Autumn in Adelaide. It’s magnificent, and probably better than Baghdad in summer or Vladivostok in winter. The days are warm and still and the evenings are great for all manner of alfresco activity such as the Fringe Festival, centred upon the Garden of Unearthly Delights.
I was there with two dear old friends, Poof[1] and Trish[2] and we took in Judith Lucy and Denise Scott and their show Disappointments. In the football match of our lives it’s after half time and we’re, hopefully, into the Premiership Quarter[3] so the themes of dealing with aging, bodily degeneration and the like are targeted at our demographic. It was fun, well as much fun as this comedy of cruelty could be.
Our after-show conversation was especially provoked by a rapid-fire monologue in which Judith catalogued how unspeakably awful pop music of the 1980’s is. Poof[4] and Trish[5] disagreed, coming to an enthusiastic, but ultimately incorrect defence of this cursed decade! Our friendship enjoys robust debate. The centre point of Judith’s argument was Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” whose only redeeming quality is surely the correct use of the possessive apostrophe within its title.[6]
You know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute
I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot
See? ‘Tis a nonsense. Imagine a radio station dedicated to this swill? If you’d really like to wallow in colossal disappointment and have every joyful atom sucked from your being, I recommend listening to Mix 102.3, lurking poisonously on the FM band and doubtless streaming right now across an undeserving galaxy. Love the more putrid songs of the 1980’s? Here’s five in a row! Love those crappy INXS ballads that should never have been on their otherwise great albums[7]? We’ll play one an hour. Up for those rubbish Bowie tunes, from the time when he’d truly lost his way and we thought he’d never return? I’ve got one right after the news! It’ll make you tense, if not physically and spiritually sick.
When Mix 102.3 is not undertaking 1980’s aural terrorism[8] it’s playing Pink. Astonishingly, it’s slogan is “Adelaide’s Widest Variety of Music” but if there’s any truth in radio sloganeering, it should be “Adelaide’s Widest Variety of Pink.” Delusion dictates that it must play Pink multiple times within each freaking hour of their godless day. Listen for any length and you will certainly wish you were trapped in a CIA black site, and about to be folded into a dark cupboard for a fortnight. If you were bound by rope to a chair, listening through bleeding ears, and somehow decided to drink a shot of Bundy[9] every time you heard her banshee gibberish shrieking from the radio speakers, you’d turn into Sir Les Paterson[10] or Elizabeth Taylor[11] within about fifteen minutes.
I love the 1990’s. In among the grunge of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, who I also like, there were lots of sunny songs with great melodies and fetching harmonies. The Sundays and Weezer spring to mind. Then there’s Teenage Fanclub and their signature tune, “Sparky’s Dream.”[12]
It opens with gangly guitars and this great lyric
If she lived in space, man
I’d build a plane
Aside from the aeronautical impossibility it’s a song of optimism and joy.
I reckon Judith Lucy would like it. You’ll never hear it on Mix 102.3.
[1] Not her given name, but certainly her real name
[2] Not Patsy, under any circumstances
[3] Australian Rules football metaphor indicating the most crucial section of a grand final
[4] Not her given name, but certainly her real name
[5] Not Patsy, under any circumstances
[6] See previous two blog entries for more on this
[7] Shabooh Shoobah from 1982 being one
[8] As developed by the CIA, ASIO and Stock, Aitken and Waterman
[9] Dark rum from Queensland, another act of war
[10] Hideous but hugely funny cultural icon
[11] Apparently enjoyed an aperitif
[12] Note correct use of possessive apostrophe here too. See, it’s not so hard, people
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