This Frankie's Gone to Hollywood

If I had any guts, I'd begin by pointing out tomorrow would be the 188th birthday of William True Sleeper, who, besides having the best fantasy sports name of all-time, was a Congregationalist minister who put the him in the hymn "Jesus, I Come," thereby uniting organists and "oh, god, oh jesus" orgasmists for years to, uh, come. But I won't begin that way, because if I did I would never be able to be part of a presidential campaign, goddamit. Not that John Edwards is calling, but my guess is Vilsack, whatever his first name is, could use the help.

Nope, I'd rather talk about a secular hymn from the 1980s, that brilliant hit, "Relax," and its ever handy advice "don't do it, when you want to come," made even more helpful by its 80s-takes-disco-and-throttles-it beat (all thanks to Trevor Horn, whose artful noise also killed the radio star). This Friday is the 47 birthday of Holly Johnson, the lead singer of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. FGTH was to the '80s what the Monkees were to the '60s--created, marketed, huge because of their hugeness--but only if you can imagine Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork in a leather bar, which leaves me with very twisted dreams of that Brady Bunch episode when Davy Jones takes Marcia to the prom. There's just so much twisted promise of better culture out there (if I were in charge--I'm working on it, as soon as Vilsack gives me a call). At least we have FGTH in DePalma's slice-(drill?)-off-the-old-Hitch Body Double in a porn film scene, romping their way through "Relax" with Melanie Griffith--who really can't interest them much, anyway, so it's a good thing they have their own suggestive dancing to do, although why did all decadence seem to freeze around some notion that you can't top "Cabaret"? And it's Griffith in her something wild sexy days before she became a botoxed, siliconed humanoid who will no doubt star as the monster in the fifth Alien film.