A Day with the Spice Girls

True moral battles are fought not in the pages of any philosophy text, but in the secret gardens of the human heart. Take Monday night, January 12, 1998, just one week into the winter quarter of classes here at Northwestern University. My heart was veritably ripped into two pieces by one of the most difficult decisions I've ever been forced to make. At issue: to spend the following day with the Spice Girls at the Planet Hollywood in downtown Chicago, or to spend that day with the other working stiffs in my classes. Posh Spice versus my aging poetry professor. Rocking out on the streets of Chicago to "Wannabe" versus sitting in a stifling classroom discussing the rhetoric of contemporary culture. What in the name of all that is holy could I do? How could I choose between responsibility and an act utterly lacking in it? Should I struggle through classes, proving my inner worth to both my professors and myself, or should I fuck classes altogether to stand in below-zero weather all day in the hopes of catching a brief glimpse of five pseudo-prostitutes from England?

Need you even ASK, partner?!?

Of COURSE I was there. I eschewed all pretenses of academia for one day on Tuesday, January 13, and threw myself head-long into the raging maelstrom that is Spice Girls fandom. I left my dorm room at about 10 a.m. and arrived home again at 9 p.m. Through the intervening hours, I learned a lot about the nature of celebrity, the power of the media, and those goddamn Spice Girls. I daresay I even learned a little about myself. I can remember it all like it was yesterday...

[INSERT "TWILIGHT ZONE" SOUND EFFECTS AND SQUIGGLY LINES TO SIGNIFY FLASHBACK]

10:30 a.m. Guilt etched on my face, I walk into the English office to drop off the assignment due today in my poetry class. I avoid the piercing eyes of the office staff, in fear that they'll peer in my soul and witness the glowing embers of my lust for Sporty Spice.

10:45 a.m. I stop off at Osco Drug, purchasing one roll of Kodak film with 36 exposures, a neato gold marker, and a copy of the recent issue of Vogue magazine, featuring the Spice Girls on the cover in cute little black numbers. The cashier doesn't ask me what I'm planning on doing with this odd combination of items, but I assume that she assumes the worst. This would explain why she blushed and refused to meet my eyes. But truly, who but myself can understand the deep devotion growing within my soul for the Spice Girls? Attempting to explain would be futile.

11:15 a.m. I board Chicago's elevated train and begin my journey into the heart of downtown, the "heart of Spiceness," if you will. To pass the time, I do some reading for my "Rhetoric of Contemporary Culture" class, a book called "The Image" by Daniel Boorstin. In an eerie and thought-provoking coincidence, the section I'm reading is dealing with the societal implications of just the type of activity I'm participating in, what Boorstin calls a "pseudo-event."

A pseudo-event is a manufactured "news" event designed exclusively to BE a news event and for no other reason. For example, the Spice Girls are coming to Chicago solely for the purposes of being on the news and in the papers, or solely to be a part of the daily news happenings in Chicago. There is no real "news" happening at Planet Hollywood. Reporters will cover it because they are informed of the event by a press release, and they report the event because there is a demand on the part of the public to receive fresh news each day, a demand that is fed by the willingness of the media to provide that news even when there is no true news to report.

Sound confusing? Well, it kinda is. But it's also clear as hell that the Spice Girls mastered the pseudo-event in their appearance in Chicago. It had appeared on the local news for days before the event, and EVERY major news outlet in the city (and a few minor ones, like lil' ol' PCC here) reported on it. It was "news" not because it affected life or society or anything at all, but simply because it was reported by the media. Entirely manufactured, just like the Girls themselves.

I continue to read and spend the rest of the train ride with a stale if sticky sweet taste in my brain, wondering if my sarcastic detachment from the day's proceedings actually justifies my participation.

1 p.m. After a lunch at the rock `n' roll McDonald's, I arrive at Planet Hollywood. Other than a handful of fans waiting in a small line to enter the restaurant itself and occupy one of thirty spots open to the public, there is NO ONE there. The street opposite the restaurant is completely lined with police barricades, in preparation for the huge crowds expected to attend this pseudo-event. The guests who had been admitted to the restaurant itself when it opened at 11 a.m. had arrived to wait in line at 4 a.m. Realizing I am truly out of my league in terms of Spice Girls fandom, I sheepishly take too many pictures of the setup and grab a spot on the cold pavement directly across the street from the stage where in just four-and-one-half hours the Spice Girls themselves will briefly hold court.

1:30 p.m. I've waited for a half-hour. My ass is cold. I briefly consider doing some interviews with the few other fans beginning to gather, but decide against it. After all, the day isn't about other people but about ME and the SPICE GIRLS. They won't want to sleep with anyone but ME. I keep warm by conjuring images of Posh Spice's genitalia. It works beautifully.

2:15 p.m. The first of my colleagues in the media, John Carpenter of the Chicago Sun-Times, arrives to work on his write-up of the event. I resist the temptation to force myself into his article. I also begin to make my first friends of the day, two twentysomething burnouts who truly deserve the identity-shielding code names of "Beavis" and "Butthead." Here's a sample conversation:

Me: So, do you think the Spice Girls are gonna come over here and talk to us, or what?

Beavis: Yeah, they'll probably come over and do a little strip tease or something. Their nipples'll be really firm.

Butthead: Then they'll let us suck on their nipples and go home.

Another example of their sparkling wit:

Me (noticing the big-screen televisions being set up across the street): Too bad we couldn't get ESPN or something on those TV sets.

Beavis: Yeah, or maybe some good porn movies. Like the Spice network.

THESE are the type of male fans that the Spice Girls attract.

2:45 p.m. The sarcastic DJ at Ed Debevec's (across the street from Planet Hollywood) announces that "the Spice Girls have been killed in an accident on Lake Shore Drive. They're not coming." Those over the age of 14 chuckle quietly.

3:30 p.m. It's been two hours and I'm now standing, having discreetly shaved off the chunks of my ass that had grown dead with frostbite. I also lose my first toe. Another male friend I've made in the trenches is kind enough to buy me a hot chocolate. I feel as though I now know how Vietnam prisoners of war must have felt.

An obnoxious radio reporter approaches from WBBM (670 AM) and commands the crowd to sing a few bars of the Spice Girls' hit single "Wannabe." If this isn't making news from nothing, I don't know what is. I don't sing, but still feel like some sort of trained animal.

4:30 p.m. Two more of my toes fall off. Young children retrieve them and use them to cast lots for my clothes. I can see all my bones. The TV cameras are now out in full force, taping and panning and doing what they do. A teenage girl hanging from a lamp post screams at a television cameraman, "I love being on TV! I watch it every day!" This strikes me as being as succinct an encapsulation of the problems and glories of Generation X as anything I've ever heard. Behind me, the saint who bought me hot chocolate is competing with a grad student from Loyola University for the affections of two chubby but cute German girls who are in town from their homes in suburban Winnetka.

Then, from nowhere come...Eddie and Jobo, those wacky morning radio DJ's from B96-FM in Chicago, the local "Party Radio"/hip-hop/R&B/pop station! Boy, are they zany! They throw T-shirts into the crowd, they introduce two members of the WNBA who don't know the Spice Girls from the cast of "Cheers," and they generally obnox. But I'll be damned if their lame efforts to pump the crowd don't work, even on an old codger like myself. Before long, I'm screaming for T-shirts and Posh Spice with the rest of the pre-teen girls and post-teen men.

5:35 p.m. It is now 27 degrees BELOW ZERO. 9,600 people have flooded onto the sidewalk across from Planet Hollywood as well as the street itself, which has been blocked off. The Girls are a half-hour late, and hope begins to wane, when a double-decker bus emblazoned with the words "Spice Girls" rounds the corner. It's them! Girl power! The flashbulbs snap like the bones in my toes. The Girls themselves are waving from the open top of the bus, wearing far too much clothing. At last, they descend from atop the bus and hit the stage. The crowd is NUTS. For all the transparency of the day (and in spite of the missing body parts and wasted hours), it's an exciting moment.

The Spice Girls talk, but say nothing. There's the inevitable shout of "Does Chicago have Girl Power?!" and the inevitably deafening response. Geri (Sexy Spice) gets the best exchange going, after she's asked what the Girls are donating to the Planet Hollywood from their new movie:

Sexy: Oh, something from Meatloaf, and Posh's knickers.

Posh: (giggling) And they're still warm!

Sporty: I thought Posh didn't wear knickers?

It's erotic enough to get even the most frozen male going, and I consider it my small reward for waiting four hours in the frigid cold as they probably sat in a warm hotel room watching Jerry Springer and looking up the words they don't know in the dictionary.

5:45 p.m. Just as quickly as they arrived, the Spice Girls are gone, whisked into the warm womb of Planet Hollywood for photos and interviews. As I walk to the El, I literally begin to weep in pain as I feel the veins in my toes begin to crackle and thaw. Through the tears, I begin to consider exactly what I've learned from my day with the Spice Girls:

1. Most male fans of the Spice Girls are perverts and losers.

2. Most female fans of the Spice Girls are under 14.

3. As a public, we're fools for celebrity and fame.

4. Truly, Posh is the hottest.

I spot some graffiti written in the dust caked onto the side of a news van by some anxious Spice Girls fan: "Spice Up Your Life." Spice it up, indeed.