I saw something terrifying today. Something that could possibly haunt me for the rest of my days…

But first, (and this will be the quick and easy version, the dumbed down for the sake of brevity) there’s a certain fascinating dichotomy about the way we look at the past. Sometimes it’s a reflection on the days of yesteryear with a warm longing and admiration, an adoration of the “good old days.” And sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes it’s a glance back with a feeling of cold, hard contemn for the things that came before us. So, with all of that in mind, and based on the shock of my life that I witnessed this morning, for just a brief moment I’m going to jump on top of everybody’s favorite punching bag of a time period: the me generation. The 19fucking80s.

Mmmm yummy!

It doesn’t take much, when you anaylze the the politics and mood of the 80s to see that when things are pretty fucking bleak (as they certainly were in the 80s, because, I mean, Reagan as president and Thatcher over in England? Come on! We’re lucky we weren’t nuked in our infancy by own leaders), pop culture bounces back, but in the reverse. It’s a reflexive beast, and it tries to help us cope by taking the darkness of our world and turning it into a retard, ultra bright and happy partially gelatinous pill, which we can easily ingest. Not too dissimilar from quaaludes.

For example, take a period of time that gave us: The aforementioned heinous lizards Reagan and Thatcher, a crack epidemic, Chernobyl, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Challenger explosion, the “Evil Empire,” the other Star Wars, the fall of the Wall and the (sort of) end of the Cold War (thankfully), OPEC beginning it’s stranglehold on the world, a widespread outbreak and panic of AIDS, several assassinations and attempted assassinations, the arrogance of being “Me! Me! Me!” and the start of things that would continue to haunt us to this day.

And from all of that came pure pop ridiculousness like: MTV, Rubik’s cubes, fad diets, aerobics, the explosion of criminal pop culture invading us, Flashdance, Kevin Bacon, The Swayze, The Ma-Sheen (& brother), Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, martial arts as a trend, cannibalizing ancient Egypt and 70s punk rock for fashion and music and turning it into something so much more neon (and in some cases, so much more awesome), Oprah, U2, The Boss, Wham!, child abuse and the dangers of smoking gained popular attention, the war on drugs, the return of Star Trek (and the return of decent sci fi to the mainstream), the idea that style can be the substance, the evolution of video games and computers, the evolution of television and what could (and shouldn’t) be done with it, rise of house music, mainstream rap (which lead to a brief, weird breakdancing fad) and purple one and new ways to suck and be “hard” all at the same time (at least musically), computer technology entering the mainstream, the first real strives toward racial harmony, acceptance of other types of lifestyles, AIDS awareness, the hyperburst of cartoon characters becoming media and merchandizing megafigures, the beginning of cause célèbre,and fetishscizing celebrity couples that we shouldn’t really give a damn about, and the rise in a big way of the military industrial movement in a big way, which of course was soon fetischized as well. Oh, and a few blockbusters as well. And also a greater understanding of the past as well.

A time capsule in cassette form.

But eras of history don’t always end at neat and precise moments in time. Sometimes trends spill over. The particular trend I want to discuss which I’m using as building up to what I saw this morning is going right back to pop music. Hideous trends in pop music. The bullshit they shove down our throats. In the 90s, it was Britney and Christina (who, yes, can sing, but that’s no excuse for being boring), Jessica (who’s a kind of dumb phantom haunting the end of this decade’s tabloids), Mandy (Moore, I clarify, because she is the definition of boring poptress), your ‘Nsync, and your Backstreet Boys, and various related clones. The music goes poppier, sugarier, something sweet and stupid that you can turn your brain off and let float in one ear and out the other while you bob your head along to. This is how we respond to the world when the world scares us or is too big for us to think about. We resort to and seek out bubble gum. And that started decades ago, obviously because pop music is a sexy, nasty mutating beast of a thing, but the formula really got perfected in the 80s, with your Debbie Gibson’s, your Tiffany’s, your Menudo’s, annddd ohhh yessss, your New Kids On The Block.

I had heard rumors that these guys were back, but I thought, you know, that was some kind of crazy bullshit joke you tell at parties. But… no. They’re back, as I discovered this morning while turning on the TV, flipping through the channels and landing on MTV. Or, maybe even VH1, even. These sad bastards are back. All of them. A group of ugly grown men in their late 30s parading on beaches and in lurid parties, looking like fools, and dispassionately crooning formulaic crap while women half their age grind on them. Except for Jordan (who actually put out not totally sucktastic single about 9 years ago), who I’m not going to call gay, but he kind of seems evasive of his assigned fly honey in the video. Oh, and Donnie, does your brother seriously do everything better than you? Kiss your attempts at serious acting the last ten years goodbye. Jesus, look at the lines on these guys’ faces. This is almost a viagra commercial. Instead it’s your daily WTF.

Other than that, watch out. Everything you loved about the 80s? It’s coming back. The Transformers movie spectacle already crashed down and assaulted our brain cells, soon we’ll be able to “welcome” remakes of Red Dawn (which, tonewise, shows you the link between a 1980s mindset and a late 2000s, post millennial post 9/11 and constant fear of terrorism worldview, especially since a show like 24 is still around and still awesome)(Or, not to mention that Stallone is still pushing Rocky and Rambo add ons) and Robocop of all movies. Of course, it’s not just the 1980s that we’re mining for new vehicles, it’s essentially anything that had a name or just a crumb of potential future marketability to it, i.e. Get Smart. It’s all coming back. Soon they’ll even remake you and me.

Killing Joke - Eighties

"Hey you guys... Am I next?"