Coke Classic

Just when you thought it was safe to come out from under the fad blocking bed comes the one thing a middle-aged man desperately doesn't want to confront... The resurgence of his youth as a pop icon.

I remember [God, I really am sounding old! I'm starting off stories like my grandfather would!] the 1970s when there was a popular resurfacing of all things 50s... George Lucas had struck a nerve [not to mention a vein of gold at the box office] with his film American graffiti... Soon following in those footsteps was TV and musicals delving into the idealized memories of the post war 1950s- even hoopskirts and James Dean haircuts looked to be fashionable [of a sort] for a while.

Remember of course that this was the 1970s... The decade inventors of cocaine "The Drug That's Not Addictive!", drop in, light up and drop out were common sayings and counter culture comic books were the rage.

At some point I lost track of what pop iconographic elements we'd pay homage to while an older kid and then a young adult through the 1980s... With Raiders of The Lost Ark we had the resurgence of the Fedora- and films like Blade Runner defined style that was decidedly retro 40s...

Bottling the ends of this rant- I happened to catch the Saturday Night Live "1980s" reunion type program just the other night and it caught me... I'm getting nostalgic.

I wasn't too hip to the new SNL cast back in 1980 to 82- it would seem that most anyone else wasn't either. The original cast was the best- perhaps logically if not fanatically but I didn't pick up on the whole SNL decade that made up the 1980s and now I'm wishing I had.

I saw bands that by today's analysis are relegated to convention; but, oh were they blossoming under the light of pop stardom at the time... Tom Petty, Fine Young Cannibals, Freddy Mercury, The Cowboy Junkies [Sweet Jane]... People of my time I suppose.

Perhaps it was the world of music that I grew up within, that draws me back to the lyrics in those very self-same tunes; their echoes of a new sound then, showcasing their shadows and relegated anonymity in today's harsh, forgetful world. When Billy Joel sang of his iconic character and being asked to play a tune for an aged gentleman who remembered a song "sad and it's sweet, I knew it complete- when I wore a younger man's clothes..."

I'm beginning to empathize with that old man.

We say we're not like wolves, that we tend to those fading from today; but quite frankly we do leave the dead of the pack behind- all one has to do is look at the pop icons of yesterday-year to see that.

Heaven help me I miss Magnum PI, ABC [look it up- it's a band...], Howard Jones and Bill Cosby trying to hawk the benefits of "New Coke".

I miss Prince in all his Purpleness. I miss parachute pants. I miss hair bands, I miss Gremlins.

I miss Lame'!! Versace, I couldn't care less that you were gay; you gave me reason to live when I'd see a woman dressed in that glistening plastic/nylon golden, or silver cloth! God bless you where-ever you are!

I even miss women wearing those little pump/boot combo shoes [there was a decidedly less glamorous name for them- ask your parents kiddies- I'm sure they'll tell you about them...].

Gosh darn-it, I miss the 80s- but glamorizing that decade defies analysis simply because it already defied the self same microscope back then.

Yeah, to some this is an old man's bchnmoan- maybe it is...

And heaven forbid I should quote another line from a Billy Joel song, but he was right [and I'm sure he got the notion from somebody wiser than him, but not so wise to make a song around it!]...

"The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems..."

I continue to be: Russ