There are a lot of documentaries out on luminaries, those famous people, from the 1980's. Prominent among these are usually Andy Warhol, Roy Halston, Robert Mapplethorpe, the Studio 54 crowd, etc. They had so many infamous peccadilloes and trysts and hookups, it amazed us all them. And for one of many who were stuck on their 9 to 5 or other working grind, it seemed otherworldly. A lifestyle few would ever attain. Or did attain. Because a lot of them ended up dying young, from drug abuse or something. While many of us workers just continued to keep going because we took better care of our health. Boring, but effective.
And yet in this age of Internet everything, when so many personal details are posted regularly, we remain fascinated with the glitterati of the 1970's and 80's. Could it be because in the pre-internet days, we never really knew things for sure. So much was rumored, or hearsay, or what-ifed. We could gossip and wonder and suppose, but never really were sure what took place in those famous Hollywood mansions and the like. Under those conditions, we could paint a mental picture of some lives lived in pure, utter fabulousness, everything great and wondrous, never a sad moment for those people. Even if later we found out there were really many sad moments for 'those people.'
Nowadays, celebrities are on-line in real time and within our cyber reach. Social media sites are full of daily posts of the rich and famous, and infamous. If they go somewhere or do something, we can know within moments, and post a response to it. There are very few secrets nowadays. But not so in the 1980's. Back then, there was still an air of mystery regarding the true events at, say, the Playboy Mansion, or Studio 54. So we see this stream of docu-dramas pruporting to shed new light into the goings-on at Warhol's Factory, or Hefner's secret grotto underneath his mansion. Fascinating titillation for those of us who were alive back then. But probably a big bore to those born after 2000, more intent on following Taylor Swift and her beau's goings-on. The world certainly is changing. But I'm here to say, yes, some of us did have a really great time in the decade of the 1980's, and are here to tell the tale. (Although we remember with sadness and honor, how so many did not escape the epidemic of AIDS back then). For those of us who can, party on, party on – or read all about those that do.
