SPICE JAM

Sometimes, I get struck with a really great hankering to tell a story.  I sit down at my desk or I lie in bed with the computer in front of me -- and I attempt to write something.  More often than not, I just end-up staring at my computer screen with the cursor flashing before my eyes.  I type a few words, but quickly become dissatisfied and tap the erase button.  Despite my hunger to express myself, I can never lower my high expectation bar enough to even begin to say something…  So instead I just allow myself to produce nothing… and I permit myself to flounder in the mentality that it's easier to not try at all.  And after a prolonged period of wallowing, sometimes it's difficult for me to have a great deal of regard for myself.

Over the years, I have discovered that a good cure for the "I'm Not Good Enough" blues is watching the Olympics.  It can sure be inspiring to watch athletes with God-like abilities work unimaginably hard to push themselves to their physical limits.  Living vicariously through their triumph when they break world records and win gold medals is pretty darn fun.  But then I step back again…  and realize that I'm sitting on my bum watching television while other people are actually working and achieving something.  I look at female athletes from middle eastern countries and how hard they have to struggle to get where they are and it makes me feel BEYOND hopelessly lazy.  

Last Sunday I had that pathetic, languid feeling as the London games were coming to a close.  Sure, I was a little glum to see the games go, but I was ready to cease comparing myself to Missy Franklin (and coming up short).  There was, however, one thing that I was excited for…  And that was the rumor I heard that the SPICE GIRLS were going to perform during the closing ceremony.  Actually, I was really, REALLY unbelievably pumped about that.

So, my friend Amanda and I went to dinner and we came back to my apartment and we turned on the TV.  As the ceremony proceeded, I started watching with bated breath.  I realized I was nervous…  Nervous because the Spice Girls were about to come on; nervous because I hadn't seen them in a while.  What if they looked like idiots?  Let's face it -- they are getting on in years.  Most of them have been put through the ringer a few times and almost all of them have kids now.  And I'm older and more sophisticated now too -- admittedly above bubblegum pop. 

I just REALLY didn't want the stupid Spice Girls to look asinine and demolish my precious childhood memories.

AND…  As a bunch of light-up London taxis made their way through Olympic stadium, I took one big, definitive breath.  The Spice Girls emerged.  And BOOM!  I was pleasantly surprised.  Okay -- they're not the greatest singers in the world.  To be fair, they never were.  However, despite their lack of vocal bravado, they have a shamelessness about them and they really know how to heat-up a crowd.  Yes, nearly 15 years since their explosion to prominence, the Spice Girls have still got it.  

Their performance made me incredibly happy and catapulted me back into Spice Mania.   In fact, anytime somebody so much as mentions the Spice Girls, I get pulled back into my obsession for a solid week or so.  Now that I'm a tad older, I finally understand what middle-aged people are talking about when they say that an artist like Pink Floyd or Rod Stewart "takes them back."  

YEAH.

When I think of the Spice Girls, I think about 1997.  I think about my mom taking me to the video/CD store and helping me find their debut album, "Spice."  It was the first CD I ever called my own -- and I still remember ripping it from its plastic packaging and placing it gently into the boom box.  As "Wannabe" blasted through the house, I sprawled out on the playroom floor and stared at the pictures and the lyrics in the CD pullout.  I was 100% entranced.  

The Spice Girls were magical.  They were like my manic big sisters -- older, wiser, cooler and British.  They took me under their wing, empowered me and taught me about all the stuff I wasn't supposed to understand yet -- like boys and sex and curse words.  And they did it all to the tune of a phat dance beat.  They were complete lunatics and they didn't seem to give a care what other peeps thought of them.

Debates would rage for hours on the playground over who was the most superior Spice girl. 

But SERIOUSLY, it was all we were capable of talking about!  One night, my Dad even made a screensaver on the computer that read in scrolling text, "I am sick and tired of hearing about the stupid Spice Girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Unfortunately, it was all very fleeting -- our collective obsession lasted a little over a year.  Yes, it's hard to believe that in a year and a half, the Spice Girls released only two albums and became the biggest selling female act of ALL TIME…

I still remember very vividly where I was when I heard the unsettling news that sent it all plummeting to the ground.  I was in 4th grade and it was the last week of school before summer vacation.  I was sitting on the school bus and the driver had the radio on.  Some DJ announced that Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell had quit the Spice Girls…  And my heart fell out my ass.  I was in a pissy mood for the rest of the day.   

It was over.  Geri's departure proved that team Spice was a true ensemble -- meaning, they couldn't go on without one of their essential components.  Okay, yeah… they continued to release albums…  But I certainly didn't care about them and I don't think anybody else did.  By the time the Spice Girls officially broke-up, they were totally irrelevant.  

I didn't think that I still cared about the Spice Girls, but (as I said earlier) they would randomly pop up in my life.  I'd find myself dusting off those old CDs and taking them for a spin to find the tunes as catchy as ever.  And when I went to college my roommate and my close friends and I bonded over them.  In fact, the first thing my roommate and I wrote on our door's message board was "Spice Up Your Life."  

I didn't think I cared about it anymore…

But in 2007, when ALL FIVE ladies said they'd be coming back together to do a farewell tour, my heart leapt through the ceiling.  Even though I didn't live remotely close to any of the cities they'd be visiting, I found it comforting to know they were still around, kicking and reunited once again!

Given that 2007 was their FAREWELL tour, I never expected to hear from them again.  It's needless to say that this year's Olympics were great -- and very needless to say that I am in the throws of one of my week-long Spice binges.

I recall going to some Junior Journalism thing in the 4th-grade and choosing to write an article on why kids my age were so fascinated with the Spice Girls.  Here I am, 15 years later and I'm still ruminating and writing on the same subject.  What did we take away from them back then that still resonates with us when we see them today?

Surely, it wasn't the lessons they taught us on how to sell out or be overexposed.  Again, they weren't all that talented.  Aside from their expertly engineered harmonies, they didn't have a sound that was particularly unique to them.  They imitated everybody from The Supremes to The Andrews Sisters to CeCe Peniston.

Hmmmm….

I like to think that it's something beyond nostalgia and overly catchy melodies and paste-on personalities that gets us…

I like to think that there's something in the way that those ladies carry themselves.  They have a self-awareness even to this day that seems to make a mockery of their fame and success. 

It's appealing that despite their foibles as a group, despite stripper pasts, eating disorders, stints in mental hospitals and other decidedly undignified adventures, the Spice Girls can still pick themselves up and get together for a few minutes and raise the roof and shout zig-a-zag-ahhhhhhh!!! 

At the risk of sounding like a fool, I want to say that I am almost as much inspired by the Spice Girls as I am by any of the Olympic athletes.  Unlike Olympians, the Spice Girls probably don't come by their talents and abilities quite as naturally… yet they're able to come together to prove that it's not necessarily about winning, it's about playing the game.

And even though they sometimes look a little dumb, they're able to come together and put on a good show!  

And if the Spice Girls can get it together, I can certainly get it together.  I can stop being so darn insecure and self-depricating and just write what I want to if I really want to.  I can step forward even if it doesn't sound perfect and even I look a little silly.

Because I have girl power.

Ciao for now.