Sleepovers: 1983 vs. 2026

I continue to (somewhat shamelessly) post photos of my grandson on this blog.

There was a period in the early 1980s – probably '81 through about '84 – in which the social highlight of any given week for me was sleeping over a friend's house. Or having that friend sleep over my house.

I spent countless nights sleeping in friends' bedrooms and basements, often on the floor. This didn't bother me because I was a teenager, and teenagers can sleep on concrete.

Come to think of it, we did sleep on concrete once. I don't know why, but we spent much of a night sleeping on my friend Kevin's driveway. A couple of people slept in lawn chairs, and a couple of us just laid down where we were and slept for several hours.

Outside. In the middle of summer. In the driveway.

I don't know that I could pull that off now.

Anyway, sleepovers were always a lot of fun. I regularly slept at my friend Mel's house. When I did, I would grab my sleeping bag and literally nothing else, hop on my little BMX bike, and take the 15-minute ride to Mel's place on the north end of Wickliffe.

His mom would have 2-liter plastic bottles of Pepsi for both of us: regular for me and diet for Mel because of his Type 1 diabetes.

The morning after a sleepover, before I went home, Mel would inject himself with insulin. He would ask me where on his body he should do the injection and, if it wasn't someplace crazy like his eyeball or his face, he would jab the needle wherever I asked him to. I was always fascinated by this.

Mel's mom also supplied us with Little Debbie Swiss cake rolls, which now that I think about it, Mel seemed to eat without reservation. Those things weren't exactly sugar-free. Or maybe there was a sugar-free version?

All I know is, we would spent the evening drinking pop, downing those chocolate treats, and listening to the early 80s' New Wave music we both liked...Duran Duran, The Fixx, Flock of Seagulls, Men at Work, etc.

It was wonderful.

Terry and I still engage in sleepovers, only now they're always at our house and they involve my daughter Chloe and our grandson Cal.

Chloe will sometimes come and spend the night when my son-in-law Michael travels for work. Because we are so obsessed with her child, she gets a much-needed break from feeding, changing and generally caring for him. And we get to see our favorite little boy.

Everybody wins.

Unlike my childhood sleepovers, however, there is little to no soda consumed, and our overall sugar intake is considerably lower.

The music is still there, but it's limited to whatever tunes Cal's little infant gym will play.

And our bedtime nowadays is considerably earlier and entirely determined by Cal.

Other than that, the enjoyment factor is just as high, and I look forward to these sleepovers just as much as I looked forward to the ones four decades ago.

Probably more!

What was the first song or album that you bought (or downloaded)?

There comes a point in the lives of most people when they develop an interest in music, and at first it's generally (but not always) the music that happens to be popular at the time.

The first song I ever bought for myself was the Men at Work hit "Down Under." I bought it in 1982 at Zayre's, a local discount/department store, on a 45 RPM record for something like $1.75. Maybe it was less, I can't remember.

I was in seventh grade at the time and the music of that 1982-84 era really shaped my taste for years to come. I still listen regularly to Men at Work, and particularly to lead singer Colin Hay, who has had a great solo career over the last 35 years. I even met him once.

From Men at Work I quickly branched out to The Police, Steve Miller, Duran Duran, The Fixx, Flock of Seagulls, Billy Joel, and a whole host of other artists whose 45s and cassettes I would regularly purchase. These were songs that had strong melodies, interesting lyrics, and quite often the combination of synthesizers and saxophones that I liked.

What about you? What was the first song or full-length album you bought? When did you buy it, and more important, why did you buy it? Feel free to comment directly here on the blog, or on whatever social media channel you use to access us (Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn).

'Maybe I'm a whale' and other misheard lyrics

We recently held our annual Employee Appreciation Gala at work, and one of the featured segments was a video of various employees dancing to Shakira's song "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)," which was the official song of the 2010 soccer World Cup (which you already knew of course, right?)

Anyway, when we were soliciting employees to choreograph and videotape their group dances to the song, it quickly became apparent to me and to a co-worker who is also a middle-aged white guy that we couldn't understand half of what Shakira was singing.

Assuming others might have this problem, we had our video editor produce a clip whereby the lyrics appeared at the bottom of the screen as Shakira sang them.

Mind you, I did not suddenly develop this inability to fully understand lyrics when I entered my 40s. I've always had trouble deciphering them, and of course some singers are worse than others.

Back in the early 1980s when I first became interested in popular music, one of my favorite bands was an English group called The Fixx. One of their big hits was a song called "Saved by Zero," the chorus of which had lead vocalist Cy Curnin singing "maybe I'll win, saved by zero."

Except I was sure he was singing "maybe I'm a whale, saved by zero." I realize this makes no sense, but my general outlook on most of the New Wave music I listened to back then was that it almost never made sense. And that it made no sense intentionally because...well, just because that's how pop music was.

I was stunned to learn eventually that I had not interpreted that lyric correctly.

My friend Matt always insisted that in the song "Sunglasses at Night," Corey Hart sang a line that went "don't push the play on a diet shake." Again, this makes no sense, but it's not much worse than the actual line, which was "don't switch the blade on the guy in shades."

My sister-in-law Chris apparently had some trouble with the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This." She seemed to think Annie Lennox was singing, "Who has a mind to disagree?" Close, but not right. Real lyric: "Who am I to disagree?"

There is, by the way, an entire website dedicated to misheard lyrics called www.kissthisguy.com. Its name stems from the often-botched line from Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" that goes "'scuse me while I kiss the sky." Many over the years have heard that as, "'scuse me while I kiss this guy." Which is really one of the better ones.

Another personal favorite from that site: In Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," he sings, "It was always burning since the world's been turning." But apparently some guy thought it was, "It was always burning, said the worst attorney."

Not understanding Shakira? I can relate to that. Not understanding Billy Joel? Impossible. Open your ears, whippersnappers.

I stopped understanding rap about the time of Run DMC

I just took a look at the Billboard "Hot 100" pop chart.

Do you know the last time I looked at the Hot 100? It had to have been 1988 or so. And I saw it in glossy print format, rather than finding it on the Internet like I did 30 seconds ago.

This, you understand, was back when I read Billboard. I think I had a subscription for awhile.

A subscription to a print publication. How cute!

Back then, I knew every artist and every song on the charts. Perhaps stunningly, I just realized I'm familiar with nine of the 10 songs on the current chart, and I'm actually rather proud of myself for that.

Of course, the only reason I know any of these modern groups is because I have teen-aged children. We listen to "their" music when we're in the car, which is why I'm acquainted with Imagine Dragons and can confidently say that Selena Gomez is famous for something other than being on the Disney Channel.

My interest in pop music waned quickly in the early 90s when grunge burst onto the scene. In retrospect, I actually like grunge. But at the time it seemed like a wild departure from the 80s New Wave music I had loved for so long.

And as far as I was concerned, the 90s didn't get much better as the decade progressed, musically speaking. After awhile it all sounded like the same four distorted guitar chords and/or tired R&B artists over and over, so I tuned out.

Only when my kids started getting old enough to have an interest in pop culture did I return to the modern music scene, and I have to tell you it's not that bad.

There's a lot of stuff being played on Top 40 radio today that interests me. (NOTE: I have no idea whether "Top 40 radio" means anything anymore, but it's a phrase I understand so I'm going to use it.)

There's also a lot of stuff I think is just rhythmic noise, but that's only because I'm middle-aged and I'm required by law to complain at least a bit about these darned kids and their loud music.

The music that totally lost me by the late 80s was rap. I liked a lot of rap in the 80s, or at least as much rap as a pasty white suburban kid was supposed to like.

I liked Run DMC the best. They were talented. And they were funny. And they didn't rap about shooting policemen in the head. That seemed pretty non-threatening to white people like me.

Even more Caucasian-friendly was D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Jeff, incidentally, became the Andrew Ridgeley of the rap scene when Will Smith emerged as a star. I felt bad for him.

But I enjoyed the hits he and Will cranked out for awhile, including "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson." Again, no cop-killing, no N-word, no angry bass-thumping and screaming. I could semi-relate.

But then came NWA and Ice-T and Ice Cube and Iced Coffee and whatnot, and the whole genre just flew off in a direction that didn't interest me in the least. So I stopped paying attention.

Nowadays two or three pop songs come out every year that intrigue me enough to download them from iTunes, and that's about it. The rest of the stuff on the radio is OK and no more than that for me, so I listen to a lot of Duran Duran and Men at Work and Paul Simon and The Fixx and whatever else comes up on my "Pathetic Old Guy" iPod playlist.

At one time or another, all of those groups were played regularly on Top 40 radio. And that, as far as you kids know, is saying something.