My Window into the Past
It was spring of 1984. Reagan was president and the country felt like it was going to shit (little did we know we hadn’t seen anything yet) but my friends and I were too young to care or really understand. I was twelve years old, soon to turn thirteen. I was beginning to notice girls and care more about my appearance. It would be another couple of years before the fabric of our neighborhood was picked apart, piece by piece, by the crack cocaine epidemic.
Kids from the projects in our neighborhood started bringing mixtapes to middle school. It was a new kind of music that wasn’t being played on radio in midwestern America and you couldn’t yet find it in record stores.
DJ Red Alert mixed live on the air on 98.7 KISS FM in New York City and people would tape the show from their stereos or boom boxes and sell the cassette tapes on the street. Rap was in the process of putting down roots and began spreading across the inner city like wildfire. The fact that this music was “underground” made it all the more rare and appealing.
Soon we started hearing about a local radio station in Columbus called C.T.N.T. It was a low-powered cable radio station. This meant you had to disconnect the cable TV wire and attach it to your radio to tune in. This sounds insane these days but this made it feel like Cold War spycraft and even more “underground”.
The DJs would mix rap records live on the air, and if memory serves me, the live mixing on C.T.N.T. began at 4:30pm on Wednesday afternoons. This was when we first heard LL. Cool J, Run DMC, Whodini, Kurtis Blow, and a little-known white rap group called the Beastie Boys. This was years before their hit Album, Licensed to Ill, was released in 1986.
Looking back, it was crazy how quickly our lives changed. Rap was a cultural tsunami and my friends and I were swept up in it. One day we were just kids riding around on our 20” BMX bikes, not really caring what we wore to something completely different. Suddenly, everyone was wearing shell toe Adidas or suede Pumas, track suits, Kangols, and rocking gold chains outside of their shirts. Kids my age were learning to breakdance, DJ, and graffiti. I eventually bought turntables and a mixer with my newspaper route money and dabbled in graffiti but breaking was never really my thing.
During that summer of 1984 our childhoods faded away and we became bonafide teenagers. Looking back, I guess like all teens from every generation, we were in a big hurry to grow up.
What sparked this trip down memory lane? This book.
Five years after original publication it was finally discounted on Amazon so I couldn’t restrain myself. I’m so glad I hit that buy button.
As a young caucasian male growing up in a predominantly African American section of Columbus, there was no musical group that I identified with more in that stage of my life than the Beastie Boys. They were my first major concert in 1986 at Vet's Memorial auditorium in downtown Columbus.
My friend Matt and I, for a short time, thought we were honorary members of the Beastie Boys. Matt and I, along with a small group of other friends, would crash high school dances of private schools in the nicer parts of town in full B-boy attire. For better or worse, we often got the attention we were seeking. For a brief moment in time it felt like we were celebrities.
Rap was entirely different in the early days, before media moguls discovered its massive money making potential. For the most part rap was pure party music, yet somehow still revolutionary. It brought people of all cultures and backgrounds together for the sole purpose of creating something new and entirely different.
I feel lucky to have grown up when I did. I got to experience the beginning years of Hip Hop before it became the global phenomena it is today. I’m unsure if we’ll ever see anything with quite the cultural impact of those burgeoning years of Hip Hop again. The only thing I can see on the horizon that might be anywhere nearly as disruptive culturally (probably even more so) is artificial intelligence.
For a variety of reasons, the world is completely different world now and it's never a great idea for us to linger too long in the past. However, I know whenever I want to revisit my youth, all I need to do is grab this book, crack the spine, and open a window into my past.
All for now. Trust your instincts, invest in you, live boldly, and take chances.
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Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
Pick up a copy of Ephemera today on Amazon.
Most of us have experienced a moment of perfect peace at least once in our lives. In these moments we lose ourselves and feel connected to everything. I call these mindful moments. Words can’t describe how complete they make us feel.
These moments are usually fragile, evaporating in seconds. What if there was a way to train your mind to experience more of them? It’s deceptively easy and requires nothing more than a subtle shift in mindset. My new book, Mindful Moments, will teach you to be much more content despite the chaos and imperfect circumstances continuing to unfold around you. Upgrade your life experience today for only $15.99 on Amazon.com.
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Most enjoyable walk down memory lane, a little after my teenage years, good read!
@tipu curate
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Thank you Joan! Our childhood was different in so many (wonderful) ways!
Ours was using valve radio channel to neighbouring country hit parade, later when we could afford LP's, comic books were not a big thing over here back then.
What a lovely trip down memory lane Eric! I think each era brought with it big changes, I was a Mom in the 80s so my memories are of the late 60s and early 70s. We all dressed up like hippies, tie-dyed our clothes, and went to trendy discos.
We all went through that phase where we became aware of what was 'hip' and what was not!
You have a definite talent as a cartoonist, never too old to pick up that pastime again!
I'm so glad you took the leap and are enjoying your book.
Nothing wrong with enjoying good memories from days gone by Eric. I also wonder what the youth of today will remember of this era that started with the pandemic, hopefully, something a whole lot better!
Have a great Sunday my friend.
Thank you Lizelle! That is so true, maybe this era just feels a lot more profound to be because I lived through it. I'm really considering picking up the drawing pen again. I'm working on a few writing projects that I need to finish first though. I think we all get to a point where we start to revisit those old memories more and more. It's hard to say how children will remember the pandemic era. I know it's left a lot of scars but children are a lot more resilient. I'm sure they'll have some good memories, maybe of the the couple of years they got to spend more time with their families? I hope you have a great Sunday too, my friend!
Wow having this long time memories is really nice to remember and thanks for sharing.
You're welcome! Thanks for reading.
Beastie Boys were my FAVORITE. I was 12 in 1986 and didn’t discover them until the rest of the world… but they were so creative, hilarious and talented. Their combo of gritty and booty shaking music was the best. I think the first time I saw them live was lollapalooza 1994. One of my favorite concert experiences ever. 😍
Mine too, @dfinney! Some friends and I saw them during their Licensed to Ill tour in 1986, Fishbone opened for them on that leg of the tour. It was wild! I bet by the time you saw them in '94 they were at their peak musically. Some of their stuff from the 90's was just phenomenal.
FISHBONE!!!! 😍
My husband’s all time favorite band. What a line up! I know everyone thinks their era is the best…but WE know ours was. 😄 😉
Our era was pretty great!
You tell the times when the whole world went through radical changes :)
It was a time of great transformation!
Yesterday I visited a friend who is in the process of emptying her parents' house and she showed us a huge collection of cassette tapes. That brought me back to the days when I used to record songs from the radio or the TV. The sound was crap, but I was so proud of them...
Speaking of Cold War spycraft - imagine attaching a long wire to the radio antenna and walk with it around the room trying to even hear the music Radio Free Europe broadcast every Sunday afternoon... in the end you'd get only a vague idea of what Led Zeppelin sounded like but it was worth it as such music was forbidden in our country.
Oh, I bet that really brought back memories! I can't even imagine what it was like growing up on that side of the Iron Curtain. I can imagine those radio broadcasts were like a glimpse of an alien world. Your memories of that would make for some compelling reading.
Artificial intelligence is a controversial topic. Some people say that it will help, while others say that it will destroy. As I currently know, there is no real artificial intelligence yet, and the programs only do what people program them to do, but the programs and the language models could already help people. And depending on the programming, they could destroy too. Probably the real artificial intelligence (if there will be any) will also be able to do both.
And probably it will be completely different in the next few decades too. Some people say that it is better to learn from the past than live in it. It is also good to relive the pleasant moments. Certain things were indeed better in the past. Or the time makes them to look better.
Sometimes people think too much about the past, and worry too much about the future. Either way, everyone should enjoy the present too. By the way, it is interesting how it is called present. If you enjoy and love it, then it is a real gift.
!LUV.
Have a nice day and have a nice weekend.
All the best. Greetings and much love from Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
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Things are going to change more quickly than we can even comprehend once AGI is achieved. I would be surprised if this hasn't already been achieved but not announced.
The future is a place I like to visit (briefly) when I write my Sci-Fi stories and, the older I get the more I find myself revisiting my past but, you're right, the present moment is where all of our gifts reside.
I hope you enjoyed your weekend and have a great week ahead in your new home!
Things are always a bit behind here where I live. We didn't have the hype like that like they do in the big cities. I do remember licensed to ill coming out. Someone had it on the bus and was so excited. Even today phrases and lingo that are cool I hear from my nieces month before they make it up to the small town where we live and work. Which is odd given how fast the Internet allows stuff to spread these days.
The fact that life is a little slower there has its own charm. I could see myself settling in a small town or village somewhere. Big cities definitely aren't all they're cracked up to be these days.
I like visiting big cities, but I don't think I could live in one. Columbus is unique in the fact that you can be right in the city, but you go a mile or so one way or the other and you are suddenly in the middle of a farm field. Those communities in the 270 circle all have their own charm.
I preferred cities until the riots of 2020 and the decline that's taken place since then. We've been finding crack pipes on the ground around our neighborhood and witnessed someone smoking it the other day just a few hundred feet from a playground. We call the police and nothing happens. It's crazy. At least during the crack epidemic of the 1980's the police would respond to calls. I think this is the atmosphere in most larger US cities right now.
Columbus is special that way. It's really a patchwork of smaller towns that have been incorporated in the city over the decades. So many of them have their own uniqueness. I always liked Clintonville and the surrounding area. It was far enough away from downtown but was a really solid middle-class community that was walkable, had parks, and small local businesses. As far as I know it's still that way.
Sounds like you might be contemplating a move back home? Michigan is always nice too and the cost of living is awesome if you stay away from the west side of the state. Only 4 hours to Columbus too! That's too bad that things are going this route. I once found needles on my front lawn, but the cops figured some diabetic just lost their kit.
I'd really like to move back to be closer to my family but I'm unsure if we will. Lately, we've been looking into getting second passports and then, possibly, renouncing our US citizenship eventually. The opportunities to do that are dwindling fast. St. Kitts used to be an option for access to Europe but it was super expensive and they're imposing changes soon to make it even more difficult for American citizens. Ireland still has a great path to citizenship through residency. You can live there three years and then apply for citizenship for next to nothing as long as you can prove you have a way to support yourself financially. Their passport is unique because it gives you access to the entire EU and you can also live in and buy property in England. It's such a huge and complicated decision but Ireland would be a much easier and cheaper home base for our travels. We would probably keep dual citizenship until we were 100% sure we were comfortable there. The only downside is we'd see less of our family. It would be totally up to us to make it back to the US because we couldn't assume anyone would or could visit us there. I'm glad it was just medical supplies and not drug paraphernalia!
Yeah, that is a tough situation. I don't know as though I could make a decision like that. Moving away from my friends and family would be the deal breaker for me. Even when I was looking at a job down in Ohio, there was a lot of dread about needing to start all over again. I mean sure we would have wife's sister and her family down there, but all the friends and everything would be tough. Even just being 4 hours away.
It certainly is a tough decision! We'll see what the future brings.
Always had a soft spot for the Beastie Boys!
Isn't it funny when you look back to a time when you thought things were going to the dogs only to realise now that it was practically a golden age!
I was a huge fan of that first album when I was a teen and then as the 90's came my musical tastes changed and I didn't pay them much attention until just about ten years ago. I began to listen to all of their newer stuff and was blown away by just how good they had become.
I don't know about Scotland but, in some ways, I think it's been a gradual downward slide here in America since the early 80's. We have a lot to work on here.
There's nothing like a common cause and music to bring people of all walks of life together ❤️
Power to the people. And the music! 💥 :D
There was a time when it seemed to me that I would never live to be twenty, so I wanted to become an adult as soon as possible. And then... time flew by with great speed. I often think back to the same carefree youth lately
Our lives go by so quickly. It's strange to be past the halfway point (almost 52). I still feel like I'm in my 20's only with a little more wisdom. But I really do feel a sort of immediacy to experience all the things I want to do before it's too late. If I'm lucky I'll have 30 more years of mobility. Life is beautiful no matter what phase of life you're in if you have the right mindset.
I love this anecdote. But recalling the events of 984 in 2023 so vividly is really amazing. I don't know if I sound weird. But I really find it difficult to recollect such memories in 15 years' time.
Further, I feel like, some kind of social behavior/traits should not be kept commercialized for good reason. Otherwise, we might be motivated by the commercial aspect and pretend to be something different that what we are.
That you so much.
Thank you! I'm lucky to have been blessed with a good memory. I remember some things back to two years old.
I agree, whenever huge amounts of money are involved many people begin to create things they think people want instead of creating from the heart.
You always bring something positive and useful for every one of us. I 100 % agree with you, the world has become completely different, you need to be more careful with interacting with more people as there are very less people who you can believe in. I am sure in the next few year, we may see changes that we never see before.
I am very happy to read your memories when I was a child in 1984. I seem to have returned to the past which in my opinion is certainly more beautiful than life now. Have a nice day, Eric.
Thank you! It was such a different time back then but it wasn't all good. Have a wonderful day!