Yes, it's true. I am an Iconette.
I was there at the very place and time that the 1960’s morphed into the 1970’s.
It was 1974. I was hanging in my favorite singles bar, a place called
Grendel’s Lair, a disco that was widely known in Philly as "the disco for folks who hate disco." My hair was long, my jeans were ripped, and I had on a plain blue work shirt totally devoid of alligators or other obnoxious insignias over either the right or left side of my chest.
Grendel's Lair was a down-to-earth place with the feel of your best friend's basement if it were ten times larger and smelled unrelentingly of beer. The music was still mostly Grateful Dead, George Harrison, and David Bowie, but lately we'd begun to notice a change
Enter guys with hair combed straight back and cut above the ears sporting flowery shirts and visible chest hairs. Added to that were women with platform shoes, too much makeup, and perfume that was so pungent it would send the actual Grendel scrambling back to his lair as fast as he could slime.
And the music was beginning to change as well.
On that night I went outside to get a hit of fresh air.
And the music was beginning to change as well.
On that night I went outside to get a hit of fresh air.
Alone and sitting on the front steps to the place was a very disconsolate very freaky looking young guy with thick brown hair to his shoulders and a mighty beard who seemed like he was almost about to cry me
a river.
"I just don’t get it," he muttered.
"What don't you get?" I asked.
"What don't you get?" I asked.
"The awful music they're playing! Who's this Barry Mani-Blow anyway?"
“He's got a lot of hits."
"I could never dance to this!"
"No?"
In that moment the sixties received last rites and the 70's crawled into the world mewling and puking in the nurse's arms
Grendel's Lair eventually turned into a men's clothing store and soon I began
going to the glitter discos just like all the others. I even got
to like the music of Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, and Barry Mani-Blow, at least enough to dance to it while generally haplessly trying to come on to women who seemed able to dance to it a hell of a lot better than I did.
But I always wondered about the freaky looking guy with the mighty beard who transformed the sixties into the seventies with a simple rueful observation that his time had passed.
I wonder if he ever donned a flowery shirt, opened it down to a well-scrubbed navel, and wound up a prosperous investment banker.
I wonder if he ever donned a flowery shirt, opened it down to a well-scrubbed navel, and wound up a prosperous investment banker.
No matter.
For me, he was an icon.
For me, he was an icon.
And that makes me, I guess, an iconette.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
