Last month, I spent some time visiting my mother in New Hampshire. While there, I had some time to sit and go through old photos. This was a lot of fun. It made me nostalgic, it made me laugh and it made me sad. But mostly, it made me ask what the hell was going on in the 80s.
Now, okay, granted. The 70s. Sure. But at least I just had normal little boy haircuts the entire time. Around the time we got to the 80s, however, I was just getting to the age where I took control over my own hairstyle, and fashion sense.
I entered the decade with the classic down-the-middle, butt-cut. This was accompanied by a Member's Only jacket, not so bad. I mean, the haircut is bad, but the clothes are okay. T shits and jeans. Normal jeans. But shortly thereafter, apparently, I started watching MTV. I got into hip-hop and punk, or thought I did. It was actually new wave, of course. But what did I know, I was eleven. It was 1983. I lived in Alabama. None of the shirts have sleeves. Most seem to have some sort of Japanese writing on them. And before long, up went the hair.
By 5th grade I was sporting a spike. Sometimes in conjunction with a rat tail. Scratch that. Often in conjunction with a rat tail. God help me, what was I doing in a Michael Jackson jacket? I favored camouflage pants, Army surplus. I was break dancing. Break dancing? What the fuck. I can't believe people ever thought hip hop was just going to be a fad. Little white kids in suburban Alabama were break dancing in 1984. That's huge. I really dug Van Halen, L.L., Run DMC, Prince, The Cars, and 101 other bands that I can't be bothered to remember now. And, of course, Michael Jackson. I thought Madonna was hot. I did like The Clash, but I never would have heard of them had they not been on MTV. David Lee Roth was a god to me.
In the sixth grade, a friend of mine really got into skating. I tried to also, but I only had a J.C. Penny board, and was quite frankly too chicken-shit to try anything cool. This moderately improved what I was listening to, but took a dramatic toll on my appearance. Everything became Brighter and More Torn. Do you remember what Gator looked like? That was terrible. But me. I looked like his redneck cousin who shopped at Gayfers. But not as classy. I wore a painters hat, and lots of things with checkerboards. I bleached my hair.
And then, in middle school, there was R.E.M. Unlike all the other bands I knew of, these guys weren't in California, or New York, or London, or even Minneapolis. They were in Georgia. Southerners. Like Me! Puffy shirts! A vest! Unfortunate hats! Bangs Bangs and more Bangs!
This was thankfully short-lived. Sometime around eighth grade, I figured out that no girls at my fascist-preppy junior high were going to talk to me as long as I was sporting the J.C. Penny version of the Michael Stipe. Besides, I was tired of all the guys calling me a fag.
In with the 80s preppy! Bring out your pink! Bring out your purple! Bring out your whitest whites and stonewashed jeans! Feather that hair! Turn up that collar! Peg those jeans! Hand me the J.Crew catalogue and bring me a rugby shirt. My jeans grew splotchier and whiter. I had issues with bleach. Polka dots, yo. Polka dots.
And then I started smoking pot, which must have explained the hair: A curly poof, all one length. It looked like someone had draped a poodle over my head. By now I was listening to respectable music, a lot of it is stuff I still listen to today. But I was far from finished with my unfortunate fashions. You know how today, all the teens and early 20-somethings dress like the 80s? Well, in the 80s, they all dressed like the 60s. Or at least a lot of them did. (Hint to fashionistas: if you really want to dress like 1988, you should buy some hippie crap.) Tie-dyes. Paisley shirts. Oh, help. It was just awful. And yet: perhaps the best look I had all decade, which should tell you something about how utterly loathesome 80s fashion was.
By 1990 I had seamlessly transitioned to torn jeans, ragged t-shirts with obnoxious slogans, and flannel shirts. This was before "grunge" was invented as a marketing term, by about a year or so. Yet people were already kicking that look anyway. Especially dirtbag not hippie not punk not preppy not skater not metalhead not really much of anything other than disaffected college-bound kids like me. It was a welcome relief from all that neon and, um, neon. Which is why today, when I see the kids with their Vuarnet Cateye-style sunglasses, painters caps, and checkerboard everything I grimace, and think of them as victims. And then, flipping through Radar, you see the Art Bears, and realize, oh! Grunge! It's back, slightly re-packaged. And then you cry, and order another wine from the stewardess.
