FEBRUARY 8th -- A Light in the Dark



I hesitate to even write about this. It was a dark time in history, and people don’t like to be reminded of dark times. Why we don’t know much of anything bout the Dark Ages, am I right? People would rather go about their day ignoring the muck and the mire of the past, choosing to remember only the unicorn-pooping-rainbow times of days gone by. They may even hope lightness will shine through the darkness of the present somehow. But this doesn’t just happen on its own. It is only through focusing on the darkness of the past that we can learn to shed the light on that of the present and future. So, unfortunately, I must recall a dark, dark time back in 1992, when on this very day, Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” reached number one on the Billboard Charts. I’m all for gimmicks. Being too sexy for your shirt was probably a nice little escape from any actual darkness of the time. And if you were a model the song definitely reminded you to do your little turn on the catwalk. Number 1 though? The song is awful. Awful. I give them credit for coming up with something that caught the imagination of the public--but how hard is that to do? Looking at you Cash me Ousside Girl with a little wink to you too Salt Bae Guy. The fact that this song reached number one at all hurts my heart a little. But at least the public had a little sense. The year wasn’t completely a dark time. “I’m Too Sexy,” was not the top song of the year. That honor went to “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men. There was also “Baby Got Back,” “Jump” by Kris Kross (really?) and “Under the Bridge,” by the Chili Peppers. So the year was a mixed bag. But then there was also Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day” ahead of “I’m Too Sexy”--which is appropriate, because that song, that cheesy, beautiful song, really was too sexy for its shirt.

"Just Another Day" has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more