Whatever happened to the phrase main man?
If we were having a conversation today, or even tomorrow, and I made reference to my main man, what would you think? Would you think I was trying to say my male significant other but just chose to say main man instead? That would be an incorrect assumption. You would be wrong and I would have to holler at you.
Having a main man is something beyond that. It is so much more than that. I am speaking specifically of the days of T. Rex and David Bowie, when main man was used all the time when making reference to a good friend. A pal. A chum. Take Hamlet, for instance. Horatio is Hamlet's main man. Horatio is the guy. When Hamlet found out that there was trouble at Elsinore, who could he tell? His main man. Hamlet had his Horatio, Big Bird has his Snuffy, and I have my LCG. Having a main man is where it's at.
Check out the T. Rex song Main Man from The Slider. "Are you my main man? Are you now? Are you now? Are.....you now?" You can't listen to T. Rex without bumping into a main man. And what about Marc's good friend (main man, even?) David Bowie? Well, David Bowie's management company was called Main Man.
Years ago, I peppered many of my conversations with main man. At the time, a co-worker was my main man. I don't remember why, but I bet it had something to do with Ace Frehley. Shock me! Then I realized that even though I knew what I meant by main man, everyone else was apparently too lame to listen to T. Rex and might get confused.
I had to change his title to "my main man who I'm not married to." At the time, not only did I have a spouse; I was still concerned about his feelings. So you can see how long ago that was. My spouse, by the way, was too lame to listen to T. Rex, which is why I felt like I had to start including main man modifiers.
Then I realized I had another main man. Roger Taylor. Queen's drummer. He is so much my main man! His official title was, "my main man who I'm not married to that I don't know." Whew! It's tough having a main man. Maybe that's why the phrase went out of fashion.
Or maybe it went out of fashion because it was too vague. Or too specific. Say Marc Bolan goes on Top of the Pops and refers to Ringo Starr as his main man. Then David Bowie gets all ticked off because he thought he was Marc Bolan's main man. For all I know, the phrase main man went out of fashion because it made glam rockers act like junior high school girls.
Or maybe, just maybe, it went out of fashion for no good reason. That is my license, of course, to use it frequently in an attempt to bring it back. Am I trying to revive the early 1970s, or the way I talked in the mid 1990s? It doesn't matter! But I am bringing main man back to the forefront, and this time I will use no modifiers. If people get confused and don't realize that main man means friend, I don't care. It's not my fault if they are too lame to listen to T. Rex.