Nostalgia Rules

I was perusing through an old vintage music and memorabilia shop in Utica. I was in the t-shirt section looking for a birthday gift for Hilde (pronounced hilda).

First of all Hilde is hard to shop for, Belgians are moody and finicky people. Its true,ask anyone in The Congo.

Anyway.

I'm flipping through the t-shirts, The Clash, Discharge, Metallicca, Slayer, Godsmack, Operation Ivy...wait a minute.

Operation Ivy?

I could not believe it. I thought what's next Exodus? Sacrilege?, Christ on Parade? How about Neurosis.

The t-shirt was a reminder of a bygone era when fledgling delinquents decided to pick up instruments in place of a bong and provide music for the rest of us accomplished delinquents and future alcoholics to thrash out our frustrations about the absurd American experience we wished we could change.

Change.

To what , we did not know. Most of us were scared to death of nuclear war, Russians and Ronald Reagan. We just wanted to get the politics of conflict and greed out of our faces, we shunned plastic concepts like The Mall. We resented the adults of the hippie generation for abandoning their utopian vision in a drug dazed stupor.

We didn't like the lame communist either it seemed the idea of anarchy made sense. We read books like Lord of the Flies and Malcolm X.

The punk scene was very close to hip-hop in philosophy at the time. Groups like Public Enemy(MyUzi Weighs a Ton) Doug E .fresh, Slick Rick were in heavy rotation with all the punks I hung out with.

It is important to note that this was a pre-crack era.
The low level inhumane mentality of the music today had nowhere to exist. It was a poetic artform that was admired by all other genres.

But Operation Ivy?

Operation Ivy t-shirt in Utica?

I immediately thought about an old a friend and next door neighbor, the guy who introduced me to Timothy Leary.

The Artist who could impress Dali with a SHARPIE.
The guy who laughed at T.V. not with it.
The writer who is the son of a writer.
It was the second product I saw from them since I left California.

The first was in Chicago 1992, tripping in our loft(yeah i lived in a loft) I was going through my roomate's girlfriend's tape collection and I saw Op-Ivy, right next to Janes Addiction tape. Weird things like that happen when you are tripping.

I e-mailed him recently

Life is art.

Oh yeah I got Hilde a Joey Ramone doll.