The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

Via the Consumerist is a recent Slate article concerning the great baseball card craze of the ’80s and ’90s.  It contains an excerpt from a new book by Dave Jamieson called Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession.  It’s a topic I am all too familiar with as a former sports card and comic collector.  I never became a card speculator, as others of my age did, so I didn’t get burnt too badly.  Nevertheless, I have binders full of football cards that are now barely worth the plastic sheets that house them, thanks in large part to the ludicrous overproduction and subsequent cheapening of cards in the ’80s and ’90s.

I had a lot of fun collecting cards back in the day – I didn’t care much about the value of the cards although I did try to keep them in the best condition possible.  Something about filling holes in my collection scratched me where I itched (a need I fill now by collecting songs).  That naturally led to some suspect purchases, and it started to become obvious even as a teenager that card collecting wouldn’t be a lifelong hobby for me.

The moment when I knew things had gone too far came when I was about 14 or 15.  I stopped into a local comic and card shop, a regular haunt for me, to peruse some possible new additions.  As I approached the counter I saw a kid who couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old haggling with the shop owner over some cards like it was the SALT treaty sessions.  I can still remember the feeling of sadness and disgust I experienced that day; a day when I knew it was time to move on from card collecting.

This phenomenon extended not just to baseball cards but to football and other sports cards, as well as comics.  I got a little suckered there, as I distinctly remember buying multiple copies of Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man #1 in 1990.  But for the most part I just collected comics I liked, regardless of value.  That’s why I’m more likely to hold onto a lot of the comics I bought, instead of the cards.

One thing I did learn from the whole collecting phase of my youth is this – if you see something that actually says “Collector’s Item” on the package, it’s probably not.

When he wanted to put together yet another version of King Crimson in the early 1990s, Robert Fripp reached out to Japan co-founder David Sylvian.  Sylvian passed at the opportunity, but the pair went ahead released a studio album in 1993 anyway.  This is the best cut from that album, “Jean the Birdman”.  It’s a bit goofy, but the song more than makes up for it.

So given that this video was produced in ’93, how do you think it fared on MTV?

I run hot and cold when it comes to the Black Crowes, but By Your Side is just a fantastic album.  In fact it’s probably my favorite next to the dense and brilliant Amorica.  Here’s the first cut from By Your Side, an infectious rocker called (appropriately enough) “Go Faster”.

Alright, I’m probably stretching the definition of “vintage” pretty thin here.  But here’s the thing – even though this magazine (found in a Best Western in Quakertown, PA just last year) was published in 1996, it sure seems like a lifetime ago.  That’s because even more than clothes or hairstyles, few things can almost instantly date a publication like images of current technology.

Don’t believe me?  Well here’s just a sampling of the pictures and ads scattered throughout the 1996 Best Western/AT&T Business Resource Guide, a publication for the modern executive on the go…into a time warp.  (for fun slideshow action, click here)

Read on Daddy-O…

Here’s a little history lesson for you young’uns.  Back before this internet thing, and way before Wikipedia, people like me used to look up stuff in these big things called encyclopedias.  They didn’t list every single episode of That’s So Raven or every Pokemon character, but they were generally useful nonetheless.

Now I don’t recall ever getting that pumped over looking up where John Quincy Adams was born*, but I don’t doubt that many a young man did experience that feeling of euphoria.  And hey, you know Britannica was the bee’s knees because they had that funky æ character in the title.

This particular ad was published in 1994, just as the internet was poised to set new standards of speed in the research and plagiarizing of information.  So anyone lucky enough to have spent the coin needed to get this set at least got a few years out of them before they become obsolete.

*Braintree, Massachusetts

I’m not sure what the origin of the whole “desert island” thing is when referring to music, movies, and other stuff you really like. Why not a tropical island? That one Tom Hanks got stuck on in Cast Away seemed pretty nice, didn’t it?

Oh right, the point. So apropos of nothing, I recently participated in a fantasy draft on a favorite message board of mine. But instead of drafting a sports team, we picked from a list of every song that has ever reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, now in its 50th year. The only catch was that each team had to select at least two songs from each decade (’58 – ’69 was lumped together). That made things interesting, because the pickings for truly good #1 songs started to get real slim starting in the 1990s.

Overall I’m pleased with my team, which is as follows (in order of selection):
Read on Daddy-O…

You kids can have your Webkinzes and your Dora the Explorer crap. Back in my day – well, maybe a little past my day – we had real toys. Why, take these Beverly Hills, 90210 dolls. No seriously, take them. Sadly, it seems this set didn’t include Brian Austin Green, probably because his character hadn’t completely sold his soul and driven his best friend to suicide yet, all in an effort to get with the in-crowd.

Even sadder is the lack of everyone’s second-favorite television restaurateur, Nat. Despite this, you have to admit this is one rad set of dolls. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to play with them, however. I guess they could preen around your playroom/bedroom and ostracize your other dolls and action figures.

Alas, not even the gang at West Beverly High is as confident and independent as their kickin’ clothes and carefully manicured hair-dos would indicate: