I went to a preppy high school in a relatively wealthy California suburb. There were a group of students who everyone dismissively referred to as the “Wall Kids” because of their habit of sitting in a row against the outside wall of a classroom, clad in black t-shirts and bondage pants.
The one I knew best (which is to say, I knew him not at all) was a mohawked, bisexual male with an equally gender-ambigious name, “Casey.” He and the other Wall Kids listened to Velvet Underground and Nico, wore vintage Misfits t-shirts, were basically the incarnation of hipsters, others of which we wouldn’t meet until we’d moved out of suburbs and into the big city.
And looking back now, I realize those kids were by far the most sophisticated of any of us.
And I hope they are now doing extraordinary things.
Funny when sophistication is thought of by simple minds as a Louis Vuitton bag versus what album is one’s CD player. Or, back then, an outfit purchased at Abercrombie (*DIES INSIDE*)…
