The Noble Bowzer

Jesse Walker | September 30, 2008

Two members of Sha Na Na take to the pages of Columbia College Today to explore the recent scholarly interest in ... Sha Na Na. An excerpt:

During the revolution the year before, the Vietnam-era culture wars had escalated into fist fights, even mob fights, between the "jocks" and the "freaks" (and even "pukes"), as protestors were called....Kenneth Koch stopped his poetry class from rushing down from Hamilton to join in a brawl between jocks and freaks going on below by crying out, like a WWII movie heroine, in his campiest voice, "Stop! WE'RE ... what they're FIGHTING FOR!" His students broke up laughing, sat back down and Koch went on with the lecture, while the jocks and freaks punched it out outside.

Researching in Butler and Avery libraries, [Elizabeth] Guffey discovered George's twice-weekly Spec ads: "Jocks! Freaks! ROTC! SDS! Let there be a truce! Bury the hatchet (not in each other)! Remember when we were all little greaseballs together" (p. 113). The ads consciously "evoked," Guffey commented, a "vision of the Fifties as a pre-political teenage Eden."

After Woodstock, Sha Na Na founders John "Jocko" Marcellino '72, Don York '71, Rich Joffe '72, '93L, Scott Powell '70 and manager Ed Goodgold '65 gained the talents of Jon "Bowzer" Bauman '68 and "Screamin'" Scott Simon '70. Their popular television show joined with Happy Days and Grease popularizing the new myth. By the 1980 Presidential election, America had embraced the dream of the Fifties as a pre-political Golden Age. So much so, [Daniel] Marcus painstakingly shows, that the American political landscape was altered to take advantage of this invented cultural memory.

Watch the movie version of Grease today, with its half-disco soundtrack and its closing wisecrack about Nixon, and it's obvious that it's "about" the 1970s much more than it was ever about the '50s. But I'm not sure that was self-evident at the time. (As my mom said to my dad as my family watched the film on TV, circa 1980: "There really were people who lived like this.") Lest you think this reinvention process stopped in the Carter era, go rent The Brady Bunch Movie, with its curious conceit that the early '70s were a lost age of innocence. (For the target audience, most of whom were under 10 in the original Brady era, perhaps it was.)

The whole Sha Na Na article, well worth reading, is here. Related topics are explored here and here.

[Hat tip: John Kluge.]

Comments

Abdul|9.30.08 @ 8:17AM|#

Sha na na were the kings of Woodstock
Deep in your heart you know it's true
Those kids all wanted to be like Bowser
They didn't care about the Stones or the Who

Who killed that guy at Altamont? Sha na na!

Michael|9.30.08 @ 8:42AM|#

I had to wear stiff courdoroy pants and polyester shirts to church followed by a tuna casserole lunch Sunday after Sunday in the early 1970s.

Those years are not looked upon fondly as a lost age of innocence by me, I can assure you.

|9.30.08 @ 8:46AM|#

A more recent example of this revisionism is probably Mad Men, deliberately set in the early sixties at an ad firm whose world-view is set in the 40s and 50s. While hardly as broad as Grease, nor as overtly celebratory of the past, there is a similar whiff of nostalgia to it. Particularly during its first season, there seemed to be a great deal of commentary about the show that ran along lines similar to your mother's comment.

Anon

|9.30.08 @ 8:46AM|#

I have these faint, very early childhood memories of Sha Na Na. You're making my brain struggle, Jesse. Stop it!

|9.30.08 @ 8:47AM|#

I am disappointed. I thought this article was going to be about Bowzer, the dino heavy from the Mario games.

Fluffy|9.30.08 @ 8:48AM|#

I would agree that many of our cultural memories are invented after the fact, by nostalgia factories. That means that those memories are warped by the rules those factories work under.

For example, it is generally accepted as fact today that the 50's were marked by widespread anomie based on fear of atomic annihilation, and that there was a general climate of fear due to McCarthyism and the threat that one might be identified as a "red". The problem is that contemporaneous polling data from the 50's don't bear this out, that fear of the bomb barely shows up in the data, and even at the height of the McCarthy controversy the overwhelming majority of Americans had no idea who the Senator was. In this case, the cultural memory of the era has been warped by the concerns of 60's leftists, who took their own extremely limited set of experiences and generalized them to the nation as a whole - but they did so effectively enough that people now actually believe in the fiction.

Another example [and, I think, the best one] is the impact on cultural memory the Hays code had. Most Americans would be genuinely surprised to learn that from the 20's to the 60's there were lots of Americans who had sex outside of marriage, who were born illegitimately, who didn't believe in God or go to church, who cursed using real curse words, who didn't respect authority, who held extreme political views that didn't involve screwing over Gary Cooper or James Stewart in some way, etc. There is widespread belief that these things just didn't exist, and that people in that time were somehow "innocent", and that we have fallen away from that innocence. The people laboring under these delusions don't realize that they aren't remembering the history of those times - they're remembering the way those times were portrayed in the movies. Movies were controlled to restrict what they could show, and the things they left out on purpose are regarded by subsequent generations as having not existed.

So yeah, although at first blush it might sound silly to look at Sha Na Na as an act of culture creation designed to invent a myth for a political purpose, given the rest of our cultural history that's not really much of a stretch.

JLE|9.30.08 @ 8:54AM|#

I realize there's a need for lighthearted fodder to counterbalance, uh I dunno, war, genocide, financial ruin, sexism, racism, murder, conniving politics and such...but please. You're wasting my reading time.

|9.30.08 @ 8:56AM|#

The 80s nostalgia freaks me out. 80s parties, 80s dress-up day. I went to King's Island a few months ago and the background music for the park would have been my favorite radio station in high school. It was deliciously weird to be in the line for a roller coaster while listening to "A Forest" by The Cure.

Grunge parties have maybe 5 years to go. I dread the return of grunge. Everybody dressing in flannel and baggy jeans. It was a dark time in our nation's fashion history when everyone dressed like butch lesbians.

robc|9.30.08 @ 8:57AM|#

Fluffy,

I think your two cultural memories conflict with each other. Can you have a red scare and a world without extreme political views at the same time? Who were they scared of?

To me, not being influenced by 60s leftists, I dont think of the first as even remotely accurate. I never got the whole red scare of bomb worry stuff, that seemed to be a 50s coastal thing, not a 50s flyover country thing. The latter cultural memory, which you attribute to movies, I attribute to Leave it to Beaver. Same thing really, just different delivery system. As a child, I saw a lot more Beaver episodes than I did 50s movies.

I have a (probably) unnatural fear of climbing billboards and falling into giant cups.

|9.30.08 @ 8:58AM|#

Ah man I loved the 70s! The 70s were the best ever!

JIff
http://www.privacy-center.ru.tc

|9.30.08 @ 8:59AM|#

they're remembering the way those times were portrayed in the movies

Very good point, Fluffy. This is something I have noticed time and time again. So many people think that the 50s were Pleasantville writ large; that it was all Donna Reed and Ward Cleaver, while somehow forgetting Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs, The Wild One, and later stuff like The Sadist.

I think it is natural for people to assume that they are somehow more relaxed than previous generations. It's like a reverse on the habit of old people forgetting what it was like to be young--people forget that old people were young once too, and just as horny, crazy, and stupid as us now.

BakedPenguin|9.30.08 @ 9:03AM|#

There is widespread belief that these things just didn't exist, and that people in that time were somehow "innocent", and that we have fallen away from that innocence. The people laboring under these delusions don't realize that they aren't remembering the history of those times...

Point taken, but it's not just the movies. Nostalgia for earlier "simpler" times goes beyond that to centuries past. One interesting, and completely erroneous belief is the idea that random violence is a modern concern. In actuality, the murder rate has been in general decline for a long time. Medieval Europe had murder rates estimated in the hundreds per 100,000 - three or four times the rate of modern Bogota or Caracas.

|9.30.08 @ 9:05AM|#

I dread the return of grunge

You and me both, old man.

Jesse Walker|9.30.08 @ 9:20AM|#

So many people think that the 50s were Pleasantville writ large

...which is especially interesting given that the whole point of Pleasantville was that there was more to the '50s and early '60s than the innocent world portrayed in the era's sitcoms.

libertarian democrat|9.30.08 @ 9:30AM|#

Jesse, there is a minor typo: fllm. Just to let you know.

|9.30.08 @ 9:32AM|#

I was recently in a small NY club on a weeknight (read: few people with real jobs). The DJ was playing some great '80s tunes. Not an "'80s night," in a lot of circles that's just what gets played now (like classic rock when I was a kid I suppose). I swear that other than me and the girl I was with, the OLDEST people in the place were under 25. Weird to see a whole room full of people experiencing that music as "retro" while I experienced it as nostalgia.

btw, I for one welcome our coming grunge overlords. I can't wait to break my old flannel shirts out of the basement and start wearing hiking boots with shorts again. Seriously. I loved those days...

|9.30.08 @ 9:34AM|#

Jesse, there is nothing more illuminating than talking with an old person who is willing to tell their stories honestly. My grandfather does this and I am frequently blown away by the shit he and his friends used to pull. And those are the stories he's willing to tell. Granted, he is a maniac, but still, that stuff went on.

Jesse Walker|9.30.08 @ 9:36AM|#

Thanks for spotting that, LibDem.

|9.30.08 @ 9:43AM|#

Fluffy,

A lot of the themes that you talk about were in movies. They just were not overt. In many ways, the films made under the old standards were more adult and sophisticated than the ones made after. They had to be. They couldn't just beat you over the head with sex, they had to disguise it, which in many ways made it better art.

When the codes were lifted, we got a burst of creativity in the 70s where film makers used their new freedom but kept their artistic sense. After that initial burst, we just sunk to the bottom where people used sex and violence as a way to shock and nothing more. Now films I think are probably worse than they have ever been. The quality of film making would probably benefit from twenty years or so of censorship, not to protect our delicate sensibilities, but to make filmmakers learn how to write dialog and make art again rather than just visual trash. Then after that, we could open things up for the next 20 years only to return to censorship after we hit bottom again. Not that I would really want such a system but it would give us better movies.

|9.30.08 @ 9:46AM|#

Epi,

My grandparents were smarter, tougher and lived more interesting lives than nearly anyone I know. I wouldn't necessarily want to live their lives, but the idea that people somehow got sophisticated or rebelious in the 1960s and were naifs before that drives me nuts. The babyboomers are the worst generation ever if for no other reason than for the way they slandered the ones who came before them.

|9.30.08 @ 9:53AM|#

They couldn't just beat you over the head with sex, they had to disguise it, which in many ways made it better art

John, you are suffering from selective movie memory. There were tons and tons of unmemorable, shitty, and exploitative movies even then. It's just that they didn't last so you can't rent them or hear anyone talk about them. The drive-in circuit alone was a haven for garbage. Ed Wood is someone you would have heard of, but another example is Herschell Gordon Lewis.

|9.30.08 @ 9:55AM|#

My grandfather and great uncle got a horse drunk and sent it wandering into a tent revival. His stories of WWII were also hilarious and horrific. He was a combat engineer and used flamethrowers in new and interesting ways.

D.A. Ridgely|9.30.08 @ 9:56AM|#

If you can remember the 50s, it's because you didn't spend the 60s properly.

|9.30.08 @ 9:59AM|#

While the trash-to-treasure ratio of movies is pretty high nowadays, I think we're seeing the opposite in terms of TV -- both broadcast/free and pay/cable. The artistic license afforded to HBO and Showtime has resulted in them producing some great programming which has, in turn, forced the non-pay channels to improve their fare as well. Yes, there's a lot of crappy reality TV. But there's also a lot of great original drama on TV now as well.

dhex|9.30.08 @ 9:59AM|#

It was a dark time in our nation's fashion history when everyone dressed like butch lesbians.

if by dark time you mean an awesome time of sensible haircuts, then i concur.

i think we can all agree that the worst thing about the 80s revival was the transmutation of the abortion of electroclash into this electro-punk, gang of four meets blondie thing. gawddamn.

|9.30.08 @ 9:59AM|#

"John, you are suffering from selective movie memory. There were tons and tons of unmemorable, shitty, and exploitative movies even then."


Very true, but they were called "b" movies and only the worst most desparate talents made them. Now the best and the brightest make the same crap and it is called the summer blockbuster. What used to be crap is now middlebrow and what used to be middlebrow is now called highbrow and highbrow just isn't done anymore.

Rodney Anonymous|9.30.08 @ 10:01AM|#

Vindicated at last.

|9.30.08 @ 10:03AM|#

His stories of WWII were also hilarious and horrific

Mine too. He gets airsick yet he joined the Army Air Force. The called him the "Bombay Kid" because he puked in the bombay every flight.

He also used to throw big parties at his house. He and his friend would get hammered on martinis and then would throw every woman who walked through the door--decked out in heels, dresses, and fur coats--into the pool. And they loved him.

EJM|9.30.08 @ 10:21AM|#

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Mr. Bauman's subsequent work as an unsuccessful game-show host.

tarran|9.30.08 @ 10:24AM|#

It's not the lack of censorship that made movies decline; it is the explosion of alternatives, primarily in the form of cable TV and the Internet.

how many people went to watch the South Park movie in a movie theater as opposed to watching it later at home? How many fans of the show wouldn't have cared to watch it in a theater at all?

There are good movies being made, but there is no way that they will draw enough asses into the seats to justify widespread theatrical release. People go to the theater to hang out with friends. They go to the theater to watch something away from home.

People who are looking to lose themselves in a good story are staying at home. They also prefer shorter shows, so you are more likely to get interesting television, usually in the form of seasons with long story arcs. And those are interesting.

|9.30.08 @ 10:45AM|#

it is the explosion of alternatives, primarily in the form of cable TV and the Internet

Partly. There is also the fact that Hollywood makes movies now with foreign box office receipts in mind. Major "blockbusters" are often stripped of content that only makes sense to Americans or native English speakers, which often removes subtlety and nuance (for us), so as to be more translatable for foreign audiences. I'm still amazed that The Dark Knight made it through that process intact.

|9.30.08 @ 10:55AM|#

1970. The Festival Express. On a train in Canada. Performers included The Grateful Dead, The Band, Buddy Guy, Janis Joplin, the Flying Burrito Brothers (sans Gram Parsons) and the reason for this comment, Sha Na Na.

There is a documentary. And a cool web site.

Check it out and ponder how times have changed.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 10:58AM|#

It was a dark time in our nation's fashion history when everyone dressed like butch lesbians.

There's a reason why Seattle's 'Fashion Week' doesn't rival those of New York or Paris. People here think it's acceptable to go to the opera in North Face fleece, and that there is no situation where shoes other than Tevas are required.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 11:07AM|#

but another example is Herschell Gordon Lewis.

I just watched Monster A Go-Go on MST3K! It was hilariously devoid of a plot. Good stuff.

|9.30.08 @ 11:10AM|#

there is no situation where shoes other than Tevas are required

I don't think you would make it in NYC. Remember, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

I just watched Monster A Go-Go on MST3K! It was hilariously devoid of a plot. Good stuff.

What channel is playing MST3K still?!?

|9.30.08 @ 11:15AM|#

Probably some Canadian channel.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 11:19AM|#

I don't think you would make it in NYC.

I was in no way implicating myself along with other Seattlites! I definitely belong in New York and can battle for deals at Century 21 with the best of them.

What channel is playing MST3K still?!?

Behold the awesome power of Netflix.

|9.30.08 @ 11:22AM|#

and can battle for deals at Century 21 with the best of them

My wife walked out of the C21 changing room with a new appreciation of all the horrors that life can hold.

|9.30.08 @ 11:28AM|#

I definitely belong in New York and can battle for deals at Century 21 with the best of them

If you had said Strawberry it would have given me a cheap thrill. Oh well.

Behold the awesome power of Netflix.

Damn! I want it back on TV.

LarryA|9.30.08 @ 11:51AM|#

I never got the whole red scare of bomb worry stuff, that seemed to be a 50s coastal thing, not a 50s flyover country thing.

During the 50s I went to school in Fort Worth, Virginia, Chicago, on a military base in Germany, and California. I remember going out in the hall to sit during bomb drills in all the U.S. schools. In Germany we had an evacuation kit in one closet, and Mom always had to keep the gar gas tank at least half full. I still have one of the Fallout Shelter signs that were on just about every large building.

But we didn't obsess over it, even though Dad was an Army officer. It was more like the folks in Nebraska treat tornados. Nuclear war was a possibility, and you prepared for it, but day-to-day we had bigger worries.

NoStar|9.30.08 @ 11:58AM|#

Bowzer once let on about the secret of his hair ointment. Originally he used vaseline, but it took forever to wash out of his hair after a concert.

He then discovered a water soluable gel that washed out quickly: KY Jelly.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 12:17PM|#

new appreciation of all the horrors that life can hold.

Horrors? Last time I was there, I scored $350 Marc Jacobs pants for $50. Wildcard, bitches!

If you had said Strawberry it would have given me a cheap thrill.

Their stuff is kind of generic. I did find a cute sundress there this summmer.

I want it back on TV.

I know! I can't find some of the good ones (like the Quest of the Delta Knights) on DVD.

Fluffy|9.30.08 @ 12:19PM|#

I think if you compare the very best modern films to the best classic films, modern films stand up very well. And if you compare the B-grade modern films to the B-grade classic films, modern films stand up well again.

For example, I saw a great classic Western the other day: The Searchers. Fantastic film, one of John Wayne's best. But it was still a step behind a film like Eastwood's Unforgiven in characterization, acting, and production value [they were still shooting on sets in front of matte paintings half the time].

I think your two cultural memories conflict with each other. Can you have a red scare and a world without extreme political views at the same time? Who were they scared of?

This is an excellent point and I don't know the answer. Maybe it's possible for the public mind to simultaneously believe in contradictory myths. Certainly both myths exist, and I also think the evidence is pretty good that they are in fact myths.

Consider the Brady Bunch Movie example Jesse used. Didn't we all immediately know exactly what he meant? That's clearly a myth about the 70's, and it seems to come from the influence of entertainment media on popular memory. But that's not the only 70's myth. There seem to be a lot of them, and they seem to contradict each other, but the public remembers them all and seems capable of considering them all true at the same time. The 70's memory presented by the Brady Bunch Movie is not the 70's memory presented by Serpico or the 70's memory presented by Boogie Nights or the 70's memory presented by Jaws.

Speaking of that last one, I just want to throw an aside to the other Generation X guys on this thread: It struck me the other day that when my son gets old enough to start watching movies, Jaws will be as remote and ancient to him as Gone With The Wind was to me. That freaks me the hell out, because I still consider Jaws to be a modern film and Spielberg to be a modern filmmaker.

|9.30.08 @ 12:21PM|#

re John@ 9:46: "The babyboomers are the worst generation ever if for no other reason than for the way they slandered the ones who came before them."

John, if you're younger than 43, that's wonderfully ironic.

|9.30.08 @ 12:31PM|#

Their stuff is kind of generic.

Yes, but generically slutty. Hence the cheap thrill.

I can't find some of the good ones (like the Quest of the Delta Knights) on DVD.

And The Pumaman! Oh my god, that was insane.

|9.30.08 @ 12:33PM|#

Dag,

No, the changing room itself. She only managed to mumble something about a distinct lack of underwear and thoroughly waxed 50-year-old Europeans before passing out.

|9.30.08 @ 12:36PM|#

It struck me the other day that when my son gets old enough to start watching movies, Jaws will be as remote and ancient to him as Gone With The Wind was to me

Styles in movie making change, which is why Gone With the Wind seems remote to you. However, I have watched enough film (usually film noir detective crap and Vincent Price/Gene Tierney 40's type stuff) from that approximate era that the styles don't seem so alien to me.

Jaws is such a solid film that I think anyone will appreciate it, no matter when they are born. And if you want to make sure it's not alien to your son, just expose him to the best films from around that time to accustom him to it.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 12:52PM|#

Yes, but generically slutty.

Ah so. The ubiquitous teenage mallrat fetish. ;-)

And The Pumaman!

I know! All of the Italian-produced ones are great. So much bad dubbing on the Hercules's.

a distinct lack of underwear

A valid concern. At least C21 gives you an individual booth with some semblance of curtains. At sample sales, it's just a big room, with all kinds of scary shoe-horning into too-small True Religion jeans.

|9.30.08 @ 12:56PM|#

Dag,

You must have been lately. A few years ago it was just all one big room.

Anyway, I'd like to apologize on behalf of my entire gender if you go to the Sexual Revolution thread.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 1:01PM|#

I'd like to apologize on behalf of my entire gender if you go to the Sexual Revolution thread.

Too late. It would have been a lot less disturbing if I hadn't had the image of the gold-chained, hairy guy in my head going into it.

|9.30.08 @ 1:02PM|#

"Bring on Sha Na Na!"

|9.30.08 @ 1:04PM|#

I assure you I have never owned a gold chain.

|9.30.08 @ 1:08PM|#

Ah so. The ubiquitous teenage mallrat fetish. ;-)

I just have some fond memories of some clothes and shoes from that store.

All of the Italian-produced ones are great. So much bad dubbing on the Hercules's.

They even did a Mario Bava one. Which just goes to show you how uneven even great Italian directors are (cough Dario Argento cough).

It would have been a lot less disturbing if I hadn't had the image of the gold-chained, hairy guy in my head going into it.

Success!

I assure you I have never owned a gold chain.

You're more of a silver guy?

|9.30.08 @ 1:10PM|#

German/Irish over here. What ethnic extraction are you again, Epi? Help me remember...

Let he who is without tracksuit cast the first stone.

|9.30.08 @ 1:13PM|#

1/2 German, 1/4 Italian, 1/8 Alsace-Lorraine, 1/8 I dunno, something else European. I'm not hairy, thank the Fates. And I have never owned a chain of any type.

You should see my Italian grandfather in a jogging suit, though. Hello, Tony Soprano.

|9.30.08 @ 1:18PM|#

I dated a girl from Alsace-Lorraine* for a year. Freckle-less redhead. Gorgeous. Bat-shit insane.

*All four grandparents, but 2nd gen American

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 1:20PM|#

I'm not hairy, thank the Fates.

Lots of my girl friends in Van were Asian, and they genuinely pitied me for having to date white guys, due to the hair issue. They were totally horrified at the idea of chest hair.

|9.30.08 @ 1:23PM|#

Freckle-less redhead. Gorgeous. Bat-shit insane.

Of course. It's almost a law of nature.

Now, had you dated an actual European, would that have made a difference? Does the hot redhead = psychotic meme apply outside North America?

|9.30.08 @ 1:27PM|#

Epi,

My wife had a friend in high school who was a redhead. She has always advanced the theory that redheads are driven crazy due the constant psychic turmoil around them of so many people wondering if the carpet matches the drapes. My wife is pretty awesome.

|9.30.08 @ 1:28PM|#

They were totally horrified at the idea of chest hair.

Sure, it's just what you're used to. There are plenty of women who think hairless/shaved is kinda gay/metro and unappealing.

|9.30.08 @ 1:34PM|#

I think a lot of the Glam bands of the early 70s had a pretty fresh take on 50s Rock n Roll; T-Rex, Wizzard and Mud had an original spin on the music that revivalists like Sha na na missed by a mile...why don't we get any serious academic study on Roy Wood's eye makeup?

|9.30.08 @ 1:37PM|#

She has always advanced the theory that redheads are driven crazy due the constant psychic turmoil around them of so many people wondering if the carpet matches the drapes

Ha ha, that's good. The solution: laser hair removal.

"There's no hair down there. Uh uh."

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 1:39PM|#

redheads are driven crazy due the constant psychic turmoil around them of so many people wondering if the carpet matches the drapes.

Are redheaded men crazy, too? I dated a guy who liked to refer to himself as 'strawberry blond', which was in itself a sign of mental instability.

|9.30.08 @ 1:42PM|#

Are redheaded men crazy, too?

When David Caruso is the best thing that has ever happened to your phenotype, you can't help but be crazy.

Also... you dated Scott Farkus? Ew.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 1:44PM|#

The solution: laser hair removal.

This solution only eases the psychic turmoil if one publicly advertises that fact. I smell a burgeoning t-shirt business.

|9.30.08 @ 1:49PM|#

This solution only eases the psychic turmoil if one publicly advertises that fact

I was hanging out with my cousins and a female friend of theirs. Hot, but she had a much older really wealthy boyfriend. We're all a bit buzzed, and she starts telling us about her...laser hair removal, paid for by the boyfriend. How if felt so smooth, etc. I'll just note that my cousins and I were highly entertained.

I said "prove it", but she wasn't that loaded.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 1:52PM|#

Also... you dated Scott Farkus?

There is an unsettling resemblance, give or take 15 years.

Ew.

You're not kidding.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 1:59PM|#

I'll just note that my cousins and I were highly entertained.

There's a lot of humor to be had with that whole situation.

My favorite aunt had breast cancer (she's beating it with style & making a full recovery), and had to do the chemo thing. We were sitting around drinking, and a cousin of mine drunkenly asks if the chemo removed the hair "down there" (my aunt is in her early forties and gorgeous, so it's not quite as gross as it sounds). We came up with the 'Braz-emo' as the hot new thing in hair removal. Less painful than the traditional Brazilian, surely.

|9.30.08 @ 2:06PM|#

There's a lot of humor to be had with that whole situation.

Yes. She knew that we were...entertained, and we knew that she knew, and she knew that we knew that she knew...

My favorite aunt had breast cancer (she's beating it with style & making a full recovery)

Same with my mom.

We came up with the 'Braz-emo' as the hot new thing in hair removal

Ha, great. "There's nothing I won't do for vanity, and that includes irradiating myself" can be the new thing.

lunchstealer|9.30.08 @ 2:19PM|#

go rent The Brady Bunch Movie, with its curious conceit that the early '70s were a lost age of innocence. (For the target audience, most of whom were under 10 in the original Brady era, perhaps it was.)

Yeah the '70s were totally innocent. For proof, I suggest rent The Brady Bunch Movie and Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Watch those back to back.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 2:22PM|#

and she knew that we knew that she knew...

Quit fucking with the space-time continuum, mmkay?

Same with my mom.

I truly hope that your family's cancer experience has been as minimally-harrowing as ours. Our characteristic alcohol-fueled snarkiness emerged almost entirely unfazed.

"There's nothing I won't do for vanity, and that includes irradiating myself" can be the new thing.

If the results are as captivating as you suggest, we'd be fools not to. It would be a boon to my t-shirt business.

zeh|9.30.08 @ 2:28PM|#

I met a girl once who said she lost her virginity to Bowser after a Sha Na Na concert when she was 16. When I heard that, I felt so disoriented, I had to sit down.

|9.30.08 @ 2:30PM|#

zeh,

I hope you managed to get up and run away in a timely manner.

|9.30.08 @ 2:32PM|#

I truly hope that your family's cancer experience has been as minimally-harrowing as ours

It had been but my uncle just got treated for bladder cancer last week. Hopefully they got it all and we can remain minimally-harrowed.

If the results are as captivating as you suggest

It certainly livens up the conversation.

It would be a boon to my t-shirt business.

Your t-shirt business?

NoStar|9.30.08 @ 2:35PM|#

Zeh,
I guess Bowzer had more uses for the KY Jelly than slicking back his hair.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 2:45PM|#

remain minimally-harrowed.

I'd prefer it if you did. Although I hope you won't need it, there's some good radiation=superpowers material that's yours for the taking should the need arise.

Your t-shirt business?

*Sigh* You get partial creator credit and I retain final design approval.

|9.30.08 @ 2:58PM|#

I'd prefer it if you did. Although I hope you won't need it, there's some good radiation=superpowers material that's yours for the taking should the need arise.

Thanks, I hope so too.

*Sigh* You get partial creator credit and I retain final design approval.

I just want the money.

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 3:11PM|#

I just want the money.

Your *ahem* 'dates' say that a lot, don't they? Does it tend to work out well for them? ;-)

|9.30.08 @ 3:22PM|#

Your *ahem* 'dates' say that a lot, don't they? Does it tend to work out well for them? ;-)

I would never pay for something I can get for free ;-)

"There is no banging old ladies or dudes, all right? I will be providing a very important service, however, as what I would like to be called: a handsome companion."

Dagny T.|9.30.08 @ 3:34PM|#

I would never pay for something I can get for free

Well, that explains why you don't buy bottled water, but...oh, I see. You didn't get the innuendo, did you? Don't worry your pretty little head about it, sugar.

"How do you show love? You go and have sex with old people, so that's what I did too!"

|9.30.08 @ 3:43PM|#

You didn't get the innuendo, did you? Don't worry your pretty little head about it, sugar

Maybe I'm being a him-bo, but I think you should explain it to me. I would never imply that your delivery was faulty. Never.

"How do you show love? You go and have sex with old people, so that's what I did too!"

Did you know that The Waitress is actually Charlie's wife in real life?

|9.30.08 @ 5:07PM|#

To give proper credit, Bowzer was not with the band at Woodstock. The bass singer was Alan Cooper. He is the front man for "At The Hop" which is featured in the Woodstock movie. Alan would have made a great TV personality. He had a big smile and booming laugh that could have carried any show.

http://www.rockabilly.net/articles/shanana.shtml

|9.30.08 @ 9:10PM|#

And Cooper is now a Bible professor at a Hebrew seminary! (For real.)

|10.1.08 @ 3:41PM|#

i have no idea what this "Sha Na Na" business is. Before my time? (b. 1980)