Carson Daly and his girlfriend had a baby boy, Jackson. Unfortunately, like Daly’s talk show, that baby came out so late only five stoners and two nursing mothers noticed.
Donald Trump is being sued by 70 investors over a failed Trump resort in Mexico, and an entire town in Scotland, Aberdeen, hates Trump for his bullying tactics to get an ocean front golf resort built. Trump is so unpopular, he was even bitten by that weasel on top of his head.
Levi Johnston and Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, have broken off their engagement. It’s not pretty, Levi can see Sarah Palin’s gun pointed at him from his house.
The porn industry continues to ask the government for a three billion dollar bailout. Why doesn’t the porn industry make it memorable and ask for a 69 billion bail out? At least 69 is a number with which the porn industry is familiar.
The sex toy business is in trouble due to the bad economy. But, in a related story, sales of cucumbers are reportedly quite brisk.
Because of the economy and free internet porn, the adult film industry is in financial trouble. It is so bad, one porn actress had to give up her spray tan and use plain orange spray paint instead.
Since you asked:
Let’s play a rousing game of:
Lex is so old he can remember:
Families with no TVs.
Families with one huge wall phone.
When my home phone number was Hillcrest Six, twenty four ninety five.
A friendly milkman who delivered the milk every morning.
Several appointments with doctors in our house.
Hand-cranked homemade ice cream.
Hand-cranked car windows
All men wore hats with their suits
Beer was considered neither a drink nor a cocktail.
Cars with no seatbelts. Headrests came years later. (Assist to Woody) Airbags? Please. That was someone who talked too much.
Teachers who were allowed to hit/spank children as early as first grade
When Folgers was the best choice of coffee.
Sealtest was about the only choice in ice cream
No artificial grass in sports
Calling someone “Man” labeled you a beatnik and then a hippie.
Lace up ski boots.
One brand of football cleats: Rydell.
Gatorade was 32 cents a quart bottle and my mother thought it was too expensive.
Snickers, as was all candy, cost a dime.
Owning a Mickey Mantle baseball card when Mickey Mantle was still playing.
Dressing up to fly
Dressing up to have lunch
Dressing up for church
The only gym shoe was Converse.
No exercise machines nor weights nor weight machines and no gyms that had them
Dressing up to go to downtown Chicago on the train
Central air conditioning was the single luxurious feature of our house
Strangers ringing our door and asking to see our garage door opener work (We had one of the first ones in Winnetka)
Gas station attendants who wore bow ties and pumped gas and cleaned the windows.
Being twenty minutes late because your watch was "a little slow" was a legitimate excuse.
IBM computer punch cards
Knowing the local telephone operator by name
No jogging.
There were three sports played only by males, football in the Fall, basketball in the Winter and baseball in the Spring. Everything else, including golf and tennis, was just a game.
Long distance calls were luxurious, impossible to hear and short.
Living in Chicago thinking Los Angeles and New York were synonymous with Europe and Asia.
My mother telling me to finish my food because there were starving children in Europe
There were no homeless people, only bums and they only existed in TV and movies
There were little old ladies and little old men and they died of old age.
"Life" and "Look" magazine had always been around and always would be. "People" wasn't.
In Chicago, African Americans were politely called negroes. In Louisville, they were still coloreds and negrahs or far worse.
Two or three choices of Hallmark Birthday cards.
Knowing the neighborhood dogs by name that ran free without a leash and nobody picked up after them.
Spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get the "dog-do" out of the little ridged lines in my Keds, the first "gym shoe" available in addition to Converse.
One choice of camera: Kodak Instamatic.If a lawyer was Jewish, he was "a Jew Lawyer." Same with doctors, accountants and shop keepers.
Ash trays on every table.
No Velcro, no polyester, no Jacuzzi, no Nike for a long time, no computers - except at NASA - no Amtrak, no foreign cars except for rich folks with a Rolls Royce, but it was rude to call people rich.
Vinyl records, Hi Fi record players and phonographs. And if you had so much as openly discussed the possibility of a music player the size of a lighter that could hold 3,000 songs, or having a cordless phone, they would have locked you up for being "touched."
The only people with shaved heads, pierced ears and tattoos were circus attractions or Mr. Clean.
Four channels on TV, ABC, NBC, CBS and WGN, the local Chicago Station.
No remote.
A "homosexual" was the social equivalent of people who were either "crazy" or "crippled."
No calculators.
In Louisville, small white children called old black waiters by their first names. The old black waiters called the small white children Sir or Miss or Maam.
Young boys wanted to be garbage men, police men or mailmen when they grew up. That or the president.
My parents whispering about friends who were getting divorced as if they were dying.
People who had sex besides married missionary-style were swingers, perverts or “into whips and chains.” Oral sex did not exist as far as I knew. Neither did pornography outside of "Playboy" magazine which was considered on the border of pornography.
Pizza, Spaghetti and Chinese food were the only exotic foreign foods. Pasta, Mexican Food, Thai food and Sushi? What the hell are they?
All Chinese people on TV, cartoons or movies were crazy chefs who screamed and threw meat cleavers. Except for the overly-polite detective, Charlie Chang. All Japanese people on TV or in movies had thick glasses and buck teeth.
God, bitch, bastard, hell and damn were still considered swearing. And only thugs and rough necks swore.
So there you go. Some things were better, but most things were not.
posted by Alex at
12:16 PM
<< Home