#billy vera

[samtheviking]

The toughest, most heartbreaking TV relationship growing up. I remember not even being able to listen to the song for years after.

[myimaginaryradio]

At This Moment - Billy Vera

[cantsayidont]

August 1984. This won't change anyone's feelings about cult movie perennial THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI: ACROSS THE EIGHTH DIMENSION one way or the other, but if you're wondering what the hell the deal is supposed to be with Buckaroo Banzai and his team, the answer is, "It's an obvious pastiche of the pulp hero Doc Savage."

Launched in 1933, Doc Savage was one of the leading adventure heroes of the pulp magazines. Doc (whose full name was Clark Savage Jr.) was scientifically trained from childhood to the peak of human perfection, singularly adept in everything from mechanical engineering to medicine to martial arts. He had a secret headquarters called the Fortress of Solitude and a whole array of specially designed vehicles and equipment, but he was also a public figure, with offices in the Empire State Building. Doc had a team of eccentric, highly specialized aides — Monk Mayfair, Ham Brooks, Renny Renwick, Long Tom Roberts, and Johnny Littlejohn — who each had a particular skill and a couple of distinctive personality traits (for instance, Monk was a skilled industrial chemist, but also an "ape-like" brute with a ferocious temper). They were sometimes aided by Doc's cousin, Pat Savage, who was almost as capable as Doc, although he tried to keep her out of the fray because she was (gasp) a girl.

This was a fairly common pattern for pulp heroes. For instance, the pulp version of the Shadow (who was distinctly different from the radio incarnation) relied on a whole network of agents, some appearing only once or twice, some recurring across many of his published adventures. From a narrative standpoint, the agents and assistants had two principal purposes: The first was to offset the rather overpowered heroes — pulp heroes didn't necessarily have superhuman powers, but even those who didn't tended to be preternaturally skilled at nearly everything, so it was convenient to limit their direct involvement in an adventure to crucial moments, and let the assistants (who could be much more fallible) do much of the legwork. The second object was to beef up the characterization. Doc Savage was morally irreproachable as well as absurdly multi-talented, so there wasn't a lot to be done with him character-wise, while maintaining the mystique of a character like the Shadow required him to remain a fairly closed book.

Although the pulp heroes were a huge influence on early comic book superheroes like Superman and Batman, some of these conventions didn't translate well to other media: In a 13-page comic book story or half-hour radio episode, having too many characters was cumbersome (and expensive, where it meant hiring extra actors), and comic book readers normally expected to follow their four-color heroes quite closely, even before the breathless internal monologue became a genre staple. So, Superman inherited Doc Savage's Fortress of Solitude, but not his "Fabulous Five" assistants, while heroes like Batman and Captain America generally stuck with a single sidekick rather than a team of aides. Even the late Doc Savage pulp adventures (which ended in 1949) de-emphasized the assistants to keep the focus more on Doc himself. Ultimately, the pulp heroes didn't really have the right narrative center of gravity for visual media, which is why they've become relatively obscure, despite repeated revival attempts. The 1975 Doc Savage movie with Ron Ely, for instance, was a notorious commercial flop, and elements like Doc's childishly bickering assistants seemed odd and dated, even taking into account the film's nostalgia-bait '30s period setting.

What BUCKAROO BANZAI tried to do was to bring that old pulp hero formula into the modern era with a big infusion of '80s style and humor. Like Doc Savage, Buckaroo is a wildly gifted polymath (in the opening scenes, he rushes from performing brain surgery to test-driving his Jet Car through a mountain), so famous and important a personage that he puts the president of the United States on hold, and he surrounds himself with an array of brilliant, eccentric aides with silly nicknames who play in his rock band when they're not fighting crime or doing advanced scientific experiments.

Alas, judging by the poor box office returns, general audiences were no more amenable to the '80s version of this formula than they had been to DOC SAVAGE: MAN OF BRONZE nine years earlier, even with the 1984 film's extraordinary cast and memorably witty dialogue. Granted, even many of the movie's most diehard fans are baffled by the convoluted plot — a crucial expository scene where the leader of the Black Lectroids (Rosalind Cash) explains much of what's going on is nigh-incomprehensible without subtitles or closed captioning — but beyond that, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI is essentially an extended riff on a particular slice of pop culture that had long since dropped out of the public consciousness, which is both part of its charm and also its commercial undoing, at least as mainstream entertainment.

(Also, if you're wondering, yes, the TOM STRONG series by Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse is also an obvious Doc Savage pastiche, although at least some of its plot and character concepts were probably retoolings of unused ideas from Moore's earlier Maximum Press/Awesome Comics SUPREME series, which was an extended pastiche of the pre-Crisis Superman.)

[caeric-arclight]

Calling all Blue Blaze Irregulars on Tumblr...

Get the latest issue (as well as all the past ones) of World Watch One via free downloads at World Watch OnLine

[eighties-o-rama]

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - W. D. Richter (1984) Released 40 years ago this month.

[ometochtli2rabbit]

13.0.12.5.11

ka'a[2] CHUWEN/B'AATZ [monkey] - kanlajun [14] PAX

galactic tone: duality/ polarity

sun sign: monkey/black/west

begin anything new in life - MAYA

ome[2] - OZOMAHTLI [monkey]

Tlaltecuhtli | Xochipili

quetzalhuitzilin [green hummingbird]

lord of the night: Tlaloc

trecena[2]: Xipe Totec

x: chicei [8]- etzcualiztli - NAHUA

"The Perception of Time", Salvador Dali, 1931

The Monkey, today's day symbol (tonalli), is known as the Weaver of Time. As time is really an illusion created by human beings, try to focus on the now. Another way to say that, is all we really have, the MOMENT:

Billy Vera: At This Moment

Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time

Asia: Heat of the Moment

Lisa Stansfield: The Moment

Dan Fogelberg: Stolen Moments

Kelly Clarkson: A Moment Like This

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds: In the Heat of the Moment

Foreigner: Moment of Truth

Gang Starr: Moment of Truth

Survivor: The Moment of Truth

Regine Velasquez: The Moment You Were Mine

Suzi Quatro: Wasted Moments

Tame Impala: The Moment

Willie Nelson: A Moment Isn't Very Long

Peggy Lee: Moments Like This

Tim McGraw: Not A Moment Too Soon

Indigo Girls: Moment of Forgiveness

A-Ha: Mary Ellen Makes the Moment Count

Charli XCX: Moments In Love

The Moody Blues: This is The Moment

Taylor Swift: The Moment I Knew

Slick Rick: The Moment I Feared

Katy Perry: This Moment

Erasure: Tenderest Moments

Imogen Heap: The Moment I Said It

The Drifters: This Magic Moment

Scorpions: Moment in a Million Years

Carpenters: From This Moment On

Steve Perry: If Only For The Moment

Gorillaz: Momentary Bliss & Momentz (ft. De La Soul)

Frank Black: It's Just Not Your Moment

Shania Twain: From This Moment On

U2: Moment of Surrender & Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of

Dionne Warwick & Stevie Wonder: Moments Aren't Moments

Electric Light Orchestra: Moment in Paradise

Ella Fitzgerald: From This Moment On

Misfits/ Green Day: Hybrid Moments

Dolly Parton: Love Is Only As Strong (As Your Weakest Moment)

INXS: I Need You Tonight

Sunny & the Sunglows: Just A Moment

Billy Joel: Leave A Tender Moment Alone

Kate Bush: Moments of Pleasure

Joan Baez: Here's To You

The Beatles: Blackbird

[mydailyvintagephotos]

Happy Birthday Billy Vera 🎂

[archie96]