That Old Satellite

As a self-respecting cinephile, I don't divide my attention between movies and anything else. If I'm watching a movie, it's in a dark room, with headphones if I don't have a good sound system/environment. I certainly don't sew or text or play video games while a movie's on. The only exception I make to this rule is Mystery Science Theatre 3000. A show I started watching in junior high school, in the early 1990s, MST3k is a show about a man and two robots showing outright disrespect to bad movies. I don't usually sit down and give it a dedicated viewing anymore but I like to have it on as atmosphere when I'm cooking dinner. I've been doing that for years. Last year, I discovered something really marvellous. On YouTube, people have been uploading "Broadcast Versions" of the series. That is, people are uploading their old VHS recordings of episodes complete with commercials.

I haven't had a TV with channels since 2013, and even then, I hadn't watched regular television for years. Listening to these broadcast editions, I'm reminded of a time when they were a normal part of life. When stars could come out of commercials, like Rebecca Gayheart became a star after appearing in Noxzema commercials. They were such a normal part of the public consciousness.

There are so many '90s movies I've totally forgotten about that I see trailers for on these broadcast editions. A few days ago, I saw a trailer for a stupid comedy about a kid and a gorilla called Born to be Wild. I noticed Peter Boyle's name in the credits and I thought, "Wait, he's dead, isn't he?" before I remembered I was watching a commercial from 1995.

Maybe it's bad I'm indulging in such nostalgia. I guess it's pretty Japanese. People love nostalgia here. One of the most common words I hear people say is natsukashii, "How nostalgic!" It reinforces my feeling that I'm not exactly homesick but timesick. I don't want to go back to San Diego where gentrification is gutting parts of town I liked and other parts of town are getting boring, ultra-expensive restaurants. I guess you can never go back home again. But you can see it on YouTube.