Am I truly a "Golden Era" guy?

[Fletch]

There, though, you touch on a real potential downside. Outcasts in that day and age were really outcasts. The concept of civil liberties, human rights, etc., didn't mean much. If people couldn't deal with you, you might find yourself unable to work, live decently...or maybe even live at all, if you were of the wrong race, color or creed. Women couldn't even own property in many places, so running a business would have taken some real ingenuity.

 

[carebear]

But you could always move along to the next place with no internet, credit report or mass media to follow you. Looser ID restrictions (no mandatory SSN for everything) meant you could reinvent yourself somewhere better much more easily than now. Gumption = as many chances as you were willing to take.

Now you are trapped with the identity you were born with, branded by birth with an identity you can't legally escape.

 

[Benny Holiday]

This reminds me of a Star Trek movie I saw once on TV, one where the crew of the Enterprise had to go back in time to save whales from extinction because some alien race was trying to communicate with them in future. Anyway, one of the crew gets shot or stabbed or something, and he's on the operating table and Dr McCoy is watching and freaks out, astounded that the 'primitives' are actually going to cut the poor person open to operate.

I wonder how people a century or two in the future will look back on our time and be glad that they didn't live in our 'primitive' time, just as we think how difficult it must have been for people back in the 1800s or earlier.

You don't miss what you've never had!

 

[Fletch]

But you could always move along to the next place with no internet, credit report or mass media to follow you. Looser ID restrictions (no mandatory SSN for everything) meant you could reinvent yourself somewhere better much more easily than now.

There's certainly that. Look at what Tony Curtis did in The Great Impostor - even fooled the Army a few times. Or Leo diCaprio in Catch Me If You Can - posing as an (off duty) Pan Am pilot at 16. Both based on real-life con men. Try that today. Just TRY it.

 

[GOK]

There's certainly that. Look at what Tony Curtis did in The Great Impostor - even fooled the Army a few times. Or Leo diCaprio in Catch Me If You Can - posing as an (off duty) Pan Am pilot at 16. Both based on real-life con men. Try that today. Just TRY it.

But people will. Just because Big Brother might be watching you doesn't mean that someone with a talent for hacking couldn't falsify records and thus create a new identity. If someone wishes to do it, they will.

I do see your point about being outcast, Fletch. I suppose it was the fear of the 'different' shaking up the status quo. Such a shame. To use another Star Trek reference (I'm such a geek!); it is our differences that give us strength. Pity it hasn't always been so, eh?

Benny, that's a good point and I wonder urban myths will abound about our era? After all, I'm sure we're all familiar with the one about Victorian women having their lower ribs removed to give them smaller waists or that all Victorian women wore their corsets so tight, they caused permanent injury. Neither of those statements are true.

 

[carebear]

It's much harder and much more illegal now.

Soon we'll have to be Stainless Steel Rats.

 

[Benny Holiday]

To use another Star Trek reference (I'm such a geek!); it is our differences that give us strength. Pity it hasn't always been so, eh?

Very much a pity, GOK. When I was a kid, I remember there a big hit by Sir Elton John, "Sorry seems to be the hardest word." Sadly, I think 'understanding' often seems to be the hardest word.

As for urban myths, for a long time I've had this tongue-in-cheek image in my mind of a future archeologist digging up the ruins of vast cities long gone, and finding hundreds of yellow 'M' symbols. Was it some sort of strange cult? the scientists will ask. What does it mean? And what's with the effigy of the fellow with the yellow jumpsuit, bright red hair and big red shoes? Was he some kind of high priest or something? lol

 

[GOK]

Are you familiar with the Beautiful South song, One God? Very true...sadly.

 

[Benny Holiday]

No, I haven't heard it. I'll have to Google the lyrics.

 

[BAZ]

It's much harder and much more illegal now.

Soon we'll have to be Stainless Steel Rats.

Thankfully, The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the world!!

 

[GOK]

No, I haven't heard it. I'll have to Google the lyrics.

Here you are:

One God - Beautiful South

Like the toupee on a fading fame
The final whistle in a losing game
Thick lipstick on a five year old girl
It makes you think it's a plastic world

A plastic world and we're all plastic too
Just a couple of different faces in a dead man's queue
The world is turning Disney and there's nothing you can do
You're trying to walk like giants
but you're wearing Pluto's shoes

And the answers fall easier from the barrel of a gun
Than it does from the lips of the beautiful and the dumb
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun
With Coca Cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun

A howling scream in a church asleep
Rusty bicycle in an ocean deep
Like an ear-ring on the newly born
Strong perfume on a winter's morn

The world is perfumed and we're perfumed as well
Petals from a flower that blossomed in hell
And you can't breathe the air through the thickness of the smell
And you can't see the hair through the grease or the gel

And the answers fall easier from the barrel of a gun
Than it does from the lips of the beautiful and the dumb
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun
With Coca Cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun

You say there's only one God, you could do with two or three
Your Jesus Christ is hired out, like the s**g of Galilee
Well if Peter is a prostitute, then what does that make me

There's only one God
There should be two or three
One God
There should be two or three
One God
There should be two or three
Two or three

 

[BAZ]

Beautiful South, eh?
Long live FatBoy Slim!!
Saw The Housemartins YEARS ago.
Pretty good.

 

[GOK]

I liked the Housemartins and FBS is not bad but I love the Beautiful South. They have a way of relating horrible stories about horrible people to wonderfully upbeat and cheery tunes! lol

 

[BAZ]

I liked the Housemartins and FBS is not bad but I love the Beautiful South. They have a way of relating horrible stories about horrible people to wonderfully upbeat and cheery tunes! lol

Hee hee. Yeah they always seemed to me to be a kind of an Anti-Morrissey, who makes even wonderful situations sound morose and forlorn!!

 

[carebear]

"Morrissey, this is the police. Put down the microphone and step away from the D minor key."

 

[GOK]

:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Has anyone heard the Puppini Sisters' version of Panic? It is brilliant! I thought Richard Cheese couldn't be topped but these gals did it!

 

[BAZ]

:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Has anyone heard the Puppini Sisters' version of Panic? It is brilliant! I thought Richard Cheese couldn't be topped but these gals did it!

Richard Cheese rocks. Love his "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and his Holiday In Cambodia is in my Christmas mix on my ipod!

 

[GOK]

Holiday in Cambodia is BRILLIANT! And I love 'She F'ing Hates Me' too. In fact, there's not much of his stuff I don't like.

 

[BAZ]

I LOVE playing his stuff when I'm DJing.
You see the crowd frowning, as they KNOW the words, but just can't place the songs!!
Same with Me Fisrt and the Gimme Gimmes!!

 

[GOK]

What about Hayseed Dixie?