While reading the news recently, I began to wonder how one of my favorite childhood television shows would pass Hollywood’s political correctness test. Simple answer: it wouldn’t. One of my favorite shows as a child was about a crack commando unit which was sent to a military prison for a crime they didn’t commit. After promptly escaping, they survived as soldiers of fortune, helping those who were up against tremendous odds.

Apparently, from 1983 to 1987, there were countless criminal organizations throughout California that attempted to take over small family businesses on a weekly basis. These included everything from mom & pop taxi services, trucking companies, ranches, soda bottlers… you get the picture.

Unfortunately, I think the four heroes of this show would be persecuted under today’s guidelines. The character of the tough inner-city raised sergeant with a bad attitude and excessive gold jewelry may be seen as perpetuating a negative stereotype. The Mohawk haircut alone may be considered by some to be insensitive to indigenous Americans.

The character of the pilot, who regularly would escape from or be broken out of the inpatient mental ward of a veterans’ hospital in order to fly the team, may be seen today as insensitive to those struggling with behavioral health issues. I once saw the former Army captain impersonating an Indian brave, complete with headdress feathers, war paint and a tomahawk. He spoke to inanimate objects and had invisible friends and multiple personalities.

The young, handsome and always impeccably tailored lieutenant who always got the girl may be seen as sexist. Side note: can I say girl? OK, young lady. These family businesses which they protected usually included an attractive adult daughter, and after rescuing the damsel in distress, he may actually try to kiss her one time, in the final scene. His actions today would probably result in a civil suit if not criminal charges.

This brings me to the leader: a middle-aged, white haired colonel who loved it when “a plan came together.” He smoked a cigar! What message did that send to the youth of the 1980s? Once, during a firefight, when the lieutenant finally arrived, I heard him say, “Glad to see you, grab a gun.”

The four teammates were regularly involved in physical altercations, eluding the military police and rapid-fire shootouts. Although they carried multiple assault rifles in their van, no one outside their unit was ever actually hit with a bullet.

Well, I survived watching this show for years, as I suspect did most of you. We did not grow up to become racist or sexist. I don’t chain smoke cigars, and I married a woman who works compassionately in the mental health field. As I like to say, “We all turned out fine, anyway.”

In 1980s television, it seemed entirely possible to run a multi-million dollar conglomerate and still have a lot of free time.  I am reminded of a self-made millionaire from California, whose business interests included: a cargo shipping line, a vineyard, a toy manufacturer, a western ghost town, a record label, ownership of a racehorse and several government contracts for military electronics, to name a few.

During five seasons, I saw him drive a Ferrari Dino, a Bentley S3, a Rolls Royce Corniche, a convertible Mercedes-Benz, an Aston Martin and a Mercedes-Benz station wagon.

With all those businesses to manage and expensive cars to pay for, I rarely saw him working at the office.  He would be buying an antique automobile in London, or he and his wife would be shopping in New York, skiing in Colorado, sailing in Hawaii, participating in a road rally in Greece, or on a safari in Africa.

When he was home, rather than leaving early each morning to commute in Los Angeles traffic and returning home after sundown, he and his wife were usually playing tennis on their backyard court or sitting poolside, while live-in staff prepared dinner, ran errands and cleaned the house.  On a weekly basis, they would become caught-up in a murder mystery, which was somehow connected to their businesses, hobbies or one of the many charity events they had time to organize.  This often left me wondering why they didn’t move to a safer city.

These days, I am out of the house thirteen hours a day, including a three-hour round trip commute.  When I get home, my wife, after a day of working and commuting herself, has usually finished her dinner and has mine wrapped in tin foil waiting to be warmed up in the oven.  There is no tennis court in our backyard, but I do occasionally go out back and cook on our Weber grill from Sears.  We haven’t embarked on an African safari, but my wife has driven through the safari adventure at the local amusement park.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t in a Rolls Royce.

In the 1980s, there was no shortage of private investigators.  California alone seemed to have an endless supply.  Let’s start with the two brothers from San Diego.  The younger one was better dressed, usually in a coat and tie, clean-cut and originally drove a blue 1957 convertible and later a red American sports car with a custom Targa top conversion.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, he would be the type attracting all the women.  In real life, that success probably would have gone to the older brother with a wardrobe from the army-navy store and an old pick-up truck with faded red paint, but I digress.  Then there were the three guys and the robot who lived at the marina on a 54’ yacht.  They also had a speedboat, a 1960 Corvette and their own helicopter.  Last but not least, you could hire the British gentleman who had his own chauffeur-driven limousine and a 1930s classic speedster.  Private investigation must have paid very well in 1980s California.

In the early 2000s, a friend arranged a meeting for me with a private investigator he had recently hired.  I was so looking forward to finally meeting a real-life private eye.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the glamorous and intriguing cases of multi-million dollar jewelry heists, museum robberies and international corporate espionage this man must have worked.  I couldn’t wait to hear all the stories, and I also couldn’t wait to see his car.  I even began to wonder how I could become licensed and start my own P.I. firm.

At a small luncheonette in urban New Jersey, a few miles from the bridges and tunnels which lead into New York City, I met an older retired police detective who had started a one-member investigation agency as a second career.  We sat at a small table where I listened to stories of pending divorces and graphic detail of the social lives of cheating spouses.  There was no ocean-view office, no limousine and certainly no helicopter.  There was simply an older man with a police department pension making some extra money taking pictures of married men and women on dates with people they met at the gym. 

Another shattered myth of my 80s youth!

One thing I learned as a child watching television in the 80s was this: if you were trapped in a garage with a few friends, you could build a tank out of almost anything.  Granted, I wasn’t part of a crack commando unit, but it seemed that once a week you could find old parts lying around the garage, use some tools that happened to be sitting there, and turn anything from a farm tractor to an old delivery truck into an armor-clad, bulletproof assault vehicle complete with guns, flamethrowers and rocket launchers.  With this is mind, I decided to see what could be built with parts found in my present-day garage.

I found a roll of paper towels, a deck chair, two old tires, hornet spray, a Weber charcoal grill, 6 Tiki torches and a 22-year-old boat propeller.  We will be strapping all of this onto a 1982 convertible K-car.  Let’s get started!

First off, we’ll mount the two tires on the front bumper by tying them on with an orange extension cord which was lying on the ground.  This will soften the blow when our sergeant crashes the car through the closed garage door, surprising the group of thugs waiting outside for our surrender.  Let’s assume the car is already backed into the garage because there isn’t enough room to turn it around.  We’ll remove the trunk lid and place the deck chair in there facing backward.  This way, our rather eccentric pilot can sit in the back and keep an eye on forces gaining from the rear.  He can hold up the round lid from the grill to shield his face, assuming the enemy is only throwing rocks and not firing bullets.

With the top down and lit Tiki torches wedged upright between the seats, a strong steady blast of the hornet spray will provide our flamethrower.  I think it’s flammable, but I haven’t really tried this, nor would I suggest it.  With some bungee cords from the trunk, I’ll make a slingshot to send that propeller airborne.  Weighing eight pounds with three roughly five-inch blades, it will act as a very large Ninja throwing star.  I have only one of these, so I need to make that shot count.  I’ll probably launch that through the radiator of the lead car following us.  This will make that vehicle inoperable and since the lead car always turns sideways in the street when disabled, the other pursuing cars will be unable to pass and continue the chase.

At this point, we can surround the gang of miscreants, tie them up with the extension cord and leave them for the authorities.  Now we just need to avoid the Military Police.

Proving once again that 80s television lied to me, in today’s post I’m asking why well-dressed, well-groomed and well-spoken guys rarely attract women.  When I was a child in the 1980s, all you needed to attract women, according to primetime television, was a nice suit and a haircut.  Whether you were a British con artist posing as a west coast private detective or a pretty-boy soldier of fortune living with friends among the Los Angeles underground, if you were well-dressed and clean-cut, you had dates — lots of dates.

So, break out the double-breasted suits, silk ties and Italian loafers!  Not so fast.  My experience as a single man was quite different.  Never, and I mean never, did I lose a girlfriend to someone who was better dressed, had a better vocabulary or a higher earning potential.  I have lost girlfriends to foul-mouthed Neanderthals with little career motivation, short tempers and a wardrobe consisting of blue jeans, football jerseys and sneakers.

For years, I kept making the same mistake, not comprehending what I was doing incorrectly.  In the 80s, I was programmed to think that ladies wanted a worldly gentleman with class and style.  Turns out that wasn’t true.  Apparently, a 1936 boat tail speedster isn’t really the female attention grabber I was led to believe it was.  I never owned a white American sports car with a large red stripe down both sides and across the front and back, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t have really worked, either.

The bottom line is this: even if you have the money of an 80’s TV leading man, you still need to look like rabble.  Think about it.  You can drive the $400,000 Aventador, but make sure you’re wearing torn jeans and dirty sneakers when you get out of it.  People today, including potential dates, generally seem to accept the wealth of ultra-casual athletes and musicians, but not that of impeccably-tailored bankers and stock brokers.

The reality of the new millennium is no matter how financially secure you are, as long as you look like a drifter, you’ll be popular.  Go figure!

How does someone who grew up in the 80s ever feel satisfied today?  We spent a decade being bombarded with the lifestyles of excessive consumption portrayed on television and in the movies, and now as middle-aged adults, we’re trying to achieve those teenage dreams that were imbedded into our developing minds.  In today’s post, I’m going to discuss the stress we 80s children feel when choosing a new car.  First off, too many people have SUV’s.  When I was younger, there was no choice.  You had a Grand Wagoneer with four-wheel drive and wood panels; however, unless you’ve recently adopted a baby and are moving to Vermont to begin dating a veterinarian, SUV’s are out.

How do you choose a new car with understated luxury and some class?  There was always the stately British motorcar with the unmistakable grille and lady hood ornament.  The choice of millionaire drunk playboys from New York who had funny accents and an attraction to female shoplifters.  But where are the blue blazer, ascot-wearing guys who owned these?  Drivers of these cars today are usually younger men wearing a t-shirt and a sideways baseball cap.  Besides, once I see it in a music video or on a reality TV show, I simply don’t want it anymore.

Then there was the quintessential 80s luxury car from Germany.  Whether you were a mystery-solving self-made millionaire from Los Angeles or the younger brother of a Dallas oil tycoon, this convertible was the car for you.  It was my childhood dream car.  In 1985, this manufacturer sold 86,000 cars in the U.S.  In 2015, they sold 343,000 vehicles in the U.S., losing the exclusivity while maintaining the hefty price tag.  That’s out.

How about a red Italian supercar?  In the 1980s, you could live on an elegant beachfront estate in one of the most expensive states in the U.S., wear a Rolex and drive one of these — with no steady employment and no expenses.  In our real world of today, that’s out, too! 

You need something that you can comfortably take to the yacht club and leave at the train station for the day.  Since the acceptance of flaunting wealth has taken a 180 degree turn in the last 30 years, I suggest something like an Acura.  Although that brand barely existed in the 80s, it’s nice enough not to receive sneers from parking lot attendants and under the radar enough that no one will throw rocks at you 1%ers.  Welcome to our future!