When Beat Was Neat-A Film Clip From The 1950s B-Film Classic “High School Confidential”

I ain’t saying that this B-film (although A on the rock and roll intro with Jerry Lee Lewis sitting at the piano in back of a flat-bed truck flailing, yes, flailing away on his classic rock and roll song teen angst, teen alienation song High School Confidential heralding the hint, just the hint, of a possibility that we of the generation of ’68 might be getting ready for that big jail break we were sitting under some atomic bomb air raid desk looking for guidance on) “beat” poetess will make you throw away your personally autographed first edition City Lights copy of mad monk om man Allen Ginsberg’s Howl or even some torn-up paperback copy of Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues or even some shotgun version of street gunsel mad poet Gregory’s Corso’s machine gun sonnets but she was a sister, a sister in the struggle to break out of the square, the big box that they had waiting for us as portrayed by Hollywood. Be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.

I ain’t saying that everything the sister had to say had its head on straight or that if we, we meaning those fledgling ‘68ers mentioned above, had heard her in some forbidden teen age night club,  a club filled with smoke, cigarette smoke and djinn smoke and weed smoke and maybe hash pipe smoke too although that might have been for more private moments, and maybe too train smoke and dreams, road dreams to see mystic vistas,  sitting with some cashmere sweater frill, not quite old enough to do the apparel justice, blonde maybe, red-headed for sure, in ancient landlocked celtic strongholds where some fierce blue-eyed boys stood waiting, holding forth against the squares, against the cubes, against the pentagonals,  against the angry young men, against the not angry young men, and ditto women, against the death-dealing old men, against the country club uncertain certainties, against that cold war hot war red scare night, against the break-out blockers as fierce as any New York Giants monster linebacker, that we would have understood half, hell, a quarter of what she said but like some mad dash shaman, oops, shaman-ess, it would have stuck, stuck to be mulled over, stuck for later times and so…Be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop. 

 

And I definitely ain’t saying that even if  all she said did have its head on straight that we, we meaning those fledgling ‘68ers mentioned above, had heard her in some forbidden teen age night club,  a club filled with smoke, cigarette smoke and djinn smoke and weed smoke and maybe hash pipe smoke too although that might have been for more private moments, and maybe too train smoke and dreams, road dreams to see mystic vistas,  sitting with some cashmere sweater frill, not quite old enough to do the apparel justice, blonde maybe, red-headed for sure, in ancient landlocked celtic strongholds where some fierce blue-eyed boys stood waiting, holding forth against the squares, against the cubes, against the pentagonals,  against the angry young men, against the not angry young men, and ditto women, against the death-dealing old men, against the country club uncertain certainties, against that cold war hot war red scare night, against the break-out blockers as fierce as any New York Giants monster linebacker, would have dug exactly what she had to say any more than when our time did come that we more than echo listened to om-antic mad monk Allen Ginsberg howl against that evil night, or Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac sit in some hell-hole mere florida trailer park sweating whiskey and hubris against his children, or Gregory Corso playing the lone ranger against the death night, but it would have stuck, stuck to be mulled over, stuck for later times and so…Be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.