Remember the Eighties - Page 3

I think that it was the chemical that was sprayed on the pot plants that made people get sick and hallicunate.

a cocaine fueled, massive shoulder padded, tidal wave haired, oingo -boingo dancin', Laurie Anderson art performanced, horrible sit commed decade. I seem to recall less girth on the average American...

That's why I chose 1969 as my break-off date. Then I could be a swinging '60s person and naturally go on into the '70s with my hepness intact and live fast and die young.

I suspect that today it's much easier to live fast and die young than it was in days past. Of course today we seem to enjoy it less.

Nothing really fabulous exists today as it did in those days. People seem afraid of displaying some sort of style while dying in excessive alcoholic consumption--it's either some decrepit Meth whore or a bunch of teens who are more than likely going to end up at a morgue. And then you have the really pathetic office folk.

I graduated hs in '91. I remember what I was "in-to" in the eighties...Duran Duran, rediculous hair, acid washed 501s, and t-shirts with some brand name like ocean pacific plastered all over them. I do not miss it.

I was in high school during the 80s....looking back it seemed like a great time. The music scenes were awesome, having discovered Kiss around 10, The Who at 11, Duran Duran and Missing Persons at 12, The Pistols and Clash around that time too. Listening to The Specials, Selecter and Madness at my friend's house before taking the bus to our Jr High school in 1983. Discovering punk and hardcore around 1984 and the life changing lyrics of Minor Threat.

Worldwise, I remember being afraid of dying in a nuclear war..esp after the mindfuck tv movie "The Day After"

Chicks...eh, didnt get many since "punkers" back then werent cool like they are today.

My anthem growing up in the 80s..."Creatures" by The Adolescents

I'm not accepted by my peers - SO WHAT
I could care less about those queers - THEY'RE FUCKED
Chicks are hot and full of cheers - PLEASERS
They say NO so I jerk white tears - TEASERS

I Hate them all - Creatures
I Hate all them- Creatures

etc

I resemble that remark.

Yes, but if it caused hallucinations I suppose it wouldn't have been ALL bad


And soon thereafter we saw the exodus of $40 fill-the-sandwich-bag ounces of brown weed and the entrance of $40 not-quite-7 grams quarters of sinsemilla which ultimately lead to hydroponic offerings of today. As a friend of mine put it so eloquently "You remember those days? We smoked like we wanted to die from it."

Actually, when I think back on the 80's it was a relatively stable period that confused a whole generation. I think we were the first generation that grew up knowing that we had no idea what the future was going to be like. Maybe that's just part of being a teenager but it seemed that none of the old rules applied anymore.

Byproducts of the 50's, our parents were the Cleaver generation and all of their "everyone should serve their country/be part of the community/love thy neighbor" ethics were dated as was the notion of "retiring with a pension and getting the gold watch". We didn't know how it was going to turn out but we knew that there was no job stability and that Social Security was not going to do anything for us. A college degree no longer meant a great job but was rather a vehicle to get off the street and into an office (usually tainted with mediocrity) and a boring have-no-impact "yes" man job.

Not to mention the "no pre-marital sex/until death do you part" view of relationships which seemed naive if not hypocritical. As a young man raised by a stay-at-home mom it was hard to figure out my "role" with women, who were now my "equal". I can't even tell you how many women I insulted with chivalrous acts like opening a door for them.

And just to exacerbate the confusion, technology really started to transform daily life for our generation. In 1980 middle-class America did not have microwave ovens, VCRs, cable TV, cordless telephones (or cell phones, computers or the internet). We had radio, cassettes, 5 television channels (in the big cities), Pong, and grew up with little green army men, GI Joes, Big Wheels and the game of baseball. By 1990 all of the previously mentioned "necessities" were commonplace in the average home and computers were invading the business arena.

My first job out of HS was as a bookkeeper tracking stock/sales of a mens' clothing store (Chess King...yay!) on a desk-sized sheet of "grid paper". My fingers had callouses from banging the adding machine. Within two years we were migrating from a cash-register based system to a computerized Point-Of-Sale. Born in 1966 my only exposure to computers was a 1 credit hour (mandatory) class in college. Systems were DOS-based (text, no icons) and you had either the green or orange letters on monitors. If it wasn't IBM, it was shit. Within 5 years most 6th graders were more capable of running modern business system than people my age.

It really was a kind of clash of cultures for some of us. People my age were probably at the very beginning of GenX and had some very hippyish 70's sensibilities...hanging out (anywhere) drinking and smoking and generally giving half a crap about the next guy. Sex, drugs, rock and roll! Or you were a white-bread "square" on the straight-and-narrow path...but we all seemed to get along. And then came punk rock and all of the angst of the generation just two or three years younger than us. I wore long hair, Levis and concert T's. My little bro wore a dyed mohawk, parachute pants and Hitler Ts. We'd chill, get oblierated and have "love-ins"...in a very communal type setting. They would do poppers and go to the "kiddie club" to mosh/slam and f each other up. The Breakfast Club is a great representation of the era.

And music was all over the place too (welcome to the MTV generation). We listened to a lot of the classic stuff like Zeppelin, the Stones, Floyd, the Who, the Doors, Hendrix, Cream, CCR, etc. And you want to talk about rocking out Frampton Comes Alive? On the heavier side there was Ozzie and Sabbath, AC/DC, Van Halen, the Scorps and a lot of fun bands like Motley Crue, Ratt, Cinderella, Guns. Rush was huge as was *blush* REO Speedwagon. Journey and Boston were big and two bands I really liked and Aerosmith (with Run DMC...fuck yeah!). Looking past the glam metal stuff there were a lot of innovative bands like U2, INXS, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Depeche Mode and many others. Just a very eclectic decade.

As weird as it was, the 80's was a great time to be a teenager. It was innocent and hedonistic at the same time. Most of us were selfish in a very humanistic way.
It was whatever you wanted it to be and I'm glad that I experienced it and made the most of it. I doubt we'll ever see that kind of freedom and tolerance again.

Well, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

Long live the Rubik's Cube

Do you remember lying in bed
With your tweed pulled up over your head?

Faint praise! Nothing more need be said to prove the worth of '80s music than that it supplanted disco.

+1

I enjoyed reading his last post.

People saved up for tapes and records.

If people in Communist nations secretly listened to Elvis, I suspect Americans had the capacity to do it as well.

Thanks Augustus and LSeca. You are too kind. I started responding to the paraquat thing and all of these thoughts suddenly poured out of the keyboard. Upon reading it, the post seemed almost too personal or self-centered or something and it came very close to being deleted.

Music was a large part of our lives but it probably did not have any more significance to us than other generations. It definitely cost more to buy than today (because we actually had to buy it...no P2P). The BoomBox was king back in those days.

I remember running out of money a lot but there was a pack of about 10 of us who always looked out for each other. I don't ever remember wanting for anything more than what we had. To a certain extent, this is still the way it is in my life except the people have changed.

I feel a lot younger than middle-aged but writing all of this stuff down really puts things in perspective. I can't even begin to tell all of the stories of how we lived back then that seem so over-the-edge now. I mean, as a habit, we used to go up to Lincoln Grade School about 4 or 5 in the afternoon and sit around on the front steps, out in public in broad daylight maybe 10 feet away from the main street, drinking beers and passing joints until 10 or 11 at night. 15 or 20 of us aged 16 to 20 and Stan would be strumming the acoustic and blowing on the harmonica while Mike would be belting out Dylan tunes. Kid, parents, the cops all driving or walking by and not even giving us a second thought. And that's not even a story...it's just the way it was.