Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the movie trailer for Taking Woodstock.
DVD Review
Taking Woodstock, starring Demetri Martin, Eugene Levy, directed by Ang Lee, 2009
Okay, I confess, and confess so publicly, that while I am a certified proud member of the generation of ’68, the political branch of that generation, I was not even remotely near Woodstock, New York on that fateful August weekend of 1969 when the myth of "youth nation" took on a certain substantive possibility that we might, after all, make a “newer world.” Others may have regrets that they did not attend but I unlike non-attendee Joni Mitchell, whose words from her song Woodstock form part of the headline for this entry, and the others am not. I, actually, was heading elsewhere, heading hard elsewhere on the highway hitchhike road in search of the blue-pink great American West night that was another branch of that same experience. That experience I am very happy that I undertook, and have written about elsewhere.
That said, we were, wherever we were, in those times, at least those of us who were fighting for some version of that “newer world” seeking, children of Woodstock. Maybe not that particular experience, after all half a million hardly exhausted the numbers who were “searching” in those days, but some experience be it another of the myriad musical festivals that took place in those years, or a communal living experience, or like me a highway hitchhike break-out in search of the great American West night, or just took a “hit” of dope or popped a pill that in earlier or later times would have been scorned. It is under that sign the renowned director Ang Lee has creatively taken a back story from those times, a back story centered on the locals rather than the rock stars or the “hippie” touristas associated with the name Woodstock, and meshed it with one of the locals' self-discovery in 2009, the 40th anniversary year of that event.
Whatever Woodstock, the place, and its environs were after the festival invasion before that event it was a dying Catskills resort area and farmland. That resort idea is central to the story line here. The Catskills, in the old days, before there was more widespread assimilation and Jews began to be accepted in other locales was always associated with the place where they went for vacation and as a “proving ground” for up and coming Jewish entertainers. By 1969 that idea, and those places, were passé. However, not everybody got the word, especially not an old Jewish couple who were hanging on to their mortgaged to the hilt motel for dear life, despite the best efforts of their assimilated son, the central character, of the film.
They did hold, or rather he held, an important asset: permits to allow the festival to go on. The story, the Woodstock and self-discovery story, take off from that point as we view the trials and tribulations of producing this spectacle, its actual occurrence, and the sometimes funny experiences that mother, father, and son experience, including the mandatory drug experimentation, sex (hetero and homosexual), and rock ‘n’ roll. Is this the definitive study on Woodstock, on the 1960s counterculture, and on the generation of ’68s jail break-out? No, hell no, but it is a very nicely done slice-of-life film around that seminal 1960s event. Nicely done.
Showing posts with label youth nation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youth nation. Show all posts
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
**Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The Middle School Dance—Teen Angst, And That Ain’t No Lie
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the legendary Lavern Baker performing her classic, Jim Dandy.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1957, Time-Life, 1987
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘60s: Last Dance part of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance. The following is one such episode in that old time, eternal saga.
As part of the review of the dance sequel that I mentioned above I noted that there were two phases to the old school days dance scene, the high school one when we had all learned, or should have learned, the ropes enough not to be too foolish or too out of line on that social occasion, not if we expected to get a tussle from that certain she or he and the middle school one (formerly known as junior high school but we will use the current usage here on the off chance that someone who only knows the term middle school is reading this). I also noted that one could draw a sharp distinction between the two based on such factors as age, the more convoluted nature of social relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (and, nowadays, same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or a little off-hand nuzzling (or mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the middle school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were “hot” in those years.
In a sense the middle school scene is just an earlier version of the high school dance. No, stop, what am I talking about, hell, there is no question that the high school dance was a picnic to detail in comparison. We were light years ahead by then. At the middle school dance we were just wet-behind-the ears (boy and girls alike, although I think the girls were a little ahead of us, or at least we liked the idea that they were). Here though is what I gathered from a fellow middle schooler, Francis J. Murphy, “Frankie”, my best friend in those tormented years, when he heard that the big school dance was coming up in the spring. He merely went into denial, denial that he could care about such a “bourgeois” event (not his word but the idea is there), such a “square” event (his word, although he was probably clueless about what was square and hip in those days) and that he planned to be “out of town” that day. Ya, like he was the President on important business of state.
But here is the funny thing, a few weeks before the big event, as most of his classmates started to get lined up for, and behind the spirit of, this thing he started making noises about being free, maybe, or that he might be able to free up time that day to fit the dance into his schedule. Probably just a snafu of some sort with his appointment secretary previously, I assume. See, here is what he, and every not-nerd, non-dweeb, heck, just breathing young male and female knew, this event would permanently solidify, solidify like stone, the social order of the school, in or out, no questions asked, no prisoners taken. So he too “knew” that signing that world peace treaty that he seemed to be on the verge of signing rather than attend the dance was nothing compared to being in the fight, the furious fight, to gain leverage in the upper echelons of the school pecking order.
All fair enough, all true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations leading up to the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that included getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually included in the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here.
Damn, whatever physical description I could conger up would be just so much eye wash anyway. The thing could have been held in an airplane hangar and we all could have been wearing paper bags for all we really cared. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless, small, meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground. And that is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation), the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven, that it was a slow one.
Ah, memory. So what is the demographic that this CD compilation is being pitched to, aside from the obvious usual suspects, the AARP crowd. Well that’s simple. Any one who has been wounded in love’s young battles; any one who has longed for that he or she to come through the door; anyone that has been on a date that did not work out, been stranded on a date that has not worked out; anyone who has had to submit to being pieced off with car hop drive-in food; anyone who has gotten a “Dear John” letter or its equivalent; anyone who has been jilted by that certain he or she; anyone who has been turned down for that last school dance from that certain he or she that you counted on to make your lame evening; anyone who has waited endlessly for the telephone (now iphone, etc., okay for the younger set who may read this) to ring to hear that certain voice; and, especially those hes and she who has shed those midnight tears for youth's lost love. In short, everybody except those few “most popular “types who the rest of us will not shed one tear over, or the nerds who didn’t count (or care) anyway.
Stick outs here include on this exceptional compilation from this exception year: legendary rocker Jerry Lee Lewis on Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On and Great Balls Of Fire; The Dell-Vikings' Come Go With Me; a surprise classic with The Tune Weavers on Happy, Happy Birthday Baby (that I played about twenty times today never mind fifty years ago); The Everly Brothers on Wake Up Little Susie (yes, they are definitely in trouble); Chuck Willis’ up tempo C.C.Rider: legendary singer and the much underrated LaVern Baker on her classic Jim Dandy; Dale Hawkins on the sultry Susie-Q: The Bobbettes on the snappy, hip-hoppy Mr Lee: Buddy Knox on Party Doll: and, The Dubs on the slow classic (and the one you prayed for to be that last dance) Could This Be Magic. I would not have wanted to have been the dee-jay working off this list at those dances. You would have been hounded, and rightly so, out the back door with requests.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1957, Time-Life, 1987
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘60s: Last Dance part of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance. The following is one such episode in that old time, eternal saga.
As part of the review of the dance sequel that I mentioned above I noted that there were two phases to the old school days dance scene, the high school one when we had all learned, or should have learned, the ropes enough not to be too foolish or too out of line on that social occasion, not if we expected to get a tussle from that certain she or he and the middle school one (formerly known as junior high school but we will use the current usage here on the off chance that someone who only knows the term middle school is reading this). I also noted that one could draw a sharp distinction between the two based on such factors as age, the more convoluted nature of social relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (and, nowadays, same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or a little off-hand nuzzling (or mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the middle school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were “hot” in those years.
In a sense the middle school scene is just an earlier version of the high school dance. No, stop, what am I talking about, hell, there is no question that the high school dance was a picnic to detail in comparison. We were light years ahead by then. At the middle school dance we were just wet-behind-the ears (boy and girls alike, although I think the girls were a little ahead of us, or at least we liked the idea that they were). Here though is what I gathered from a fellow middle schooler, Francis J. Murphy, “Frankie”, my best friend in those tormented years, when he heard that the big school dance was coming up in the spring. He merely went into denial, denial that he could care about such a “bourgeois” event (not his word but the idea is there), such a “square” event (his word, although he was probably clueless about what was square and hip in those days) and that he planned to be “out of town” that day. Ya, like he was the President on important business of state.
But here is the funny thing, a few weeks before the big event, as most of his classmates started to get lined up for, and behind the spirit of, this thing he started making noises about being free, maybe, or that he might be able to free up time that day to fit the dance into his schedule. Probably just a snafu of some sort with his appointment secretary previously, I assume. See, here is what he, and every not-nerd, non-dweeb, heck, just breathing young male and female knew, this event would permanently solidify, solidify like stone, the social order of the school, in or out, no questions asked, no prisoners taken. So he too “knew” that signing that world peace treaty that he seemed to be on the verge of signing rather than attend the dance was nothing compared to being in the fight, the furious fight, to gain leverage in the upper echelons of the school pecking order.
All fair enough, all true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations leading up to the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that included getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually included in the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here.
Damn, whatever physical description I could conger up would be just so much eye wash anyway. The thing could have been held in an airplane hangar and we all could have been wearing paper bags for all we really cared. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless, small, meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground. And that is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation), the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven, that it was a slow one.
Ah, memory. So what is the demographic that this CD compilation is being pitched to, aside from the obvious usual suspects, the AARP crowd. Well that’s simple. Any one who has been wounded in love’s young battles; any one who has longed for that he or she to come through the door; anyone that has been on a date that did not work out, been stranded on a date that has not worked out; anyone who has had to submit to being pieced off with car hop drive-in food; anyone who has gotten a “Dear John” letter or its equivalent; anyone who has been jilted by that certain he or she; anyone who has been turned down for that last school dance from that certain he or she that you counted on to make your lame evening; anyone who has waited endlessly for the telephone (now iphone, etc., okay for the younger set who may read this) to ring to hear that certain voice; and, especially those hes and she who has shed those midnight tears for youth's lost love. In short, everybody except those few “most popular “types who the rest of us will not shed one tear over, or the nerds who didn’t count (or care) anyway.
Stick outs here include on this exceptional compilation from this exception year: legendary rocker Jerry Lee Lewis on Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On and Great Balls Of Fire; The Dell-Vikings' Come Go With Me; a surprise classic with The Tune Weavers on Happy, Happy Birthday Baby (that I played about twenty times today never mind fifty years ago); The Everly Brothers on Wake Up Little Susie (yes, they are definitely in trouble); Chuck Willis’ up tempo C.C.Rider: legendary singer and the much underrated LaVern Baker on her classic Jim Dandy; Dale Hawkins on the sultry Susie-Q: The Bobbettes on the snappy, hip-hoppy Mr Lee: Buddy Knox on Party Doll: and, The Dubs on the slow classic (and the one you prayed for to be that last dance) Could This Be Magic. I would not have wanted to have been the dee-jay working off this list at those dances. You would have been hounded, and rightly so, out the back door with requests.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
**Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The School Dance -Last Chance For Romance
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Angels performing Till.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘60s: Last Dance, Time-Life, 1991
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘50s: Last Dance of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.
Fair, enough, true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that entailed getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually a apart of the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here. What does stand some further inspection is something that has received scant notice in all this welter of detail, with the exception of that overblown coverage of the last dance. Nothing on the inner workings of the dance itself.
Actually, and I will only speak to the late fifties and early sixties but I am sure this observation will hold up for other times as well, there are two school dance sequels, that first tremulous middle school dance series, and the later even more significant high school dances. Age, more convoluted socials relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (or nowadays same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or, more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or off-hand nuzzling (or, have mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the high school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were current in the of my high school time.
These musical selections "spoke" to that gnawing feeling in the back of your head, half hidden by massive teenage psychic overlay of the need to take a constant survey of what is going on in your little so-called world. A moment's glazed stare as you wait to get into the dance venue allows you to think through the litany of problems to be addressed as soon as you get a breather. Shall I give examples?
For example; being stood up for a date; or when that certain he or she did not call; or that certain he or she had another date; or that certain "unto death" friend of yours took that certain he or she away from you; or when that certain he or she said no, no for any number of things but you know the real “no”, right?; or, finally, that mournful, pitiful midnight crying time when sometime he or she, did or did not do, or did or did not say, or he or she forget to remember, and so on. But those issues will wait for another day because right now the doors are opening and you have more pressing issues in your heated little mind. Hope drives your every move from here on in.
I don’t have to spend much time on the physical and technical details of the dance, hell, you can describe them in your sleep. And if you can’t do so watch a film like 1973’s American Graffiti, the segment on the local high school dance, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors could have been 1962 anyplace U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet anytime U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance, 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 placed around the gym by the ever helpful Girls Club or Tri-Hi-Y up to the ever-present foldaway gym bleachers to those evil-eyed chaperones to the platform the local band (a band that if it did not hit it big would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other important occasions) covering the top hits of the day performed on it was a perfect replica of my own experience.
Also perfect replica in that film 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, it’s much too 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 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. We all owe Chubby Checker and Gary U.S. Bonds a debt that can never be repaid. Mercy.
Damn, my going on and on about the physical descriptions is just so much eye wash. The thing could have been held in a airplane hangar for all we really cared. And everyone could have been dressed in paper bags. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless small meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell). Except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground, and pleased to be doing it. And that, my friends, is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation)of those evil eyes, the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven that it was a slow one. Ah, to be young was very heaven as old man Wordsworth had it in another context.
Stickouts here include: legendary blue artist Etta James’ Something’s Got A Hold On Me (fast); The Angels’ Till (slow, ouch); Bo Diddley’s Road Runner (fast); and Donnie Brooks’ classic (the one you prayed they would play) Mission Bell. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
********
'Till lyrics
Till the moon deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you
Till the tropic sun turns cold
Till this young world grows old
My darling, I'll adore you
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me, oh, oh, oh
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
instrumental interlude
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘60s: Last Dance, Time-Life, 1991
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘50s: Last Dance of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.
Fair, enough, true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that entailed getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually a apart of the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here. What does stand some further inspection is something that has received scant notice in all this welter of detail, with the exception of that overblown coverage of the last dance. Nothing on the inner workings of the dance itself.
Actually, and I will only speak to the late fifties and early sixties but I am sure this observation will hold up for other times as well, there are two school dance sequels, that first tremulous middle school dance series, and the later even more significant high school dances. Age, more convoluted socials relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (or nowadays same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or, more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or off-hand nuzzling (or, have mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the high school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were current in the of my high school time.
These musical selections "spoke" to that gnawing feeling in the back of your head, half hidden by massive teenage psychic overlay of the need to take a constant survey of what is going on in your little so-called world. A moment's glazed stare as you wait to get into the dance venue allows you to think through the litany of problems to be addressed as soon as you get a breather. Shall I give examples?
For example; being stood up for a date; or when that certain he or she did not call; or that certain he or she had another date; or that certain "unto death" friend of yours took that certain he or she away from you; or when that certain he or she said no, no for any number of things but you know the real “no”, right?; or, finally, that mournful, pitiful midnight crying time when sometime he or she, did or did not do, or did or did not say, or he or she forget to remember, and so on. But those issues will wait for another day because right now the doors are opening and you have more pressing issues in your heated little mind. Hope drives your every move from here on in.
I don’t have to spend much time on the physical and technical details of the dance, hell, you can describe them in your sleep. And if you can’t do so watch a film like 1973’s American Graffiti, the segment on the local high school dance, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors could have been 1962 anyplace U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet anytime U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance, 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 placed around the gym by the ever helpful Girls Club or Tri-Hi-Y up to the ever-present foldaway gym bleachers to those evil-eyed chaperones to the platform the local band (a band that if it did not hit it big would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other important occasions) covering the top hits of the day performed on it was a perfect replica of my own experience.
Also perfect replica in that film 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, it’s much too 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 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. We all owe Chubby Checker and Gary U.S. Bonds a debt that can never be repaid. Mercy.
Damn, my going on and on about the physical descriptions is just so much eye wash. The thing could have been held in a airplane hangar for all we really cared. And everyone could have been dressed in paper bags. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless small meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell). Except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground, and pleased to be doing it. And that, my friends, is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation)of those evil eyes, the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven that it was a slow one. Ah, to be young was very heaven as old man Wordsworth had it in another context.
Stickouts here include: legendary blue artist Etta James’ Something’s Got A Hold On Me (fast); The Angels’ Till (slow, ouch); Bo Diddley’s Road Runner (fast); and Donnie Brooks’ classic (the one you prayed they would play) Mission Bell. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
********
'Till lyrics
Till the moon deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you
Till the tropic sun turns cold
Till this young world grows old
My darling, I'll adore you
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me, oh, oh, oh
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
instrumental interlude
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
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