Tainted Love

A set of 12 DVD's full of 80's music videos found its way into my possession this weekend, and I've been cracking out like I haven't since Nip/Tuck Season 2 was released. I wish I could convey the feeling of delight I had when I saw the video to "Something About You" by Level 42 for the first time in at least 15 years. And "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes. And "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell. Mtv of the 80's was my childhood. We didn't have cable at my house until I was around 9, but good God, I watched it all the time at friends' houses and my grandmother's house. I love how, in the very earliest of those Mtv years, they didn't have a lot of videos to play, so you'd see Johnny Cash, then Black Sabbath, then Willie Nelson, then an old Elton John performance. A lot of people don't remember that because most cable companies didn't carry Mtv in its first 2 years. By the time we got Mtv ('87-'88), the Golden Age was over. Remote Control and the Monkees were being played around the clock (not that I didn't like those shows - I loved them - but they weren't music videos).

But I digress. The point is, these videos have completely taken me back. I hadn't thought about sitting with my friend Chuckie singing "Time (Clock of My Heart)" by Culture Club in the 1st grade for...decades?

Speaking of music, I was blown away by a bluegrass band on Saturday night. It struck me that bluegrass has got to be one of the most difficult kinds of music to play, and what artists these men are to play those instruments so perfectly. For a lot of my teenage years, I dismissed that music as "country" and didn't want anything to do with it, so I'm glad to say I'm broadening my bluegrass horizons. It's so beautiful - I don't know how anyone couldn't like at least a song here and there.

It's back to the gym today after an extended absence - I'm going to spinning class if my favorite instructor is teaching. Because it's so hot and humid here, I tend to languish indoors a little too much in the summer, and that's going to change starting today. I think a lot of people tend to put on winter fat, but that's when I tend to be out and about the most. Plus the gym is somewhere you can go in the winter where you know you won't be cold! Especially spinning...