gas chamber until you puked blood so you knew the effects of gas. Spit in your face and made you a hardened fighting machine. Now they can’t even get in your face without fear of a lawsuit. They are a politically-correct, equal opportunity employer,. So you can’t run a mile, come on in, we’ll find something for you. Call me crazy, but I would prefer the physically elite as my country’s bodyguard.

Grades – I read an article where some schools have forbidden red ink being used to correct tests. They say it has a bad association for the kids and seeing the red marks makes them feel bad. Way to prepare kids for the vicious world out there you idiots. When they are out of a job, I wonder if they will ask the bank not to use red ink when describing the negative $600 balance in their checking account. It should make them feel better.

Yellow Pages – Remember when it wasn’t just a link on the internet?

These are just a couple of things that make me fear for our future and pine for our past. I won’t touch on current music because if you have ears, you already know. Wow, if I am this disconnected by 32, I’m going to be insufferable by the age of 50.

A Letter to a Friend

Dear Friend (you know who you are),

Please never, ever …ever recommend a “classic” movie to me again. You have tried and I have tried, but this isn’t working out. Remember when we were going to see Freddy vs. Jason in the theater on that fateful Friday night? As I was leaving work on Thursday, you said “You absolutely have to watch Jason Goes to Hell tonight because it ties directly into the movie we are seeing tomorrow.” I venture to the local Hastings and to my dismay; they don’t have a copy for rent. To my further dismay, the only copy they have for sale is $23. You said I must watch it, so I fork over the cash and take it home. If memory serves me correct, there is a point in the movie where Jason’s HEART crawls across the floor, lifts one of its ventricles, could have been an aorta, and the vein screams before it scurries off like an oversized spider. It screamed. It frickin’ screamed. What’s worse, the tie in part you mentioned was exactly 4 seconds long, I timed it. Jason’s mask is laying on the sand and a Freddy glove pops up and pulls in under. Wow, I wouldn’t really consider that a must see event, but even if it were, it couldn’t be worth the $6/second I was forced to pay.

I also remember a little show that you said was fantastic by the name of Streets of Fire. It did have Willem Defoe, but then again, he was shirtless and wearing rubber chest waders through the whole thing. Need I say more? OK, I will. You also said Eddy and the Cruisers was right up my alley. Tripe is delicious, big bursting mouthfuls of coagulated tripe, compared to this pile of garbage. It isn’t unknown because it was under the radar of Hollywood; it is unknown because it sucks major rhino.

Then we come to last night’s flick. I remember a long conversation where you stood and looked at me in amazement that I hadn’t seen one of the best movies ever made. You went on and on about the cast and the movie. So I got The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai Across the 8th Dimension from Netflix and sat down for some entertainment. I still don’t know how it ended, because nobody knows how it ends. If you can sit through that entire movie, you are a better man than I. I sat through Monster Man and Serial Slayer which were both filmed with a Sony Hi8 camcorder, yet I couldn’t sit through Bonsai. Monster Man actually had a sex scene where the girl used a Yoda voice and said “Take me you will, with your light saber, you must.” Oscar winning writing compared to Buckaroo.

We are obviously not in the same place when it comes to movies. I also need to publicly state that Armageddon, while an entertaining film, is not the end-all, be-all of writing, cinematography, and acting. No, I didn’t cry at the end and no, it didn’t change my life as it did yours. As for the Bonsai recommendation, I can say only this. Damn you my friend, damn you straight to the hot place. Fifth ring, turn left, fourth spit…and roast slowly.