When I was in Fort Worth this last week I watched the Criterion Collection disc of "Dazed and Confused." I forgot how awesome that movie was. I truly believe it's highly underrated as a "stoner" flick. It's so much more than that.
I was born in the mid 70's so I didn't get to enjoy them as a teenager like I would have liked. Instead those prime years were happening in the nineties for me. A lot of people wish they could have grown up in simpler times, but my wish is that I could have been a young man in the 70's.
It was a strange time. The hanger-on's from the sixties counter culture kept the flow of drugs heavy well into the seventies, American car manufacturers were assembling the last of the true muscle cars, and Juvenile Delinquency was at a new high. As burnt out hippy parents gave a "don't give a shit" attitude to what there kids were doing.
It was a magical time to be a youth. The Vietnam war had ended and Reagan's war on drugs hadn't started yet. The free love of the sixties gave way to rampant VD scares and truancy was at an all time high.
I love the films of the era, and I think no modern day film captured the feeling of the 70's as well Dazed and Confused.
Fashion in the 70's was just plain ugly by today's standards but I love it all. That gaudy excess and extreme personification of fashion carried over to car and truck owners. Any regular visitor knows about my love of 70's good times vans, and what they represented. It wasn't only the van owners having all the fun though. Take a look at some of these custom Trucks of the era. Ugly to some, beautiful to me.
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