hip to be square

In response to yesterday's post, reader Dave L. of Springfield asked "Prexies?"

The etymology of the word is presumably tied to "prexy," a bygone slang term for a college president which ended up being applied to the high priesthood of Pat Boone fandom. The notion that "Mr. Nice" had a large, organized fan following may strike some of you as a really quaint and bizarre phenomenon, but keep in mind that a lot of what we think of the "Fifties" is a artificial construction of post facto nostalgia.

We tend to conflate eras with their associated "hip" fads and subcultures (greasers, hippies, punks, et cetera), creating a skewed image which fails to reflect the historical reality. My father graduated from high school in 1968 and my mother in 1969. A quick flip through either of their yearbooks fails to turn up a single example of freak or flower child, just page after page of neatly groomed lads and lassies at odds with the psychedelic popcult perception of the late 1960's.

Such things did exist, to be sure, but as fringe elements whose disproportionate cultural influence and mediagenic power color our collective historical mythology. It's reductive (as all shorthand is by definition) and it plays toward expected flavor rather than nuance...especially when the nuanced version is perceived to be tres unhip. There are far more people willing to boast about how they bought the original 12" pressing of "Blue Monday" back in the day than there are folks who'll cop to buying Toto IV, despite what the sales figures state. I'd much rather wallow in the warts'n'all version of the past than the rose-tinted and romanticized facsimile passed off as the genuine article.

Besides, who am I to lob stones at late 1950's Pat Boone fans and their byzantine organization? At least there was a manic sense of sincerity in their devotion, which feels quite refreshing in an age when the Hannah Montana and Camp Rock blocks are waging a relentless war for merchandised supremacy in the aisles of every superstore in the country. (The battle will not end until the last tube of hemorrhoid salve has been brought into licensed compliance.)

While the subject of Pat Boone fandom seems ideally suited for the Lilekian "Ha ha! Look how stupid these people were back then" school of mockery, I find it difficult to lob haughty cheap shots at targets that range from quite sad...


...to downright tragic...


See what I mean? Cruel mockery becomes redundant when dealing with those who get squishy whenever they hear "Love Letters in the Sand" or who celebrate their devotion to blandly innocuous pop music through verse...


Okay, that's just fucking creepy.

Ill Repute - Clean Cut American Kid (from Rodney on the ROQ, Vol. 3, 1982) - How about a little Nardcore, prexies?

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Little Demon (from Cow Fingers & Mosquito Pie, 1991) - I find this b-side to 1956's "I Put a Spell on You" serves as a nice vaccine against the ravages of pure strain Boonitis.

kids those days

The voice of white Protestant middle-class suburban youth, courtesy of Pat Boone #1 (September-October 1959):

Brought to you by Lucky Strikes!
By being a "teenager for life" does J.M.G. mean "I plan on living in my parents' house, working a part-time minimum wage service job, and suffering from wild mood swings until I die of old age?"

New experiences and challenges -- such as trying to sneak into your second floor bedroom at two in the morning while blitzed on lemon gin or trying to find a decent backroom abortionist after the football captain "forgot" to disengage on time.

"You'll appreciate your time you've spent in locked Mommy's Evil Clown Closet when you have kids of your own. In fact, you'll be calling Mommy for advice on how to inflict maximum emotional trauma through greasepainted nightmares after you've been saddled with the hellish fruit of boozy, unprotected, marital sex with an emotionally distant spouse. So suck it up -- God hates weaklings and whiners."

Pet hippo-what? Were the Prexies (as Boone's fans called themselves) ahead of the subcultual curve regarding hallucinogenic drug use?

"I had the most ginchy trip last night! The world turned into a giant Leavittown with not a trace of dirt or enthicity to be seen! Things turned a bit unpleasant, though, when I saw a little speck on my fingernail, and I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed in vain to remove it. When I snapped out of it, I was covered in blood and sitting on top of the corpses of my parents and siblings."

Ah, the joys of youth.

Eddie & The Hot Rods - Teenage Depression (from Teenage Depression, 1976) - They called it pub rock. I call it punk as fuck.

The Adverts - Bored Teenagers (from Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts, 1978) - Ever stood on the beach while a storm front came rolling in? The skies turn dark, the barometric pressure drops, and the air cools. The wind picks up, the waves turn nasty, and low rumbles of thunder can be heard in the distance. It's an awe-inspiring and occasionally terrifying experience.

That's how I feel whenever I listen to The Adverts' first album.

like hotcakes and molasses

I'm feeling powerfully hungry tonight. Hey, Shirley "Wife-of-Pat" Boone, got any ideas what I should fix myself for dinner?


Chili, eh? Sounds great! I'm always up for Tex-Mex cuisine. Let's see if I have all the ingredients on hand. Yep...I think those still ought be to be good..yep...yeah...WHAT IN THE NAME OF HOLY HELL?


That's got to be a misprint. I mean that's just fucking insane. Let me clean my spectacles and doublecheck the instructions...


Hmm... A bold precursor to the fusion cuisine movement? Or another example of the 1950's white Protestant normative culture cluelessly lumping all non-WASP ethnic groups into a single mass under the contol of the Vatican? Either way, it's making me lose my appetite.

Y'know, Shirley, I appreciate the help and all, but I think I'm just going to make a run down to Dragon Garden from some sweet and sour chicken and crab rangoons.

Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five - Beans and Cornbread (from Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five: 1947-1949, 2002) - Jump Blues: It's more than good. It's good for you. A heartfelt plea for culinary harmony that features one of the best (and most fattening) wind-ups and finishes in any song, ever.

The Adicts - Chinese Takeaway (from Sound of Music, 1982) - So where'd you put the menu? No, it's not by the phone. Hey, I didn't have it last. Look, it's not worth arguing over. I'm not using that tone, but I'm hungry and the place is going to close in half an hour. You found it? Where was it? Being used as a bookmark in my DC Showcase: War That Time Forgot trade? I don't know how it got there, honest. All right, let's not play the blame game; you order and I'll pay, ok? (I smell a frame up.) What? I didn't say anything, honest!

and it's terminal

A tragedy, really. Though not as common these days as it was fifty years ago, Pat Boonitis (a.k.a. "The Wholesome Family-Friendly Disease") still remains a grave risk to the public's health and musical tastes. Symptoms include:

• cravings that can only be sated with an American cheese and mayo sandwich on Wonder Bread (sliced diagonally with the crusts cut off, natch)
• calling Pet Sounds a "hard rock" album
• considering a chaste peck on the cheek to be "getting to third base"
• taking fashion cues from H.R. Haldeman (males) or Pat Nixon (females) and/or exhibiting a fondness for pastel-toned cardigan sweaters
• seeing an ad for the local Methodist Church's "Christian Coffee House" in the paper and thinking that it sounds like a really hep scene
• believing the female orgasm is a myth propagated by the Communists and their feminist dupes
• wishing that you could have lived in Pleasantville before Peter Parker and Elle Woods ruined the place
• thinking that Andy Williams would have done a better version of "Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud"
• voting Republican (This in and of itself could be potentially indicative of a host of disorders akin to Pat Boonitis, and should be considered as an ancillary indicator alongside any of the other symptoms listed above.)

If detected early enough, Pat Boonitis-A can usually be cured with the proper administration of Meet The Beatles! and James Brown's Live at the Apollo LP. Particularly extreme cases may require a crash infusion of G.G. Allin and The Scumfucs tunes, but extreme care must be taken lest the patient lapse into severe culture shock.

The B strain of Pat Boonitis is, unfortunately, incurable. Many sufferers are able to carry on with a semblance of life, despite their obsessive behaviors regarding golf, the capital gains tax, and why those goshdarn pinko Democrats hate the USA and Baby Jesus so much.

Fortunately for the human race, the highly virulent and contagious Debbie Boonitis mutant strain of the disease has not reared its head since the Great Pandemic of 1977. I was five years old, and the horror of that time left scars on my psyche that linger to the present day. The clouds rained blood and packs of feral dogs worried the flesh of the unburied souls whose lives had been lit up by the horrific effects of that MOR pop earworm. Just when it seemed all would be lost, the world received a most unlikely savior in the form of the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love." We were that close to going out forever. But three Australian brothers with high-pitched voices taught us to slow dance, disco-style...

Remember, kids: Forewarned in forearmed. The life you save may be your very own.

Mike Leander - Onward Christian Soldiers (from the Privilege OST, 1967) - From Peter Watkins' 1967 film about a fascist/theocratic British government of the future and how it uses a charismatic rock star to distract, indoctrinate, and otherwise control the youth population. Hey, it's sci-fi! No worries here, right? (This track originally came from the much missed 7 Black Notes.)

R.E.M. - Shiny Happy People (from Out of Time, 1991) - Okay, so there was one song on that album that I liked, due to the presence of B-52 (and Athens scene alum) Kate Pierson. Of course, it was the one song on Out of Time that my college drawing teacher would skip over during her maddening semester-long repeat loop of the album on the studio's CD player.