Category: Music

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Driving History Life Music Radio Travel

Saturday Night Retro

1989 – I started off the year in January by buying a brand new car for the first time in my entire life. I was tired of riding my 10-speed bike all over Homestead Air Force Base, so I bought a bright and shiny new red 1989 Geo Spectrum. It would go on to become my longest-tenure car. I had it for over 8 years – driving it for 96,745 miles. Since the purchase of that first car exactly 20 years ago this weekend I’ve driven just over 230,000 miles !  That’s an overall average of exactly 11,500 miles per year – just below the national driving average.

I bought that car when I was 21-years-old and living in one of the many dormitories on base. That car gave me the freedom that I wanted at the time to explore the South Florida all around me. It took me through 8 crazy years of my life – through the remainder of my turbulent 20s. It took me on countless road trips up north. It sat idle for a couple of months while I was in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It survived the Category 4 hurricane winds of Andrew on the morning of August 24TH 1992. It moved me back up to the Washington D.C. area a week after the hurricane destroyed Homestead, and it returned me back to (Central) Florida about 6 months later. It eventually brought me back down to Homestead and the air base in March of 1994. It moved a lot of my possessions to my current home here in Homestead in June of 1995 – including my little feline buddy Boots.

What a cool little car that was – chock-full of a lot of great memories of my life at the time. No other Saturn since then has even come close.

This song reminds me so much of that year of 1989. I bought it on cassette single (that was the hot music medium at the time), and I played it over and over again. This is one of those few songs that I consider to be a pivotal theme song of the autobiographical soundtrack of my life. It’s from the legendary rock band Poco. They’ve been in existence as a group for the past 40 years – virtually my entire life !  Here’s their huge pop radio smash from 1989 – “Call It Love”:

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Music Radio

Monday Night Countdown

It’s my TOP 5 favourite hit music artists of 2008 !

5.  Hawk Nelson – “Friend Like That” was MASSIVE !

4.  The Wedding – “Staring At The Light”, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”, “Receive”, and “Return” all rocked 2008 hard !

3.  Capital Lights – The one-two power-pop punch of “Out Of Control” and “Outrage” made me their biggest fan in Homestead !

2.  Falling Up – Their 2006 hit “Contact” was part of the soundtrack of my awakening during that Summer. They are a hit music making machine. Hits # 5 (“Goodnight Gravity”) and # 6 (“Maps”) from them since the start of my journey have been their best works to date !

1.  Children 18:3 – I think that even ‘Ritz The Trustworthy Teen‘ may be – yeah – shocked – to find out that this is my favourite rock band of the year. OK so they are hardcore punk brothers and a sister who are about half my age and probably shop a lot at Hot Topic, but kid they ROCK my face off !  “Homemade Valentine” is my current favourite smash hit on the radio !

Here’s one of their big smash hits from 2008 – “All My Balloons (Are Popping)”.

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History Home Life Music Television Travel

Saturday Night Retro

Last Saturday night on the ‘Retro’ I presented to you for your review the 1996 smash “1979” from The Smashing Pumpkins. This week I take you back to 1979. It was exactly 30 years ago, and it closed out a crazy decade of decadence.

I entered 1979 as an 11½-year-old 6TH grader at Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland – located right in the middle of my neighbourhood at the time. Later in the year in September I moved on to Robert H. Goddard Junior High School several miles away. I was also a Boy Scout at the time. We had meetings weekly, and we went on hiking and camping trips monthly – mostly up to the mountains of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. They were ancient history editions of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ !  😀

During my spare time (after school and on weekends) I enjoyed riding my bike up and down Red Wing Lane, Wood Thrush Drive, Nightingale Drive, Kingfisher Lane, Wren Lane, and Brae Brooke Drive. I can see recent images of all of those roads (and my old house of over 5½-years) right now online via the use of Google Street View. My old neighbourhood has aged quite a bit over the past 30 years – and so have I. Back then it was brand new (built from around 1973 to 1975). That’s how I remember it. It doesn’t look like that anymore.

On the hit music radio stations nationwide disco music was still alive and kicking – at least during the first-half of 1979. It started dying out during that Summer. Here’s one of the last big disco hits of the era. It managed to sneak up the Billboard HOT 100 to # 11 in September of 1979. It’s Bonnie Pointer making a LIVE July 1979 appearance on ‘The Midnight Special’ on a Friday night on NBC-TV. Here’s her disco smash “Heaven Must Have Sent You”. Check out the way that we used to control the dance floor back then !

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Blogging Driving Health Music Television Weather

Blatant Promotion

TOMORROW MORNING I fully intend to wake up sometime before 7 AM, take a hot shower, put on some cool clothes, and then proceed to venture outside and walk around my neighbourhood for a couple of miles. I call it ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’, and you’ll be able to read all about it right here on the big green blog.

Later in the day on Saturday be sure to catch another smokin’ hot new edition of ‘The Major’s Saturday Night Fever DISCO Party’ ‘Saturday Night Retro’ as I take you back – way back to 1979 !

I’m getting indications that North America’s continental weather pattern is about to make a major shift, and that could mean the end of all of this warm weather that we’ve been experiencing here in America’s Riviera over the past 30 days or so. In fact I may be issuing a ‘Homestead Cold Weather Alert’ sometime early next week in anticipation of temperatures falling into the 40s !  Stay tuned for that one !

So that’s what I’ve got in store for the big green blog real soon. Be sure to stick around and check in from time to time. You won’t regret it pal !

Miami made International news headlines again today for another nutty incident. Hundreds and hundreds of shoes were dumped on a half-mile stretch of a Palmetto Expressway overpass early this morning near the Don SHOE-LA Expressway (sorry – I just had to go there), and it snarled rush hour traffic for miles and miles. Read (and see) all about it here (courtesy of WTVJ NBC-6), and (courtesy of CNN) – REMEMBER THIS !