Today's '80s flashback

I so loved Sparks in the late '70s/early '80s. Even though some of the stuff from this era sounds a little dated now, this one, "When I'm With You," from their 1980, Giorgio Moroder-produced album, Terminal Jive, seems rather timeless to me.

The story goes that this single did practically nothing on release (the album from which it was taken wasn't even released in the U.S., their home country), except in France. There it hit and stayed at number 1 for eleventy-billion weeks. Yet another reason to love the French.



Ron Mael's ventriloquist act has Jeff Dunham's beat all to pieces. And here's hoping that image comes to life some day . . .

We'll save discussion of my long-standing crush on Russell Mael (the "dummy" in this video) for another place and time. You're welcome.

Meanwhile, I'm going to dance around my living room while this one plays, much as I did at my parents' house in the early '80s when I first bought this record. (Or was it a cassette? Please god no, not an 8-track . . .).

My poor parents and neighbors indeed.

My new boyfriend

Mesdames et messieurs, je voudrais à vous présenter mon nouveau copain, Laurent Debesse.



A man who no matter how tired or bitter the news on TV5 Monde always manages to look, how you say? Ah, yes, frais et savoureux . . .

I say "I would like to present"--well, I think I said I would like to; who knows?--because, hélas, il n'est pas . . .

At least for now.

Anderson Cooper, you just got served.

It's hard to imagine living in a country where someone this lovely reports the news to you every evening. How would you ever hear anything he ever said? "Le Président, Nicholas Sarkozy, aujourd'hui a annoncé que la France a entrée guerre contre les immigrés et la Belgique." (Editor's note: Or something like that.)

Oh la la. I'd miss the whole declaration of war because I'd be too busy watching Laurent's lips move and wondering what's French for "He's so dreamy!"

It's France, so already the aesthetics are off the charts, number 1 with an impeccably designed bullet. But Msr. Debesse seems extraordinarily handsome, which, in my limited imagination, can only mean a couple of cruel things--

• He is too pretty to be taken seriously, and, thus, he must just be a mere TV talking head.
• He is too pretty to be real, ergo, he's a very well done CGI simulation.

Try as I might, I couldn't find a cache of Glamourshots or shirtless snaps of cher Laurent. Which could indeed mean he is a computer simulation but might also possibly mean a couple more, less cruel things--

• He's real but considered so normal-looking by French standards that Paris Match has let him enjoy his nude romps on the beach in private.
• He's real and real serious, a reporter who just happens to look like a supermodel but is extraordinarily talented at his job. So his more enlightened countrypersons don't dare defame him by putting up posters of him in their bedrooms, culled from the pages of the French equivalent of Tiger Beat. 

Incroyable!

Je suis désolé, Laurent. I hope to fly to Paris later this year to offer my apology in person.

Drinks maybe? Dinner? You pick the spot.