Crap. Missed 'em on both ends.
1983? I’d go and see both Reagan and Thatcher speak. Two statesmen in their prime. Then I’d enjoy a nice long trip to Burgundy.
The battiest? Watching Arthur Scargill and the other union leaders destroy their industries.
You’re taking me right? Right?
Enjoy: Dead Kennedys, Fear, Scratch Acid, Butthole Surfers, the Misfits, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendancies, very early Metallica and Slayer, very very early Flaming Lips, U2’s War tour, semi-normal looking Michael Jackson, John Romita Jr.'s run on Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil, the original pre-CGI Return of the Jedi.
Not enjoy: skinny neckties with piano key pattern, Lionel Richie’s “Can’t Slow Down” all over the radio.
I’m trying to figure out where to see Stevie Ray Vaughan. I never saw him in concert. That would have been at the beginning of his touring I think.
There was also a couple of great local groups I would have liked to see more of. I think the Hounds were already playing the Jersey Rock & Blues circuit.
Aside from general touristing, travel to New York and start a few well-placed rumours about what not to do for the next few decades. Also, have dinner with Quentin Crisp (he had his number listed in the telephone directory and would dine with anyone who invited him). Go to some clubs and enjoy the fashions. Buy some Madonna albums.
What would I miss? My PDA. USB. Good digital cameras. LED flashlights. Cheap computers (a fully tricked-out IBM PC pushed $5K) and printers (I paid $600 in 1984 for a 9 pin dot matrix printer). Good, cheap cordless tools. Cheap, big monitors. Cheap airline tickets. Expanded hours (not sure, but haven’t those been more prevalent recently for libraries, f’rinstance)?
What would I enjoy? Re-use some skills that I’m sorry went by the wayside. I miss my slide rule (last saw one for sale in an Amish country general store in 1982). I used to be good at CP/M and MS-DOS, and programming in FORTRAN, FORTH, various BASICs. I miss Lotus 1-2-3 and wouldn’t mind it back again. Perfecting TSR loading, getting the jumpers just right in the days before PnP. WordStar.
That’s awesome. 
It was the year I graduated from high school. There were some great record albums–vinyl!–coming out at the time.
And I started college.
It was a good year, overall.
This thread is making me incredibly sad and nostalgic, because we’re talking about what was pretty much the golden era of my childhood. I think I’d spend the whole month just crying. 
But in all seriousness, I don’t even know where to begin; I’d try to catch the extreme tail-end of No Wave in NYC, early organized hip hop in the bronx, danceteria, talking heads in full effect, then I’d try to catch the Minutemen, Husker Du, the Replacements…then the Smiths, New Order, Magazine…oh man, this is killing me.
Mainly I’d just enjoy how technology and rules were just that much simpler - just enough to pull some major scams.
In 1983 I was 21 and living in Hollywood. I’d love to spen a month back there and then with actual money, no crap job, and no emotionally abusive BF to distract me from all the really great stuff that I was enjoying at the time, but not to it’s fullest extent. Concerts at the Whiskey, a dozen revival movie houses within a couple miles, pre-cleaned-up Hollywood Blvd, Melrose and Beverly Blvds before they were completely given over to high-end stores, and some of the best used bookshops I’ve visited before and since.
I’d probably try to avoid sleeping the entire month, which given the availability of various less-than-legal substances, would probably be possible.
And if the timing were right, how great would it be to visit the 1983 Agoura Renaissance Pleasure Faire before it was given over to corporations and family-friendly attitudes.
The only thing I would hate about it would be having the experience by myself rather than having my husband along, because he would be into doing pretty much the same stuff, and I would have a date.
matt_mcl , my sister totally did this in, I don’t know, 1986! Square biz. She learned about his phone number thing on the late night NBC version of Letterman and she and a friend had this phone relationship with him and took him to Pheobe’s on the Lower East Side. They went to a gay-oriented bookstore in the Village the weekend before to get copies of one of his books for him to sign and he took out a hundred dollar bill to make a show of paying but they insisted he was their guest and he allowed them to pay. He mentioned that he wore full make up back in the '60’s and my sister asked if his lipstick color had been “Sheer Shrimp” which tickled him, well, pink.
As for me, 1983, I’d treat myself to a perm.
Not that it’s much help, but I saw him in 1986 on the St. Paul riverfront. He did a lot of his stuff and then a Jimi Hendrix set (just as well as Jimi ever could). The man was fantastic.
I, too, would catch a lot of concerts. If the timing worked out, I’d enjoy hitting some of the same ones I went to back then (most especially the first US Festival), but I’d also catch some of the bands I regret not seeing in concert.
The prevalence of cigarette smoke would suck, but I’d be able to smoke smelly cigars in public to overpower the cigarette smell, so that would cancel out 
I’d enjoy reliving those early computer days, assuming I could actually remember anything about how to operate Imsai, Altair, Altos, Corvus, Apple ][, Apple ///, Atari 800, Commodore 64/128, PDP-8, PDP-11, Apollo, Data General, IBM 5100, IBM 370, Cray I, and all those other systems I used back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Hmmm. I wonder if I could still write a program in APL?
I’d like to go back to some of the restaurants & bars that are gone now. And visit Yellowstone Park again back when the bears were crawling all over the place. It’d be nice to see some of my college friends, but I’d just be “creepy old guy who knows too much,” so I’d probably avoid that.
That was also the beginning of the microbrew revolution, with some really great craft beers if you knew where to look for them.
Yep. In August of 1983 I was helping a high school buddy who was about to start at Cal move stuff into his Berkeley apartment. That night we were wandering around looking for some pizza and passed a small club where Stevie Ray Vaughan was playing. My comment: “Oh, that’s the dude who plays on the new Bowie album” and we kept walking. :smack:
If the timing was right, I’d hit all 3 days of the US Festival. On the way there I’d be amazed at all the undeveloped land in Eastern LA County and Western San Bernadino County.
I’d go to the restaurant my high school girlfriend worked at and drop the dime on the 22-year-old bartender that was banging my 16-year-old ex. But if I didn’t exist in that dimension, she wouldn’t have been my ex… but I’d be 42 and couldn’t have her back anyway, but I never dated her in the first place… ah, never mind.
I could spend a day watching the “Thriller” video on MTV every half hour, or even go see it in the theatre.
I could pull a Homer and walk past the opening day line exclaiming “Holy crap, Luke and Leia are brother and sister!!!”
Sampiro, you pretty much described the premise of the new BBC-TV drama, Ashes to Ashes. (Yes, the title comes from the 1981 Bowie song). The show is the sequel to the acclaimed " Life on Mars".
In Ashes, an experienced female detective and psychologist from the 21st century, DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes), wakes up in 1981 after being shot in 2008. She feels she’s in a sort of drawn-out “my life flashes before my eyes in my last seconds” -situation, so for her, too, there’s no buying Microsoft stock. She has to make the best of living in 1981. What struck me in particula is how the (realistically pictured) decor of rooms, houses and bars all now strike me as incredible cheap and bland.
I’d go have dinner at Windows on the World
Mmmmmmm. Coca-Cola in a glass bottle.
You had to pick 1983. When Queen decided not to tour.
Damn you.
If you really want that, you can find it now. It might take some searching though.