1989, The Eagle Has Landed

In 1989 I was seven years old. I lived in a small city in the South and my biggest concern was running out of Hi-C juice boxes and riding my bike up hill to get home in the afternoons. I had a wild imagination and a curious mind that my parents could barely handle. I was always browsing our Encyclopedias and asking questions. I needed a hobby and soon enough I had fallen in love with Major League Baseball through the hype of the "Bash Brothers", and once I discovered the game's rich history I was hooked. It was a good start, but even at such an young age I always knew something was missing from my simple little life.

I have long been a believer that we all have "two births and two deaths". We have our actual birth & death, and we have the birth (or awakening) of who we are/who we are going to be, and the death of our illusions and innocence. Not trying to get too philosophical, but I think most people experience an event that changes them forever. An event that saturates their psyche and feeds them an outlet to channel their passion.

1989 was my second birth. It was a year full of events and happenings that opened doors for me and many of the influences that would shape my life. It was the year the Berlin Wall came down and tens of thousands of students protested democracy in China. I remember watching both events with my parents very clearly, in our den on our cabinet TV that sat on the floor, and those images inspired me to explore History and world culture... But 2 monumental films were released that year that truly sparked my imagination and burst the flood gates wide open on what would influence my life forever.  "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", and most importantly Tim Burton's "Batman".

I'm willing to wager if my father had a time machine he'd go back to June of 1989 and not take me to see Batman on the big screen. He had no idea what that movie was going to do to my young impressionable mind. I have very few memories from my childhood as vivid as that movie going experience. Anyone who really knows me knows my love and passion for comic books and history are only rivaled by the love for my family.

 I remember that creepy opening sequence like it was the worst nightmare I've ever had. The epic score begins over the "WB" logo and transitions to a spooky background before the camera pans down and begins a first person view  through a creepy, dark "maze" full of sharp turns. The credits roll and the camera just barrels through the "maze" like a train picking up steam before finally panning out to reveal a giant, carved out Batman symbol. I was glued to my chair. I remember being glad that my dad was with me. It was the first time just the two of us had ever stepped out to a movie together, and I honestly don't think I could have hand picked a better movie to see with him. But I was terrified. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew I had my dad beside me.

I love my dad. He really took time as I grew up to come down to "our level" and try to experience things with me and my brother as we grew up. I love my mother to obviously, and I probably take after her more then my father, but this is one memory I have so strongly attached to him that it just glows vibrantly in my mind when I think of it.

Tim Burton had no idea what he was starting. The Batman film truly revolutionized a genre and birth the modern "hero" block buster. Previously, Batman as a character had been horrifically trivialized in commercial pop culture with the campy 60's TV show, his Scooby-Doo appearances, and semi-lack luster comic writing in the 60's and early 70's. His roots were darker, and more in-depth as he faced off against truly terrible villains who weren't bent on a "master plan" so much as petty, reckless crime that all to often ended in the death of innocent lives. Tim Burton brought back that side of Batman and showed the mainstream that the "funny books" weren't really so funny. For decades now comic books in general have taken a darker, dramatic,more adult theme with complex character and plot development. They truly are literature. I'll contend till I die that some of the best fiction of the last 30 years lies between those glossy pages of colored ink.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with all of this... Well its quite simple. In my opinion 1989 shaped the next 26 years into what I know and love. It birthed so many historical events and monumental pop culture influences that I can't ignore its importance. Bands that would set the tone for the new decade (Nirvana, Offspring, Nine Inch Nails) and my formative years in middle/high school released their debut albums. I'm sure other people could write similar articles about other years, but 1989 was my year.

I would go on to earn a history degree and teach high school for a few years because of such events like watching the Berlin Wall come down and seeing Indiana Jones endure the trials of the Last Crusade. I became a comic book addict by the age of 10 and have read well over 30,000 comics in the last 26 years because Tim Burton had this wild idea to make Mr. Mom into a legend.  I got so heavily involved in my love for music in the 90's that sometime I catch myself flipping through old dusty CD cases like they're photo albums and remembering where I was, who I was with, and what memories are attached to each disc.

We all have a year, even if we don't realize it so strongly as I do. We all have a year that defines us so strongly that it just simply is the thread that binds the cloth we were cut from. Our mold. Our template. Our fuse that burned out and blasted us with countless personality traits and seeded countless of ideas and ideologies within ourselves that we will explore till we die. My year was 1989.

This realization was important to me and can be correlated back to who I am and my personal culture... Its all glued to one magical blip in history that was so brief and unassuming at the time that it passed right by me at first leaving a trail of crumbs to follow. And boy did I follow. 

I wrote this blog as an exercise to sharpen my own self awareness and to try and influence others to do the same. I'm naturally very empathic, so I tend to explore my feelings and instincts more than most. I want others to see what's really ticking inside themselves and the culture they've crafted. We all live in our own unique "day to day" world that's mostly influenced by who and what we decided to surround ourselves with, and that's something that I think none of us should ever become complacent with. I like knowing the origins of my passions, the lessons those passions have taught me, and how I've used those lessons to build my life.

Annnnnnnyways.... I hope my ramblings didn't confuse anyone, and as always, I thank you for reading! I hope my craziness was entertaining at the very least!