THIS IS PETER WYNGARDE

(This true confession is triggered by comments on yesterday’s post Amazing Ego)

Back in 1969/70 after I had split from the original Deviants and they were rapidly becoming The Pink Fairies, I grew a full beard in what, I figure, must have been some kind of subconscious, Al Gore penance. The beard made me look like Phineas Freak so I shaved it off, leaving a handsome Zapata mustache of the kind that were currently all the rage. Unfortunately, it caused me to bear a unfortunate resemblance -- with or without a purple shirt -- to a fictional character called Jason King, the somewhat effete hero of the then popular, mod-a-go-go TV series Department S. This was less than enjoyable. Small children would shout at me in the street and I would have to threaten to murder them and stuff them in a drain to make them desist. Then uncomfortable turned to downright dangerous when actor Peter Wyngarde, who played Jason King, was busted for "gross indecency" with a truck driver in the toilet of Gloucester bus station, and drunken swaddies, thinking I was Wyngarde, (or close enough for rock & roll) would howl after me in the street and want to play “brutalize the homo.” Thus the mustache was also put to the razor, and I have been, give or take some spaghetti-western stubble, clean shaven ever since. The whole experiment with facial hair only lasted a matter of months but it comes back to haunt me because it occurred at the time Mona – The Carnivorous Circus was being released and is preserved in the publicity and cover photos.

Peter Wyngarde was actually quite an interesting cat, grew up in a Japanese POW camp, and released a strange and cult-sensitive solo album (which I would like to hear.) Click to learn more.