
Is this the Neptune Committee? Ocean Grovers don’t know who they are. What are their names anyhow? And why does their music seem so strange?
Why is it that we don’t know the identity of our Township Committee? Suffering Surfer calls them “Mike and the Misfits.” Why the pseudonym? For some reason Surfer sees a resemblance to a 60 year old Doo Wop group—one-hit wonders with fancy footwork; five people doing an incoherent mystery dance round and round up on their platform?
They don’t represent the people of Ocean Grove, so why should we pretend that we know them? Maybe the Mayor’s name is really Speedo, or Moe, or Joe or Mr. Earl , and maybe they are the Cadillacs—- like doo woppers harmonizing on some street corner?
To us their music sounds disharmonious–the rhythm is out of wack, and the tempo is too fast. We can’t see what they are doing—every day is a foggy day in London Town.
They are a mystery, and here is a theme song for them. The people of Ocean Grove don’t care much about them. They are strangers to us. Grovers even have banned the doo wops from the Great Auditorium. Will they ever change their tunes ? Or maybe they will fade away like the end of this song.
THE CADILLACS:
Some may call me Moe
Just remember Speedo
He don’t never take it slow.”
Doo Wop, with groups like Norman Fox and the Rob Roys, The Crests, etc. is before my time. And the DO in Doo Wop, sadly does not seem to fit.
The alliterative title came from Mike and the Mechanics (30 years after Doo Wop). “Mechanics” implies people fixing things, so totally wrong for the Neptune committee.
Some readers may not even know, we have Mayor Mike (unfortunately not Bloomberg). The definition of misfit is “a person not suited to his/her position, status, etc.” so this seemed perfect for them.