One hundred years from now, how will we perceive Girls Gone Wild?
That’s what interests me.
Will we express disbelief that young women enrolled in institutions of higher learning spent their free time inebriated and half-naked?
Or maybe we’ll look back at this the way we look back at the fuss about women wearing pants.
“What’s the big deal? Remember when chicks only flashed?”
Or maybe I just had to act like I was going to approach Girls Gone Wild’s most recent foray to Springfield like an anthropological field study in order to get my wife to let me go.
And she totally bought it.
Hey, for better or worse, it’s a pop culture phenomenon. I’m a pop culture kind of guy.
But I approached the door to Spirits on North Lime last week with all the nervousness of that first time you walk into a strip club or an adult bookstore or a haunted house — you have no idea what’s going to jump out at you.
You hit the door with your senses all heightened, as if your body is prepared to fight, flight or do whatever it takes in order to spare your wife and child the embarrassment of having to tell people, “Oh, he was killed in a freak Girls Gone Wild accident.”
Chuck Harris, the local promoter who can be thanked for steering the Girls Gone Wild party bus to town two times now in less than three months, was surprised to see yours truly slink into the bar.
A 1987 South High alum, Harris has done what he can to stage various kinds of events around his hometown the past couple of years with less than great results.
With each story I’ve done on him, he’s grown increasingly wary — am I laughing with him or at him?
After last week, it should now be obvious.
You don’t laugh at a man who offers you a complimentary DVD copy of “Girls Gone Wild: Best Breasts on Campus” or walks around handing out free copies of the Girls Gone Wild 2010 calendar. (No, Honey, I politely declined.)
Whether you like it or not, Harris has found his calling.
He tried holding concerts. Attempted a community “homecoming” festival. Advertised a show by contemporary Christian music stars Todd Agnew and Rush of Fools.
Nobody came.
His Springfield Entertainment Group seemed cursed.
And that Christian rock concert?
Well, when word spread that this was the same guy responsible for bringing Girls Gone Wild to town as a way to pay off his debts, the whole thing went to hell.
Now, since November, he’s booked 20 or so Girls Gone Wild events across the region, even becoming the night’s emcee.
“I’m not normally a guy who even cusses,” Harris confessed the day after the Spirits event.
On stage, you’d never know.
“People love to hear that,” he said. “The dirtier you talk, they love you.”
And, boy, did he ever talk — like a carnival barker who sells a flash of skin here and a flash there and touts the magical capabilities of his Mardi Gras beads, available two for $1 at the table by the door.
He sold 40 dozen of them that night.
“Those beads,” he said afterward, “are what get things started.”
To be fair, things never really did start on my watch.
It can never be a good sign when the dudes outnumber the girls at a Girls Gone Wild, can it?
Still, Harris worked it hard.
“My voice is gone,” he complained.
Come April, he’ll lead Girls Gone Wild into clubs in Kentucky, Indiana and Wisconsin.
“The opportunity presented itself,” he said. “I never really had an opinion. I know my beliefs. I don’t share them with people. I let people think what they want.
“But Girls Gone Wild has been very good to me.”
He’s now permanently accompanied by his “SEG Hotties,” a group of two dozen women recruited online he can call on to get his parties going.
He says most of them are full-time college students.
I don’t seem to recall any of the girls at my Methodist private college being able to dance like that, but maybe they all go to state schools.
“Right before I came here,” he said during a visit to the newsroom, “I got two calls from bars. The phone is ringing like crazy.”
Nobody wanted his earlier events.
They want Girls Gone Wild.
God bless America.
But I’m one anthropologist who’s now usually in bed by 10:30.
“You didn’t stay long enough,” he informed me. “There were a couple of girls coming out of the woodwork.”
Next time?
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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