You know you are getting old when:

[AbbaDatDeHat]

I've never understood the theory behind low-rise pants on men. If a man is slim-and-trim, a low waistline makes him look like he's about to tip over with his long torso and stumpy legs. If a man is of substance, the waistline rides below his avoirdupois and only serves to draw attention to it.

And if he wears low-rise shorts and a t-shirt he walks the streets looking like Charlie Brown.

The profile image of our avoirdupois man is quite humorous, Lizzie.
B

 

[LizzieMaine]

I remember in the eighties our German teacher telling us about parts of Germany he'd visited where instead of small coinage (this long pre the Euro), if you were owed a few pennies in change you'd be given a small bag of sweets or a book of matches or something similar. It'd be fascinating if something like that arose as essentially a barter economy. I know this discussion is happening in the UK, and I suspect the most likely outcome will be all coinage below five pence will be dropped. I remember the half-penny coin being dropped in 1984. It'll be the same. I expect then we'll see a lot of default pricing at X.95 instead of x.99. (a system originally developed to keep the staff honest, because they had to open the till to get change and couldn't just pocket the full x.00).



I think part of it is inevitably we lose interest in things for which we are no longer the target market, but I also believe these days the market is just so much more fragmented. When we had three TV channels over here, people as likely as not largely saw or were at least aware of the same stuff. Now we have over forty free to air channels, endless subscription options, and at least ten major streaming platform options, all with their own exclusives. Same for specialist radio stations, and the web more broadly. Inevitably, nothing has the potential reach it once might have done.

It does, though, show just how huge Taylor Swift is that we've even heard of her, despite all that!

Having spent most of my adult life working in media of one type or another I think about this type of thing a lot. I've spent that entire life not particualrly engaged with the culture of my own generation, nor that of any of the generations that followed -- most of the contact that I have had has been in the course of my work, but with few exceptions I've never had any particular interest in engaging with it on a personal level. It's just never seemed to "belong" to me, so I just sort of see it go by and wonder what it means to the people that it does belong to. But that being so, the "music of my generation" means no more to me than does that of any subsequent generation. My current assistant is 21 years old, and I have the about same level of engagment with his culture, with Mr. Beast and Skibidi Toilet, that I had with any of the stuff that Mass Culture Inc. said that I was supposed to like fifty years ago. It's not mine. I know it exists, and I see it flit past from time to time, but it's not mine -- and that doesn't bother me in the least bit. Whatever.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Should I finally try Dunkin' Donuts here in Germany? Any highlights, any classics?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dunkies is the national food of New England. The sausage and cheese on English muffin will satisfy your daily requirement of grease and salt for a week.

 

[Turnip]

I remember the coffee to be quite sufferable, as long as you don’t ask for sugar,

 

[Trenchfriend]

There's a Dunkin' Donuts in Erfurt, I will give it a try next time.

 

[Edward]

Apocalypse Now is now a 45 year old movie.

I've been rewatching old Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show was originally broadcast 1997-2002. An episode from one of the later seasons has a fairly involved Apocalypse Now parody. In 2002, that would have been widely understood. Now the streaming era has brought the show a whole new audience of kids born in the 90s, I can't help but wonder how many of them would completely miss this gag, the 'Nam picture book being long ago and quite likely a lot of kids these days not have seen those films.

I've never understood the theory behind low-rise pants on men. If a man is slim-and-trim, a low waistline makes him look like he's about to tip over with his long torso and stumpy legs. If a man is of substance, the waistline rides below his avoirdupois and only serves to draw attention to it.

And if he wears low-rise shorts and a t-shirt he walks the streets looking like Charlie Brown.

I've always put it down in large part to the vagaries of fashion. That said, I wonder if it's also a financial thing in the industry: less material involved, so cost saved across a large run, plus less work in tailoring to the curve of the small of the back?

Don't even get me started on grown adults wearing short trousers - I've never understood it. If I don't want to wear trousers in the hellheat of July / August, I'll just put on a kilt.

Having spent most of my adult life working in media of one type or another I think about this type of thing a lot. I've spent that entire life not particualrly engaged with the culture of my own generation, nor that of any of the generations that followed -- most of the contact that I have had has been in the course of my work, but with few exceptions I've never had any particular interest in engaging with it on a personal level. It's just never seemed to "belong" to me, so I just sort of see it go by and wonder what it means to the people that it does belong to. But that being so, the "music of my generation" means no more to me than does that of any subsequent generation. My current assistant is 21 years old, and I have the about same level of engagment with his culture, with Mr. Beast and Skibidi Toilet, that I had with any of the stuff that Mass Culture Inc. said that I was supposed to like fifty years ago. It's not mine. I know it exists, and I see it flit past from time to time, but it's not mine -- and that doesn't bother me in the least bit. Whatever.

I get you on that. I've always been off-mainstream myself. These days, though, it seems so much easier to avoid the mainstream, or any awareness of it than was the case in my teens, though I'm increasingly unsure there is such a thing as a mainstream any longer.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I get you on that. I've always been off-mainstream myself. These days, though, it seems so much easier to avoid the mainstream, or any awareness of it than was the case in my teens, though I'm increasingly unsure there is such a thing as a mainstream any longer.

Yeah, right now, I'm thinking about which "bubble" is the biggest, here in old Germany.

Sure, the smartphone-mulitmedia bubble is powerful, but here, the "youngsters" are a clear minority, you see them in public transportation and the bigger cities.

Then, we have a huge bubble of 65+ people still living exactly in the 90s and I call this "ALDI-Germany". These people didn't learn anything new since 1990. Usually, they don't have any knowledge of tech.
You wanna see them? Watch ZDF Fernsehgarten on summer Sundays.

We 2nd-generation 40+ computer nerds from the 90s are also still a bubble, I think. We didn't fall for multimedia-brainwash.

We classic hobby-photgraphers are surely a bubble of the last Dodos.

The vintage bubble? Still existing? Or just a virtual part of multimedia bubble?

 

[Trenchfriend]

When you remember, how big lumberjack championship shows were in the 90s TV world.

For german youngsters back then: HOLY COW!!

 

[Edward]

Yeah, right now, I'm thinking about which "bubble" is the biggest, here in old Germany.

Sure, the smartphone-mulitmedia bubble is powerful, but here, the "youngsters" are a clear minority, you see them in public transportation and the bigger cities.

Then, we have a huge bubble of 65+ people still living exactly in the 90s and I call this "ALDI-Germany". These people didn't learn anything new since 1990. Usually, they don't have any knowledge of tech.
You wanna see them? Watch ZDF Fernsehgarten on summer Sundays.

We 2nd-generation 40+ computer nerds from the 90s are also still a bubble, I think. We didn't fall for multimedia-brainwash.

We classic hobby-photgraphers are surely a bubble of the last Dodos.

The vintage bubble? Still existing? Or just a virtual part of multimedia bubble?

The 40s thing (despite so much of England still treating WW2 as a foundational stone of its sense of self-identity) has certainly died out in terms of it being a hip thing to do. A lot of 40s, even 50s, themed night have died out. I knew a few 60s themed nights that never really took off, and have gone too. The 80d and 90s still seem to be big in terms of themed clubnights in the UK, but I've never seen any evidence of 'eighties people' who live it the way the hardcore 40s / 50s set (still) do.

One sign of the bursting of the vintage fashion bubble over here has been the very recent collapse of the Collectif brand. Such a shame, I bought quite a lot from them when they started doing menswear a few years ago. They seemed to be pretty canny too, expanding into "vintage inspired" , as well as 60s and 70s styles alongside the original 40s / 50s collections, but, well. That's the way it goes sometimes.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Yesterday I attended an event billed as “Time Travelers Vintage Expo,” mostly because friends had a booth there, selling costume jewelry, mostly, and some items of attire.

There was very little there predating the 1960s, and even fewer people of an earlier vintage. It occurs to me now that I may well have been the oldest person in the hall.

Retro-hippie is having its moment. Young women in particular — many of them born in this century, judging by their nubile appearance — were snapping up that stuff. Vintage Western wear was also much in evidence. (This is Colorado, after all.)

I took it all as just another indication that people are drawn to the material culture of the generations immediately preceding their own, the stuff that dates from when their parents and grandparents were young.

 

[belfastboy]

I know I am getting old when: I take my grand nephews disc golfing yesterday and today I am having a hard time lifting my arm above my shoulder.

 

[Edward]

^^^^^^^
Yesterday I attended an event billed as “Time Travelers Vintage Expo,” mostly because friends had a booth there, selling costume jewelry, mostly, and some items of attire.

There was very little there predating the 1960s, and even fewer people of an earlier vintage. It occurs to me now that I may well have been the oldest person in the hall.

Retro-hippie is having its moment. Young women in particular — many of them born in this century, judging by their nubile appearance — were snapping up that stuff. Vintage Western wear was also much in evidence. (This is Colorado, after all.)

I took it all as just another indication that people are drawn to the material culture of the generations immediately preceding their own, the stuff that dates from when their parents and grandparents were young.

Yes, I think that's a big part of it. That and what's fashionable in Hollywood pictures - I mean, my interest in 50s fashion came as much as anything as a logical outgrowth of getting into the music, but with the 30s/40s, it was very much a product of the influence of Hollywood - first and foremost Indiana Jones, the first fashion influence that made me want to wear either a fedora or a *brown* leather jacket. This generation of kids are now watching eighties set retro Hollywood output, Stranger Things no streaming, and old 90s TV content like Buffy. It seems inevitable that would at least be a major feeding point to nurture that parents / grandparents era culture. (I'll be fifty next month; my undergraduates this year will, some of them at least, have been born in 2004, a decade after Kurt Cobain died... I'm now more than old enough to be their father.)

I think another driver in vintage stuff is what's available. Original 30s, 40s, even often 50s stuff just isn't available now to the extent it was in the 90s and earlier. A lot of vintage dealers moved no to eighties casual wear as supplies of earlier stuff just dried up, alongside this generational shift in interests. Of course, the plus side is that there are still enough of us interested in "our" periods that the broad extinction of original bits does mean there's a market for reproduction, even if not as big as it might once have been.

 

[Trenchfriend]

When you don't know about any trendy movie protagonists since the early 2000s time like any "Lord of the rings" characters and so on...

 

[panigale]

Dunkies is the national food of New England. The sausage and cheese on English muffin will satisfy your daily requirement of grease and salt for a week.

I live in New England and pass the best part of a dozen Dunkin locations on my way to work every day.

I haven't stopped in a Dunkin in years.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Yesterday at our railroad in the next bigger city, the station supervisor at the secondary station had a JAWS t-shirt on.
Midlife crisis?? Or second midllife crisis?

 

[tonyb]

... (I'll be fifty next month; my undergraduates this year will, some of them at least, have been born in 2004, a decade after Kurt Cobain died... I'm now more than old enough to be their father.)

I never quite got the lionization of Kurt Cobain. I was living in Seattle then, not far from the Cobain residence, where he killed himself. My life at that time had me in regular company with young adults, people a couple decades my junior, more or less, many of whom were kinda distraught at their idol offing himself.

I regard Cobain not unlike I regard John Lennon. There’s some talent there, for sure. But spare me that “voice of a generation” business.

 

[Edward]

I never quite got the lionization of Kurt Cobain. I was living in Seattle then, not far from the Cobain residence, where he killed himself. My life at that time had me in regular company with young adults, people a couple decades my junior, more or less, many of whom were kinda distraught at their idol offing himself.

I regard Cobain not unlike I regard John Lennon. There’s some talent there, for sure. But spare me that “voice of a generation” business.

I suspect it's one of those things where you had to be a fan and the right age. Cobain's allure, and his legend during his own lifetime struck me as somewhat akin to Jim Morrison, though by all accounts he was never "difficult" in quite the same way as either Morrison could be, nor as nasty as Lennon had the capacity to be. I sometimes wonder if he'd had the capacity to be the hypocrite Lennon was if he'd still be around - unfortunately part of his breakdown that led to the suicide was him feeling he was selling out, being a hypocrite. Succeeder's guilt, I suppose. I was 19 at the time. Nirvana and grunge came along at just the right time - everything I liked then was heritage stuff, retro, old punk rock... having rejected the misogyny and conformism of eighties metal and hair rock, I'd ended up in a position where the majority of the bands I liked were split up, often long dead. Nirvana was something current that appealed. The 'voice of the generation' thing I agree was exaggerated - I'm not sure anyone can ever legitimately be such a thing - and sadly it was that sort of hyperbole that contributed to Cobain's state of mind. It came as a big shock to a lot of us who'd not had one of "our" bands suffer such a tragic death before. We might have remembered Lennon being shot or Freddie Mercury dying, or Phil Lynott, but they weren't "our" bands, they belonged to a different set (I do like Lizzy now, but I only really discovered them long after Phil died). I remember Cobain seeming something of - well, I never looked ta him as a role model, but I liked his work and he seemed an older person who maybe we thought of as having some sort of wisdom. Now I look back on those photos of him and while I still enjoy his art, I see what seems like a frightened child - 27 looks ever so much young from turning 50 than it did at 19. I think in particular I realised how age has me look at these things from a different angle when young Amy Winehouse - such a talent - died so tragically young as well. Very sad for the loss of a human life, and from an artistic point of view I can't help but wonder where they'd have gone next. for all in the eyes of some he may lack the credibility of Lennon (I blame Frog Chorus, myself, but Imagine was infinitely worse - talk about a criminal record!) , Paul Macartney seems a genuinely decent human being, and much happier with his lot. There's a lot to be said for smashing the idea that "tortured artist" equates in and of itself to great art.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^^
Art can spring from misery, but pity the poor, generally young, soul who, in his self-absorbed head, gets to believing he‘s a great artist too far ahead of his time or too smart for the world to understand or too whatever. To that young man we can only say, you ain’t Vincent, nor Kurt, and certainly not Hemingway. So spare your mother having to ID you down at the morgue.

As with most such self-regarding types I’m left thinking the fellow is terribly insecure at base. There’s no sin in that, and recognizing it for what it is might be the first step in climbing out of that hole. But that insecurity, that inability to take a more detached view of oneself, feeds on itself. What he really needs is a friend, someone who accepts him more than he accepts himself.

Is there such a thing as a suicide cluster? Might there be a social contagion? A friend in the mental health racket says no, that talking about suicide and its prevention isn’t planting a seed. But I remain skeptical.

I’ve known seven people who for certain deliberately killed themselves and a couple others whose fatal OD’s may not have been accidental. I don’t know how typical such a scorecard is for a person of my seniority, but I do know that all of those people left others with broken hearts.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Many are called, few are chosen. Should we feel pity for all those who are called to be great artists, yet get exactly nowhere? Or is that just one of the normal roads to becoming a grownup? its Almost inevitable to a degree, given the “you can be whatever you want to be” mantra that our society showers kids with. Still. Half the daughters of my friends majored in the arts. Who doesn’t remember having had an impossible dream?

As for Cobain, I remember realizing that I should be interested in his fate… yet I had just barely passed that age beyond which we no longer follow current music. I remember hearing all the stories about him and thinking “who is this guy? Sigh. I must be getting old.” I was in my early mid thirties when he passed away.