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Saturday Night Retro

Saturday August 28TH 2010
Volume 2 / Number 48 / Edition 97

I’ve got a lot of hobbies and skills that you may or may not be aware of. Some of them I think I’m pretty good at (of course others may disagree). Some of these hobbies and skills I wish I could be better at and spend more quality time with. Some hobbies consume a lot of time, and some just occur naturally without much effort at all. Some hobbies have developed over time – while others have faded (thankfully and regrettably). Hobbies come and hobbies go – as we grow.

One of my lesser-known hobbies over the past 25 years of my adult life that pretty much came out of nowhere but has developed quite nicely over the years is that of a personal historian. It goes along with my fascination with dates and numbers, and it fits right in with my organizational skills. Nowadays my blogs and my tweets serve as the public recorded history of this new Life of mine. Previously my web site fulfilled that role during the latter portion of the 1990s into the new millennium. Before the evolution of the web I recorded the significant events of my life via pen and paper. Now that’s what I call ‘Retro’ !

Because of this hobby I can tell you that on Friday June 30TH 1989 I was at the original Miami Arena in downtown Miami to see ‘Downtown’ Julie Brown host a LIVE concert featuring The Information Society, Lisa Lisa And Cult Jam, Milli Vanilli, Tone Loc, and Was (Not Was). They were some of the biggest hit music artists of that era. I can also tell you that 21 years ago this weekend on Sunday the 27TH of August of 1989 I was at the Sunrise Musical Theatre for 8 hours for Y-100‘s Sweet 16 Birthday Concert featuring all of the Y-100 deejays at the time and their musical artist guests Bandera, K.C. And The Sunshine Band, Roxette, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Damian, and Buster Poindexter.

Another HUGE pop artist at the time was Ms. Paula Abdul – back during her heyday. She stormed onto the pop culture scene with 5 HUGE smash hits and videos in a row in 1989. Here’s one of them – originally a miserable flop in 1988 before anyone knew who she was. It was reissued during her 1989 pop chart explosion, and it was MASSIVE the 2ND time around !

History – It’s always occurring, and it’s always expanding. Recording it some way some how allows you to look back at it fondly from a different era in the future. It’s your ‘Retro’. Treasure it.

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The Major’s Weekend Blast-Off

WEEKEND GRAB BAG O’ THOUGHT:
It’s the 4TH weekend of the month of August of the year 2010, and we are here to kick it off with this weekend’s much-anticipated edition of the ‘Blast-Off’. It actually felt weird working all day today since I enjoyed half of yesterday off. I spent some quality time up at The Falls Shopping Center. It’s where I grew up. It’s the single place here in South Florida that I’ve been going to longer and more frequently than any other place (other than my workplace). I remember strolling through The Falls as a young lad of 21 and 22 back in the late-1980s. Nearly a quarter of a century later I feel right at home at that occasionally jumpin’ joint. I don’t feel that way at various other shopping centers and malls. But The Falls has that ‘something special’ feel to it. It’s not perfect. They are missing a book store, a music store, and some more fine dining establishments. The movie theatre there is definitely showing its old age, but then again it’s still much nicer (and surely more modern) than our own 4½-year-old movie theatre here in Homestead. The Falls. I belong. Happy 30TH Anniversary !

BEST LUNCH OF THE WEEK AWARD:
P.F. Chang’s – I dig this jumpin’ joint. I don’t get to eat there very often, but I always enjoy every visit. On Thursday (at The Falls location) I enjoyed the hot egg drop soup, the tasty beef with broccoli lunch bowl (with brown rice), and for the grande finale – the scrumptious banana spring rolls. I’m talkin’ 6 warm and crispy banana bites with coconut-pineapple ice cream that’s drizzled with caramel and vanilla sauces. Yeah !  Come On !

THE FORTUNE COOKIE MESSAGE OF THE WEEK CLUB:
– New and rewarding opportunities will soon develop for you.
– A small gift can bring joy to the whole family.

OVERHEARD RIDICULOUS STATEMENT OF THE WEEK:
‘Yeah get used to record cold and record hot and droughts and floods and tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes. It’ll be like that from now on because of global warming / climate change.’

THOSE CRAZY CRAZY CATS:

BLATANT PROMOTION:
TOMORROW on an all-new ‘Saturday Night Retro’ I’ll take you back with me to the end of the 1980s and the last-half of 1989 here in the land of the 3-0-5. Find out what I was doin’ one Friday night – downtown with Julie Brown. After that the blogging continues next weekend on Friday and Saturday night with more ‘Blast-Off’ and ‘Retro’. In-between the blogging it’s the tweeting. You can follow me @majorhitwaves. Have a wonderful weekend my friends !

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Saturday Night Retro

Volume 2 / Number 47 / Edition 96

On this 96TH weekly edition of my ‘Saturday Night Retro’ it’s time to continue my month-long-plus celebration that is ‘The Awesome ’80s In August International Dance Party’. After this edition I’ll have two more on the 28TH of August and the 04TH of September. I also begin the 3RD year of the ‘Retro’ here on this blog on that 1ST Saturday of September. Who would have thought back in 2008 when this blog was peaking that ‘Saturday Night Retro’ would outlive all of the other weekly blog series at that time. I mean – besides me ?

ON to this week’s ‘Retro’ and back during the Spring of 1989 Time, Inc. and Warner Communications merged to become Time Warner. It was the beginning of the end for Eastern Air Lines, as it went bankrupt after over 60 years in the air. The Exxon Valdez ran aground off the south coast of Alaska, and it created an environmental disaster at sea. My favourite theme park at Walt Disney World – The Disney-MGM Studios – opened its doors for the very first time. Gas prices were right around $1 per gallon as I drove all around South Florida in my sparkling new 1989 Geo Spectrum.

On the radio the U.K.’s Fine Young Cannibals scored BIG with back-to-back International pop and dance smash hits. Here’s one of my favourite songs of all time. It’s “She Drives Me Crazy”. It’s RETRO !

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Saturday Night Retro

On This 95TH weekly edition of my ‘Retro’ I take you back 22½ years ago to the Spring of 1988. I remember it well. I was a young 20-year-old USAF Airman First Class (two stripes) on the verge of becoming 21 and a Senior Airman (three stripes) at bustling Homestead Air Force Base Florida. My total annual salary was about $11,000, but I had no car, lived on-base in a dormitory, and all of the food was free. I rode my bike to and from work on-base through the heat, the wind, and the rain. I dreamed of someday owning a car and driving it all around South Florida. That day would NOT occur in 1988, but rather in January of 1989. So back in 1988 I had friends with cars, and that’s all that mattered. All I wanted to do was to eat and party – and so I did. I ate and partied so much that I ended up gaining a lot of weight. In fact I reached my maximum lifetime weight of approximately 185 pounds !  That’s about 15 pounds more than my stable weight of today. I was not very healthy back then, and the situation would only get worse once I hit the legal drinking age of 21 that June (of 1988).

Back then during what I like to refer to as ‘The Golden Age Of Miami Top 40 Radio’ we here were blessed with three competing hit music radio stations – Power-96, Y-100, and Hot-105. All three played the big hits of the day, and each station also specialized in its own genre. Power-96 was a bit more urban than the other two, and Hot-105 actually played American hard rock and European club dance back-to-back. Y-100 was the heritage mainstream pop station of its time.

As I rode my bike all over the air base – dreaming of tuning in to each of these three stations on my eventual new car’s radio – this smash was playing everywhere. It’s the Spring of 1988 here in South Florida !

‘The Awesome ’80s In August International Dance Party’ continues next week as we enter the wild and crazy world that was 1989.

Until then my friends – “GET OUT OF THE CITY !” (Balki Bartokomous from “Perfect Strangers”)