Laserdisc Spotlight: Falling Down

The year was 1993. Gas was $1.07 per gallon, I was in the second grade, and Falling Down was duped en masse onto 12" reflective platters known as Laserdiscs. Fast forward twenty one years and gas prices have tripled, I am eleven years removed from high school, and nobody knows what the fuck a Laserdisc is. But what is this? A "fair condition" copy of Falling Down on Laserdisc? But how will I ever play such an antiquated piece of obsolete media? Load it into one of my three Laserdisc players, that's how. 

Hit play, wait for the disc to hit 1800 RPMs, and enjoy the show!

Laservision splash screen.

Hey, you know what? Let's all revisit Falling Down with low-res screengrabs from its 1993 Laserdisc release. Hey remember when:

William Foster gets stuck in LA construction traffic during the middle of summer with no A/C?

And when he abandoned his Chevy Chevette with ballin' vanity plates and said "Fuck it! I'm walking to my estranged ex-wife's house to stalk her mercilessly as a surprise for my daughter's birthday!"?

And when he helped Mr. Kim roll back prices by force? "Coca Cola: 12 oz. can, how much? 50 cents? Sold."

And when he stopped for a break in Gangland to patch his shoe with a chunk of the classifieds?

And these guys tried to make him pay a toll? Spoiler alert: he beats the shit out of them with a bat.

And when those same gangsters fuck-botched the retaliation drive-by by missing him with their entire arsenal and crashing the low-rider into a parked car?

And when he responded by kindly taking time out of his busy ex-wife stalking schedule to teach these misguided youths how to properly use the sights on an Uzi? Oh man, you crashed your low rider AND took a bullet to the leg? "Like a good neighbor: State Farm is there!"

And when he stopped to get himself some fast food breakfast?

But they stopped serving breakfast at 11:30 AM?

And then he proceeded to address his qualms with their lack of customer service? 

And then when we waited patiently for the A side to B side switch?

And when he tried to buy some Vietnam jungle boots from a xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and abusive military surplus store owner?

And when this kid showed him how to use a shoulder fired rocket launcher?

And when he tried to walk the golf course but got assaulted with golf balls by some punk-ass golfers so he blasted their cart into oblivion with a sawed-off shotgun?

And when he told the old fart having a heart attack that it was a shame that he was going to die in that silly little hat?

Yeah, that's 7/8ths of the movie right there in crap-grade screengrabs. I left out the very end in case you haven't seen Falling Down yet. If you haven't seen it, you can borrow my Laserdisc copy and one of my Laserdisc players. But let's be honest, living under a rock, you probably don't have a wall outlet or a TV. Boom! See what I did there? I implied that if you haven't seen Falling Down, you aren't a real human being.  

A Cassette Addendum: Let's Fix Those Warbled And Wonky Tunes

So you've delved into the wonderful world of audio cassettes but were welcomed with warbled and wonky tunes? Don't fret. There might be an easy fix. Before you blame your antiquated tape deck, check your cassette tape for the absence of the felt pressure pad. This pressure pad helps hold the tape securely against the tape head in your player. Without proper contact pressure your playback might be distorted and a bit on the crappy side. It should be noted, however, that some higher-end players bypass the pressure pad and can function without them. Cheaper players like boom boxes and Walkmans seem more susceptible to pressure pad related distortion. But if your felt pad is missing, good news, it's an easy fix!

This little felt dude should be chillin' right about here.

If not, you'll have a naked bit of copper like this.

What I normally use for this repair is a T-pin, some glue (craft glue, Elmer's White, or even wood glue will work), a paper match stick, and felt pressure pads sourced new online or robbed from a donor cassette.

Carefully extract a length of tape from the cassette to gain access to the copper strip to which the felt pad is normally attached. I use a T-pin to get behind the tape and pull a good loop out. This might not be the best method, but in true Idiotic Anecdotes fashion, it gets the job done so I continue to repeat the stupidity.

To apply the glue to the felt pads, I use a paper matchstick. An old car painter taught me that trick. Paper match sticks work great for paint touch-up, glue application, and all kinds of detail work.

Handling the tiny felt pads can be pretty tricky if you have stupid cumbersome fingers like mine. I find that sticking the bugger with a pin works well for getting it properly placed. Tweezers would probably be a good solution as well. Either way, plop the gluey pad into place, apply a bit of pressure to ensure good adhesion, and let the glue dry. Once the glue sets, you are once again ready to enjoy the mediocre sounds of cassette tapes! 

Two happy tapes, repaired and ready to play.

And that's it! You now have the knowledge to do minor repairs on your cassettes. If they are still playing like junk after the repair it may be time to start looking at your player as a suspect. Giving the tape head a good rub down with some high grade isopropyl alcohol on a cotton swab might help. Beyond that, you'll have to find a blogger with more smarts than me to confer with. An easy feat no doubt. Holla atcha boy!

In Defense of Cassette Tapes

In this ever changing landscape of media storage and distribution, one would certainly like to think that things don't fade into the shadows of obsolescence for nothing. When a format goes the way of the dinosaurs there is usually solid reasoning behind its extinction. When people look to a format for their audio and video reproduction needs they are generally looking for a balance of quality, convenience, portability, and cost effectiveness. So why then, in this age of instantly available, cloud-stored, zero-physical-footprint, magic digital media are people still clinging to cassettes? NPR recently explored this conundrum in a blog post entitled The Good Listener: Does The World Still Need Cassettes? In a nutshell, for the author, aside from handmade mixtapes oozing with sentiment, the answer was a resounding no. But can a case be made for this obsolete technology?

Defending cassettes has recently become one of my favorite hobbies. Although my bulletproof retort to the constant barrage of "WHY?" is simply a shrug of the shoulders and a "why not?". I know, I should have been a lawyer, right? In all reality I can't really make any objective arguments for the superiority of tape based media. Cassette tapes in any form are bulky, fickle at times, they (as well as the equipment they require for playback) need occasional physical maintenance, and the quality from aging tapes can often be sub-par. You have to remember that these formats are carried over from the days when an analog sine wave ruled supreme over a land of infant binary ones and zeros. In this land, dubbing media to magnetic cassette tape was much more cost effective and netted higher quality than early digital alternatives. But as our binary babies grew and computer processing power became better and cheaper, sampling rates increased, digital file sizes shrunk, and lasers (fuckin' LASERS!) were able to store and read digital media with high capacity optical discs. With the dawning of the age of CD's, LD's, MP3s, and FLVs, cassettes were forced into the shadows. The very shadows in which I lie in wait to comfort them. But again, why? The only argument I can make for cassettes is not a rational or scientific one, but rather an emotional one. I will contend that cassette based media will always offer current and subsequent generations novelty and nostalgia. As you know, novelty and nostalgia can overcome reason nine times out of ten.

When you hold a cassette, whether it be a VHS tape or an audio cassette, it is like holding a slice of history. If you are old enough to have lived with these formats it brings you back to earlier times and the memories they hold. Maybe you can remember those puffy white Disney VHS cases that were distinctively different and harder to store than their cardboard sleeved brethren. Or maybe you remember the mixtapes that took you forever to make; listening patiently to your favorite radio station for hours on end with your finger hovering over the REC button in case your favorite song aired so that you might capture it on tape forever. If you weren't old enough to live it perhaps you find novelty in trying to imagine what it would be like before the days of direct track access and perfect picture quality. Either way, it is emotion that keeps us tethered to these plastic-encased spools of tape. When you pop in a VHS tape and cue up that grainy low def picture you aren't doing it for the quality, you are doing it because it is fun. You watch the outdated previews, you remember how elated you were that the Feature Presentation was about to start, and how sometimes you had to stay put until after the credits for Special Features. The same can said of audio cassette tapes. Although cassette tapes COULD, under the best of circumstances, potentially rival other formats in sound quality I only listen to them now because it's fun and novel. Popping in a tape, watching the spools turn, having to fast forward and guess when your favorite track is cued up, it is just fun.

So I guess my only real defense for video and audio cassettes is that they offer the one thing that digital media can't, novelty. They give you a break from the mundane and impersonal nature of the MP3s or streaming video and allow you to physically hold the media from which you derive so much pleasure. You can pass off your favorite love-to-hate cassette (see also: Vanilla Ice) to your friend or you can loan them that cheesy low-budget horror movie on VHS. The best part of sharing cassettes? You can't just beam them through the net or share them on Facebook, you have to place them in the hands of the recipient. You have to say "Hello, pal. How are you? Here is a tape I think you would enjoy." Face to face interaction, how's that for novelty?

Buying Stuff I Wanted When I Was A Kid: Rocket Powered Edition

The older I get, the more prone I am to intense bouts of nostalgia. I will often see things that will cause my brain to reach deep into the archives and trigger memories and sentiments of my "golden years of youth". This feeling of nostalgia is kind of like a drug, somehow triggering the release of chemicals in the brain that cause a nice, warm, fleeting feeling of euphoria. So lately to get my fix, I have been indulging that nostalgic part of my brain by buying back my childhood one piece at a time. This, my friends, has its ups and downs. Because reliving the excitement of viewing The Indian in the Cupboard on VHS or Ghostbusters on Laserdisc comes at the price of having to own and store VHS tapes, a VCR, Laserdiscs, and a Laserdisc player. But because my nostalgic brain can scan back and remember how I loved the mounds of out dated electronics I used to hoard as a kid, it's just a nice little two-fer. However, the downside to buying back all the electronics, vintage video games, books, and movies of yesteryear, is having to painfully recount all the awesome things that I always wanted as a kid, but foe whatever reason, never got to own. But I am an adult now and I have adult money with no real supervision to speak of. That means I get to track down some of that crap and experience the wonder and excitement two decades later. And for some crazy reason, owning all this crap as an adult is waaaaaaaay better! R/C cars are faster, the outdated electronics are cheap as dirt, the weaponry is more dangerous, and you can compound the excitement of all this stuff with alcohol for a more dramatic effect. Next on my list: ROCKETS.

BOOM! Since the is no one to tell me I'm gonna burn my own face off, I'm finally going to  play with rockets. Today I strolled into Michaels, grabbed this bad-ass rocket starter set, and plopped a twenty dollar bill and a 40% off coupon on the counter and walked out of there with slice of reclaimed childhood. 

Yeah, look at that launch pad! And that controller! I am so hyped about launching this rocket. Not only because it's a damn rocket, but also because a coworker bet me he could skeet shoot a launched rocket out of the sky with a 12 gauge shotgun. I can't wait to see the look on his face when that tube of cardboard screams right past him into the atmosphere, laughing at him as it does. And I'm going to be over in the tall grass giggling at that dude like the dog from Duck Hunt. But that's the long and short of it, folks. Being an adult sucks more than half the time and you have to work for the Man as another cog in the gears of the complex economic machine, but you can finally afford to buy toys without having to beg, borrow, or steal. Plus, guns and/or booze can make all the epic childhood adventures that you would have had back then that much better. Coming soon: Pictures and or videos of the rocket launch of the century.

My face when this dude gets skunked