Terence Trent D'arby (or Sananda Francesco Maitreya as he is now legally called) burst onto the music scene with his 1987 album "Introducing the Hard Line According to Terence Trent D'arby". The album was a massive his and spawned two hit singles: "Wishing Well" and the track here "Sign Your Name". For my money this is one of the best R&B tracks of the decade.

For me Christine McVie's contributions to Fleetwood Mac are almost always overlooked. She had a beautiful soft voice and wrote uncomplicated, catchy love songs that stuck in your head on the first listening. This gem from the band's 1987 multi-platinum album "Tango in the Night" is a perfect example. The song reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 3 weeks at number 1 on the adult contemporary charts.

Maybe the first tangible sign for most people that cracks were beginning to appear in the armor of the formerly impregnable Soviet Union came on May 28, 1987 when an 18 year old West German named Mathias Rust casually flew from Finland directly through Soviet airspace and landed his little Cessna aircraft near the heart of Moscow's Red Square. His escapade sent shockwaves through Gorbachev's Kremlin and resulted in the sacking of several high level Soviet Defense ministers.

The image of his tiny plane sitting in Red Square with Saint Basel's Cathedral in the background became one of the iconic images of the 80s. He received a four year sentence in a Soviet labor camp for his flight though he was never transferred to said labor camp and was released early by Gorbachev as a 'goodwill' gesture to the West.

Though his flight became iconic Rust himself, like many unlikely heroes, turned out to be something less than that, living a checkered life in the aftermath of his adventure. He's done time for attempted manslaughter and been convicted of theft and fraud. On the up side he's tried to organize a think-tank of sorts to find non-violent solutions to political, ethnic or religious problems (apparently he decided manslaughter doesn't solve anything) although it seems that project never managed to find its legs. He's also tried his hand at being a financial adviser. Today he's apparently living in Germany with his second wife and describes himself as a professional poker player.

(left) Mathias Rust in a Soviet courtroom. (center) His Cessna on the ground in Red Square 1987. (right) In a recent photo.

On October 19, 1987 the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the Dow) fell an incredible 508 points in a freefall that became known around the world as "Black Monday". The 508 point loss represented the biggest single day stock market crash in history in percentage terms as the Dow lost over 22% of its total value.

How can you put the losses of Black Monday into proper perspective? Well it helps me to think of it this way: on October 13, 2008 at the height of the recent financial crisis, the stock market had its biggest one day point loss in history; 777 points. In order for the losses that day to match what happened on Black Monday though the Dow would have had to lose 2,300 points!

A rash of possible explanations for Black Monday have been circulating for years. The most popular of these is the "program trading" theory where numerous computer sell programs began triggering each other every time the market ticked down a few more points. After a while the slide became a self generating monster no one could control. Others have pointed east and said that it was simply a reaction to what happened in Hong Kong, whose market had nosedived in the run up to the Dow opening that Monday. Still others used a word that would come back to haunt the financial world two decades later; "derivatives". In this case portfolio insurance derivatives. Most everyone agrees though that matters were made immeasurably worse by a good old-fashioned panic that swept the trading floor once the slide began and made Black Monday a day that will live in financial infamy.

Black Monday. After a while all you could do was pray.

For two days in October of 1987 the world was transfixed by the fate of Jessica McClure, an 18 month old toddler from Midland Texas who'd fallen to the bottom of a 22 foot deep, 8 inch wide well near her home. The world's media descended on the small town with the then upstart CNN network delivering live, round the clock coverage of the rescue attempt. Everyone had an opinion of what needed to be done to pull "baby Jessica" to safety but at first there was no consensus. A backhoe was tried but after digging only a few feet it hit solid rock and was taken away. It was then decided to dig a parallel shaft using equipment similar to that used in oil drilling. This yielded better results but everyone was still flying blind on what they'd do once they reached her.

Finally David Lilly of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration was brought in to lead the rescue efforts. He'd had extensive experience rescuing trapped miners and could see that if adjustments weren't made to the drilling Jessica might be killed by her rescue. Finally, after 58 hours of work that included lowering men into the parallel shaft with jackhammers to remove the last remaining rock, the rescuers broke through and lifted her to the surface injured but basically okay.

So what is "baby Jessica" up to these days?

Today 25 year old Jessica McClure-Morales is married with two children of her own and lives a relatively quiet life near Midland. She still carries the scar on her forehead from her 1987 ordeal though she has no memory of it. Donations made in her name at the time of her ordeal were put in trust and on turning 25 she was able to collect some $800,000 from that fund which enabled her and her husband to buy a house and set aside money for their children's education. All-in-all a pretty happy ending to what could have been a tragic situation.

"Baby Jessica" at the moment of her rescue in 1987 and today, still carrying the scar on her forehead.

Released in 1987 "Tunnel of Love" was Bruce Springsteen's second solo album (though various members of the E-Street band did play on some of the tracks) and is, in my opinion, the second best album he ever made (the best being 1973's "The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle"). It's also a problematic record for me to listen to because as good as the B-side is the A-side of Tunnel of Love seems strangely unfinished. For this reason it didn't make my list of "10 best albums of the 80's".

Still, if you didn't give up on the record halfway through the A-side the wonders of the B-side were there to be discovered. From the first track to the last it's one of the great 24 minute listening experiences available in popular music. Springsteen's music has always tended to waiver between the poles of over-the-top production on the one hand and bare bones, dust dry minimalism on the other but with the B-side of Tunnel of Love he finally found that sweet equatorial zone in between.

My favorite song from the album is the one featured here and it's a perfect example of this stripped down but not naked approach. The lyrics are spare yet eloquent and to the point ("I met a girl and we ran away, I swore I'd make her happy every day. But how I made her cry. Two faces have I."). The instrumentation starts off with a solo acoustic guitar finding its way and then, with the advent of the second verse, bass and drums are added in the background. Springsteen's vocals are way up front in the mix, his voice clear, his phrasing revealing his decidedly mixed feelings about the dissolution of his relationship: he's accepted it, but he's not at all happy about it. After the third verse there's a short, scratchy guitar solo and the final verse contains one of rocks great unheralded threats, tacked on in what almost seems like an afterthought: referring to the unnamed third party's intention to "take your love away from me" the singer, in a subdued but determined voice states flatly "Well go ahead and let him try".

What follows that menacing line is maybe the most soaring, beautiful Hammond organ solo ever recorded. It's a breathtaking tribute to the facility of the late Danny Federici and all he brought to the table in the service of Springsteen's songs over all the many years.

No video was ever recorded for "Two Faces" and to me the live versions simply don't measure up. So here's the original album version of the song, music only. Enjoy.

After exploding into the public consciousness playing the virtually indestructible cyborg assassin in James Cameron's breakout 1984 film "The Terminator" Arnold Schwarzenegger retreated to his comfort zone, playing the hero in such 80s yawners as "Red Sonja" and "Raw Deal". But just when it seemed safe to deposit him squarely into the 'one hit wonder' category along came 1987's "Predator".

It has to be noted that while all male-buddy action flicks have their share of gay undertones, Predator may be the most overtly gay action movie ever made (not that there's anything wrong with that). Still, if you can look past its bulging homoerotic musculature (if you want or need to look past it) and concentrate solely on the window dressing the film can be enjoyed as a taut, intense sci-fi thriller with an unlikely and truly menacing baddie who's cleverly introduced and gradually takes over the narrative, sending the film in an unexpected and gratifying direction.

If you blink you'll miss the alien setup at the start of the picture where we're given about 10 seconds of outer space shots as a craft of some sort enters earth's atmosphere. (It might be better if you do miss it as it serves only to undermine the suspense later on.) After that we're introduced to Ahnuld's character "Dutch" along with his crew of ultimate bad-asses and after the Gov and Carl Weathers finish admiring each others sweaty biceps we're told that Dutch and Co are being sent on a mission to the central American jungles to extract a diplomat who's been captured by rebels. Of course there is no diplomat and they're actually there to clean up the mess created by the failure of an earlier black ops team, but that's inconsequential because as Dutch's team attempt to extricate themselves from the unpleasantness around them they begin to realize that a bunch of peasants with guns are the least of their problems.

Because a movie with only hunky guys might seem a bit too gay a female character is introduced in the very agreeable (though not to our heroes of course) form of Elpidia Carrillo. She's the only one without a gun (literally, physically and symbolically) and is therefore of no interest to our alien either. Her role is to give young male viewers who might become a bit squeamish (or aroused) by seeing Sonny Landham's character "Billy" sucking on a milk-filled vine something to hang their heterosexual identities on and she fulfills that role admirably.

As they make their way "to the chopper" the boys are picked off one at a time by their phantom pursuer with each incident serving to also reveal a few more details about our bad guy. As the film moves squarely from "Rambo" into "Alien" territory the hackneyed dialogue and jokes about women's anatomy mercifully come to an end and what we're left with is a pretty well done cat and mouse in the jungle picture.

Since Predator's stage is a real jungle it doesn't suffer from being dated by its technological accoutrement. The special effects are limited to Stan Winston's rasta-cyborg and they stand up well, even when viewed today. The supporting cast all do their jobs of playing victims in waiting effectively and John Alpine's cinematography creates a sense of claustrophobic isolation and dread that separate it from your standard guy-flick.

At the end of the reel Predator is a fun, funny, well constructed sci-fi action flick that introduces us to one of the most compelling movie creatures of the past quarter century. Not bad for what could easily have been just another B-movie about sweaty guys admiring each others guns.

"With or Without You" was the first single released by U2 from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree. It became their first #1 song in the US and topped the charts in several other countries as well. Originally written during The Unforgettable Fire tour the song was taken out and dusted off in 1986 when the band sat down and began to plan their next album. Several rough versions were recorded but none met with the band's satisfaction. At one point producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois abandoned the song but Bono felt there was something there that could be saved. In the end it was The Edge's experiments with a device called "infinite guitar" which allowed for practically endless sustain to be created that proved to be the breakthrough everyone had been looking for. The resulting song begins slowly as though rising from an early morning fog and then builds to a huge, landscape-crossing, church-bell-ringing climax before disappearing again into the mist. The final minute, with The Edge's chiming guitar notes playing off Larry Mullen's priapic back beat, is enough to send shivers down my spine even today.

The song can be taken many ways; Bono himself has often spoken of it as being about the difficulties in trying to balance a rock and roll life with family but it can also be heard as a song about spiritual conflict or, in the context of the album in general (whose working title was "The Two America's"), as an outsider's view of the US.

At the time he launched his second White House bid Gary Hart was the presumed frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic nomination. In spite of some troubling details about his personal life that had surfaced toward the end of his unsuccessful 1984 run he was confident that this time, with better organization and increased visibility, he'd get over the top. Some of the rumors that were swirling around in 1984 had to do with the state of his marriage (he and his wife had been separated twice) but, because the couple stayed together despite their difficulties the press generally backed off.

Such was not the case the second time around. Almost immediately after announcing his candidacy in April of '87 the whispers began and allegations surfaced that he was not exactly the ideal husband. Hart, unexpectedly on the defensive right out of the campaign gate, lost his composure and issued a dare to the media in an attempt to kill the story before it overtook his campaign: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored." Little did the former Senator from Colorado know that the Miami Herald had already done just that. On May 3, the same day his 'dare' hit the media, so did the Herald's story that they had witnessed a young woman leaving his D.C. townhouse the night before. The young woman's name was Donna Rice. The Hart campaign went into crisis mode issuing denials and long-winded excuses that sounded insincere and desperate. Hart's wife, Lee, stood by her man but it didn't matter, the damage was done.

Hart's poll numbers took a nosedive though he vowed to slog on. But on May 5 the Herald learned that Hart had taken a recent overnight sojourn to Bimini with a woman that was not his wife. They also came into possession of a photograph that would allegedly confirm it all. Hart, apparently able to finally see the writing on the wall, dropped out of the race on May 8 blaming everything on the media. On June 2, 1987 the National Enquirer published the now infamous photo of Hart in Bimini with Rice draped over him. They were there it seems to spend the night on a luxury yacht named, of all things, "Monkey Business" (you couldn't make this stuff up). Indeed, in the photo Hart is seen wearing a T-shirt with the words "Monkey Business Crew" on it.

Just like that the political landscape changed dramatically. Democrats scrambled to find another candidate they could rally behind with Michael Dukakis eventually claiming the mantle. For his part, Hart re-entered the race after laying low for about six months hoping it would all blow over. It didn't, and he withdrew again for a second and final time on March 8, 1988.

Hart's meteoric downfall would provide valuable lessons in how not to handle allegations of marital infidelity four years later to a similarly inclined Democrat presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Wladziu Valentino Liberace, commonly known as Liberace, was one of the most famous people in the world for more than 30 years. In the course of his career he played for presidents, royalty and even for the pope. In the mid-50s, when average working folks made about $5,000 a year, Liberace was making $50,000 a week in Las Vegas and millions of dollars a year from TV appearances and product endorsements. His schmaltzy lounge act, while snickered at by the guardians of high culture, was the stuff of dreams for several generations of middle American housewives who saw him as the embodiment of gentlemanly refinement, not to mention success.

But for all his money and fame Liberace spent the greater part of his life having to deny his nature. In person and in the press he expended tremendous energy to convince people he wasn't gay. He went as far as to sue both the Daily Mirror tabloid in the UK and the scandal rag Confidential in US for libel because they implied that he was (he won both cases). In 1984 however an ex-flame of his sued him for millions in a palimony suit that claimed the two had had a five year long romantic affair. Though Liberace continued to publicly deny he was gay the times had changed and most people had come to accept the obvious. The publicity and tabloid attention on his private life didn't hurt his earning power one bit either as his final live concert engagement at Radio City in New York in 1986 earned him some $2.5 million.

Around that same time though people began to notice Liberace was losing weight and seemed uncharacteristically listless at times. The press began to speculate on possible reasons yet Liberace claimed that his appearance was simply the result of his being on the Watermelon Diet and that there was nothing to worry about. But on February 4, 1987 it was announced that Liberace had died at his home in Palm Springs California at age 67. The cause of death was listed by his doctor as cardiac arrest due to congestive heart failure yet several days after his death the Riverside County Coroner in California declared that Liberace had died from an HIV related illness and that his doctor had circumvented normal reporting procedures in an effort to cover it up.

Ultimately his death (along with that of Rock Hudson a year and a half earlier) helped focus attention on the extent of the growing HIV epidemic, with the two deaths marking a turning point of sorts in public perceptions as well as the media's handling of the story in general.

For the record, filming is set to start in 2012 on an HBO movie about Liberace starring Micheal Douglas and Matt Damon.

I've never been the kind of guy who spends his time hobnobbing with the gentry swapping tales of wintering in the Azores, that thoroughbred foal I just bought a piece of who's going to wow them at Saratoga next spring and how Klaus Von B seems to be getting a big head since they made that movie of him. So the America's Cup has always been the kind of sports story I'd notice out of the corner of my eye when I was searching for the score from last night's Celtics-Pistons game. And now that the America's Cup has spent a decade and a half in court and emerged as a contest between corporate billionaires using catamaran's the size of Rhode Island the Cup as a sports story has pretty much returned to that place of virtual anonymity for me, right up there with cricket's "Ashes" tournament. But there was a short period of time when the America's Cup was a genuine story: full of history, remarkable personalities, the quest for revenge, gamesmanship and international intrigue. That time was the mid 80s.

In 1983 an Australian usurper had the audacity to arrive in the perennial home of yachting's oldest race (Newport) with a 12 meter boat of revolutionary design. Alan Bond's now famous Australia II sported a winged keel that allowed it to cut through the water like a hot knife through butter. The speed of the boat prompted calls of cheating from the assembled blue bloods who were otherwise powerless to prevent it from laying claim to a prize that had been theirs since the days of Charlemagne. While Dennis Conner put up a courageous fight with his standard model 12 meter Liberty in the end he was no match for the swifter Australian who came from down in the series to win 4-3 and move the next Cup regatta to Australian shores.

The setting for this clash of the titans would be the tiny coastal city of Fremantle in Western Australia, where the winds were strong and unpredictable. More than a dozen yachting syndicates from all over the world signed up for a chance to wrest the cup from Australian hands. Among them were Dennis Conner who, unbeknownst to most, brought with him a boat that would in time be considered perhaps the finest 12 meter ever built, Stars and Stripes.

After a tough challenger series where upstart New Zealand and their fiberglass boat gave Conner all he could handle the Americans were set to go up against Australian defender Kookaburra III for all the marbles. In each successive round Conner had made modifications to his boat that enabled it to gain speed. Some at the time even believed Conner had been sandbagging in the earlier rounds in order to give the impression his boat was slower than it actually was. Regardless of where the extra boat speed came from though the defenders had no answer for it. In the final series Kookabura III tried again and again to lure Stars and Stripes into a match racing duel where their more maneuverable boat supposedly had an edge. But Conner refused to play. Instead he simply blew away from the competition on the first leg of each race and forced them to play catch up, which they weren't going to be able to do.

In the end Conner and Stars and Stripes swept the final 4 races to 0 and regained the Cup for the US. It was one of the most thrilling sporting events of the decade and would also be the last time 12 meter boats were used in the America's Cup.

Here are some highlights from the remarkable '87 America's Cup.

"Appetite For Destruction" is one of those albums its pretty much impossible to ignore, even if like me you can't really call yourself a heavy metal "fan". It's just too damned good.

The late 80s were a time of flux in popular music. 'New Wave' had come and gone and the charts were dominated by the likes of Whitney Houston and Phil Collins. The Heavy Metal standard (or what was left of it) was being carried uneasily by bands like the lumbering and tedious Def Leppard. Nirvana was still a couple of years away from turning the music industry upside down.

Into the void came this ragtag collection of personalities from LA. They knew what they wanted (for the first few years anyway) and knew how to get it. They reached back to seminal metal bands of the past for inspiration and came up with an album that, while not 'groundbreaking' in the sense of 'Nevermind', was one of the few albums of the period able to stand up alongside that alternative monster when it rose from the Seattle muck and beat it back with authority. (In my opinion anyone who doesn't hear "Paradise City" in "Smells Like Teen Spirit" just isn't listening.)

The album contains equal amounts of 70s excess and punk F-you sensibility, seamless production and 'just hit the damned record button' spontaneity. The melodies are there too, woven into layers of attack guitar and bunker-buster rhythm every bit the black-sheep child of Led Zepplin's Physical Graffiti. And then there was the hair which, to be honest, seemed more of a GPS locator thing than some lame attempt to be cool; as a kind of combination tip-of-the-hat to their origins and warning that said "We're from LA, and we're here to kick your ass."

And they did: Appetite For Destruction has gone on to sell nearly 30 million copies worldwide and the few tours that the classic GnR lineup participated in are the thing of legend. Sadly, within a few short years Guns N' Roses would implode but it should never be forgotten that in the late 80s they arrived like a jolt of electricity to animate the corpse of Heavy Metal and give it back its brain and beating heart.

"Welcome to the Jungle" from "Appetite For Destruction"

Moonstruck, Norman Jewison's wonderful, over-the-top yet always under control romantic comedy masterpiece was the toughest movie for me to leave off my top 10 movies of the 80s list. It came down to a coin toss between it and Out of Africa and Out of Africa won; but I'd have had no problems if things were reversed.

Moonstruck takes place in an idealized Brooklyn where the romantic lure of lower Manhattan is always looming across the river like an enormous theatrical background painting. A moon the size of Saturn hangs tantalizingly over the whole proceeding, driving the various inhabitants of this unlikely and gentle Sodom crazy with amore and making the older folks "look like (they're) 25 years old".

The story revolves around the romantic misadventures of the Castorini family: Rose, her husband Cosmo, his old-country father and Rose and Cosmo's 30-something daughter, the widow Loretta. Loretta is determined to marry again and marry right and to that end she's engaged to the oafish but dependable Jonny Cammareri, later she'll fall in love with his brother Ronny when Jonny is called away to Sicily to be at the bedside of his dying mother. Cosmo loves Rose but is having an extramarital affair with a younger woman. Rose loves Cosmo but is aware of his infidelity and for a few moments flirts with the idea of having an affair of her own with an aging college professor after she sees him get water thrown in his face by one of his female students he's trying to bed. Loretta knows her father is having an affair, her father knows she's being unfaithful to her fiance while he's away, grandpa believes Rose is being unfaithful even though she's not and Jonny just wants his life back after his hand was mangled in a bread slicer: "They say bread is life and I bake bread" so why does he want to kill himself? Not because he lost his hand, but because losing his hand caused his girlfriend to leave him for another man.

But the details of the various trysts are not as important as what they allow the characters to reveal about themselves and human nature in general. Jewison's film is eternally threatening to tip over into slapstick yet never actually does and the main reason for that is the glorious lines the actors have to recite throughout the film which are remarkable for their subtlety of tone, degree of insight and generosity of spirit. They are also, by turns and sometimes simultaneously, hilarious. Take Ronny's impassioned plea to a reluctant Loretta...

"Love don't make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We're here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die."

Not exactly Hallmark card stuff, yet romantic in the truest sense of the word and undeniable to Loretta, who has known her share of heartache and attempted to compromise her way out of it to no avail. Facing a choice between the passionate if sometimes unpleasant truth of Ronny and the inauthentic (yet secure) purgatory of Jonny she caves to the truth.

The kids aren't the only ones who get choice lines either. When Rose is being prodded by the professor to indulge in some late-life candy store antics she responds, not cruelly, not sarcastically, but truthfully that she can't do it because "I know who I am." Fact is all of the characters in writer John Patrick Shanley's libretto know in their hearts exactly who they are and all are given a chance to prove it. When Cosmo the plumber gives an estimate to a couple to replace their bathroom pipes and they balk at the price he rises (semi) majestically from the floor with his full, experienced hands outstretched before him and sells the couple on the glories of copper piping and why its the only piping he'll ever use. You know in that moment that if the couple decided to save money and asked him to install bronze he'd walk out because bronze piping is not what he does.

Olympia Dukakis won an Oscar for her portrayal of Rose and deservedly so. Her Rose is alive; fearful of neither love nor death yet experienced enough to know that the ever looming specter of the latter makes the former, with all its myriad twists and turns, indispensable. Nicolas Cage has never had another role so suited to his particular talents. His Ronny is Sonny Corleone with a big heart and Cage plays him to outrageous perfection. Cher's Loretta (for which she too won an Oscar) is a living Mona Lisa who, like Leonardo's most famous work, engenders different responses from different suitors. Jonny sees an angel who'd make an appropriately demure life companion and puts her on a pedestal. Ronny looks into the depth of her eyes and sees a suffocating soul desperate to breath again. Vincent Gardenia gives Cosmo just the right blend of strength and vulnerability, wisdom and cluelessness to make him a sympathetic character, even in the light of his philandering. Also excellent are Julie Bovasso and Louis Guiss as Loretta's aunt and uncle who are given one of the great adult scenes in contemporary cinema and deliver it flawlessly.

The other uncredited characters here are the city of New York, pre-police state (rarely has the big apple being filmed more lovingly. In Moonstruck, New York is not an eat or be eaten cesspool of manipulative, greedy narcissists; its home), and the music; which sets just the right slightly off-kilter tone throughout without ever compromising events.

Moonstruck is perhaps the best romantic comedy of the past 25 years and if you haven't seen it yet, well, in the words of Loretta; "Snap out of it!"

On September 30, 1987 an amazing collection of musicians came together at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles to pay tribute to the legendary Roy Orbison. The concert, which aired on Cinemax on Jan 3, 1988, was a huge part of Orbison's public renaissance which, during the late 80s, returned him to the prominence he so richly deserved but hadn't seen since the mid 60s. All musicians present appeared free of charge out of respect for this seminal musical figure. The core of the backing band consisted of the TCB (Taking Care of Business) band, who had backed Elvis from 1969 until his death in 1977. Filling out the supporting cast were Bruce Springsteen, T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits. Backup singers included Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Steven Soles, Bonnie Raitt, K.D. Lang and Jennifer Warnes. The concert was filmed in one take; no redos, and was live music of the highest order. A review of the concert seems pointless as the joy and satisfaction on the faces of the participants says more than words ever could.

"Only the Lonely" from that amazing evening in LA.

Marvelous Marvin Hagler was undisputed middleweight champion of the world for 6 years and 7 months. You had to go all the way back to the 1940s to find someone who held the title longer (Tony Zale for the record). He didn't win by holding and wrestling until his opponents got frustrated and made mistakes or wore out, he beat you up. His KO percentage of 78 is the highest of all middleweights champions in history.

In 1987, though, he made an error that would cost him his title and ultimately end his career. He agreed to fight Sugar Ray Leonard, darling of the boxing establishment, darling of the media and game player extraordinaire. In return for a larger share of the purse than Leonard, Hagler agreed to a set of conditions demanded by the Leonard camp for the fight. These included a larger than normal ring and a 12 round fight instead of the traditional 15 round title fight. The loss of those 3 rounds would prove costly because in several previous fights Hagler had needed those late rounds to put away troublesome opponents and he wouldn't have them here.

The fight was held in Vegas on April 6 and was an outstanding fight. On several occasions Hagler stunned Leonard with powerful shots but Leonard was able to pull himself together and stay off the canvas. Leonard, coming back from a 3 year layoff was sharper than most expected him to be and that helped create the illusion that he was doing better than he was. The fight went the distance and was close, no matter who you think ultimately won. When it was over Hagler rightly raised his arms in triumph while Leonard slumped to the canvas. Hagler knew the unwritten rule of boxing: you have to BEAT the champion to take his title, not just go the distance with him. But on this night business considerations ruled and the more photogenic Leonard was awarded a split decision victory.

Hagler justifiably felt robbed. He lobbied for a year or so to get a rematch but Leonard, despite not being as good a fighter as Hagler, was no dummy and refused Hagler's calls for another fight. Hagler retired in disgust shortly afterward stating "...since Leonard has been playing games, it would probably take another year to work things out."

Ray Leonard scores with another one of his devastating glancing blows.

The Simpsons have been around since Reagan was president. They debuted on an April 19, 1987 episode of The Tracey Ullman Show and have been running non-stop ever since. After three years with Ullman they were given their own half-hour TV show which debuted on December 17, 1989 and since then they've had 486 episodes (a world record for a TV show) and are still going strong.

Among Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart and Maggie's accomplishments: 27 Emmys, a Peabody Award, A star on the Hollywood walk of fame, and a declaration by Time magazine in 1999 that The Simpson's was the 20th century's best TV show. It's also the longest-running American sitcom and the longest running primetime series (surpassing "Gunsmoke"). As if that weren't enough, The Simpsons Movie, released in 2007, grossed $527 million worldwide. The voice actors who began at a salary of $30,000 per episode currently receive something in the neighborhood of $400,000 per episode. Not a bad neighborhood.

(left) The Simpsons 1987 and (right) today

He had been a mainstay of postwar British art but he was either unknown or largely ignored in the rest of the world. Until, that is, the 1987 retrospective of his work mounted by the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington brought him front and center.

There was a figurative revival of sorts going on in the States during the 80s as the artworld took a step back from the brink it had been teetering on for over a decade. Artists like Eric Fischl and to a lesser extent Mark Tansey were nominal heads of this nascent flight back to quality. But it wasn't until the Hirshhorn's Freud retrospective that the movement had someone they could rally behind without hesitation. And they did. Not that a Fischl and a Freud had a lot in common beneath the surface (or on the surface for that matter), but the sheer authority of Freud's vision cleared a path for a new generation of painters in the realist tradition and showed that the expressive possibilities of the figure were far from either exhausted or irrelevant.

Within about a year following the '87 retrospective Freud went from "British portrait painter" to "the greatest living realist painter". Not a bad trick for a guy in his mid 60s at the time. Admirably he never succumbed to the temptation to believe his own press or wasted time basking in the spotlight. Instead, almost up to the time of his death in London on Wednesday he kept to his rigorous studio schedule and in doing so remained an example for countless younger artists.

A late self-portrait by Lucien Freud

Released in 1987 "Don't Dream its Over" was the first single from the first album by Crowded House. It would also turn out to be their most successful single ever, reaching #2 in the US. In the intervening years its been covered by everyone from Paul Young to, gulp, Susan Boyle and was recently a fairly big hit for Sixpence None the Richer. A beautiful melody sure but what would this song be without that guitar line and organ solo, which has to be said is the probably the best organ solo since the one in Procol Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale".

The original series lasted a scant 3 years on TV during the 60s. Who, at the time it was cancelled, could have realistically believed that that cancelled show would take on a life of its own in syndication during the 70s, would inspire the Star Trek convention business and would persuade Paramount Pictures a decade after it's cancelling to fund 'Star Trek - The Motion Picture'. Well it did. And after the (relative) success of TMP Paramount decided to fund a slew of sequels and finally in 1987 to bring the brand back to the small screen with Star Trek The Next Generation.

Maybe the worst title in the history of bad titles had a lot of people in the fan base on edge wondering whether Paramount had a any idea what it was doing. If the series was going to be as dull and unimaginative as its name suggested, why bother? Just let TOS rest in peace and continue to pump out movies. Paramount would have been happy to do so except that the original cast was ten days older than water and if they were going to keep the brand alive they needed an infusion of fresh blood.

And so, with many people predicting bomb Star Trek The Next Generation premiered on Sept 28th 1987 with a two hour episode called "Encounter At Farpoint". Most episodes during the first season-plus had issues while the producers and cast were finding their way but the show was a success mostly (I believe) due to it's sky high production values and the brilliance of casting a first rate yet largely unknown actor (Patrick Stewart) to be the captain/central figure. The show was also broadcast in first-run syndication, meaning it was shown at different times on different stations and often on different days in different parts of the country. The strategy was risky but Paramount believed that enough independent stations existed and were in need of quality content by the late 80s to warrant the gamble. It paid off to say the least. Star Trek TNG won 18 Emmy Awards and routinely posted better numbers than many big network hits.

Paramount cancelled TNG after 7 seasons and 178 episodes for greedy, bottom line reasons. The show was still an enormous hit but was becoming less profitable to produce as the actors salaries increased. Not unprofitable mind you, not marginally profitable, just less profitable and Paramount had cheaper Star Trek product lined up that they hoped viewers would switch to once TNG was off air. They also thought they'd get bigger bang for their buck by using the TNG crew to make new movies. The success of the TV show, however, never translated to the big screen. In the end the details of its demise do nothing to detract from the fact that the show had a remarkable run and is still a massive syndicated hit some 17 years after it faded to black.

Front to back: Captain Picard, intergalactic floozies, various mutants

Andy Warhol was afraid of doctors. He didn't trust them or like hospitals. Consequently when he entered New York Hospital in February 1987 for a routine gallbladder operation he did so reluctantly. And wouldn't you know it, his worst fears were realized. After a successful surgery he developed a sudden cardiac arrhythmia while recuperating and died in his sleep on Feb 22 1987. It was a strange event in that most people didn't know what to make of Andy Warhol while he was alive let alone how to react to news of his death. He seemed little more than that aloof celebrity hound always ready with a glib response to questions about his work, but on the other hand he seemed to help bring art back from the abyss of non-figurativism which had left so many members of the public out in the cultural cold. And he was famous, which by the 80s had become more important in and of itself to most people than what someone was actually famous FOR - a phenomenon promoted and in some ways invented by Warhol himself.

Regardless of what others thought of him though Andy was always looking forward and with his will he directed that the bulk of his estate go to fund the creation of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Since its inception the foundation has funded thousands of artists and art projects through direct grants. The Andy Warhol museum was also founded in his native Pittsburgh.

The Warhol Museum - Pittsburgh