I established my drinking/fashion ethic in my mid-teens, during the ‘70s, just outside Boston, in the city of Lynn. It is notorious, not because it was home to historic figures and rock stars, or that the Boston Strangler was ultimately caught there, but because of this old rhyme:
Lynn, Lynn, city of sin
You never come out the way you came in
You ask for water they give you gin
The girls say no yet they always give in
If you’re not bad they won’t let you in
Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin
You never come out the way you went in.
It’s obvious why being from Lynn would drive one to drink. The origins of the rhyme are vague, but I think it’s based on the fact that Lynn was on the Burlesque and Speakeasy circuit during prohibition. W.C. Fields frequently performed there and he liked his drink. The burlesque circuit stretched north to Lowell where Jack Kerouac’s father had been a theatre manager, and allegedly gambled with Fields. Kerouac visited his aunt who lived in Lynn’s French-Canadian quarter behind “the street of churches”. The old burlesque theatres morphed into movie palaces in the 30s and 40s. By the seventies, they had become so seedy that they hosted low budget horror films, so gross that they handed out barf bags at the door.
We didn’t care about the seediness. All that mattered to us was our music and the clothes and booze that identified our tribes. Most kids sported a proletarian uniform of Levi 501s, denim jackets, and high-top Converse All Stars which you could get at the Army Navy store for $2.50. They wore their hair long, straight, and parted in the middle. Their music was The Stones, The Who, Aerosmith, and The J. Geils Band. They drank Miller, Bud, Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort. I, the outcast, listened to Bowie, T. Rex, Todd Rundgren, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, and The New York Dolls. I wore 1940s style baggy trousers, platforms, tight sweaters which I painstakingly embroidered with sequins into lightning bolts, lips, and of course, the name BOWIE emblazoned across my budding bosom. I was inspired by 1930s Hollywood as much as by Bowie. I shaved my eyebrows, pencilled in thin ones, and even threatened to dye my hair platinum a la Jean Harlow and I drank Cold Duck, (a cheap pink champagne).
Back then, there was an art and etiquette to underage drinking; buying it, hiding it, and finding a place to party, while making it home sober by curfew. The woods and parks were ours after dark and we had to be creative when it came to buying booze. Most people loitered in front of the liquor store waiting for someone to pass by who would “buy” for us. It was decided that I would buy, as I could pass for 18, the drinking age in the 70s. This was the first time that fashion and drink went hand in hand for me.
I meticulously crafted my image to avoid being “carded” (asked for I.D.) by referring to a music magazine that featured photos of David Bowie’s wife, Angie. I carefully copied her look, which included the highest pair of platforms I owned. With glam makeup, spiked hair, and glittering wardrobe intact, I went in, grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Light for one friend, a bottle of Sloe Gin for another, and a bottle of Cold Duck for me. Success! I had nailed “the art of the buy” and was never carded at the local liquor store.
Our drinking culture was all about the beach. After dark, the parking lot was packed with cars facing the ocean. We sat on the roofs with radios blasting “We Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Bang A Gong” or “Dream On”. We hid our booze in the trunk or on the car floor in case the cops pulled up. Once Summer ended, the Fall would bring boozy bonfire parties in the woods, but we didn’t dare. They were known to be attended by an older, rougher crowd and there was that rumour about someone’s big brother getting his balls shot off by a crazed woodsman. This, we didn’t believe, but the myth was enough to keep us away. Besides, I couldn’t do the woods in heels, anyway.
As we crept closer to 17, drinking al fresco, cruising and boozing was a bore, and our next adventure was glittering down the coast like a big silver disco ball in the sky. To be continued…
