Talking about…

Pop culture.

According to the bastion of knowledge that is Wikipedia, pop culture is defined as, “…the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes,[1] images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.”

I suppose like any other broad term, this can be defined in a variety of ways.  I know I’ve referred to other people as “cultured”, which could be taken several ways – an individual who is well read, or maybe has a background in the fine arts.  Then again I’ve used this in a derogatory way, such as “I”m heading to SF this weekend to get some culture, since Reno has none.”  Am I implying that Reno has a lack of well read individuals?

In a way, when looking at the Wikipedia definition of the term, you could say pop culture refers to the shit that is popular now.  When you talk about pop culture, it’s not usually discussed in terms of permanence.  It changes, what was considered pop culture in the 60′s, is certainly not the same as pop culture of the 90′s.  Yet when you talk about culture, some of the things that come to mind (for myself anyway) are the so-called classics: classical music, the literary greats, Monet, and so on.  So for me, pop-culture is the ever-changing cloud of popular ideas, images, sounds of today, last week, and next month.

40 oz Robot.

You know, I don’t know what that is.  I know robots are probably the future, whether we like it or not.  Yeah, I’ve seen T2.  Laugh now, but Skynet is coming, bitches.  40oz?  2 things come to mind, the first of which is a large bottle of Olde English (gross) the other is a graphic on a t-shirt that a good friend of mine would wear often.  Tie them together and you get…

Not sure.

For the purpose of this rambling blog post, what you get is a website.  This website, to be exact.

People my age, we came up in an explosion of pop culture, and by “people my age” I mean those who grew up in the 80’s.  I should clarify – I mean anyone who spent their formative years (5-12) during the 80′s.  Sure, I was born in the 70′s but I don’t try to bullshit and say I “grew up” in the 70′s, so if you were born in 1984, piss-off – you grew up in the 90′s.  What’d we have in the 80′s?  Saturday Morning cartoons, the birth of of the hollywood “blockbuster”, VHS rental, cassette tapes, Atari.  All of which led to some serious media saturation.  How?  Well, you really couldn’t take your vinyl with you in the car, but could take your tapes with you and your walkman.  I know, I was addicted to mine.  VHS?  In the pre-VHS days, you sure as hell weren’t watching a movie at home, you were going to the theater.  Cartoons?  Saturday morning cartoons over time became an EVENT, getting to the point where a network would devote a primetime TV slot to previewing shows that were only going to air on Saturday morning.  The point I’m trying to make is that all these things were EVERYWHERE.  You couldn’t escape them, and for us kids, we didn’t want to.

I attribute all of the above to where I am now.  Sitting here, typing out an “about-me” page for a website named after a damn t-shirt.
Why?  Because, I blame the previously mentioned saturation on my past and current fascination with movies/music/tv.  I love music – am I a musician?  God no, but I could kick some serious ass on Musical Jeopardy.  You want to get me to soapbox?  Ask me about whether or not I think “Appetite for Destruction” or “Nothing’s Shocking” was the best rock album of the 80′s.

Music stuff.  Film stuff.  It’ll be here.  I’m not claiming we’ll be the most up to date, but I don’t have to make that claim either – we have day jobs, and we’re doing this for the love of it all, not the dollars.  What I can also claim is that you’ll find reviews on the crap we love.  Films we’ll debate and defend until we’re blue in the face.  Totally biased lists of random things.  Music that deserves to be played on the radio more than the music that is currently played on the radio.  Rants on subjects like why DC should shitcan the Superman movie currently in development and fasttrack a Wonder Woman movie instead, or something like that.

Maybe you’ll discover your new favorite band here, or watch your new favorite movie.  At the very least, hopefully you’ll be exposed to something interesting that you’ve never heard, seen, or read before.

40oz Robot.  Observing the culture of here, and reviewing the noise of now.