Haunted By The Words 'Stone Washed'

In my walk in to work today, in the early morning and dark hours, I was inordinately paranoid about being accosted by ruffians. I was then inordinately disturbed by my choice of the word "ruffians". I was then inundated with memories of the flash of my teen years in the eighties.

It all started with looking over to watch for traffic coming off of the Alaska Way Viaduct. From 1st, looking up towards that off ramp, you can only see the sky. If you get closer, you can see Elliott Bay and West Seattle, but that road into the dark sky reminded me of roads near the Pacific in Southern California. Roads like those on the Balboa peninsula that ended at the beach, roads that seemed to end at the eternity of the ocean.

I remembered this draining culture of conspicuous consumption, some of it hot on the tails of the previous "me" generation, but I'm sure living in Orange County just exacerbated the situation. I remembered kids at school, kids who didn't have jobs, dueling out their fashion wars with Guess and Maui and Sons. I remembered a hell of a lot of day-glo. I remembered a school parking lot with BMW's and Mercedes Benz', I remember a lot of freaking IROC-Z's.

I quietly realized that it all still happens, just new names, new faces. The need for assimilation is a dragon that never gets full, fashion is a machine that will never wear down.

I decided to remember those nights where I would escape to 6th Street in Balboa to sit in the car, listening to music and staring out into stretching black of the ocean. I remembered delving into music, making a conscious decision to not only rebel against the hair metal and manufactured bands that were suffocating the wires, but to push my own comfort levels of musical tastes. I remembered that rare Southern California rain that would come in a torrent and flood the streets; as if my soul felt the drought that the move south from here had caused, I would always find a way to be outside when that brief flood would fall, letting the rain soak me through.

I remembered feeling like I had all the answers, I just didn't know at the time that they were to the wrong questions.

Remember that, I said to myself as I walked past closed store windows and under blazing neon this morning. One thing that does change, constantly, is perspective, and one day most of the things that occupy my concerns now will seem trivial. I was watching the movie Brick (which I highly recommend by the way), an old school film noir set in modern day Southern California high school. I'm sure this started the ball rolling on this little trip down memory lane, but something the director said on the commentary really struck me. He mentioned that most films about high school are done from an adult perspective, that the film makers may remember the time accurately and fondly, but they realize that the decisions and actions of high school students aren't life and death - but real high school students don't in fact realize this.


Zeptember song of the day: Today, in true FM radio format, we're doing a "Two for Tuesday" today. The first is a request from the lovely Ms. Biffy, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp. The second is Fool In The Rain.