Remember how radical it was when you got your first dirt bike in the 80s? Mine had a red frame, hand brakes, and yellow pads that told the world it was a Red Line BMX. I wish I could say that I was sad to retire the banana seat bike I’d loved since Christmas in 1978, but I was 9, and felt like I’d outgrown it and its various . . . accoutrements.
I don’t know if dirt bikes were as common in the 70s and 80s as they were when Ryan and Nolan were kids, but I was really excited when I finally got mine. I washed it, kept it in the garage, and left the kick stand on it, even though the big kids in my neighborhood had all taken their kick stands off, in order to reduce the weight and make them more suitable for racing. Of course, none of us was strong or powerful enough to know that the elimination of a few ounces of kickstand wouldn’t make any appreciable difference, but these decisions were made at an age where we were certain that new shoes made us run faster.
I rode that bike everywhere, and I feel a little sad right now because I can’t remember what happened to it.
When Nolan was 6, we got him a bike for his birthday. I think we picked it up at Toys R Us or Target, where it was one of many little kid-sized dirt bikes on display. I don’t recall seeing any banana seat numbers with streamers coming off the handlebars or giant flags reaching up to the sky from the back of the seat, but it stood out from the pack, stylishly-adorned with cool blue pads on its “chromette” frame, emblazoned with the word “Chaos,” surrounded by some lightning bolts.
When it was revealed to him, Nolan celebrated in that joyous way that’s only possible when you’re 6. Some of my fellow parents out there may have experienced a similar moment, when it’s hard to tell whether parent or child is happier.
He ran over to us, thanked us, gave us hugs, and said to Anne, “But what’s chows?” It rhymed with house.
“Chows?” She said.
“Chows.” He pointed to a pad on his bike. “My bike says ‘chows.'”
“Oh, that’s Chaos,” Anne said, with a grin.
“Oh. That’s weird.” He said. Then: “Chaos!” He hopped on his new bike and sped down the street as fast as his chunky little legs would carry him.
That was about 11 years ago. Ever since then, our family has said chows when we mean chaos, and we’ve said it a lot lately, as in “we are seriously living in a chows house,” while the construction we’ve wanted to do for longer than we’ve been saying chows is completed.
This weekend, Anne and I cleaned out our garage, so we can transfer some of the chows from the house – some furniture and several boxes of my books, mostly – out there. (Like most Angelenos, our garage isn’t a car hold, it’s a storage facility. When I meet people in my neighborhood who park their cars in their garage, I am instantly suspicious of them.)
We’ve done this about once a year since we moved here ten years ago this week, and every year I get rid of more and more stuff that just isn’t as important to me as it once was. It’s a freeing and affirming feeling to look at some old T-shirt or random thing that defined me when I was 22, and know that . . . well, I just don’t need it around anymore. I’ve moved on, embraced the present, grown and changed.
This time around, I culled lots of CDs and DVDs, and I took two big boxes of video tapes to Goodwill because we don’t even own a VCR anymore. While I piled them into the car, I told Anne, “We’re probably the last generation to do this. Our kids don’t have the physical media for music and movies the same way we did. That’s weird.”
She didn’t need to point out that normal people don’t accumulate books, movies, and music like I do; evidence of that teetered around us in various stacks.
While I sorted some old techno CDs (Serious Beats Volume 3, anyone? Sasha and John Digweed at Renaissance?) she zeroed in on a box that my mom had given me a few years ago.
“What’s in here?” She said.
“Oh, that’s . . . um . . . nothing.” I said.
Husbands: the very best way to convince your wives that they need to stop what they’re doing and immediately open the box and explore its contents is to answer, “Oh, that’s . . . um . . . nothing.” When they ask you what is inside.
A moment later, she was surrounded by a bunch of old I’m a Teenage Heartthrob posters and clippings from teen magazines, where my awkward teenage dorkiness is on full display for anyone who had a subscription to Big Bopper. Including this:
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was really awkward in the 80s. 80s fashion is nothing to be proud of, but at least most of you who also survived it can keep that between you and your family. My awkward teenage . . . everything . . . was shared with everyone. Loudly. Incessantly. Most of you have plausible deniability with your kids, but I am forced to acknowledge that, yes, I wore as many Swatches as I could fit onto both of my wrists. And my ankle. And, yes, I owned and proudly wore several Bill Cosby sweaters. And yes, I frequently wore white leather shoes with no socks, because some salesgirl told me that looked “hot” with my baggy acid-washed Z Cavaricci jeans. And no, I can’t deny that I thought Gotcha and Genera Hypercolor T-shirts and Oakley Blades were totally awesome, especially when worn together with bright green neoprene Body Glove shorts.
I really wanted to throw that box of stuff away, for a lot of reasons that I can’t seem to articulate in a way that doesn’t make me feel like a complete douche, but Anne talked me out of it.
Maybe I’ll scan some of it and share it, as a public service intervention for the damn kids today who romanticize 80s fashion.
It was chows back then, guys. Pure and simple: it was chows.
Hypercolor shirts ARE totally awesome! They change color when you press your hand on them for a really long time! Radical!
That’s a touching story about chows.
As a fellow 30-ish male, I both sympathize and am comforted by your admission of teenage awkwardness amplified by the bad fashion of the 80’s. I definitely don’t romanticize 80’s fashion when thinking about those tortuous years. In fact, I try to make sure those photos stay in a box somewhere. And never found. Until I’m much older. Luckily, my kids are very young and hopefully will never know what a Swatch was. Or acid washed jeans.
I surely don’t envy you in this case.
BMX bikes were cool. Banana seats were cool. Sissy bars were even cooler. And who didn’t have a friend who extended the forks and put a teeny wheel on it with ape-hangers for handle bars? Cool? Totally. Practical? Hardly.
But it didn’t matter how cool your ride was. If you were a teen, you were awkward, regardless of the decade. The rest of us only suffered regionally while you… well, shared with everyone.
Don’t dwell too long. And keep the box. The boys will thank you for it one day.
Hee! Acid washed jean jacket! (She says as she hides her ’80’s photos).
At least your day job kept you from having big hair, unlike the rest of us.
hypercolor shirts *seem* like a good idea, when you look at them in the clothes store.. Yes, they change colour when you place your hand on them… But when you wear them you don’t really want to draw attention to your sweaty armpits and the crease in your back that verges on your arse/ass.
Great idea, but should have stayed an idea!
[oh, and yes… at the time they were “cool” I really wanted one but couldn’t afford one!]
Damn it, Wil, you keep bringing the past up for me, and yet again I am forced to remember yet another thing I really miss. Swatch Watches — how cool were those? And Batman, one of the coolest superhero movies to come out before superhero movies were it. Thank you. Again.
acid wash will return… just you wait and see… then who’ll be laughing!
Oh… and why oh why won’t you follow me on Twitter???
LMAO
80s fashion gets a pass if you’re flying Batman colors – it’s the rule. You’re the goddamned Batman fan!
OMG, this post..and that photo…seriously made my day. More 80’s-era Wil pictures, PLEASE!
You are totally tubular, Wil. For so many reasons…but you can now add “willing and able to admit to wearing neon-colored neoprene Body Glove shorts” to why you’re, like, the raddest dude on the planet. 🙂
Thanks for brightening my day.
After grinning for a minute I rummaged around in my closet and found my Member’s Only jacket. I can’t believe I was every that small.
Ah, to be a child of the 80’s. For us it was Members Only and Guess. Perhaps it’s better to forget….
Everyone has embarassing pictures from when they were younger. Keep them, you’ll look back on it the next time you go through the garage (like 20 years or so) and it’ll probably bring back some really good memories, or at least be really funny.
Have a good week!
Oh, and follow me on Twitter or I shall be forced to paint this picture on velvet and send it to you.
Heh, I wore a Hypercolor shirt on my first day as a freshman in college, and was an instant hit with all sorts of folks who I would have never had the courage to speak to otherwise. Something about hot girls leaving hand prints on your body was just… cool. Damn thing had to be throw away when a hot calzone I was eating burst all over the front of my shirt. The color fused to a dark purple, and made it look like a Bic had thrown up all over me. :S
I miss that shirt. *sigh*
See, now I know I’m old. And a mom.
I used to look at you looking like that and go ‘phwoar!’.
Now I look at that picture and go “aw, look how sweet…”
Thank you for completely embarrassing me at work – that picture got a very sudden, very loud, uncontrollable *squee* out of me.
I had to get rid of my VHS collection last month. It was very hard to part with some of my old favorite children’s movies that I’m not even sure exist on DVD. *sigh*
when I saw the old Bauhaus lyric “strewn with time’s dead flowers” in my feed reader, I figured I was gonna be transported back to some point in the 80s. My friend had a picture of you in her trapper keeper! You are totally tubular dude!
I made my own BMX bike out of the frame from my Bananna seat. Changed the wheels and tires, handle bars and seat. Threw some padding on it and it was awesome. Awesome enough to get stolen out of my shed in the backyard as I slept. I do remember that the BIG, cool BMX bike back then was the Mongoose. Several rich kids had those.
I loved making ramps and jumping kids on that thing.
As for the 80’s fashion, I can say I never wore neon green spandex shorts, and only one swatch but I did have the acid washed jean jacket. Mine was like Marty McFly’s though with the blue shoulders.
I’m glad grundge came along is all I can say about 80’s fashion.
Take care.
I remember my first bike. I also remember being too scared to ride it.
Ok, some of that may not be cool any more (ever? :), but you are totally rocking that Oingo Boingo shirt.
Dude. ’80s fashion. Somewhere I have a photo of myself in an acid-wash jeans jacket, flourescent lime-green and black neoprene bike shorts, and black cowboy boots. With chains on them. And big hair.
*shudder*
Haha… not one, not two, but THREE Batman logos!? And a Swatch attached to the jacket. Too cool, man. I always thought that if we had to grow up in the ’80s, at least we were in the younger age bracket. I don’t know if I could’ve handled being an “adult” in the ’80s… wearing a padded-shoulders power suit with Reeboks going to the office, having awful wedding photos, or even bad prom photos. Haha… Yeah, I’m counting my blessings that I am able to blame my photos on being a pre-teen at the time.
I wasn’t even cool enough to own one Swatch, let alone many Swatches. And I am STILL waiting for pegged jeans to make a fashion comeback. Then I truly will stand in my yard and yell and shake my fist because that really NEVER looked good, even at the time.
As for my media collection I say that I’ve never met a book I won’t want to keep and I absolutely can’t make myself get rid of cds or dvds. I’ve gone to jettisoning the jewel cases but the physical cd/dvd? Nope, can’t part with it yet. Can’t trust this new-fangled digital technology. Must. Have. A. Hard. Copy. It’s hard. I feel bogged down but I just can’t let go.
I’m glad Anne talked you out of tossing the box. Is it an embarrassing box? Maybe. But it’s your history.
Seeing that pinup makes me all nostalgic for the 90s when I was a teen and I was retro-crushing on 80s heartthrobs. Like Julie I once would have looked at that and went “Squeeee!” Now I just sigh and say, “Wow. That Batman hat is geektastic. Painter’s caps FTW. I wonder if I can find one on ebay…” Obviously my fucoses have changed over the years. 😉
Thanks for sharing.
My acid wash denim jacket was cut like a deflated beach ball. And I had bright red socks. And I was in college. I win. 🙂
OK I just have to say it. I loved you then and I love you now!!!
Thanks for being you …… and helping a few of us be us…
hugs
I felt the need to point out your diversity: a humpback whale pin, two batman pins, the essential Hard Rock Cafe pin, a smiley face, AND a Flavor Flav starter kit (the Swatch watch hanging from your jacket). Oh how I want the 80’s back, where the worst thing we collected were a bunch of buttons to put on a jacket.
~LV
ps…i tight-rolled my jeans at the Pomona Fair a few weeks ago for a few minutes. My friends wouldn’t walk next to me. How dare they deny the cool factor!
Oh, the language that you learn when you’re a parent. Such a nice little essay; going from kid to dad to kid and back again. I’m still not exactly sure how you do it, but it’s a joy to share in your observations.
So many times while reading your posts, I find myself repeating “me too!” often enough that I feel that I would risk astounding dorkish redundancy to actually comment.
Thanks, I study your narrative… you’re on my list of people I read to keep my brain shiny (for conversational writing, especially)
And please, when the chows has settled into a low hum, post more pics for us to continue gawking… I lost all my old Big Boppers somewhere along the path.
If you think remembering what you used to wear is embarrassing, try being reminded that you used to plaster your walls with pictures like that.. “awesome” 80s fashions and all. Oi.
Still, you can’t go wrong with Batman.
Oh gracious. I must admit that I still have some color pages from Bop and BigBopper of you in my Star Trek binder (including the first few DS9 magazines), in which everything is plastic-sheathed. Oh pity the wee geek…
Wow…you just instantly transported me back to Maui & Sons shirts and various fashion atrocities that I’d rather not remember. Not all the memories can be good, I guess.
At least you reminded me of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose with the Swatches comment, and that is true happy goodness.
Wow-za. It looks like you liked batman almost as much as I did.
Also, I stand firm behind my opinion that Hypercolor clothing was, and still is, completely boss. And rad.
Surely today’s technology could make it even better than it was back then? Scientists, I’m lookin’ at you guys.
I feel your pain. Somewhere there are pictures of me in fluorescent spandex shorts, and oversize fluorescent socks, with my fleece-lined acid wash jacket, looking like a dork.
I had a “well-endowed” friend who got one of those Hyper-Color shirts. Wore it once. Body heat caused to color to spot-change on the front.
Two spots.
I don’t know which color was hyper-er…the shirt or her cheeks!
It was chows, but it was our chows, dammit. It was our chows.
I was in high school at the exact 90’s transition between grunge & Britney Spears. The fashion choices were cringe worthy even then. Some people had flannel, other people had low-rise jeans. Mid-west fashion catastrophy
I think my favorite 80’s outfit is one where I’m wearing a giant shirt that may as well be a dress w/all these day-glo animals over a pair of matching leggings. Much of the 80’s/early 90’s I spent looking like a twisted version of Claudia Kishi/Clarissa.
If it makes you feel any better I can dig out the school picture where I have glasses that take up 1/2 my face, a weird bowl hair cut w/rainbow barrets & a star trek t-shirt.
This makes me feel so freaking young. I missed the 80’s entirely, having not been born until 1990.
Having said that, I firmly believe that most of what came out of the 80’s (except quite a bit of very good television and many people born in said decade) were a mistake. Very little of the music is tolerable to me, the hair was just all-around BAD, and don’t even get me STARTED on the fashion styles. No romanticizing about 80’s fashion here!
I am rather glad, though, that I am of an age that makes it much less creepy to say that that I find that picture VERY attractive. Despite the bad fashion. I don’t know what it says about me that I definitely could say the same about most current pictures of you, as well.
OMG! I HAVE THAT HARD ROCK CAFE PIN! I found it on my Hard Rock Cafe black jean jacket that I bought in 1989 from the HRC in NEW YORK! And I REFUSE to throw the jacket away because it is TOO DARN COOL and I WILL fit in it again someday! YOU’LL SEE!
Awesome, just awesome on so many levels.
OOOOOOO OOOOOOOOO OOOOOOO In that box of stuff wouldn’t happen to be your old fan club pictures where you are against a wall with ripped jeans, spiked hair and I believe a black shirt?!?!? I remember when I wrote you fan club and got that picture with what I believed was a personal letter from you and a message on the back of the picture. When I got it, I squealed and thought OMG why isn’t THIS picture in the mags, its HOT!! I was 12 or 13 (Grade 7) at the time, so that would have made you 16 or 17. I had put that picture in a trunk with all my prized possessions which my mom later threw out for some crazy reason, which I will never forgive to this day. What I wouldn’t give to have that picture again. So was it in there??
OOOOOOO OOOOOOOOO OOOOOOO In that box of stuff wouldn’t happen to be your old fan club pictures where you are against a wall with ripped jeans, spiked hair and I believe a black shirt?!?!? I remember when I wrote you fan club and got that picture with what I believed was a personal letter from you and a message on the back of the picture. When I got it, I squealed and thought OMG why isn’t THIS picture in the mags, its HOT!! I was 12 or 13 (Grade 7) at the time, so that would have made you 16 or 17. I had put that picture in a trunk with all my prized possessions which my mom later threw out for some crazy reason, which I will never forgive to this day. What I wouldn’t give to have that picture again. So was it in there??
OOOOOOO OOOOOOOOO OOOOOOO In that box of stuff wouldn’t happen to be your old fan club pictures where you are against a wall with ripped jeans, spiked hair and I believe a black shirt?!?!? I remember when I wrote you fan club and got that picture with what I believed was a personal letter from you and a message on the back of the picture. When I got it, I squealed and thought OMG why isn’t THIS picture in the mags, its HOT!! I was 12 or 13 (Grade 7) at the time, so that would have made you 16 or 17. I had put that picture in a trunk with all my prized possessions which my mom later threw out for some crazy reason, which I will never forgive to this day. What I wouldn’t give to have that picture again. So was it in there??
Love the outfit…swatchaddodledo
Say Wil, I do want to comment on your collecting of material’s. I gave up a couple of years ago buying and CD’s. DVD’s or books. I no longer feel the need to own these objects as they are available at my fingertips if needed. I know the tacktile pleasure of holding them… and owning them…but as an aspiring boomer I’m embracing my inner jetpack and I’m grabbing onto anything of what I perceived the future would or could be. It was not easy to let go of these things. They are still in cartons in the carriage house waiting for a trip to their next owners.sob
OMG my computer went insane!! I didn’t post it that many times
One of my older sisters just found, scanned and posted pictures of her and our other sister from the mid-late 80’s on Facebook… oh god the hair.
I just found my batwing Guatemalan jacket with the wooden toggle buttons. Reader, I kept it.
Also, dude. Hypercolor t-shirt? I *coveted* one of those.
I think I had the same denim jacket. It’s probably still in the closet at my mom’s house.
What about parachute pants? I wore them once. I could never put them on again after one day of wearing them to school. I think wearing them to speech class was a bad idea.
I know what you mean about physical media. My CD’s are all in the garage because they are useless now that they have been ripped to my iPod. I stopped buying DVD’s and Netflix them instead so that I don’t spend a ton of money on soon to be outdated technology. Even Blue-ray will be useless in just a few years, and they are still relatively new.
A bike is a great thing to have when you are a kid. Most of mine were pass me downs, but that was OK. We had those bikes that braked when you pedaled them backwards, and we used to get going real fast, hit the breaks, and skid into the driveway.
Haha, my son is seven and he was playing Puzzlequest, and when he talked about the chaos bolt he said, “chows bolt.” That’s my boy, the gamer. He can’t quite pronounce English, but he can murderate an Arboleth.
In that box of stuff wouldn’t happen to be your old fan club pictures where you are against a wall with ripped jeans, spiked hair and I believe a black shirt?!?!
::blush::
Yeah. That’s one of the more embarrassing ones. There’s also one where I’ve got some seriously ambiguous hair and eyeliner (I think the makeup guy wanted to give me a special hug) and I’m in front of an aqua-colored wall with some kind of giant picture frame or something.
::shudder::
Guitarzan? Check. We had the best of Ray Stevens on VHS. “It’s me again, Margaret”
Say, did you like Batman? (prod, prod, laughs maniacally) Also, your entry made me think of, “Rad”, the sweet dirt-bike movie.
Seriously though, we ALL looked like mega dorks back then. We just didn’t have all our pictures on magazine covers…