Complaint: A Fly in the Musical Ointment

Okay, there’s a flaw in Pandora, the make-your-own-radio station website. If you listen for more than about half an hour, the songs start repeating. I understand why; they can’t afford the licensing fees for every song from every era and genre. But I don’t know about you, but much as I dig the electro-tastic sounds of Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy”, there are only so many times in your life you should listen to it. Ditto for Billy Idol’s “White Wedding,” and “West End Girls” by The Pet Shop Boys. A nice day to start again, indeed.

After awhile you start having flashbacks to the 80s and that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, either, but it is a thing.

Example: I am remembering a time in college taking care of a friend who was ultra-drunk and we were all at what in Atlantic Canada is called a “Beergarden.” It’s basically a booze party held in a large, dark room with loud music. Insta-bar. The drinking age was 19, so most of us in the first two years of our illustrious academic careers couldn’t buy booze there. But it’s not that the rest of us didn’t drink. We did, but we drank before we arrived, because we freshpeople couldn’t get the coveted hand stamp you needed at the actual event.

What we did to get alcohol in a sleepy little New Brunswick town? (Which back then did not even have a McDonalds; the closest one was in another province) you called a cab, asked them to pick up some booze, some mixer, maybe some cigarettes, and they drove it TO YOUR DORM. The price? The cost of the goodies plus $2.50. I am not making this up.

Nowadays such behavior would be an indictable offense, but back in the mid-eighties it’s just how you got booze if you were under-aged.

There’s an alcoholic beverage in Canada called alcool, which is something like 98% alcohol, and it’s brutal. We would get that, mix it in a (clean)* big plastic garbage can with Kool-Aid ™ and go stupid crazy drunk. And for just pennies a glass.

One of my friends, a cheerful lad from The Bahamas, got seriously intoxicated before the Beergarden, and proceeded to vomit on us, and others attending said Beergarden, after having shouted, “Where’s Luba, man? Where’s Luba?” about 300 times before said puking and subsequent passing out. (Note to Americans and well, anyone not Canadian and young in the 80s—Luba was quite a good singer whose big hit was, “Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry.” She was playing at the Beergarden. My friend did not vomit on her.)

Ahh, good times.

So listening to Pandora is bringing all sorts of old memories I didn’t know I had, as I listen to the music of my youth. And no, they are not paying me to keep saying Pandora. I just like saying it. Pandora. Pandora.

Speaking of which, if you want a really random song, check out Tori Amos’ “Pandora.” That woman goes places nobody else goes. And not all of them are places you’d want to go.

That’s it for tonight. Go relive some memories.






*(I mean, come on, we weren’t animals)