Reclaiming Edges in Fast-Fading "Youth"

Ho boy.

That new item about the Alley really got me reminiscing. I went into the kitchen at work and started talking to Keyword Guy (that’s what he does for the company–writes keywords and copy) about whatever. I needed to wash my tupperware and he was standing in there and we started to chit-chat.

This is what I do at work to stave off the boredom, to seem friendly, and to “fit in”. I even watched the Superbowl (despite great personal roadblocks during that event’s weekend) so I would be able to talk about it with people at work.

With KG, at first it was a usual conversation: what he did this weekend (drink beer with his friends at a bar and listened to a band play covers) and whatnot. But something in what he was saying (again) gave me pause. He mentioned some band names that were being covered or something (Minor Threat maybe? Bad Brains? Screeching Weasel?) or offered up some Chicago-in-the-80’s references that made my ears perk up. He started to talk about being in a nostalgic mood from that.

So I asked him whether or not he had grown up here, asked how old he was, and asked him if he used to hang out at Medusa’s. He had. I can find those people. The ones who fly their freak flags quietly. I can always sense it.

In KG’s case, the reason that I knew was that we had had a conversation once on the train about how people at work always ask him why he lives in Humboldt Park. He was on the Division bus once sitting next to me and I didn’t notice until we got off and got on the Blue Line. But that one comment (drawing the distinction between himself and the frat crew we work with–and speaking derisively about Lincoln Park) made me think that he was “different” than the rest. A little more unusual. I took notice, because I also live in a neighborhood that our colleagues would think was bananas.

As I guessed, he had grown up around here (our accent is a dead giveaway) and he is only a few years younger than me. I found our shared geography. I told him that I had just read on the wire (that’s what I said. It was not true, but I am trying to use jargon to fit in) that the Alley was closing. And I shared that I was pretty sad about it. Not because of what it had become (a weird giant “alternamall”) but because of what it had represented.

We stood in the kitchen at our tech company, reminiscing about how great it was to hang there in that neighborhood during that time. Both suburban kids, we had had the same experience of coming into the City and finding a way out of suburbia–a way to be “different”. He admitted that he was not a “regular” at Medusa’s (more shared lingo). I didn’t ask “early night or late night?” because I already knew. He’s three year younger than me and Medusa’s closed when I was 20. He was “early night”.

What’s Medusa’s, you ask? It was a teen juice bar catering to the “alternative” crowd when I was young–in the 1980’s. It was on the corner of Sheffield and School in Chicago. It was the place where I first heard many bands that I loved then (and still really love now, if you want to press me about it) The Smiths, Siouxie and the Banshees, The Cure.

We shared the experience of walking past the building where it used to be, and glancing up the stairs (it’s condos now. Weird.) and remembering how it all used to be. He did the walkthrough with me. The weird disco floor. The upstairs with all of the TVs and couches. I remembered people making out there. It was wild for me to see at that time. It was like my version of walking into the back room at a gay bar for the first time.

I was not a frequent visitor, either, but the few times I went there made a huge impression. It was the best, man. Being there was one of the few times I felt really cool.

But then it also was a place where I was an interloper. I was a good girl in high school. My friends were largely nerdy and we were activities people. My friends and I were in choir. We ran the school newspaper. We did stage crew and costume crew together. We were in the musicals, the band, orchestra, chamber singers. We sang and participated in the arts. My best friend in high school got ONE WRONG on her PSATs and a perfect score on the SATs. (I wasn’t that smart.)

Sure, I got a “cool” boyfriend for the last few years of high school, but I felt largely out of place in most scenes. It had a little to do with not really drinking or doing drugs (that came in college) and a lot to do with an internal feeling or difference. And that difference couldn’t or didn’t manifest itself in too-crazy hair (there was the black bob, but that was tame compared to some of my theater friends) or getting really into punk rock. I suspect that the difference was queerness, but I could not have known that at my suburban school in 1986. I didn’t even know that girls were gay until I went to college and even then, lesbians were shunned.

All of this seems like such a silly topic, but I guess it relates to growing older and wanting to keep some kind of “edge”. And articulation of queer identity and how that plays out for a femme, for a girl who grew up in a more repressive time, and for someone who decided that the freak flag should fly under the cover of “art school”.

It’s funny because it’s mostly gone now. Both my freak flag and the neighborhood and time that inspired it.

I mean, it’s 10:15 and I’m writing before bed. And I intend to have my lights out by 11. I see that as a prime example of how I’m growing older. I am TIRED at 10 and I want to go to bed because I know that I will be up by 6. It’s how I do these days.

I don’t know. There are a lot of other important and noteworthy things happening in the world to write about, but with my 20 year high school reunion in one and a half years (I really do NOT feel old enough for that to be happening so soon!) and the Alley closing, I’m guess I’m feeling all nostalgic. Maybe a story is coming on about Lakeview in the 80’s.

We’ll see.

My Youth: Officially Over

That’s it. My youth is officially over.

The Alley is finally closing. I could entertain you with hours of stories about my best friend and I walking down that alley to see if the store was open (we always wandered down there when we were in the neighborhood, immediately after smoking pot in the alley behind Ann Sathers, back when that was free parking). The trip to see if the store was open was always a joke between us–it never was, because it was invariably way too late at night for that to happen.

This was back when my high school boyfriend worked at the gay-owned New Town Aquarium. It was way back when the neighborhood was actually called New Town (as opposed to Lakeview) and the punk rock kids would start squatting on stoops around 5:00 pm on Fridays. It was when the ‘hood contained our favorite underage juice bar, Medusa’s (which Don DeGrazia writes about so well in American Skin), Muskies (for requisite post-getting-high cheese fries), the Thai Town restaurant, and Rocket 69. It was back when I wore black mock turtlenecks with the excellent black leather skirt I bought at Express at the mall in Skokie and thought I really really looked like Siouxie Sioux. (All the cool kids in art class at ETHS said so.)

It was when I wore a black bob with bangs and hot red lipstick. This was the time we almost dined-and-dashed because Adam said we should but then me and Benji paid, because we were good suburban kids.

This was hot ham’n'cheese croissants at Scenes, the playwright’s bookstore where we hung out and read plays. This was the place that Hara discovered that “baguette” means “loaf of bread” and coffee was bottomless and refills were free. It was also Cabaret Voltaire and eggs espresso. It was cafes filled with smoke and couches. It was before jogging strollers invaded. It was endless thrift stores with black crepe cocktail dresses from the 40’s.

This was Belmont and Clark in the late 1980’s.

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/outandabout/?p=1623