THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 99
Added 2024-10-02 15:31:22 +0000 UTCThe further you went down 35th avenue, the dingier it got. The area probably had a boom in the mid sixties but it had declined over the years & Oakland, 1985 was like an overripe banana. The whole East Oakland area was fruit orchards before WWII & Oakland’s growth. It has a very suburban feeling to it. There were a lot of funny little businesses at 35th & MacArthur back then: an aquarium store, a video store, Donut Corner (with a huge clock proclaiming “Donut Time”, Glenn's Hot Dogs, a doll house store, a Church’s Fried Chicken, a burrito spot where I got the worst food poisoning I ever had, (puking out of my nose) & a Guy’s Drugs - an Oakland chain of old school drug stores that carried a lot of candy & the Grand Ave. one was the first place I shoplifted from - Bazooka gum so I could read the comics! None of it screamed “for kids” but it was all interesting enough & I’d walk down there frequently. I’d never run into other kids on these meanderings, it was a pretty isolated experience even though my two little brothers were at the house. MAD magazine, Garbage Pail Kids & Dr. Demento’s radio show dominated my life. I liked parody & satire because they took the piss out of everything & absurdist comedy helped to soften the harsh realities of life. Pee Wee’s Playhouse was on the TV & the first Nintendo had come out & dominated my mind, Robotech, Transformers & Voltron were on the air & the Japanese Animation we were getting was good & high quality. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were at the peak of their underground status, just waiting to boil over, & Dungeons & Dragons was slowly being superseded by the worlds of Warhammer & the Palladium RPG systems.
