When a Southern Woman Rambles... by L. Avery Brown (great reads TXT) 📕

Even so, we humans are a resilient lot and we weathered all those dark storms just as we will, no doubt, trudge through the various other hardships we, as a world, will face in the years to come. Besides, it was the 80s! There was so much other good stuff - No, not good...GREAT STUFF happening then, we couldn't help but bounce back. It's just how we were made.  

And as with any defining era, the 80s brought about words and phrases which left an indelible mark on our modern day vernacular. It was the time when all those baby boomers became Thirtysomethings who longed for real champagne wishes and caviar dreams and wanted to know the answer to one of life's most intriguing questions: where’s the beef?.  These were the things they pondered as they sat down in front of clunky, newfangled personal computers and tried to figure out why they struggled with the new medium when their children seemed to turn into gamers and hackers practically overnight. It was almost as if this new generation had been born with computer chips in their brains.

There were also Yuppies—Young UP and coming Professional Snots (all right, so maybe ‘snots’ isn’t what the ‘S’ really stands for, but, hey, if ‘snots’ hits the spot, who am I to argue?). And sometimes, if two yuppies chose hook up and decided to Just Say No’ to making little yuppie puppies, we had a name for them, too. They were dubbed DINKs (double income, no kids).

The 80s was the heyday of synthpop and VHS tapes for VCRs that needed people with PhDs from M.I.T. to figure out how to use them because of all those stupid buttons that did abso-flipping-lutely nothing. It was the age of Dynasty and shoulder pads. It was also the era of heavy (glam) metal rocking men sporting shiny Spandex pants that left nothing to the imagination. These were guys with serious attitude and some equally serious fluffed up, tall hair (hair that probably put more chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere than all the Miss America pageants combined!). Or, if they were sizzling-hot rockers, they rocked massive…mullet hair.

Ah, yes, mullet hair.

The defining do of the 80s that bled into the early 90s. It was a two-toned look that told the 'Tale of Two Men Trapped In One Head of Hair!' One man with a cut that was all business in the front. And the other sported an often frizzy, continual party in the back. My oh my I do not thing the 80s would have been the same without the mullet! Even today, nearly 30 years after the mullet-climax, there are still folks who choose to keep the neck-warming, forever-rocking hair style alive! Perhaps the style has endured thanks to another 80s novelty 'the music video' where young people were bombarded like never before with trendy fashions and huge personalities they never even knew existed!

And according to the Buggles and their one-hit wonder song, Video Killed the Radio Star (which ironically was more popular as a music video than a radio tune) the 80s single handedly changed the course of music as we knew it. Suddenly, radio disc jockeys who would spend their days pulling LPs out of cardboard sleeves to place the vinyl discs onto a turntable all so we could enjoy songs using our nifty, new, super portable Sony Walkmans had to contend with television!

Heavens! Watching one's television to hear music?! How could it be? Sure, there was Casey Kasem's America's Top 10 Countdown and Dick Clark's American Bandstand...but those shows were only on weekends. (I suppose I should mention the show Solid Gold - but all that gold lamé still haunts my dreams and I get that oh gross, I just burped vomit in my mouth sensation, so I'll pass.) 

Radio was --no-- IS an institution! How could it be that suddenly young people would willingly sit in front of their televisions, all tuned to the same station, for hours on end in the hopes of getting to see a 3 minute music video when they could simply turn on their radio and hear their favorite group singing several times on different stations? Or at the very least they could rewind and fast forward through nifty, easy to use cassette tapes. Talk about a tailspin in the industry where the voice of the DJ coming across the airwaves was like hearing a message from God! What could have happened to change the way we listen to music?

What happened? MTV happened! And it was...GLORIOUS! Oh, how I remember getting so excited whenever the VJ (Video jockeys) would say 'Coming up in a few minutes, Duran-Duran and their latest video. Stay tuned!' So, I stayed tuned like a zombie. Of course that was back when MTV actually showed music videos!

But we weren't always in front of the television. There were times when we had to do other things like go to school. Only in the 80s...we did it in style. We had our Member’s Only jackets and wore Ray Ban aviator sunglasses just like Tom Cruise wore in Top Gun. We all got Footloose with Kevin Bacon and cheered when Baby did that jump into Johnny’s arms at the end of Dirty Dancing. And we laughed uproariously as Bill Murray’s Carl Spackler in Caddyshack was foiled time and time again by that dastardly dancing gopher.

We also had...We Are the World. A song which was played ad infinitum on radio stations (and on MTV) to the point that we were sick of the 7 minute and 2 second song (yes, 7 whole minutes plus 2 extra seconds!) and prayed we’d never have to hear it again. Even though for several years following the release of We Are the World, either it or the other kumbayaesque song of the decade,That’s What Friends Are For (also known by many as the 'Dionne Warwick got all her friends together because she's Dionne Warwick and could do that sort of thing' song) were the 'go to feel good' songs that were played at every school function and sung, usually badly, at civic gatherings.

While they are both nice songs...in truth, there was something different about We Are the World because it was more than just a song. It was a work of art; painted with words and framed by a melody. This is why I can understand how people in my age demographic might feel a little put out by a new, fresher spin on classic songs in general being 'freshened up' by new singers who aren't artists so much as they are copy cats. Because it, and all those other totally 80s things, were our things. Our claims to fame. Our golden sunshine memories.

Now that I am older than the people I once idolized as a teenager were back when they were 'all-that' (after all, when I was a teen, 20 was perfect - 30 was 'old' - and 40, well anything after 39 meant 'early bird specials' and dentures were right around the corner), I can sympathize with people who say ‘how dare a group of young whippersnappers try to sully our music with their squeaky, practically pubescent voices?’ Just as I can understand that even though many folks my age know the reason behind the musical do-over was to earn money to help the millions of people displaced by the earthquake in Haiti in January of 2010, they wonder why some socially minded youngling out there couldn't write their own special song for their generation. Surely there had to have been ONE wrinkle-free cherub back in 2010 who could have written something unique? Right?  

Personally, I think the real reason behind the disquiet among those of us who still have T-shirts from concerts performed by the groups Journey or Poison is because if they didn't at least act 'a little bit outraged'...it might mean they've accepted the fact that they...we...have gotten older. Not old mind you, just older. And that can be a hard thing to come to grips with because getting old is a fact of life but actually admitting we might have a toe over the imaginary young/old line can really get to some people.

But as for me, I honestly don’t mind. In fact, I’m sort of glad my daughter gets to enjoy a fresh spin on the classic song because until she saw the piece on that morning news show...she had never actually heard it before! Imagine that!

And what’s worse? Passing the proverbial torch to a new generation or letting the fire die out completely? Hmmm, I just totally got an urge to watch Weird Science and play with a Rubik’s Cube.  Interesting.

The moral of this particular Tragic Tale of Beauty:

Fear not age, as it happens to us all. 
Fear only...the photographs
of what you looked like when you were young
and thought your 'look' was the end all and be all. 

For THOSE are the photos that will 
come back to haunt us when we least expect it! 

L. Avery Brown, a former secondary level educator with an extensive background in US and European history, not only spent over a dozen years dedicated to teaching, special education, and curriculum development but she is also an accomplished orator and thespian in both standard theatre and musical theatre. Since retiring from education in 2007, she has devoted her time to writing; something she's loved for as long as she can remember.

Professionally speaking, when Avery isn't busy working on her own projects, she is a literary liaison (helping her Indie Author friends and associates get everything ready for the big query so they don't feel like they're trying to move the world alone), a freelance editor, amanuscript evaluator, and she likes to review books…especially those written by Independent Authors. 

For fun, she maintains a personal observation and humor blog called 'When a Southern Woman Rambles...’ which helped set the backdrop for her series of When a Southern Woman Rambles... books.  Born and raised in 'The South', Avery, a Southern Belle by birth, currently resides in Austin, TX with her family.

To learn more about Avery, please visit her author's website www.laverybrown.com. And feel free to follow her on Twitter @LAveryBrown, too. 

Text: L. Avery Brown
Images: L. Avery Brown
Editing: Editing advice and assistance by Preston Randall, Patrick Sean Lee, Judy Colella and John C. Laird
Publication Date: 07-17-2013

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To mirrors everywhere. We hate you. We really hate you.