time difference ·
31 August 04

00.30 on a Friday morning, and I’m trying to write my ideas for an amateur porn film I wish to make with friends, trying to write and update my CV for a crappy appointment I have to make because I just can’t fucking say no, and listening to Nirvana’s In Utero.

Listening the blast from the past reminds me of when I actually cried for the second time at someone’s death. It was for the death of someone I didn’t know. But it was someone that managed to reach into my soul with his voice and with his words and let me know that there were other people who felt the same despair I did.

There was no reason to feel guilty about feeling what you did. It was weird, like losing a friend who understood you. I was quite shocked at how big they were though, the out pouring and misery that filled the screen and the letters pages.

Still I listen to the album not out of misery, but partly out of nostalgia. Remembering a time when life was different, having grown up like many others during some weird times. During the 80s we had the Megadeth vs Metallica wars. Both would kick each others arses.

You could go to your friend’s place, or they yours and you would listen to Slayer, Pantera, Anthrax, something, or anything that would not start a riot in the bedroom. When things got pretty heated and intense, you’d put the music your enemy hates, with a middle finger and the exit left open for them to leave.

I’m sure many died for their band, it wouldn’t shock me. It’s the sort of fanaticism you would associate these days with boy bands. These were, if you will, boy bands with balls made of concrete and their weapon of choice was an electric guitar.

These were the Nirvana of their age, but where as Nirvana brought together a generation, these bands did the same, and yet divided them. It was like Ken vs Ryu, really they’re both the same, but enough of a difference was there to distinguish the two from each other and over the years both created their own sounds when they were in fact one.

The age of flares had all but disappeared during the 80s, and it was all about tight clothing. People still had their Choppers from the 70s, their Sodastream machines and all sort electronic gizmos were coming in. Colour TV was more available, people would rent as well as buy, football was at its peak and, more importantly, it was on either ITV or BBC1. 24/7 TV didn’t exist at that time.

Channel 4 still had the old school number 4 with that epic music where the 4 would split into different pieces and rejoin itself. When Channel 4 closed for the night the pieces of the multicolored 4 would disappear and reappear at 6 in the morning. The BBC had variations of it’s globe spinning throughout the years, Red Dwarf was still to come, but meanwhile we had The Young Ones and Only Fools and Horses amongst others.

It was a weird time. Most important I guess for me during that time was the explosion of computers. The Amiga and ST in everyone’s house, kids in school swapping, trading and making money off games they either grabbed from the BBS, had sent to them from someone who saw a message on the BBS and asked for it, taken from a trade show or your mate down the road had it and traded you 4 games for it because it was the latest thing.

Of course before that there was the VIC 20 and C64, Spectrum, Amstrad, Sinclair and such. There were alliances and treaties built with users of a certain machine, with friendships being broken based on what you had. Strange times indeed.

The Falklands war had happened, and the Gulf War was to come. The Berlin Wall would come tumbling down and the former Soviet Union would finally become former.

Every word corresponds with a different animation as if it is actually being spoken. Stunning, incredible, the lights, the music, the atmosphere, the scale and epic nature of it all.

Chernobyl had a disaster, and the radioactive winds hit the Lake District, a place I used to visit on school trips. I think I was the only one who actually knew that. We visited Jodrell Bank and BNFL, two places that were thriving on space shuttle missions and the use of nuclear power.

Thatcher would be thrown out of Government as I watched and didn’t understand why so many people were angry about something called the Poll Tax. We had a new Prime Minister, but nothing seemed to change. The political leaders of the world changed, and disappeared like girlfriends over the years, never to be remembered or understood as to why they were there in the first place. None of it meant anything.

I always wondered if Goberchov (?) was aware a bird shat on his head. I kept asking what it was, and someone told me it was a birthmark. A birthmark that looked liked a permanent shit stain. It was incredible as I always had the urge to rub the screen to see if it would disappear.

Our first black and white TV. I swore I could see colour, and tried to convince others that our black and white TV was in fact colour. Can’t you see the bits of colour, if I twist the dial that way, it’s colour. But it isn’t colour, it’s black and white. I’m telling you it’s colour! The black and white TV was black and white for everyone except me, as far as I was concerned I was watching it in colour.

Our first VCR was not a Betamax, even though it existed. It was a Saisho el cheapo, but el bloody expensive for the time. Infra red remotes weren’t around then for VCRs, so you had real remote control, one where you stuck the plug in to the jack of the VCR and made sure everyone avoided the remote control wire. Our VCR had this thing, a “DEW” LED. It came on when the room became humid, so we had to open the windows and let the VCR cool down and remove it’s humidity or whatever. It wouldn’t operate otherwise. It was a fucking nuisance.

Watching Moonwalker for the first time and being shocked and astounded. Michael Jackson could do no wrong, and if you listened to metal, you never admitted you listened to MJ back then.

XL Recordings were knocking out some phat dance tunes ranging from an unknown group called the Prodigy to the likes of SL2. Acid house and happy hardcore would later dominate. Happy fucking times, with LSD available to anyone and everyone.

Blackbox, Altern8, Ce Ce Peniston (?), PJ Dawn (?) I can’t even remember the fucking names! Crazy fucked up weird and somehow happy times. I can imagine everyone that grew up during those years loved it as much as I did, and remember it as fondly and equally with as much despair as I do.

[zz93]

The generation gap is immense. The 70s child doesn’t understand the 60s. The 80s child doesn’t understand the 70s. The 90s child doesn’t under the 80s. The child of 200X will never understand any of it. Where once playing hop skotch, kiss tag, and play ground fighting were normal and everyday activities; where we got free school milk in small baby bottles with a straw and we got to drink it everyday at school; a time when people traded and played with fucking marbles, with some trading entire boxes of marbles just for one large motherfucker with what looked like the eye of a magic fish, or that super small one that was hard to hit, and every one thought was so special they could beat anyone with it – long before bleedin’ Pokemon.

It was also a time of AIDS. It was an epidemic, and your parents didn’t want you to watch the news or hear about it. A time when your eyes and hears were covered from the reality of what was going on in the world, you didn’t understand it, but you expected that there was a bigger issue. Do you remember when you were small, and when you thought about the world how fucking huge it was?

You imagined yourself on a boat and how it would take you years and years to get from one place to another, or perhaps you’d discover a new country because the world was so big. Space was an absolute mystery. You want to be an astronaut because you want to touch the stars, and find out where we come from. You don’t understand the idea of God, but you want to question it, and all you get is a brick wall which says “Because I’m God” everytime you ask a question.

You start to wonder how you were born, and all you get is, “You were delivered by the postman” or “The bird came and dropped you off on the doorstep”. Father Christmas still existed in the UK, until he was beaten up by Santa Claus, and then Father Christmas committed Hari-Kiri.

Even listening to Radiohead’s The Bends or OK Computer for the first time, delving into 200X. The beauty of that voice. The music, the eclectic sounds, the coming together of harmonies and variations in styles, a Pink Floyd for a very bored generation.

Drugs, alcohol, sex, violence coming to the fore and making themselves known. Computer games being blamed for violence as the latest medium of influence, seeing as TV was no longer in fashion to blame. Child murders caused by children blamed on so-called video nasties, when all they presented was nothing as that committed by the murderers.

Evil Dead being cut because someone with a heart condition died from watching it. The age of 70s teen becoming an adult. The idiots had grown up and given birth to the morons that would invade society with the same retarded genes of their parents.

Society becoming out of control, greedy and prosperous. The yuppie dominating and becoming the tour de force for which all men would aspire to be. Except Alexi Sayle who would have his own TV show on BBC 2 and lauded the yuppie with his middle finger in the intro to his show. Driving in as a yuppie and exiting as an ugly bald headed shit. And so fucking what?

Girlfriends, relationships, not everyone was a slut back then, not all girls were so confident about their sexuality. Egos were born and destroyed. Bullies didn’t go the extreme of killing, people were robbed and fought, but not to kill, just to cause pain and hurt and fear. Killing is the fashion these days in school. Sex is everywhere and anywhere, available with a click of the fingers. Friendships ten a penny, because now everyone is a friend, until you get a new mobile phone and suddenly you’re in a different ring. Have the latest trainers?

Back then it was a case of do you the latest pencil crayons. Yeah, it was pretty hardcore back then. Back then racism made me cry, now you can’t say anything without offending anyone. You can’t ask for hardworking people because it is deemed offensive to those who are lazy.

It was a Saisho el cheapo, but el bloody expensive for the time. Infra red remotes weren’t around then for VCRs, so you had real remote control, one where you stuck the plug in to the jack of the VCR and made sure everyone avoided the remote control wire.

The world is turning amok and we’re worrying about who’s offended by what. People will be offended to know I typed this and copied and pasted it in various programs before finally posting it on my site. That’s pretty offensive to morons who can’t, or those with disabilities. Well fuck you, you can probably do shit better than I can, but don’t worry, I don’t give a shit. That probably offends people that do give a shit. What a fucked up world.

Anime, and my first taste of it. 1987/8, a pirate tape of Akira and my Japanese friend translating the film for me. I watching in absolute fucking awe as I see things I have never seen done with animation before. Before all this there was Thundercats, Centurions, I think Visionaries, Ghostbusters and such. But this, this was was far beyond my imagination could comprehend. Why did they act so real? The first and only anime to include vowel lip synching; that is the vowels were animated, and synced with words spoken. Every word corresponds with a different animation as if it is actually being spoken. Stunning, incredible, the lights, the music, the atmosphere, the scale and epic nature of it all. I understand nothing of what is going on, but it has me hooked. When I grow I want to understand what this is about, for now let me just watch and breathe this alternate world that exists.

The discovery of books, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Ted Hughes’ children stories, there was also Roald Dahl. Illustration by Quentin Blake I think, his partner in crime. Books that whirled my imagination and gave me inspiration and happiness. I missed lessons reading in the library getting in trouble often. I would hide a book under my pillow, and my mum would catch me reading and then proceed to beat the fuck out of me and take the book away. Dumb bitch, I always had another under the mattress. Playing on my ST at night, would also result in a kicking. The disk drive whirring would not give it away, it was often me shouting fucking bollocks at the screen and throwing the zipstick across the room because “Red Warrior is about to die”.

Understand the anatomy of a woman. Girls, how they work, they have different bits to us. I want to try it. Feel them, touch them, taste them, unwrap them like presents and find an interesting and fun surprise, like the Kinder eggs. Why is it looking at me an winking? Ah so it goes in her? Interesting.

Sex, the awakening, the first time, the first experience. Fuck, that’s weird, it’s messy, it’s sticky and wet, but it feels good, and I don’t know why. Can something so messy and monotonous as shoving your dick inside a girl and thrusting it in and out be some pleasurable? I would soon discover the finer ideas of sex later on. I don’t even remember her face, I don’t remember any of their faces, not the first few anyway.

People were doing it though, and there was a song, I remember the lyrics, “People are still having sex. Lust keeps on lurking. It’s been happening for quite a while….” it ends with another line which I can never remember. Sex, wow. Girlfriends, to have one, a status thing, but also, she played with your dick and you played with her cunt. Of course it wasn’t so vulgar then. You called them “it”. Do you want to play with “it”, do you want to put “it” in. Of course you’re 11 or 12, you don’t call it anything else. You know it’s your dick, you call it your dick, but thoughts of romantic endeavor make you wonder if she likes the word dick. And as you grow you realise, she does. A lot.

It’s rather appropriate that I finally listen to the last track on OK Computer, The Tourist, as this should end what I write. It’s 2.41 and I was chatting via MSN. How things change though eh? So few people I can talk to that understand what the fuck I’m going on about, even those older than me won’t understand the experience and the sheer difference of time between the teens now and the teens of the past, growing up them and growing up now. The 80s were a very, very unique time for me, and for people who grew up during that time. They saw more changes in people, society and the world as a whole than any other generation. At least for me.

Time for bed, I have to be somewhere tomorrow. And as things end so beings Planet Telex from The Bends,

Ciao fer now you 80s muthafucka.