80s advertising radios

Source: Flickr/Joe Haupt

Never forget...

Happy Birthday to Jerry Garcia on what would be his 80th.

8/1/1942

©️📷 Peter Sanders Photography

Nichelle Nichols, 1932-2022

(described in alt)

RIP Nichelle Nichols (1932-2022)

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

THE LOST BOYS (1987) dir. Joel Schumacher

I do want to clarify that I found this originally on Pinterest and I really tried to find the original post, but nothing would come up. I apologize to the people who posted and reblogged this. I will take it down if you want.

Shabbat Shalom

It’s that time!

Only three? I have ALL of them.

Why Star Trek? That's what the woman asked me when she asked about my shirt. and I tried to tell her where I bought it. and she goes “No, no. why… why that? Why is that your thing?” And it hit me in a flash. It really did. If you look at all the other science-fiction writers, they always view the world as getting to this post apocalyptic, horrible, dystopian nightmare. To name a few: Alien, Terminator, Blade Runner, Mad Max, IRobot, Brave New World, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, Fahrenheit 451, Westworld, Waterworld, The Matrix, I Am legend. it goes on, and on. Star Trek is the only universe where they said “We fixed it. We solved it. We solved all the problems on the Earth and then we headed for the stars. We said We formed the United Federation of Planets. We are from Earth. She asked me “Why Star Trek?” Cause it’s the only one that has hope. Star Trek has hope.

— Tom Bottelsen

When your mom dresses you for the band photo shoot ​ ​

- Depeche Mode 1982

Space 1999 toys

A while back, when we were visiting a nearby town that has bookstores (I can’t believe I live in a town that doesn’t have a single bookstore and I have to drive 80+ miles one-way to visit a bookstore) I asked the owner of the independent bookstore if they had a copy of Still Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton. He said they didn’t have a copy in stock but would order one and have it shipped to me. (Independent bookstores FTW!)

I can’t really put into words how much I am enjoying this book. Or how it’s helped me embrace (re-embrace) my own nerdy-ness and geekiness.

More importantly, Wil’s vulnerability and frankness, has helped me understand the need to own your mental health, and how even though we may be able to understand in a completely rational way the things we need to do to be kinder to ourselves when our brains aren’t cooperative, I have to actually step across the fear threshold and do the work, and that’s hard. And it’s okay to admit that.

So thanks, Wil, for your book. For a lot of reasons.

Random Memory 071422

The other day I decided to listen to Queen II for my daily commute. Granted I only have about a 5 minute drive to work (small town problems--after living in the city and having a 25 minute trolley ride to work I haven't fully adjusted to living in a town where there is one traffic light between me and my place of work) so I only got to listen to maybe the opening track on the way to work.

That track, however, opened up the door in the memory vault to the first time I heard the album when I was in high school.

::time travel special effect::

It's maybe 1987 or 1988 and I work at a small local restaurant bussing tables. While I' grabbing a full bin of dirty stuff from behind service area behind the bar, I notice a song by Queen is playing and I start singing along. (It wasn't Bohemian Rhapsody, Wayne's World wasn't even out yet so that song wasn't getting the HUGE amount of airplay it would in the year's to come.) One of the bartenders, Rose we'll call her, notices me singing along and asks if I like Queen.

An enthusiastic, "Oh, yeah!" falls out and she tells me I can listen to some records sometime (No this wasn't due the resurgence in vinyl that we see now, this was back when you could still walk into a Sam Goody and by actual albums and cassettes at the local mall.) We set up a time for me to come over when we're both not working so she can share some of her Queen records with me.

Before you all start hearing Mrs. Robinson in your heads, I was in full dork mode, and Rose is a lesbian so, no, no shenanigans, just the sharing of music.

Rose lived in an old Victorian house on the East Side of downtown. Victorian houses have a particular smell to them in the summer, faintly dusty, smelling of old wood polish, and summer heat (which isn't really a smell but maybe you know what I mean.)

Rose takes out Queen II and puts it on the turntable. There's that sound of the needle settling, the little pops of dust, and then "Procession" starts.

I felt giddy because this wasn't radio Queen, it was gritty and dramatic and like nothing I had ever heard, and my life was changed in that moment. Rose smiled and said, "Yeah, man, you got it!" and we sat in her parlor (it's an old Victorian house, they had those) and listened to the rest of the album.

::time travel special effect::

So there I am in my car, listening to the opening notes of "Procession" and I can smell the old wood polish, and the faint dust, and the heat of the summer and I just basked in gratitude that I met Rose when I was in high school and that she shared that little window of her life with me.