Trigger Warning: I realize this blog may come off as self-pitying, but then again, that emotion fuels at least half of my blogs on this site, not to mention my entire poetry book—still on sale here, kids! Also, I thought giving a peek into my past might help my readers gain a deeper understanding of who I am and where I’m coming from, if anyone cares. (There’s that self-pity again!) Here I go…
Scrolling through the various ‘80s-obsessed Instagram accounts I follow, I noticed something they all—or mostly—have in common: They’re all run by people who miss their childhoods terribly. This isn’t surprising, since I feel the same way (it’s the reason why I’m following them in the first place), but at the same time, it saddens me to live in the past. As my family might ask, “You mean to tell me you didn’t have any good times after the ‘80s?” The answer is, “Of course not,” but it still feels, for whatever reason, that things were better back then. If not better, then I think we can all agree they were simpler. Just look at technology alone; a blog, the very thing I’m writing right now, didn’t even exist back in the day, unless you count Neil Patrick Harris’ weekly journal entries on his computer on Doogie Howser, M.D. (And I don’t.)
You can also chalk it up to the change in hormones. I’ve mentioned this before both in blogs and podcast interviews, but once I went through puberty and my hormones went crazy, I probably haven’t been the same person since. There’s a reason why Dr. Pann spells this out to Bobby in Déjà View. Maybe this is a good thing (we can’t stay kids forever), but looking back at photos of myself from the ’80s (like the one at the top of my bio page), my smile is bright and wide, and my eyes are practically bursting with joy. I look like I’m in a damn Mentos commercial. I ask myself, “When’s the last time you felt that way, even during your happiest times, in the past several decades?” Hell, the reason why I’m maniacally happy in my young bio pic is just because I scored a VHS copy of Ghostbusters on my birthday. (Okay, that is a pretty rad reason to be happy.)
Will Padilla, the host of the awesome 1980s Now podcast, asked me towards the end of our interview if I always felt that, “The ‘80s were good, and the ‘90s sucked.” I answered, only partly in jest, “I’ve probably felt that way since January 1990.”
One need only analyze the difference between my weekend plans in the 1980s versus how I spent my free time in the 1990s. (*Cue Homer Simpson meme.*) Consider the following:
A Typical Weekend in the 1980s
Friday:
After watching my afterschool cartoons, including Heathcliff, He-Man, and/or G.I. Joe, I might do my homework so I could enjoy the rest of the weekend, and since I usually didn’t have that much homework in elementary school, it was actually possible to get it done in a quick afternoon. Then, after eating dinner and playing with my toys, I would watch TGIF with my sister. (Perfect Strangers was our favorite.) For those who don’t know what TGIF is or what it stands for, man, you had to be there.
Saturday:
I would race downstairs to eat sugary cereal and watch my favorite Saturday morning cartoons, including Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield and Friends, The Real Ghostbusters, and especially Muppet Babies, which, to me, is the crème de la crème of Saturday morning cartoons. (Sorry, Snorks.) In fact, Jim Henson’s adorable tots were so good, they were given a full hour, a rarity for one show on the all-important programming block of Saturday morning. There’s a reason why I brought to school and still own a Muppet Babies lunchbox. (You can see a video of it on my Instagram account.)
After cartoons, I would call one or both of my best friends and make plans. If they were available, we would get together to ride our bikes around town (cue montage music of when I was inspired to write Danger Peak); swim in our friend’s pool (if it was the summer); and play with toys, boardgames, basketball, and—especially—Nintendo. If I was lucky, we might go to the movies on my parents’ dime and/or have a sleepover that night at one of our houses. If my best friends weren’t available, I would call the “B” list, those few friends I liked hanging with but wasn’t as close with as the other two. One of them would usually be available.
If I wasn’t having a sleepover, that night I would go to church and then McDonald’s for dinner. In the late ‘80s, I switched to Taco Bell. It quickly became my favorite fast-food restaurant, and I’ve been going there every week since. Afterwards, my family would usually visit Andor Video, the local video rental store. (This was before Blockbuster replaced all the Mom-and-Pop video stores.) I would always rent one of the following: Return of the Jedi (I already had the first two Star Wars movies on VHS), The Chipmunk Adventure (I still maintain this is one of the greatest animated movies ever, and I now own two animation cels from its production), or Ghostbusters. I rented Ghostbusters so many times, in fact, that my parents finally gave in and bought it for me for my 10th birthday. (Again, see the top pic on my bio page.)
Sunday:
If it was the late ‘80s, I would deliver the Sunday newspaper (Long Island’s Newsday) early in the morning (not gonna lie; I don’t miss this part one bit) and then get treated to a McDonald’s breakfast from my Mom for a job well done. I would usually have TWO sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits with TWO hashbrowns covered in grape jelly. My heart skipped a beat just typing that. Is it any wonder I was overweight?
Afterwards, I would watch my favorite show of all time, Steampipe Alley. Those not in the tristate area (i.e., New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) probably have no idea what this show is, but it was a kids’ variety show hosted by Mario Cantone waaaay before his stint on Sex and the City. Cantone would have me howling with laughter, especially when he had to admit that his “monologue bombed.” The show also featured Bugs Bunny cartoons, funny skits (his Stephen King impression was hilarious), and an obstacle course challenge at the end that directly ripped off Double Dare, except it wasn’t as messy, and the kids always won, even when it was obvious that they ran out of time to complete the game.
After this show, or just before it, I would read the entire Kidsday—the kid section of Newsday—and curse the editors for never featuring my submitted artwork. (I used to want to be a cartoonist; maybe the universe was trying to tell me something since I never won any art awards.) I would then read every single movie capsule review in the Newsday T.V. guide for that week. I still remember being angry they only gave Ghostbusters three out of four stars. “It deserved at least three and a half!” I would moan to myself. Ditto for Return of the Jedi.
After all this, I would either play with my sister in the backyard or call up another friend who I didn’t play with the day before. (Variety is the spice of life.) Repeat everything from Saturday with regards to playing (except sleepovers, since we had school the next day), and then that night, I would watch The Wonderful World of Disney with my sister. (Long live, Flight of the Navigator!) In the very late ‘80s (like December 1989), that changed to America’s Funniest Home Videos and then The Simpsons. I’ve been literally watching The Simpsons every week since, and while the show is far from its glorious prime, the first eight seasons are still my favorite television episodes of all time.
Then I had to go to school on Monday, but I didn’t mind so much, because I loved my elementary school (more on that in next week’s blog). Now here comes junior high/high school…
A Typical Weekend in the 1990s
Friday:
I would try to squeeze in a little homework after school, but since I had so much of it over the weekend, especially during high school, I usually couldn’t finish it, so I’d have to save it for Sunday afternoon. I would then watch TGIF by myself because my sister had outgrown it and started attending alternative/punk shows with her friends. At first, I was ecstatic that I had the T.V. to myself, but it quickly—and unsurprisingly—became lonely. There were some nights I was so bored, I would force myself to watch an episode of Family Matters for the third time after I knew all the punchlines when I didn’t even like it the first time when the jokes were fresh, because there was literally nothing else on. (I only had seven T.V. channels and no Internet.)
Saturday:
I stopped eating sugary cereal, but I would still watch a few Saturday morning cartoons. Of course, by this time, they had cancelled all my favorites, including The Real Ghostbusters and Muppet Babies. (Sacrilege!) I would then play Super Nintendo by myself—a lot—and my Mom would tell me to go hang out with my friends, perhaps not realizing that most of them had moved on to other cliques. One time, I remember my Mom forced me out of the house for playing too much Nintendo—never realizing that I stashed a Game Boy in my pocket and played it hiding behind our chimney in the backyard.
Then that night I would go to church and Taco Bell again, but I would race home to catch Siskel & Ebert on Channel 55, which we only received on the small T.V. in my Mom’s bedroom. The reception was so bad, I had to sometimes squint to make out the picture. Other teens were watching scrambled porn on cable; I was trying to watch a bald guy and a fat guy argue about the movie Cop and a Half. This show fueled my love for cinema, which continues to this day. (Then again, who doesn’t love movies?)
After Siskel & Ebert, I would draw cartoons or write stories with the T.V. on in the background in my bedroom. Then I would watch Comic Strip Live, a comedian showcase on Fox that I loved because I didn’t have access to any other comedians at the time. (The late shows were too, well, late for me during the week because I had school, and I didn’t have cable.) After they inevitably canceled the show, I switched to Saturday Night Live during the classic years featuring Adam Sandler, Kevin Nealon, Norm MacDonald, Chris Rock, Chris Farley, and David Spade. Then I’d simply pass out. (Wild times at the Perone residence!)
Sunday:
Unsurprisingly, they canceled Steampipe Alley, my favorite show, though, truth be told, even I had to admit that I had outgrown it. I still read Kidsday because, well, I guess I wanted to still be a kid (not much has changed), but my heart sank even further once I realized that not only was I too old to enter their art contests, but the entries from Long Island’s children were better than anything I could draw even in my teens. I guess at this point I decided to focus more on writing than drawing. I would note to myself that it was so much easier for me to come up with a story and flesh it out than to draw a comic, as I did both the night before.
After the boob tube, I might occasionally get lucky and see an old friend, but it felt more like a pity date than an actual hang. (It was ironic that in the ‘90s, I had become someone else’s “B” list.) It was more like: “Hey, remember Mike? I wonder what he’s up to these days? Wow, he’s still the same! At least he lost a lot of weight.” I guess I should mention I lost most of my weight in high school when I got taller. (I have since gained almost all of it back.)
Then I would finish my aforementioned homework and study my brains out for that week’s tests, thinking they were so important that if I failed one of them, my life as I knew it would be over forever, and I would never accomplish anything nor amount to much as an adult. I’m happy to report that this was only partly true. (I kid!)
Finally, that night I would watch (you guessed it) The Simpsons and buckle up for another “fun-filled” week in high school. For more on how I felt about this school, stay tuned for my next book!
So those are the differences, and when you compare them next to each other like this in stark black and white, you get a clearer picture of why I feel the way I do about the ‘80s and pretty much every decade since. Believe it or not, I don’t want to feel like this forever. As difficult as it is to admit, I understand that it’s not healthy to live in the past. But my therapist and I are working through it, and maybe it’s a good thing my next book doesn’t take place in the ‘80s, though part of it does take place in the ‘90s. I guess I can’t escape looking backward forever.
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In other MTP news, I’m now a proud member of the Long Island Authors group. You can peruse my profile here:
In other Déjà View news, my Kindle promotion last Saturday was quite successful. The book was #32 in the category of Coming of Age on Amazon’s Kindle store and #58 in the category of Coming of Age Fantasy eBooks.
Thanks to everyone who downloaded a copy, and happy reading!
MTP
P.S.: Next week’s blog: The Last Day of Elementary School
P.P.S.: Déjà View is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble:
Michael Thomas Perone 