Bootsie and I belong to a second generation of Monkees fans. We’re not the ones who sat in front of our televisions on Saturday morning and watched four young boys on a new cutting-edge program. We’re the ones who saw an old show on Nickelodeon every night and wished we could go back to that seemingly carefree time. We saw the guys on MTV and bought their new album on tape. I had my dad tape his Monkees records for me so I could listen to them non-stop on my boom box. Our Micky had curly thinning hair and wore Bermuda shorts and our Peter had been through so much. And for us the thought of Mike showing up anywhere was exciting to say the least. Davy’s hair was to his shoulders the first time we saw him and we thought he was the dreamiest man alive. We didn’t anticipate his appearance on Laugh-In because we’d played it in our Beta recorders a hundred times. Instead we watched him on My Two Dads and desperately wished that we could be in Nicole’s shoes. Our earliest exposure to the Monkees was an MTV marathon in which the guys would come in between episodes and remind us that time had moved on. But we still wished we could go back in time and run on the beach with Davy in his red shorts and blue jacket. I would get together with my neighborhood girlfriends and play Monkees for hours. I got to be Davy because it was my idea. Christy was Peter because she was blonde and in love with him. Amber was Micky because she had just gotten her a really bad perm. And of course her cousin Dawn was Mike because she lived far away and was hardly ever there. We didn’t get to see young Davy gracing the cover of 16 magazine. Instead our moms would bring home the newest issue of Bop and we would cut out all of the pictures of the middle aged pop stars and articles about their families. I hung their pictures on the ceiling above my bed so they would be the last things I saw when I fell asleep. We didn’t get to see them among thousands of screaming fans at our local arena. Instead we got a glimpse of Davy on a portable stage at our local mall. So, while our devotion came a little bit late, our love of the Monkees is still as genuine as those who caught them the first time around. And what makes me happier than anything is to see the newest generation of Monkees fans and to recognize myself in them.
