Welcome to your life.
There's no turning back.
Even while we sleep.
We will find you
Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on Mother Nature
Everybody wants to rule the world.
‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’, Songs From the Big Chair, by Tears for Fears.
Before Oakleys – the sunnies made famous by sportspeople including Lance Armstrong – we had Phil Oakley, who sang Together in Electric Dreams. MTV was born – with bad haircuts, and erratic editing for musical videos - with memorable music. The Berlin Wall was still up, and the Cold War was still on. Perestroika was not a brand of vodka yet, and loomed in the distant future. This was the Enlightened Eighties with its signature bad mullets and awful, titan-like shoulder-pads in jackets.
The mid-1980’s was a time of reckoning for me. It was my rites of passage to manhood, where I adorn camouflage and khaki as my preferred choice of fashion sense; I enjoyed running around in jungles! What helped me through officer cadet school were the songs of the 1980’s, mainly the British Invasion. From Hard Rock to Punk to New Wave to British Pop – music held its allure for me because of Original Soundtracks (OST) recordings, and the rage of Top of the Pops. Every week, the countdown from the Other Side of the Pond indicated the listening audience’s fickle fiefdom tastes for radio-friendly music.
My favourite songs included: Forever Young (Alphaville), Eye in the Sky (Alan Parson’s Project), Square Rooms (Al Corley), St. Elmo’s Fire, Don’t You Want Me (Human League), Love is Love (Culture Club), Gloria (Laura Branigan), Rock Me Amadeus (Falco), Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears) Purple Rain (Prince), and songs by Blondie, Kim Wilde, and the extensive list goes on. In retrospect, I may have had a thing for blondes [sic].
The 1980’s were a decade of decadence and delight. There was none of the hallucinatory haze of the 1960’s except for a musical cloud that engulfed us. The films of this decade were also definitive; consider the fact Tron was made by Disney in 1982. Sports films included Chariots of Fire, Breaking Away and American Flyers. Runners sported shoes by Adidas and Nike. I watched the Aussie amphibious Ironman film called Coolangata Gold, and my first brush with the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon coverage by ABC Wide World of Sports. And the precursor of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia was a film called Neverending Story by the director…and song by Limahl.
Check out the hits on YouTube.com. I hope that you can rediscover some of these timeless gems that I continue to enjoy.
*****
It is with heavy hearts that we read and watch news related to the devastating Quake in Japan. The most troubling reports revolve around nuclear reactor leaks. This is an opportunity for anti-nuclear lobbyists and green groups to bash alternative energy resources. Despite the potential dilution of radiation from using seawater to cool the reactors, the radiation will still be dispersed over a larger area.
It is sad to hear that the Kona Ironman site was destroyed by tsunami waves. I hope that it will not affect the outcome of October’s World Championships. The most notorious footage is a guy (who lost a slipper) who captured on video (on YouTube) with ‘live’ commentary the massive waves hitting Kona’s road and shops. He was courageously stupid, however we got to watch the raw footage. Stupid is as stupid does?
