Ah, time in its flight...31 years ago today, this trio - Robby Benson, Joan Jett, and Rex Smith - joined forces - and Life was there.  The whys and the wheres are lost in the mists of time, but I confirm that within 18 months or so of this snap, I very likely owned and wore most or all of these clothes, not to mention sporting most or all of those haircuts (which are, I suppose, really only variations on a single, blow-dried, theme).

Since when, by the bye, did Joan Jett ever go around looking so femme?  1981 is kind of an in-between time for her, after the Runaways but before the Blackhearts, but she never at all struck me as an eyelet-and-ankle-sox kind of gal (frankly, I would have thought that was more up Rex's alley, but that's just me).

All three, now, are more or less in the "Whatever Happened To...?" category.  Jett did Broadway a couple of years ago, well-reviewed in Rocky Horror;  Benson has become an activist for cardiac research and just self-published an e-memoir recounting his four open-heart surgeries, I'm Not Dead ... Yet! (cheerful); and Smith's website, in the "Rex Right Now" section, touts his undoubtedly smash tour of the Philippines - in 2009.

STOP THE PRESSES:  I just realized something.  I was going to add, as a Fun Fact, something that I can't believe that I did not know:  that Robby Benson has since 1982 been married to fab '80s backup thrush Karla DeVito.  Then I thought to myself, recalling endless midnight viewings of the "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" video (which played, along with "I do the Rock," before screenings of Rocky Horror - back to that again, how odd - at Philadelphia's lamented TLA):  "Self, we have just discovered a major Time-Life error:  that woman in this picture is not, in fact, Joan Jett (who would not, in fact, be caught dead in New Wave Shepherdess drag) - that's Karla DeVito!"  Benson took over from Smith in Pirates of Penzance - in which DeVito understudied and then replaced Linda Ronstadt (talk about your "Whatever Happened To"-s!) - on Broadway right about that time, so there are the whys and the wheres, too.

Oy.  Can you tell I have too much time on my hands?