“In a New York Minute, everything can change, In a New York minute, things can get really strange.”
-Don Henley on New York Minute
This past week, I decided to dig up some old tapes that I had. Now, these tapes ranged from this TV show I used to watch that was called El Chavo Del Ocho, Vicente Fernandez concerts, as well as Alejandro Fernandez concerts, and also old wrestling tapes. What was surprising was that I also dug up some old Christmas tapes as well. I was thinking in my head that this was everything was simple and technology had not advanced. The reason we use the technology we have now is because it is convenient and accessible. Everything is so different than it was 3 or 4 years ago when I was still taping things on a VCR. I was surprised when I especially found the old wrestling tapes and the amount of wrestling I had on there was stupendous even to me. I found stuff I don’t even recall taping such as this street fight between two very accomplished wrestlers in Edge and Shawn Michaels. I thought about what was going on in my life at that time. I remember I was still in my Junior in High School and I was engaged in reading Catcher in The Rye. I was also busy trying to get ready to pass my license test that I prepared for at least 3 months in advance (taking into account that this was in February. I was astonished that watching the Christmas tape as well as to how much of a spoiled little kid I was. I wasn’t proud of what I saw on the tape because I was trying to get all my presents first before anyone else. I was hogging the camera spotlight trying to be something I wasn’t. I also saw myself in the tape speaking English and Spanish, yet Spanish was not as advanced as English. I look back on that and see how much things have changed since we had that Christmas in 1997. That was one of my favorite years in my life as many great things happened that year to make my life a pleasure. I had my mom, my dad, my brother, my uncle, my aunt’s husband, my uncle’s wife and his kid, my other uncle, his wife, and their daughter, and also our next door neighbors there as well. That was one of the last times that we were all together as we have kind of drifted apart to different parts of the the San Jose area, and/ or moved away to Mexico due to economic circumstances. I was also happy to watch some parts of a El Chavo del Ocho tape I found too. When I started watching El Chavo in 2003, I had just moved to the West part of San Jose and I had little to any hope of actually staying in contact with my old friends from the old apartments. I completed my first year of high school at Homestead High School and that was the only time I got to see them. However, when I would take the ride home it was fun and exhausting because most of the time I would take two buses to my house and I remember being a little tired from starting at 7:30 in the morning to almost 3 P.M. I didn’t have anybody to talk to when I got home but I just remember the year before, my mom and I went to Mexico in August of 2001 and this show came on that was both funny and educational. My Grandma, myself, my mom, and my grandma’s brother would watch the show when it would come on at night for about a week or tow before we had to leave. I always laughed the hardest when Chavo would would say something dumb to Don Ramon and Don Ramon would hit him on the head. I also laughed a lot whenever the kids (Chavo, Quico, Chilindriana, and Nono) would cry for whatever reason. I was amazed watching the show because it taught me a lot about comedy and how it doesn’t need to involved sick,crude jokes, and it doesn’t need to involve cuss words to bring about humor as well. I was a little sad when we had to leave to come back home because I didn’t know if I would ever watch the show again. Well, one day I was flipping through the channels and I saw El Chavo on and I started watching it a bit. There wasn’t much of a choice as to what I could do because my friends had were now away from me. I thought to myself ‘hey this is pretty funny’ and then I had the idea of taping the show which low and behold I ended up with 12 tapes of El Chavo del Ocho, which, I told my dad were for sort of a time capsule from a period in my life. I can say that recording those episodes were apart of what got me through the early part of high school because I looked forward to see what the antics would be Don Ramon, Dona Florinda, El Chavo, Quico, and the rest of characters as well. Watching the concerts a bit also surprised me because I forget I had even recorded some of Don Vicente and Alejandro Fernandez. But, above all the wrestling still shocked me when I found some stuff that I don’t recall taping at all. For example, I found a match with the legendary Ric Flair against a guy that was supposed to be one of WWE’s future stars in Carlito. Now, granted Carlito never made it huge, and rightfully so being a wrestler with a “bright future” does not guarantee anything and yet he still managed to have a wonderful match with Flair. I still get a bit of nostalgia when I think of a live event I went to here in San Jose where these two put on almost a similar match yet the one on TV went a bit longer. After watching a few matches, I realized that taping stuff (whatever it may be and NOT on a DVR) really makes you think back and say: I remember that or ‘I taped that, really’? I felt better watching those because I realized even with stuff we have now, it is simpler, yet our kids will never know that we actually had to sit in front of a TV to wait for something to come on. It feels better to wait for something to come on because it is that much sweeter and much more satisfying. We have everything at the touch of a button now, or we have phones that can bring food to your house, and we also have the ability to pay things electronically instead of actually paying it in person. It’s not at all bad, yet some things were better when we had the ability when we could actually do things in person. It goes back to the whole Facebook argument in that we don’t have to see these people face to face we just have to send them a message and then they’re our friends. I’d like to end this by adding that if “Life wasn’t a challenge it wouldn’t be fun” good day to all (Go A’s):
Just Another Day... 