In retrospect, it’s amazing how much—especially in those veal-tender formative years—of my valuable time was spent on people who didn’t care if I live or die. As a teenager who listened to mostly very sad British music and cut himself on the reg, I was sure that by wearing mostly a modicum of black clothing—mainly under the radar of my genre-despising parents, natch—I would at least gain some form of entry into the various underground lairs of alternative coolness and back-having cliques, only to learn that, for the chubby likes of me, at least, acceptance as it was and should be really didn’t work that way.
But I tried, aye Dios mio I tried. I would frequent various punk and Goth establishments around the Metro hoping to find my place in that world of supposed welcomed angst and teenage darkness, but Heaven knows all it did was make me more and more miserable now. This yearning, sadly, continued on into college where, eventually, thanks to a total and complete Brian Wilson-style nervous bloatdown, I gave up on trying to impress anyone and everyone ever again.
For the most part.
That being said, there truly were some very cool alternative hotspots and hangouts in the city that I really do miss, hep-scenes that, for the most part, I would still find a reason to patronize to this day, from the lifelong friends I made to the cult products that aren’t made anymore, even knuckle-deep into my better-knowing late 30s.
Well…maybe not the Wreck Room. Even though it may not seem like it, even my self-esteem has certain limitations. ¡Cómpralo ya!