Old Kids Watch From a Distance

It seemed a brilliant idea by the folks who run the Pacific Amphitheatre: setting up a “Parents’ Room” for the fans of New Kids on the Block, the preteen idols whose two shows this week brought more squealing to Costa Mesa than the last county fair.

And the setup appeared to serve its purpose, much like the analogous infants’ rooms in churches, allowing the principals to exercise their chosen form of worship in relative peace and isolation from distracting family members.

With the parents safely whisked away and under qualified supervision, the crowd of pre-pubescent girls (there was maybe one under-30 male in the house to every 50 shrieking girls--which was great for anyone needing to visit the men’s room) could freely pour their hearts and souls out to their first-and-only-ever-I-swear true loves.

In turn, it gave the old folks a place to wait in relative comfort for the whole thing to blow over, beyond range of even the most damaging high-frequency blasts.

In addition, it gave them opportunity to reminisce with friends--over $20 half-decanters of white zinfandel and free popcorn--about their own first concert experiences, to get in a few hands of gin rummy and even offer some speculation on the New Kids phenomenon.

“My first concert was at the Whiskey A Go-Go or one of the other clubs in Hollywood, and it was an unknown group called Iron Butterfly,” said Lloyd Davies, 42, of Covina, sitting with his wife, Annie, while their 11-year-old daughter and a friend stood a few hundred yards away, screaming their heads off. “Tickets were $4, and I thought those were expensive.”

Quite a different story from the $25-something-a-pop New Kids tickets, $22 New Kids T-shirts, $15 programs, $8 comic books, etc., all sold separately.

Oh, sure, here and there a mom or dad nursed a case of parental rejection. After surprising daughter Julie with a pair of New Kids tickets, Judy Lopez of Fullerton said Julie came to her and said, “ ‘Mom, can we talk? I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but it’ll be embarrassing if my friends see me with you.’ . . .

“That’s OK--I got over it,” Judy continued. “I didn’t commit suicide and she didn’t get possession of the Porsche. . . . And she never will .”

But mostly, parents seemed to be feeling fine about their offsprings’ infatuation. Their sentiments may have been tempered by a hint of guilt at indulging their kids, but most appeared proudly mindful of John Sebastian’s Woodstockian vow:

Why must every generation think their folks are square?

And no matter where their heads at, they know mom’s ain’t there.

‘Cause I swore when I was small that I’d remember when

I knew what’s wrong with them that I was smaller than.

As a male New Kids neophyte who is slightly older than the average fan (hey--three to four times older is slight , OK?), I found that it was fun to step back and think about the brainstorming that producer Maurice Starr must have gone through to invent this ideal combination of image and, er, talent.

“We need archetypes to appeal to the widest range of adolescent girl possible,” you could almost hear him say as you watched the quintet that has realized the American Dream--and at such tender ages yet!--of being turned into cartoon characters.

First, we’ll need The Romantic One, to satisfy every girl’s Prince Charming fantasy. Boom!--Jordan.

Next, get A Tough One, but not too tough. A snap: Donnie.

Now, give us A Cuddly One, who’s cute as a Kewpie doll. Natch: Joe.

Then, we need The Sorta Dumb Awkward One that every pre-adolescent can relate to: Danny.

And last, for any remaining fan who still didn’t have a Kid to root for, there’s Jonathan: The One With No Discernible Talent.

Voila! A billion-dollar industry.

True, it was a bit disconcerting to watch five white teen-agers--only one of whom has a remotely listenable singing voice and whose dancing collectively was less reminiscent of the Jackson Five than of the Chicago Seven--receive the tear-stained adulation of tens of thousands of young girls, while all the real music was being produced by the largely unheralded band comprising three black musicians, an Asian woman and a blond-maned, headbanger-style guitarist.

And it would take a real old fogy to gripe about the way the Kids draw upon black musical styles--such as rap, funk and even soul ballads--then soften and homogenize them for painless mass consumption. Call it the Pat Boone syndrome.

But this is the wonderful world of teen-pop, where all the rules go out the window. It’s the epitome of what makes America great, that special, magical arena where it doesn’t matter how rich you are, or how smart, or how talented or how hard-working.

To paraphrase another batch of teen heartthrobs from the dim, dark past: “All you need is cute.”