Area Senior Pegs M Bombs

Echelon

So I was listening to ESPNSeattle (It’s not Furness!) on my way to work Thursday afternoon, taking in the carnage after Brandon Morrow blew his second save in 17 hours. An older gentleman called in to share his take on the Bombs.

“This team…we’re still coming out of the Bavasi era. And he signed a lot of…Humpty Dumptys like Silva…(unintelligible)”

At first I delighted in the ramblings of this possibly senile Mariner fan. Old people? The best!

But then I got to thinking. This guy is exactly right. The Mariners are chalk full of fucking Humpty Dumptys.

When reached for comment Bill Bavasi responded, “Listen. I don’t know what you want from me. All I tried to do was give Humpty a chance.”

ALERT: STOP READING NOW.

Side note. I used to listen to something called “the radio” and a show called the American Top 40. What’s more I would record little mixes on something called “blank cassettes”. One particular Saturday I spent hours chasing down Snap’s The Power. I dug the militant thing apparently, as well as men’s suits with shoulder pads.

Long story short I recorded U Can’t Touch This but it got cut off a little because it was the end of side one. I was a little bummed, but the Humpty Dance immediately followed after the “commercial break” to lead off side two.

That’s right, Humpty Dance was briefly ahead of the world beating U Can’t Touch This for at least one week on the Top 40. I bet if I wanted to spend ten minutes I could pinpoint the exact week. It ended up working out perfectly, because MC Hammer (the MC stands for Master of Ceremonies!) was beginning an era of ridiculous radio saturation. And I got the full version of the song I ended up liking better.

Humpty Dance also included a memorable Hammer reference, “Crazy wack funky/people said “You look like MC Hammer on crack, Humpty!” But since this song was on the charts at the same time as Hammer, this was likely a reference to earlier MC Hammer joint “Let’s Get It Started.”

Unable to pinpoint the exact week because Billboard charges $20 a month for chart history. Add that to the list of When I Win The Lottery purchases.

Oh to be a fly on the wall for Hammer’s post IRS audit house cleaning. Lots of hard decisions. “I’m firm on this! There’s no way I’m doing a show with less than two dozen backup dancers! Wait, you can’t take THOSE! They are my pants! THEY ARE NAMED AFTER ME!!”

Random 5 singles from the mix tapes of my youth:

T.U.R.T.L.E. Power – Partners in Kryme

I don’t remember if the acronym stood for anything. I just know it got repeated a lot. Also, one of my first memories of fellow H&Fer Sager Bombs was when we played on the same mod soccer team (size of field, not like The Who). We went to different schools so I didn’t know him that well. He attributed a good play he made to Pizza Power. I had never heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at that point so I had no idea what he was talking about. But the reference marked him as one to watch.

This was the first movie I ever saw multiple times in the theater. Remind me of this when I eventually have kids and am bitching about taking them to crappy movies.

Fairweather Friend – Johnny Gill

Looking back, I think Johnny Gill might have been gay. But it was the early 90s. Anything went, so who knows? I didn’t start listening to bands with white people in them until the late 90s. And even then it was The Beatles. I needed to be eased in. I used to think the chorus of this song went “I wanna be your fairweather friend…”. I wasn’t familiar with the phrase, but it sounded like a nice enough thing to be. (This video has one minute of nonsense at the beginning before the song starts.)

Do Anything – Natural Selection

I consider this to be one of the great lost singles of the early 90s. I think I ended up with this cd on permanent loan from some girl. When he declares that he would do anything for the girl’s love, she immediately responds “Would you take me for a funky ride?” Whoa! Slow down honey. I meant “anything” like “anything reasonable”. Let’s not blow our load right out of the gate. This song also has a four bar rap on the bridge. Back in the 90s you only needed to have 4 bars to make it in the rap game. Why don’t people insert bridge rap into R&B songs anymore? I could handle those. They helped acclimate me to the scary black people.

Opposites Attract – Paula Abdul feat. MC Skat Cat

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The greatest crime of the 80s? Not Iran Contra. Not Coke II. It’s the fact that the album version of Opposites Attract did not have the rapping cat. That’s when I realized the world wasn’t fair. Between this and Amy Grant’s “Good For Me” the turn of the 80s to the 90s were salad days for songs about people with nothing in common finding love.

Me So Horny – 2 Live Crew

On vacation in my youth I was in a rental car somewhere in Tennessee and this song came on the radio. I loved it and wanted to listen to it. My parents and grandparents? Not so much. But they fucking froze. It’s like they didn’t want to acknowledge this was racy so I would like it more. So we listened to the song despite their complaints that it was just the same thing over and over. I wish I remembered the moment where I realized how awkward that must have been. I bet I laughed. Heartily.

This has been The Early 90s Remembered with Constable Echelon. Thanks for watching.

Tags: Bill Bavasi, Mariners