99 gas balloons

One lapse in concentration and your whole evening... >><<poof>><<.

As I stated in a previous post (quite some time ago... re-read them all now and find it so I don't have to link to it... **hint** October 2004) one of my low-grade guilty pleasures is 80s rock touchstone Nena. One of my fondest memories of... well one of those years in the 80s... was sending in a request to MuchMusic (whatever the name of the request show was back then, I forget) for Nena's 99 Luftballoons. I remember specifically asking for the cheap-ass concert version of the video that featured prominent usages of sweat, armpit hair and leather pants. Of course I included a poem that posed wistful questions concerning the resemblence between Winston Churchill and WC Fields... going on to wonder about their dancing abilities. Apparently this was enough to get my letter (and poem) read on air... by Christopher Ward (remember?)... and the video played.

Now the thing was that the request show was on Saturday afternoon. At the time I worked most Saturdays at the SUB cafeteria for the food service (then it was the mighty BEAVER FOODS). So I missed the initial broadcast of the video, which would have been around 5:00 pm, give or take. Even if I had been home I likely would have missed it... since I'd probably forgotten about sending the request in the first place. The funky fresh thing about MM in those days was that their broadcast day was a strict 8 hour block that started at noon each day... so at 8:00 p.m. the cycle started again... but still I wasn't watching MM... in fact I had gone to bed... sleepy-by.

Around 1 a.m. my phone rang and I sleepily slid out of bed into the living room and answered it. A drunken lively voice on the other end said, "Hey, Eric, dude they just played your request on MuchMusic... congratulations!!!" I thanked the voice who added a hearty, "Yeah, way to go!!!" Then I went back to bed.

The next morning I woke up vaguely remembering the telephone call... worked out that it wasn't a dream... did the math on when the show was on... and, bingo... a little of that fifteen minutes we all have coming.

I never did find out exactly who it was that called me though.

So, back to tonight... I came across a link to a fan site and went looking if there was anything like a video collection/DVD offered anywhere, but no luck. I did find a little in the way of media though... including this snippet from a video press conference. Not understanding German, I have no idea what Miss Nena is talking about, but it obviously is having some sort of adverse effect on her bandmate behind her. Can anyone explain to me what's going on?


nena clip.mov

Sorry. No .mp3 tonight. Don't get greedy. It makes you fat... or if you're German it could give you gas.