Summer 1989

I was an exchange student for a summer (still in high school) and came back to my senior year with clinical depression.

"Rhythm Nation" was just launched (it had like 7 singles released within the next 18 months that I liked); it ended up being my first CD purchase.

In 1st grade, with a crush on Ricky Schroder.

I was 13. And HOOKED on One Life To Live and the Austin digging himself out of his own grave storyline. They thought they buried him alive, but the Friday cliffhanger had his hand reaching out of his OWN GRAVE!!!!! I recall the crash of the United Airlines in that cornfield that summer- It was amazing to me... That's what I remember about 1989. OH!!! And listening to Martika's Toy Soldier on my little clock radio. And Paula Abdul was popular!!!!

Living in the East Village and working as a receptionist in midtown. It was supposed to be my gap year and it never ended. I’m lucky to be as affluent as I am now.

Sorry, they thought Austin was dead, so they buried him. But he was ALIVE!!!

And you can see those OLTL Brenda/Gabrielle clips on Youtube. I was a OLTL addict in the late 80's. Quite dear to my heart. Lonely little gay boy that I was.

Recent college grad in NYC, doing off off Broadway plays night and day for pennies. Being turned down for every modeling and commercial go see I went on. Starting to wake up screaming, which made me join AA and quit drinking forever. Ironically, years later after I basically quit acting, a good agent and my best acting jobs came my way because I didn't care any more.

(Still doesn't seem fair.)

Huh. 29. Partner and I bought our first house that Spring.

R2- RHYTHM NATION!!!! YES!!!!!! I listened to "Black Cat" on my Sony Walkman incessantly!!!!!

I remember Guns and Roses, Expose, and the song Heaven. Heaven isn't too far away... closer to it every day.

R8. That is just nice... so nice.... I never had that experience... XOXOOXO

I was 16 and saw Sheena Easton at the Hollywood Bowl. Loved it!

R11. LOVE IT!!!!

This thread is giving me the feels. XOXOXOOOXOOX

For some reason I remember the Lockerbie crash, was that 88 or 89?

In 1989, I truly loved my family- I was very blessed and I did not know it.

My cousins, my family. Over time I lost them all. But I remember them with such love.. Such love.

R10. If there’s one thing my generation has to fix before we kick the bucket, it’s that everyone has to have the opportunity for home ownership.

That’s the center of the Great Society programs that helped reduce poverty.

I was the Mayor of my town.

Not bad going for a 24 year old.

I was three years old.

R15- So true. And I hope that you and your partner are together and healthy? For some reason your post struck me in the heart....

R16- That's HOT. You little mayor!!!!!! Totally hot. 1989? Wow!!!

Graduated high school and started college that summer. I remember a lot of things that are posted here. Sometimes wish I could go back knowing what I know now....but I have had a hell of a good time.

R18. We sold that first house and built our second house. We sold that house and built our third house . After more than 30 years, I guess our luck ran out. But still - there were a lot of good years. No regrets.

Part of how wealth worked was real estate, home ownership. Buying and building actual homes that grew in value. This is what the Republicans (and a few Democrats) destroyed for your generation by undermining Glass-Steagall. That was Boomer greed and Bush 43 is to blame for this entirely.

R2 RN didn't come out until fall 1989 , summer 1989 was ALL about Like a Prayer and Forever Your Girl

i wore all black for about 5 years

Lez here. Back from a mind-blowing trip to Turkey, working in a bookstore, playing in silly rock bands, and flirting at a local ghetto outdoor pool with the teenage lifeguard who would become a girlfriend and later a lifelong friend. Lazy, easy days before the internet and corporate life and a few bad things that happened.

Summer 1989

Batman mania

New Kids on the Block

Madonna everywhere

Paula Abdul

Peak of hair metal bands

Ghostbusters II

Roseanne Barr everywhere

I did double anal for the first time that summer. Ah memories...,

R23 Do you impersonate stereotypical lumberjack men?

R20- This motherfucker knows something and I will revisit this thread and his post...

Like a Prayer, YES- This was the song of 1989. I see myself listening to this on the RADIO, on this huge radio thingie in my house!!!!

That song was epic..

But I am all about R20. I hope that you have 30 more years of abundance and luck. It is such a different world and I always wish that I could have been my age 30 years ago. Economy/Money reasons... I feel like I was simply "too late" and I see all of these 60 year olds living in their abundance and I know that my path will be much more challenging..

R24 - Ha! I forgot about Batman! I bought a box of Batman cereal that summer and kept it (unopened) for 20 years.

26, San Diego, Hillcrest boys, Coronado Hotel weekends, Black's Beach, 91X on the radio driving up the ocean route all the way to Humboldt. This is the song when that summer comes to mind.

BATMAN!!!! OH MY GOD!!!! YES!!!

1989 was a cool year I think!!!??

My father-in-law and husband blew up my cottage and I had to enter a plastic surgery convent. But no biggie. Everyone recognized me when I came home.

BITCH. I watched the competing show!!!!!

And I was always pissed of that ATWT was the critics darling in 1989!! (Emmy winner that year I think?? Or was it Santa Barbara)

R27 - True, but "Like A Prayer" was released at the beginning of March that year; I totally identify it as a spring '89 phenomenon.

(Only as a teenager can one remember things in this kind of timeline/detail! And I was 17.)

"I'm all dressed up

And ready to fall in love!"

"I hope it's gonna be alright! Alright!"

That was the most glorious and happy time of my life. I was 29, had been happily partnered for 7 years,we had just bought a little house in St. Pete and had gotten off the road (my husbands job took him all over the place,one month here,3 months there and I was truly sick of it). I had a great shop bottom job as manager of a gift shop,my husband made great money and the future was so bright I had to wear shades ! I know everyone thinks being young was the best time no matter when they were,but that truly was an amazing time for me.I was young,good looking,deeply in love and so goddamn happy.

I was working my first job in DC after college. I worked on Capitol Hill, and I lived in northern Virginia. I remember watching Tiananmen Square unfold on CNN and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I made great friends that time of my life. One is still my best friend. He's a great guy and love him to bits. I'm still friends with several others. We worked for senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle. Politics was getting more decisive, but somehow it didn't matter. We debated, could get annoyed with each other, but we still came together to do cheesy things like sing along to the piano player at The Fishmarket in Alexandria, or have yards of ale at a bar in a hotel near Union Station. I still remember a beautiful Ethiopian woman who was a waitress at that bar.

I had accepted myself as a gay man and started taking tentative steps out of the closet. The Aids crisis was reaching its peak years. ActUp was active, but I remember the general public still cared more for straights and children who were HIV positive than gay men. Think Ryan White or Elizabeth Glaser, not the men I knew who were HIV+. Homophobia was rampant, but there were brave souls stepping forward to help...Elizabeth Taylor for one.

So, I remember the thrill of being in my mid-twenties, enjoying the moment, and also being scared about what was to come.

What had changed for you R36?

[quote]r36 That was the most glorious and happy time of my life. I was 29, had been happily partnered for 7 years,we had just bought a little house in St. Pete and had gotten off the road (my husbands job took him all over the place,one month here,3 months there and I was truly sick of it). I had a great shop bottom job as manager of a gift shop,my husband made great money and the future was so bright I had to wear shades ! I know everyone thinks being young was the best time no matter when they were,but that truly was an amazing time for me.I was young,good looking,deeply in love and so goddamn happy.

And then, he met me.

Another lifetime ago....

Young and partying and "studying" in England. It was one of the hottest, driest summers on record there, and probably my funnest summer ever.

My husband died in a car accident in 1994 R38. He was 36 years old . I then lost our house because I grieved so deeply that I couldnt deal with anything. I shut myself in and drank myself insensible and only ate takeout. I put on 50 lbs in 6 months and isolated myself to the point I wouldnt answer the door or phone,and wouldnt even open my mail. Until the day the cops tacked a notice on my door that I had to vacate because the bank took my house,I lived in some weird place where if I just didnt face it all it wouldnt be real. Crazy I know,but I genuinely was for that year. As for you R39, NO man ever left me for another ,thats shit happens to lame insufficient bitches like you.

I just graduated from high school on Long Island. I was a bus boy at a club called MARS in NYC. Got “discovered” by an agent and was signed by Click Models, which was huge then. I started booking jobs quickly: doing work for magazines like Details, Interview and The Face. It was a fucking blast —I had an affair with an older semi-closeted gallery owner who let me and my clubby friends squat at his Hamptons House on the weekends (his wife went to Italy every summer).

The music I was listening to: Soul II Soul, De La Soul, Madonna, Stone Roses, The Sugarcubes. Pixies, The Cure, Love and Rockers, Sade, Pet Shop Boys

It was a wonderful, auspicious entry into adulthood. I eventually left all that, went to college and now I’m a burnt piece of toast after 25 years in advertising.

Would love to click my heels and go back to that time period for an evening. Many people I loved have died since then....it’d be great to see them again if only for a moment

oh dear

^^ for r42

i was twelve, had survived 6th grade (the second-worst year of my life) and was correctly dreading 7th grade (the worst year of my life). on the positive, everything following was an improvement.

i was still addicted to the B-52’s “cosmic thing” album, though i have fond memories of Neneh Cherry, Bobby Brown and De La Soul.

I was 15. Traveled to the Soviet Union on a student ambassador trip (listened to lots of Rachmaninoff on my Walkman as we traversed the countryside on buses and in trains) and returned ecstatic to start boarding school in the fall. My aunt died of ovarian cancer at my present age. The next two years would be the happiest of my life. What a shitty thought.

R40, People did a pretty good job of capturing the dregs of that summer.

I turned seven. My parents got divorced and my dad moved like 20 hours away to Miami to live with his girlfriend. My mom was very sad that summer. I was pissed because he took the dog.

I was obsessed with the Batman movie and got these shoes. Still my favorite shoes I've ever had. My brother got the Jokers.

I had my first real crush on this camp counselor named Jimbo. He was so cute. He taught us how to play lacrosse- I was terrible at it but I participated because I wanted to be near him.

1989 was not my favorite summer, but I did have some great times riding my bike with friends, swimming, playing Nintendo, and camping out in my yard.

Next year ask about 1990, now that was a good summer!

R23 here responding to a snarky individual. No, I was thin and cute in 1989 and do not look like a lumberjack male today either. Slender, presentable, and have travelled all over the world.

It was possible then to live on not much money in a big city in a way that it is not now. Glad I was able to in my younger years.

Just moved to NYC. Remember Mars. And the last years of crazy club life were starting. Great 5 years of clubs and gay life. Despite the ever-increasing number of AIDS deaths happening all around the city, we young gays knew the basics of safe sex and could hope to live. Intense paranoia around sex - but sex was still happening as the remnants of sleazy NYC were slowly dying off - back rooms, sex shops, real leather bars like the Eagle and the Spike on the West Side Highway in Chelsea. Walking there felt dangerous because there was nothing over there.

The West Village piers were rotting into the river. What is now Hudson River Park was abandoned asphalt nothing filled with Paris is Burning drag queens and hustlers. Last period where NY felt rough around the edges. While crime was crazy and murders were skyrocketing, never really felt unsafe. Just more free and less policed. Fun times.

I finished my study in Paris and was ready to go back to my home country. I left my first love in Paris too. He also had to go back to his home country. Surprisingly I didn't feel very sad, maybe because I knew an interesting career was waiting for me back home. The last big event I attended was the celeberation of the bicentennial of the French revolution. Lambada was the song of that summer. Wonderful memories.

I ate ass for the 1st time!

I was 25, had just finished my bachelor's degree at U of T and started working part time at the reference library I'd spend the next 30 years. In the middle of a relationship with a guy 17 years older than me-our second try-he'd dump me -AGAIN that fall. The fact that we tried it a third time21 years later proves that I really DON'T learn from my mistakes :( Really pathetic.

Looking forward to my second year at university. Came home from my summer office temp job one hot, bright day and my mom told me that my dad needed a hug, because he had just found out he had pancreatic cancer, so I went and hugged him. I didn't understand at that time the horrid death sentence that it turned out to be. (My immediate reaction was to assume that he'd have surgery and treatment and then he'd recover.)

sex, lies, and videotape!

Hugs R55. And may god bless your dad.

I turned 40. Lived in Kaua’i, where I was the director of their AIDS project. Moved over to Honolulu, where I was roommates with a funny straight guy I met in AA. Had a few breakthroughs in therapy. Completed and sold a lot of paintings. Last full year of living in paradise. Becoming the man I could be.

I was finishing a year long internship at the Brooklyn Museum and living in Park Slope on so little money I don’t remember how I could afford food. But I was happy and excited to be out of college and actually living in NYC and I was in love with the city exploring different neighborhoods and museums every weekend and going to Uncle Charlie’s to cruise and watch music videos.

I was a kid. Spent the summer going to the movies. Saw Batman 3x, Indiana Jones, Do the Right Thing. Bought a lot of cassingles too— “This Time I Know It’s For Real”, “Express Yourself”, “Sowing the Seeds of Love”.

I was 26 and working at the American society of civil engineers. People thought I was an alcoholic, but I wasn’t. Which was very annoying.

R27 Don’t envy us. Seriously.

Many of us went through the cyclical collapses and saw our savings repeatedly disappear. I was lucky as hell and managed to rebuild, but I have lost all trust in our so-called 401k system, which in reality is a loophole in the IRS code. If that isn’t a sobering thought, it should be.

So, I put half my money in an annuity, which is a very conservative investment. The other half? My house which used to be where most Americans had their net worth. I’m selling it when I retire and putting it into cash and drawing 5% as recommended.

My retirement? Well, that American dream is down the toilet. It’s more like Central America for retirement. It’s my own punishment. I was a Reagan Republican so it’s just desserts.

If you’re not buying real estate, put your money in an annuity or a well-protected, market insulated investment. Plan for the day you *want* to retire, not because you have to work until the maximum Social Security age, you know?

I was an egg still waiting to be fertilised, which happened six months later.

Who can forget Batdance....

[quote]I was always pissed of that ATWT was the critics darling in 1989!!

It was the best daytime drama in that and many other years.

I was at an AA or ACOA meeting in DC, no doubt.

I was 30.. living in DC. Pretty hot... had fun.

Finished grad school the year before. Worked as a principal investigator on archeological sites. Fell in love with a Green Beret before don’t ask, don’t tell. Dated a girl I didn’t love. Found out I had a 7 year old son. My best friend died of AIDS. Looking back in my mid 50s, I’m surprised I survived 1989.

R68. You’re not boring. I like you!

Graduated high school that year. I had lost a bunch of weight, grew my hair out to my shoulders. It was the best I ever looked lol.

I ask 7 and I remember watching that awful movie cocktail a lot. My Darby loved it and didn’t understand that it wasn’t a children’s movie. Lucky for me it’s so bad it’s good and even back then I could appreciate the humour. I also remember lots of terrible music and neon

Oops my dad and I was 7. He’s also the one who first introduced me to the wonder of St Elmo’s fire.

My boyfriend, who was dying of AIDS, and I had a public argument with my erstwhile best friend's wife who was five months' pregnant with twins, at a Mormon wedding reception given for co-workers from my homophobic company which was notorious for firing people who were gay or whom they thought had AIDS. It runs in my head like a slow-motion movie and I can remember everything everyone said.

[R55] I'm so sorry.

How in the world did you AA types manage to stay sober in 1989, with friends and loved ones dying horribly all around you?

Most of my friends and lovers were also sober, r75.

I don't remember. I was two years old.

Rented a house in Dupont Circle with a friend. It was the year we first heard of what would come to be called AIDS. We'd sit around the kitchen table with two or more friends, reading the Blade every Friday after work. I would have people over for dinner to unwind at the end of the week; lots of food, lots of wine. We had a dog and a cat and a laundry room and a friend who came over every week to use said laundry room. This friend and I would start going to AA at the very end of the year.

^ Oops. r78 was meant for the 1982 thread.

I was five and would enter kindergarten that fall!

Acid house hitting Melbourne, almost completrd my second year at Uni living away in Halls of Residence.

The academic year is different in Oz, so your northern hemisphere Summer, I was just starting to get sorted to pull things together to swot for end year assessments and exams. I remember a sexy blonde Yank straight exchange guy from.Vermont I was lust crushing on and living in Halls left to return Stateside- sadly unconsumated, which is why I remember Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' released around this time. He was huge into Pittsburgh Steelers, Cheers and Joel - so, apart from discovering how NFL worked and Cheers, no loss. I still remember his preppy clean-cut button down pink and powder blue lemon pastel flannel.untucked shirts and beige chinos. Australian guys, even in Uni by the late Eighties didn't dress like this.

Summer afterwards, I moved out of Res into my first place not far from.csmpus. I remember getting a double sized futon on a folding wooden base thatb folded into a sofa

Whatever happened to futons? it seemed every cheap student I knew had them.

R4- are you me? I was the same age and also obsessed with OLTL. Tina was my all time favorite, and that summer,!I was apoplectic that she was losing airtime to the Gordon sisters and Gabrielle. (not really Gabrielle- she was great.) Andrea Evans would leave just a few months later, taking my shattered heart with her.

First summer job, working cutting longs. Working physically and outdoors, probably healthiest of my life. Wish i had known it then.

R49 I remember those shoes!!

1989 was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I grew up in a decrepit Rust Belt town in W Pennsylvania, and my family was poor, so we didn't travel or do anything for excitement besides go to the closest good mall across the border in Ohio. I remember Bat-everything in the stores that summer.

I also saw Batman a couple of times, loved the Prince soundtrack. I spent a lot of time that summer watching tennis because I had a crush on Agassi. My part-time job at the public library was a lot of fun; I loved the librarians and they liked me. My equally-bored friends from school would come and hang out while I worked. If I was home in the afternoons, I'd watch 'Santa Barbara.'

Someone like me spent the summer of 1989 wishing I had someone like R59's life -- I never did and I'm still sad about it.

We were making tons of money!

Living for this thread. Tinged with nostalgic sadness.

Was v optimistic and my great love affair hadn’t yet imploded. The sex was unreal. He also made me laugh.

The music... Madonna debuted Like A Prayer on a Pepsi commercial in the U.K. which was promptly banned due to religious outrage. Remember hearing Pet Shop Boys remixes and loving them. Music was a central part of my life.

Grew out of action figures, hitting a peak with Nintendo. Batman, Jason Takes Manhattan. Started getting into music - Madonna's Express Yourself, Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli. I was obsessed with The Brady Bunch and watched the recently successful A Very Brady Christmas nonstop.

Got my Masters (fifteen years after my undergrad degree), bought my first house, ID'd the person who murdered my best friend to a NYPD detective, went to the Soviet Union for the first time that fall and was in Berlin on the way home as the Wall fell, buried my first boyfriend who died of HIV 8 years after we split up, and got my Mom into a experimental treatment program for Hep B using interferon that kept her going for another seven years.

It was the best of times and the worst of times.

A big year for you, r88.

Like most years in the 1980s, not much distinguishes it from any other year. IIRC, though, it's one of the few years when nobody I knew that well died.

This thread is really wonderful. It is funny how much I apparently like 1989, however, like the song, I think "time has rewritten every line"...

Junior High in my little town of 4000 was HORRENDOUS, just horrible. I had friends (girls of course- mostly) but boys were awful to me. I was fat and had severe acne.

I remember just loving my family (which was mainly aunts, cousins, etc) and that really gave me a sense of love in what was very much a loveless and lonely time. I think that is why I remember music, television shows, pop culture from 1989, as all of those things were my escape.

Summer of 1989 was the most impactful summer of my life.

I was 14 yrs old and spent summer of 1989 on a body cast.

I had just finished a spring soccer season where I was becoming a great soccer player and was invited to be on an elite summer soccer travel team. Practice and play all the time, travel to tournaments... I had grown a lot and worked on my fitness during my 8th grade year and had become a great athlete and was so excited to travel and play soccer all summer. I was in great shape, worked out and ran and played soccer every single day and never looked or felt better in my life before or since.

Then Memorial Day weekend I went dirt bike riding with a friend. Had a crash, broke my leg (femur, which is your thighbone). My mother was going through this weird new age phase and claimed she didn’t “believe in anesthesia” and surgery to repair a broken leg was considered “elective” and she refused to authorize it so I was treated conservatively with a cast. And the cast for a broken femur is a body cast.

So from Memorial Day weekend until the Tuesday after Labor Day, I spent 24/7 in a fiberglass cast that went from my chest down my entire body to my toes on my broken leg and down to just above my knee on my good leg with a metal bar between my knees. Couldn’t bend at the waist at all, cast basically encased my chest and torso, hips, had hole for using the bathroom, and then both legs, one to my knee and one to my toes.

Couldn’t wear pants (had to cover with a small towel whenever I went anywhere), mostly didn’t wear a shirt in that hot Georgia summer, only could leave the bed or recliner in a wheelchair and always had to have help getting into the wheelchair or a vehicle or whatever.

Spent a lot of time with friends (my single mother worked) and watched a lot of soccer practices and tournaments in the heat from a wheelchair. Cast had to be changed twice and each new cast, as my muscle mass shrunk from being immobile, was tighter and more restrictive. I was never really in pain, but lots of incredibly awkward situations for a 14 yr old boy who had to have help going to the bathroom, couldn’t go anywhere without help getting into and out of a reclining wheelchair, and couldn’t wear pants and had to cover his genitals with a small towel that would sometimes fall off (and I could never reach it to cover myself again).

Cast finally removed the day after Labor Day and after some physical therapy I fully recovered but never was as good a soccer player. Always had, and still do have, pain in that hip. My friends who played on elite teams were all better than I was by the end of the summer and I never caught up to them. Most of them went on to play soccer in college, I went one semester and dropped out and worked in restaurants. Still do (manager and beverage director for a big group) but man I wonder what my life could have been had I never spent that summer of 1989 in a body cast.

Burton's later soundtrack work became disappointing, but this is still one of the best things composed for the screen. Gives me chills.

I was 15 and starting my sophomore year in high school. i was deep in my self loathing and wore out The Cure's Disintegration album.

Donna, making a comeback with This Time I Know It's For Real.

I was 16 and had just quit high school to work full time.

Then I left a good job for another job, was fired when the owner found out I was a HS drop out and my life pretty much went to shit after that.

My first time having sex: July 1989 (17 yrs old) Did oral, anal, ate ass, sucked feet and ate his entire load.

I had my first abortion on mom’s kitchen table! I still have the coat hanger!!

The Andy Warhol Diaries came out that summer and it was all anyone talked about. The best, bitchiest gossip and commentary ever.

R98 the Warhol diaries were out before 1989

R99, no, it was published in 1989. The entries were from much earlier, of course.

Oh god how boring!

R100 you are correct. Please pardon me. I was thinking of a paper I had written in school.

I bet you didn’t have sex at all in ‘89, r102!!!

Earthquake!

[quote]In the middle of a relationship with a guy 17 years older than me-our second try-he'd dump me -AGAIN that fall.

I could have written this! Same age gap and he dumped me three times, except he did it about once a year, so it didn’t drag out over decades (I am so sorry).

We met our third husband in December of 1989.

Why were people at the World Series cheering during the earthquake?

I had just graduated from college and had no clue what to do with my life.

On a whim I got a summer job at a museum and that led to my long and successful career as a curator !

I was petrified about AIDS so barely had sex

R91 Appreciate your writing. It made me laugh and cry at the same time. Glad you're doing well now.

My 1st boyfriend at 17 that summer.... We rode on my motorcycle and made love in the country.

We were at celebratia for the 50th anniversary of the start of WWII.

We were but a young, but sexually awakened, girl when it began.

We never celebrate its end, as the Nazis lost.

R112 Say WHAT???

I was 19 and just scored an amazing fake id! Saw a ton of concerts at Jones Beach - great summer.

[quote]Why were people at the World Series cheering during the earthquake?

I was there! For baseball fans in the Bay Area it was a glorious summer. The first time the Giants and the A's were going to face off in the World Series. I remember having lunch that day, sweltering in my all-black Giants getup, and commenting to my boss that it was 'earthquake weather' (no, I really did)

Once the quake hit, I wasn't cheering, I was screaming.

After the shaking stopped, I think we were cheering because 1) it was over and 2) Candlestick Park was still standing (thank you Mayor Feinstein for retrofitting the stadium the previous year).

In those pre-cell phone days we had no idea how bad the damage was, or if there was any damage at all. It wasn't until somebody near us who had a battery-powered TV turned it on that we started to see images of the freeway collapse and the fires in the Marina. Then the eerie sound of the Emergency Broadcast System alert coming from people's transistor radios filled the air, and the entire ballpark fell silent. All of a sudden it stopped being fun and people started to worry.

The power was out and there was no public address system. They were using bullhorns to tell everyone to leave, which we did in a surprisingly orderly fashion. I'm such a cheapskate that I used to park on the other side of the Bayshore Freeway to avoid paying for parking. It turned out to be a lucky thing as we were able to get out of the area in a short while as opposed to the chaos of everyone else trying to leave the main parking lot at once.

At the time I was working across the bay in Hayward, and, had I not been at the game, I very well might have been on that section of the Nimitz Freeway that collapsed. I know someone is going to 'Mary!' me, but I keep that ticket stub in my wallet to this day to remind me that life is precious and it can all be taken away in an instant.

R112

Erna:

Fetid shit eating diseased sociopathic shit encrusted loathsome Nazi pedo cunt fuck.

I was living in NYC on the UES, sun bathing & reading on the roof of the 6 story walk up. The old Italian ladies who lived there would meet on the roof to socialize and play cards. Spent the summer working a little and going out to the bars and clubs with my great tan!

R115: thanks for sharing that. Amazing you were at that game. What did you mean by “earthquake weather?”

I was 23. It was the summer between my first and second year of med school. I flew to California (first plane trip) and went for a week of partying in San Francisco and Napa and Sonoma with my rich best friend ( I was poor as hell and thought I was the shit hanging out with the cool crowd). All very straight and collegiate until we ended up blowing each other in a beer and tequila haze on the first day of school later that month. (first blow job I ever gave or received). It was a great time in my life - falling for a wealthy slightly older man, grad school, living on my own. Life was exciting and fun and I never felt so alive! I was young and hot and life had so much potential. 30 years later I'm fatter, balder, more cynical, definitely more financially secure, own my own practice, have a great partner and all in all a good life. But summer of 89 I was ALIVE!

I spent July in Leningrad. It was an interesting time.

R112=NOT Erna

[quote] I know someone is going to 'Mary!' me, but I keep that ticket stub in my wallet to this day to remind me that life is precious and it can all be taken away in an instant.

I understand what you mean, and have a similar experience represented by a ticket. On the day of the shootings at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, I was supposed to see a production of Le Nozze di Figaro at Carnegie Mellon's School of Music. Because the campus is on the border of Squirrel Hill, where the synagogue is located, all activities were canceled at CMU, up to and including their homecoming.

For whatever reason, I have not been able to let that go, and have even held onto the tickets.

Was J-1 student in the USA.

First night we were housed in the Sloane YMCA. I was exhausted but the gaydar kicked in and I found myself cruising 7 floors of communal showers and restrooms having sex. There was one guy in particular in the showers, a big tall black guy carrying a 12 inch knife, but he was jacking off and motioned me to come blow him. Very nice indeed. Spent the summer waiting tables and hitting the Wall Street Sauna and East Side Club as a hot twink getting so much sex and offers to "Take care" of me....LOL

I can't imagine being a slut in 1989 the way I was in 1979.

I was ordained a priest that August

I lasted 5 years

[quote] What did you mean by “earthquake weather?”

It is/was a San Francisco-ism that has no basis in fact.

Anybody who knows San Francisco knows the weather is generally cold, damp, and foggy, especially in summer. Even if it's warm and sunny when you leave the apartment, native San Franciscans always take a jacket because the fog will roll in later in the afternoon. Working in retail, we sold tons of sweaters and jackets in the summer to tourists who had no clue what our weather was like.

'Earthquake weather' simply means unseasonably warm with no fog and no wind. It's been scientifically debunked, and probably nobody over 40 still uses the phrase (I've been gone 20 years now). It's an old San Franciscan's way of saying 'Gee, it's unusually warm today'.

The summer of 1989 was 30 years ago... it doesn't seem possible. I had recently finished college here in Austin and was in a new relationship with an awesome guy. At the beginning of June, we had moved into an nice little apartment together. We had an amazing group of friends. Many of them were lost to AIDS in the '90s. Our afternoons were spent laying out by the pool, hanging out on Lake Travis, or letting it all hang out at Hippie Hollow. Many evenings were spent dancing and drinking out at the clubs (great fun then, but that holds no appeal for me now).

I remember a lot of fun movies that summer: Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade, Batman, Lethal Weapon 2, The Abyss, License to Kill, When Harry Met Sally, Weekend at Bernies (lowbrow but fun). The music was great. My friends and I spent the summer listening to The Cult - Sonic Temple, The Cure - Disintegration, Metallica - ...And Justice For All, Depeche Mode - 101, New Order - Technique, Danzig's first album, Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime, The B-52's - Cosmic Thing, The Pixies - Doolittle, and Rush - A Show of Hands. Of course, several of the guys were obsessed with Madonna's Like A Prayer album. Good album, but she was never really my thing.

I didn't watch a lot of TV then, as I was always out partying. There were a few must see shows though. I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Equalizer, Tour of Duty, Saturday Night Live, and Married... With Children.

Times have changed, but it does not seem that long ago. I do miss the friends I lost over the next decade. I miss their wit, fun and snark. Most of all, I miss their friendship. Life is great now, but sometimes I would like to rewind and go back to a day in 1989, just to visit for a bit.

i had my first boyfriend in the summer of '89. i was 16 going on 17. We did oral, anal, ass eating, foot sucking, he smothered my face by straddling my face with his ass and taint while i sucked and lots of cum eating.

oh, and I performed ass-to-mouth (ATM).

Returned with my partner from vacationing in Paris, (our second trip to France) and a side trip to Morocco (the exotic part of our vacation) to our small apt in Chelsea. We decided to buy a condo that was double the size of our place in Chelsea. I had a good job in the cosmetic business my partner was a wine salesman, combined we had a great income. That was our last amazing year together. 2 years later I lost my job to corporate restructuring my partner died of aids related disease, it sent me into a 3 year depression where I just withdrew from everything. 30 years later I'm still living in the same place with a new partner, we are retired now and life is good.

I still think that Batman may have been the biggest crossmarketing venture we've ever seen. No film since as seemed so omnipresent.

Which is funny. Because in many ways it's as much a strange, idiosyncratic Burton film as it is a studio event film. I miss the Tim Burton that could take big movies and inject an underlying kink or auteur strain to them. That Burton is long gone.

I was into Batman marketing that summer. I wore my day-Glo Batman logo tee with my day-glo yellow body glove shorts while I jammed the Batman soundtrack CD by Prince! Crucial!

We use that term in So Cal, too, R126.

Just to be clear, the 1989 earthquake occurred on Oct. 17, 1989.

I was a junior in college in the South. Shared a crappy apartment with a female friend who was always at her boyfriend's, so had the place to myself a lot.

Dated girls a little just to keep up the straight facade, but nothing too serious.

Had "real" sex with a guy for the first time (had fooled around a bit with high school friends) on the down-low. He was a rich frat boy, a senior, with an insatiable appetite for sex. He would get off with his girlfriend, but still come to me for more. We fucked each other, but I mostly topped. May have been a little bit "in love" but there was no talk about that. He married his girlfriend after they graduated, and as far as I know, is still married with kids. Hell, maybe even grandkids by now. He reached out to me in the early stages of Facebook. I responded for a bit, but eventually cut him off.

I came out the next year and had my first real boyfriend. This was not popular with my friends and family.

I was biding my time in a one-year job for the college I had graduated from the previous year. I’d deferred admission to grad school so I could gain independent status and get better financial aid. Nervously looking forward to moving to NYC for school, not fully l realizing that even Ivy League degrees wouldn’t result in sufficient income when pursuing a career in nonprofits. Oh dumb youthful idealism.

I was 4 years old. I had just finished my first year of pre-school. I was obsessed with the Bangles' song "Eternal Flame" and was disappointed that they broke up soon after. It wasn't until 1990 when I discovered En Vogue and Mariah Carey that I found music to obsess over again. I was never a huge Madonna fan. Overall I liked a lot of the hit singles from that year though of course every year has shitty songs.

I had discovered by chance American Gladiators and that's the first time I knew I was attracted to men, though I didn't know what I was feeling at the time. Since then I've always like muscular/fit guys and stay in quite fit myself.

Summer of 1989.... I took a class at UCLA about the films of Alfred Hitchcock (which counted as Art credits toward my B.A. in History). It met twice a week from 1:00 pm - 6:00(ish) pm. Two films + lecture/discussion, with a 20-25 minute break in between. It was a TREAT to be able see all those films on a full-size movie-theater screen!

And our prof. was very cool. Melnitz Hall seated approx. 250, but the class-enrollment was nowhere near that during summer-school. So, we were welcome to bring along a couple friends to watch the movies & listen to the lecture/discussion. (my roomates tagged along with me for a few screenings)

But it wasn't all just sitting around, watching & writing essays about Hitchcock films.... I also had two of the cushiest/stoner/do-nuthin', part-time jobs EVER!

I worked at a Westwood Village hole-in-the-wall video store (think: CLERKS) and for Ampco Parking, along Pacific Coast Highway. I was stationed mostly at the Will Rogers State Beach parking lots (Temescal Cyn & Chautauqua Cyn)....but also Topanga, Zuma & Venice Beach, occasionally. You just sat and stared the Pacific Ocean all afternoon & worked on your tan. Your biggest hassle were the local surfers who refused to pay for parking because they were "locals", and entitled pricks. There were no barriers or gates or anything back then....so it was pretty easy for them to just floor it, past the booth, if they couldn't talk you out of waiving the parking fee. Nobody was going to chase them down.

Montauk, before the little drunken jerks took over the town

i was a prince fan and a sheena easton fan. i was in heaven with their duet "arms of orion" on the batman soundtrack!

Sittin' here thinkin' 'bout '89.

I was 3.

I was about to move to Gramercy Park and the next week the pipe explosion occurred. It took me a month to find a new apartment. Meanwhile Alexander Julian saw me walking down the street and offered me a job as his personal assistant. I didn't take the position and always wonder what he really had in mind.

I finished the restoration of a 1963 Thunderbird roadster in the spring and thought, "This will be great. I have the perfect car for the summer." And it was. The surprisingly sweet ex-con with some prison experience who'd done a lot of the bodywork on the car came to Provincetown with me for the Fourth of July weekend. We never got to drive around much, though: we did a lot of coke and fucked our brains out for three days, as one did in those days.

In late July my oldest and best gay friend - one fuck started a wonderful friendship - was murdered in NYC while his partner was in West Germany for work. It turned out that I was the last person who'd spoken to him before he was killed, knew who the last person who saw him was, and had to fly to NYC to work with the cops to find the guy who murdered him. They did, and when he saw the cops he ran into traffic, got hit by a bus, and died.

On Labor Day my first lover died of HIV at the age of 33. He was about the 20th person I knew who died of HIV in that decade. We had split up in 1980 but were still friends until his new bf came along and didn't like me. He froze me out so my ex died without my knowing how ill he was nor having a chance to say goodbye. I wanted to make a scene at the wake but the woman I was with hauled me out of the funeral home before I could.

So....1989 was one of the worst years of my life. Thirty years ago and it still hurts.

I was just turning 20. In love with a college friend who didn't know I was alive.

Nerd by day, but having a hot fuck fling with a married daddy who lived a mile or so from my college.

Hated college at the time; missed too much HS due to bullying and didn't have the educational foundation to succeed in college then.