It’s that time of year again. When Vinegar Syndrome starts, there is a pre-sale for one of their biggest events of the year. There is a Black Friday Sale!
This pre-sale option started on November 1st and ends today, November 4! If you are unsure where to start, here are five recommendations of what to pre-order to beat the rush:
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)- This movie has been a long fascination of mine. So much so that I bought the soundtrack on vinyl a decade ago, and it has been a prized possession ever since. Some viewers who had watched or seen clips of the movie defined it as gross, but I believe that it is not the case!
At Close Range — this is a blind buy for me. I am a huge fan of Christopher Walken, and to be honest, I haven’t heard of this movie, but the cover art for it looked pretty intense.
The Chain Reaction- Australian cinema is one of my favorites. This movie has a lot going on: Car chase scenes, weird radiation stuff, and the government trying to hide its tracks!
Krazee Kidz Video Party — I am also a devoted fan of AGFA media, and this unique, crazy-sounding title just made me curious, so it was an automatic purchase! And if this trailer doesn’t convince you of the uniqueness, then I don’t know what will!
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point- During this pre-sale, I always tried to get something that is either a winter or a Christmas theme. This time I decided on this movie.
This week’s post is by my friend @bigfunbeth, who is the co-owner of one of my favorite stores: @GreenwichLetterpress
“My So-Called Life, 30 Years”
“My So-Called Life debuted on April 25, 1994. It was the summer before I started high school and I was fourteen years old.
On that Thursday night in 1994, a small group of my friends convened at Jessica’s house. We all crammed onto her couch to watch the pilot debut. “An honest look at growing up in the 90’s said the ad that ran in TV Guide. Wait, we were growing up in the 90’s and who were all of these people that kind of look like people who could know? Plus, the show already had its own scandal- the main girl wants to stab her mother in the first episode, we heard? “Wait, is she really going to say that?”
After the pilot ended I remember immediately thinking, “I don’t know if I’m the same person I was an hour ago.” I looked around me. None of my other friends had liked the show very much.This felt like something that had separated me from them irreparably. We never got together to watch it again, and my hair was dyed orange by the end of 8th grade. I was Angela Chase, and at the time, it felt like I was the only one.
For the next handful of months, I was obsessed, and then, as suddenly as it had exploded into my life. It was over. There were rumors. Poor ratings. The lead actress wanted to pursue movies instead. I remember asking my mother about it like she wrote for Premiere magazine or something and had the inside scoop. There was no social media to turn to, there was no 24 hour news cycle. What had just happened to the thing that felt like my actual life just spread across nineteen episodes of TV? There was an online petition to bring it back, which at the time was groundbreaking. Then, just nothing…until MTV.
When MTV got the right to syndicate the show, I got to see my old friends again. They would cut the promos in fun and clever ways. There were all-day marathons, and one was hosted by Claire Danes and Jared Leto. I can remember the very 90’s dELIA’s looking shirt Claire wore. Her hair, OMG, it’s kind of strawberry blond now and shorter, and OMG, Jared’s hair is short now, too. I was so thirsty for content. I was starved for it, or whatever.
When the “Self-Esteem” episode come on it was like, everyone please stop talking and leave the room. He’s about to grab her hand in the hallway. For me, this was the epitome of love on screen, and I yearned for that love to happen to me in real life. As did every single person I have discussed that scene within the past thirty years. In fact, we all screwed up countless relationships holding out for that exact moment.
MTV gave the show a new audience and anyone who had missed out the first time had a chance to watch it. I remember meeting new kids in high school who now loved it and watching repeats with my sophomore-year boyfriend. There was a community growing around this show and it was like, cool. It was actually just cool. People were connecting with something that felt honest, inspired, and real. Only if it now only existed in reruns.
I recently showed the series to my husband for the first time, who was in his 20s, when it premiered. He was so taken with how dark the show was. Not the mood, he said, but the literal lack of actual light, which he thinks impacted how it was received for the first time around. I’m like, yeah, babe, that is the light that you bask in as a teenage girl filled with angst, lust, emotion, and uncertainty.
Since I own a shop, I have to comment on the merch. MSCL had virtually nothing to offer its obsessed fans. There was an early VHS set and soundtracks on cassette and CD. My sister and I of course had the soundtrack on both mediums and were horrified to discover that “Late At Night” by Buffalo Tom was missing. Nooooo. In 2002, there was a DVD set (no bonus content) and then a deluxe version that came in a lunchbox. By 2007 there was yet another DVD set, but this time there were extras. Finally, something else we could grab onto. Creator Winnie Holzman and Claire Danes sat down together and discussed what might have happened in season two. When I first watched this conversation, I felt like crying and then passing out. It was 1995 all over again. A love triangle between Angela, Jordon, and Brian!? Sharon pregnant?!? Graham leaves Patty?!? The agony was unbearable. It honestly still is.
All of these years later, despite just that single season of TV and lack of physical ephemera, this show doesn’t just quietly linger on (cue the Cranberries) – it has a foot firmly planted in the hearts of everyone who fell in love with it thirty years ago. In fact, it’s a barometer. I use for when I meet new people. The second someone can have the MSCL conversation, I think, “This is my person, and I am their person.” Countless times I’ve acknowledged with friends and fans about how this show made us realize we were transitioning into adulthood. How, with every rewatch, you start to connect more with Patty and Grahan and drift a little farther away from lockers and boiler rooms. When I was a teenager, I thought it was gross how much sex her parents had on the show, and now I think it’s hysterical. What 40 years with kids and careers has the energy for that much sex? Plus, now, I am four years older than Patty Chase was on the show, Hold on, I’m calling my therapist…
“Patty, we’re forty!”- Camille Cherski
As for someone who lives and breathes nostalgia and often wonders if it’s a mistake, I never feel like rewatching MSCL is a waste of my time. The things that made me laugh or cry all those years ago still do, and I feel like I learn something new about human nature every time I revisit. There is so much that has already been said about this show and, what its place was in the 90’s and how it might resonate to young people today. This is not that. This is just my little ode to a time and place that was for me, My absolute So Called Life.
Stray Thoughts
Was the Chase’s cat name Lady Di?
Tino is the JAWS of the 90’s, much more powerful to never see him
Shit ok, Brian IS cute!
It’s insane that Graham tells Neal about his affair in the kitchen while Patty is within earshot.
Andy Cherski is probably a babe.
I love that Graham is shocked Patty can make curtains and she’s shocked he can hang wallpaper.
“Brain Krahow?” “I like Buffalo Tom, I do!” “Stephan Dieter guy. Still funny.
I want to be friends with Vic Racine and Mr. Katimski and share coffee with them in the teacher’s break room. I also desperately want to be invited into a teacher’s break room, anywhere.
Weekend, Life of Brian, The Substitute and Self Esteem are my favorite episodes.
If you can find a friend to tell off Jordan like Rayanne does, you’ve arrived.
It was 1997 when I first came across Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides. I was in my public library browsing through the many sacks when the book’s title made me stop walking. I took it out of the row and was intrigued. I did not want to read the back of the book. Instead, I decided to check it out and take it home. I went to my favorite reading spot at home and opened the first page. I was totally engulfed by the words because I felt like it was a Southern Gothic novel set for teenage girls. I read the whole book in one sitting because it felt like those words on the pages were similar to what I thought I was going through as a pre-teen. Middle school was rough for me because I felt like a loner.
My best friend was books because with books, I could escape and live many lives through someone else’s pages. Jeffery Eugenides captured all of my pre-teen emotions fully in this book. I read the book thrice that year until I finally convinced myself to buy my copy.
It was not until the year 2000 that I was walking by a store and saw the movie post for the movie:
I was surprised that there was a movie made from it. I wonder if the film would capture all of my teenage emotions. Did the movie capture all of the gothic spookiness I felt between the words from the book?
I was able to track down the movie on cable a couple of years later on the Sundance channel. I absolutely loved this movie. It captured many emotions I felt the first time I read the book.
But what stayed with me for a very long time was the soundtrack:
The Air (the score version) and the movie soundtrack stuck with me for the longest time. For most of my teenage years, I had to rebuy both versions of the soundtrack because I played it so much that I made a clear hole out of the CDs. The movie soundtrack introduced me to such artists as Todd Rundgren and 10cc.
And yes, this scene made me fall in adoration for Trip Fontaine:
Even to this day, this movie’s soundtrack and score play in constant rotation in my playlist. Because it captures the eternal feelings of all of my teenage emotions and has a good set of songs!
What movie soundtrack(s) was the soundtrack to your teenage years?
The song “Everytime You Go Away” first attracted my attention as a kid. I absorbed everything on MTV for many years by watching every music video and show. The version of this song I heard was sung by Paul Young. It was the middle of the night, and the beginning intro to this song caught my attention. It felt breezy, like someone was about to open their heart and let you inside, only to have the wind carry you back out when the song ended.
What I did not know about this song was that Paul Young sang a cover version in 1985, and the original song was written and made by Daryl Hall. Yes, Daryl Hall from Hall Oates:
This song was on Hall and Oates’s “Voices” album, which came out in 1980. Although both versions have different vibes and feel in their melodies, I fell in love with Paul Young’s version.
“Everytime You Go Away” appeared on Young’s The Secret of Association album, released in 1985. It was one of his well-known songs, and he even sang a duet with George Michael at Live Aid in Wembley Stadium in 1985.
At its peak, the song hit number 4 on the UK Singles Chart in March 1985. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also won British Video of the Year in 1986 at the Brit Awards. This song is constantly on my music playlist, mainly because it holds memories for me, or maybe it’s just a darn good song.
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