Grrl Pickers were selling at the New England Record Expo this past Sunday and although the day was stormy (about 6 inches of snow and wild winds blowing it all around) the day was a success in more ways than one. We made a nice profit on our own wares but we also made a great pick.
It was a real win-win kind of day!
We picked the cream of the crop from a large stack of magazines being sold by our friends at The Randolph Music Center (North Main Street, Randolph, MA) and beyond the good investment (we would put all our money into Beatles memoribilia before any publicly traded stock any day of the week...) we are laughing ourselves silly at all the great quasi 'articles' published within.
The 16 magazine that we remember from the 1980's was similar in format but more than the faces of the young pop stars within have changed from 1965 til 1985 and I would bet even more changes occured from 1985 til now...
Can you possibly imagine a teen magazine published today featuring a full color pin up of a 'teen idol' with a cigarette?
Not only were the pop stars featured in 1965, thier non-pop star girl friends were of apparent very high intrest. Articles featuring women/girls are almost equal in ratio to articles featuring 'the boys' in the small group of magazine we bought.
News flash: George hates tea or coffee without sugar.
This fascinating information is accompanied by a rather unfortunate shot of the man who clearly was not expecting his picture to be taken at the time.
Would 16 publish a photo of Justin Beiber swigging on a 40?
I believe the drinking age in the US when this was published in 1965 was still 18 but the mind wonders just what the editors were thinking and if maybe more than a few preachers and parents just might have been a teeny bit right about 'them Bee-tles' being less than proper roll models for their influential youngsters...
It gives one a wee bit of a sqeemish feeling to know more about these people (total strangers) now than they even knew about themselves at the time this shot was taken.
(insert Doctor Who theme music here)
Pattie Boyd went on to marry George and Eric Clapton, inspire some incredible classic rock songs and suffer her own sadness in an other wise star crossed life and Brian Jones?
Words fail...
In contrast, our generation's teen magazines were decidedly different:
Boy, we hope Matt Dillon's chest hair finally grew in. Poor kid...
A well over 21 appearing Rick Springfield attempts to boost his career with a centerfold in "Quite Legal But of Extremely Questionable Taste" magazine...
Leif Garrett models his mom's disco blouse.
No wonder this guy is such a mess, look what was done to him!
Poor Leif...
The squeeky clean Hardy Boys was THE BEST SHOW EVER!!! when we were kids and Shaun Cassidy and his ever so fluffy hair was absolutely the coolest part of the whole show.
Little did Grrl Picker Laura know at 16 she would be absurdly proud of getting the same, at least 10 years out of date and the (debateably) wrong gender, haircut.
Laura says:
"I bet the hairdresser saw my dorky ass coming a mile away,
"Give her the 'Shaun Cassidy' she'll never know..."
The same hairdresser also gave me my first 'perm of a 40 year old woman'.
I was 12 at the time and clearly remember a cute boy classmate laughing himself silly over it, kinda the way I'm sure the hairdresser laughed herself all the way to the bank..."
Anyhoo,
Great weekend, great sales, great pick and a good time was had by all.
Except poor Leif Garrett.
Poor, poor Leif Garrett...
*sigh*
