As soon as I got pompous about my blogging prowess all Blaugust hopes and dreams went out the window, so it goes, so it goes. I can’t complain too much, it got me twelve solid posts and August isn’t dead yet … REDEMPTION! Anyway, this post is not so much about blogging or not blogging, it is more about being in an early 80s trance. I’ve been watching and discussing a lot of movies in and around the 80s, namely American Gigolo (1980), Risky Business (1983), and Red Dawn (1984) to name a few. There has been no shortage of podcasting from the bava, and part of that conversation has been all about the aesthetic of the 80s and various pieces like the showcasing of luxury brands like Mercedes, Armani, Porsche, and Rayban as well as an almost immediate reflection (as early as 1980) as the 80s being a decade that will be consumed by, with and for Reaganomics. A tight reading of American Gigolo followed by Risky Business with a backdrop of the Cold War dream scenario of Red Dawn and you are really tapping into some deep cultural ID. Anyway, anyway, all that to say that two days ago I pulled out the The Cars 1979 album Candy-O and I fell into what seems like another landmark of the creation of the 80s aesthetic—much is said of the British New Wave invasion, but Blondie, Devo, Talking Heads, the B-52s and The Cars were all waiting for them when they arrived. What got me into a re-visiting of Candy-O back in 2009 or so was a fun Tweet-storm by Brian Lamb when he talked about having to wash off the hippie he had been immersed in for some trip or another, and the only real antidote was cranking-up Candy-O. vinylcast #21: The Cars’s Candy-O In fact, as life would have it, I did a #vinylcast of this album on ds106radio for day 29 of lockdown during Covid. I am sure I tell this story and more. I also had this album in constant rotation in the fall of 2009 when I was doing work on the house we bought in Fredericksburg. A lifetime ago when the kids were babies and I had brown hair, that said I still had this blog. Post by @jimgroom@social.ds106.us View on Mastodon For this foray into a non-stop The Cars listening party, it’s been all about being able to crank the stereo at the office, work on the diorama, deal with the influx of Reclaim issues as the semester starts (the constant Microsoft-driven botnet-like attacks on our infrastructure is tiresome), and finding a soundtrack that helps me both check out and lock in all at once. “When I was crazy, I thought you were great.”