Grease for Peace
There’s a strong chance you’re young enough that you don’t know who Sha Na Na is. No shame, I’ll tell you - they were a 50s revival doo-wop act that gained popularity in the 70s, predated and even inspired Grease (1978), “Happy Days” and American Graffiti (1973). They played at Woodstock, for Christ’s sake. A piece I just read from Columbia College (where the group was born as The Kingsmen), explores a fascinating claim that Sha Na Na redefined the decade of the 50s, one in which the Beats dominated the subcultural landscape, as “The Fifties”, an era which would be quaintly recalled through a series of memory implants set to music and heavily favoring young miscreants called Greasers.
Crazy enough, the word Greasers wasn’t even around when the Greasers were. In their day, they were known as hoods or J.D.s (juvenile delinquents). Can you imagine if, in 20 years time, some pop act decided to revive the 20-aughts and singled out one of our prized subcultures—let’s pick the emo kids—and completely fabricated a name for them—let’s say Bangers—and not only did countless movies and TV shows appropriate the name (maybe you see the musical adaptation of the film Bangs (2026) on Broadway, but your own parents fondly remember their days in the aughts as Bangers? That’s some science fiction shit! Yet it happened to all of us.
My point is this: until I read the piece and revisited video from the wildly popular “Sha Na Na” TV show I now remember absorbing as a kid, I hadn’t realized that so much of my imago, my vision of masculinity, my ideals in style and hair product were defined by the group Sha Na Na. ”Bowser” in particular (the tall, skinny baritone in all black and high-waters) served as model of dress and demeanor for me. There was a good year in there it was rare to find me not flexing my muscles and striking a Bowser pose to win over a girl or a teacher. I bet it still works, even. Will research and report back.
UPDATE: You bet your sweet ass it does.
via Morning News
