Start simply. Do what you know. Use your talents. Practice.

"I heard - tore your faces right off. It obviously doesn't do any good to pull your heads off in front of people if they can't see you...."

A couple of clips from "Sixteen Candles":

I never get tired of this one:

"One More Try" by George Michael

These all SEEMED cool at the time. Now, not so much.. :

Random fact:

In 1981, my universe revolved around Atari.

Anyone remember Luba????

She had a few good songs. The above is my fave. One of her most famous was a re-take on Percy Sledge's "When A Man Loves A Woman", but I always thought that was a little out-of-her-place to sing about how a man loves a woman. It just didn't seem "right"... I remember thinking "how the hell would she know????".

Misc. Observance:

While most police officers never fire their guns at a suspect once in their entire career, Sgt. Rick Hunter managed to kill a suspect once a week.

Then vs. now:

Back in the '80s the debate was marijuana vs. crack. My how times have changed...

Misc. Remembrance:

In 1984 our neighbors hosted a foreign exchange student from Japan. They had a daughter. They sent him home early because apparently he got the daughter pregnant half way through his stay and her dad flipped out and almost killed him. Other than that there's really not much more to tell....

For the record:

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer is not funny any more. It was funny for one week in 1985. It's not funny now, no matter who sings it. Just sayin'.

Not everyone's going to like you:

In 1985 I got a job working at the Hardee's fast food place in Destin, Florida. It was my job to clean out the freezer every night and various odd jobs. My supervisor was Dennis, and for some reason he disliked me from day 1. When things got busy and buses pulled up through the drive-thru, he'd put me on sandwich production. The only problem was that sandwich production was never supposed to be my job so nobody ever trained me on how to make the sandwiches. Every time I asked Dennis how anything was supposed to be made, he'd get mad at me and wouldn't tell me, so basically I just slopped a dozen or so sandwiches together at the time and got every order wrong. I quit a few weeks after I got hired because of Dennis. Yes, some people can really suck.

"Like A Prayer" by Madonna:

I was never a huge Madonna fan, but I couldn't get enough of this song back in the day.

A little "shout out" to the YouTube censors:

And have a nice day.

Question:

Can't we all just get along????

Misc. Remembrance:

In 1985 I smoked my first joint. It was over at a friend's house. Me, he and his brother were smoking a joint while hanging out the second floor bathroom window. Below us was his mother's master bedroom suite. While we were smoking pot, she was in her bed watching "Gone With The Wind" (I'm not making this up, people). The above video is from "That '70s Show", where the adults just got high eating Hyde's pot brownies. I laughed my ass off when I first saw it.  I don't smoke pot any more, but I loved it back then.

Everything is temporary anyway:

The best of '89:

The B52s are one of my all-time fave '80s bands.

Random:

In the early '80s, I was a huge Garfield fan. I couldn't get enough of that cat. I think he was much better drawn back then than he is today, but that's just me.

Random:

 
I really hated riding the bus.

The "Noid":

From a 1987 marketing campaign for Domino's Pizza. To this day I have no idea what he's supposed to be, or what "Noid" stands for. The last pic's a bendable rubber toy figure that they sold. I had one (I believe it cost me about 5 bucks), but frankly it was so ugly I didn't keep it for long.

Boomboxes:

In the early '80s I wanted a boombox, but wasn't old enough to buy one for myself (not having a job), and my folks thought they were too expensive and said "no". I thought people looked really cool walking around with massive boom boxes on their shoulders, but in retrospect I realize that only black guys could pull that look off. White guys walking around with boomboxes on their shoulders just kind of looked like white guys wanting to look black..

"I Love Rock 'N Roll" by Joan Jett:

Back in the day I couldn't get enough of this song.

Not my thing:

I never got in to Swatch watches  - not because I thought they were ugly, but because I never could get used to the feel of a watch on my wrist. Especially 8 of them...

Hungry???

Have a Barth burger.

Michael Anthony's..

... gonna kick your ass..

In '81 this pic seemed to be everywhere:

1981. Nastassja Kinski. And a snake. Other than that there's not much more to say..

Back in the day, nobody was cooler than David Lee Roth:

Epic Fail:

What the hell were they thinking???

Misc. Remembrance:

Back when Halloween II came out, my father was living in Tennessee. He and my stepmother came to Massachusetts for a visit, and they brought along some 17 year old kid (I think he was related to my stepmother). Dad dropped us both off at the movies, and we wanted to see Halloween II, but we were under age. He was disappointed but I turned to him and said quietly "Don't worry, I'll get us in." We paid to see some lame rated-G movie, and once the movie previews started and the ushers went back into the lobby, I said "follow me". We snuck out and went into the screen room where Halloween II was playing, and we watched the movie. It was a trick that worked every time.

I was definitely in the minority on this one:

I think I was the only one on the planet, but one of the movies I liked least was "E.T". I thought E.T. was ugly, and I hated Reese's Pieces. Maybe it's because there was so much hype about the movie, that when I actually went to see it, it was kind of a let-down.

Molly Ringwald:

In the mid-'80s, Molly Ringwald was the queen. She wasn't a knockout beauty, but she was girl-next-door-pretty and had a certain charm about her. We could identify with Molly, and she seemed like someone we'd all want to hang around with. '86 was definitely her year, because she also made the cover of Time Magazine in May (I thought she'd made the cover of "People", but I couldn't find any results in my image search). Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club have always been two of my all-time faves. I guess she's not acting any more, but back in the day it seemed like she'd always be around. I really miss her.

Misc. Remembrance:

In 1982, I asked my classmate Michele if she had any gum in her purse. She said "I don't have gum, but I have Gummy Bears". It was then I had my very first Gummy Bear. I'm still addicted.

And speaking of the Fore 'N Aft Motel ....

... but our maid, who was from Australia, used to wear a green sports bra. Over her blouse. When I asked her why, she said "It makes me look like Madonna". And to clean the mirrors in all the units she'd use Murphy's Oil Soap. And when we told her to stop using Oil Soap on the mirrors she told us basically to "mind our own business"...

Misc. Remembrance:

In the summer of '88 and '89, myself and my buddy were managing the Fore 'N Aft motel in North Truro Massachusetts on Beach Point. The property consisted of 11 motel rooms and 4 beach side cottages. Above is the Joel Meyerowitz photograph entitled "Doorway To The Sea". It was the breezeway between rooms 18 and 17. On the left of the inside of the breezeway was the doorway into the linen closet for the maid which had all the linens, bathroom supplies, etc. In '88, a family had rented cottage 4 (which was right on Cape Cod bay. You couldn't have gotten closer to the water) for a week starting the 4th of July weekend. Everything was booked. The woman arrived around 11 a.m. and looked at the cottage long enough to use the bathroom, and then walked into the office to tell me the accommodations weren't to her liking, and demanded a full refund. I knew I could rent the unit again in 15 minutes (which I did), and I knew that nothing else was available in all of Cape Cod, and I knew that if I tried to convince her to stay she'd just think I was trying to keep her money, so I gave her a full refund and let her leave. Around 6:00 that night, she came back (very haggard looking) and asked if I still had the unit available. I had rented the unit 15 minutes after she left and I told her "I'm sorry but I have nothing else available". As soon as I said that a woman came out of the unit she had booked with a plate of hamburgers, and the family that had rented the unit was sitting down to a barbecue dinner on the beach to watch the sunset. She had to leave and find other accommodations. I really enjoyed that.

Misc. Remembrance:

In 1984, when I was 16, I moved to Destin Florida. I lived there for 2 years until I graduated high school then moved back to Massachusetts. "Panama Jack" was a hugely popular brand in Florida (I don't know if it caught on in Mass.). There was Panama Jack suntan oil, sunscreen, aloe gel, beach towels, T-shirts, sunglasses, hats.... anything they could slap a logo on. The guy was everywhere, you couldn't get away from him...

'80s haute couture:

They all look so happy....

In 1984 I wore this tape out:

Back in the day I had a huge crush on Cyndi Lauper. She was my favorite artist back then. I'd never seen anyone with their hair dyed orange and half their head shaved into a checkerboard design. I thought she was so cool. I'm not sure if she had any hits in the '90s, but in the mid-'80s that girl could do no wrong.

One of the best movies of the decade:

Saw this in '85, twice at the theater. I've seen it a couple of times on TV. I never get tired of this movie. One of my favorite scenes was when he traveled back in time and found himself in the barn, and the farmer thought he was an alien and started shooting at him with a shotgun. I laughed my @$$ off. In the early to mid-'80s, Michael J. Fox could do no wrong. Everything he did was great (well, except for "Teen Wolf". That really sucked).

Stuff I didn't have:

I had tons of stuff, but you can't have everything. One of those things was the hand-held Pac Man game. I asked for it for Christmas (probably '82), but my folks said "no". I was really disappointed, so they decided to make up for it a couple of years later when Pac Man was available for the Atari video game system, so they got me that instead. Boy did I get screwed...

Did you know...

 

... that the Wendy's "Where's The Beef" ad campaign got so popular that they even made a game out of it??? Neither did I...



They played this song at my senior prom, in '86:

It's still one of my faves.

A helpful hint from Joe:

In '82, I discovered the secret to solving the puzzle of the Rubik's Cube: pry all the individual squares off with a screwdriver then pop them back in place, in the right order. Worked every time...