Watching a certain 80s drama, with it’s men-brooches and moussed hair, has got me thinking back to my 80s drama, with its men-brooches and moussed hair.

Living back in the town where all my (early-mid) 80s drama happened is always a reminder: driving down 50 in Rosslyn—that’s where Jason lived; walking Connecticut Ave on a blustery fall Sunday—that’s where me and Michael would duck into Timberlake’s to drink and watch the Redskins.

It’s odd familiarity.

This show didn’t let go off its babyboomer roots so there’s no 80s beats playing in the background, its always gotta be some cheesy Procol Harem or some shit playing. I’m throwing some Scritti Politti into my background.

And it’s more than the fashions that are throwing me back too. It distinctly reminds me of driving these (now familiar) streets of DC, going to places I’d never been, so that Jason can pick up shit from his old boyfriend’s apartment. It reminds me of dinners and cigarettes with Michael before we laughed ourselves down the street, knowing onlookers were jealous.

Now these streets are so familiar that sometimes I don’t recognize them anymore. That’s not true—they’ve become all to familiar. Which is a good thing; there are new memories now, built upon the foundations of the old. Sometimes I will point these memories out to friends but most of the times I won’t. At times I want to keep them to my own 80s self.

beneath the city of houston, and above
the bayou where the old brewery
once flourished, you
sway on your feet.
in your right hand, a plastic cup
is almost empty, and in your left,
trembling fingers manage
a broken cigarette.

i hear water whispering below,
faint music from behind a door, but i
listen only to you.

words leave
your mouth as if keeping them inside
was like holding breath.
words washed with vodka, words cooked in grass,
words, words, and
more words fly free from your mind
to be ensnared
by mine.

later, a thousand birds
will flap their wings
inside my head.
with scissors
in my hand, i must remember;
beneath the city of Houston, and
above the bayou where the old brewery
once flourished, you
just swayed on your feet.

©2009 Faisal Butt

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1251, 2905, 3228
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robot love story

Oh Kristy McNichol, where are you? You were such a shining beacon of normalcy in our youth when all we had to look to was someone relatable, complex like us and knew the words in our heads that we could not put into our mouths.

During Family, you showed us it was okay to be the youngest and to relate to the adult world that was going on around us. You were there for us, relating, skateboarding, putting into words the complex youths that we were, but nobody realized. The one that witnessed activity around us yet never had it focus upon us. And yes, we remember Pinballs because in a different way, we felt the same bounce.

We bought your album even though we knew it was silly bubblegum rollerskating music. We bought the satin jacket and wore it to 8th grade and were the coolest in school. We skated to “Go For It”. And when you get the chance, you know you gotta take it, go for it.

Then we saw your movie career skyrocket and plummet but we still went and watched them, because it didn’t really matter because you were in them and that was all we needed to see. You were our hope.

Then you had The Breakdown that we’ve all experienced except yours was public and ours was private. We appreciated your courage in playing that out for all of us. We were there with you, every step of the way.

Then we championed your return to stardom with network television and then you freaked out again and that was okay in our eyes. We understood. We’ve all have reoccurrences of those freakouts and we’ve dealt with them, publicly or privately. We gave you your space.

Now, you’re silent in your public career and you play tennis. That’s fine. I won’t question your motives for not returning to any public eye, but if you ever should just remember that there are people out there that love you and welcome your return.

And please don’t even reference a young Helen Hunt in this clip, her performance during this episode was just as bland and faceless as her career 20 years later.

Freebies? Not exactly but I guess kinda on some levels.

One freebie is the credit balance on my Zipcar account, thanks to neighbor Sherif who houses the cars in his backyard lot. They give him monthly credit and every so often he’ll dole some out to me and other friends of his. Unfortunately the credit has an expiration date and I still had some that expire tomorrow. So I reserved one this afternoon (as well as a Mini convertible last Saturday) to do some grocery shopping.

Which brings me to the second freebie. While this is technically free, it’s that whole I’ve-been-paying-into-the-system kind of payback, and that’s my EBT card. Or as they used to be called pre-technology days: food stamps. Just like last time, I didn’t really need to stock up on anything other than perishables but since I had a car it was time to get more of things I usually can’t carry like bottled water. Plus I noticed that instead of having Club Card specials many of the hanging tags were advertising “new lower pricing” instead of Club Card-only savings. Subsequently, my Club Card savings wasn’t that much.

Pushed on by the drizzly weather I found myself buying comfort foods: tomato soup, deli turkey, stuffing mix, flavored mashed potato mixes. Oh, and Healthy Choice dinners $1.99 if I buy five or more? Sure, I’ll take six.

Purchase: $208.63
EBT Card Balance: $97.01
Club Card Savings: $21.90 (9% of purchase)

Before there was Kelly’s shoes, Mommie Dearest/Mamma Mia mashup, and Deven Green’s Brenda Dickson impersonations (which have unfortunately been pulled), there was this little gem that would silent a noisy bar crowd, save for hilarious outbursts. This is comedienne Lois Bromfield in “Sorority Girls from Hell”.

Adobe has added to the image-processing software pile for the iPhone. They’re branding it with the flagship Photoshop, and more importantly with photoshop.com. The website is a place to store & share your uploaded photos, similar to Flickr. I think it’s a little too late Adobe but it’s a valiant effort. Flickr has also come out with iPhone software that I haven’t tried out yet.

The controls for editing are pretty simple: cropping, exposure, saturation, tint, black & white, sketch (filter), soft focus, and a variety of sepia/duotone effects. Most of these have live preview while sliding your finger across the screen, which is nice. There’s multiple undo and of course the option to send it to photoshop.com.

Here’s some before & after samples after playing around with it:

More on Nitevisions, the Duran offspring band and some speculation of a Spandau Ballet offspring band and a new battle that could reign supreme on the UK pop charts can be found here and their Twitter feed is here. In America maybe the closest pop battle we’ve had would maybe be Madonna vs Michael Jackson in the 80s? Unlike the Brit counterparts of the early 80s and mid 90s (Blur and Oasis battling it out for Britpop) there wasn’t a lot of public mudslinging, just a race to see how could sell more albums. Maybe a Britney vs Christina battle comes to mind? Possibly. I guess times have changed now and they let others do their mudslinging for them.

Here’s the infamous battle on Pop Quiz between Duran and Spandau:

On this gorgeous day I’m staying inside. At least for now. There is the Evolve Urban Arts Project opening later on. And then Mila’s birthday party. But for now I’m attempting to straighten things up, do laundry, finish a pot of coffee.

Lately I’ve been archiving movies and tv shows from my computer; that 250MB hard drive that I thought was monstrous four years ago is apparently bursting at its seams. So there’s that going on too. In looking for archived archiving disks, I stumbled upon a disk labeled “<insert The Millionaire’s name here> (final)”. Well isn’t that a little piece of joy.

I popped in this little summer-of-2003 relic in my computer’s drive to see what exactly is on it. Nine simple photos of me and The Millionaire, whom I dated that spring and summer. I remember that time well. I still had Libby, The Silver Bullet (my car) my mother and pets were alive (and healthy) and I was the fittest I’ve ever been as an adult.

I saw The Millionaire at the beach this summer but he didn’t notice me. Considering he was hanging out with someone else I had dated once, I easily forgave his lack of observation skills. They were both people I was to have a limit amount of time with; I was not in their social or financial league. I’m glad they’re friends now. Be fruitful and multiply your financial interest.

Back to the pictures on the disk.

The pictures were taken on July 4, 2003. We had just returned from working out at the gym and had showered and gotten ready at my old place, Jump Street. We were getting ready to go to a friend’s bbq, the first time he was meeting friends of mine. I was giddy. He said he was “smitten”. It was a good time in my life. The quality of the image is not very good since I was using the picture feature from my videocam, but they are what they are. The eyeblocking isn’t out of disrespect, it’s for anonymity. <–This is stupid. Here’s the unlayered pic. I love loved how he’s pressing up on me.