As I walked past a classroom this morning, on the way to my own, I immediately noticed the t-shirt worn by a girl of about 19. Peach-coloured short sleeves, framing the full-coloured, giant-sized, head-shot photograph of a young man – also about 19, very thin, rather preoccupied (a look also cultivated by young Japanese boys because it looks cool, apparently). Short, spiky hair, a few piercings – nothing too radical in this day and age. I recognized him immediately. Surprised, I looked in.
“Are you a fan?” I asked.
“Of who?” she asked.
“Him,” I replied, pointing to the t-shirt.
“I don’t know him,” she said. “I think he looks kako-ii (cool), so I bought the shirt.” Other students nodded in agreement, boys included.
“Do you like punk music?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Is it like pops (the Japanese always put an ‘s’ at the end of that word)?”
“Kind of,” I sighed.
“Is he famous now?”
“Yes, but he’s dead, I’m afraid.”
“Ehhhh. Saikin (recently)?”
“No. Since 1979. Heroin, I think.”
“Well, he’s cute.”
“Yes. I guess he was (but not by the time he OD’d, I failed to add).”
I went to my own class, reflecting that Sid Vicious would be about 51 if he were still around.
Nagaijin 
Have you seen Bob Geldof recently; The guy’s 57 or something, but kind of looks like 65. Can’t imagine what Sid Vicious would look like now.
Ha ha ha, something similar happened to me. One of my students was wearing a t-shirt with Curt Cobain without knowing who he was.
Before you I read Sid Vicious, I knew that was who you were talking about. What an amazing world that you can see a picture of Sid on a T-shirt worn by a Japanese girl in Japan. Crazy.
Punk and rock n roll are the new fads. I see a lot of girls wearing Ramones tshirts without even knowing who they are…kinda makes me sick if you know what i mean…from a fans point of view.
Oh man, I’ve lost track of how many times this has happened to me. Just the other day I walked over to a student in my class to tell him to put away his ipod. I noticed he had the U2 edition. “Do you like U2?” I asked. “Dare (who)?” came the reply. I tried to get across that they were very famous and it was their signatures on the back of the ipod. The kid stared at me, smiled and kind of shrugged. I’m not sure if he was trying to get across “I have no clue” or “Teacher, YOU have no clue…none of this matters”.