Thoughts on Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston’s death is incredibly sad, and it has an added shock value for us oldsters. This point has been driven home for me in the weeks since her passing, particularly when talking about Whitney with my younger friends. Most people under the age of 30 seem to only know Whitney as the tabloid “crack is wack” train wreck she became in the last decade, which is ironic considering the cheesy, churchy, “America’s Sweetheart” Whitney of the 1980’s. In a decade marked by decadence, the harshest chemical Whitney Houston was publicly known to ingest back in the day was Diet Coke.

Sheesh. It doesn't get more eighties than this.

I confess that I was never much of a fan, especially in her early days. In fact, when Whitney Houston burst onto the music scene in the summer of 1985, I didn’t pay her much notice. Between her first single You Give Good Love and the cover of her debut album, where she’s made up to look like Sade (a “lite jazz” singer from that era whose voice and musical arrangements put me right to sleep), Whitney Houston didn’t have a lot to offer a girl like me. She seemed way too adult contemporary and—even at the age of twelve—I was well on my way to becoming a new wave freak, obsessed with bands like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, a-ha, Blondie, and pretty much anyone else I read about in Star Hits magazine (my Bible).

Then about six months later, Whitney’s single “How Will I Know” exploded, she won like 80 Grammy awards, and suddenly there was no escaping her. Seriously, the woman was EVERYWHERE. My opinion of Whitney and her music went from mild indifference to outright revulsion. Her scream-singing on “How Will I Know” drove me up the damn wall and MTV played the song’s cutesy, annoying video every twenty minutes. And then—to add insult to injury—her next single, a ridiculously corny, faux-inspirational turd called “The Greatest Love of All” was even more loathsome and ubiquitous. When those two songs hit it big, Whitney’s record company appeared to ease up on the adult contemporary angle and began heavily marketing her to girls aged twelve and up…which happened to be my demographic.

To be a middle-schooler from 1986 to 1988 meant that I was surrounded by girls who were absolutely crazy about Whitney Houston. She particularly struck a chord with the kind of girls who did well in school and were active in their church youth groups, the same girls who swooned over Richard Marx ballads, grooved to Debbie Gibson, and insisted that George Michael was “way too cute” to be gay (!). Basically, Whitney Houston was for girls who were Not Me. She was a squeaky-clean, All-American pop princess who was apparently too pure to even go on a date. I remember reading a quote from her in a magazine where she said something about not needing a boyfriend because she had Jesus, or some such horseshit. That was exactly the kind of crap that made me roll my eyes, plug into my Walkman, and retreat even further behind the tattered copies of Star Hits I kept hidden inside my textbooks. I stared at pin-ups of Morrissey, willing him to deliver me from the icky sugar-coated mainstream American drivel that threatened to suffocate me.

Of course, at that tender age I was too naïve to realize that Whitney Houston’s goody-goody persona was a painstakingly constructed image; one that was manufactured by her record company and maintained by her publicists, her manager, and everyone else who had a stake in her music career. I was also blind to the notion that many of the artists I worshipped—Duran Duran, Deborah Harry, Echo and the Bunnymen, et al—also had a team of people who made sure they looked and sounded in a way that appealed to their core audience (i.e. kids like me). While I don’t think the acts that I adored were as tightly controlled by their people as Whitney was by hers, at the end of the day the record industry is just another business with a product to sell; a product that is deliberately packaged to attract the sort of people who will buy it.

At any rate, Whitney Houston’s virtuous façade seemed to work for her. Her second and third albums—released in 1987 and 1990 respectively—were multi-platinum sellers. She collected Grammys hand over fist and even made the national anthem a Top 20 hit when she belted it out at the 1991 Super Bowl, further cementing her status as America’s Sweetheart. Of course, I still couldn’t be arsed to care about Whitney. She was still inescapable all throughout my high school years, but she became easier for me to ignore—especially since by then I had made some friends who shared and respected my taste in music—a pretty major accomplishment when you’re in high school. I even hit pay dirt my senior year when I found a cool boyfriend who was into Depeche Mode and New Order.

In 1992—the same year I graduated high school—Whitney made her film debut opposite Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Despite Whitney’s involvement, I found myself intrigued by the film’s premise and surprised my New Order-loving boyfriend (and myself) by dragging him to the Cineplex to see it. We both ended up loving it; I’m a sucker for movies about impossible love affairs stamped with a fixed expiration date (see also: Before Sunrise, Harold and Maude, etc.). I also was impressed with Whitney’s acting chops. She was no Meryl Streep, but she wasn’t bad. I also liked that her character was a radical departure from her goody-goody image; she played a temperamental diva who drank, smoked, had sex and even said “fuck” (that last bit was particularly jarring—this wasn’t the same girl who once claimed to have a boyfriend in Jesus). I even dug her version of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” from the film’s soundtrack. It wasn’t enough to make me a bona fide Whitney fan, but she’d definitely gone up a few notches in my estimation.

Fast forward ten years. Whitney had starred in a few movies and scored a few more hit singles, but her personal life had seriously gone down the crapper, fueled by rumors of a hardcore drug habit and her shitshow of a marriage to Bobby Brown. The capper was that bizarre Diane Sawyer interview in 2002, which seriously screwed with my head. I mean, I was glad to see that Whitney (and/or her PR team) had long since dropped the Goody-Goody Jesus’s Girlfriend shtick, but it was sad and a bit shocking to see how far she’d actually fallen.

To put it in perspective, I’ll try to craft an analogy that makes sense in modern day terms: Imagine a twitchy, coke-eyed Taylor Swift acquiescing to a prime time sit-down with Diane Sawyer. And Diane Sawyer—in her best “concerned journalist” tone—gently pressing Taylor Swift to address the drug rumors that have plagued her, particularly ones concerning her alleged crack addiction. And Taylor Swift blurting out, “First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Crack is wack.”

And Taylor Swift’s husband, which…hmm…who would be the modern Bobby Brown equivalent? Let’s see…abusive, petulant man-child with a string of mediocre R&B hits under his belt—Chris Brown, perhaps?—(the shared surname is a creepy coincidence when you think about it) fidgets next to Taylor Swift and first denies, then admits that he smokes weed, although “it’s not an every day thing. Um, it’s maybe every other day.” But, he assures Diane, he only does it to keep his bi-polar disorder “at a level.”

And if you can conjure up that freakish scenario in your mind, then you have some idea how surreal it was for aging Gen-Xers like me to watch Whitney “I-believe-the-children-are-our-future” Houston sidestep questions about a crack habit while Bobby “Humping Around” Brown lied his face off about his own drug use and his well-documented abusive tendencies.



The whole thing is hard to watch, from Whitney’s nervous non-answers about her addictions to the way she instinctively hugs herself and leans away from her husband when he sits down next to her. But what bugged me the most was the crap-a-doodle-doo spewing forth from one Bobby Brown. He’s not only an abusive, drug-addled douchebag, he’s a piss-poor liar. Seriously, this an actual exchange:

Diane Sawyer: “Have you ever hit her?”
Bobby Brown: “No no no no no no no.”
Whitney Houston (quietly): “What’s ‘hitting’ mean?” (like ‘hitting’ is some abstract concept that could be interpreted a number of ways).
Bobby Brown (trotting out an old standby): “I have four sisters, four aunts, a mother, two daughters.” (Oh yeah, that’s right. Men who have female family members don’t abuse women.) He then piles it on even higher: “I love…I love the beauty of woman.” (?) Then, apropos of nothing, he grabs Whitney’s leg and says, “This is mine.”

Ugh.

Of course, we all know what happened next. While Whitney finally divorced Bobby in 2007 and went to rehab in 2009, her freedom was short lived. In the end, she was done in by her addictions.

R.I.P. Whitney. She wasn’t perfect, she wasn’t horrible. She was just human.

*********
Edited to add: Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. but over the years I’ve warmed a bit to Whitney Houston’s music—a few select songs, anyway. Although I love the goofy girlie-ness of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (and if you’ve never heard David Byrne’s AWESOME version of it, you must do so now), I'm more inclined towards her later stuff, when she laid off the scream-singing in favor of more subtle vocals and melodies. My favorites are these two from the “Waiting To Exhale” soundtrack (a movie that, for the record, I also liked).

Essentially, it's a break-up song....

This is Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies with a solo acoustic version of "Thanks, That Was Fun," the song that inspired my book's title.*

*Now available on iBooks, by the way!
(and Kindle and every other e-reading device, thanks to Smashwords.)

So I've been super busy lately....promoting, marketing, and talking up my book, and I've gotten A LOT of questions in the process. I've decided to start addressing the queries here on the old blog. Below are the first two in what will probably be a lengthy (but entertaining!) series of FAQ&A's.

Here I go.

FAQ's: Thanks, That Was Fun

Q: How did you come up with the title Thanks, That Was Fun?

A: The title of my book comes from a song of the same name by the Barenaked Ladies. It’s a rather obscure track; a B-side of sorts (if you were born after 1990, ask an older person about B-sides. Don’t worry, it’s nothing dirty). It’s available on iTunes and also as a “previously unreleased” track on BNL’s greatest hits album, titled—appropriately—All Their Greatest Hits.

Thanks, That Was Fun (the book) wasn’t always called "Thanks, That Was Fun." The working title was actually Some Fantastic, another BNL song. This was mainly because I started writing my novel in late 1999, and I was obsessed with the Ladies’ seminal 1998 album Stunt.



Stunt was the perfect soundtrack for the book--funny, sad, dark, lovelorn, snarky, boozy—there’s even a song on the album called “Alcohol”—that track alone provided a great deal of inspiration. I listened to Stunt constantly and I was convinced that the title of the book had to come from one of the songs. For a while I called it “Light Up My Room” (track #3), but the more I wrote, the more I thought “Some Fantastic” (track #12) sounded a lot cooler. For those who aren’t familiar, “Some Fantastic” is probably the weirdest song on what is already a weird album. To give you a taste, here are some sample lyrics:

One day I’ll construct a satellite/And I’ll name it after you/Cause you were the greatest friend of all/Except for when you split my lip in two

What the hell did those lyrics have to do with my novel? I have no earthly idea. It was like having an unexplainable crush on someone. I didn’t know why I liked “Some Fantastic,” I just did. And once I settled on it as a title, I was very attached. It was smart and intriguing and catchy; in short, everything I thought a debut novel should be. That title stuck to my novel for years, from 2000 to 2009, to be precise.

My editor Scott was the one who got me to call it "Thanks, That Was Fun." Trust me, I needed a little convincing. I was all but married to Some Fantastic. I mean, Some Fantastic and I had been through a lot together at this point. Did I mention that it took me a long time to write this book? Well it did. It took me a frustratingly long time. Some Fantastic had stayed with me through six moves, five significant relationships, two presidential administrations…we had a history, and that title was a part of me, dammit! But Scott (talented, wise, patient, funny, straight-talking Scott, more about him later) thought that “Some Fantastic” was way too vague and that I needed a title that was more descriptive, one that fit the story. He’d been at me for a while to change it and one day he told me over the phone to do a little brainstorming and come up with some alternate names before our next meeting. Reluctantly, I sat down at my desk and typed up a short list of song titles and some random phrases, then emailed it to Scott. When I met with him a week later, he had printed out the list I’d sent—there were about a dozen names—and he’d put big X’s through all of them but one: “Thanks, That Was Fun.” He presented me with the paper and said “Here’s the new title of your book. It’s funny, it’s descriptive, it’s sarcastic, it’s teasing, and it fits your novel to a T.” Seeing it there in print, I got his point. Scott was right. It worked.

Q: Your name isn’t really Andie Nash. Why did you change your name?

A: Again, it comes back to an album, although my mom was the one to first suggest that I use a pen name. I believe her actual words were “This novel of yours….you’re not publishing this under your real name, are you?” I had in fact been planning to use my real name; I didn’t see anything wrong with it. But my mom begged to differ, citing privacy and a bunch of other parental concerns and issues I hadn’t yet considered. So I told her I’d think about it, and left it at that.

It was around this time that I received an awesome gift from my writer’s group friend Becca: her old record player. I was super excited--not only to have a real excuse to shop for vinyl--but now I had a real turntable on which to spin it! Woo hoo! Never one to do things in half measures, I hit up every thrift store, used record shop and garage sale within a 30 mile radius searching for new (well, old) vinyl and bought up everything I came across. One of my purchases was a Crosby Stills Nash album, the one where they’re all hanging out on a ratty couch on some porch.

You know, this one. I believe it’s actually called Hanging Out on a Ratty Couch on Some Porch.

So I got the album home and put it on the turntable and I was sitting there staring at the cover while it played. I’ll just go ahead and say that this was before I got sober and I was a bit anesthetized, probably on something herbal. And my mind was wandering, and I started thinking about possible pen names. I wanted to keep Andie, because it’s really my first name. Okay, it’s really my nickname, but everyone calls me Andie, and I like it that way. But what to do about a surname? So I studied the CSN album and thought, Andie Crosby? No. Andie Stills? Lame. Andie Nash? Hmmm.

Yes, Andie NASH. Now that was cool. And pretty badass. (And Graham Nash is hands-down my favorite member of CSN. I’ve always loved “Our House.”) Anyway, I made a mental note and filed “Andie Nash” away, just in case I decided to use a nom de plume when my book came out.

Then, Simon Reid happened.

Chances are, if you Googled the name “Andie Nash” and/or “Simon Reid”, one of the links brought you here. So if that’s how you found this blog I’ll go ahead and say that, yes, I’m THAT Andie Nash, the American woman who blew the whistle on her conman ex-boyfriend and blah blah blah, you probably have a little background on the story already. If you’re looking for more, you can read my first Simon Reid tirade here, a 2010 update here, and a post about my March 2011 appearance on the Today Show here (and yes, the last part was a blast. Getting an all-expense paid trip to NYC, appearing on national TV, and hanging out with Jo, Laura, and Nicola made the initial Reid drama worth it in the end.)

So I started thinking about using the name “Nash” just before I went on the Today Show. Since I was going on TV to air my dirty laundry to all and sundry, my mom was worrying—-again (I love my mom)--about privacy and internet searches and all the weirdness that you have to worry about when you’re a parent to a screwball like me. So in the end, that’s what convinced me to take the name Andie Nash, for both public and literary purposes. And there you have it.

Next time...I dish some dirt and answer more FAQs!

Birds do it. Bees do it. And so do chickens, apparently.

I think I must have been about 4 years old when I asked The Question. My family was living in Greensburg, Indiana (this was before we made our big move to "The City" - Indianapolis) and Stuart, my buddy next door, was about to become a big brother. Stuart's mother was the first pregnant lady I'd encountered and, as the months went by and she grew steadily larger and wider, I must have been curious. I'm guessing that's what prompted The Question. I don't actually remember asking it, but I do remember The Answer, and it came in the form of a real doozy of a book: How Babies Are Made.



My mom, naturally, was the one to proffer the book and broach this delicate subject with me. She was the typical 1970's earth mother, quite different than the conservative mothers of my friends, and definitely more "with it" than the small-town mothers of Greensburg, so it makes sense that she would have used How Babies Are Made, a Time-Life book first published in 1968. Apparently it's quite famous (Judy Blume even mentions it in Superfudge) and pretty much the go-to book for forward-thinking parents of the era who wanted to teach their kids about the birds and the bees. The images in the book--crafted entirely from construction paper--have a sweet, touchy-feely quality, but at the same time are rather explicit (check out the equipment on the dog, for starters). I don't remember the details of "the talk" but--as the cliche goes--a picture is worth a thousand words. And this book had a lot of pictures.

Here are a few highlights....


Here we have the artist's rendering of a bee pollinating a flower, but I can't even pay attention to what's going on inside that flower because, seriously, that bee is AWESOME! And it's made completely out of construction paper.


A mommy chicken and a daddy chicken doing...well...The Funky Chicken.
But wait...there's more! Turns out that dogs do it too. (YOU probably thought I was going to make a joke about doing it doggie-style, didn't you? Well, ha! I resisted the urge, so there.)



Look, it's Angelina Jolie's wet dream! (Sorry, I had to.)


And here are the babies, all grown up! I was mistaken, that's not Angie's brood. Clearly it's (clockwise from upper left) Zac Efron, Jessica Simpson, Barack Obama, Adam Brody, and John Cho (sporting an unfortunate haircut and a seriously groovy shirt)!


This is how humans do it. Under the covers, missionary-style. End of story.
Note: I like that the woman seems to be enjoying herself; that's a sure sign that this book was crafted in the late 1960's. In the 1950's such a notion would have been soundly mocked and quickly dismissed. Women enjoying sex? Hahahahaha! Surely you jest!


After the mommy and the daddy get nekkid and lay in bed and kiss for a while, a baby comes out!


Awwwwww! I can't even make fun of this picture, it's too sweet. I'm gonna go call my mom now.

While searching for images from this book I came across other people who had blogged about it. Check 'em out:

One of a Kind Wisconsin -- I really loved this post and the writer's commentary!

Teri has a highly entertaining blog and a great story about how she discovered this book.

Jennifer blogged about this a few years back. Check out her recollections of How Babies Are Made. (Her current blog, btw, is here.)

Do you have memories of this book? How did you find out about the birds and the bees? Tell me about it in the comments.

And speaking of books, here's mine.

Happy New Year 2012!

Wishing you and yours peace, abundance and much love in the new year.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

Popping in to remind my dear readers and anyone and everyone everywhere on this great Google earth that my novel is available on Kindle! Yes it is, yes it is, oh yes it is. (Sorry, I love that song.) And if you have some other new-fangled gadgetry besides Kindle, you probably know that Kindle apps are easily downloaded to iPhone and iPad.

Also....

You can download it to a Nook, Kobo, and pretty much anything else that you can plug into an outlet and read (including a humble old-fashioned laptop...or even a desktop! WOW!) if you get it via Smashwords. It's so so so easy and ridiculously cheap and totally worth it. Just go here.

Wintertime is reading time, so get down on it.

No language, just sound--

that's all we need know,

to synchronize love

to the beat of the show...

Check it out, a near shot-for-shot recreation of Joy Division's appearance on Tony Wilson's "So It Goes" using Playmobil figures (see the fictionalized version, from the excellent Ian Curtis biopic Control here).

Turns out there is a plethora of Playmobil videos on YouTube, and I love them all. I love the idea of recreating classic film clips using Playmobil figures. Maybe it's because I grew up in the era of the herky-jerky Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer kids' shows, but I love bizarro stop-motion animation. It makes me scared and happy at the same time. Come to think of it, that's kind of how I feel about Joy Division, too.

This clip is dedicated to Mancunian man Brooko--who comes from Salford--a very important distinction.

UPDATE 12/7/2011

Seems that KIEM (pussies) blocked the original YouTube footage, but I found another clip with basically the same report. Betsy Lambert and KIEM can suck it.

"I'd like to point out to anybody watching that this is really bunk journalism."

Thank you, red fleece man. I couldn't have said it better myself. So I've watched this clip several times now, and--although at first I found it terribly amusing--it's starting to really get under my skin. I'm thankful that it exists, and that it will live on through the magic of YouTube. It is a perfect illustration of the clueless corporate media outlets; how COMPLETELY they miss the point--particularly in the case of the Occupy Wall Street protests--and how they will eschew a REAL story in an attempt to sensationalize the inane ("Poop and pee, you guys! Look at these dirty hippie protesters and their poop and peeeee!").

And I'm going to pick on this hack in the ugly sweater some more, for being both smug and stupid.

Her TOP 3 Moments of Stupid

1. After hounding the protesters ("Answer my question! Who pooped and peed on the bank?") she turns to the camera and says under her breath "I'll get this." Like she's Bob fucking Woodward. Yes, ugly sweater lady, we're all waiting with baited breath. You must sniff out the truth! THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT POOP AND PEE!
2. "The police have pictures!" she nasals to the red fleece guy. Then let the police sort it out. Also, what does she expect? Someone to come forward and say, "Aw, my bad. I pooped and peed on the bank. I was determined not to say anything, but my resolve was shattered by your ace interrogation skills." Poop and pee, indeed.
3. She harasses the tent guy, he shoves the camera, she shrieks and then stomps away, yanking the camera guy behind her by the cord. She then bitches to the protesters, "You guys WANT us to do news on you. We're doing news." Yeah. News about poop and pee. Much more fascinating than the actual reasons for Occupy Wall Street, or anything else the protesters have to say. What a dick.

Cheers to you, ugly sweater lady, for shining a light on the moronic news outlet that tries to pass off this kind of shit (pun intended) as news.

ETA: Someone named Andrew Goff recorded an ode to Poopinpee-gate and intrepid reporter Betsy Lambert. It's all kinds of wrong and totally hilarious. Listen to it here (and good luck getting it out of your head. Seriously, I was singing it in the shower this morning).

And once again: OCCUPY!

OCCUPY, BITCHES!

Also, who pooped and peed on the bank? Is anyone listening to me???? Who pooped and peed on the bank?

Yes, my Beavis and Butthead laugh got a workout on this one.

Uh huh huh huh hehehehuheheheheh huh huh huh huh.

As any twelve-year-old knows, nothing is funnier than poop and pee. Except for maybe this--ahem--'journalist' at Occupy Eureka (northern California logging town...heh heh, "logging") stomping around the occupation demanding to know "who pooped and peed on the bank?"

My favorite things about this clip:

1. She says "poop and pee" roughly 800 times.
2. At one point she switches to "feces" instead of poop, trying to class up her reporting (too late honey!)
3. Her Contempo Casuals sweater from the 1989 holiday collection.
4. Two words: Stretch pants! (Two more: Oy vey!)
5. The stoned guy in the black T-shirt and '80s skater 'do totally cracking up at her questions.
6. The fact that she is obviously serious with this crap (pun intended).
7. The camera guy (unintentionally?) zooming in on her fat rolls after she harangues the tent dude.
8. Unintentional or not, the camera guy clearly hates her.
9. She storms off at the end of the clip, yanking the camera guy behind her by the mic cord (?) like a pissy kid taking his ball and going home.
10. It's even funny with the sound off.

That said, I totally support the Occupy movement.

Uh huh huh huh heh heheheheheheh huh huh huh huh.

"Movement."

Some (Underage) Girls

I just finished reading It’s All Over Now, the memoir of Mandy Smith, former wife of Bill Wyman. She was a model-turned-pop singer, he was the bass player for the Rolling Stones. They married in 1989, divorced in 1991, no kids.

Sounds fairly dull, right? Hardly. Mandy Smith started dating Bill Wyman when she was—wait for it—thirteen years old. Yes, you read that right. Thirteen. They met in 1984 at the British Rock and Pop Awards, where Wyman was accepting an award on behalf of another musician. Mandy and her fifteen-year-old sister Nicola had received V.I.P. passes to the event from a bouncer they were friendly with (the sisters, who looked and dressed much older than they actually were, had already been frequenting North London nightclubs for several months). Before the show started, Wyman, then 47, spotted Mandy dancing to the warm-up band and summoned her to his table. He was completely smitten with the young teenager, even after she told him her real age. He later introduced her to his famous band mates and friends, but instructed her to tell them that she was seventeen (the age of consent in England is sixteen). This wasn’t just for legal reasons, it also served to protect his credibility; the middle-aged Wyman was well known in certain circles to prefer dating “barely legal” girls of seventeen, and he was keen to maintain his reputation.

Feel like scrubbing yourself with bleach yet? Totally understandable. I often had the same urge while reading certain chapters of Smith’s tell-all book, especially when she describes having sex with Bill Wyman for the first time at his stately manor in the English countryside. She wasn’t thirteen at the time, however. Bill, old-fashioned gentleman that he was, waited until she turned fourteen to initiate a physical relationship. What a guy.

Would you let your teenage daughter date this man?

Despite the inherent ickiness of Smith’s story, I found It’s All Over Now a truly fascinating book. This is partly because I actually remember reading about Mandy Smith in People magazine when I was thirteen. She was sixteen years old at the time and had just launched a singing career that came about after the British newspapers caught wind of her relationship with Wyman. Their affair became public shortly after the two broke up briefly in 1986, about the same time that Smith reached the age of consent. The English tabloids collectively creamed themselves and went wild for the story of the Rolling Stone and his scandalous underage fling. Smith was immediately offered a modeling contract (she was definitely gorgeous, with a sort of ‘80s Brigitte Bardot look going on). She also landed a record deal with Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the same production company responsible for Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue, and her People magazine interview was part of a publicity tour to sell her music to Americans.

I remember reading that interview, wherein the writer focused just a little on Mandy’s music and a lot on her relationship with Bill Wyman. I marveled at the fact that Mandy had been only thirteen (my age!) when she met him, and I clearly recall wondering just how in the hell I could get a grown up, real live rock star interested in me, a gawky little thing with braces and stringy hair. Of course, if I’d had the means (and the looks) that Mandy had, I wouldn’t have chosen crusty old Bill Wyman. I’d have gunned for any (or all) of the members of Duran Duran, or maybe Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, or Andrew Ridgeley (the straight one from Wham!). Although—truth be told—I wouldn’t have been too picky. Just the idea of dating a rock star when I was thirteen years old was pretty exciting. I may have even settled for Rick Astley.

I suppose that’s what prompted me to seek out Smith’s book. I remember being that age and envying a girl who could get an adult rock start to go out with her. I know that I’d have had no qualms about dating a famous grown man when I was thirteen: I think most thirteen-year-old girls consider themselves mature enough to date the twentysomething rock stars they fantasize about. Of course, any parent worth their salt would object to the union, if—as in Mandy’s case—the fantasy became reality.

Not that she was at home obsessing over Stones albums and gazing at pin-ups of Bill Wyman (ew) and daydreaming about meeting him someday. In fact, Mandy had no idea who he was at the time they met. She had heard of the Rolling Stones but considered them to be part of her mother’s generation. After Mandy’s first encounter with Wyman at the awards show, she and her sister even considered setting him up with their mother Patsy, an attractive divorcee struggling to raise two daughters on her own (Mandy’s father—surprise!—wasn’t in the picture). Before Bill’s designs on Mandy became clear, the sisters went so far as to invite him to dinner at the modest North London council house they shared with their mother, hoping the two “old people” would hit it off.

Although Patsy Smith was bemused and flattered by the thought of a Rolling Stone dropping by for dinner, she made it clear to her daughters that she wasn’t interested in a set-up with Bill. She also didn’t seem to suspect anything funny about his intentions towards her thirteen-year-old daughter, viewing him as a nice man who’d simply taken a friendly interest in Mandy. If that’s true, Patsy is guilty of being either (at best) willfully naïve or (at worst) grossly negligent. It’s difficult to discern; I feel like the whole issue of Patsy’s culpability is a bit murky. Smith is very staunch in her defense of her mother, which is understandable, as both Patsy and Mandy were beaten up in the press quite badly, and Mandy was weary of tabloids painting her mother as a star-struck opportunist who pushed her into dating Wyman.

As far as naïveté vs. negligence, Mandy claims that she hid the true nature of her relationship with Bill from her mother during the first year that she and Wyman were dating. If that’s the case, Mandy was not yet fifteen when her mother got wise to what was happening, and still had ample time to yank her underage ass from Wyman’s clutches. But Mandy also expends a lot of ink on her mother’s mysterious illness, the same one that kept Patsy virtually bedridden for a good chunk of her daughter’s childhood and adolescence (Mandy would one day suffer a similar ailment—more on that later). Again, the details are hazy: Mandy describes her mother as perpetually frail and prone to dizzy spells and fainting, but beyond that, her “illness” was never adequately diagnosed (Mandy later says that her mother was able to control her symptoms by adhering to a strict diet). Smith blames her mother’s lack of involvement on her poor health, essentially saying that she just didn’t have the energy to monitor Mandy’s relationship with Bill.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to think about her mother’s role in all of this. I don’t buy the tabloid claims of Patsy Smith as a calculating, gold-digging mom-pimp, but I can’t quite swallow Mandy’s story of her mother as a fragile invalid who was too weak and/or ignorant to put the kibosh on her young daughter’s romance with a middle-aged man. Both scenarios are possible, but I’m inclined to believe it’s only a pinch of the former and just a little more of the latter. I also believe that Wyman’s money and celebrity status caused Patsy to look the other way in a lot of instances where parental common sense should have prevailed.

There were, however, quite a few other adults involved in this fiasco, and they failed Mandy pretty hardcore. The entire Stones entourage quickly learned that the sweet young thing on Bill’s arm was a really young thing, and (apart from some rude jokes) they did nothing to discourage the union. In fact, all they really did was cover Wyman’s ass and keep things on the down-low when outsiders were around, just to ensure that no one got any bright ideas about running to the press. When someone did go running to the press, it was—oddly enough—another teenager. In 1986, during Smith and Wyman’s brief break-up, one of Mandy’s friends went round to the British tabloids with the story of a girl he knew who had dated one of the Rolling Stones while she was underage. That’s when the proverbial shit hit the fan and the Rolling Stones publicity machine came out in full force to protect its own, making certain that it was Mandy who was portrayed as the sketchy one: a wild child who partied in nightclubs and lied about her age, a money-grubbing “teen temptress” who seduced Bill Wyman and led him astray with her underage charms. (Seriously, a teen temptress? Whatever, Professor Humbert. Please proceed to hell.)

But for Mrs. Smith’s seriously flawed parenting and the sleaziness of the Stones’ minders and publicists, I feel the real villain in this sordid tale is Bill Wyman himself. There are many reasons for this, the most glaringly obvious one being that she was thirteen years old, you pervert.

And if it seems like I’m of two minds on this, I apologize for being unclear. As I said earlier, when I was thirteen years old, the thought of someone my age getting a grown-up rock star boyfriend sounded pretty fucking badass. But again, I was thirteen years old. I wore frosted denim and striped Keds. A lot of things that seemed cool at the time weren’t cool at all, and it wasn’t just because it was the ‘80s. It was because I was a clueless thirteen-year-old kid, just like Mandy Smith. Well, not just like her—I was a thirteen-year-old who looked a lot younger than I was, and she was a thirteen-year-old who could pass for seventeen. But still—and I can’t emphasize this enough—she was thirteen years old and seriously Bill Wyman, that shit is nasty.

Really, I could go on and on about this and no matter how you spin it, there’s no excuse for an adult, any adult—middle-aged or not—to go after a thirteen-year-old kid. I mean, sixteen? Yeah, it’s icky, but (in England) it’s legal. Fifteen? Pretty fucked up. Fourteen? Royally fucked up. But THIRTEEN? Christ on a cracker, that’s what people used to laugh at Michael Jackson for. It’s weird that the scandal was hardly covered in the States aside from the brief write-up in People magazine (and again here when Smith and Wyman married in 1989). And in the UK tabloids it was just a lot of slut-shaming and unimaginative “Lolita” comparisons for Mandy, while Bill Wyman’s personal and professional reputation suffered nary a scratch.

Putting aside Mandy’s underage status, if that’s possible (it isn’t, but bear with me), she and Bill were never exactly a match made in heaven. From their first meeting to their rocky courtship to their doomed marriage, Bill’s treatment of Mandy was truly reprehensible. He was possessive and controlling, given to throwing jealous fits anytime another guy looked at her sideways, yet he had no problem stealing off to bang one of his numerous ex-girlfriends or any Stones groupie who happened to catch his eye. He expected Mandy to be at his beck and call, always standing by whenever he required her services for sex or companionship, and he repaid her by being suspicious, cold, and aloof. He was also quite the manipulator, frequently employing the old “come here/go away” game, and following it up with the inevitable “WAIT! DON’T LEAVE ME!” refrain anytime she called his bluff. With regard to their disastrous relationship, I think it’s apropos to invoke sex columnist Dan Savage’s “campsite rule,” a decree stating that, in relationships with a large age disparity (ten years or more), “the elder partner should leave the younger in better shape than they found them.” Using that analogy, Bill Wyman not only left the campsite in complete ruin, he littered it with used condoms, cigarette butts, and empty beer cans, then pissed all over the bonfire pit.

The impetus for their 1986 break-up was when Bill, after yet another period of clandestine whoring, contracted a case of the crabs. Instead of biting the bullet and telling his girlfriend so she could at least get herself treated, Bill—bizarrely—went behind Mandy’s back and called her mother. This prompted a visit from Patsy, who came round to Bill and Mandy’s flat (Bill was out of town, conveniently) and sat her teenage daughter down for a supremely awkward, hilarious, horrifying conversation about the “little animals” Bill claimed he had caught from Mandy. Apparently Wyman, hoping to avoid a shitstorm (and banking on Patsy’s ignorance), blamed his pubic lice on a pair of second-hand jeans Mandy had purchased a few weeks earlier. Okay, back up a minute. Think about this: the man pounds groupies like it’s his job, gets a nasty case of crotch crickets, tries to mind-fuck his girlfriend (and her mother) by blaming it on used jeans, then handily skips town. Talk about mind-fuckery; that shit is positively Machiavellian.

It was the semi-final straw. Mandy called Bill, told him to fuck right off, then packed up her stuff and moved out. Shortly after that, her enterprising young friend sold her out to the press. And that’s when Mandy—no longer with Bill but now saddled with a level of fame that made normal daily life impossible—found herself surrounded by loads of photographers, agents, and record promoters who smelled money.

While the modeling career was a no-brainer: she was tall, thin, and cute, with a now-recognizable face (in England, anyway), her foray into pop music was another story. Her song “Positive Reaction”—which hit #39 in Germany, failed to chart in the UK and didn’t go anywhere near the US Hot 100—is below and…well, to put it delicately, her singing makes Britney Spears sound like Barbra Streisand.

To be fair though, I doubt anyone involved in Smith’s music career thought they had stumbled upon the next Streisand, or even the next Minogue. Mandy Smith wasn’t Susan Boyle: she didn’t “dream a dream” and blow away a panel of judges with the sheer force of her vocal talent. Smith was, in her own words, largely viewed as “a sultry starlet of dubious repute”. Some cynical industry types saw the chance to make a quick buck off an attractive young girl embroiled in a sex scandal with a world-famous musician, and totally ran with it.

Boy, did they run with it.

Although Mandy’s music never found an audience in the US, it wasn’t just due to the overall crappiness of the songs (after all, we yanks were busy making Tiffany famous at the time, so what did we know from taste?). There were other problems standing in the way of her stardom. On a promotional tour of the US, Mandy began to suffer dizzy spells, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and a host of other maladies that read like an extensive list of Viagara side effects. When she finally collapsed in a Miami hotel room, her handlers scrapped the rest of the tour and sent her home to England to recuperate. It was then that—weary from life on the road, malnourished from months of take-away food, and exhausted from lack of sleep—Mandy found herself depressed and, at age eighteen, pining for the first and only boyfriend she’d ever had: Bill Wyman.

So Mandy called up Bill, they reconnected, and—because love is blind, deaf, dumb, and legally insane—soon found herself back together with him, just as if his womanizing, his mood swings, his crabs, and his callous treatment of her had never happened. They even started making wedding plans, Bill promising all the while that he had changed, that everything would be different this time.

In the end, of course, nothing was different. After a big frou-frou fairytale wedding, the Wyman-Smith marriage went straight down the toilet and right into the sewer.

Bill was just as cold and distant as ever, paying attention to Mandy only when he wanted sex and freezing her out anytime she failed to submit to his libido. Mandy’s health also began to worsen; she was rapidly losing weight and unable to determine why. Although there were whisperings among Bill’s Rolling Stones compatriots that she had an eating disorder—Ronnie Wood’s wife Jo, shocked by Mandy’s increasingly gaunt appearance, even cornered her and demanded, “You’re anorexic, aren’t you?”—she repeatedly insists that this wasn’t the case.

Smith devotes several pages to her sickness, her numerous doctor visits and her lengthy hospitalization, but is ultimately rather vague about her diagnosis. She writes of having “violent reactive allergies” and her doctor running a battery of allergy tests, finding her allergic to “dogs, cats, fumes, cigarette smoke, dust and mildew,” along with having dietary sensitivities to fats, sugars, and dairy products. She alludes to having “an underlying cause that made (her) susceptible to these allergies,” and that her mum, who had a similar history of unexplained illnesses, was the only one who truly believed her.

I’ve read and re-read the passages where Mandy talks about her symptoms and her illness, and I’m still not quite clear what was going on there. I don’t think she was imagining or exaggerating her health issues; I think it’s at least possible she was suffering from some weird environmental allergies, as her mother may have done. I mean, I saw the movie Safe; I know that a person can develop life-threatening allergies seemingly out of nowhere. I also know that Western medicine tends to be a bit skeptical and dismissive of such things, so I can see how she may not have been able to obtain an adequate diagnosis from her doctors. But, based on my own experiences with dysfunctional relationships (and my armchair psychologist’s intuition) I think Mandy’s main affliction was mental. She’d spent years under the thumb of an emotionally abusive dickweed, from the impressionable age of thirteen up until age twenty, and it was finally taking its toll, both physically and mentally, consuming her from the inside out.

Despite addressing some very serious themes, Mandy’s story is not all gloom and doom. Like any good showbiz tell-all, It’s All Over Now is chock full of some fantastic behind-the-scenes dirt. I loved reading her backstage musings on the other Rolling Stones. She describes drummer Charlie Watts as sweet, easy-going, and usually drunk; while Woody (Ron Wood, the band’s rhythm guitarist) was cheerful and gregarious and always game for a laugh. Mandy had less affection for Mick and Keith, however. She recalls Mick as something of a prick, to put it mildly, while Keith “seemed to be on another planet. If he was not on drugs, then he had the mad, blank look of someone who ought to have been. He was always out of reach, on some cosmic ray somewhere.” Sounds about right, from what I’ve seen of his interviews.

There’s also a great scene where Mandy and Bill are at a fancy London soiree with the other Rolling Stones and an impressive cross-section of rock royalty. Mick Jagger, in one of his “bitchy moods,” stands on the sidelines gossiping with David Bowie. Mandy catches Jagger glaring at her, then overhears him reveal her age (fourteen at the time) to Bowie, who does a spit-take into his glass of wine. The two of them saunter over, and Jagger sneers at Bill, “Innit about time you took her home? Past her bedtime, innit?” He and Bowie then scurry away, cackling like a pair of old ladies.

Yeah, I can totally see that.

Mandy’s stories of hanging out with the other Stones’ wives are also quite amusing. She talks about Jerry Hall, the famed 1970’s supermodel who was then married to Jagger. Mandy found it funny that—while Mick talked a good game—it was Jerry who was in complete control of their relationship. Hall was a bossy, brassy Texas girl who endlessly referred to Jagger as “mah may-un” and kept him on a very short leash, especially when other women were around. Good to see there was someone who could put Jagger in his place, at least for a while.

The Stones’ gossip is fun, but the juiciest, most awesome part of the book by far—in my opinion—is a story from Mandy’s “hen night” (Brit-speak for bachelorette party) a few nights prior to her 1989 wedding to Bill Wyman. She was celebrating her last night out as a single woman, partying it up with her girlfriends and several female relatives at Tramp, a ritzy London nightclub that was also a popular celebrity hang-out. Mandy hit the dance floor with her Aunt Adrian, when who should come bounding up but—seriously!—Simon Le Bon and John Taylor(!). So Mandy and Aunt Adrian dance with the boys for a while, giggling and whooping it up, then John Taylor (John fucking Taylor!) grabs Mandy close and starts nuzzling her neck:

This was no joke, I realized with a start. He was actually coming on to me and coming on strong. I gently pushed him away and held him at arm’s length. “Steady, John,” I told him. “I’m on my hen night!”

He started to laugh. “Well, we’d better get a move on, there’s no time to waste,” he replied in earnest.

Holy shit, that reads like Duran Duran fan fiction, torn straight out of my journal at age fourteen. I seriously would’ve killed to have had that encounter with John Taylor back then. On a separate note, can you imagine how surreal that would be? It’s 1989 and you’re out at a club, just having fun and enjoying your hen night, when the two foxiest members of Duran Duran appear out of nowhere and start horning in on you and your aunt (!?!). Needless to say, Mandy didn’t take John up on his generous offer. Somehow she resisted, even when he later “pressed his phone number into my hand and suggested that we go out.” (As a lifelong Duranie, this information really isn’t all that surprising: judging by the timeline, this was would have been just before John took up with Amanda de Cadenet. Clearly, he had a thing for barely-legal blondes.)

So whatever became of Mandy Smith? Well, she and Bill split for good in 1991, although they only spent a few weeks living under the same roof together after the wedding. Smith received 20,000 pounds in the divorce settlement, most of which went towards her extensive medical bills. Her health improved steadily in the months following her divorce, and she claims to have learned to manage her illness through a careful diet--as her mother did--avoiding yeast products and eventually becoming a strict vegan. Smith moved on romantically as well; in 1993 she married Pat van den Hauwe, a professional UK footballer, although they separated two years later, divorcing in 1997 (both have spoken publicly about van den Hauwe’s problems with drugs and alcohol, which played a part in the demise of their marriage). Professionally, Mandy worked as a television presenter throughout the nineties and, in recent years, as a makeup artist. She now lives in Manchester (Brooko shout-out!) and runs a PR firm with her sister Nicola. She also has a ten-year-old son, Max, the product of a brief relationship with Vanity Fair model Ian Mosby.

She’s still very pretty, looks much healthier and no longer wears that vaguely haunted, glassy-eyed expression apparent in some of her photographs with Bill. It seems she’s settled down and made peace with her past and the unhealthy, emotionally abusive relationship that thrust her into the limelight all those years ago.

I hope so, anyway. I like Mandy.

Rachel Maddow schools Mitt Romney!

Thank you Rachel Maddow. You perform a valuable public service every night.

This lesson is not only for the Mittster, who I suspect has never been anywhere near a woman's "down there" parts (I certainly wouldn't want him--or his legislation--around mine!), but any and all men of the same idiotic mindset.

Alice in the Palace.

Oh, hai Greg!

It's a Sestero kind of day, kids!

The new cover of my book!

Yes, it's here, and it's glorious! A million thank you's to John (my love) and Kris Stout from Crawfish Games, who helped to create it.

Got a Kindle? Download my book here.

No Kindle? Download it here (can be read on any computer).

Pattie, Eric, Siobhan, Shakespear's Sister and Marcy Levy/Marcella Detroit

I just finished Wonderful Tonight (the first book I downloaded on my new Kindle...thanks honey!). It's Pattie Boy's memoir, chronicling her childhood in Kenya, her time as a model in "Swinging Sixties" London, and--of course--her marriages to George Harrison and Eric Clapton. It's a well-written and enjoyable read, especially if you find showbiz memoirs as addictive as I do. By the way, between the two men (Harrison and Clapton), I'd totally choose George--although according to her book he wasn't exactly a prince either.

Inspired by Boyd's memoir, I started searching out old Harrison and Clapton tracks. I've always liked George Harrison's work, both Beatles and solo, but my absolute favorite is the underrated "All Those Years Ago" (BRILLIANT track!). Finding Eric Clapton songs that I'm passionate about is a bit more difficult. He's a great guitarist but something about his music always seemed dull and workmanlike to me. To date, I've only really liked two of his singles: "It's In the Way That You Use It" (or "the Color of Money song"), and "Promises."

Although "Promises" is fairly morose, I've always loved the female backup singer on that song. Something about her voice when she kicks in those vocals, "How could we know that promises end?" always gets to me. I got curious to know who that singer was, thinking that it was probably someone famous from back in the day (Linda Ronstadt?). An internet search turned up the name Marcy Levy, although it's unclear if she's actually the one who sings that line on "Promises", as Yvonne Elliman is also listed as the background vocalist on that song.

Regardless of her part on "Promises," Marcy Levy (a.k.a. Marcella Detroit) is pretty damn fabulous. I found her website, which is where I learned that she was "the other girl" in Shakespear's (sic) Sister with Siobhan from Bananarama! So cool, because I adored the song "You're History," when it was on heavy rotation on MTV back in late '89. (Ah, sophomore year of high school. I remember it like it was yesterday....)

The duo had a bigger hit with "Stay" from the summer of '92. I was just sort of "meh" on that one, but the goofy-ass video for it is a scream!

So there you have it, a totally random (re)discovery. Also? I am now the proud owner of a shitload of Shakespear's Sister mp3's.

Thanks, Pattie Boyd!

PART IV:

GETTING MY GROUP ON

Initially, the very idea of a writer's group terrified me. I pictured a bunch of ponces sitting around a table, some in sweater vests, some peering at me over reading spectacles, all of them shaking their heads at my amateurish scribblings, searching their overeducated brains for tactful ways to tell me that my work, in fact, sucked balls.

I had been hammering away at my novel for over a year, a year that--as luck would have it--provided me with more than enough romantic angst to feed my creative process and keep my butt firmly planted in the desk chair, pounding away at my keyboard, planning, plotting, fleshing out characters and scenes to make up roughly two-thirds of my novel. But I knew that I still had a long road ahead of me, and that merely reading books on writing would only improve my work up to a certain point.

At the time I was working at the Indianapolis Art Center, (any similarities to the Art Guild of Thanks, That Was Fun are purely coincidental, natch) which was affiliated with

The Writer's Center of Indiana . I had taken a one-day workshop there on character development and felt that it had helped my writing a great deal. It was at the Writer's Center that I saw a flyer for an upcoming weekend-long writer's retreat featuring--holy shit--Dan fucking Wakefield, Indianapolis native and author of Going All the Way, a novel I loved so much I immediately started reading it again after I finished it the first time. I scraped together the fee for the retreat and signed up, ecstatic at the chance to meet Dan Wakefield and hoping to connect with other writers.

The retreat was awesome. Held at a hotel in downtown Indy, it was an intense weekend of lectures, Q&A's, and writing exercises. I not only met Dan Wakefield and had him sign my copy of Going All the Way, I got to attend one of his classes and had him critique my writing exercise. It was, for me, akin to getting a guitar lesson from Jimi Hendrix. I don't think I stopped grinning the entire weekend.

While I was at the retreat I met a young woman called Shahnaz, who was looking to start a writer's group. I said I was keen on joining and gave her my name and phone number. I'd been pleasantly surprised by the diverse crowd of writing enthusiasts I'd encountered at the retreat, and was beginning to warm to the idea of attending a writer's group on a regular basis, even though I still found the idea of sharing my writing with strangers a bit terrifying.

A few weeks later Shahnaz called me and said it was on; she'd managed to assemble a group of interested writers she'd met at the retreat and our brand new writer's group would be meeting at the Writer's Center the following Tuesday evening. I was excited and scared. I combed through my work, pondering which excerpts to bring in.

The first chapter of my book was so chock full of breasts, oral sex, and bodily fluid that I was too embarrassed to foist that on the group our first time out. I ended up selecting a section from what would become chapter three of the novel: the scene with Jordan, Iris and Genna at the art opening. I was looking forward to meeting the other people in the group and sharing my work, at the same time hoping that they wouldn't have problems with my copious deployment of F-bombs, or the description of the giant stone vagina that Genna and Jordan encounter at the art gallery in the same scene.

I showed up for the first meeting, eager but apprehensive, clutching a stack of carefully proofread copies of the art exhibition/stone vagina scene. It was a delight to meet the other members of the group; along with myself and Shahnaz there was Freddie, Reva, Rebecca and Jenny. They were writers from all walks of life, friendly, gregarious, and eager to share their work and receive feedback from like-minded creative types.

We all took turns reading our work out loud, and I was both impressed and a bit intimidated by the quality of everyone's writing. I read my stuff last, then, upon finishing, looked apprehensively around the table, trying to ascertain if anyone was put off by the content or skill-level of my work. To my relief, they all loved the scene and the characters (Iris was an immediate hit), and they were full of positive and constructive comments on what was good about the scene and what needed improvement. I needn't have worried about anyone being squeamish about the scene's language and imagery. The best comment that night came from Reva, who said, "I love the idea of a giant stone vagina, but I think this Genna character is too prudish to call it a 'pussy.'"

I knew then that I had found the right group.

Next time: more writing, more group, and The Big Move.

Oh My Love

Pictured: The new cover of my novel.

I will continue the posts on my novel writing process, but right now I just want to say THANK YOU to the people who have bought copies. Of course my loved ones were the first to show me love (and THANKS to you all!), but it's also pretty cool that the darn thing is actually selling and that complete strangers are now downloading it. Yes, people I don't even know are buying my book!

While I am expressing my gratitude (there will be more of that soon) I have to say thank you to John for his love and support. He was the first to buy a copy, even though he didn't have to (he could have just gotten it for free, after all).

Also thanks to Becca, for helping me to format the thing...it was a pain in the ass and she rocks for doing it!

More to come soon...did I mention that you can buy my novel here?

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.