I found this old photo recently, of my old friend Mike Tag, reading a magazine at the counter of what was once, FBM headquarters, and a tiny retail shop we did called WFO, or Wide Fuckin Open.
I remember the store front lasted the term of one lease, the inventory was always very modest, and the floor was plywood, in an attempt to give it the feel of the flat bottom of a ramp. The Office and the warehouse were one, and camouflaged behind some army netting behind the counter…
It was a good place, Mike, Erb, Tag, Kelly, and our friends would just kind of hang out, maybe sometimes dip over to the Chanticleer, shoot pool, and re-enact scenes from the movie Barfly, or hit a curb jump on State street…
Often times, Forgash would antagonize the greek diner proprietor across the street at the Ithaca Diner, or we would strike up conversation with the local transvestite, David Lisa, who would star in an FBM commmercial around that time, set to the song, “dude looks like lady” by Aerosmith.
Aerosmith is an awful band, but that same time period spawned the Material from the “live Fast Die” era, and the onset of Albert St.
One time, in an attempt to escape the early sunset, and boredom of the winter afternoons of upstate NY, I remember we started drinking some beers, and I had opened a 40 ounce bottle of Olde English, and in some meek attempt to impress my friends, drank it in one gulp.
I almost puked, and Kelly Baker shrieked- “Dude, that’s an Olde English, not Old Milwaukee, you shouldn’t be doing that…”
Wide fuckin open, and so it was…and it shall be.
