Tuesday, May 8, 2012

My Valedictory Address...Redux

Old school is the best school, hence the name Classic University. Classic is defined as something created that is generally considered to be of the highest quality and of enduring value. That’s why the older cars are called classics, older pieces of art…classic, older literature…classic, older music…classic. That brings us to University, which is an educational institution for higher learning!
When you add those two words together, (Classic University) it is my way of saying the Oldschool. This site will have news, gossip, sports, music and life from an Oldschool perspective. Why do we need that?

Nowadays everything is fast and furious, supposedly bigger and better, new and improved. Not from where I stand, the kids are crazier, the mothers are younger and the fathers are non-existent. The sports figures are celebrities and celebrities are gods, however they both stay drugged up and under arrest. And why does the average artist album have about 2 good songs on it. WHY?!?!

I know why, because today it’s all about the money, the mighty dollar. Gone are the days of playing sports for the passion of the game, making music for the love of the music, or creating art just for the creativity or the inspiration of it all. That’s why the world that we know today is watered down.

The NBA is full of overpaid crybabies that would not last two minutes in the NBA that I fell in love with in the 80’s and 90’s. Most of todays players are not fundamentally sound and they don’t know the game of basketball. Players these days are just very athletic and trying to get paid.

The beloved all American statistic driven Major League Baseball is full of athletes that are bigger and better…not because they work harder but because they have no problem cheating the game for the accolades or just to get paid.

The Music industry is all about the money as well. Records labels are about putting out a product that can sell units, not about the art of music or even the artist that composes the music. Some of the best artist and singers in the world do not have a record contract because they may be overweight or not attractive enough to sell records. So what happens? We the customers get a synthesized, over edited and a pretty much fake voice and fake product that we have invested money on…that is if you did not pirate the music in the first place!
And don’t even get me started on that. In the world of Classic University, if we wanted to pirate some music, we had to listen to the radio on a component stereo system (look it up on Wikipedia if you don’t know you young whippersnapper!!) put in a cassette tape, set the tape to record and hit pause and pray you were in the room when your favorite song came on so you could un-pause and record the whole song!! Then pray your little sister or brother didn’t pull the tape out of your favorite cassette tape and ruin it. I have spent a many a night sitting there with a pencil and a cassette tape turning, turning, turning and more turning to get the tape back in the cassette…yawldonthearmetho!!!

I tell you what, though…as a result I appreciated those songs, because I had to work for them. That’s how most things were back in the day, had to be worked for and earned so it wasn’t taken for granted.

This is also the reason why Classic University will be consistently fresh and new, because I will work for and earn your respect as a reader, fan, friend or whatever you may be.