My name is Cristina and I am a Davy Jones fan

By CRISTINA TRAPANI-SCOTT
cristina@tecumsehherald.com

Every once in a while it’s okay to let our dork flags fly. Anyone who reads this column regularly knows that I do that a lot more than every once in a while. Well, here I go again.
In a couple of weeks a certain gent will be coming to town. All I have to do is say, “Hey, hey, it’s…” and most everyone of a certain age can fill in the blank. I’m talking about Davy Jones of The Monkees, who will be coming in concert to the Tecumseh Center for the Arts Saturday, Jan. 30.
Anyone who has known me for a long time knows that Davy Jones was my first love. Okay, so maybe that’s a dreamy stretch, but at age six I was smitten. I’m not 100 percent sure I was really old enough to form an opinion about boys back then, but I knew I liked Davy Jones. Of course, being on the early end of Generation X, I only really knew him through the reruns that I watched religiously after school. I was only a speck in the universe when the television show debuted in 1966, so it wasn’t until about six or so years after the show ended that I had my introduction.
Back then I was really into horses. I’m sure I knew that Davy Jones loved horses, too, and I could have listened to him talk and sing all day. Those must be all the combined reasons why he was my favorite Monkee, not that I’m alone. I know he was a lot of girls’ favorite Monkee.
All I really remember of the show is the boys were always running around getting in jams with bad guys and kissing girls. What I also remember about that time was that my then best friend, Andrea, who was a Mickey Dolenz fan, and I would make up dances to Monkees tunes. My favorite dance, of course, was “Daydream Believer.” It consisted of the two of us walking back and forth throughout the entire song and doing an occasional mime to the chorus where Davy sings, “Cheer up sleepy Jean…” I was never really much of a choreographer, but I had a great time doing that silly dance. I think I tired Andrea of the song and the dance after a while, because I insisted we do it over and over again.
There was a period of my life where Davy Jones was just a childhood memory. I got busy with high school and all the obligations that go with being an okay student, a band member and an athlete. I didn’t hear much about Davy Jones again until I was in college. That’s when MTV brought the group back with their Monkees Marathon. Oh, the heart was a-fluttering again. Along with the reruns came new glossy fan magazines…and posters. I figured there was no one better to illuminate the dreary cinderblock walls of my dorm room than Davy Jones. So, Davy’s face was the last I saw before I fell asleep each night my sophomore year and the first I saw in the morning light that filtered through the drafty little window in my room. Silly, I know, but it was a refreshing break from the dry medical texts I was forced to read as a sports medicine major. Every once in a while I’d even steal a kiss. Yeah, that’s me 23 years ago in full dork-dom probably listening to The Monkees on my little red Panasonic cassette player—them or the British/Irish rock band The Waterboys. Either way, I was probably driving my roomies nuts.
Alas, the posters are long gone as is the 1980s frizz and the strange sailor’s hat that I wore quite frequently, but not the memories or apparently the picture proof of my…uh…obsession. I guess that means that I’ll have to get my hands on some tickets and/or hang out by, or stalk rather, the Monkeemobile. Davyyyyyyyyyy!