[Bucho]

"... what it's really good for is your kid's kids ..."

Dave NAAAAAAAAAILED it. I started interviewing (video podcasting?) with my Oma in 2002. I never knew either of my grandfathers, they'd died before I was born, so only had pictures and always wondered what they sounded like, what they moved like. When they were alive of course the limited tech made it way harder to shoot film let alone audio, but I realized I could let future generations of my family know their grandparents and great grandparents in a way so many of us Generation Xers never really could.

My Oma died in 2006 and to this day the most precious thing in the entire world to me is the videos I have of her telling stories of growing up in 1920s-30s Indonesia (a Dutch colony at the time), of what her parents were like, of being a POW for several years after the Japanese invaded much of Indonesia in WW2, of bringing up 4 kids as a young widow and new immigrant to NZ, etc, etc. She was a fucking badass and pure love to me and the fact I can hit play on one of these videos and see her laugh and hear her voice(s) is worth literally more than a babillion dollars.

I've been doing the same thing with my folks for over a decade now, doing half an hour here a couple of hours there a couple of times a year, collecting stories so that if the world and/or my fam still exists in 2068 and any of them have the same curiosity I did they have a beautiful option I never had. Not only that, only a witless imbecile doesn't live with the knowledge that any life can end in any moment. A peaceful, natural death at 96 is promised nobody. Once someone is gone there's nothing like video/audio of them to keep their spirit as present as possible.

So if you're lucky enough to have parents who are still alive and who aren't assholes and you aren't recording them like this, or at least convincing them to record themselves doing this, you're fucking up, not just for yourself, but for future generations of your tribe.


ETA: Sorry to hear about your friend/ex Keith. As soon as Chemda mentioned she's the loud laugh on your first album everyone assumes is Chemda I knew exactly what she was talking about. I love that laugh.