Paranoimia: The Art of Noise

Max Headroom was the man!

Being the poster child for the 80s Computer Geek kids, I absolutely loved Max Headroom. What’s not to love: a computer generated personality, several David Letterman appearances, a music video host. OK, so it’s best to forget about his whole association with New Coke, but everyone’s allowed their screw-ups now and then.

I got this single simply because it had Max Headroom in the video. He sings (well, really talks) through out the song. The chorus “paranoimia… paranoimia, paranoimia” over and over again gets stuck in your head like a whole set of china.

Cry: Godley and Creme - It was the Cremiest and Godliest

Artist: Godley & Creme

Song: Cry (remix Version)

Produced by: Tervor Gorn and Godley & Creme

Remixed by: Nigel Gray

From the Polydor Album The History of Misc Volume 1

B Side: Love Bombs

Label: PolyGram Records (Polydor)

Year: 1985

Duration: 3:55 Minutes

I was the only guy I knew in tenth grade who loved this song, let alone had even heard of it. I remember seeing this video on MTV, either at the beach or at one of my friends houses, and was haunted by the melody. It was just so sad, and it struck a chord with me. The video was sad as well: face after face, morphing into one another (pre-computer morphing), all just simply singing the lyrics of the song. I ran out and got the single, but I’m not sure where I could have found it, maybe at the record store in Dover Mall. I specifically rememeber watching the video at the beach one summer. Only a couple of my friends who lived in town had cable back then.

iTunes didn’t have this song listed a couple of years ago, but it might now. I added Godley and Creme to my Yahoo player favorites, hoping done day it would come up in the rotation. It finally did, a couple of years later, while I was at work. I marked it as a favorite and heard it once again a couple months later. When I finally get an iPod, this’ll be one of the first songs I get.

This is the first of my 45s I’m throwing out. I’ve got to admit, I’m a little sad parting with this. But here it goes, in the trash with it.

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps

Green Lantern was one of my favorite characters from Super Friends (even though he didn’t get much screen time.) I bought this comic because the cover was so interesting. All these Green Lantern’s decked out and flying through space. From Superfriends, I knew Green Lantern was part of a bigger organization: The Green Lantern Corps. Kind of like an intergalactic police force. But I don’t think the cartoon ever showed any other Green Lanterns, besides the origin episode where Hal Jordan gets his ring.

Although the cover was great, when I started reading the comic, I had no idea what the heck was going on. All these characters and back stories, I didn’t know what to make of it. I bought a couple more of these, but was never able to make heads nor tails of them, but it’s still a great cover.

Popples: Those characters from Cleveland

Popples, those loveable stuffed animals you could fold up into a ball and kick around the house. I never cared for Popples too much. I bought a couple of these for my cousins, but it was the first round of Popples, not these. I don’t really remember these ones at all:

• Punkster Popple and Punkity Popple (together they’re rock ‘n roll kick ass fun!)
• Those micheivious Baby Popples
• Puffling Popples hid a riddle in their pouch (Yikes!)
• Popples Sport Balls’ Big Kick Popple, the soccer superstar

Pompous Imperial Commander

This action figure reminds me of the dismay I would feel as a kid when I had a couple bucks to burn in my pocket and went to the store, only to find all the action figures I really wanted weren’t in stock. Imperial Commander was never on the top of my want list, but I thought it would be neat to have him boss around stormtroopers and stuff. I don’t remember buying him. I usually made him run and hide when epic action figure battles were raging. He’d poke his head out every once in awhile to issue a condescending order, then duck back under cover.

I paid $2.99 for him. The price tag has YDC on it. I’m not sure what that meant. With this wave of figures, they dropped the description of the toys, and went with this tagline instead: Look for these exciting action playsets to recreate actual events from the movie. Action Figures & Playsets sold separately. This one has the same back and YDC price sticker as Leia (Hoth Outfit) figure.

Toys advertised on the back of the card were the Snowspeeder, Mini Rigs, Tauntaun, Turrent & Probot Playset, AT-AT and Imperial Attack Base.

Leia’s dressed for winter

Leia (Hoth Outfit) was from the second line of Empire Strikes Back action figures. I had waited through the first line of figures, hoping the would come out with a Hoth version of Luke, and was disapointed when he wasn’t in the second line. I wasn’t crazy over spending my hard earned allowance on a Leia figure and there was never a shortage of her on the shelf. Sometimes I’d manage to find a stash of figures hidden at the back of a store, and they would all turn out to be the Leia figures no one wanted to buy.

I did like the smart outfit on this Leia. I mean, who doesn’t like a peach vest over a snowsuit, with your hair up in a tight bun. Very stylish.

The price tag had YDC on it, and a price of $2.99. It looks like I bought this at the same place I bought the Imperial Commander. Made in Hong Kong.

FX-7: Medical Droid

This was one of the coolest figures. I still remember poaching this one from the back of the drug store’s stock room. His head could go up, down and swivel around 360 degrees. His main arm could swivel around 360 degrees too, and he had nine or ten other arms that poped up from his sides. I was really excited to find this figure. It was one that was a little harder to find when it first came out.

FX-7 was just so different than any of the other action figures at that time. Like most of the other cool figures, he was only in Empire Strikes Back for about 30 seconds. He would always manage to fix up my other action figures after a big battle. In my imagination, FX-7 was a caring, but misunderstood robot who couldn’t talk.