Grady Hendrix: Why The 80’s Were The Best Decade Ever
WHY THE 80’S WERE THE BEST DECADE EVER
I’m sorry if you were born after 1987, but you have to accept facts: the Eighties were the best decade to grow up in, period. If you refuse to take my word for it, suck on these factoids, spazmoid.
METAL WAS FUN – Metallica came along in the middle of the decade and sowed the seeds for heavy metal to get ugly and self-important, but if you can ignore their baleful influence then you’ve got a decade when bands like Bon Jovi were “Livin’ on a Prayer,” Van Halen were “Hot for Teacher,” and Guns n’ Roses were living in “Paradise City.” No one wanted to change the world, save the children, or whine about their heartbreak, they just wanted to get drunk and party.
ARCADES WERE THE ORIGINAL SOCIAL MEDIA – the internet has turned us into a nation of trolls, posting racist YouTube comments, clogging up Facebook with pictures of our cats, and Tweeting what we had for breakfast. We’re a bunch of shut-ins who overshare online but turn into stuttering, stammering trainwrecks when confronted with meatspace interaction. Even worse, online gaming allows drunk dudes in their boxer shorts to run up credit card debt playing video poker. In the Eighties, if you wanted to play games, you went to the arcade where you interacted with actual human beings, some of whom were real live girls. Also, you had to put on pants.
SO MANY LADIES WERE MAKING SO MUCH AWESOME MUSIC – yes, there are women in music today, but the Eighties spawned many more unique flavors of Pop Diva. Whether it was the butch k.d. lang, the androgynous Annie Lennox, the hard rocking Joan Jett, the nonsense-burbling Björk, hip hop soul sister Queen Latifah, or the Queen herself, Whitney Houston, there was someone for everyone. Are you a goth? Have Siouxsie Sioux. An art nerd? Try Laurie Anderson. You like to sit in your room and light candles and cry? Tracy Chapman has got you covered. And let’s not forget that Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga are all just pale imitations of Madonna.
NO PHONES ALLOWED – every time I see some asshole walking down the street playing on his iPhone I pray that he’ll keep strolling right out into traffic, because mobile phones make us lame. But in the Eighties, no one ever knew what time it was because only dorks wore watches, and you could actually argue about ridiculous things for hours without some delicate flower whipping out their Steve Jobs ouija board and delivering an atmosphere-crushing answer from Wikipedia. Thanks for ruining our banter, jerkwad.
MAIL WAS BETTER THAN EMAIL – all email does is deliver herbal viagra ads and semi-literate, punctuation-free screeds from your dad faster than ever before. In the Eighties, the highlight of your day was when the mail arrived, bearing catalogues full of two-seater hovercrafts from Hammacher Schlemmer and the Sharper Image, mix tapes from your best friend, and, if you were lucky, actual love letters written with thought, care, and sometimes a lipstick coated kiss next to the signature. I’ll take that any day over LiVE Russian BRIDES WHo Want To MARYY Yoiu NOWWW.
NO ONE CARED WHERE YOU WERE – today’s children are tagged and tracked every second of their lives, with even the most laidback parents becoming OCD monsters possessed by a compulsive need to know where their offspring are at all times. Even though crime was higher in the Eighties, parents just didn’t have the energy to care where we were. Probably because they didn’t have mobile phones. When summer hit, our parents didn’t even want us in the house, turning us loose on the neighborhood at 10am and not expecting us home until sundown. To get around our ruse of wanting to get into the house for “just a quick drink of water” they would put a plastic jug on the front porch or hang a cup by the garden hose. The message was clear: we could go out and shoot fireworks at each other, break into storage sheds and play chainsaw tag, or hike up the train tracks to see a dead body. Just so long as we weren’t bothering them, we were free.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favourite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil
EXPLORE THE YEARBOOK: http://mybestfriendsexorcism.com/tagged/yearbook
My Best Friend’s Exorcism is published by Quirk Books and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Best-Friends-Exorcism-Novel/dp/1594748624/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463524916&sr=1-1&keywords=my+best+friend%27s+exorcism