Aug. 1: 1999
In 1999, I was 25, but only for two days. I would turn 26 on January 3.
I remember where I was when 1999 was born. I was in a nightclub in Regina, Saskatchewan with my friend, Sheila. I was sure - nay POSITIVE - that the first song the DJ played would be 1999 by Prince. But I was wrong. It was Auld Lang Syne.
"Okay," I thought. "I suppose that's traditional, but surely the second song will be 1999."
But it wasn't. It was Backstreet's Back by Backstreet Boys. I told Sheila that the DJ was bad. How in the world could he NOT play Prince's iconic song, 1999, as the first song of 1999? I was furious at him and I am still mad 15 years later. Regina is a bad place to go if you want competent DJs.
Sorry we messed up your New Year's, Shteevie.
*
1999 was a good year because it's the year I became a professional working journalist. Before 1999, I was worried I'd spend my entire life stuck in perennial adolesence - working a series of dead end minimum wage jobs and never able to move out of my parents' house. But somehow, I fell into journalism. I never studied it in college, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I started stringing for the now defunct Regina Free Press, which had hired me as a sports writer. Knowing that our weekly paper couldn't compete with the big boys at the Regina Leader-Post, I decided to concentrate on writing sports features instead. I started a high school athlete of the week feature. I attended an induction ceremony at the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame where I spoke to an elderly gentleman who was being inducted as a promoter for horseshoe pitching. I interviewed a professional arm wrestler and spoke with the head of the Saskatchewan Broomball League. One super cold Sunday morning, I got up at 5 a.m. so I could catch a bus to an arena where a day-long ringette tournament was taking place. I spent all day there - taking plenty of pictures and interviewing players from Alberta, Saskatchewan - even Finland. And then I went home and discovered that the Regina Free Press had gone out of business and they still owe me $300,
But soon I was picked up by the North Battleford News-Optimist and I was on my way...
*
Before I became a journalist - before I even dreamed of one day being a journalist - I found myself at a karaoke event at the Point & Feather pub in Calgary. I think I was 17 because my friend Cade was there and he hadn't moved to Vancouver yet. I told the karaoke I wanted to sing Prince's song 1999. I can't sing so the DJ sang with me and we did a passable job together.
Something else I remember about that night: There was a cute waitress and lots of the guys (all around my age) were hitting on her. Cade wasn't. He said that she wouldn't date anyone who made less money than she does. I asked how much she made and he told me probably more than I'll ever make in my life.
"If you're a chick and you're hot and you're 19 or 20, you can make a killing," he said. "Get a job at a bar and dudes will give you tips just for being eye candy."
I knew he was right even though I didn't want to believe him. I wanted to think that money only came after hard work - that it didn't just find a home in the pockets of the beautiful. Over the years, I have met a lot of gals like that. Plenty of them spend all the money on clothes (mostly shoes) and lots of them are not very nice. Once I heard a story about a family that was having a hard time after the father got sick and couldn't work anymore so the oldest daughter agreed to get an evening job in a restaurant so she could help pay the bills. She wound up making so much money that she actually got her own apartment and the money that should have gone to her family now went to shoes and trips to Cuba so she and her new girlfriends could dance on the peach and drink Pina Coladas and have sex with 10 people in one week.
"Don't worry," Cade reassured me. "A lot of these women will turn 30 one day and they'll realize they have nothing to build a foundation on."
This made me feel good even though it shouldn't have.
*
My high school girlfriend was a fan of a group called C&C Music Factory. They had a song called EVERYBODY DANCE NOW. My high school girlfriend wanted me to take her to Electric Avenue, which was this strip of concentrated dance clubs in downtown Calgary, so we could dance all night. I was scared to do that because I thought an older and sexier man would seduce her in front of my eyes and suddenly, she would be my ex-girlfriend. This probably would not have happened. Even so, we never went to Electric Avenue and for this, I was relieved.
Once my high school girlfriend and I went to a club called The Jungle. We went with my friend Jason and his girlfriend, Natalie. Again I was worried that my girlfriend would be stolen away from me but that night, I had nothing to worry about. The four of us were the only people in The Jungle. The DJ started playing Jungle Love by The Time (which appears in the Prince movie Purple Rain) and I asked my girlfriend if she wanted to dance and she said no and that actually she was kind of tired and she wanted me to take her home and so I did that.
*
I was driving my dad's 1985 Plymouth Reliant K-Car. There was a tapedeck in the car and I had this silver carrying case that held 30 tapes. There was a lot of Prince in there. Also some Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Quiet Riot, Art of Noise, and David Lee Roth. Sometimes my high school girlfriend would get in the car and hand me a C&C Music Factory tape. "We're listening to this," she'd say. "Why?" I'd ask. "Because if we don't listen to it, I'm going to be in a bad mood."
"Oh," I said.
*
Over the years, I have learned that women always get to pick the music when they are in a car. It doesn't matter if it's the man's car or that it's the man's birthday or that he just gave her $50,000 so she could have her kneecaps replaced - the chick gets to pick the music.
And this is why it is unwise to date someone who is not a Prince fan.
*
If this note reads funny, you should know that I was dreaming when I wrote this so forgive me if it goes astray.
*
1999 is a song about salvation through partying. The lyrics are both hedonistic and nihilistic, though the term Judgment Day might suggest that Prince believed in the coming of the Lord.
If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, how would you spend your last night on Earth?
Probably lots of us would spend it in churches. Plenty of us would spend it with family. The 1999-era Prince (really 1982, the song is called 1999 but it was written in the early 80s) seems to think partying - living it up - is the best response in the face of annihilation. "If I'm gonna die, I'll dance my life away." He seems to repeat this mantra in 1984's Let's Go Crazy. "I'm all excited. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we're all gonna die. When we do, what's it all 4? Better live now before the grim reaper comes knockin on your door."
I guess that's a passable philosophy when you're in your 20s. As for me, I agree with Gene Simmons when he says that no one has ever said anything cool while drunk or stoned. And promiscuity in this day and age will get you diseased and dead.
"I tried to run from my destruction, you know I didn't even care."
Hey it's 2014 now.
It just doesn't make sense to party like it's 1999 anymore.
Maybe it never did.
*
Actually, I'd like to challenge today's youngsters to party like it's 1999, at least for one night. Bet none of 'em could do it.
Sorry, kids.... gotta leave those cell phones at home. They didn't exist in 1999. No Facebook. No instagram. No Twitter. No instant emails. No selfies. If you really need to let all your friends see a picture of you downing your 10th shot, here's a Polaroid camera and a quarter for the pay phone.
I got a lion in my pocket and baby it's ready to roar.
I remember where I was when 1999 was born. I was in a nightclub in Regina, Saskatchewan with my friend, Sheila. I was sure - nay POSITIVE - that the first song the DJ played would be 1999 by Prince. But I was wrong. It was Auld Lang Syne.
"Okay," I thought. "I suppose that's traditional, but surely the second song will be 1999."
But it wasn't. It was Backstreet's Back by Backstreet Boys. I told Sheila that the DJ was bad. How in the world could he NOT play Prince's iconic song, 1999, as the first song of 1999? I was furious at him and I am still mad 15 years later. Regina is a bad place to go if you want competent DJs.
Sorry we messed up your New Year's, Shteevie.*
1999 was a good year because it's the year I became a professional working journalist. Before 1999, I was worried I'd spend my entire life stuck in perennial adolesence - working a series of dead end minimum wage jobs and never able to move out of my parents' house. But somehow, I fell into journalism. I never studied it in college, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I started stringing for the now defunct Regina Free Press, which had hired me as a sports writer. Knowing that our weekly paper couldn't compete with the big boys at the Regina Leader-Post, I decided to concentrate on writing sports features instead. I started a high school athlete of the week feature. I attended an induction ceremony at the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame where I spoke to an elderly gentleman who was being inducted as a promoter for horseshoe pitching. I interviewed a professional arm wrestler and spoke with the head of the Saskatchewan Broomball League. One super cold Sunday morning, I got up at 5 a.m. so I could catch a bus to an arena where a day-long ringette tournament was taking place. I spent all day there - taking plenty of pictures and interviewing players from Alberta, Saskatchewan - even Finland. And then I went home and discovered that the Regina Free Press had gone out of business and they still owe me $300,
But soon I was picked up by the North Battleford News-Optimist and I was on my way...
*
Before I became a journalist - before I even dreamed of one day being a journalist - I found myself at a karaoke event at the Point & Feather pub in Calgary. I think I was 17 because my friend Cade was there and he hadn't moved to Vancouver yet. I told the karaoke I wanted to sing Prince's song 1999. I can't sing so the DJ sang with me and we did a passable job together.
Something else I remember about that night: There was a cute waitress and lots of the guys (all around my age) were hitting on her. Cade wasn't. He said that she wouldn't date anyone who made less money than she does. I asked how much she made and he told me probably more than I'll ever make in my life.
"If you're a chick and you're hot and you're 19 or 20, you can make a killing," he said. "Get a job at a bar and dudes will give you tips just for being eye candy."
I knew he was right even though I didn't want to believe him. I wanted to think that money only came after hard work - that it didn't just find a home in the pockets of the beautiful. Over the years, I have met a lot of gals like that. Plenty of them spend all the money on clothes (mostly shoes) and lots of them are not very nice. Once I heard a story about a family that was having a hard time after the father got sick and couldn't work anymore so the oldest daughter agreed to get an evening job in a restaurant so she could help pay the bills. She wound up making so much money that she actually got her own apartment and the money that should have gone to her family now went to shoes and trips to Cuba so she and her new girlfriends could dance on the peach and drink Pina Coladas and have sex with 10 people in one week.
"Don't worry," Cade reassured me. "A lot of these women will turn 30 one day and they'll realize they have nothing to build a foundation on."
This made me feel good even though it shouldn't have.
*
My high school girlfriend was a fan of a group called C&C Music Factory. They had a song called EVERYBODY DANCE NOW. My high school girlfriend wanted me to take her to Electric Avenue, which was this strip of concentrated dance clubs in downtown Calgary, so we could dance all night. I was scared to do that because I thought an older and sexier man would seduce her in front of my eyes and suddenly, she would be my ex-girlfriend. This probably would not have happened. Even so, we never went to Electric Avenue and for this, I was relieved.
Once my high school girlfriend and I went to a club called The Jungle. We went with my friend Jason and his girlfriend, Natalie. Again I was worried that my girlfriend would be stolen away from me but that night, I had nothing to worry about. The four of us were the only people in The Jungle. The DJ started playing Jungle Love by The Time (which appears in the Prince movie Purple Rain) and I asked my girlfriend if she wanted to dance and she said no and that actually she was kind of tired and she wanted me to take her home and so I did that.
*
I was driving my dad's 1985 Plymouth Reliant K-Car. There was a tapedeck in the car and I had this silver carrying case that held 30 tapes. There was a lot of Prince in there. Also some Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Quiet Riot, Art of Noise, and David Lee Roth. Sometimes my high school girlfriend would get in the car and hand me a C&C Music Factory tape. "We're listening to this," she'd say. "Why?" I'd ask. "Because if we don't listen to it, I'm going to be in a bad mood."
"Oh," I said.
*
Over the years, I have learned that women always get to pick the music when they are in a car. It doesn't matter if it's the man's car or that it's the man's birthday or that he just gave her $50,000 so she could have her kneecaps replaced - the chick gets to pick the music.
And this is why it is unwise to date someone who is not a Prince fan.
*
If this note reads funny, you should know that I was dreaming when I wrote this so forgive me if it goes astray.
*
1999 is a song about salvation through partying. The lyrics are both hedonistic and nihilistic, though the term Judgment Day might suggest that Prince believed in the coming of the Lord.
If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, how would you spend your last night on Earth?
Probably lots of us would spend it in churches. Plenty of us would spend it with family. The 1999-era Prince (really 1982, the song is called 1999 but it was written in the early 80s) seems to think partying - living it up - is the best response in the face of annihilation. "If I'm gonna die, I'll dance my life away." He seems to repeat this mantra in 1984's Let's Go Crazy. "I'm all excited. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we're all gonna die. When we do, what's it all 4? Better live now before the grim reaper comes knockin on your door."
I guess that's a passable philosophy when you're in your 20s. As for me, I agree with Gene Simmons when he says that no one has ever said anything cool while drunk or stoned. And promiscuity in this day and age will get you diseased and dead.
"I tried to run from my destruction, you know I didn't even care."
Hey it's 2014 now.
It just doesn't make sense to party like it's 1999 anymore.
Maybe it never did.
*
Actually, I'd like to challenge today's youngsters to party like it's 1999, at least for one night. Bet none of 'em could do it.
Sorry, kids.... gotta leave those cell phones at home. They didn't exist in 1999. No Facebook. No instagram. No Twitter. No instant emails. No selfies. If you really need to let all your friends see a picture of you downing your 10th shot, here's a Polaroid camera and a quarter for the pay phone.
I got a lion in my pocket and baby it's ready to roar.
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