Stuff I Did in the '80s
I was Simon Le Bon (For Fifteen Minutes)
I was Simon Le Bon (For Fifteen Minutes)

Before my sophomore year in high school I scheduled my first ever appointment at a hair salon. Snips of London was a trendy salon located at our town mall in Jupiter, Florida. For inspiration, I brought the 45 single of Duran Duran’s Save a Prayer and asked the stylist if I could get a cut similar to lead singer, Simon Le Bon—whose glamorous photo was printed on the back of the record sleeve.

After an hour of cutting, blow drying and half a can of mousse, the stylist spun me around to reveal her masterpiece in the mirror. It was amazing: Simon Le Bon’s spiked hair was now on my head. As I walked to our parked car in the mall lot, the humidity and heat of the Florida summer melted the mousse and my hairdo with it. No matter how I tried I could never conjure that Duran Duran magic again.

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Introduction Half a Boombox I’m Not a Member I was Simon Le Bon (For Fifteen Minutes) Motown 25 Watch Whatever, Whenever Snowblind You’re the One That I Want Call Me Your Kiss is on My List Electric Boogaloo Dear Daryl Hall and John Oates Where Shopping is a Pleasure Dialect of a Decade I’m Alright The Sunshine State Shazam! It’s Just a Fantasy I’ve Got a Secret Sunday Funnies Impeachment American Top 40 License to Drive Risky (Show) Business Jumping Someone Else’s Train Yakety Sax I Want to be Elton John When I Grow Up Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Tetherball, Dodgeball & Flag Football Sk8 or Go Home Roll a Saving Throw vs. Velour Piano Man The Duckman Cometh Money for Nothing Waiting for the Bus More Than Meets the Eye The Legend Begins Whip It When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best Master Chef Muppetmania I Want to Ride My Bicycle WW III My Octopus Teacher Some Like it Hot Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs Dare to Be Stupid Keeping the Faith
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Never Abandon Imagination Tony DiTerlizzi: Never abandon imagination.

Imagination is a world of possibility that exists within each of us. It is what makes us uniquely human. It is our creative fingerprint that touches and influences the world around us. Imagination is essential to art and science; to innovation and prosperity. It gives us hope, calls us to action and leads to change.

Whether it’s fairies, dragons, robots or aliens, all of my children’s book characters are siblings born of my imagination – an imagination strengthened through years of encouragement from family, teachers and friends. While so many others abandoned it during their transition from childhood to adulthood, I fiercely held onto mine, hoping for a day when I could share it to inspire the next generation of dreamers. Innovators. World changers.

Imagination empowers us to envision and create a reality of what could be. We must hold it dear, foster it and never abandon it.