1980s Decade

Like other scoundrels caught red-handed, convicted con man Barry Minkow says he has renounced crime and found Jesus--and he's banking on his dramatic conversion from Judaism to make a comeback. Sentenced to 25 years in prison in connection with one of the largest Wall Street scams ever, the founder of the ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning company in the San Fernando Valley may be paroled from federal prison as early as next July, after serving about a third of his term.

SO, the big-shouldered drama of "Dynasty" has found its way onto the runway and -- incredibly! -- onto the street in the form of hulking jackets, high-waisted trousers and power-hungry attitude. And now that it has, aren't we all a little afraid? These looks take the '80s power-dressing into another dimension. Proenza Schouler paid homage to Alexis Carrington and the gang with cropped black jackets with shoulder pads and slouchy, wide-leg pants.

Cars, clothes and conversation change over the decades, but one fact remains the same: Teen-agers have always found the time to hang out together outside of school. Here's a brief list of popular local hangouts, and--if they're still standing--what they have become. Happy Days in the 1950s Hi-Way 39 Drive-In Theater: A place to show off your car or your date, it's still operating in Westminster.

While some collectors of TV memorabilia scour the Internet for scripts, show props and items with a certain kitsch factor (there was one person bidding on that vintage "The Fall Guy" lunch kettle and thermos set on EBay), Brian Karimzad, 26, collects television video and audio clips from the late '70s and '80s.

South Los Angeles--the epicenter of the deadly rioting--lagged far behind the rest of the county during the 1980s in nearly every measure of prosperity, and has a higher poverty rate now for its families than it had in 1965, according to new Census Bureau figures. The statistics underscore numerically the social problems that have plagued the area since the Watts riots more than a quarter century ago: joblessness, hopelessness and a crippling lack of skills and education.

As the 1980s began, the pop music industry could have said about Orange County what Gertrude Stein once said about Oakland: There's no There there. Actually, the deal-makers, trend-setters and career-brokers of the Los Angeles music scene had their own disdainful term for the vast suburb to the south: anyone trying to make or promote music beyond the Long Beach frontier was said to be Behind the Orange Curtain.

My late, lovely friend, Hamilton Beauregard Prieulx Maule--Tex to the rest of the world--must be in sportswriters' heaven today. Tex was a fascinating guy. He had a voice like thunder over the mountains and had lived a life most of us dreamed about. He was a seaman on a merchantman plying the sea lanes of the world, an "understander"--the strong man who held up the acrobatic pyramids in center ring--in a traveling circus and, finally, a writer and team official in the NFL.

Prosperity and poverty grew side by side in California during the 1980s, a decade in which the gap between wealth and want can be measured by rising incomes, especially among the state's richest residents, and by the growing number of children living below the poverty line. New census data released today shows that the state's median household income grew by 17% during the last decade, placing it at $35,798, or 17% higher than the nation's median household income.

Whatever pundits decide to label the 1980s--the Decade of Debt, the Decade of Greed--it was a great decade for investors. Whether they poured their money into stocks, bonds, mutual funds or savings deposits, chances are that they beat the rate of inflation, often by a wide margin. The 1990s are also expected to be a good decade for investing. But market watchers caution that the opportunities may be more limited and returns more modest.

The pervasiveness of poverty among American children grew during the past decade, resulting in inadequate medical attention and schooling for the nation's underprivileged youth, a child advocacy group said Tuesday. More than one-fourth of children living in cities with populations of 100,000 or more were classified as poverty-stricken in 1989, the Children's Defense Fund reported in the first city-by-city survey of its kind conducted since the 1990 census.

Lean back. Shut your eyes. Think '80s. Think Journey. Oliver North. Wham! Savings-and-loan scandal. Michael Milken. White House astrologers. The glory days of excess, selfishness, greed. Me! Most of us can attest, as decades go, the '80s was a low point; a time of big hair, bad music and grasping materialism. But, like a fine wine, given the mellowing influence of time, even the goofiest decade is ripe for nostalgia.

Human rights officials said they had unearthed the remains of 50 people at a clandestine cemetery, apparent victims of Guatemala's 35-year civil war that ended in 1996. The graves were near a parochial school in Zacualpa, a village 40 miles northwest of Guatemala City. The victims probably were killed between 1980 and 1982 during the regimes of Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia and Gen.

Bands like Wang Chung and Men at Work sold millions in the 1980s--but were they the bands that mattered? While these groups were all over then-new MTV, they weren't the ones that most influenced the bands that have taken their place in the pop mainstream of the '90s. That role belongs to musicians who were part of a remarkable grass-roots scene that defined the independent, often rebellious spirit of rock 'n' roll.

The B-52's and the Pretenders joined hands for a moderately successful concert tour last summer. So did Culture Club, Howard Jones and the Human League. Even Blondie, led by 53-year-old Deborah Harry, has decided to re-form after 16 years on the shelf. Now, a slew of '80s-era pop acts--among them Jones ("What Is Love?," "Things Can Only Get Better"), Men at Work ("Who Can It Be Now?

The apartment--vacant of furniture, windows bare, utilities disconnected--nevertheless felt inhabited. By ghosts. By memories. By time. After 20 years, I was leaving my Venice apartment. Twenty years in a rent-controlled ($175 in '77, $475 by '97) two-bedroom, three blocks from the beach, on the edge of Santa Monica's Ocean Park community. Was I crazy to give it up?

Fifteen years ago today, whatever you were busy doing probably was the wrong thing. What you should have been doing was sinking every last dime you had into the stock market. On Aug. 12, 1982, the wretched 1970s bear market that had made stocks a four-letter word with most Americans was on its deathbed, breathing weakly. The Dow Jones index of 30 blue-chip stocks--or "blue gyps" as they were known then, after a decade of lousy returns--eased 0.29 point that Thursday to 776.

Here are The Times' 12 pop contributors' picks for 10 best albums of the '80s. Robert Hilburn's choices are on Page 71. The selections are ranked in order of preference. Mike Boehm "The River," Bruce Springsteen; "Murmur," R.E.M.; "Shoot Out the Lights," Richard and Linda Thompson; "Pretenders," Pretenders; "Empty Glass," Pete Townshend; "Purple Rain," Prince; "Graceland," Paul Simon; "VU," the Velvet Underground; "London Calling," the Clash; "Pleased to Meet Me," Replacements.

Imagine rock of the '80s without Los Angeles. No Guns N' Roses to lead a generation into hard-rock nirvana. No X to galvanize an underground community. No Los Lobos to enrich the roots with Mexican strains. No Phranc to give voice to the persecuted. No Rotondi to reveal the potential of the polka. No Top Jimmy to reprocess the blues through his Falstaffian frame. No Busboys and Fishbone to break racial/musical stereotypes.

It started innocently enough. A pal from grade school blew into town to check out my new kid and, during her visit, turned my husband and me on to "Personal FX: The Collectibles Show." She'd always been a TV junkie, but her tastes had matured to include this warm and fuzzy folksy morning program on which volunteer appraisers price people's collectibles and allow them a chance to sell their wares at the end of the hour. After one show, I was hooked.

It was a world of frenzied creation and radical experimentation. Clustered around the genius of Frank Gehry in the early '80s, a group of talented young designers turned architecture on its head. Conventional bungalows were twisted and reconfigured. Modernist boxes became pop sculpture. For the second time in a century, Los Angeles became the great laboratory of domestic architecture. Then, in the summer of '90, recession hit Southern California. Projects were shut down midway.