It Makes Rainbows

If you were born in the last ten years or so, you can't begin to guess how cool these were when they were introduced. Just like the seagull from The Little Mermaid (what was his name? At 31, I'm getting so old) said that a fork was a "dinglehopper" used for combing one's hair, these were called "holstblusters." We used holstblusters as coffee coasters, frisbees, mirrors, scissor-testers, and pizza cutters (OK, I made up that last one). You could do anything with them. They replaced those big, clunky, black ones called phobosnorts that had been popular in the '70s.

Phobosnorts admittedly made better frisbees, plus you could probably use them as a floating raft if you were thrown overboard at sea. But they were way too big to hold your coffee (back when you drank coffee from a thick ceramic mug rather than from Starbucks disposable plastic). Of course, the worst part about phobosnorts was that you couldn't see your reflection in them, and they didn't make rainbows.

Holstblusters, on the other hand, made cool rainbow reflections that would twist and change length as you turned the disc. It was the main reason we bought loads and loads of holstblusters. No two discs were exactly alike. The pattern would be just slightly different depending on the age and finish of the holstbluster. We could stare at them for hours and never get bored. Back then, we didn't need loads of apps on a smartphone to keep us interested; just give a screaming child a holstbluster and you could go back to sleep.

I vividly remember my first holstbluster. I'd been crying in my crib because my big brother had eaten all the Gerber baby food. Knowing that babies like bright, shiny things (and in the '80s, everyone else liked bright, shiny things too), my parents let me play with a holstbluster.

"Feeling better?" asked my mom.

"Goo-goo, ga-ga," I answered.

"That's good," said my mom.

Well, I loved that holstbluster; it was the best toy ever. When I was done with it for the day, my parents found a special place in the living room to store it. A little mechanical drawer popped out on its own, ready to receive it and keep it safe. And that was how we discovered that holstblusters made music, too! It was unreal.

Then, suddenly, holstblusters disappeared. I don't know what happened. Trends come and go, I guess, but I'm pretty sure there has never been a toy as amazing as a holstbluster, before or since. People now tell me they were derogatorily called "CDs" and something better called "streaming" replaced them, but I just don't agree. You can't see or touch streaming. You can't toss it around or use it to sharpen your scissors. Most importantly, streaming doesn't make rainbows. Holstblusters did.

Yes, It's Brutal

I'll take a quick break from the 1980s and travel further back to that other weird decade -- you know, the '60s. Ah, now I see I have your interest. Good. Sorry to burst your bubble, though; I'm not going to talk about s**, d***s, and r*** 'n' r***. Neither will I discuss the finer points of mop-tops, go-go-boots, and the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

OK, sock it to me.

This will be about Brutalism.

Far out, man! That's kind of like rock'n'roll, right? Please?

No, once again, I'm sorry. I'm giving this to you gently so you can prepare yourself. Brutalism actually has nothing to do with the English word "brutal," but instead comes from a French word meaning "raw."

Sounds groovy! Must be hippie raw food, then? Sprouts, seeds, and stuff?

Nope. Now I'll return to the English meaning of brutal, which is a fitting description for those horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE raw concrete (ah, now I get it!) buildings that were so popular in the 1960s.

Actually, now that I've let my opinion slip, I kind of like Brutalism, or at least I'm fascinated by its historical significance in the way I can enjoy Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, which is widely considered to be the worst movie ever made.

My guess is that a generation of architects all watched Plan 9, dumped their brains behind in the theater, and went on to create the ugliest buildings ever designed by the human race. If anything screams "We Thought We Were Cool," it's Brutalism. The style is now associated with dystopian urban decay, and no wonder!

Massive concrete fortresses were all the rage, presumably because of fears of a nuclear holocaust. I guess it makes sense in that light, but now we look at them and scratch our heads. Would surviving a nuclear war be worth it to live the rest of your life in something like that? Oh, that's right -- only if you were high on LSD.

No thanks, I'll just walk off the end of that pier-looking thing now.

When coupled with a badly taken photo, Brutalism gets a hundred times worse:

I had a sci-fi, dystopian dream one night while I was asleep, and I think I remember some Brutalist-like buildings in it. I'd love to see a 1984-type of movie made with all Brutalist architecture. It'd be so awesome, I'd forget to buy the ticket to see it. After all, I can just walk onto my own San Francisco State University campus and see some Brutalist buildings right here outside the classroom!

Two semesters ago I took a class on holistic Eastern medicine perspectives. While the class was very interesting and the professor was a wonderful lady, honestly, I was slightly afraid to walk into that building each week. It towered over me as I climbed the steps to the front door. Once inside, none of the windows would open; I'm told that's a characteristic of Brutalist buildings. Even the air inside is artificial.

In the book of Genesis, the Bible speaks of the Tower of Babel, which God stopped before construction was completed. I'm inclined to think that Babel was Brutalist. (They both start with the letter B.) What other reason would God have to destroy it? I can imagine Him saying: "Stop! Stop! I've created this beautiful world, please don't make any Brutalist buildings until the 20th century!" And thus the world was spared of Brutalism for a time, until this was built:

What do you think? Should Brutalism come back? Please say yes. Now that I've seen all these pictures, I love Brutalism. I adore it. What was I thinking by criticizing it? I'm so sorry, I take back everything I said throughout this post. And I think Plan 9 from Outer Space is a wonderful movie -- it should have won an Academy Award.

Interlaced Blinds and Your Flight from Environmental Justice

Any video nerd or TV buff knows what interlacing is: it's a way of removing every other line of video picture in order to save on transmission bandwidth. All television programs for decades were interlaced until the 2000s-era of HDTV streaming. Sounds boring? Who cares, right? But only in the crazy 1980s was interlacing made into an art form:

Do you see all those strikethrough lines in the mountain, which I'm assuming is supposed to be Half Dome in Yosemite National Park? Good job, you don't need glasses. In the '80s this became a definitive design trend. Even Windows -- you know, the operating system that runs on your PC -- started out more like window-blinds than actual windows. Look at the "O" in the center of the picture, and you'll see those interlaced blinds popping up.

You just can't get away from them, even when you shut off your computer and throw it off a cliff in anger because you hate Bill Gates and all the money he made off of you. You drive back to town in your DMC Delorean hoping to "phone home" to E.T. the whole sorry story of how you contributed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but since Apple is still trying to figure out how to make a Macintosh and hasn't invented an iPhone yet, you have to look for a Pacific Bell payphone instead. The only problem is that this isn't really the 1980s, but my fictional 2016 blog version of the 1980s, so instead of Pacific Bell on the payphone, you see AT&T. And now we come to the point: those interlaced blinds just came back to haunt you!

Yes, the Interlaced Blinds Monster knows who you are and what you've done. In terror you hang up and turn the crank hoping to get your change back from the phone call. With a horrible empty feeling now lining your stomach, you walk into the nearest Bob's Big Boy and sit down at a booth. The back of your neck is hot because you're wearing a thick denim jacket and the mullet you forgot to cut. Well, you say to yourself, at least you're safe now. With a breath of relief, you look at the TV playing in the corner. The Olympics are on, and -- gasp! -- the Interlaced Blinds Monster is BACK!

There's no help for it. Interlaced blinds are everywhere. The only thing you can do is to kill yourself and reincarnate thirty years later in the good ol' 2010s, when -- uh oh, this is terrible! It can't be! The '80s are making a huge comeback. You now have an iPhone, but your carrier is AT&T, and the Interlaced Blinds Monster still rears its ugly head!

Hey, at least they're 3D now, so maybe you're safe. You look back at the table to finish your burger, only to find that the restaurant has turned into a Chipotle Mexican Grill and there's a burrito in front of you. You finish it up -- it tastes pretty good -- and then you realize you forgot to get something to drink. Knowing you need to update your habits for modern audiences, you head to Starbucks and order a Pumpkin Spice Latte, non-dairy. You haven't set up Apple Pay on your phone yet, so you whip out your credit card, and -- your heart stops -- MasterCard hasn't changed its logo since the 1980s.

That's it, you say. I am going to kill the Interlaced Blinds Monster once and for all and send it back to the flaming pit from whence it came. But where is that, exactly? You do some research on this new Internet thing that everybody says is so cool and discover that the Interlaced Blinds Monster can become an acronym, so hereafter it will be known as IBM. According to Emblemetric, IBM was the first company to use interlaced lines/stripes in its logo, and every other tech copy-cat company for the next ten years followed in its wake.

The fight is over; there's no going back. IBM has taken over the world, and you can't escape. Therefore, cut off your mullet, put on your skinny jeans, and bury yourself in Snapchat. Welcome to 2016. Remember that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is mostly the result of fishing debris, so go vegetarian and stop feeling guilty that you chucked your old '80s computer into the sea.

Bring Back Big Hair!

Dear Reader,

I'm glad you enjoyed my last post about hunting for pixel-blocks. I noticed you haven't left a comment yet. When you do, I want you to say something like:

"Dear Shayne, now I know what I've always wanted in life: a floppy disk! I shall drop everything and go search the world for one, then return home and set up a shrine in its honor! Sincerely, Psychotic Smartphone User."

I'm so happy for you. My final word to you is this command: LOAD "*",8,1. That was how we loaded our games on the Commodore 64. None of these frilly touchscreen app icons to tap! Ah, them good ol' days.

Now, I did touch a bit on the TV show Stranger Things and the lack of Big Hair in what was supposed to be a story set in the 1980s. My guess is that actress Winona Ryder remembers the '80s and probably flatly refused to crimp her hair the old-fashioned way. That means you shouldn't believe everything you see in that show, because it's not completely authentic. I remember when women wore their hair like this:

This is the real deal, folks. My mom took this picture and I still own the slide from which it came. That means I own the copyright, too. So if this becomes the next Facebook/Twitter/Instagram sensation, just for the record, I want my money. Now I'll bet you're dying to ask: is that a relative of mine and can you get her number? Well, honestly, I don't even know who that is. Plus, that was thirty years ago. That's the whole point.

Oops, I forgot. The point of this blog is to make fun of the silly stuff we thought was cool back in the '80s. Well, the cat's out of the bag now: I actually loved the '80s. I was born in '85 at the perfect moment, when all my "first experiences" were immersed in '80s culture. The music, the movies, the games, the fashions. So here we are with the title of this post: BRING BACK BIG HAIR!

For other people, at least. I wouldn't dream of wearing my hair Big. I tried growing my hair long after The Lord of the Rings came out in 2001, and after three or four miserable years of hating myself, I cut it down to size. (Sorry, I destroyed all the photos except for my I.D., which would be illegal to reproduce here.) But everyone else should wear their hair Big.

Would you like some face with that hair, sir?

I think the reason why people are beginning to rediscover the '80s now is that no one was afraid to be insane back then. People could wear their hair like that and get away with it. It seems a paradox that Ronald Reagan won the presidency twice in the '80s, when Moral Majority was the power behind the throne, but at the same time everyone else, well, let their hair down. You could be loud and annoy the neighbors, like Amy in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

Nobody would dance like that now, because we're too busy checking Instagram on our Smartphones. Plus, nobody listens to boomboxes now -- we have earbuds. Could Amy mop the floor in earbuds? Maybe, except they'd fall out. Plus, how would Russell Thompson fall in love with her if she weren't blasting the music next door? So you see, my dear readers, maybe they knew a thing or two back then. They thought they were cool. But maybe thirty years from now, who knows? The generation following Generation-Z will look back on Millennials and be nostalgic for our iPhones.

The Thrill of Square Blocks

Everyone knows the 1980s are making a big comeback, as epitomized in Netflix's new E.T.-esque, "kids' sci-fi" show Stranger Things. (They didn't get it all right, though: the score was spot-on, but they forgot to put in Big Hair.) I'm not sure how the recent '80s renaissance began, but I'm thinking it was smartphones? Especially underpowered smartphones with poor-quality displays? Or maybe that Millennials like myself who remember the '80s as children are taking over the world and bringing back the magic we remember. We now know that it's the simpler things in life we cherish, like the thrill of hunting for over-sized pixels.

If you're Gen-Z and never had the thrill of living in the '80s, let me take you back to a time when the world had only 8 or 16 colors you could see. It was truly amazing. It was a step up from the 1930s, when the whole world was in black-and-white. I mean, color was introduced to Planet Earth when Dorothy opened her farmhouse door and stepped into the Land of Oz, right? What was that you said? Color existed before film? You're joking, aren't you?

Never mind. Back to the Future of the '80s, when primary colors (and shocking pink) were the big thing. Look at the picture above from the videogame "Jumpman." What is the first thing you notice? Probably the brightest spot in the picture, those white blocks surrounding the red and purple. Is that a flower? Are those petals? I can't quite tell. That thing on top seems a bit like a horse's head to me! Oh, I can sort of see it now -- that's supposed to be a man! But -- where are his hands? Someone chopped off his arms!

It didn't matter to a four-year-old. I moved my joystick (you probably don't remember those) left and right, and I pressed the single red button it had, and Great Scott! The little man of blocks obeyed me. I was like God. (Except I only had six lives -- that was how games worked in those days.)

So if I managed to figure out that my character was meant to be human, not much else looked real. I never knew that those little brown circles I was hunting were supposed to be bombs until I read about them on Wikipedia two decades later. They were just objects to catch. It didn't matter that I lost every time and could never finish the game. It was just, like, totally rad. Shocking. Dangerous. Some games like these gave me nightmares afterward. Maybe, though, the nightmares were caused by the flickering, interlaced screen that passed for a computer monitor.

Well, we thought we were cool back then. No one told us that one day apps could load instantly on your smartphone. Look at the first picture again -- see the words "Please wait"? It took about five to ten minutes to load this game on my Commodore 128. (I don't remember the exact length -- time flows differently when you're young compared to when you're an adult.) It was perfectly acceptable to go down to the kitchen, eat lunch, and then head back to the bedroom just in time to start the game. Because, after all, floppy disks were so cute.

You poor Gen-Zers. If you were born in the late '90s or 2000s, you just don't know what you missed. Really.