Author’s note:
Here’s a little thought-provoker while I work on, possibly, my most vulnerable piece yet… Big Boys Do Cry.
That’ll be with you within the week. In the meantime, enjoy this…
When I was a kid… back when dinosaurs roamed and phones had cords… my Mother bought us a VHS player. (Google it, Gen Z. It’s like Netflix, but powered by hopes, prayers, and a giant plastic brick called a tape. And no, it didn’t "buffer", it ate your favourite film.)
We had two tapes total. One for my sisters: Dirty Dancing. One for me: Rambo. That was it. No algorithm. No recommendations. No “Skip Intro” button. Just two chunky rectangles and a remote the size of a skateboard. That was the whole library.
We watched them on rotation for years. I knew every line of Dirty Dancing, and I’m not ashamed to say I still know most of them. “I carried a watermelon” lives rent-free in my head.
We were a working-class family from Dublin and it was enough. More than enough.
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