8Es

New bar in town that I've never been to--8Es. It's supposed to be some 80s retro bar; yes, that scene from Back to the Future has come true--we have retro 80s hangouts now. Or at least, we have places named as if they are retro 80s hangouts. I walked by there one day last week, and there didn't appear to be much going on that had to do with that decade. The music didn't even sound like stuff from the 80s. Maybe it was 80s Anthrax or something--I'll admit that my knowledge of that genre of music is lacking from that period, from all periods.

The people there, of course, did not appear to be folks who lived in the 80s, except maybe as toddlers and grade schoolers. My own 80s is tied up mainly in high school. Nothing really could take me back to it. I don't feel like I'm living in the 80s when I hang out with high school kids, and I don't feel like I'm living in the 80s when I am hanging out with people I went to school with in the 80s. We look so different, and our lives are so different, so much more confusing, so much more busy, so much more adult.

Perhaps where I feel the 80s most is in the music--and most recently in the music videos. The other day, I had the opportunity to see A-ha's "Take On Me" video. I don't know that I ever saw the video in its own day, but the song itself takes me back with ease. Add in folks with crazy 1980s hairdos (the band's long feathered hair, the girl's curls) and a video with a certain haze over the live action material to make it seem more glamorous, and oh yeah, you've got me.

But what do you have me in? Perhaps the reason I can only look back at the 80s with nostalgia, look back at it when listening to its music or watching films of the period I'd never seen, is that I can only look back at it with people in the 80s, people stuck in the 80s, forever, as they are on film. Life was a lot of trouble then. I was in high school, after all, and everything is trouble for a teenager. But it was also, when I look back at it now, much more innocent. A video like this could wow me, could make me dream. It still makes me dream, but in a different ways. I used to dream of the future. Now I dream of the past.