Last night I said these words to my girl...

This week they are again begging on public T.V. (see Note of Mar. 29 to see how I feel about that). Last night one of the programs they frequently interrupted was on rock acts that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Which included the Beatles, in 1964. I remember watching that show with my family, and being utterly enchanted. They were so cute. Yes, I was a Beatlemaniac. I even went to see them during their only appearance in Texas. My stepfather drove me and my stepsister all the way from San Antonio to Houston to see them. It was thrilling to watch them come bounding onto the stage, and start singing all those "great" songs ("Please please me, oh, yeah, like I please you"); but I was so disgusted by all the screaming females, who made it utterly impossible to hear more than the occasional word. I remember muttering, 'Oh, this is so stupid; why don't they shut up?!' I had actually gone there to hear them sing, not just gawk at them and scream myself hoarse. But I was part of a tiny, tiny minority.

That sort of mass hysteria really has nothing (or very little) to do with what is supposedly causing it, in this case, four cute guys with lots of energy who sang about love, but were totally non-threatening. (In another age it was a sweet-faced, skinny kid who also sang about love and was totally non-threatening, by the name of Frank Sinatra. On the other hand, in between the two phenomena was a very good-looking, overtly sexual guy with a pompadour who could possible be construed as being the tiniest bit threatening.) Whatever the supposed source, it's really a matter of mob mentality taking over, and turning other-wise sane human beings into unthinking lemmings (lead me to the nearest cliff and I'll gladly jump over, screaming all the way). I assume all kinds of books, never mind dissertations, have been written on the subject. I suppose part of it is a grabbing at the chance to let off steam, let it all hang out, toss away all the ol' inhibitions for a brief time. I'm sure I was as sexually repressed as every other girl in that giant auditorium -- after all, I was 17, but had never been on a date, never been kissed (this was actually possible for girls back in the good ol' days, even ones that weren't "dogs") -- and I certainly indulged in lots of rather vague fantasies about the Fab Four (alternating among Paul, "the cute one," George, "the quiet one," and John, "the smart one", with Ringo, "the funny one," never ringing any particular bells, for some reason). But for all my untapped sexuality, I was never the least bit tempted to scream it out. Call me unnatural.

On this same show last night we were treated to appearances by the Rolling Stones, with an astonishingly fresh-faced Mick Jagger -- my God, he's a little boy, I thought as I watched him trying to contain his bottled energy -- and ditto Eric Burton, with The Animals, who also amazed me by having a surprisingly good voice, and blues style. The kid had obviously been working hard. And neither he, nor Jagger, nor Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, nor any of the others, had that haggard, a little too much sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll look that they were all to have within ten years.

It was fun, watching them, remembering that yes, more innocent time. Had We But Known.