"Kirk, you're still alive, my old friend"

What to hear something that will make you feel old and tired, as if the world were ending tomorrow (the opposite of the "Genesis Effect" for you Trekkies out there): William Shatner turns 77 years old today.

It's at this point that I usually make my case that today's birthday honoree enjoyed his finest days in the 80s. And I'll do that momentarily. But if you haven't seen Shatner's performance in 1998's "Free Enterprise," where he plays a (hopefully) comic version of himself, you're letting the best of life pass you by.

Still, between TV's "T.J. Hooker" and the Star Trek movies of the 80s, it's a wonder we don't call that the "Shatner Decade."

OK, that's pushing it. Still, what red-blooded (or green-blooded) life-form doesn't weep uncontrollably as Kirk breaks down during Spock's death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? That's where we all learn that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few ... or the one.

Leave it to Shatner to prove him wrong in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW, YOU CAN LEARN FROM CAPT. KIRK:

• "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young."
• "The Klingons don't take prisoners."
• "We learn by doing."
• "The needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many."
• "Nobody pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word."
• "You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves."
• "I've always known I'll die alone."

That's right ... Iceman ... I am dangerous

"Top Gun" is on TV these days more than the year it first buzzed the tower at theaters. I consider this movie a "target-rich environment" for quoting at nonsensical times during my workday.

My coworkers, on the other hand, are ready to go "Cougar" on me and turn in their wings. (Which is fine, because that gives me my dream shot -- Miramar!) I'll pulled no less than a "4-g negative dive" today at the office, bringing up memorable lines more lines than Iceman waxes that flattop of his. (God bless, Val Kilmer.)

I know what you're thinking: How can I irritate my friends and coworkers in similar fashion? I'm here to help.

TOP 10 TOP GUN LINES TO RECITE TO ANNOY COWORKERS:

10. Swilling down Starbucks on the way in from the parking lot: "I feel the need ... the need for speed." (Or, if you're already caffeinated enough, "Time to kick the tires and light the fires!")

9. When coming in the office door: "Good morning, gentlemen, the temperature is 110 degrees."

8. When your boss asks you to do something: "That's a negative, Ghost rider, the pattern is full."

7. When seeing your friend in the restroom: "Hey Goose, you big stud!" (Or, if you're feeling daring, "Great balls of fire!")

6. After that three-martini lunch to nobody in particular: "I flew with your old man. VF-51, the Oriskany. You're a lot like he was. Only better... and worse."

5. When passing off an assignment to a subordinate: "If you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dogs--t out of Hong Kong!"

4. On spotting targets at Happy Hour after work: "Too close for missiles, I'm switching to guns."

3. What to tell your wingman at Happy Hour after switching to guns: "Do not fire until fired upon."

2. What you tell yourself when your ATM won't cough up more cash: "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

1. And whenever you get the chance: "Take me to bed or lose me forever."

5 reasons to never cover a Queen song

Give American Idol's Kady Malloy credit for her performance on 80s week. If you want to win a national singing contest, your first instinct should be to: (1) choose the most beautiful song you can find; (2) sung by an artist with a legendary voice, and then; (3) totally knock everyone's spiked Coca-Cola cups over with your rendition.

So Kady picks Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever." OK, check for No. 1. Sung by one of the greatest showmen of the last 100 years, Freddie Mercury. Check for No. 2. And then she sang it like she was auditioning for the high school chorus after drinking a bottle of NyQuil. It just goes to show that Meatloaf wasn't right: Two out of three actually ain't good sometimes.

It's so simple, people. Maybe you need a refresher course!

FIVE REASONS TO NEVER COVER A QUEEN SONG:

5. Unless your name is George Michael, and you have time between appearances on "Eli Stone," nobody on Earth can match Mercury's voice. Sorry, but Freddie was the only living proof that live must exist on other planets.

4. Assuming you choose to ignore reason #5, at least pick an up-tempo Queen song. Might I suggest "Crazy Little Thing Called Love?" Not a great song, but at least you'd be around for Beatles week.

3. Unless you can quote at least five lines from 1986's nerd-flick "Highlander," the movie in which the song appears, it's bad karma to pick "Who Wants To Live Forever." (Which means only me and maybe a dozen other people are qualified to sing it -- and nobody wants to hear that either.)

2. Like Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," most truly great Queen songs build in energy verse after verse until it reaches a crescendo where you are at one with all living things and have power beyond imagination.. You can't just chop a Queen song half, sing the first half, smile a toothy grin at Simon Cowell, because ...

1. ... If you do, you're subject to the most important quote from "Highlander" ... "If your head comes away from your neck, it's over!"

[AP photo]

Mickey knew: 'Women weaken legs!'

Burgess Meredith would have been 99 years old today (umm, had he not died 10 years ago). But that's not the point. We've come to praise Burgess -- not to bury him (umm, again).

Everyone has their own "Meredith moment." Maybe you worshiped him as The Penguin while watching Batman reruns from the 60s. Or you loved "Grandpa Gustafson" in the "Grumpy Old Men" movies. ("Drop ... that ... fish!")

Real 80s aficionados need only recall his two finest gigs: "Mickey" the trainer in the first three "Rocky" movies. And "Ammon" the playwright in 1981's "Clash of the Titans." (Claymation villains and Harry Hamlin in a toga -- now that's old-school entertainment.)

Because as I'm about to prove to you...

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW, YOU CAN LEARN FROM A BURGESS MEREDITH MOVIE:

• "Keep hittin' em in the ribs! Don't let that bastard breathe!"
• "Ah the young. Why do they never listen? When will they ever learn?"
• "If you can catch a chicken, you can catch greased lighting."
• "Call no man happy who is not dead!"
• "Women weaken legs!"
• "Experience has taught me that life was tragic enough without my having to write about it."

Seize the day, Ethan Hawke

Am I the only person out there who thinks Ethan Hawke (besides having the coolest "superhero" name in Hollywood) had the most interesting role in 1989's Dead Poet's Society?

In just his third movie, Hawke played the role of "Todd" (aka "Mr. Anderson! Don't think that I don't know that this assignment scares the hell out of you most!") He's the shy guy. The one who tries to write poetry but gives up to tackle chemistry homework. The one who won't read during the Dead Poet meetings. (The one most likely be become a software entrepreneur, serial killer or porn magazine publisher by today's standards.)

But his "sweaty-toothed mad-man" rant is just an epic breakthrough: "Y-You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it will never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it will cover just your head as you wail and cry and scream!"

Then Robin Williams, as "John Keating," congratulates him, smiling and saying only: "Don't you forget this."

Chills! Chills, I'm telling you.

Hawke turns 37 years old today. And I'm sure Ethan would agree with me that...

Everything You Need To Know, You Can Learn From Dead Poet's Society:

• "No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world."
• "Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary."
• "Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
• "Sucking all the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone."
• "There is a time for daring and a time for caution, and a wise man knows which is called for."
• "You must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all."

In the 80s, there can be only one

If you're going to run your life based on the movie quotes of a single actor, I think Sean Connery makes a good choice.

Not that I've personally chosen Connery. I'm more a John Cusack zen philosopher myself ("What the hell's wrong with being stupid once in awhile?"). But because Connery turns 77 years old today, we'll honor our wise Scottish sage instead.

As usual, these are only movie quotes from the 80s. (Too bad for us and "Capt. Marko Ramius" that "Hunt for Red October" was released in 1990.)

Everything you need to know in life, you can learn from a Sean Connery movie:

• "Don't you ever get caught on the take." (Family Business)
• "If you're afraid of getting a rotten apple, don't get it from the barrel, get it off the tree." (The Untouchables)
• "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky." (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
• "If your head comes away from your neck, it's over!" (Highlander)
• "In the end there can be only one." (Highlander)
• "They pull a knife, you pull a gun." (The Untouchables)
• "It's against Service policy to give endorsements." (Never Say Never Again)
• "Make sure when your shift is over you go home alive. Here endeth the lesson." (The Untouchables)

[AP photo]

'Time of your life, huh kid?'

Tom Cruise wasn't born on the Fourth of July, but he was pretty close. Tuesday, July 3, marks Cruise's 45th birthday. And let's hope the additional year brings some additional wisdom.

Ole Tommy Boy has had a rough go of it lately, what with feuding with network anchors over psychiatry, jumping up and down on Oprah's couch, and don't even get me started about his unusual baby birthing practices. His latest Mission Impossible 3 installment suffered at the box office as legions of fans began turning on him. A whole country -- Germany -- even considered banning him from shooting there because of his beliefs in Scientology, which is considered a cult there in many circles.

As much fun as Tom is as a punching bag (karma, right?), it's sad when you remember he was once box office gold. And actually, he was more than that, because ...

All You Need to Know in Life, You Can Learn from a Tom Cruise '80s Movie:

"You have to wear clothes to work. There's a law or something." (The Outsiders, 1983)

"If the government trusts me, maybe you could." (Top Gun 1986)

"College women can smell ignorance... like dog s--t." (Risky Business, 1983)

"I think maybe the money's what's throwing you off." (The Color of Money 1986)

"Sometimes you just gotta say, 'What the f--k, make your move.' " (Risky Business, 1983)

"It seems to me that if there were any logic to our language, trust would be a four letter word. (Risky Business, 1983)

"Days get shorter and shorter, nights longer and longer, before you know it, you life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours." (Cocktail 1988)

"You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're dead." (Top Gun 1986)

"All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end." (Cocktail 1988)

"All airlines have crashed at one time or another, that doesn't mean that they are not safe." (Rainman 1988)

'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'

Is there anyone out there who truly couldn't appreciate the 1986 flick Sid & Nancy? It's a Gary Oldman masterpiece (aren't they all?). And if you didn't idolize Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols before seeing it, you surely did afterward. (Though perhaps for all the wrong reasons.)

Everything I Need To Know In Life, I Learned from Sid & Nancy:

• "Never trust a junkie."
• "Barbie doesn't have bruises."
• "Sidney's more than a mere bass player. He's a fabulous disaster. He's a symbol, a metaphor, he embodies the dementia of a nihilistic generation."
• "You're in the studio, these places cost like fifty grand a minute."
• "Sex is boring ... American hippie love s--t."

This week's Stuck in the 80s podcast showcases "Sid & Nancy." Click here to listen or click here to subscribe to the series for free on iTunes.

What can you expect to learn from this week's show?

• Find out what happens if you stick to a strict diet of fish and melon.
• Learn about the real Sid Vicious (the late Simon John Ritchie) and Nancy Spungen.
• Appreciate one of the top 10 movie soundtracks from the 80s.

It's all there, plus a new edition of "Name That 80s Tune" and "Reader Mailbag."

The zen genius of Andrew McCarthy

St. Elmo's Fire isn't the most intellectual movie of the 80s. But it's no "Road House" either. And much of what makes the movie still special today to so many fans of the decade are the quippy lines of Andrew McCarthy, the lovelorn cub-journalist who spins many a yarn on the perils of the heart.

All I Need To Know in Life, I Learned from Andrew McCarthy:

• "There is the brink of insanity and then there is the abyss."
• "Never trust a woman who says she isn't angry."
• "I enjoy being afraid of Russia. It's a harmless fear, but it makes America feel better, Russia gets an inflated sense of national worth from our paranoia."
• "Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers."
• "Marriage is a concept invented by people who were lucky to make it to 20 without being eaten by dinosaurs. Marriage is obsolete."
• "Used to be sex was the only free thing. No longer. Alimony... palimony... it's all financial. Love is an illusion."

In reality, many of McCarthy's best one-liners are lifted from Merle Kessler of the comedy troupe Duck's Breath Mystery Theater. Kessler created a fictional critic named Ian Shoales, who over the years spouted his wisdom in media outlets including NPR's "All Things Considered" and MTV's "The Cutting Edge," according to IMDB.com. However, the writers of St. Elmo's Fire give a special thanks to Duck's Breath during the movie's credits.

This week's podcast -- ta-dah -- is on St. Elmo's Fire: Click here to download this week's show or click here to subscribe to the whole series for free on iTunes. Do it now because as Andrew McCarthy says, "Forever got a lot shorter all of a sudden."

The ancient wisdom of Asia

The rock n' roll sages of Asia. Every lyric is its own little fortune cookie. ... And I dig that about them!

Asia's getting ready to kick off another North American tour with the original lineup, and -- at last -- that includes a date here in Tampa Bay. (I just love typing those words.) So to prepare for the Clearwater show on June 14, it's time to rediscover the wisdom of Geoff Downes, Carl Palmer, Steve Howe and John Wetton.

Everything I Need To Know In Life, I Learned From An Asia Song:

"The disco hotspots hold no charm for you."

"Fate looks certain but there's nothing guaranteed."

"You know the cost of loving is your heart."

"Succeeding's believing in yourself."

"You gambled all on one important game. Now take the debt and don't complain."