This article is my attempt to capture in words what happens when you rip a 30-year-old bandage from a wound that, quite frankly, you'd forgotten all about. See, you presume that after all this time surely the wound has healed, so you give the ragged bandage with the visible blood stain a good old tug, only to find that what came off with it was a scab that sure as hell seems to have done its part all these years, but that the flesh beneath never grew back.
And now that it's reopened, the pain is back and just as piercing as it was 30 years ago, when The Police had that fateful conversation:
Stewart: So, here we are, ready to begin work on album #6...so Sting what have you got for us?
Sting: Well, having completed our transformation from bottle blonde new wave band to Invisible Touch-era Genesis, I can say with absolute certainty that it is now time to see if we can't try sounding a bit like Mike & The Mechanics this time around.
Andy: Oh, for fuck's --
Sting: Wait, there's more.
Andy: Fucking hell.
Sting: I think we should take another pass at "Don't Stand So Close To Me"
Andy: (putting down his guitar) That's it.
Stewart sweeps in just in time to prevent Andy from reaching Sting and cooler heads eventually prevail. For five minutes, they sit in absolute silence.
Stewart: Andy, do we still have that plastic tarp big enough to wrap a body in?
Andy: No, we used that on Henri! Shit,, I've been meaning to pick up a another one.
Sting: Look, my yoga instructor told me that she finds parts of it too unsettling and I...
Andy: I don't care if your yogurt dispenser correctly picked the last Preakness Stakes.
Sting: Yoga instructor!
Andy: Pfft, (in cartoon voice) "Hey Boo-boo!"
Stewart goes quiet, pulling a sharpie from his backpack and starting to scrawl "Fuck Off Sting" on his drum heads.
Stewart: So, here we are, ready to begin work on album #6...so Sting what have you got for us?
Sting: Well, having completed our transformation from bottle blonde new wave band to Invisible Touch-era Genesis, I can say with absolute certainty that it is now time to see if we can't try sounding a bit like Mike & The Mechanics this time around.
Andy: Oh, for fuck's --
Sting: Wait, there's more.
Andy: Fucking hell.
Sting: I think we should take another pass at "Don't Stand So Close To Me"
Andy: (putting down his guitar) That's it.
Stewart sweeps in just in time to prevent Andy from reaching Sting and cooler heads eventually prevail. For five minutes, they sit in absolute silence.
Stewart: Andy, do we still have that plastic tarp big enough to wrap a body in?
Andy: No, we used that on Henri! Shit,, I've been meaning to pick up a another one.
Sting: Look, my yoga instructor told me that she finds parts of it too unsettling and I...
Andy: I don't care if your yogurt dispenser correctly picked the last Preakness Stakes.
Sting: Yoga instructor!
Andy: Pfft, (in cartoon voice) "Hey Boo-boo!"
Stewart goes quiet, pulling a sharpie from his backpack and starting to scrawl "Fuck Off Sting" on his drum heads.
Andy: (seeing this) Oh, now look what you'd done. You realize that he thinks he's killing you by hitting the drums so hard, don't you?
Sting: He is.
Andy: Lol.
Stewart and Sting look at each other,
Sting: What was that?!
Andy: What?
Sting: "LOL!"
Stewart: (joining in) "LOL!"
Sting: LOL!
Stewart: I'm bored.
Sting: (In mock TV audience voice) How bored are you?!
Andy: Still not bored enough to watch "Dune". (ducks)
And that, my friends, is the REST of the story about how the internet acronym "Lol!" was invented 30 years ago today.
As for the mighty Police, at a time when the record-buying public would have gobbled up anything the bottle blonde trio gave them, they completely toss out the idea of coming up with even just ONE DECENT NEW SONG to tack onto their hits compilation so the die-hard fans will have to buy it.
Instead, they realize they're late for their yogurt class and deface one of their biggest hits on the way out the door.