Eldergays, tell me about the summer of 1980

Fish didn't fry in the kitchen, and beans didn't burn on the grill.

Everyday life was fun. Life was simpler. Who shot JR was huge. I was in graduate school. I went to Fire Island that summer. Had a blast.

Sadly some people were already coming down with the symptoms initially called the gay cancer, later to be known as AIDS.

Can't remember back that far, but I'm here to tell you that much.

Read. A. Fucking. Book. I was 7 then, but somehow learned to read or, gasp!, search on the Internet.

You are way too old to expect things handed to you.

OP, I doubt anyone 32 would consider it cutesy to start every thread "Eldergays..." since you're on the verge of your expiration date yourself, at least in the gay world. (Why do I suspect no one under 45 uses that term? A way to project their bitterness over their lost life and opportunities? )

That said, I'll offer this. One of my favorite vintage porns is Cuming of Age (1980), set in that summer, with star Kip Noll and his much hotter, younger "brother" Scott Noll.

I fell in love that summer. For all I know, it saved my life, as I suddenly became monogamous. I had only known one guy so far who probably had AIDS, so I wasn't prepared for even thinking about some disease that would kill gay men.

I was so over disco. My favorite album was Jackson Browne's Hold Out. Donna Summer had a couple of big albums that year, too.

I remember people started dressing preppy again. Oxford cloth and khakis were everywhere instead of the nasty-ass disco drag of the '70s.

People had become more interested in food. It was the year I bought a pasta machine, as well as the first cookbooks by Marcella Hazan and Giuliano Bugialli. I had bought a Cuisinart the year before and some pots and pans from Le Creuset. Two years later, Martha Stewart would publish her first cookbook, Entertaining.

I don't remember any movies from 1980. I hardly remember going to the movies that year.

In retrospect, I was not ready for the '80s. Who could have been?

I graduated from high school in 1980. This was the last summer before college. I wasn’t out to even myself then, even though deep down I knew the truth. I discovered GQ that summer and went crazy for anything Calvin Klein. I remember the first pair of CK jeans I bought for college cost $40, practically half of my budget for new clothes, but I had to have them.

You could smoke everywhere, and Coca-Cola still had real cane sugar in it. Yum yum!

I'm 52 and I loathe the condescending term "eldergays" and I wish OP would stop using it.

I worked at the last downtown movie theatre in my town. That summer we played "The Shining', " "The Blue Lagoon", "Little Darlings", "Can't Stop the Music" and "Xanadu". Clearly I had a strong influence on the theatre's booking agent/owner.

Patti LuPone was killing it in Evita nightly on Broadway.

And I was killing it nightly as Annie until that little bitch Allison Smith upstaged me and took my role.

This tread made me think of Tom Waddell, founder of the Gay Games, who started work on the first competition that summer of 1980. Originally, they were called "The Gay Olympics" but the USOC sued just a few weeks before the Games started in 1982. I still have my Gay Olympics I button, with the Olympics struck out.

At the Opening Ceremonies, I remember Tina Turner, Rita Mae Brown, and of course, Tom, who I hope younger gays are familiar with:

We didn't have such a good summer. If we hadn't hired that McKeon girl for the coming fall season, we'd be finished.

[quote]I remember people started dressing preppy again. Oxford cloth and khakis were everywhere instead of the nasty-ass disco drag of the '70s.

Penny loafters with no socks. Polo style shirts with the collars turned up.

And Valley Girl talk started to enter every day conversation. You would hear some kween say, "Gag me with a spoon" and you really wish that you could do that.

[quote]And I was killing it nightly as Annie until that little bitch Allison Smith upstaged me and took my role. —SJP, aka BoJane Horsewoman

The problem was that the audience had a hard time deciphering who was Annie and who was the dog Sandy.

[quote] Patti LuPone was killing it in Evita nightly on Broadway.

With that mushed-mouth diction of hers, I can bet.

[quote]The problem was that the audience had a hard time deciphering who was Annie and who was the dog Sandy.

And she wasn't even the best-looking Jew ever associated with that show.

DC-10's crashed.

I got to meet my long-lost dad.

[quote]But what was everyday life really like?

We had no ATMs, no internet and no cellphones. It was hell.

[quote]We had no ATMs, no internet and no cellphones. It was hell.

But we still had readable newspapers, listenable radio, and watchable TV.

and in those pre-ATM days I was "forced" to stand in line at the bank to deposit my paycheck and figure out how much I needed to keep for day to day expenses. While doing this I had to watch the absolutely adorable teller wait on everyone else in front of me. After six months of this he finally slipped me his phone number when returning my receipt for deposit.

The New Teen Titans first appeared in DC Comics Presents #26 and then the first issue of their new series - one of the all-time best comic book series! By Marv Wolfman and George Perez!

Perez also began as artist of Justice League Of America at the same time when the JLA and the JSA teamed up with the New Gods against Darkseid. All of the characters looked SO awesome!

I was 15 and I loved the soundtrack to "XANADU"!

My mom and dad got married.

Johnny Hit and Run Paulene...

Everybody thinks when they were young it was "a simpler time." It's just that we hadn't figured out how complicated things really were.

It was, like it says on the tin, the juncture when the 70s became the 80s.

People were quite optimistic about the 80s, hoping they'd be better than the 70s, which really weren't loved and appreciated until many years after....and the 80s ended up being HORRIBLE.

One particular detail from that summer that I remember is visiting my family in Los Angeles and Sailing By Chris Cross being played constantly on the radio...but CONSTANTLY. Luckily I liked it.

[quote] don't remember any movies from 1980. I hardly remember going to the movies that year.

You don't remember seeing Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, Raging Bull, 9 to 5, or Airplane?!

"Alone In The Dark" (Original) also came out that Summer and received a lot of business at theaters where "The Empire Strikes Back" was selling out constantly.

Fame came out in 1980.

The Blue Lagoon! Young Mr. Atkins, his loincloth, and his lack of loincloth made me gay.

1980

"Curious 32-year-old gay"

So YOUNG!

Stardust memories!

I was 12. As I recall, that summer was all about masturbating.

I remember things much the way R7 describes.

NYC was still a mess but it was real and lots of fun...especially sexually. I lived on the Upper West Side and Columbus Avenue was quite the happening place. Fresh pasta every where. Pasta Primavera...pasta "Alfredo".

Woody Allen had come out with "Manhattan" in 1979. And that's the kind of Manhattan we believed we were living in.

Guys wore tank tops or those cutoff midriff shirts and cut off jeans as shorts. Usually real short. Summer was hairy. And wonderful!

I lived in SF from 1977-1981; later from 1988-2008. Tell ya one thing, the Castro - and the men - were f---ing GORGEOUS in 1980; the Castro ITSELF was f---ing gorgeous.

R10, get over yourself! I'm 73 and proud to be an Elder Gay.

1980 20/20 Sylvia Chase' interview with Michael Jackson and family.

Andy Warhol toured South Beach and the Amsterdam Palace in 1980, while in Miami for his exhibition "Jews of the 20th Century" at Lowe Art Museum. The Amsterdam Palace was later renovated by Gianni Versace, and is now operated as The Villa by Barton G.

Blondie's "Call Me" reigned for months. America's greatest actress Sissy Spacek starred in her Oscar winning Coal Miner's Daughter.

Kim Kardashian was born in 1980.

Just watch The Last Days of Disco, OP

Miss Ross Came Out in Central Park

Diana Ross: Live In Central Park (1980) "I'm Coming Out"

[quote]America's greatest actress Sissy Spacek starred in her Oscar winning Coal Miner's Daughter.

That was MY Oscar!!!

"And The Band Played On" covers the scientific, social and political timeline of AIDS. Really good book. The TV movie is a fine adaptation. Great slime bag work from Alan Alda and Phil Collins.

Chi-town was beautiful then. Jane Byrne was mayor and was paying street musicians to entertain. There were festivals and free events everywhere all the time. The gay beach at Belmont Rocks was thronged with hotties (big dogs were "in" that year). I wore white seersucker suits with pale blue and pink stripes and race walked to work. My bf and I used to do it public places until one day he just stood me up and that was that. There was the Bijou for adult movies and action. In my mind it was sunny and beautiful every day although actually I was very sad most of the time.

Went skydivng out on the prairie. Went hang gliding in the dunes but the wind was too strong for class.

Robert Altman's rarely seen 1980 film, starring Carol Burnett, James Garner, Lauren Bacall, Glenda Jackson, Paul Dooley, Henry Gibson, and Dick Cavett as himself. Never given a proper home video release after its troubled history, it did sporadically air on the Fox Movie Channel in the early 2000s. Enjoy!

Lauren Bacall Carson 1980

[quote]Patti LuPone was killing it in Evita nightly on Broadway. —Anonymous

[quote]And I was killing it nightly as Annie until that little bitch Allison Smith upstaged me and took my role. —SJP, aka BoJane Horsewoman

And I was killing my Playmate Of The Year wife!

I was 25 years old and living in San Francisco. I remember seeing posters go up around the Castro picturing KS lesions and warning of a new gay cancer.

Not a lot of guys at that time were all that concerned yet. The Club Baths at Eighth and Howard and the SF Free a Clinic were busier than ever.

I've been positive since at least 1987 and extremely lucky to be alive, considering what a slut I was at the time.

Amazing to think that there were no personal computers, no iPods, no cell phones. The Walkman was still about five years in the future. I was finishing my freshman year in college in the spring of 1980. NYC was wild and wonderful.

I was only 12. I didn't know anything about politics, and even though I had sexual stirrings for boys, I really didn't understand sexual orientation yet. I remember my dad, a life long shop steward Democrat, voting for Reagan because of how much he felt Carter botched the economy and the Iran hostage crisis. He came to regret that decision almost immediately when Reagan fired all of the workers at the Washington Airport. Mom still voted for Jimmy anyway because "he was such a nice man". I remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back, Airplane, The Shining, Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Flash Gordon, and 9 to 5 in the movie theater. I heard about a weird double feature my sister saw with her boyfriend at the drive-in: The Warriors and Mad Max. My mom, grandma, and sister went and saw Urban Cowboy five times because they loved John Travolta so much. I never went with them once; what I really wanted to see was the Blue Lagoon, and get a good look at Christopher Atkin's hot body, but there was no way I would be able to get anyone to take me to see that one; I'm lucky I coaxed my dad into taking me to see The Shining, something my mother was against. I also remember masturbating, thinking about Mark Hamill in his tank top that he trained in on Dagobah; something about his bare arms turned me on. Those are my 1980 memories.

R10 - Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. Middle age is 37.5 years of age. At 52, you're a 'young senior'. And that's not in 'gay years'. In your eyes, you're still that desireable hunk of 28 - everyone else just sees an aged queen. Reality bites - adapt, or live in delusion.

The 80s sucked, except for some of the music and some of the movies.

The CDC might have identified AIDS in 1981 - but it didn't have a lifestyle-altering effect for a couple more years. I was an NYU student in the Village and it was a steady stream of bars, baths and backrooms before I realized what was going on.

OP said SUMMER of 1980, no January through December...

I bought my first carton of cigarettes, Lucky Strikes, for $7.20. I thought I was so cool. I was 15.

I was doing high-school summerstock.

Lots of sex with boys who are now married with children.

[quote] I'm 52 and I loathe the condescending term "eldergays" and I wish OP would stop using it.

I'm 58 and proud to wear the moniker 'eldergay'.

I lost way too many friends, co-workers, and people I admired not to be grateful to have the ability to grow old.

I don't know why I'm still here, and still HIV-. For me, the summer of 1980 was one long fuckfest. I was in college, living in San Francisco, and really was the girl who caint say no. I know of at least 4 former sex partners who died of AIDS.

In the fall of 1980, I made my first trip to NY, ostensibly to attend the Beverly Sills farewell concert at Lincoln Center. Among those performing that night were gay icons Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Kitty Carlisle, and Eileen Farrell. Later that night, at the supper, I confessed to a handsome guy that I was a big Merman fan, and he invited me over to his apartment to listen to a bootleg recording of Merman in HELLO, DOLLY! We only got as far as 'World Take Me Back' before we were fucking. I still have a copy of that bootleg.

On that same trip, I got fucked by the cute desk clerk at my hotel, and some random guys at the baths

'Amazing to think that there were no personal computers, no iPods, no cell phones. The Walkman was still about five years in the future'

No, the walkman came out in 1979

'The original Walkman was marketed in 1979 as the Walkman in Japan and, from 1980, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK'

It was the summer before I started college. I had a full time big boy summer job and made some money for the first time. Blondie, ELO, Billy Joel, Journey were the soundtrack. Went to the baths for the first time. Great movies as mentioned above. We were cutting our long 70s hair for prep style and trading in the bell bottoms for 501s. I remember it as being a summer of possibilities for a new decade and then the nightmares of the Reagan era began...

1980 was a year like all years, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times.

Not in 1980 you didn't R55.

[quote]Patti LuPone was killing it in Evita nightly on Broadway.... With that mushed-mouth diction of hers, I can bet.

She didn't always sound like a stroke victim. If you listen to her "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" from "Anything Goes," you can understand every word. I can't begin to imagine why she decided that mush-mouth diction would appeal to her fans.

R13 bitch, now that you're 50 I guess you have grown a bit senile too. I took over your part in Jan of 80 and was the longest running Annie ever! Evah!!!

[quote]If you listen to her "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" from "Anything Goes," you can understand every word. I can't begin to imagine why she decided that mush-mouth diction would appeal to her fans.

Actually she still had diction problems then. Forbidden Broadway did an "Anything Goes" spoof on her diction.

She CLAIMS that nobody ever told her she had a diction problem. However, I can't imagine graduating from Juilliard without someone mentioning it.

Forbidden Broadway spoof of Patti LuPone

Suzanne Somers was creating havoc on the set of Three's Company, thereby forcing the producers to reduce her role and eventually kick her off the show.

It was fun... Reagan hadn't been elected yet and there was still some post disco disco coming out. Funky Town was a massive hit and Gorgio Moroder put his magic touch on Blondie's biggest hit "Call Me" and like previous posters had mentioned, there were still Films being released that had disco and the times written all over it. "Xanadu" Soundtrack was huge, "The Apple" was not and "Can't Stop the Music" was the last gasp of fun. It was the last full summer of fun before MTV came along and changed everything, so it definitely was a last blast gasp before the trifecta of Reagan, AIDS and John Lennon's assassination. Gees...

[quote]there was still some post disco disco coming out

Although the double album Bad Girls was released in April 1979, Casablanca released the last 3 singles from it in the summer of 1980: Sunset People, Our Love, and Walk Away.

It was an appropriate ending because Donna Summer did walk away: The summer of 1980 was the end of disco, at least for the Queen of Disco. In the autumn of that year, Geffen released her new wave album The Wanderer.

Another Eldergay memory of The Blue Lagoon.I remember sneaking in to a showing(I was 17,still underage)with my best friend at the time(female).While we laughed hard at the terrible "acting" on display,I had to conceal my raging hardon anytime Chris Atkins bare ass was put on display.I don't think I've ever jerked off more as when I got home that night.Ah memories!

Got punked by my dad for the first time. Was twelve and queer. Dad got drunk, made me suck his cock on the patio, then hauled me up on the deck chair, spit on my boitwat and reamed my hole until he knocked me up, refreshing his sleazy DNA. He then called me a faggot, pissed on me and I jacked it like the bottom whore I am.

I discovered i loved my buddy's cock that summer on a sleep over. That turned out to be a life changing event, I don't think we got much sleep actually once i discovered how good his cock tasted. He wasn't complaining that i got him to cum 4 or 5 times that night

In August of 1980, GH viewers got this great pay off.

Watch how Lesley waves her hand after the 'what about love, Monica?' line to emphasize how Monica didn't give it the weight she should have.

You don't see moments like this anymore.

It was like this: The Village People, Patty Hearst free and proud! Dorothy Stratten not dead! Jenna from Real Housewives of Orange County young and busty!!!

I smoked marijuana and got away with it while Tumpy and Emily took the fall and got thrown out of school.

Boston's Jubilee 350 was that summer. I hawked programs to the crowd, got lots of attractive offers.

[quote]You could smoke everywhere, and Coca-Cola still had real cane sugar in it. Yum yum!

Sounds like paradise.

Jordache and Sergio Valente jeans were a very big deal at school. All the cool kids wore them.

Journey Escape was my favorite album.

Fame was my favorite movie (snuck into theater with friends at Neshaminy Mall)