Related to Monkees

Last week, we lost another celebrity. A celebrity from my childhood. This got me thinking about the Monkees. You see, Pete Torkleson, the drummer in this ill-fated faux band, is actually one of the branches on my family tree. Albeit through marriage.

Peter is my sister-in-law's brother-in-law. Throw in a divorce and 3,000 miles of geographical separation into the mix, and I have no problem admitting that I was never really a big fan of the band. They were, at least at the time, always seen as cheap knock-off kiddie version of the Beatles.

But my Monkees relationship doesn't end there.

Sometime in the 80's, my writing partner Jim and I managed to get a shot at working on, get this, The New Monkees. It was a terribly conceived remake of the original. Only it had less charm, less music and less humor. What it lacked in those arenas however, it more than made up for in hair products.

Neither Jim nor I remember much about the experience. We only knew that someone read something we had written and was willing to let us get a foot in the door.

Had we been smart we would have looked around that room -- that we now had a foot in -- and seen Hollywood for what it really was, a cesspool of money-grubbing hackmeisters without the slightest inclination towards smart, funny, or anything that bore even the slightest resemblance to good.

You could argue that's just years of frustration and rejection talking. And you might be right. So let's go to the youtube video that proves my point.