So, the other day, while listening to a bunch of songs I snagged for The Wife's™ iPod, I happened upon one that I'd long-forgotten: Get Out of My Dreams, by 80s icon Billy Ocean. This little rediscovery led me down a rabbit hole from which I've emerged more jaded, freaked-out, and grateful for my own mundane existence than I thought myself capable of being.

This seemingly innocent little song was, as you may recall, attached to a film called License to Drive, notable as Heather Graham's first starring vehicle, and the last instance in which The Coreys - that two-headed devil-beast that, for a period in the mid- to late-80s, anyway, threatened to seize control of the entire world - would spend their time together engaged in activities other than the snorting and smoking of Colombia's most popular exports.


The Coreys - Feldman and Haim - were, at one point, so popular with the 12-16 year-old female demographic that several large cosmetic firms developed secret plans to kidnap the teen stars, murder them, and sell their ground-up essence in a line of teen-targeted perfumes and lotions.

I may have made that part up.

At any rate, most boys in the same age bracket experienced one of two reactions when confronted with The Coreys; more confident young guys were able to experience nothing more than oozing disdain for the two, while those of a more, shall we say, "husky", or "geeky" nature were driven to complex combinations of utter hatred, and blinding envy when confronted with the Coreylust of our female classmates, oftentimes culminating in daydreams wherein one or both of The Coreys would find himself/themselves devoured by rodents, leading to the coining of such little ditties as:

How much Haim could a woodchuck maim, if a woodchuck could maim Haim?

License to Drive, of course, marked the high point of the Coreyllaborations (though Lost Boys, where the two try to kill Jack Bauer, is a close second). Sadly, future joint efforts typically involved arson, at least 73 pounds of black tar heroin, and long stays in one of several penal institutions. Oh, and they were always released direct-to-video.

The film featured Haim and Feldman in the lead roles (with Haim as its central protagonist, and Feldman as his goofball buddy), and involved such diverse plot points as drunk girls in the trunks of 1974 Cadillacs, Communist demonstrations, and a pregnant Carol Kane. It also served to mark - once and for all - the status of the Volkswagen Cabriolet as the penultimate chick car; a vehicle so thoroughly feminized as to completely suck the testosterone out of any male who dared grasp its dainty steering wheel.

The life-draining power of The Coreys - even through only incidental exposure - was so thorough as to transform the once-lively and ubiquitous Billy Ocean...


Into this:


Now, granted...life hasn't been kind to either of The Coreys since the halcyon days of the late-80s, either, so in many respects, they've paid their pennance. Feldman has been through rehab approximately 304 times, and has appeared on reality shows, from time to time. Haim, on the other hand, went through rehab in a similar fashion (and with similar results, it would seem), gained somewhere on the order of 80 pounds, and tried to sell a molar and several clumps of hair on eBay to get enough cash to move out of his mom's condo (really!).


Both guys appear, from all indications, to finally have been successful in becoming clean and sober, and are ready to work. Are we ready for another serving of Coreymania? We may not have a choice. According to reports surfacing across the web, they're wrangling for a Lost Boys sequel as we speak. Can a License to Drive reunion be far behind?

Prepare yourselves.

¶ 10:06 AM // |

Because the weather's gorgeous right now, and it's starting to feel like summer, I hereby declare that this Friday is, in fact, The Best Around. That's right, kids - it's Karate Kid Friday.



Last night, while The Wife™ was with her small group, and after The Girl™ had gone to bed, I suspected that it was just about time to watch me some Karate Kid. As usual, I was correct in this belief. It's ALWAYS time for KK. In fact, it's never not time for KK.

Now, to add some variety, I watched most of the special edition DVD with the closed captioning turned on, just to see how closely it matched up to the spoken dialogue. Let me tell you...if you're deaf, you're seeing a completely different film from the one the rest of us are watching. The captioning is that bad.

So bad, in fact, that it completely changes character names (Daryl Vidal - the hotshot karateka who gets beaten down by Johnny in the semis - somehow becomes "Danny Duval"), garbles song lyrics (follow along with You're the Best Around. Yikes. It was bad enough BEFORE the butchery), slaughters Miyagi's humorous instruction (at the tournament, as Daniel asks his sensei if he has any last minute advice about how to win his first bout, Miyagi intones "Hai...no get-ah hit!", which the captioning scrambles into "Hey! Go get the hit!"), and has no idea whatsoever about what to do with the random Japanese scattered throughout Miyagi's speech ("Hai" becomes "Hey" each time, "Osu" becomes "Yes", etc.). All your captions are belong to us, it would seem.

Still, the special edition DVD is great, as the print they used for it is nice and bright, and the audio commentary is, by and large, terrific. It's nice to hear Macchio, Morita, and Avildsen reminisce, though about halfway through, you begin to wish that someone would crush Robert Mark Kamen's throat, he drones on so much. Mercifully, he has to leave early for some reason or another, so things pick up for the second half.

Today, as I sit in front of my computer, I listen to the soundtrack (Commuter's Young Hearts is blasting away right now...), contemplate the superior experience that IS The Karate Kid, and wonder when and if any of my fellow geeks out there will track down the Holy Grail of lost soundtrack tunes - the never released The Ride, by some group called Matches, which is heard as the Cobra Kai descend upon the beach party, and prepare to administer the first of countless beatings to our favorite NJ transplant. Forgotten the scene already? Then by all means, go watch the movie tonight. As Tommy would say if he were here, "Take a right, check it out!" In contrast, if Johnny were here, he would merely sneer in your general direction, and proceed to reverse punch, or roundhouse kick you silly - perhaps while dressed in a skeleton costume, and rolling a joint (this, from a so-called "ex-degenerate". Sheesh!). So really, we should all be grateful that he's not here.

Your assignments for today - 1. Come up with at least one Mr. Miyagiism (in honor of the late Pat Morita, bless 'im...), and deposit it in the comment section, and 2. Sweep somebody's leg. Do you have a problem with that?

As the wisdom of Miyagi applies to so many areas of life, it will be hard to pick just one for inclusion, but I know you can do it.

Why sweep the leg? Here, or on the street...a man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy. Take inspiration from the Kai:



OUT of commission.

Other related links for today (just click on the bolded text to follow the links):

Bobby Brown's MySpace blog. No...not THAT Bobby Brown:



THIS Bobby Brown:



That's right - the disgraced, disqualified "good guy" of the Cobra Kai blogs about karate, Johnny, and all of the various twists and turns his life has taken. He's deep, man.

80s Tees.com
Home of my favorite Cobra Kai t-shirt. Their newest addition is one I'll be grabbing, too:



Bobby's Cobra Kai Gi on eBay
You deserve no mercy! You already missed out, as the auction has closed. View and weep at the awesomeness you could have had for a mere four grand, or so. Better than any lousy "Meeahjee-Turbo" bike that scrawny Danny from Reseda might find himself tossing into a dumpster - that's for sure.

I hate this freakin' bike!!

Now, go forth, and wax on, or you'll get squished - just like grape.

¶ 10:54 AM // |

Here's the skinny:

Thanks to the lovely and talented Bil Repenning, I'm considering starting a Retroplex podcast, where the two of us highlight the collectibles, movies, music, and TV shows of our youth (well...if you're roughly our age...). This is an attempt to get a feel for whether or not there's an audience out there for such a thing. Then again, I might just do it regardless, because it sounds like a blast. Lemme know what you think!

Possible segments include a review of a toy or three, some bits on movies, music, comic books, and any number of other trips down nostalgia lane - possibly with some interaction from you, the listener.

Drop me a comment, and fill me in. You up for it?

¶ 11:09 AM // |

One of my blogs is - outright - both the second- and third-highest ranked result from a Google search for "Patrick Swayze Snot Bubble". More importantly, however, it's also - indirectly - the first result.

Well, see, Mitch Berg's Shot In the Dark (which you should be reading, by the way...) comes up as #1, but the hit actually comes from a comment on the blog left by yours truly.

So, as has now been made abundantly clear, I am, indeed, the authoritative source for all info concerning that seminal moment from Red Dawn. Take THAT, IMDB!

WOLVERINES!!!!!

¶ 5:35 PM // |

The site's not forgotten. I'm retooling, and getting ready to jump back in. Just waiting for a few spare moments to materialize...

¶ 1:45 PM // |

I'm a seasonal guy. I live my life most viscerally through each new season's ability to snap to mind memories, scents, sights, and sounds that have become ingrained into the fabric of my being. We're fast approaching my favorite time of year, as I'm pretty decidedly an autumn/winter guy. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward. My most potent memories - the kind that still bring to mind vivid images and involuntarily bring smiles to my face - surround fall and winter.

When I was seven, my dad's mom (who we called "Gammy") moved to Denver. Starting a couple of years later, I would spend every Saturday evening (more or less) at her apartment. What started out as a novelty - Saturday night with Gammy - became the cornerstone of my week. Each week worked out roughly the same way; my dad would drop me off at her place, which was just a few miles from our house. Gammy and I would eat McDonalds, or whatever other fast food struck her fancy on a particular weekend, I'd get her mail from across the apartment complex parking lot, and we'd settle in to watch TV. First? Small Wonder on Channel 9. Then? Over to Channel 4 for NBC's lineup at 7. The Facts of Life. 227. Amen. The Golden Girls. Empty Nest. About nine o'clock, my dad would pick me up. I'd kiss Gammy on the cheek, and thank her for the evening. I remember the way her apartment smelled. I remember the tick-tick-tick of the clock on her mantle. I remember the big bowl of Peanut M&Ms she had on her coffee table, and I the way she'd switch out the regular ones for the red & green Christmas ones around the first week of November. I remember stories - passed from an 80 year-old woman to a ten year-old boy. I remember leafing through her enormous book of Norman Rockwell prints, and the way that those paintings delighted me. I remember looking out her sliding glass door, checking to see whether or not it was snowing hard enough to show up in the white lights of the parking lot.

Saturdays haven't been the same since she died. I still miss Gammy.

The other day, I was struck by a sensation that caught me unprepared, and made me laugh at myself. As I walked outside to check the mail, I found myself quietly hoping to see something very specific in the day's deliveries. I wanted to find a Sears Wish Book there. When I was a kid, the Wish Book - that most heady inducer of 10 year-old lust - always showed up right about now - a few weeks out from my birthday. This fortuitous timing allowed me to circle and surround with exclamation points items for both my birthday and Christmas, in contrast to my less fortunate friends with summer birthdays. Suckers.

Sometimes I got the stuff I circled, other times, I didn't. Didn't matter. The anticipation alone was worth it. September marked a tipping point of sorts. In September, we began the ever accelerating rush toward the "holiday season". There was just no stopping the endorphin flood.

I suppose this is why I still hold onto the few Wish Books I managed to secret away through the years, and why I still possess a truly embarrassing number of toys from my childhood. When I hold them...or when I thumb through the worn pages of a Richard Scarry Christmas book as I read it to my daughter, I am once more transported.

I touch memories.

Last night, I popped in a VHS tape for The Girl™ to watch. Her chief request for the evening? Kermit, and lots of him. At this point, for one reason or another, our entire solar system, if not the very universe, revolves around a frog puppet with a funky frilly thing around his neck. I cannot account for her sudden Kermit obsession, but it allowed me an excuse to bust out a time capsule from 1987 - a tape of the original airing of A Muppet Family Christmas, complete with commercials (wow. Oprah looked SCARY then.). I still remember coming home from a rehearsal of some sort, and finding that my older brother had taped the thing. At the time, I found it amusing. Now? I'm trying to find a way to get the entire tape (there's also a Julie Andrews Christmas special on the tape. It aired directly after the Muppet special) transferred to DVD. It's worth its weight in gold.

Well, due to the fact that Kermit only averages a screen presence of around 85% of the show, The Girl™ lost interest around the 30min mark, and wandered off, muttering something about the frog - "Kermit...need fine Kermit". I, on the other hand, ate up the whole experience anew.

Bronco season. Cool, cloudy days, and the sound of maple leaves crunching underfoot as the smell of chimney smoke fills the crisp air. Christmas. These are the things...the memories that I cling to with all my might.

It's getting to be that time again, and I, for one, can't wait.


(Cross-posted at Exultate Justi)

¶ 4:34 PM // |

What a difference 20 years make.



I've been holding onto this particular issue for quite some time now. I'm a baseball fan, and a sometime follower of the Cincinnati Reds (my family's from the area), so - aside from the freakshow value of the cover article, which praises Rose to the roof - it's got some legitimate nostalgia value to me, as well.

Even more interesting, however, is the degree to which the ads (and even feature articles) reveal the degree to which we've changed as a society - both for the better, and for the worse.

I'll be posting this stuff a little at a time. As I've said before, The Retroplex is a work in progress, and I'm still sifting through the layout, and the content decisions I need to make. So, this particular issue will probably go up in several installments.

I've always believed that if one were to kidnap someone from, say, 1985, and bring them 20 years into the future, it wouldn't be the big things that would overwhelm them - it would be the little day-to-day differences.

After all, the pace of giant-scale advancement has slowed somewhat since the days of the Apollo program in the 60s, has it not? We don't have the long-predicted flying cars, or any of the other flashy accoutrements that were supposed to herald our arrival in the 21st century. We got ripped off.

Instead, we've got the same basic cars, in many cases, the exact same commercial aircraft, and, what's more, we don't even have anything as cool as the Concorde anymore. Geez...someone from 1985 could, in fact, travel over the Atlantic at mach 2+ when they wanted to. Not us, boyo...

Still, the little differences that stand out are interesting in their own light. Let's jump in to the magazine, shall we?

Here's the inside cover - an ad for the very first-gen Volkswagen Jetta. My ex-girlfriend drove one of these babies, and it was a pretty nifty little car.



Get a load of the circa-1985 slogan: It's not a car. It's a Volkswagen.


This issue features a load of ads for, about, and by banks of all kinds. I have no idea why, exactly, except for the fact that the S&L crisis hadn't yet hit, and, rather like the dot-com boom, folks were making money hand-over-fist. This particular issue is interesting as a historical snapshot, as it features references to, or articles about several then-brewing historical events that would come to full-kapow in the subsequent few years. For example, we see the first echoes of Iran-Contra, the S&L/junk bond disasters, SDI, and the beginning of the end of Apartheid in South Africa. I'll be highlighting these, as well as other pieces that cover the beginnings of some pop culture events (i.e., the beginning of Val Kilmer's film career).

Here's one of the bank ads, aimed at setting you straight regarding the differences between a real bank, and those many pretenders out there...



Random, eh?

Here, though, are my two highlights for this round. First up? This is an ad for "the most powerful personal computer IBM has ever made." Yep - the "IBM Personal Computer AT", with a thunderous 286 processor, DOS 3.0 OS (with XENIX support), and up to 3MB of RAM! Woo-hoo!!

I vaguely remember the whole Charlie Chaplin ad campaign, too. Click on the picture for a larger (and more legible) version.



And now, my favorite of the bunch. See, this magazine - like most in the era - featured several different cigarette ads - something that, in this day and age, is seen just slightly less than, say, ads for the American Friends of Jihad might be. While I detest the cigarette companies with a passion, there's something decidedly nostalgic about seeing evidence that these enormous conglomerates were unstoppable behemoths, with in-your-faceness to burn, and a willingness to basically flip off the entire non-smoking population of the country. They had moxie, they did. This ad - by R.J. Reynolds (now RJR Nabisco) Co. - fairly oozes with snark, managing to backhandedly brand non-smokers with sole responsibility for the Great Smoke Wars of 1985, which apparently raged at the time of publication.

Imagine. This is a full-page ad in a major magazine, defending smokers against the onslaught of discourteousness and invective hurled at them by the cretins of the blackless lung-set. The thought of something like this running in a magazine today only manages to conjure visions of executives being literally tarred and feathered, and thrown into stocks by Oprah, or the yammering screechbirds of The View. Once again, the enjoyment of this one is all in the reading, so, feel free to click on the image to view a larger, more readable version.



Until next time, 'Plexers, May your G.I. Joes be 3.75" tall, and your Swatch run smoothly. See you soon.

¶ 9:36 PM // |