Andy and I casually littered before tossing away a full cup of salted french fries while sitting under a tree during the final day of this past weekend's Anti-Senate Bill 5 Rally in Goodale Park. We talked babes and text messages and our upcoming trip to Europe. I mostly looked at my legs, regretted my choice to wear shorts and hoped I wouldn't see anyone of importance unless of course she was drunk and in turn more flirtatious than usual.
I do not wear a watch and guessed 12:52 p.m. None of the daily Major League Baseball sports games had begun so my phone rested on vibrate just in case in my pocket. The khaki shorts, while totally acceptable for the 39th edition of the festival and bought at Urby Outfitters for that exact purpose, had two pockets and maybe some in the back but I never check out my butt.
"I just hate these trees," I told Andy, "like when it's rained and then the wind blows and all that water that was stuck up there comes down on you. It's so annoying."
A younger girl, perhaps 15 and maybe
It had been [cell phone icon] 3 minutes ago via iPhone since I had last checked my own and she looked like one of the seven or eight high school girls in the county who I am not now is friends with [guy I check out to make sure he's not better looking than me] and 2 other people. I had no way to know what she posted but figured it something along the lines of "young and wild and free," the Official Facebook Status Update of Anti-Senate Bill 5 Rally 2011 for Tweens and Young Adults and maybe some 27-year olds.
Good for them. Good for the young men and young women who go to experience their first little taste of the night life and don't graduate college until the second half of the second half of the twenty-tens. Good for the folks who never have had a magazine subscription or seen pornography boobs in a magazine. They had heard Bryan Adams. They knew the line in "Heaven" where he sings "we were young and wild and free."
I felt good but not as good as when someone asks me "How are you?" and I answer "Relevant."
*** *** *** *** ***
Pittsburgh-based rap music artist person Wizard Kalaughski (obviously Polish since he is from Pittsburgh) recently recorded an .mp3 with Snoop Dogg titled "Young, Wild & Free" presumably while eating pierogis, discussing the merits of Primanti Bros. and the two other things that make Pittsburgh special in the eyes of Pittsburghers and dudes with shaved heads and beards in northeastern Ohio.
The youffs of America are not yet familiar with Bryan Adams and only girls who thought about cutting themselves in 2003 but never actually really cut themselves because they now wear big glasses and work as "fashion designers" in Columbus, Ohio and it's not 2006 anymore have ever even heard of Ryan Adams.
Old enough to remember the "I'm washing my hair" excuse yet savvy enough to know it's been replaced with the "my cell phone battery died," I still felt decidedly less relevant when this Bryan Adams news broke. There's a distance - a separation - when you learn about bad news via Twitter or from a text message at 9:42 a.m. on Memorial Day morning. But when Bad News Bears stares you in the face and it's not cute 1976 Tatum O'Neal and there are at least 23 overweight women in sun dresses laying between you and the girl in question and you realize you've had 19 32-ounce beers in the last 36 hours and most of them had hairs in them, the bad news stings.
This did not stop me from watching an hour's worth of Bryan Adams videos this morning before work while eating three Freeze Pops (green, red and pink).
Not until the U.S. release of Jerry McGuire and that "Secret Garden" song did I realize Bryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen were not the same person. I had long, strong and long figured this newly discovered "duo" to be a Tupac/Makaveli, Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines, Regular Season LeBron/Playoff LeBron type of thingermajing.
I always had thought of Bryan Adams simply as a cool bro who dresses like people at Bodega dress in 2011. Hell, I even got excited when his songs used to came on the radio between Rent-A-Center commercials when we would drive over to my grandma's house after school in the late 1980s and early 1990s before I started listening to mostly Roxette.
Through my discovery this morning whilst my hair looked similar to Bruce Springsteen's on the cover of the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" album, I realized the relevanci of Brian Adams.
*** *** *** *** ***
Any discussion of the greatest 21 seconds to open a music video ends at the 21-second mark of the "Heaven" video. I implore you that click on that link and watch. Even if you've slogged through this post and clicked on the other so-typically-god-damn-fuckin'-Dave-L'astnamey-that-they-make-you-want-to-vomit links, click on the "Heaven" video link.
Ground-breaking in that it must be the first time a Public Service Announcement ever snookered its way into a music video that made heavy rotation on MTV and the first time a Public Service Announcement ever walked anywhere. Doubt it drove there, you guys, because that would be too tough especially given the subject matter!!
Bryan Adams released six singles from "Reckless" from late 1984 through early 1985. All six made the Billboard Top 15. Normally having 60 percent of your album go Top 15 is a stunning and unmatchable [adjective for "good thing" that doesn't make me look like I used a Thesaurus]. That proficiency is merely .29 percent (oddly enough the legal Blood Alcohol Limit during the filming of this video in 1985) of the awesomeness that is the Bryan Adams Trilogy (BAT).
The Brian Adams Trilogy ended at its onset yet provided enough Canadian bacon to satiate my 26-year hunger for a memorable music video three-part epic.
British model/actress Lysette Anthony is featured in each video of the Brian Adams Trilogy and if ya feeling feisty easily found on the Internet getting naked with award-eligible actor Harry Hamlin in the 1994 straight-to-VHS and maybe sometimes on Cinemax non-classic "Save Me."
The trilogy ends with the album's first video "Run to You." After the bottom of the fourth of this game, I'm going to get a Diet Cherry 7-Up, give the director of the "Run to You" video some credit and put on a pair of mesh shorts. It wouldn't be blogging if you weren't doing it in your underwear.
The final 30 seconds of the video is great stuff. The cinematography and space elements offer a fitting conclusion to the 12-minute masterstroke at its four-minute mark. After spending 3 minutes and 48 seconds letting Lysette know that he would "run to her" (barely even a half mile for someone of Adams' fitness) he finds himself just a few feet from his somewhat-adulterous (but we won't go there) lover.
"Run to You" doesn't skip a breathe in picking up from the second video "Heaven." At the conclusion of "Heaven" Adams looks out into a snowy landscape cue the first scene in "Run to You."
The "Heaven" video debuted six months after "Run to You." That is some heady shit.
Played a combined 69 times each year on the eight Ohio State home football Saturdays at The Varsity Club, "Summer of '69" is Adams' most popular hit. If it were up to Adams, the song would drop the apostrophe in the '69 and that is all I will say about that because this is a family-driven AND oriented blog.
MTV first played "Summer of '69" 26 years ago this month as long as I publish this post before Friday in which case it would be 26 years and one month.
Bryan and Lysette first met during the "Summer of '69" video eight months after they presumably lived happily ever after pending Adams' divorce/break-up or perhaps they just kept it really on the down low but he did stand out in that snow for a long time and that can be pretty cold even for a Canadian so they probably didn't remain just clandestine F buddies and instead took it to a level where it's not Facebook official but you at least remove your relationship status so you're not "single" but NOT "in a relationship with [someone who looks like a douche and probably loves hanging out at Bar 23]."
Bryan Adams created a music video trilogy with three videos with the first part coming third, the concluding part coming first and the second video offering the most outstanding 21 seconds to ever open a music video production.
Can't there be a senate bill to mandate this baby goes at least five parts?
No comments:
Post a Comment