Friday Flashback: Funkin’ for Jamaica #OldSchool

Warning: This song features a real singer with real musicians. No autotune. No synthesizers. No “DJ Samples”. Just original music, by real people with actual talent. This video was featured on MTV when it only featured music videos.

I love this song, Funkin’ for Jamaica (NY), by Tom Browne (circa 1981). It features 2 of my favorite instruments: The Trumpet and the Bass Guitar.

Friday Flashback: Run DMC and Aerosmith

#BackInTheDay, in the 1980s, before #autotune made the voices of the untalented tolerable…when MTV actually played music videos…and guys walked around with boom boxes that played tape cassettes  (a relic from the 80s)…and girls coiffed their hair into gravity defying sculptures…and Dynasty and Dallas rules the TV airwaves , the music was so much better.  This collaboration by Run DMC and Aerosmith is one of the BEST in the past 30 years.  This song united hip-hop heads, and hard rockers.  I miss good music.

Ratchet or Refined: Old School Paper Weekly Planners

20130502-035746.jpgDear 1993, you left something behind. Perhaps space and time folded at some point over the past month, creating a “worm hole” like something out of Dr. Who or Star Trek (the “Next Generation” series of course) through which this relic fell into 2013. However it happened, I cannot figure out why paper planners are still being sold in this day. I mean, given the progressive evolution of phones and other technologies over the past 20 years, it was surprising to see this in the aisle of my local office supply store last week.

Who uses even uses a paper planner nowadays? My 87 year old granddad has a planner, but he uses it to write down phone numbers (don’t ask why he won’t use an address book…long story). But outside of those who are Octogenarians or older, who still uses a planner? Smartphones are all encompassing communication/entertainment/organizing tools. They make up over 80% of the mobile market in the US. Online and e-mail calendar tools like Google Calendar and Outlook are available to those who are still have flip phones.

Some people are traditionalists though. Like those who avoid Kindles and other e-Readers, instead preferring to turn the pages of a real book. Maybe these are the people who by paper weekly planners. Or perhaps, Staples keeps them around for the 70, 80 and 90+ year olds like my grand dad.

So, as I stood inside the office supply store last week, stunned, but amused by this paper weekly planner, I asked myself…is this ratchet or refined?