The early seventies...and I was a small child.
Now I may have worn short shorts called hot pants at the age of 4 but only with long sox and sandals. Except when I was swimming in them.
Kids wore kids clothes and once over 28 the adults dressed like codgers...done - that was it your time had passed. I have vivid memories of my primary school teachers that looked like they were dressed as old men and women even though they were only 30 or 40 years of age. Now I am not saying wavy hair and side parts are the way to go but it was a very different time, the media was a very narrow band that we all took in at face value, TV was a pretty metered out event, it wasn't constantly on and there were only 4 channels.
Now there is a plethora of media feeds and options that has splintered off into so many targeted segments and markets but predominantly spawned the birth of the all powerful machine known as Pop Culture.
Thinking about this made me question what was pop culture when I was small wearing my long sox and all ... 3 and 4 year olds now crump with the pelvic thrust that would once make us all blush, now from a small child its permissible, cute even.
Now there are beanie babies, slutty dolls and vagazzaling your cha cha...whats going on? Who is beating this drum? Its the media tarts, the role models, the 'it' people of the moment. Is it Paris daughter of the Hilton empire mogal falling out of a car with her inner labia on show, is it Lindsey Lohan and her shift from Herbie to Cocaine addiction, or is it the latest celebrity in rehab vomiting into a toilet on reality TV or the latest idol contestant?
So in the 70's who were our role models...pull up a seat.
Sometimes Liberace the penultimate pianist and flamboyant showman would do an appearance - always memorable.
He liked long sox too.
Dig the decor.
Then there was Evel Knievel dare devil extraordinaire, he jumped cars, buses, canyons, flaming rings, he crashed stacked and hacked his way through so many stunts that every kid on his or her dragstar tried desperately recreate with a fence paining and a few bricks, or Masonite, chip board or plywood if you were lucky, maybe a milk crate if you worked your way up to it. Many a plaster caste prevailed as a result.
He did have style for a real life action hero, white leather - stars and stripe - rockin' threads!
Benny Hill was a very popular comedian of the time with a bevy of supporting characters and my favorite 'The Ladybirds' the female singers on the show. You can find a lot of Benny's work
here.
Then there Demis Roussos the singer, looks like we took people at face value back then and noted their talent most of all. Greeks were very exotic back then.
The Harlem Globe Trotters were a sensation to behold those tall blokes with basket ball tricks that would make our mouths gape and break many a spirit with vain attempts to emulate there effort less style.This
'clip' demonstrates their lightening moves -forgive the poor quality it was shot on super 8 grainy goodness.
Obviously these celebrities were individuals with no interest or access to, stylists, hair straighteners, shampoo not always conditioner, cosmetic surgery and dentistry looking back it was a weird time but at four I didn't question anything it would be nice if children still had that luxury today.
