A lot of beer – a lot of girls – and a lot of cursing

One of the great perks of my job is I get spring break off, and while it doesn’t mean I’m heading to the nearest sunny beach to get drunk and party all night (those days are long gone for me), I always reflect this week on the times when I did fill my younger spring break days with such frivolity.

In my day, Daytona Beach was the place to go, and it was spurred on by a network that was still finding its way in the world. MTV decided spring break was a good event to foray into programming which doesn’t involve videos (yes it’s true, there was a time when MTV played videos on its station), and anointed Daytona Beach as the place to showcase these shows.

Daytona is a weird place, especially if you’re from South Florida like I am. The beaches are not all that great (and you can drive one them?), the overall feel of the town is kind of cheesy, and if it weren’t for the annual Daytona 500, it would be just another forgotten beach town along the East Coast. But for whatever reason – a lax local government which sought the millions it could reap from drunk kids, perhaps – it was the destination for college students everywhere.

And in 1987, the year of the Beastie Boys, it was most certainly the spring break place to be.

The Beastie Boys of 1987 are nothing like the Beastie Boys of now, or even of 1989. Fresh off their debut album License to Ill, which must have sold three trillion albums, they were all anyone is college was listening to at the time. MTV paired up with the three – Ad Rock, Mike D and MCA – for performances and shows in Daytona that spring break.

Needless to say it was a zoo. My recollections of the three days I spent in Daytona are fuzzy at best. There were tons of people there, I remember going to see a free comedy concert held by Jay Leno (again, back when he was cracking wise with Dave Letterman. There was a time when Jay Leno was a decent, funny human being), and this.

I’m still amazed I found the video (thank you Youtube):