On March 30, 1981 Ronald Reagan was leaving the Washington Hilton hotel in D.C. when a deranged man in the crowd outside the hotel opened fire on his entourage at it approached the Presidential limousine. Upon hearing the first shots Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy did the unthinkable - or at least what would be unthinkable to the vast majority of human beings - he turned to face the fire spreading his body wide to use as a shield between the gunman and Reagan. No sooner had he turned than he took a bullet in the gut and fell to the ground wounded as the President's limo sped away. It was an unmitigated act of valor. An extraordinary expression of the professionalism and dedication of the people assigned to the Presidential Protection detail.

So where is Timothy McCarthy now?

After spending several hours in surgery following the shooting to remove the round from his abdomen, McCarthy made a full recovery. In 1993 he retired from the Secret Service after running the Chicago office for several years. Since 1994 he has been Police chief of Orland Park Illinois.

(left) March 30, 1981: Agent McCarthy after taking a bullet protecting the President and (right) in a recent photo.

On September 19, 1981 Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel held a free concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park in New York City. Nobody knew what to expect as far as public response was concerned. Would there be 50 aging hippies wandering into the park seeking some kind of validation? Or would there be 10 or 20,000 people? Nobody knew.

As the sun set on the evening of the show it became apparent that this was going to be a concert of historical proportions. More than 500,000 packed the lawn and adjoining areas in a mass whose end wasn't visible from the stage. It was a remarkable tribute to a duo that hadn't issued new music under the name "Simon and Garfunkel" in more than a decade.

These being the days before concerts with gi-normous video screens the vast majority of the crowd could hear but barely see the performers. But who cared? The price was right, the music was right, the weather was perfect and, as Simon (jokingly?) pointed out "The guys selling loose joints are donating half their proceeds to the city."

The concert begat an HBO special, VHS cassette, DVD and a multi-platinum live album.

Here is one of the highlights of the show, Art Garfunkel's soaring "Bridge Over Troubled Water". (Note: the video uploader has dated the piece "1982". That is when the HBO special aired.)

"The Road Warrior" (Mad Max 2 outside the US) is not a film that made it onto either my 10 best films of the 80s list or my alternate reality 10 best films of the 80s list, but it's a film worth talking about (and seeing) strictly for the sheer visceral intensity it generates.

The reason I didn't include The Road Warrior on either 10 best list is because the story is anything but original. Basically it lifts its story line from Clint Eastwood's devastating "High Plains Drifter" (1973) where an apparitional law enforcement figure emerges from the desert wasteland and comes more or less to the aid of a group of isolated average types beset by marauding baddies.

In High Plains Drifter Eastwood's character may or may not be the ghost of the town's Sheriff who was murdered by the baddies while the townsfolk looked on passively. In The Road Warrior Max is what's left of a former Highway Patrol officer whose wife and child were murdered by the same type of bad guys who now besiege the mom and pop refinery Max stumbles upon in his never ending search for gasoline. In both movies the antihero demonstrates little but contempt for the people he's protecting, has no time for a love interest, says nothing about who he is or where he's from and takes on a sidekick of sorts who yearns to be partners with the ultimate bad-ass. In the end both antiheroes disappear back into the desert after routing the baddies.

The difference between High Plains Drifter and The Road Warrior is that Eastwood's story was in large part a bare knuckles beat down of the idea that the taking of the American West was in any way heroic. In The Road Warrior the plot points from Eastwood's story are used simply as a devices to hang kick ass action scenes on and any larger issues (and many smaller ones) are simply left unattended. (For instance; where do you get drinking water in the post apocalypse wasteland? If food is so scarce that Max is reduced to eating dog food what's he washing it down with? "Dinky Dee" mineral water?) But I digress because as I said this is not a movie that asks questions or points fingers, it simply smashes thing up. Lots of things. In wonderful, pre-CGI ways.

The movie doesn't waste any time getting to the point as it opens with Max being pursued down a lonesome outback highway by several cars and a motorcycle operated by a bunch of guys in the latest Marquis de Sade formal wear. Steel, rubber and bodies get put through a blender of collisions until Max emerges from the chaos to sop up the gas leaking from a wreck onto the highway. This as it turns out will be one of the more low key chase scenes in a movie that keeps ramping up the mayhem until we get to the final chase with Max in a big rig pursued by 20 or so cars full of wasteland creeps intent on ruining his day.

The action scenes are crisp, non-stop affairs where real cars are smashed, crashed and otherwise pulverized at high speed while being shot from a variety of compelling angles. Several stunt men were injured during the filming which took place near the Australian town of Broken Hill. The editing is tight and seamless with no annoying Christopher Nolan-type dead spots to break up the tension, and the constant ear-splitting sound of engines red-lining and steel smashing into steel never lets you disengage from the chaos on screen.

Credit must be given to cinematographer Dean Semler for creating a real sense of time and place out of what is essentially a bunch of dirt and rocks and for the care he took in capturing the visceral thrills inherent in the innumerable high speed collisions. The result is a movie that makes you want to wear your seat belt. The cast also do an excellent job breathing life into roles where they're given next to nothing to say.

The opening 4 minutes of The Road Warrior...

Tom Tom Club were a splinter group from the legendary Talking Heads. In 1981 they scored a hit for the ages with this funk pop ditty, "Genius of Love". The song peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 but that doesn't speak to it's enormous popularity in dance clubs of the time or it's lasting influence. Since it first appeared it has been sampled by just about everyone in search of the perfect groove, most notably Mariah Carey for her 1995 single "Fantasy".

On July 29, 1981 Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in a wedding at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. Nearly everyone who was anyone in European political and aristocratic life attended the ceremony and that ceremony, along with the events which surrounded it, were witnessed by a worldwide television audience estimated at nearly a billion people. Diana wore a gown designed by Elizabeth and David Emanuel that included a 25 foot long taffeta and lace train which caused ladies the world over to swoon with envy. Due to intense security concerns thousands of police and military types were brought into London to manage crowds estimated at two million people, but the concerns were largely unfounded and the events went off without a hitch. That is, until it came time for Diana to recite her vows and she swore her undying love to one "Philip Charles Arthur George", whoever that was. (Charles' name was, and I believe still is, "Charles Philip Arthur George".) She also insisted that her vows not require her to state that she would "obey" her new husband; an omission that caused copious tongue wagging among the British people and press at the time.

Perhaps Diana sensed something most others chose to overlook (can you say Camilla?). Because within just a few years loose threads would start to become apparent on the fabric of their union, and though they had two healthy and apparently happy children together they themselves would begin to spend more and more time apart. They would formally separate in 1991 and divorce in 1996.

But for one bright, shining day Charles and Diana had the world at their feet in an event few who were alive at the time will ever forget. Here is a clip of Diana arriving at Saint Paul's Cathedral in that outrageous dress.

Because I know that Chris is going to turn the review spotlight on The Road Warrior one of these days and because all the recent talk about mullets got me to thinking, I'm doing this "Where are they now?" segment on the immortal Emil Minty or, as we know him, The Feral Kid from The Road Warrior.

Emil won the part in TRW when he was just 8 years old, beating out a slew of other child star wannabes. The movie was shot in New South Wales near where he was born and though Emil had a lot of screen time in the film he never uttered a word of dialogue (I guess dem feral kids don't get a lot a book learnin'). His character went on to achieve something resembling cult status but Emil, as an actor, just sort of faded from view.

So what's he up to these days? Digging burrows all over the outback to hide his stash of Dinky Dee dog food in preparation for the pocaclypse? Doing battle with other angry commuters waiting in line for $4 a gallon gasoline? Practicing for the World Boomerang Championships? Sorry to disappoint you but its nothing so glamorously disturbing. Today 38 year old Emil is manager of a Sydney jewelry store and, rumor has it, has even learned to speak!

Emil Minty as The Feral Kid 1981 and in a recent photo

Soft Cell's remake of this obscure 1965 Gloria Jones track was only their second single. Reportedly their label told them that if it failed to chart it would also be their last single (no pressure there). With the axe hanging over their heads Marc Almond and David Ball went into the studio and recorded their slowed down, synthed out version of the song in only a couple of days and it was released on July 7, 1981 in the UK where it shot to #1 on the charts. In the US the song had a much rockier ride and one that may be almost unique in the annals of the Billboard Hot 100. It entered the chart at #90, rose to #64, dropped back down to #100 and then slowly, inexorably began its rise all the way to #8 some five months after its US release.

Regardless of its chart history the song has gone on to become associated with the 80s like few others. Its poppy, synthetic beat and mannered vocals would be copied by countless Soft Cell wannabes and help set the stage for the "New Romantic" movement in British pop. The song has since been covered by dozens of artists including Marilyn Manson and the Pussycat Dolls. In 2006 Rihanna's third single "SOS", which is built around an audio sample of Tainted Love, would reach #1 in the US.

From the album "Dare". Pop doesn't get much more 80s than this hit from The Human League. Lead singer Philip Oakey hated the song and had it relegated to the last slot on the "B" side of Dare. He was also vehemently opposed to releasing it as a single feeling it would ruin the group's reputation. So he was more than a little surprised when it became the bands biggest ever single reaching number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic.

From "Ghost in the Machine" this is one of my favorite Police songs. Too bad Sting became such a huge, pretentious weenie because when these guys were good they were so good it was a little scary.

On May 13, 1981 a would-be Turkish assassin entered St Peter's square with one thing in mind: kill the pope. He nearly succeeded. As John Paul II passed Mehmet Ali Agca the Turk pulled his revolver and opened fire, hitting the pope four times. As the pope's vehicle sped off toward the hospital with the pope bleeding badly Agca was subdued by the Chief of Vatican Security, a nun and some spectators. He would later claim that he was only one of a team of men who'd been assigned the job of killing the pope by a shadowy Bulgarian mafia type. Later evidence would back up that theory and add the claim (never definitively proven) that the Bulgarians were working on behalf of the Soviets, and in particular Yuri Andropov, to whom John Paul's popularity in eastern Europe had become a major problem.

After recovering the pope publicly forgave Agca and in 1983 visited him in jail. The two men actually developed a tenuous friendship and in 2000 Agca was pardoned by the Italian government at the urging of the pope and returned to Turkey. Upon his arrival in Turkey Agca was imprisoned for a 1979 murder but, after several fits and starts, was ultimately released on January 18, 2010.

Mehmet Ali Agca raises his gun to fire (circle).

For someone like me who bleeds Celtic green watching the 2011 version of the team limp into the postseason and lose to the hated Heat left me with plenty of nostalgic longings for the 80s. So today I'm going to repair my fragile psyche by looking back to the first Celtic championship of my favorite decade.

At the end of Larry Bird's rookie season of 79-80 Red Auerbach completed part 2 of what may be the most lopsided trade in professional sports history. He had the 1st and 13th picks in the 1980 NBA Draft from trading Bob McAdoo to the Pistons for M. L. Carr the year before and traded them (picks 1 and 13) to the Golden State Warriors for center Robert Parish and the Warriors' first round pick (3rd overall). He then used that pick to select University of Minnesota power forward Kevin McHale. (Think about that for a minute: in essence Auerbach got Robert Parrish, Kevin McHale and M.L. Carr for Bob McAdoo. They don't make trades like that anymore.)

The Celtics went 62-20 in the regular season. In the Eastern Conference Finals however they fell behind to the 76ers 3-1 and it seemed like another trophy-less season was in store. But the Celts pulled together to force a game 7 in The Garden which they won 91-90. There was no stopping them after that and they went on to win the first of 3 trophies with the 'real' Big Three.

So without further ado here are the '81 Celtics vanquishing the Houston Rockets in game 6 of the '81 Finals to win it all. Excuse the poor quality; it was 30 years ago after all.



There, I feel better.

On August 1, 1981 at one minute after midnight MTV went on the air with the words: "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll." Appropriately, the first video played was the Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star". At this very beginning MTV was only broadcast to a relatively small audience in the metro New York area but it wasn't long before it became ubiquitous, challenging the supremacy of radio and introducing American music fans to songs and artists that many of the top AM and FM channels weren't playing.

MTV's concept was simple enough: play music videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and have them hosted by the television equivalent of the radio DJ, christened VJs. MTV's original five VJs were Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn, and during the early 80s they became as recognizable as old school TV fixtures like Walter Cronkite and Ed Sullivan had once been.

A mad scramble by established broadcast and cable channels followed as they attempted to get on the music video boat before it pulled away from the pop culture dock. Everyone from HBO (Video Jukebox) to NBC (Friday Night Videos) to ABC (ABC Rocks) dove into the fray along with seemingly countless other national and local stations. None of them were able to reproduce the MTV magic and within a decade most had thrown in the towel.

It should be noted that while MTV was clearly forging a new pathway through popular culture, one that was trumpeted as being cutting edge, fact is that at the beginning they almost completely ignored black artists. It wasn't until Michael Jackson came along and kicked in the door that MTV became artistically integrated.

Post mortem editorial:

Ironically, after vanquishing all comers, MTV itself decided to pull out of the 24/7 music video business during the 90s, moving slowly but inexorably into talk shows, game shows and garish, self-indulgent "reality" programming which pandered to the growing swarm of consumer-youth. In the process they left behind any semblance of integrity or cultural importance. The network continues to wallow in the shallows to this day with mind-numbing fare like "Jersey Shore" where a bunch of no-talent nobodys from nowhere with nothing to say are followed around for no discernible reason.

The first video ever played on MTV: The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star

George Lucas actually developed the idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark before Star Wars. He wound up shelving it though so that he could work on his little outer space adventure instead. When that became a phenomenon Lucas had enormous clout in Hollywood and was able to cut a sweet deal with Paramount for Raiders that gave him something like 40% ownership of the film and a hefty percentage of the profits.

He was also able to get his buddy Steven Spielberg to direct, something that was key to the films ultimate success. Lucas wanted to call his character "Indiana Smith" and it was Spielberg who told him the name didn't work. Lucas then suggested "Jones" and the rest is history. Released in June 1981 it became the highest grossing film of that year and, when adjusted for inflation, is still one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Several actors tried out for the lead role. Spielberg wanted Harrison Ford but George Lucas didn't want Ford's name to become linked too closely with his own. Subsequently, Tom Sellek was offered the role but was unable to take it due to scheduling conflicts with "Magnum P.I.". Jeff Bridges also reportedly turned the role down. With just three weeks to go before shooting was to start Steven Spielberg finally convinced Lucas to give the role to Ford.

It seems crazy now to think of anyone else playing Indiana Jones. Ford seems to have been born for it. It's a tribute to him that he's probably just as well known now for playing Indiana Jones as he is for playing Han Solo.

Watch the original trailer here.

John DeLorean was a car designer who had worked his way up through the ranks of the Detroit auto establishment. Ultimately he yearned to create his own car company and, with the help of Hollywood friends, pulled together the financing to open the DeLorean Motor Company.

DeLorean had orginally intended to open his factory in Puerto Rico but when the Irish government came knocking with over $100 million in additional financing if he'd open his factory in Northern Ireland, DeLorean couldn't resist.

After myriad production delays and cost overruns the first car rolled off the assembly line in January 1981. It officially entered the pop-culture mainstream when it was used as the time traveling vehicle in the movie "Back to the Future" in 1985.

Well before that though things had started to go wrong. The car received only lukewarm reviews from the automotive press and sales were sluggish. Facing possible bankruptcy in 1982 DeLorean was caught on video arranging a high stakes cocaine deal as part of his plan to raise capital. It raised capital alright: capital charges of drug trafficking.

Though he was eventually found not guilty by reason of entrapment the damage to his reputation was done and his company went out of business shortly after the trial ended. DeLorean himself died in 2005 but other financiers eventually picked up the DeLorean name and returned the car to extremely limited production.

It began innocently enough. On August 12, 1981 IBM released their 5150 Personal Computer. Who thought that something like this with 16KB of RAM and a 4.77 MHz processor would signal the beginning of the end for newspapers, movies, records and tapes, musicians, tv, privacy and most important, the xxx rated movie house, just to name a few things. And while its true that movies and tv are still breathing, the day of their ultimate assimilation into comland is visible on the horizon. I remember my dad's first computer. It took something in the neighborhood of 45 minutes to dl a picture from the internet and almost as long to print the damn thing.
Tough I have nothing against computers in principle (after all this blog would not exist without them) I'm thankful that for most of our favorite decade computers remained little more than a geeky curiosity and humans were still free create and express themselves in non-digital ways .