Here is an ad hoc, interim mixtape that follows very little rhyme or reason – it’s just a collection of what I’ve been listening to lately. Goodbye 2009, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
This is about the longest I have gone without updating my blog in some time – it’s mostly due to malaise over a number of things concurrently happening in my life.
I’ve been having a wee bit of writer’s block lately, which never used to stop me before (I would just resort to more Youtube video posts and such), but lately I’ve been thinking that I need to have more of a purpose in my communication, instead of blowing meaningless effluvia across the internet’s hot coals.
I’ve also been kind of busy – I have had a temp job for a few weeks now (which I don’t enjoy whatsoever, and which is an insult to my skill set – I’ll just leave it at that), and I have also been undergoing a clinical trial to make some extra cash. But I am keeping my eye on the prize – a future of financial solvency, for one, and getting this awful year behind me, two. 2009 will go down as one of the worst on record – it would be the worse, if not for the fact that I said 2008 was the worst, and I don’t like to contradict myself.
That being said, I am actually looking forward to 2010, because all this pent-up energy I have – to travel, to live healthfully, to live elsewhere, to refocus and reacquaint myself with normalcy, it might just become a groundswell that will finally take me out of this malaise I’ve had for the past few years.
As for the end of December, I’m trying my hardest to be saccharine and sentimental about the holidays, and searching for things for which to be thankful.
Oh, I did find one thing – this Christmas commercial from 1980 that combines kittens with synthesizers in a cloying mix of near-tears nostalgia. Watch!
While the previous video was more of an internal self-promotion video for WFAA in Dallas, this video was a major ad campaign used during junctions and station breaks for Philadelphia’s KYW-TV. It is simply stunning – these promos have a futuristic, whimsical, avant-garde tenor paired with a bit of psychedelia. It might be the closest TV ever came to producing something obviously influenced by cocaine.
Trudy Haynes is my favorite. “I’m your direct connection… to the grapevine.” But I love it all – the weird sunny/rainy/lightning bolts over Philadelphia City Hall, the dramatic electronics from the stock ticker and meterological equipment, the “Whoo!’s” from the electro-disco sound track, it’s all fantastic.
PS: I have written a blog post about this before, but the clip keeps on disappearing from Youtube. This time, I snagged a copy of my own so that it won’t happen again. (All copyrights respective of their owners, this is for educational purposes only.)
Thanks to my inimitable friend Joseph, who has a penchant for finding all the weirdest crap that youtube has to offer, I have now watched this 1980 WFAA-TV (Dallas/Fort Worth) promo video eleventy times.
It is nuts how in 1980, mustachioed men in leotards were simply “court jesters” that told the story of TV ratings success, and not big flaming homosexuals doing pirouettes.
This is really worth a watch – for a number of reasons. It offers a glimpse into a world of broadcast television that used to spend lots of money to develop strong brand images, and it also offers a glimpse into the world of leotard-wearing fancy men circa 1980 in The Metroplex.
