Rock groups appear every fifteen minutes,
Utilizing some new promotional device.
Some of these devices have been known
To leave irreparable scars
On the minds of foolish young consumers.
One such case is seated before you:
Little Nytshaed, that cute little wench!
That's right!
Nytshaed fell in love
With a publicity-photo of a boy named Punky Meadows...
(Oh Punky!)...
Lead guitar player from a group called Angel.
In the photograph,
Punky was seen with a beautiful shiny hairdo
In a semi-profile which emphasized the pootched out succulence
Of his insolent pouting rictus,
The sight of which drove the helpless young girl mad with desire!
Well, it sorta happened like that for me. I was a young impressionable girl with a zest for life not found in many. I had been a fan of the band KISS for a few years by then, Peter Criss was my favorite, and it was a hobby and poster collecting pastime that kept me occupied until that fateful day in Woolworth's.
Near my favorite part of the store, the Candy section, they had placed a bin full of records marked down to ridiculously low prices for rapid sale. I walked over, and what greeted me there changed my life forever.
Sectioned alphabetically, or perhaps presented there in the front by God himself was an all white album with a quintet of five lovely men in white spandex and satin reclining on the cover. My eyes casually roamed the cover until my eyes fell upon the black and white reproduction of a pair of eyes I would later come to find were the color of mahogany.
I froze, trapped like a deer in
headlights, and my palms began to sweat. The longer I stared at
the face
of this Angelic man, the more my young brain cells melted,
mutated, and died. Forever erased from my mind was the images of
the ideal man that had been impressed upon me since my birth in
the early 1960's. It was at that moment Punky Meadows became the
ideal male role model.
Never again would I give a short haired man a second glance. The mates I would have from then on would have to have long tresses of mahogany or raven. They would have to have lips, full of form, and succulent to taste, and of course, look resplendent in feathery black eyeliner.
I quickly scooped up all THREE copies of the album called "Sinful", and rushed to the registers to pay their bail and take them home to be loved and cherished forever.
And so The Obsession began.
In the many years that followed. My love for Punky never failed or faltered. I was just on the young side of being able to attend his concerts, but in those Prehistoric Pre-VCR days, I stayed up until the wee small hours to watch him play and pout on such shows as "The Midnight Special" (which came on at 1:30 AM!) and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.
Later in life, I found myself drawn instinctively to the musician type, guitarists, bassists, singers. Always they were brunettes with long hair. But none was, nor ever could be... Punky. This lead to a lot of disappointing and in some cases, destructive relationships.
In 1983, just as my band chasing and clubbing career was in it's infancy, I came across a man whom I felt was The Mate and Punky Surrogate I had dreamed of for so long. His name was Rik Fox. Rik and I met him very briefly in mid 1983. For the next 15 years, I dreamed of him and Punky. Hoping against hope that one would one day cross my path, love would be the result, and we would become life mates, sharing a two bathroom, two blow dryer household.
Ahh, but fate works in strange cruel ways. I would not find my Beloved Rik Fox until late in 1998, fifteen years later, and by then I had long since married, (Yes, a Long haired musician.) and started a family. Well, Rik is still as heavenly a vision to look at as he ever was, he just dresses differently these days, and now he and I seek the Pouting Prince of Rock.
Punky I know you are out there, please grace us with your Divine presence...