ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING PART VII: 
PRICK SPRINGFIELD 

I had so much trouble posting the screenshots from this one. They were really disorganized in my phone, and I think I inadvertently deleted a few of them, while a few others seem to be out of order. I blame my post-COVID brain fog. Whatever. 

This wannabe scammer kept stalking me on Instagram using various accounts, all of them purporting to be the "private" account of Rick Springfield. I got several notifications that accounts with names like therealrickspringfield and rickspringfield456 were now following me, and I'd block and report them every time, but then a day later another new fake Rick Springfield account would pop up and follow me. I mean what the hell, and why me? Creepy fucker.   

Below: notice how he ignores my comment about Nigerian scumbag scammers. Heh.

Below: Okay, this is where I think I must have deleted a screenshot or two, because he's suddenly talking about his "identification card." I asked for proof that he was Rick Springfield, and he sent a shot of a (fake) driver's license, but then he'd quickly delete it from the chat a few seconds later before I had time to scrutinize it. 

But below you can see I was eventually able to take a screenshot before he deleted it again. I blacked out the info, because while I'm sure this is not Rick Springfield's ID, the Los Angeles address on the card no doubt belongs to someone, and I wanted to protect the privacy of whoever it is. I also noticed that the ID lists Rick Springfield as 5'8" tall, weighing in at 120 pounds. Riiiiiiiiight. 

Below: fake Rick Springfield thinks I'm foxy. Funny coincidence, because....

....it's actually a photo of Rick Springfield's wife! 

I think I put my finger on why these scammers irk me so much; they're a special blend 

of stupid and evil, kind of like Donald Trump and his terrible children. 

Above: while I think Rick Springfield looks amazing for being 70+ years old, I don't believe that hair is real. No septuagenarian has hair that lush. It's gotta be a hairpiece--at least in the front--hence my wig comment. Still, as hairpieces go, it's pretty convincing. 

Wouldn't you agree?

Below: after I decline to show him an ID card, the guy vamooses, expressing doubts about my realness. Well, BYE BITCH! Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya! Then I blocked and deleted, natch.

While we're on the subject, I'm posting my favorite Rick Springfield song. The video is a complete mess, but Rick looks smokin' hot and there's no denying his fabulosity here. The song is from the 1984 flick "Hard To Hold," which is a really stinky movie and it should come as no surprise to anyone that I own it on DVD. Can't help it, I love me some '80s cheese. In Rick's memoir Late, Late at Night he wrote about how he knew "Hard To Hold" was a piece of shit and was so disgusted by the script that he threw it across the room after he read it, but then his agent said, "Dude, they want to pay you a million dollars," and then he reconsidered his opinion right quick. By the way, I definitely recommend his book, it's one of the funniest and most honest memoirs I've read. 

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"And I don't know which end to burn..."

I won't comment on any real world shit going on, because fuck it. We all know 2020 sucks. We all know everything sucks. 

So take a break from the bullshit and escape with me to 1985, a comparatively innocent, COVID-free time when Julian Lennon's debut album Valotte was riding high on the music charts in the US and UK and the first two singles, the title track and Too Late For Goodbyes, were in heavy rotation on MTV with videos directed by.....Sam Peckinpah. (Seriously!)

But the Julian Lennon track I'm most fond of is the less remembered and woefully underrated third single, "Say You're Wrong." It's not groundbreaking or anything, but it's a fun little song and video (this one directed by Tim Pope). The thing I love about this tune is that while Julian's vocals are of course very reminiscent of his father's, the song's melody is quite McCartney-esque, an observation duly noted by someone in the YouTube comments. Incidentally, another commentator remarked on Julian's "nice figure," like he's a contestant in a Star Search spokesmodel competition (hee!), but I kinda know what they mean. Julian is adorable in this and I'm digging the '80s northern English vibe with the hat, boots, and long black coat. What can I say? It's definitely working for him.

Aw hell, let's just stay in the mid-80s. Pretend like 2020 never happened. Sound good? Cool.

Here's "Valotte," my second fave and also a damn fine song.

And also, there's this:

Smash Hits could always be counted on to stick John Taylor on the cover.

Julian was a bonus.

RIC OCASEK 

:-( 

I've said it many times and I'll say it again: one of the things that really blows about getting older is losing idols from your youth. I'm not ready for that. Sure, Ric was 75 (75! That's weird too! My mom is 75 this year. And BTW how is my mom 75?) so you know, it's not like he was 30 years old and passed out with a needle in his arm or whatever, BUT STILL. I'm so not ready for this to keep happening. 

Probably my favorite Cars song ever, and the greatest video they made, IMHO. I love the part with the shoes escaping out the door. 

I know they got a lot of attention for You Might Think, with all the expensive visual effects and whatnot, but that song is so overplayed. And I got sick of seeing the video all the time. "Since You're Gone" is where it's at, man, and don't let anyone tell you different. Nothing compares to early MTV. That channel was golden circa 1981-1983.

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"Don't let it get me, don't let it get me, don't let it get me...."

Perhaps this is a little-known symptom of memory loss in aging Gen Xers: you start mixing up your Martha Coolidge movies. Then before too long, you're confusing Amy Heckerling movies. And by the time you get to where you're mistaking Say Anything for Singles, you're well on your way to an early Alzheimer's diagnosis. But I'm probably over-thinking this.

At any rate, I woke up with this song in my head the other morning and now I'm kind of obsessed with it. For some reason, I was convinced that it was featured in a scene from the 1984 Martha Coolidge flick Joy of Sex, where a horny teenage boy is seen pedaling a 10-speed bike down the street to his girlfriend's house, psyching himself up to get laid for the first time. The thing is, I don't know why I thought the song was from Joy of Sex, a movie I only had vague recollections of from clandestine late night HBO viewings as a preteen. Plus, Joy of Sex was pretty lame, so it's not a film that I would've sought out all that much back in the day. It's definitely no Valley Girl, which is the movie that Martha Coolidge is (rightfully) remembered for, because Valley Girl kicks ass. Better story, better actors, and a KILLER soundtrack. I've also seen Valley Girl like, WAY more times than I ever saw Joy of Sex, for all the reasons mentioned above. And, it starred Nicolas Cage back when he was still badass. Yes children, long, long ago in another time, another place, another dimension known as the early '80s, Nic Cage was really fucking cool. 

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Be still my heart.

I love this movie. Love it. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Julie, the titular "valley girl," flips out at her hippie mom for refusing to yell at her after she stays out all night. "Like, why can't you guys just punish me like other parents do?" "Bad karma, dear." I love that line. The hippie mom was played by Colleen Camp, by the way. I only recently found out that she was the same actress who played the sexy French maid in Clue. Random bit of trivia there.

But back to the rather joyless Joy of Sex movie and the song I was so desperate to find. I had no idea what the song title was, so I couldn't Google it. I could only remember the familiar refrain: "Don't let it get me, don't let it get me," along with the image of that preppy kid riding his bike down the street. Like I said, I was somehow convinced that it was from JoS. Why? I have no idea. But I did manage to find the full movie on YouTube, and decided to watch it the other day while I got some unpacking done. I found out a few things:

• Colleen Camp (hippie mom/French maid) was also in JoS but she was truly awful in it, horribly miscast in a "comic relief" role as a narcotics officer going undercover trying to sniff out all the stoners at the high school. It was a really dumb subplot that, like most of the movie, fell totally flat.
• Christopher Lloyd played the main character's surly gym coach father, and he was actually pretty funny in it. One of the film's few bright spots.
• There was this one part in the movie that my brain had somehow retained after all these years, although I was beginning to think I'd imagined it. It was a scene at a drive-in with a carload of teenage boys sticking their asses in the air and lighting their farts on fire while screaming "Blue flame!" Their combustible flatulence finally succeeds in blowing out the car windows, causing mass pandemonium among the teenage couples making out in the surrounding vehicles. Okay I'll admit it, that made me laugh. I'm not made of stone, people.     

And the song. The song! It was nowhere to be found in Joy of Sex. Frustrated, I Googled "songs featured in Valley Girl," but there was nothing titled "Don't Let it Get Me." There was, however, a Sparks song called "Eaten By the Monster of Love." I found a recording on YouTube, and yep! That's it. And it WAS in the bike riding scene from Valley Girl, after all. Why did I think it was from Joy of Sex? Early onset Alzheimer's? I'll be 46 next week. Still a bit young for that, but who knows? 

No matter. Here is the full version of the song, and it's all kinds of awesome. 

The only reason I knew the name Sparks is because of "Cool Places," that song they recorded with Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's, which also happens to be the jam. (Jane Wiedlin can do no wrong in my book.) Bonus! Here it is:

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"LIGHTS OUT! UH HUH!"

It's too bad this song doesn't get more love. I remember it being a big hit on the radio and MTV, although according to Billboard it only peaked at #24 on the Hot 100. The problem may have been that "Dancing in the dark," (the song's refrain) happened to be the title of another song that was also in heavy rotation during the summer of '84. You know the one. I will say that Peter Wolf's dancing is--ahem--pretty much on par with Bruce's (i.e. not very good), but Peter gets points for at least throwing in a few spins.  

"Lights Out" has been on my mind a lot since John hooked up the Amazon Echo to our new living room lamp. See, now instead of reaching over to pull the chain, I have to say "Alexa, lights out" (or on) and the device complies. John loves it because it's all space age and he's a techie. I'm more of a tactile type, so I've had some trouble remembering to keep my hands off the chain in order for the lamp to stay in sync with the commands. But my learning curve has had the added bonus of reminding me of this song, because every time I talk to the lamp, I hear "Lights out! Uh huh! Blast, blast, blast!" playing in my head. Weirdly enough, when I try to get Alexa to play "Lights Out," she pleads ignorance, telling me she can't find it. Thankfully, YouTube usually comes through in situations like these.

   

Of course, Peter Wolf is better known as the lead singer of the J. Geils Band. I like their work, but it's a bummer that most people only seem to remember them for "Centerfold." Personally, I much prefer "Freeze Frame." It's way more fun, and I adore that wacky ass video, a shining example of early MTV at its finest. But most people only know "Centerfold." Tragic. 

During the past week that I've been listening to "Lights Out," I recalled a few odd facts about Peter Wolf that I had to Google to make sure I was remembering correctly. The first is that he was roommates with filmmaker David Lynch in college. David didn't care much for Peter, because he found him too weird. Seriously! I mean, what a freaky badge of honor to be too weird for David Lynch. 

  

Another awesome Peter Wolf factoid is that he was once married to Faye Dunaway. Yes, Peter Wolf and Mommie Dearest were married! 

Don't make her angry. You wouldn't like her when she's angry.

Actually, they looked surprisingly good together, like your typical kooky bohemian '70s celebrity couple. 

I'm kinda digging the facial hair.

But they were only married from 1974 to 1979, which means they'd split up by the time Faye starred in Mommie Dearest. However, that does mean they were together when Faye made the epic campfest The Eyes of Laura Mars in 1978. If you've never seen it, do yourself a favor, 'cause it's a real hoot. You got a bunch of generic disco-era fashion models getting all nekkid and murdered, you have Tommy Lee Jones sporting David Cassidy hair, Faye runs through a warehouse shrieking "Donaaaaaaaald!" about 75 times, and Raul Julia hams it up with lines like "Ah, but YOU! Instant star in the world of chic!"

No decade did camp quite like the '70s.

But this is about Peter, not his ex. And Peter's pretty awesome. This is another forgotten gem, the title track from his 1987 album, Come As You Are. The video is similar to Janet Jackson's "When I Think of You," made to look like one long continuous shot, peppered with a few disguised edits to maintain the flow. Also, Peter appears to be hopping through the set of The Truman Show, a film that wouldn't be released for another 11 years. He was ahead of his time, that Peter Wolf.

  

Ooh, Heaven is a.....Psychedelic Furs song

You know how sometimes a certain song--in some cases maybe a song you haven't heard in years--just pops into your head and then you have to play it 75 times a day and then you go on YouTube and find the video (whoa, you didn't even know this song had a video, cool!) and you get completely obsessed with the song and you find yourself singing it in your head and out loud everywhere you happen to be....around the house, in the car, at the gym, to your friends and spouse and everyone who comes in contact with you....?

This week, this is the song that's been doing that to me.  

Apparently it's a song about nuclear war. But wasn't every song in 1984 about nuclear war? All the best songs were, anyway. 

"It's about planes flying over ready to drop bombs, nuclear bombs."

Is it me, or is Richard Butler giving off some serious Bowie vibes in this video?
I'm digging it.

Rescued From Obscurity: That OTHER Mariah Carey Christmas song

Okay now, deep breath. You ready for this?

I'm coming out of the closet as a Mariah Carey fan. Not that I was keeping it a deep, dark secret, but I wasn't exactly shouting it from the rooftops either. And we're not talking about, like, huge fandom. I'm a pretty low-level Mariah enthusiast, in that I own a copy of her debut album, as well as her MTV Unplugged CD, (remember back in the nineties when every recording artist who ever cut a fart got their own MTV Unplugged special?) and I have a copy of Rainbow sitting in a box somewhere, but I only bought it for "Heartbreaker," because that song is one of my all-time jams--really, I'm not even being ironic--I adore it unashamedly. I even dig the Jay-Z rap interlude, and I normally can't stand that shit. I'll admit that the video is cringe-y, with all the dialogue and the, ahem, "acting". Mariah is not much of a thespian, as anyone who saw Glitter can attest. Seriously Mimi, when Da Brat out-acts you in your own movie, you might want to rethink your dramatic ambitions. (Although I have to say Glitter is quite an entertaining campfest, and I highly recommend the Rifftrax version, too.)

I forget sometimes how much our girl has changed since her 1990 debut. John and I were recently watching one of those flashback music video shows on VH-1 (a Sunday morning ritual) and I got nostalgic over Mariah's cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There." Remember that one? I love, love, LOVE it.



I was getting all misty-eyed over the song, and I sighed and said to John,
"That was back when she still had her voice."

And John said, "I don't know who she is."

I was like, "Um, that's Mariah Carey."

John was taken aback. "Wow. She looks....different now."

Yep, she does.

I don't mind the plastic surgery--the nose and the implants and whatever else--I ain't mad at her, I think it looks good. But I so wish that she'd ditch the spray tan and the flat-ironed hair extensions and bring back her natural curls, dammit! Her hair circa 1990-1992 was fucking FABULOUS.

Work it, gurl.

And while I prefer her old look, I understand why she ditched the Mary Poppins squeaky-clean image and went all sex-pot in the mid-nineties. She'd just divorced old man Mottola, she was feeling her oats, and she probably saw herself in danger of becoming Celine Dion if she didn't give herself a complete career makeover. I get it. No one wants to be Celine Dion. 

But that's when she sort of lost me musically. I mean, although I love "Heartbreaker," most of Mariah's creative output post-1997 doesn't really speak to me. 

That said, I LOVE that she has fully embraced the inner bitchy drag-queen diva within, because her interviews and public appearances are often hilarious. 

There's that Jennifer Lopez "I don't know her" quote...

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Her batshit insane appearance on MTV around the time she was promoting Glitter, "If you don't have ice cream in your life, sometimes you might go a little bit crazy," which totally sounds like a Tommy Wiseau line....

Her (alleged) "Miss, with all due respect, I have my own problems," response to a fan letter from a little blind girl, which--calm down!--turned out to be a hoax, but it cracks me up because it totally sounds like something she would say. I'm probably a horrible person for finding that funny, but for the record, I'm pretty confident that Mariah didn't write that, number one because I seriously can't see her sitting at a computer, replying to fan emails, and two, I don't think she'd mention her sister's medical issues to a stranger on the internet. In the end she made it up to the little blind girl and called her on the phone and gave her free concert tickets, and all was right with the world again. Still, it makes me laugh. (I'm probably going to hell.)

And then there was that New Year's Eve kerfuffle, where she got "caught" lip-syncing during a supposedly live performance. (Was that really a year ago? Sheesh...)

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Although I wasn't at home watching the ball drop (heh) live on TV, I did see Mariah's lip syncing clips after the fact, and they were pretty embarrassing. If I remember right, I think she ended up blaming (New Year's Eve host) Ryan Seacrest for the whole fiasco. I'm not sure how it was his fault, but since Ryan Seacrest is the one responsible for putting the Kartrashian family on TV, I'm fine with him taking the fall for any and every major disaster that's happened in recent years. While we're at it, let's blame Ryan Seacrest for Hurricane Harvey, the California wildfires, the Trump presidency, and--hell--throw in 9/11 too. Fuck that guy. 

Yeah, Mariah's a bit difficult, but that's part of her charm. She's also an Aries, which makes so much sense. Aries people can be fun, but jeeeez, they're also exhausting.

Okay then, now that I've proclaimed my fondness for Mariah Carey and provided examples of both her awesomeness and her train-wreckery, it's time for the song, the whole reason for this rambling post.

It's called "Miss You Most (At Christmastime)." It's lovely and understated, sweet and heartfelt and sad, and it pretty well encapsulates my feelings for the people that I've lost over the years, particularly my Dad. 

Happy Holidays, y'all.

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Samantha Fox - "I Only Wanna Be With You"

Okay, I'm not even embarrassed by how much I love this one. 

Samantha Fox was more of a household name in the UK and Europe, but she managed a few Top 10 hits in the US during the late '80s. She started out as a topless Page 3 girl in 1983 at the age of 16 (okay, that's gross--but the age of consent in England is 16, so 16 in the UK = 18 in the US). At age 20 she "retired" from modeling and released her first record in 1986, Touch Me (I Want Your Body), an experimental, high-concept album that explored existential angst in the Reagan/Thatcher era (just kidding! It was bubblegum pop, of course). The title track shot to #3 in the UK charts and reached #4 in the US, which surprises me to learn--as I don't remember hearing it on the radio all that much--although MTV played the shit out of the video. 

Sam Fox in the "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)" video

I recall liking the song okay, but Sammy herself just didn't resonate with me at the time. Maybe because with her hair, the rhinestones, and all that denim, she looked more like a long-lost slutty Mandrell sister than a hip MTV starlet.

Who will get this reference?
Nobody born after 1980, that's for damn sure.

So then Sam came back in 1987 with a self-titled album and a new single, "Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)" (the girl liked parenthesis even more than I do). That song hit #3 in the US and the album itself was big in other markets--again, mostly in Europe and the UK, as well as Japan--they love blondes there, apparently. I had a French pen pal around that time and he and I would send each other mix tapes and magazine clippings; I remember he sent me a French fanzine and Samantha Fox was all over it, along with a cute 14-year-old gap-toothed pop singer called Vanessa Paradis, who became famous years later as the longtime paramour of Johnny Depp. Anyhoo, I found Sam's "Naughty Girls" song amusing, but not enough to buy the single or the album. I was happy to see that she'd hired a new stylist and was no longer dressing like a wayward Mandrell sister, though.

A subtle difference perhaps, but a big improvement.

Then in 1988, when I was 15 years old and entering my freshman year at boarding school, Samantha Fox came out with her third album. This time, I broke down and bought the thing because of this fucking song. It was a guilty pleasure and I couldn't get enough.

Not gonna lie, I still adore this.  

It wasn't an original, of course; Dusty Springfield recorded it first in 1963, then the Bay City Rollers did it in the '70s, along with a ton of other artists over the years (it's one of those old pop songs that tends to get covered a lot). But I have to say, I dig Sam's version the most.  

Looking at the video today, I'm struck by how, well, mature she appears. Samantha Fox was only 22 years old here, but in a lot of these shots she looks like someone's 40-year-old mom. She'd be the "cool" mom, though, the one who reads Jackie Collins novels and buys four-packs of Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers for her teen daughter and her friends, "as long as you drink it here at the house, girls. And don't get too tipsy, now--I don't want to get in trouble with your parents! Haha!"

Come on, I can't be the only one who sees it, right?

I also liked the title track, "I Wanna Have Some Fun," even though it hasn't aged as well as "IOWBWY". (In fact, it's a bit terrible.) Still, I have vivid memories of getting my groove on to that one at The Victory,* dancing in a circle with my friends, doing the white girl thing: feet planted, lots of hip swaying, elbow and shoulder action, along with the occasional hair toss. It's how we rolled in '88.

Samantha Fox is still a public figure, although she hasn't recorded an album in several years. Nowadays she mostly pops up as a guest host on Loose Women (basically a UK version of The View) and reality shows like Celebrity Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here. Although she was romantically linked to KISS's Paul Stanley (!) in the '80s, since 2003 she has been an out-and-proud lesbian and was in a long-term romantic relationship with her manager, Myra Stratton, who sadly passed away from cancer in 2015. Sam is apparently dating again, however, and has been pictured with new girlfriend Linda Olsen in recent months. 

Yay, I love a happy ending! :-)

*An under-21 nightclub in Evansville, IN. Do underage nightclubs still exist? I think they must be a relic of the '70s and '80s, since I can't imagine today's helicopter parents allowing their teens to shake their asses to raunchy club tunes til the wee hours of the night in a dark warehouse, with no adult supervision.    

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Graham Parker and the Shot

"Wake Up (Next To You)"

Recently I watched the Judd Apatow flick This Is 40, his middle-aged crisis comedy from a few years back. It wasn't very good. I didn't have high expectations going in, as Apatow films are pretty hit or miss. He's partly responsible for Freaks and Geeks, a show that I absolutely adored (though I suspect the real brains behind that one was writer/director Paul Feig, who truly is awesome). But I also enjoyed Forgetting Sara Marshall and Pineapple Express, which I seem to recall were Apatow productions. And of course I love Girls, another show he's partly responsible for. But the rest of his cannon....meh. 

The main problem with This Is 40 are the film's central characters; an unlikable yuppie couple and their annoying kids. And I'm usually willing to give unlikable characters a shot, because they are often--if handled right--among the most compelling. But there's unlikable and then there's unwatchable, and the central family of This Is 40 straddles a dangerous line between the two. I had a similar problem with Friends With Kids, which boasted a stellar cast (Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, Jennifer Westfeldt, Chris O'Dowd, and Kristen Wiig, among others) but the characters were so grating I literally only got through the first ten minutes of that one before pulling the plug.

Anyhoo, is all leading up to the only positive thing about This Is 40 that stuck with me, and that is Graham Parker, who is the focus of one of the movie's subplots. You see, Paul Rudd's character runs a struggling record label and he's busting his balls trying to promote Parker's latest effort, with little success. It jogged my memory; I hadn't thought about Graham Parker in years, perhaps not since around 1985, when the one song I'm familiar with was a very minor hit. The song is called "Wake Up (Next To You)," and it's a charming, bittersweet tune with a strong Elvis Costello-y vibe, and enough of an earworm that it's stayed with me after thirty years (which is really saying something). 

The video is pretty cool, too. And like I said, the song is something of an earworm. Good luck getting it out of your head--although it's a great song, so as earworms go that's not a bad thing.  

“And I laughed like I always do, and I cried like I cry for you.”

It's the summer of 1989, and I'm just shy of my sixteenth birthday. I'm parked on the floor in front of the living room TV with a pint of Cherry Garcia, keeping the volume painfully low so as to not wake my mom, who doesn't care how late I stay up but is an annoyingly light sleeper. Still, I'm determined not to let that interfere with my late night TV habit. I'm glued to Post Modern MTV, one of the shows that I live for during my summers home from boarding school (my other favorites are Late Night With David Letterman, Welcome Back Kotter reruns, and 120 Minutes--MTV's other "alternative" music show). Post Modern MTV is where I get to see the videos from the artists and bands that I worship, the ones deemed too quirky for the channel's daytime programming, which during the summer of '89 was saturated with the likes of Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul, Richard Marx, and Bon Jovi....music that (to quote the Smiths) said nothing to me about my life. Post Modern is how MTV redeems itself to viewers who prefer the Dead Milkmen to Debbie Gibson, and I drink it in like a fine wine cooler, eager for an antidote to the generic dance music and dull pop metal that ruled the mainstream airwaves at the time. Some of the videos that were in heavy rotation on Post Modern MTV that summer included gems like Tin Machine's “Under the God”, the Pixies' “Here Comes Your Man”, and Morrissey's “Interesting Drug”. And then one night they threw in this 4-minute slice of awesomeness that blew my mind.

Robyn Hitchcock himself introduces the video with a weird ramble about gardening tips (?). He comes off fairly eccentric and a bit cocky, which is pretty much what you’d expect from a post-punk British artist on late night MTV.  

I'd never heard of Robyn Hitchcock before, but I liked him right away and I loved this song. I didn't (and don't) know who the Balloon Man is meant to be, or why it’s presumed that his name is Bruce. Balloon Man may or may not be a metaphor for….something, probably sex or drugs or perhaps nothing at all. But check out the fun nonsensical lyrics and the goofy, student film-y effects in the video and just TRY not to love it. 

Bonus: a promo for MTV’s “Good News Bad News Contest” which I don’t remember at all (surprising, given the amount of late night MTV I was devouring at the time). 

MTV Turned 30 Today

Yep, the big three-oh. And since I’m an oldster, I remember the launch of MTV. I remember the cool promos with the rocket blasting off into the stratosphere, the little astronaut dudes planting the badass MTV flag on the moon and the DUH, duh-duh, duh-duh-dah-nah…DUH, nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah guitar theme music. The TV spots with the Police, Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, and David Bowie shouting into the camera, “I WANT MY MTV!” I also remember when the word “veejay” wasn’t urban dictionary slang for the female nether regions. You see kids, in 1981 veejays were a quintet of hip-yet-relatable twentysomethings consisting of Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, Martha Quinn (who I totally wanted for a big sister), and JJ Jackson.

The MTV veejays were well-versed in rock, new wave, synth-pop, R&B, metal, and even seventies stuff like Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones. Veejays interviewed bands, answered letters from viewers, and joked around with one other like real friends.

And then, there were the music videos.

Back in the dark ages, MTV used to play bona fide music videos. Yes Virginia, a long, long time ago, when the jailbait rednecks of Teen Mom were mere twinkles in the glassy eyes of their redneck jailbait parents, MTV was seriously playing music videos. Strange, wonderful, exciting and legendary clips like Video Killed The Radio Star by the Buggles, the Police’s Don’t Stand So Close To Me, and Duran Duran’s Girls On Film. In fact, this wild and wonderful all-day, all-night, all-music, all-the-time channel played so many videos that they also had time to play some really cool shit you wouldn’t hear on your typical Midwestern radio station. In addition to the hits, MTV would bring you lesser-known gems like Up All Night by the Boomtown Rats, Roxy Music's ethereal More Than This and Squeeze’s excellent Black Coffee In Bed.*

And then there was the queen of early MTV, Pat Benatar**. Who could forget her four-minute slices of awesomeness; clips like You Better Run, Promises in the Dark, and Precious Time. I especially like that last video, where Pat—after pensively tooling around the grounds of her obscenely luxurious zillion-dollar estate in an old-timey Rolls—gets so cheesed off at her layabout boyfriend that she not only shoves him fully clothed into a swimming pool, but also dumps his ass out of a hammock in slow motion—twice! It’s all very Dynasty, and Pat was supremely cool.

I loved her for being so feminine and yet so tough; you got the feeling that no matter what kind of man trouble she was having—and she never seemed to have a shortage of douchebags giving her grief (remember Love Is a Battlefield?)—she was definitely a chick who could handle her own (all five feet, tall 95 lbs. of her!) and still look super-foxy doing it.

So tonight, if you’re an aging Gen-Xer like me, raise a glass of your beverage of choice (mine is club soda because…well, that’s another, much darker story) and toast to The Way We Were. And remember that really, it’s no use lamenting the death of the music video. It belongs to our generation. Our music videos will live on in eternity through the magic of YouTube, and that’s almost better than our precious old-school MTV. Seriously, how cool is it to punch in a few words on a laptop and be able to watch Haircut 100’s “Love Plus One” whenever we choose, as many times as we please?

Pretty fucking rad, as we used to say.

*But it wasn’t all fun new wavy-ness and cool and exotic Europeans in skinny ties. There was also some spooky shit happening in some of those early videos, as I explained a while back. Especially that Split Enz clip. God love ‘em, but that video still freaks me right the fuck out.

**Isn’t it funny that once upon a time, a sexy pop star could be named Pat? Seriously, her name was Pat. Not even Patti or Tricia…just Pat. No dumb dollar sign in her name like Ke$ha, no gimmicky Gaga-esque moniker. Another funny thing? Merely by typing that sentence—just like that—I’ve entered middle-age. And that’s okay; I’ve had more than enough time to prepare. I’m already at peace with that realization. Don’t worry.