Remembering the Eighties

I don't think much about the fact that I am a child of the eighties. In fact, I've spent the last few decades trying to forget about the 1980's all together. I mean, who wants to be reminded they came of age in the era of big hair, hair bands, and really horrendous fashion? (Whitesnake, anyone?)

Of course, the S-Man never tires of amusing himself by pointing out that I am a product of that particularly embarassing decade and when he does, I never tire of reminding him that, just like he's not responsible for all the GREAT music that came out of the sixties? I'm also not responsible for all the shi**y music that came out of the eighties, thankyouverymuch. (Although the S-Man regularly allows that he's not sure Bob would have been much like a rolling stone or John, George, Ringo, and Paul would have enjoyed strawberry fields without HIM.) Just another of our fun ongoing bits! Wouldn't you just love to be our housemate?! Come on over!

Anyway, on occasion, my latent knowledge of all things eighties unexpectedly crops up. Like that one Thanksgiving when all the kids were in watching VH-1's list of the WORST hair band songs of all time and I chimed in, long before the revelation on the show that, unequivocably, everybody that lived through the 80's does, or should, know that the worst it ever got was a song called, "The Final Countdown" (noise) by a band called "Europe".

I commanded a new level of respect from the kids an hour later when VH-1 revealed that, indeed, TFC was as bad as it got and also their number one pick for the worst of the worst. I'm not sure I should be happy I posess this level of knowledge on a subject as sad, embarassing, and trivial as hair bands, but there you go. We all have our gifts.

And, actually, The Final Countdown does make an important point. And after a huge, incredible build-up of synthesizers and guitar riffs, that point is this: IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. For sure it's: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. You, as a person should know (and sing along in a voice as nasal as humanly possible because) IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. The men with crayola eyeliner and hair so big, so over processed and sticky with mousse that one match and they are a walking molatov cocktail want YOU to be aware: IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.

After that, there's the big GUITAR SOLO. (All eighties songs had them, it started w/Eddie VanHalen (noise) and went downhill from here). After the GS it's: (say it with me now) THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. (Noise--Go ahead, click the link and watch! It's worse than you remember. And it's worth the jump.)

My point, and I DO have one, Ellen Degenerous, is that I had sort of forgotten all about the eighties for a while there. But the other day, I was cleaning out a trunk I was planning to move when I ran into this:

My Adam Ant concert tee-shirt.

It had been so long since I'd seen it that I didn't know I still had it. For those of you unaware, long before Adam Ant was a heavy set mental case, (SFW) he was a hot, sexy punk singer who dressed like a pirate (Don't laugh! it worked back then, I tell you.) and sang with a band called The Ants. I saw him live and in concert with INXS. At that time (listen to me...once upon a time in a land without cell phones OR the internet...) INXS was so new they were the opening act. I saw the concert in the college arena of the mid-western city where I lived in 1983.

According to the shirt, Adam was touring to promote the album "Friend or Foe". And the tour was the (let's check the shirt again)....

Pure Sex tour!

As eighties bands go, if say "Devo" is one extreme of the scale and our friends, "Europe" is at the other, Adam falls decidedly toward the Devo side. But with a definite sort of dramatic flair and big band twist. Probably best known for his one top ten hit, "Goody Two Shoes" (noise) Adam was sort of the bomb back in those days.

And, okay, now that I review some of the videos of Adam it all looks sort of queer (in a bad way), but again remember, it was the eighties. My hair was huge, my make-up thick. It was difficult to think with that much cigarette smoke and Aqua Net hairspray in my lungs, not to mention see straight with all that Great Lash and four shades of carefully spackled eye shadow--and let's not forget the sausage-fit stirrup pants cutting off my circulation. You've got to give me snaps, if nothing else, for not going the way of the hair bands, musically speaking.

My initial reaction to the tee-shirt was to toss it in the donate pile.

But it only stayed there for five minutes or so. I'd read somewhere that vintage concert tee's can sometimes fetch big money on e-bay. Maybe I'd sell the shirt!

But, as I went on about my day, I was soon pondering the amazing notion that the shirt had lasted through two marriages, three different decades, a child, countless moves, and had managed to, somehow, against all odds, survive.

A shirt this tenacious does not deserve a humiliating final drive of shame to the Salvation Army at this late date, or to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, I reasoned. Nope, this shirt is a keeper, I told myself as I slipped it on for the first time in a good fifteen years at least.

Sure, the eighties were bad. But not ALL bad. It's the decade of the music video and MTV, for one thing. The eighties gave us U2, the Talking Heads, Blondie, and Madonna (well, okay so she's a mixed bag), The Big Chill, The Breakfast Club (noise but worth the click), Molly Ringwald, Moonlighting, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And personally? In 1985? I had a son. What's a Flock or Seagulls or two compared to THAT?

Yep, I'll be keeping my Adam Ant shirt.

Always.

Or at least until the final countdown.