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I’m sitting
in an arena with over 3,000 people. The show started at 8:00 pm with an opening
act. The star of the show, Snoop Dogg, was scheduled to start at 9:00; it’s
almost 10:00 and no Snoop-ster.
Any
audience of thousands should be getting restless waiting an hour for an act they
paid $80.00 to see, but not this one. What was more confusing, most of the
audience looked like LA gang bangers, and should be pissed off, and start a riot
anytime. As it turned out, these people were really “Gang Banger Chic”. That
is, they dressed what looked like gang bangers, but were really working class
people who paid a lot of money for a trend and a certain style.
They were dressed to the
9’s, or what was standard dress for Gang Banger Chic. The men were dressed in
Nikes, or some other expensive gym shoe, white socks around the ankle, baggy
shorts, a black T-shirt with skulls and stuff printed all over it, gold chains,
and a baseball cap worn sideways or backwards.
The thin young girls had
short dresses, and as much as possible, they had their cute little boobies
hanging out. This was the best part of the show. The big girls and older woman
tried this same dress, and it was disgusting. It seemed like all the females
were sporting a tattoo, and this was also disgusting. How could a hot little
young babe have a big ugly skull tattooed on her arm?
For some reason, all this
reminded me of 30 years ago sitting in Caesar’s Palace showroom, waiting for
Frank Sinatra to perform. I wondered, does the Snoop Dogg crowd of today, have
anything in common with the Frank Sinatra crowd of 30 years ago? Is Snoop the
new Frank? How could the perception of what was good music, style and dress,
have changed so much?
The music has really
changed; Like Frank, Snoop had his big band. Frank had a 30-piece orchestra;
Snoop’s band consisted of a drummer, a guitarist, and a guy on a soundboard, and
two guys, I think they were called back-up singers. Snoop called what he does
“songs”. His songs and stage conversation always contained one of these four
words “Bitch’s, F**k, Sh*t, and Mother-f**ker”.
It was easy for me to sing
along with Frank songs: “New York, New York, That’s Life, My Way; I had no idea
what Snoop was singing, but all the people in the audience sang along with
Snoop, word for word, F**k, Sh*t etc. What really stunned me, some of these
Gang Banger Chic’s came with their small children, although it probably doesn’t
matter, they hear these words on Snoop’s CD’s at home.
The dress has also really
changed; At Snoop’s show, even young girls in short dresses, with their cute
boobies hanging out, can’t come close to the elegant, beautiful, finely dressed
woman that attended Frank’s show. The men at Frank’s show wore sport jackets,
ties and slacks, instead of baggy shorts and backward baseball caps at Snoops’
show.
Could Snoop Dogg be the
Frank Sinatra of our age? Why not? Frank was a big fish in a small pond of
performers; Snoop is a big fish in a very large ocean of performers. Frank was
very wealthy, Snoop is very wealthy, Frank was a “bad-boy”, Snoop is a
“bad-boy”
There are
more similarities about Frank and Snoop, both portray themselves as tough guys,
hang with the underworld guys, very sure of their place on stage and off,
command respect from fans and admirers. Frank had his buddies Sammy, Dean, and
others, they hung around with him, and they were “The Rat-Pack”. Snoop has guys
hanging with him everywhere he goes; they could call themselves “The Dog-Pile”.
Like it or not, most of
the great entertainers of the 20th Century are dead. We are in the
21st Century and as Andy Warhol said almost 50 years ago, “In the
future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”.
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