Sweeping Up at Grebe's

Summer 1983 Playlist
01. Our House - Madness Madness
02. Why Me? - Planet P Project Planet P Project
03. Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You) - A Flock Of Seagulls Listen
04. Europa And The Pirate Twins - Thomas Dolby The Golden Age of Wireless
05. The Electric Co. - U2 Under a Blood Red Sky
06. Legal Tender - The B-52's Whammy!
07. I'm Still Standing - Elton John Too Low For Zero
08. (Keep Feeling) Fascination - Human League The Very Best of the Human League
09. Safety Dance - Men Without Hats Greatest Hats
10. Da Da Da (Ich Lieb Dich Nicht) - Trio Da Da Da
11. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) - Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
12. The Fanatic - Felony The Fanatic
13. Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) - Haircut 100 Pelican West
14. Oblivious - Aztec Camera High Land, Hard Rain
15. Whenever You're on My Mind - Marshall Crenshaw Field Day
16. Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson Night and Day
17. Overkill - Men At Work Cargo
18. Time (Clock of the Heart) - Culture Club Kissing to Be Clever
19. Mad World - Tears For Fears The Hurting
20. King of Pain - The Police Synchronicity
21. Is There Something I Should Know? - Duran Duran Greatest

When We Got Our MTV in Bay Village (May, 1983) I was completing my freshman year in high school. It was as if someone opened the sluice valve and 100% Euro-Trash started gushing into my blonde shag living room. The early 80s were fun. You could put gel in your hair, wear bright pink and make-up and still say proudly, "I'm not a fag."

Except I didn't do any of those things. At least not right away. But my imagination was fueled by all of the haircuts, the accents, the fashion, the whole not here-ness of the whole thing. It was not rock, and by that time, in that place, I had had it with rock music. Synthesizers, androgyny, dancing, it all meant the future.

It also meant sex.

I was trapped in suburbia that summer. Henrik was already living in London (at least, he was right at that time) and Denny had recently returned from spending time in Germany with an exchange program.

When Toni thinks of the best time she could ever have gone to London, it is, of course, 1977. Irony of ironies, I was actually there then, briefly, but as an eight year-old I wasn't exactly taking the time to indulge in the Summer of Punk. In fact, most of the time was spent driving around the countryside, seeing castles and very large rocks.

When I think of Britain, I can't help thinking of the London of the early 80s. Horns! Congas! Faux-Ska! The Beat! Haircut 100! White guys and black guys, in the same band! It's disco - but it's not! Bands with exotic, non-ironic names like Aztec Camera and Flock of Seagulls! I see you crying and I want to kill your friends ... So innocent. So adult.

And in the summer of 1983, what did I do with all that pent-up frustration? Unleash it on my girlfriend of course, which is amusing, seeing as I didn't have the slightest idea what I was doing. ("At one stage - she even took her bra off." - Rik, "The Young Ones")

Out of the blue she decided to contact me last week and we've been playing nostalgia-tag via email. Hence the 1983 playlist.

But no, the summer of 1983 wasn't when I became cool. It was when I decided to become cool. Actually getting there took another fifteen years.

And ended the day I started keeping a blog, of course.

We are all getting pretty excited about the London trip. I should say Zelda and I are getting excited, Orson has no clue and Toni can't get past the thought of hanging onto a ten month-old in and out of three airports and ten hours on a plane. Everyone gives us the same advice; Benadryl. I love it - we mock our ancestors for being ignorant of what was in all those patent medicines, namely cocaine or alcohol, and yet here was are intentionally drugging our children in order to get them to calm the hell down.

It's our first Post-9/11 transatlantic trip, which I try not to think about. I also try not think about the Underground. This is me, not thinking about it.

Our first trip to London together was in 1997. Mmmm-Bop was the number one single in Britain at the time (can't remember the name of the band) and there were double-decker buses and Princess Diana was still alive. But they didn't have the Eye, and whatever anyone else says about its presence in the London skyline, Zelda can't wait to ride on it.

Our 2001 trip to London was not, actually, a horrible time. There were just horrible times in it. Father's Day at the Otter & Owl Conservatory was very nice. Having Denny there was also really great. And I did get to see Blue/Orange with the original cast.

It will be highly bizarre to move back into that big, sunny room on the third floor. Lying awake in shock and doubt after completing The Sparrow, napping whenever, crying often. And now it will be filled with kids. Five years.

Henrik & Brenda sent us the DVD for the first season of the new Dr. Who to bring us up to speed - on London, not just the Doctor. The first five minutes is all the 21st Century City.

Except for the the busses.