80's Party

Leg warmers, Rubik's cube, Reagan and Gorbachev, the VCR and CD catch on, music videos and MTV (the played music), Band Aid and Live Aid, all those new wave hair styles and Heavy Metal hair bands, do these things have you thinking about the 1980's? If you remember, a friend of mine had an 80's themed birthday a few weeks ago and in honor of the occasion I decided to blip 80's songs the weekend of his party and in fact I blipped 80's songs all week (February 22-28). You can find all the songs I blipped if you go to my profile and click on "blips", since I've blipped more songs since then they won't be at the top you probably need to go back several pages.

Since I graduated high school in 1985, the 80's were a very prominent period in my life and I have a lot of memories from that time. For many people the high school years are memorable and it is a natural progression that music from that time will have a certain sentimental aspect to it. Music plays such a big role in our lives and so many songs are tied to memories that I have from this time (as with many of you I'd imagine). I remember driver's training and the songs that always seemed to be on the radio. There was our class song, most all graduating high schools classes had one, they were usually something with a positive title (ours was more rebellious). I remember my first concert and a bunch of concerts that I went to in 1984.

I started blipping some songs that I thought of when I thought of the 80's then I decided to blip some songs that were Top 40 songs for each year of the 80's and then I played some songs that weren't in the Top 40 but were memorable none the less.

I thought that I'd post links to some of the songs that I blipped. You're welcome to go listen to them if you'd like. You might just start at the last 80's song I blipped (Walking on Sunshine by Katrina & the Waves) hit play and Blip.fm will play them all from newest to oldest blipped (was an 80's mix with AC/DC, Van Halen, Joan Jett, and more). All and all, 14 pages of blips! Here are some of the highlights...

• Do you remember "Don't You Forget About Me"? from Simple Minds (prominently featured in the Breakfast Club movie
• "One Thing Leads To Another" from the Fixx
• "I Ran (So Far Away)" from A Flock of Seagulls
• "Rebel Yell", "White Wedding", "Mony Mony", "Eyes Without A Face" from Billy Idol
• "Video Killed the Radio Stars" from the Buggles
• "Karma Camellion" and "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" from Culture Club
• "Hungry Like The Wolf", "The Reflex", and "View To A Kill" from Duran Duran
• "Some Like It Hot" from Power Station
• "Smokin' In The Boys Room" from Motley Crue
• "I Want A New Drug", "Back In Time", "The Power of Love", "Hip To Be Square", "Working For A Living", and others from Huey Lewis and the News
• "Please Don't Go" from KC & the Sunshine Band
• "Pop Muzik" from M
• "Theme from The Greatest American Hero (Believe It Or Not)" from Joey Scarbury
• "The Tide Is High" from Blondie
• "I Love Rock And Roll" from Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
• "Ebony And Ivory" from Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
• "Centerfold" from the J.Geils Band
• "Abracadabra" from the Steve Miller Band
• "Always On My Mind" and "West End Girls" from the Pet Shop Boys
• "Who Can It Be Now" and "Down Under" from Met at Work
• "Every Breathe You Take" from the Police
• "Come On Eileen" from Dexys Midnight Runners
  
• "Let's Dance" from David Bowie
• "Jeporady" and "The Breakup Song" from the Greg Khin Band
• "Mr. Roboto" from Styx
• "Little Red Corvette", "When Doves Cry", "Let's Go Crazy" from Prince
• "Der Kommisar" from After the Fire
• "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night" from Corey Hart
• "Take On Me" from A-Ha
  

Thank you to those that played and listened a long. Feel free to listen to any of the songs that I blipped and reblip them if you'd like. Also if there is a song from those years that you'd like to point out you can do so in the comments here or you could play it on Blip.fm. If you add "@darrylheron" in the text you write there when you blip, I'll be sure to see it. So as Huey Lewis sang as part of the theme song in "Back to the Future"

"Tell me Doctor, where are we going this time?
Is this the fifties? Or Nineteen ninety-nine?
...So take me away, I don't mind
You just better promise me I'll be back in time"

Photo Credit: Musique courtesy of spartsam.

Goodbye to Jade Goody

As much of the world has heard by now, Jade Goody lost her battle to cancer yesterday. Jade first got the public's attention for being part of Big Brother but more recently for living much of her final days in the public's eye to raise the profile of cervical cancer and to also raise money so that her sons could be provided for after she died. Jade had a much publicized wedding last month, where the brides maids all wore bald caps (covering most of their hair) to show their support and solidarity to Jade Goody, who was bald at the time.

Jade was 27 and her husband is 21 and she leaves behind two sons. I can't imagine the grief that Jade's husband must be dealing with. Sure, you could say that he new what he was getting into when he got married but when you lose a loved one, you might consciously have an idea of what you're getting into, but I think that it doesn't really prepare you for your eventual loss. I really can't imagine going through that loss at such a young age. For the boys I'm sure that this has been and will continue to be a hard time. Losing a parent at any age is really an easy thing. It seems all that more of a crime to lose a parent before you're even an adult yourself.

I didn't ever see any of the Big Brother episodes that Jade Goody was in nor did I really follow all of her exploits in the media. I first became aware of her when Sky was doing some pre-wedding coverage last month. I'm not really a fan of the Big Brother franchises nor many of the other reality television series that it has spawned. Having said that, I became interested in her efforts to give exposure to cervical cancer. While living out the battle with cancer in the public's eye might have been the only way she knew how to live or maybe the thought of keeping all of it private never crossed her mind, but I have to give her credit for doing it the way that she did. From the bits of coverage that I saw on Sky, it seemed that he wedding was going to be a real nice event and one of her short life's happiest I'm sure.

Since I've lost my mother and grandmother to cancer, I'm for almost anything that can raise awareness and funding for the fight against it. I heard yesterday in Sky coverage of Jade's death the screenings for Cervical cancer are up in the U.K. and England might look at matching screening coverage of Scotland as a result of Jade's campaign. I do hope that the various health insurance providers will seriously looking at screening for the various forms of cancer, with many forms of cancer the key to survival is early detection and routine checkups.

In honor of Jade Goody, why not schedule a checkup and have some screenings done and/or encourage your family and friends to do so. You can also look at making a donation to any of the several cancer organizations around the globe. Jade Goody, you'll be missed, thank you for sharing your plight with the world.

Photo credit: Goody provided via a Creative Commons license at Keira76 @ Wikimedia Commons.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day 2009

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day 2009 I thought that I'd post some pictures from our trip to Ireland (from a few years back). We were in Ireland in March 2006 and in Dublin for the St. Patrick's Parade. Ireland was beautiful and very green but it was very cold and we didn't see a whole lot of sun during our visit. All in all we spent a week there and did a lot of sight seeing. We rented a nice cottage in the Killarney area



A real Irish bar!





Some people enjoying the big parade (boy was it cold that day!)

We made the long drive to Dublin for the St. Patrick's Day parade. Ireland has a lot of beautiful scenery but there roads aren't that great (at least the ones that we were on) and it doesn't seem as thought there are a whole lot of highways that you can take that allow you to drive any great distance quickly. We didn't factor in enough travel time, so we didn't really have enough time to find a good place to watch the parade and moved around trying to find a good place to watch the parade (we had to consider that we needed a place where two small kids could watch as well). We eventually gave up and looked around the city in search of a place to have lunch. We ended up eating at a Johnny Rockets, it had been a while since I had a decent burger, so I enjoyed it.




A real Irish cemetery

There was an Abbey and old cemetery nearby. The cemetery was very interesting, complete with sayings on the tombstones that the Irish are world renown for. The sunset over the lake by the cemetery was breathtaking.


The sun going down over a lake by an Irish cemetery



The Cliffs of Mohr

The Cliffs of Mohr are amazing and pictures can't do it justice. With a strong wind blowing off the ocean, it was very cold, chilling to the bone in fact.


The Cliffs of Mohr


A castle at the Cliffs of Mohr


We had a great trip to Ireland and hope that we can go back again sometime in the future. You can see more pictures from our trip to Ireland taken in March 2006 @Flickr. Happy Saint Patrick's Day!