Weekend Plans Post: Entering Fall
So the first thing I did when talking about “Seasons Change” was remember Exposé – Seasons Change which, lemme tell ya, the radio played for, like, two months solid. And that made me remember when they were on Club MTV and did their hit “What you don’t know” which I primarily remembered due to Gioia Bruno removing her jacket at the end of the song but, secondarily, to me remembering that, Jeez Louise, every single artist that they had on Club MTV was lip synching the song and so when Milli Vanilli had their lip synch “scandal”, I found myself wondering “how in the world did you guys not know that they were lip synching”?
Heck, “Downtown” Julie Brown pointed out that, hey, most of the artists who performed there used a “guide track” because they were dancing and couldn’t afford to risk being out of breath. So, yeah, they lip synched.
Anyway, summer is pretty much autumn now. I find myself wishing that I had a light jacket when I go to work instead of wishing that I had worn a shirt with short sleeves. It’s not QUITE yet time to put the bedroom A/C room unit away for the season, but it’s getting close (maybe next weekend, maybe the one after). When friends say “hey, can you bring dessert over?”, I’m likely to bring stuff that I have to cook in the oven before serving than some ice cream variant.
I’ve also heard rumors of trees outside having leaves change colors. Maybe I’ll check that too (maybe next weekend, maybe the one after).
As for THIS weekend, it’s one where we’re going to have to do the Costco thing again. Sure, we had an Epic Trip where we couldn’t have fit one more item in the trunk or back seat… but when that’s followed by a week or two of not going, then it turns into needing some steaks, needing some paper towels, needing some of those little rolls of salami and mozzarella cheese. We’re also going to the PetSmart to get a couple hundred pounds of litter to change out every box in the house, and going to King Soopers to get The Usual Staples.
And Saturday Night is game night (and enough people have cancelled that we’re going to be playing a four-player game that we’ve never played before: Alien Artifacts. So I’m looking forward to that. And then, Sunday, we wrap up the weekend up and finish up the stuff we gotta do around the house: make breakfasts/lunches for the coming week, garbage, recycling, the usual. And then, after that… well. It’ll be Monday. Now I’m depressed.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is promotional image for Exposé’s single for Seasons Change.)
Looking at the video, its amazing how much of the 1980s aesthetics seemed to last until Bill Clinton got elected in 1992, when the true 90s began. This just wasn’t because of the political break and change. A lot of the feel of the culture changed because of shifts in music like the rise in grunge or even 16 bit video games causing the consumer tech to feel more advanced. The Bush I years might have just been seen as an extension of the 80s.
Expose seems to be a popular group from the period that I have no memory of. I do remember the Milli Vanilli scandal despite being only 11 at the time. I was vaguely aware of who Madonna and other big acts were as an elementary school and middle school kid but never heard of this group until today. Its kind of odd how you can be aware of some big things but not other big things from your childhood. Thanks to VHI, I thought the Cars were something of a novelty act with one hit, You Might Think. I recently learned they were a lot bigger than that.Report
Considering that Bush I was Reagan’s VP and pretty much just continued his policies, “the eighties lasted until 1992” isn’t far off.Report
I’m talking about the entire zeitgeist rather than mere politics. For some reason when you look back at old media there seems to be an abrupt change in the style of everything between 1979 and 1980. I guess by 1985 or 1986 we reach the High Eighties style, which seems to have culturally lasted until 1992 and then another abrupt change in the zeitgeist occurs with the election of Bush I ending it.Report
In 1986, I think it was in September, I attended a party wearing a white linen blazer over a turquoise tee shirt, with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows.
I think most historians now agree it was at that precise moment when High Eighties style peaked and began its own self parody.Report
Gonna need a pic of that, ChipReport
Yep… the Lehman Brothers moment of the 80s.Report
1986 was, indeed, the pinnacle of 80’sness.
Depicted in video form here (yes, from 1986):
Report
I had a coworker who told me “I voted for Reagan three times, only got him twice”, referring to Bush I.
So, yeah. What Duck said.
(And The Cars were awesome.)Report
I don’t remember Expose either, but than again, in 1992, I was in grad school (yes I am Old) and had concerns that seemed more urgent to me than “what’s on MTV?”
Also, I was always that weird kid who liked other-than-what-was-popular music. (I do remember watching “The Real World” on MTV, but I think that was a few years later? And I mostly hate-watched it because man, some of those people were annoying).
I remember Milli Vanilli though.
This weekend I am taking as much time OFF as I can. Last weekend was largely working (grading, and then Sunday was getting help removing a large branch that fell on my roof, and cutting up for hauling-off another large branch that came down – we had torrential rain Friday afternoon).
It’s still hellaciously hot here, and will be for at least another week, so it doesn’t seem like fall at all.
This has been an absolute crap past two months with far, far too many bad things happening in my life. This week has mostly been a “resolution week” – got the IRS problem sorted (Jackson-Hewett screwed up a past tax return of mine badly and I had to hire a CPA), had grief counseling, got the branch taken care of, got the busted GFCI outlet (which also took down the other things on that breaker, namely my dishwasher and in-sink disposal) fixed.
But MAN am I fried. I also wrote two exams for upcoming weeks, graded two (including a stats one which is as tough to grade as you might imagine) and pretty much got done what I needed to get done.
So I am taking as much time off as I can this weekend.Report
The funniest thing about Milli Vanilli was that they sold approximately one jillion records before the scandal came out, then they had the lip synch thing, then the record company said “we will refund people who want to return the album” and then PEOPLE RETURNED THE ALBUM.
It still had exactly the same songs, mind. It was still catchy as heck, as we said back then. But we found out that the guys who sang the songs were not twentyish and wearing bicycle pants but fiftyish and wearing khakis. “Relaxed fit” khakis. So back to the company it went.
It is good to have accomplished so much! Cocoon and recover!Report
I thought the Milli Vanilli scandal was that they weren’t lip synching *their* vocals, but someone else’s. Of course everyone else was lip synching in “live” routines… but they were faking their own previously recorded voices. Or am I mis-remembering?
The 80s live! Atomic Blond was on cable last night, and I kept it on in the background just for the New Order and Depeche Mode soundtrack. They sure smoked a lot in that movie… even more than I remember for 1989… especially for the youthful protagonists.
Funny, I don’t remember Expose at all, but by 1987 I think I had checked-out of MTV and watching the youtube you posted, I remember why. Strikes me as peak 80s sound without any hint of talent or originality… pure marketing. But yes, definitely feels late 80s pop (vs. early 80s alternative).
This weekend we’re pulled in a lot of directions with kids’ activities… I have a bunch of fall projects in the forest that I look forward to. Once I get the chainsaw repaired (thanks youtube). I have to say that youtube videos are the MacGyver of the 2010s… I’ve done things to my tractor and other mechanical things that would have been impossible 10-yrs ago. Well, not impossible, but unthinkable.Report
I do not think you are misremembering; what I remember of L’Affaire Milli Vanilli was that the scandal was it was studio musicians and not the actual guys out on stage doing the singing. Though given Autotune and some of the other stuff that’s happened (e.g., the rise of Hatsune Miko), I suspect today people would barely blink at a Milli Vanilli.Report
Counter-culture ideas about authenticity were still rather strong in the early 1990s. Manufactured bands like New Kids on the Block weren’t exactly respected even if they were popular. Most Americans expected some modicum of musical ability from their artists so Milli Vanilli could have been just too much. I think the popularity of anime and J-Pop, because Japan abs other East Asian countries never really had an authenticity cult in music, helped Americans and other Westerners grow more comfortable with things like Hatsune Miku and auto tune.Report
No, you’re remembering correctly. I guess I just see the whole thing as absurd to the point where I don’t see the difference between “they’re not *REALLY* singing” and “*THEY*’re not really singing”.
It was a little over a decade after the Milli Vanilli scandal that the self-titled debut of the Gorillaz had animated musicians/singers and sold approximately one jillion albums.Report
Well, that makes sense through this lens:
Boomers: Crisis of Daddy issues brought on by distant WW2 fathers
GenX: Crisis of Abandonment brought on by Boomer Divorce.
Milennials: Crisis of Authenticity brought on by GenX Milli Vanilli
That’s not politics, that’s pure scientific fact; i read it in a study somewhere.Report
Back in ’92, I had moved beyond the MTV (we didn’t have any sort of cable, or possibly a tv in the bachelor students house/dump I lived in) so I had no idea about Expose and only knew about Milli-Vanilli tangentially. I did, however, see a Stranglers video on the Yu-tube recently where they were obviously lip-synching, probably as a contract thing for the show, and they made great fun of it. The drummer pivoting away from the kit and banging away at the air, that sort of thing. Great fun.
Anyway, its been raining off and on here, so I have been painting between the raindrops. So, if the weather seems to hold, I will be painting the trim on the north side of the house, if not, I will be putting a flyer together for my next business project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gfIgA-PYyQReport
Heh, but the keyboards were totally legit.
Is it a sign of the times that it makes me nostalgic for good ole Trotsky fetishes?Report
Johnny Rotten created a scene on American Bandstand when he was told that, no, he *WOULD* be lip synching and so he just pulled people out of the audience and had them dance around him as he lip synched poorly.Report
Going to see this band tonight with a friend. A few months back, he sent me a link to this video and followed that up with a message telling me that they were playing in Denver soon. My response was something like, “I feel like we HAVE to go see them.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAYReport
BABYMETAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whee. Have fun.Report
Huh, just realized I had never seen the video to that expose song. Geez, hard to think that was 30 some years ago. Usually that was radio background music, and more often than not a ratchet was singing along with a zeeenk, zeeenk, zeeeenk, as I was taking something apart, or putting it back together.
Planted a lot of Spinach trees last weekend. It’s a pretty simple process of just clipping a branch off a existing overgrown tree, stab a shovel in the ground where you want to plant, and push the branch down in the shovel cut. Water for a couple of weeks, and they just take off on their own. Pretty hardy in drought conditions after they are established. Horses trampled one of them, so probably re-plant and put a tomato cage around that one location.
Did the same technique for six pillar cactus, although the base is wider, so they need a little wider excavation. One of our orange trees is just chocked full of fat oranges, still green but I suppose they will be ripening some time between now and January. It appears the cumquats cross pollinated with the oranges, as they are way bigger than usual.
I noticed this was the first morning it felt cool. There wasn’t a thick haze of humidity hanging in the air, and last night the A/C unit only yielded 4 gallons.
Aims decided she wanted to do some fishing, so the last few weeks she’s been hauling home her morning catch and collecting enough for a good fish fry. Have a suspicion that one of these weekends there will be a sizeable group of her friends on the back porch eating fried catfish.
In the never ending pursuit of accuracy, I looked for a longish rifle round that would fit a black powder .44. Found a mauser bullet mold from Lyman that looked like it would work. A 43 Mauser round measuring .446, which is the exact diameter I was looking for. After casting a few I measured it and the base does measure the .446 but at the front it measures several thousands less. I tested a few, and the groupings weren’t at all acceptable. Probably getting some front wobble there.
So I waxed one up and pushed it through the riflings of the barrel, and noticed that the riflings engage at the base and only halfway to the front. It needed only a few thousands removed from the mold, So I turned a cast bullet around and used the base as a lapping surface for the front of the cavity. A little 600 grit lapping compound and a lot of work, and the mold is producing pretty close to .446 along the length. With any luck, will cast a few and see how they group this weekend.Report
Good luck with the grouping. I understand what you’re saying when I force my brain into engineer mode and extrapolate out from what my gun nut buddies talk about when I’m in the room but, when I slip back into “Bachelor of the Arts” mode, I’m back to “huddawha?”Report