3/25

jeremy bennett
on
Baltimora, “tarzan boy”

(march fadness 80s)

For 2025’s March Second Chanceness, each day in march we are bringing back an essay that previously lost in the first round of previous March Xness tournaments for your consideration.

March Xness is a fun tournament, but also at times a cruel one! Each year 32 essays and essayists lose in the first round (and 63 of 64 will bow out before a winner is crowned). Because of the pace of the first round, many of our readers probably don’t get a chance to closely read all of the essays each year! So for 2025 we wanted to dig some of these out of the archive and give them another read, this time on their own, no competitor. Just a moment of attention and even of glory. The Official March Second Chanceness Selection Committee picked these based on reader nominations as particularly worthy of getting a second look. There are many brilliant essays that lose each year. Which are your favorites? This year we’re not voting: we’re only reading and celebrating and remembering. The tournament proper will come back in 2026 with March Sadness (lottery entry link in the menu above). We hope these great essays will again earn your love. Signed, the Official March Second Chanceness Selection Committee

In pro wrestling the hero is known as the face and the villain is called the heel. Shortly after I wrote my essay for March Fadness in 2023, ‘Jungle Boy’ Jack Perry attacked his fellow face, and most recent tag team partner, Hook. When a good guy commits an act like that it's referred to as “turning heel.” Consider this my heel turn.

Sure, after my first round exit—a minor 9 seed over 8 seed upset—I said all the right things. I applauded Amorak Huey for an excellent essay (it really is) and took the loss in stride. But I should’ve grabbed the nearest chair and cracked one of the Brat Pack square in the back. As Andrew McCarthy laid squirming in pain at my feet I could’ve grabbed a mic and said what I really felt: that this was a travesty of justice. Baltimora was robbed.

Truth is, I was cocky. I was confident that the song mostly associated with a Listerine commercial from 1993 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III would take down the love theme from a movie whose characters were described in the same New York Times review Amorak cited in his essay as, “spoiled, affluent and unbearably smug.” Surely, joy has to win out somewhere.

Sometimes a heel wrestler is part of a group or faction that often accompanies them to the ring and will interfere in the match to help them win. I work at a record store that has about 32k followers on Instagram. I was saving them for what I thought was going to be the tougher challenge in the next round—eventual champ “It Takes Two” by Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock. I lost by two votes. If I had only allowed them to join me in this match, three of them could’ve handed me some brass knuckles and I could’ve punched my way into the next round.

Much like a pro wrestling heel when they lose, this is mostly whining to the crowd. The reality is, I hadn’t written anything creative in a long time. I had been writing technical website copy and academic papers. Being a part of this tournament reminded me that writing can be—gasp—fun. I can’t wait to hopefully participate in March Sadness next year. Just don’t be surprised if you're my opponent and you get a finger in the eye.

jeremy v. bennett on “tarzan boy”

If the sun hadn’t already burnt the tops of your feet, the asphalt would surely scald your soles. There were no trees, no shade, and the jukebox was located inside the snack bar at the top of a long ramp covered in hot blacktop. It was the summer of ‘86, I was 11 years old, and I didn’t own sandals. All I wanted to do was play Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” and swing on the ropes. But even if I was brave enough to run and hop my way up to use my quarter, I was too scared to do the latter.
Northside Beach was a man-made attraction located in Zanesville, Ohio. It was built in 1965 and was the place to be during the summer. There were multiple slides and diving boards, with long lines of people waiting their turn; a metal carousel-like spinner that likely caused second degree burns if enough skin came in contact with the flat surface; a barrel that definitely knocked enough teeth out during a season to make a set of dentures; a long set of still rings that hung about ten feet above the water; and the rope swings. Oh, and three teenage lifeguards who probably didn’t have CPR training. There were also continuous rumors of people sneaking in at night and releasing baby alligators, piranha, and other aquatic predators. Most families had a season pass, but some for some families, like mine, it was out of our budget. Some of the older kids would sneak in through the trunk of their friends' cars. Once or twice a summer I’d have enough money saved up to buy a guest pass and enter legally with my cousin Shane, who was the same age as me. For us it was like going to DisneyWorld.
The rope swings were the coolest thing in my pre-teen eyes. You’d start at the top of a slope by grabbing a hold of a knotted rope before running down, swinging out over the water, and then letting go to splash down. The most expert swingers would often do mid-air somersaults after they dropped the rope at the apex of their swing. The novice swingers would smack their backs against the water with a loud clap. Occasionally, someone would refuse to let go and end up back at the start. My fear was that I would be a back-smacker or never-let-goer. Nothing in all of Northside Beach was less cool than those two and I was certain that if I tried the rope swing and failed it would somehow end up as beet red letter “A” on my back that would be seen for summers to come.
In addition to the jukebox, the snack bar also had a number of arcade games. After I’d make my Baltimora pick, I’d have plenty of time to kill until it actually made it to the speaker system that blasted over the beach. I’d try to pump myself up with a few games of Space Invaders, Burger Time, or Galaga while Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” and other popular songs filled the air. Eventually, I’d work my way back down to where the rope swings were and the first beats led into that recognizable refrain…

*

Baltimora may be the unlikeliest of one hit wonders. Which, maybe means they’re actually the most likely of one hit wonders. A band that wasn’t really a band with a song that wasn’t really a song (there’s no chorus!more on that later). It was almost an extension of a novelty track, not dissimilar in theme to something you’d hear on Doctor Demento, but with a new wave vibe and serious pop appeal. They were founded by an Italian music producer (Maurizio Bassi), who recruited an Irish EMT (Jimmy McShane) with previous acting and dancing experience, Italian session players, and an American lyricist (Naimy Hackett). Speaking of lyrics, the title barely appears in the song (All alone like Tarzan boy shows up twice in the verses). Instead the non-chorus is just Tarzan’s primal yell, making damn near impossible for anyone to know what the song is actually called. Seriously, ask a friend if they know “Tarzan Boy” and they are sure to say no. But play the song and within 20 seconds they are nodding along and oh-oh-oh ing. The verses are akin to “Ape Man” by The Kinksa Western fantasy of leaving modern society behind and enjoying a primitive lifestyle. The video is about as low-budget 80s as you can get. McShane in makeup leaning into his West End aspirations in pixelated technicolor. McShane unfortunately died of an AIDS-related illness in 1985 and there are suggestions that the song was a call to other gay men to live out their lifestyles.

Burning bright
A fire blows the signal to the sky
I sit and wonder, does the message get to you?

Take a chance
Leave everything behind you
Come and join me, won't be sorry
It's easy to survive
Jungle life
We're living in the open

The band couldn’t replicate the success of “Tarzan Boy” in the US, but their album, Living in the Background, spawned two additional hits across Europe. One has to wonder if the song, and Baltimora, would have reached higher highs than number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart if people could remember the name of the song. It reminds me of Harvey Danger and “Flagpole Sitta”another song with a chorus that exists outside of its title. In an interview with Stereogum on the 20th anniversary of the song, singer Sean Nelson lamented:

The thing I really remember is, the one thing I didn’t have was the chorus. The chorus for most of the first year we had the song that we were playing it was just the backing vocal bits, which I always thought of as very much in line with the Turtles or something. But we had recorded the song and I thought, “Well, there needs to be words in the chorus. It can’t just be this.” So I went desperately flailing through my notebook and I found that line: “I’m not sick but I’m not well,” which was from another song, and then I basically just sang it and made up the other words on the mic. And I’m glad that I did, though I wish I had had the fucking sense to change the name of the song. “I’m Not Sick But I’m Not Well” is what everybody calls it. And if I had done that instead of thinking it was somehow less artistic, less honest, or whatever, to change the name of the song after we had already played it in front of the 87 people we were playing to in those days, we’d be having this conversation on my yacht.

Baltimora, like Harvey Danger, may not have yacht money, but there is a lasting legacy to their song.

* 

That same summer of ‘86 my dad took me to my first professional wrestling event. The World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) was in Columbus, a 55 mile drive from my hometown. Hulk Hogan, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, and many of the other larger than life characters were there. I didn’t know it was scripted back then, or that it would eventually be akin to a rope swing back-smackersomething to be ashamed of. Wrestling in the 80s was huge. Wrestlemania III at the Silverdome in Detroit was just a few months away with (a disputed) 93,000 people in attendance. It was the largest indoor event until 1999. It would be the first Wrestlemania I would watch (from a VHS tape my cousin gave me). It became a ritual for my friends and Ia tradition we carried on for three decadeseven if we didn’t keep up with the week-to-week television shows like Monday Night Raw. When April rolled around each year, we’d gather at someone's house and chip in for the PPV and a buffet of snacks. It was a reunion of sorts. No matter how busy our lives had gotten and how little we’d seen or texted each other, we knew we’d catch up once a year watching grown men and women fake punch each other in the most ridiculous spectacle. Wrestling and I had a love-hate relationship that I tried to keep in the backgroundespecially when it came to meeting new people.
Amanda and I met a few years ago when, outside of those yearly Wrestlemanias, pro wrestling wasn’t really a part of my life. We connected over music: post-punk, midwest-emo, 80s/90s college rock, etc. She moved to Colorado and eventually I followed. I’d recently learned of a new wrestling organization called All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and one night, while we sat on the couch after dinner, I turned it on. I don’t know why call it serendipity, cosmic convergence, whateverbut I did. One of the wrestlers was about to make his entrance. There’s the familiar drum machine beat and guitar lick. And then the crowd starts singing: Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. They are waving their arms back and forth. It’s “Tarzan Boy” by Baltimora and the wrestler is “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry. Side note: Jack Perry is indeed the son of former Beverly Hills 90210 actor, Luke Perry.
Certain songs have the ability to take you back to a time and place. I hadn’t thought of Northside Beach in a long time. It closed in 1994, right after I’d graduated high school. No more monkey business on a sunny afternoon. There’s now a Lowes where it once used to be. Modern society. But hearing Jungle Boy’s theme song and seeing him in those loincloth trunks put me right back at the jukebox in southeastern Ohio, looking out over the beach towards those rope swings. I never got up the courage to do them and I felt a tinge of regret in that moment of recollection. But if I was afraid of looking silly back then, I was about to take the bold “mid-air somersault” of being a wrestling fan again. And by the look on Amanda’s face as “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry made his way to the ring, she was too.
We started watching AEW each Wednesday. Eventually, they came to Denver and we bought tickets. It would be her first live wrestling event. It was late December and we drove the hour plus from Colorado Springs to the arena. It was 50 degrees and lightly raining, pretty decent weather for the time of year. Along the way we passed the time talking about dream jobs and cities we were willing to relocate to when the move was right. Colorado is great for the sun, but snow is always a problem. And it was about to be a big problem that night.
Jungle Boy wrestled one of the last matches of the night and we got to hear “Tarzan Boy” and sing along with the crowd. It was silly in all the right ways. I looked around and there were just as many kids waving their arms and “oh oh ing” as there were adults. Grown men who wouldn’t look out of place at a Slayer show were joining in. If being a one hit wonder is considered a sin, but it leads to this…then I’m guessing Baltimora is living well.
 As we made our way to the exit we realized that it had snowed six inches in the three hours we’d been inside the arena. There was no way we were making it home that night. Amanda found a hotel five miles away and I drove for two hours to get there. Cars were sliding all over the roads. It’s a good thing she has a Subaru, the official car of Colorado winters. In the morning I cleared off the remaining snow and ice from the windshield and we made the slow, steady drive back home. Along the way we revisited the conversation from the night before. We don’t have to live here. We can leave everything behind and live where the sun burns the top of our feet and the asphalt scalds our soles.

Jeremy Bennett still hasn’t done a rope swing anywhere and is currently using his degree in pop culture to sell nostalgia at Leechpit Records and Vintage. He continues to watch wrestling with Amanda, their dog Calvin, and their kitten Max (who is named after AEW champion and all-around villain, Maxwell Jacob Friedman). This is his first foray into March Fadness and is disappointed he didn’t know he could have written 2000 words on hair metal five years ago during March Shredness, because someone needed to represent Quireboys.