I’ve always been a collector, but just never serious enough about anything to turn it into something truly impressive.  First it was baseball cards, then pogs, then comic books, then a 6 month phase of Magic the Gathering.  Even now, I’m trying to put back together my childhood toy collection, 75% of which was lost in a fire.  I’d put a year or two or three into the passion, and then something else would catch my eye.  But I still have most of the things I collected.  But the real point here is that I have the “collecting gene”, whatever that may be.  I just like to collect “things”.  And I treasure “things”.  I attach meaning to them.  I attach a feeling to them.  Most importantly, I attach a memory to them.  I was explaining to a friend a few months ago, that I can remember where I was and what I was doing when I got the majority of my baseball cards when I was between say 8 and 12 years old.  I remember being in a pizza parlor with my family, opening a pack of 1988 Topps baseball cards, and getting a Don Mattingly “Record Breakers” card.  This is the case with most of what I have.  And for a sentimental person like myself, the memories mean more than the actual objects.  I think deep down, I’m afraid if I lose the objects, I’ll lose the memories.

So to this point, not only am I a collector of things, I’m a saver of things.  And it doesn’t matter if it has monetary value or not.  It only matters that I care about it.  So I wanted to share some random things with you today, like show-and-tell.

RANDOM THING #1

I’m pretty sure I got the E.T. bike from my older New Jersey cousins in a box of stuff they were done with.  I looked up to them and anything of theirs was like gold to me.  But I also have always been obsessed with E.T.  I don’t think I ever had the accompanying Elliott, and I don’t even remember ever having the basket.  I do remember when I was in my teens figuring out that the 1986 McDonald’s toy Gonzo fit onto his bike.  He’s not left this seat since.  The real treasure here though is the ET bike, and mainly because it connects me to my cousins, and to a period of time that I cannot get enough of.

RANDOM THING #2

The George Michael Faith tape was the 1st album I ever owned.  I asked for it for Christmas in 1988 because “Faith” was my favorite song.  I was 7.  I remember opening it in my grandparents house.  I’ve held onto it ever since.  I don’t think I’ve listened to this actual cassette in over 25 years.

I’m actually not sure how I got the Cocktail soundtrack.  But I do know that I wore the heck out of that tape.  Between “Kokomo” and “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, could there be a better album for a little kid?  Nevermind that I had definitely never seen the movie at that point, and for good reason.  But I did know that I loved Tom Cruise because I had seen Top Gun.  And I had seen the Beach Boys on full house, and my dad always played them in the car going to the Jersey Shore every summer.  So I loved them, and I definitely loved “Kokomo”.  I still sing it all the time.  These cassette tapes are in my little retro display case I have in my dining room, along with the rest of this stuff.

RANDOM THING #3

I only acquired these items in 2018.  But they are already near and dear to my heart.  My family always went to Wildwood, located at the bottom of the Jersey Shore.  Basically every summer.  It’s something I’ve continued to do with my friends in our 20s, and now with my wife.  I love it, and there is nowhere else I’d rather vacation.  It’s like home.  So when I saw the Wildwood Historical Society was selling these last year, I pounced on them.  The postcard reminds me of being a kid on the boardwalk in the 1980s.  It is an enormous boardwalk, with a bunch of piers, full of rides, vendors, games, mini-golf, bumper cars, ice cream, posters and stuffed animals I can’t win, and most importantly, the Castle Dracula.  That was until a fire took it out in the early 2000s.  But the Castle Dracula was a full scale haunted house, with haunted boat tour around it’s moat.  To a 6 year old kid, this really was Dracula’s Castle!

 

RANDOM THING #4

This Pillsbury Doughboy was something that I remember having in the bathtub with me when I’d take baths at my grandparents house.  So it was long enough ago that it was before I was showering.  But I remember it vividly.  I’ve held onto it because it reminds me of my grandparents and being at their house out in the country when I was little.  I loved being there, plus not many sets of grandparents had an Atari 2600, but mine did.

RANDOM THING #5

This is really nothing, and it should be garbage.  This doesn’t hold sentimentality necessarily.  This was just a silly little add on to my Christmas gift from my sister in-law.  But I thought the tin case was so cool that I’ve held onto it.  Its probably 3-4 inches tall.  It doesn’t do anything, just sits in the case, but it looks so pretty.  These are the types of things that can seem like treasure if you think about them in the right way.  These are types of things I’ve held onto.  I enjoy it.

Well thank you for reading about my random stuff!  I’m thinking for my next post, I will finally reveal the movies I watched for my first 3 All 80s weekends.  Stay tuned 🙂

In my first post, I really tried to hammer home the idea of how ’80s music, movies, styles, photos, information, and just general 80s aesthetic and vibes are currently at their most accessible point since the 1980s.  And that this was what convinced me, swayed me to finally start writing about my favorite decade.

But this accessibility was not always there. This piece I will explore my yearning to satisfy 80s era cravings, in the late 90s/early 00s.  During this time period, especially living in a small city, this was not always easy.

A 1980s dark period

During the early 90s and mid 90s, the 80s were being forgotten.  80s things were no longer in style, but it was too soon for them to be considered retro-cool.  Grunge, alternative, and rap had taken over rock radio.  Luckily John Hughes was still making movies, but Ally Sheedy was relegated to a throw-away cameos like this Airline ticket agent in Home Alone 2.

TBS, TNT, Comedy Central, HBO, these all played 80s movies fairly often, and that is how I saw many of the 80s classics.  But the problem was it was on their schedule. Not like today, where I can most likely find it streaming for free, or at worst rent it and be watching it instantly.

Sure, we owned a few VHS tapes we could watch whenever.  We had a recorded-off-TV copy of Top Gun and Crocodile Dundee 2. We wore those right out.

But the point is, it was not as easy to immerse yourself in 80s culture.  It would have been much more difficult tothabe an All 80s Weekend. We did not have a dedicated 80s radio station. Same with TV. You could see some 80s sitcoms in syndication, but it’d be scattered between 90s stuff.  And maybe one of the biggest differences between then and today, it was hard to find a cool 80’s property t-shirt! You could no longer find a rad Ghostbusters shirt at the mall.  They did not exist, at least to the average 12 year old in a small city with a bad mall. Now, you could buy probably find 15 really GREAT Ghostbusters shirts online.  But during the 90s and early 2000s, there was just a dark period.  The 90s we’re in, and that made it tough to access the 80s consistently.

The Moment I Knew I Needed More 80s in My Life

Up until probably high school, I was FINE with all of the stuff I mentioned above, because I really didn’t know any different. Grunge, great.  I was fine with it.  It was not until a fairly surprising thing happened that I realized I wanted to experience more 80s stuff again.

#1.

When (takes a deep breath), when Limp Bizkit released their cover of George Michael’s “Faith”, that was when I knew.  It hit me like a ton of bricks. Besides, George’s Faith album was the 1st album I ever owned. I got it for Christmas 1988. So when I heard a cover of it in 1997, I lost my mind. Something I used to love, and that no one really talks about anymore, just became cool again. It made me realize that there was value in some of this older stuff that I liked, and just because people didn’t talk about it as much anymore, didn’t mean people didn’t like it.  And I HATED Limp Bizkit! LOL! It didn’t matter though, I bought the CD anyway.

There were a few things, such as a “Faith” cover by a bad rap/metal band that kept me enticed until maybe the last 10 years or so, when the 80s became ultra accessible again.

#2.

Hot off the heels of Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, Adam Sandler released The Wedding Singer. This was a double bonus type situation.  Sandler was on fire, especially with teenagers at that point. And he’s releasing a movie that takes place in the 80s, which is a huge factor in the film.  So this movie was right up my alley.  It has great music and it’s stock full of 80s references, and they just do a good job of giving it a nice 80s feel.

#3.

The big big big one, that was not only extremely funny and entertaining, but basically a nostalgia documentary on 80s pop culture, was VH1’s “I Love the 80s”.

I Love the 80s was a 10 part series where comedians and 80s personalities would comment on pop culture that shows, music, movies, commercials, and toys of the 80s. It was nostalgia fuel and served as the ultimate memory jogger, and tugged at my 80s heartstrings.

 

And an honorable mention to when my mall got a Hot Topic. I could finally get a Ghostbusters or Batman or Goonies shirt. Of course, the t-shirts were usually only black, were too heavy, too big, had huge sleeves, and we’re not nearly as creative as the shirt I posted above. But beggars can’t be choosers.

There were probably other things too. But these were my 80s oases in the 80s-less desert of the 1990s.  I’d love to hear if anyone else has any other examples!!

Well thanks for reading! Until next time…