A few years ago I went mixed CD happy. It wasn't the first time this has happened but apparently I was particularly prolithic this year. Yesterday I discovered the cryptically entitled "Soul Mood", "Down Tempo Dojo", and finally "80s feel". It had been several years since I had listened to these mixes so I was particularly enjoying myself playing DJ on kitchen boom box as I scrubbed the stove top clean. Soul mood had all my essentials: Bill Withers, Angie Stone, Morcheeba, some Acid Jazz, etc. Great stuff. Down Tempo dojo was full of Hip-Hop Jazz, Trip Hop, Neo Soul. Yummy. Now to 80s feel. Quite enjoyable if you were of pop music listening age during the Reagan years. Der Kommisar, Howard Jones, Duran Duran, and many more top 40 hits. On track 8 I came across an old favorite: I Know You Miss Me by Culture Club. For those of you who missed the 80s, Culture Club was quite the phenomenon. The group was made of 3 musicians and fronted by androgynous drag queen Boy George. It may appear very dated now but let me tell you Culture Club's style was a defining factor in the 80s. By the time their second album had come out in 1983 my 14 year old self had a realization. I had a crush on Boy George. He had a sultry voice and legendary sense of fashion. Thanks to what I now realize must have been an incredible amount of air brushing and lense filters, he kept getting better looking.




Now to qualify all of this, I didn't have any sexual fantasies about Boy George. There was just something about his stage presence that I found intriguingly... appealing. I remember at the time being confused about my new feelings but at that age this was nothing unusual. I was also raised open minded enough that I didn't put much thought into it. Even back then I was somewhat aware of the dangers of putting a stringent lock on one's sexuality. Straight or not, Boy George had it going on at that time. Of course this all ended once he became a heroin addict and got a little creepy.