The 80’s
Posted by MyLaowai on Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Back when Wendy James was telling that girl to shut up, Cyndi Lauper was telling us that the Goonies were good enough, and Joan Jett hated herself for loving you, the world was a better place. Hairstyles were way better, to start with, not to mention the fact that musicians needed to do more than merely rhyme and pretend to be tough in order to be cool. Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson actually had to play their instruments in order to be the most attractive people on Earth, for instance.
The Eighties (note capitalisation) were a great time to be alive, and be damned with what the youth of today think. It was enough that Dempsey thought that life was hard and then you died, and Makepeace knew when to shoot a gun and when to just be beautiful. Neither of them had to figure out whether the workplace environment was hostile or not, and they didn’t have to sit around trying to decide whether or not it was politically correct to put a crim’s face up against the mortar and bricks. It was obvious to all.
Back in the Eighties, Captain Kirk didn’t take any crap from Khan, and Khan didn’t expect him to either. They shot it out in the Mutara Nebula like proper men. Modern day so-called heroes take note. And what’s more, the Commodore 64 was good enough for any game worth playing. Few games today are half as awesome. And its simply a fact that the Terminator, despite costing a paltry $6.5 million to make, was the hardest thing to kill. Ever. [Note: Sigourney Weaver comes a close second]
The Eighties saw the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, and the true liberation of tens of millions of people. It marked the moment when the ordinary people of the free world would come together and try to end hunger in the underdeveloped nations of Africa through non-governmental action. And it was the decade in which the Space Shuttle gave us dreams of space flight that ordinary people could share.
Yes indeed, the Eighties (note continued capitalisation) were the best of times. It was a time of optimism, of feeling that the world was the mollusc of your choice, of being free. It was a time when all good things seemed possible. It was a time of hope.
But it was also the decade that gave us the butchery of Tienanmen Square and the various political purges known as Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization, Anti-Corruption, Anti-Economic Crimes, Party Rectification, Anti-Spiritual Pollution, Party Rectification, Anti-Bourgeois Liberalism, Against Bourgeois Liberalism, Against Bourgeois Liberalism, and Anti-Corruption Drive. Hong Kong also became a colony of China, against the wishes of its people. The people of Hong Kong still refuse to accept it.
In summary: Compare and contrast East and West, and decide for yourself where you’d rather be.
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Incidentally, if Wendy James, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett, or Marie Fredriksson happen to be reading this, please do be aware that I remain deeply in lust with each and every one of you. Please call me for a martini.
xxx MyLaowai.
Wo Shi Laowai - Wo Pa Shui 
FOARP said
” . . . the Commodore 64 was good enough for any game worth playing.”
Memory fail, the ZX Spectrum totally kicked the C64’s arse, as is demonstrated here:
Hunxuer said
Ah how I yearn for the Flock of Seagulls hairdo.
And the music from that era is STILL payed with reverence in nightclubs the world over for people that actually want and like to DANCE. None of this bullshit “house”, “techno-house”, “house trance”, “techno trance” or utter shite like Beyonce moaning and gurgling an indecipherable babble called “Umbrella”!!!
Ned Kelly said
“for people that actually want and like to DANCE. None of this bullshit “house”, “techno-house”, “house trance”, “techno trance” or utter shite…”
You took the words out of my mouth. Sade in 1988:
And note how that was BEFORE Britain’s chattering classes began to wank themselves senseless over “multiculturalism”, yet it was just taken for granted that the half-Nigerian Sade was quintessentially English. Academics always ruin all good ideas.
Ned Kelly said
And American R&B/Soul was incomparably better in the Eighties, at least on some Afro-American radio stations in major East Coast cities such as the one my co-blogger Ivan lived in back then, when he was a young man living in a mostly Black ghetto. Yes I know it’s no longer Politically Correct among privileged White Americans to call such areas “ghettos”, but that’s what Ivan’s Black (oh, sorry, “African-American”) neighbors and his landlady called it.
Heh, the things the Anglo-Sino-Blogosphere doesn’t know about Ivan… ;-)
Now compare and contrast THIS, to what R&B has become corrupted into – today it’s either viciously racist gangsta-rap, or else a Mariah-Carey-inspired series of caterwauling chaotic grace-notes.
J’ACCUSE Mariah Carey for contributing to the death of R&B/Soul!
And don’t even get me started on Beyonce, who personifies every racist’s dreams of reducing Black-Westerners to stereotypes of vulgar mush-mouthed savages.
Meanwhile, in the Eighties, a WHITE woman sang like this, in a TRULY “multicultural” way which puts Beyonce to shame:
Ned Kelly said
PS, I see embedding of that video has been disabled. Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzOL2gbc94
Hunxuer said
Sade was class all the way. Got a glimpse of the trainwreck called Mariah Carey today at that M. Jackson memorial. What a joke. I guess when you drop 50k on your tits, you better as hell make sure it gets max exposure at every opportunity…even some dead guy’s funeral!!!
The Clash: Nuff said!
MyFenwai said
The people of Hong Kong still refuse to accept it.
In Asia, President Hu scores very well among the public. His own public is immensely confident (94%) in his doing the right thing regarding world affairs. No other public studied in this survey is so confident in their leader. Confidence in President Hu is the predominant view in Pakistan (80%), India (50%) and South Korea (by a narrow 51% confident, 47% not confident margin). Most people in Indonesia were unable to give him a confidence rating; among those who did, they were divided with 24 percent confident and 22 percent not confident.
Separate surveys were also conducted in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. In each, large majorities express confidence in President Hu, in Taiwan 60 percent, in Hong Kong 94 percent, and in Macau 92 percent. President Hu appears to be a very reassuring figure among these publics.
They might not accept the PRC, but at least they like Hu Jintao. Even a majority of Taiwanese like Hu Jintao.
Funny, huh, guess these higher IQ “Chinamen” just don’t know better.
Hunxuer said
Very, very, very scientific.
Ned Kelly said
Suddenly I’ve had a vision of Myfenwai as an ambulatory piece of shit, a turd on two legs.
MyFenwai said
Why, because you just raped some turds out of a little boy at your church?
Ned Kelly said
MyLaowai said
@MyFenwai:
A majority of Taiwanese would love to see the butcher Hu Jintao experience a short stop from a long drop, from the nearest convenient tree.
But then again, I actually know a few Taiwanese personally, whereas I doubt you do.
S said
Mr Mylaowai, which one of the bettle nut girl you know is your favourite? I know a few as well. The one at the corner of Zhong Hua Lu and Ming Sheng Er Lu, Tainan is gorgeous and very revealing.
MyFenwai said
A majority of Taiwanese would love to see the butcher Hu Jintao experience a short stop from a long drop, from the nearest convenient tree.
Apparently, according to polls by your white cousins (since all whites are related through incest) a majority of Taiwanese have at least a little confidence in Hu Jintao.
George Bush, not so much.
LoveChinaLongTime said
“According to polls”. I love these unattributed factoids tossed out there.
And speaking of inbred cousins, why is it in a nation of well over a billion, the vast majority are named Chen, Li, Wang, Zhou and He????
MyFenwai said
Since you’re too stupid to use a search engine properly:
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/views_on_countriesregions_bt/618.php
A project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland
And speaking of inbred cousins, why is it in a nation of well over a billion, the vast majority are named Chen, Li, Wang, Zhou and He????
Probably because the various assimilated tribes are arbitrarily granted a tribe name in a tonal, phonetically poor language.
The whole white race descends from a Josef Fritzl like situation, I’d wouldn’t talk if I were you.
MyFenwai said
rather, granted a family name in a phonemically poor language.