my careless contagion

Holiday Road is synonymous with the National Lampoon movies, as it was was created for the original film's soundtrack and ended up on the rest. I recall watching the original couple movies as a kid. They were a bit raunchy, but I'm sure some of that was edited out, as we watched on network TV. I wouldn't let my kid watch them today. How times change.  No one cared what we did back then. Maybe should just speak for myself. Did anyone even know what we were doing? Generation X is sort of the lost generation, sons and daughters of Baby Boomers who were busy enjoying their lives and ignoring the fact they had kids. I was a latch-key kid, independent and resourceful. As I got older, I realized I missed out on a lot by being raised that way. How would I have turned out had I had a loving, tight family instead of being raised by wolves?  It's not that my family didn't love me, it's just that they erased that love with their harsh words and behavior. I am a strong perso...

Can't Buy me love is a f antastic humorous farse, an 80s movie about a nerd who gets to see what it's like to be one of the cool kids. The part that always got me was he somehow got to be with the hottest girl in school, the girl of his dreams, a girl described as not only out of his league but out of everyone's league. Wanna guess her name? Weird question? Her name is Cindy. When I watched this movie when I was in high school, the irony of that fact was lost on me, but it isn't now. I watched this movie so many times, I lost count. I love it.  From Wikipedia:  Can't Buy Me Love  is a 1987 American  teen   romantic comedy  film directed by  Steve Rash , [2]  starring  Patrick Dempsey  and  Amanda Peterson  in a story about a nerd at a high school in  Tucson, Arizona , who gives a cheerleader $1,000 to pretend to be his girlfriend for a month. The film takes its title from a  Beatles  song of the  same title ...

It's that time again. It's time for my semi-annual rewatching of Can't Hardly Wait , the 1998 film featuring music of the same ungrammatical name (yes, I briefly wrote about it nearly two years ago in my "That girl" post). What is my fascination with this movie? Perhaps that's too complex to start with. It's a fun, campy movie (that, apparently, still means a lot to many people ). And the main character gets the girl in the end. It's safe to say a lot has changed in the last 22 years. The movie, though, is a time capsule. We've changed. Our world has changed. Things that were okay or even funny in 1998 are no longer okay and funny, as this dumb article points out (leave it to Buzzfeed to miss the point). You can't take things out of the context in which they were created and examine them under the harsh light of today. Things were different then. This movie was never intended to be scrutinized or taken seriously. It was mindless entertain...

The Ataris (a band formed in 1996) covered Don Henley's  The Boys of Summer,  releasing it in 2003. This song could have been released yesterday, as it feels fresh every time I hear it. Don Henley of the Eagles (a band I hate) is a genius, and this song is proof. I don't feel I need to post the lyrics here, as I'm sure everyone has heard this song a thousand times. The Ataris do change at least one word in the lyrics, making it a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac instead of a Dead Head sticker, which I appreciate because, well, Henry Rollins.  This song has seemingly existed my whole life, as the original was released in 1984. The original video is sparse, just as all music videos shot in the 80s seem to be. The music wasn't overproduced, either. Before I start down the road of nostalgia, let me talk about what this song means to me. I always felt it was a sad song, but until I had a few relationships, I didn't fully grasp the meaning.  Since I'm a little ...