Haha. Yeah, I was hoping you'd see this! Didn't Amanda knock some dude off his bike with one of those? All the coffee shops with outdoor seating were prime targets. People in Mall/Movie parking lots, runners, anybody wearing leather. I miss those days.
Going to florists to buy big clay flower pots for the sole purpose of smashing them on the ground.
Remember when you hit that lady in the convertible with a head of lettuce? Wait, that was only a couple years ago.
bahaha, yes this is all true. i forgot about the lettuce, awesome! the papa johns driver was insane (that was amanda too).
anyone remember the "no fitty" break yo neck game?
if you looked at someone else's hand with a circle shape they get to call "no fitty" and they got to rub the skin off of your neck.
shit sucked, but in junior high it was the game that everyone had no choice but to play.
Huh. We did play a schoolwide version of that game in seventh grade, but we had slightly different rules:
1. The punishment was a punch on the arm/shoulder a la Punch Buggy (remember that?)
2. The thumb-and-forefinger circle had to be held below the waist--it was way too easy to just hold it up in front of somebody's face and get in a free punch
3. If you managed to stick your finger into the thumb-and-forefinger circle (AYO!), then you got to give the other person three punches
That game got way out of control. We would be in science class fucking with Bunsen burners and chemical reactions and whatnot, and fools would be beating the hell out of each other.
I love this type of ish... Couldn't read through all the posts but here are some recollections. Some have been mentioned no doubt, some are likely to only be a personal perspective:
- Troop sneakers:as well as the LL Cool J TV commercials with him wearing all this cheaply made, ugly ass gear. Korean shop owners in the hood knew what time it was with Troop.
- Zodiac sweatshirts:Another entry in ghetto fashion that deserves its due recognition. Remember those hideous amateurish drawings, misspelled words and that weird puffy type of screen printing those joints had? Two go-rounds in the washing machine and those shits were finished. Chickenheads would still rock em, totally unfazed, poppin they gum and rockin the huge Bamboo earrings (made from the cheapest gold known to man) with their own names in gold script.
- Devil Jeans:The ghetto's answer to designer joints. These were actually pretty badass!
- Loose cigarettes:Sold at the candy store for 10 cents a piece. If you knew dude well enough, you could cop a nickel bag too.
- Cigarettes:When they cost a buck and change per pack.
- Porn:Finding your first porno mag, discarded in the woods or in the bushes. Seeing your first glimpse of the female form under such circumstances just added to the excitement.
- Music:Dropping the needle on your first ever piece of wax and being blown away. For me, it was Kiss Alive!, purchased at Korvette's dept store. Still have the record, haven't been the same since...
- Jean Jackets:I used to paint album covers on jean jackets for dudes at school. Didn't do it for money though. I did it in exchange for records!
- Your parents' stereo:Some of you white boys prolly didn't get down like this but my folks had a turntable, 8 track player and am/fm radio all built into this big rectangular piece of furniture with a lid and small shitty speakers. Nothing EVER sounded right coming outta this contraption. That's all we had though, so we played that nasty thing to death.
- Summer:The times of your life when summer just lasted forever. The crazy shit me & my friends would get into. Thinkin back on it, I can't believe I'm still here to write about it.
- Kung Fu Theater:Channel 5 in NJ on the weekends. Shit was ILL!!!! Master Killer and Fist of the White Lotus were my favorite joints. By Monday, there would be kung fu fights in the schoolyard, before school, during recess and after school.
- VCR:I thought it was absolutely incredible that you could actually tape shit off of TV. That, and the advent of video rental stores was a big deal in my house. We're all film buffs, so we kept Palmer Video in business.
- Creem magazine:Great photos (way better than the shitty photo quality in Hit Parader and Circus magazines) and they had funny captions and their own "Boy Howdy" soft drink in a can. Debbie Harry in a scantily-clad centerfold was also pretty memorable.
- Library records:Not the KPM or DeWolfe variety. I'm talking about the record section at my local library. Heard my first Clash, Ramones and David Bowie joints at the Orange Public Library. I still might have a few of those in my collection.
- Doobie Brothers:On What's Happening! The bootleggers that scared Re-Run into sneaking that big (police interrogation style) tape recorder under a trenchcoat. When it fell to the ground in the middle of the concert, EVERYTHING stopped. The band stopped playing, the crowd all hushed up immediately. Ridiculous....
- Battle of the Bands:These always took place in either a school gym or a roller rink. They were always packed, always way too loud and there was ALWAYS a band called Renegade on the bill. How strange.
- Dre's "the Chronic":Even though this was a West Coast record, the summer this album was released EVERYONE I knew in NJ was bumping the living shit outta this tape day and night. It became the official soundtrack of that era. I still have vivid recollections of the great times I had while the Chronic was bumpin in the background. Keep in mind, most of my friends at that time were of the punk, metal, alternative persuasion. That album transcended barriers, man. Can't remember the last time an album made that type of an impact.
- First Car:For me, it was a huge green Impala given to me by my shady uncle Pocho. Who knows where the fuck he got this ride from but he was all happy to just give it to me since it was my 16th birthday and I hadn't seen him in a long minute. I had no license, no idea how to drive, no business being behind the wheel of that apartment on wheels. Of course, I drove me and my friends all over the place till the car died about a month later. Another car jumped the sidewalk in the middle of the night and totaled my parked car. Everything happens for a reason. I figured I woulda got pinched for a stolen car and driving with no license sooner or later. Lucked out I suppose.
There's so many more... I'll add to this later on... gots to get back to work....
crazy homemade jump ramps that would slide and you had to weight them down on the inside with cinder blocks. and it was hard to keep the front edge down on the street so you would put a street sign overlapping it a little bit
method air into grass
backyard half pipe with almost no flat in the middle and it was too small to get any set up time and had like a foot of vert even though it was only 5 feet high. and all the plywood was stolen from construction sites and it was different colors.
skating ditches like they were the wallows from that powell peralta video (but they weren't like that at all)
skating an indoor pool where you had to break into someone's abandoned house to get in and there were dead lizards all over the place
collecting stickers
the first time you could ollie up a curb (or over a skateboard on its side)
getting kickflips wired
first handrail - "throw-ons"
when rollerblades came out and it was kind of crazy to see them at the skatepark but then it turned out they were gay
when skaters were wearing big fun pants (huge purple blind jeans cut 6 inches too short) but then ravers started wearing them and it turned out they were gay too
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Hey,
I thought of some more:
-(Summer) Vacation bible school. -Mom-dukes taking me to the bathroom in church and whoopin' my ass for misbehavin'. -When Coca-Cola tasted great (with that burn at the end during the 70s). -Heroburgers from Geno's Restaurants. -The Skate Ranch in Sanford, NC. -Skating with those metal, slip-on skates that fastened to your shoes. -Sandspurs in your shoelaces (playing in the grass down South-related). -Afro-sheen. -Gettin' your hair "plaited" by an older female relative (Black culture-related). -Those electric-air "Blow-Out" combs (Afrooooooos). -Console stereos (pops had the hype one). -Beaded doorways. -High school trips to amusement parks in Spring (go Carowinds!!!). -Doin' nasty shit with girls under blankets during the nighttime ride back from high school field trips. -Kissing your girlfriend on the balcony between classes in junior high and high school. -Three-hole leather belts (70's related). -Discovering Cinemax on the late night (pre-teen mind blown-related). -Watching your first porno flick ("Behind the Green Door") with buddies (stunned pre-teen-related). -Cream of Wheat (yucky dough-ball hidden inside). -Having to come in from playing before the streetlights came on (when parents parented-related).
when skaters were wearing big fun pants (huge purple blind jeans cut 6 inches too short) but then ravers started wearing them and it turned out they were gay too
ayers, when i read this, i immediately thought about d#n balis!
anyone remember when mister hooper died on sesame street, and they had the death episode.
micronaughts adventure people laurel and hardy butterscotch suckers candy whistles kookla fran & ollie the justice league with green arrow and wendy, marvin and wonder dog the muhamad ali cartoon land of the lost - daddy do something!
"Thing Ring Do Your Thing!!!" "Yes, Commishioner." "Hey You Guys!!!!!!!!!!" "Kiss My Grits!!"
Red/Black/Green Collapsable Afro-Picks Phone Booths Kiss Fm Cards Little Backpacks that fit on your belt.Circa 82 Floppy Disks Brooks sneakers - strictly for runners Windbreakers that collapse into a ball and wear as pouch/bag Crackerjack Tatoos Patchwork Family The Spanish/Latin Sesame Street/PBS/Bi-Lingual Childrens Show Name belts- pre made molds & have it your way steez. Cats w/ more than 6 letters.
I remember them. But yo, what about the Fabulous Rougeau Brothers? I thought the militant French Canadian bit was hilarious. But on the real, there never will be a greater heel than The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase. Remember that shit when he told the kid he'd give him $500 if he could bounce a ball 50 times, then kicked the ball away from the kid on the 49th bounce? CLASSIC!
Props to Boobby Heenan for providing me with a quote I have repurposed a bazillion times in my life: "It'll take a great man to beat Tito Santana...but it won't take him long."
Knocking on friends doors trying to start-up a sandlot football, basketball, or baseball game.
or kickball... or whiffleball... or relievio...
anyways, yeah, that shit is a pleasant memory... kids are just as cruel and fucked up as adults, but somehow i swear they got on better w/ each other... (i guess as long as you weren't the one kid in class who was the butt of every joke... and it always turns out in high school or afterwards you find out that kids homelife was fucked...)
Forgive me if I'm ocvering ground already covered, because this thread is, as the west coast folkers would say "hella large". It's also the kind of thread that keeps me reading this site amidst 10,000 threads jocking some mediocre chick and white people having the same discussion about race over and over again. I have to give the biggest cosign to whoever talked about going to the store to buy an album and not already knowing what it would sound like. This was one of the biggest thrills of my childhood.
STARTER JACKETS: I didn't see anyone say this. One of my fondest childhood memories was going with my rich ass grandparents to Paragon up by Union Square to cop starter jackets. Remember when dudes used to get rushed for this shit? I'm not even talking just about in the city. I remember someone trying to take me off for my 3/4 length Knicks coat at the Quakerbridge Mall (Real Central Jersey Headz Know tha deal). BONUS POINTS: Triple fat goose worn inside out to show the goose pattern on the lining. Keeping tags on your starter hats. When the wool starter baseball caps with script lettering and the leather back strap came out it was just too much temptation for my 7th grade class and a boosting craze began...
CHESS KING/CAVARRICIS/ALDO SHOES WITH BUCKLES/CAPEZIO SHOES/SEGIO TACHINNI SWEATSUITS: Guidos these days just don't put in the effort that they used to to stand out from the rest of us. Fuck some flame hair man, unless you've got on some massively pleated pants and/or a pair of dainty-ass slippers you're simply a half-stepping guido in my book. My best friend wore a Z. Cavarrici suit to the 8th grade prom. That shit had tails like a tuxedo and pleats you could hide a small animal in.
OLDENSTYLE SNEAKER STORES: Kicks in the shrinkwrap. Colors showing up at one store for a couple weeks and disappearing. Nike used to use better materials. Haggling ang checking out the two-for-ones. Asking the manager if he had copies of the Nike catalog and lusting after some shit in there. No internet. No 500 douchebags in ugly overpriced sneakers camped outside a store run by other douchebags in ugly sneakers, waiting overnight to buy some ugly sneakers. When JakeWizzle was out here I took him to one of the last strips in this city (I'm not gonna blow the spot, but bet Batmon knows the deal) where shit still goes down in a fairly old fashioned way and we got BUSY and left with bags and bags of crazed shit (including white max classics with neon orange swoosh and gumsoles that you aint NEVER gonna see). People on here tried to clown me for talking about doing the sneaker game hard the way people dig for records, but that's just because they're too toy to know better (Hi Mike SeaversNIKES you little twat). Shit is all about basements and backstock, out of the way locations and having good enough spit game to get these dudes to bring you stuff that's not on the floor. Bonus points: Spot Bilt shoes, all the white kids going on a Diadora craze (I never got down), Lottos with the good leather, the first Nike Escape line (where they put good suedes and that black and red tag on popular shoes- Force IIIs, Windrunners, and a Lava High- got the windrunners and they're my prize possesion).
HOT 97 WAS A DAMN FREESTYLE STATION: and the Ricans and Italians that I knew didn't listen to rap music. Especially the girls.
RANDOM SHOUTS: Travel Fox Sneakers, USED brand jeans, Colours by Alexander Julian, Budweiser hats, that period when all us suburban white dudes were "surfed up" rocking Town and Country, Gotcha, Jamz, Skidz, etc. and you would walk around in suburban New Jersey and it looked like everyone was transplanted from Malibu (stupid Yahoo Serious shout out toTown and Country for making the most unplayable videogame ever). Visions street wear, Bones Brigade shirts.
EWING SNEAKERS: Most slept on J's ever, with the 33 strap in the back. If you lived in the NY area, these were ubiquitous for a couple of years, but I've never seen em outside of that.
TROOP KKK RUMOR: All the Black and PR kids stopped rocking this shit all of the sudden when that rumor hit. I know a dude who probably threw out 10 GStacks worth of leather LL Suits, "Ice Lamb" shoes or whatever. BONUS POINTS: Task Force Leathers, MCM hats and MCM wallets with the leather string to hang them around your neck.
DISCOVERING NY/NJ MIXSHOW RADIO: Probably the single most influential medium in my development as a music fan. Red Alert was the king, but also Stretch Armstrong, the show with GMan on WPRB in Princeton, The "Operating Room" with Dr. Dre from "YO" and Silver D, Chuck Chillout, Marley and Pete Rock and KDef, BLS "Thunderstorms", Wildman Steve and Riz out in LI (didn't Wildman Steve dissappear?). Bonus Points: Rude Bwoy David Levey "ROCKIN YOU ROCKIN YOU ROCKIN YOU", Jeff Fox "The FOx Who Rocks the Box", Prince Messiah (R.I.P.), The Hipanic Causing Panic...
LOSING FRIENDS OVER MUSIC: My dude R. Farley moved to Jersey from Queens and we clicked because he bought alot of the same tapes that I would buy from Tower in the vill and so we would bump Anthrax and PE and the Beastie Boys and shit on a little boombox and get into trouble around town. Come high school he was only bumping Slayer and shit like that and I was only listening to EPMD or whatever. In our juvenile minds it seemed like a chasm too wide to cross and we basically stopped chiling. As an adult it seems insane to get so passionate over something like that.
TIE TOP HATS, QUILTED VESTS, COLORED DENIM, CROSS COLORS: Night a shining moment for hip-hop fashion, and all the weirder because it has some overlap with the glorious years of the Almighty LO. That said, don't front because you KNOW you had one of the three items mentioned. I'm waiting for these same little twats who run around on broadway sporting hi-top fades and fronting like it's 1989 to get some "U-Men" hoodies with three quarter length sleeves and some orange jeans and start fronting like it's 199whatever. Trust me, it will happen.
"THE VILL": Greenwich Village is still there, but the whole craze known as hanging in the "Vill" is gone. Shouts to Antiques, Uniques, West Third, The Promoters Corner at Broadway and Astor, RFC, passing out flyers, staying outside all night and all day with only a break to go to a party or a club, over the course of the day seeing everyone you knew doing the same thing. Kids scheming on other kids North Faces and Polo. Running into dudes with big ass lizzy bags boosting from store to store.
-Buying throwing stars, butterfly knives, nunchucks, and crazy other ninja shit at Johnson's World right by the Paladium. -Going to watch Wrestlemania (the first joint) at the Felt Forum on a big screen -Hanging with your friends EVERY DAY -GI Joes for sure. Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow in that all silent issue -Manimal -Automan -Voltron before he was on TV as one of the Godaiken robots at forbidden planet -transformers of course -OP hats (like the french foreign legion joints, but in like hot pink and blue) -Umbro shorts -PNB when it was strickly political -When the first kid in your school got Jordans -cutting school to go to the wiz on Union Sq to get tapes -Smoking my first j in the stairwell with my man's sister, pretending I had done it forever -ABC after school specials, like please don't hit me mom. -those commercials with the pills that Busta interpolated...we're not candy. Always killed me at the end where the pill was like "noooooo-oooooooo" -Raiding your Dad's porno collection. Finding the stash draw where he put the rentals. -watching Robin Byrd on Channel J when it wasn't reruns...on TV with knobs and a push-button cable box -camp, whether day (actually day was tepid), sleepaway, basketball, tennis. That could be a whole new post for me. -when Puma sponsored 5-star -Jack Currin's -playing ball all day in the park until you had blisters -asses-up -Watching the Hulk Hogan get out of the Iron Sheik's Cobra Clutch and give him that big leg drop and win the WWF title after the Sheik blindsided Bob Backlund while he was trying to swing the Persian clubs. Backlund (who hadn't actually ever lost to the Sheik...in that his manager threw the towel in) had to call his good friend Hulk, who had been getting his ass kicked by Nick Bockwinkle in the AWA, to take care of shit.
STARTER JACKETS: I didn't see anyone say this. One of my fondest childhood memories was going with my rich ass grandparents to Paragon up by Union Square to cop starter jackets. Remember when dudes used to get rushed for this shit? I'm not even talking just about in the city. I remember someone trying to take me off for my 3/4 length Knicks coat at the Quakerbridge Mall (Real Central Jersey Headz Know tha deal). BONUS POINTS: Triple fat goose worn inside out to show the goose pattern on the lining. Keeping tags on your starter hats. When the wool starter baseball caps with script lettering and the leather back strap came out it was just too much temptation for my 7th grade class and a boosting craze began...
If I dig hard enough I might be able to find my LA Kings one. Yup, a suburban white kid from Merrick NY walking the mall in a LA Kings Starter jacket. I remember looking inside one of the NWA tapes and seeing this Compton hat for sale, and telling this Haitian girl in school I was gonna get one. She didn't really have much to say about it.
HOT 97 WAS A DAMN FREESTYLE STATION: and the Ricans and Italians that I knew didn't listen to rap music. Especially the girls.
Yes! 103.5 and 97.1 traded formats back and forth a couple of times right? Wasn't 103.5 the hiphop station way back? Hot 97 still played house late on the weekends after the changeover, Glenn Friscia, Tony Humphries, Hex Hector, probably some other djs that I'm forgetting. That all ended though. I got some good tapes from those late shows, they'd go an hour or two straight with maybe one commercial.
DISCOVERING NY/NJ MIXSHOW RADIO: Probably the single most influential medium in my development as a music fan. Red Alert was the king, but also Stretch Armstrong, the show with GMan on WPRB in Princeton, The "Operating Room" with Dr. Dre from "YO" and Silver D, Chuck Chillout, Marley and Pete Rock and KDef, BLS "Thunderstorms", Wildman Steve and Riz out in LI (didn't Wildman Steve dissappear?). Bonus Points: Rude Bwoy David Levey "ROCKIN YOU ROCKIN YOU ROCKIN YOU", Jeff Fox "The FOx Who Rocks the Box", Prince Messiah (R.I.P.), The Hipanic Causing Panic...
I'll never forget one late night in the summer, sometime in the mid '80s, maybe late '80s, laying in bed and I just start turning the radio dial to see what's on the low and high stations that I never checked before. Get down into the high 80's, (wound up being Adelphi's, 89.5 I think) and hear "Ya don't stop, a flavaflav y'all...you don't quit, a flavaflav y'all...". I had no idea who the hell it was, or how he got on my radio. I turned it off real quick on some "what the fuck was that!!!" type shit, then clicked it back on the next morning to see what kind of music that station played or if it was just static. It was something different (didn't know about college radio stations playing different types of music back then) which confirmed my belief that my radio was hijacked the night before by some local guy with a walkie talkie.
I checked back again a few weeks later and hung in there this time, and it turned out to be Wildman Steve's and Riz show.
OLDENSTYLE SNEAKER STORES: Kicks in the shrinkwrap. Colors showing up at one store for a couple weeks and disappearing. Nike used to use better materials. Haggling ang checking out the two-for-ones. Asking the manager if he had copies of the Nike catalog and lusting after some shit in there. No internet. No 500 douchebags in ugly overpriced sneakers camped outside a store run by other douchebags in ugly sneakers, waiting overnight to buy some ugly sneakers. When JakeWizzle was out here I took him to one of the last strips in this city (I'm not gonna blow the spot, but bet Batmon knows the deal) where shit still goes down in a fairly old fashioned way and we got BUSY and left with bags and bags of crazed shit (including white max classics with neon orange swoosh and gumsoles that you aint NEVER gonna see). People on here tried to clown me for talking about doing the sneaker game hard the way people dig for records, but that's just because they're too toy to know better (Hi Mike SeaversNIKES you little twat). Shit is all about basements and backstock, out of the way locations and having good enough spit game to get these dudes to bring you stuff that's not on the floor. Bonus points: Spot Bilt shoes, all the white kids going on a Diadora craze (I never got down), Lottos with the good leather, the first Nike Escape line (where they put good suedes and that black and red tag on popular shoes- Force IIIs, Windrunners, and a Lava High- got the windrunners and they're my prize possesion).
- Devil Jeans: The ghetto's answer to designer joints. These were actually pretty badass!
Now that's some real to the third power shit. The Devils came in all kinds of different poses. Cats would be like - "Yo that kid has on the Runnin Devil joints!!" "I got the Sitting Devil ones at home."
Grey Twill w/ Red & Black stiched Devils w/ pitchforks on the back pockets. Shit was ill. If Cats wanna really go retro & obscure, cop a pair of these. Fuck Jordashe.
damn paycheck, the memories at the Festival! they had the nerve to try to move it to october the last year they had it.
also....
malibu grand prix/the castle (by the coliseum) chicken littles @ KFC seagram, APG, Dangerous dame stealing car emblems to wear as medallions j loves (club in alameda) club mirage (sf) hip hop on the green leopolds records Club Decco/beat lounge
Hell yeah! I remember wanting so bad to get my license and then when I was old enough to fuck with it I was more into getting stoned and popping at girls.
j loves (club in alameda) club mirage (sf) Club Decco/beat lounge
haha... I remember beat lounge the downstairs was so fucking HOT, I would get drowsy... would have to come up for air.
More Oakland memories...
Geofreys Inner Circle!
b/w
Sweet Jimmy's before it was like Geofreys and it was mainly like an old man hangout, and my friend's dad would take us in there and some woman his mother's age would flirt with us
b/w
LOIS THE MOTHERFUCKING PIE QUEEN
b/w
the good bomb was on 59th & Market... rumors that Apgar sprayed their shit! ACTIONPACKEDACTIONPACKEDACTIONPACKED GANGSTERS
and later, on Market & 42nd, hanging out at Walt 427's crib...
A midget family throwing watermelon at us out the window of apartments on 32nd & market... dating a girl from Dogtown in high school, asking her why it was called that "cuz there's a lot of stray dogs"
This thread has reached the pinnacle and it's only page 4.
Hands down the best shit I've read on here in a long while.
Co-sign on SO MANY THINGS
- Herm's marble shout out(cats eye & steelies! I hadn't thought of that in years) - when the TV actually went off the air - before remote controls and you had to use some pliers to change the channel cause the knob would fall off from turning it at the speed of light to get from channel 2 to 13. - when tv's only went to channel 13 - putting those # plates on your bike even tho you never raced BMX - and what is it with finding porno in the woods/desert/parking lot/on the way to school? Bums gotta get theirs too, I guess. - word to Electric Blue and the old channel switch for that 1 1/2 milisecond titty shot - RC Cola and Tab - Gleeking (???) - paper footballs in class - motherfucking Sergio (you've got the look I want to know better) Valente - those cheap ass ninja shoes - white kidnapper vans
too much to name and most of it has already been dropped. I feel OLD now. Props to Cosmo on this one.
I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners Henessey holders and old school niggaz, then I be dissin a unofficial that smoke woolie thai I dropped out of Cooley High, gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie Jungle survivor, fuck who's the liver My man put the battery in my back, a difference from Energizer Sentence begins indented.. with formality My duration's infinite, moneywise or physiology Poetry, that's a part of me, retardedly bop I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop, straight off the block I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat Chocolate blunts make him see I'm droppin' my weed smoke It's real, grew up in trife life, did times or white lines The hype vice, murderous nighttimes, and knife fights invite crimes Chill on the block with Cog-nac, hold strap with my peeps that's into drug money, marketin' to rap No sign of the beast in the blue Chrysler, I guess that means peace For niggaz no sheisty vice to just snipe ya Start off the dice-rollin mats for craps to cee-lo With sidebets, so roll a deuce, nothin below (Peace God!) Peace God -- now the shit is explained I'm takin niggaz on a trip straight through memory lane It's like that y'all .. it's like that y'all .. it's like that y'all
Chorus: repeat scratches 4X
"Now let me take a trip down memory lane" -> BizMarkie
Comments
bahaha, yes this is all true. i forgot about the lettuce, awesome! the papa johns driver was insane (that was amanda too).
That was like three meals a day ten years back.
- Troop sneakers:as well as the LL Cool J TV commercials with him wearing all this cheaply made, ugly ass gear. Korean shop owners in the hood knew what time it was with Troop.
- Zodiac sweatshirts:Another entry in ghetto fashion that deserves its due recognition. Remember those hideous amateurish drawings, misspelled words and that weird puffy type of screen printing those joints had? Two go-rounds in the washing machine and those shits were finished. Chickenheads would still rock em, totally unfazed, poppin they gum and rockin the huge Bamboo earrings (made from the cheapest gold known to man) with their own names in gold script.
- Devil Jeans:The ghetto's answer to designer joints. These were actually pretty badass!
- Loose cigarettes:Sold at the candy store for 10 cents a piece. If you knew dude well enough, you could cop a nickel bag too.
- Cigarettes:When they cost a buck and change per pack.
- Porn:Finding your first porno mag, discarded in the woods or in the bushes. Seeing your first glimpse of the female form under such circumstances just added to the excitement.
- Music:Dropping the needle on your first ever piece of wax and being blown away. For me, it was Kiss Alive!, purchased at Korvette's dept store. Still have the record, haven't been the same since...
- Jean Jackets:I used to paint album covers on jean jackets for dudes at school. Didn't do it for money though. I did it in exchange for records!
- Your parents' stereo:Some of you white boys prolly didn't get down like this but my folks had a turntable, 8 track player and am/fm radio all built into this big rectangular piece of furniture with a lid and small shitty speakers. Nothing EVER sounded right coming outta this contraption. That's all we had though, so we played that nasty thing to death.
- Summer:The times of your life when summer just lasted forever. The crazy shit me & my friends would get into. Thinkin back on it, I can't believe I'm still here to write about it.
- Kung Fu Theater:Channel 5 in NJ on the weekends. Shit was ILL!!!! Master Killer and Fist of the White Lotus were my favorite joints. By Monday, there would be kung fu fights in the schoolyard, before school, during recess and after school.
- VCR:I thought it was absolutely incredible that you could actually tape shit off of TV. That, and the advent of video rental stores was a big deal in my house. We're all film buffs, so we kept Palmer Video in business.
- Creem magazine:Great photos (way better than the shitty photo quality in Hit Parader and Circus magazines) and they had funny captions and their own "Boy Howdy" soft drink in a can. Debbie Harry in a scantily-clad centerfold was also pretty memorable.
- Library records:Not the KPM or DeWolfe variety. I'm talking about the record section at my local library. Heard my first Clash, Ramones and David Bowie joints at the Orange Public Library. I still might have a few of those in my collection.
- Doobie Brothers:On What's Happening! The bootleggers that scared Re-Run into sneaking that big (police interrogation style) tape recorder under a trenchcoat. When it fell to the ground in the middle of the concert, EVERYTHING stopped. The band stopped playing, the crowd all hushed up immediately. Ridiculous....
- Battle of the Bands:These always took place in either a school gym or a roller rink. They were always packed, always way too loud and there was ALWAYS a band called Renegade on the bill. How strange.
- Dre's "the Chronic":Even though this was a West Coast record, the summer this album was released EVERYONE I knew in NJ was bumping the living shit outta this tape day and night. It became the official soundtrack of that era. I still have vivid recollections of the great times I had while the Chronic was bumpin in the background. Keep in mind, most of my friends at that time were of the punk, metal, alternative persuasion. That album transcended barriers, man. Can't remember the last time an album made that type of an impact.
- First Car:For me, it was a huge green Impala given to me by my shady uncle Pocho. Who knows where the fuck he got this ride from but he was all happy to just give it to me since it was my 16th birthday and I hadn't seen him in a long minute. I had no license, no idea how to drive, no business being behind the wheel of that apartment on wheels. Of course, I drove me and my friends all over the place till the car died about a month later. Another car jumped the sidewalk in the middle of the night and totaled my parked car. Everything happens for a reason. I figured I woulda got pinched for a stolen car and driving with no license sooner or later. Lucked out I suppose.
There's so many more... I'll add to this later on... gots to get back to work....
method air into grass
backyard half pipe with almost no flat in the middle and it was too small to get any set up time and had like a foot of vert even though it was only 5 feet high. and all the plywood was stolen from construction sites and it was different colors.
skating ditches like they were the wallows from that powell peralta video (but they weren't like that at all)
skating an indoor pool where you had to break into someone's abandoned house to get in and there were dead lizards all over the place
collecting stickers
the first time you could ollie up a curb (or over a skateboard on its side)
getting kickflips wired
first handrail - "throw-ons"
when rollerblades came out and it was kind of crazy to see them at the skatepark but then it turned out they were gay
when skaters were wearing big fun pants (huge purple blind jeans cut 6 inches too short) but then ravers started wearing them and it turned out they were gay too
I thought of some more:
-(Summer) Vacation bible school.
-Mom-dukes taking me to the bathroom in church and whoopin' my ass for misbehavin'.
-When Coca-Cola tasted great (with that burn at the end during the 70s).
-Heroburgers from Geno's Restaurants.
-The Skate Ranch in Sanford, NC.
-Skating with those metal, slip-on skates that fastened to your shoes.
-Sandspurs in your shoelaces (playing in the grass down South-related).
-Afro-sheen.
-Gettin' your hair "plaited" by an older female relative (Black culture-related).
-Those electric-air "Blow-Out" combs (Afrooooooos).
-Console stereos (pops had the hype one).
-Beaded doorways.
-High school trips to amusement parks in Spring (go Carowinds!!!).
-Doin' nasty shit with girls under blankets during the nighttime ride back from high school field trips.
-Kissing your girlfriend on the balcony between classes in junior high and high school.
-Three-hole leather belts (70's related).
-Discovering Cinemax on the late night (pre-teen mind blown-related).
-Watching your first porno flick ("Behind the Green Door") with buddies (stunned pre-teen-related).
-Cream of Wheat (yucky dough-ball hidden inside).
-Having to come in from playing before the streetlights came on (when parents parented-related).
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
ayers, when i read this, i immediately thought about d#n balis!
anyone remember when mister hooper died on sesame street, and they had the death episode.
micronaughts
adventure people
laurel and hardy butterscotch suckers
candy whistles
kookla fran & ollie
the justice league with green arrow and wendy, marvin and wonder dog
the muhamad ali cartoon
"afternoon delight (skyrockets in flight)"
land of the lost - daddy do something!
pez shooters
automan
time for timer
necco wafers
and shit....
"Thing Ring Do Your Thing!!!"
"Yes, Commishioner."
"Hey You Guys!!!!!!!!!!"
"Kiss My Grits!!"
Red/Black/Green Collapsable Afro-Picks
Phone Booths
Kiss Fm Cards
Little Backpacks that fit on your belt.Circa 82
Floppy Disks
Brooks sneakers - strictly for runners
Windbreakers that collapse into a ball and wear as pouch/bag
Crackerjack Tatoos
Patchwork Family
The Spanish/Latin Sesame Street/PBS/Bi-Lingual Childrens Show
Name belts- pre made molds & have it your way steez. Cats w/ more than 6 letters.
why did this happen to everyone?
we didn't even find them in the woods, just in some scrub bushes in the yard behind my school...
what's the theory on this?
b/c when i was old enough to buy pornos, i didn't walk around tossing them into bushes...
or kickball... or whiffleball... or relievio...
anyways, yeah, that shit is a pleasant memory... kids are just as cruel and fucked up as adults, but somehow i swear they got on better w/ each other... (i guess as long as you weren't the one kid in class who was the butt of every joke... and it always turns out in high school or afterwards you find out that kids homelife was fucked...)
STARTER JACKETS: I didn't see anyone say this. One of my fondest childhood memories was going with my rich ass grandparents to Paragon up by Union Square to cop starter jackets. Remember when dudes used to get rushed for this shit? I'm not even talking just about in the city. I remember someone trying to take me off for my 3/4 length Knicks coat at the Quakerbridge Mall (Real Central Jersey Headz Know tha deal). BONUS POINTS: Triple fat goose worn inside out to show the goose pattern on the lining. Keeping tags on your starter hats. When the wool starter baseball caps with script lettering and the leather back strap came out it was just too much temptation for my 7th grade class and a boosting craze began...
CHESS KING/CAVARRICIS/ALDO SHOES WITH BUCKLES/CAPEZIO SHOES/SEGIO TACHINNI SWEATSUITS: Guidos these days just don't put in the effort that they used to to stand out from the rest of us. Fuck some flame hair man, unless you've got on some massively pleated pants and/or a pair of dainty-ass slippers you're simply a half-stepping guido in my book. My best friend wore a Z. Cavarrici suit to the 8th grade prom. That shit had tails like a tuxedo and pleats you could hide a small animal in.
OLDENSTYLE SNEAKER STORES: Kicks in the shrinkwrap. Colors showing up at one store for a couple weeks and disappearing. Nike used to use better materials. Haggling ang checking out the two-for-ones. Asking the manager if he had copies of the Nike catalog and lusting after some shit in there. No internet. No 500 douchebags in ugly overpriced sneakers camped outside a store run by other douchebags in ugly sneakers, waiting overnight to buy some ugly sneakers. When JakeWizzle was out here I took him to one of the last strips in this city (I'm not gonna blow the spot, but bet Batmon knows the deal) where shit still goes down in a fairly old fashioned way and we got BUSY and left with bags and bags of crazed shit (including white max classics with neon orange swoosh and gumsoles that you aint NEVER gonna see). People on here tried to clown me for talking about doing the sneaker game hard the way people dig for records, but that's just because they're too toy to know better (Hi Mike SeaversNIKES you little twat). Shit is all about basements and backstock, out of the way locations and having good enough spit game to get these dudes to bring you stuff that's not on the floor. Bonus points: Spot Bilt shoes, all the white kids going on a Diadora craze (I never got down), Lottos with the good leather, the first Nike Escape line (where they put good suedes and that black and red tag on popular shoes- Force IIIs, Windrunners, and a Lava High- got the windrunners and they're my prize possesion).
HOT 97 WAS A DAMN FREESTYLE STATION: and the Ricans and Italians that I knew didn't listen to rap music. Especially the girls.
RANDOM SHOUTS: Travel Fox Sneakers, USED brand jeans, Colours by Alexander Julian, Budweiser hats, that period when all us suburban white dudes were "surfed up" rocking Town and Country, Gotcha, Jamz, Skidz, etc. and you would walk around in suburban New Jersey and it looked like everyone was transplanted from Malibu (stupid Yahoo Serious shout out toTown and Country for making the most unplayable videogame ever). Visions street wear, Bones Brigade shirts.
EWING SNEAKERS: Most slept on J's ever, with the 33 strap in the back. If you lived in the NY area, these were ubiquitous for a couple of years, but I've never seen em outside of that.
TROOP KKK RUMOR: All the Black and PR kids stopped rocking this shit all of the sudden when that rumor hit. I know a dude who probably threw out 10 GStacks worth of leather LL Suits, "Ice Lamb" shoes or whatever. BONUS POINTS: Task Force Leathers, MCM hats and MCM wallets with the leather string to hang them around your neck.
DISCOVERING NY/NJ MIXSHOW RADIO: Probably the single most influential medium in my development as a music fan. Red Alert was the king, but also Stretch Armstrong, the show with GMan on WPRB in Princeton, The "Operating Room" with Dr. Dre from "YO" and Silver D, Chuck Chillout, Marley and Pete Rock and KDef, BLS "Thunderstorms", Wildman Steve and Riz out in LI (didn't Wildman Steve dissappear?). Bonus Points: Rude Bwoy David Levey "ROCKIN YOU ROCKIN YOU ROCKIN YOU", Jeff Fox "The FOx Who Rocks the Box", Prince Messiah (R.I.P.), The Hipanic Causing Panic...
LOSING FRIENDS OVER MUSIC: My dude R. Farley moved to Jersey from Queens and we clicked because he bought alot of the same tapes that I would buy from Tower in the vill and so we would bump Anthrax and PE and the Beastie Boys and shit on a little boombox and get into trouble around town. Come high school he was only bumping Slayer and shit like that and I was only listening to EPMD or whatever. In our juvenile minds it seemed like a chasm too wide to cross and we basically stopped chiling. As an adult it seems insane to get so passionate over something like that.
TIE TOP HATS, QUILTED VESTS, COLORED DENIM, CROSS COLORS: Night a shining moment for hip-hop fashion, and all the weirder because it has some overlap with the glorious years of the Almighty LO. That said, don't front because you KNOW you had one of the three items mentioned. I'm waiting for these same little twats who run around on broadway sporting hi-top fades and fronting like it's 1989 to get some "U-Men" hoodies with three quarter length sleeves and some orange jeans and start fronting like it's 199whatever. Trust me, it will happen.
"THE VILL": Greenwich Village is still there, but the whole craze known as hanging in the "Vill" is gone. Shouts to Antiques, Uniques, West Third, The Promoters Corner at Broadway and Astor, RFC, passing out flyers, staying outside all night and all day with only a break to go to a party or a club, over the course of the day seeing everyone you knew doing the same thing. Kids scheming on other kids North Faces and Polo. Running into dudes with big ass lizzy bags boosting from store to store.
I FEEL OLD NOW.
-Buying throwing stars, butterfly knives, nunchucks, and crazy other ninja shit at Johnson's World right by the Paladium.
-Going to watch Wrestlemania (the first joint) at the Felt Forum on a big screen
-Hanging with your friends EVERY DAY
-GI Joes for sure. Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow in that all silent issue
-Manimal
-Automan
-Voltron before he was on TV as one of the Godaiken robots at forbidden planet
-transformers of course
-OP hats (like the french foreign legion joints, but in like hot pink and blue)
-Umbro shorts
-PNB when it was strickly political
-When the first kid in your school got Jordans
-cutting school to go to the wiz on Union Sq to get tapes
-Smoking my first j in the stairwell with my man's sister, pretending I had done it forever
-ABC after school specials, like please don't hit me mom.
-those commercials with the pills that Busta interpolated...we're not candy. Always killed me at the end where the pill was like "noooooo-oooooooo"
-Raiding your Dad's porno collection. Finding the stash draw where he put the rentals.
-watching Robin Byrd on Channel J when it wasn't reruns...on TV with knobs and a push-button cable box
-camp, whether day (actually day was tepid), sleepaway, basketball, tennis. That could be a whole new post for me.
-when Puma sponsored 5-star
-Jack Currin's
-playing ball all day in the park until you had blisters
-asses-up
-Watching the Hulk Hogan get out of the Iron Sheik's Cobra Clutch and give him that big leg drop and win the WWF title after the Sheik blindsided Bob Backlund while he was trying to swing the Persian clubs. Backlund (who hadn't actually ever lost to the Sheik...in that his manager threw the towel in) had to call his good friend Hulk, who had been getting his ass kicked by Nick Bockwinkle in the AWA, to take care of shit.
If I dig hard enough I might be able to find my LA Kings one. Yup, a suburban white kid from Merrick NY walking the mall in a LA Kings Starter jacket. I remember looking inside one of the NWA tapes and seeing this Compton hat for sale, and telling this Haitian girl in school I was gonna get one. She didn't really have much to say about it.
Yes! 103.5 and 97.1 traded formats back and forth a couple of times right? Wasn't 103.5 the hiphop station way back? Hot 97 still played house late on the weekends after the changeover, Glenn Friscia, Tony Humphries, Hex Hector, probably some other djs that I'm forgetting. That all ended though. I got some good tapes from those late shows, they'd go an hour or two straight with maybe one commercial.
I'll never forget one late night in the summer, sometime in the mid '80s, maybe late '80s, laying in bed and I just start turning the radio dial to see what's on the low and high stations that I never checked before. Get down into the high 80's, (wound up being Adelphi's, 89.5 I think) and hear "Ya don't stop, a flavaflav y'all...you don't quit, a flavaflav y'all...". I had no idea who the hell it was, or how he got on my radio. I turned it off real quick on some "what the fuck was that!!!" type shit, then clicked it back on the next morning to see what kind of music that station played or if it was just static. It was something different (didn't know about college radio stations playing different types of music back then) which confirmed my belief that my radio was hijacked the night before by some local guy with a walkie talkie.
I checked back again a few weeks later and hung in there this time, and it turned out to be Wildman Steve's and Riz show.
They were stolen from dads and older brothers then hidden in the woods to keep from getting in trouble. Or shoplifted.
Now that's some real to the third power shit. The Devils came in all kinds of different poses. Cats would be like - "Yo that kid has on the Runnin Devil joints!!" "I got the Sitting Devil ones at home."
Grey Twill w/ Red & Black stiched Devils w/ pitchforks on the back pockets. Shit was ill.
If Cats wanna really go retro & obscure, cop a pair of these. Fuck Jordashe.
Those all black HIGH TOPS were the hot shit, them and the OG Adidas Forums were THEE sneaker to have in Philly during the mid 80s.
Glad this thread blew up.
Select TV
Coleco Vision
Adam Computer
Pioneer Chicken
Music Plus
Big Ben's
Reebok boots
nugget rings
Fluorescent sweatshirts
Miller's Outpost
suzuki samurai
Records at K-Mart & the grocery store
playing the Track & Field arcade game with a pencil
Drive thru banking
mom sending me to the store for a pack of cigarettes
Pink Champale
Oh Shit! I forgot about those!
Picnic N Chicken
Nagles
Licorice Pizza
Houston's Shoes on shattuck
Copeland's Sports on University, then on Shattuck, then on University
Getting a sunday at Eadies
watching dudes break at Shattuck bart
Acorn Projects, Walnut Projects, dudes had dances
Ya Mamas Hip Hop Cafe
Home Turf
Festival At The Lake
Spending 30 minutes "hollering at females" at the lake and then going to someone's house to get stoned
Riding the foothill bus, getting stoned in back
Sneaking across the bridge on the F bus, hiding behind the seat right by the rear door
Getting caught and getting kicked off at the last stop on West Grand, walking back to downtown Oakland (shook related)
Unsigned & Hella Broke
Getting stoned in various cuts on Cal Campus
Waterfront
West Side Berkeley XIV
Ohlone Park
Bash Brothers
Jackson Street Studios
51 AC Transit ran all night
Silverball
Leopolds had vinyl upstairs, then downstairs, then less upstairs, then none at all, then it became Tower Records
Blondies Pizza
"underground hip-hop tapes for sale"
Trips into the city to hit Harputs, Polo, Timberland
The miniature trains in Tilden Park
"ay girl, let me holler at you"
ahhhhh memories
also....
malibu grand prix/the castle (by the coliseum)
chicken littles @ KFC
seagram, APG, Dangerous dame
stealing car emblems to wear as medallions
j loves (club in alameda)
club mirage (sf)
hip hop on the green
leopolds records
Club Decco/beat lounge
Hell yeah! I remember wanting so bad to get my license and then when I was old enough to fuck with it I was more into getting stoned and popping at girls.
haha... I remember beat lounge the downstairs was so fucking HOT, I would get drowsy... would have to come up for air.
More Oakland memories...
Geofreys Inner Circle!
b/w
Sweet Jimmy's before it was like Geofreys and it was mainly like an old man hangout, and my friend's dad would take us in there and some woman his mother's age would flirt with us
b/w
LOIS THE MOTHERFUCKING PIE QUEEN
b/w
the good bomb was on 59th & Market... rumors that Apgar sprayed their shit! ACTIONPACKEDACTIONPACKEDACTIONPACKED GANGSTERS
and later, on Market & 42nd, hanging out at Walt 427's crib...
A midget family throwing watermelon at us out the window of apartments on 32nd & market... dating a girl from Dogtown in high school, asking her why it was called that "cuz there's a lot of stray dogs"
Hands down the best shit I've read on here in a long while.
Co-sign on SO MANY THINGS
- Herm's marble shout out(cats eye & steelies! I hadn't thought of that in years)
- when the TV actually went off the air
- before remote controls and you had to use some pliers to change the channel cause the knob would fall off from turning it at the speed of light to get from channel 2 to 13.
- when tv's only went to channel 13
- putting those # plates on your bike even tho you never raced BMX
- and what is it with finding porno in the woods/desert/parking lot/on the way to school? Bums gotta get theirs too, I guess.
- word to Electric Blue and the old channel switch for that 1 1/2 milisecond titty shot
- RC Cola and Tab
- Gleeking (???)
- paper footballs in class
- motherfucking Sergio (you've got the look I want to know better) Valente
- those cheap ass ninja shoes
- white kidnapper vans
too much to name and most of it has already been dropped. I feel OLD now.
Props to Cosmo on this one.
I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners
Henessey holders and old school niggaz, then I be dissin a
unofficial that smoke woolie thai
I dropped out of Cooley High, gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie
Jungle survivor, fuck who's the liver
My man put the battery in my back, a difference from Energizer
Sentence begins indented.. with formality
My duration's infinite, moneywise or physiology
Poetry, that's a part of me, retardedly bop
I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop, straight off the block
I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat
Chocolate blunts make him see I'm droppin' my weed smoke
It's real, grew up in trife life, did times or white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes, and knife fights invite crimes
Chill on the block with Cog-nac, hold strap
with my peeps that's into drug money, marketin' to rap
No sign of the beast in the blue Chrysler, I guess that means peace
For niggaz no sheisty vice to just snipe ya
Start off the dice-rollin mats for craps to cee-lo
With sidebets, so roll a deuce, nothin below (Peace God!)
Peace God -- now the shit is explained
I'm takin niggaz on a trip straight through memory lane
It's like that y'all .. it's like that y'all .. it's like that y'all
Chorus: repeat scratches 4X
"Now let me take a trip down memory lane" -> BizMarkie