Officer asks: What’s in your music?

It was 11 years ago on the dance floor at the Bangor Civic Center, surrounded by 11- and 12-year-olds, that Dan Frazell first realized he and the kids were boogying to a song that talked about licking boys like lollipops and falling for “supersperm.”

“Silly me, it was such a popular song that we’d played it for them over and over that night. It wasn’t until I got out on the dance floor with them and saw them doing this special dance move that I began to actually listen to the words to that song,” Frazell recalled this week.

To say it affected him would be a bit of an understatement.

Next week, Frazell, the D.A.R.E. officer for the Bangor Police Department, will put on his 500th presentation in which he educates parents about what today’s most popular video games, music and television shows are telling their children.

Frazell has taken his self-invented program all over this country and to Canada. Just last month he did nine presentations in 11 days in British Columbia.

Now before you go into a taxpayer dither, be assured this sideline doesn’t cost the city anything. His expenses are covered by whatever agency, school or church that invites him, and a fee is paid to the Bangor Police Department that reimburses the city for Frazell’s time.

By the way, just a warning, if you see Frazell on the street, don’t bring this subject up unless you’ve got some time on your hands. He’s not shy about sharing the knowledge he has stored up during the past 11 years.

“There’s nothing we are ever going to do to make this industry go away,” Frazell said. “It makes way too much money. The only thing we can do is educate ourselves and set limits for our kids and know what they are listening to, what they are playing for games and for goodness’ sake who they are chatting with on the Internet.”

Working as the city’s D.A.R.E. officer for the past 17 years, Frazell has some experience with children. He spends the majority of his days at the Fairmount School in Bangor, where he hangs out with the kids, eats lunch with them and chats.

Each year he takes a survey asking the pupils simple questions to determine what they are watching and listening to.

“I just did the survey up there,” he told me this week. “Guess who the most popular singer is? Eminem. He dominates big time. The favorite game? ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ and ‘South Park’ was the most popular TV show.”

If you don’t know any of those names and you have children, my advice to you is to get busy. A quick tour on the Internet will provide you with most of what you need to know.

Trust me on this; I’ve done it. Go to you search engine and type in “Eminem lyrics.” Do a bit of reading and see what you think.

“I think the biggest change that I’ve seen during the past five years or so has been in the level of hate,” Frazell said. “These songs are so angry and so full of hatred. Hatred for parents, hatred for police, hatred for the world in general. The games are the same way. They are so dark and the joy, the points so to speak, come from killing and maiming people.”

You can find papers, journals and books filled with debate and research on whether kids are affected by that.

“You know, you might have lots of well-rounded, well-adjusted kids that can see and hear this stuff and not be terribly affected,” Frazell told me. “But it’s the kid who sits alone at lunch. The kid who doesn’t play with other kids after school, but goes to his room alone. It’s that kid, and it’s asinine to think that kid isn’t going to be affected.”

Summer is on its way, and, unfortunately, there will be children everywhere with endless days to fill, and too many will fill those days without adult supervision.

But the chat rooms will be there, along with the PlayStation and the headphones.

I can’t help but think of that colon cancer commercial, where the bored-looking woman is stuck to the back of her husband, signifying her refusal to “get off his back” until he gets a colorectal exam.

For 11 years, Frazell has been on the backs of parents, one school, one community at a time. Meanwhile, the lyrics have become more vulgar, the video games more violent, and the popularity of both has skyrocketed into the mainstream.

Frazell plans to keep plugging away. Like the commercial, I say: “You go, Dan!”