Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I once read an interview with one of the pop members behind this hit. In the interview, he said (paraphrasing) the song was a hit because it had an odd novelty beat.
I’d always wondered why and how the song managed to become so popular and ubiquitous. That odd beat might explain it.
Here’s Devo with “Whip It” from 1980.
I was thinking about transitions that I’ve gone through. Like, I left the military, bought a restaurant, started going to college, got sick, lost the business, and went back into the military.
It was a hell of a year.
So, back in the military in 1980. It was a time of terrific music. I was stationed at Randolph AFB in Texas. I worked in the Command Post in the building that was called the Taj Mahal.
My uncle and his family were there, along with an aunt and her children, so we had a lot of family support there, and lots of good times. The time we were stationed at W-P AFB in Ohio and that time at Randolph were the only times we were near family.
We were only at Randolph for about twenty months before heading to Okinawa. But it was a good assignment, and there was some great music to enjoy.
Today’s music comes from a confrontation with a spider.
We captured and identified the master bath spider, verifying that it wasn’t a black widow. We relocated it anyway, because it was large, and it bothered me to stick my toes into its web in the mornings.
This morning, I addressed the big black widow web out back. Just off the patio, she used a bush and the hose cart as her anchors. I took it down with a broom with a promise to return with some peppermint spray. Spiders, it seems, don’t like peppermint spray. As we don’t kill spiders, we periodically spray peppermint to drive the numbers down and clear some areas.
As I went back in thinking about it, I imagined the black widow already planning to rebuild. I believe when she heard about the peppermint spray, she said, “Hit me with your best shot.”
Cue Pat Benatar. It’s stunning to think of this song as almost forty years old. Just imagine when our rock classics reach the century mark.
Fire away.
It’s a lovely spring southern Oregon day. The dogwoods are living up to their pink and white hype, splashing delicious contrast against the valley’s spring green. A day like this calls for a little metal. “Breaking the Law”, Judas Priest, is currently streaming through the cerebellum. It’s a direct cause and effect stream, triggered by watching drivers try to drive, while talking on their cell phones, eating food, and applying cosmetics. It’s a circus act!
Look at her, putting her lip stick on, weaving in her lane, speeding up and slowing down, breaking the law, breaking the law.
Look at him, wheeling that eighties era Chrysler around the corners, one hand holding a phone, the other holding a cigarette and hanging onto the wheel, breaking the law, breaking the law.
And look at her, meandering through the traffic instead of bothering to use crosswalks, forcing everyone to stop and wait for her, breaking the law, breaking the law.
Yeah, I got an uptight, fucked up mind.
Music about traveling always speaks to me. Between my father’s military career and mine, I moved forty-four times by the time I was forty. Besides moving, I traveled in the military, and then more while in marketing with Silicon Valley startups.
That’s the background. In the foreground, Eddie Rabbit’s song, “Driving My Life Away”, started streaming through me last night. I really enjoy the lyrics:
Well the midnight headlights blind you on a rainy night
Steep grade up ahead slow me down makin no time
Gotta keep rollin
Those windshield wipers slappin out a tempo
Keepin perfect rhythm with the song on the radio
Gotta keep rolling
Ooh I’m driving my life away, looking for a better way, for me
Ooh I’m driving my life away, looking for a sunny day
Well the truck stop cutie comin’ on to me
Tried to talk me into a ride said I wouldn’t be sorry
Oh, but she was just a baby
Well waitress pour me another cup of coffee
Pop me down jack me up shoot me out flyin down the highway
Lookin for the morning
That song, along with his song, “I Love A Rainy Night,” became part of my travel and streaming staples. He was another amazing talent, gone way too damn soon.
Thinking about how things change and stay the same, even while changing. Details change, but the broad sweeps of progress often take so long, we fail to see them. Perhaps, for some, it’s because we’re buried so deeply into the way things are that we can’t see the change from our vantage. Foremost among all of this, I was thinking about how the Democratic and Republican parties have changed. Once upon a time, the Republicans fought against the expansion of slavery. Now, they embrace white supremacists. It’s the same as it ever was, because political parties hunt the winds of change to develop a political advantage.
“Same as it ever was,” right? Here are the Talking Heads with “Once In A Lifetime,” from nineteen eighty.
Crazy, but that’s how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe. it’s not too late
To learn how to love, and forget how to hate
Mental wounds not healing
Life’s a bitter shame
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
I’m goin’ off the rails on a crazy train
You might recognize those lyrics. They’re from Ozzie Osbourne’s song, “Crazy Train.”
When I first heard it, it struck me as right. Craziness was, is, a subject that’s avoided. It’s considered a perjorative, and a derogative expression. Ozzie fully embraced it, starting with that maniacal opening laugh, and that welcome, “All aboard.”
The song fits these days. Caught between political rails, we’re riding a crazy train. Everything is politicized and amplified. Political discourse is healthy, but too many of us hang onto hate and the past, refusing to open our eyes and look around. We just keep riding this crazy train. Sooner or later, it’ll all go off the rails. When it does — if it does — I expect few mea culpas. All of us are blaming the others. Liberals, progressives, conservatives, neo-Nazis, Republicans, Democrats, white supremacists, slaves, refugees, religions, history, wealth, privilege, ignorance, poverty, disease and war…we throw the blame around, and hang onto our new world slogan: Never Forget.
We, of any ilk, are loathe to forget anything. On the one hand, we must remember to learn, and not repeat our mistakes. But we need to find that balance between remembering, learning, and moving forward. Of course, to move forward, an agreed upon direction is required. We fail agreeing on where we should be in ten years. And sometimes, we remember one aspect of history to the detriment of other aspects.
I can’t forget. I try. Perhaps I don’t try enough. For example, I can’t forget the last election for POTUS. I despise Donald Trump. He represents the world’s worst qualities to me. By extension, I have a hard time with his supporters. I don’t understand their support. They don’t understand why I don’t support him. They don’t understand why I can’t forget. But I can’t forget how Trump and other conservatives treated Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, long before this.
It’s not just politics, though. Old wrongs, bitterness, and resentment cling to me like cobwebs. I can never rid myself of them all. I try working and writing myself out of it. I bite my tongue, take a lot of deep breaths, and indulge in long counts to calm myself and move on. But I’m fighting the enemy I best know from longevity, yet one that I know the least. Because he knows me, too, and knows how to manipulate me.
Yeah, we’re often our own worst enemy. That’s how we end up on the crazy train.
Hey, it’s a holiday here in America, the one called Memorial Day. It’s a Federal holiday and pretty well accepted, so most will be celebrating it without protests or demonstrations and there will be plenty of Memorial Day sales going on, along with war movies. Although some consider it a very solemn day, and folks will be visiting graves and decorating them with flags and flowers, I think a celebration is required. What better way than with a song with Kool & the Gang called “Celebration?” After all, we’re celebrating their gift of the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our rights and freedoms.
From nineteen eighty.
Today’s Monday! Something peppier is required, something with a beat, something to move me through the hours of sunshine, from the chilly morning into the warm afternoon.
Responding to the request, my mind streamed a few songs. I settled on this hit by the Romantics. From nineteen eighty, here is, ‘What I Like About You’.
Yesterday’s theme music ‘Me and Mrs. Jones’ was dedicated to Tucker and his paramour from next door, Pepper. Today’s music centers around Meep.
Meep is the young ginger Tom we began feeding and sheltering. He started living more and more with us. His ‘owners’ moved away, leaving him to live with us. “He’s an outdoor cat,” we heard they told another neighbor. “We worry about him.”
No, he isn’t an outdoor cat. He loves curling up on a bed or chair and snoozing the hours away. No, they didn’t worry about him, or they would have known that about him.
A cat who likes gallivanting about doing good, Meep always does a grand entrance. They crack me up. Whether he’s been knocking on a window or door for entrance or we open the door to call him in, he gallops in. After executing a rub and twirl around my legs, he gallops across the room to the other side of the house. If he’s going from back to front, his dash ends with a majestic slide across the hardwood floor.
As a spectator, theme music for these entrances have come to me and I’ve started singing it to him when he performs. The song is ‘Flash’ by Queen, from the movie, ‘Flash Gordon’, 1980. Of course, I sing, “Meep,” instead of Flash. It pleases him. He knows he a Flash and that he’s saved every one of us. And when Freddie sings about Flash being a man, the words must be changed to cat.
Michael Seidel, writer 