BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) VHS TAPES
They’re big, bulky, and surprisingly heavy but dammit they give the best damn staticy, dull, standard definition quality around. I love and appreciate the advances of technology. A DVD is much easier to deal with that a big bulky VHS tape. Still, there was something great about a VHS tape. If a DVD is scratched it’s pretty much garbage. With a VHS you could treat it like an old car. You could use scotch tape to patch tapes. Sure you’d lose a minute and there’s a good chance the tape will get eaten, but it was all part of the process. VCRs and VHS tapes made you have to do a little work for your entertainment viewing pleasure. I think that appreciation is lost on the touch and go technology of today. I’ll follow along, but I’m always going to be an analog boy in a digital world.
(THREE) ALBUM ART
I know of a few musicians’ album art because it’ll end up as a news item or they consider it good enough to push as a selling point. Sometimes they’re right. I know there is some creative album art still floating around out there and bands are still holding on to keeping the lost art alive. Still, it’s 2010. In most cases “album art” is merely a jpeg file on your browser screen. I want to hold a piece of physical property. I want to be able to display it, stare at it, and possess it. Hell, physical art in general is something we’re all going to miss before we know it.
(TWO) COOL HORROR ICONS
The old times had Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and the classic iconic characters. Then over time we added Leatherface, Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Pinhead, and a few others at lesser extents. What has the 90s and beyond really brought us in horror movies? The Scream mask character? Jigsaw from SAW? The creepy shadows in Paranormal Activity? Horror has become lame. It’s either snooty indie guys taking out their frustrations on a overly literate indie horror movies or it’s gore porn for those who like seeing people get hurt. I demand a good and creepy back story, a few sequels, and a costume made for the cool kids to have on Halloween.
(ONE) OLD LADY RAP
In the 90’s it got ridiculous with this, but now I miss it. Hip hop and rap music was just getting past that “scary urban music” level and was becoming more widely accepted by pop culture and basic Republican families. With that out of the way the first trick to lame-it-up is to have old ladies do it. Asian, white, black, didn’t matter… old ladies were rapping. It almost always sounded like really bad covers of “Rappers Delight” and ended with the old lady crossing her arms or pulling out a gun. It had the same fate as the “Snoop-talk”, but I think this is officially retro enough to bring back. I’m here today to promise to do my part.
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