Today Nicki Elson is making us drag our sad, closeted 80's crushes out into the light. If I had any dignity left (which I don't, thanks to having children) this would jettison the remaining shreds. As it is, I have a confession to make:
I was a Duranie.
Yes, I know there were millions of us who in the early eighties wanted nothing more than to lounge on a yacht in a magenta bikini ogling four grown men wearing lip gloss. But I lived in New Jersey, went to a Catholic School and was in third grade. A magenta bikini was not in my future.
There's something so amazing and liberating about falling in crush. (My own daughter is on the cusp of this, she gets excited when she sees Justin Bieber on a greeting card.) It's safe, it's almost always a group activity and it lets you playact being a teenager or an adult. It's also embarrassing as hell when looking back.
My crush for the first half of the 80's was Simon Le Bon. Granted, he wasn't the most handsome of the fab(ish) four, but he sang the songs and he wrote the lyrics. He was a poet. Cue swooning. In 1985, the last year of my Duran Duran crush, I made my dad buy me a fedora. I begged my mother to let me highlight my hair until I wore the woman down. I stuck the hat on my red-frost-highlighted head, slapped on some glittery pink lipstick and pouted in a way I thought was attractive. I know now that I looked like I had toothache, but it was a gateway to daydreams.
My crush for the second half of the 80's was Peter Murphy. That's what happens when you go from grammar school to high school, the crushes get a bit darker. So did my hair, my nails, my eyeshadow. By the time I was learning to drive, I had a poster in my bedroom that scared the heck out of my mom and made my dad hover at my door, never coming in. It was Peter Murphy, in a tiara and underpants. And the underpants are about to come off. Girls are so weird, and I was no exception.
If Simon le Bon was reading a book on Shakespeare, so was I. If he liked Andy Warhol, so did I. If Peter Murphy was reading Herman Hesse, me too. I stand by my crushes, though. They made me curious about writing and music and art.
So, who did you crush on in the 80's (if you dare reveal your age) or even in the 90's or (Oh Children!) 00's?
