The 5-day time-period of April 16TH to April 20TH has been quite deadly here in the U.S. over the past 16 years. 5 horrific events have occurred during this time, and some would argue that at least 2 – perhaps 3 of them are indirectly related to each other.
You may remember where you were and what you were doing as these 5 disasters unfolded before a LIVE international television audience:
1988 was my first full year of livin’ large here in the land of the ‘305’. (I actually arrived on the First of December in 1987.)
In 1988 I was a 20-year-old that became a 21-year-old – without a car. I was either gonna be stuck in the dorm (at the Air Force Base), or I was gonna bum a ride with a buddy to see any other part of Miami. Luckily I got to see a lot of Miami during that first year. I also partied a lot within the Miami club scene. I considered myself a Y-100 groupie at the time – following them along as they broadcast LIVE from a different nightclub around town on 4 or 5 nights per week.
It was a lot of fun – although admittingly I don’t remember much from the times. After all it was 21 years ago – a half a lifetime ago for me.
Here’s a song that literally brought chills to me last night as it got cranked up at Splitsville (which incidentally has its own dance floor with deejay and lights and such). There may even be raw video footage of me acting like a dancin’ moron at our dinner table as this song progressed. (I’m not sure if Venus was recording at the time.) Yep – I still got mad skillz at the age of 42. 🙄
This jam totally defined the land of the ‘305’ in 1988. It was the absolute biz out on the streets and up on the dance floors all across the ‘MIA’.
I present to you for your ‘Saturday Night Retro’ review – MC Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock with “It Takes Two” !
In 1979 I was an 11-year-old that became a 12-year-old in June. I graduated from Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland (right in my own neighbourhood):
Magnolia Elementary School, Lanham Maryland
That was my school for Kindergarten from 1972 to 1973, and then again for 3RD, 4TH, 5TH, and 6TH grades from 1975 to 1979. The street that I lived on (Red Wing Lane) was located directly in front of the school by a couple hundred yards, but that was not the proper way to walk to and from school because you had to climb the fence and walk in other people’s yards to do so. The proper way to walk to and from school was up / down the hill and over to the left-side main entrance.
Incidentally the more things change the more things stay the same. That school looks exactly the way it used to look 30 to 35 years ago – right up to the facade of the building, the spray paint residue on the left-hand side, the breezeway out front, and the lightposts. A lot has changed since the mid-1970s. The outside of that school is not one of those changes.
If you walk through the front entrance, take an immediate right at the first hallway, and take that hallway down all the way to the very end you should come across a big painted map of the U.S.A. directly on the surface of the wall (if it’s still there). My class painted that as a special project way back then. I specifically painted Hawaii. It was a masterpiece !
It’s amazing the things that I remember from back in the day.
And now for your ultimate ‘Saturday Night Retro’ review I present to you this # 1 gold pop smash that everyone was singing and dancing to in their living rooms and in their cars just before 1979 morphed into 1980. This my friends is English musician Robin Scott – better known at the time as simply ‘M’. Here’s the official music video for “Pop Muzik” – one of the first videos ever made for television – more than two years before MTV even went on-the-air. This video was sleek, stylish, solid, and state-of-the-art for its time. Check it out:
Until next Saturday night my friends – keep on makin’ history !
22 years ago in 1987 I was a 20-year-old living in Gloucestershire in the southwest of England. Cirencester (to the west) and Swindon (to the south) were the nearest cities, and I visited both of them fairly often. Swindon was the place to go shopping and hook up with British Rail on my trips over to London. Swindon was also the home to this highway monstrosity:
The Magic Roundabout - Swindon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
I never drove a car while over in the U.K., as I rode with friends or took public transportation. I lived perhaps a mile from the village of Fairford. I walked to and from the village at least once a week or so.
11TH Strategic Group, RAF Fairford, United Kingdom
That’s my military unit from November 1985 to November 1987.
NO edition of the ‘Saturday Night Retro’ is complete without a big hit song from the times, so here we go with this week’s retro classic flashback from the past. It’s the 1987 European dance remix of the 1975 disco smash “You Sexy Thing” from Hot Chocolate. Get up and dance my friends !
CountUp 