Faces in the Hall

Its amazing how one little conversation, or one occurrence, can jog your memory into yesteryear like nobody's business. Like everyone else today, I've been thinking about the loss of Davy Jones, and what it means in my life. Generally the Monkees get sidelined as pop-fluff by most real music junkies, and I can't deny that I'm included in that lot today. The Skeptic that I am now values a different set of musical influences, but yesteryear---oh! Yesteryear was a different time. It was a time when I remained glued to the television set as the Monkees' hijinks's worked out hysterically on screen. It was a time that, as a major tomboy, I just wanted to be a boy. Davy Jones' accent and precociousness made my inner girl scream, officially becoming my first crush.

It also became bonding material between a group of my friends in Middle School when we all felt like we didn't fit in, like we were the most awkward human beings ever to have existed. Between us, we knew about the Monkees, and for whatever reason it became "the thing" that both set us apart as goofy and wacky girls, and also a little inner secret. The popular kids were too cool to be moronic Monkees fans, but we were the ones having so much fun, laughing so hard, that even learning chess in social studies class was an adventure because we couldn't stop singing, "I'm Gonna Buy Me a Dog."

I lost the connection to the Monkees and moved wisely on to the Beatles somewhere in middle school, and I also stopped having as much fun. I remember things getting serious all of a sudden, things becoming heavier and life changing at a drastic pace as I discovered politics and injustice in the world. I drifted from "Pleasant Valley Sunday" to "Revolution" and things were never quite the same.

This concept was nailed down in Stand By Me, that classic take on coming-of-age that I watch each and every time it's on cable, no matter what I had planned to do at the time. It was a simple statement that for some didn't hit home, but lingered with me and remains deeply entrenched. The writer says towards the end: "As time went on we saw less and less of Teddy and Vern until eventually they became just two more faces in the halls. That happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant."


It's a simple explanation of growing up, of people and things fading from the forefront. Davy Jones became just another face in the hall for me, along with other semblances of childhood. Like the friends in Stand By Me...he was such an integral part of my childhood and the awakening of my boycraziness. Days like this make me wish I could close my eyes and go backwards to the times when listening to "Daydream Believer" seemed like the most wonderful thing to do...where my view of the world was not yet complicated and warped. When I wasn't so...skeptical.





Skeptically Yours.