1986

In 1986, I was seven years old, a precocious teacher's pet at St. Pascal's elementary school near Portage Park in Chicago. I'm guessing at seven years old, I would've been in the second or third grade. All of these details are immaterial. What is material is that 1986, for other reasons independant of Dan, was awesome.

Was it the music that made it awesome? Some of the year's top songs:

• Walk Like an Egyptian: The Bangles (come on, you know you spent the better part of 1986 walking around like a hieroglyph, at least if you were old enough to be walking around in 1986)


• Kiss: Prince & The Revolution (yeah, that's right--the revolution was going strong in 1986)


• Rock Me Amadeus: Falco (Rock me fuckin' Amadeus, ok?)


• Conga: Miami Sound Machine (Any list that has Miami Sound Machine on it is a list I am a fan of)


• Venus: Bananarama (She's got it. And it's not a leg razor.)


• Walk This Way: Run-D.M.C. (The original and best rap rock fusion.)

OK, so on the merits of this list of top 100-ish songs of 1986, the year was not all that remarkable. But the world does not begin and end with music. It begins and ends with movies. I'm going to skip over any notable events in 1986, and jump right to the most important, most relevant bit to this discussion. Two movies came out in 1986, movies that benchmark American Cinema: The Golden Child and Big Trouble in Little China. Many things about both films are legendary. But one thing, one woven muslin thread ties the two together in a significant fashion:

Both Victor Wong and James Hong appear in both films. Don't worry; if you don't immediately know who these guys are, a little bit of time on IMDB will refresh your memory. Because these two fine gentleman are to Chinese American cinema what Pat Morita is to Japanese American cinema. Or what Brad Pitt is to white American cinema. These guys are (or were in the case of Vic) hot shit. They've left their glamorous finger prints all over pop culture. For instance, "Seinfeld, four!"

Let's reiterate that simply and clearly. 1986. Victor Wong and James Hong. Starring Roles. Two movies. It's like Hollywood Serendipity. It's like Cary Grant and Rock Hudson playing opposite each other in two films in the same year. And doing it. To each other. Multiple times. That's how important this is. At least to nerds like me.

Yeah, there were other actors in both movies, but really, none of them were all that important. And none of them overlapped, either.

Freakin' 1986. It won't ever get better than that.

P.S.--just for the record, some other notable movies from 1986, which solidify it's place in historical awesomeness:

• Top Gun


• Platoon


• Aliens


• Ferris Bueller's Day Off

And just for fun, some stuff that happened in 1986, contributing to awesome memoribility:

• January 19 - The first PC virus, Brain, starts to spread.


• January 28 - Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates, killing the crew of 7 astronauts including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.


• April 21 - Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone's secret vault on The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault, discovering only a bottle of moonshine.


• April 26 - Cher-fuckin-nobyl


• May 25 - Hands Across America. Not remembering Hands Across America is like not remembering We Are The World


• November 3 - Iran Contra Affair breaks into the news

Nerdly Fact pertaining to 1986:

• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is set in 1986.