Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A, Select, Start.
If you recognize that code, you most likely spent your early years in much the same way I did, and I hope you survived alright.
My Early Years...
Although these are mostly highschool pics, here is a little history.
In grade school and middle school, I was very unpopular, which almost any comedian or humorist will tell you ultimatly leads one to become develop either a great sense of humor, a great bitterness, or in many cases, both.
Unpopular with girls, and no social life, I played a lot of the good ol' NO-FRIENDO entertainment system. Nintendo was a huge advance from the Atari 2600 system of my earliest childhood. I spent hours at the Atari playing Moon Patrol, Joust, River Raid, Pressure Cooker, and my all time favorite, Tunnel Runner.
Nintendo was a wholy different beast. For the first time ever, home video games actually LOOKED like arcade games, plus you could pause them (a feature first introduced on the Atari 5800, which by the way was a real suck ass system) and you could also save games. My favorite all consuming game was Metroid, followed closely by Zelda (Part 1) Dragon Warrior, Contra, and the ultimate 'Driving around sub terrainian caverns, blasting mutants with energy weapons in a tank' game: Blaster Master.
Early on in life I learned that it was just not worth it to be the same as everyone else thanks to the constant influence of my sister Lil and a gentleman named Scott, who introduced me to Devo and Weird Al.
I started getting interested in Punk in the 7th grade when my friend Ian started dressing that way. He had an older Punk Rock sister who used to experiment on him. He usually had black and white hair that was shaved on the sides as well as spiked on the top. To me, this was the coolest thing ever. I then heard a song on the radio by the group Information Society, which is now my all time number one favorite band aside from, of course Devo.
The lead singer of Information Society (pictured above with the blonde and black hair) became a major influence on my growing up. I also happened to turn on a local PBS station that hosted a music showed called Teletunes. They happened to be playing 'Let's go to bed' by The Cure. I distinctly recall seeing Robert Smith in that video with his big black spiked hair and saying out loud, in my little 8th grade voice "That guy is the coolest guy EVER!"
Although I was infatuated and used every opportunity to find out more about Punk and New Wave, I was intimidated by the fact that most of the people looked pretty cool, but also really scary and mean. I was certain that they all had guns and would shoot any new kids who were obviously posers. Don't ask me how I came to that conclusion, I was young, they were scary, it seemed obvious at the time. I assumed that once you shaved your head, no one would ever talk to you ever again, and you would never have a girlfriend EVER. The price of conversion seemed pretty high. Also remember that this is back in the day, 1989. This was before Marilyn Manson and Hot Topic brought Goth out into public view. If you wanted black lipstick and fishnets, you had to wait till Halloween to buy them. Goth was not even really a word back then.
It was 1991 until IT finally happened. I was driving with my dad back from a piano lesson and we passed a hole in the wall dive that hosted the occasional show. The sign read 'Nine Inch Nails' and there was a huge crowd of people in black outside. As we drove by there were four Punks. Two of the guys had their heads shaved on the side, pitch black hair about 2 1/2 feet long, and every inch of it was hair sprayed STRAIGHT UP into a perfect cylandar shape. The other two also had black hair, but they had mohawks that were just as long, and shaved to the skin as well on the side. One guy had his arms around a girl in a blue flannel shirt and I remember thinking "Wait, HE has a girlfriend...chicks dig guys like that?"
It was then and there that I decided to go for it. I bought a bottle of bleach, and went for the Depeche Mode look.
I heard a lot of people tell me that it was just a phase, or that I would grow out of it, but honestly why the hell should I? Yeah, there is pressure to conform and be normal, but why should I listen to that? People who wear khaki pants and polo shirts do not get pressure to change their personal appearance as they get older, so they usualy just keep on being normal, which is fine, I have nothing against normal folks. However, because there is pressure on a lot of Goths or Punks, they feel they need to 'Settle down' as life goes on, which is so stupid I cannot even begin to comprehend. I have done this since 1991, and I have never let it impede me, and in a career sense, I am making the same salary as all the other people I know who look perfectly nondescript.
My early big hair days.
Pretty much around the time of this above picture I listened only to Nine Inch Nails nonstop, along with the Cure's 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me' album.
If perhaps you think that you have seen me around Denver you may have, especially in the club scene. I pretty much lived at Ground Zero, the Boulder night club for 3 years of my life. If you are a past Ground Zero patron, you probably can concur with my sentiment that every single club that has opened since has sucked ay-ass. All hail Ground Zero.
More later...