Self-rebellion
There was a time, not so long ago, when I wouldn't wear anything not black.
Did it so long that the one time I was required for some reason to wear a white blouse, I kept glancing down in shock at the blazing non-darkness on my chest, feeling vaguely out-of-body.
Now I seem to be adding thousand-decibel colours to my sartorial vocabulary. Not just colours. I mean tie-dye. Really, really egregious, 'fuck the Establishment, man' tie-dye.
I think I'm doing it just to make myself laugh. Or horrify an old self of mine, the big serious goth I was about 10 years ago.
Either that, or my mom passed me the recessive hippie gene in the 60s and early 70s when she dragged my infant ass to freedom marches and the like. It's always weird when you find out your parents were nowhere near as square as they let on. Over Christmas I found out she smoked pot back then. Shocking.
OK, so what -- but by the time I was aware of my mother as a separate being, she'd become my personal Establishment. This is the same woman who, when I was 20 and in Europe, wouldn't let me drink a glass of wine with her because it was illegal in America.
Now I couldn't help smirking. 'Uh, Mom -- isn't pot... illegal?'
'Well, it was just around,' she said. 'Everyone was doing it. And everyone smoked tobacco too, so it wasn't that big of a leap. To tell you the truth, it never really did anything for me.'
I left off smirking long enough to say, 'Me neither.' Thinking: except for one time at spiderine's (on the theory that pot had no effect on me) I smoked so much I was convinced I was lying in an empty football field somewhere. And remembering morsobscena getting simultaneously stoned and pissed off because he couldn't stop giggling. Spider and I were laughing, and he goes, 'You guys just love this because it makes me less of a hard-ass!'
Even then, we still wore all black.
The Wanderer
Showing up at scenes post-mortem, like a subcultural homicide detective, seems to be a specialty of mine. Forty years late, I went to Haight Street in San Francisco to score tie-dye. 'The owner does all of these by hand,' said the 20-year-old clerk. 'He followed the Grateful Dead around and became their tie-dye artist.'
Wondered briefly if my mother had ever been able to stand the Grateful Dead, even stoned. If so, that's one gene she didn't pass on to me. I had to get out of there -- as soon as I could stop staring at a particularly detailed wall-hanging with a symmetrical design that looked exactly like something I'd seen about a month ago, in a football field somewhere.
A guy in a faded dashiki, stripy shorts, and backpack came off the dark street and struck up a conversation with nobody in particular. 'You hear that?' He jabbed his finger at the speakers mounted near the ceiling. (Unfortunately, I did.) 'Jerry wouldn't have played it that way.' The clerk let him talk for a bit, then gave him half her sandwich in response. He wrapped his head around it and disappeared.
'You know him?' I asked.
She nodded. 'Comes in every day.' He knew he'd find friendly or at least tolerant spirits here. Homed in on the tie-dye place, drawn back to the shadow of a scene he'd been part of, unlike the two people still in the brightly-lit store, the homicide detective and the young acolyte tending the flame at Jerry's shrine. What was he like forty years ago? Filled with revolutionary juice, youth, and idealism? Seeking the meaning of life, or at least experience?
Probably something more than half a sandwich.
'This is beautiful.' I pointed to the wall hanging. A lotus, a star? Bright symmetrical mindflower shining against deep blue. 'How much is it?'
'It's not for sale,' she said.
As subcultural homicide detectives of my generation tend to, my own homing instincts had zeroed in on the one real item in the store.
Did it so long that the one time I was required for some reason to wear a white blouse, I kept glancing down in shock at the blazing non-darkness on my chest, feeling vaguely out-of-body.
Now I seem to be adding thousand-decibel colours to my sartorial vocabulary. Not just colours. I mean tie-dye. Really, really egregious, 'fuck the Establishment, man' tie-dye.
I think I'm doing it just to make myself laugh. Or horrify an old self of mine, the big serious goth I was about 10 years ago.
Either that, or my mom passed me the recessive hippie gene in the 60s and early 70s when she dragged my infant ass to freedom marches and the like. It's always weird when you find out your parents were nowhere near as square as they let on. Over Christmas I found out she smoked pot back then. Shocking.
OK, so what -- but by the time I was aware of my mother as a separate being, she'd become my personal Establishment. This is the same woman who, when I was 20 and in Europe, wouldn't let me drink a glass of wine with her because it was illegal in America.
Now I couldn't help smirking. 'Uh, Mom -- isn't pot... illegal?'
'Well, it was just around,' she said. 'Everyone was doing it. And everyone smoked tobacco too, so it wasn't that big of a leap. To tell you the truth, it never really did anything for me.'
I left off smirking long enough to say, 'Me neither.' Thinking: except for one time at spiderine's (on the theory that pot had no effect on me) I smoked so much I was convinced I was lying in an empty football field somewhere. And remembering morsobscena getting simultaneously stoned and pissed off because he couldn't stop giggling. Spider and I were laughing, and he goes, 'You guys just love this because it makes me less of a hard-ass!'
Even then, we still wore all black.
The Wanderer
Showing up at scenes post-mortem, like a subcultural homicide detective, seems to be a specialty of mine. Forty years late, I went to Haight Street in San Francisco to score tie-dye. 'The owner does all of these by hand,' said the 20-year-old clerk. 'He followed the Grateful Dead around and became their tie-dye artist.'
Wondered briefly if my mother had ever been able to stand the Grateful Dead, even stoned. If so, that's one gene she didn't pass on to me. I had to get out of there -- as soon as I could stop staring at a particularly detailed wall-hanging with a symmetrical design that looked exactly like something I'd seen about a month ago, in a football field somewhere.
A guy in a faded dashiki, stripy shorts, and backpack came off the dark street and struck up a conversation with nobody in particular. 'You hear that?' He jabbed his finger at the speakers mounted near the ceiling. (Unfortunately, I did.) 'Jerry wouldn't have played it that way.' The clerk let him talk for a bit, then gave him half her sandwich in response. He wrapped his head around it and disappeared.
'You know him?' I asked.
She nodded. 'Comes in every day.' He knew he'd find friendly or at least tolerant spirits here. Homed in on the tie-dye place, drawn back to the shadow of a scene he'd been part of, unlike the two people still in the brightly-lit store, the homicide detective and the young acolyte tending the flame at Jerry's shrine. What was he like forty years ago? Filled with revolutionary juice, youth, and idealism? Seeking the meaning of life, or at least experience?
Probably something more than half a sandwich.
'This is beautiful.' I pointed to the wall hanging. A lotus, a star? Bright symmetrical mindflower shining against deep blue. 'How much is it?'
'It's not for sale,' she said.
As subcultural homicide detectives of my generation tend to, my own homing instincts had zeroed in on the one real item in the store.