If nostalgia isn’t an outright lie, it’s a selective interpretation of the truth. It’s easy to long for the past after the unpleasant bits have faded (or been willfully suppressed) from memory. Remove that tarnish and any period can seem like a Golden Age, which is a nonsense because I actually lived through such a […]

Come one, come all! Feast your eyes on the Only Bumflap That Matters! As the ad — ganked from a 1980 issue of Smash Hits — states, this was merely one of an entire line of hindquarters drapery available for sale. If you were curious about which other artists were available for posterior display, here’s […]

Maura and I had to drive out to Springfield on Tuesday. The trip took about an hour and a half each way, which meant quite a few searchers for the Least Shitty Song on the satellite radio’s roster of preset go-to stations and their shallow playlists. Somewhere on the outskirts of Auburn, I switched to […]

On an overcast afternoon, some time in 1980, my father picked me up at elementary school and dropped me off at my maternal grandparents’ place. I can’t remember the reason for this break in regular routine, but there did always seem to be some minor crisis going on with my family in those days. The […]

I’ve learned over the years that childhood ownership of the Remco monster toys — either the Mego-scale dolls or Star Wars scale figures — conveys membership in a secret cult of Spooky Kids whose interests and practices transcend both space and time. Maura still has hers in our attic somewhere. Also, my maternal grandfather bought […]

The past holds innumerable strange and disturbing monstrosities…and some of them are glorious. Recommended watching and listening: The sanity-wracking quintessence of 1980 captured on magnetic tape.

As my collection of K-Tel compilations began to grow, I realized my old assortment of platters included one of the label’s most celebrated releases. Rock 80 was a two-time hand-me-down. An older cousin passed it on to a tween-age Maura, who in turn handed it off to me during the early days of our relationship. […]

(from “How To Trap An Orchid!” by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon and Vince Colletta in Super Friends #31, April 1980) Many enthusiasts have been shocked to discover a supposedly “dead” specimen suddenly spring back into full bloom.

(from “How To Trap An Orchid!” by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon and Vince Colletta in Super Friends #31, April 1980) Bats and orchids have a bizarre and complicated relationship.

I recently discovered that American Radio History has a full of Panorama scans, which was the best Christmas present the internet could give me. Panorama was TV Guide‘s short-lived attempt to publish a mildly upscale monthly periodical covering various aspects of the television industry, it emerging technologies, and its important figures. The mag’s design and […]