Ride Like the Wind
I would say I’m sorry for being such a negligent website narrator lately, but I don’t say sorry for goofy things like that, and in addition the last month or so has brought me near redline on the mostly self-inflicted wacko meter and I’m trying to wake up and see where I’m at. A strange confluence of interesting characters, travel, strong coastal winds, heavy thinking, heavier drinking, and an absence of mundane day2day soul-suckery, has left me at a loss for… uh, words and stuff. Usually I don’t get into personal particulars, aside from travel adventures, because I prefer the general, the overarching themes, the abstracted espresso froth of the individual. That said, Christopher Cross’ hit, “Ride Like the Wind,” pretty much sums up any personal drama I care to express.
Yeah, powerful stuff, I know. Life is weird and people come and go, like skin flakes, or furniture, and rock bands. Don’t hold on to it, young Keanu-Buddha, just Ride Like the Wind…
October 20th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
uuuummmm…I’m cancelling my subscription and would like the balance of my ‘fees’ returned, forthwith.
“Oh man, what the hell was that ‘lab fee’ for?” - Otto the Busdriver
October 21st, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Ride Like the Wind was my favorite song in 2nd grade. Never saw the video until today. I listened to it quietly on my clock radio while reading under the covers, and pretending I was riding the Black Stallion. Hopefully, you were not literal about the gun in the hand business. And while I like your overarching themes and shit, I also think the individual details are what are interesting at times. Not that I don’t like the abstract, but sometimes the details are what really ARE the overarching themes for us. Anyway, interesting post about apparently nothing that you want to talk about. Maybe.
October 22nd, 2006 at 12:35 am
Wow, Annie, speaking of touching details - little girl reading under the covers, pretending to ride the Black Stallion, total secret garden stuff, seriously. It’s wild how we had to discover music at such a cheesy time, makes me want to write a post about ‘earliest rock memories’ on my own blog, but it’s been too much on the nostalgia kick lately, so I’ll wait a bit.
But doesn’t seeing the video add so much? Hell, I’d do any of those guys, esp. that one keyboard player - he’s got sort of a Chuck Norris thing going, but with the mail order glasses from “Compute” magazine, grrrr. Macho! I’ll bet he’s fluent in both Logo AND Pascal. Really the tune is laid out much like the ‘Bad Company’ theme or something, but with that Michael McDonald wanna be backing vocal, and more swing than dramatic durge . Chistopher did have a ‘gun in his hand’, kiddo. A coke deal gone bad - implied in the ambiance. He wanted to do some rails and go get his highlights frosted at the all night salon on Sunset Blvd., but now this unfortunate scene went down and he’s hauling ass to TJ, jotting down some lyrics between drags on a mentholated Pall Mall, as the vet burns up the 4AM asphalt. When the ‘fuzz’ toss his crib, all they’ll find is the betamax porn and a feathered roachclip. It ain’t easy being the rebel man/badboy, in ‘79 or any year. The flamingo on the album cover says it all.
You know about the lawsuit between C. Cross and Michael Mann, right?
October 22nd, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Dude! That is Michael McDonald doing his own background vocals. Fo real, yup. Was the 70s the only era when dude’s with mustaches could actually get laid?
While we’re waxing nostalgic, I still can’t listen to “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and not want to die, remembering moving from NY to Chicago in 8th grade. Seriously, it’s horrible and makes me nauseous to this day. Being young sucked.
October 22nd, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Dudes with mustaches get laid all the time…but it’s mostly with each other.
October 24th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Beautiful reference to listening to music on the old clock radio. I remember hoping to catch ‘Just the Two of Us’ on the radio before school in fourth grade, circa 1980, so I could pretend it was a song about me and Barbara Economy.
October 24th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Wow, is Barbara Economy a real person? Great novel character name.
October 27th, 2006 at 6:05 am
Yeah it’s a real name. So is Guido Guidi. And Flaminia Vulcano. Ruby Nagpal, too. I collect bizzarre real people’s names that you’re not allowed to put in books cuz people would say they’re too stupid.
October 27th, 2006 at 8:15 am
My absoulte favorite stripper name of all time is: Felony.
October 27th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Sorry, ‘absolute’. ‘Absoulte’ is the past tense form of ‘to be completely forgiven’.
“Heyzeus absoulte para tu felonys, MUS”
October 31st, 2006 at 4:18 pm
some bizzarre names of former co workers for your collection: Deion Chilliest, Dixie McCurley
November 1st, 2006 at 5:02 am
My sister’s 11th grade prom date: Joe Boring.