Musical Monday - Red Red Wine by UB40

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of October 15, 1988.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of October 15, 1988.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: September 3, 1983 through September 17, 1983.

This version of Red Red Wine is a cover version of a cover version of a 1967 Neil Diamond song that was rereleased in the U.S. five years after it was a top hit in the U.K. That's a pretty long and winding road for a song to take.

This song is actually an example of something that probably can't really happen any more. The song was a big hit in the U.K. in 1983, but went almost entirely unnoticed in the U.S. Five years later, it was promoted by some interested music industry folks following a performence of the song at Nelson Mandela's birthday celebration, and it became a top hit in the United States. This sort of delayed flow through the cultural psyche just doesn't happen in the modern interconnected world where pop culutre flashes around the globe so quickly that if you blonk you miss it.

The delay in the song reaching popularity in the U.S. did create a kind of oddly jarring circumstance in which a song made during the ennui of the economic malaise of the early 1980s in the U.K. became a big hit in the U.S. in 1988, when the country was kind of riding high. The song and the video that goes with it depict a kind of depressing existence in which drinking is the only respite from a life of underemployment and disappointment, which fit perfectly with the zeitgeist of the recessionary economy of the early-1980s. It also fit perfectly with a band whose name was a reference to a government form used for claiming unemployment benefits. By 1988 though, the song felt kind of weirdly out of place.

Previous Musical Monday: Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band

Subsequent Musical Monday: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Love Bites by Def Leppard

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: A Groovy Kind of Love by Phil Collins

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Love Bites by Def Leppard

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: A Groovy Kind of Love by Phil Collins

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Karma Chameleon by Culture Club

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

UB40     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for October 19, 2020 through October 25, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 45 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 36.3 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 1,021.6 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 45 miles
Current Weigh-In: 180

I was able to run seven miles every weekday this week, but I wasn't able to get any running done over the weekend, so I missed my weekly mileage goal again. Even so, I was able to run 36 miles this week, which has me feeling pretty good about my conditioning. on the downside, one of the reasons I didn't run over the weekend was that my right heel was bothering me again, so I'm hoping that doesn't run into an issue that hampers my running again.

In a fit of optimism, I'm going to aim for 45 miles again this week. Also, since we are getting close to the end of the month, I'll be aiming for my monthly goals as well. The largest goal I set for this month was to run 300 kilometers this month - an average of just under ten kilometers per day. I'm pretty much on track for that, so with any luck I should get there in the next week.

Previous Weekly Running Log: October 12, 2020 through October 18, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: October 26, 2020 through November 1, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - October 23rd - October 29th: The Roman Poet Ausonius Wrote the Mosella in 371 A.D.

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: If you go trick-or-treating with your favorite book character, who would it be?

Éomer from the Lord of the Rings. I'd definitely go trick or treating with Éomer. We'd probably ride horses from house to house, looting the candy from each dwelling as we go.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Until It Was Revoked, Article 370 Defined Kashmir's Relationship with India

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Saint Augustine Adopted Manichaeism.in 372 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: August 13, 1983 through August 27, 1983.

This is a song by a band at the end of its life, bereft of interesting ideas, desperate to churn out anything that will keep it relevant and failing badly. By 1983, the career of KC and the Sunshine Band was on life support. Their last notable hit had been in 1980 with the eminently forgettable Please Don't Go. They were, by 1983, a disco-era band that was trying to make it in a pop music landscape that was extremely hostile to disco music.
It doesn't help that this song is simply not very good. It has a dance beat, but everything about it seems almost like the band is just going through the motions. There's no real hook, no real substance to the lyrics, nothing particularly interesting about the vocal delivery, and nothing particularly memorable about the instrumentation. This song is bland, generic, and boring.

The blandness of the song isn't really helped by the video, which doesn't really do anything to illustrate or highlight the song. In the past I highlighted a couple of music videos that had inexplicably science fictional themes, and this one goes onto that list. The song is a generic dance song, while the video is a badly acted oddball fantasy horror quest where the climax is untying some ropes and an almost completely random deus ex machina. There's literally no connection between the music and the images presented, and that makes the entire thing almost entirely unmemorable.

This was the last gasp of KC and the Sunshine Band, and I can only say that after this they deserved the obscurity that awaited them.

Previous Musical Monday: Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) by Paul Young

Subsequent Musical Monday: Red Red Wine by UB40

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) by Paul Young

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Red Red Wine by UB40

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

KC and the Sunshine Band     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for October 12, 2020 through October 18, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 45 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 35.5 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 985.3 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 45 miles
Current Weigh-In: 180

I should have known going into this week that my running schedule was going to be disrupted. I took the week off from work because the Redhead had her midterm exam this week, and that allowed me to spend the week taking care of the Littlest Starship Captain. That also meant that the day before the exam I wasn't able to go running at all because I needed to stay home all day so that the Redhead could study. Then, over the weekend, we helped run a virtual convention, and once again, I wasn't able to get away to run on either Saturday or Sunday. On the other hand, that means that I was able to run 35 miles in only four days of running for the week, so there is that at least.

Going forward I am hoping to have an uneventful but productive week. There appears to be no reason for me to miss any running days this week and I've gotten to where my weekday run is a seven mile route, so I am aiming at 45 miles as my weekly goal again. I should top 1,000 miles tracked this week, so that's kind of exciting. We'll see how this goes.

Previous Weekly Running Log: October 5, 2020 through October 11, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: October 19, 2020 through October 25, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - October 16th - October 22nd: Until It Was Revoked, Article 370 Defined Kashmir's Relationship with India

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Would you consider giving out books to trick-or-treaters instead of candy?

First, I would need to have some trick-or-treaters. I live in a condominimum, which one might think would be a good spot for attracting trick-or-treaters, given the fairly high density of the residents and the fact that there are clearly many children living in the neighborhood. In practice, however, we have had so few trick-or-treaters show up that we have even contemplated not even buying candy, since we get so few knocks on or door on Halloween, and the few we do get are older teenagers.

On the other hand, the rarity of actual trick-or-treaters might be an argument in favor of giving out books, since I would only have to hand out a few. The problem is that while candy is pretty much an all ages kind of handout, to give books in a way that would be worthwhile, you'd have an array of books on hand that would be suitable for a variety of age ranges. Books that would make for good handouts for a five-year-old kid are probably going to be completely unsuitable for a ten-year-old kid, and vice versa. This would make planning for the night a lot more complicated.

The other issue with handing out books is that if you end up with extra books at the end of the night, there's not a lot of good options for what to do with them. With candy, you can just eat the candy yourself over the next month or so, but if you end up with a dozen leftover copies of the same book there's not much you can do with them. I suppose you could save them to give as gifts later, or possibly donate them, but that seems like more work than it would be worth.

So, I guess the answer is that I would consider it, but I probably won't actually do it.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Supernova SN 386 Probably Exploded in 369 A.D.

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: The Roman Poet Ausonius Wrote the Mosella in 371 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) by Paul Young

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: July 23, 1983 through August 6, 1983.

This recording is yet another example of a lightweight British pop star covering a song originally performed by an American soul singer. Like most such efforts, this one is completely forgettable, and the only reason to listen to it is to remember just how much better of an artist Marvin Gaye was.

Don't bother with this. Just go listen to Marvin Gaye's 1962 recording of this song and if you are lucky, you will completely forget this version by Paul Young exists.

Previous Musical Monday: Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant

Subsequent Musical Monday: Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Baby Jane by Rod Stewart

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Paul Young     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for October 5, 2020 through October 11, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 43.6 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 949.8 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 45 miles
Current Weigh-In: 180

I was on pace for a 50+ mile week this week, but a muscle strain today made me decide to take Sunday off, which left me at only 43.6 miles for the week. That's still higher than my mileage goal of 40 miles for the week, so I suppose it is wrong for me to be a little disappointed at not hitting 50 miles. In any event, I've had two good running weeks in a row, so I am going to up my mileage goal to 45 miles for this week. I am still ridicuklously slow, but at least I can put in more miles now. With any luck, as I get in better shape from the extended mileage, I will get faster again.

Previous Weekly Running Log: September 28, 2020 through October 4, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: October 12, 2020 through October 18, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - October 9th - October 15th: Supernova SN 386 Probably Exploded in 369 A.D.

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Do you read paranormal romances? If so, what is your favorite thing about the genre?

I have read a few paranormal romance novels, actually it would be more accurate to say I have read very few paranormal romance novels. The only ones I can remember reading are the first Sookie Stackhouse novel Dead Until Dark, and a couple of C.J. Archer's books from the Glass and Steele series, although those I "read" more or less over the redhead's shoulder when she was listening to them as audiobooks.

I can't really say what my "favorite thing" about paranormal romances is, because I have read so few that I can't really give any sort of accurate assessment of the genre like that. I'm not even really sure I have much in the way of a fix on the genre as a separate entity from non paranormal romance fantasy, other than paranormal romance fantasy seems to always take place in a slightly more magical version of our world as opposed to a secondary world.

Other than that, it just seems like fantasy fiction to me.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: "368" Was a Project by Casey Nestiat Intended to Offer Space to Creators in New York

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Until It Was Revoked, Article 370 Defined Kashmir's Relationship with India

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of July 9, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

In 1983, Eddy Grant seemed poised to become a huge star. He had been a successful performer for quite a while by the time the early 1980s rolled around, but with a big hit in 1982 in I Don't Wanna Dance, and a massive hit in 1983 with this song, Grant seemed like he was due to break through and become the kind of superstar that would soar acorss the sky and leave a lasting mark. Instead, this was the high-water mark of his career. He released a couple more albums, and even had a modest hit in the early 1990s, but more or less faded from the pop music scene after 1983.

The real shame of Eddy's fade is that he was doing music that was really unlike most everything else that was being put out at the time. This song, for example, is a funky, Carribbean dance song that has bitter, biting lyrics about the troubles of and unrest in a primarily Caribbean neighborhood in London. Although the musical style is very different, from a tonal perspective, Grant's song is a successor to the angry disaffected voices of punk rock from the late1970s and very early 1980s, a tone that became progressively muted in pop music as the 1980s went on.

It seems to me that something was lost when Grant didn't become a bigger star. Maybe if the U.S. hadn't been being swept into a false sense of euphoria by Reagan, people might have paid attention to people like him more and there might have been a chance to address some issues in the world. It didn't happen, and there's nothing that can be done about that now.

Previous Musical Monday: Baby Jane by Rod Stewart

Subsequent Musical Monday: Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) by Paul Young

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Every Breath You Take by the Police

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Eddy Grant     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for September 28, 2020 through October 4, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 49 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 906.2 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: 180

This week has been a good week for me. I was able to run six out of the seven days this week and turned in the longest run I have doen in months with a fourteen mile jaunt on Friday. On Sunday, I got better news when I noticed that the new scale I had recently acquired needed to be properly calibrated, and when I had done so I discovered that I weigh significantly less than I had thought. I don't know if I will be able to replicate this week of mileage next week, since I don't have this Friday off to allow me to take a long run this week. I think aiming for another forty mile week is a doable goal though.

Previous Weekly Running Log: September 21, 2020 through September 27, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: October 5, 2020 through October 11, 2020

Running     Home