“Holding onto one another hands.” – Tiffany

I can’t run as fast I used to be able to. I turned 50 a few weeks ago. I don’t really feel any different than I did when I was 49, but yet I can’t seem to shake that number. It seems big. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s just perspective. I think I’ll just go with perspective. After all, forty didn’t seem too big. Thirty was barely a blip. I don’t even really remember 20. The only thing 50 really reminds me of immediately is that my general physician said I’ll need to have a colonoscopy this year. Shit.

For some reference: In 1971, movie tickets were $1.50, and a gallon of gas averaged 40 cents. The average cost of a new house was $25,250. Disney World in Florida opened while the voting age was officially lowered to 18. Federal Express and Tupac Shakur were born in 1971, and on the music scene Led Zeppelin IV was released while Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison died of a drug overdose in Paris at the age of 27. The Billboard Song of the Year was “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night, and also in 1971 The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards turned 73 (unverified). You keep going Keith!

I’m also reminded how time is ticking ever so quickly especially when I watch a movie or a video or old concert footage where the star is no longer with us. I watched an old documentary on Amazon Prime the other day about The Eagles and their “Hell Freezes Over” album and concert from 1994. I bought that cd a day or two after it was released. I love The Eagles, but it’s hard to imagine that was about 27 years ago. It makes me sad to hear the sweet sounds of Glen Frey and realize he’s been gone for over five years now. But I do imagine Glen is somewhere taking it easy.

This blog hasn’t even been around five years yet, but it’s getting close. I think I like writing on here because the words are out there. They seem permanent, and they may even be out there long after I’m gone. I told my wife to make sure she pays my annual website domain fee should anything happen to me, because all of these words may disappear like they were never written, like they never existed should my payment lapse for too long. She just shook her head at me. I’ve heard of digital and social media executors so maybe I should look into that. I don’t know. Maybe my wife and/or daughter will ultimately fill that role. I have a lot of other things with higher priority right now, so I’ll worry about social media executors and the such tomorrow, and hope that tomorrow comes.

But whatever does come along during my 51st year in this earthly body, I want to do my best to be present and fully immersed in the moment. Ultimately, that’s really all I have control over. And, I’ll keep running just as fast as I can… except when it’s time for the anesthesia for my colonoscopy.

“Look at the way we gotta hide what we’re doin’ ‘Cause what would they say if they ever knew.”

You know who else turns 50 this year? You got it. Tiffany Darwish turns 50 this September. I wasn’t exactly into Tiffany when she debuted in 1987, and had her ensuing “The Beautiful You: Celebrating the Good Life Shopping Mall Tour ’87.” I liked shopping malls, but I wasn’t going to a concert at one. I wanted to buy fresh kicks and cassettes and books at the mall, not watch a peer sing pop covers of Tommy James and the Shondells. But that’s exactly what Tiffany’s management team did – they scheduled a 10 city tour that included three twenty minute performances at various shopping malls starting in Peramus, New Jersey.

At the age of 16 years, Tiffany became the youngest female artist to achieve a No. 1 album (quadruple platinum) and also the youngest to have two consecutive No. 1 singles. I hadn’t watched this whole video probably since since 1987, and I have to say I wasn’t totally turned off by it. The fact that some of the scenes are in soon-to-be-relics known as shopping malls makes this video somewhat nostalgic. A Motley Crue video this is not, but a solid 80’s representation this video most assuredly is.

There are two parts of this video I really like: at the 1:10 mark you get to see “security” holding back the raucous shopping-mall crowd, and then the dance sequence that begins around the 2:23 mark and includes the old man with the crazy hair dancing on stage with Tiffany. In a few more years I may be the old man with the bad hair dancing at a concert with a teenage superstar. Life is full of possibilities. Possibilities that include being a worldwide superstar singer at the age of 16.

So, here is then 16-year-old Tiffany with one of those two consecutive number one singles – a remake of a #1 hit from 1967 by Tommy James and the Shondells – “I Think We’re Alone Now”…

A happy early birthday to Tiffany, and, as always, thanks for checking in and reading. I appreciate you all… even you – random internet reader whom I’ll probably never meet.

sincerely,

the 80’s