Monkee Shines

Summer 2005 Issue 62

Editor: Cindy Bryant with a little help from my friends, The Road Crew. The whole crazy

lot! Monkeeing around since 1987

The Purple Flower Gang

Monkee Shines

Inside:

Great Moments in Monkee History

Monkee News and Tour Dates

When You’re in Rome (Roam) ...On the Road in Omaha, NE

WJMK Interview With David

Will The Real Davy Jones Honda Please Start Up

Bright Side Of The Road … The Sun Comes out In Oshkosh

Pen Plas

E-Pals

Personal Ads ...and you know who you are

Photos of Micky and Coco in Kalamazoo, MIchigan

And more…...

Waterfest Photo by Bonnie Borgh

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Monkee Shines

Membership dues are $10 (US &

Canada) and $15 (Overseas). Ads

are $25 for a full page, $10 for

half page, and $5 for a quarter

page. Money orders are pre-ferred. Cash at own risk. Make

all payments payable to Cindy

Bryant NOT the PFG. Mail to:

The Purple Flower Gang, 903

East 2nd Street 1A, Muscatine,

Iowa 52761.

If you find a stamp in this area, your membership has expired with this issue. Please renew as soon as possi-ble to assure your next issue. This is

the only notice you will get.

pfg@machlink.com

Monkee Shines

is printed by

Mailboxes & Parcel

Depot

Table of Contents

Letter from the Editor .............................. 3

Card From Hazel ...................................... 4

Great Moments on Monkee History........ 5

Monkee News ........................................... 11

Tour Dates ................................................ 12

When You’re In Rome ............................. 15

WJMK Interview With David ................. 27

Personal Ads ............................................. 48

Pen Pals ..................................................... 49

E-Pals ........................................................ 50

Will The Real Davy Jones Honda Please

Start Up ..................................................... 51

Bright Side Of The Road ......................... 54

Photos from Micky’s Show in Kalamazoo.

MI .............................................................. 76

Thanks to all who made this hug

issue possible:

The PFG Road Crew,

Kimmi, Janet, Shane, Bonnie

and their families who put up with us, Joyce Lopez, Pat Smith,

Hazel (and Ken who is in heaven

looking down and shaking his

head at out antics, I have no

doubt) Wilkinson and the Mon-

kees for bringing us all together.

http://purpleflowergang.tripod.com/

Coming up in our next issue: Da-

vid in Eagan, Minnesota, Another

Jones gets into the act (Hazel re-

ports on Annabel’s performance in

a talent showcase in England.

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Monkee Shines

Dear Gang,

After 14 years the PFG

has moved. Please note our new

address:

dolences go out to Billy’s wife,

Ann. He will greatly missed.

This is the biggest issue

of Monkee Shines we have ever

published which , while it is nice to have so much to pass on to you,

also makes it the most expensive.

Ouch!

There was a time when

we worried about how we would

fill these pages when little was

happening but our never ending

quest for useless information has

kept us writing. We only hope you

enjoy the silliness as much as we

enjoy writing it

Have you got an idea or is there something you are curious

about. Let us know. As always, we

would love to hear your stories

too!

Please say a prayer for

our Monkee friends who were in

Katrina’s path. We are happy to

know that Debbie Sunseri is safe

but there are many others affected

too. Has anyone heard from Jackie

Russell?

Until next time.

Cindy

From the Editor!

Notice

We have tried to stick to a regular schedule for the newsletter but something always gets in the way/ We have a choice to throw something together or take a little longer and do something we can be proud of. We hope you think it is worth the wait.

As always, if you are unhappy with your membership for any reason, we will be happy to refund the remainder of your membership dues upon request.

PFG

c/o Cindy Bryant

903 East 2nd Street 1A

Muscatine, Iowa 52761

The Gang lost another

friend. Billy Lewis who was a

session drummer for the Monkees

passed away May 7th after a 5

year battle with heart and intesti-nal problems. Billy had done a

wonderful interview in Monkee

Shines some time ago and we had

talked on the phone on numerous

occasions. He was a very warm,

friendly man who loved talking

about his Monkee days. Our con-

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September 1 Press party in Los Angeles held at Screen Gems to kick off a ten

-day promotional tour (1966) 1 Micky and Davy on "The Tomorrow Show" with Tom Snyder

(1977) 1 Barry Gibb 2 The Monkees (minus Mike) at Holiday Star, Merrillville, Indiana

(1989) 3 The last show of The Monkees US tour at Six Flags in Eureka,

Missouri (1989) 3 Georgia Dolenz (1984) 3 Alan Jardine 4 Jessica Jones (1981) 4 "Monkee Day" in Hollywood when Monkees received the key to

the city from Honorary Mayor, Johnny Grant (1986) 4 David Jones at Allen County Fairgrounds, Lima, Ohio (1993) 5 John Stewart 6 "Good Clean Fun" b/w "Mommy and Daddy" released (1969) 6 Henry Diltz (1938) 7 20th Anniversary Reunion with Michael Nesmith at the Greek

Theater. 8 Hollywood Reporter runs "Madness!! Auditions" ad for The Mon-

Birthdays and

other special

events

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kees (1965) 8 Irwin Charone 9 Variety runs "Madness!!" ad for The Monkees (1965) 9 The Monkees moves from Saturday morning reruns on CBS to

NBC (1972) 9 Stu Phillips 10 Jessica Nesmith (1970) 10 Nurit Wilde 10 Danny Huttion 11 LA radio station 93/KHJ Boss Radio sponsors "Last Train To

Clarksville" promotion (1966) 11 The Monkees begins it's second season on NBC "It's A Nice

Place To Visit (1967) 12 "Royal Flush" (1966) 12 The Monkees TV Show airs (1966) 13 The Monkees returns to television as part of the Saturday morn-

ing line-up on CBS (1969) 13 Micky on "Adam-12" on NBC 14 Barry Cowsill 16 Helene Winston 17 Steve Blauner 17 David Jones/Micky Dolenz, Worlds of Fun, Kansas City, Mis-

souri (1994) 18 "The Picture Frame" (1967) 18 Frankie Avalon 18 David Jones/Micky Dolenz, Worlds of Fun, Kansas City, Mis-

souri (1994) 19 "Monkee See, Monkee Die" (1966) 19 Paul Williams 21 The Monkees (minus Mike) at Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, Cali-

fornia (1987) 21 The Monkees tour Australia for the first time since September

28, 1968 (1988) 21 Davy on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (1995) 22 The Monkees (minus Mike) at Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, Cali-

fornia (1987) 22 David Pearl 23 "Circus Boy" premieres on Sunday night on NBC. Micky

(Dolenz) Braddock plays "Corky" (1956) 23 Second and final appearance on the cover of TV Guide (1967) 23 Kathleen Scott 23 David Price 23 David Jones in "Grease", Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse, New

York (1994) 24 Gerry Marsden

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24 David Jones in "Grease", Mulroy Civic Center, Syracuse, New York (1994)

24 David Jones at The Lady Luck Casino, Bettendorf, Iowa (1999) 25 "Everywhere a Sheik, Sheik" (1967) 25 The Monkees (minus Mike) at Harrah's (South Shore Room)

Lake Tahoe (September 25 through October 1, 1987) 25 David Jones at The Lady Luck Casino, Bettendorf, Iowa (1999) 26 "Monkee vs Machine" (1966) 26 Michael G. Bush 27 Micky on "Cannon" on CBS (1872) 27 Carl Ballentine 28 Kimmi Janvrin 29 Tommy Boyce 29 James Frawley 29 Jerry Lee Lewis

October 2 First official interview with Davy, Micky, Peter, and Mike for the

New York Times (1966) 2 "Monkee Mayor" (1967) 2 Talia Jones (1968) 3 "Your Friendly Neighborhood Kidnappers" (1966) 5 "Porpoise Song" b/w "As We Go Along released (1968) 6 The Monkees (Micky, David. and Michael) guest star on "Laugh

In" on NBC (1969) 8 Micky's first album "Micky Dolenz Puts You To Sleep" released

on Kid Rhino. (1991) 8 Bill Martin 9 Peter Tork signs contract to do The Monkees (1965) 9 "Every Step of The Way" video was shot in Los Angeles (1987) 9 "Art For Monkees Sake" (1967) 9 John Entwistle 10 The Monkees album released (1966) 10 "The Spy Who Came In From The Cool" (1966) 11 "The Monkees Present" Micky, David, and Michael released

(1969) 13 Lisa James 14 The Monkees album receives Gold Record (1966) 14 Cliff Richard 14 David Jones in "Grease", Playhouse Square Theatre, Cleveland,

Ohio (1994) 15 The final show in Sydney, Australia (1988) 16 "99 Pound Weakling" (1967)

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17 "Success Story" (1966) 17 Gary Puckett 17 David Jones at The Lady Luck Casino, Bettendorf, Iowa (1997) 18 Micky on "Larry King Live" (1993) 18 David Jones at The Lady Luck Casino, Bettendorf, Iowa (1997) 18 Chuck Berry 18 David Jones at Lockport East High School, Lockport, Illinois

(2003) 20 Davy opens his boutique "Zilch" in NYC's Greenwich Village

(1967) 20 Jay Siegel 22 Ward Sylvester 23 Davy on "Love American Style" on ABC (1970) 23 "Hillbilly Honeymoon" (1967) 23 Annette Funicello 23 David Jones at Kowloon, Saugus, Massachusetts (1993) 23 David Jones at Lockport East High School, Lockport, Illinois

(2004) 24 Micky on "Owen Marshall Counselor at Law" (1973) 24 Last concert on the 1987 US tour 24 "Monkees in a Ghost Town" (1966) 24 Jennifer McLeod 24 Bill Wyman 25 "Daydream Believer" released (1967) 28 "Daydream Believer receives Gold Record (1967) 28 Dave Evans 30 "Monkees Marooned" (1967) 30 Grace Slick 31 "Don't Look a Gift Horse In The Mouth" (1966) 31 David Jones "Evening With David Jones", Circleville, Ohio

(1992) 31 Denise Gauthier

November 1 The Monkees begin rehearsal for live stage shows (1966) 2 Davy on syndicated show "Dick Clark's Music Bag" on KTTV in

LA (1969) 2 David Jones, Peoria Civic Center Theatre, Peoria, Illinois (2002) 3 Larry Gelman 3 Lulu 5 "Last Train To Clarksville" #1(1966) 5 Peter Noone 5 Rob Grill 6 "The Card Carrying Red Shoes" (1967)

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6 "Head" premieres in NYC (1968) 6 The Monkees (minus Mike) at Five Seasons, Cedar Rapids, Io-

wa (1986) 6 Colleen Johnson 7 "The Chaperone" (1966) 7 Johnny Rivers 9 Severn Darden 9 Maria Pinho Gomes Da Silva 10 David Jones in "Grease", Cincinatti, Ohio (1994) 11 Filming of the pilot of The Monkees begins (1965) 11 Micky on "Boy Meets World" (1994) 11 Jack Keller 11 Paul Cowsill 12 Neil Young 13 David Jones on "Shindig" on ABC (1965) 13 "The Wild Monkees" (1967) 14 "The Monkees" (Pilot) (1966) 14 Freddie Garity 15 Petula Clark 17 Davy Stars as Fagin in "Oliver!" at the Hirshfield Theatre in Mi-

ami Beach, Florida November 17, 1989 through January 14, 1990

19 "Head" premieres Tuesday night at 8:30 pm at the Vogue Thea-tre on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood (1968)

20 "A Coffin Too Frequent" (1967) 21 "Monkees a La Carte" (1966) 22 "I'm A Believer" released (1966) 22 Diane Klosak 24 Davy on "Tennessee Ernie Ford" special on NBC (1969) 24 Jim Yester 26 Tina Turner 26 Bonnie Borgh 27 "Hitting the High Seas (1967) 28 "I've Got a Little Song Here" (1966) 29 Denny Doherty 29 Felix Cavaliere 30 Davy on "Love American Style" on ABC (1973) 30 Dick Clark 30 David Jones at Front Street Station, Northumberland, Pennsyl-

vania (1993)

December 1 David Jones at Shikellamy High School, Sunbury, Pennsylvania

(1991)

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1 Michael on "Conan O'Brien" (1994) 2 "Daydream Believer" #1 (four weeks) (1967) 2 Michael on "Later" With Greg Kinnear" (1994 2 Janelle Scott 2 David Jones at Marshall Field's, Chicago, Illinois (1987) 2 David Jones in "Grease", Uihlein Hall, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

(1994) 3 The Monkees play their first concert ever to a sell-out crowd at

the Honolulu International Center Arena in Hawaii 3 David Jones in "Grease", Uihlein Hall, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

(1994) 4 "Monkees in Texas" (1967) 5 "One Man Shy" (1966) 5 David Jones at Marshall Field's, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (1987) 3 Len Lesser 7 Peter Tork officially leaves the group after completing production

on their TV special (1968) 8 Davy on "Letters to Laugh In with Gary Owens" (1969) 9 Donny Osmond 10 "I'm A Believer receives Gold Record (1966) 10 Davy on "The Brady Bunch" on ABC (1971) 11 Teri Garr 11 Richard Devon 11 "Monkees on The Wheel" (1967) 11 David Jones at Circleville, Ohio (1993) 12 "Dance Monkee Dance" (1967) 14 George Furth 15 Rodney Bingenheimer 15 Dave Clark 16 Micky on "Conan O'Brien" (1993) 17 Anita Jones 17 David Jones in "Grease", Shubert Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

(1994) 18 A repeat of September 11, 1967 "It's A Nice Place To Vis-

it" (1967) 18 Keith Richards 19 "Too Many Girls" (1966) 19 MFQ records a live album at Club Quattro in Tokyo, Japan 20 Charlie Callas 21 Frank Zappa 21 Carl Wilson 21 James Elswick 22 Davy guest hosts "Music Scene" (1969) 22 Ivan Iannoli-Thorkelson (1975) 22 Robin and Maurice Gibb

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Monkee Shines

23-27 The Monkees first appearance without Peter. They occupy the middle square on "Hollywood Squares"

23 Cyndi Torres 25 "The Christmas Show" (1967) 25 Little Richard 25 Phil Spector 26 "Son of A Gypsy" (1966) 27 Davy Jones on "Ben Casey" on ABC (1965) 27 Karen Sue Schwait 29 Ray Nitschke 30 Davy on "Make Room For Granddaddy" on ABC 30 David Jones (1945) 30 Michael Nesmith (1942) 30 Beverly Ann Clark 30 Red Rhodes 30 Bo Diddley 31 "I'm A Believer" #1 (seven weeks) (1966)

Hope your great moment is the greatest!

Monkee News & Tour Dates Compiled and written by Kimmi Wright

(Lost at least twice by Mumsy!)

Monkees Make A Billion!

No, folks, our boys haven’t won the lottery as of today. I’m afraid they’ll have to deal with Mr. Babbit a bit longer. However………… WorldCat, the world's richest online resource for finding library materials, now contains infor-mation about where to find 1 billion books, journals, theses and disser-tations, musical scores, computer files, CDs, DVDs and other items in thousands of libraries worldwide. At 2:21:34 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday, Aug. 11, Anne

Slane, a cataloger at Worthington Libraries for 23 years, entered the 1 billionth holding in WorldCat for the book, The Monkees: The day-by-day story of the '60s TV pop sensation. By entering this holding information to the WorldCat database, Worthington Libraries shows that it owns the book so that librarians, researchers, students and other interested readers world-wide know where to find what they're looking for in a library. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

Fiddler Virtuoso Clements Dead

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Monkee Shines

Aida's Star Micky Dolenz to Be Featured in "Flights of Fancy"

Exhibit The artwork of Micky, who recently played Zoser in the final cast of Broadway's Aida, will be featured in an exhibition at the Long Island Museum of Science and Technolo-gy. Entitled "Flights of Fancy," the exhibition will feature the works of Micky. It will also feauture Muham-mad Ali, Ultra Violet, Blair Under-wood and Candice Bergen. The Exhibit runs Aug. 27-Sept. 18. The Long Island Museum of Science and Technology is located in Gar-den City, NY at 1 Davis Avenue on the second floor. Call (516) 572-4058 for more information.

*********** The new Goldmine Record Collect-ing Magazine (issue 652) has Micky on the cover and features a lengthy Monkees article. There is also a review of Randi's Nez book (which has been totally updated, according to the positive review).

Tour Dates

"Micky's 2005 Tour Dates”

With Coco

10/29/05 North Fork Theatre 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury, NY 11590 Visit them online at:

http://www.musicfair.com/

12/29-30/05 Monticello Raceway

204 Route 17B, Monticello, NY

At 77

Vassar Clements, a fiddle virtuoso and A-list studio musician who played with Paul McCartney and an array of others, died at his home Tuesday after a battle with lung cancer, his daughter said. "He had no quality of life since he'd been diagnosed," said daughter Midge Cranor, who added that the cancer had spread to his liver and brain. Clements' last performance was February 4 in Jamestown, New York, Cranor said. During his career, he recorded on more than 2,000 albums, joining artists as varied as McCartney, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, Hank Wil-liams Jr., the Byrds, Woody Her-man and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Clements, a Kinard, South Caroli-na, native who grew up in Kis-simmee, Florida, also recorded more than two dozen albums of his own. He even once recorded with the Monkees -- by happenstance. He was working on a recording session when someone asked him if he wanted to stay and play on another one.

*********** This might be old news to some of you but I don’t get paid to do this so you’ll take what news I have and you’ll like it! J Now, the all new biography of Michael Nesmith of The Monkees is out, with 75 new photos and 2 new chapters, with details on the 1997 reunion, ABC special and the only known photo of Michael with his father. Buy it online and get free gifts and free shipping! Not much is free these days. You better grab it and run! http://www.monkees.net/book

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12701 For Information call 1-866-556-4235 www.ticketweb.com for Tickets

visit them online at

http://www.monticelloraceway.com/ 1/07/06 QFEST Kick-Off 2006 Bright House Networks Field, Clear-water, FL visit them online at http://www.q105wrbq.com/concerts.html

Venue's Site http://www.threshersbaseball.com/

5/19/06 Railroad Daze in Franklin Park Frank-lin Park, IL visit them online at

http://www.villageoffranklinpark.co

m/events/

“Peter’s Tour Dates”

Solo

October 28-31, 2005 Friday-Monday Cult TV Festival Renaissance Solihull Hotel Birmingham, UK Website: http://www.cult.tv/ November 18-20, 2005 Friday 12pm-7pm, Saturday 10am-7pm, Sunday 10am-7pm Big Apple Covention Penn Plaza Pavilion 401 7th Ave at 33rd St. (Across from Madison Square Gar-den & Penn Station) New York City, NY Other info: Shoe Suede Blues will be closing the convention on Sun-day evening. More details to follow. Website: http://bigapplecon.com/next_show.htm Tickets: $15 one-day admission $40 three-day admission. Purchase through PayPal from the Big Apple Convention website

(scroll down to where it says "Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!")

Appearances scheduled with Shoe Suede Blues:

November 25, 2005 Friday The Mojo Room 4825 Bel Air Rd. Baltimore, MD 21206 Phone: 410 325 7427 Website: http://www.themojobalto.com December 2, 2005 Friday The Sit'n'Bull Pub 163 Main St. Maynard, MA Phone: 978 897 7232 Website: http://www.sitnbull.com December 3, 2005 Saturday The Turning Point 468 Piermont Ave Piermont, NY Phone: 845 359 1089 Website: http://www.turningpointcafe.com

December 11, 2005 Sunday The Towne Crier 130 Route 22 Pawling, NY Phone: 845 855 1300 Website: http://www.townecrier.com December 16, 2005 Friday The Bayou Restaurant 580 Gramaton Ave Mount Vernon, NY Phone: 914 668 2634 Website: http://www.thebayourestaurantny.com December 17, 2005 Saturday Dante's Firefly 350 East Main St. Marlborough, MA Phone: 508 357 8883 Website: http://www.fireflysbbq.com

Solo appearances, as special

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guest of Jeff Pitchell: October 14, 2005 Friday 10:30pm The Bayou Restaurant 580 Gramaton Ave Mount Vernon, NY Phone: 914 668 2634 Website: http://www.thebayourestaurantny.com November 11, 2005 Friday 9pm Dante's Firefly 350 East Main St. Marlborough, MA Phone: 508 357 8883 Website: http://www.fireflysbbq.com December 16, 2005 Friday Wolf Den at the Mohegan Sun Casino 1 Mohegan Sun Blvd. Uncasville, CT Phone: (860) 862 8000 Website: Casino: http://www.mohegansun.com; Wolf Den Schedule: http://mohegansun.com/sports_entertainment/wolf_den_schedule.jsp December 9, 2005 Friday 2 Shows

8pm and 10pm Chan's 267 Main St. Woonsocket, RI Phone: 401 765 1900 Website: http://chanseggrollsandjazz.com/ January 13-14, 2006 Friday / Satur-

day 9pm

Matterhorn 4969 Mountain Rd. Stowe, VT Phone: 802 253 8198 Website: http://www.matterhornbar.com February 4, 2006 Saturday 8pm The Center for Arts in Natick 14 Summer St. Natick, MA Phone: 508 647 0097 Website: http://www.natickarts.org

“David’s Tour Dates”

November 12, 2005 Silverton Casino

Las Vegas, NV

Saturday November 19, 2005 B.B. Kings Blues Club

NYC

Sunday, November 20, 2005 Grand Opera House

Wilmington, Delaware

Sat February 18 2006 Paramount Center

Peekskill, NY November 12,

2005 Silverton Casino

Las Vegas, NV

Saturday November 19, 2005 B.B. Kings Blues Club

NYC

Sunday, November 20, 2005 Grand Opera House

Wilmington, Delaware

Sat February 18 2006 Paramount Center

Peekskill, NY

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Bonnie: As some SLASH most of you know, I have seen David perform once (if not twice): as far North as Lake Superior, Wisconsin; as far South as Biloxi, Mississip-pi; as far East as NewYork City, New York; and as far West as Los Angeles, Cali-fornia (North-South-East-West).

Cindy: Wait a mi-nute….That’s Herman’s Her-mits!

Bonnie: In nineteen years of "Monkee Shines", Cindy and I can now say that we have seen David perform in one time zone whilst we were sitting in another.

Cindy: Giving a whole new meaning to “across the pond.”

Kimmi: The Santa Maria sailed in and gave tours of the ocean front.

Bonnie: It all began on May 31 when Kimmi and Cindy

met me for lunch at Lunardi's in Davenport. We tossed around the idea of traveling to Omaha on Saturday, June 11 to see David perform at the "Taste of Omaha". Craig had surfed the web and found their official website with lots of information about the festi-val. It would have been ideal for Craig, Hannah, and I to go as a family since there is a great zoo (Henry Doorly) in Omaha, but our fellowship committee at church had been asked to help with an ordination banquet on Sun-day, June 12. It was an obli-gation we needed to keep, and that's all I'm going to say about that! Craig said he would stay home with Han-nah on Saturday. They made plans to go to a free lunch (courtesy of Craig's eye sur-geon), see the movie "Madagascar", have dinner at "Texas Roadhouse", and visit Border's bookstore. Cindy and I just needed to be home around noon on Sunday so that I would be able to help at the church at 3:00 pm. Ironi-

WHEN YOU'RE IN ROME (ROAM) or

THE PRICE IS RIGHT TOUR

Another She Said/She Said Production

By Bonnie Borgh, Cindy Bryant, & Kimmi Janvrin

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cally, Kimmi and her friend, Lori, had already made plans to be in Omaha that weekend for a Renaissance festival. Kimmi said she and Lori would meet us (at the dock of the bay) before the show.

Cindy: There was no way I could go. Work has been nuts. One day I work 13 hours and the next we are sent home early. As much as I hate the thought of passing up a day spent with Bonnie and Kimmi, not to mention a Close Encounter Of The Jones Kind, I didn’t see how I could go. Plus, these days I have to choose my shows carefully. Gone are the good old days when I could walk miles and stand for hours waiting for a show. But on the Tuesday before the show which was on a Saturday, I was called into work at 3am, after 3 hours sleep, for the 5th time in three weeks so on my lunch break I called Bonnie and said, “Pack your bags…. I’m getting outta Dodge!”

Bonnie: It would seem the "Taste of Omaha" was abso-lutely free. There was a phone number listed on their website to call for information. I called the "Heartland Park" to find out about seating ar-rangements (knowing it would be difficult SLASH uncomfort-able for Cindy to stand for any length of time). The woman I spoke with trans-

ferred me to a man named Michael Mancuso (who unbe-knownst to me was the head of entertainment). He ex-plained that the stage was set up right alongside a lagoon SLASH pond. He said there were rocks to sit on, however, we were free to bring lawn chairs. Unfortunately for us, he estimated the closest seat was actually about one hun-dred to two hundred feet away. He explained there were boat rides available. He said there would be lots of food, wine, and beer (all of which was immaterial.) Thinking if we actually want-ed to see the concert, I said, "So it's like, bring your own gondola?'" He provided me with information about how to get there and where to park.

Afterwards, I spoke with Cin-dy and relayed the infor-mation I was given. We real-ized the likelihood of actually having any sort of "Close En-counter of the Jones Kind" would be next to nil. We de-cided if we were going to go, we would send David flowers. At least if we were not able to see him, he would know we were there to support him.

Cindy: It is sort of our M.O. We flower and run. I just don’t believe in hunting the poor man down and would rather just leave a little surprise for him to let him know we were there and leave the rest to

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him. I know that sounds hard to believe since the harder we try to stay out of the way the more we seem to run into him but it’s the truth.

Bonnie: I called Michael Mancuso back the next day and said that my friend and I wanted to send flowers to David. I asked if there was a location we would be able to have them delivered to. He said David would be arriving on Friday (June 10). He said he was not able to divulge his hotel information (no prob-lem), but I would be welcome to send them to his office. He said he would make sure he received them. I said that would be absolutely wonder-ful. He gave me his address, and I said the flowers would be arriving on Friday.

After work on Thursday (June 9), Cindy stopped at her local floral shop in Muscatine to order the purple flower ar-rangement. The note, which accompanied the flowers, read: "So close and yet so far away. We always thought you walked on water, but we did not realize this concert was 'across the pond'. Would you like to join us for fish and ships? Please call (He's got our number!) to turn this moat around! Love from the two purple dots somewhere out there." We figured when Da-vid saw the stage arrange-ment, he would get it; Davy

always gets it!

At 5:00 am on June 11 I de-parted Bettendorf, and promptly at 6:00 am I picked up Cindy in Muscatine. There was a good chance of rain SLASH thunderstorms for Saturday. Other than watching luminous cloud for-mations, the trip to Omaha was right on schedule and virtually uneventful. We ar-rived in Omaha approximately 11:15 am. (Omaha holds such wonderful Monkee memories for me. It was there on July 10, 1987 that I had my first Close Encounter of the Jones Kind at a booksigning.)

Cindy: How many times our paths crossed before we ac-tually met in Chicago!

Bonnie: Our Map Quest di-

rections were very helpful, and we found the Heartland Park without delay. It was a bit questionable as to where to park to avoid any strain on Cindy's arthritic knees. How-ever, we found free parking in a nice location. Armed with my telephoto camera, lawn chairs, umbrellas, sunscreen, crocheting materials, etc., we ventured off to find "The Mu-tual of Omaha" stage.

Kimmi: Heh, Map Quest was a great idea! Wish I had thought of that! And the sun screen!!

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Cindy: Amazingly, with rain

everywhere in the forecast and a few ominous clouds we never saw more than a drop or two on the road and by the time we got to Omaha it was a picture perfect day. I heard someone say that they had predicted over an inch of rain by noon and yet the skies were blue.

Bonnie: At approximately high noon, we found the said stage. Cindy and I set up camp in a little semi-circle cement pier. It was very sort of like a half-moon shaped area directly in front of a little lighthouse. It was unques-tionably the best "seat" in the house albeit easily fifty to seventy-five meters from the stage. At approximately 12:30 pm, I told Cindy I was going to take a (ten minute) hike around the "moat" to make sure it was the stage where David would be per-forming. There were several sound SLASH light techni-cians already on the job. I said, "Excuse me…Is this where 'Davy Jones' will be performing tonight?" A man replied to me, "Yes it is." I said, "It's at 8:00 pm, right?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Will they be doing a sound check?" He said, "The band might do a sound check, but 'he' won't." I tried not to roll my eyes. I thought to myself, "We already know that stars

never do sound checks."

Cindy: I have faced that sce-ne before! Right, Jon boy?!

Bonnie: I inquired about the band (Fishheads) performing at 3:30 pm. I said, "What kind of music is that?" One man replied, "Rhythm and blues." I thought, "That would be okay." Another man re-plied, "Reggae." I thought, "That would be okay, too." I thanked them for their time and went on my merry way throughout the grounds.

Cindy: What a lovely way to spend the afternoon! Lots of great music! It really was very good. Omaha has a wealth of talented musicians.

Kimmi: Indeed they do! While you were kickin’ back to Marley, I was enjoying the best Renaissance Group ev-er…………….. The Jolly Rog-ers! RRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bonnie: The Heartland Park was a very lovely setting with carnival rides for children and a myriad of ethnic food ven-dors. (Food glorious food!) Of course, to buy anything, one needed to purchase tick-ets. For $5.00, you could get eight tickets. I thought, "This is going to be a math game, and I forgot my calculator." I strolled by a booth where a man was giving away free copies of the newspaper. He

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said, "Do you read the 'Omaha World Herald'?" I said, "No, I don't live here. I live in the Quad Cities." He said, "Do you read the 'Quad City Times'?" I said, "No." He said, "Me neither. I used to work for them. Where do you live?" I said, "Bettendorf." He said, "No wonder…" I'm not exactly sure what that was supposed to mean, but I took a copy of the newspaper thinking it would give me something to read whilst Cindy and I wait-ed for the show to begin.

Cindy: I can just hear Ken sighing at your food dilemma!

Bonnie: There were nice re-stroom facilities at "Rick's" (cafe) close to where the Tau-rus was parked. I thought, "I'm not using those Porta-Potty's." I grabbed some fro-zen water out of the cooler in the car and headed back to our campsite. As it was lunch time, I found a ticket booth. I paid $10.00, and I was given sixteen tickets. I noticed most sandwiches were be-tween six and eight tickets. I bought two cheesy brats for Cindy and I at six tickets each. In other words, we had four tickets remaining. When I returned to our campsite, it was almost 1:00 pm.

Cindy: I laughed to hear an older man standing near our camp explaining to his wife

that The Monkees were per-forming there that night. I grinned and he saw me. “What?!” He asked. I smiled and explaining that not all of the Monkees were perform-ing.

Bonnie: Just as we had set-tled comfortably to eat our lunch in the warm sunshine with the cool mist of Old Faithful in the distance and the smell of dead fish from the moat, I noticed an entou-rage appear. Although the size of a pea from our van-tage point, there was David. He was unmistakably carrying his briefcase along with Dave Robicheau carrying his guitar and Aviva Maloney with a little bit of everything. Once again, Cindy and I concurred how stars just never do sound checks.

Cindy: Absolutely! Well, al-most never…. right, Jon boy?

Bonnie: With my 300 mm lens, I could see David was wearing a nice pair of Levi jeans. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the spray of the geyser to spot it. David per-formed parts of "It's Nice To Be With You" and "She Hangs Out". Meanwhile, Cin-dy crocheted her doily while I perused the paper in search of an article featuring the "Taste of Omaha". I should have paid greater attention to Hannah's Curious George

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book where Curious George made little boats out of news-papers. We thought David would appreciate a fleet. Un-fortunately, we missed the boat again when we thought how appropriate a motorized vessel would have been to send a "Message In A Bottle" across the pond. We could just hear David sing any one of our numerous requests: "Ferry Across The Mercy", "Misty", "Sunshine On My Shoulders", "Michael Row The Boat Ashore", or "Smoke On The Water". Cindy and I had passed numerous boats in tow along I80, and we con-templated re-routing one to Omaha. We sure could have used one there. Of course, there were the $2.00 gondola rides which breezed by the stage. For private "cruises", it was $15.00 for a couple or $10.00 for an individual. Also listed was an "extended cruise" for thirty minutes for $35.00. Sadly, I think those excursions were by prior ap-pointment only, and just the $2.00 rides were operational.

Cindy: Sitting there with the sun frying our brains as well as our skin, we thought of many inventive ways to get David’s attention. I remem-bered the wet suit we had used once before to “get it” and imagined the look on Da-vid’s face if, in the middle of the show, Bonnie’s head popped out of the murky wa-

ter and she handed him a note with a request on it. How about a floating armada of paper boats? Better yet a remote control boat!

Bonnie: David and his com-padres left around 2:20 pm at which time the "Fishheads" (who waited patiently in the wings) assembled on stage. They performed a variety of songs whilst Cindy and I con-tinued to roast in the sun. It was a tough job, but some-body had to do it. During the time the "Fishheads" per-formed, a sound SLASH light technician I recognized on stage earlier approached our cove. He propped his foot up to check out the acoustics of the equipment. I wondered. He returned sometime later, and I said, "Excuse me. Do you know Michael Mancuso?" He said, "Yes I do. He's my boss." I said, "We sent flow-ers to David yesterday. Would you know if those ar-rived?" He said, "Oh, I would have no idea, but I'll tell you who to ask. Tracy would know. She is in the show office." He gave me specific directions on how to find her. I said, "Okay. Thank you." He came back again and asked if I had found out about the flowers. I said, "No, but I was thinking I might. Would you want to give me those directions again?" He was very kind, and I set out on a journey to find Tracy. Along

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the path amidst hundreds of people, I passed a man with an elaborate camera. Along-side him was a neatly dressed man with a cell phone. I heard him answer the phone, "Mike Mancuso." I thought, "Of course it is! Who else would it be?" Since he was clearly on a phone call, I did not want to interrupt so I continued on my quest. When I reached the trailer where the show office was, I spied with my little eyes 'Mike Mancuso'. I said, "Excuse me…are you Michael Man-cuso?" He said, "Yes I am." I said, "I'm Bonnie Borgh, and my friend and I sent David flowers yesterday. Do you know if they were delivered?" He said, "Yes they were!" I said, "Awesome! Thank you!", and I promptly turned around. I thought, "Cindy is not going to believe this!" What are the odds?

It was close to 6:00 pm when the thought of food seemed quite appealing. I purchased another sixteen tickets and selected barbeque beef sand-wiches. We had four tickets left which were just enough for two bags of potato chips. I returned to our campsite to share my non-celebrity close encounter with Cindy.

At approximately 7:00 pm, Kimmi and Lori arrived at the park after a difficult pursuit to find available parking.

Cindy: Poor girls had been at

a renaissance fair all day liv-ing primitively in costumes that had to have been de-signed by men in the 90-degree heat! The middle ag-es were not woman friendly!

Kimmi: Indeed they were not!! That was by far the warmest faire I have ever been to. I was dehydrated for 2 days after that.

Bonnie: Thanks to cellular phones, we had arranged to meet at the ferris wheel.

Kimmi: Yeah, ferris wheel.

Cindy: God bless cell

phones!

Bonnie: However, I did not realize there were two ferris wheels on the grounds. Kim-mi said they had to park in Minnesota, and they actually found Cindy before they met me at the ferris wheel I had been positioned at. (I thought Kimmi was probably riding it!) After escorting them to the ticket booth to purchase tick-ets for water, I showed them where some "modern" re-stroom facilities were located. Thanks again for the tissue, Kimmi!

Kimmi: A renny goes pre-pared! (Actually it was just luck that I had them) You’re welcome!

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Bonnie: What’s a “renny”? Cindy: Duh! Someone who

attends a renaissance festi-val!

Bonnie: They were quite re-

lieved to have two "front row" chairs reserved for them as they had had a long day at the Renaissance festival.

Kimmi: I collapsed in the chair and relaxed in the bright, burning sun. It even-tually went behind the trees. I love trees!!!!!!!!!

Bonnie: At 8:00 pm, we saw David appear in the distance wearing a long-sleeved bur-gundy shirt with black trou-sers. At approximately 8:15 pm his time (7:15 pm our time) he took the stage after an introduction as "The Aya-tollah of Rock and Roll."

Cindy: The Wha????

Kimmi: And I did not recog-

nize the person that was in-troducing him! Davy men-tioned that they did not care for the airlines. We assumed their flights must have been mixed up. Hope to see you next time, Loafy and Sandy!

Bonnie: Using my 300 mm lens, I noticed there was something wrong with the picture. Mark Clarke, Sandy Gennaro, and Dave Alexan-

der were missing. I called Janet on my cell phone. Be-sides being in "Roam" (Or was it Venice?), I was down to one bar left on my battery. At least Janet heard David's opening line and "I'm A Be-liever".

David began the concert by saying something to the ef-fect that in all of his years of show business, he could fi-nally say he could see Davy Jones' locker. He also re-ferred to the aesthetic water as a "moat".

Cindy: Smelled like a cess pool! Thoughts of us simply walking across that stagnant pool to hand David a note crossed my heat-addled mind! Where was that alliga-tor, Kimmi?

Kimmi: Lurking in The Atlan-

tic right under my feet!

Bonnie: We thought it had to be a challenge for him per-forming to an audience across the barrier reef. His stage dialogue SLASH songs would likely seem as if he were talking SLASH perform-ing with SLASH for himself.

Cindy: Maybe we could send up a flare to let him know there was an audience!

Kimmi: He seemed very lost.

Bonnie: For the record, Da-

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vid performed: "I'm A Believ-er"; "Look Out Here Comes Tomorrow"; "Valleri"; "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" (dedicated to Jack at the ho-tel); "It's Nice To Be With You"; "What Am I Doing Hanging Round?"; and "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Ba-by?" (dedicated to his mother and to all of the mothers in the audience). David com-mented that "his friend, Renee" was selling t-shirts and memorabilia somewhere out there. There were a lot of people in and around the vendor area, and we had no idea where she had set up the merchandise table. David continued with the song, "Girl." David talked about wearing hand-me down clothes as a youngster, and how his raincoat buttoned on the opposite side. In fact, he said, his trousers zipped at the side. He asked his Dad, "What am I supposed to do with this?" David's Dad re-plied, "Be like Elvis, son, 'swing it'!" It's always nice to hear new material. "She Hangs Out" and "I Wanna Be Free" followed.

David began "I'll Love You Forever" by dedicating it to all of the girls who had his pic-ture on their bedroom walls. He also dedicated it to a good friend and his wife from Oma-ha who he said were in the audience. Then, a complete-ly unexpected dedication fol-

lowed. He said, "This is for the two girls under the light-house." I thought to myself, "The two girls under the light-house? What two girls under the lighthouse?"

Cindy: Huh? I must have been dozing! I missed the lighthouse remark.

Bonnie: When I heard "Bonnie" (or is that Bahnknee?), I realized, "Cindy and I were 'the two girls under the lighthouse'!" Cindy said David said, "I see you…"

Cindy: He did and the tone was…I know you don’t think I do but I do!

Bonnie: I returned to con-sciousness to hear him say, "I've got her baby's picture on my refrigerator…How'd you like that?" [I remembered that I had given David a pic-ture of Hannah (when she was eighteen months old) when we saw him in Palos Hills in January of 2001. He looked at it and said, "I'll put in on my refrigerator."] Cindy and I both humbly waved to David from across the pond.

Cindy: After the show a

woman rushed up to us and asked if we were the girls under the lighthouse. She was our age but giggled like a teenager as she told us she

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had once written a letter to Davy Jones. These are my favorite moments at shows…. seeing the reaction of the fans who are seeing him for perhaps the first time. They are so sweet.

Bonnie: Speaking of pond, several gondola cruises sailed past the stage during the show. David had numer-ous exchanges with the pass-ing "ships". For example, he asked whether or not they served food on those cruises. Actually, we wondered where Gilligan and the Skipper were.

Cindy: We could have dressed like pirates (Kimmi and Lori were already dressed appropriately), com-mandeered a gondola, and sailed to the stage…

Kimmi: All you had to do was ask!

Bonnie: The thought had also crossed my mind earlier in the week about renting a wet suit and watching the show from a much closer range. I had my swimsuit with me as well, but I'm much more comfortable in chlorinat-ed water than in fish-infested lagoons.

Cindy: I knew it was a good idea!

Bonnie: Kimmi had also re-

ported that there was an alli-gator loose somewhere in Omaha. You never know, you know. Memories of Da-vid in "Scooby Doo" where the moat monster appeared also danced in my head. "Happy is the secret word, and if you're happy it will get you through…"

David continued with "Papa Jean's Blues"; "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You"; "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"; "Daydream Believer"; "I'm A Believer" (repeated); and "No Time." Sadly, the concert ended about 9:20 pm.

Kimmi and Lori had decided to drive home to Des Moines. Cindy and I had thought we would drive to Adair (about half way between Omaha and Des Moines) and stay there for the night. We had all agreed to get a "little late-night snack" there. Unfortu-nately, the nightlife in Adair was pretty dismal. Kimmi and Lori opted to drive straight home.

Kimmi: I got home, show-ered, snarfed down some sketti and hit the sack! I love my bed!

Bonnie: Cindy and I figured we would drive as far as Des Moines (half way home) and find lodging. Thanks to those wonderful discount travel guides, we found a coupon

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for Super 8 for $44.99 at about 12:30 am. There was a Perkins' restaurant about two blocks down SLASH up the street. (I'm not sure what direction we were going at that point.) We were both hungry and tired. The dilem-ma presented itself again about what to order at such a late SLASH early hour.

Cindy: Again a vision of Ken

shaking his head…maybe it was a heat stroke….

Bonnie: A listing read, "Can't make up your mind?", and I chose an appetizer sampler plate with deep fried onion rings, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, etc. Cindy referred to it as a "heart at-tack on a plate". What did you order again, Cindy? It was a healthy-start breakfast; wasn't it?

Cindy: Well, healthier any-way. I had an omelet. I am not so confused about when you can eat breakfast!

Kimmi: Good job! You make me proud!!

Bonnie: We got to sleep about 2:00 am, and we were up bright (I think it was mainly from the glow of the sunburns we had) and early at 6:30 am. We departed Des Moines at approximately 8:30 am. Our drive home was a leisure one. Cindy and I collaborat-

ed ideas about our latest ad-venture. I dropped Cindy off in Muscatine approximately 11:30 am. I had enough time to stop and visit my parents in Walcott on the way home. Craig, Hannah, and I arrived at our church in ample time for the 3:00 pm ordination service and cheerfully served (and cleaned up for) over two hundred guests for a sit-down banquet dinner. Nothing was going to ruin my Roman holi-day! It's true we weren't in "Roam" anymore, but I just couldn't "get off the Venice thing". Come to think of it, hearing David play was much better than being serenaded by an Italian playing a violin any day.

Kimmi: It was a good time but there was obviously something missing from the show. Better luck with those flights!

Cindy: I got my cell bill and it turns out I wasn’t Roamin’ after all! I told you I was Scotch SLASH Irish!

Bonnie: I’m German SLASH

English. Cindy: It was good to get

away after the month I had previous and the month I had after at work. A Monkee trip with friends is always a good thing!

By the way I was so burned

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that I burned through the gauze top I was wearing over my tank top and I glowed for two weeks! Ouch!

Until the next time……

The Gondola gets a good view of...whatever!

All photos courtesy of Bonnie Borgh

Who says star never do sound checks?

The girls by the lighthouse.

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A special thanks to Janet Litter-io for providing us with a copy of this wonderful radio inter-view. GB: Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re listening to the greatest hits of the 60’s and 70’s. Oldies 104.3 WJMK Chicago! [“Theme to The Monkees” plays] Oldies 104.3 There’s a big crowd here...Listen we have in the radio a rock star, a televi-sion star, a movie star, star of theatre, author of several books, songwriter, singer, musi-cian, Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Davy Jones…[thunderous cheering and ap-plause] Davy, welcome to our studio. DJ: I’m just giving myself a round of applause. GB: I know, and you should. DJ: I didn’t know I’d done that much. GB: [laughing] DJ: Oh, excuse me, there we go. GB: Congratulations.

DJ: Stay in your seats, folks. Stay in your seats, please. GB: Thank you for coming. First of all I want to say “thank you” for all of the great enter-tainment over the years. I want to thank you for all the great music over the years. So many of my memories are attached to your songs, things that were important in my life while your songs were playing on the air. I appreciate that. DJ: Well, you know, I mean we all have those times in our life, and I think music mingles souls as they say. So I have some of those little times that ...In fact, the first time that I heard “Last Train To Clarksville” I was with Micky Dolenz going up the can-yon in Hollywood there, and we heard it, we looked at each oth-er, and we jumped up in the air, you know, and it was unlucky, ‘cos we weren’t in a convertible at the time. GB: [laughing] DJ: And that’s when he started to lose his hair. GB: Uh...[laughing] DJ: Really, I don’t want to go

WJMK Chicago—October 22, 2004 An interview with Davy Jones

Transcribed by Bonnie Borgh

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there, okay. GB: No, I’m sorry. DJ: ‘Cos I’ve got all my hair. GB: No, and you do. DJ: Um, Micky, Peter, and Mike are, you know, practically bald, but that’s another story. GB: I thought it was kind of interesting how you brought in a t-shirt because I was gonna tell you how great you look here today, but you tell me that peo-ple tell you that all the time. DJ: Well, no, no, not quite that. GB: No? DJ: People say, “You don’t look any different.” GB: Yeah? DJ: And then I look in the mir-ror in the morning when I wake up and go, “Who is that guy?” You know, it’s like, scary. But I have this t-shirt with an old pic-ture from the ‘60’s, um, uh, when we first started The Mon-kees show, you know, back in ‘66, and it was one of the origi-nal pictures that they did, so I thought I’ll put it on the t-shirt. GB: Yeah. DJ: And um, I’ll be able, you know, to sell them to these peo-ple that really need to go out

and get their eyes tested. You know, really. No, it’s kind of scary. I do feel...I feel very en-ergetic. It’s no reason why you have to sort of pack it in or have a retirement date or nothing like that. That’s the thing about show biz. GB: What? DJ: There’s no like retire at this time when you’re 65 or whatev-er it might be. Some people’s careers don’t take off ‘till their 65. GB: Well, I think if you enjoy what you’re doing. Why not keep doing it? DJ: Yeah...well that’s it. Find out what you do best, and do it. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s the secret to life, isn’t it? GB: Well, now here, you know, I’ve just read this long list of things, the rock star, the movie star, all these other things, but, and author as well. Uh, it seems to me that each of those are a different type of discipline. I mean, acting on stage is one thing, acting on t.v. is a different thing, and so on, singing in front of people is something, but be-ing an author is kind of off being by yourself. Is it not? DJ: Yeah. GB: Isolated? DJ: In a sense, but you know

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those, those mo...When you are yourself when you’re on the stage, no matter, you’ve got the audience in front of ya, I was on stage the other day and funny enough, I said to the audience, “You know, I gotta just say I want to share something with ya”, but while I was singing that song there, and not to be rude, [laughing] I was thinking about something entirely different. GB: Oh my. DJ: And I did. I went off, and I was thinking this, but, the song came out, the applause was there, they enjoyed the tune whatever it was, but I was, I was thinking ahead to what I was going to say to the, to the people in the audience after the song was over, but it got all mixed up in my mind, and I just, and it was just like out of just instinct that I sang the tune. You know, “Daydream Believ-er,” “Last Train To Clarksville,” “I’m A Believer,” “Pleasant Val-ley Sunday,” uh “Valleri”, and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You”, they’re all in the Top Ten. You know, so those songs kind of...It’s almost like learning your arithmetic or learning, you know, your capitals or your ge-ography or history or whatever. Once it goes in there, you’d be surprised how you can delve down and pull it out again, but the song, the song itself, when I’m singing it, obviously, I do it for a reason for the most part. I chose tunes because I think it’s

going to entertain the audience as well which is very difficult to do ‘cos it’s been about thirty-six years since we recorded most of those tunes. GB: Oh my. DJ: And you know, there’s not many artists around that, you know, sort of, still doing it after that…. GB: Well, and part of it, too, is that the people want to hear you sing it. They want to be there in person and hearing you sing it in person and to be able to keep it fresh and making it sound fresh, I mean, that’s part of your talent and your ability. DJ: Well, I’ve got a great band. I’ve got some great musicians, and uh, we have a few new tunes that we’ve been working on, and obviously, we’ve got a collection of Monkee tunes that are so, so varied because a lot of variety, written by Carole King and Neil Diamond and Harry Nilsson, Sedaka, um um, um Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, Leiber and Stoller, who had, um, um a Broadway show over the last few years. GB: Yeah. DJ: So, we were connected with a lot of good people and as a lot of the guys were in the ‘60’s, people like the Turtles. In fact, the Turtles were produced

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by Chip Douglas who produced The Monkees’ hits. I under-stand now on the t.v. they’ve got like a Turtles “Happy To-gether” happening, you know, so a lot of us guys from the 60’s and although not a maybe out of sight um not out of mind be-cause there’s all these different venues to play now such as casinos and the parks and the fairs that were never there real-ly in the old days. GB: I thought it was interesting The Monkees Theme that we started out with here today was written by Tommy Boyce. DJ: Yeah… GB: Uh who unsuccessfully auditioned for The Monkees. Did he not? DJ: Well, Tommy was a song-writer in the Brill Building*, back in New York, back in the early 60’s, mid 60’s, and what hap-pened was there was a lot of artists, um, coming into the sce-ne, The Beatles, The Stones, you know, The Grass Roots, The Turtles, and, and they’d already started singing and were recording and were hav-ing hit records, but most of the stuff that they were known for were copies, were covers, and all of a sudden, artists started to record their own material so therefore, there was a lot of great songwriters sitting around holding these great tunes such as Neil Diamond, Carole King,

Nilsson, Sedaka, and all of a sudden this norm what they were used to was no longer there because artists were coming on the scene and writ-ing their own tunes. It wasn’t just solo artists such as, you know, sort of Bobby Rydell, or you know Frankie Avalon, um, you know, individual artists. So, um, now these guys are writing their own material, and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote themes to the Days of Our Lives, the theme to Days of Our Lives. GB: Oh, is that right? DJ: They wrote “Bad Man Jo-se”. [singing] ‘There’s a little café on the other side of the border…’ GB: Yeah...yeah. DJ: So they, they were writing and doing a lot of material so we were very lucky in the sense that we got that material, and you gotta understand, um, The Monkees’ t.v. show was about a band. We weren’t really a band when we started, but when we turned down the, um, um the lights, and there was no filming going on, we plugged in the instruments, and it was our little ‘gair-ridge’ band. We played and played and played and played and played, you know. I mean… GB: When you say ‘gair-ridge’, you mean ‘garage’ band, is that

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right? DJ: Yeah, ‘gah-rodge’, yeah. GB: I didn’t know if you know this, but you have a little bit of an accent. DJ: Yeah, well, you know, I’ve been in the country two days, and I’m already speakin’ the language. GB: Yeah. There you go. DJ: It’s unbelievable. GB: But now tell me about that period...I mean as The Mon-kees and these guys all writing songs for you, hit after hit after hit, and I know the big thing at some point in the group was, gee, we want to write our own stuff. When did that start? DJ: Well, it wasn’t really the group. It was Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork who decided they wanted to get more in-volved in the writing. GB: Right away or was it as time went on? DJ: Nah it was pretty soon. Pretty soon into it, yeah. Pretty soon. It was after the second album. The reason it started was we were presented our second album with a cover on it and everything else when we were on tour, doing our first tour together as a band, um, and that kind of irked the boys be-

cause the picture on the front for a start was us all dressed in Thom McAn shoes and JC Pen-ney clothes. GB: Yeah. DJ: And all of the rest of the stuff that they doctored us up in which were freebies, give-aways, whatever, we were all part of one particular deal, and they had other deals going on so on the front of the second album, More of the Monkees, there were the boys dressed in JC Penney clothes and Thom McAn shoes. GB: Well, I went out and bought those JC Penney clothes and shoes, thanks to you guys. DJ: Well, that was the inten-tion. So all of a sudden, the guys said, “Well, you know, I don’t dress like that. I don’t want to do that, but I think they kind of lost the point in a way. I think Micky Dolenz and I being the professional actors, um, entertainers, that had done oth-er stuff before, and it wasn’t just the first time we’d ever done anything, um, it was pretty much the first time Mike and Micky, uh, Mike and Peter had been on the, on the screen and were involved with the televi-sion situation so they didn’t really totally understand the whole picture, although Mike Nesmith was very smart be-cause every single we had, he

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had the “B” side, and the “B” side makes as much as the “A” side, and he published his own stuff, whereas a lot of the tunes that I wrote during those days and Micky and Peter wrote were published by Screen Gems Columbia Music, um, where Mike already had that, you know, in, in place, and he knew what he wanted from that, and he knew the benefits. I under...I didn’t know why he was driving an Eldorado Cadil-lac [GB laughing], and I was driving a Karmann Ghia, that was like fifteen years old. Do you know what I mean? GB: Do you remember how much you made as, as a Mon-kee when you…? DJ: Yeah, four hundred dollars a week was the first paycheck. GB: Four hundred dollars? DJ: Yeah, and the second year they upped us up to seven hun-dred and fifty dollars a week, so… GB: And that was just for the acting or did that include the music, royalties…? DJ: What? The acting? [laughing in the background] Well! How dare you insult me… GB: I’m sorry DJ:…with such a statement.

GB: I’m sorry...the natural abili-ties that were, you know, com-ing across the t.v. screen. DJ: Uh what? Thank you very much. Uh no, that was all to do with everything, and then obvi-ously we had a record con-tract… GB: So you got another check for all the records? DJ: Well, we did get a check, yeah, but, you know, I mean, they cross collateralized a lot of it. I’m not, I’m not griping out of class or anything, it’s all over with… GB: So when somebody cross collateralizes that’s a bad thing...Is that what you’re trying to say? DJ: Well, when we were break-ing down in ‘69, and the show was ending, and we just fin-ished our last tour to Australia and Japan, and we’d made a movie, “HEAD”, all of a sudden I got a check. I swear to you, it’s in my book, it’s in the book that I brought here. I’ve got a couple of books and a couple of t-shirts and a couple of pictures. GB: Can we give those away? DJ: Yeah, I wish you would, yeah, ‘cos I can’t sell them… GB: [laughing]

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DJ: No, no, just joking. No, actually, we have a booksigning tomorrow morning, uh, at Harri-son’s in um, uh... GB: It’s in uh...Where is it? Orland Park… DJ: Yeah…over by...yeah GB: 15845 LaGrange Road. You’re there from noon until two tomorrow… DJ: Two...Yeah, yeah, and then got a concert in the even-ing, but, um, anyway, um, the thing would be, um, The Mon-kees, there was... GB: So you got a check? DJ: Pretty complicated. Um, um, I got a check for $0.000, and why they would issue that, I don’t know… GB: [laughing] DJ: And then they started sending bills after that, uh, that took in, you know, like paper clips, and phone calls… GB: That you had to pay? DJ: Yeah...because it was all part of that Monkee expense that we really didn’t know about… GB: [laughing] DJ: We did get some nice checks from the recording roy-

alties, but over the years, it’s been a struggle to try to, to fol-low up and, and you’ve got to be in the mix. I’ve never been a Hollywood person; I’ve always spent my time in the midwest and on the east coast, and, and uh, I’ve never really gone chas-ing after what I thought I might get, you know. I mean, I even signed a contract when I was under twenty-one. Hey, go fig-ure. There’s a good piece of money in the bank there. GB: Yeah. DJ: I’m busy doing other things, you know, I’m really busy working with horses and writing books, and, and uh try-ing to develop a musical, and trying to, you know, to record new tunes, and you know and try to keep in touch with all of the other things that have hap-pened to me over the last thirty-five years. Life is...becomes very uh, busy. GB: Well, let’s talk more about your life in just a moment. If you’d like to call in with ques-tions, folks, the number is 591-WJMK. We’re with Davy Jones at Oldies 104.3. [Station Break and “Daydream Believer” played] GB: Oldies 104.3. Greg Brown, along with our special guest today, Davy Jones, in the studio. Thank you for coming in today. I really appreciate that.

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DJ: My pleasure. GB: Ah, “Daydream Believer”... What was going on in the studio while you guys were recording that song? DJ: Well, they say if you re-member the 60’s, you weren’t really there. GB: [laughing] I see... DJ: But, here’s the deal… GB: Okay… DJ: I thought they were gonna chuck this one out. GB: Why? DJ: Because in those days there was twelve songs on an album. Not like they jip you now. Okay. Alright? All these fast talkers, you know... GB: [laughing] DJ: So...There are twelve songs on an album. Well, we recorded thirteen, and Chip Douglas, the producer, who also did The Turtles, and a whole bunch of other people, produced them all, you know, and wrote songs for them, said to me, “What do you think about this?” I said, “Yeah, yeah. That’s the one. Throw that one out.” He says, “No, this one’s for the single.” [laughing] So I said, “Huh...ah good idea. I’m

glad I thought of that.” GB: [laughing] DJ: Yeah, right. So, no, and at the beginning of it, ‘cos I was used to going in there, cause normally what they do was put the tracks down to these songs. See this is a t.v. show about a band, so, the studio musicians would go in, put the tracks down, we’d go in there in the evening, and we’d sing. GB: So wait...You’d shoot all day? DJ: Shoot all day. GB: And then go out to the studio at night and sing? DJ: Yeah, well, they’d ask for volunteers... GB: Oh my… DJ:...and most of the time I’d get caught out, and Micky, Mike, and Peter would take a step backwards. GB: [laughing] DJ: And that’s how I became one of the singers. GB: I see. DJ: Micky sang some of the original ones because he had a very, very good radio...Micky Dolenz happens to be one of the best singers you’ll ever

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hear, to tell you the truth. It’s just, you know, he just got hooked up with the wrong band [laughing]. GB: So you show up at the studio to record and then… DJ: Yeah, show up there, and then Chip says, “What do you think about that?” I said, “I think you’re right. Let’s get rid of that one.” and he says, “No, for the single.” So I go in the studio. I’m in front of the micro-phones, and when we finished filming at night, we only wanted to get in there, do it because most of these songs were sup-posed to be just for the t.v. show. GB: Oh… DJ: So they were gonna be the background in the t.v. shows, but obviously, as time went on, they got wise, and three/four weeks in a row when the song was on the charts and on the radio, they would play it and feature it every, every week on The Monkees’ show. So that was a clever way of doing it, but we made all of these tunes. Loads and so, I used to go in there, sing it once, sing it twice, you know. “Hey, Frank only did it once. I’m only doing it once.” GB: [laughing] DJ: You know, so, uh, I used to go in there, and I’d sing, and it got to seven, and I said,

“Seven? What number is this?” He said, “Seven. Seven A.” I said, “Alright, alright...No need to get excited,” and then I add-ed, “It’s because I’m short, I know.” But it wasn’t. It was just like a bit of fun, and in those days, you look back, I think Brian Wilson’s just re-leased an album with all kinds of little quips and talking and all kinds of stuff going on, and you got to understand the studio was about engineers and art-ists. About producers, engi-neers, and then there was the artists and record company. Artists weren’t used to, maybe there were a few in the past, you know, in the early 60’s, were into recording their own stuff, but you had a producer and an engineer, and so all of a sudden, you know, uh, guys are in the studio, and they just don’t want to have to sing the song and then leave and go have their cheese sandwich. What they want to do is, they want to get more involved. So all of a sudden, you’ve got artists in the early 60’s, mid 60’s, not singing other people’s stuff, but they’re singing their own material, and they’re starting to get involved with the recording, and they’re starting to, now we’re not a four track anymore, we’re on eight-track, and we’re on sixteen track, and sixty-four track, and it goes up and up. Now you got hundreds...We recorded a lot of our stuff on four track. So you’d get, the musicians would all be put on to three tracks, and then

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you’d take those three tracks and mix them on to the one track, and you’d be left with three. Then we’d put two more down and put it on the one that was left, and this is going down a generation, meaning that the quality of the sound would keep being reduced. GB: Right. DJ: Well, as the more tracks came in, you didn’t have to do that so you could put everything on single tracks and mix it...In fact, artists now, a lot of record-ing artists and producers, the artists will sing the song ten times in a row, and then the producer will go and take seg-ments and piece it together. GB: Oh my. DJ: One piece...and it’s the song that didn’t start, you know, uh, uh, as it finished. It was like, you do twenty takes of a song, and you’ll say, “A1”… GB: Take the best parts? DJ: “Bar Number 7, Do the…” It’s, it’s a business. It’s not all about, you know, I mean, to me, it’s about live performing. GB: Right. DJ: And this is what I enjoy the most, cause it’s not on my hands. It’s sort of...I love flying in airplanes cause it’s the most relaxing time in my life. I don’t

have to answer a phone, and I do have ta answer anything. I just relax and read or sit, so... GB: Well, and speaking of gigs, you’ve got a job, a gig coming up tomorrow night. DJ: Yeah… GB: A show...At ah, it’s a ben-efit… DJ: Yeah. GB: For Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish. DJ: Yeah. GB: And the show will take place...Uh, where is that gonna be? Um, oh you know... DJ: Where is it, Deb? GB: Uh, here, I have it here. It’s at the Lockport East… DJ: Lockport, Illinois. GB: Uh, Lockport East Audito-rium in Lockport. DJ: Yeah. GB: Ticket information, you can call (708) 301-0214. Uh, you can purchase tickets up until about three o’clock today, and then after three o’clock, uh, I guess the person leaves or whatever, so you can come to the Harrison Bookstore or Harri-son’s Bookstore tomorrow, your

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signing, which is from noon ’til two. That’s at, uh, 15845 La Grange Road, and you can get tickets there as well. DJ: Yeah, it gives me a chance, to, to, to, to, you know, meet some people, sign the book, sign, you know, whatever we got there. Actually, after the show, we often go out and sign stuff. GB: That’s nice. DJ: A little of that. ‘Cause, you know, I sign Monkee albums I never even saw myself before, you know. It’s unbelievable. GB: Well, but it’s nice, too, that you do charity things, too, and that you help out other people with your... DJ: You’ve got to understand, also, I mean, it is a business, and so although I do, um, it is charity, they pay me for my per-formance and the musicians, and they transport us in, and then whatever is left-over goes to the charity or whatever it might be, but you know, it’s all about helping other people. GB: Mmm hmm. DJ: And you’ve got to under-stand that, you know, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m gonna keep doing it until I get it right. [laughter] You know? But I love to entertain.

GB: But I think you’re doing okay. DJ: I love to entertain live. I love to get out on the stage and show off and tell jokes and tell stories and what happened to-day and where was I, and you know, it endears people, and it gives them a little bit more of a calm, and then it’s not all bang-bang-bang music-music-music, and I think the more people know about you, the more they can appreciate or enjoy you. GB: And I think something else about you, it is, it is show busi-ness, and to have the career you’ve had, to be doing the things you do now, you have to be somewhat of a good busi-ness man. I’d love to be your apprentice. What, what are some secrets to your success then? DJ: Well, as far as business, I’m hopeless, and I, I rarely have any money in my pocket. I, I, I, I went to get twenty dol-lars the other day to get, to buy a beer, um, uh, from my assis-tant, and she handed me the twenty bucks, the owner says, “I’ll buy you one, Dave,” and she snatched it back before I could even spend it. GB: [laughing] DJ: It’s like one of those jobs. I feel like...uh...the, the Queen because I never have any mon-ey in my pocket.

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GB: I see. DJ: And, you know, I have to, you know, sort of like, “Excuse me, but I see you went to the cash machine, yes.” GB: [laughing] DJ: “I’ve got twelve dollars, you know? Do you mind?” No, I’m not very good with mon-ey. As far as business, the only thing that I can say to anyone that is starting out in it, you got to have someone you can trust, someone you care about, uh, family member or otherwise, save a third, spend a third, and give a third to Uncle Sam, and you won’t be too far off, you know? GB: Davy Jones in the studio at Oldies 104.3. Let’s go the phones and grab one of our calls, here. I think this is, uh, Julie from, uh Streamwood. Julie are you there? Julie: Yes, I’m still here. GB: Okay and your question for Davy Jones? Julie: Well, it’s not a question. Um, Davy was always my fa-vorite Monkee. DJ: I’m on the (something) back here so I can’t hear. GB: Oh, put your headphones on there. Okay, go ahead Ju-

lie… Julie: Okay, I just want to let you know that Davy Jones was always my favorite Monkee, and I loved every song that you guys sang, and I had pictures of you all over my walls and so did a friend of mine. GB: Do you wanna take a little break here at Oldies 104.3? 591-WJMK is our number. Our guest, Davy Jones, at Oldies 104.3. Oldies 104.3 [“A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” plays] GB: Oldies 104.3 and The Monkees’ “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You”. Davy Jones, our special guest in the studio, here. We had a little telephone snafu before. Let’s see if we can, uh, try this in a little differ-ent way because I know you have people who want to talk to you. Let’s go to Bob. Ah, see, Bob here in North Judson, Indi-ana. Bob, what’s your question for Davy Jones? Bob: Well, actually, uh, it’s a story, Davy, when you done at a gig at Indianapolis Fair-grounds in about ‘92, and my daughter was a big fan of yours, and she was about eight years old, and she commented about how well you looked, but, uh, Peter and Micky really looked old, and I had to explain that those, uh, movies she’d been watching on Nickelodeon,

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were uh, were made long be-fore she was born. GB: [laughing] Thank you, Bob. I’m sorry, go ahead. DJ: Sorry, sorry, but yeah yeah, you’re quite right; They do. GB: [laughing] DJ: No, actually, I actually lent Micky Dolenz a lot of money to go and have his face worked on. GB: [laughing] DJ: The doctor did such a good job I can’t find him to get my money back. GB: [laughing] DJ: It’s unbelievable! GB: Hey, is it true that, uh, during that show that the pro-ducers would add animated twinkles to your eyes for the close ups? DJ: [Knocking and alarm buzz-ing sounds continues through-out the dialogue.] Well, actual-ly, in the beginning they were just normal natural, but after a while I ran out of twinkles. It happens to all of us. GB: [laughing] You ran out of it? DJ: I ran out of twinkles.

GB: You were twinkle-less? DJ: I had to rely on the prop department. GB: Oh my goodness. DJ: I used prop twinkles, yeah, right. GB: [laughing] DJ: Ah, no. It was interesting because I fell in love at least twice an episode in that show. I was exhausted by the end of the day. GB: I can understand that. DJ: Yeah, I had to kiss the girls, and what you don’t under-stand is most of those girls were about 6’2”. GB: I see. DJ: And they had me on what they called a “man-maker”. I was to walk on a box. See? “Man-maker for Davy!” GB: Oh no… DJ: And I go, “Oh God and look at that good-looking girl on the set, coming off to see The Monkees,” and they’d stand me on this box about two feet high so they could get a decent four shot. ‘Cause those guys were um, um a lot taller than me, well, they’re not that much taller any more ‘cos they’ve lost their

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hair now, but um, you know, I’m going to go back to the hair job, again. No actually, it’s quite actually, they tell me that, um, you know, this is quite attractive to uh, to uh, to uh a modern-day woman, you know? GB: Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ve got all kinds of women hangin’ around the studio, here. I don’t see ‘em when I work, but all of a sudden here today, we’ve got ‘em every place. DJ: Well (stammers modestly) because most people thought I was dead, you see. They want-ed to make sure. GB: Oh, is that right? DJ: Yeah, I think so; I’m not sure. GB: Well… DJ: Well actually. I’m pretty active, you know, I’ve got the horses going on. I’ve got four daughters, all girls. GB: Tell me about your daugh-ters… DJ: Oh my goodness. When you’re the father of boys you worry, and when you’re the fa-ther of girls, you pray. GB: [laughing] Is that right? DJ: For I was once a boy, yeah. I’ve got a twel...sixteen-year old; That’s like being bilin-

gual. You don’t know what she’s saying half the time. GB: [laughing] DJ: I say, “Can you please write that down?” And then I’ve got my twenty-two year old. She’s, she, you know, obviously knows it all. And then I’ve got a thirty-three year old and a thirty-six year old. Four daughters. They’re very very kind to me. They look after me, and tell me when I’m not eating enough and tell me that, “Dad, I think it’s time you went to work.” [laughing] GB: What’s the toughest part about being a father, in fact, being a husband in your line of work. I mean, you’re out all the time traveling… DJ: Well, I must say not to, to, the violins coming out, it’s a very kind of lonely, quiet exist-ence once you’re on the road, and you’ve finished your shows. You go to your hotel, you know, you’re in there, you sit in bed and channel change. And you’ve got to have an under-standing family, you know, as you see in the movie business still these uh, different relation-ships striking up and ending and beginning and, you find that it’s not what you are or what you’re doing, it’s who you’re with. That’s the most important thing. So, there’s all kinds of temptations to change your life and your pattern of

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how things have been working for you, but you know, those certain things influence you as you go along, and change is sometimes good and other times, it’s, it’s, it’s something that you didn’t expect, but um, I try to balance it all out by keep-ing in touch with my family, in keeping in touch with my friends. You know, try to be part of the band and not some guy that stands up front and dances around like a pork chop, you know? I mean, I like… GB: Sorry...a pork chop? DJ: Yeah. GB: [mutters] I’ve never seen a pork chop dance. DJ: Yeah, my little girl said to me, “Daddy, why are you danc-ing around like Axel ‘Rose’?” GB: [laughing] DJ: And I went, “Axel ‘Rhoades’? That’s my dance, you know? It’s the Davy dance.” GB: That’s it. It’s the Davy dance. DJ: Wait until Allen sees that dance, you know, get over there and do it. GB: What is that like, a Shing-a-Ling? Or what is that? DJ: Yeah, it’s the Shing-a-Ling,

yeah yeah, but it became Davy dance, you know, and I, you know, even when I did “The Brady Bunch” and I was on that movie, “The Brady Movie”, I had the whole lot of them doing the, the Davy dance, you know, and the Marsha Marsha Mar-sha. I mean you won’t believe, I’m walking down, you know, Michigan Avenue, and I get the cop across the other, that says, “Hey Davy! How ya doin’? Let’s do the ‘Monkee walk’. Hey Hey, We’re The Mon-kees…Hey, yo, hey! That’s Davy Jones over there!” You know, and I go, oh... GB: It’s better that than ‘up against the wall, buddy,’ if he’d said that to ya... DJ: Yeah, right. Well, that’s been awhile since that hap-pened. GB: I don’t need to know about that. Tell me about what kind of nightmares you have. You know, all performers have that dream that they’re gonna forget the words or you know, they’re not going to get on stage on time. What’s your nightmare? DJ: I never had that. My night-mare has been, on a few occa-sions, not very often, like this morning, I, I’m, I’m you know, singing at 5:30 in the morning, and I don’t have that problem. Um, uh, the nightmare is uh, when you get out there, and

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you’re just a little under your, uh, your best. GB: Umm hmm. DJ: But I think at that particular time is when I pull it out of the bag, and I am able to put my energy and myself into my per-formance, and I don’t really count myself as a singer-I am singing a lot better than I used to because I’m spending more time singing, and that’s the thing, [laughing] when you do something more often, you get used to it, it becomes... GB: You work on it? DJ: It becomes, you know, uh, an instrument, and it becomes something that, you know, you can rely on. I think when I’m a little bit under, and I go out there, I push it out there, and I know when to, to, you know, give a little bit more energy or a little bit more movement. I think that’s the stage presence that I’ve learned over the years. It’s not all about the vocal perfor-mance; it’s about the presenta-tion and the entertainment you’re giving the audience, and that’s really what I’m in for. I’m not in competition with anyone. I don’t have anybody that I look at and say, “I would like to be like him one day.” I’ve viewed a lot of actors and I’ve seen a lot of attitudes. I’ve seen a lot of people, you know, in my opin-ion, you know, that do and say the wrong thing. I met a guy,

and I started watching him after I met him about twenty years ago, and over the years I’ve watched James Garner… GB: Mmm hmm. DJ: Go through his changes from being “Maverick” to this, that, and the other, and I really appreciate his acting, especially when I saw him with Walter Mattheau and Jack Lemmon, people like that that he can ac-tually, you know, talk to and act with. It’s very difficult, acting, because a lot of people today don’t really bring it from the in-side and bring it out. It’s all about (something) across the, you know, the, the, the film and the animation and all those kinds of things. I mean, there’s too many gardening shows on t.v. There’s too many cooking shows. I’m going to have a cooking show, but not a cook-ing show, I’m gonna have a cleaning up after the cooking show...show. Do you know what I mean? GB: [laughing] DJ: ‘Cause no one ever cleans up! GB: Time to clean up after the... DJ: No one ever cleans up. GB: That’s a good idea. DJ: But, uh, you know, and I

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would like to have a show if it’s going to be a cooking show, cooking for one. [laughing] You know? GB: There you go! DJ: You know? Forget cook-ing for... GB: Martha Stewart has that right now. DJ: Oh really? No she doesn’t. Does she? GB: Ah, well, no…but I... DJ: Oh really? GB: She will when she… DJ: A little Bunsen burner in the cell there, the whole thing? GB: Well, I don’t think so. DJ: I understand Rosie’s going to go visit her. I didn’t know those two were friends. GB: I didn’t know that, either. DJ: Yeah, really, no, she said on the t.v. that, you know, she said, you know something, it’s a strange old world, there’s people get away with so much and just because you’re in the public eye, all of a sudden it becomes important. When you become an entertainer, all of a sudden, I’m better looking, I’m more intelligent, I’m taller [laughing]…

GB: What? DJ: All those things. You know, cause you’re not really, you’re just that person. This is why I like to make myself vul-nerable on stage or wherever I go. If someone shouts across, “Hey, let’s do the walk, Davy, you know, The Monkees?” and I go, “Okay. Let’s do that!” GB: Ahhh… DJ: Because what’s it gonna take out of my day? GB: Right. DJ: It can only make me feel good; someone remembers me and remembers The Monkees and had a great time remem-bering together, now here we go again, so... GB: And that’s something they’ll talk about with their friends for a year. DJ: It’s like the mafia. Once you’re in; you’re in. You know what I’m saying? GB: Well, Davy, that’s an inter-esting, interesting, uh, jeez…[laughing] Wait...Let’s talk again about your booksigning tomorrow at Harrison’s. DJ: Yeah, right. That’s right. GB: Which is not a bookstore; it’s a restaurant.

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DJ: Yeah...a restaurant. GB: That’s in Orland Park. DJ: Yeah-up. GB: So you like to eat while you write? DJ: Well...yeah. GB: 15845 La Grange Road. In fact, you can call Harrison’s at 708 226-0100. Then the show tomorrow night… DJ: Yeah, yeah… GB: Which is a charity event… DJ: Yeah GB: It’s a benefit for Our Moth-er of Good Counsel Parish. The show itself takes place at Lockport East High School au-ditorium in Lockport, and for ticket information call 708 301-0214, and that show starts at what time? Doors open at sev-en… DJ: Yeah GB: And then the show is at eight. DJ: Yeah. You know there’s so many things going on, so many people trying to raise money trying to do other things for other people, but that’s, that’s the value of life.

GB: Mmm hmm. DJ: It’s sharing your time with somebody else, and doing something for somebody else. So, I mean, I do a lot of stuff, um, development, you know, trying to get my music together, trying to get my next book or my next idea together, and a lot of time is spent doing these things, and that’s why we call it playing when we got out on the weekends. We come out to play, and that’s the greatest time. When I’m standing on the side of the stage, and I’m wait-ing to go out there, I’m going, “Whew, this is like...broccoli rob. Do you know what I’m saying? GB: [laughing] DJ: This is a good deal for me. [laughing] GB: Broccoli rob? DJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah. GB: Alright. DJ: I’ve been a vegetarian all my life, you know, so I like those little tangy tastes, you know? GB: Is that what keeps you in such great shape? Do you work out at all? DJ: Uh, not really, no. I don’t. I do like every other guy. I like a couple of beers at the end of

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the day, you know, I mean, I, I like the football game on Mon-day nights, and, you know, box-ing on Friday, and I just try, you know, everything in moderation. Obviously, there are times when I don’t eat enough, I don’t eat the right things, my skin’s bad, my, my, my attitude’s a bit out of the window, but you know, when you get there in front of the public, you know, they only want to see you as one person. You know, you’ve got to fight your way in some-times when, you know, they’re at the post office when some-body’s only two years older than you pushes in the line. Do you know what I mean? GB: [laughing] DJ: I’ve whacked a few of those old ladies out of the way, I’ll tell you. GB: I see… DJ: Have you seen them with their handbags and the whole thing? GB: Well, they’re in a hurry… DJ: I know...Where they go-ing? Say...why are you in such a hurry, Grandma? ‘Well, I’ve got to get ready for tonight.’ What’s that; closing the cur-tains, or what? You know? It’s like, they start getting ready for the nighttime about seven thirty. Don’t they, Grannies? It’s kind of interesting.

GB: You’ve talked about how you’ve enjoy being on stage, all of the things that you do. DJ: Yeah-up. GB: Um, your father wanted to be a performer as well. Is that correct, but he didn’t really, he worked for what? DJ: My father worked for the British Railways. GB: That’s right. DJ: And it was a, you know, just a normal job. GB: Did he have a little show business in him? DJ: Well, a little bit of that. My mum played the, the organ at church for, you know, the Christmas Nativity, and my sis-ters ran the youth club. I was in the Boy Scouts. All those kinds of things so we were kind of, you know, at nighttime we’d sit around and listen to the radio cause that was it. The radio, you know, was our entertain-ment. You know, that’s where we listened to our Wednesday night, you know, serial, and, and, you know, I listened to the, “Listen With Mother” when I was a little baby, you know sit-ting in front of the radio, listen-ing to the stories and all the rest of that kind of stuff so at nighttime, “Give us a song, Dave.” Mum would be on the

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piano, me dad would get his banjo out, and he plunk away on it, and my sisters would be singing, and we’d all be doing sort of, you know, imitating whoever it was at the time, and it went from there. My sisters and I went off to the, you know, the old folks’ home and the hos-pitals and then local shows that were going on and then all of a sudden, you know, it just hap-pens that I was the one. My three sisters were all involved as much as I was in local thea-tre and local things that were going on, but I was the one that, you know, sort of ventured out and branched out. A lot to do with my upbringing. My mother passed away when I was fourteen in 1960 and that kind of shook me up, and I de-cided, you know, I was sort of the Forrest Gump thing. I had to run, you know, I had to walk. I had to get away. I had to do something, and you know, all those things, you know, I prom-ised my mum that you know, one day I’m gonna buy you a fur coat, mum. You know, one day I’m gonna buy you a house with a bathroom, you know, and then all of a sudden as a four-teen year old, those things change, and your life changes, and it happens to us all the time, but I found, that you know, um, no matter what your prob-lem is whether it’s a little boy that’s got, and there’s a lot of young kids, you know fifteen, sixteen, that are kind of con-fused about a lot of stuff,

there’s always help out there, kids. Alright? If you want to discuss it, there’s people to talk to. I don’t care if you walk into the local police station or you walk into the local hospital or wherever it might be, there’s gonna be somebody there that’s gonna sit you on the side and help you sort out your prob-lems. So never think you’re alone; you’re not alone. There’s some-Well, you got me, bugging ya for a start right here, but you know, you’ve got peo-ple there, just all you got to do is ask, and you will get it. GB: Davy Jones visiting on Oldies 104.3 [Commerical: Save big money at Mennard’s!] Oldies 104.3 and Greg Brown with my special guest, in the studio, Davy Jones, and you have a special guest and a spe-cial song you’d like to kind of wrap things up with here today? DJ: Yeah, my friend Dave Ro-bicheau. He plays guitar in the band, and, uh um, we were messing around this morning, and this is a song I’ve had for many years, and I’d just like to share it with-I think it’s the story of The Monkees, now it’s called “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, you know, so…

GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD [FREE]

It seems like only yesterday I waved goodbye to my dad, and I traveled so far away.

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Monkee Shines

I saw the world; I saw the lights. I played the pauper, and I played a prince. I played the fool in school, and I haven’t stopped playing since. I’ve done it all all, from A to Z, And I wanna be free. All my life is just a stage I’m going through. The director has written lines for me and you, And we must act accordingly. All I know we’re are the great-est story ever told, And we’ll never grow old, We just pan away and fade to white. I got a job in a video band. We had them eating Corn Flakes out of the palm of our hands. They said we couldn’t sing; They said we didn’t play, But we were not free. All our life is just a stage we’re going through. The director has written lines for me and you, And we must act accordingly. All I know we are the greatest story ever told, and we never grow old, We just pan away and fade to white. I’ve been the lover in so many scenes. I play the part so well, but I’m still not sure what it means ‘Cause the only time when it

makes any sense Is just, when it’s just you and me, Then I’m free… GB: [clapping] Ahh...very nice...very nice. DJ: [laughing] GB: And you wrote that? DJ: I didn’t write that song, no, but this is a song that I’ve had in my possession for many years now, we just pulled it out this morning, and that’s the first time we ever sung it live so, uh, there you have it. GB: Wow! Thank you for do-ing it on my show. DJ: Yeah, yeah. GB: Thank you for coming in today. It’s been a lovely... DJ: Right. See you all every-body. Be good! Help, help your neighbor. GB: Alright. Davy Jones. Thank you. Check out the show tomorrow night in Lock-port. [“Valleri” concludes the inter-view]

Due to the sanctity of the inter-view, I restrained myself from any personal commentary throughout!

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Mister Davy,

Hair so wavy,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And Davy Jones Bearded Irises all in a row (we hope!)

The PFG Road Crew

David,

I like some of Barry Manilow’s

songs but, he doesn’t do much for

me. It’s not like he’s … DAVY

JONES!

Janet

"Have you gotten the latest issue

of AARP? You'll never believe

who is on the 'Flip' side!"

Bonnie

Kimmi and Kevin,

Congratulations again on your

November 5 wedding! Oh What

A Night! "You and I" made a

lovely choice as your first

dance. [It was a nice cover up for

the preceding song "After The

Love Is Gone." Seriously, who plays that stuff?] Best wishes

for a lifetime of love and happi-

ness.

The Borgh's

Janet,

I think you deserve a Girl Scout

badge, Girl, for keeping those

Altoids on hand and remembering the motto of "always being pre-

pared". You never know when the

draw span might be open

Bonnie

From Tiger Beat to

AARP...WHEN did that happen?

Janet

David,

I've sold the passenger seat in my

car. I'm paying for the rest of my

college tuition...your fans are very

generous:-)

Brian

From Teen Idol to sexy senior

citizen works for me!

Cindy

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Monkee Shines

Write to your favorite Monkee at: Davy Jones PO Box 400 Beavertown, PA 17180 Peter Tork 524 San Anselmo Suite 102 San Anselmo, CA 94960 Mike Nesmith Video Ranch 8 Harris Court Suite C1 Monterey, CA 93940 Micky Dolenz Agency For The Performing Arts 9200 Sunset Boulevard 9th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90069

Susan Bragga

5728A Gatehouse Terrace

Eau Claire. WI 54701

Maria Tereza Pinho Gomes

Da Silva

Rua Dominges Ferreira 159

Apt 902

Copacabana

Rio De Janeiro

RJ Cep22050-970

Brazil 43103

Jenny Hersey

31 Prescott Street Apt. 23

Concord, NH 03301

Beverly Ann Clark

2710 Crestmont Drive

Garland, TX 75040

Nina Totaro

137 Long Point Road

Stevensville, Maryland

21666-3639

Please make note of our new ad-

dress:

Purple Flower Gang

c/o Cindy Bryant

903 East 2nd Street

Muscatine, Iowa 52761

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Monkee Shines

E-mail Pals

Maria Tereza Pinho Gomes Da Silva:

terezaharrison@uol.com.br

Shane Worden:

idolthreat@prodigy.net

Janet Litterio: janet6356@juno.com

Barbara Woerner:

Wbwoerner@aol.com

Nina Totaro:

woolhat@atlanticbb.net

If you would like your email address listed in Email Pals please let me

know.

Congratulations! To Kimmi Janvrin and Kevin Wright

On their marriage November 5, 2005

We heard you got some great advice...lots of talk, lots of hugs, lots of

love!

Your friends in the PFG

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Monkee Shines

Will The Real Davy Jones HONDA

Please Start Up?

By: Bonnie Borgh

The above caption reads: THAT’S DAVY with his Hon-da car, above. There are on-ly five others in the United States. Davy had his import-ed from Japan. It’s a shiny silver-grey with dark gray markings. It’s a gas to drive. David’s radio interview from Lockport (October 22, 2004) (courtesty of Janet Litterio) in-spired me on another quest for unnecessary information.

In the radio interview, David mentioned owning a Kharmann Ghia. I vaguely remembered seeing a picture of David with his car somewhere, and I combed through all of my vin-tage teen magazines (to no avail) to find that Kharmann Ghia. What I did find, however, was a picture of his Honda (left). Giv-en that really was his car, I surfed dozens of Honda web-sites to try to find out specific information about the actual year, make, and model of the car. What I obtained was infor-mation about the Honda S600 and Honda S800 models which I found beared notable similarity to the picture. My question re-mains, “Will the real Davy Jones HONDA please start up?” Is it picture No. 1, picture No. 2, picture No. 3, or hidden somewhere in picture No. 4? The Honda S600 The S600, launched in March of 1964, was the first Honda car to be offered in two versions; a convertible almost identical to its S500 sibling, and a fastback coupe, introduced in March of 1965. Styling would remain

No. 1 No. 2

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Monkee Shines

pretty much the same, with the most noteworthy changes com-ing to the front grille, bumper, and headlights. For this model, the engine capacity was in-creased to 606 cc. The engine produced 57 hp at 8,500 rpm and had a top speed of 90 mph. With the convertible weighing in at 1576 pounds, the extra sheet metal of the coupe only added 33 pounds to the overall weight. The S600 was the first "mass marketed" Honda car. First of-fered with right hand steering only, it soon became available in left hand steering so as to be appealing to the export market. (There were a few pre-production S500s manufactured with left hand steering, two or three even being shown in some early sales brochures, but all production S500s were right hand drive.) Both the S600 roadster and coupe were avail-able in standard trim and a spe-cial, upgraded package called the SM600 which included, among other items, special paint colors, exclusive badging, a standard radio and speaker, a special antenna in the passen-ger side sun visor, standard

reversing lights, a standard cig-arette lighter, a standard heat-er, better cushioned seats, and a detachable seat track for quick removal of the passenger seat. Production of the S600 was much greater than that of the S500. In fact, of the three production engine sizes for the sports cars, the S600 had the highest figures. Honda built 3,912 roadsters in 1964, with production climbing to 7,261 convertibles and 1,519 coupes in 1965. Production dropped off in 1966 (as they were shifting to the S800) with only 111 road-sters and 281 coupes, giving tallies of 11,284 convertibles and 1,800 coupes for the 3 year span. Honda S800

The S800 was introduced to the world at the 1965 Tokyo Motor Show, and offered for sale in 1966. For this displacement increase, there would be some significant styling changes to both the front and rear of the car, while again being available in either roadster or coupe form. The early S800 would

No. 3

No. 4

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Monkee Shines

also be sold in standard and "SM" trim levels.

The displacement was in-creased to 791cc which result-ed in 70 hp at 8000 rpm. The S800 reached 100 mph and still boasted 35 mpg. The first 752 convertibles and 242 coupes continued the chain rear drive and independent rear suspen-sion of its predecessors. For the next 604 roadsters and 69 coupes, Honda replaced the rear chain / suspension configu-ration with a more conventional live rear axle located by four radius rods and a panhard rod, while retaining four wheel drum brakes. Thereafter, front disk brakes replaced the four-wheel drum setup, while continuing the live rear axle for the remain-der of the production run.

The next significant change came in 1968 with the introduc-tion of the S800M version. Aimed at the American market, Honda made changes to in-

clude flush door handles, side marker lights, dual circuit brakes, varied taillight configu-rations to suit different markets, safety glass, leaner carburetion, and more. (They went so far as to show a "USA Model" in the parts catalogues and owner's manuals, but no S800s, or for that matter any S series cars, were ever officially imported into the US for retail distribu-tion.)

All the changes were in vain, however, as the high revving engine produced too many hy-drocarbons. New safety and emissions regulations were be-ing introduced and the S800 did not measure up. Without the support of the American mar-ket, Honda ceased production of the S800 in May 1970.

A total of 11,536 S800s were produced between 1966 and 1970.

Micky and sister Coco performing in Kalamazoo, MI. Photo By Pat Smith

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Monkee Shines

Preface:

"Patience is a virtue." Traditional Saying

"Good things in life take a long time." James Pankow

"Good things...withstand the test of time."

Wayne Dwyer/David Jones/Janet Litterio

"What happens in Oshkosh stays in Oshkosh."

David Jones ************************************ Shane: It's been quite a time… Bonnie: Excuse me, please. It was the best of times. It was the worse of times. Shane:...since the Jones camp got rained upon here in Osh-kosh a year ago this past June. Bonnie: For the record, it was June 10, 2004 (one year and thirteen days.) Shane: As recounted in previ-

ous issues, both Micky and Pe-ter made it here to town and out again without incident, which was terrific. My focus after last year's Waterfest series was over was to get David back again for another try. Would Waterfest bite again after hav-ing two Monkees the previous year? Or would David's sum-mer schedule be too booked up by the time they DID bite to ac-commodate a make-up show? Would anyone want to come back at all after the drenching last June? Janet: Stay tuned Ladies and Gents. The answer to these burning questions will be re-vealed as you read on!!! Better get yourself a cuppa tea…you’ll be reading this adventure for a while. Joyce: Or a cuppa hot choco-late? Maybe a pitcher of beer, perhaps?!? Shane: These were questions I pondered for the better part of a year...

Bright Side of The Road David Jones at

Waterfest Version 2.0 By: Shane Worden

With a little help from his friends: Bonnie Borgh,

and Janet Litterio

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Monkee Shines

Bonnie: I thought you were going to say, “These questions and many others will be an-swered on next week’s episode of “Soap”. Shane:...while I waited for the booking process to start up again. This was aggravated by the fact that booking started a bit later this past season than in previous years due to a new change in venues from our old makeshift grounds on Main Street to a brand new, beautiful outdoor amphitheater a few blocks away. Janet: Beautiful is an under-statement!!! Bonnie: If it wasn’t for those power lines… Janet: No comparison to what I remember of the set-up last year. There were even enough bathrooms for the girls!!!! Bonnie: AAA Seal of Approval. Shane: For a while, there was some uncertainty as to whether the new theater was going to be ready for the Waterfest con-certs, hence a late start to the scheduling of the concerts. But wonderfully, thanks in no small part I'm sure to the many e-mails from a lot of you out there to the Waterfest organizers when I asked for your support, David was rebooked for June 23rd, and the countdown was

underway once again. Bonnie: Thanks, Shane, for being the official time-keeper. Shane: As time progressed, it looked as though the make-up show was going to be a reunion of sorts for me, with a great many of my friends who had made it to Oshkosh for one or more of last year's concerts showing up again for another go-round. Janet and Tom were in right away… Janet: We wanted to see Osh-kosh without the rain pelting us in the face. Oh yea, we wanted to see David, too!!! Shane:...and once Bonnie saw that the concert would fit in beautifully with a whirlwind tour of the state that she was plan-ning with her family, she had the entire Borgh family booked for Oshkosh, as well. (Even though her father passed away during the early part of that week, she still managed to bring everybody in, with her mother to boot! How she ever managed that, I'll never know, but I was sure glad that the Bor-ghs were able to come.) Bonnie: I was there physically. I won’t repeat my mantra. Shane: Over time, I was able to persuade my friend, Joyce, from St. Paul, who made the Shoe Suede Blues concert last summer such a special time for

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me, to come back in on the Greyhound and crash on my kitchen floor, too. Another Monkee pal, Jane Myhra, was due in from Iola, WI, as well as a new friend, named Pam, from the Monkeeland message board community. This was shaping up to be something quite special! Joyce: Crashing on kitchen floors…what one is willing to do for a Monkee, will wonders never cease! Janet: It certainly turned out to be something very special! Good things… Bonnie:...come in small pack-ages? Janet:...come to those who wait???? Darn it, wrong say-ing; But true!! Shane: The first hurdle to overcome was the weather. I watched the forecasts for the better part of a week like a hawk. They kept changing from partly cloudy, to a good chance of thunderstorms and back again. I recall telling Joyce in an e-mail that by the time she got here on the bus that I'll have developed a nervous tick, worrying if the weather would cooperate or not. Thankfully, as the day drew nearer, it be-came more sure that the rain would hold off. But, there was a price to pay as the forecast was for very hot and humid

conditions. At least we could deal with that. But why is it that every time Jones comes to town we get extreme weather? Janet: I think we know the an-swer to that one!!!! Bonnie: The thermometer was definitely “up”; It’s always been up! Shane: I now take you to the evening of Wednesday, June 22nd. Right around 4:30-5:00, Joyce was the first of the bunch to arrive back in Oshkosh on the ol' Greyhound. She had her own story to tell of uncoopera-tive bus drivers and nearly missed schedules, (at least I'm not the only one), and after a brief stop by the new amphithe-ater to check out the new con-cert digs, we headed back to my humble abode to get her settled in back on my kitchen floor, where my step dad and I took care on inflating the tried and true air mattress for anoth-er visit earlier in the day. Bonnie: What? No canopy beds? Shane: After a bit of unpack-ing, I offered Joyce two options for dinner. We could either or-der a pizza like we did the first time that she came to visit, or we could walk a few blocks over to the Park Plaza hotel and check out the surround-ings. Not having had the op-portunity to do the latter the last

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time Joyce was here, we ulti-mately decided on the hotel. And boy, were we in for a sur-prise after we got there! It all started innocently enough. Joyce and I were seated at a nice table overlooking the Fox River, and as we were sitting there, getting caught up on each other's lives, this vaguely familiar guy came over to the window by our table and made some comment that I didn't quite catch. After a moment of relative confusion, he started smiling and I said something like "Tom, is that you??" And sure enough, it was! Janet and Tom Litterio had decided to get away from home a little early and come up the evening be-fore the show. What a surprise! Janet: This trip was my birth-day present. My birthday was two weeks prior, so we decided to celebrate big and come up early. Shane: So, the four of us sat, ate, and chatted for a while. The next thing I knew, it was quarter after six, and Joyce and I had to fly out of there for a while. Bonnie: When you gotta go; you gotta go. Shane: You see, not only was Jones here in Oshkosh that week, but so was the Miss Wis-consin pageant. One of the grand traditions of pageant week is the Miss Wisconsin

parade that goes all the way down Main Street on Wednes-day night of that week. I had already promised my Dad, who didn't have an opportunity to meet anybody from the Gang last season, that Joyce and I would walk down Main and look for him, so we could all sit to-gether and watch the parade. Joyce: Wait a minute…I thought the parade was part of MY welcoming !! It was a pleasant evening, and it’s nice to know that they still toss out candy-even if the kids are the ones who get it. Though we did manage to get some Tootsie rolls in all fairness. Janet: After you and Joyce left, Tom and I went outside and sat at an outdoor table overlooking the river. We missed the pro-verbial parade. However, look-ing onto the river, for the entire evening I had the most gor-geous, relaxing view. Bonnie: I bet it was an “Incredible” view of whatever. Shane: As we were just about flying out the doors of the Park Plaza, I spotted Renee Favor at the front desk checking in, so I knew that the Jones camp was on their way in. Joyce and I quickly picked up some folding chairs at my place, hightailed it down Main Street, and found my Dad in just enough time for the parade

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to start. I don't know whether or not Joyce was impressed by all of the pretty girls smiling daintily and waving their beauty pageant "screw in the light bulb" waves… Bonnie: Is that what you call it? Shane:...but hey, they were throwing out free Tootsie Rolls and offering flyers for free mar-tial arts lessons, so who can complain with that? From what I gathered later, over by the Park Plaza, David was standing right outside of the hotel watch-ing everything go by. See, Da-vid? Bonnie: I think David should have been the honorary Grand Marshall. Shane: We really bring out the welcoming committee when the weather cooperates! Afterward, Joyce and I walked the short distance to my Mom and Step dad's house for a little visit be-fore calling it a night. Joyce and my Mom had a little shop-ping day during the SSB… Bonnie: Shoe Suede Blues, right? Shane:...outing last year, so I'm sure that the opportunity to say hello was appreciated. I know that my Mom enjoyed it. After getting back to my place, I found a message on my ma-chine from Bonnie who said

that they were still planning on "coming to my town" the next day, and to be looking for them by mid-afternoon. Bonnie: Thanks for reminding me that I called. I truly didn’t know if I was coming or going. Shane: The next morning dawned hot, hazy, and humid as promised. While Joyce slept in and played "sleepy head"... Janet: Joyce should have played “Sleepy Jean.” It was GREAT to meet you, Joyce! Joyce: It felt more like “Daily Nightly”-going here and there and back again and then…well you get the picture. When Jones is in town, the town gets moving…that’s to say if you weren’t in town for the pageant or CountryFest (with all apolo-gies if I got the name wrong). I’m not sure how the percent-ages breaks down, but I felt like we were in the minority; espe-cially when other hotel guests inquire as to why WE were town. It was wonderful to meet you as well Janet! Shane:...I took one final check of the weather forecast on the morning news, checked my e-mail, and made a round of calls to Kimmi, Bonnie (who wasn't home and apparently already on her way)… Bonnie: We left Bettendorf about 8:00 am.

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Shane:...and Janet to see what was what. After deciding with Janet that we would meet up for lunch at the hotel, Joyce and I killed a little time by walking downtown and checking out the local music store. While perus-ing (just had to throw that word in for Colleen's benefit) the goods at the store, my cell phone rang. It was Janet on the other end saying that she and Tom had just run into David at the hotel, who said that he was off to do a radio interview. Janet: Being as though we were on “your home turf,” I thought you may know on which radio station the interview would air so we would be able to tune in and have a listen. Thinking it was the next, best thing to being there...said with heavy, heavy sigh and deep regret...we wanted to listen to Mr. Jones as he was on the airwaves. Shane: Now this was some-thing that I had been wondering about for a while. David was nice enough to do an in-studio interview for our local oldies’ station last year when he was here, so I had been checking the station's website regularly to see if there would be any mention of a return engage-ment. There had been none, so I had kind of figured that there wouldn't be any radio press this time. So when I heard from Janet that he was

off to do an interview I was real-ly quite surprised. Janet: Probably not as sur-prised as some. Joyce: All I was praying for was not a repeat of the Tork incident last year better known as Hear No Monkee but this soon became a case of “Name that Radio Station.” Shane: Joyce and I quickly re-turned to my place, checked the station's website (which had not changed) and turned on the radio to see if anybody on-air was saying anything interesting. And while the afternoon deejay was giving away free passes to the evening's concert as prizes during the noon-hour request show, there was no mention made of any interview with Da-vid. That got me wondering to which radio station he was headed. The next nearest old-ies’ station is in Green Bay--a good 90 minutes away--and seemed unlikely since Oshkosh has a station (and market) of it's own. This still remains a mystery to me. Where did you go, David? He thanked "the radio station" for bringing him back to the hotel during the concert that night, but what ra-dio station was it? Enquiring minds want to know! Janet: I’m sure they still do want to know!!!! Bonnie: You Got Me “Babe”.

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Shane: Not having any luck on the radio front, Joyce and I headed back over to the Park Plaza to join Janet and Tom for lunch at the restaurant. As fate would have it, we were seated at the same fateful table from last year where "Jones" (note the quotation marks) joined us for dinner with such a big grin plastered on his face. Janet: I remember “Davy” be-ing more one-dimensional last year. Bonnie: I do remember that face. What a guy! Shane: It was there that I was able to meet Pam from Mon-keeland for the first time. I did-n't even know that that was her at first until I asked at some point if she was the one who had posted some questions about Waterfest on the website. Just another twist of fate, I guess! As we were just about finishing our meals, Bonnie rang up Janet's cell phone to let all of us know that the Borghs were heading into Oshkosh and would be at the hotel in just a matter of a few minutes. Janet: The tune of “Hey Hey We’re The Monkees” filled the air when Bonnie rang up my cell phone. Bonnie: By the way, that was a really nice welcome.

Shane: So, we all made our way to the lobby to help every-body move in for the night. Bonnie: With all of our “stuff”, you probably thought we were moving in for good! Shane: The following hour or so, if it had been captured on film and sped up, would proba-bly look like a Monkee romp. Janet: I never thought of it that way, but you’re right! Shane: First came transferring all of the Borghs and their gear to the hotel lobby. Then came trying to check in while every-body was exchanging hellos, gifts, and Hannah's stuffed ani-mals. Bonnie: We couldn’t forget Teddy, Gloria, and Toto, too. Shane: Of course, the Borghs' rooms were not ready… Bonnie: Murphy’s Law. Shane:...so we took everything into Janet and Tom's room for safekeeping until they were ready. No sooner had we ac-complished that than Bonnie and company could move in, so back down the hallway we went, luggage cart in tow. All this time, we were running into "pageant people" in the hall-ways, easily identifiable by the giant-sized buttons they wear all over town with pictures of

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their favorite contestants on them, and members of the group who turned out to be one of the evening's opening acts, Brother. Bonnie: I could tell straight away they weren’t with the beauty pageant. Shane: More about them in a bit. And while doing all of this, I was on the cell phone to my Step dad asking for an "on the fly" delivery of some extra fold-ing chairs to my apartment for the concert for those who came without. Bonnie: That would be me! Thank you again, Shane, for the Big Comfy Couch (I mean chair.) (It’s a Canadian show for children.) Shane: Monkee romp, indeed! Janet: Better than the emer-gency SOS last year for hot chocolate!!!! Bonnie: I remember that kind gesture, too. Although, those wine coolers were a nice substi-tute; weren’t they Janet? Shane: Once the Borghs were checked in, magnetic key cards figured out, and confirmation of extra chairs received, Bonnie, Janet, Joyce, Pam and I walked down to the new Leach amphi-theater to take a close look at the surroundings. Much to my surprise, the entrance to the

theater had not been blocked off or locked in any way, so we were able to just walk right in and take a good look around. The first thing that really im-presses me about the new ven-ue is the size of it. Bonnie: They come in three sizes; Right Cindy? Small, Me-dium, and OMG! Shane: There is so much more space to walk around than there was at the old grounds! The stage itself is quite impres-sive as well, providing good stage coverage in the event of less cooperative weather. Loading in and out has also been made much easier with very easy access from trucks to the backstage area to the main stage proper. Those are things that the old set-up just could not do. But the best part of the new venue, for me anyway, is that the old Waterfest policy of hav-ing people keep their folding chairs a number of feet back from the front of the stage has seemed to have completely disappeared. At each of the Waterfest shows that I have been at this year, people have been bringing their chairs right up to the front of the stage, and nobody has done a thing about it. What a godsend! I knew that this was going to be a very convenient thing for our Gang, hence my making sure that everybody who was planning on attending had a chair for the show.

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Shane: They were all put to good use, especially when one takes into consideration that there were two opening acts and we certainly didn't want to suffer from poor views of what-ever. Joyce: I certainly was im-pressed with the new ven-ue…having seen SSB last year and seeing the stage this year, it was completely mind blow-ing!! So it IS true that “Monkees Do Blow Minds.” I was grateful for the new policy of allowing chairs; considering all the music acts involved. Bonnie: He should have seen the moat; Right Cindy? Janet: I’m jumping ahead a bit, but we nearly had TOO good a view of whatever with the guy in the kilt. Thank God the wind died down…goodness gra-cious!! Shane: As we were walking in, set-up and sound check for the evening's show had already begun, with what appeared to be festival organizers and staff testing out the microphones and drum configurations. But by the time some of the "goyls" had taken a potty break… Janet: Did I mention the venue had plenty of bathrooms for the girls? There were no lines out-side the girl’s bathrooms. Where have I heard that men-

tioned before? Bonnie: Who is Popeye? Shane:...and had rejoined the group, David and his band were walking in the grounds direct from the hotel. This was my first chance to say hello to Jones. So after most of the band had walked past and I greeted each of them by name, I said something to the effect of "Welcome back to Oshkosh, David! This time, no rain!" as he went by. That made him stop for a moment. He turned, pointed a finger at me and said "This is your home turf, isn't it?" That was a neat little moment for me. I mean, I KNOW David reads these newsletters and likes what we do, but this was the first time that I actually ever realized that he knows exactly who I am in all of these stories and insane ramblings. Janet: Insane ramblings????? Whatever do you mean, Shane? Shane: That was big for me. In addition to that, after Jones had walked on towards the stage, Renee, who was also with the group, did a backtrack, walked over to me, and said "I don't think we've ever met be-fore. I'm Renee." After I intro-duced myself to her as "Shane", she asked "Shane Worden?" So, yes, I guess Renee knows who I am, too. I told her that I actually was fa-

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miliar with her a little bit from some of the times that she has posted on the alt.music.monkees usenet newsgroup, to which she re-sponded that she hasn't posted there in a long time because AOL no longer supports news-groups. Right after those two pleasant exchanges, I walked over to where David was chatting with Bonnie and Janet, and got there just in time to hear David ask if the amphitheater had been in place when he was here last year. I said that nope, this was brand new, and that he would in fact be among the first acts to play here. Perhaps Ja-net or Bonnie can recall more correctly than I how he re-sponded to that statement. He made some sort of a horse rac-ing analogy. Something akin to a jockey on a two-year old geld-ing, or some such thing. I didn't really catch that. Did any of you gals? Janet: I think my “some-timers” must have kicked in around that time. Remember I had recently added another candle to my birthday cake—the candle count is now up to 25. I’m sorry, I don’t recall Da-vid’s response. Do you Bonnie? Bonnie: Does anybody really know what David said? I was telling David I could see clearly now that the moat was gone. All I remember was he said,

“What was the deal with that?” As I mentioned earlier, those power lines made an immediate impression. That’s about all I remember. Shane: From there, David made his way backstage in or-der to prepare himself and the band for their sound check. Since I had my order for extra folding chairs waiting in my front yard, just calling out for some neighborhood no-gooder to come and steal them, I de-cided that was a good time to run back home and pick those up. This is the real beauty of the Waterfest concerts for me. The distance between my apartment and the entrance to the theater is less than three blocks, and it's just about a block and a half between the theater and the Park Plaza. If this got any closer, it all would be happening in my front yard. So, while the rest of the Gang kept vigil by the entrance gate, Joyce and I took off quickly to my place. Surprisingly as we were making our way back in, we spotted David and Renee walking back toward the hotel, while the rest of the band stayed behind and proceeded with their sound check. By this point in the afternoon, I knew that if we wanted to be secure about getting those cov-eted front-row positions for the show, that at least some of us needed to stay behind at the entrance gate and therefore

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form what would become the beginning of the line to get in, even though technically we al-ready were (kind of). So while Bonnie went back to check on her family, and Janet went back to wake her snoozing hubby, the rest of us just opened up some chairs, braved the heat, and "one, two, listened to the band". Before too long, we were moved back a few feet away from the main gate, but we still maintained the front of the line, and little by little con-cert regulars and locals started to join the crowd. By 5 PM the typical long line of early birds were arriving for the start of the festivities at 6. Bonnie and the Litterios returned in short order, sun screen and Altoids in hand, and were ready to go at the turn of the hour. Janet: Weren’t they the open-ing act??? “Bonnie and The Litterios?” They sing “doo-op” don’t they? Bonnie: Is that what it’s called? Shane: Once situated at the front of the stage, we were treated (that's the word I'm us-ing and I'm stickin' to it), to two opening acts. Bonnie: Yeah, acts… Shane: The first of which, a group named Brother… Bonnie: Don’t you mean “Oh

Brother”? At first I thought they were called “The Bush Rang-ers”. Shane:…was a pretty eclectic mix of rock and roll combined with the use of traditional in-struments such as didgeridoos, (as opposed to didgeridonts), bagpipes… Bonnie: Those were custom-ized bagpipes; I’ll say that. Shane:...and pan flutes. It was actually pretty interesting musi-cally… Bonnie: Musical, perhaps. Pretty, perhaps not. Shane:...although I am sure that Bonnie didn't exactly enjoy the political statement one of the band members was making via the T-shirt he was wearing on stage. Bonnie: I saw SLASH read that “Good Bush Bad Bush” get-up. What is it they say? Even negative advertising is advertising. Shane:...And to an extent, I have to agree as well in so much as it was a little on the vulgar side, and not exactly appropriate for a show that's open to all ages. I'm actually surprised that he got away with that. Bonnie: Assuming, of course, that one could understand

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them. The lead singer did have a nice set of teeth, though. Did you all see those Harley-Davidson boots he was sport-ing? I knew I shouldn’t have sold my H-D stocks. Shane: There was a young girl off to the side of the stage, ob-viously a groupie or a girlfriend of one of the band members, who was really getting into it--woulda fit right in at Woodstock. Janet: Yea, what was up with that? I was waiting for her to put on the love beads and a Nehru jacket or something. Joyce: She was just dancing to the beat of “A Different Drummer!” Bonnie: At least one person enjoyed the pre-show. Shane: She was just as enter-taining to watch as the band was! The second act was a blues vocalist and guitarist by the name of Sean Costello. Janet: I recall some comments along about this time regarding Bonnie’s husband, Craig, and tomatoes. Bonnie: He was animated; wasn’t he? He did a perfect impression of Craig eating to-matoes. Honestly, who invited those guys? They were cutting in on Jones’ watch! Shane: I actually liked him a

lot, although I think he was feel-ing a bit of pressure to keep his set short as Brother played a good long while, and didn't start right away at 6. Bonnie and Janet remarked that he looked quite a bit like a different Elvis we know, and no, it's not Elvis Costello. Bonnie: Actually, he reminded me more of Jason Priestley from “Beverly Hills 90210”. Im-agine that, wrong show! Shane: Jane Myhra, who had made a mad dash to Oshkosh after getting out of work in Iola, had joined us by this time, and thankfully took an extra seat that I had set up for her at the end of the front row. And then, (finally!), after sixteen months of waiting for this mo-ment… Bonnie: What calendar are you using? Shane:...David finally took the stage for his turn at Waterfest. I'm sure that Bonnie took care-ful note of the set list. Bonnie: Yes, sir. I have a job to do! In addition, I called Cin-dy, and she enjoyed twenty-nine minutes of uninterrupted show time courtesy of non-roaming night SLASH weekend minutes. Unfortunately, my battery disengaged (again). Otherwise, she could have heard the entire show in the

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comfort of her own home. Would you like the official set list Right Now? For the record David began the show at 9:25 pm and ended at 10:45 pm. David performed in sequential order: I’m A Believer Look Out, Here Comes Tomor-row Valleri Wasted Days and Wasted Nights Nice To Be With You What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round? Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby? Girl She Hangs Out Bright Side of the Road I Wanna Be Free (I’ll) Love You Forever Papa Jean’s (Gene’s) Blues A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone Daydream Believer No Time Shane: I was way too stoked to even think about that. In ret-rospect, the whole concert seemed to flash by in a second in my mind, yet some things do stand out. One of the things that impressed me about his show was how he geared his between-song banter to an Oshkosh audience. He joked that he had spent all year at that "hotel around the corner" waiting to get out there.

Bonnie: That was funny! Shane: David also seemed to have spent some time boning up on his Oshkosh trivia. He mentioned that he had seen a news piece on the television in his hotel room about the new amphitheater, brought up how much money went into it, and said that it was "about time" they built it. That got a good round of applause. He also knew that Oshkosh B'Gosh had recently been sold (Believe it or not, only the company's corpo-rate office is still located in Osh-kosh). While talking about that, he seemed to struggle with a phrase that he wanted to apply to the situation, and called on Janet to kind of, um, fill in the blank. Janet: It’s a good thing my “some-timers” hadn’t kicked in at that time, and I was paying close attention when the mic suddenly appeared in front of my face. Being a hair over 5 feet “tall” myself, my first incli-nation was to say Good things...”come in small packag-es.” Bonnie: Ditto! Janet: However, I figured out where David was going with this “Good things…” and I was able to “help him out :-)” Bonnie: There’s that symbol again! How do you do that?!

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Shane: Apparently the two of them had a conversation earlier in the trip that seemed appropri-ate to the situation. Who knew that there was going to be a test? Janet: I didn’t know I would be tested…good thing I’m a quick study. Earlier in the day, David was telling us about a book he was reading and wanted to talk about a certain segment of the book at the show later. He couldn’t think of the exact word-ing of this particular phrase. I got the gist of what he was try-ing to think of, and this phrase suddenly spews forth from my lips….”Good things withstand the test of time.” I hit the jack-pot as he exclaimed “That’s it!!!” after hearing it. Shane: Jones also seemed to know something of some other concert events that were going on in the area that week, too. In addition to it being pageant week, Oshkosh was also play-ing host to a large country mu-sic festival on the other side of town as well. David made a joke that he ran into some in-toxicated people who were looking for "Brooks and Drunk". He did dedicate Wasted Days & Wasted Nights, which many might recall was originally rec-orded by Freddy Fender, to some country music goers that he must have "stumbled" across while in town in the event that they were at the show. In addition to that song,

some of the more notable con-cert selections included Bright Side Of The Road (a great song for David's style), What Am I Doing Hangin' Round (which Jones needs to do more often--he does a great job on this one), and Papa Gene's Blues (introduced as a Nesmith tune). Another mental note that I made during the show is that David performed I'm A Believer very early on in the show, and used A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You as one of the concert's closers. At most Jones shows I've been to, the reverse has usually been the case. It's not anything terribly important, but I noticed that all the same. David's show was filled with a lot of the humor that many of us have grown to endure or enjoy through the years. From the I Dream Of Jeannie electric car-pet bit to the "ask the nurse, she'll tell you" joke, neither of which I am sure I need not ex-plain in any detail. At one point in the show, Jones looked down at me standing there in the front row and said "You can see right up my nose, can't you?"...a takeoff on the little skit that Da-vid has done with Dave Alexan-der in the past. But the best highlight of the night is when Jones was launching into I'll Love You Forever, a perennial favorite of our group [t.i.c.] Bonnie: [t.i.c.]? Shane: He chose to dedicate

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the song not only to all the girls (and guys) who kept his picture on their bedroom walls, but also to Bonnie as well. Bonnie: For once in my life I was paying attention. I remem-ber David said, “I know so many people here tonight. I can’t mention everybody.” Then he picked up his guitar and said, “Bahnknee”. My ears perked up. He said, “Your fa-ther passed away this week; didn’t he?” I nodded and said, “Sunday.” He said, “This song is for your Dad. Let’s remem-ber him together.” I was so very touched. Janet: That had to have been the kindest, most heart-felt ges-ture I have witnessed. Shane: A little birdie had somehow managed to let him know of Bonnie's recent loss, and he chose that moment to express his sympathy publicly. Nor would that be the only time in Oshkosh that he would offer a show of support in that re-gard. But I thought that the song dedication was something really special. I know that I'll never forget it. I believe that David said something like "I know that you know all the words to the song", (boy, do we ever), "so just sit back and lis-ten". Bonnie kept it together really well, I thought. I think I probably would have lost it if I had been in her shoes.

Bonnie: My Mom is the one “who lost it” when I told her about the dedication the next morning. It was an out-of-body experience that whole week. I was truly humbled by David’s expression. Shane: I find myself wondering these days if her opinion of this song has changed any since the show. Bonnie: As Cindy will tell you, I love all of David’s songs in-cluding (but not limited to) “Put Me Amongst The Girls”. Shane: One more little memory about the show stands out for me. Towards the end of the concert, a bunch of girls were walking out of the park, and waved and yelled goodbye to David as they were leaving. Jones responded in turn by waving back, saying "Goodnight, girls! We've only got Daydream Believer left to go!" It turns out that those girls were with a co-worker of mine who had gone down for the show. That little moment had really made their nights from what I gathered later. Cool! After closing with Daydream Believer and exclaiming "God Bless America" to great ap-plause, Jones came back out for an encore of No Time and left the stage shaking hands with just about all of us in the front row. What a great time! I can't believe that it all hap-pened so fast. It was such a

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good feeling to know that Micky, Peter AND David had finally had their chance to per-form for my home crowd. I hope that this is "only the be-ginning of what I want to feel forever", (Imagine that, wrong group!) Bonnie: Who writes that stuff? Shane:...and that all three will be back in future years for re-turn engagements. Immediately after the show, the usual long and disorganized chaos of an autograph line formed at the merchandise ta-ble in the hopes that David would come out to sign. I was really happy to see that after about ten minutes or so that he did! Not necessarily happy for myself, as Lord knows that I have had more than my fair share of chances for auto-graphs over the years with the PFG, but happy for Joyce, as she had never had a chance for an autograph or photo with Jones before, and I know that her experience in Oshkosh would be made all the more special if there was. Jane was brave enough to suffer the au-tograph line with her... Bonnie: It’s a tough job, but somebody had to do it. Right? Shane:...and managed to get a photo of Joyce and David that turned out pretty well on her digital camera. (I'll be sure to

get that to you as soon as Jane has the time to put that on a disk for me, Joyce!) In the meantime, the rest of the group hung out by the stage, and had a nice little chat with our friend Debbie Garey, who had came into Oshkosh for the show, as well as bassist Mark Clarke who had come out from back-stage nursing a sore elbow. Obviously oblivious to the line of people getting autographs from David, several security people were all too eager to herd people out of the theater, proclaiming at every conceiva-ble opportunity that the theater closes at eleven and not to loi-ter around. Joyce: I was thrilled to finally meet David-even if brief. At first, we (Jane, Pam, and my-self) thought that Jonesy might not make an appearance, but fear not, he did. I came with a mission, and that was to get an opportunity to see this man face to face. I’m glad I could be of help as well to Pam. You need to how to work these events, not to be pushy but resilient on NOT getting pushed around. It was a pleas-ure to met you Pam, and I’m glad I could be of assistance in our mutual pursuit. BTW, I got to take 2 pictures with David-uh, the first one didn’t capture my good side (a HUGE thanks to Jane for doing such wonder-ful job capturing it all on film)!!! Bonnie: You know how Gangs

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are! Janet: We didn’t seem to be exiting quickly enough, and I half wondered if our pictures would end up in the Oshkosh post office under “Wanted For Loitering at a Davy Jones Con-cert.” We should have posed as “pageant people”. Bonnie: I guess you can only fool some of the people some of the time. Shane: Once Joyce was through the autograph line, and Jane and I had stashed our big lot of folding chairs into her car's trunk for some temporary safekeeping, we headed over to the Park Plaza for a little night-cap. Surprisingly, (or maybe NOT so surprisingly) the entire lounge was mainly packed with "pageant people". I seem to remember that one of them had actually asked Janet if she was a mother of one of the contest-ants! Janet: You remembered cor-rectly, Shane. I was minding my own business, ordering up a “lemonade” when this woman asks me if I’m the Mom of one of the beauty contestants. Why she felt the need to chat with me is a mystery. She wouldn’t accept that there were no beau-ty contestants in my family…I thought I was going to have to phone home for my sons’…both

boys….birth certificates. I ex-plained that I do not have a daughter, I have two sons….both boys…Brian age 20, and David age 16—they both play soccer, while they are handsome, they are not in any beauty pageant. That seemed to satisfy her for a moment. She then proceeds to ask if I was here for the country and west-ern gig. Come on…all I wanted was a “lemonade” ... Bonnie: That’s what they all say! Janet: I didn’t want to be inter-rogated. I still don’t know how she knew I didn’t belong in Oshkosh. Maybe it’s my south side Chicago accent or some-thing. Anyway…I said I wasn’t here for the country jambo-ree…check my feet, I was wearing sandals, not cowboy boots. AGAIN, I told her that I was here to see Davy Jones. I should have bought her another martini, she wouldn’t have cared who I was or why I was there. I still don’t know why she seemed to think my answers were deceptive. Shane: I was also rather dis-mayed to see that the lounge deejays who were there every Thursday night playing 80's music last summer were no-where to be found this year. Bummer. Janet: Maybe they were on tour. I think they were the open-

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ing act for “Bonnie and The Lit-terio’s”. Bonnie: Well, we needed something… Shane: We did see some as-sorted... Bonnie: Don’t you mean “sordid”? Shane:...people from the evening's two opening acts come in and out. Unfortunately, nobody had brought a didgeri-doo with them. Bonnie: That thing needed a lens or something. Shane: I sat around with the Gang for a little bit, but after a drink or two, Jane needed to head back for home in Iola, and Joyce and I needed an early start in the morning in order to get Joyce packed and ready for her return bus trip back home. So after some goodnights, Jane dropped the two of us and our lawn chairs back at my place and she was on her way. Thanks for coming down, Jane! I'm glad you could make it. Feel free to come back any-time! After a couple of hasty e-mails to Cindy and Kimmi to detail a few of the day's high-lights it was quarter to 1 in the morning, and still as humid as all get out outside. The 6 AM wake up call was going to be WAY too early. Oh, well. Who needs sleep when you've had

your daily dose of Monkees? Janet: Speaking of sleep, or lack thereof….the strangest thing happened later that night. I was just starting to doze off when above my head, I hear CLICK and music begins to BLARE. What in the world??? Then I realize the clock radio had gone off. Checking the time….3am. As the music is still BLARING…I come to my sens-es a bit and realize wait a mi-nute….the voice that is singing sounds very familiar. I’m hear-ing “Cheer up Sleepy Jean…oh what can it mean”….we all know the words. The three o’clock alarm never rang the previous night. Talk about weird coincidences!!!! Bonnie: Are you sure he didn’t sneak into your room? Shane: The plan for the next morning was for those of us who were "up and at 'em" to meet down at the hotel restau-rant for breakfast at about 7:00 the next morning. As Joyce and I were heading in the Park Plaza's doors at the appointed time, we were able to catch the tail end of a really pleasant con-versation that David was having with Craig, Hannah, and Bonni-e's mother in the hotel lobby. I didn't catch the gist of the entire conversation… Bonnie: Me neither, but that’s okay.

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Shane: I am sure that Bonnie will be able to report more fully about what happened--but I did hear David offering Bonnie's mother his condolences, saying that he's up in Heaven watching down on all of us. That was a really nice gesture, especially since David was obviously busy in the process of checking out, and Hannah was pretty anxious to get into the hotel swimming pool to play with mommy. Bonnie: I had been swimming “laps”. Man, was that water hot! How hot was it, you ask? It was 90 degrees. I told the maintenance man it felt like 90 degrees. He came back later to report it was, in fact, 90 de-grees. Believe me, I know my water temperature. At any rate, my Mom said David had a nice talk with her and recited to her (from memory) a lovely poem he memorized from when his parents passed away. I’m guessing it was “Love Still Abides”. My Mom said it was almost more than she could take. I’m not joking when I say that my Dad was my Mom’s “Davy Jones”. David told Han-nah (who was undoubtedly clinging to Craig) that he had her picture on his refrigerator. My Mom said, “I heard about that…” We must be a pretty important family. I’ve noticed my picture is up at banks and post offices, too. Shane: Joyce and I headed into the hotel restaurant to find

the rest of our gang, if not bright eyed and bushy tailed then at least contented and happy, looking through their breakfasts menus. It had been a fun and fast day and a half, and there was certainly a lot to talk about! Bonnie: I’m telling you, Shane, the length of War and Peace has nothing on us. Shane: Most of us decided on going through the breakfast buffet. After a couple of minutes, Mark Clarke wandered into our midst once again, and we had another nice little con-versation with him. I even let him steal a doughnut from the buffet line while I was going through for my "second break-fast". Bonnie: Second breakfast? Shane: Mark is certainly a very busy musician! He told us how he had to get back on a plane to the UK to play some dates with his band over there, only to come straight back to the States in order to be available for David's next show in about a week on July 4th. No rest for the wicked, Mark! After telling him that we'd be looking for-ward to seeing him again in Lockport in October, Mark was on his way and shortly after-ward so were the rest of us. Janet and I said our good byes to Hannah, Bonnie and her mother who were all still in the

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pool area. (No surprise there!) Bonnie: I was enjoying my [hot] carafe of chlorine. Shane: I knew that Bonnie would be busy packing her fam-ily up for the next leg of their Wisconsin tour by the time that I saw Joyce off on the bus and got back home, so I figured that was probably the best time to wish them all safe travels. After bidding adieu to the Borghs, Joyce and I said our good byes to Janet, Tom and Pam in the lobby who all were on their way to finish packing and get checked out. As the two of us were heading out the door for the final time that week, I spied David and several of his band mates sitting in the little solari-um/alcove just off the main en-trance to the hotel, presumably waiting for their rides out of town. I offered a very brief, but heartfelt thanks to all of them for coming back to Oshkosh and told them that I hoped that they had a good time, and I looked forward to the "next time". After wishing them all goodbye, Joyce and I headed back home...and really, that's about it. My Step dad and I saw Joyce back off on the Greyhound, (it's kind of weird going to the depot and not getting on or off a bus myself), and I had just enough time to get things squared away back at my place, get my pho-tos developed, and get the best

ones scanned in on my comput-er to share with everybody be-fore I had to be in at work later that afternoon. As I stated ear-lier, it all happened so fast! As I was heading past the Park Pla-za on my way to work that after-noon, I almost had to pinch my-self that it all had happened and it was already over. I can't go past that little part of my neigh-borhood anymore without think-ing pleasant thoughts about all of my Monkee encounters at Waterfest over the past year and a half. Joyce: It still remains bitter-sweet to say goodbye…for the past two summers I’ve had the incredible opportunity to see Peter and then Davy; and now I’ve gotten to meet, in person, a whole new crew of wonderful people. I associate Waterfest with Monkee time; no they don’t quite rhyme but they go togeth-er soo beautifully. Janet: I feel the same way when I either drive past or go into Lockport East High School, Harrison’s Restaurant, or Fire and Ice. So many wonderful memories that I never thought possible. Shane: It still seems really sur-real to me that Micky, Peter, and David have actually been here and performed. In fact, as I have been writing this story for all of you over the past few days, I have been

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thinking quite a lot about how the thirteen year old kid that I was in the summer of 1986, whose parents were getting divorced, and whose only real bright spot that season was discovering the Monkees on MTV would absolutely not be-lieve all the places I have been to, the concerts I have seen, and the things I have done in the name of the Monkees in the following 19 years. I never got a chance to see any of the Monkees concerts in '86, but the seed was firmly planted that year. That thirteen year old kid would never have believed that Micky, Peter, and David would eventually play concerts in his town, let alone that he'd wind up in a photo in David's autobi-ography, that he'd travel half-way across the country for a special concert featuring Peter Tork in North Carolina, only to play his "part" in a parade in a big brass bed… Bonnie: Excuse me one more time, Shane. Are you sure it wasn’t a canopy bed? [Colleen made me say it!] Shane:...down a road in the middle of the town, or that he'd come to call Micky's sister Coco a friend through the wonders of the internet. Pretty amazing stuff. As the saying goes, I've come a long way, baby. Cindy once posed a question on our PFG web site about what our favorite concert expe-

riences were. And there's no doubt that I've had a great many of them with the Gang. And with each passing show, it becomes more and more diffi-cult to pick out favorites be-cause it seems that each show...each road trip is special in it's own way, and each has it's special memories. But hav-ing said that, I think these Osh-kosh shows are always going to mean a little something extra to me, for much the same reason that I'm sure that David's first visit to Lockport will always mean something extra to Ja-net... Janet: Both of David and com-pany’s visits…and God willing, the upcoming visit to Lockport was something I never thought would actually come to fruition. The journey I’ve taken begin-ning with an idea a few short years ago, to the idea becom-ing a reality has been just unbe-lievable. And I will say once again...ALL the friendships formed due to all this…has brought SO much fun!! Thank you Shane, you were the host with the most while we were in your fair city!! Good things DO withstand the test of time!!!! I think that’s how it goes, isn’t it David? Until October... Shane:...or his first visit to Bon-nie's neck of the woods at the old Lady Luck casi-no/showroom in Bettendorf will always have a special meaning for Bonnie.

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Bonnie: I think we can all safe-ly say that we have had an In-credible “view of whatever”. What a thrill it was to have Cin-dy call me in the hospital on July 10, 1999 after I had just given birth to Hannah to tell me that she had just learned that David was coming back to The Lady Luck in Bettendorf (not to be confused with Biloxi) for the third engagement on Septem-ber 24-25, 1999. Shane: There's just a little something special when the Monkees actually follow through on their promise that they "may be coming to your town". Bonnie: It’s unbelievable, real-ly. Shane: I'm so glad that Micky,

Peter, and David have finally had their moments in the spot-light here, and I'm equally as glad for all of the wonderful people, new friends and old, that have been here to share those times with me. Particu-larly for this trip, I want to thank Bonnie and her entire family, Janet and Tom, Joyce and her patience on the bus, Pam from Monkeeland, my old pal and fellow Wisconsinite Jane, and of course, David, Renee and da band for making this time one to remember for a long time to come. Thank you all so much! It's finally nice to look at the Bright Side of the Road. Bonnie: Thank You, David, Micky, Peter, and Mike for mak-ing a better world for us!

Waterfest Photo By Bonnie Borgh

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Micky and Coco perform in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Photos by Pat Smith