Good Carmen

 

I suppose riffing on the Culture Club song Karma Chameleon with a Carmen Miranda theme dates me. I want to go on the record though that I never could stand Culture Club, Boy George or any of the ear worm songs they inflicted on the world.

I remember laying on a beach at a Club Med in Martinique and the French club host kept playing Culture Club ad nauseum. I can still hear Boy George  singing over and over, "Do you really want to hurt me?" And I kept thinking, yes, I really want to hurt you for this crappy music.

The kicker was Culture Club was popular in the mid-1980s and I was at the Club Med in the late 1990s. The music at the Club sucked. Every night after dinner they would play "YMCA" by the Village People. It was almost as bad as having to dance to the Macarena over and over again on cruise ships. 

But I did.

The Club Med wasn't a good experience for me. I was rapidly approaching 40 and I think it was a mid-life crisis thing. I was older than most of the people at the Club. A good portion of them were European (mainly French) and didn't like Americans. I had sprung for a single room (which is frowned upon at Club Meds). They didn't have televisions in the cabanas. All they had were these twin beds and sparse furnishings because they assumed you wouldn't spend any time in the rooms. The room looked like something I would expect to find in a convent. 

The booze was also horrifically expensive so you couldn't really drink enough to stumble back to your room at night and pass out. So I spent many long, sleepless nights. Alone. Some of the younger people were probably hooking up, but I wasn't. 

I did meet this Pharmacist from Detroit who I hung out with. I do believe he did hook up.

I do remember the Club Med hosts spent lots of time trying to get us to participate in things called "Whacky Olympics." All we really wanted to do was lay on the beach until lunch and then lay on the beach again until dinner. Oh, there was a happy hour where you could get two for one beers that we worked in there. And there was free wine at dinner but you couldn't leave the dining room with it.

There was a disco but it didn't get started until midnight or so and it played more music in the Culture Club genre. 

In retrospect, Club Med sucked swamp water.

Oh well, I got a great t-shirt that lasted me a few years and made me look like I was semi hip.