By John Clise
It was the 1980s… so sue me. Gag me with a spoon. Like totally. And all of the other ne liners we used to zing at each other.
I came across this cassette case holder a while back. It’s about the size of a large brief case with a shoulder strap. Yep, I had a cassette case back in the 1980s so big it had a shoulder strap.
I guess that went along with the big hair, big shoulder pads, big floor model TVs that ruled the era of everything big.
I guess the big case for cassettes was for the Walkman I had clipped to the waistline of my parachute pants.
In the 1980s I had the preppy look, the hair band look, and I even had the very serious business appropriate well, groomed, always shaved, dress shirt and tie look. I had short hair, spiked hair, long hair, curly hair, and even the dreaded mullet.
I wore a leather jacket over a denim jacket and sometimes vice versa. Depending on the occasion. I wore jeans with the knees out. I stood on street corners with my other delinquent friends yelling at cars we knew as they passed by. We laughed, cursed, made marriage proposals to pretty girls passing by, we howled at the moon as if we had no sense.
We took our favorite girl to John Hughes movies, watched MTV, went bowling. We thought we were rock stars. We talked about rock stars like we knew them.
We all tried to dance like Michael Jackson and hit the high notes like Prince. Bon Jovi sang some our favorite anthems. Madonna hadn’t gone crazy yet. Rock-n-Roll was still pure. Heavy Metal wasn’t just music. It was a way of life.
Sting sang sang love songs rather than stalker stories as we think today. Miami Vice was too cool. We saw the lines between right and wrong blur.
Cyndi Lauper shocked old people with her “crazy” make up… like Adam Ant and CC DeVille. And even me back in the club days. Those were some great times.
Those were the days when we were at the club until three, then some grub at the overnight choke and puke, then home to sleep a couple of hours, up for shower and off to work… and repeat.
There were arcades and pool halls and boom boxes and Saturday morning cartoons and Casey Kasem and American Bandstand and Soul Train and Night Tacks and never much too worry about back then.
We went to rock concerts and talked about it for days. Concert tickets cost about $15. Bands rocked their brains out, and so did we.
Oh yeah, everything was acid wash and leg warmers. Socks were a fashion option. Jelly slip-ons, hair crimpers, Aquan Net, hair gel, Izods, Vans… oh weren’t those the fashionable days.
As if, not even, grody, to the max, poser, and party hardy… like I said… sue me, it was the 1980s.
Clise's Cornucopia 