Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Cadillacs performing She's So Fine.
Recently I have been in something of 1960s high school remembrance mode, mainly as a result of evaluating the influence of the “beats” (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady, not Cassidy, and the usual suspects), on my youthful political (not much), social (a fair amount), and cultural (lots) development, but also as a result of re-watching George Lucas’ American Graffiti, a 1960s coming-of-age film that fits comfortably in my own high school mode. I have reviewed the film itself elsewhere in this space but I wish to make a special point about the high school dance segment of the film (SeeThe Baby-Boomer Birth Of The Search For The Blue-Pink American Western Night- “American Graffiti”-A Film Review, dated September, 8, 2010).
George Lucas’s inclusion of a local high school dance segment in this film was truly inspired. The segment is not central to the action of the film, such as it is, mainly the ins and outs of Friday or Saturday night (and in the summer almost any night except Monday “rest” day) cruising the local strip, the teen strip part, the only part that counted. However , it certainly is calculated to evoke almost universal nostalgia for anyone (meaning almost everyone these days) who has ever had to deal, in one way or another, with the question of this time-honored (if hoary) high school tradition. Each generation probably has its own take on what this experience was (or is) like, but most of the real action was behind the scenes. And in that sense the film caught the three high points. Women (ah, girls) can fill in own blanks in reverse, but here are some of them from a man’s (ah, boy’s) perspective.
First of all stag (but not singly, no way, with the guys, or not at all, although how many and who was always up for grabs, especially on the important “shotgun” question) or on a date (double-date, somebody’s left-out sister, your sister, anything to not be a wallflower, a sickly wallflower among the ‘losers’ to boot, as those dance moments ticked slowly, so slowly by). Many an ungodly hour was spent on that date question mulling over, no, not what you think, who to invite, no that was usually the easy part, but rather getting up enough nerve to make the call to make the invitation. And check this out, on more than one occasion, and I am sure the same was true for you, somehow your intelligence network had failed and it turns out that the certain she, your dreamy certain she, damn, her, had a “steady,” and true blue no way was she going anywhere in public with a not boyfriend. (Although, and on more than one occasion this actually happened , if the “boyfriend” was out of town, “in the service,” (military) or she was just mad at him for one of a possible seven hundred reasons, she might go with you. Just as friends of course.) Usually though, christ, what a waste of time.
Secondly, grooming preparations- I will propose here, in best scientific method form (or at least quasi-scientific form for that is all this tidbit will hold) that there was an inverse relationship to the amount of time that one spent on this work, you know, shower, shave (in those days you had to, if you could), comb always at the ready, a little something for the underarms and some men’s fragrance to give the smell of being the least bit civilized, and the answer to the stag/date question. In this sense the inverse is the extra time spent in order to attract that certain she (remember women just reverse the gender, or today everyone fill in your own preference experience) so when the next goddam dance or mixed social event came up you were dated up with that certain she and you could just throw a little fatal after-shave on and fly out the door.
Oh, by the way, I refuse, I totally refuse to go over the number of time that I cooled my heels while that occasional captured “she” made her grooming preparations, first date or any date, even if it was just to make preparations to go to the drugstore soda fountain. Mercifully, on that score I did not have a sister to scream at or else I might not be writing this screed today, at least this side of a cell block.
Thirdly, the gathering of the dough, the always short of dough problem that plagued our poor working class household and that I noticed did not seem to be any kind of problem in that California suburban valley locale of American Graffiti. Money for exotic appearing (hey, it was California, remember, even the fast food drive-ins had to be retro-fine) double-dip hamburgers (with fries), cherry cokes, for two, for two, my god, plus some gas money, plus, plus, plus, you know a guy has got expenses in this world. The real problem was whether to borrow from parents, or pick up some chattel slave job. Getting it from the parents always came with some awful terms, usually worthy of some international diplomatic accord, and more grief than it was worth, unless I was desperate, or girl-hungry. Oh ya, and you had to hear the obligatory “we do this and that to keep a roof over your head” along with the bucks. You know the drill, I am sure.
And while we are on the subject of parents the inevitable question comes up about what time one should be home by. They say X, and make that loan, that hard-scrabble hideous loan that has more conditions and enforcements than a loan shark, contingent on the observance of a “reasonable” (parent reasonable) hour. I say Y, because in the back of my mind I, if I get lucky (no further discussion necessary, right?) then I need plenty of time and can’t be worried about curfews, or reasonable times. Come to think of it, even fifty years later, I can recall on memory request my plaintive “come on Ma you be reasonable” (and it was always Ma on this one, on this time thing, in our old working class neighborhoods, and maybe yours too. Dad was brought in, if he was brought in at all, at this point in our lives only for the heavy artillery stuff like yes or no on the car or to dole out serious punishment. Enough said).
Once these preparations and battles have been settled then, and here is where American Graffiti is like from a dream, the question of transportation to the dance comes into play. Here I mean a car, and if you’ve read my review of American Graffiti you know I mean a “boss” car. You would have to go to an automobile museum to see such treasures these days. By the way don’t even utter the words public transportation for this occasion or I will think that you grew up in New York City or some such place like that and that you really have not been paying attention after all my paeans to the California endless highways and the search of the elusive blue-pink great American Western night. And cars were central to that exploration, east or west.
In any case, this car-less writer, this foot-sore, shoe leather-beaten, car-less writer, depended, sometimes cynically so, on cultivating friendships with guys who had such “boss” cars, particularly the renowned ’57 Chevy that still makes me quiver at the thought. Needless to say, in expectation at least, of the night’s successes a stop at the local gas station for a fill-up (a couple of bucks and done then) check the oil and water, kick the tires and so on preceded our big entrance at the dance.
Part of the charm of the American Graffiti segment on the local high school dance is, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors it could have been any place U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet any time U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance scene could have taken place at my high school when I was a student in the early 1960s). From the throwaway crepe paper decorations that festooned the place to the ever-present gym bleachers to the dragooned teacher chaperones to the platform the local band covering the top hits of the day performed on was a perfect replica (a band that if it did not hit it big and breakout from local-ville would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other seminally important occasions).
Also perfect replica were the classic boys’ attire for a casual dance, plaid or white sports shirt, chinos, stolid shoes, and short-trimmed hair (no beards, beads, bell-bottoms, its much to early in the decade for that) and for the girls blouses (or maybe sweaters, cashmere, if I recall being in fashion at the time, at least in the colder East), full swirling dresses, and, I think beehive hair-dos. Wow!
Of course, perfect replica as well were the infinite variety of dances (frug, watusi, twist, stroll, etc.) that blessed, no, twice blessed, rock and roll let us do in order to not to have to dance too waltz close. Mercy. And I cannot finish up this part without saying perfect replica “hes” looking at certain “shes” (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) and also perfect replica wallflowers, as well.
Not filmed in American Graffiti, although a solo slow one highlighted the tensions between Steve and Laurie (Ron Howard and Cindy Williams) but ever present and certainly the subject of some comment in this space was that end of the night dance. I’ll just repeat what I have repeated elsewhere. This last dance was always one of those slow ones that you had to dance close on. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, as I have noted before, one does learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason that to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your sexual preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?
And after the dance? Well, I am the soul of discretion, and you should be too. Let’s put it this way. Sometimes I got home earlier than the Ma agreed time, but sometimes, not enough now that I think about it, I saw huge red suns rising up over the blue waters down by the ocean near my old home town. Either way, my friends, worth every blessed minute of anguish, right?
Showing posts with label high school dances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school dances. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Big Time 1962 Teen Angst Night- Johnny Callahan’s Heartbreak Hotel
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Brenda Lee performing Break It To Me Gently. Ya, we have all been down that one-way road to perdition.
CD Review
AM Gold: 1962, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1991
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs on this CD, Brenda Lee’s Break It Too Me Gently.
Friday night, a late September Friday, I think, because it was just getting cold at night around old North Adamsville. And there was a cold political menace (soon to get hot, very hot) in the air as well from those pesky Cubans and their patrons, the Soviets. In any case a high school Friday night because the night we are talking of was the night of the Falling Leaves Dance that had been an institution (and still is) at North Adamsville High since Hector was a pup. Or at least as far back as my mother’s time, Delores Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1943, the war years, oops, the World War II war years so that you don't get mixed up on which war. Every red-blooded teen angst-ridden boy or girl with the dollar required for entry was going to show up, singly or in couples.
Now I should explain that this dance was no Johnny Jones, the local kid with the most rock and roll records and an arcane knowledge of said records, acting as D.J. at the regular free cheap jack weekly Friday night, well, let’s call it sock hop. (You all had your Johnnies so I don't have to detail his exploits, okay). No, this was a get out you best party dress girls, no tee shirts need apply guys, almost “formal” dance. And two things right away distinguished it for the low-rent sock hop. Yes, of course, it was still held in the crusty old North Adamsville gym but the place, courtesy of the North Adamsville Class of 1962 Senior Dance Committee (whee!), the senior class always sponsored this one, had the place looking, well, like a hotel ballroom. No faded banners and bunting this night. Flowers, tablecloth on the tables, glasses to drink your soda from rather than from the bottle, and so on. Ya, this one was different.
The really big difference though, Johnny Jones’s high opinion of his musicological skills notwithstanding, was that this night there was live music provided by Diana Nelson and her pick-up band, crazed local favorites, the Rockin’ Ramrods. No scratchy records over Jones’ jerry-rigged sound system this night but the real thing. Diana on vocals, and the Ramrods for some serious rock and roll covers. Now the reason that Diana Nelson was featured that night may surprise you, or maybe not. In the year 1962 everybody, boys and girls almost equally, were crazy for girl vocalists singing their hearts out, and singing mushy stuff about heartbreak, loneliness, sorrow, and other stuff than only teenagers in the be-bop 1962 night knew (or cared) about. Patsy Cline, Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, Carla Thomas, and especially of late, Brenda Lee, singers like that with big voices and some serious sadnesses to speak of.
So the town fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that such wholesome, if sorrowful, music should have its local representative and sponsored, sponsored out of town funds if you can believe this, a singing contest with a one thousand dollar scholarship prize attached for the winner. More importantly, as least to hear Diana tell it, was the chance to be the female vocalist (with those Ramrods backing her up) at the Falling Leaves Dance.
Sometime I will tell you about that competition because some things that happened there would have amused, or befuddled you. One thing that would not is the fact that Diana Nelson was, by far, the best female vocalist there with her stirring rendition of Brenda Lee'sI'm Sorry. Not a lip-sych-like imitation but in her own style. Even though I was no mushy-headed guy but a regular Salducci's Pizza Parlor corner boy, and took no notice of girlish sentiment, well, little notice anyway, I stood on my chair and applauded. Truth to tell, I had a big thing for Diana, and had been staring at her ass in classes and in the halls ever since about ninth grade so that might have added to my delight at her victory. Of course my Salducci's corner boys will try to tell you that I was one hundred percent skirt-addled and dismissed this Diana thing out of hand. Don't believe it, even though she never gave me a tumble (she was "going steady" with some college guy).
The reason I won't go into that competition thing now is because this story is really about Johnny Callahan, you know the still hallowed "tear 'em up" fullback on the 1962 championship North Adamsville Red Raiders football team. And, well, it really isn't even a story but just another one of those things that have been happening to guys since about Adam, if not before. Now that I think of it, before.
See Johnny and Chrissie McNamara had been going out for the previous couple of years since sophomore year when Chrissie, a young woman not to be messed with when she had a bee in her bonnet, set out to "capture" one Johnny Callahan. No quarter given. Well, she got her man, got him bad. Got him six ways to Sunday. I was there the night, another Friday night if I recall correctly, that Chrissie, by general agreement, general boy agreement anyway, a fox came strolling, no, zeroing in on Johnny and sat right down on his lap and practically dared him to push her off. What she didn't know (nor did we) was that Johnny was crazy for Chrissie, and had been for quite a while. Everybody laughed when Chrissie, red-faced but determined, said "Johnny, I'm going to sit here and it will take the whole football team to pull me off." Of course Johnny was holding her so tight to him that it would have taken the whole football team, maybe the junior varsity thrown in too, to get her off his lap.
But that was then. Of late the freeze had been on between them. Reason: one Lance Duncan, if you can believe that. With a fox like Chrissie, no way. Lance, despite his preppie name out of some F. Scott Fitzgerald Basil and Josephine story, was after all nothing but the local whiz kid Math guy. And just then Chrissie was on a "smart" kick. Now Johnny Callahan could carry twelve guys on his back over the goal line on a granite gray fall Saturday afternoon but, let's say, would be hard-pressed to accurately count the number of guys on his back. So Thursday night, Thursday night the day before the Falling Leaves Dance, for chrissake, Chrissie gave old Johnny the "kiss-off." Gently, nicely, with a soft landing as was Chrissie's way but still a kiss-off.
So Johnny would not be sitting at one of the those freshly laundered tableclothed tables drinking his soda from a glass instead of from the bottle waiting to be crowned king of the dance along with queen, Chrissie. I hoped, hoped to high heaven, when I heard the ugly details, that it would not affect his game that Saturday against tough arch-rival Clintondale High (it didn't). He was so pissed off he went crazy, crazy enough to count those thirteen guys he was carrying on his back when he went over the goal line for his fifth touchdown of the afternoon.
P.S. Even now, maybe especially even now these many years later, do not believe that nonsense from some unnamed corner boys about my "hitting" on Chrissie at that Saturday football game just mentioned (Math whiz Lance did not go to football games, period) now that she was "free." Utter nonsense.
CD Review
AM Gold: 1962, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1991
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the songs on this CD, Brenda Lee’s Break It Too Me Gently.
Friday night, a late September Friday, I think, because it was just getting cold at night around old North Adamsville. And there was a cold political menace (soon to get hot, very hot) in the air as well from those pesky Cubans and their patrons, the Soviets. In any case a high school Friday night because the night we are talking of was the night of the Falling Leaves Dance that had been an institution (and still is) at North Adamsville High since Hector was a pup. Or at least as far back as my mother’s time, Delores Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1943, the war years, oops, the World War II war years so that you don't get mixed up on which war. Every red-blooded teen angst-ridden boy or girl with the dollar required for entry was going to show up, singly or in couples.
Now I should explain that this dance was no Johnny Jones, the local kid with the most rock and roll records and an arcane knowledge of said records, acting as D.J. at the regular free cheap jack weekly Friday night, well, let’s call it sock hop. (You all had your Johnnies so I don't have to detail his exploits, okay). No, this was a get out you best party dress girls, no tee shirts need apply guys, almost “formal” dance. And two things right away distinguished it for the low-rent sock hop. Yes, of course, it was still held in the crusty old North Adamsville gym but the place, courtesy of the North Adamsville Class of 1962 Senior Dance Committee (whee!), the senior class always sponsored this one, had the place looking, well, like a hotel ballroom. No faded banners and bunting this night. Flowers, tablecloth on the tables, glasses to drink your soda from rather than from the bottle, and so on. Ya, this one was different.
The really big difference though, Johnny Jones’s high opinion of his musicological skills notwithstanding, was that this night there was live music provided by Diana Nelson and her pick-up band, crazed local favorites, the Rockin’ Ramrods. No scratchy records over Jones’ jerry-rigged sound system this night but the real thing. Diana on vocals, and the Ramrods for some serious rock and roll covers. Now the reason that Diana Nelson was featured that night may surprise you, or maybe not. In the year 1962 everybody, boys and girls almost equally, were crazy for girl vocalists singing their hearts out, and singing mushy stuff about heartbreak, loneliness, sorrow, and other stuff than only teenagers in the be-bop 1962 night knew (or cared) about. Patsy Cline, Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, Carla Thomas, and especially of late, Brenda Lee, singers like that with big voices and some serious sadnesses to speak of.
So the town fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that such wholesome, if sorrowful, music should have its local representative and sponsored, sponsored out of town funds if you can believe this, a singing contest with a one thousand dollar scholarship prize attached for the winner. More importantly, as least to hear Diana tell it, was the chance to be the female vocalist (with those Ramrods backing her up) at the Falling Leaves Dance.
Sometime I will tell you about that competition because some things that happened there would have amused, or befuddled you. One thing that would not is the fact that Diana Nelson was, by far, the best female vocalist there with her stirring rendition of Brenda Lee'sI'm Sorry. Not a lip-sych-like imitation but in her own style. Even though I was no mushy-headed guy but a regular Salducci's Pizza Parlor corner boy, and took no notice of girlish sentiment, well, little notice anyway, I stood on my chair and applauded. Truth to tell, I had a big thing for Diana, and had been staring at her ass in classes and in the halls ever since about ninth grade so that might have added to my delight at her victory. Of course my Salducci's corner boys will try to tell you that I was one hundred percent skirt-addled and dismissed this Diana thing out of hand. Don't believe it, even though she never gave me a tumble (she was "going steady" with some college guy).
The reason I won't go into that competition thing now is because this story is really about Johnny Callahan, you know the still hallowed "tear 'em up" fullback on the 1962 championship North Adamsville Red Raiders football team. And, well, it really isn't even a story but just another one of those things that have been happening to guys since about Adam, if not before. Now that I think of it, before.
See Johnny and Chrissie McNamara had been going out for the previous couple of years since sophomore year when Chrissie, a young woman not to be messed with when she had a bee in her bonnet, set out to "capture" one Johnny Callahan. No quarter given. Well, she got her man, got him bad. Got him six ways to Sunday. I was there the night, another Friday night if I recall correctly, that Chrissie, by general agreement, general boy agreement anyway, a fox came strolling, no, zeroing in on Johnny and sat right down on his lap and practically dared him to push her off. What she didn't know (nor did we) was that Johnny was crazy for Chrissie, and had been for quite a while. Everybody laughed when Chrissie, red-faced but determined, said "Johnny, I'm going to sit here and it will take the whole football team to pull me off." Of course Johnny was holding her so tight to him that it would have taken the whole football team, maybe the junior varsity thrown in too, to get her off his lap.
But that was then. Of late the freeze had been on between them. Reason: one Lance Duncan, if you can believe that. With a fox like Chrissie, no way. Lance, despite his preppie name out of some F. Scott Fitzgerald Basil and Josephine story, was after all nothing but the local whiz kid Math guy. And just then Chrissie was on a "smart" kick. Now Johnny Callahan could carry twelve guys on his back over the goal line on a granite gray fall Saturday afternoon but, let's say, would be hard-pressed to accurately count the number of guys on his back. So Thursday night, Thursday night the day before the Falling Leaves Dance, for chrissake, Chrissie gave old Johnny the "kiss-off." Gently, nicely, with a soft landing as was Chrissie's way but still a kiss-off.
So Johnny would not be sitting at one of the those freshly laundered tableclothed tables drinking his soda from a glass instead of from the bottle waiting to be crowned king of the dance along with queen, Chrissie. I hoped, hoped to high heaven, when I heard the ugly details, that it would not affect his game that Saturday against tough arch-rival Clintondale High (it didn't). He was so pissed off he went crazy, crazy enough to count those thirteen guys he was carrying on his back when he went over the goal line for his fifth touchdown of the afternoon.
P.S. Even now, maybe especially even now these many years later, do not believe that nonsense from some unnamed corner boys about my "hitting" on Chrissie at that Saturday football game just mentioned (Math whiz Lance did not go to football games, period) now that she was "free." Utter nonsense.
Friday, September 9, 2011
On “The Long March” From North Adamsville High School- For Linda, Class of 1964-With Ernesto “Che” Guevara In Mind
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jerry Lee Lewis performing Whole Lotta Shaking Goin' On to get the juices flowing for those who need a memory jog.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind, or our personal and public trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North Adamsville High lo those many years ago. My excuse previously was that the class committee officers badgered me into writing that stuff (and one in particular who is, to be honest, obsessive about our opinions and comments. And honestly, as well, I am afraid of retribution so I will not mention her name, or maybe that she is a she, under penalty of death, okay). Moreover, I have already done that “heavy meaning” road before in this space and, moreover, this is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already. Thanks, fellow classmates.
Nor is this to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, Red Star Over China. Or even Fidel and "Che's" struggles in the Cuban Sierras that animated some of us in our youth. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North Adamsville High School over to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade. Those were the days, the post- World War II “baby-boomer” days when the then current facilities at the high school were not enough for the overflow. Older readers from other high schools during that period may have their own stories to tell on this over-crowding subject.
Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the various North Adamsville Alumni class lists that I could, by any stretch of the imagination, call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the “skinny”:
"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on any class-related Internet site that I could find. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 Magnet, but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.
The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. This year (2010), as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) are marking our 50th anniversary since graduation. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from the high school over to North Adamsville Junior High when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Adamsville in the spring of 1959, so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the comment boards on your own.
And what if you decide not to cooperate? Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Adamsville Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North Adamsville graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Peter Paul Markin.
Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics
Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)
Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn
Come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Easy now. Shake.
Ah, shake it baby
Yeah, you can shake it one time for me
Yeah-huh-huh-ha-ha, Come along my baby,
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Now let's get down real low one time now
Shake, baby, shake
All you gotta do, honey, is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit, that's what you got
Yeah, come on baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Now let's go one time
Shake it baby, shake, shake it baby, shake
Woo, shake baby, come on baby, shake it, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lot-ta sha-kin' go-in' on.
Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:
No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind, or our personal and public trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North Adamsville High lo those many years ago. My excuse previously was that the class committee officers badgered me into writing that stuff (and one in particular who is, to be honest, obsessive about our opinions and comments. And honestly, as well, I am afraid of retribution so I will not mention her name, or maybe that she is a she, under penalty of death, okay). Moreover, I have already done that “heavy meaning” road before in this space and, moreover, this is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already. Thanks, fellow classmates.
Nor is this to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, Red Star Over China. Or even Fidel and "Che's" struggles in the Cuban Sierras that animated some of us in our youth. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North Adamsville High School over to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade. Those were the days, the post- World War II “baby-boomer” days when the then current facilities at the high school were not enough for the overflow. Older readers from other high schools during that period may have their own stories to tell on this over-crowding subject.
Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the various North Adamsville Alumni class lists that I could, by any stretch of the imagination, call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the “skinny”:
"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on any class-related Internet site that I could find. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 Magnet, but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.
The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. This year (2010), as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) are marking our 50th anniversary since graduation. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from the high school over to North Adamsville Junior High when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Adamsville in the spring of 1959, so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the comment boards on your own.
And what if you decide not to cooperate? Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Adamsville Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North Adamsville graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Peter Paul Markin.
Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics
Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)
Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)
Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn
Come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Easy now. Shake.
Ah, shake it baby
Yeah, you can shake it one time for me
Yeah-huh-huh-ha-ha, Come along my baby,
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
(Talking break) Now let's get down real low one time now
Shake, baby, shake
All you gotta do, honey, is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit, that's what you got
Yeah, come on baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.
Now let's go one time
Shake it baby, shake, shake it baby, shake
Woo, shake baby, come on baby, shake it, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lot-ta sha-kin' go-in' on.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
*A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Adamsville South Elementary School Class Of 1958
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and the Comets performing Rock Around The Clock placed here to give a nostalgic reminder of the times, the times of our 1958 elementary school times.
Fritz Taylor, if he thought about it at all, probably would have said that he had his history hat on again like when he was a kid, that day in 2008 when out of the blue, the memory time blue, he thought about her, thought about fair Rosimund. No, before you get all set to turn to some other thing, some desperate alternate other thing, to do rather than read Fritz’s poignant little story, this is not some American Revolution founding fathers (or mothers, because old-time Abigail Adams may have been hovering in some background granite-chiseled slab grave in very old-time Adamsville cemetery while the events to be related occurred) or some bold Massachusetts abolitionist regiment out of the American Civil War 150th anniversary memory history like Fritz used to like to twist the tail around when you knew him, or his like.
Fritz, that 2008 early summer’s day, was simply trying to put his thoughts together and write something, write something for those who could stand it, those fellow members of his who could stand to know that the members of the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 were that year celebrating the 50th anniversary of their graduation from elementary school. In Fritz’s case not North Adamsville Elementary School like many of his fellows but from Adamsville South Elementary School across town on the “wrong side of the tracks.” And although, at many levels that was a very different experience from that of the average, average North Adamsville class member the story had a universal quality that he thought might amuse them, amuse them that is until the name, the thought of the name, the mist coming from out of his mouth at the forming of the name, holy of holies, Rosimund, stopped him dead in his tracks and forced him to write a different story.
Still, once the initial trauma wore off, he thought what better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane, that Rosimund-strewn memory lane. Those days although they were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, paled beside this Rosimund-related story that cut deep, deep into his graying-haired mind, and as it turned out one that he have not forgotten after all. So rather than produce some hokey last dance, last elementary school sweaty-palmed dance failure tale, some Billie Bradley-led corner boy down in the back of Adamsville South doo wop be-bop into the night luring stick and shape girls like lemmings from the sea on hearing those doo wop harmonies, those harmonies meant for them, the sticks and shapes that is, or some wannabe gangster retread tale, or even some Captain Midnight how he saved the world from the Cold War Russkies with his last minute-saving invention Fritz preferred to relate a home truth, a hard home truth to be sure, but the truth. So drugged with many cups of steaming instant black coffee, a few hits of addicted sweetened-orange juice, and some protein eggs he whiled away one frenzied night and here is what he produced:
At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably suppose to learn, maybe required to, depending on the whims of your school district’s supervisory staff and maybe also what your parents expected of such schools, to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks - the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. After all that is what it there for isn’t it. At least it was that way in the old days, and if things have changed, changed dramatically in that regard, you can fill in your own blanks experience. But here that is where fair sweet Rosimund comes in, the paired-off part.
I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. You are ready to flee, boy or girl flee, to some safe attic hideaway, to reach for some dusty ancient comfort teddy bear, or for the venturesome, some old sepia brownie camera picture album safely hidden in those environs, but flee, no question, at the suggestion of those painful first times when sweaty-handed, profusely sweaty-handed, boy met too-tall girl (age too-tall girls hormone shooting up first, later things settled down, a little) on the dance floor. Now for those who are hopped up, or even mildly interested, in such ancient rituals you may be thinking, oh well, this won’t be so bad after all since Fritz is talking about the mid-1950s and they had Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the television to protect them from having to dance close, what with those funny self-expression dance moves like the Stroll and the Hully-Gully that you see on old YouTube film clips. And then go on except, maybe, the last dance, the last close dance that spelled success or failure in the special he or she night so let me tell you how really bad we had it in the bell-bottomed 1960s (or the disco 1970s, the hip-hop ‘80s, etc.). Wrong.
Oh, of course, we were all after school black and white television-addled and addicted making sure that we got home by three in the afternoon to catch the latest episode of the American Bandstand saga about who would, or wouldn’t, dance with that cute girl in the corner (or that amazon in the front). That part was true, true enough. But here we are not talking fun dancing, close or far away, but learning dancing, school-time dancing, come on get with it. What we are talking about in my case is that the dancing part turned out to be the basics of country bumpkin square-dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy, yes, sweaty-palmed, star-crossed ten-year-old boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” and some off-hand “doze-zee dozes(sic)” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with a girl that I had a “crush” on, a serious crush on, and that is where Rosimund really enters the story.
Rosimund see, moreover, was not from “the projects” but from one of the new single-family homes, ranch-style homes, that the up and coming middle-class were moving into up the road. In case you didn’t know, or have forgotten since North Adamsville High days, I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” down at the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments. The rough side of town, okay. You knew that the minute I mentioned the name, that AHA name, and rough is what you thought, and that is okay. Now. But although I had started getting a handle on the stick "projects" girls I was totally unsure how to deal with girls from the “world.” And Rosimund very definitely was from the world. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it at her name. Rosimund. Enchanting name, right? Thoughts of white-plumed knighted medieval jousts against some black-hooded, armored thug knight for the fair maiden’s hand, or for her favors (whatever they were then, mainly left unexplained, although we all know what they are now, and are glad of it)
Nothing special about the story so far, though. Even I am getting a little sleepy over it. Just your average one-of-the-stages-of-the-eternal-coming-of-age-story. I wish. Well, the long and short of it was that the reason we were practicing this square-dancing was to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of school-time activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. Parents, refreshments, various local dignitaries, half the school administrators from downtown whom I will go to my grave believing could have cared less if it was square-dancing or basket-weaving because they would have ooh-ed and ah-ed us whatever it was. But that is so much background filler. Here is the real deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosimund, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square-dancer look, some now farmer brown look but back then maybe not so bad.
I thought I looked pretty good. And Rosimund, looking nice in some blue taffeta dress with a dark red shawl thing draped and pinned across her shoulders (although don’t quote me on that dress thing, what did a ten-year old boy, sister-less, know of such girlish fashion things. I was just trying to keep my hands in my pockets to wipe my sweaty hands for twirling time, for Rosimund twirling time) actually beamed at me, and said I looked like a gentleman farmer. Be still my heart. Like I said I though I looked pretty good, and if Rosimund thought so well then, well indeed. And things were going nicely. That is until my mother, sitting in a front row audience seat as was her wont, saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me, and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity. Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home by said irate mother and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father also heard about it when he got home from that hard day’s work that he was too infrequently able to get to keep the wolves from the door, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosimund.
Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Just like you might have remembered about old Fritz back in the day. Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. …But, oh, Rosimund.
************
Rock Around The Clock Song Lyrics from Bill Haley
One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
Fritz Taylor, if he thought about it at all, probably would have said that he had his history hat on again like when he was a kid, that day in 2008 when out of the blue, the memory time blue, he thought about her, thought about fair Rosimund. No, before you get all set to turn to some other thing, some desperate alternate other thing, to do rather than read Fritz’s poignant little story, this is not some American Revolution founding fathers (or mothers, because old-time Abigail Adams may have been hovering in some background granite-chiseled slab grave in very old-time Adamsville cemetery while the events to be related occurred) or some bold Massachusetts abolitionist regiment out of the American Civil War 150th anniversary memory history like Fritz used to like to twist the tail around when you knew him, or his like.
Fritz, that 2008 early summer’s day, was simply trying to put his thoughts together and write something, write something for those who could stand it, those fellow members of his who could stand to know that the members of the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 were that year celebrating the 50th anniversary of their graduation from elementary school. In Fritz’s case not North Adamsville Elementary School like many of his fellows but from Adamsville South Elementary School across town on the “wrong side of the tracks.” And although, at many levels that was a very different experience from that of the average, average North Adamsville class member the story had a universal quality that he thought might amuse them, amuse them that is until the name, the thought of the name, the mist coming from out of his mouth at the forming of the name, holy of holies, Rosimund, stopped him dead in his tracks and forced him to write a different story.
Still, once the initial trauma wore off, he thought what better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane, that Rosimund-strewn memory lane. Those days although they were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, paled beside this Rosimund-related story that cut deep, deep into his graying-haired mind, and as it turned out one that he have not forgotten after all. So rather than produce some hokey last dance, last elementary school sweaty-palmed dance failure tale, some Billie Bradley-led corner boy down in the back of Adamsville South doo wop be-bop into the night luring stick and shape girls like lemmings from the sea on hearing those doo wop harmonies, those harmonies meant for them, the sticks and shapes that is, or some wannabe gangster retread tale, or even some Captain Midnight how he saved the world from the Cold War Russkies with his last minute-saving invention Fritz preferred to relate a home truth, a hard home truth to be sure, but the truth. So drugged with many cups of steaming instant black coffee, a few hits of addicted sweetened-orange juice, and some protein eggs he whiled away one frenzied night and here is what he produced:
At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably suppose to learn, maybe required to, depending on the whims of your school district’s supervisory staff and maybe also what your parents expected of such schools, to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks - the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. After all that is what it there for isn’t it. At least it was that way in the old days, and if things have changed, changed dramatically in that regard, you can fill in your own blanks experience. But here that is where fair sweet Rosimund comes in, the paired-off part.
I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. You are ready to flee, boy or girl flee, to some safe attic hideaway, to reach for some dusty ancient comfort teddy bear, or for the venturesome, some old sepia brownie camera picture album safely hidden in those environs, but flee, no question, at the suggestion of those painful first times when sweaty-handed, profusely sweaty-handed, boy met too-tall girl (age too-tall girls hormone shooting up first, later things settled down, a little) on the dance floor. Now for those who are hopped up, or even mildly interested, in such ancient rituals you may be thinking, oh well, this won’t be so bad after all since Fritz is talking about the mid-1950s and they had Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the television to protect them from having to dance close, what with those funny self-expression dance moves like the Stroll and the Hully-Gully that you see on old YouTube film clips. And then go on except, maybe, the last dance, the last close dance that spelled success or failure in the special he or she night so let me tell you how really bad we had it in the bell-bottomed 1960s (or the disco 1970s, the hip-hop ‘80s, etc.). Wrong.
Oh, of course, we were all after school black and white television-addled and addicted making sure that we got home by three in the afternoon to catch the latest episode of the American Bandstand saga about who would, or wouldn’t, dance with that cute girl in the corner (or that amazon in the front). That part was true, true enough. But here we are not talking fun dancing, close or far away, but learning dancing, school-time dancing, come on get with it. What we are talking about in my case is that the dancing part turned out to be the basics of country bumpkin square-dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy, yes, sweaty-palmed, star-crossed ten-year-old boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” and some off-hand “doze-zee dozes(sic)” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with a girl that I had a “crush” on, a serious crush on, and that is where Rosimund really enters the story.
Rosimund see, moreover, was not from “the projects” but from one of the new single-family homes, ranch-style homes, that the up and coming middle-class were moving into up the road. In case you didn’t know, or have forgotten since North Adamsville High days, I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” down at the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments. The rough side of town, okay. You knew that the minute I mentioned the name, that AHA name, and rough is what you thought, and that is okay. Now. But although I had started getting a handle on the stick "projects" girls I was totally unsure how to deal with girls from the “world.” And Rosimund very definitely was from the world. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it at her name. Rosimund. Enchanting name, right? Thoughts of white-plumed knighted medieval jousts against some black-hooded, armored thug knight for the fair maiden’s hand, or for her favors (whatever they were then, mainly left unexplained, although we all know what they are now, and are glad of it)
Nothing special about the story so far, though. Even I am getting a little sleepy over it. Just your average one-of-the-stages-of-the-eternal-coming-of-age-story. I wish. Well, the long and short of it was that the reason we were practicing this square-dancing was to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of school-time activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. Parents, refreshments, various local dignitaries, half the school administrators from downtown whom I will go to my grave believing could have cared less if it was square-dancing or basket-weaving because they would have ooh-ed and ah-ed us whatever it was. But that is so much background filler. Here is the real deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosimund, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square-dancer look, some now farmer brown look but back then maybe not so bad.
I thought I looked pretty good. And Rosimund, looking nice in some blue taffeta dress with a dark red shawl thing draped and pinned across her shoulders (although don’t quote me on that dress thing, what did a ten-year old boy, sister-less, know of such girlish fashion things. I was just trying to keep my hands in my pockets to wipe my sweaty hands for twirling time, for Rosimund twirling time) actually beamed at me, and said I looked like a gentleman farmer. Be still my heart. Like I said I though I looked pretty good, and if Rosimund thought so well then, well indeed. And things were going nicely. That is until my mother, sitting in a front row audience seat as was her wont, saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me, and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity. Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home by said irate mother and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father also heard about it when he got home from that hard day’s work that he was too infrequently able to get to keep the wolves from the door, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosimund.
Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Just like you might have remembered about old Fritz back in the day. Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. …But, oh, Rosimund.
************
Rock Around The Clock Song Lyrics from Bill Haley
One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, rock,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
Put your glad rags on and join me, hon,
We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes two, three and four,
If the band slows down we'll yell for more,
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the chimes ring five, six and seven,
We'll be right in seventh heaven.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be goin' strong and so will you.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes twelve, we'll cool off then,
Start a rockin' round the clock again.
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,
We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'til broad daylight.
We're gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Growing Up Absurd In The 1950s- In The Heart Of The Late Dance Night- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Platters performing their classic, Only You.
CD Review
The Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Slow Dancing Classics, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: (Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which graces each CD in this Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a he, Jimmy Callahan, and a she, Kathy Kelly, in formal attire dancing, dancing that last sweet teenage high school, maybe the senior prom, dance. Or it had better be else this scene will turn to ashes)
“I don’t understand why it took you so long to ask me out, Mr. James Callahan,” murmured Kathy Kelly as they clasped hands in anticipation of the last dance. Jimmy mumbled, or it seemed like mumbling to Kathy, that he was shy, that he was busy, that he wasn’t sure that she even noticed him, or if she did notice him, liked him. Kids’ stuff, typical guy kids’ stuff, thought Kathy. But just now, unbelievably, the last dance, the last sweet time high school dance before facing the Cold War world and whatever it held out in that 1957 night, was to begin. But that world stuff was for tomorrow tonight Kathy has finally, finally, snagged the boy she has been mooning over for, well, let’s leave it as a long time, long before rock ‘n’ roll made it easier for a guy like Jimmy Callahan to ask a girl like Kathy Kelly out on to the dance floor without having to get all balled up in following the leader close dancing, sweaty palms and all. Now though was the time for slow dancing, slow last dance dancing and two-left feet, two left-shoeless feet, heck, two left-snow-shoed feet or not, Jimmy, as Kathy beamed to herself, was snagged.
Kathy looking resplendent in her Filene’s finest formal dress, complete with lacy see-though shawl, and topped off with a Jimmy corsage, a corsage that spoke more powerfully to her victory than ten million dances, and that finally felt that it all worth it feeling another ten million. Worth the every trick in the book that she had to pull out of the hat in order that he would “ask” her to their senior prom, the last chance Kathy would get to claim her Jimmy before he left for State later in the summer. Just that hand-clasped moment she hoped, hoped to the stars above, that they played her “they” song, a song that she had been listening to with Jimmy last dance dancing in mind since, well, you already know, a long time.
That right choice might also be the last chance to put her mark on him, although earlier in the evening she sensed something, something unsaid, when they played 16 Candles by the Crests and Jimmy mumbled something about how he was sorry that he couldn’t make it to her 16th birthday party, although Kathy had gone through six levels of hell to try and get him there. Then he kind of backed off when they played Patsy Cline’s cover of Crazy and right after that he said he didn’t understand how someone could keep on “carrying the torch” when the love affair was over. And he was definitely moody when they played I’m Sorry by Brenda Lee, calling it drippy. He lightened up a little when they played in In The Still Of The Night by the Five Satins and said he loved doo wop, proving it by knowing all the words and doing some fine harmony in his deep bass voice.
Suddenly some awfully familiar music started up and the last dance began, the last dance ending with Only You by The Platters. And just as the Platters got into the heart of the song, the heart-felt only you part, Jimmy, red-faced, shy, two left-feet Jimmy, asked Miss Kathy Kelly if she would come up and visit him at State in the fall. Ah, very heaven.
CD Review
The Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Slow Dancing Classics, Time-Life Music, 1997
Scene: (Prompted by the cover photograph, the memory cover photograph, which graces each CD in this Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll series. The photo on this CD, as might be expected, shows a he, Jimmy Callahan, and a she, Kathy Kelly, in formal attire dancing, dancing that last sweet teenage high school, maybe the senior prom, dance. Or it had better be else this scene will turn to ashes)
“I don’t understand why it took you so long to ask me out, Mr. James Callahan,” murmured Kathy Kelly as they clasped hands in anticipation of the last dance. Jimmy mumbled, or it seemed like mumbling to Kathy, that he was shy, that he was busy, that he wasn’t sure that she even noticed him, or if she did notice him, liked him. Kids’ stuff, typical guy kids’ stuff, thought Kathy. But just now, unbelievably, the last dance, the last sweet time high school dance before facing the Cold War world and whatever it held out in that 1957 night, was to begin. But that world stuff was for tomorrow tonight Kathy has finally, finally, snagged the boy she has been mooning over for, well, let’s leave it as a long time, long before rock ‘n’ roll made it easier for a guy like Jimmy Callahan to ask a girl like Kathy Kelly out on to the dance floor without having to get all balled up in following the leader close dancing, sweaty palms and all. Now though was the time for slow dancing, slow last dance dancing and two-left feet, two left-shoeless feet, heck, two left-snow-shoed feet or not, Jimmy, as Kathy beamed to herself, was snagged.
Kathy looking resplendent in her Filene’s finest formal dress, complete with lacy see-though shawl, and topped off with a Jimmy corsage, a corsage that spoke more powerfully to her victory than ten million dances, and that finally felt that it all worth it feeling another ten million. Worth the every trick in the book that she had to pull out of the hat in order that he would “ask” her to their senior prom, the last chance Kathy would get to claim her Jimmy before he left for State later in the summer. Just that hand-clasped moment she hoped, hoped to the stars above, that they played her “they” song, a song that she had been listening to with Jimmy last dance dancing in mind since, well, you already know, a long time.
That right choice might also be the last chance to put her mark on him, although earlier in the evening she sensed something, something unsaid, when they played 16 Candles by the Crests and Jimmy mumbled something about how he was sorry that he couldn’t make it to her 16th birthday party, although Kathy had gone through six levels of hell to try and get him there. Then he kind of backed off when they played Patsy Cline’s cover of Crazy and right after that he said he didn’t understand how someone could keep on “carrying the torch” when the love affair was over. And he was definitely moody when they played I’m Sorry by Brenda Lee, calling it drippy. He lightened up a little when they played in In The Still Of The Night by the Five Satins and said he loved doo wop, proving it by knowing all the words and doing some fine harmony in his deep bass voice.
Suddenly some awfully familiar music started up and the last dance began, the last dance ending with Only You by The Platters. And just as the Platters got into the heart of the song, the heart-felt only you part, Jimmy, red-faced, shy, two left-feet Jimmy, asked Miss Kathy Kelly if she would come up and visit him at State in the fall. Ah, very heaven.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘60s Song Night- Betty Everett’s “It’s In His Kiss”
Click on to the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Betty Everett performing her classic, It's In His Kiss.
It’s In His Kiss- Betty Everett
Does he love me?
I wanna know!
How can I tell if he loves me so?
(Is it in his eyes?)
Oh no! You need to see!
(Is it in his size?)
Oh no! You make believe!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
(Oh yeah! Or is it in his face?)
no girls! It's just his charms!
(In his warm embrace?)
no girls! That's just his arms!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
yeah!! Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, oh, oh, honey !
Squeeze him tight!
Find out what you wanna know!
promise love, and if it really is,
It's there in his kiss!
(How 'bout the way he acts?)
no no no! That's not the way!
You're not listenin' to all I'm sayin'!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, yeah! Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, oh, oh, hold him !
Squeeze him tight!
Find out what you wanna know!
promise love, and if it really is,
well It's there in his kiss!
(How 'bout the way he acts?)
no no no! That's not the way!
You're not listenin' to all I'm sayin'!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, yeah ! Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
mmmm ! Its in his kiss!
(that's where it is)
mmmm is in his kiss
Well everyone knows by now that Jenny Dolan and John, John O’Connor, the running back gridiron hero of the North Adamsville football team, the one who almost single-handedly won them their state class championship are postponing their plans to be married now that John has been given a football scholarship to Boston College. See the love-bugs want to wait to see how that pans out, and besides they have each other through thick and thin so to wait is no big deal. But just in case that is not in the cards they are together more these days and so John is not to be seen around Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as much as in his old single days, or even as much as in his “married” days, the days since he and Jennie became an item a couple of years back.
For that matter Frankie Riley, the leader of the pack, hasn’t been seen lately either, ever since his 247th “break-up" with flame, Joanne, Joanne Doyle. That can only mean one thing, old Frankie is out catting around before Joanne reins him in again. And Chrissie knows, Chrissie McNamara knows damn well that Frankie is on the prowl because about twenty minutes after he got his “walking papers” from Joanne this time he was on the phone to Chrissie seeing if she was ‘available.’ “No dice,” said Chrissie and not because she wasn’t interested in Frankie. A lot of girls were, a little. Except “ball and chain” Joanne history meant that this was just Frankie lark time. Besides Chrissie and Joanne had been friends longer than Joanne had known Frankie and Chrissie liked Joanne, which is not what you could say about most girls who knew Joanne. But this is not about Joanne and so it need not be gotten into here.
What needs to be gotten into though is why Chrissie is ambling into Salducci’s Pizza Parlor at ten o’clock at night, a Thursday school night ten o’clock all by herself. Well, it ain’t for the pizza, although the way Tonio, the zen master pizza maker and owner of the parlor, makes those pizza slather and slither is worth coming in for almost any time. And it ain’t for Peter Paul Markin’s company, no way, not for a long time. Peter Paul is “holding down the fort” just now while his “boss” Frankie is, as is already known, out catting around. He probably already has made a note, a mental note, that Frankie for the 27th time has “struck out” with Chrissie and so maybe she wants his company. No way, no way that way, anyway. Peter Paul and Chrissie have gotten friendlier, or Chrissie has, every since Peter Paul started getting into the be-bop folk music scene now growing by leaps and bounds in Boston. They actually went to some coffeehouse over on Joy Street in Boston one night with Frankie and Joanne. The latter pair couldn’t wait to leave (probably because Frankie’s calling card, flannel shirt, jeans, work boots, and ya, midnight sunglasses didn’t raise an eyebrow. Half the guys in the place looked just like him, except maybe the sunglasses). But Chrissie and Peter Paul thought it was fantastic. Just no romance, no way, got it.
What does have Chrissie’s attention is one James Joseph Kelly, Fingers Kelly, who is sitting right next to Peter Paul at the moment. Now Fingers Kelly used to have the moniker of "Five Fingers" Kelly and for the squares out there that meant he was a clip artist and for the real squarey squares that meant he took things from stores…without paying. In other words he swiped things. But a couple of juvenile court appearances and some manhandling by James Joseph Kelly, Sr. shorten his moniker to Fingers, fast. Now what Chrissie wants to talk to Fingers about is why, why just a couple of hours ago, did Fingers state to the best of his recollection that he did not want to see one Christine Anne McNamara on Saturday night. And on that night take her to the annual North Adamsville High School “Hi-Jinks” dance.
Now Fingers, Fingers Kelly, is wise enough to the ways of the world, to know that if he doesn’t grab Christine Anne McNamara with both arms when she is “after” him then some other guy (or guys) will be more than happy to do so. See Chrissie, besides being the head cheerleader at North is nothing but a fox. And Frankie, Fingers, hell even Peter Paul know this fact. Tall, brownish blonde hair, a few freckles, nice legs, and a very nice personality (has to be if Peter Paul thinks so) to go with that physical description. And she is interested in lots of things besides corn-ball cheer leading like that folk music stuff that was just mentioned. But Fingers has the freeze on for her.
Fingers is not bad looking, kind of tall, somewhat athletic (you had to be in his former career), not bad to talk to, but is nothing if not just an okay guy. So the number one question, well, really the number two question after how many days will it be before Joanne reins her lover boy, Frankie, in, is why Chrissie is after Fingers so bad. And why Fingers, knowing what he knows about North Adamsville high school guys, is not waiting with bells on to take Chrissie to the dance. Well, you have not been paying attention on that Finger’s part (Chrissie we will get to in a minute). Finger, when he was Five Fingers, always had kale (cash, money, dollars, okay) and was not afraid to spent it. But in his new life as just Fingers he is broke more than not. And see, he cannot go back to the five fingers way of life because one Senior Kelly will bop him good. And old Senior, while we are at it, is not lending sonny boy any dough (kale, okay) after forking put a ton of money to keep one James Joseph Kelly, Junior out of reform school. So that is the skinny, pure and simple. So if you have any loose change hanging around ship it over Finger’s way, and thanks.
Now Chrissie is another matter. As already mentioned Fingers is okay but just okay so it has to be something else. And it ain’t dough (although she does not know that Fingers is broke, totally broke). And it ain’t the no car for a Saturday night date. She said that she would borrow her father’s car. Even Peter Paul is puzzled by this situation and usually he is clueless about such “high” romance. The only thing anybody has come up with is something that people noticed after Chrissie first’s heavy “parking” date (you know what that is right, nobody is that square) with Fingers (a double date because of Finger’s car-deprivation so its not what you think). For a couple of days after that she was all dreamy-faced, all glowy and stuff. Humm.
It’s In His Kiss- Betty Everett
Does he love me?
I wanna know!
How can I tell if he loves me so?
(Is it in his eyes?)
Oh no! You need to see!
(Is it in his size?)
Oh no! You make believe!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
(Oh yeah! Or is it in his face?)
no girls! It's just his charms!
(In his warm embrace?)
no girls! That's just his arms!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
yeah!! Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, oh, oh, honey !
Squeeze him tight!
Find out what you wanna know!
promise love, and if it really is,
It's there in his kiss!
(How 'bout the way he acts?)
no no no! That's not the way!
You're not listenin' to all I'm sayin'!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, yeah! Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, oh, oh, hold him !
Squeeze him tight!
Find out what you wanna know!
promise love, and if it really is,
well It's there in his kiss!
(How 'bout the way he acts?)
no no no! That's not the way!
You're not listenin' to all I'm sayin'!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, yeah ! Its in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
mmmm ! Its in his kiss!
(that's where it is)
mmmm is in his kiss
Well everyone knows by now that Jenny Dolan and John, John O’Connor, the running back gridiron hero of the North Adamsville football team, the one who almost single-handedly won them their state class championship are postponing their plans to be married now that John has been given a football scholarship to Boston College. See the love-bugs want to wait to see how that pans out, and besides they have each other through thick and thin so to wait is no big deal. But just in case that is not in the cards they are together more these days and so John is not to be seen around Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as much as in his old single days, or even as much as in his “married” days, the days since he and Jennie became an item a couple of years back.
For that matter Frankie Riley, the leader of the pack, hasn’t been seen lately either, ever since his 247th “break-up" with flame, Joanne, Joanne Doyle. That can only mean one thing, old Frankie is out catting around before Joanne reins him in again. And Chrissie knows, Chrissie McNamara knows damn well that Frankie is on the prowl because about twenty minutes after he got his “walking papers” from Joanne this time he was on the phone to Chrissie seeing if she was ‘available.’ “No dice,” said Chrissie and not because she wasn’t interested in Frankie. A lot of girls were, a little. Except “ball and chain” Joanne history meant that this was just Frankie lark time. Besides Chrissie and Joanne had been friends longer than Joanne had known Frankie and Chrissie liked Joanne, which is not what you could say about most girls who knew Joanne. But this is not about Joanne and so it need not be gotten into here.
What needs to be gotten into though is why Chrissie is ambling into Salducci’s Pizza Parlor at ten o’clock at night, a Thursday school night ten o’clock all by herself. Well, it ain’t for the pizza, although the way Tonio, the zen master pizza maker and owner of the parlor, makes those pizza slather and slither is worth coming in for almost any time. And it ain’t for Peter Paul Markin’s company, no way, not for a long time. Peter Paul is “holding down the fort” just now while his “boss” Frankie is, as is already known, out catting around. He probably already has made a note, a mental note, that Frankie for the 27th time has “struck out” with Chrissie and so maybe she wants his company. No way, no way that way, anyway. Peter Paul and Chrissie have gotten friendlier, or Chrissie has, every since Peter Paul started getting into the be-bop folk music scene now growing by leaps and bounds in Boston. They actually went to some coffeehouse over on Joy Street in Boston one night with Frankie and Joanne. The latter pair couldn’t wait to leave (probably because Frankie’s calling card, flannel shirt, jeans, work boots, and ya, midnight sunglasses didn’t raise an eyebrow. Half the guys in the place looked just like him, except maybe the sunglasses). But Chrissie and Peter Paul thought it was fantastic. Just no romance, no way, got it.
What does have Chrissie’s attention is one James Joseph Kelly, Fingers Kelly, who is sitting right next to Peter Paul at the moment. Now Fingers Kelly used to have the moniker of "Five Fingers" Kelly and for the squares out there that meant he was a clip artist and for the real squarey squares that meant he took things from stores…without paying. In other words he swiped things. But a couple of juvenile court appearances and some manhandling by James Joseph Kelly, Sr. shorten his moniker to Fingers, fast. Now what Chrissie wants to talk to Fingers about is why, why just a couple of hours ago, did Fingers state to the best of his recollection that he did not want to see one Christine Anne McNamara on Saturday night. And on that night take her to the annual North Adamsville High School “Hi-Jinks” dance.
Now Fingers, Fingers Kelly, is wise enough to the ways of the world, to know that if he doesn’t grab Christine Anne McNamara with both arms when she is “after” him then some other guy (or guys) will be more than happy to do so. See Chrissie, besides being the head cheerleader at North is nothing but a fox. And Frankie, Fingers, hell even Peter Paul know this fact. Tall, brownish blonde hair, a few freckles, nice legs, and a very nice personality (has to be if Peter Paul thinks so) to go with that physical description. And she is interested in lots of things besides corn-ball cheer leading like that folk music stuff that was just mentioned. But Fingers has the freeze on for her.
Fingers is not bad looking, kind of tall, somewhat athletic (you had to be in his former career), not bad to talk to, but is nothing if not just an okay guy. So the number one question, well, really the number two question after how many days will it be before Joanne reins her lover boy, Frankie, in, is why Chrissie is after Fingers so bad. And why Fingers, knowing what he knows about North Adamsville high school guys, is not waiting with bells on to take Chrissie to the dance. Well, you have not been paying attention on that Finger’s part (Chrissie we will get to in a minute). Finger, when he was Five Fingers, always had kale (cash, money, dollars, okay) and was not afraid to spent it. But in his new life as just Fingers he is broke more than not. And see, he cannot go back to the five fingers way of life because one Senior Kelly will bop him good. And old Senior, while we are at it, is not lending sonny boy any dough (kale, okay) after forking put a ton of money to keep one James Joseph Kelly, Junior out of reform school. So that is the skinny, pure and simple. So if you have any loose change hanging around ship it over Finger’s way, and thanks.
Now Chrissie is another matter. As already mentioned Fingers is okay but just okay so it has to be something else. And it ain’t dough (although she does not know that Fingers is broke, totally broke). And it ain’t the no car for a Saturday night date. She said that she would borrow her father’s car. Even Peter Paul is puzzled by this situation and usually he is clueless about such “high” romance. The only thing anybody has come up with is something that people noticed after Chrissie first’s heavy “parking” date (you know what that is right, nobody is that square) with Fingers (a double date because of Finger’s car-deprivation so its not what you think). For a couple of days after that she was all dreamy-faced, all glowy and stuff. Humm.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
And Yet Again, When Doo-Wop Be-Bopped The 1950s Night- “The Coed Records Story”- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Crests performing Sixteen Candles.
CD Review
The Coed Records Story, various artists, Ace Records, 2000
Sometimes looking back at the genesis of the 1950s rock explosion that produced some of the classic music that defined my generation, the generation of “68, it was individual performers like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, who drove the music, other times it was the lyrics, the Tin Pan Alley-etched lyrics, and, as here, sometimes it was the sound, the sound associated with a particular label. One thinks of Sam Phillips’ Sun Records with the early rockabilly and blues explosion. Or Verve, Or Decca, or later the Motown sound. One place where the doo-wop, or doo-wop oriented sub-genre got a full workout was with Coed Records who story is told here in informative booklet form, and more importantly, by something like a greatest hits CD of the best work from that label’s heyday.
Now, like every musical genre, some of this material is strictly of the moment, that doo-wop moment, and some of it was performed by one-hit Johnnies and Janies, but a few, and that is all that one can expect, are classics. Here those classics include 16 Candles and Step By Step (songs you prayed, prayed out loud that they would play, and play at the end of the school dance night), The Crests; You Belong To Me (ditto), The Duprees; and, The Last Dance (ditto again) , The Harptones.
CD Review
The Coed Records Story, various artists, Ace Records, 2000
Sometimes looking back at the genesis of the 1950s rock explosion that produced some of the classic music that defined my generation, the generation of “68, it was individual performers like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, who drove the music, other times it was the lyrics, the Tin Pan Alley-etched lyrics, and, as here, sometimes it was the sound, the sound associated with a particular label. One thinks of Sam Phillips’ Sun Records with the early rockabilly and blues explosion. Or Verve, Or Decca, or later the Motown sound. One place where the doo-wop, or doo-wop oriented sub-genre got a full workout was with Coed Records who story is told here in informative booklet form, and more importantly, by something like a greatest hits CD of the best work from that label’s heyday.
Now, like every musical genre, some of this material is strictly of the moment, that doo-wop moment, and some of it was performed by one-hit Johnnies and Janies, but a few, and that is all that one can expect, are classics. Here those classics include 16 Candles and Step By Step (songs you prayed, prayed out loud that they would play, and play at the end of the school dance night), The Crests; You Belong To Me (ditto), The Duprees; and, The Last Dance (ditto again) , The Harptones.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Let's Have A Party-In The Golden Age Of Classic Rock- The Year 1957 – A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Tune Weavers performing their classic last dance of the night song, Happy Happy Birthday Baby.
CD Review
1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1995
Although I am not completely familiar with the range of their efforts, and of their purpose, I have already extensively reviewed many CD compilations from Time-Life Music’s Rock ‘N’ Rock Era series. A highlight of that series has been the cover artwork that has evoked, and evoked strongly, the themes that dominated our lives, our hubristic teenage lives, in the classic age of rock as we watched it unfold. Things like last dance school dances, lovers’ lanes, dancing the night away to the latest rock music, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants, summer beach life and on and on. This later series also driven by year dates, at least as observed through the cover art, seems to be less concerned with strong old time evocations by flashy artwork. Nevertheless sometimes just a simple photograph as appears on the 1957 cover evokes those memories in a more subtle way.
And what does that photograph picture. Well, Johnny (we’ll just call him that for our purposes here, okay) suited up in sports coat, white shirt, and tie (pants not observed although they had to be black chinos, cuffed or uncuffed, and shoes, well, loafers for sure) and Susie (ditto Johnny) dressed up in her best frilly party dress (no bobby socks or nylons showing so I cannot discuss that issue here nor will I venture into the girl shoe night anymore than I would today into the woman’s shoe night) are comparing notes on the latest 45s.
For those not long in the tooth who may have wandered into this space and are not sure why that was the size record we played on our old time record players (no not wind-up Victrolas, wise guys) when we wanted to drown out ma, pa, and sibling noises about homework, chores, or just the stuff of everyday life. Each record had a one song A side (the hit) and a one song B side, each side a little over two minutes long. That idea didn’t last too long before responding to the crush of the market they started making LPs, records with several songs on each side. Oh, I forgot, for those who don’t know what a record is, long or short, look it up on Wikipedia. I have given enough time to the subject.
And in the year 1957 what might they be comparing on this night, this house party night (or on other school dance nights) well here, as usual the “battle of the sexes” will be played out just like from teen time immemorial. At least records and record player time immemorial. While Buddy Holly, Patsy Kline, Rickey Nelson, and the Everly Brothers have entries on this CD compilation the real fight, the real important fight, school dance or house party, is what song will be played for the last dance. Yes, the key last dance to see whether the evening continues when they hold each other tight after a night of apart self-expression rock and roll dancing. So the battle really boils down to Could This Be Magic? by The Dubs or Happy Happy Birthday Baby by the Tune Weavers and if Johnny does not want to be lonely tonight he better make the right choice. Good luck, brother Johnny.
CD Review
1957, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1995
Although I am not completely familiar with the range of their efforts, and of their purpose, I have already extensively reviewed many CD compilations from Time-Life Music’s Rock ‘N’ Rock Era series. A highlight of that series has been the cover artwork that has evoked, and evoked strongly, the themes that dominated our lives, our hubristic teenage lives, in the classic age of rock as we watched it unfold. Things like last dance school dances, lovers’ lanes, dancing the night away to the latest rock music, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants, summer beach life and on and on. This later series also driven by year dates, at least as observed through the cover art, seems to be less concerned with strong old time evocations by flashy artwork. Nevertheless sometimes just a simple photograph as appears on the 1957 cover evokes those memories in a more subtle way.
And what does that photograph picture. Well, Johnny (we’ll just call him that for our purposes here, okay) suited up in sports coat, white shirt, and tie (pants not observed although they had to be black chinos, cuffed or uncuffed, and shoes, well, loafers for sure) and Susie (ditto Johnny) dressed up in her best frilly party dress (no bobby socks or nylons showing so I cannot discuss that issue here nor will I venture into the girl shoe night anymore than I would today into the woman’s shoe night) are comparing notes on the latest 45s.
For those not long in the tooth who may have wandered into this space and are not sure why that was the size record we played on our old time record players (no not wind-up Victrolas, wise guys) when we wanted to drown out ma, pa, and sibling noises about homework, chores, or just the stuff of everyday life. Each record had a one song A side (the hit) and a one song B side, each side a little over two minutes long. That idea didn’t last too long before responding to the crush of the market they started making LPs, records with several songs on each side. Oh, I forgot, for those who don’t know what a record is, long or short, look it up on Wikipedia. I have given enough time to the subject.
And in the year 1957 what might they be comparing on this night, this house party night (or on other school dance nights) well here, as usual the “battle of the sexes” will be played out just like from teen time immemorial. At least records and record player time immemorial. While Buddy Holly, Patsy Kline, Rickey Nelson, and the Everly Brothers have entries on this CD compilation the real fight, the real important fight, school dance or house party, is what song will be played for the last dance. Yes, the key last dance to see whether the evening continues when they hold each other tight after a night of apart self-expression rock and roll dancing. So the battle really boils down to Could This Be Magic? by The Dubs or Happy Happy Birthday Baby by the Tune Weavers and if Johnny does not want to be lonely tonight he better make the right choice. Good luck, brother Johnny.
Friday, December 24, 2010
*The Stones or Beatles?
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Howlin' Wolf performing Willie Dixon's classic Little Red Rooster. I am sure that Mick and the boys will gladly take a back seat to Howlin' Wolf on this one.
Markin, Class Of 1964, comment:
The Stones or Beatles?
This entry was originally posted on Classmates in March 2008.
I have been posing some questions to my class, the Class of 1964. The following question is one such example. However, it occurred to me that other classes might be able to answer it as well. After all we all bled Raider red, right? I will occasionally pose other questions of general interest.
******
I propose to use this Message Board space to pose certain questions to my fellow classmates to which I am interested in getting answers. Thus, I will be periodically throwing a question out and would appreciate an answer. No, I do not want to ask personal family questions. After forty years this space is hardly the place to air our 'dirty' little secrets. I do not want to talk religion. That is everyone's private affair. Nor I do not want to talk politics, although those who might remember me know that I am a "political junkie" from way back. In fact I mean to get my self into some twelve-step rehab program as soon as this current presidential campaign is over, if it ever is. What I want to do is ask questions like that posed below. Join me.
"Manchurian Candidate" McCain vs. The Huckster? Boring. Ms. Hillary vs. Obama "The Charma"? Ho, hum. Three dollar gas at the pump. Oh, well. (Remember this was originally written in March. AJ)? What has my blood boiling is a question that I am desperate, after forty years, to know about my classmates from 1964. In your callow youth, back in the mist of time, did you prefer The Rolling Stones or the Beatles? The question was posed in the canned Q&A section on my profile page (on the Classmates site) but I feel the issue warrants a full airing out.
I make no bones about my preference for The Rolling Stones and will motivate that below but here let me just set the parameters of the discussion. I am talking about the stuff they and the Beatles did when we were in high school. I do not mean the later material like the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper" or The Stones' "Gimme Shelter". And no, I do not want to hear about how you really swooned over Bobby Darin or Bobby Dee. Answer the question asked, please.
I am not sure exactly when I first hear a Stones song although it was probably "Satisfaction". However, what really hooked me on them was when they covered the old Willie Dixon blues classic "Little Red Rooster". If you will recall that song was banned, at first, from the radio stations of Boston. Later, I think, and someone can maybe help me out on this, WMEX broke the ban and played it. And no, the song was not about the doings of our barnyard friends. But beyond the sexual theme was the fact that it was banned that made me, and perhaps you, want to hear it at any cost. That says as much about my personality then, and now, as any long-winded statement I could make.
That event began my long love affair with the blues. And that is probably why, although the blues, particularly the Chicago blues, also influenced the Beatles, it is The Stones that I favor. Their cover still holds up, by the way. Not as good, as I found out later, as the legendary Howlin' Wolf's version but good. I have also thought about the Stones influence recently as I have thought about the long ago past of my youth.
Compare some works like John Lennon's plaintive "Working Class Hero" and The Stones' agitated "Street Fighting Man" (yes, I know these are later works but they serve to make my point here) and I believe that something in the way The Stones from early on presented that angry, defiant sound appealed to my sense of working class alienation. But enough. I will close with this. I have put my money where my mouth is with my preference. When the Stones toured Boston at Fenway Park in the summer of 2005 I spend many (too many) dollars to get down near the stage and watch old Mick and friends rock. Beat that.
Street Fighting Man Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Rolling Stones
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
'Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
Hey! Think the time is right for a palace revolution
'Cause where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
Hey! Said my name is called disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants
Well, what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
"Working Class Hero" lyrics- John Lennon
As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.
The Red Rooster
Howling Wolf
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way
Oh the dogs begin to bark,
and the hound begin to howl
Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound begin to howl
Ooh watch out strange kind people,
Cause little red rooster is on the prowl
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
There ain't no peace in the barnyard,
Since the little red rooster been gone
Willie Dixon
*********
*"The Battle Of The Sexes-Round 235"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtkFmCY9IZ0
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Patsy Cline performing "She's Got You".
Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:
Posted: Mar 28 2009 on Classmates
"The Battle Of The Sexes-Round 235"
From The Recycle Bin. This entry was originally posted on this site in March 2008. It should be read in conjunction with "The Rolling Stones or The Beatles?" entry.
Brenda Lee or Patsy Cline?
Sometimes one cannot win. As my first entry in the Class of 1964 Message Board (on Classmates) I asked what I thought was an innocuous question: in your youth did you prefer The Rolling Stones or the Beatles? Innocent, right? Not though when my "significant other" (known in the old days, in polite society, as my paramour and in impolite society as...oh, well you can fill in the blank) finished reading the entry. The gist of her indignant argument centered on my alleged testosterone-driven choices of male Rock 'n' Roll bands to the exclusion of kinder, gentler music-in short, choices that women might prefer. Okay, I take the point. And because March 8th is International Women's Day and March is Women's History Month I here make amends. Naturally, I need to make a little comment to motivate my choice.
Frankly, I do not remember being a fan of either Brenda Lee or Patsy Cline in my youth. I picked those names for the purposes of this 'essay' because they stick out in my memories. Both names are associated in those memories with dreamy school dances or other types of romantic endeavor. It was not until several years ago that I came to appreciate Patsy Cline's work. I have always been a sucker for female torch singers like Billie Holiday and the young Peggy Lee in her Benny Goodman period but Patsy only recently became part of my musical interests as a country "torch" singer. So there you have my choice. Make yours.
One last word. Let me get back to that controversy with my "significant other" (I prefer "soul-mate" but I will let that pass here). I mentioned in that first entry that in the summer of 2005 I attended a Rolling Stones concert at Fenway Park. Now who do you think was standing beside me shaking, as the kids say, her "booty" for all she was worth? So much for that testosterone theory. Moreover, who imprisoned me in Fenway Park practically at gunpoint, until I bought her a sassy little Stones T-shirt as a memento of the occasion? Enough said.
VVVV
Alfred Johnson
Posted: Mar 25 2009 10:38am PST
In reply to Class of 1964
Here Are Some Lyrics For Brenda and Patsy So You Can Make An Informed Decision On These Burning Questions Of The Day.
Brenda Lee - I'm Sorry lyrics
Lyrics to I'm Sorry :
I'm sorry, so sorry
That I was such a fool
I didn't know
Love could be so cruel
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes
You tell me mistakes
Are part of being young
But that don't right
The wrong that's been done
Spoken:
(I'm sorry) I'm sorry
(So sorry) So sorry
Please accept my apology
But love is blind
And I was to blind to see
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes
You tell me mistakes
Are part of being young
But that don't right
The wrong that's been done
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes
I'm sorry, so sorry
Please accept my apology
But love was blind
And I was too blind to see
(Sorry)
She's Got You Lyrics
Artist: Patsy Cline
I've got your picture that you gave to me
And it's signed with love just like it used to be
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got your picture, she's got you
I've got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got the records, she's got you
I've got your memory, or, has it got me?
I really don't know but I know it won't let me be
I've got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's got you
I've got your memory, or, has it got me?
I really don't know but I know it won't let me be
I've got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's-got-you
Markin, Class Of 1964, comment:
The Stones or Beatles?
This entry was originally posted on Classmates in March 2008.
I have been posing some questions to my class, the Class of 1964. The following question is one such example. However, it occurred to me that other classes might be able to answer it as well. After all we all bled Raider red, right? I will occasionally pose other questions of general interest.
******
I propose to use this Message Board space to pose certain questions to my fellow classmates to which I am interested in getting answers. Thus, I will be periodically throwing a question out and would appreciate an answer. No, I do not want to ask personal family questions. After forty years this space is hardly the place to air our 'dirty' little secrets. I do not want to talk religion. That is everyone's private affair. Nor I do not want to talk politics, although those who might remember me know that I am a "political junkie" from way back. In fact I mean to get my self into some twelve-step rehab program as soon as this current presidential campaign is over, if it ever is. What I want to do is ask questions like that posed below. Join me.
"Manchurian Candidate" McCain vs. The Huckster? Boring. Ms. Hillary vs. Obama "The Charma"? Ho, hum. Three dollar gas at the pump. Oh, well. (Remember this was originally written in March. AJ)? What has my blood boiling is a question that I am desperate, after forty years, to know about my classmates from 1964. In your callow youth, back in the mist of time, did you prefer The Rolling Stones or the Beatles? The question was posed in the canned Q&A section on my profile page (on the Classmates site) but I feel the issue warrants a full airing out.
I make no bones about my preference for The Rolling Stones and will motivate that below but here let me just set the parameters of the discussion. I am talking about the stuff they and the Beatles did when we were in high school. I do not mean the later material like the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper" or The Stones' "Gimme Shelter". And no, I do not want to hear about how you really swooned over Bobby Darin or Bobby Dee. Answer the question asked, please.
I am not sure exactly when I first hear a Stones song although it was probably "Satisfaction". However, what really hooked me on them was when they covered the old Willie Dixon blues classic "Little Red Rooster". If you will recall that song was banned, at first, from the radio stations of Boston. Later, I think, and someone can maybe help me out on this, WMEX broke the ban and played it. And no, the song was not about the doings of our barnyard friends. But beyond the sexual theme was the fact that it was banned that made me, and perhaps you, want to hear it at any cost. That says as much about my personality then, and now, as any long-winded statement I could make.
That event began my long love affair with the blues. And that is probably why, although the blues, particularly the Chicago blues, also influenced the Beatles, it is The Stones that I favor. Their cover still holds up, by the way. Not as good, as I found out later, as the legendary Howlin' Wolf's version but good. I have also thought about the Stones influence recently as I have thought about the long ago past of my youth.
Compare some works like John Lennon's plaintive "Working Class Hero" and The Stones' agitated "Street Fighting Man" (yes, I know these are later works but they serve to make my point here) and I believe that something in the way The Stones from early on presented that angry, defiant sound appealed to my sense of working class alienation. But enough. I will close with this. I have put my money where my mouth is with my preference. When the Stones toured Boston at Fenway Park in the summer of 2005 I spend many (too many) dollars to get down near the stage and watch old Mick and friends rock. Beat that.
Street Fighting Man Lyrics
Artist(Band):The Rolling Stones
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
'Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy
But what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
Hey! Think the time is right for a palace revolution
'Cause where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
Hey! Said my name is called disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants
Well, what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man
No
"Working Class Hero" lyrics- John Lennon
As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.
The Red Rooster
Howling Wolf
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way
Oh the dogs begin to bark,
and the hound begin to howl
Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound begin to howl
Ooh watch out strange kind people,
Cause little red rooster is on the prowl
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
There ain't no peace in the barnyard,
Since the little red rooster been gone
Willie Dixon
*********
*"The Battle Of The Sexes-Round 235"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtkFmCY9IZ0
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Patsy Cline performing "She's Got You".
Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:
Posted: Mar 28 2009 on Classmates
"The Battle Of The Sexes-Round 235"
From The Recycle Bin. This entry was originally posted on this site in March 2008. It should be read in conjunction with "The Rolling Stones or The Beatles?" entry.
Brenda Lee or Patsy Cline?
Sometimes one cannot win. As my first entry in the Class of 1964 Message Board (on Classmates) I asked what I thought was an innocuous question: in your youth did you prefer The Rolling Stones or the Beatles? Innocent, right? Not though when my "significant other" (known in the old days, in polite society, as my paramour and in impolite society as...oh, well you can fill in the blank) finished reading the entry. The gist of her indignant argument centered on my alleged testosterone-driven choices of male Rock 'n' Roll bands to the exclusion of kinder, gentler music-in short, choices that women might prefer. Okay, I take the point. And because March 8th is International Women's Day and March is Women's History Month I here make amends. Naturally, I need to make a little comment to motivate my choice.
Frankly, I do not remember being a fan of either Brenda Lee or Patsy Cline in my youth. I picked those names for the purposes of this 'essay' because they stick out in my memories. Both names are associated in those memories with dreamy school dances or other types of romantic endeavor. It was not until several years ago that I came to appreciate Patsy Cline's work. I have always been a sucker for female torch singers like Billie Holiday and the young Peggy Lee in her Benny Goodman period but Patsy only recently became part of my musical interests as a country "torch" singer. So there you have my choice. Make yours.
One last word. Let me get back to that controversy with my "significant other" (I prefer "soul-mate" but I will let that pass here). I mentioned in that first entry that in the summer of 2005 I attended a Rolling Stones concert at Fenway Park. Now who do you think was standing beside me shaking, as the kids say, her "booty" for all she was worth? So much for that testosterone theory. Moreover, who imprisoned me in Fenway Park practically at gunpoint, until I bought her a sassy little Stones T-shirt as a memento of the occasion? Enough said.
VVVV
Alfred Johnson
Posted: Mar 25 2009 10:38am PST
In reply to Class of 1964
Here Are Some Lyrics For Brenda and Patsy So You Can Make An Informed Decision On These Burning Questions Of The Day.
Brenda Lee - I'm Sorry lyrics
Lyrics to I'm Sorry :
I'm sorry, so sorry
That I was such a fool
I didn't know
Love could be so cruel
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes
You tell me mistakes
Are part of being young
But that don't right
The wrong that's been done
Spoken:
(I'm sorry) I'm sorry
(So sorry) So sorry
Please accept my apology
But love is blind
And I was to blind to see
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes
You tell me mistakes
Are part of being young
But that don't right
The wrong that's been done
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Uh, oh
Oh, yes
I'm sorry, so sorry
Please accept my apology
But love was blind
And I was too blind to see
(Sorry)
She's Got You Lyrics
Artist: Patsy Cline
I've got your picture that you gave to me
And it's signed with love just like it used to be
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got your picture, she's got you
I've got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got the records, she's got you
I've got your memory, or, has it got me?
I really don't know but I know it won't let me be
I've got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's got you
I've got your memory, or, has it got me?
I really don't know but I know it won't let me be
I've got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I've got these little things, she's-got-you
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
*Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Night- Thanksgiving Football Rally, 1963- For Jimmy, Class Of 1966
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American football on Thanksgiving. I knew when I Googled this search old Wikipedia would not let me down.
Markin, Class of 1964, comment:
Scene: Around and inside the old high school gym entrance on the Hunt street side the night before the big Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross town arch-rival in 1963. (Yes, that is the street with the Merit gas station, now Hess, on the corner.) And this is at a time before they built what is apparently an addition modeled on the office buildings across the street behind the MBTA stop and a tribute to “high” concrete construction, and lowest bidder imagination). But it could have been a scene from any one of a number of years in those days. And I am willing to bet six-two-and-even with cold hard cash gathered from my local ATM against all takers that this story “speaks”, except the names, to 2010 as well:
Sure the air is cold, you can see your breath making curls before your eyes no problem, and the night feels cold, cold as one would expect from a late November New England night. It is also starless, as the weather report is projecting rain for the big game. Damn, not, damn, because I am worried about, or care about a little rain. I’ve seen and done many things in a late November New England winter rain, and December and January rains too, for that matter. No, this damn, is for the possibility that the muddy Veterans Stadium field will slow up our vaunted offensive attack. And good as it is a little rain, and a little mud, can be the great equalizer.
This after all is class struggle. No, not the kind that you might have heard old Karl Marx and his boys talk about, although now that I think of it there might be something to that here as well. I’ll have to check that out sometime but right now I am worried, worried to perdition about the battle of the titans on the gridiron, rain-soaked granite grey day or not. See, this particular class struggle is Class A Quincy against Class B North and we need every advantage against this bigger school. (Yes, I know for those younger readers that today’s Massachusetts high schools are gathered in a bewildering number of divisions and sub-divisions for some purpose that escapes me but when football was played for keeps and honor simpler designations worked just find.)
Do I have to describe the physical aspects of the gym? Come on now this thing is any high school gym, any pubic high school gym, anywhere. Fold-away bleachers, fold-away divider (to separate boys for girls in gym class, if you can believe that), waxed and polished floors made of sturdy wood, don’t ask me what kind (oak, maybe) with various sets of lines for its other uses as a basketball or volleyball court. But enough. The important thing is that guys and gals, old and young, students and alumni and just plan townies are milling about waiting for the annual gathering of the Red Raider clan, those who have bled, bleed or want to bleed Raider red and even those oddballs that don't. This one stirs the blood of even the most detached denizen of the old town.
This night of nights, moreover, every unattached red-blooded boy student, in addition, is looking around, and looking around frantically in some cases, to see if that certain she has come for the festivities, and every unattached red-blooded girl student for that certain he. Don’t tell you didn’t take a peek, or at least a stealthy glance. Among this throng are a couple of fervent quasi-jock male students, one of them who is writing this entry the other, great track man Bill C., who is busy getting in his glances in, both members of the Class of 1964, with a vested interest in seeing their football-playing fellow classmates pummel the cross town rival, and also, in the interest of full disclosure, in the hunt for those elusive shes. I do not see the certain she that I am looking for but, as was my style then, I have taken a couple of stealthy glances at some alternate prospects.
This is the final football game of our final football-watching season, as students anyway, as well so we have brought extra energy to the night’s performance. We are on the prowl and ready to do everything in our power to bring home victory. ....Well, almost everything except donning a football uniform to face the monstrous goliaths of the gridiron. We fancy ourselves built for more "refined" pursuits like those just mentioned stealthy glances, and the like.
Finally, after much hubbub (and more coy and meaningful looks all around the place that one could reasonably shake a stick at) the rally begins, at first somewhat subdued due to the very recent trauma of the Kennedy assassination, the dastardly murder of one of our own, for the many green-tinged Irish partisans among the crowd, as well as the president. But everyone, seemingly, has tacitly agreed for this little window of time that the outside world and its horrors will not intrude. A few obligatory (and forgettable) speeches by somber and lackluster school administrators, headed by Principal Walsh, and their lackeys in student government and among the faculty stressing good sportsmanship and that old chestnut about it not mattering about victory but how you play the game drone away.
Of course, no self-respecting “true” Red Raider has anything but thoughts of mayhem and casting the cross-town rivals to the gates of hell in his or her heart so this speechifying is so much wasted wind. This “bummer”, obligatory or not, is followed with a little of this and that, mainly side show antics. People, amateurishly, twirling red and black things in the air, and the like. Boosters or Tri-Hi-Yi types for all I know. Certainly not the majorettes, who I will not hear a word against, and who certainly know how to twirl the right way. See, I am saving one of my sly, coy glances for one of them right now.
What every red-blooded senior boy, moreover, and probably others as well, is looking forward to is the cheer-leading to get things moving, led by the senior girls like the vivacious Roxanne G., the spunky Josie W., and the plucky Linda P.. They do not fail us with their flips, dips, and rah-rahs. Strangely, the band and its bevy of majorettes when it is their turn, with one exception, do not inspire that same kind of devotion, although no one can deny that some of those girls can twirl.
But all this spectacle is so much, too much, introduction. For what is wanted, what is demanded of the situation, up close and personal, is a view of the Goliaths that will run over the cross town arch-rival the next day. A chance to yell ourselves silly. The season has been excellent, marred only by a bitter lost to a bigger area team on their home field, and our team is highly regarded by lukewarm fans and sports nuts alike. Naturally, in the spirit, if not the letter of high school athletic ethos, the back-ups and non-seniors are introduced by Coach L.. Then come the drum roll of the senior starters, some of whom have been playing for an eternity it seems. Names like Tom K., Walt S., Lee M., Paul D., Joe Z., Don McN., Jim F., Charlie McD., Stevie C., "Woj" (Jesus, don’t forget him. I don't need that kind of madness coming down on my face, even now) and on and on.
Oh, yes and “Bullwinkle”, Bill C., a behemoth of a run-over fullback , even by today’s standards. Yes, let him loose on that arch-rival's defense. Whoa. But something is missing. A sullen collective pout fills the room. After the intros are over the restless crowd needs an oral reassurance from their warriors that the enemy is done for. And as he ambles up to the microphone and says just a couple of words we get just that reassurance from “Bullwinkle” himself. That is all we need. Boys and girls, this one is in the bag. And as we head for the exits to dream our second-hand dreams of glory the band plays the school fight song to the tune of On Wisconsin. Yes, those were the days when boys and girls, young and old, wise or ignorance bled Raider red in the old town. Do they still do so today? And do they still make those furtive glances? I hope so.
Markin, Class of 1964, comment:
Scene: Around and inside the old high school gym entrance on the Hunt street side the night before the big Thanksgiving Day football game against our cross town arch-rival in 1963. (Yes, that is the street with the Merit gas station, now Hess, on the corner.) And this is at a time before they built what is apparently an addition modeled on the office buildings across the street behind the MBTA stop and a tribute to “high” concrete construction, and lowest bidder imagination). But it could have been a scene from any one of a number of years in those days. And I am willing to bet six-two-and-even with cold hard cash gathered from my local ATM against all takers that this story “speaks”, except the names, to 2010 as well:
Sure the air is cold, you can see your breath making curls before your eyes no problem, and the night feels cold, cold as one would expect from a late November New England night. It is also starless, as the weather report is projecting rain for the big game. Damn, not, damn, because I am worried about, or care about a little rain. I’ve seen and done many things in a late November New England winter rain, and December and January rains too, for that matter. No, this damn, is for the possibility that the muddy Veterans Stadium field will slow up our vaunted offensive attack. And good as it is a little rain, and a little mud, can be the great equalizer.
This after all is class struggle. No, not the kind that you might have heard old Karl Marx and his boys talk about, although now that I think of it there might be something to that here as well. I’ll have to check that out sometime but right now I am worried, worried to perdition about the battle of the titans on the gridiron, rain-soaked granite grey day or not. See, this particular class struggle is Class A Quincy against Class B North and we need every advantage against this bigger school. (Yes, I know for those younger readers that today’s Massachusetts high schools are gathered in a bewildering number of divisions and sub-divisions for some purpose that escapes me but when football was played for keeps and honor simpler designations worked just find.)
Do I have to describe the physical aspects of the gym? Come on now this thing is any high school gym, any pubic high school gym, anywhere. Fold-away bleachers, fold-away divider (to separate boys for girls in gym class, if you can believe that), waxed and polished floors made of sturdy wood, don’t ask me what kind (oak, maybe) with various sets of lines for its other uses as a basketball or volleyball court. But enough. The important thing is that guys and gals, old and young, students and alumni and just plan townies are milling about waiting for the annual gathering of the Red Raider clan, those who have bled, bleed or want to bleed Raider red and even those oddballs that don't. This one stirs the blood of even the most detached denizen of the old town.
This night of nights, moreover, every unattached red-blooded boy student, in addition, is looking around, and looking around frantically in some cases, to see if that certain she has come for the festivities, and every unattached red-blooded girl student for that certain he. Don’t tell you didn’t take a peek, or at least a stealthy glance. Among this throng are a couple of fervent quasi-jock male students, one of them who is writing this entry the other, great track man Bill C., who is busy getting in his glances in, both members of the Class of 1964, with a vested interest in seeing their football-playing fellow classmates pummel the cross town rival, and also, in the interest of full disclosure, in the hunt for those elusive shes. I do not see the certain she that I am looking for but, as was my style then, I have taken a couple of stealthy glances at some alternate prospects.
This is the final football game of our final football-watching season, as students anyway, as well so we have brought extra energy to the night’s performance. We are on the prowl and ready to do everything in our power to bring home victory. ....Well, almost everything except donning a football uniform to face the monstrous goliaths of the gridiron. We fancy ourselves built for more "refined" pursuits like those just mentioned stealthy glances, and the like.
Finally, after much hubbub (and more coy and meaningful looks all around the place that one could reasonably shake a stick at) the rally begins, at first somewhat subdued due to the very recent trauma of the Kennedy assassination, the dastardly murder of one of our own, for the many green-tinged Irish partisans among the crowd, as well as the president. But everyone, seemingly, has tacitly agreed for this little window of time that the outside world and its horrors will not intrude. A few obligatory (and forgettable) speeches by somber and lackluster school administrators, headed by Principal Walsh, and their lackeys in student government and among the faculty stressing good sportsmanship and that old chestnut about it not mattering about victory but how you play the game drone away.
Of course, no self-respecting “true” Red Raider has anything but thoughts of mayhem and casting the cross-town rivals to the gates of hell in his or her heart so this speechifying is so much wasted wind. This “bummer”, obligatory or not, is followed with a little of this and that, mainly side show antics. People, amateurishly, twirling red and black things in the air, and the like. Boosters or Tri-Hi-Yi types for all I know. Certainly not the majorettes, who I will not hear a word against, and who certainly know how to twirl the right way. See, I am saving one of my sly, coy glances for one of them right now.
What every red-blooded senior boy, moreover, and probably others as well, is looking forward to is the cheer-leading to get things moving, led by the senior girls like the vivacious Roxanne G., the spunky Josie W., and the plucky Linda P.. They do not fail us with their flips, dips, and rah-rahs. Strangely, the band and its bevy of majorettes when it is their turn, with one exception, do not inspire that same kind of devotion, although no one can deny that some of those girls can twirl.
But all this spectacle is so much, too much, introduction. For what is wanted, what is demanded of the situation, up close and personal, is a view of the Goliaths that will run over the cross town arch-rival the next day. A chance to yell ourselves silly. The season has been excellent, marred only by a bitter lost to a bigger area team on their home field, and our team is highly regarded by lukewarm fans and sports nuts alike. Naturally, in the spirit, if not the letter of high school athletic ethos, the back-ups and non-seniors are introduced by Coach L.. Then come the drum roll of the senior starters, some of whom have been playing for an eternity it seems. Names like Tom K., Walt S., Lee M., Paul D., Joe Z., Don McN., Jim F., Charlie McD., Stevie C., "Woj" (Jesus, don’t forget him. I don't need that kind of madness coming down on my face, even now) and on and on.
Oh, yes and “Bullwinkle”, Bill C., a behemoth of a run-over fullback , even by today’s standards. Yes, let him loose on that arch-rival's defense. Whoa. But something is missing. A sullen collective pout fills the room. After the intros are over the restless crowd needs an oral reassurance from their warriors that the enemy is done for. And as he ambles up to the microphone and says just a couple of words we get just that reassurance from “Bullwinkle” himself. That is all we need. Boys and girls, this one is in the bag. And as we head for the exits to dream our second-hand dreams of glory the band plays the school fight song to the tune of On Wisconsin. Yes, those were the days when boys and girls, young and old, wise or ignorance bled Raider red in the old town. Do they still do so today? And do they still make those furtive glances? I hope so.
Monday, November 22, 2010
**Out In The Be-Bop Night- Saturday Night With “Roy The Boy”- Roy Orbison
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Roy Orbison performing Running Scared.
DVD Review
Roy Orbison: Black and White Nights, Roy Orbison, various all-star musicians and backup singers including Bruce Springsteen and T-Bone Burnett, 1987
Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis come easily to mind when thinking about classic rock ‘n’ roll. And about where you were, and who you were with, and what you were doing when you heard those voices on the radio, on the television, or when you were spinning platters (records, for the younger set, okay, nice expression, right?). The artist under review, Roy Orbison, although clearly a rock legend, and rightly so, does not evoke that same kind of memory for me. Oh sure, I listened to Blue Bayou, Pretty Woman, Running Scared, Sweet Dreams, Baby and many of the other songs that are performed on this great black and white concert footage. And backed up by the likes of T-Bone Burnett, who may be the top rhythm guitarist of the age (and who has also gotten well-deserved kudos for his work on Jeff Bridges’ Crazy Hearts), Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Bruce Springsteen. With vocal backups by k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt. All who gave energized performances and all who were deeply influenced by Roy’s music. That alone makes this worth viewing.
Still, I had this gnawing feeling about Roy’s voice after viewing this documentary and why it never really “spoke” to me like the others. Then it came to me, the part I mentioned above about where I was, and who I was with, and what I was doing when I heard Roy. Enter one mad monk teenage friend, Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood. Frankie of a thousand stories, Frankie of a thousand treacheries, and, oh ya, Frankie, my bosom friend in high school.
See, when Roy was big, big in our beat down around the edges, some days it seemed beat six ways to Sunday, working class neighborhood in the early 1960s, we all used to hang around the town pizza parlor, or one of them anyway that was also conveniently near our high school too. Maybe this place was not the best one to sit down and have a family-sized pizza with salad and all the fixings in, complete with family, or if you were fussy about décor but the best tasting pizza, especially if you let it sit for a while and no eat it when it was piping hot right out of the oven. (People who know such things told me later that kind of cold is the way you are supposed to eat pizza anyway, and as an appetizer not a meal.)
Moreover, this was the one where the teen-friendly owner, a big old balding Italian guy, at least he said he was Italian and there were plenty of Italians in our town in those days so I believed him but he really looked Greek or Armenian to me, let us stay in the booths if it wasn’t busy, and we behaved like, well, like respectable teenagers. And this guy, this old Italian guy, could make us all laugh, even me, when he started to prepare a new pizza and he flour-powdered and rolled the dough out and flipped that sucker in the air about twelve times and about fifteen different ways to stretch it out. Some times people would just stand outside in front of the big picture window and watch his handiwork in utter fascination. Jesus, he could flip that thing. One time, and you know this is true because you probably have your own pizza on the ceiling stories, he flipped the sucker so high it stuck to the ceiling and it might still be there for all I know (the place still is, although not him). But this is how he was cool; he just started up another without making a fuss. Let me tell you about him, Tonio I think his name was, sometime but right now our business to get on with Frankie and the Roy question, alright.
So there nothing unusual, and I don’t pretend there, in just hanging out having a slice of pizza (no onions, please, in case I get might lucky tonight and that certain she comes in, the one that I have been eying in school until my eyes have become sore), some soft drink (which we called tonic in New England in those days but which you call, uh, soda), usually a locally bottled root beer, and, incessantly (and that incessantly allowed us to stay since we were “paying “ customers with all the rights and dignities that entailed, unless they needed our seats), dropping nickels, dimes and quarters in the jukebox.
Here is the part that might really explain things, though. Frankie has this girl friend (he always had a string of them, which what was cool about him, but this was his main squeeze, his main honey, his main twist, his main flame and about sixty-seven other names he had for them). The divine Joanne (his description, I could take or leave her, and I questioned the divine part, questioned it thoroughly, on more than one occasion). See though Frankie, old double standard, maybe triple standard Frankie, was crazy about her but was always worried, worried to perdition, that she was “seeing” someone else (she wasn’t). You know guys like that, guys that have all the angles, have some things going their way but need, desperately need, that always one more thing to “complete” them.
But sweet old clever “divine” Joanne used that Frankie fear as a wedge. She would always talk (and talk while I was there, just to kind of add to the trauma drama, Frankie’s drama) about all the guys that called up bothering her (personally I didn’t see it, she was cute, for sure, and with a nice figure but I wouldn’t jump off a bridge if she turned me down, others in those days yes, and gladly, but not her). This would get Frankie steaming, steaming so he couldn’t see straight. Once he actually couldn’t eat his pizza slice he was so upset and Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood, ALWAYS ate his pizza. Even fatherly Tonio took notice.
Worst, was when old doll, old sweetheart, Joanne would drop coins in the jukebox to play… Roy Orbison’s Running Scared over and over. And make Frankie give her good coin, his good coin to boot. It got so bad that old Frankie, when Joanne wasn’t around, would play it on his own. With his own money, no less. So, I guess, I just got so sick of hearing that song and that trembling rising crescendo voice to increase the lyrical that I couldn’t see straight. But, really, you can’t blame Roy for that, or shouldn’t. Watch this DVD. I did and just turned the old volume on the remote down when that song came on. And think of poor old lovesick Frankie and his divine Ms. Joanne. That’s the ticket.
**********
Running Scared- Roy Orbison, Joe Melson
Just running scared, each place we go
So afraid that he might show
Yeah, running scared, what would I do
If he came back and wanted you
Just running scared, feeling low
Running scared, you love him so
Yeah, running scared, afraid to lose
If he came back which one would you choose
Then all at once he was standing there
So sure of himself, his head in the air
And my heart was breaking, which one would it be
You turned around and walked away with me
DVD Review
Roy Orbison: Black and White Nights, Roy Orbison, various all-star musicians and backup singers including Bruce Springsteen and T-Bone Burnett, 1987
Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis come easily to mind when thinking about classic rock ‘n’ roll. And about where you were, and who you were with, and what you were doing when you heard those voices on the radio, on the television, or when you were spinning platters (records, for the younger set, okay, nice expression, right?). The artist under review, Roy Orbison, although clearly a rock legend, and rightly so, does not evoke that same kind of memory for me. Oh sure, I listened to Blue Bayou, Pretty Woman, Running Scared, Sweet Dreams, Baby and many of the other songs that are performed on this great black and white concert footage. And backed up by the likes of T-Bone Burnett, who may be the top rhythm guitarist of the age (and who has also gotten well-deserved kudos for his work on Jeff Bridges’ Crazy Hearts), Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Bruce Springsteen. With vocal backups by k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt. All who gave energized performances and all who were deeply influenced by Roy’s music. That alone makes this worth viewing.
Still, I had this gnawing feeling about Roy’s voice after viewing this documentary and why it never really “spoke” to me like the others. Then it came to me, the part I mentioned above about where I was, and who I was with, and what I was doing when I heard Roy. Enter one mad monk teenage friend, Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood. Frankie of a thousand stories, Frankie of a thousand treacheries, and, oh ya, Frankie, my bosom friend in high school.
See, when Roy was big, big in our beat down around the edges, some days it seemed beat six ways to Sunday, working class neighborhood in the early 1960s, we all used to hang around the town pizza parlor, or one of them anyway that was also conveniently near our high school too. Maybe this place was not the best one to sit down and have a family-sized pizza with salad and all the fixings in, complete with family, or if you were fussy about décor but the best tasting pizza, especially if you let it sit for a while and no eat it when it was piping hot right out of the oven. (People who know such things told me later that kind of cold is the way you are supposed to eat pizza anyway, and as an appetizer not a meal.)
Moreover, this was the one where the teen-friendly owner, a big old balding Italian guy, at least he said he was Italian and there were plenty of Italians in our town in those days so I believed him but he really looked Greek or Armenian to me, let us stay in the booths if it wasn’t busy, and we behaved like, well, like respectable teenagers. And this guy, this old Italian guy, could make us all laugh, even me, when he started to prepare a new pizza and he flour-powdered and rolled the dough out and flipped that sucker in the air about twelve times and about fifteen different ways to stretch it out. Some times people would just stand outside in front of the big picture window and watch his handiwork in utter fascination. Jesus, he could flip that thing. One time, and you know this is true because you probably have your own pizza on the ceiling stories, he flipped the sucker so high it stuck to the ceiling and it might still be there for all I know (the place still is, although not him). But this is how he was cool; he just started up another without making a fuss. Let me tell you about him, Tonio I think his name was, sometime but right now our business to get on with Frankie and the Roy question, alright.
So there nothing unusual, and I don’t pretend there, in just hanging out having a slice of pizza (no onions, please, in case I get might lucky tonight and that certain she comes in, the one that I have been eying in school until my eyes have become sore), some soft drink (which we called tonic in New England in those days but which you call, uh, soda), usually a locally bottled root beer, and, incessantly (and that incessantly allowed us to stay since we were “paying “ customers with all the rights and dignities that entailed, unless they needed our seats), dropping nickels, dimes and quarters in the jukebox.
Here is the part that might really explain things, though. Frankie has this girl friend (he always had a string of them, which what was cool about him, but this was his main squeeze, his main honey, his main twist, his main flame and about sixty-seven other names he had for them). The divine Joanne (his description, I could take or leave her, and I questioned the divine part, questioned it thoroughly, on more than one occasion). See though Frankie, old double standard, maybe triple standard Frankie, was crazy about her but was always worried, worried to perdition, that she was “seeing” someone else (she wasn’t). You know guys like that, guys that have all the angles, have some things going their way but need, desperately need, that always one more thing to “complete” them.
But sweet old clever “divine” Joanne used that Frankie fear as a wedge. She would always talk (and talk while I was there, just to kind of add to the trauma drama, Frankie’s drama) about all the guys that called up bothering her (personally I didn’t see it, she was cute, for sure, and with a nice figure but I wouldn’t jump off a bridge if she turned me down, others in those days yes, and gladly, but not her). This would get Frankie steaming, steaming so he couldn’t see straight. Once he actually couldn’t eat his pizza slice he was so upset and Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood, ALWAYS ate his pizza. Even fatherly Tonio took notice.
Worst, was when old doll, old sweetheart, Joanne would drop coins in the jukebox to play… Roy Orbison’s Running Scared over and over. And make Frankie give her good coin, his good coin to boot. It got so bad that old Frankie, when Joanne wasn’t around, would play it on his own. With his own money, no less. So, I guess, I just got so sick of hearing that song and that trembling rising crescendo voice to increase the lyrical that I couldn’t see straight. But, really, you can’t blame Roy for that, or shouldn’t. Watch this DVD. I did and just turned the old volume on the remote down when that song came on. And think of poor old lovesick Frankie and his divine Ms. Joanne. That’s the ticket.
**********
Running Scared- Roy Orbison, Joe Melson
Just running scared, each place we go
So afraid that he might show
Yeah, running scared, what would I do
If he came back and wanted you
Just running scared, feeling low
Running scared, you love him so
Yeah, running scared, afraid to lose
If he came back which one would you choose
Then all at once he was standing there
So sure of himself, his head in the air
And my heart was breaking, which one would it be
You turned around and walked away with me
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
**Out In The Be-Bop Night- Scenes From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night- The Prequel- Germantown Monday, Summer 1957
Click on the headline to link to a Youtube film clip of Danny and The Juniors performing their classic At The Hop to give a little flavor of the time of this entry.
Setting The Mood
I, once a while back, was asked, in earnest, what I meant by the “blue-pink western skies” that has formed the backdrop for several entries in this space of late. Or rather the way I would prefer to formulate it, and have taken some pains to emphasize it this way, “the search for the blue-pink great American West night.” Well, of course, there was a literal part to the proposition since ocean-at-my back (sometimes right at my back) New England homestead meant unless I wanted to take an ill-advised turn at piracy or high-seas hijacking or some such thing east that the hitchhike road meant heading west.
So that night is clearly not in the vicinity of the local Blues Hills or of the Berkshires since early childhood ocean-fronted Massachusetts, those are too confined and short-distanced to even produce blues skies much less that west-glanced sweet shade just before heaven, if there was a heaven shade, blue-pink. And certainly not hog-butcher-to-the-world, sinewy Midwest Chicago night, Christ no, nor rarefied, deep-breathed, rockymountainhigh Denver night, although jaded sojourner-writer not known for breathe-taking, awe-bewilderment could have stopped there for choice of great western night. Second place, okay.
But no, onward, beyond, beyond pioneer, genetically-embedded pioneer America, past false god neon blue-pink glitter Las Vegas in the Nevada desert night to the place where, about fifty miles away from sanctified west coast, near some now nameless abandoned ghost town, nameless here for it is a mere speck on the map and you would not know the name, you begin, ocean man that you are, if you are, and organically ocean-bred says you are, to smell the dank, incense-like, seaweed-driven, ocean-seized air as it comes in from the Japanese stream, or out there somewhere in the unknown, some Hawaii or Guam or Tahiti of the mind, before the gates of holy city, city of a thousand, thousand land’s end dreams, San Francisco. That is where the blue-pink sky devours the sun just before the be-bop, the bop-bop, the do wang-doodle night, the great American Western star-spangled (small case) night I keep reaching for, like it was some physical thing and not the stuff of dreams.
*******
The scenes below stand (or fall) as moments in support of that eternal search.
Scene One: The Prequel- Germantown Monday, Summer 1957
I wake up early, with a sudden start like something hit me but it kind of missed, kind of just glanced off me, something that felt like a pebble, maybe thinner and a little lighter, but I don’t see anything out of my watery, half-closed eyes. And I don’t feel anything around me in this feeble excuse for a bed that my father lashed together out of old blankets when my previous mattress fell apart, something like you see down at the Plymouth Plantation when the Pilgrims, a few hundred years ago, made beds for their kids except not with the corn husking filler they used. See, Ma and Pa couldn’t see their way clear to getting me a new one since my younger brother, Kevin, really needed one for his “problem”. A “problem” that I don’t understand about, and that nobody ever talks about, even Grandma, and she talks about everything and will tell me anything, anything but that, at least when I am around they don’t.
Maybe, I wouldn’t understand it even if they blabbed about it all day, but here I am with this low-rent sleeping bag, our lord in the manger kind of a bed. And Kevin’s sleeping like a king in the room across the hall all by himself away from this midget-sized room that they must have thought of when kids were smaller than they are these days, what with us drinking more milk with “Big Brother” Bob Emery every school day when we go home at lunchtime. Ma says I should be thankful (including to the Lord, as she always says, without fail) that I have any bed at all as some kids in India don’t even have that. The reasons for that, I guess, are ‘cause those people don’t thank the Lord, or at least thank our “the Lord.”
Darn it, I now suddenly remember, whatever it was that hit me, maybe something from outer space, broke up a nice half-formed dream that was just starting to get somewhere and that was about being on some television show and winning something like a thousand dollars and me getting to buy stuff for me and my friends like serious bicycles or a big record player, and getting girls stuff too, like a box of candy from the Rexall drugstore up in Adamsville Square, and just like that its gone, gone, now long gone. Just like shutting off the television before the end and the good guys, or whoever has the right to be on the right side of the law like Maverick, wins; just like missing American Bandstand before Dick Clark gets to the big dance off thing at the end where everybody’s jumping and grooving and having a good time, the band is rocking, and the guys, especially the guys that get the cute girls and not the left-over ones that they must just put on to be nice, or something are smiling, smiling the smile of the just. Double darn it.
Ya, something’s out of whack, something’s definitely out of whack, or it’s gonna be. Every time I have one of these broken-up dreams something goes awry pretty soon only not today please, and I am scared, no, really scared about it this time. Wouldn’t you be? I suddenly notice something in a split-second that confirms this bad omen coming-Oh no, not again, for the hundredth hundredth time this ratty old summer, this boring never-ending summer that I wish would end so bad I am praying, and praying hard, that it will be over and we can go back to the cool air in Snug Harbor school that we left the last part of last month. I told you it was bad, bad as all that. I’m all sweaty, I feel under my arms, underarms sticky, underwear, all cottony, sticking to me like it’s part of my skin forever, eyes sticky and half shut from a nighttime’s worth of perspiration, and maybe more than a night at that. I don’t think I took a bath yesterday, did I? I sniff, no. Sticky, that me, that’s gonna be my middle name before long if this mind-numbing weather keeps up.
Heck, I’m tired, tired to hell and back, no, farther than that, of these half-sleep, restless nights; god awful humid, sultry, breathless summer’s nights, no relief and no air conditioning in sight. No air, no wind coming from the channel across the parking lot from our house, or I should say apartment. No air, less than no air, coming from Adamsville Bay, so still that throwing a rock on it would make ripples all the way to Merrymount. And certainly no air coming from god forsaken Hough’s Neck. I know that for sure, ‘cause I went over there, walked all the way up to Rock Island and down that dusty dirt road all the way to Nut Island almost before I realized that the air had died, or gone on vacation.
Ma, making fun of me and my sweating every second of every minute of every day for about a week now, the other day told me that this was my own personal preview of what it is gonna be like for me in hell, if I don’t change my ways. Yes, ma. But that is just her con, she’s always conning me and my brothers, trying make us do good by bringing God, his son, his holy ghost, his mother, his father, his sisters and brothers and whoever else she can conjure up using to make us do good, to do as she’s says every chance she gets in order to do God’s work, but that’s impossible using her tried and true method. She must have learned that “method” from some priest over at Saint Boniface, or something. She sure didn’t learn it from that cool doctor, Doctor Spock, I think was his name, that I saw on TV the other day on that Mike Douglas, or one of them talk shows. He knows a lot about kids, they say, at least that’s what someone said. I wouldn’t know, I ‘m stuck with Ma, and that ain’t no nice to kids lady, nor does she want to be.
But saying all that ain’t doing me any good, lying here in a pool of sweat, thinking about getting up. But I’m getting mad, even though I know getting mad today is tempting fate, I guess I was born mad, or got that way early because even though I know its gonna get me in trouble , I’m mad . You would think that in the year 1957, in a year when everybody else seems to have money and is spending it, that even in this woe begotten tiny airless apartment filled to the brim with three growing boys and two grown, overgrown if you ask me, adults; in this woe begotten tiny airless room filled to the brim with two growing boys, one sleeping like a log, sleeping the sleep of the just, I guess, across from me right now; in this woe begotten no account housing project where you can’t get anything fixed without about twenty forms and a six month wait and even then you have to wait, nothing less. Even for a light fixture it takes a civil war. Christ, how long, in this woe begotten town before we could have this “necessity,” air conditioning. Ma says we can’t afford it, or whatever her excuse of the week is. “How about a fan, Ma?” Nope, can’t afford the extra electricity ‘cause Dad just got laid off, whatever that means. He’s always getting laid off so I can’t tell what is so different about this time so that we can’t get air conditioning. Johnny Jakes has it, and his father hasn’t ever worked. Can’t, for some reason.
Enough of this, I‘m getting up, if only to splash some water on my face and get my eyes unstuck, or get a cool drink of water to bring down what has got be about a 110 degrees of temperature running through my body, maybe 115. Nah, that can’t be right, we learned about body temperatures in class. I would have to be some alien from outer space maybe. But I’m feverish, that’s for sure. Just then I am stopped short by a sound, a familiar sound. A sound that if I had just one sound to hear in the whole universe of sounds that I have heard in my long eleven year old life it would be that one. The sound of fleeing this hellish, airless place for parts unknown, any unknown. Ya, that old, sweet, lonesome, high whistle sound that cuts me to the bone, that sweet old fog horn sound when the air is like pea soup down the channel ‘cause that means a big old firemen’s red, rubber tire-draped tugboat, or maybe two, is bringing a low-riding, rusty old tanker, or some ship to port across the channel to the Proctor and Gamble factory, the place of a thousand perfume smells, as we call it when the wind is up and all the world here smells like a bar of soap.
If I live to be a hundred, if I live to be a thousand, I’m always gonna watch, even if only in my mind, when that old tanker comes down the line, dragging or getting dragged by that old tug, whistling away, to keep river traffic away, and like it just as much then I bet. I know what I will be doing this morning, or the first part of the morning, heat or no heat, air conditioning or no air conditioning. I will be perched on my very own private, for invited guests only which means nobody, viewing stand at the little point along the shoreline that is my real home, or the home that I wish was my home except maybe in winter, just across from where the big boy boat will settle in.
“Hey, a boat’s coming in, I’m off,” I yell to no one in particular. And from not one of those no one in particulars do I get an answer. My brothers don’t suffer the sweats like I do, they have their own problems which I already sense will be their undoing later, but it ain’t the sweats and so they just sleep away. I rush, and I mean rush, to the bathroom, use the toilet, splash that life-saving water on my face, it always feels good, brush my teeth perfunctorily, and run down the stairs. “Ma, a ship’s coming in,” I say excitedly, even though its about the hundredth time I seen one come in, to my mother who is distracted by something, as usual, especially when my father is out of work, and especially today, Monday, when he goes off in search of new work with a lot of hope about getting some job that will keep the wolves from the doors, that is the constant phrase that he uses to deal with the situation. I’ll tell you about him sometime but today I ain’t got any time for nothing but my ship coming in, and that ain’t no lie either.
“Well, it is not our ship that is coming in so don’t worry about it and just eat your breakfast,” she, dear old Ma, blurred out, and then I know she is in a fit and even if my ship wasn’t coming in I know the ropes enough to know to keep low, very low and out of the range of fire that I know is coming from her direction. I go to the cabinet, grab a cracked, slightly cracked bowl, get a spoon and go over to the stove, take the cover off the pot, steam escaping, and without even looking start dishing out my Quaker Oats oatmeal. Rain, shine, sleet or snow, summer, winter, spring or fall that is my nectar of the gods. With a little milk, when we have it, and even if we don’t a little Karo syrup, I am fortified for the day. Ma, can be a pain, Ma and I have a thousand battles a week over two thousand different things, and I know that already things are never gonna be right between us, even if at times we have an armed truce but, mark this down I always got my oatmeal, and always when I wanted it. I guess that put her on the right side of the angels, a little.
A few gulps later, washed down with about a half glass of milk, I am out the door, hell, even my blessed oatmeal gets short shrift when the tankers blow in. Now going out the door most places that you know about means just going out the door straight. Bu in this urban planner’s nightmarish hangover not at 666 Taffrail Road. First you have the obstacle course of getting around the ten million poles and fences that are plucked right in the “courtyard” when my mother and the other housewives in the other three units that make up our mega-plex hang out their daily washing, or dry their curtains or whatever people like my mother do to keep places like this from reverting back to caveman times. Then I have to cross the parking lot, a lot filled with all kinds of cars, for those that have them. These days we don’t have one, in case I didn’t tell you before, because Dad is out of work so we are all reduced to waiting for an eternity for that slow-rolling, seems never to be here when you need it, Eastern Mass. bus that ambles on to Adamsville Square, making so many stops that I usually just walk it, if I am in a hurry to get something, even on a hot, sweltering summer day like this.
As I hit the already hot asphalt of the lot I look around longingly at the vast array of cars; Plymouths with fins that look like a fish; Chevies, my favorite, sleek and so, Timmy McDevitt tells me, go real fast when you get onto Route 128 and let her rip; Fords that look like something they want to use to go up into space with, and I don’t know what else, but there are plenty. Finally I get to the lower parking lot that’s for guests or people who don’t get a parking spot in front of their house, or maybe just run out of steam before making the turn into hell-bent Taffrail Road. I don’t know and I am now passed that spot on the move along the fence anyhow to get to the little opening that will take me to my grand viewing area. I’m okay though, I still hear the old tug whistle coming up the line so I have some time to wait.
I get to my little sliver of land, just a little jut out of the shoreline, covered with old, oil-slicked quarry rock probably from the ground around here about a million years ago, ‘cause this town is known for its granite rock, cause it’s a granite city, even though the real work done around here is over at the Five Rivers Shipyard that is just across the bridge from the Proctor and Gamble factory, and where even on this hot, god forsaken morning I can faintly hear the sounds of metal being banged by hammers or whatever they use to put the ship together, and the flashes of welders’ torches as they put that banged metal in seamless water-tight condition.
I also notice some empty beer cans, cigarette butts, chip bags left haphazardly all over my viewing stand, somebody last night, or the night before, must have said the hell with it and got out one of the sweltering houses and came over here to get whatever little, little breeze that could be eked out of the windless night. I rule the day here in this spot, especially when the boats come in, no question about that, but what others do at night I have no control over. I just wish they wouldn’t leave a mess on my sacred site.
But that is all so much made-up irritation, probably ‘cause I am so hot, for now I can see the first glimmer of the smokestack of a ship coming up the line. I wonder whose oil it is, Esso? Texaco? Shell? Esso has been in the lead this year, and they are bigger ships and ride real low in the water coming in, and real high going out. I can start to see specks on the bridge, human specks that are busy doing the work of preparing the ship for the dock.
I wonder, wonder a lot, about these guys and the work they do and whether they like it and like being on the sea and whether they ever have any trouble like in stories that I read down at the Thomas Crane Library attached to the school, and where they have been and what adventures they have had, and where, and with whom. Maybe that’s the life for me. And I wonder about the girls they know from all over and whether they are nicer than the girls in the "projects" who are beginning to get on my nerves, for some reason. At least I don’t know what to do or what to say around them, or what they want me to do, or want me to say. I hope this is just being a boy kid and that it goes away, and I hope it a lot.
Oh, there she is, an Esso. The tugs are in position, gently nudging her and getting her ready to go dockside, tie up and unload. Wonder how long she will stay? Usually its takes a couple of days and then they are gone, sometimes in the middle of the night and they are not there in the morning depending on the tides and the traffic on the roads, oh, ocean roads, that is. Hey, its almost lunchtime, guess I’ll go home and eat and go down the cellar, maybe to try to cool off. I know one thing now though that kind of had me worried and kind of bothered me for a while 'cause I am just a kid. I now know I will always take time to watch the boats as they blow in, and dream about catching a boat out, wherever I am. Maybe, that is an omen, a good omen, about my future. I'll let you know.
Setting The Mood
I, once a while back, was asked, in earnest, what I meant by the “blue-pink western skies” that has formed the backdrop for several entries in this space of late. Or rather the way I would prefer to formulate it, and have taken some pains to emphasize it this way, “the search for the blue-pink great American West night.” Well, of course, there was a literal part to the proposition since ocean-at-my back (sometimes right at my back) New England homestead meant unless I wanted to take an ill-advised turn at piracy or high-seas hijacking or some such thing east that the hitchhike road meant heading west.
So that night is clearly not in the vicinity of the local Blues Hills or of the Berkshires since early childhood ocean-fronted Massachusetts, those are too confined and short-distanced to even produce blues skies much less that west-glanced sweet shade just before heaven, if there was a heaven shade, blue-pink. And certainly not hog-butcher-to-the-world, sinewy Midwest Chicago night, Christ no, nor rarefied, deep-breathed, rockymountainhigh Denver night, although jaded sojourner-writer not known for breathe-taking, awe-bewilderment could have stopped there for choice of great western night. Second place, okay.
But no, onward, beyond, beyond pioneer, genetically-embedded pioneer America, past false god neon blue-pink glitter Las Vegas in the Nevada desert night to the place where, about fifty miles away from sanctified west coast, near some now nameless abandoned ghost town, nameless here for it is a mere speck on the map and you would not know the name, you begin, ocean man that you are, if you are, and organically ocean-bred says you are, to smell the dank, incense-like, seaweed-driven, ocean-seized air as it comes in from the Japanese stream, or out there somewhere in the unknown, some Hawaii or Guam or Tahiti of the mind, before the gates of holy city, city of a thousand, thousand land’s end dreams, San Francisco. That is where the blue-pink sky devours the sun just before the be-bop, the bop-bop, the do wang-doodle night, the great American Western star-spangled (small case) night I keep reaching for, like it was some physical thing and not the stuff of dreams.
*******
The scenes below stand (or fall) as moments in support of that eternal search.
Scene One: The Prequel- Germantown Monday, Summer 1957
I wake up early, with a sudden start like something hit me but it kind of missed, kind of just glanced off me, something that felt like a pebble, maybe thinner and a little lighter, but I don’t see anything out of my watery, half-closed eyes. And I don’t feel anything around me in this feeble excuse for a bed that my father lashed together out of old blankets when my previous mattress fell apart, something like you see down at the Plymouth Plantation when the Pilgrims, a few hundred years ago, made beds for their kids except not with the corn husking filler they used. See, Ma and Pa couldn’t see their way clear to getting me a new one since my younger brother, Kevin, really needed one for his “problem”. A “problem” that I don’t understand about, and that nobody ever talks about, even Grandma, and she talks about everything and will tell me anything, anything but that, at least when I am around they don’t.
Maybe, I wouldn’t understand it even if they blabbed about it all day, but here I am with this low-rent sleeping bag, our lord in the manger kind of a bed. And Kevin’s sleeping like a king in the room across the hall all by himself away from this midget-sized room that they must have thought of when kids were smaller than they are these days, what with us drinking more milk with “Big Brother” Bob Emery every school day when we go home at lunchtime. Ma says I should be thankful (including to the Lord, as she always says, without fail) that I have any bed at all as some kids in India don’t even have that. The reasons for that, I guess, are ‘cause those people don’t thank the Lord, or at least thank our “the Lord.”
Darn it, I now suddenly remember, whatever it was that hit me, maybe something from outer space, broke up a nice half-formed dream that was just starting to get somewhere and that was about being on some television show and winning something like a thousand dollars and me getting to buy stuff for me and my friends like serious bicycles or a big record player, and getting girls stuff too, like a box of candy from the Rexall drugstore up in Adamsville Square, and just like that its gone, gone, now long gone. Just like shutting off the television before the end and the good guys, or whoever has the right to be on the right side of the law like Maverick, wins; just like missing American Bandstand before Dick Clark gets to the big dance off thing at the end where everybody’s jumping and grooving and having a good time, the band is rocking, and the guys, especially the guys that get the cute girls and not the left-over ones that they must just put on to be nice, or something are smiling, smiling the smile of the just. Double darn it.
Ya, something’s out of whack, something’s definitely out of whack, or it’s gonna be. Every time I have one of these broken-up dreams something goes awry pretty soon only not today please, and I am scared, no, really scared about it this time. Wouldn’t you be? I suddenly notice something in a split-second that confirms this bad omen coming-Oh no, not again, for the hundredth hundredth time this ratty old summer, this boring never-ending summer that I wish would end so bad I am praying, and praying hard, that it will be over and we can go back to the cool air in Snug Harbor school that we left the last part of last month. I told you it was bad, bad as all that. I’m all sweaty, I feel under my arms, underarms sticky, underwear, all cottony, sticking to me like it’s part of my skin forever, eyes sticky and half shut from a nighttime’s worth of perspiration, and maybe more than a night at that. I don’t think I took a bath yesterday, did I? I sniff, no. Sticky, that me, that’s gonna be my middle name before long if this mind-numbing weather keeps up.
Heck, I’m tired, tired to hell and back, no, farther than that, of these half-sleep, restless nights; god awful humid, sultry, breathless summer’s nights, no relief and no air conditioning in sight. No air, no wind coming from the channel across the parking lot from our house, or I should say apartment. No air, less than no air, coming from Adamsville Bay, so still that throwing a rock on it would make ripples all the way to Merrymount. And certainly no air coming from god forsaken Hough’s Neck. I know that for sure, ‘cause I went over there, walked all the way up to Rock Island and down that dusty dirt road all the way to Nut Island almost before I realized that the air had died, or gone on vacation.
Ma, making fun of me and my sweating every second of every minute of every day for about a week now, the other day told me that this was my own personal preview of what it is gonna be like for me in hell, if I don’t change my ways. Yes, ma. But that is just her con, she’s always conning me and my brothers, trying make us do good by bringing God, his son, his holy ghost, his mother, his father, his sisters and brothers and whoever else she can conjure up using to make us do good, to do as she’s says every chance she gets in order to do God’s work, but that’s impossible using her tried and true method. She must have learned that “method” from some priest over at Saint Boniface, or something. She sure didn’t learn it from that cool doctor, Doctor Spock, I think was his name, that I saw on TV the other day on that Mike Douglas, or one of them talk shows. He knows a lot about kids, they say, at least that’s what someone said. I wouldn’t know, I ‘m stuck with Ma, and that ain’t no nice to kids lady, nor does she want to be.
But saying all that ain’t doing me any good, lying here in a pool of sweat, thinking about getting up. But I’m getting mad, even though I know getting mad today is tempting fate, I guess I was born mad, or got that way early because even though I know its gonna get me in trouble , I’m mad . You would think that in the year 1957, in a year when everybody else seems to have money and is spending it, that even in this woe begotten tiny airless apartment filled to the brim with three growing boys and two grown, overgrown if you ask me, adults; in this woe begotten tiny airless room filled to the brim with two growing boys, one sleeping like a log, sleeping the sleep of the just, I guess, across from me right now; in this woe begotten no account housing project where you can’t get anything fixed without about twenty forms and a six month wait and even then you have to wait, nothing less. Even for a light fixture it takes a civil war. Christ, how long, in this woe begotten town before we could have this “necessity,” air conditioning. Ma says we can’t afford it, or whatever her excuse of the week is. “How about a fan, Ma?” Nope, can’t afford the extra electricity ‘cause Dad just got laid off, whatever that means. He’s always getting laid off so I can’t tell what is so different about this time so that we can’t get air conditioning. Johnny Jakes has it, and his father hasn’t ever worked. Can’t, for some reason.
Enough of this, I‘m getting up, if only to splash some water on my face and get my eyes unstuck, or get a cool drink of water to bring down what has got be about a 110 degrees of temperature running through my body, maybe 115. Nah, that can’t be right, we learned about body temperatures in class. I would have to be some alien from outer space maybe. But I’m feverish, that’s for sure. Just then I am stopped short by a sound, a familiar sound. A sound that if I had just one sound to hear in the whole universe of sounds that I have heard in my long eleven year old life it would be that one. The sound of fleeing this hellish, airless place for parts unknown, any unknown. Ya, that old, sweet, lonesome, high whistle sound that cuts me to the bone, that sweet old fog horn sound when the air is like pea soup down the channel ‘cause that means a big old firemen’s red, rubber tire-draped tugboat, or maybe two, is bringing a low-riding, rusty old tanker, or some ship to port across the channel to the Proctor and Gamble factory, the place of a thousand perfume smells, as we call it when the wind is up and all the world here smells like a bar of soap.
If I live to be a hundred, if I live to be a thousand, I’m always gonna watch, even if only in my mind, when that old tanker comes down the line, dragging or getting dragged by that old tug, whistling away, to keep river traffic away, and like it just as much then I bet. I know what I will be doing this morning, or the first part of the morning, heat or no heat, air conditioning or no air conditioning. I will be perched on my very own private, for invited guests only which means nobody, viewing stand at the little point along the shoreline that is my real home, or the home that I wish was my home except maybe in winter, just across from where the big boy boat will settle in.
“Hey, a boat’s coming in, I’m off,” I yell to no one in particular. And from not one of those no one in particulars do I get an answer. My brothers don’t suffer the sweats like I do, they have their own problems which I already sense will be their undoing later, but it ain’t the sweats and so they just sleep away. I rush, and I mean rush, to the bathroom, use the toilet, splash that life-saving water on my face, it always feels good, brush my teeth perfunctorily, and run down the stairs. “Ma, a ship’s coming in,” I say excitedly, even though its about the hundredth time I seen one come in, to my mother who is distracted by something, as usual, especially when my father is out of work, and especially today, Monday, when he goes off in search of new work with a lot of hope about getting some job that will keep the wolves from the doors, that is the constant phrase that he uses to deal with the situation. I’ll tell you about him sometime but today I ain’t got any time for nothing but my ship coming in, and that ain’t no lie either.
“Well, it is not our ship that is coming in so don’t worry about it and just eat your breakfast,” she, dear old Ma, blurred out, and then I know she is in a fit and even if my ship wasn’t coming in I know the ropes enough to know to keep low, very low and out of the range of fire that I know is coming from her direction. I go to the cabinet, grab a cracked, slightly cracked bowl, get a spoon and go over to the stove, take the cover off the pot, steam escaping, and without even looking start dishing out my Quaker Oats oatmeal. Rain, shine, sleet or snow, summer, winter, spring or fall that is my nectar of the gods. With a little milk, when we have it, and even if we don’t a little Karo syrup, I am fortified for the day. Ma, can be a pain, Ma and I have a thousand battles a week over two thousand different things, and I know that already things are never gonna be right between us, even if at times we have an armed truce but, mark this down I always got my oatmeal, and always when I wanted it. I guess that put her on the right side of the angels, a little.
A few gulps later, washed down with about a half glass of milk, I am out the door, hell, even my blessed oatmeal gets short shrift when the tankers blow in. Now going out the door most places that you know about means just going out the door straight. Bu in this urban planner’s nightmarish hangover not at 666 Taffrail Road. First you have the obstacle course of getting around the ten million poles and fences that are plucked right in the “courtyard” when my mother and the other housewives in the other three units that make up our mega-plex hang out their daily washing, or dry their curtains or whatever people like my mother do to keep places like this from reverting back to caveman times. Then I have to cross the parking lot, a lot filled with all kinds of cars, for those that have them. These days we don’t have one, in case I didn’t tell you before, because Dad is out of work so we are all reduced to waiting for an eternity for that slow-rolling, seems never to be here when you need it, Eastern Mass. bus that ambles on to Adamsville Square, making so many stops that I usually just walk it, if I am in a hurry to get something, even on a hot, sweltering summer day like this.
As I hit the already hot asphalt of the lot I look around longingly at the vast array of cars; Plymouths with fins that look like a fish; Chevies, my favorite, sleek and so, Timmy McDevitt tells me, go real fast when you get onto Route 128 and let her rip; Fords that look like something they want to use to go up into space with, and I don’t know what else, but there are plenty. Finally I get to the lower parking lot that’s for guests or people who don’t get a parking spot in front of their house, or maybe just run out of steam before making the turn into hell-bent Taffrail Road. I don’t know and I am now passed that spot on the move along the fence anyhow to get to the little opening that will take me to my grand viewing area. I’m okay though, I still hear the old tug whistle coming up the line so I have some time to wait.
I get to my little sliver of land, just a little jut out of the shoreline, covered with old, oil-slicked quarry rock probably from the ground around here about a million years ago, ‘cause this town is known for its granite rock, cause it’s a granite city, even though the real work done around here is over at the Five Rivers Shipyard that is just across the bridge from the Proctor and Gamble factory, and where even on this hot, god forsaken morning I can faintly hear the sounds of metal being banged by hammers or whatever they use to put the ship together, and the flashes of welders’ torches as they put that banged metal in seamless water-tight condition.
I also notice some empty beer cans, cigarette butts, chip bags left haphazardly all over my viewing stand, somebody last night, or the night before, must have said the hell with it and got out one of the sweltering houses and came over here to get whatever little, little breeze that could be eked out of the windless night. I rule the day here in this spot, especially when the boats come in, no question about that, but what others do at night I have no control over. I just wish they wouldn’t leave a mess on my sacred site.
But that is all so much made-up irritation, probably ‘cause I am so hot, for now I can see the first glimmer of the smokestack of a ship coming up the line. I wonder whose oil it is, Esso? Texaco? Shell? Esso has been in the lead this year, and they are bigger ships and ride real low in the water coming in, and real high going out. I can start to see specks on the bridge, human specks that are busy doing the work of preparing the ship for the dock.
I wonder, wonder a lot, about these guys and the work they do and whether they like it and like being on the sea and whether they ever have any trouble like in stories that I read down at the Thomas Crane Library attached to the school, and where they have been and what adventures they have had, and where, and with whom. Maybe that’s the life for me. And I wonder about the girls they know from all over and whether they are nicer than the girls in the "projects" who are beginning to get on my nerves, for some reason. At least I don’t know what to do or what to say around them, or what they want me to do, or want me to say. I hope this is just being a boy kid and that it goes away, and I hope it a lot.
Oh, there she is, an Esso. The tugs are in position, gently nudging her and getting her ready to go dockside, tie up and unload. Wonder how long she will stay? Usually its takes a couple of days and then they are gone, sometimes in the middle of the night and they are not there in the morning depending on the tides and the traffic on the roads, oh, ocean roads, that is. Hey, its almost lunchtime, guess I’ll go home and eat and go down the cellar, maybe to try to cool off. I know one thing now though that kind of had me worried and kind of bothered me for a while 'cause I am just a kid. I now know I will always take time to watch the boats as they blow in, and dream about catching a boat out, wherever I am. Maybe, that is an omen, a good omen, about my future. I'll let you know.
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