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Cosimo Galluzzi
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
we're not kids anymore.
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Not today Justin
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@teenage80sberkeley
A great list of "The 35 Most Berkeley Things That Have Ever Happened" is making the rounds. But I do think that the time that Jewish Feminists trashed the C building of Berkeley High during a "conference" in '83 should have been on there.
Excellent reportage as always in the BHS Jacket: "one teacher even found goulash in his coffee cup"
Teenage 80s Berkeley mohawks
While you're waiting to see if I'm ever going to post more historical artifacts*, perhaps you'd enjoy a fictional tale of teenage '80s Berkeley? Check out my story "Mohawk" at LitroNY.
* answer: YES. SOON.
The '80s are broken, please stand by
Actually it's my printer/scanner that's broken. Hope to have it fixed soon (or admit defeat and buy a new one) so the glorious teenage '80s can recommence!
A Happy New Year to all! May it be filled with champagne, and pigs holding champagne dancing on your champagne. Or whatever floats your boat.
This card is from Titanic Publications of Santa Cruz, CA, by Sobel (that's all - just Sobel), 1979. The title? "Swining and Dining." Looks like I received it as a birthday card in 1980. On the inside the friend who gave it to me wrote, among other things, "Your mama listens to THE CARS!"
I am pretty sure I could not have even fathomed the concept of the year 2014 back in my teenage '80s days. I hope it's a great one.
Now this is a great classic Paper Moon card. It seemed like they pretty much dominated the '80s greeting card market, or at least their cards were the coolest. I found a Flickr pool with about a gazillion images, and this link with a ton of their great Christmas cards, including this one: "Santa's Beard" by David Willardson, copyright 1980. Enjoy!
OMG this is so wrong. It's from Paper Moon Graphics (as are so many of the cards I gave and received in the '80s). Title is "A Piece of Gingerbread" by Sharon Harker, copyright 1979 (but clearly being sold well into the '80s). A school friend of mine gave me this somewhere around ... 1983? In all honesty I debated even posting this one, as the more I look at it the more disturbing I find it. Rest assured, a palate-cleansing, far more innocent Paper Moon Christmas card will follow shortly.
'Tis the season and all, so I dug up a few '80s Christmas cards! This one's a postcard from the "Carioca Novelty Co., San Francisco" - that's all the info on the back. Santa's rockin'!
MISS DISH is amazing. I wrote on this card to a friend for her birthday ... but yet, here it is. Did I decide it was too cool to pass on after all? You can see the thousands of thumbtack holes (it was a Thing That Was Once On My Wall) and I remember just loving this ... it seemed so blasé and over-the-top at the same time. The picture is amazing and so is the text:
"busty pink haired woman, ageless, actively seeks people who know how to swing and desire wild and depraved fun and games with shameless pleasure seeking woman devoid of all conscience and principles. i am a sincere and tastelessly dressed court stenographer; am into all kinds of plastics (esp. slip covers, ferns, and doilies) french pastries, roller disco, liz taylor's old girdles, large dangling earrings, and would love to see your extensive collection of power tools. in addition i love pop tarts (all flavors) walt disney's wonderful world of color (esp. the ones bout animals), and anything to do with the merv griffin show. if you share my enthusiasm for life in the suburbs behind closed doors, then send a photo, in color, of yourself dressed in water resistant body stocking and cheap nylons. only sincere need reply. write miss dish c/o paradise cards."
The back repeats "Only Sincere Need Reply" and gives a NYC address. (I wonder if they got any actual responses?) It also says "1981" and "B. Paradise/R. Nemo Hill." A little searching on those names led me to this picture, which makes it appear that Mr. Paradise is Miss Dish herself. I also found this notice for an event they did in 1982 ... along with Kathy Acker and "the Sonic Youth Band." That is pretty freakin' high on the cool-o-meter.
Based on what I wrote (which is somewhat faded) it appears that I bought this in 8th grade, late '81 or early '82 ... which would make me 12. Let's just go ahead and state now that for the purposes of this tumblr, the definition of "teenage" (or for that matter "eighties" or "Berkeley") may be a bit loose.
This tiny strip of paper was on my wall. I love it.
Another shopping flyer, this one from Funny Farm. I don't even remember them having a design outlet, I just remember their store in the little shopping center at Cedar and Shattuck which had once been a funeral home (and had then been the site of a great Halloween haunted house before turning into retail).
Funny Farm was slightly trashy and super new wave. They also had their own line of makeup. I remember buying green blush. This flyer looks a bit more mainstream than the stuff I remember, although it's quite likely that I went down there and stocked up on $1.95 lace gloves. Then again, this is from Nov. 1985 (there's a date on other side) and I feel like my peak lace-glove-wearing days were a little bit earlier than that.
I just noticed the dashing young lad showing off all the watches and that reminded me of the brief period in my senior year of high school when I decided that wearing multiple watches at once was a good look. I can't quite remember whether I wore them over a sleeve like the guy in the picture, but I suspect I did. I was really into watches for a while there. Now I haven't worn one in years. I'm not sure I even own one that's still functional.
I remember being mildly obsessed with this Bain de Soleil lady and how freaky she looked. I believe I referred to her on a regular basis as the Lizard Lady. I don't remember this being on my wall, but I found it in the "Things That Were Once On My Wall" folder so I suppose it must have been. I have to admit that she really doesn't seem quite as freaky as I remembered. Though she does have a bit of a reptilian vibe. And she is quite tan.
The SPF chart on the back of this is worth mentioning, as it ranges from SPF 2 up to SPF 15, "Ultra Protection." SPF 6, which barely seems to exist today, is called "Extra Protection." Definitely an artifact of its time (1982).
I guarantee I was sad about how the ink smeared on her face and made her look like she has 3 day stubble. The eyebrows are a little insane too, even by bushy '80s standards. But this outfit is fab, right? Pencil sketch lady was off to a good start, too.
I'm curious about the hair featured in your photo. Any commentary?
Woooo! First question!
That's my 10th grade school picture, fall '83 ... I will scan/post all my high school pics at some point. Not sure what to say about my hair. It had been bleached in an earlier incarnation, and looks like it had grown out enough at that point so that only the ends still had that light color. (Funnily enough, my hair today is pretty much the same combination of shades, though in a more deliberate application.) I had gotten it cut short in the summer between 8th and 9th (when short hair seemed to be THE THING) on a glamorous visit with a friend to see her dad's girlfriend who was a fancy hairstylist in San Francisco, but I don't remember going to get it cut anywhere again, I think I was just hacking at it myself whenever it seemed to need a trim. My hair is very fine and was also a vexing blend of straight and curly/frizzy (that later calmed down a bit, thank god) which presented its challenges. Definitely has a little of that '80s asymmetry thing going on, though not styled to high heaven like many of those types of 'dos. I was never as good at hairdos as I would have liked and I think around this time I just tended to blowdry it in the right direction and hope for the best.
I'm pretty sure this came from the same store where I bought the Zpacedmen card. I think they had a big box that held variations of these, presumably intended for those occasions when someone asks for your card. I don't know if I bought this or if someone gave it to me, but it's pretty funny. Kind of tempted to have a few more made up.
This seems like a fairly typical Berkeley "letter to the editor" ... I found it in a folder of various newspaper clippings. By the time of this letter, 1984, I'd grown completely aware that the rest of the country didn't share the political views of my surroundings. Four years before, I'd been young enough not to really get that; in the months leading up to the 1980 election I remember the grownups only discussing whether to vote for Carter or Anderson. After Reagan won I remember feeling puzzled, thinking "But how could that happen? NO ONE wanted him!"
This sale card from Big Fun was sent in November 1984, just a few months after the punk-filled flyer for their July sale. It's definitely more of that "new romantic" look ... had they gone soft? Or just decided this look was more profitable? Maybe so; I know I would have gladly worn that woman's entire outfit in October 1984.
As an aside, I was just trying to remember when the East Bay's area code changed from 415 to 510 ... I would have thought it was right around this time, but Wikipedia says 1991. Go figure.
Another postcard from the "Things That Were Once On My Wall" folder, somewhat destroyed from the pins that used to be in its corners. I'm pretty sure I bought this at a store on University Avenue which had a huge selection of postcards and greeting cards in the back. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called, or even what kind of store it was exactly, though I seem to think there was something shady about it, like it was part head shop and part office supplies. In any case, it was a place my friends and I would go to fairly often. I can remember spinning through their circular racks looking at all sorts of amazing cards, some of which will be making appearances here.
This card is from something called Pure Funk (Zpaced). I feel pretty certain that it was part of a series, all with the same odd drawn-on photos and Z's instead of S's, but I can't find any more of them online. I noticed the address for "Zpaceworkz" seems to be in Auckland and I found a tiny bit of info about Frank Womble's Zpace Zhow which I think has got to be the same guy - the only artwork shown is a cow-skull assemblage but it feels like a similar vibe. There's also a record of something called The New Yanker: A Zpace Primer: Poems Fragmentz and Illuzionz Towards the Next World by R. Womble, but no inkling of what's inside. Zad.