My parents, meanwhile, were starting to live and breathe Marc Bolan just as I was. They didn’t care for his music at all, but how could they not become involved when living under the same roof with me and my relentless enthusiasm? Although my parents usually didn’t seem to have much in common on the surface (a retired Naval captain and a baroness-turned-showgirl?), they were united by an ambitious "can-do" attitude of never taking "no" for an answer. Their own respective life experiences came into play as they began pose startlingly logical questions in their own minds about how they could help their little girl realize her dream of meeting her idol.

My mother was one of those people who liked to write letters to newspapers and TV stations. A column featured at that time in the Sunday edition of the New York Daily News was called "Top of Pop," written by the late Australian rock critic Lillian Roxon, author of a book well-received in the 1960s called "Rock Encyclopedia." My mother was convinced that if anyone was going to help me meet Marc Bolan, Lillian Roxon would be just the right person to contact. Meanwhile, she conducted such a relentless campaign at The Record, a major New Jersey newspaper published in Hackensack, that by the time T. Rex played at the Academy of Music, I had more free tickets than I knew what to do with, and I sold them outside the concert hall to strangers!

Lillian Roxon did indeed answer the letter I sent at my mother’s urging, and it turned out that I wasn’t the only young T. Rex fan writing to her. Through Lillian, I was able to make contact with other Bolan devotees whom I made arrangements to meet outside the Academy of Music in 1972, and I’m proud to tell you that these very same fans are still close friends of mine to this day, a testament to the powerful bonds of T. Rextasy! More on this later...

It was now just over 6 months since I’d been to my first T. Rex concert, and I’d spent every waking minute of that time amassing as much information as I could to indoctrinate myself on the subject of Marc Bolan. This meant acquiring all the old Tyrannosaurus Rex as well as more current import T. Rex albums from England, ordering a copy of Marc’s "Warlock of Love" poetry volume and the T. Rex lyric books from the music publishers in London, memorizing the text of every interview conducted with Marc in the British and American music press, and that was just the beginning. Adjusting from the commercial rock sound of "Electric Warrior" to the acoustic work of Tyrannosaurus Rex was difficult for me at first, perhaps because I was only 12 years old, a "Child Star" as Marc had put it in his early work. Immediately after I listened to the "Unicorn" album for the first time, I commented on the change in style to my mother. "Well, why don’t you put it away for a few years until you’re older and better able to appreciate it?" she suggested. I immediately recoiled at the thought, and locked myself in my bedroom until the music began to make more sense to me, and all the lyrics were deeply committed to memory.

An equally important part of being an T. Rex fan was amassing the right wardrobe of spangled clothes to make the correct fashion statement as well. In 1972, I began with an array of velvet blazers, yellow satin T. Rex scarves mail-ordered from England, and rhinestone-studded T-shirts, soon to be followed by sequin-covered accessories of every type, many of which are still in my closets today.

Conveniently for my Bavarian mother, there was a German restaurant located right next door to the Academy of Music called Lüchow’s, so my parents spent the evening of September 14, 1972 there while I saw T. Rex perform for the second time. It was at this show that I would begin my friendship with Charlie and Billy Charas, Andy Savva, Linda Danna (who later married prominent rock journalist Ira Robbins), and other Bolan fans whose similar relentless devotion to our idol would help us team up and track him down when he came to America. They were a group of extremely bright and resourceful teenagers who, I’m grateful to say, still keep tabs on the cutting edge of British rock as adults.

T. Rex performed two shows at the Academy that night. I had to go home with my parents, but my friends were lucky enough to have attended both concerts. The opening acts were The Doobie Brothers (who were just then becoming successful with "Listen to the Music" and their version of "Jesus Is Just Alright") and Argent ("Hold Your Head Up"). In retrospect, though, these shows didn’t go over very well. Although New York television stations were running a commercial for T. Rex in the summer of 1972 (most people seem to remember it because Marc stuck out his tongue at the camera), it was obvious right from the start that the American record company, Reprise (part of Warner Bros.), didn’t seem to know how to successfully promote Marc Bolan in the United States. There was a brilliant cover story done on this particular subject (i.e., the unsuccessful attempt to conquer America, especially New York) in Words & Music magazine by Bruce Harris, then an A&R executive for Epic Records, which revealed just how desperate the situation was. I was fortunate enough to later become friends with Bruce and learn of his connection with The Doors when he worked at Elektra Records; otherwise, the number of times there are references to Jim Morrison in this feature would have been quite baffling!