The Beach

I love the beach. If you've been reading this blog for awhile you probably know that. I've talked about it several times. I did a Friday Nite Video that featured a beach. I've made fun of personal adds that ALWAYS list long walks on the beach as a favorite activity. Last week Elizabeth and I went to the beach in the evening with plans to put out a blanket and just relax there for awhile during the night. That outing lasted about ten minutes. We arrived there at dusk. Unrolled the blanket and sat down. We were surprised that there were several other people around us, apparently with the same idea we had. We breathed in the fresh, salty air. We admired the stars above. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore. Then the mosquitoes attacked. Not just one or two, a whole platoon. Biting our legs, arms, necks, our feet. Even biting through Elizabeth's jeans. We gathered up the blanket and high tailed it out of there. So much for our beach adventure. My love for the beach goes way back. My mom used to take me and my sister Kimberly there every summer. My aunt would rent a house every summer for a couple weeks in Fenwick Island, Delaware, I think is the beach where they would always stay. We would usually go for a day or two while they were there to spend the day with them. My cousin Carol, who Kim and I were always close with, would be there. We would have a great time, every time. But, I never went out in the water to far. Why? Because I saw the movie Jaws when I was a kid. Really! I saw that movie when it came out and to this day I can NEVER go very far out in the water. I want to be able to quickly make it to shore if I have to. Somewhere between waist and shoulder is plenty deep enough for me. Even when I'm out in that depth of water I'm constantly scanning the water ahead and around me. I can imagine a giant fin or a huge gaping mouth with razor sharp teeth with shreds of human flesh hanging from them behind every wave that's coming toward me. I'll swim around and I'll enjoy it but I'm always looking. I try to swim where there are several other people swimming in case there is a great white lurking. At least if there's other people around me I have a chance the shark might get one of them instead of me. It's even more comforting if there's a person way out in the water swimming around. You just know monster shark will go after that person because it will require less of a effort on its part. I saw Jaws when it was released way back in 1975. I was eight years old in 75 and for some reason my older brother Greg decided it would be a good idea to take me to see this movie so he and his newlywed wife Hope put me in the back seat of whatever car he had at that time and took his young, innocent brother (me) to see one of the most terrifying movies out at that time. We saw it at the old Sussex West Drive-In which used to be right on route 13 outside of Laurel. My brother Greg and his wife Hope had just gotten married that same year so what was the point to taking little old me to the Drive-In theater of all places if it wasn't just to scare me witless. They should have been making out in that car instead of worrying about what I was doing or thinking. Well, they succeeded in scaring the pants off of me. I remember several parts of the movie where I would duck down in the floor of the car, to scared to watch. Greg would laugh at me and tell me to get up and watch! I would with my eyes as big as saucers. Every time that music would start, my stomach would tighten. I knew someone was going to be eaten. Why would my brother do that to me you wonder? Last year I posted a story called Scary Movies where I talked about my two brothers loving to terrorize me. They took delight in seeing me scared senseless. My other brother Kirk made me watch Psycho one night with him and to this day I get nervous showering when I'm alone. Any strange noise makes me tense up and listen to see if I hear anything else. I can imagine Norman Bates slowly making his way to me in the shower, dressed in his mothers finest. My brothers took delight in it. Sensory overload for a eight year old boy. Now, as a 44 year old adult I can still see that giant shark swimming around the beach, looking for fresh victims. Doesn't matter if I'm at one of Delaware's beaches or one here in Florida, I'm on the lookout for Jaws! I remember when my kids were younger and Jaws was coming on TV and I told them ya both have to watch this movie about this giant fish. It's terrifying! They watched the first half a hour or so then got bored with it. They didn't find it scary. They didn't get nervous when that creepy, slow building music would start up. They were soon begging to go outside and play. Today they can go to the beach and swim and laugh and carry on without a thought to what might be lurking beneath the surface. But for me, being a eight year old boy back in 1975 who watched Jaws, I know what could be down below. Watching, waiting, hungry and ready to eat! Coming up out of the water to get that guy who's floating along on the raft or boogie board. Surging up from the bottom to grab that girl from below that's way to far out. That's why I'm going to stay close to the shore thank you!

Friday Nite Video (The Eurythmics)

Well, we're in the rainy season here in Florida. Kinda ties into the August dog days of summer thing I was talking
about a few posts ago. Typical day here, wake up to a muggy 78 degrees. By 9:00 am its 85. Noon its stifling. Around 2:00 the scorched atmosphere can't take it anymore and the sky darkens and the flood rains start to fall. So that got me thinking how many old skool videos could I come up with that talks about rain? I recently did one by New Edition while it was pouring outside. But now that it's raining about everyday here now I wanna see how many I can come up with. The New Edition song was Can You Stand The Rain and it was a great song. But I can think of several more good ones that have to do with rain. So lets see how long we can keep this rain concept up. I'll post them as I think of them here on Friday Nights and if you think of any email me and I'll try to post it and you can even get the credit. We can get going until we run out of ideas or the rainy season ends. Remember too, its gotta be somewhat "old skool". Sound fun? Okay then, lets start it off with a duo that I never really liked. The Eurythmics. This duo formed in 1980, broke up in 1990. They had several releases that made it into the top 40 but I never really cared much for them. Annie Lennox had her buzz cut hair dyed orange half the time and David Stewart was just plain weird looking. Still, they did have a cool song about rain! So starting off our rainy season here on FNV is The Eurythmics from 1983 with their song Here Comes The Rain Again. Enjoy!

Carnivals

I took Emily to Old Town in Kissimmee when she was here over the summer to visit Fun Spot. For those of you that's not familiar with Fun Spot or Old Town for that matter, they sit side by side off of 192 in Kissimmee. Fun Spot features go kart tracks and it's really like a big carnival. They have the go karts, which the kids and I love, but they also have the traditional carnival style rides as well. Pay one price and get the all you can ride unlimited armband or pay for individual tickets if you just want to do one ride. What is it about these places that makes us adults pull out our wallets and spend money like it really does grow on trees. I like to think that I'm pretty conservative with my spending but get me somewhere like Fun Spot and suddenly I'm a bigger spender then a congressional democrat. Please, nothing less then the unlimited, all day and night, go-carts AND rides armband for me and my kids! 37.00 dollars each? Chump change to be able to let my daughter (and son Lorenzo when he's here) ride till she's sick and tired of riding. We ride the go-karts and yes, we do break the rules every time we ride. We bump, we crash, we spin each other out, we try to put each other into the wall. We crash into the innocents riders that just so happen to get in our way while we are trying to get in front of each other so that we don't lose that particular race. We make the attendants blow their whistles and point at us while hurling some threats at us. We bump whoever is in front of us as we come into the station at the end of the race. We laugh and get off and then run to get back in line. After we get tired of the go karts we will walk the midway and do some of the old classics. The tilt a whirl. The bobsleds, yes, we do want to go faster. And surprise! Now we get to do it in reverse! I remember riding that ride when I was a kid. The songs then were songs that I grew up with. The songs now I don't recognize. I think one of them was Lady Gaga, maybe. As it gets dark the place takes on a life of its own. Lights flashing and sirens screaming for attention, competing with the laughs and shrieks of kids. The skill games with all the giant stuffed animals that no one ever seems to win. The air is heavy with that unmistakable smell of a carnival. Part machinery, part food. The food smells coming from the booths that are frying hamburgers and hot dogs and cheese steaks and french fries. Sausages and onions. Delectable desserts such as funnel cakes, cotton candy, candy apples, caramel popcorn and the list goes on and on. Your kid wants something? No problem. Pull out wallet, purchase item. We eat til we're about to puke and rightly should! But it's not the rides we're paying for or the food or the games or the cheap souvenirs. We're buying the experience. We are paying top dollar for the memories that we are making. We're buying time together that nothing will ever be able to erase. A long way further down the road of life we will look back at our time together and we won't remember what it cost. What we will remember is that we were together. Dad was there. Emily and Lorenzo were so young. We rode those rides and ate all that food and we laughed and we laughed! Remember when Dad crashed his go kart into the wall when he was trying to past Emily or when Lorenzo got spun around and that other kid hit him head on and his phone went flying? THAT'S what we are buying at the carnival. And those things are eternal.

Friday Nite Video (TNT)

Hey all. You've heard of glam metal? Those bands where all the guys wore heavy makeup and had the big hair? Of course, you know the ones I'm talking about. There was one after another in the 80's and the music was secondary to the looks in some cases. Tonight's band would be better called glam/sham metal. Who would that be? I'm talking about that Norwegian band TNT. Remember them? Exactly. I first heard these guys back in the old PK video store in Laurel, Delaware. I also happened to work at PK Video for a year or so at nights to supplement me and the ex's income when she decided to wanted to go back to school. Anyway, PK had this promotional video that we were supposed to play on the big TV that they used to show new release movies on. It was a promotional video for several new release movies and albums by various performers. TNT happened to be one of the bands that was on that video and I had to watch and listen to this tape for like a week straight. The TNT song was Everyone's a Star and it was a great song. The lead singer could really belt out the lyrics and the band jammed along. I decided hey, I need to buy this tape, these guys are really good. The album must really rock. I remember I had a hard time finding the tape and had to look several different places before I did. After I finally found a store that carried it and I listened to it I discovered why it was so hard to find. It sucked! Really bad. Everyone's a Star was the first song and it was good but the others were sooooo bad that they cancelled out anything good that I felt for Everyone's a Star. I ended up throwing that piece of garbage in the trash and I wanted to puke whenever I had to listen to the 15 seconds of the song that was on the promotional tape at work. That was back in 1987. Today, 24 years later I can hear the song and laugh. These guys sure fooled me. Listen up and see what you think. Enjoy! (if you can haha)

The Dog Days

I gotta confess, my blogging has been slacking here lately. Why? We're in the dog days of August. Who ever came up with that expression? What kind of dog did they have in mind? Most dogs lay around most of the day anyway if they were implying that it was hot and that's all we wanted to do. Most dogs I've been around do that year round, hot or cold. It's certainly what I've been wanting to do. My routine is get up, go to work, baste and sweat at work, come home and strip, get shower and lay under the ceiling fan. Like a dog would do I guess haha. When it's this hot I find myself not wanting to do much of anything. If I do it's definitely gotta be indoors. The beach is nice but it's gotta be early or late in the evening. In fact, I have plans for this Saturday with Elizabeth to go to Cocoa Beach in the evening and swim in the Atlantic Ocean while the sun sets. We might even take one of those long walks on the beach afterwards that every person in a personal add claims to love. Ive never taken a nighttime swim in the ocean but I'm looking forward to my first! I'll let you all know how that goes. Ive got several good stories in mind, I just gotta get the energy to put them on here. Right now we're in the dog days of summer and it's hot!

Friday Nite Video (Sam Cooke)

I was at work the other day sitting with some of my friends/co-workers and the topic turned to old music verses the music out today. We all agreed that most of the stuff out there today that was posing as music really wasn't. One of the friends said she used to love to go to "Old Skool Music" parties where, of course, Old Skool Music was played throughout the night. Me, being the youngest at the table, suddenly perked up and took interest in the conversation. After all, I have been doing a old skool video every Friday night on my blog since I started this thing. What is old skool for me? Well, just scroll back through my archive and you'll see. It's what I feature on here each week. 80's rap. 80's rock and roll. 80's pop. Pretty much anything from that decade. That's what my 40'ish mind comes up with. But here was this group of friends who all happened to be a little older then me starting to reminisce about THEIR old skool groups and singers. People like Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight and the Pips, James Brown, The Spinners, Smoky Robinson. I thought, Wow! For my slighter older friends, Old Skool was music that I had never really thought of or even considered. MY old skool stuff was probably trash to them. Kinda like when I tell my kids about a popular group or song from back in my day and they roll their eyes and say yeah dad, whatever. Then I thought, who will be THEIR old skool performers when THEY grow up? Lady Gaga? Kesha? Britney Spears? Kinda frightening if you really think about it. And when that's old skool THEIR kids will look at them and roll their eyes and say yeah mom or yeah dad, whatever! Anyway, I looked up some of the songs of some of these artists and I gotta say this one I found by Sam Cooke was one of the best. He had a amazing voice and most of his live performance videos were pretty grainy and hard to hear so I just used this one that only shows a picture of him but it captures his voice perfectly. Close your eyes when you listen and you can feel that era of music coming out through his voice. From 1965 and no, I wasn't born yet, its (Somebody) Ease My Troublin' Mind by the late Sam Cooke. Enjoy!