Musical Monday - Baby Jane by Rod Stewart

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: July 2, 1983 through July 16, 1983.

Rod Stewart has had a long and illustrious career with numerous classic rock hits. This is not one of them. This is Rod Stewart basically mailing in a song and being rewarded by the British public with a number one song. This song is such a rote, by the numbers, boring number that listening to it dfeels like eating a mayonnaise sandwich made on white bread.

The thing is, you can tell that Stewart himself realizes that this song is a limp piece of blandness, and spends the entire video vainly and desperately trying to inject some life into it. There is no saving this song from its own medicocrity, but Stewart really tries hard here, so at least there's that.

Previous Musical Monday: Every Breath You Take by the Police

Subsequent Musical Monday: Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Every Breath You Take by the Police

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

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

Rod Stewart     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for September 21, 2020 through September 27, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 25.6 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 857.2 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: 198

I was sick this week and missed three days of running. On the other hand, I got my new running watch and my running routes are now apparently more accurate. My phone's GPS appears to have been just inaccruate enough to short my running routes by just enough the be annoying. I ended up having to throw a bit of extra distance on all of my regular routes in order to keep up with my plan of running at least a 10K every regular running day. I am feeling better and I am hoping to be able to push things further this week to get back to running 40 miles per week.

Previous Weekly Running Log: September 14, 2020 through September 20, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: September 28, 2020 through October 4, 2020

Running     Home

Musical Monday - Every Breath You Take by the Police

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: July 9, 1983 through August 27, 1983.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: July 16, 1983 through August 27, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: June 4, 1983 through June 25, 1983.

This is not only one of the signature songs of the Police, it is one of the signature songs of the decade. Even though they had at least a half-dozen other significant hits, this is the song that they will be remember for. Decades from now, when all of their other songs have been forgotten, this one will still be being inappropriately used for weddings and engagements.

Fundamentally, this is not a romantic song. This is not a sweet ballad about caring devotion. If you thought this was anything other than a song about creepy, stalker obsession, then you weren't paying attention. I have seen interviews with Sting where he expresses astonishment that anyone would use this song for their first dance or other significant moment with their spouse.

Creepy. Stalker. Obsession.

Previous Musical Monday: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Subsequent Musical Monday: Baby Jane by Rod Stewart

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Candy Girl by New Edition

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

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

Police     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for September 14, 2020 through September 20, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 37.3 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 5 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 831.6 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: 192

I'm not sure if this week's results are reliable, as I had some trouble with the GPS on my cell phone. I figured it out, but ended up ordering a new running watch to head off any future porblems, which should show up in a few days. I missed two days of running this week, only one of which was planned. The other day I missed was because I felt a bit under the weather.

Previous Weekly Running Log: September 7, 2020 through September 13, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: September 21, 2020 through September 27, 2020

Running     Home

Musical Monday - Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: May 28, 1983 through July 2, 1983.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May, 28, 1983 through July 2, 1983.

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

Irene Cara should have been a bigger star. Before singing the title track to the movie Flashdance, she had starred in the movie Fame and sung two of the hits from that soundtrack - the number one hit Fame and the top twenty hit Out Here on My Own. She won a Grammy award, and this song, which she wrote, won an Academy Award. A sitcom was planned as a vehicle for her to star in, and even had a pilot filmed and aired. She was a blazing, incandescent talent and seemed poised to become the kind of huge, international star that would dominate the rest of the 1980s.

But she didn't. She had a couple more movie and television appearances, had a couple of very minor hits, and then her career more or less dwindled away, fading first quickly and then slowly over the next several years. The odd thing is that the movie Flashdance seems like the sort ofm movie Cara should have been in - It is a movie about a group of women working as dancers (but not strippers) in a kind of seedy bar in Pittsburgh. Alex, the main character, works as a welder by day and dances at the bar by night while dreaming of making it big with a professional ballet company. One would think that this part would be perfect for someone with Cara's dance ability, but instead the lead was played by Jennifer Beals, who is a perfectly fine actress, but can't dance at all. In fact, virtually all of Beals' dance routines were done by body doubles, and it is painfully obvious when they are not, becasue Beals looks awkward and unsure of herself.

From what information is available about the movie, Cara wasn't even really considered for the part of Alex. Whether she simply didn't audition for the part, or if her status as a "rising star" made her too expensive, or the studio executives were just too dumb to realize how good she was is unclear. I can only wonder how Cara's career might have been different if she had starred in what amounted to one of the signature movies of the decade.

Previous Musical Monday: Candy Girl by New Edition

Subsequent Musical Monday: Every Breath You Take by the Police

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Every Breath You Take by the Police

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant

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

Irene Cara     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for September 7, 2020 through September 13, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 33.8 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 5 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 794.3 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done (scale not usable)

In good news for this week, I completed the "Run the L" virtual challenge, and have now logged enough miles to have run the entire length of the Chicago L-train system. I'll be looking to sign up for another virtual running challenge in the upcoming week.

In bad news for this week, I got a little bit sick on Saturday and Sunday, and didn't run either of those days. I blame the fact that I got caught out in the rain while running on Wednesday and was soaked to the bone for most of the run. I'm going to be cautious about my mileage goal for the upcoming week and hope to get back out on the roads soon.

In neutral news, I am switching my "running week" from Sunday to Saturday to Monday through Sunday. This will allows my "running week" to coincide with the tracking system used for weekly miles by Strava. This is mostly for my convenience, because this means I won't have to calculate my weekly mileage tallies by hand any more.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 30, 2020 through September 5, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: September 14, 2020 through September 20, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - September 11th - September 17th: "368" Was a Project by Casey Nestiat Intended to Offer Space to Creators in New York

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 books by authors from outside your country? Any book recommendations? Also, if non-U.S./U.K., could you name one author/book from your country?

Taking these questions in turn:

If you read any amount of science fiction or fantasy, you will end up reading a lot of books by people from outside the United States, where I currently live. The bulk of such "non-U.S." authors are from the U.K., such as Arthur C. Clarke, J.R.R. Tolkien, Susan Cooper, Bernard Cornwell, J.G. Ballard and Iaian M. Banks. That said, there are a lot of prominent science fiction and fantasy authors from a variety of places - Tansy Rayner Roberts and Greg Egan from Australia, Cixin Liu from China, Isabel Allende from Chile, Nnedi Okorafor from Nigeria, Stanislaw Lem from Poland, and authors of classic works such as Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas from France. I've even read the entire Tintin series by Belgian author Hergé and almost all of the Asterix series by French authors Goscinny and Uderzo. It is almost impossible to be a well-read science fiction fan and not have read a bunch of works by authors from outside of the United States.

As far as recommendations go, there are so many possibilities that it is difficult to narrow them down to a manageable number. How about The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Binti by Nned Okorafor, and the Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem. I could come up with a couple dozen more if needed, but that should do for now.

I live in the U.S., so the last question doesn't really apply to me.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: GK Persei Went Nova in 367 A.D. No One on Earth Knew About This Until 1901 A.D.

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

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Candy Girl by New Edition

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: The week of May 28, 1983.

Candy Girl is crap.

I know that last week I said that I loathed True by Spandau Ballet when it was released in 1983, and that is definitely accurate, but I could at least admire the artistry and talent that went into making True even if it was treacly sweet and so blandly inoffensive as to be the song equivalent of the color beige. Candy Girl (and to a certain extent, New Edition as well at this point in their careers), on the other hand, is cynical, corporate-designed, piece of crappy extruded bubblegum pop. This song is pure, unadulterated, crap and represents every musical trend that had gone wrong in the early 1980s.

Previous Musical Monday: True by Spandau Ballet

Subsequent Musical Monday: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: True by Spandau Ballet

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: 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

New Edition     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 30, 2020 through September 5, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 46.2 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 7 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 760.5 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done (scale not usable)

So this week obviously went fairly well. I was able to take advantage of being off on Friday to do an extra long run, which I think I will plan on doing from now on. I am almost finished with the "Run the L" virtual challenge, and shouls wrap that up this week. I have signed up for some Strava-based challenges, two of which I have already completed (the 5K challenge and the 10K challenge), two of which I am about 30% through (the distance challenge to run at least 200K in September, and the climbing challenge to climb at least 2,000 meters in September). I'll probably look for some other virtual challenges to sign up for once I've finished the "Run the L" challenge. I saw one the other day that was a "Run Hadrian's Wall" virtual challenge, so may try to find that again.

For next week, I'm going to stay at 40 miles for my goal. After that, I'll see how I feel for the next week.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 23, 2020 through August 29, 2020
Previous Weekly Running Log: September 7, 2020 through September 13, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - September 4th - September 10th: GK Persei Went Nova in 367 A.D. No One on Earth Knew About This Until 1901 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: What book or books are you going to read on Labor Day weekend?

I am still working through The Creature Chronicles, which has turned into kind of a slog as it has run out of interesting material about the Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy. To add a little levity to my reading, I started on the book The Greeks Until Alexander by R.M. Cook.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Emperor Valens Defeated the Usurper Procopius at the Battle of Thyatira in 366 A.D.

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

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - True by Spandau Ballet

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: April 30, 1983 through May 21, 1983.

One of the dominant musical styles of the early 1980s was a kind of smooth jazzy music that grew out of the relatively brief New Wave movement. Spandau Ballet's True was more or less the apotheosis of this style of music. The song is a magnificent example of the kind of music that dominated the early 1980s.

In 1983, I hated this song. It was exactly the wrong style of music for my tastes and I loathed the song. I have mellowed a bit on it, but True was not one of my favorites back then, and it isn't a song that I intentionally go back to when I'm feeling nostalgic now.

Previous Musical Monday: Mr. Roboto by Styx

Subsequent Musical Monday: Candy Girl by New Edition

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Candy Girl by New Edition

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

Spandau Ballet     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 23, 2020 through August 29, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 35 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 36.5 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 7 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 714.3 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done (scale not usable)

I hit my mileage goal for the week again, so I am going to up the goal for this week. I will note that I reached the goal despite having to take a day off unexpectedly as we got some pretty heavy rains on Friday - the last vestiges of the recent hurricane working its way up the coast. I'm feeling pretty good most days on my runs - the last day of the week I pushed up to an 8 mile weekend run, which gets me back to where I was for weekend runs before my late-spring layoff. I'm about a week away from getting back to where I want to be as a baseline. If all goes well, the week after this one will get me back to where I want to be.

A fiends of mine asked me this week if I was training for something specific. The short answer is no, I am not. One reason is that pretty much every race in 2020 has either been cancelled, postponed indefinitely, or made into a virtual event. I have looked at a couple of races that theoretically might happen in 2021, but thus far the organizers appear not to have decided whether they are going to hold their events or not next year. The other reason is that I have never been a runner who really spends much time racing. In the past, I have gone years without racing. I just don't need the carrot of a race to keep going out and running every day, so I don't bother a lot of the time. I'll probably run a race or two in 2021, but right now I don't have any particular plans for any.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 16, 2020 through August 22, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 30, 2020 through September 5, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - August 28th - September 3rd: Emperor Valens Defeated the Usurper Procopius at the Battle of Thyatira in 366 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: Have you ever read a book that was suggested by another blogger?

No. Not consciously at least. I just have so many books in my backlog, and so many other sources of new book recommendations that I just don't really have the ability to add new books on a whim. On the other hand, it is certainly possible that I saw a book that I eventually read on a blog and simply didn't remember that was where I first saw it referenced. I don't know where I learned all the things I know, and as David Mitchell says, if I knew the source for all the things I knew, I would only know half as many things as I do.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: There Are 365 Days in a Common Year

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: GK Persei Went Nova in 367 A.D. No One on Earth Knew About This Until 1901 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Mr. Roboto by Styx

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of April 30, 1983.

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

Mr. Roboto was the signature song of Kilroy Was Here, the concept album that destroyed Styx. The brain child of Dennis DeYoung, Kilroy Was Here told the story of Kilroy, the last rock star in a dystopian future in which rock music has been banned by the Majority for Musical Morality led by Dr. Everett Righteous. Kilroy has been imprisoned for his music, and as part of the story, he uses one of the Japanese-manufactured guard robots assigned to his prison to fashion a disguise and escape. This song details Kilroy's escape from imprisonment, which is the reason for the refrain "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto": He's thanking the robots for their unwitting assistance in his escape.

Despite the fact that the album debuted at #10 on the charts, and produced two top ten hits (this song and Don't Let It End), the tour supporting the album was a financial disaster for the band. DeYoung envisioned the tour as essentially musical theater featuring a lot of dialogue and other interstitial material connecting the songs. The band booked into smaller musical theaters for this, bringing with them a fairly expensive stage production, and they consequently hemorrhaged money. They then moved to arena shows, and tried to do a modified version of the musical theater routine, but it didn't match well with the venues, and despite the rest of the band pushing to discard the art theater routine, DeYoung was insistent that they continue.

This all came to a head at a music festival when (according to Tommy Shaw) DeYoung wanted the group to forge ahead with long acting sequences in front of what was, by the time they reached the stage, a restless and increasingly hostile crowd. Shaw walked off the stage in the middle of the show. The band disintegrated by the end of the tour. The live album that resulted from the tour was released after the band had already broken up for good.

In a very real sense, this song and the album it was on were not only the swan song for Styx, they were the nails in their coffin. The really annoying thing about this is that as interesting an idea a concept album that presents a science-fictional dystopian future is, the album itself is one of Styx's weaker efforts. Most of their previous albums were notably better, with better songs, than Kilroy Was Here. But it was this one that ended their run and destroyed the band.

Previous Musical Monday: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent Musical Monday: True by Spandau Ballet

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Beat It by Michael Jackson

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

Styx     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 16, 2020 through August 22, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 30 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 35.8 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 677.8 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 35 miles
Current Weigh-In: 195.8

This week marks my entry into the 21st century, as I downloaded Strava onto an old cell phone we keep around for emergencies and started using it combined with the phone's GPS to track my mileage. It turns out that the running routes that I thought were 4 miles long and 5 miles long are actually 4.5 miles long and 5.5 miles long, so I've been running further than I thought. It also turns out that I;ve been running a bit faster than I thought - about a minute a mile faster. This seems to me to be good news, and it means that I don't have quite as much between my current status and my long-term running goals. It does, however, mean that I will not be able to deceive myself about my progress towards those goals.

In any event, I'm upping my mileage goal for the week, pushing to run the 5.5 mile route every weekday and running a new 6.3 mile route I've put together on the weekends. I'm basically going to keep pushing up the mileage for the next few weeks and then hold there for a bit before I decide how much more my body can handle and make an assessment from there.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 9, 2020 through August 15, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 23, 2020 through August 29, 2020

Running     Home