I was walking through an over-lighted CVS around 8:30 pm on New Year’s Eve when the vibe hit me, and it was like I was hearing Dire Straits‘ “So Far Away” for the first time. It’s a bit shocking to realize this song is just about 30 years old now, being a track from the “Brothers in Arms” album which popped in May ’85. I had decided that Mark Knopfler was a major-league guy when I got into his music for Bill Forsyth‘s Local Hero (’83). I was so jazzed when I first saw that film in Manhattan in late ’82. I remember walking uptown after the screening and popping into the old Cafe Central on Amsterdam and 75th (or whatever the address was) and finding Peter Riegert himself there and telling him what a great film it was and what a high I was on, etc. “And that pay phone ringing at the very end…that’s your guy calling!”,” I said after my second Jack Daniels and ginger ale, and Reigert, wondering if I was a little drunk or just a bit slow, smiled and nodded “yeah.” The only disconcerting thing about this Dire Straits video are the terrible ’80s haircuts.