I keep seeing Thrasher T-shirts around town, worn by young college age kids, and it just makes me think about my random year long subscription almost twenty years ago, as well as the other seemingly random and curiously cool things I acquired through the ads in the backs of magazines. So, with Thrasher Magazine, if you're unfamiliar it is a skateboarding magazine founded in 1981. I wasn't sure if they were still around, as I'm no longer into skateboarding myself, but do appreciate it; but seeing the T-shirts I assumed that they were (and they are). I'm not under the impression that skateboarding was only ever for white boys, nor did I think it was a brand new magazine when I was reading through my first one in 1998 or 1999; unlike some of my peers. However, the only people I ever came into contact with who were into skateboarding or read Thrasher were white boys. I never met a single girl to fit either category. I know they're out there, I just never met them. I even met Mormon boys from Utah who were into skateboarding, but no people of colour and no other females. The T-shirt sightings recently have been on African American college kids; first two boys and then tonight a girl! I knew they were out there, that they had to be all those years ago, but Thrasher wasn't showing people of colour or females in their magazine at the turn of the millennium, when I was in my late teens. It was nice to see. So getting back, the memory is a bit hazy, but I had acquired an issue of Thrasher and was looking at it in our basement coffee house one evening. Had I purchased it? Had a friend loaned or given it to me? I can not recall. I just had one and that's all I know for certain. Inside was one of those stiff paper inserts for you to take out and mail in if you wanted a subscription. It was $3.00 for a years subscription. Yes, three dollars. I don't think that was even the going rate at the time, but was special. Anyways, I jumped at the chance and mailed that in an envelope with $3 cash. Didn't renew after that first year of course, the price was $10 for a years subscription. But the memory of have that $3 one year subscription is nice to think back on. Remembering this got me thinking about the other things I'd acquired for cheap or free via magazines. The first was the '94 Woodstock T-Shirt. I did not remember it was from Pepsi, but I vividly remember the peace sign of the shirt and still had a photo, which you can see above. I liked the shirt so much, I insisted, much to my mothers chagrin, to wear it during school picture day. It was advertised at the back of some magazine. I sent off for it and received it just before the actual event took place. I know for a fact that my parents wouldn't have allowed it. I didn't even bother asking them. I know I sent off for it on my own and that it could not have cost very much at all (although I'm wondering why it didn't?) for me to be able to purchase it. I really want to say it was between $4 and $6 - perhaps I was just paying for the shipping and by sending in enough (I don't know, coupon codes or something) that is how I was able to get it? I just remember putting the spare bills that I'd earned from chores into an envelope and sending off for it. I was only thirteen, about to turn fourteen when the T-shirt arrived in the post. Now if that was the amount for shipping, then they were taking me for a ride because it shouldn't have cost that much in 1994. But I was thirteen, this was something I wanted, I knew the price could be paid by saving up my chore money in a relatively short period of time and I know it didn't cost over $6 total. But, like I said, the details are hazy, so I don't know if it was sending in Pepsi labels or some other such nonsense, along with the shipping price and the order form, but it was something like that. Looking online, there is no information on how anyone actually obtained their Pepsi Woodstock T-shirt, but there are like a billion for sale, so it was easy enough to come by at the time. However, I have never met another person who sent away for and received that T-shirt. Just me. Wearing it to school that year, tons of people kept asking me how I got it and asking what Woodstock was like. "I didn't go, I got this practically free from a magazine." They were not impressed. When I was about fifteen, my mother informed me that I would now be getting a subscription to Seventeen Magazine. She herself had had a subscription when she was about this age, so I would be getting one as well. OK. All my friends read YM, and I was hoping to get that, but really as far as teen magazines go and one can be considered classy, then Seventeen far outranked them all. In the back of any of those girl magazines were ads of all sorts for all types of things. Some contained info on getting a Delia's catalog sent to you, or perhaps to join the Columbia House Music Club (which I did, story to follow). One time it was an advertisement for this British girl magazine called Sugar. It was a free issue and then you could get a subscription if you wanted. It also came with a free deck of tarot cards (The Sugar Mystic Tarot) with instruction booklet. It was 1997 and I was sixteen. Of course I sent away for that. I don't remember which tarot card (or cards) that they pictured, but like you can see above, they're so mid-late 90's that it hurts. I had to have them. And of course I would want a British girl magazine. I used the fuck out of those cards. I carried them everywhere with me and kept them all together with a black plastic hair band. They basically disintegrated from near constant use and wear and tear. I loved them. Never did get a full subscription to that magazine though. I wanted to, and asked my mom, but it wasn't Seventeen and she had Seventeen, so I was only going to have Seventeen. I know I'm repeating myself, but honestly my mom would repeat herself if I ever asked for a different girl magazine in my teens. I believe Sugar was even a lot less expensive than Seventeen, but oh well, you can read my mothers reasons. Again all my friends were like, "Where in the world did you get these? They're from England? What?!" I told them to look in the adverts of their magazines and see one for Sugar. No one ever did, or else never found it in their issues. Then there was some slim music magazine that came with a various artists CD. It was a monthly thing. Looking online it will only show me CMJ. While I do remember this, because one of my friends got this on occasion (or else only brought their newest ones to school on occasion), this was not it. I was able to, somehow, via a back-of-the-issue advertisement in some magazine (I know it wasn't Seventeen), get one, possibly two issues, for free before subscribing. I did not subscribe. It was probably 1999 or 2000 and I was already out of high school when I stumbled upon this. It was actually pretty cool and I would have wanted to keep subscribing, but didn't have the funds. I was first introduced to Opeth and BRMC via this disc (or these discs). It does tell me that volume 93 for May of 2001 of CMJ New Music had both Harvest by Opeth and Rifles by BRMC, but I'm still pretty certain that wasn't it. For one, I already liked and knew of Ani Difranco, but I don't remember her being on the album; plus I didn't hear her song Heartbreak Even until I, at a later date, purchased her Reveling/Reckoning double album. And several years later when a friend told me to listen to some Nick Cave, I didn't know who he was, yet he is also on that volume 93 album. Also, the magazine cover of this volume 93 was all white and bright and had Depeche Mode on the cover. I'd have remembered that as I love Depeche Mode. The partial magazine that I received was sepia, black and like dark gold. There were no pictures and the disc was dark too and not green like they are showing for this volume 93. Mandela Effect, anyone? Either there's a whole other thing out there that I got and had both of these artists with both of these songs... or else the universe that I remember that being in no longer exists and now we've switched to another one. I just don't know. But if I were to rank these in order of top coolest free/free-ish thing that I ever obtained from a magazine, I'd definitely put the tarot cards at number 1, then the music disc (that was not CMJ), then the year's subscription to Thrasher and lastly the Woodstock T-shirt. About that Columbia House subscription that I mentioned. I didn't see it advertised in the back of a magazine, there was an advert in the mail about it. Since these are not popular things anymore, I will explain it, for if you don't know. They started out with records in the 1960s. To join the club you got a certain number of any of their records for a really cheap price, then you'd have to buy a certain amount in a certain amount of years (1 - 3) at "regular club prices" which were more expensive than the item cost at a store (but you wouldn't know that until after signing the contract).
They of course expanded their catalog depending on what type of music option was available and popular; 8-tracks, cassette tapes, and finally CD's before all those music clubs went bust. They still do this with films like blu-rays and DVD's, but I'm sure there aren't as many people do that. Anyways, so I had just turned thirteen, and if you read my last post about music, then you'll know I was starting to rebel in a big way, having been denied music my entire life. So, when I saw that advert, I jumped at it. They weren't offering CD's at that time, and I didn't have a CD player anyway (not for two more years), so it was cassette tapes. I think there were four or five that I chose and only payed $3 or $4 for all of them. I do remember one; Core by STP. I can't recall the other ones. Sending a few bills in the mail seemed OK to me, even though these places were all DO NOT SEND CASH. However, when my order came and I realized I would have to buy more and the prices were huge and they only accept Money Orders or Cheques, I knew I was in big trouble. Rummaging in my mom's desk for an envelope and stray stamp and shoving 3 dollar bills in an envelope was as easy as trooping it outside to the mailbox and raising the flag. But this money order and cheque business!? How in the world was I going to accomplish that. I actually had no idea how much cassette tapes were supposed to cost at that age. I had slipped away from my mom at the mall and purchased that Guns 'n Roses cassette, but I was on a mission that could not fail and was extremely time sensitive. There'd been no time to look around and observe inside the music store. The tape had only been $8 or $11, because it was a few years old, which I also didn't realize. I, of course, figured they'd all be priced that anywhere. So wrong. So, to me, their inflated prices could have been correct for a store (they were not), and I could scrimp and save chore money, though I was bummed to realize it was going to take a lot longer than I had anticipated. However, the problem was not the purchase of the tapes in my mind. It was how that place was going to get said money in the form in which they wanted it. I debated and thought and agonized for a week, before finally relenting and having to tell my dad all about it. I was telling him I'd pay, but he'd have to help me get the fancy money. "Where's the number, dial it, get them on the phone." We were in the living room beside one of the windows. I called the number and then he said to hand him the phone. He bitched them out for a good five minutes basically telling them that I was only thirteen (they didn't care), that he wasn't going to pay (they said he had to). "Look, you can't legally enter a contractural agreement with a thirteen year old." That got their attention. "We'll not be paying and she won't be sending the music back. No sir, if you're too stupid to send tapes out to a thirteen year old, then you don't deserve to get them back!" "Don't ever sign up with something again. You can keep these. Don't tell your mother." I'm actually really thankful for my dad for getting me out of that mess. Little did I know at that moment what a huge mess it would have been, but it would have been terrible. It's also cool he let me keep the tapes, which I felt sure wasn't going to happen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
Categories |