Say it ain't so, Pete!

Pete Rose was (is) Major League Baseball's all-time leader in hits and games played, has three World Series rings won three batting titles and made 17 all-star game appearances. There was never a sliver of a doubt that he was going to the baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. That is, until allegations surfaced in early 1989 that Charlie Hustle had bet on baseball games and not only that, but that he'd placed many, large bets on games involving his own team the Cincinnati Reds. Outgoing commissioner Peter Ueberrroth dismissed the allegations but his replacement Bart Giamatti reopened the case after assuming the commissioner's job and retained a lawyer to formally investigate.

On August 24, 1989, when it had became clear that there was substantial evidence against him Rose voluntarily accepted placement on baseball's permanently ineligible list and lost his job as the Red's manager. Two years later the Hall of Fame voted (in a move nearly everyone believes was directed specifically at Rose) to ban anyone on the ineligible list. Thus Pete Rose, undone by his own boneheaded decisions and hubris, was sent off to wander in the baseball wilderness.

He remains there to this day, a kind of curious ghost inhabiting the fringes of baseball culture, desperately seeking validation from the fans and hoping against hope that one day baseball will open it's arms to him once again and welcome him back.

On December 29, 1989 Japan's Nikkei 225 stock index hit it's all-time high of 38,915. That lofty point represented six times the value the market had only a decade earlier and reflected what became known as the Japanese asset price bubble. The next day the slide began and 2 days later as the 80s became the 90s the Japanese economy officially entered its "lost" period. Some say what followed was a lost decade while most others contend that all the 22 years since the Nikkei hit its incredible high qualify as 'lost' since the economy of Japan has shown no signs of emerging from its long funk. Few things illustrated the wild and crazy days of the bubble quite like the Nikkei and the same can be said of the 'lost' years as yesterday's official Nikkei 225 close was a less than impressive 8,390, a full 30,525 points below the Dec 29, 1989 high.

On July 14, 1989 the great nation of France celebrated its bicentennial with enormous fanfare. The problem was that most impartial observers couldn't quite figure out exactly what they were celebrating.

The French Revolution started well enough with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 followed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August. In 1792 a Republic was formally declared and Louis XVI was guillotined. Okay, so far so good. But shortly afterward things started to go terribly wrong. 1793 saw the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror during which time just about anyone with an opinion that ran contrary to Robespierre's was executed. Some say as many as 40,000 lost their lives. In 1795 Robespierre himself was arrested and executed after which the "Directory" (which was the second consecutive dictatorship after Robespierre's) took control and held power until 1799 when Napoleon (dictatorship #3) declared himself Emperor. After Napoleon was kicked out in 1814 the so-called monarchy was re-established. Then there was the constitutional monarchy, the four years of the Second Republic and then the second Empire under Napolean's nephew which ended in 1870. After that you had the Government of National Defense, the Paris Commune and so forth and so on...

The point is that in the century following the storming of the Bastille "France" was little more than a place where the power hungry toyed with the aspirations of the people that were supposed to have been liberated in 1789. The actual revolution can't really be said to have succeeded until late in the 19th century when France finally became something like a stable democratic nation (though even after that it would hand itself over to yet another dictator - one A. Hitler - with barely a wimper in 1940).

Oddly none of the above mentioned inconvienent truths were talked about much during the bicentennial celebrations. Instead what the world got was a PR job of epic proportions. It was all lots of fun though and made for some great fireworks shows so who's going to complain about a few details? Vive-la-France!

Paris: July 14,1989 - Parisians celebrate the oft-forgotten 19th century Dictatorship of the Coconut Shell.

"The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover" Peter Greenaway's savage indictment of the Margaret Thatcher-led fascist takeover of Britain during the 80s is a wonder to behold. Dismissed by many as simply an exercise in excess it is, in fact, a fearlessly conceived, directed and acted declaration that "the emperor has no clothes".

To find a fitting visual style with which to tell his tale of a lost empire devouring itself Greenaway reaches back to 17th century Baroque painting. Why? Because in a work like Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" the director sees more than a masterly use of light and shadow, more than a compelling composition or innovative applications of paint, he sees the moment at which those with access to the levers of power in the Netherlands used that access to build for themselves unparalleled personal wealth while most of their compatriots struggled to put a few potatoes on the table. He sees the development of personal mythology intended to dazzle the downtrodden. He sees a formula for success for anyone with connections who's paying attention. (Even the movie's title evokes those nondescript list-titles first hung around the necks of still life paintings of the Baroque period.)

(left) Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (right) Scene from "The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover"

Unfettered by fad Greenaway has no use for the staccato editing techniques popularized by MTV. He holds some shots so long that they can almost be considered paintings in and of themselves. But he doesn't do this simply to show off the bravura art direction he does this to force a largely unwilling public to see what's going on. The editor has always been the savior of the squeamish, the censor the tool of the power hungry but here Greenaway keeps them both at arms length. He doesn't patronize your oh-so fragile and sensitive nature by cutting away when things get "objectionable" instead he focuses in: "Of course it's bloody objectionable, that's why you HAVE to look!"

And if they look carefully what they'll see is an allegorical tale in which the Thief, (standing in for the iron lady and played with brutal authority by future Harry Potter alum Michael Gambon), imposes himself upon a largely complacent public represented in its various aspects by the Cook (standing in for the civil service), his Wife (played with courage and conviction by Helen Mirren who represents the ebbing sense of civility in public discourse) and her Lover, who fairly obviously represents for the ineffective liberal opposition who did their best Neville Chamberlain impersonations while the barbarians made off with the treasury.

It is the story of an England shorn of empire where the former ruling class decide to live out their imperial fantasies by conquering, displacing and subjugating their own: "If we can't have India we'll take the Docklands!" Greenaway looks at this "New World Order" and sees it for what it is: the old world order called feudalism. But what's worse is that he sees it being imposed upon society with the tacit deference of a cuckold public. Because of this no one is spared in "The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover". While the Thief is kept squarely in the center of the frame throughout the would-be opposition is nonetheless there to be seen at the edges, like the sycophants in "The Night Watch", on some level aware that their unwillingness to stand up for themselves will result in their marginalization yet hidebound by inertia nonetheless.

The film's conclusion implies something most historians know in their bones: that tyranny contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction and that if you push the people far enough their patience will reach an end and you'll wind up with a French revolution where the Marie Antoinettes of the world get theirs at the hands of the mob. I don't think even Greenaway would promote such a result though. I believe his movie was intended to embolden dormant voices of opposition to speak out before things got to that point. It is a plea for civic resistance, for the opposition to push back before its too late.

History, (especially the events of the last few years), unfortunately demonstrate that his pleas went largely ignored.

Jerry Seinfeld was a successful standup comedian who worked most of the major comedy clubs in the U.S. and was a regular on late night talk shows like "The Tonight Show". He had a manager who was in the habit of sending notes to the head of NBC at the time, Brandon Tartikoff, extolling Jerry's virtues and this habit eventually led to a meeting with the NBC brass where they asked Jerry if he'd like to do his own show for the network. He said "sure" but he didn't have any particular ideas about what it would be. The meeting ended with nothing concrete being decided. Some time later Seinfeld ran into Larry David at a comedy club and told him of NBC's interest. The two brainstormed and came up with the idea for a show about "making fun of stuff". Miraculously, NBC bought the idea and the first episode named "The Seinfeld Chronicles" aired on July 5, 1989.

"The Seinfeld Chronicles" was only a marginal success that didn't really impress much of the NBC brass and as a result the show was offered to Fox who, to their eternal regret, turned it down. Seinfeld did have one believer at NBC though, Rick Ludwin, who raided the budgets of other shows to produce four more episodes. These were slotted to follow the mega-hit Cheers and, aided by that lead-in, garnered impressive ratings. Based on that success NBC decided to pick up the show for the remainder of the season, though they insisted on a name change to the simpler "Seinfeld".

The four main characters had few, if any, redeeming social values. Jerry was vain and prone to dumping girlfriends for no particular reason, George was a lying, cheating, underachieving coward who would knock old ladies and children out of his way to save his own hide, Elaine was an often ill-tempered slut and Kramer faked his way through life always looking for (but never finding) that big idea that would make him rich.

Seinfeld would go on to become a cultural phenomenon like no other TV show before it. It was brash, it was crude, it was often borderline lewd and it made no apologies. The producers insisted that there should be no emotional or psychological growth in the characters and actually had something they called the "no hugging, no learning" rule which they applied to all scripts to ensure Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer remained emotionally stunted. And boy did they ever.

After nine seasons Jerry Seinfeld pulled the plug on his sitcom at a time when it was the highest rated show on TV. It could have concievably gone on for many more years (NBC offered him $5 million per episode to come back for a 10th season, which he declined) but he was intent on the idea of going out on top.

Here's my personal favorite Seinfeld scene. Sweet fancy Moses!

I was never a big Aerosmith fan but I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard "What it Takes". I remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck when Steven Tyler sang "Tell me how it is that you can sleep, in the night...". Who knows if the band felt challenged by the emergence of Guns N' Roses or were inspired by their new-found sobriety or were simply inspired. Fact is they came up with a masterpiece in "What it Takes". It's easily my favorite Aerosmith song of all time and I still get those chills now and then listening to it today.

One note: Though the single was technically released in February 1990 the album it comes from, "Pump", came out in September 1989.

On October 17, 1989 at just after 5 o'clock in the evening as commuters were taking to the streets for rush hour a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the San Franscisco Bay area killing 63 people and causing billions of dollars worth of damage. The quake also happened to occur during the warmups for a World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's that was scheduled to be held that evening at Candlestick Park in San Francisco and therefore the first rumblings were broadcast live around the world via the ABC Sports feed from the park.

While devastation was widespread in the Bay area the abiding image from the quake (and indeed the event that caused the greatest number of deaths) was that of the collapsed Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland where a formerly two level structure pancaked down into a single level crushing 41 people to death in their cars. 90 hours after the quake a single survivor was found in the rubble of the collapsed roadway though he was in very bad shape and after 29 days he died of his injuries.

The quake was centered some 60 miles south of San Francisco (near a mountain called "Loma Prieta; hence the name of the quake) in a largely unpopulated area but the shaking was felt all over northern California. In the Marina section of San Francisco many houses that had been built on landfill composed of debris from the Great Quake of 1906 collapsed when the soil beneath them experienced liquifaction. It would take years, literally, to rebuild many of the roadways and bridges damaged in the quake. In the case of the Cypress street Viaduct it was torn down and finally rebuilt more than 10 years later in a different location.

As for the World Series; it was postponed for 10 days before resuming in Candlestick. For the record the A's went on to win 4 games to 0 over San Francisco.

Collapsed Cypress Street Viaduct. Image: US Geological Survey

The Chinese have lived under one form of dictatorship or another for a few thousand years. No other people on the planet (with the exception of the ancient Egyptians) can make that unfortunate claim. But in 1989, the year jackboot regimes began toppling all over Eastern Europe, the Chinese people sensed their moment had finally come. Following the funeral of former General Secretary Hu Yaobang (widely seen to be a champion of political and economic liberalization) the good people of Peking (I'll call it "Beijing" when the unelected step aside) and other cities took to the streets. Many of them were students who were being trained in Universities to enter an economy that no longer existed due to nascent market reforms that were (and still are) largely benefiting the well connected. Those students were joined by others who expanded and refined the students original complaints to produce what became known as the "List of Seven Demands". Here it is:

1. Affirm as correct Hu Yaobang's views on democracy freedom and tolerance;
2. Renounce the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization campaign and the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign;
3. Freedom of Press and Freedom of speech, Permit citizens to publish independent newspapers;
4. Publicize the income of the Party-State leaders and their family members;
5. Rescind the "Ten Provisional Articles Regulating Public Marches and Demonstrations";
6. Increase budget for education and raise intellectuals' salary;
7. Report the student movement objectively.

But Deng and his cronies had no intention of releasing their family income info to a free and open press or standing aside so that the people could chose their own leaders. Consequently it was no surprise then when Deng, during a private get together at his home, endorsed a hard line stance against the protests. Once he did his fellow self-proclaimed "leaders" had their pretense for action.

On May 20 martial law was declared and military convoys headed for the capital where crowds in Tiananmen Square now numbered nearly a hundred thousand. But these convoys were blocked on the city's outskirts by local people sympathetic to what was going on in the city center and ultimately the soldiers had to turn back. Finally on the evening of June 3 orders came down from on high that the square was to be cleared by any means necessary. When the commander of the 38th army demanded a written order before he would move in, he was immediately removed. (Later he would lose his position in the Party and be imprisoned for five years.) But he was in the minority and in the wee hours of June 4 the army descended on the unarmed protesters.

Contrary to many reports at the time the majority of deaths from the crackdown didn't take place in Tiananmen Square itself but in the streets and neighborhoods surrounding it as the army attempted to break through defensive barricades put in place around the Square. Most estimates put the number of dead somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 though the exact number will probably never be known.

On June 5th as the army attempted to quietly retreat from the scene of their shame an unarmed and unnamed civilian man bearing only a couple of shopping bags was captured on video as he walked into the path of a tank column and defiantly stood his ground. When they moved to try and get around him, he shifted to block their path again. Several times he did this until finally crawling up on top of the lead tank and attempting to talk to the soldiers inside. After a few minutes he dismounted and again took up position in front of the column. After some more cat and mouse he was whisked away by several unidentified people. No one has ever learned his name, discovered his fate or found out exactly who whisked him away and to where but his lonely act of defiance has become one of the defining images of the late 20th century.

Sadly the Politburo Republic of China remains to this day the world's largest and most oppressive dictatorship where any and all discussion concerning the brutal suppression of the Chinese people during the 1989 uprising is officially forbidden.

Watch this short piece on the "tank man". You can't watch this in China. The unelected will have you jailed if you try.

Anyone who's been to France knows how protective the French are when it comes to their culture heritage. So when it was announced that Chinese born I.M. Pei was going to spearhead the restoration of the Louvre plenty of French knickers got twisted well out of shape. And when Pei unveiled his plan to place an enormous glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre to serve as the new main entrance the 3-drinks-before-work set in cafes all over the French capital had their "I told you so!" moment and the firestorm was officially underway. Pei, to his credit, handled the criticism both subtle and gross with aplomb. He began to win over the citizens of Paris when he placed a scale model of the proposed pyramid in the Louvre courtyard and invited the public to come take a look. Tens of thousands of Parisians did just that and shortly afterward opposition to his design, and indeed to Pei himself, began to dissipate.

By the time Pei's grand pyramid opened in March of 1989 more than 50% of the Parisian populace said they approved of his design and the pyramid has gone on to be one of those places/things in Paris any visitor must see.

I.M. Pei's Louvre Pyramid at night. Unexpectedly dazzling.

He brutally assaulted, raped and murdered at least 30 women and girls (some as young as 12 years old) in a crime spree that lasted for most of the 1970s. But for Ted Bundy the 80s were spent in and out of courtrooms as he tried desperately to manipulate the system into freeing him after he had finally been convicted for multiple murders by a jury in Florida. After his last appeal was rejected by the US Supreme Court Bundy met his match on January 24, 1989 in the form of the Raiford Prison electric chair and the world became, for a day anyway, a better place.

Outside Raiford Prison in Florida - Jan 24, 1989

Released in January 1989 XTCs '"Oranges and Lemons" was a major alternative hit (before Nirvana made alternative mainstream) that produced the hit single "Mayor of Simpleton" and is my favorite 80s pop album. But to call it merely 'pop' is to miss the point somewhat. "Pop" by its very nature implies a sort of neutral brain setting. It's rarely controversial or thought provoking, rarely "powerful" and rarely makes a real lasting impression. It's meant to be enjoyed, today, and then replaced with new pop product tomorrow. A few musicians though have sought to swim in the deep end of the pop pool and attempt to make something more of it, to draw you in with clever hooks and appealing melodies and then mess with your head a little, or at least try and open it up to some degree.

Andy Partridge was always this kind of guy. He harnessed pop's latent power potential and wrapped his wonderful melodies around tales of racism, miltarism, fractured family relationships, longing, lust and fear of nuclear obliteration all told from the perspective of the eternal outsider. The songs on Oranges and Lemons seduce you (Chalkhills and Children), lift you up (Mayor of Simpleton), stick an accusing finger in your face (Scarecrow People) and kick your ass (Garden of Earthly Delights). The album is also beautifully paced. Like a first rate director, producer Paul Fox knows when to step on the gas and when to let up to give you a break and its this seemless quality that separates this double album from so many of its predecessors and makes repeated listenings not just imperative, but also a pleasure.

Though the album was not a favorite of the band and Fox has oten been criticized for being too much of a "yes" man in the studio the fact is that the record as a whole sounds as good today as it did when it was released in 1989 and that is a testament both to Partridge and Fox.

"Garden of Earthly Delights". Music only.

Funky shack! Funky li'l shack!



'nuff said.

Tim Burton's Batman is a movie I wish I had room for on my Top 10 list of best movies of the 80s. But alas you can't include everything. Still, it deserves a post of its own because it reinvented the superhero genre and was in parts breathtaking to behold.

The casting of Michael Keaton as Batman/Bruce Wayne caused an uproar among the fanboys with Warner Brothers reportedly receiving as many as 50,000 letters of protest. But Burton and producer Jon Peters both felt that Keaton possessed the right qualities to be able to portray the tortured billionaire. Jack Nicholson was brought on to lend heavyweight star appeal to the project but he didn't come cheap. He had a very complicated contract that included his receiving a percentage of the gross. He is said to have earned upwards of $50 million for his three months of work.

The film was shot primarily at Pinewood Studios in England with some scenes utilizing sets that were still intact from the shooting of James Cameron's "Aliens" several years earlier. Anton Furst was hired to design the production and used both Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil" and Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" as inspiration. He's quoted as saying he wanted Gothan City to look like "...what we imagined New York City might have become without a planning commission."

Despite the reservations of die-hard Batman loyalists and luckwarm reviews from a lot of mainstream critics the film became an enormous box office smash earing $251 million during its domestic run ($495 million adjusted for inflation). It created the dark template that most ensuing superhero movies have used and spawned three sequels of varying quality before the franchise went into hiatus and re-emerged under the guidance of Christopher Nolan in 2005.

For my money Burton's Batman can stand its ground against any subsequent superhero movie (including The Dark Knight) and deserves to be recognized for its groundbreaking tone and stunning design.

On August 13, 1961 East German authorities began construction of what they called the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart". In the West their little construction project was dubbed "The Berlin Wall". Built in order to keep their citizens from defecting to West Germany and beyond The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the deep divide between communist East and capitalist Western Europe and seemed like it would be there forever.

In the waning days of the 80s however cracks began to emerge in the armor of the Soviet satellite states in the East. The USSR no longer had the financial ability nor the political will to impose itself militarily on uncooperative Eastern Bloc nations. In August of 1989 Hungary effectively opened it's border with Austria. When East Germans heard of this they fled en masse to Hungary and from there to freedom in the West via Austria. While some attempts were made to stop the flow of East Germans the geenie was out of the bottle and no amount of backpedaling was going to put it back in.

Bowing to increasing pressure from within East Germany's leaders decided on November 9 to allow it's citizens to legally pass through crossing points to the West. This change was supposed to take effect on November 17 to allow officials time to figure out how to handle the expected outflow in a controlled manner, but the announcement was botched by an East German official who stated on the 9th that the changes were to take effect immediately. Upon hearing this thousands of East Germans gathered at various checkpoints demanding to be let through. Confused and overwhelmed border guards had no clue how to handle this human tide and, with no guidance coming from the top, eventually decided the best thing to do was to just open the gates, which they did. It signaled the beginning of the end of East Germany and set in motion events that just two short years later would lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

Of all the political events that took place during the 1980s the fall of the Berlin Wall was the most dramatic. The West had won the cold war and the people of Eastern Europe were finally free to take back their future.


For the official German website dedicated to the Berlin Wall click here.

George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne came together in the late 80s as the Travelling Wilburys. The only thing more shocking than the joining together of these rock and roll legends was the quality of the music they produced together. Funny, chaotic, sarcastic, sly, devious, uplifting and joyful the songs were like a breath of fresh air that swept through the airwaves and breathed new life into the careers of all 5 of these icons.

Here is the first single from Volume I: "Handle with care". Enjoy.