Burnt Orange Report

"Where?"
"Back to the future!"

Yeah, I have the trilogy, and if you think I don't know every word of the movie, you're crazy.

I don't really think the 80's are hip again -- I just think the folks that were in high school and college in the 80's are now at the forefront of the pop culture picture. In ten years, when I'm in my thirties and such, I'll be pining for the angst of Kurt Cobain, the light-heartedness of Hootie & the Blowfish, and all the movies Jim Carrey made before he tried to be serious.

90's are way better than the 80's.

The 60s were where it all began and then began to end as well. All the idealism and illusion. The 70s you had the reality of Nixon. The 80s you had the reality of Reagan. Which may have been the reality of Bush. The 90s you had the reality of Clinton. And Monica Lewinski. And all the illusions finally went out the window with the cigar. But the idealism and illusion is often a reaction to something. We got hit with the reality of Viet Nam in the 60s. And got hit with the reality of Prince Charming and Camelot being nothing more than just a wonderful ideal in the 90s. Clinton was very much like Kennedy. Particularly his libido. Even the most libertine of us are still shocked on some level. We all really want that fairy tale romance followed by that fairy tale marriage followed by that fairy tale life in Sunset Retirement Community with Viagra. Reality is our eyes do wander. The French really have the better way. Men have wives and mistresses. Women have husbands and lovers. And men have always been allowed to have other men as lovers. And women have always been allowed to have other women as lovers. The French think love is wonderful in any form, in any expression. Why the French usually are smiling.

I think each decade has its own distinctions because each represents a generation
"coming of age" and going to college and then "entering the world" like birds leaving the nest. Learning to fly. Some soaring.

The 80s were extremely confrontational. Perhaps more so than the 60s. We had a second sexual revolution, got hit with AIDS, and saw Reagan more as Darth Vader. A lot of us kept drinking, dancing in the discos, and ignoring reality because it was suddenly truly ugly.

I think the nice thing about the 80s was the fact most of us felt connected with other. At least at the discos. The world went away. If even just for the night. And it was wonderful.

If you look at the films of the 80s, I think we were looking for the hero. Some of us on the dance floor. In a way, the decade was heralded in with "Alien." In a way, it was a portent. We really were about to be invaded by aliens. From California. Most if not all the great films of the 80s have to do with the hero. And our need of a hero. You can probably find the same theme interwoven in the music of the 80s.

I suspect once again we are looking for the hero.

"And that hero is named Walter Mondale!"

1985 called. They want their hair back.