OK! Finally back to business and back to my life story according to old movies and tv shows uploaded to youtube. Interesting i know.

So we left off (before the election that consumed all of our lives) in elementary school with a shit ton of shows on nickelodeon. Now its the good stuff where I really started to get into stuff that wasn't the main stream. Fun times.

First off, this may belong back in the first episode of this trip down youtube-memory lane, but I really started watching this show in early high school becasue they started re-airing it on TV like crazy. I now own every single season of this show on DVD and hope to god my life ends up like these ladies when im in my twilight years.....



yes, the Golden Girls. I am slightly obsessed with them and look to them when i have problems. No, seriously. I think at first the appeal was I could remember watching the show with my grandmother, but then i realized how well written the show was and how great the characters were...GREAT show. What beats horny old ladies? nothing. This is my friends and I in a nutshell, and we arent even in our twilight....

This next one is an interesting story. While in High school I was seriously into DJ Shadow. I found out that this documentary used his music for the soundtrack, so naturally I went to see it. The documentary was called "Dark Days" and it was about the people in NYC who were homeless, and living in the tunnels of Penn. Station. The documentary instantly became a favorite of mine and has a permanent spot on my top ten films.



So naturally, the day i made my SG profile all those years ago (almost 5 now!) i put it up there on the list. Sometime in 2006 I got an email (yes before the SG messaging system when messages would go straight to your email account) saying "Oh my god you have my documentary as your favorite, your awesome lets hang out." So, that person was Marc Singer (see youtube clip above) and now I consider him a close friend and one of the more interesting people I know. he is currently preparing to sail across the entire world.

This movie came out around the same time:



I was a HUGE fan of Bjork- still am- and this movie was the perfect fix for an angsty teen. Something to be depressed about really. It was moving, touching, and really fucking sad. I actually took my parents to watch it while we were all in Boston one weekend, my mom was so pissed and she said she couldn't eat for a week. I remember playing the soundtrack to that movie at the tiny little coffee shop I worked at and running around trying to serve everyone while singing those songs. good times.

as for TV during these times, it was mostly things I thought the other kids werent watching. Lots of BBC and comedy...

mostly:

Keeping up appearances...


Kids in the Hall....


and watching Star Wars (the original ones) over and over and over again because the old ones had just been re-released and the new ones were coming out...



I just realized too, that the first line of that trailer, is also the first line in one of my favorite DJ Shadow albums (UNKLE- psyence fiction) WEIRD!

OK, so also, i had a new and very profound love for hip hop, and especially this song:



that brings back memories of riding around in cars with boys on summer afternoons doing bad things. damn.

Also around that time being the kind of kid I was, of course I hang around all the skateboarders and the like. This meant I was well versed in the CKY camp, i stil think this shit is entertaining, but never the new jackass shit...



And who could forget the first time they saw this masterpiece:



I remember being high as fuck (i know right?) watching this movie, and not being able to breath because I was laughing so hard at the ashes scene. I still love this movie, i mean, who doesn't? Goodnight sweet prince.

and lastly, one day in high school, I ran into some friends at the local Subway. They said "Hey James, we are about to go to a movie, wanna come?" Being the care free teenager I was at the time, I said, "fuck yeah" They took me to see this film, without knowing at all what it was about....



I was horrified and excited all at the same time. The movie itself was a shock to the system and beautifully done. I loved it and I hated it all at once. Therefore I was instantly obsessed with the music and the film. Thats quite the movie to walk into knowing nothing about it. What a day that was.

So thats pretty much it for high school. Im sure I'll remember a ton of other things after I put this up, but I really think those were some of the most important parts about my high school years and movies and TV. I'll go back to the strange place that LA is today...snowing ash and the whole city smells like a camp fire. its really disturbing.

James

I'll get back to the youtube updates in my next blog. I haven't even mentioned the election in my blogs almost at all yet and I've been pretty obsessed.

I will just say this. PLEASE vote. Vote early if you still can. Simply put: this is the most important election of our lifetimes.

please vote.


With any luck, we will be addressing this man as the first African American President of the United States Of America and a sense of hope will be restored to our country...



Please Vote.
James

Now for the second edition of my YouTube Video collections of the shows and movies that made major impressions on me through out my life. I started with my earliest memories of moves and weird little things we watched on VHS when I was a kid, and now, I believe we are entering the age of Nickelodeon.

Now, i didn't watch a ton of TV when I was a kid, in the summer, i didn't watch it almost at ALL, i was just running around outside all day long swimming and sailing. But the things I did watch, totally left an impression, some not so much impressions, as just memories, but all the same they are the things I remember...



Double Dare! I don't know what it was about that game show. Maybe it was the first one I payed any attention to, maybe it was sooo super 80's and early 90's, but watching it now its so fucking hilarious. I remember being SO jealous of the 10 speed bikes and the casio keyboards they would win. So fucking stupid, but so funny.

i WISH I could find more of this next show, I am SO surprised there isnt more...



Saved by the Bell was my JAM. i fucking loved that show. I am pretty sure I can honestly say that I have seen every episode ever made. I would watch it all the fucking time, they were always in chunks of two episodes at a time. Yes I had a crush on Zack Morris, and yes I always thought AC Slater was a dweeb. Oh, and I'm also sure that my first boyfriend ever had fake Tiffany Amber Thiesen porn.

There are a lot of really sweet and innocent videos in this edition of the video posts, BUT, wanna know the first time I ever saw porn was? During this movie- and I still LOVE this movie, and not because of the flash or porn... (porn at end)




OK, back to innocent...HEY DUDE!


The fact that there was a show called "Hey Dude" is amazing. Maybe that explains why I call everyone dude now. Who knows, but I totally had a crush on Buddy, and I think its funny that Christine Taylor was in it. What a weird show.

And then there was Clarissa...


I'm pretty sure Clarissa was the inspiration for my beginings in alternative anything back in the day. I used to make outfits like hers whenever I could. Although some of the outfits she would wear were even to crazy for me at the time. LOVED that show though.

Ok, enough for Nickelodeon, onto real life. In 94 I was OBSESSED with this video, I taped this from Live TV and watched it about 50 times every day, I had the whole thing memorized:



I went between Nancy Kerrigan, Clarissa, and this woman, who I started listening to when I was in the third grade because my dad got her first album and i totally stole it from him:



I remember reading an interview where she said something about how she used to wear red leather pants with no panties to church, I remember thinking that was AWESOME!

Once upon a time, back in the day there was a little known show that made TV what it is- for better or for worse- what it is today. This show shaped my life in way more ways than just what i used to watch then and what bothers the fuck out of me now...you will find out more about that at a later date



and then there was this movie: I was obsessed with it, it was back in the day, when I was still in that kid stage of watching things over and over and over again. I was obsessed with Whales and Dolphins, and doing my part to "save the whales". I adopted a whale after this movie came out and prompltly decorated my room with posters of whales....



ONE last movie: this movie was the first movie that moved me to tears, and pretty much how i learned about The Holocaust and all that. It also sparked my love for swing music (which from about 7th grade to 8th grade I was REALLY into) and I def. had a crush on Christian Bale, like any young hetero girl.




These videos are SO telling of how I ended up....

Next up: teenage years, that one should be GOOD....


edited to add: this changed my life today, oh man this guy does things to my nether regions:

I was sitting here watching a bunch of stuff on YouTube and thinking to myself: being brought up in the time we are, what we watch and have watched all our lives, really has a lot of effect on us as we grow and mature. I thought it was interesting seeing the contrast of stuff that I watched when I was younger vs what i watch now. So with this thought in mind I decided to do a 3 or 4 part youtube inspired blog.

The first edition is going to be my earliest memories of TV and video, the things I watched as a little kid that I often think of and remember how cool I thought it was growing up. I can almost taste the things they ate and have such a sense of pure imagination that you can only have when you're a kid. i have such vivid memories of putting myself inside these shows and tapes that they are some of the most strong memories from my childhood.

These are some of the videos that I'm sure shaped me as a little one:

Huugabunch: One of those things that I'm even surprised I could remember the name of. Annoying little dolls obsessed with hugging. haha, if you know me, you can see where I may have gotten my extremely affectionate tendencies from. I can remember the very first scene of this (Which i couldnt find) where the main character was spreading peanut butter on a pancake, i can still remember what I thought it tasted like. Also, at the end there is a villain who uses these "age berries" to stay young, i can remember guessing what they tasted like too....



The next one is really obscure but I remember it so well. Jim Henson had a show on HBO (i remember it was a big deal getting it in my house) I loved the muppets and my parents sat me down for a new sitcom the muppet people made: it was called the Ghost of Faffner Hall. It was odd, and only lasted a few episodes, but i remember being obsessed with it. I found the intro on Youtube:



This next one is an episode of Fraggle Rock, I was obsessed with the Muppets. I remember having a Fozzie Bear Tshirt I would never take off. I would kill for that tshirt right now. I hope some hipster in NYC is wearing it. Either that or its in a landfill somewhere. sad. Anyway, i remember this episode very specifically because the dragon in the end scared the shit out of me and it gave me nightmares. I actually often had muppet related nightmares even though I loved them. Strange....



The more and more i think of all these things, the more I think about how fucked up childrens shows were in the 80s. This next one was a movie called the Peanut Butter solution. It was really fucked up in the end when some guy kidnapped the main character and made paintbrushes out of his hair, any of you watch this one?:



ok, this one I am REALLY excited about. This movie was called "The Electric Grandma" I thought I was making up the memory of it in my head until about 5 minutes ago. I was talking to Rigel about what we watched when we were little and telling her about this blog when she sent me a link to this next one. I had tried to describe it to friends for a while now and everyone thought I was crazy and I could never remember the name so I couldn't look it up. I always thought it was called the Mechanical Grandma, so i never found it. Check it out:



more muppet related stuff: I was obsessed with watching old episodes of the Muppet Show, but that wasn't until later when I could appreciate the vintage factor of it all. But I can remember being SO into the muppets take manhatten, and loved this sequence:




OK, and then I tried to remember what was the FIRST movie I remember seeing in the theatre? And earliest memory I could come up with was Oliver & Company- a disney cartoon. This was a little later that all the rest, but my earliest Movie memory, I think the only reason I remember it was because the fire alarm in the theatre went off becasue some asshat at the snack stand burned the popcorn and we had to leave the movie and I was BUMMED. I cant remember if i ever ended up seeing the whole thing:




ok, one more: kids incorporated! holy shit. My sister was a little more into this than I was, but i remember this inspiring us to make up dance routines in our back yard to Stacey Q tapes. The weird thing is that eventually in the story of my life I would date someone who dated someone in this clip...but I wont tell you who! haha.



Stay tuned for the next installment: movies and shows from those formative elementary school years. thats gonna be a good one too. Lots of learning about sex via movies I shouldnt have seen so young. haha.

Til next time.
Happy watching.

James

EDITED TO ADD: i can not believe i forgot this: Jem could possibly be credited to my tendency towards punk rock- gotta love those misfits!

This is basically a repost, but i finally am getting around to selling some prints of my last set...so for all of you who inquired, now is your chance. I'm going to keep this going for a while since I am only offering one print...




Meditate.

Write.

Get new Jobs.

Meditate.

Yoga.

Yoga.

Yoga.

Write.

Hang out.

Eat.

Clean.

Clean.

Clean.

Fuck.

Cuddle.

Snuggle.

Love.

This is pretty much my agenda for the next few weeks.

I danced at Club suicide last night, I will post pictures very soon, it was an assload of fun.




Love James

Meditate.

Write.

Get new Jobs.

Meditate.

Yoga.

Yoga.

Yoga.

Write.

Hang out.

Eat.

Clean.

Clean.

Clean.

Fuck.

Cuddle.

Snuggle.

Love.

This is pretty much my agenda for the next few weeks.

I danced at Club suicide last night, I will post pictures very soon, it was an assload of fun.

Love James