Josh Kraus: Special 25th Anniversary Edition

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yep. On June 20th, or rather in approximately 45 minutes I will be twenty five years old. Of course, it will likely take me that long just to write this blog, so it really won't be 45 minutes till my birthday by time I am done writing. And chances are you will likely be reading this long after I have turned 25. That or someone from the future is actually reading this from the year 2124, at which point I will likely not be 25, and will instead be dead. Unless of course we have invented some way to cryogenically freeze people before I kick the bucket, at which point maybe I won't be dead, I'll just be locked away in some fridge somewhere awaiting some horrifying science experiment likely to be performed on my helpless, unconscious body; or better yet, perhaps my frozen remains will be displayed on the walls of the futuristic alien lifeforms that will invade our planet in the distant future to steal our natural resources. At least if that happened I'd get to go out looking like Han Solo frozen solid in Carbonite ala The Empire Strikes Back.

But I digress. I realize that so far this blog has yet to find some purpose or meaning, and let me tell you right now if you are still reading this in the hopes that I am going to reach some sort of philosophical understanding of what it means to be 25, or a symbolic reminiscing of some of my past life experiences then go ahead and drag your little arrow cursor to your browser's "X" button and click it. I have no real purpose, no real goal, and no real outline for why I am writing this blog.

So why write it then, you ask? (or if you didn't I am just going to imply you did to simply begin my point). Well, because for one I haven't written anything in a while. Two, I think the Diablo III servers are currently down, and C. because writing is very much a part of me and so whenever something supposedly important happens like growing a year older, I feel it's always a good way to start that year out by writing something. Even if it's pointless drivel like I am writing now. Besides, I recently had to pay 15 bucks to keep my domain name so I guess I should get my moneys out of it.

Before I quit writing this I feel the need to share something with you. I guess watch this video first and then we can have a little powwow about it afterwards.

Yes, I just posted a music video from the 1980s. Yes, it's Alphaville's "hit" single Forever Young. No, I am not gay. First off let me just say that for the longest time I thought this song was sung by Phil Collins. I don't really know why I though that, but I did. And the strange part of this is that I actually didn't mind this song when I thought it was originally sung by Phil Collins. But now that I know it was sung by some much more fruitier 80s band, it's made me more or less despise this song.

And then I watched the music video.

I just watched this for the first time about five minutes before writing this blog, and after watching it I felt like I had to write about it. There's just so much to say about it, that I am not really even sure where to begin. To put it mildly, this music video just sort of reeks of the 80s. The ridiculous falsetto singing. The overly done makeup and mascara'd face of the singer. The red and white jumpsuits that make the band look like they'd be better off landing a spacecraft on mars then performing a song in some building. And let's not forget that hair. Sometimes I think everyone was on drugs during the 80s. Why are they playing in what seems to be an abandoned church? Why are the non-band people so impressed by this sub-par, crappy, mainstream 80s group? Why does the one old dude have, what appears to be, bird fecal matter on his face? Why is the band faking to play two separate pianos, when all the music is clearly being mixed by a synthesizer?Why does the whole group walk through what appears to be a cardboard cutout of a diamond ripped directly off of a playing card? So many questions that will never be answered.

But maybe that's for the better. Maybe turning 25 is sort of like this terrible music video. You can't really ask logical, intelligent questions like Why? or How? or What's the point? Instead, it just sort of exists. Just like turning 25 just kinda exists. We can't really question what's the point of it. Instead we just sort of need to accept it. Minus the whole falsetto voice thing, and wearing jumpsuits that were made for wrangling space cattle on the moon, that is.

- J.D.K.