Video Of The Week: Break Machine

Before I was a writer, a musician, a hockey player... I was a child. A break-dancing, spin-on-my-head on a cardboard box child, living in a huge apartment complex on the wrong side of the tracks by the St-Lawrence river in Pierrefonds.

Not all my childhood years, but, say, ages 3 to 6. Before living in Verdun for 3 months, and then NDG for the remainder of my not-adult life.

There was one kid I'd play with - we both had Star Wars figurines and could have fun all day playing with them - that was, of course, decades before keeping them hidden in a closet and not playing with them would have made us millionaires.

But when that friend wasn't available, it was either learning to ride a bike, or dancing - usually by myself, on cardboard boxes.

In 1983, I started listening to 3 artists that would keep me going pretty much until the end of the decade - or at least until Guns N' Roses came along... a man: Michael Jackson, a woman (hey, I was 5, I didn't know!): Boy George (and Culture Club), and a song: Break Machine's Street Dance. And eventually, Samantha Fox took over Boy George's place, but that's a whole other story.

But Street Dance stayed with me a long time. To this day, I put it in my iPod rotation for a couple of weeks every year; it had that (little) bit of edge that Thriller didn't have, the street smarts, the balls. Although in '83, Jacko had balls, he was even black. Again: whole other story.

For some reason, today, at work, it came upon the subject that, as a kid, I was a full-fledged break-dancer. That I had all the fucking moves down, whcih is kind of hard to believe given my actual physique, I'll admit taht much. But still...

If 1993-96 were the defining years of my teens (and the best years of my life, probably), 1983 was the year that made my childhood. Starting kindergarten, making new friends at school but rarely seeing them after school and/or on weekends, my mom working her ass off to raise me and make ends meet - but caring, full of love, happy. Shit, if my childhood had been my 1983 for all years until I was 12, then my teens would have been 1993-96 three times over, fairy tales would not have matched my level of love for life and happiness ever after. I wouldn't have even needed adulthood, my life would have been complete.

But no, I had to witness the rest of the '80s. To this day, having lived it once, I can't understand the whole ''80s revival'' bullshit that's seemingly been going on for 10 years, not even in a sarcastic way: it wasn't just terrible, it was awful, wretched, horror-disguised-as-fuchsia-and-pastels, decadence for assholes and idiots, shitty beers, terrible TV, the worst music of all time, extravagance for the sake of absent-mindedness.

It wasn't the worst decade of the 1900s, it was the worst decade of all fucking time. 1984 isn't just a book by George Orwell, it's a fucking way of life embodied by Duran Duran wearing pastels on a boat in Miami harbor; by haircuts so bad the male cast of Friends wouldn't even dare touch it with someone else's ten-foot pole; by the stench of sweat mixed with cheap cologne drenched in cocaine and that shit that makes Cracker Jacks stick; by an Albertan oil magnate selling the services of a human - the best at what he does, ever! - and not doing jail time for it; by extremely Conservative politics vying to bring back The Church's Values that the people had pushed aside 20 years prior.

It was the worst of times, it was the... worst of times. Until 1985 came along. Then 1986. Then most of 1987. And a bit of 1988, and quite a big chunk of 1989, too. Even 1990 wasn't immune to the shit - thanks, Technotronic.

So I always have 1983 to go back to, the one shining beacon in a decade of black holes and eclipses (and general fecal matter for the soul). And a big part of what made 1983 so special was this song, my Video Of The Week, Street Dance. Thanks for your patience.




Oh, and yes, I know Break Machine was actually produced/kind of put together by Jacques Morali, the brains behind boy-band-of-its-time Village People. So what. It's good, and it's street.