Seth Rogen remembers his time on the Nineties Bar Mitzvah circuit
In the New Yorker an excerpt from Seth Rogen’s new memoir, Yearbook.
At that age, the only way I knew to get a girlfriend was through dancing. Not just any dancing—slow dancing. It was the only way to really gauge how a girl felt about you, since actually talking about your feelings was unheard of. You would slow-dance, and the closeness of your bodies would indicate how likely you were to become a couple. If there was full-body contact, you were dating. If there was grinding, you were essentially engaged.
But, in order to dance to a slow song, you first had to navigate a minefield of not-slow songs. And you did not want to dance to a fast song with a girl. With guys it was fine (funny dancing preferred). Luckily, every single bar or bat mitzvah had the same d.j. play the party, with basically the same playlist, so you could prepare.
Nirvana was popular, and all the boys would mosh wildly to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” until Austen Bell got a concussion at Stephen Glanzberg’s bar mitzvah and they stopped playing it.
No song, however, would match the controversy incited by “Mony Mony,” originally by Tommy James and the Shondells and later covered by Billy Idol. I’m sure you know it: “Here she come now, say Mo-nay Mo-nay,” followed by three strong beats—Bah! Bah, bah! This pattern essentially continues for the entirety of the five-minute-two-second song.
Now, I couldn’t tell you why, or how, but for some bizarre reason it became a tradition to fill in these bah-bah-bahs with the words “Hey, motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!” over and over, which of course the parents in attendance loved.
billy (singing): Here she come now, say Mony Mony!
room full of twelve-year-old kids: HEY, MOTHERFUCKER, GET LAID, GET FUCKED!
billy: Shoot ’em down, turn around, come on, Mony!
room full of twelve-year-old kids: HEY, MOTHERFUCKER, GET LAID, GET FUCKED!!
Since you asked, the Bar Mitzvah playlist (UK) featured Mr Solitaire (slow dance), the Birdie Dance (always), George Michael (the living god years) and Like A Virgin (unsettling).
Posted: 4th, May 2021 | In: Celebrities, Film Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
