Even in my wildest rock and roll days, people thought of me primarily as an entertainer-the medium isn`t the most important thing to me.'' After about five minutes, the rock audience is having so much fun with Buster that it doesn`t matter they don`t think I`ve abandoned the ship or anything. We didn`t want them to expect a David Johansen show. I shudder to think about the disaster of unprecedented proportion that might have erupted after a chorus of “Limbo Rock.''We did the name change (Poindexter was borrowed from Johansen`s music publishing company) so that when people came in they wouldn`t get hit with this personality crisis or something.
I’m just relieved that the performer was Buster Poindexter, not Chubby Checker. After all, isn’t that the way tragedy always happens? You start with an innocent rumba step or two, and all too soon you’re into the hard stuff: sambas, merengues and cha-chas. Quickly, those vigilant, clean-shaven (no facial hair for Mickey’s henchmen, remember) security personnel jumped in and halted the offenders before they began having too much fun. But this time, for the late show, the chairs had been cleared and, like a mob frenzied at the sight of any movement, the crowd fell in line behind Buster and his Banshees of Blue. You remember what happened at your birthday party last year when you wound up on the front page of the Herald!”Īnd from there, he tossed all restraint out the door and led the band off the stage and into the crowd, alternately thrusting one leg to the side and then the other in time to the pulsating, tribal beat.Īt the earlier shows, with temporary seating set up on the Videopolis dance floor, order had been maintained. Whereupon, he chided Mickey for indiscretions past, advising the rueful rodent to “take it easy this year.
“And another hand for his long-suffering wife, Minnie. “And how about a big hand for Mickey on his 60th birthday,” Poindexter said, skillfully working in the park’s latest advertising campaign. Is that new? Ya know, I used to own one just like it when I was in the Dolls!” (Really risky territory here-no transvestism in Disneyland, remember.) (No references to sex at Disneyland, remember.)Īnd then he threw a few barbs at the First Family of the Happiest Place on Earth-Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who arrived on stage outfitted in colorful calypso fashions to help close the set with Buster’s Latin-flavored hit “Hot, Hot, Hot.” (There’s no way to be sure, of course, that the cup actually contained a soft drink.)īut then, he told a couple of mildly risque jokes, one of which prompted a few shocked parents to storm out of the show with kids in tow. (No alcohol at Disneyland, remember-”even if,” as Johansen said, “it’s a faux cocktail.”) In its place was a paper Disneyland soft drink cup. Still, Buster had to check his characteristic martini glass at the gate. But it turned out that little kids also love the show-they look at Poindexter like a cartoonish character in a tuxedo. Those people are there as the core audience. “When I first started,” Johansen said, “the roots of Poindexter was to do something to entertain my peers. Whatever the excuse, Poindexter ended up on the Videopolis stage in front of whole families ! It wasn’t the first time Buster has played to a mixed audience. It has all the makings of a carefully orchestrated plot, what with publicity materials that refer only to the Buster Poindexter character, never to Johansen or his sordid past.Īpparently nobody who works at Disneyland used to frequent the Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa, which became Orange County’s punk rock headquarters in the late ‘70s after owner Jerry Roach booked Johansen and saw the potential of the new punk market.
Perhaps Buster planned all along to infiltrate the park with his insurrection-inspiring rumba. Anyway, the keepers of all things good and right at Disneyland should have realized that what makes Poindexter’s act so rowdy isn’t his music, a delirious revival of ‘40s ballroom swing, jumpy Caribbean rhythms and lounge pop that was blown from the Videopolis stage by a ragin’ full-force big band and a couple of streetwise-looking female backup singers.ĭisney’s watchdogs ought to have paid more attention to the act’s subtext-a former social outcast who is having the last laugh on respectable society-that was so beautifully crystallized right in their own litter-free empire.
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