Let’s be clear about something. Since high school, when I found the sarcasm of Morrissey, the strange sex appeal of Japan’s David Sylvian, and the moodiness of Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen, I’ve been an obsessive indie music fan. They were the ’80s Romantics; I had crushes on everyone of them, and I adored their languid style and the gloom of their work.
But there was one exception: a man who penetrated my life as an American mainstream music star as a subversive. A loud singer from the ’80s hair metal genre, or, as I saw it, an extreme of conflict, who questioned my entire concept of who I was attracted to. His sense of self seemed to be encapsulated in his magnified hair, which exceeded mine and could have had its own dressing room. This man weaseled his way into my fashionable inner world of popular culture and became a part of it; I could have screamed from the free-fall into nonsensicality.The stageshow antics, the spandex tights, the hair. It was only David Lee Roth.
Why was I even looking at this cartoon caricature? It was unsettling at the time because I preferred moody and pouting lead singers. As in Ian McCulloch’s “Lips Like Sugar” Nick Cave was always attractive to me. Even more recently, the prospect of Conrad Standish from the Devastations was too horrific to take at times. And what about Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue? I’d go there without a doubt.
But what about Diamond Dave, the slapstick comedian? He was, if anything, too showy and ridiculously self-indulgent; a shameless, vainglorious ham with a vaudeville-style showmanship.
He built his career in the age of heavy head pounding by adopting standard hyper-masculinity and heterosexuality tactics that were far too camp for my liking. He made me feel uncomfortable and confronted, and he was not culturally constructed to fit into my world of pretentious cool. But I knew he was suggesting something else as I attempted to ignore him.
You see, I’ve brilliantly exhibited myself on a platform of subcultured indie cool. I’ve gone out with the insiders, seen all the underground bands, and donned the polka dots, mod sunglasses, bobbed hair, and striped stockings. I recognized that these social markers qualified me for fringe, unconventional, inner-city living since that is who I truly was. So any notion of a crush on David Lee Roth was awkward and contradictory to my image and accompanying cultural principles.
But, well, it was there. I had a soft spot for cock-rock’s hottentot. For me, an MTV broadcast of a Van Halen or David Lee Roth music video meant no fist pumping or wild dancing around the room to “Jump” – it was sitting on the edge of the couch with my brow furrowed, chewing my lower lip, quietly observing his every athletic move like a private detective.
I’d watch him frolic on stage, exhibiting his openness and beauty, fluffing and sexing up his wild hair while staring from the TV screen, wanting me to badly want him, and I’d be furious that every fiber of my existence was simmering like a pack of sexual two minute noodles.
It was out of character for me.
Nonetheless, he was a captivating image for a shy young lady. His onstage persona as a supernaturally endowed rock star, as well as the way he managed that body, was a huge turn on.
Yes, I’m referring to pushing the limits of your body’s flexibility and strength with those inventive splits and scissor kicks. With his bravado, cockiness, and penetrating stares down the barrel of the camera, he epitomized sexual capital in a postmodern society.
Even then, his gimmick of nonconformity in the face of droll social conventions appealed to me, and he did it with eyes that could melt even the most “hard-boiled” female jail warden.
Crucially, he appeared to be more than an arrogant stage fool. He was reckless, irreverent, and childish, and he had attitude. He appeared to be inherently happy and to poke fun at himself with good comic timing. He was able to get away with being the debauched bacchanalian.
Later in life, I discovered that during his time away from Van Halen, he chopped his hair and became a New York paramedic, responding to over 200 9-11 calls. I heard in numerous interviews that he was so outdoorsy that he didn’t have any furniture in his house. He enjoyed pushing his body to its physical limits through activities such as rock climbing and Japanese sword play, among others. He recently walked into the mountains of New Guinea with a tribal tribe at the age of 58. His interviews revealed that he was incredibly clever, philosophical, and had a keen interest in various cultures and societies. Despite his embrace of rock ‘n’ roll’s excesses, he recognized the need to escape its demands in order to recharge his drained soul.
Surprisingly, these characteristics added to the biological attractiveness that had me smitten. David Lee Roth was my first real seductive taste of feminine male voyeurism. For once, the sight of a half-naked man gyrating in tight-fitting jeans made things better. He allowed me to indulge my adolescent sexual gaze, which is generally reserved for men gazing at women. He brazenly presented himself as a masculine sexual object, and as a young female, I could only smile back. That was the level of intimacy he promoted among his large female following.
I eventually accepted the oddity of my David-Lee-Roth-turn-on. He moved me by changing my mind and wishes regarding my innermost secrets of attraction, and I now love him for it. Age has caught up with us all as time passes, but there is no contest anymore between Cave and Roth. I know who would easily win.
