I don't know where it came from. Maybe I overheard some people talking about it, or it was mentioned on a podcast I was listening to, or just the voices in my head going over old mind recordings (Hey I'm not a brain scientist, I don't know how it works).

Anyways, I don't know how it got there, but it's there now, and it's all I can think of: the 501 Blues. Do you remember those Levi's Jeans commercials form the late 1980's/early 1990's? Probably one of the most early 90's things in the history of things.

If you've successfully excised these things form your brain, or were lucky enough to be born after their reign on TV, let me explain.

They were a series of commercials.for Levi's Jeans. Adweek described them as using a "...“shakycam” visual style and artful use of urban settings." They were commercials full of hip kids, in hip places, hanging out and being hip in their jeans listing to hip blues-ish music. And, I'm embarrassed to say, I wanted to be them. Everybody looked so cool in their jeans; and jackets and cool 1989 shirts and hats. Look they're dancing in the street! No authority figure is going to stop them!

And they were button-fly! I guess that was cool? Nothing like making pants more complected. I'm not working in the mines. I'm a little kid that wants to look cool, not figure out a denim puzzle in the bathroom.

And that jingle, that'll get stuck in your head. All day. Every day. Forever.

Man! The feeling of those commercials is lodged in my brain. All these years later, I watch them and I'm taken back to the little enclosed porch in the house I grew-up in. Watching Night Flight on USA Network on the old TV, and drinking my 50 cent pop and eating my 50 cent candy bar. Half my allowance gone before Saturday was over. I was king.

Looking at the styles and remembering how bad I wanted to be this cool makes me cringe so bad now. Well, maybe it's not the styles. It could be just my general embarrassment when I think of myself at that age. Yea, that's probably it. Because the ads are still pretty cool.

And they led to this commercial, with Spike Lee, that is still genuinely awesome.


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