I'm the worst blogger in the world. My suggestion to you, dear reader, is to drastically lower your expectations of me, and whenever I feel like posting a blog you'll be pleasantly surprised!
Really, there are two things I wanted to post today:
1. My niece is the most awesome kid in the world, and this is coming from a non-kid person. She has the most fun personality and is so outgoing, and I have no idea where this comes from. My sister (her mom) was the shyest kid on earth, and I was a close second. My sister used to cry at the drop of a hat when she was my niece's age, and was scared of everything. Her husband was never a super-outgoing kid, either. So who knows? But I feel like I should document here some of the quirky things that she says and/or gets into. Not to be yet another grownup letting the internets know how cute their kid is, but because I don't want to forget these things. And she might get a kick out of reading them in 20 years, if we haven't moved on to posting on holographic spheres attached to our bellies or something.
So Scottlyn, my niece, like most kids, goes through phases of obsession. The earliest one I can remember her having was either Dora the Explorer or The Wizard of Oz. Dora was pretty fleeting; The Wizard of Oz lasted much, much longer. She watched the movie every day for several months, it seemed. She knew all the songs, all the words to the movie, practically. She got some ruby slippers, she had to have her hair in braids like Dorothy, and she got all the Wizard of Oz Barbie dolls (!) (didn't know that existed before then). We took her to see the live performance at Thalia Mara Hall, and even though we were in the nosebleed section, she still loved it.
From the Wiz she moved on to Batman and Robin. The Wizard of Oz, even though it was filmed in 1939, is kind of a quintessential kids' film. But when she developed her obsession with Batman and Robin, it wasn't 21st century Batman (who would that be, Christian Bale? Please). She went for 1960s Adam West/Burt Ward Batman and Robin. She watched the old shows over and over, and I think developed a crush on Robin. And why not? There's nothing like a trusty sidekick. The Batman thing lasted a while, even though it's not a typical "girl" thing to like. She is also very much into the whole "princess" thing too though.
Lately her affections have turned toward David Bowie. I think it started with my sister playing his music and then showing her some music videos. My sister has good taste in music so she has started early in educating Scottlyn on the classics. Scottlyn loves Queen, too. When she saw/heard "Under Pressure," all bets were off. Two of her favorite things together?!
Scottlyn also loves the movie "The Labyrinth," now, which kinda freaked me out at 9 when it came out, so now I really know that she isn't scared of anything. So she's totally head-over-heels for the Bowie. When her blanket went missing recently? #1 suspect: David Bowie. She really hopes Iman will croak (sorry Iman) so she can marry David Bowie. We don't have the heart to tell her that DB could be her grandfather. Hell, we're kinda hoping it happens (once she is of legal age, of course) so she can get all the loot when he keels over!
And for "Rock Star Day" at school, of course she had to be DB as Ziggy Stardust. I hope to be able to post some pictures soon, but trust me, it was the cutest thing, EVAR. She wants to be his "Labyrinth" character for Halloween. I have already told my sister I'd pay her good $ if part of the costume is a sock down the pants.
For Christmas, I'd really like to get her this Space Oddity book. But it's caught all up in some legal troubles right now, so for the moment it is called "Picture Book Set in Space." Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. In the meantime, I've fallen in love with Kolb's artwork. Isn't it so adorable and retro?
2. The second thing is a totally '80s kid nerd thing. Way back in 1989, yours truly was 12 and therefore not really ready or allowed to hit the wild parties at New Year's. I stayed home with my family, watching Dick Clark's "New Year's Rockin' Eve" and terrorizing my sister with the help of my cousin, who is just a year younger than me.
It was the end of the 1980s, and looking back, I swear we knew that it was the end of an era. There was no way the '90s (or the future in general) would be anything like the '80s, ever. For New Year's Eve, the local radio station was playing a "Mix of the Decade," basically nonstop "remixes" of every '80s song, ever.
Remixes were a big thing in the late '80s. Every pop song that came out on cassette single or 45 usually had a remixed version on the B side. Friday and Saturday nights on the radio were dedicated to dance-remix parties. I can recall recording a song off the radio, only to be disappointed later, "Aw, I didn't want the remixed version." Because, let's face it, as with any trend, sometimes people are doing things just to do them, because it's cool. And a lot of the remixes were really shitty. But! For an event such as New Year's Eve, 1989, it was totally cool to hear all these songs mashed up together for the last time that they'd be played as "music." Beginning January 1, 1990, it was forever to be known as "80s music." And you know that there's a difference. Nobody says "90s music" or "70s music," not really. But when people say "80s music," you know exactly what they are talking about.
So since I was at home being a nerdy 12 year old, I popped in a cassette and recorded at least an hour's worth of these mixes. The show actually went on from some time that afternoon until midnight. In the years to follow, I wore that tape out. As anyone who ever made mixtapes will tell you, the order of songs are burned in your memory if you listened to the tape enough. I don't know what happened to my tape from that evening, but I still expect to hear MJ's "Wanna Be Startin Somethin'" followed by Gloria Estefan's "Conga" followed by The Commodores. I just do.
Fast forward 22 years. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that was a long time ago! I'm running, training again for a half marathon, and bored to tears with my Ipod playlists. For some inexplicable reason, I start thinking about that tape from NYE '89, and "how cool would that be to have that mix to run to?"
The internet is magic, y'all. A flit of the fingers on the keyboard, and voila': WPLJ Mix of the Decade . And it took me a few listens to find out for sure, but this is the same mix that I recorded way back in the day. Around the 8:30-9:00 timeframe, which I got around to on my 6 mile run this morning, I heard the familiar order of songs from long ago. Hooray!
From the website:
Taped on TDK D90 (Type I) cassettes with Dolby C NR from 95.5 WPLJ-FM/New York by Ron Gerber. The "Mix Of The Decade" aired from 4 PM until midnight on New Years Eve, December 31, 1989. I managed to catch the last 6 hours and 45 minutes of the full 8 hours; I was taping Hot 97's Top Dance Songs Of The '80s countdown, and I switched from Hot 97 to WPLJ as soon as it ended at 5:15 PM. There are several breaks where I had to flip the tapes.
The Mix Of The Decade was put together by Hot Mix; from the Hot Mix website: "Before the start of the first weekly show of 1990, HOT MIX created an 8-hour program called "Mix Of The Decade 1980-89", which ABC agreed to distribute to kick off the new partnership on January 1, 1990. "Mix Of The Decade 1990-89" was distributed on Vinyl disc to over 100 radio stations."
I have never run across another copy of the Mix Of The Decade, and I would be very interested in a more pristine or complete copy; if you or someone you know has one please contact me through the contact link at www.crapfromthepast.com.
This is monstrously huge, and is utterly fantastic. Hope you dig it. -Ron
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A few things I noticed in this blast from the past, and then I swear I'll shut up and you won't hear from me for another 3 months:
1. All the shout-outs and well wishes for a Happy New Year to the NKOTB. People were seriously calling in to the radio station to wish Danny, Donnie, Jordan, Jon and Joey a Happy New Year. I forgot that this was when they were super HUGE. Of course, being a tween at the time, I was a huge fan. NKOTB was my first concert a year or so later.
2. Any runners out there who also like '80s music should really download this (you can DL it from the site above). It's a steady 120 bpm or so, shifts from song to song pretty quickly so your brain doesn't get bored. And it's from friggin' 1989.
3. I've only run across one set of commercials so far, but the ones I did were for the Navy, Doublemint gum, and Sears. Commercial jingles were very melodramatic in the late 1980s, apparently. I was nearly moved to tears with the thought of doubling my pleasure, doubling my fun with a stick of Doublemint gum. Ok not really.
4. There are several songs that I totally forgot about, or don't remember. Artists that were super popular at the time, I suppose, that didn't make it over the hump into the '90s and beyond. And there's a lot of pre-American Idol, pre-drugs-and-falling-over Paula Abdul.
One last thing
Ween proposed a jingle to Pizza Hut about 10 years ago, called "Where'd the Cheese Go?" - it was rejected. So they re-recorded the jingle. Here's both of them. (The second version is NSFW, by the way)
I friggin' love Ween.
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