Category: Music

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Saturday Night Retro

TODAY – the fifth of June of 2010 – is my 43RD birthday. You know you try to keep these events a secret from everyone, and yet word still manages to leak out about it. Go figure. LOL !

Perhaps the most memorable birthday of my entire lifetime was exactly 25 years ago on this date in 1985. It’s when I turned 18-years-old. Back then I knew what I was going to do on the following day. I was going to graduate from high school and receive my diploma. And so I did – on June 06TH 1985 at historic DAR Constitution Hall in Washington D.C.

On my 18TH birthday I also knew what I was going to do exactly a week later. I was going to leave home, make my way from suburban Northern Virginia to San Antonio Texas via planes, trains, shuttles, and automobiles, and enter a whole new world. And so I did – on June 12TH 1985 when I arrived at Lackland Air Force Base for Air Force Basic Military Training. It was the most hectic week of my lifetime – turning 18, graduating from high school, and joining the Air Force.

I never imagined 25 years ago that I’d be celebrating my 25TH anniversary with the Air Force this week in 2010, but here I am. I served 8 years on active duty (1985-1993), 2 years on active reserves (1993-1995), 4 years on inactive reserves (1995-1999), and 17 years as a Department Of Defense civilian working for the USAF (1993-now). It’s been a great and rewarding career, and retirement is about 15 years away. I can almost see it from here !

Back during that hectic second week of June of 1985 this memorable song from Tears For Fears was the # 1 pop and rock smash all across the free nation. It’s “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, and I present it as my 25TH anniversary ‘Retro’ classic flashback:

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Blogging Career History Holidays Life Music Travel

Saturday Night Retro

The long Memorial Day holiday weekend is here all across our 50 states, and it’s the unofficial start of the 101 days of Summer from now through the Labor Day holiday weekend at the start of September. It’s when schools let out, vacations begin, and schedules change for Americans everywhere. It’s where we go out and enjoy the world around us while the weather is warm and the days are long visiting new and different places nearby and far away.

I’ve enjoyed many memorable Summers over the past 43 years of my lifetime. Some were memorable for bad events (such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992), and some for good (such as Panama City Beach in 1990). Many I can’t remember at all, so they were clearly forgettable. Looking back I regret not making some type of a memorable impact during those past unremarkable Summers. Of course some of those Summers were forgettable because I’ve chosen to forget about them over time because they were too traumatic for me.

Two Summers in a row were quite memorable for me in a favourable way because I was living them in a foreign land. I was living on an American Air Force Base near Fairford Gloucestershire England in 1986 and 1987. It was an enjoyable, exciting, and ecstatic experience abroad with friends, co-workers, and natives of the land. I was very honoured to be able to live such a rewarding life back then as an 18, 19, and 20-year-old USAF Airman serving my country in another country. I was thankful to be able to return back home again with all of those awesome memories.

This Memorial Day Monday here on my blog I’ll be posting a very special entry to honour those who served before, alongside, and after me – but never made it back home again. They died fighting for freedom while serving their country. Just like this soldier that everyone knew as “Camoulflage”:

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Blogging Career Holidays Music Weather

Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– It’s that time of the week again.
– It’s tricky to rock a rhyme to rock a rhyme that’s right on time it’s tricky.
– That’s old school Run-D.M.C. from 1987.
– D.M.C. backwards is C.M.D. – my initials.
– I also deal with M.C.D. – maintenance cost data.
– I also deal with M.D.C. – maintenance data collection.
– I used to work for the D.C.M. – deputy commander for maintenance.
– Those initials work for me in so many ways.
– I am C.M.D., for I am in command.
– This is the 67TH edition of my ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’.
– 67 is a cool number, for I was born in 1967.
– Next Saturday June 05TH is my 43RD birthday.
– Next Sunday June 06TH marks 25 years since my high school graduation.
– Today’s high school graduates were newborns of Hurricane Andrew.
– It’s hard to conceive that Andrew was a generation ago.
– Introducing Alex, Bonnie, and Colin – your first three storm names.
– 2010’s storm names were last used in 2004 with a few exceptions.
– Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne were retired after the 2004 season.
– All four of those notorious storms struck Florida that season.
– Let’s hope that this season’s storms stay out at sea.
– As I do every season I’ll be monitoring them closely.
– I’m looking forward to this long Memorial Day holiday weekend.
– I’m not traveling anywhere.
– I’m staying off of the streets as much as I can.
– It’ll be a peaceful, quiet, and productive weekend here in my home.
– Get ready for 4 new blog posts in as many days starting on Saturday.
– That includes a very special Memorial Day Monday blog post.
– In whatever you do during this upcoming holiday weekend play it safe.
– Take great care of one another out there.
– You won’t regret it pal.

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Saturday Night Retro

Exactly 17 years ago yesterday morning on the 21ST of May of 1993 in the heart of Melbourne Florida ‘Captain Airwaves’ was officially born. He was my original pseudonym in cyberspace. Of course back in 1993 nobody knew what the World Wide Web was all about. After all Al Gore had just invented it, and he hadn’t yet explained it. Back then the most popular form of modern communications between personal computers across the free nation was via the telephone dial-up bulletin board system (BBS). Mine debuted real early on that morning 17 years ago, and it was named after my lovable childhood cat (still alive at the time) – Fluffy. She was a Manx, and the name of my first creation in cyberspace – ‘MANx CAT BBS’. That first bulletin board system lasted a little over four years, and it eventually spawned a spinoff site on the emerging web at the time – ‘MANx On The Net’. That web site eventually morphed into the ‘MASSIVESMASH.COM‘ hit music web site that survived and thrived for the better part of a decade during the late-1990s into the new millenium. It faded several years ago, but it inspired this personal blog that continues today.

‘Captain Airwaves’ was actually the pseudonym of the late great John Carmody – the famed daily television columnist of “The Washington Post” newspaper from 1977 to 1998. During my high school years in the early-1980s he inspired me to get in to the entertainment business somehow someway. The bulletin board, the web site, and the blog was as close as I got to that dream. I adopted the ‘Captain Airwaves’ pseudonym for the BBS, and then after a couple of years my followers at the time (known affectionately as ‘MANxsters’) promoted me to ‘Major’, so I became ‘Major Airwaves’. When the web site hit it big I took on the ‘Major Hitwaves’ name and persona to more accurately reflect my role at the time as a deejay on the web. Nowadays I’m still ‘Major Hitwaves’, but I’m more commonly known as simply ‘The Major’.

17 years ago this past week I was unemployed, living off of my savings, and having way too good of a time with all of my friends and neighbours in the Melbourne area. The 1400 block of South Oak Street rocked back then, and ‘Captain Airwaves’ was crankin’ out the hits from his second floor studio efficiency – and all up and down the U.S. 1 and the A1A.

Here’s one of those hits of the time – an obscure track that was a local smash on the radio and in the nightclubs of Melbourne. It’s His Boy Elroy – and a track about them “Chains”. As are most of the songs that I feature here on the ‘Saturday Night Retro’ it’s one of the greatest songs ever made according to me.