Mine, All Mine!

"It was through a chance conversation with her Norwegian publishers following her first book that Pearson realised her vague idea of writing about a teenager in love with David Cassidy might be something to pursue. As she recalls, all the women around the table immediately started to talk about their own teenage crushes—apart from one who remained completely silent: "I remember thinking, ‘oh gosh, she thinks this is stupid, girly prattle about some teen idol'—then there was a silence in the conversation and she said, ‘But he was mine'. And I heard that and I thought, okay, you have to write this now.""

From the article by Alice O'Keefe on Alison Pearson's upcoming (and eagerly awaited?) novel I Think I Love You about a 13-year old girl "riddled with teenage angst and nursing a full-on obsession with 1970s heart-throb David Cassidy."

Please raise your hand if you are no longer thirteen but still nursing a full-on obsession with David Cassidy. Ok, so you'd call it a mild obsession? ;-

Pearson's first novel, I Don't Know How She Does It, resonated with a lot of women (almost half a million, if I understand the sales figure correctly). I suspect this one will too. David Cassidy was young baby boomers' most popular idol and they form the largest segment of the population. While most soon-to-be middle-aged women don't want to be thirteen again, I suspect many would enjoy revisiting those heady feelings of a first crush through a novel. I know I certainly did via the internet. If Pearson has fleshed out her young protagonist properly, readers should also recognize their idealism and dreams in her.

Who's pre-ordered the book? (Clever title by the way. Surefire reference for anyone in her target audience.)

Can anyone think of a post-David Cassidy teen idol that would spawn a novel like this?

Here's "I Can Feel Your Heartbeat" because he made our hearts beat quicker (and I recently posted ITILY). The twenty year old version, just as high energy as the first, follows.

I Got Misty-Eyed.

Really. Gotta love this former teen idol's attitude.

"Jones unabashedly embraces his career as a Monkee. "John Lennon once said he didn't want to end up singing his old hits in Las Vegas. Well, I do," says Jones"

The article is hardly recent (1992!), but if Mr. Jones has kept the same frame of mind since: Chapeau, monsieur! Chapeau! Photo from his official website.

Let's Hope it's not a La Perla

I wonder what he does with them? Displays them at home in a custom-built curio cabinet?

Credit to John Schultz for photograph found here.

About that Partridge Family Cruise Episode...

Keith might just be the cutest Peter Rabbit EVER in that episode (any doubters, please refer to pic in April 6 post) but he's also sexy as all get out in the group's "musical performance". Serious Yowza around the the 0:26 mark and then from 0:38 to 0:44. (And to think girls today squeal over that AutoTuned Bieber baby. For shame.) By the way, who decided to mess with the YouTube format? It looks so wishy-washy now. Gah. Can't stand it.

Not a Teen Idol, Sorry

Well, the powers that be at that big ol' American talent show changed their minds. Contestants sang Billboard #1 hits and not teen idol material, as I had reported last week. Guess the threat of dodging "Puppy Love" and "ITILY" became too real for someone.

Anyhoo, if you want to know how young Mr. Urban did, you can watch his performance here. He looks and sounds a lot better than I initially thought but I can't detect a tenth of DC's sex appeal in him. And perhaps if he had been dressed differently, his sliding around stage wouldn't have looked so incongruous? As it was, it baffled, but not so much that I'm tempted to watch his performance again to analyze it. If people are still comparing Urban to Cassidy after last night's performance, well, it's their little delusion to cradle. As the title of another #1 hit said so well, "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing."

They're Going to be Teen Idols!!!

Who? Those AI contestants mentioned in my previous post. Seems that for every show, there is a theme to help them select a song to perform. This past show's theme was "The Rolling Stones", aka the "butcher-iconic-rock-songs-show", and the next one will be "teen idols" (can't find an official press release, sorry). Hmm. Guess the powers that be WERE inspired by the buzz that Urban looks like a young Cassidy.

How much shall we bet that someone will pick "ITILY" to sing? It's almost a given, isn't it? How much cooler would it be if someone tried their voice at a lesser known Partridge Family song or a David Cassidy solo one? Actually, one of DC's biggest hits isn't that well known in the States and might be an interesting choice for an AI contender: "Daydreamer". Could any of them lend it the right amount of wistfulness without turning it into a saccharine mess? Mr. Urban?

How far back will they go for their teen idol inspiration? The forties, fifties, sixties? Thinking of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, The Beatles... Surely they won't bypass the seventies with The Jacksons, The Osmonds, DC and Shaun Cassidy?!? Someone HAS to pick David Cassidy. He is, as we say in French, incontournable. A teen idol mountain that can't be bypassed. If he is, it would be a damn shame.

I just might tune in next week. Oh, and here's DC giving Terry Dempsey's "Daydreamer" just the perfect forlorn notes. (Wouldn't you just love to know what he's saying around the 0:30 mark?)

Urban Legend

Through Google Alerts, I've learned that more than a few people see a resemblance between one of the current American Idol contestants and a young David Cassidy. Apparently, this young man looks like DC and sounds like him in the Partridge Family. Now, I don't follow that glitzy talent show but I've seen a couple of pictures of the young man in question and all I can say is "Huh?" Yeah, yeah, I see the feathered hair. But it's not the same cut, people. It's feathered towards his face. Total opposite of Cassidy's style which was feathered AWAY from his face ;-) Subtle difference but oh what a difference. Not to mention his dissimilar features. AI dude has chiseled cheekbones. Cassidy had a baby face. Look at the eyes, the nose, the smile. Not taking anything away from the young man's good looks but come on people, compare objectively. There is no resemblance. If you want to compare his looks to any past teen idol, look at Bobby Sherman. Similar hairstyle and piercing blue eyes.

As for the young contender's voice, here's a clip of him massacring a Rolling Stones classic (starts at 1:27). If that performance has piqued your interest in his vocal talent, well, you're on your own to hunt YT for more. I am so not there. You're welcome to report back if his voice matches our man's. To make amends for exposing you to this sacrilege, I've included Streetheart's cover of the song which, imho, surpasses the original.








(Helpful pic of Bobby Sherman to fill those memory blanks. )

Ok, so, just how big was it?!

(Settle down, people. Note the verb tense in the title: "was" not "is". ;-))

You're all familiar with David Cassidy's bio, aren't you? Among his long list of accomplishments, this rarely-skipped boast about the height of his fame always makes me smile: "membership in his fan club exceeded those of Elvis Presley and The Beatles". Honest to goodness, first time I read that, I thought: by how many? One? One hundred?

Seriously, it's a vacuous claim. Sounds impressive but no context is given. Are the three fan clubs compared in the early seventies? If so, well, Elvis was no longer at HIS peak and The Beatles had broken up. If the three clubs are compared at everyone's peak of fame, is the marketing factor taken into account? The David Cassidy fan club - with Laufer publications at the helm - was probably better publicized than either one of the other two (sort of like taking into account inflation when comparing movie box office revenues).

I have a vague recollection of seeing the statement quantified once - with 200,000 fans - but I've never been able to find that number again. Was it online or in a TV bio? Don't recall. Speaking of source, the boast would have come to light when David Cassidy's wife overheard it on the TV game show "Hollywood Squares". Apparently the audience was surprised at the answer to "Who had the biggest fan club? Elvis Presley, The Beatles or David Cassidy?". Unfortunately, I don't recall where that tidbit of info comes from either (his books?).

Anyone out there have hard numbers for us? (Is that giggling I hear? Sheesh. You're just a bunch of twelve year olds, aren't you?)

Teen idols and hysteria

Here's a little clip of Dusty Springfield asking a couple of Beatles some very important questions. The most important one is at 1:00. ;-)

I like you, just not in that way

I love reading comments on Partridge Family and David Cassidy videos on YouTube. Some are from adult men (quick to state that they are straight) who now admit to liking The Partridge Family and David Cassidy back in the day - one called David Cassidy singles his "guiltiest pleasure". What was it about David Cassidy that made it so that boys couldn't like him overtly? Is it because girls were so gaga over him that if you were a boy who liked David Cassidy it meant you found him sexually attractive also?

He was the prettiest thing we'd ever seen, as Graham Norton said, years later, when he had David on his UK TV show. And his every pore did ooze hotness. And the man had girls fainting left, right and center during his concerts. Is it because he didn't look manly enough for boys to admire him? Boys can only admire strong, beefy guys, I suppose. Do young boys even have "idols"?

“Male identity is constructed around every man’s pride in his independence. As a result, the masculine paradigm can never quite accept fandom in general” (402) -Caught in a Trap? Beyond Pop Theory’s ‘Butch’ Construction of Male Elvis Fans Mark Duffett Popular Music, Vol. 20, No. 3 Gender and Sexuality. (Oct., 2001), pp.395-408.

A young girl's adulation of an idol is forever tied to her emerging sexuality. Boys can't admit to liking, much less idolizing, the same male stars as girls do because it would cast a doubt on their sexual orientation. That's pretty much it, isn't it?

Teen idols get no respect

What is it about teen idols that makes critics dismiss them so? Is it because it appeals to the 8 to 15 year old female crowd? And it was primarily, in David Cassidy's case, a female audience in the early seventies. Would they be less dismissive if the fans were male? The message seems to be: if girls like it, it's rubbish.

Please Please Me

In one of the Partridge Family or David Cassidy biographies, The Partridge Family's producer, Bob Claver, mentions that David never refused to do anything for any of his scenes. Shirley Jones would. She'd tell the writers if she thought the script wasn't realistic, for example. But David never did. That remark struck me. Afraid to rock the boat, David?

Naked Lunchbox, that infamous profile on David Cassidy that Robin Green penned for Rolling Stone magazine in 1972, gives us two bracketing images of David as a people-pleaser.

The first is David, post-concert, wiped, battering off the flu with antibiotics (thanks for contributing to the evolution of super bugs there, David), slumped in a cab with his entourage as they check out discos in The Big Apple. His pleas to go straight to the hotel are met with chides to try one more place and he ends up muttering his consent.

The last is David, pre-concert this time, arriving in Maine, where "...hundreds of fans stood in snow, waving banners expectantly. "Look at all those fans," David moaned. "Standing out there in the cold, waiting for me. I feel rotten. I look terrible. After a weekend of killing myself, I have to show up and smile. I can't handle it. I ain't going. I'm staying right here."

David sat with his arms folded across his chest, staring out the window. The men in the van filed past him, out to a waiting bus. Ron, Henry and Stele were ready to go. "Well," said David, softening, "I suppose I should put on my coat.""

I interpreted that to mean he couldn't handle showing up and disappointing his fans with a sub-par David.

In those early days, his career was a runaway train but he wasn't the conductor. He had no artistic control over his material and had signed away his likeness to the company that produced The Partridge Family. David Cassidy became a money making machine for all business parties involved and they had no qualms pushing him to the limit to maximize their own profit. They all knew "teen idols don't last" so they took while the getting was good.

David put the brakes on the runaway train and just jumped off in 1974, quitting the Partridge Family and his concert touring. Still today, interviewers ask him why he quit everything as he did back then. There are several reasons - exhaustion, loss of identity and normalcy chief among them - but as a fan too young to experience his teen idol reign, I can't help but wonder if he couldn't have re-negotiated his contract to better suit him.

His initial contract was invalid because he was underage when he signed it and his manager re-negotiated it for better financial compensation. As the David Cassidy money making machine was well underway that second year, didn't he realize that the pace would lead to a burn-out? Couldn't he have re-negotiated aspects of his contract a second time? Spaced out his concerts to give himself a break? Restrict use of his likeness and coverage in teen magazines, the main fuel for the madness? Wrestled for more artistic control on those solo efforts? Perhaps he tried or did ("Rock Me Baby" was a rocking departure from "Cherish", after all), I don't know. I haven't read his autobiography yet (only excerpts found on the web) - perhaps he shares more about his contract in it?

I'm not a psychologist nor do I play one on TV, but I get the impression that while he worked his tail off during that crazy period, saw the big picture and wanted a long term career in the business, he mainly worked to please those around him. That was his subconscious drive. When you have a fear of abandonment (as most anyone whose father left him at a young age would), you develop a strong need to please others because you fear rejection. Nose to the grindstone, you play by the rules to gain approval from those you admire who, ironically, are often those who rejected you initially. While working like a dog to gain this elusive approval, you lose yourself and your goals. The resentment builds and builds until you can't see any other solution but to say "I quit".

I'm convinced David would have lived a similar scenario even if he hadn't been in show business.

It's my blog and I'll write if I want to...

A blog about David Cassidy!? Why on earth?

-He was my first crush: a man seventeen years my senior who made my heart flutter and race at an age when I could barely guess at the mechanics of sex. What type of phenomenon is that?! Of all my teen idol crushes, his pictures are the only ones that don't elicit "What the hell was I thinking?!" when I look at them now. Oh NO. No need to wonder. I'd wonder if I hadn't fallen for him!

-He is an icon who indelibly marked a generation yet his name garners snickers and rolled eyes from anyone who didn't fall under his spell during his heyday. You can't appreciate what you don't know.

-He is a performer with extremely loyal and rabid fans who never lost sight of him and diligently followed his career for three decades post-Partridge Family. There's got to be more about him than his pretty good looks. I am not among his thousands of über-loyal, unconditional fans - I lost track of him after The Partridge Family and am now rediscovering him and his talent. As I do, I realize that he is a vastly underrated performer.