::slams head against the wall::

[tinhuviel]

The George Michael I know and love wears a "choose life" tea shirt and sings about waking up before you go-go. He isn't the anonymous park pervert of the 21st Century. May I please please please just go back to the 80s and live there forever? Please?

I admit it. I've become my Uncle Michael, who is still lodged firmly in the 1950s. He emerges occasionally to sample modern music and culture, but he always returns to his safe haven of that particular decade. My decade is the 80s. Actually, it's just a handful of years from that decade, specifically 1980 through 1985. The music of that time still sings to my soul. It was the age of the synthesiser, the age of taking chances and being different, the age of experimentation. The Second British Invasion of the American music scene was in full swing and I was immensely grateful for some decent music for the first time in ages. It was also my age of innocence, because I was certain that these icons of musical superiority could do no wrong. They scored the soundtrack to my life and they represented for me all I wanted to be when I came of age. I had my first girl crush in 1983, upon seeing the "Sweet Dreams" video by the Eurythmics. Annie Lennox in her spiffy suit and wielding the Riding Crop of Domination quite literally blew my mind. My nickname in high school was George because Boy George was one of my idols. It was Boy George and Robert Smith who essentially taught me how to apply makeup. To this day, I still put more eye shadow under my eyes than over them. Imagine my horror when I saw Boy George, bald, and painted up like a Killer Klown from Outer Space. Whuh?

I know everything changes. I know that time supposedly marches on and only the strong can keep up. I'm not that strong. I've been left behind somewhere in the swelling throng in attendance at Live Aid. Just let me stay there, where Boy George is still decked in Foundation and George Michael offers up careless whispers to his fans and not pot-bellied white van men in London parks at midnight. I don't want to be here in this horrible age, stained by a cynicism that never washes off and broken by dreams that I never realised.

And now my head hurts. Maybe I should apply something...anything...directly to my forehead.

Comments

[ceruleanlobster.livejournal.com]

My decade, too. I still get "Cruel Summer" lodged in my head every summer...

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

I grok that statement. Only folks in our decade would.

[(Anonymous)]

So what you're saying is, "She's still preoccupied... with 19 - 19 - 1985"?

LOL. I just found a bumch of my old cassette tapes recently and have been Totally Rocking Out.

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

omigawd, I've become a song.

[bayberrybush.livejournal.com]

you and me, both. :)

[bayberrybush.livejournal.com]

And what the *&^ is Boy George doing in this getup? I saw him on those VH1 commentary shows and I was like, WHAT?!? This is what happened to that beautiful man singing karma chameleon? No! No!

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

I've tried to erase that from my mind, but I just can't. Barry Andrews does bald perfectly. Boy George looks like a bowling ball all tarted up.

[bayberrybush.livejournal.com]

Crap! For some reason I keep getting logged out. That anonymous comment was me. Yargh.

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

irritating isn't it?

[bloominglotus.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say I agree, except I never want to be a teenager again so going back to the '80s is a big no-no for me. Let's bring the '80s to us.

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I wouldn't want to be a teenager again either. But I would like to recapture that sense of "anything is possible" and return to the best music ever.

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

Ahh, Live Aid. I loved the shock of seeing Sade' in a mock-turtleneck that had absolutely NO back. Deliciously decadent.

[bayberrybush.livejournal.com]

She was so elegant. OMG.

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

INDEED. I didn't even realize that I thought she was hot.

[bayberrybush.livejournal.com]

OT, but I love your icon. :)

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

Oh THANKS! My tootsies! Feel free to use it if you like.

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

I cried that entire day. I was just so overwhelmed by that concert. Of course, this was before I became a misanthropist.

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

Wonder how much of that misanthropy was Geldof-inspired?

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Saint Bob can do no wrong. My misanthropy is a by-product of realising that the world I thought existed never did and never will.

[sapphirescarlet.livejournal.com]

Indeed true.

[falkenna.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe it helps when the essence of those tender years is the cynical, doomed romanticism of fighting that nasty world. (Even though there is more disillusion to come when you realize your generation is just as bad.)

Ah, the 60s.

[moad-terran-hq.livejournal.com]

Live-Aid (Philadelphia) was the first concert I ever went to. Talk about trial by fire....

It was freaking hot (I almost passed out from heat exhaustion), we were dead center right in front of the big towers on the field. My sister and I actually found us on the VH1 Tape in one of the crowd-pan shots.

It was amazing - I still remember a good number of the acts. Hooters were a terrific opening, Madonna actually impressed me (I didn't much care for her until then), Phil Collins was great (especially considering how he managed to do Wembley and JFK), and Mick Jagger and Tina Turner blew everyone away.

That reminds me, I really ought to open that DVD and take a gander, do some reminiscing. Might be a good way to avoid the heat this weekend (any excuse to hide in my living room).

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

you....attended....Live Aid?

........

I need to go process this. Will be back in a year or so.

..

[moad-terran-hq.livejournal.com]

Yup. My sister managed to get tickets for her friend, me and my friend , and my sister drove us down to Philly. (I lived on Long Island back then, so it wasn't as long a drive). Even may still have the ticket stub somewhere. I definately have a T-shirt that is about 3 sizes too small for me, but I will never throw out....

And process faster, dammit, I do not think I could stand you being out of touch for a year!!!

[ex-glittert.livejournal.com]

George Michael, a gifted singer/songwriter whose talented I have envied oh, I don't know...FOREVER, is now better known for being a Drugged Up Park Perv. Its painful to discover our idols are mortal, isn't it?

Except for Annie Lennox, of course. She is now and will remain a Goddess on the Highest Plain and would never sully her reputation by blowing strangers in a park. :\

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

I'm still not convinced that Barry Andrews is mortal. ....vampire... He looks the same now as he did 20 years ago. ...vampire... In fact, he looks younger today than he did in 1978. ...vampire... I don't know if he goes to parks but, if he does, I'm sure it's to drink anonymous blood rather than any other...fluids. ...vampire...

[ex-glittert.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, you could have a point there...vampire

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Miss Subliminal

[scbearmike.livejournal.com]

As I think you know, I love those years, too. As for George in the clown suit, Buzz and I got to see _Taboo!_ on Broadway and just absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, it was one of the nights toward the end of the run that George threw a fit and decided not to come to do the show. Thankfully, the understudy was great. The costume works very well in the context of who he was playing and gave a different view of the world of that age. One that would have been a lot of fun to experience or have been exposed to at the time, but we were still very naive and uninformed in upstate SC. At least I was. I think I'll put on a Thompson Twins CD now and revel in the past. :-)

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Play "The Gap." It's terribly appropriate considering world affairs.