And in Philadelphia, a dirty little alternative newspaper was doing a little remodeling of its own, moving into a new office on Sansom Street and switching from twice a month to weekly. The format switch led to smaller issues for a while—the summer of '86 saw 12-page issues and burned-out editors—but City Paper plowed forward like a Pinto with no brakes.

That year, the paper found itself pressing more issues figuratively as well, questioning everything from the "classy" new "Get to Know Us" commercials to the proposed weekend bicycle ban on South Street. We took note as acupuncture was legalized within city limits, construction of the Vine Street Expressway began and the Navy Yard struggled to re-reinvent itself.

Critic Cary Mazer hopped on board to the delight of theatergoers. Lynda Barry's Ernie Pook Comeek debuted, to the confusion of people who like things that look neat and make sense.

Intrepid City Beat scamp Ronnie Polaneczky took a vow of silence with cloistered nuns and wrote a cover story about it. (Then she said goodbye to CP in October.) Publisher Bruce Schimmel called for a ban on door-to-door advertising material. (We continue to support him on this.) The whole staff ganged up for an anti-CP Choice thing called "City Fool's Day" wherein we took potshots at the likes of Clark DeLeon, Mayor Goode and Kiki Olsen Gomez (and pasted jester hats onto their headshots).

Speaking of making people look stupid, oh man, our "Philadelphia: Get to Dress Us!" section does not hold up after 20 years. It was supposed to be a fashion makeover photo thing, wherein known celebridelphians like Daily News columnist Chuck Stone, Judge Lisa Richette and theater queenpin Blanka Zizka got a makeover. To modern eyes, we made them look worse: poofing their hair, pinching their cuffs, putting designer sweats and/or sunglasses on everybody and printing the whole thing in smudgy black and grey. Only Angel Ortiz drove out of it OK, but all we did was put him in a different suit.

We're counting down (or up) to our 25th anniversary. Next Week: 1987! Dead Milkmen! Jim Carroll! The rise of kitsch! Life in Hell!