Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Of sugar and Spice and all things not nice

Scott Dickensheets

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1997 | 10:03 a.m.

LET THIS column stand as my apology to many of you who naturally hurried to this space for a breathless report on Sunday's Spice Girls press event at Planet Hollywood, where the gals were to do some photo op, then donate a signed T-shirt to the restaurant in order to promote Monday's Billboard Music Awards. Sorry, I didn't go. I couldn't bring myself to go.

Of course I tried. I wanted to attend, or at least felt I should, due to reasons for which the phrase professional obligation is too strong but another column to fill is not.

However, every time I headed for the door, my instincts yanked me back, reminding me -- and not for the first time -- that an hour devoted to anything Spice Girls is an hour of my already dangerously frittered-away life that I could never retrieve. I pictured myself in a scenario from Albert Brooks' "Defending Your Life," trying to talk my way into heaven as an angel consults his clipboard: "Did you or did you not waste the evening of Dec. 7, 1997, asking a Spice Girl, So, what do you think of Las Vegas? ..."

So I stayed home and dandled the offspring on my knee, idly wondering what I was missing. A group Q-and-A vacuous enough to suck the hair gel off the assembled music press. Lots of Spice Girly giggling. And me in the back row, deciding to plead nolo contendere to the angel and throw myself on his boss' well-known mercy. No, maybe I'll just visit the signed T-shirt at Planet Hollywood; these days, seeing the memorabilia is as good as meeting the stars.

Clearly, staying home was the correct choice. Because the Spice Girls are terrible. I've heard enough of their music to know that comparing it to cotton candy would be a terrible insult to spun-sugar carnival treats. There's not enough there there even to properly invoke Gertrude Stein's famous put-down.

At some level I realize I'm not supposed to get upset about the Spice Girls; being glib about the erosion of culture is part of my gig as a media-savvy hepcat. I've always made jokes about brainless Mariah Carey music or Sinbad movies and ignored their cheapening effects on pop culture.

Except my protective irony resembles a dented fender these days; it's getting harder to mask my annoyance at the bright emptiness of so much pop culture. It's why I opted out of the Spice Girls promo, why I don't bother watching much TV besides sports. I used to be amused; now I'm just disgusted.

So I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want -- a culture interesting and lively enough that Spice Girls and their ilk can't manage a blip on the radar screen.

I was just starting to enjoy that thought when my middle son burst into our home office, breathing rapidly. "Tomorrow night can I watch the Billboard Awards," he asked, minus the helpful spaces between words.

"Wha," I stammered, taken by surprise.

"My favorite band will be on!"

"Who's yer favorite band," I asked slowly, visions of Spice Girls dancing in his head dancing in my head. I thought I'd raised him better than that; what was the point of getting him all those depressing grunge CDs if --

"Hanson!" he barked. Whew! Close call! Instead of a hype-driven coven of girls whose outfits are more interesting than their music, he favors ... hmm, a hype-driven clutch of teen and pre-teen brothers ... whose hair is more interesting than -- hey, son, get back in here!