American Top 40 PastBlast, 6/28/86: Models, “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”

Some periods of time are more a blur than others.  For me, big portions of the summer of 86 flew by without too many details sticking. Lugged the contents of my dorm room back to Florence? Worked at the Transy computer camp as a counselor for the third time in four years? Did some temp work back home afterward? Made one last weekend visit to see James toward the end of July before moving to Champaign-Urbana? Check, check, check, and check. But overall, specifics are few and far between, with one big exception.

I’d done the computer camp in the summers of 83 and 84; Dr. Miller knew that grad school was where I’d be come August, so he knew I was likely to be available. He asked if I’d take on a sort of head counselor role. The other male counselor was Todd, who was from my high school and the brother of my classmate Karla. I think the job lasted four weeks, but I’ll be darned if I can remember much of what went on.

Having finally finished my time living in Clay-Davis Hall, I signed up with a temp agency upon my return home. I got a job with, well, I forget who. A shipping company? A manufacturer? What I do remember is that my primary directive was to double-check inventory sheets against what was on the palettes being loaded onto trailers. My recollection is that the company had been having issues with things getting on the wrong trucks. I had a partner who started about the same time I did, though we didn’t interact all that much. I’ll be darned if I can remember how many weeks I was there—couldn’t have been more than three, four tops.

I do know something very particular about that foray back to Lexington to see James, however. He was spending the summer doing some programming for Transy’s IT department, living on campus in the brand new Rosenthal housing complex. On Saturday, we drove down to Burgin to visit with his parents—could others of my college friends have joined us? One of the rituals of such trips was going by the original 18^th century site of my alma mater (yes, TU traces its history back to 1780, before Kentucky was even a state), which isn’t too far from his folks’ place. Alongside it now are railroad tracks; we walked to the bridge that goes over them, and looking down I saw something moving. It was a scrawny puppy.

Heaven only knows what led me to pick my way down the hill to the tracks, but next thing you know I’m back up on the bridge, pup in hand. We took it back to Lexington and housed it in Rosenthal the rest of the weekend. I guess I went out and bought some food for it. James and I did our thing around town on Sunday: record shopping, hanging with friends? All I know is that when we got back to the room, we quickly came to the realization that this beast wasn’t housebroken (duh)!

On Monday morning, before I headed back home, the puppy and I took a trip out to the Humane Society. I cried pretty hard after dropping it off to who-knows-what fate. In my dreams it found a loving home and a happy life, but I understand it may not have survived even another month. I’ll be darned if I know whether I did it any favors by interjecting myself into its life; I can only hope I did.

Maybe I bought the 45 for “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” on that visit with James. I don’t remember now how I was introduced to the song; I’d guess radio since the video doesn’t seem familiar. “Gotta keep my body tight” is a pretty dumb lyric, but I really, really like the driving beat and the horns. It made it onto one of my mixtapes by the fall.

This was the only time the Models, from Australia, hit the US charts. They’re at #38, down one from their peak. The lead singer, James Freud, committed suicide in late 2010; he’d battled alcohol addiction for many years and had written two memoirs that chronicled his struggles. Not that it necessarily has too much to do with anything, but I have to say that Freud looks pretty intense in this clip—I may have caught just one hint of a smile, almost two minutes in.