Favorite songs from the 1980s

Rambling down music memory lane today. This time in the form of my favorite music from the 1980s. I have to admit that the 1980s was an odd time music-wise—disco, urban, pop, rock, jazz—each genre got airplay on the New York radio stations, if memory serves me right. So many great songs…..

Anyway, here are some favorites from that time; check out the many videos on YouTube if you want to hear them. I’ve tried posting video links before but they disappear pretty fast from YouTube and end up as dead links on my posts. I’ll be updating the list from time to time as I remember more songs, listen to them once again, and am thrown back to that time--where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with when those songs made such a lasting impression on me.

·         Street Life -- The Crusaders (released in 1979 but got a lot of airplay in 1980)

·         Off the Wall – Michael Jackson (1980)

·         Don’t Stand So Close To Me, Driven to Tears, When the World is Running Down You Make the Best  of What’s Still Around – The Police (1980)

·         Give Me The Night – George Benson (1980)

·         Are You Going With Me, The Bat – Pat Metheny (1981)

·         More Than This, Avalon -- Roxy Music (1982)

·         Stepping Out -- Joe Jackson (1982)

·         Thriller, Beat It, Human Nature, Want To Be Starting Something – Michael Jackson (1982)

·         Physical Attraction – Madonna (1983)

·         Burning Down the House – Talking Heads (1983)

·         One Thing Leads to Another, Saved by Zero – The Fixx (1983)

·         White Lines (Don't Don't Do It) – Grandmaster Melle Mel (1983)

·         Heartbeat City, Magic, Drive, Why Can’t I Have You -- The Cars (1984)

·         When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy – Prince (1984)

·         Dance Hall Days, Don’t Let Go – Wang Chung (1984)

·         West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys (1984)

·         Jump – Van Halen (1984)

·         Vidro e Corte (Glass and Cut) – Milton Nascimento & Pat Metheny (1985)

·         In My House – Mary Jane Girls (1985)

·         Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds (1985)

·         Live To Tell – Madonna (1986)

·         Everybody Have Fun Tonight – Wang Chung (1986)

·         Dancing on the Ceiling – Lionel Richie (1986)

·         Word Up, Candy – Cameo (1986)

·         Tunnel of Love – Bruce Springsteen (1987)

·         Last Train Home – Pat Metheny (1987)

·         Chicago Song – David Sanborne (1987)

·         So Emotional – Whitney Houston (1987)

·         Sign o’ the Times – Prince (1987)

·         In God’s Country, Where the Streets Have No Name – U2 (1987)

·         What I Am – Edie Brickell and New Bohemians (1988)

·         Buffalo Stance – Ninah Cherry (1988)

·         Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty (1989)

·         Back to Life (However Do You Want Me), Keep on Moving -- Soul II Soul (1989)

Planes, trains, not automobiles

Last week I was a New Yorker again, at least for a few days, on my annual trip back to the USA. I end up with so many impressions and reflections about modes of transportation—starting with flying. Ironic that just about the same time that flying has become fairly comfortable, that weather extremes are forcing long delays at airports, preventing us from getting on those planes and taking off on time. That was my experience this time; a four-hour delay leaving Oslo for Newark, and a one-hour delay on the return trip. In both cases, weather was the culprit—thunderstorms and tornadoes (in New York) the night before I was to fly to Newark, and thunderstorms on the return trip. The plane used for the Newark to Oslo trip was the same as the one for the Oslo-Newark trip, hence the delay. I could not help but wonder why SAS managed to get a plane out on time whereas United did not, but no one is giving me the answer, except to say something about the crew and the legal requirements for them to rest. It makes sense in any case, and United was quick to respond to potential customer dissatisfaction by offering us a number of ‘rewards’ for our patience—7000 extra bonus miles, substantial discounts on future trip purchases, and the like. I chose the extra bonus miles. Once I got on the plane, I had no complaints about the actual flights, either going or coming back. It is my impression that the future will only hold more of these types of extreme weather situations, so it’s just to get used to flight delays and to work on becoming more patient. Because really, there is nothing one can do about them anyway, and I don’t want airlines to risk flying through thunderstorms, lightning or hurricanes in order to maintain punctuality at the expense of safety. I ended up exploring the duty-free shops and bookstores in great detail as I had the time to do so. I ate a decent lunch (courtesy of United) and thought briefly about the film The Terminal with Tom Hanks—about an immigrant who ended up living in an airport terminal after he arrived in the USA. I never saw the film, but I remember some of the reviews when it came out some years ago. I wonder how business travelers manage; they must have to leave a day early in order to be sure that they make an important meeting if that meeting is overseas (Europe or America). That has got to elevate the cost of business travel—to pay for an employee’s extra night in a hotel when he or she arrives at his destination a day before in order to dodge potential flight delays. I don’t have those problems, thankfully, since my trips are not usually for business. I don’t mind flying for the most part; the planes are so modern now. Turbulence is not as bothersome as it used to be (at least what I’ve experienced so far and I hope it remains that way), and air quality on the plane has improved dramatically just within the past five years or so. That’s a big change on long flights—less dehydration and lightheadedness; the major problem still remains the leg room (lack of) in economy class. That has not improved; as far as I can determine, it’s gotten worse as airlines try to pack in more passengers per flight.

Once in New York City, it is easy to get around without a car, in fact it is preferable not to drive a car in Manhattan, even though it is not difficult to find your way around in this city borough. The major problem is traffic—lots of it, at all times during the day. The traffic is heart-attack inducing, and not for impatient or aggressive souls. There is no rhyme or reason to the amount of traffic, just that it exists. I remember my commuting days in the 1980s; sometimes it took an hour just to get across town if I drove in from New Jersey to my east-side uptown job. So I don’t drive now when I come back to the city. I take the subway—which has really gotten much better since the 1980s—clean stations, the presence of police on subway trains and platforms, passengers who behave well (no rowdiness as far as I can see) and a remarkably cheap price for a subway ticket. Two dollars and twenty-five cents for one ride; compared to Oslo prices, that’s a dream price. A one-way bus/subway ticket in Oslo will cost at least double that. And if I want to get to Westchester from Manhattan, which I often do, the best way to do that is to take the Metro-North Hudson line commuter trains. I used to take the Hudson line back and forth to Manhattan from Tarrytown, just like my father did for many years during his work lifetime, and as far as I can remember, this service has always been good to excellent. Trains are on time, ticket prices are not exorbitant, and you get to experience the scenic part of the trip when the tracks run parallel to the beautiful Hudson River. Of course I am partial to trains in general, so I am a bit biased. But I had the experience of taking a commuter train from Manhattan to New Jersey on this trip, and the service did not compare to that on Metro-North; it was ok at best. And of course coming into the beautiful end station on the Hudson line--Grand Central--is quite ok with me. Overall, getting around in the New York metropolitan area is not problematic, nor should it be, with good planning. It won’t break your budget either. 

Saying goodbye to our Bimmer

I recently wrote a post about buying a used car but wanting a new car. Well, that time has now come. Our used car (from 1993) died this past week. Our wonderful comfortable 4-door automatic BMW that we bought in 2004--our Bimmer. BMWs are referred to as Bimmers, Beemers and Beamers. But according to Google, Bimmer is the correct term for BMW vehicles with 4 wheels (cars) while Beemer and Beamer are used for BMW vehicles with less than 4 wheels (e.g. motorcycles). What happened to our car is that the oil pan ruptured severely and in addition to a myriad of other repairs that had to be done (in order to pass the EU control) that would have cost us a fortune, we opted to sell it to a friend who has the equipment, time, space and patience to repair the car at leisure. We got some money for it so it worked out fine. But it was sad to say goodbye. It’s been such a great car and it’s taken us through Europe, to Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Austria and The Czech Republic. I’ll miss it. I had a special attachment to this car, maybe because it needed so few repairs in all the time we owned it. We’re going to buy a new (used) car but I doubt it will be as nice as this one was.  

Buying used and wanting new

Apropos yesterday’s post, I was reading a bit more about Stephen Cannell’s life and some of his philosophies. He was a pretty conservative businessman and seemed to have been very much influenced by his father’s way of looking at money. I found it humorous to read what he said about buying new cars--“My father was the guy who taught me how to think straight, not to delude myself and think I was larger than I was. I never bought a new car until I was 45-years old...I bought used because my father always said: 'why do you want to buy a car, drive it around the block and lose thirty percent of its value'? ...Don't get me wrong, I had great used cars: XKEs, Jags... But they were all used. All my friends were out leasing new Mercedes and other high-end cars...and there I was buying used; and writing a check for it! "There! give me the car"! Again this viewpoint resonates with me because this is my husband’s philosophy when it comes to buying a family car—the one that will get driven around the city, the one we’ll use for errands, the one that will get driven on vacations, and so forth. Come to think of it, it’s also his philosophy about cars in general. He owns a veteran Porsche at this writing. I also grew up with a father who bought used cars. My husband and I have never bought a new car in the twenty some-odd years we have been together; we have always bought used family cars and for the most part that has worked out. He says the same thing as Cannell’s father—why am I going to buy a new car when it will depreciate overnight once you take it home and drive it? In the beginning of our marriage I was more prone to want to buy new--for lots of reasons. My arguments were that it made sense from a safety standpoint—with new cars, you knew you were getting the latest safety features and that appealed to me. I also liked the fact that you could have more control over knowing what had gone wrong with the car, the types of repairs it had had, and so on. Additionally, and perhaps most important to me, I wanted to know that when I was driving it alone, it would behave and not break down in some out-of-the way place, leaving me stranded (this was before the cell phone era). I should add that my husband knows how to repair (or has learned to repair) most of the used cars we have had, otherwise I might have insisted more on buying new (or newer used). Being able to fix your own car is an advantage that most people I know don’t have, myself included. Of course, my wishes were a moot point because we simply could not afford a new car in Norway. Prices for new cars in this country are outrageously high. They have come down some but prices are still way over the top. This is something that has never made much sense to me. This country prides itself on being so environmentally aware, yet for at least the first ten years I lived here, I never saw so many old exhaust-spewing wrecks on the road as I did at that time. If everyone could have afforded a new and more environmentally-friendly car, Oslo would have had much better air quality during the 1990s and afterwards. But when I brought up that idea in discussions, I was always told that the politicians were aiming to get people to use public transportation and that was one way they could achieve this—by keeping car prices high with unnecessary taxes and fees. The idea sounds good on paper. I’m all for public transportation. But if I decide to ride the cable car down into town one afternoon after work, I pay 34 kroner for a one-way ticket, which corresponds to over 5 USD with current exchange rates. If I buy what is called a Flexi-kort, I get eight rides for 190 kroner, which works out to about 24 kroner per ride, again about 4 USD. This is not cheap. This does not encourage people to use public transportation. This is also what you pay on the buses and on the subways as well. I have a problem trying to figure out the rationale behind all this. Someone needs to explain how this is an environmentally-friendly policy. But anyway, back to cars……

So the discussion in our house was and is ‘how old should the car be if we are aiming to buy used?’ At present we drive a BMW 740 sedan from 1993 that we bought in 2003. It was a find. We bought it from a man who worked out on the oil rigs in the North Sea for most of the year, so that he only drove the car on his sporadic trips home. It’s a car with an automatic gearshift, comfortable to sit in and to drive, that has taken us through a lot of Europe. It does guzzle some gas. We’ve driven to Prague, Rome, Naples, Paris, Montpelier, along the French Riviera, up into the Swiss Alps, to Copenhagen and to Stockholm with the car. We’ve hurtled along the Autobahn in Germany, and the joke is that once the car came ‘home’ to Germany that it loved the high speeds. I know I didn’t love them but at least we got a chance to test the car’s capacity for speed. And here we are eight years later and the car is still mostly doing fine. The engine will probably keep on going, although the automatic transmission will probably give out eventually. Then we’ll be looking for a new used car. That will bring us to anno 2003 or so, and it will be interesting to see the ‘new features’ in cars produced around that time. The only way I ever really get to see what is ‘new’ in new cars is when I travel to New York and rent a car for a week or so. And I usually only learn to use about a fourth of what is probably available. Most of the time I have a hard time finding the automatic buttons to do this and that—open the gas tank, open the trunk. I’ve learned that the seats can be automatically adjusted with buttons and that’s fine because you get a driver’s seat that really does fit the driver. But basically, I’m guessing that most of the newer safety features are variations on a theme at this point. All cars have airbags now. It’s great to have automatic wipers for the back windshield but you can survive without them. So it comes down to this—that I just enjoy driving a new rental car for the week I am in NY, and then I go back to driving used. I’m quite ok with this now. Ten years ago I still wanted new. Now if you told me we had to buy a new car, I would argue with you about the wisdom in that. But I would still discuss how old is ‘too old’ for a used car.