Night Ranger was one of my favorite bands of the golden age of MTV, long before music degenerated into grunge, then rap, and now Taylor Swift. (Barf.)
Night Ranger’s music was not innovative in the manner of Rush or Yes. But it was accessible, the sort of music that you wouldn’t mind listening to on a long drive.
The band was also remarkably consistent over multiple albums. I became a fan with Dawn Patrol (1982), then followed the group through Midnight Madness (1983), 7 Wishes (1985) and Big Life (1987).
I’m gratified to know that the band is still touring, and that three of the original members—Jack Blades, Kelly Keagy, and Brad Gillis—are still with the group.
I like Night Ranger’s music for its own sake, but I won’t deny a certain nostalgic pull. These songs bring back the 1980s for me every time I play them. Good music from a better, bygone time.
I was a little too old to be part of the American Pie target audience in 1999. (I turned 31 that year.) I therefore never developed an awareness of Shannon Elizabeth, let alone an interest in her.
I am, however, not above finding certain female celebrities attractive. To pick an example that comes to mind: I wouldn’t throw Sydney Sweeney out of my bedroom for eating crackers, as they say.
But if Sydney Sweeney ever launches an OnlyFans, my money won’t be going into the till. I have never been tempted to simp online for anyone. I occasionally come across less famous YouTubers who make me think, “Yeah, she’s cute.” But that’s as far as it goes. What, after all, is the point?
As some of you may know, the 52-year-old Shannon Elizabeth recently divorced her husband and started an OnlyFans account. She is not using the online platform to give investment advice, perform unicycle tricks, or sing the full oeuvre of the Beatles a cappella. Shannon isn’t providing any nude content, either, though many OnlyFans creators do.
Source: OnlyFans
According to the front page of her OnlyFans account, the former actress’s offerings consist of the following bland fare:
• behind-the-scenes moments
• exclusive photos & videos
• candid glimpses of my life
• chatting with me directly
The key draw to all of this seems to be a distant, parasocial connection to Ms. Elizabeth. And for this, waves of thirsty simps have shelled out more than a million dollars during her first week on OnlyFans.
Perhaps I am simply behind the times. I’m not here to advocate for the world’s oldest profession or its customers, but a part of me can understand the rationale of a man paying for actual sex. The pseudo-sex of OnlyFans, though, would have bored me to tears when I was thirteen. As Clara Peller used to say in those 1980s Wendy’s commercials: “Where’s the beef?”
Why grown men are spending billions annually on this stuff is completely beyond me.
Speaking of beef: I have no beef with the women of OnlyFans, including Ms. Elizabeth. They are only taking money from willing marks.
The men are another matter, and I have a message for each and every one of them. To paraphrase Darth Vader in the original (1977) Star Wars: “I find your lack of testosterone disturbing.”
Man up, grow a pair, and quit spending money on OnlyFans. You make all men look like wimps and dupes by association.
The graphic below, along with the following blurb, appeared in my Facebook feed this morning:
“Gen Z men feel hated by Gen Z women so they are seeking less ‘toxic’ relationships’
Kara Kennedy argues that frustration in modern dating is pushing some Gen Z men towards older partners, in search of what they see as more stable relationships”
The author of the article is one Kara Kennedy, of The Independent, a news site that is often grumpy in the typical British fashion.
The above HuffPost article is 17 years old; but it could have been published yesterday.
There are a number of reasons behind this recurring, predictable media trend. The first is that women over the age of 35 tend to dominate the senior ranks of journalism. In other words, there is a great deal of wishful thinking involved here.
But there is also a certain degree of reality behind it. After all, this is a “meme” that goes all the way back to Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and The Graduate in 1967 (the year before I was born).
Remember Rod Stewart’s song “Maggie May”, back in 1971? That was the same thing.
Beyond pop culture, I suspect it goes back much farther than that, although there was a time when it wasn’t widely discussed in polite company.
As my above revelation concerning my birth year concedes, I am no longer a “young” man. But I was one once. I remember that state of mind very, very well.
Here’s the way it works when you are a young male. You are desperately horny and emotionally hungry for the company of young women, twenty-four hours per day.
But everyone out there is seeking the company of young women: other young men, slightly younger and older men, and men old enough to be those young women’s fathers.
The result is that in any demographically unaltered sexual marketplace, young males are a dime a dozen, and young women are solid gold doubloons.
This is not a “manosphere” conspiracy theory. It’s just observable sexual economics. Nor does it last. (Things balance out between the ages of 35 and 40.) But for a few years, young women are in the catbird seat, and they hold most of the cards.
And if you are a young guy, you can’t help noticing: there are all these women out there who are five, ten, fifteen…or maybe even twenty years older than you. Some of them remind you of your mom’s friends. But some of them, actually…are not too bad.
Many of them also seem to be a lot less standoffish and more approachable than young women in your peer group. Some of them seem to be genuinely interested in you. So nature, which abhors a vacuum, takes its course.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the older partner is the second choice, the runner-up, the consolation prize. A young man goes for an older woman because he can’t get what he is looking for with the younger woman whom he would naturally prefer—or at least not enough of what he is looking for.
Young men, moreover, are so overflowing with desire that very few of them are able to get “enough” of what they want from younger women. This is why almost every man, regardless of his age or generation, has an “older woman” story to tell. (Yes…I have mine, too.)
In other words, the “cougar trend” is not a “trend” at all. It’s a recurring pattern.
But we need to be fair here. The same is also true of the “trend” of younger women dating older men. There is just as much repetition of familiar tropes, and just as much wishful thinking involved.
I remember something I read back in 1981. I was 13 at the time, and one of the neighbor boys raided his father’s stash of Playboy magazines. There was a group of us that day, stereotypical Gen X latchkey kids with not enough supervision. We spent one summer afternoon reading about a dozen issues of Playboy.
Playboy, June 1981
Yes, I looked at the photos. But I also read at least one or two of the articles. I remember reading one article about the “trend” of college women dating more distinguished, more accomplished men in their 30s, 40s, and beyond. The author of the article claimed that college coeds were “sick of college guys who treat them like Kleenex”, and so they were looking for solace in the arms of older men.
Sound familiar? Keep in mind: I read this back in 1981. Forty-five years ago. Proof that there is really very little that is new under the sun.
But there is often a slightly new spin on these stories. Kara Kennedy’s piece claims that the most recent trend of young men going for older women is driven by the unique alienation between Gen Z males and Gen Z females. This alienation is the product of the Internet and the culture wars.
Is this a thing? Perhaps. But here in my neck of the woods, I meet a lot of ungainly, socially awkward Gen Z males who have somehow managed to stumble their way into romantic relationships with women their own age. I also meet many who are solitary. But it isn’t as if every young man had a girlfriend, without interruption, in 1990 or 1980.
Perhaps there is another explanation. There has always been a certain degree of tension between young men and young women. Both are learning to cope with new feelings, and both are navigating a supply-and-demand environment which (initially, at least) vastly favors young women.
The inherent tension between young men and young women leads to inevitable cases of resentment, misunderstanding, and alienation among the young. As a result, there will always be young individuals who are temporarily dissatisfied with what the youthful courtship marketplace provides for them, or seems to provide. And there will always be cougars (or randy older men) who are willing to step into the breach.
Those older men described in that 1982 Playboy article I read would now be in their 80s and 90s. The college coeds of 1981? They’re now in their 60s. None of this was invented by present generations.
I’ll conclude by circling back to Rod Stewart and his 1971 song “Maggie May.” Rod Stewart, who is now in his 80s, wrote “Maggie May” as a young man, based on his personal experience.
The lyrics of “Maggie May” describe a young man’s ambivalence at being involved with an older woman. From the very opening of the song, there is a sense that such a relationship is not the natural order of things, and that it comes with an expiration date.
This was the way it was for me. When I was in my early twenties I had a relationship with an “older woman.” The exact circumstances of how it came about are irrelevant here; but it adhered to many of the common tropes.
Long story short: I ended up parting ways with the older woman when I struck up a relationship with a woman who was a few years younger than me.
As Rod Stewart pointed out more than fifty years ago, that is the inevitable outcome. (And yes: many older men get dumped by their young sweethearts, too.) A cautionary note for older female readers who get too hopeful about the latest, Gen Z-specific iteration of the cougar trend. Nihil sub sole novum.
You all know me, or a version of me: I’m one of those stick-in-the-mud older/middle-age people who refuses to upgrade to the latest version of whatever operating system happens to be relevant.
I do this for the reason that most older people are skeptical/cautious: experience. In 2009, Microsoft destroyed my PC with an automated upgrade of the Windows XP operating system. Trust us, Microsoft said. Enable those automated updates. And I, like a fool, believed them.
I’ve since become a Mac user. Apple has yet to outright destroy any of my devices with an upgrade. But they’ve rendered several of them less usable, slower, or buggier.
I’ve therefore adopted a policy over the last five to ten years: one operating system per device. (This isn’t as radical as it sounds; I upgrade my devices at reasonable intervals.) My expectation to the tech companies is: Get it right the first time.
I purchased my iPhone 16 Plus last spring. The factory-installed iOS was 18.
I was planning to keep that. It worked. Then I read numerous online reports from the “techies” about how essential it was to upgrade. Iranian and Russian agents could exploit my current iOS, hack my phone, and steal all my data.
So I upgraded to iOS 26.4.1 last week. I’ve got a fancy new “liquid glass” display, and lots of new emojis that I’ll never use.
But CarPlay no longer works. (CarPlay worked perfectly, every time, on iOS 18.) YouTube videos freeze and error out. These are both documented flaws that have been discussed on Reddit and in other online venues.
Two observations from all this. First, this demonstrates yet again that our over- reliance on digital technology is a weakness as well as a convenience. I know young people who can’t read a map, write in cursive, or maintain their composure during a voice call, all because they’ve been hobbled by reliance on tech. But what happens when the machines glitch?
Secondly, I’m disappointed at Apple’s shoddiness. I’m an indie author, and I feel guilty if I release a $4.99 ebook with a handful of typos in it. But most of us paid close to a grand for our iPhones. Apple is a $350 billion company. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, earns $74 million per year in total compensation. Am I asking too much, when I humbly request that Apple not break CarPlay and destabilize YouTube when they release an update that I am told I must have?
I’m sure—or no, scratch that—I hope that Apple will eventually fix these bugs, along with the other ones I have yet to discover.
In the meantime, I wish I would have listened to my old guy instincts last week, and stayed on iOS 18.
Whatever one’s political orientation, it seems impossible to ignore the Bryon Noem sex scandal. Here is a 56-year-old, married father of three, who—by all indications—has a cross-dressing fetish that he feels compelled to share with an online sex worker.
And speaking of Bryon Noem’s wife…Whatever you think of Kristi Noem’s politics, or her performance as DHS Secretary, she is very easy on the eyes, as women in their middle fifties go. Her detractors call her “ICE Barbie” partly because they don’t like her, but also because they grudgingly recognize that she’s hot.
And yet, we know two things about her husband: his online “bimbofication” fetish, and his [apparent] willingness to share his wife with Corey Lewandowski.
What gives?
As is so often the case, the Japanese have a term for this. Or rather, a proverb:
蓼食う虫も好き好き
Tade kuu mushi mo sukizuki
“Some bugs prefer nettles.”
A rough English equivalent of this proverb would be: “There is no accounting for taste.”
I’ve read the descriptions of Bryon Noem’s proclivities. There is nothing about any of that that strikes me as the least bit stimulating. (I have never understood why any man would be drawn to any form of cross-dressing.)
And yet—I know for a fact that some of the things that float my boat are boring, distasteful, and even laughable to others.
This applies not only in regard to sex—but other areas as well. To cite one simple and innocuous example: I would much rather read a book in my living room than attend a raucous public crowd event like a concert or a professional sports game.
But that’s me, and it’s highly likely that I’m wired up differently than you are. One person’s nettles are another’s delight.
I remember being nine years old in the summer of 1977, sitting with my dad in the cinema, watching that first epic Star Wars opening crawl.
I became a total fanatic for Star Wars. And yes, that meant Star Wars action figures, Star Wars trading cards, and much else. During that first two years of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, I wasn’t thinking about stagflation or the energy crisis, or Jimmy Carter’s “malaise”. I was thinking about Star Wars.
Among my favorite Star Wars memorabilia of that era were the four Star Wars posters issued by Burger Chef. (Burger Chef was a once popular fast food chain that went out of business in 1996.)
I had all four posters, and they were hung all around my bedroom. (I can still recall the exact placement of each one, in fact.)
These are now collectors’ items, of course. But they were just delightful children’s bric-a-brac in 1977.
1977 Burger King Commercial
The original Burger Chef posters from 1977. (I can vouch for their authenticity, because I was there!)
Or…why I chose to set 12 Hours of Halloween in the year 1980.
A reader recently asked me via email why I chose to set 12 Hours of Halloween, my coming-of-age horror novel about three friends who battle supernatural forces on Halloween Night, in 1980 instead of the present day.
Good question.
There are two reasons behind this choice.
First of all: there’s the generational factor.
What I mean by this is: I know my limits.
Although 12 Hours of Halloween is a supernatural tale, it is also a coming-of-age story. This means that it involves getting into the “head space” of the story’s adolescent protagonists.
Some aspects of adolescence are universal. But others are heavily dependent on changing generational factors.
I’m a member of Generation X (born in 1968). This generation reached the early teen years of adolescence around 1980—the year in which 12 Hours of Halloween is set.
I figured that I could depict the adolescent experience in 1980 most accurately, because I actually lived it. (I turned 12 in 1980.) I’ve written before about the perils of middle-age adults writing about the present-day teen experience: During the 1980s, most of the teen films were written by Baby Boomers; and certain aspects of these movies seemed anachronistic, because the scriptwriters were actually writing about the teen experience of the 1950s and 1960s—even though they thought they were writing about the 1980s.
Another reason I chose to set 12 Hours of Halloween in 1980 is: The past is haunted.
The year 1980 is now 45 years in the past. (1980 was 35 years in the past when I published 12 Hours of Halloween in 2015.)
That is recent enough to be accessible to most readers, but distant enough to be surrounded by a certain haziness.
That year is not quite like our own. After all, in 1980, there was no Internet, and no cell phones. We had television, but cable TV was still a “new” thing.
It isn’t difficult to believe that in 1980, wayward spirits and vengeful supernatural creatures walked the earth in one Ohio suburb—just like in the book.
A new piece of artwork for 12 Hours of Halloween. (This was made for the “A + content” section of the Amazon listing, so the book cover is deliberately excluded from the graphic.)
As suggested in the graphic, most of the action in 12 Hours of Halloween takes place on October 31, 1980.
This is a coming-of-age supernatural horror story, about three young friends who endure a 12-hour, supernatural curse on the first Halloween night of the 1980s.
I don’t do graphic violence, for the most part. (There is no explicit sex in my books, either.) Think: a spooky version of a Ray Bradbury story, with a few nods to some of the classic horror films from the 1980s.
I was just turning 15 when Risky Business—the movie that launched Tom Cruise’s acting career—hit the theaters in August 1983. I was too young to get into an R-rated movie without an adult; and this wasn’t a film that either of my parents would have been interested in seeing with me.
I neglected to see Risky Business for more than 40 years, partly because I was put off by the much-played clip of Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear. Call me homophobic if you’d like; but that isn’t the way to get me to see a movie. And there were just so many other movies to see.
I finally got around to watching Risky Business a few days ago. (Better late than never!) The movie was quite well done for a film that was originally conceived as a throwaway flick for Reagan-era young adults. (Moreover, despite the ubiquity of that clip with Tom Cruise in his underwear, that scene is a minuscule portion of the 95-minute movie.) Continue reading “‘Risky Business’: an entertaining film that would never get made today”
I have been watching some old movies from the 1980s recently. Some have been movies that I saw, but have long since forgotten. Others are iconic films of that era that I never got around to seeing when they were current.
For example, I recently wrote a post about Mystic Pizza (1988). Last night I watched Risky Business (1983). I will have a post about Risky Business soon.
A scene from Mystic Pizza (1988)
One thing I’ve noticed is that many films created in 1980-something as disposable teen comedies were actually pretty good. In 1985, did anyone imagine that people in 2025 would still be talking about The Breakfast Club? Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) has been recognized by the American Film Institute for its merits.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the diversity in movies from that bygone era. In 1985, an original movie, properly executed, could make a lot of people rich. But the economics of the 21st-century box office encourage conservatism and a tiresome emphasis on franchise films. Continue reading “The comparative joys of old (1980s) movies”
His books are long and vast in scope. A thousand pages is a typical length. Michener wrote novels that today’s short attention-spanned, Internet-addled American finds daunting. But he was quite popular during his heyday, the 1950s through the 1980s.
Because of the historical scopes involved, Michener’s novels span many generations, with wide casts of characters. His books are less novels, in the conventional sense, than collections of interconnected novellas. If James Michener were alive today, and publishing on Amazon Kindle, he would almost certainly be publishing his long books as series of novellas. But that wasn’t what the brick-and-mortar-centric book retailing industry of the 20th century wanted. And so James Michener’s long tales were delivered as doorstop-sized novels.
Texas follows the usual Michener formula. There are storylines from the Spanish colonial period, the obligatory story about the Alamo (of course), and characters from more recent times.
I have sometimes found James Michener to be a bit too didactic. (In the historical fiction blockbuster space, I much prefer Edward Rutherfurd and John Jakes.) A novel based in historical events is fine; but if I want to read an actual history, I’ll turn to nonfiction. But in Texas, Michener emphasizes story and mostly avoids the dreaded info-dump.
I am not even going to attempt a plot summary of Texas. There is simply too much to describe. Any plot summary I might write would run on for five thousand words, the length of a long essay or a middling short story.
Suffice it to say: Texas contains many plots and characters related to the history of Texas. It’s also a very entertaining book, if you aren’t daunted by the 1096-page length.
I’ve been reading more short stories of late. I find that I often enjoy them more than novels. A good short story contains no fluff, no filler. Short stories, moreover, are well-suited to this era of cell phones and short attention spans.
Short stories used to be almost as popular as novels, back when Americans read middlebrow, general interest magazines. (F. Scott Fitzgerald earned most of his income from short story sales.)
But that was in the distant past. For as long as anyone can remember, every fiction writer has dreamed of being a bestselling novelist. Publishers have been wary of short fiction collections, unless every story in the collection was authored by Stephen King.
I recently picked up The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners, edited by Amor Towles and Jenny Minton Quigley. I bought the audiobook edition, so I listened to these stories as I mowed my lawn and did my bench press sets in the gym.
This collection contains a strong mix of stories. This isn’t to say that every story is a gem. As is always the case with multi-author anthologies, the reader’s mileage may vary. There were a few stories in this collection that left me cold. But most of them are good, and a handful of the stories are very good.
My favorites were:
“Hiding Spot” by Caroline Kim
“The Paper Artist” by E. K. Ota
“The Dark” by Jess Walter
Recommended reading…especially if you’ve been waiting for the right time to jump back into short-story reading.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, that quintessential teen movie of the first half of the 1980s, hit the theaters 43 years ago today, on August 13, 1982.
On that date I had just turned fourteen. I did not see Fast Times in the cinema. (I could not even drive yet.) I did catch the movie a few months later, on cable. By that time, it had become a must-see movie for anyone among the teenage set.
I liked the movie then, and not just because of the iconic scene in which Phoebe Cates emerges from the pool. Even at that age, I could tell that Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a thoughtful teen movie, as oxymoronic as that sounds.
The movie does contain explicit sex scenes, especially by today’s less tolerant cinematic standards. Fast Times originally received an X rating. The film was reedited to receive an R rating. Primarily because of the sex, all of the “teens” in this film were already adult actors by the time production began. (Jennifer Jason Leigh was almost twenty years old when she portrayed the 15-year-old Stacy Hamilton.)
And yes, that Phoebe Cates pool scene was unnecessary and tawdry, much as it delighted the 14-year-old version of me.
#OnThisDay American coming-of-age comedy film Fast Times at Ridgemont High released . August 13, #1982 Directed by Amy Heckerling in her feature directorial debut. it starred Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Robert Romanus, and …. pic.twitter.com/AL2RH9sWiI
But underneath all the raunch and bawdy comedy, there is a message about hubris-driven teenage risk-taking, and the consequences that result. I would go so far as to call Fast Times at Ridgemont High a teensploitation film with a conservative message.
I watched this movie for a second time a few years ago. I was an adult in my fifties. The 1980s and high school were long behind me.
I thought the movie was even better the second time around.
I’m not the only one who believes that Fast Times at Ridgemont High stands the test of time. In 2005, the National Film Preservation Board recognized the movie as “culturally and historically significant”. This is one time when I agree with the consensus view.
Released August 13, 1982, Fast Times at Ridgemont High is an American coming-of-age teen comedy-drama film directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Robert Romanus, and Ray Walston. pic.twitter.com/7TClCGleHH
Not far from where I live, there is a stretch of Ohio State Route 125 that has been dubbed Dead Man’s Curve.
The spot is just a few miles from my house, in fact. I’ve been by there many times.
According to the urban legend, if you drive this section of rural highway a little after 1 a.m., you might see the faceless hitchhiker. From a distance, this male figure may look relatively normal. Once you get close, though, you’ll see that he has no face.
Sometimes the hitchhiker isn’t content to stand there by the side of the road and watch you. There have been reports of the phantom actually attacking cars.
Creepy, right?
Yeah, I think so, too….
Dead Man’s Curve on Ohio State Route 125 has a long and macabre history. Route 125 is the main road that connects the suburbs and small towns east of Cincinnati with the city. But much of the road (including Dead Man’s Curve) was originally part of the Ohio Turnpike, which was built in 1831. (Andrew Jackson was president in 1831, just to put that date in perspective.)
That section of the Ohio Turnpike was the scene of many accidents (some of them fatal), even in the horse-and-buggy days. The downward sloping curve became particularly treacherous when rain turned the road to mud. Horses and carriages would sometimes lose their footing, sending them over the adjacent hillside.
In the twentieth century, the Ohio Turnpike was paved and reconfigured into State Route 125. In 1968 the road was expanded into four lanes.
As part of the expansion, the spot known as Dead Man’s Curve was leveled and straightened. (As a result, the curve doesn’t look so daunting today…unless you know its history.) This was supposed to be the end of “Dead Man’s Curve”.
But it wasn’t.
In 1969, there was a horrible accident at the spot. The driver of a green Roadrunner—traveling at a speed of 100 mph—slammed into an Impala carrying five teenagers. There was only one survivor of the tragic accident.
Shortly after that, witnesses began to report sightings of the faceless hitchhiker during the wee hours. (The hitchhiker is said to be most active during the twenty-minutes between 1:20 and 1:40 a.m.) There have also been reports of a ghostly green Roadrunner that will chase drivers late at night.
Oh, and Dead Man’s Curve remains deadly, despite the leveling and straightening done in 1968. In the five decades since the accident involving the Roadrunner and the Impala, around seventy people have been killed there.
Is there any truth to the legend of Dead Man’s Curve?
I can’t say for sure. What I can tell you is that I’ve heard many eyewitness accounts from local residents who claim to have seen the hitchhiker. (Keep in mind, I live very close to Dead Man’s Curve, and it’s a local topic of discussion and speculation.) Almost none of these eyewitnesses have struck me as mentally imbalanced or deceitful.
I know what your last question is going to be: Have I ever driven Dead Man’s Curve between 1:20 and 1:40 a.m. myself?
Uh, no. But perhaps I’ll get around to it someday, and I’ll let you know in a subsequent blog post!
I’m not sure how 40 years went by without me seeing Commando (1985). But I finally caught it last night with my YouTube Premium subscription.
Commando stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a retired military operative, who is called into action when a group of international bad guys take his daughter hostage.
It’s a very basic plot, with a lot left to assumption, or the viewer’s imagination. This is pure 80s escapism, and the film suffers somewhat from the production values of that era.
On the plus side, there are no boring moments in the 90 minutes that it will take you to watch Commando. The movie is a lot of fun, in the same way that the A-Team and Magnum P.I. were fun in the 1980s.
There is no romantic subplot in Commando. Rae Dawn Chong, however, provides a solid performance as Schwarzenegger’s sidekick (and, at one point in the movie, his pilot). The 12-year-old Alyssa Milano, who was decades away from becoming annoying and political, appears as Schwarzenegger’s daughter.
