1. WELCOME MEMO
Welcome to the new Hot BoyzTM touring season! Each
of you, including our newest member, Lance (a memo on Lance soon!),
has read and given thumbs up to the terms of employment. Here’s
a condensed version (a lot less reading!) for you to post in a
high-visibility spot on the Hot BoyzTM tour bus, maybe
on the wall between Pac-Man and the full-length mirror. Check
it out:
"RULES" FOR MEMBERS OF HOT BOYZTM
Preface to “Rules”: The following Rules are
descriptive, not prescriptive, which means we don’t have
the attitude of My Way or the Highway Boyz. But we know what works
and, hey, these Rules work. Years of marketing tests and hours
of ogling teens in megamalls have given us a formula that will
virtually guarantee success for Hot BoyzTM (which may
be hereafter referred to as “The Franchise,” “The
Commodity,” or maybe, in cheeky moments, “The Cool
Machine”).
Okay, let’s get started:
RULE ONE: BE A GENTLEMAN HOT BOYTM
Each of you has tested positive for HETEROsexuality. Congratulations!
Life as a Hot BoyTM will make you famous. With fame comes contact
with teenage girls. Contact with teenage girls leads to relationships
that might seem natural enough. Still, we would like to discourage
you from these relationships. It will be better for Hot BoyzTM,
and if it’s better for Hot BoyzTM it’s
better for you.
In the end, though, we don’t want to be toolios (read “parental”),
so let’s just say this: Your famousness will complicate
things, in part because you will be a media magnet. Interviewers
will try to get you to dish details from your private life. Listen
up: If and when the Have You Two Done It question is asked, you
are required to answer in the following manner: “We love
each other very much but we are going to wait until we’re
married to perform the nasty.” Memorize this statement and
practice grilling each other with versions of the question and
the Hot BoyzTM sanctioned answer. In regards to the
nasty, in no case is a Hot Boytm to engage in it, although great
pains should be taken by each Hot BoyTM to make the fan base wonder
what you would be like to cuddle with afterward.
RULE TWO: FACIAL-HAIR-A-NO-GO
Facial hair is generally prohibited, and not because it’s
creepy. Sometimes it’s not. We’ll be the judge. However,
facial hair suggests a chummy familiarity with puberty, which
is not what Hot BoyzTM is about. Hot BoyzTM
is about chill, rockin’ music that doesn’t mean any
harm. Puberty, on the other hand, has caused a lot of harm (e.g.,
unwanted pregnancies, acne).
Now, remember the thing about “We’ll be the judge”?
If you wish to modify your look by sporting facial hair, you must
nominate yourself at Who’s Ready For A Makeover? decision
meetings, which will occur one week prior to an album photo shoot.
In rare cases where we do decide to allow facial hair, no two
members of Hot BoyzTM will ever sport facial hair at
the same time. That is creepy. Hot BoyzTM is not Lynrd
Skynrdtm.
In any event, even if we choose you for Who’s Ready For
A Makeover? and so permit the introduction of facial hair to your
face, you will not actually grow facial hair. Instead, you will
be permitted to present the appearance of high-maintenance facial
hair, for which you will need to see Debby in makeup (she used
to work for Prince). She will hook you up.
RULE THREE, PART A: ACT YOUR HOT BOYZTM AGE
Hot BoyzTM say things like, “Are you gonna hit
the shaved ice stand tonight? It should be killer.” In short,
Keep It Light (KIL), unless we’ve told you to Go Introspective
(GI). And in the case of GI, Hot BoyzTM should wonder
aloud who invented hate. But don’t be a downer. Within five
minutes of a GI statement, follow with a KIL statement: “Y’all
Want This Party Started, Right?” Also, the word “like”
is a Hot Boy’z best friend, as in “I, like, really
like that reality tv show. Like, a lot.” By contrast, Hot
BoyzTM never mention interest rates, racial profiling,
or say things like, “A party? But they’re calling
for a 40% chance of precipitation.” Yuck, Hot BoyzTM!
RULE THREE, PART B: DOWN WITH HOT BOYZTM INTERESTS
Hot BoyzTM show no detectable interest in
activities that suggest maturity or adulthood. Instead, Hot BoyzTM
profess a love for text messaging, video games (nonviolent only),
hanging out, and running across the front yard in the middle of
a downpour, yelling, “Life is crazy and so am I!”
Also, in moments of vulnerability, Hot BoyzTM admit
to having never had the heart to throw out their old collection
of stuffed animals.
The key here: Connect to the fan base, never giving them the opportunity
to wonder, “Isn’t he a bit too old for me?”
You are, or will be if your career as a Hot BoyTM rocks, but that’s
beside the point. Not only your fans, but your fans’ parents
should never see you as the sort of teenager who has “older
ideas,” if you get our meaning. If not, then here: “Older
ideas” are the sort that get their daughters in trouble
on dates (again, as in “unwanted pregnancies”). As
a Hot BoyTM, you are incapable of that sort.
Okay, that’s it for now. Keep your eyes peeled for additional
memos. Peace out!
2. WELCOME LANCE MEMO
Let’s welcome Lance, the newest Hot BoyTM
to join us! Lance replaces Chris, who let’s just say did
not behave as a Hot BoyTM should and in other words
was never really Hot BoyTM material. (Seriously, was
it only us, or did something just not add up with him?) Anyway,
although Chris had been Caucasian-in-DreadlocksTM Hot
BoyTM and Lance is his replacement, we made a command
decision that instead of simply making Lance the Caucasian-in-DreadlocksTM
Hot BoyTM, we would take this opportunity to introduce
a new Hot BoyTM type, one we’ve been dying to
show.
Lance, then, is a (drumroll please) Smoldering Garage MechanicTM
Hot BoyTM, which basically means he’s really
hot and good with his hands. You just know that if an
amplifier blew on stage, Lance could rip it apart in no time and
get it working again. Same for the tour bus. Another thing: Smoldering
means he doesn’t say much, which means, for you other Hot
BoyzTM, press conferences are “not really his
thing” and you’ll have to take up the slack. Beyond
this, we’re not going to oversteer this new type. As we
go, we’ll decide the ins and outs of what else Smoldering
Garage MechanicTM Hot BoyTM means. Stay posted. In the meantime,
let’s give a Hot BoyzTM welcome to Lance!
3. JUST TO GET SOME THINGS STRAIGHT MEMO, OR MORE LIKE
HERE'S A CLARIFICATION OF WHO WE ARE: AUTHORIAL INTENTION, OR
EXPLAINING SONG LYRICS
Since last week’s posting of the basic Rules of
Hot BoyzTM behavior, we are happy to report that the
Rules have already begun to produce this season’s seeds
of success for Hot BoyzTM! We don’t want to go
into too much detail yet, but we’ll give you a hint: Stay
out of the sun in order to have a video-friendly complexion (!).
Despite this note of success (pun intended), in order to maintain
forward progress for The Franchise we feel it necessary to clarify
some points of what Hot BoyzTM is all about. Being
a member of Hot BoyzTM means you are a Voice in Society
that says: “We know the world is full of pain and ugliness,
but we’re not here to make you feel uncomfortable about
it, let alone responsible for it. Even for our occasional songs
about hot social issues we lay down rock-steady beats, and you
can satisfy your activist urge by tapping your foot to the rhythm.
And in case you’re wondering, we know you don’t have
time to protest wars in Iraqistan or whatever it is. Neither do
we.” We say, “Support the President,” which
is to say Hot BoyzTM are Nonpolitical in all they do
and say, and how they move on stage and in (future) videos.
That’s why, in the spirit of true Hot BoyzTM
spirit, we write and produce songs like “Choose Your Path
(Baby).” Now, if one of you wants to criticize, in the privacy
of the Hot BoyzTM dressing room, the artistic value
of any Hot BoyzTM song—let’s take this
one for example—you need to know that “Choose Your
Path (Baby)” is not a “bullshit, nonsense, inane”
song, as somebody put it. Think about the line “When you
come to the fork in the road, take it!”—which is anything
but nonsense or inane, let alone bullshit. It’s about making
decisions, it’s a nod to an American poet for godsakes,
and it means if you look deep enough you’ll see the hidden
meaning.
4. UNPRECEDENTED ACTION MEMO: AN ADDITIONAL "RULE,"
AS MADE NECESSARY BY A CERTAIN SITUATION THAT HAS COME TO OUR
ATTENTION
The Franchise’s regard for artistic expression
by members of The Franchise extends to but is limited by members’
artistic expressions of sanctioned, scripted, and rehearsed expressions.
We write the songs. We know what they mean. Any unintended interpretation
is simply wrong. To give an example of what we’re talking
about here: If, in concert, the song being sung has the lines
“I’ve been crying so much/like buckets of rainwater/that
sit until algae forms/to make greenish water,” take it from
us, mister, crying is an appropriate accompaniment to the singing.
More to the point, we do not recognize and have no patience for
expressions of ironic intent by members of Hot BoyzTM.
You Know Who You Are, and the three-piece algae suit was not funny.
And guess what? Wardrobe is sending you the bill.
5. ADDENDUM TO THE RULES FOR HOT BOYZTM MEMO:
THAT THINGY IN THE PREFACE
Preface: In the original preface to the original Rules,
there was that thing about how we didn’t want to go My Way
or the Highway. Bump that shit. Due to some albeit age-appropriate
authority-testing/baby-bird-spreading-his-wings-and-trying-to-fly/too-big-for-britches
behavior/etc., for the sake of Hot BoyzTM pecuniary
interests and solvency, we have to hereby lay down the law.
NEW RULE: APPROPRIATE LIVE-STAGE BEHAVIOR
Members of Hot BoyzTM, when in live concert,
are always encouraged to kneel when singing ballads, to lean close
enough to fans to allow for the grasping and tearing of clothes
(if wearing tear-proof Hot BoyzTM leather pants), and
to accept bouquets of roses, friendship bracelets, Beanie Babiestm,
etc., from fans. Any banter with the audience should be limited
to audience flattery, with statements like “We’re
so glad to be back in [Current City],” or “[Current
City], You Rawk!”
Hot BoyzTM are never permitted to ad-lib. Here’s
what we don’t like. The song is “Reach For Your Goal,
Squeeze It, Seize It,” right? And someone decides to introduce
it with a story about a serial killer who did hand-strengthening
exercises in order to better strangle his victims. What can we
say? We didn’t think we had to make a rule against this
one. I’m not going to name names, but your initials are
Lance. Do it again and you might find yourself with worse problems
than a headset microphone that has somehow stopped working.
6. NEW RULE FOR PRESS CONFERENCES MEMO: NEVER THOUGHT
WE'D HAVE TO MAKE A RULE AGAINST THIS ONE, EITHER
We have dress rehearsals for Hot BoyzTM Going
On Tour and Hot BoyzTM Have A New Album press conferences
so that we can prepare you for the sort of questions members of
the music press may ask. If you remember our asking you in rehearsals
to describe your lifelong dream, an appropriate response, if you
remember, is Fusion. As in, “I have always wanted to fuse
together my love of Rap and Pop.” The appropriate response
is not “I don’t know about lifelong, but I keep having
this dream starring Gwen Stefani and a lot of popsicles.”
7. RECONNAISSANCE MEMO: ARE YOU STILL WITH ME, HOT BOYZTM?
We could beat ourselves up about this one from now till Kingdom
Come, but what good would it do? We could second-guess ourselves.
Now that we think about it, we can see that while Caucasian-in-Dreadlocks
would tend to mellow out Hot BoyzTM, as it turns out,
Garage Mechanic Hot BoyzTM would more likely smolder
until pent-up teen angst turns a freestyle rap into a maniacal
rant. We only wish he hadn’t decided to say such hurtful
things about Sexy AthleteTM Hot BoyTM and
David Lee RothTM Hot BoyTM.
Now, Who’s Ready For A Makeover?
