Things that make you feel old

Back in the '70s and 80s, which was when I was visiting a lot , it was a pretty sleepy place (Fernandina) and I was a kid so I wasn't going to bars. It's been developed a lot since then. My aunt and uncle did have access to the facilities at one of the beach resorts, which had a great pool and an awesome beach playground, so as long as it wasn't raining and we weren't stuck inside, I enjoyed the visits.

 

Cal wins on a walkoff homer in the 12th yesterday by Darren Baker. That Darren Baker. If only JT Snow had been there to greet him at the plate. Or the Bears' batboy.

 

Only if the batboy is JT Snow's kid. Or, Christ, his grandkid. JT's got to be in his late 40s, he could have a grandkid. Shit.

 

Never mind, JT Snow just turned 50. Sheeeet.

 

I was trying to explain to my nieces the other night the mom and pop video store explosion of 1983-1988.
A degenerate shoplifter like me didn't help their existence.
I recall stealing the professional arm-wrestling film(!) Over The Top, which gave us Kenny Loggins's "Meet Me Half Way", which is always effective in ending a spousal argument if you sing that to her.

This is pretty much my function in life now, telling young people how awesome shit used to be.
Wait until I am actually really old, holy shit will I be a pain in someone's ass.
Next Friday night I will tell the kids about the "Police Academy" run of films from 1984-1989, with a brief interregnum, and then a straight-to-video release in 1994.

 

I wanted a VCR in the worst way in junior high school. My parents, children of Depression-era parents, said no, that's what we have cable for. I kept pushing and pushing and finally they said, fine, if you want it so bad, you can save up your paper route money and buy one. So I did it, and they were so impressed with my dedication to the cause that they covered half of it.

We had two video stores in town and it was fun going to each one and maximizing the deals. Store A had a huge selection and a rent one, get one free deal on Mondays and Tuesdays. (It was also a Ticketmaster outlet and where we lined up for concert tickets) Store B was smaller, but had better B movies (I remember renting Trancers or Troncers or whatever that Tim Thomerson franchise was called) and slightly cheaper prices. I could lose an hour just wandering the aisles looking for a couple movies. I'd be walking around, holding six tapes and trying to winnow them down, reading the pros and cons of each choice. Those were the days.

Store A closed by the end of the 1990s, I think, but Store B was open, albeit in a smaller location, until a few years ago. I walked in with my daughter during their close-out sale and took a few pictures of her toddling around, because it's the only video store she's gonna see.

Holy shit, this post made me feel so old.

 

I worked at a video store near a retirement community. Kind of depressing seeing the codgers bring up the films from the adult section Even worse trying to explain to the oldsters how video stores worked. "No, you bring up the box and we give you the movie we keep back behind the counter." That said - it was fun taking home the video game system we rented out, and seeing movies you normally wouldn't watch.
I know I kept Blockbuster in business a few extra months not wanting to wait for The Wire and Entourage through Netflix.
We had a running joke when people would bring up a comedy movie and ask if it was funny. "Well, it's British...."
Nothing worse than taking the blame for a movie that you had no part in making.

 

I remember a so-called “Movie World” near my house that had a huge horror and schlocky B-movies selection, which is what my reptile mind was into in high school.
It was a old, musty store in a strip mall next to a laundromat, but it was huge.
Staffed by the kind of fat dude who dropped out of college and smelled of stale sweat and beer.
I’d rent a movie once a week, deciding between things like The Brain, Phantasm, Zombie Lake, Blood Beach, Quest For Fire, etc.
Eventually it was reduced to half the size, with a hair salon taking up the space. As DVDs took off, the store couldn’t keep up and eventually closed around 2003-2004 (maybe earlier, maybe later. They all died as quickly as the Mastodon).
It was a place for movie fans - Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Paul Thomas Anderson have spoken about their true film schools being at the video store.
Blockbuster was more a place to be seen in whatever pathetic sense it existed. You knew there would be girls around, but chances were they were with their boyfriends picking out the movie for that night.

 

Actually the last time I rented a movie at a video store I asked the kid behind the counter what he recommended. He said "Dream House" - I looked at it, it had Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts and Rachael Weisz and directed by Jim Sheridan - there is no way it could suck with that crew. But I hadn't heard of it and asked the kid - is this some weird "it turns out it's all a dream" kind of thing... he said "well....." it was exactly it. I saw it coming from the first scene and hadn't been that let down from a cast since "Mullholland Falls" - how you screw up a movie with Nolte, Jennifer Conley, Michael Madsen, Malkovich and Bruce Dern - written by Pete Dexter - I have no idea.

 

My brother and I would tape videos off MTV all the time. We had like three dozen 6-hour VHS tapes full of videos and Headbanger’s Ball episodes.

 

18 year old girls

 

Try explaining to the kids how we would line up all night around the Ticketron/Ticketmaster location to buy tickets for concerts or major sporting events. It's like losers do now for Black Friday deals