PRE-FEMINIST FEMINISM: "JOHNNY GET ANGRY"

by Andy Nowicki

Back in 1962, when the Rat Pack still held Beatlemania in check and JFK’s pristine, thus-far unpunctured pre-Dealy Plaza skull still held stately sway over his precious presidential brains, comely girl crooner Joanie Sommers released a whimsical little track called “Johnny Get Angry.”

The song, composed by Hal David and Sherman Edwards, presents us with that perennially vexing relationship dilemma: what’s a young woman to do when her strapping beau refuses to get even a little possessive?

"SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL'S DYING!"

by Andy Nowicki

Love can die. Sometimes it dies hard, and with a vengeance. What happens to it afterwards? Does it proceed to its final judgment, then pass on to some eternal realm, be it Heaven or Hell? Or does it limp along in some pallid, spectral form like Caesar's ghost, oppressively ever-present even when it has seemingly vanished?

What of cases where love's collapse is expressly and tragically unilateral, expressly violating the consent of the formerly-loved? As Rick Springfield semi-famously observed, "Love hurts when only one's in love." Or as the J. Geils Band more succinctly put it, "Love stinks."