_michael

1986....
frighteningly around the time some of you kids were born, there was a street called melrose. Before the creepy guys with far too much hair on there bodies on cell phones pacing infront of stores selling knock off verace, Lincoln Park T shirts, and marajuana paraphanalia, before the bad techno, anastasia and shakira cranked from the store fronts filled with bad leather jackets , ...before Urban Outfitters, Starbucks, (ok i like starbucks), bad tattoo parlors, over priced vintage (used) clothing..before all that, when i was sweet 16 in leather boots, Melrose was the only place a guy with some eyeliner and a taste for t rex and bauhaus could get himself some doc martins, some bondage pants and some manic panic.
I will not glorify the eighties, i did'nt like em then, dont like them now, and i still thank god for surfa rosa and nothings shocking. But at 16 i worked at one of the few stores in LA you could get a pair of creepers,some cobalt blue docs or a pair of monkey boots ...anyone still where monkey boots?
it was in many ways, my coming of age, because back then, if you were'nt in a band, it was cool if you worked on melrose, you had cart blanch at all the bars and clubs in the city...never carded, the velvet rope always unhooked as you past through the line.
I tucked those memories away somewhere to be reminded of those times, when the shoot yesteray became a sort of ruenion, the store manager showed up to visit one of the band members, a guy i grew up with. Out came the photos, and this pudgy faced boy, with alot of hair stared at me reminding me that even i was young once too.