my careless contagion

This is one of my favorite things. I enjoy looking back at how awesome and wonderful and sometimes detestable our popular culture was. Care to follow along? Don't care? Okay, square. You can stay home and miss all the fun. Relax with a dizzying dazzle of towels after a hot shower and jump into an even more horrifying bed of patterns guaranteed to make your eyes hurt.  I know this is hard to read, but I have a point to make. Everything in the 70s had a pattern! Even toilet paper! Everything was colorful. And, often, the colors matched everything around it (a design faux pas now). In an era when everything is stainless steel, black, or white, it may seem strange. But it was glorious. For the record, my personal design philosophy (if I'm allowed to have one as a heterosexual male) is minimalistic and clean. Still, there is something endearing in these old designs.  Though the sardines are arranged in a pleasing pattern, this is not endearing. This is horrifying, (oh, but those cu...

This photo was taken when I was one year old (1978). I was walking and playing with a ball. I know a little bit about child development, and that seems like a pretty nifty thing for being one year old. I was also as happy as can be. Most of the photos of me when I am very young show a vibrance and happiness that is missing in later photos. This proves that I was not always glum. Something happened in those early years that turned me that way.  I'm told I was potty trained before one year. I don't know. Those pants look pretty baggy, like I could have a diaper on. But it doesn't matter. I look happy, and that's what little kids should look like.  I should point out that most of the old photos taken by my mother look like this. People's heads are cut off. Massive foreground. Nothing is centered. It was like she jumped off a chair while taking photos. But their awfulness is endearing, of course. They are strange snapshots of moments I never would have known exis...

This list could literally go on for days. But here's part two of the many things that make me smile! Memes. Duh. They're funny. Except for the ones that aren't. Those are dumb. Neil Diamond. He must have been on the radio at a lot when I was in the womb; that's my theory — I must have thought he was my dad or something. I just love the man and all of his music (except his Christmas album; he's a Jew, for golly's sake). I saw him perform live once, actually, in Columbus, Ohio. He had a really bad cold or something so he sounded like a monster. Not even kidding. The venue had to refund a lot of tickets. I loved it anyway.  John Denver. I may as well just say, "a lot of musicians like Neil Diamond and John Denver; you know, from that era." Throw Jim Croce in there. I melt every time Stevie Wonder gets airplay. I love so much of that old music. Can you tell I was born in the '70s? In fact ... The 1970s. I love this decade. I love the ha...