This video is of a remix of the song that possessed my friend, Jeff, and I through the end of the 80's and all of the 90's. We first heard this song sometime in 1989. The local gay bar had 1 copy of the song. Jeff fell in love with this song first. I don't remember hearing it, but he kept raving about this song. We had no idea who it was singing. Even worse, we never heard the song anywhere else. The dj that was working that night was no help either.
A few months later, they played the song again. I heard the song this time and I also was in love. Luckily, the dj was more cooperative and gave us the artist's name. Unfortunately, the only copy they had of this song came from a music mixing company. They only sold their music to dj's and nightclubs. This began 12 years of hell for us!
The problem was that this song just didn't exsist in the U.S. Or at least, we couldn't find any existence of the song. Another problem we had is we weren't sure of the exact spelling of her name. Ankie Bagger isn't exactly a typical name. We were constantly visiting every record store we could find and looking for variations of how we thought her name would be spelled. Not only could we not find her music anywhere, nobody had ever heard of her either. Finally coming to the conclusion that we would never find a record or cd of hers, we started religiously looking through the compilation collections. We figured this was our best bet on finding this song.
During the early 2000's, Jeff and I both became fans of "music sharing" Peer-to-Peer (P2P) websites. We both started with Napster before it was taken away. We also tried a few other places that would last a while before they would close down. At each one of these sites, the first song we would look for was always Where Were You Last Night. It wasn't until we discovered a new P2P site that we finally stumbled upon our own holy grail. I remember typing in her name when I started using the latest P2P program. The first few months, nothing would show up. But one day, on a whim, I typed her name in again. And VOILA! Not only did the song show up once, it showed up TWICE! Two different people had the song! After more than 12 years, we had found that elusive song that had escaped us for so long!
I don't remember who found what. But between Jeff and me, one of us had found the original version and a few days later, the other one had found the remix version. We later found out the song had even been remade by another band. But, the original by Ankie will always be that song that drove us crazy. And I dedicate this song to Jeff, who would have turned 40 earlier this month. Whenever I play this song, I always think of the great times we shared. And I always remember all of the time we spent in record stores searching for some woman named Ankie.
Yesterday when I was filling out my Friday Fill-Ins, I talked about my bff Jeff. I know I have mentioned him many of times, but the few attempts at posts about him have always ended up in the trash. The relationship I had with Jeff is always hard to describe, we were best friends but we didn't hang out much. We talked on the phone all the time, even though we lived a few miles from each other. We often would finish each other's sentences. And we had our own code and phrases that we used. I have only had 1 boyfriend that actually got along with Jeff. The other 2 tolerated him (but tolerated might be a bit too nice).
Jeff and I met in late 1987. It was an awkward sexual attempt that didn't go anywhere. We didn't meet again until a year later. This time I had gone into the restaurant he worked (I didn't know he worked there). We talked for awhile and I soon found myself going there quite a bit to chat. We had 2 more sexual attempts and we realized that we were better at being friends than we would ever be as lovers.
He took me to my first gay establishment (an adult bookstore). I took him to his first gay bar. And we both discovered the gay side of Chicago together.
Over the years, our paths were constantly crossing. He was the first to move to C/U. I would follow a year later when I moved in with my boyfriend. We worked together a few times, but were often warned about talking too much. We always argued about dating. I had said that I would like to try dating and relationships, where he said he would never date, he wanted to be single. He did have a few "special" friends, I know one he was in love with. He had met Chris in St. Louis and they had hit it off very well. He was soon making weekend trips down there all the time to see this guy. He never called him a boyfriend or said that they were dating, but this was the first time I had ever seen Jeff so into a guy. He was tired of driving and Chris wasn't going to move here. I know Jeff was contemplating moving there, but they decided to take a break to see how it would go. Jeff received a phone call about a month after the break had started. It was from Chris's roommate. Chris had died in a car accident the night before. I know Jeff was heartbroken.
Jeff didn't date again for probably 8 years. This was when we were pretty much on the phone with each other all the time. We didn't hang out much, and we never went out to the bars together. He started seeing a guy from Champaign. I am not sure how long they went out, but Jeff didn't tell me about him until after they had been seeing each other for awhile. David (not his real name) was a lawyer in town. David has a very nice house in the rich area of town, but Jeff never wanted to live with him. So David bought a house for Jeff to live in. He also bought 2 different cars for Jeff to use. And when Jeff left his job, David started buying rental property for Jeff to take care of. They didn't spend nights with each other very often. They would eat dinner together and talk. But they didn't spend much time together. I think I spent more time with Jeff than David did. And we didn't spend much time together. So in a way, I guess Jeff got his relationship without actually dating that he didn't want to do.
It was David who called me in December, 2006. I was just finishing up my shift at the grocery store and was in the office talking to the office manager. Jeff's name showed up on the caller ID and I was a bit upset with him because he hadn't returned my phone calls in the past 3 or 4 days. I can't remember what I said when I answered the phone, but I was shocked it was David and not Jeff. I was in ever more shock when he told me that Jeff's sister had found Jeff's body laying on the kitchen floor. He said he would call back with the funeral details but he just wanted me to know. It wasn't until about 10 minutes later that I could even begin to think. It hadn't even clicked in my brain yet that he was dead.
