The
1970s saw
America in the so-called golden age of the
columbian drug trade, and the substance was present in all forms of
pop culture; musicians were doing it, actors and filmmakers, models, writers, and regular working people too. I suppose the jury was still out on
coke's
side effects and
dangers, or maybe people just didn't care. Regardless, enough people were doing it to justify a lucrative business making designer mirrors to cut up and snort lines off of, sporting painted logos of your favorite band; Led Zeppelin, Lynrd Skynrd, Rolling Stones, all kinds of bands and singers were found with their
logos and/or
likenesses on
painted
mirrors about the size of a
cd longbox (if you even remember those.) I remember seeing these
mirrors as prizes for the games at
Kennywood and
Cedar Point and the
carnivals that would travel through town. I never really grasped at the time why so many bands had their
logos on these
mirrors, or what anyone would do with one.
Years later I would be listening to an album titled Paul's Boutique. There's a line, "We be doin' nose candy on the Bowie coke mirror, my girl asked for some but I pretended not to hear 'er" and suddenly I remembered all those prize mirrors at the ring toss game, and shoot the star. It seems crazy now that there was such an overt declaration of cocaine use in merchandising, perhaps no different now than the marijuana related clothing and other merchandise declaring the wearer's drug of choice. Still, marijuana won't KILL you.