Then and Now

Dad-21 years ago

I chose to interview my dad, he has a different point of view than most other people I know. He is the son of immigrant Italians and has a strong work ethic and sense of family and he is about 21 years older than me. So 21 years ago pretty much takes us back to 1991 & 1992.

The popular culture as he remembers:

        VHS Tapes & cassette tapes, CD’s emerging- these were popular as you could record or buy the movies you wanted instead of going to the theater.

     Family TV-Dallas and Cheers he began to watch-TV was different back then as to the graphic content and the morals and values portrayed. Families actually sat down together to watch a show and this way before cable, so you only had about five channels to choose from. MTV was only starting to emerge and it was all videos...no commercials or reality shows

          Blockbuster rentals-this was the way that people could stay at home, save money and spend “quality family time” at home. It made watching movies so much more convenient.

         Beepers/pagers-this era was obviously prior to cell phones and almost all of your contact away from home or office was through a pager. The problem therein lies if you were away from your home or office you had to find a pay phone and have some change. It’s hard even now to find a pay phone….you gotta look really hard.

        

    

    Desert Storm ending, country uniting, parades-this was important for him  as I was coming home safe from Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Also the country hadn’t seen a war since Vietnam really and this fight didn’t last long and there weren’t as many casualties as Vietnam. The country really came together; there were parades everywhere and I can see where the proponent for all the festivities came from the Vietnam vets that had gotten a crappy return from America after the war.

                          

Seattle Grunge music-dirty flannels and greasy hair-my dad says that he    can remember this music coming out and some of it did appeal to him, but mostly he didn’t understand the look of the “greasy bed head of hair” and flannel shirts. But he could see how the music swept through the country and changed not just the music scene, but how kids of the younger generation changed their clothing and appearance.

      

       

Terminator 2 & Silence of the Lambs & Dutch(my dad still has it on VHS!)-movies were a lot different 20 years ago as there was no PG-13 and the movie ratings kept a lot of the sex and nudity out of the theaters or at least contained it to being rated R.

Rodney King –my dad can remember the whole thing unfolding as America became black and white, literally as there was a divide among the color lines throughout the country. This effected his business as he was to be working a few jobs in the L.A. area and when the court found those officers not guilty and the race riots began, he just let those jobs go. He can remember there being some protesters down in Phoenix, but nothing to the extent of what happened in California with the looting, vandalism, arson and eventually assault and murder.

Here are the current Popular Cultures in our family:

1.     Internet-it is pop culture in that I am not sure how I would survive without. It has streamlined my life in ways of communication (Skype & Yahoo messenger from when my wife was in Iraq, it was our only way to communicate a lot of the time), banking, FB(which allows me to see other family and friends and what is happening in their lives.)

2.    Netflix/Roku-we got a Roku system last Christmas and we can now stream movies from the internet to our TV. We are actually thinking of completely disconnecting our satellite TV provider because of the ease and cost effectiveness of the Roku. We have a multitude of channels like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, several weather and sports channels. Some are free and some have a small fee, but regardless we can sit down as a family and watch shows that we choose to watch.

3.    RZR 4-I know it is not mainstream pop culture yet, but for us it is. We surround ourselves with people that also own them and take their families out camping. We spend a lot of time out in the sand dunes with this adrenaline junkie community, this is our version of quality family time. The best part for me is that we have four seats, so my wife and two sons can ride and spend time in the outdoors with me.

4.    Music-what can I say, we listen to the recent popular music in our house from country to dance to rock. With 7 kids ranging from 21 to 1, we get a copious amount of music playing in our house. Although it is funny to watch the 3 year old sing “I’m sexy and I know it” while my 1 year old son does his best “shuffle” to it.

5.    Reality shows- we mostly watch the cooking type reality shows such as Top Chef, Kitchen Nightmares, Iron Chef and the girls like Cake Boss and I like Bitchin Kitchen. We do a lot of cooking and the whole family spends time in the kitchen so we get some good ideas on what to cook next as a family from some of these shows.