Often it depends on your age.
When I first started my Monkees fansite in 1999, the Monkees were not cool. Sure they had reunited in the 90s and made an album and toured and had a TV special on ABC but they definitely were still a joke in most mainstream pop culture circles. Rolling Stone NEVER…
A++++ to ALL of this, sister, and so much more! You absolutely 5000% covered so much of what probably many of us have been through in our liking of the Monkees—of finding ourselves adrift as lone fans of a band that was thought to be chronically uncool by so many.
So to come from that vantage makes it especially incredible to read quotes like the ones you gave from Noel Fielding and Alice Cooper that give such an entirely new perspective of The Monkees. And these quotes do not disparage the guys or paint the color of their characters—instead, they make the Monkees human, by showing that their personalities went far beyond the bland questionnaires filling the pages of teen mags. The quotes show that in the height of their fame, for good or for bad, they did what any other astronomically famous young men would do with that fame.
It is interesting, too, because we were giving this very topic some thought earlier, and one thing that crossed our minds is that the guys are often asked what it was like to hang out with the Beatles. Over and over again, that’s a topic of interest in interviews, but what we would really want is to ask the Beatles (well, Sir Paul and Ringo) what it was like to hang out with the Monkees. Because as untouchable and godlike as the Beatles are in the rock pantheon, they viewed the Monkees as peers and friends, and so it would be fascinating to hear the reverse perspective from one of them about hanging out with the members of the Monkees in the 1960s.
A huge part of the reason why we love Psycho Jello so much is because PJ provides the same perspective as Alice Cooper and other contemporaries of the Monkees. As you said, the sites that existed before PJ came along did provide an even remotely balanced picture of the guys’ lives, and some of these sites maintain their puritanical, if not outright tyrannical standards to this very day. And it was Psycho Jello that truly paved the way for us to start Naked Persimmon, because we also wanted a site and a place where people could speak their minds about their Monkees-related fantasies and desires without fear of shame, ridicule, or persecution.
It has become so crucial then, also as you pointed out, to continue shifting that perception of the Monkees and move folks away from the squeaky clean, cookie cutter image that has more often than not prevented the guys from truly being taken seriously. So MAJOR, MAJOR KUDOS to you, lovely Meg, for keeping the fires burning and giving we here at Naked Persimmon the opportunity to do the same. Much love always for you and of course, for the Monkees!
(In honor of the Micky’s psychedelic vagina post now having 200 notes, a slightly tweaked version of ”Randy Scouse Git” (except for the chorus). With thanks and apologies to Micky Dolenz.)
She’s a wonderful vagina
And she’s mine all mine
And there doesn’t seem a vagina
That won’t come and lose my mind.
It’s too easy humming vaginas
To a vagina in yellow dress
It’s been a long time since the party
And the vagina is in a mess.
The four vaginas of E.M.I.
Are sitting stately on the floor
There are vaginas out on the sidewalk
And a valet at the door.
He reminds me of a vagina
With few and plastered hair,
There’s talcum powder on the vagina
And the birthday boy is there.
Why don’t you cut your hair?
Why don’t you live up there?
Why don’t you do what I do,
See what I feel when I care?
Now they’ve darkened all the vaginas
And the vaginas are Naug-a-hyde.
I’ve been waiting for an hour,
I can’t find a vagina to hide.
The vagina known as Wonder Girl
Is speaking I believe.
It’s not easy tryin’ to tell vagina
That I shortly have to leave.
Why don’t you be like me?
Why don’t you stop and see?
Why don’t you hate who I hate,
Kill who I kill to be free.
Why don’t you cut your hair?
Why don’t you live up there?
Why don’t you do what I do,
See what I feel when I care?
Why don’t you be like me?
Why don’t you stop and see?
Why don’t you hate who I hate,
Kill who I kill to be free.
Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart- I Remember the Feeling (1975)
I have to post this every few months….
CHEESY 70s JAMMY JAM RIGHT HURRR
We just can’t get enough of Micky’s jumpsuit phase…
Well, Peter, you’re just…riveted…aren’t you?
THREE CHEERS FOR MICKY’S PSYCHEDELIC VAGINA, YOU GUYS!
Micky: I came all this way to find The High Llama! Where is he?
Mike: Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. He’s out back, sleepin’ it off.
Micky: You don’t MEAN…?
Mike: Yes, what I mean, that’s how he got his name!
Button Theme
