Kissing Those Posters

I know that I cannot be the only fan out there that wallpapered her (or his) bedroom with Duran Duran posters. Truth be told, I was a little obsessed with this task, choosing to spend a lot of my time back in the 80s on the magazine aisle at any store my mom and dad walked into. I would carefully peruse each offering, deciding whether or not it was an issue I hadn’t already purchased, and if not; whether or not it had enough posters and pinups of the band to justify the purchase. I was fairly picky, as I recall.

It wasn’t enough for the magazine to just have an article or two (although it certainly helped). I needed to be discerning because in no way could I ever ask my mom to agree to the purchase of more than maybe two magazines at a time. Even then, asking my parents to buy anything out of the norm was always a risk. My mom and dad weren’t spendy people. We bought what we needed, not usually whatever we wanted. No, I had to be very calculating with my magazine requests. An article could easily be read while I was in the store. Didn’t need to take it home if I already knew what it said, right? Several articles though? That might have been different, and if it was an “exclusive Duran Duran issue”, complete with articles and pinups or posters? Well…that was an absolute must-have. I’d do what any other pre-teen with my tastes might have done. I’d beg.

The same process would hold true for record stores. I’d look for singles, full-albums, remixes, and if all else failed – I’d look for pins and posters. The latter being my favorite thing to find, but also difficult in that I only had so much wall space. A fan had to be choosey!

If I can recall correctly, the general plan of decor in my room was that I had a large poster on the back of my bedroom door – I want to say it was one from the “Rio” era, with the band wearing black and white and Nick is sitting on a stool, with several others scattered around the room. I had a series of small pin-ups of each band member from what I believe was the SATRT era that went across the back of my room, with a larger group pinup in the middle, right over my bedroom window.

My parents, and really this was mostly my mom but fully backed by my father, had rules about the posters in my room. I had to use tape (no holes in the wall was her rule, which was unfortunate), and there had to be wall showing in between the pinups. My room was a disgustingly bright shade of green called “Summertime Green”, and let me just say the color alone was reason enough to wallpaper my room with Duran Duran. She didn’t see it that way, though. Resigned to my fate, I followed the rules well enough until I started cutting out the smallest pictures I could find in magazines. You know the ones – pictures that might head an article, or be captioned? I’d meticulously cut those from the magazines and then used them to decorate my sliding closet doors. That’s when my mom called a halt to the whole effort, and I was stuck with whatever I’d already accumulated.

Sometimes, like today, I’ll think back on those posters, trying to remember which were my favorite. You’d think I’d still have them—and I do own a few—but they’re not from my original collection. My parents were planning to move after I’d graduated from high school, and so towards the end of my senior year, they put the house on the market. I can remember my mom warning me that she’d be clearing out my bedroom, not exactly asking for my help or permission. Instead, she announced she’d be handling the task on her own while I was at my after-school job. I’d gotten that job in March, working at Miller’s Outpost in the mall, my duties mainly consisted of folding Levi’s 501 jeans as Terence Trent D’Arby played on a seemingly endless loop in the overhead speakers.

One day, I came home from work to find that the bedroom had been utterly cleared out and boxed away, including my precious posters and other handiwork. I can remember purposefully walking out to the garage to speak with my parents, when my mom flashed me a wicked grin and announced she’d cleaned my room. She hated those posters and the way I’d decorated my room, so I have no doubt she enjoyed every minute of taking it all apart. When I began to protest, the no-nonsense way my mom responded took the wind from my sails, and I gave up. Her attitude was that I’d be leaving for college anyway, and that no self-respecting college student would have that many posters up in their dorm anyway. As it turned out, she couldn’t have been more wrong, but I digress.

My real problem now is when I look at posters online and try to remember which ones I liked best – I can’t decide! I think I had more than a few favorites back in the mid-80s, and I still do! So rather than pick a single favorite, I’ll share a few.

Now, if I could choose one, more recent group photo…and I do have a poster or two from recent years, I’d choose these:

Hey, how’d Dom get in there?!? *adjusts rusty and very bent halo* I’ll never tell….

Your turn! Send me your favorites!!

-R