Ordinarily waiting on hold for anyone is a frustrating and ultimately mood-dampening experience. Today however, as my travel agent fiddled away unseen with the BA master computer, feeding its hamsters/oiling its cogs/promising her first born to wangle yet another late notice travel request on my behalf she placed me on hold and I came ear to voice with the erstwhile gravel-voiced rap 'sensation' Tone Loc harping on about his Funky Cold Medina (y'all).
I was instantly transported...away from my desk, out of this office and back in time to myself aged 11. It was Summer and my birthday and I'd just received a compilation on double cassette (probably Now 8 or similar) along with a shiny new Sony Walkman. It was of course, the standard design with the interesting feature of not actually being able to rewind the tape, rather you were forced to eject it (with the bone-shaking catapult mechanism), re-insert it, fast forward to a guesstimated point of origin, eject again, re-insert, press play and repeat the entire process if it wasn't exactly where you wanted it. God I thought it was flash. I remember driving in the car to the Peacock Farm for a picnic listening to my new acquisition on my new acquisition (it wasn't called the Peacock Farm by the way - it has a proper name but its main feature was that it had peacocks wandering unworriedly through groups of playing children and emerging suddenly from the orifices of the wooden adventure playground structures...but I digress). Now 8 was an interesting choice for a burgeoning 11 year old be-braced girl who had just started noticing boys for reasons other than that one had just pulled her hair or they had a strange smell and was starting to realise that the approaching teenage years held great potential for sulking, mood swings and obsessional behaviour. The songs seemed hand-picked to coincide with my coming of age. For example, 'Boys' by Sabrina (remember the video? Oh yes you do), 'Can I Play With Madness' by Iron Maiden and the pinacle, the jewel in the crown of this pop-drenched inappropriate cheese fest; the one and only Tone Loc.
I hadn't really listened to the lyrics of Funky Cold Medina before, not properly, but today I paid attention and it hit me. What we have here, is a rap record advocating early use of Rohypnol in the pursuit of getting laid. He buys some random shit from a dude draped in glassy-eyed 'hos in a bar one night and proceeds to pepper every woman he meets with this potentially fatal narcotic. He goes on the American equivalent of Blind Date and drugs the girl who picks him which quite frankly I could see her mentioning when they popped back the following week to discuss the date with whatever perma-tanned host the Love Connection has. As if that weren't bad enough, he drugs his own dog causing it to be gang-raped by the local hounds in a Medina-induced frenzy. The only highlight of the song is that in the manner of Crocodile Dundee, he encounters a transvestite (Sheena - a dead giveaway for anyone but the sex-blind Loc) and fails to realise it's a man. Only when the old boy comes out does he realise the potential horror of dosing all and sundry with the monstrous Medina. Plus we never find out why it has to be cold. He may have meant it as a cautionary tale to all about the dangers of drugging helpless women in bars so that they're 'good to go' but given the current rampant abuse of the drug, I would say he failed. I have a suspicion his dubious turn in Ace Ventura Pet Detective was merely the result of a community service order on the way to well-deserved obscurity. Tone Loc, where are you now eh?
Random 80's rap observations aside, life seems to be going well at the moment. A and I moved into our new pad at the weekend which was stressy enough without a 25 stone stinking Russian bloke making it worse. Honestly, the van hire place promised us faithfully that the driver would be helpful and we were hoping for some cheeky cockney gent with forearms like hams to call us 'little ladies' and not let us lift anything heavier than a bag of pillows. What we got was a guy with a spike through his ear, no grasp of the English language, a complete disinterest in assisting with anything and body odour that could slay an elephant at 50 yards. He actually managed to make the air OUTSIDE our house smell. A and I scuttled back and forth from the house while he waited in the van, then he waited in the van at the other end while we scuttled up and down stairs at the new flat. We cursed under our breath and breathed through our mouths the entire time.
Still, it's nice to have a new home even one with a perpetually luke-warm shower (must phone the landlord) and an unfathomable cooker (ditto).
I've been roped into hosting a table at an industry 'bash' tomorrow night in Battersea. The theme is Burlesque (Oooh look, there's a band wagon! Quick, jump on it!) so I had to dash out last night and buy fishnets and red lipstick. It's essentially black tie with a twist. Actually it should be fun - there will be free champagne and wine and a meal plus burlesque bingo (the mind boggles) and other rampant entertainment. I'm a pretty open-minded kind of girl but the minute anyone gets a snake out I'm leaving.
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