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Fleetwood Mac 'Don't Stop'
Aug. 18th, 2020 07:12 pm"Ah, 1996! Now for another moment of musical nostalgia with the Clintons, Fleetwood Mac at the Inaugural Ball!" That's what I wrote in my most popular tweet of the month so far.
Two days ago, I kicked off my entry on 1980s nostalgia fueling at least four Netflix "original" series by mentioning "Stranger Things." I'm not alone in noticing that about the show. Michigan State University posted a video on that very subject last year. Here it is.
Just in time for Netflix’s “Stranger Things” season two premiere, Michigan State University Professor Gary Hoppenstand travels back to the 1980s to analyze the strange and supernatural world of the Upside Down. Hoppenstand, professor of English in the College of Arts and Letters, is an expert on pop culture and film studies. He discusses why ‘80s nostalgia is a powerful tool in “Stranger Things.”
"Stranger Things" has 12 Emmy nominations, so I will write about them on Crazy Eddie's Motie News and may just recycle this video, along with two others from MSU.
Just in time for Netflix’s “Stranger Things” season two premiere, Michigan State University Professor Gary Hoppenstand travels back to the 1980s to analyze the strange and supernatural world of the Upside Down. Hoppenstand, professor of English in the College of Arts and Letters, is an expert on pop culture and film studies. He discusses why ‘80s nostalgia is a powerful tool in “Stranger Things.”
"Stranger Things" has 12 Emmy nominations, so I will write about them on Crazy Eddie's Motie News and may just recycle this video, along with two others from MSU.
The 80s nostalgia is strong with Netflix
Jul. 23rd, 2018 12:15 amI've been a big fan of "Stranger Things" since it aired three years ago. That series is original, but it has a lot of 1980s influences and takes place in 1983-1984. I just finished watching "GLOW," another original series set in Los Angeles (and Pasadena) in 1985. As someone who was living in Los Angeles at the time, I found all the references very familiar. It also reminded me of why I'm glad to be 2,000 miles from La La Land — the bottom-feeding desperation of people trying to enter and remain in show business always bothered me, along with all the other side effects of a culture focused on producing entertainment, including a self-loathing of all the fakery. Still, it was better to see it in fiction than in reality.
Those aren't the only shows capitalizing on 1980s nostalgia on Netflix. Last year, my wife and I caught an episode of "One Day at a Time." That show may have begun in the 1970s, but it lasted until 1984. At least they updated the cast to make them Latino. Yesterday, I finally succumbed to boredom and curiosity and watched the first two episodes of "Fuller House," another update of a 1980s sitcom. My son and I were actually loyal watchers of the repeats in syndication and I admit I enjoyed it. That written, I've called the show a "popular piece of crap." It's actually not that bad. It is exactly what I expected an update of the original would look like. I have to admit, it's just as entertaining as the original and everyone has aged well. In fact, I'll retract my calling it "a piece of crap." It's been nominated for Outstanding Children's Programming at the Emmy Awards. No wonder my then grade-school son liked the original in the early 90s!
Do any of you know of any other "original" programs on Netflix that run off 1980s nostalgia?
Those aren't the only shows capitalizing on 1980s nostalgia on Netflix. Last year, my wife and I caught an episode of "One Day at a Time." That show may have begun in the 1970s, but it lasted until 1984. At least they updated the cast to make them Latino. Yesterday, I finally succumbed to boredom and curiosity and watched the first two episodes of "Fuller House," another update of a 1980s sitcom. My son and I were actually loyal watchers of the repeats in syndication and I admit I enjoyed it. That written, I've called the show a "popular piece of crap." It's actually not that bad. It is exactly what I expected an update of the original would look like. I have to admit, it's just as entertaining as the original and everyone has aged well. In fact, I'll retract my calling it "a piece of crap." It's been nominated for Outstanding Children's Programming at the Emmy Awards. No wonder my then grade-school son liked the original in the early 90s!
Do any of you know of any other "original" programs on Netflix that run off 1980s nostalgia?
Evil Dave the Exterminator
Feb. 21st, 2014 04:43 pmOver at Grand Line 3.5, the artist asked for a story prompt in the comments: Tell a story about bug problems in your game!
There was a player named Dave in my gaming group who always had giant insects and spiders in every dungeon he ran. I eventually figured out that he did that because bugs frightened him and he hated them for that, so he figured that if they scared him, they'd scare the other players. He was eventually able to act out his feelings about insects in real life. He became an exterminator.
There was a player named Dave in my gaming group who always had giant insects and spiders in every dungeon he ran. I eventually figured out that he did that because bugs frightened him and he hated them for that, so he figured that if they scared him, they'd scare the other players. He was eventually able to act out his feelings about insects in real life. He became an exterminator.
As part of the opening to Debate, endorsements, and a poll from KPBS in San Diego, I observed in passing that yesterday (at least here in Michigan) is a holiday. I made no further mention of the day, which is odd, because I stated in Happy Festivus! that I love holidays, including fake ones. I realized that I should have posted something about Martin Luther King Day, at least as much as last year, when it was combined with Obama's Inauguration. Today, I'll mark the occasion by describing my most vivid memory about the holiday, which ironically has nothing to do with the intended meaning of the day. Instead, it's about experiencing the Northridge earthquake from afar through television, a story I tell my students.
Before our daughter was born, my ex-wife and I had agreed that I would take the second feeding of the night, which means that she was bottle-fed. After several years, that meant that I was in charge of my daughter's breakfast. On the morning of MLK Day, my daughter woke me up by saying "Daddy, I'm hungry." So I got up, prepared her breakfast, sat her down in front of the TV in the basement, and then put one of her favorite Disney tapes, which was either "Sleeping Beauty" or "Cinderella," I forget which. Just before the tape started running, I saw the announcement on Good Morning America that there had been an earthquake in Los Angeles. "Yeah, yeah, what else is new," I thought. Then the movie started and I lay down on the couch to sleep. After all, it was a holiday, and I didn't have to go to school or work. When I woke up, Regis and Cathy Lee were not on, as I expected, but news coverage. I recognized immediately that this was a bad thing. The last time I saw news instead of the mid-morning show was when the Challenger exploded. I grew even more horrified when it was about the earthquake and the location shots were all of places I knew and had been. There was damage at the university I had attended before I moved,* damage to the apartments my sister had lived in, damage to the mall where I had shopped. I may have been 2,000 miles and five years away, but it still struck close to home.
I could go on, but I'll let Peter Jennings and the ABC Evening News do the showing instead of me doing the telling in 1/17/94 1st Segment of "ABC World News Tonight" Northridge Quake.
For the rest of the entry, including two embedded videos, surf over to Twentieth anniversary of Northridge earthquake at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Finale of a coup as solo dungeon
Jan. 15th, 2014 12:02 amI have another D&D memory to follow up on the previous one. Again, it was inspired by a prompt over at One Piece: Grand Line 3 Point 5: Share a story about a player character who wanted to take over an entire town or city.
In an earlier campaign than the one with the evil cleric, One of my friend's low-level paladins became the prophesied True King for a city-state that hadn't had a legitimate ruler in a long time. Instead, it was governed by a warlord with his higher level henchmen as a junta.
When the paladin reached 9th level, I had the word spread in the city that the rightful king had returned. The citizens revolted and chased the junta out of the city. The paladin then had to defend himself against the old head of the thieves guild, an evil patriarch, and an evil sorcerer, before he could face the warlord. He killed them all in single combat in their jungle lair. Good thing he had more hit points than all but the warlord, was resistant to magic because he had a holy sword, and had a better AC.
Once that was done, he was able to rule his city-state in relative peace.
In an earlier campaign than the one with the evil cleric, One of my friend's low-level paladins became the prophesied True King for a city-state that hadn't had a legitimate ruler in a long time. Instead, it was governed by a warlord with his higher level henchmen as a junta.
When the paladin reached 9th level, I had the word spread in the city that the rightful king had returned. The citizens revolted and chased the junta out of the city. The paladin then had to defend himself against the old head of the thieves guild, an evil patriarch, and an evil sorcerer, before he could face the warlord. He killed them all in single combat in their jungle lair. Good thing he had more hit points than all but the warlord, was resistant to magic because he had a holy sword, and had a better AC.
Once that was done, he was able to rule his city-state in relative peace.
In a word: Red #drumcorps
Mar. 25th, 2011 01:27 am
As any of you who have reading my journal for any length of time have probably figured out, I have deeply ambivalent feelings about drum and bugle corps. On the one hand, I loved it dearly and was a great fan of it. On the other hand, it ended up treating me badly, and I had to walk away from it because I realized that it was bad for me. The same could be said about the women I dated who marched in drum corps, particularly the last one, who I was with for 10 years, but that's another story.
In any event, I am still nostalgic for the activity (admiring it from afar isn't as hazardous to my mental health as actually being involved) and regularly follow goldsmith1210's series about the top 50 drum and bugle corps of the past 40 years on YouTube. His most recent video included one of my favorite performances, the 2000 Boston Crusaders, which reminded me that it was in one of my playlists. It also reminded me that I had written one of my favorite reviews of that performance as well.
With that, I present Boston Crusaders' 2000 show "The Color Red" along with my reviews.
( An amalgam of two reviews behind the cut. )
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