the decades of our lives

a silly thing i remember about the 1980’s was the overuse of ‘absolutely’.. many media minions hijacked that word for all they were worth, figuring it would give them a veneer of gravitas. every bloody reply was absolutely this or absolutely that.. another funny detail was the shoulder pads which just grew bigger and bigger…i had two lady backing singers on a tour once,and they used to plump up tired shoulder pads with tampons.. i loved that.

in the 1970’s the wrong men started to wear tight trousers without any underwear…there were a few funny things about this..the first was the squelching of the testicles and penis together down one side of the leg to make fellas look like king dong…this resulted in folk talking to one another while eyes naturally rolled towards the inelegant pudge down one side of the others trousers….the other hilarious thing about that underwear free decade was when young beer swilling men went for a wee wee in a pub,they’d come back to the bar with what we called ‘the wet penny’… a pathetic little stain of fresh urine at the top of a tight flared trouser leg from having not shaken their willy dry. i blame eric clapton.

a great thing about the 1960’s was the quality of performances on pop records. recording in those days wasn’t a forgiving medium, and many bands and singers hated recording because it highlighted all their shortcomings, and so it follows the very limitations of technology filtered out singers who could actually sing for real, and players who would properly play their tits off. all we heard was strong performances, free of smoke and mirrors.. even the bubblegum was good.. also there was so much less product, so everything had a gold dust quality to it, but the biggest kick of all was the clear divide between adults and youth..they loathed each other.

the 1990’s made my tummy rumble..cd’s of the dire straits playing in middle class cars..i call it the family hatchback sound…the revival of wallpaper along with that chintzy bordering paper that would peel off slightly and just hang there…the dawn of everyday men with steroid induced muscles..none of the authenticity of big hairy coalmen or rugby players. lots of garlic in our dinners to make us all feel terribly continental. my own breath must have been putrid.

a truly fantastic aspect about the 2000’s was the gays not dying…if you’re straight you’ll maybe not know what we encountered on a regular basis in the 80’s and 90’s..we were never out of hospital visiting folk radically below their proper weight..too young to get their heads around the idea of death…the fear and dread…so yes it’s real nice..real nice to see things finally getting sorted…medication…science.

i like today…i suppose what i’m trying to do here in these paragraphs is an exercise of not being so frigging nostalgic about life..in truth it was all pretty shabby…you’ve only got to look at those old top of the pops re-runs to see it…i remember grime and unchecked bigotry…i’m thinking it’s not the right time to be wearing rose tinted glasses…everything’s changing, so there’s a lot to be learning…none of us like the obvious toxic stuff that’s going on,but there are some seriously smart young people out there…the evolutionary upgrade in them is apparent..i can easily see them saving the day. people like elon musk spring to mind…..seth godin for his insights around the behaviour of business… there’s loads of them. check the brain and ears on this 21st century boy for human evolution…