Clearasil's Man of the Year: Bobby Baby

Yeah, I know Clearasil doesn't have a man of the year. But it should. If Time can have one-especially if it chooses all of middle America as its "man"-then I think. Clearasil can. There are probably as many persons with pimples as there are readers of Time. More, if we're lucky. And certainly there are five times as many pimples as there are Time readers.

Then why Clearasil, and not Tackle or Propah Ph? Why Clearasil, developed by a pharmacist for use by his own wife? I don't know. But Bobby Sherman would win the honor because more pimples and their owners worship him than anyone else.

Whatever. At any rate, Bobby came to Boston last week to make dizzy the heads of Boston teenyboppers, and presumably to make a little money. Or a lot. WRKO trumpeted, as only AM radio can, the good news of his coming, and the acne generation prepared. And it wasn't going to be at Boston Garden or the B.U. Armory, but at Symphony Hall. The movement had respectability.

It was with understandable excitement that I headed for Symphony Hall to hear this latest in a series of singing, idols. The first funny thing to happen was my purchase of a $5.75 ticket. I wondered what portion of that would go into Bobby's shampoo fund. With my very own money would he buy a tube of shampoo, and with his very own hands, rub it into his scalp? That was something to consider.

But thoughts had to wait. The fans were storming the gates because showtime was drawing near. Bobby was tucked away in some dressing room, and would soon be thrown to his screaming admirers. While most scrambled to their seats, a few of the real die-hards were crowded around the door that led to the dressing room.

Diane and Joyce, both 13, were at the door which led to the dressing room pleading with some guy, supposedly Sherman's manager, to let them in. Clutched in Joyce's fingers tight, the Instamatic. Diane held the autograph book. The time had come. But Bobby's managers would not be his managers if they were susceptible to the hysterical cries of teenage girls. The big, bad man wouldn't let them through the door.

A new strategy, then. "Will you take two pictures of him?" they begged. "Please, please! " They turned to the two riot cops who had just arrived and offered one of them a dollar to go take two pictures of Bobby. The price rose to two dollars. But that was all, and the cop wasn't interested. Police payoffs are fine, but at two dollars, why take the chance?

Another girl, Janice, arrived and was let through almost immediately, if only for a few seconds, for she bore gifts. Janice took in a poster for Bobby, which, she said, was just a "drawing" of him. Janice came back a few moments later with a letter in a pink envelope. She wasn't talking about the contents.

Meanwhile, the preliminary performer was getting shit from the eager Bobby Sherman audience. He was singing folk songs, and the fans didn't go for it. There were persistent chants of "We want Bobby!" Imgine the insult. Here you are playing second to Bobby Sherman and you're getting shouted down. Shouted down in a Dorchester accent even. It came time for him to go, and he said a deathly cold "Goodnight" and disappeared. The fans cheered wildly.

Soon a door on the side of the stage opened slowly. The crowd gasped. But it was only the emcee. After offering a few words, he unfurled one of the Bobby Sherman posters on sale in the lobby. For the first time that evening, the crowd screamed hysterically. Flash bulbs popped. He promised that after a brief intermission, Bobby would be theirs. Pandemonium.

I wandered around during the break trying to meet girls. Girls of 15, 13, 11, 9. I met Donna, president of the Bobby Sherman Fan Club of Waltham. She hadn't slept for two nights, but had laid on her bed gazing through the semi-darkness, punctured only by her night light, at the pictures of Bobby which covered every square inch of wall space. Pictures of him even lined her bureau drawers. She considered Bobby her roommate. She had never heard of Frankie Avalon.

Rence, trying to calm herself with a loud piece of Juicy Fruit, was a bit more passionate in her devotion to her idol. She sleeps with a poster of him and, in an effort to make their relationship a bit closer, keeps duplicate diaries and periodically sends Bobby the contents of one. This will keep him informed about her activities, she figures. No, Rence said, Bobby hadn't returned the favor. But she decided that his failure to do so indicated only that he didn't keep a diary.

There was a third girl who proved to be distinguished as a fan. Maryann had reproduced Bobby's face on a piece of cloth and had sewn it in her panties.

But back to the stage. A group of four had come out to play a few songs. There were the guys who play the music while Bobby sings, but first they intended to perform a few tunes on their own. The crowd was patient. After all, if Bobby let them play for him, they couldn't they couldn't be all that bad.

But they were. The first thing they did was the Beatles' song "When I Get Home." My thoughts returned to that summer night in 1965 when I jammed into Shea Stadium with 60,000 others to hear, and occasionally see, the Beatles. Could Bobby's fans possibly be going through the same emotional throes? Impossible.

Meanwhile, 200 girls and 200 Instamatics had pressed up against the stage to await the arrival of their hero. I tried to picture these girls eight years hence, some of them perhaps sitting in Sanders Theatre listening to William Alfred lecture on Thucydides. What was the girl sitting next to you in Fine Arts 13 doing ten years ago?

The cops were waiting in the wings. The emcee came out and said that Bobby'd be out in front of them in four minutes. "Four minutes! Four minutes!" a girl in front of me screamed at her girl friend. Yes, in four minutes, their lives would reach fulfillment.

He also told them to go back to their seats. If they didn't, he warned, Bobby simply wouldn't come out. "Sit down!" the rest of the mob yelled at the offenders, and they crept back to where they belonged. Even the adults were beginning to get excited at this point.

I wondered what Bobby boy was thinking about. Was it a chore for him to do these shows? Is it a threat to his safety? Or do the demands of his ego make thousands of teeny-bopper girls straining to touch him rewarding? Then there's the possibility that adolescent girls are what turn him on.

And then it happened. Bobby came to us. The door opened again and there he was, walking out to the center of the stage. Flash bulbs went crazy; it was practically daylight in there for five seconds. I had to cover my ears.

Bobby wore a dark blue shirt and pants which clung to his body. His boots and a handkerchief-tie around his neck were white. The air filled with flowers and other objects of adoration being thrown to him. He picked up some and put them on his microphone while the girls who threw them tried to faint in the aisles.

Then it was time for a song. For some reason it had to be "Roll Over, Beethoven." Roll over, Chuck Berry. Anyway, singing is only a minor part of his performance. His job is to walk along the edge of the stage smiling, flashing peace signs to his fans, and pointing at individuals. Obviously, he is also expected to touch as many of them as possible. By this time, everyone had left her seat again to be closer to Bobby. Anyone still in her seat was standing on it in order to see-and be seen by Bobby. If you were conspicuous enough there would be no doubt if he pointed a finger in your direction that you were being singled out. He shot a finger toward one of the two girls standing in front of me. She nearly fell. "Did you see that?" she shrieked to her companion. "He was looking at me. At me!" Damn it, I thought. If they hadn't been in the way, he would have been singling me out.

Everyone in the crowd was either waving, blowing kisses, crying, or flashing peace symbols back at Bobby. It was clear why the two-finger sign just wouldn't do in anti-war protests these days. The teenyboppers have taken it over. Love, flowers, beauty, peace. It oozed from the crowd. Bobby soaked it up.

After finishing "Roll Over, Beethoven," he moved into his originals, which, after all, are what we came to hear. There was "Little Woman" and "Easy Come, Easy Go." They sounded just as great as they do on the records. But the pushing and shoving in the mob around the stage was getting out of hand. Some of the girls were really taking a beating. I stayed in my seat out of fear. Suddenly Bobby hustled off the stage, and the emcee came out to warn everyone to get seated or else Bobby wouldn't come back. Those were strong words, and people scattered for their scats.

I looked up and took in the signs hung over the railing. "Hi, Bobby,From Dawn," one read. Then there was "Bobby Forever" and "We Love Bobby."

Bobby was back shortly, and so was mob rule. He didn't exactly calm the audience when he returned and played the old "throw the crowd your clothes" trick. Off came his white handkerchief-tie, and he tossed it out to the masses. The absence of this item, of course, provided the fans an extra bonus: Bobby's shirt came undone a bit at the top, and Bobby's chest peeked out at the screaming teenies. It wasn't exactly Jim Morrison masturbating for a Florida audience, but it kept these kids happy, to say the least. It would make for fine dreams that night.

Between one pair of songs, Bobby talked to his followers. He gave them the usual line about Boston being his favorite place because of the great fans. They swallowed it whole, naturally. After a few more words, he started an introduction to his next tune, an introduction which was absolutely devastating. "This is for you. I love you." Then his song "Julie, Do You Love Me." I think that's what it's called.

What shocked everyone was Bobby's departure for good after that song. He just ran out another side door, and that was it. He hadn't been on very long, but the kids didn't really know what to do except cry a little. Any sort of negative reaction would be nothing less than a personal sting for Bobby.

He seemed to have left the building-and that's what all the important-looking persons said-but hopeful teenies crowded around the door to the dressing room. They seemed to figure that if there were four cops with riot helmets posted there, then Bobby might still be nearby. It was worth hoping for.

Back inside the auditorium itself, a few girls were hanging around trying to figure out what to do while a few patient cops tried to talk them into going home. One was asked by a teenies where Bobby was staying. The cop responded that he was at the Sheraton-with 22 policemen. What was a girl to do? One particularly young one gave the cop a napkin and asked him to wipe it on part of the stage where Bobby had walked. He did and returned it to the grateful girl. I wondered how many die-hard fans of this genre had crowded close to the stage and popped especially heady pimples so that Bobby might walk on the fluid with his bright white boots.

Again, my thoughts wandered. This time back to fourth grade. I remembered watching Ozzie and Harriet Wednesday nights and living for the show's last five minutes, when Ricky Nelson sang a couple of his latest hits. Could I have been as sad a sight as these Bobby Sherman fans? Had I been more than a teenybopper, except that I was in the 1959 mold? Was taking guitar lessons as a fourth grader in order to follow in Rick's footsteps no better than sewing a picture of Bobby Sherman in your panties? I searched my soul.

Then I searched for the exit. While I filed out I heard one red-cheeked girl of 12 or so remark, "Did you see how he danced? I was ballin in my seat."

Outside it was more of the same. I approached a particularly sad-looking girl sitting on the steps. Her face was framed in her hands, and she was talking to herself in a low voice. "Bobby, I love you. Where are you now? Please don't go. Don't leave me here, I pray."