This weekend I went to New Wave City at the DNA Lounge. It’s an ‘80s nostalgia dance thing. This month featured a special spotlight on Duran Duran, and promised 3-D videos.
I think that’s enough to get excited about. I mean, life is full of pestilence, violence, and Freddie Prinze sit coms. So why not take the opportunity to enjoy a 3-D Duran Duran video every now and then?
At midnight they handed out 3-D glasses. The giant TV screen that played the videos started flashing: “PUT ON 3-D GLASSES NOW.”
I don’t go to clubs much, so maybe that’s why I’m highly inclined to do whatever giant TV screens tell me to. I’m pretty sure that’s how Bush took Florida. They gathered all the eligible voters together into a giant room and flashed the message “TAP YOUR CHADS LIGHTLY. DO NOT DEFACE THE BUTTERFLY BALLOT.”
So I put the glasses on. But my friend Frank didn’t. I said, “The TV screen says to put the glasses on.” She said, “I have a really hard time doing what I’m told.” Think of how the world would have been different if everyone had taken a stand like that during the 2000 election.
But whatever, I wore the glasses and looked at the screen as some live footage started up of the boys singing “I Don’t Want Your Love.”
I’ve seen bad 3-D before, but this was different. It was completely non-existent. It wasn’t even an effect; it was just some color smudging. If you took the glasses off, you had a poorly aged Simon LeBon whose face looked like a partially melted wax sculpture. Put the glasses on? He looked like an apple covered with green fungus.
Halfway through the song I gave up. Wax sculpture or fungus apple? Both are unappealing, but with the former I wouldn’t have to wear the glasses and thus look like a total ‘tard. “I Don’t Want Your Love”? Whatever. I don’t want your cheap ass special effects and false advertising. Remember the days when you could name an album title “Seven and the Ragged Tiger” and get away with it because everyone thought you were all deep? Long gone. Try to cheat people out of legitimate videos and we’ll be all, screw you and the wheelchairs you rode in on. And maybe trying to conquer the third dimension wasn’t a good idea anyway, considering that songs like “Wild Boys” don’t even merit one. Although maybe you could try the fourth dimension, which is time, because then you could loop back around to the ‘80s and fix your hair.
Eh, never mind me; I was disappointed in the video thing but I had a good time. Even if I did lose another potential ally in my dark struggle against a world full of pestilence, violence, and Freddy Prinze.
Posted by Greg at 06:09 PM. Filed under:
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1. the morning DJs used to do dramatic readings of their songs, and i loved that.
2. i would love to be able to tell someone with infinite seriousness and dripping irony, as if the band mattered, “ahem, no, it’s durahn durahn,” except there was such a short window between the 80s and 80s nostalgia that there’s always been too much risk of being taken seriously.
One time I was at a karaoke bar and my friend sang “Rio,” in French. The words on the screen were in English, she just got up there and translated real time, in tune. I just thought you should know that.
Are you sure it wasn’t Simon LeBon? I mean, I love The Boys, but they are aging.
Wow. That sounds like a really weird trip. I hope you were with the right people.
I suspect that 3-D glasses were always cheesy and lame. It’s just that when we were using them at age 8 at Walt Disney World, it all seemed so new and magical.
Girls on Film - now there is a video that is begging for the 3D treatment!
I’m a little taken aback by all this unmined Duran-fueled rage. Next thing I know, you’ll tell me Han Solo needs better pants and I’ll suddenly realize you’re not my peeps at all.
Meanwhile, I don’t have binocular vision, so 3D is wasted on me. Doesn’t sound like I’m missing much.
Man, ska-rew that Duran Duran noise...when I need to get all 80s...nothing beats The Power Station...except Animotion.
I was a duranie to the nth degree from age 14 - 16. LeBon in 3D would have blown my little puberty freaked mind (if this actually WAS the 80’s).
It’s true. Nothing beats Power Station.
Actually? I vastly prefer Arcadia.
greg, shaddup...that totally made me laugh. And Cloudy...you don’t need to tell ME that you were a Durannie! I think your hair might have been poofed up higher than mine.
I am not joking. Power Station is fun, but side 2 of Arcadia still holds up today. It’s doing something different, and it succeeds. Look, we’ll just have to agree on “Tim” and maybe The Nuns and not much else--okay?
What qualifications (if any) does Frddy Prinze have to have his own sitcom. I want my own sitcom, dadgummit.
i’m still trying to imagine simon le bon as an apple.
“and the wheelchairs you rode in on” - will have me giggling all day. thanks, howard.
Greg, we should be more like Amazon.com. They bundle The Power Station with Arcadia’s ‘So Red The Rose as a ‘better together’ deal at about half off the regular cost. I think that we, too, are better together.