The irony of the first edition of "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!" for 2017 is I'm not leading off with anything about the New Year at all. Instead, as I often seem to do best, I choose to wax nostalgic. I'm watching TV one day--surprise, surprise--and see the "Coach Steve" Dr. Pepper commercial featuring the Ol' Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier. In the midst of essentially tuning him out, my ears instantly perk up to "Stuck with You" by Huey Lewis and the News. As if I'm Marty McFly hopping in the DeLorean with Doc Brown and hitting 88 MPH, I'm immediately transported to one of the happiest times in my life. (In my Sophia Petrillo voice) Picture it...Northwest D.C...1985...we're riding in Big Dadi Scribbler's "money" green Cadillac down North Capitol Street on a sunny day and "The Power of Love" is blaring through the speakers as I watch all the cars go by. Particularly, I see this red 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z pull up beside us--for fellow Hunter fans, it looked like the one Det. Sgt. Dee Dee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) whipped around--and instantly wish I was old enough to drive it so I could blast Huey Lewis like he's going out of style soon. So whenever I hear any of his music, especially if I'm watching Back to the Future, I smile one of my big smiles. Since I know somebody is giving me the Biff Tannen treatment and calling me "Dork Scribbler" by now, let's simply get on with the rest of this madness before I lose additional credibility...
Poor The Last Dragon soundtrack. You did your best to stay in my consciousness. I wrote a solid post about your movie and constantly had you on my mind because, like The Last Dragon itself, you're pretty friggin' awesome. You had a firm leg up on such competition as Miki Howard's "Baby, Be Mine"--which was only holding on until recently because of the TV One movie, Love Under New Management: The Miki Howard Story--by having not one but two songs stuck in my brain: Willie Hutch's "The Glow" and DeBarge's "Rhythm of the Night". In the end, however, you got beat out by party records, indie artists, originals and remakes, Philly soul and children's songs. This was your best shot to make this countdown, but you blew it. Maybe if I watch The Last Dragon again sometime soon, then you'll make the cut. Okay...so now that I've effectively dragged a soundtrack as if it were a real person--yes, I'm a bit touched--let's get to the songs that harassed me even more...
If you know anything about me, then you've realized by now that I have one of the most random trains of thought in the entire world--a tangential tendency that either wildly entertains or utterly annoys. I could be figuring out what songs will make my next album while planning a promotional strategy one minute, but then see a shiny new bus stop sign and go off about Metro false advertising a route that no longer exists--a route that I predicted would be eliminated for its sheer pointlessness. (Yes...that literally happened a few days ago and the reason for the above picture as a tribute.) So I've decided that in lieu of trying to condense all of my crazy thoughts on Facebook posts or Tweets, I'd rather expand them and create a brand new posting series: "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!" Let the wackiness begin...
