So the artist formerly known as Prince who renamed themselves S then became Prince again died recently. I heard that in an interview he expressed some jealousness at the current generation’s freedom at having the means to produce their own artistic work by themselves thanks to technology such as GarageBand and YouTube video posts. Even now, one may find homemade music videos posted on YouTube and original live action dramas in a variety of genres from Star Trek spin offs and Steampunk serials to German teen soap operas and gay situation comedy shows.

     In light of a fantastic Doctor Who series episode “Time Heist” and noting the mistakes made by Jake in the TV mini-series “11.22.63” based upon the Stephen King novel of the same title which starred co-producer James Franco, has me imagining what I would have done if I had access to today’s technology when I was a kid.

     What would I do with a drone in 1986, a 3D printer in 1983, GoPro in 1980, or borrowing infrastructure support an iPhone 6+/Samsung Galaxy S6 (or to date S7) in 1988?

     Like Prince, I am rather jealous of kids today who have access to just such sophisticated toys. But what upsets me most is the lack of content produced by kids. Do not get me wrong; there are plenty of mobile phone videos of pranks done in classroom, school yard brawls, screen captures of video gameplay, and the random juvenile antics e.g. dropping Mentos® tabs into 2-liter soda bottles. What is missing, or I am unable to find, are videos of kids playing, almost in the LARPing sense, the way some of us had done when we were kids.

     When I was a kid, my friends and I had all sorts of fun playing anything from Space Fighters and Jules Verneian-themed ventures exploring the earth’s core to James Bond secret missions and Indiana Jones-like expeditions.

If you will indulge my reminiscing a moment.

     One activity I particularly enjoyed was re-enacting the mountain climbing scene from the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only”. We played this on a hillside near the home where I grew up. My friends Eli and Reggie would scale the “mountainside” taking care not to be seen by the KGB agents at the top while we carefully hammered in our support for the climbing rope. Of course, in real life, the “mountain” was large, high mound of dirt that spanned half a block, later leveled with a nearby sand-dunes for a residential housing development. The rope we used was not for climbing but better designed for tying down heavy tree branches in the back of a car.

     Another, more serious adventure we had was our almost weekly weekend exploration of The Lake -- a lagoon in the middle of a local golf course. During the tenure of our adventures, there had existed a homemade boat, consisting of a wood planks tied onto to four empty metal barrels, that we used to explore the lagoon. Punting our away along, we conducted science experiments, measuring acidity and studying microbial life using our kid starter chemistry kits. In part, I sometimes imagined having to evade villains such as in the classic children’s adventure tale Swallows & Amazons.

     Oh my word, if only I had a drone back then or video camcorder to vlog our adventures back then. -- Yak!

     Sometimes I think I was born too early, or wish the technology of today was around and accessible back then: the movies I could have produced with iMovie and GarageBand alone.

     Yet, today, I see nothing like that on YouTube. I am under the impression that kids today lead dull lives and the most adventure they have is walking to & from the refrigerator between pause playing their video games.

     Do kids play anymore? And if they do, then why don’t they record and share their stories or adventures?

    People like Chris Hoyle do not count because they are proto versions of Devin Graham or will later produce Doctor Who spin offs like the South California group who produced the Star Trek Dark Frontier series.

P. S.  After original posting of blog entry, the closet I have discovered to date that are distant approximation of what I seek are the “battle brawl found here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY_IUs1GhQM and kids engaged in what is called ‘urban exploration’, which is done by adults as well, one good example is this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sB34TMddhg