BACK IN THE 90'S WE HAD A LOT MORE DRUGS WITH OUR BICYCLES

in #life6 years ago (edited)

This is a post about New Zealand with plenty of pictures, so I thought about doing it on my Kiwi account @mg-nz. But it's not exactly touristy, so I'll stick with my warts and all regular Steemit account for this one.

Recently a friend said she remembered Cuba Street, Wellington as being "bohemian" in 97, and I laughed and said that by 97 it had already become a safe space for office dwellers to visit and pretend they were living dangerously.

So I dug out my "Cuba Street 92" calendar - all of these photos are from that and were taken in 91. When we opened our bike shop "Cycle Services" in 1991, Cuba Street was not just where you went for a grunty coffee or second hand stuff, it was also the first place to go to for drugs and prostitutes.

Now I'll go on about drugs a bit here. I was new to all this scene, and to me "drugs" basically meant smoking some pot or maybe spotting some oil.

As a cyclist I was pretty familiar with ephedrine which was actually still legal in NZ in 91 and was very popular, used as a sort of everyday speed. When it was outlawed it just went underground like all the other drugs.

Most people use coffee for the same purpose now. And coffee in Cuba St was often said to be some of the strongest in the world.

The first time I walked in on a drug deal my eyes nearly popped out of my head. A respectable looking man in a suit with a large brief case had it open and was discussing bulk pricing with a couple of our bike shop customers on the huge range of drugs that he had samples of.

Apart from pot, the popular one in Wellington in those days was acid. But you could buy anything you wanted really, including heroin. I was told the cocaine was a rip off in NZ, and that was why nobody here was much into it.

What Wellington was infamous for in 91 was glue sniffers. And sometimes Cuba St was like zombie dawn of the dead. Bloody glue sniffers everywhere, staggering about, holding their plastic bags and drooling.

Some of the people on the street were fairly tough, and just up the road was the BP's (Black Power) who ran a tinny house ($20 foil wrapped servings of pretty average pot). But you didn't take photos of the BP's, you casually crossed the road when you saw them coming, so there are no photos of them here!

This was in the days before digital cameras, and mobile phones had only just come out. They cost $3000 and were the size of a brick. This next photo was taken in front of the second hand book shop next door to us (note our Peloton Cycles sign in the top left). And the poor guy in the photo was stabbed to death a few months later...

Our neighbours on the other side were Midnight Espresso, the legendary coffee shop, and this is a young Geoff Marsland (Havana Coffee Works) in our doorway

Although I did have a camera, I didn't take many photos because buying film and developing it was expensive. Part of why I started taking thousands of photos when I got my first digital camera a decade later is because I knew just what I had missed getting photos of back in the early 90's. And some of them would have been quite something.

I guess this is all looks like a window back to an old forgotten time now, but as a young and impressionable goober, this was the environment that shaped me. And now here on Steemit I'm partly still a guy from old time Cuba St, rather than a smartphone addicted tech geek.

So sometimes when I hear millennials getting offended by lame bullshit I wish I could push a button and transplant them to Cuba Street in 91. It was an amazing place, but some of them might just have gotten their whingeing faggy heads smacked in...

Those were awesome times back in the days before computers.

And getting "offended" wasn't that viable an option

All photos taken by Barry Thomas


WWW.SIFT.CO.NZ


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deserves a big upvote. Sadly mine sucks.

Thanks - I always appreciate an upvote!

Wanna buy a tinny?

ok

Yeah brother I remember the late eighties more so than the nineties(too much partaking) but the times before CPU's and phones was it! I find it hard to relate these days at times. Hell, kids these days don't even hit on girls they get online and voila it happens through these "you wanna hook up sites." Times have changed. Sometimes I wonder what happened and how the hell did I get here? I can only imagine how it will be for my kids and theirs. I enjoyed the post and all the photos. The read was even better! Nice job.

Thanks! - yes I sometimes wonder if people today realise that shit was a lot more real back then and we had to take drugs to live in fantasy worlds :)

Haha! That's great! I know right? And nowadays it's all about big pharma........... no thank you. Hell there are things we used to do back in the day that if kids do today they'll be buried under the jail. It's nonsense. I'm glad I grew up when I did but to the younger generations(and I'm not that old) it's like explaining CryPto's to a banker..................

What Wellington was infamous for in 91 was glue sniffers.

That's the lowest of the low. The Glue Sniffers.

In a away computers & smart phones & the Internet HAVE RUINED everything!

You forgot to mention the scented & sniffable Magic Markers for kids.

ff27d286a1ed42c15bd1de108e023534.jpg

maxresdefault.jpg

I think one time, I walked in on my Brother making some model airplane. The Airplane Glue stinking up the place. So I went back to my room, to sniff the magic makers.

I once inhaled a shit load of paint fumes by accident and it was the worst buzz ever - sort of like food poisoning combined with concussion...

I have walked in on people sniffing glue. I can't describe it. It makes your head spin & you want to puke at the same time. They spilled it all over the floors in a closed room. thought I was going to pass out. I was a kid & went & told my parents right away.

That sickness you got from the paint fumes. I never met a Painter who was not an alcoholic. I believe it's the paint fumes- turn them all to alcohol.

more useless glue sniffing links to raise my steemit score ;)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/014019719290063B

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/jmk4p3/glue-sniffing-epidemic-mdma-ecstasy-deaths-uk-narcomania

https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/commercial-glue-sniffing-and-child-health-indian-street-children-are-at-a-risk-2332-0893.1000e108.php?aid=15551

https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/glue-sniffing

I don't know if it's the same on Steemit but on the rest of the internet it's about porn tag words not links.

And Stemit rep is all about botvotes!

Here is my most popular ever webpage - it's not about content! :)

http://www.frot.co.nz/design/sift/the-biggest-free-porn-site-in-the-world/

Ok- so I clicked over. Saw some image you posted- reminded me of the yes men.

You know about then right. The Yes Men- Pranked the WTO- world Trade Organization back in '99 by giving a speech in a golden penis outfit- with a video screen at the end of the golden penis- that could monitor the WORKER/ Slaves halfway around the globe?

the_yes_men_manager_of_the_.jpg

they followed up with a presentation before some elite college kids with a presentation on recycling human waster into food. _ Right after that had passed out a bag of McDonalds Hamburgers to the crowd.

alright- I'm ding here with cryptos down & no action or $$$ to be made there. The sun & humidity is too damn blazing for me to go outside, the new house- I can't bike ride in the evening at this place. It's been long enough since my accident- to start working out again. I can't keep posting on Steemit- It's boring. No use checking the price of crypto 10x a day. I'm not in the mood for reading any books- though I have a HUGE stack of books to tackle......

That leaves only 2 options- take a big bottle of sleeping pills & wake when Prices Lambo . Opps I don;t have any sleeping pills & there will be plently of time for me sleep when I DIE!

I guess that means it's time to bust out the weights & start the slow process of getting starting to lift weights again. UGHHHHH - nothing like staring over again- after I let it somehow all go downhill.

Hahaha these photos bring back some memories. I remember my mum telling me not to go down cuba st when i was growing up.

LOL - that was to avoid running into bad people. Like me :)

Hookers...mmmmmmm
Image result for hot hookers

Raise you one :)

Back in the time you run the hood isn't it ;)

Yep, I was the boss :)

Make fun with me @sift666

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have you tried being a sardine?

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