American Thinker

by Susan D. Harris

    Somewhere deep inside this hardened, aging conservative exterior lies an 80’s kid with purple hair, a safety pin necklace, and a secret penchant for the pogo. If you came of age during the “second British invasion” you know what I’m talking about.

    I remember when “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” would send a wave of people rushing to the dance floor, and the opening harmonica riff of “Karma Chameleon” was the most recognized noise in the world.

    Just a few years ago, a man emailed me and asked, “I was just reading an article circulating the internet and it had your name on it. Is this the happy, carefree girl that used to dress like Boy George ” Yep, that was me.

    I still don’t know what drew me to Boy George. The voice was indeed exceptional, and the Culture Club melodies were catchy as hell. I guess with those alluring eyes and dimpled chin, most of us didn’t care if he came out on stage in a potato sack—we’d follow him anywhere.

    Much to my mother’s chagrin, I took off on a solo trip to Toronto to see Culture Club play the Maple Leaf Gardens. I crossed into Canada on a Greyhound just after the band’s tour buses, so the border was still buzzing. They were, after all, one of the biggest acts in the world at that time.

    After I settled into my hotel next to the venue at the Carlton Inn, I noticed the band’s buses in a nearby parking lot. I took a deep breath and went up to knock on the bus door. One of the band’s roadies greeted me and apologized that George and the boys were not there, but said he and his mates would give me a tour of the bus.

    I’d never seen a bus like that before. It was covered in plush red velvet. Boy George, they explained, sat in the cushioned front seat and brought along many of the stuffed toys that were thrown on stage during concerts. The roadies asked me if I would like to hear a song. They took me in the back of the bus where they all sat down, picked up guitars, and sang the full version of Alice’s Restaurant for me.

    I’d never heard the song before and thought it was something they’d just made up so I listened politely. When they’d finished, they wished me well in the most gentlemanly manner and sent me on my way. I guess I had an angel on my shoulder because hanging with a bunch of toking roadies on a bus could have turned out badly under different circumstances. I’ve always been convinced I was carried aloft on my mother’s prayers.

    The night before the concert as I lay in bed, protesters began yelling outside. They were saying George was a pervert and a fag, and I remember thinking how stupid they were that they didn’t understand it was just his shtick. Seriously, many of us thought that.

    It was the order of the day for fans to dress like George when attending a concert, and I was no exception. I’d made such a good costume, and crafted my makeup so well that when I emerged from the Carlton Inn, I was besieged by fans who demanded photos with me.

    The concert was fantastic, though George’s voice was a bit hoarse from the grueling tour. He was a great performer and gave the audience his all.

    Just a few years later this little naïve country girl would realize that George had lived a very different life than my own. As he and his mother were both abused by his father, he’d thrown himself into the London nightlife — a nonstop orgy of decadence, nudity, cross-dressing, and moral decay. It was so far from the innocence and security of my own youth I couldn’t help but wonder how the world had convinced someone like me to emulate someone like him.

    I’ve often prayed for George through the years—even through his arrests for drug use and false imprisonment of a male model. I guess I just kept thinking a man that loved his mother as much as he did couldn’t be all bad. As soon as he’d had money, he’d bought his mother a house and anything else she wanted. He grew closer to his brothers as he got older, and his sister’s financial abilities saved him from ruin when fame receded and drugs took hold. “There is a soul that can still be saved,” I thought.

    So now it’s 2026, and we’ve all watched a lot of the “good people” — some that called themselves “Christians” — turn into seething devils. First it was people like Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter who lost their way and slipped into a spiraling vendetta of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Then people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other less well-known folks. And we eventually learned that it wasn’t just Trump that pissed them off, it was the Jews too (let’s stop pretending it’s Israel.) And we found that behind those masks of intellect and sweetness were “dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.”

Conversely, who would have thought that the debauched 80’s icon, Boy George, would have turned out to be the voice of reason in a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world

    After watching the news over a couple of glasses of wine, he wrote a song about the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel. Titled “We Will Dance Again,” it was particularly geared toward the slaughter at the Nova Music Festival. The lyrics push back against accusations of genocide:

You say genocide, I say war

When you're attacked, that's what the army's for

Does it get ugly

You bet it does

When I know you wanna kill

Every last one of us

    It continues with a graphic description of October 7:

Young girls raped against trees

Murdered brutally

For the crime of dancing

You condemn the Jews, with selective memory

Musicians holding flags, mouthing like sheep

Propaganda fueled by the Internet feels so weak

    His chorus doesn’t pull any punches either: “But if you’re ever confused—I stand with the Jews.”

    Last week George was invited to Israel by Sylvan Adams, president of the World Jewish Congress Israel. He met with a former hostage as well as survivors and families of the Nova Festival. He played two sold out shows in Tel Aviv—allocating 1,500 tickets for survivors and bereaved families. He prayed at the Western Wall and toured the Museum of Tolerance.

    I still don’t agree with Boy George’s lifestyle. But whatever he’s done before, or whatever he does in the future, one thing is certain—he stood up when it counted the most. He willingly put a target on his back, lost friends, and stepped smack dab into the middle of the most dangerous fight in the world. Most importantly, he brought hope and support to an increasingly persecuted population. There’s a lesson to be learned from that for all of us. And us 80’s kids couldn’t be happier that one of our own had the guts to stick his neck out.

    Susan D. Harris can be reached at www.susandharris.com.

    Image generated by ChatGPT.