Every now and then, I catch myself saying or thinking something about “the new generation” that makes me sound…and feel ridiculously old. I had one of these moments just a few days ago, when it dawned on me that there’s a generation of kids growing up right now who will never need to know what this is:

Truth be told, I guess it’s been quite a while since Memorex tapes meant anything to anyone. But all I have to do, denizens, is look at this clear plastic with the funky geometric shapes, and I am:

• Sitting in front of the mini boombox that sat in the kitchen, waiting for my current favorite song to play on that evening’s countdown show, frowning in frustration when the DJ won’t stop talking over the song’s intro so I can finally hit record. That’s right…I was an old school music pirate.
• Dubbing records or asking friends to dub their records. But always remembering to record something silly or bizarre somewhere hidden on the tape before making the trade-off, whether it was the theme song from Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers or an original rap I wrote about a teacher at school (okay, this might’ve just been my friends and me).
• Hearing the music suddenly slow or stop and then panicking at the sound of crinkling cellophane, only to hit EJECT and see shiny brown tape now turned into a crunchy mess that spools all over the place and can only be fixed with patience…and a sharp pencil.
• Riding along in the back of the family car while listening to my latest mix tape. Playing on my Walkman. Through headphones with a differently colored cover for each ear.
• Snapping on the headphones and hooking the Walkman to my shorts so I’d have something to listen to other than the growl and roar of the mower while I spent the better part of every other Saturday afternoon, mowing lawns. So I could make enough money to go buy more Memorex tapes.
• Catching the familiar glint of sunlight reflecting off streamers of cassette innards, un-spooled and tangled along the median strip, or finding one of these discarded treasures and taking it home to fix it, and discovering that I’d found my first exposure to DC go-go. E.U., baby, all the way.

The mnemonics of Memorex. All right there. In indigo, fuchsia, and yellow. I see this tape and I think of all the artists I’d rip off the radio…Bobby Brown:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/P0FKzPfsxA4

That’s right, kiddies: Before the horrible reality show or helping Whitney destroy herself, he actually had a singing career! Also, if you want an overload of hot 80s mess? Watch this whole video. Yeesh. Or how about Fine Young Cannibals?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9wSn81dLK6s

Lisa Lisa? Took me years to finally figure out “Que sera que sera” thanks to her screwed-up pronunciation…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dxkbTG6PeCI

Escape Club?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eoLHrq3z060

Or what about Was (Not Was)? I never could understand why they wanted to walk a dinosaur…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zYKupOsaJmk

Good grief, but videos were bizarre back in the day. Maybe we can continue this in a future Flashback. For now, I’m just going to leave this here…for all you go-go-deprived souls…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Ypcs4c7ihSo

When you get that notion, put your back field in motion…