Tales From Old North Quincy: rock 'n' roll

Showing posts with label rock 'n' roll. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Not Your Father’s Automobile, Circa 1955

No question kids today, what with a new technological innovation every minute and so much social networking opportunity that it would keep even a civilized adult busy 24/7/365, grow up faster (read: learn the facts of life, that’s the facts jack) than we did back in the 1950s be-bop minute, the minute when the generation of ’68 began to twist and turn with the hard facts of life. The hard facts of life for boys then (oh yah, and now too but with less useful help back then) being what to do about girls (and girls, or other combinations today, can chime in with their own sagas on the just teen personal relationship heartache road). The thing consumed many an abandoned night, a sweaty toss and turn night up in some lonely bedroom, hopefully not brother-shared, trying to sleep after listening to the Midnight Special Rock And Roll Hour on the local radio station, WJDA, on your very private iPod (oops) transistor radio, the granddaddy (or grandmamma if you prefer) of that former invention, trying figure out if Sherry this liked your best friend Willie that. Or, more seriously, your own plight-if that glance from Jenny meant what the Be-Bop Kid (my moniker for a while in junior high school) though it meant when she passed him and looked back in the hallway between classes. And he looking back, detecting, microscopic detecting, just a pale and wan smile emanating from the corner of her ruby red- lipped mouth in response, enough material though to keep those bedclothes sweaty more than one night. Stuff like that. Purely kid’s stuff but the glue that held us together.

See a lot of stuff was from ignorance, willful ignorance brought to us by our parents (our frightened parents who also didn’t learn anything from their parents going back eons and so we learned it on the streets or from some “wise” boyfriend of girlfriend just like, well, just like they did), our churches (who were frightened , frightened worse than our parents, because they actually knew more, more about what they would call human depravity, and didn’t want us within a hundred yards, make that one thousand yards, or call your number, of sinful sex) and our schools (acting as substitute parents, I won’t use the common Latin term because this is no dead language screed but about rock and roll, oh yah, and sex) to keep us in the dark about, well, sex, for openers. Nowadays every ten year old kid knows more real stuff about the subject (and probably as much unreal stuff as back in the day too) than you could shake a stick at. And I hope that knowledge helps them through teen angst and teen alienation time in those sweaty toss and turn bedroom hours after they shut the iPod down.

But I wonder about a certain period, that period when for boys, some boys anyway, when girls turn from sticks to shapes. About whether that aspect of the rules of the game have changed. You know what I am talking about. When Jenny, who last year was nothing but a nuisance, a giggling nuisance chattering away with her six girlfriend armada seen everywhere and acting as one, acting as one or else, and making odd-ball remarks about you being this or that kind of goof, donk, nerd, dweed, etc. pick your generational term of art, or maybe taking a hard punch at you just for looking at her the wrong way, or saying some wrong thing, or even maybe thinking about saying the wrong thing, now looked kind of, well, interesting. And maybe she is taking her first blushed kind of interesting, not punch-provoking, peeps at you too.

Here is where it all got really confusing though, that time when Jenny (and her girlfriend armada naturally-the hours they must of spent on who did, or did not, make the cut, jesus, just be thankful you made it and now could finish junior high school without having to live in the catacombs, or some desert island which would be a more friendly environment if you had not made that precious A-list) invited you, you of all people, based on that very scant blushed peep she took a couple of weeks back, to her house for a party and you went, you trembling went (taking two showers, applying enough deodorant to make the whole world smell pretty, and gulping down enough mouth wash to float a battleship, trembling went).

As the evening wore on (maybe eight o’clock kid’s time late, junior high Friday night late), after half-dancing (praise be, rock and roll- induced dancing apart and plenty of room for faking dance moves studied assiduously from teen movies) the inevitable lights went out and the “petting” began and she, without an armada by the way, came over and sat right next to you, interesting blushed peep you. You fumble kissed, not exactly sure who made the first move (clueless about such protocols from clueless parents who would not discuss even that innocent question for fear, yah, for fear of the next question), and exactly sure (she too, she trembling too) that you did not know the next move. And then you would think about what old rock and rock king Chuck Berry meant when his latest single, Almost Grown, hit the airwaves (and was played a couple of times at said party). Jesus, kid’s today have it a hundred times easier. Right.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night.

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing a rock national anthem, Rock Around The Clock.

CD Review

The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’Roll:1953-63, Volume 2, various artists, Ace Records, 1993

Rock and roll was (is) big, sweaty cities, hot time summertime and the living is easy cities, New York-sized outlandish cities, be-bop cities, kids sitting around Washington Square, Central Park, Union Square, name your square or be square, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting impatiently, waiting out of their shoes impatiently for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath, to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter, head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Majestic on that cool off Saturday popcorn afternoon. Stag (stag, meaning no girl not solo but with full corner boy regiment), later, intermission later, seeing she, Public School 63 sweet Madonna and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Zooey (not frozen Irish Madonna thank god but not caring not caring a fig just following that bath soap, could it be perfume smell that has hooked guys since, well. Adam), and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to Zooey, boy) off to Schrafft’s corner lunchroom and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges; play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Zooey (he heard) sweat (and Zooey, cool bathsoap smell Zooey does not sweat even in sweaty New York cities) and do things up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran Mr. Sam’s ragged looking for just the right look, and old Mr. Mack too benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.

Rock was (is) small Podunk towns, every boy knows every girl (and maybe desires each too although that would cause a scandal in monogamous protestant-driven podunk), small , sweaty towns and villages, hell, one street main street crossroads down in Texas, pass throughs for Greyhound buses and oil tankers, summertime and the living is easy crossroads, Podunk outlandishly named towns, Boise, Helena, Ponticello, Big Sur (before the invasion), Olde Saco filled with French-Canadian boys calling out the songs in patois French (no Arcadia here), be-bop (okay, half be-bop towns, dusty old towns soon, how soon, to be de-populated by every boy and girl and off to the big sweaty rock and roll cities). Kids sitting around the village green, the fourth of july bandstand, the monument to the civil war, maybe on ocean edge towns down some salty beach, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting just like big sweaty city waiting, for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter (or under old time mahogany inkwell desks for real Podunk towns), head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell out of that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Bijou (imitation big city Majestic, really doubling for Sunday morning pancake socials too), on that cool off Saturday popcorn (popcorn addicted same as in sweaty cities) afternoon. Stag (ditto, cities, maybe corner boys, maybe no), but later, intermission later, seeing she, Olde Saco South Junior High School, for example, (no blank big city Public School X number here) sweet Madonna (same as big city on that) and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Betty (or Jane, Mary, nothing as exotic as city, city Zooey and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to BettyJane Mary, boy) off to Doc’s corner drugstore and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges, play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Betty (he heard) sweat (and Betty, Zooey-like, cool Betty does not sweat even in sweaty summer midday corn-picking fields) and do things, universal do things, private girl things, up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran the Sears catalogue (and Ma) ragged looking for just the right look, and old Doc and his fuddy-duddy drugstore with odd medicines for sick people what-a- drag- to- be-old-and- it- ain’t- never- going- to- come- to- that- for- me benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.

Rock was (is)… And thus this compilation.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night. #2

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing a rock national anthem, Rock Around The Clock.

CD Review

The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’Roll:1953-63, Volume 8, various artists, Ace Records, 1993

Rock and roll was (is) big, sweaty cities, hot time summertime and the living is easy cities, New York outlandish cities, be-bop cities, kids sitting around Washington Square, Central Park, Union Square, name your square or be square, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting impatiently, waiting out of their shoes impatiently for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath, to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter, head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Majestic on that cool off Saturday popcorn afternoon. Stag (stag, meaning no girl not solo but with full corner boy regiment), later, intermission later, seeing she, Public School 63 sweet Madonna and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Zooey (not frozen Irish Madonna thank god but not caring not caring a fig just following that bath soap, could it be perfume smell that has hooked guys since, well. Adam), and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to Zooey, boy) off to Schrafft’s corner lunchroom and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges; play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Zooey (he heard) sweat (and Zooey, cool bathsoap smell Zooey does not sweat even in sweaty New York cities) and do things up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran Mr. Sam’s ragged looking for just the right look, and old Mr. Mack too benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.

Rock was (is)… And thus this compilation.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

***Out in the 1950s Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bo Diddley performing his rock classic Bo Diddley.

DVD Review

Rock ‘n’ Rock All-Star Jam: Bo Diddley, Bob Diddley, Ron Woods, and other artists,1985

Well, there is no need to pussy foot around on this one. The question before the house is who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And here in this one hour all-star concert documentary, complete with background backstage footage, Bo Diddley unabashedly stakes his claim to the title that was featured in a song of his by the same name, except, except it starts out with the answer. Yes, Bo Diddley put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And off his performance here as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the tidal wave of rock that swept through the post-World War II teenage population in 1955 he has some “street cred” for that proposition.

Certainly there is no question that black music, in the early 1950s at least, previously confined to mainly black audiences down on the southern farms and small segregated towns and in the northern urban ghettos, centrally New York City, Chicago and Detroit, along with a ragtag coterie of “hip” whites (located in such urban oases as Greenwich Village, Harvard Square and North Beach out on the western blue-pink sky great American rim) is central to the mix that became classic 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. That is not to deny the other important thread commonly called rockabilly (although if you had scratched a rockabilly artist and asked him or her for a list of influences black gospel and rhythm and blues would be right at the top of their list, including Elvis’). But here let’s just go with the black influences. No question Ike Turner’s Rocket 88, Joe Turner’s Shake , Rattle and Roll and, I would add, Elmore James’ Look Yonder Wall are nothing but examples of R&B starting to break to a faster, more nuanced rock beat.

Enter one Bo Diddley. Not only does he have the old country blues songbook down, and the post- World War II urbanization and electrification of those blues down, but he reaches back to the oldest traditions of black music, back before the American slavery plantations days, back to the Carib influences and even further back to earth mother African shores. In short, that “jungle music”, that “devil’s music” that every white mother and father (and not a few black ones as well), north and south, was worried, no, frantically worried would carry away their kids. Well, it did and we are none the worst for it.

Here is a little story from back in the 1950s days though that places old Bo’s claim in perspective and addresses the impact (and parental horror) that Bo and rock had on teenage (and late pre-teenage) kids, even all white “projects” kids like me and my beat down corner boys. In rock birth years, like 1955, ’56, ’57 every self-respecting teenage boy (or almost teenage boy), under the influence of omnipresent black and white television, tried, one way or another, to imitate Elvis. From his off-hand casual dress, to his sideburns, to swiveling hips, to sneer. Hell, I even bought a be-bop doo-wop comb to wear my hair like his. I should qualify this statement a little and say every self-respecting boy who was aware of girls tried the Elvis trick. And, additionally, became acutely aware that if you wanted to get any place with them, any place at all, you had better be something like the second coming of Elvis.

Enter now, one eleven year old William James Bradley, “Billie,” my bosom buddy in those old Adamsville South elementary school days. Billie was wild for girls way before I acknowledged their existence, or at least their charms. Billie decided, and rightly so I think, to try a different tack. Instead of forming up at the end of the line in the Elvis imitation department he decided to imitate Bo Diddley. At that time we were playing the song Bo Diddley and, I think, Who Do You Love? like crazy. Elvis bopped, no question. But Bo’s beat spoke to something more primordial, something connected, unconsciously to our way back ancestry. Even a clumsy white boy like me could sway to the beat.

Of course that last sentence is nothing but a now time explanation for what drove us to the music. Then we didn’t know the roots of rock, or probably care, except our parents didn’t like it, and were sometimes willing to put the stop to our listening. Praise be for transistor radios (younger readers look that up on Wikipedia) to get around their madness, their cold war night parental madness that enveloped us all.

But see, Billie also, just at that beginning break-out time, did not know what Bo looked like. Nor did I. So his idea of imitating Bo was to set himself up as a sort of a Buddy Holly look alike, complete with glasses and that single curled hair strand.

Billie, naturally, like I say, was nothing but a top-dog dancer, and wired into girl-dom like crazy. And they were starting to like him too. One night he showed up at a local church catholic, chaste, virginal priest-chaperoned dance with this faux-Buddy Holly look. Some older guy meaning maybe sixteen or seventeen, wise to the rock scene well beyond our experiences, asked Billy what he was trying to do. Billie said, innocently, that he was something like the seventh son of the seventh son of Bo Diddley. This older guy laughed, laughed a big laugh and drew everyone’s attention to himself and Billie. Then he yelled out, yelled out for all the girls to hear “Billie boy here wants to be Bo Diddley, he wants to be nothing but a jungle bunny music N----r boy”. All went quiet. Billie ran out of the hall, and I ran after him, out the back door. I couldn’t find him that night.

See, Billie and I were clueless about Bo’s race. We just thought it was all rock (read: white music) then and didn’t know much about the black part of it, or the south part, or the segregated part either. We did know though what the n----r part meant in our all white housing project. And here was the kicker. Next day Billie strutted into school looking like the seventh son of the seventh son of Elvis. But as he got to the end of the line I could see, and can see very clearly even now, that the steam had gone out of him. So when somebody asks you who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll know that old Bo’s claim was right on track, and he had to clear some very high racial and social hurdles to make that claim. Just ask Billie.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Shake, Rattle and Roll- Big Joe Turner Is In The House- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Big Joe Turner performing hi classic birth of rock ‘n’ roll song, Shake , Rattle and Roll.

CD Review

Big Joe Turner’s Greatest Hits, Big Joe Turner, 1991

A few years ago there was a little controversy about whether songs like Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll or some early Elvis Presley tunes like Hound Dog or It’s All Right, Mama represented the genesis of rock and roll. That might be an interesting discussion for musicologists with time on their hands but if you really want to know the answer listen here. If you do not find the base line here for all later classic rock then I am afraid it is lost in the mist of time. Musical trends draw from many influences but the rhythm and blues of the early 1950’s seems to have been the real jump point for the turn to rock. Just look who covered th ething-ya,Elvis, Jerry Lee and Bill Haley.

This compilation, that is moreover technically competent, is a case study for the above stated propositions. It all comes together here on Blues in the Night. The two parts of Around the Clock Blues are nice. As is Blues on Central Avenue.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

***Put Your Mother’s Dancing Slippers On- Once Again On The Songs That Got Us Through World War II

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Vaughn Monroe performing There I've Said It Again. Yes, I know with an introduction by Ronald Reagan. Yadda Yadda.

CD Review

Songs That Got Us Through World War II, Volume 2, various artists, Rhino Records, 1994

There I’ve Said It Again, came wafting through the halls from another ballroom as Sally Madigan began to sit down at her table after having danced to her favorite dance, and almost naturally so, Mustang Sally. Strange juxtaposition, strange times she thought to herself. Just a bunch of years ago, a bunch of childhood 1950s years ago, she would do her own swoon, almost swelling to tears, just like her mother, sweet mother, Delores, when that deep bass voice of Vaughn Monroe came over WJDA, the local radio station in Clintondale that feature songs of the 1940s, the war-torn and separated 1940s, her mother’s time, and surely her father’s too. And now it just sounded, well, old-fashioned, old hat, and old fogy. Hell, now the be-bop rock 1950s that she craved sounded that way too. But that is a story for another time, a time of boy-finding and finding out about being a girl.

Strange that just that song, and now what sounded like the strains of Sentimental Journey starting up, heard more clearly now that the Lazy Crazy and the Rocking Ramrods were taking a break after finishing that last set with as sweat-poring, handkerchief wet rendition of Sally, are in the air. Strange since only a couple of weeks ago as Sally packed up her belongings from her room so that her younger sister, Meg, could move up in the Madigan girls' room pecking order and move in she had been flashed back to that same 1940s time. She was packing her belongings, sorting out what she was taking to State University and what she was storing, her other valuables and mementos like Timmy the Bear that just could not be parted with, down in the cellar.

In the cellar she had come across her mother’s wrapped in seven layers of plastic dancing slippers, or what was labeled as such by her label-happy mother. And a few Brownie-camera taken photographs, faded brown now, of her younger days mother, escorted by various beaus, some in uniform others not. But none of her mother with her father. And every picture had a note written in fountain pen, or what looked like fountain pen ink, thicker and more squiggly than Bics, that read something like this one- “to Delores Taylor, the rose of the Class of 1943 and the best slow dancer around. Love and kisses, Zack.”

Those finds had gotten Sally thinking about what those things meant, as they did now, as Caldonia came be-bopping through those halls and that distinctive Woody Herman flute reached for the high white note. Funny, she found herself toe-tapping to that sound, as were others around her, even though everybody agreed, agreed totally, that that was nothing but mothers and fathers music when she mentioned the name of the song. And Sally was thinking hard about the fact that her mother never danced, never mentioned dancing, and never mentioned any of the facts behind all that WJDA music that had practically mesmerized her in the 1950s. And if that was true of her mother then it was ten times more true about her father, Jim, who for the past several years had been a blur in her life, both because he did not understand how in the world he produced five girls and no boys. Although he repeated emphasized that he loved them all dearly when pushed on the subject and he had taken to spending more time with his old-time war buddy cronies and some younger guys as Timmy’s Irish Pub over near the softball field in North Clintondale. All she knew about those times was that Jim had a fist full of medals on a uniform that was also laid out in seven layers of plastic down in the cellar, and that was it.

Sally mentioned that fact to her escort, yes, escort, not boyfriend, okay, Johnny Rizzo, a fellow freshmen she had met her first day at State at orientation and whom she immediately liked. He invited her to this first Freshman Mixer and she accepted. He noted that his own parents never talked about those war days, although they did not play the old-timey music so maybe they just wanted to forget. That opinion was shared, mostly, by the other three couples at the table, at least between the cooings being made by those couples. And as When My Man Comes Home started to get competition from Lazy Crazy warming up to the Kingmen’s Louey, Louey Sally was determined to fill in the lost years. Just then Johnny asked her to dance, and as her feet were feeling too hot she slipped off her own dancing slippers before heading to the dance floor.

Note: Sally did find out, or partially find out, what happened back in those days and to make a long story short, There I’ve Said It Again was the “their” song for Delores and Zack, Zack Smith. Zack was killed, like too many boys, at Anzio (Italy) and Delores had married Jim Madigan, war hero and alive, on the “rebound.” Jim never said anything about it, that was Jim’s way, but he never danced with Delores either.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

***From Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Rock Night-Carl Perkin's "Boppin' The Blues"

Markin comment:

Hell, I don't need to comment here. Carl Perkins says it all- bop, bop the blues-get it.
******
Boppin' The Blues Lyrics- Carl Perkins

Well, all my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
All my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
I love you, baby, but I must be rhythm bound

Well, the doctor told me, Carl you need no pills.
Yes, the doctor told me, boy, you don't need no pills.

Just a handful of nickels, the juke box will cure your ills.

Well, all my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
All them cats are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
I love you, baby, but I must be rhythm bound

Well, the old cat bug bit me, man, I don't feel no pain
Yeah, that jitterbug caught me, man, I don't feel no pain.
I still love you baby, but I'll never be the same.

I said, all my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
All my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
I love you, baby, but I must be rhythm bound

Well, all my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
All them cats are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
I love you, baby, but I must be rhythm bound

Well, grand-pa Don got rhythm and he threw his crutches down.
Oh the old boy Don got rhythm and blues and he threw that crutches down
Grand-ma, he ain't triflin', well the old boy's rhythm bound.

Well, all them cats are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
All my friends are boppin' the blues; it must be goin' round
I love you, baby, but I must be rhythm bound.

A rock bop, rhythm and blues.
A rock bop, rhythm and blues.
A rock rock, rhythm and blues.
A rock rock, rhythm and blues.
Rhythm and blues, it must be goin' round.

***From Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Rock Night- Bill Haley's "Skinnie Minnie"

Markin comment:

In an earlier age (it was only fifty years ago, although that amount of time is probably an eternity in the fashion world, female variety) women were expected to be a little more voluptuous than Minnie. My personal preference on the subject then though was to go for Minnie, skinnie or not, in the teenage battle of "sticks" vs. "shapes."
****
Skinnie Minnie lyrics-Bill Haley and His Comets

SKINNIE MINNIE - BILLY HALEY & HIS COMETS

Well my skinnie minnie has a clay as a cheek
And I was 6 feet high and one foot thin
And now I do I love her, does a boy love pie?
Well now and she has the eye pull over my eye
Skinnie Minnie she's skinnie
She ain't tall, that's all
Well Although her shadow doesn't take much ground
Well now what there is, that really gets her around
And now what are there ahead, there's a lot she'd be

{ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/bill-haley-lyrics/skinnie-minnie-lyrics.html }

And now and she may not weight too much for me
Skinnie Minnie she's skinnie
She ain't tall, that's all
Well now it's hard being slimmer than a fishing pole
She (has) one hair blond and the other hair brown
And now I did the other cheek from the other side
And now I found the old yard where did she hideah,
Skinnie Minnie she's skinnie
She ain't tall, that's all

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

***Sweet Dreams, Baby- With Thanks to Mister Roy Orbison- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1962

CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1962, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1995

Sixteen and sex. No, not the in some backseat coupe down by the seashore, up some hilled lovers’ lane, or in some midnight minute motel kind, at least not yet. Just get to know her, easy know her, and let things take their course from there. No more of this frenzied, heated, beating some other guy’s time (or trying to) like he had just got finished doing with Lucy. No more Lucys, and as an amendment, make it a constitutional amendment if you want, no more dog-eat-dog fighting over girls, women, you know, frails.

That is exactly what Johnny Prescott had on his mind as noticed this cool looking frill (girl) across the field heading his way. The field being, for those not from Clintondale, unofficially known as “the meadows,” a family outing place not well-used now that they had the big Gloversville Amusement Park going full blast but just the place to go and think through, well think through, sixteen and sex, boy sixteen and sex. So he knew, knew as sure as he knew he own think through habits that this frill (girl) was also here to do some thinking. Maybe some getting over a boy think like he was getting over Lucy. Or maybe thinking that the way the boy meets girl rules were set up were just flat-out screwy. He hoped so.

And as she, this girl okay, approached he recognized her from school, from Clintondale High. At least he thought so because although the high school was fairly big it was small enough so that he should have recognized her, even if only from the “caf.” As she came very close in view he noticed that it was none other than Timmy Riley’s younger sister, Betty Ann, a sophomore a year behind him. At first he was going to pass because now that he thought about it, although it was clear that she was pretty in a second look way, and maybe a third look way too, she was known as one of those bookish-types that, well, you know were too bookish to think about sixteen year old boys and sex, or maybe boys of any age. And, well Timmy, Timmy Riley, was the star fullback on the Red Raiders football team, and who knew how he felt about his bookish sister and sexed-up sixteen year old boys.

But Johnny felt lucky, or maybe just desperate, and started to speak. But before he could get word one out Betty Ann said, “It’s a nice day for walking the meadows with nobody around. I come here when I want to think about stuff, about my future and what I want to do in the world. How about you?” Bingo, thought Johnny. I am going to talk to Betty Ann, and I’ll take my chances with Timmy- the hell with him (unless he reads this then it’s strictly only in my head, okay Timmy). And they talked and talked until almost dark. Talk-weary but still no wanting to move more than three yards from each other Johnny pulled out his transistor radio and they listened to WMEX, the be-bop, non-stop rock ‘n’ roll station that was mandatory listening for those under eighteen, those who counted.

And while listening to Roy Orbison trill out Dream Baby; Brenda Lee heart-breakingly warble All Alone Am I: Patty Cline ditto heartbreak She’s Got You; Don and Juan telegraph Johnny’s pitch line What’s Your Name; The Angels silky be-bop ‘Til; and Frank Ifield croon I Remember You Johnny and Betty Ann began what became one of the great Clintonville High romances of 1962.

Friday, July 1, 2011

***Out In The Be-Bop Doo Wop Night- The Night Red Rock Doo Wopped

CD Review

25 All-Time Doo Wop Hits, various artists, Varese Sarabonde Records, 2002

Road weary, yes, road weary all right that is what Fritz Taylor said to himself repeatedly as he waited, waited his third hour waited, by this god-forsaken exit just off Interstate 40 heading west out of Albuquerque on the seemingly endless hitchhike road. This trip had more than its fair share of mishaps. Road weary let’s just call it that, and let’s call it also a sudden realization by Fritz that something was not right in the world, the hitchhike world. For example, a couple of years back there was no way in hell, or god’s good green earth, have it your way, that poster hippie hitchhike boy, Fritz Taylor, would be standing for his third hour, christ, his third hour, on a major highway west looking for a ride.

Not Fritz, decked out in obligatory olive drab army jacket (World War II version, bought at some ubiquitous Army-Navy surplus store not earned by military duty, although he did serve it was just that he couldn’t bear to wear anything that reminded him of ‘Nam), slightly faded, faded from too much washing and wear blue jeans, sturdy, reliable, purposeful work boots (although sometimes they felt like lead, heavy atomic lead, when he had to walk to some more practical road in search of a ride), bedroll nicely slung over one shoulder, a small green knapsack over the other carrying, in toto, all his worldly goods. Something was definitely off-kilter in his world in this year, this 1974 year that had started out with so much promise. Now in hard August, hard hitchhike road August, no girl, no home except the road, no real dough, and no prospects, add in no sense of order in his universe and there you have it. A serious recipe for road weariness.

Deep in those bleak house thoughts Fritz almost missed the Volkswagen mini-bus that was slowing down just ahead of him. Or maybe, reflecting on the bleak road idea, he no longer believed, except as apparitions, old time mini-buses, or converted yellow brick multi-colored school buses that trolled the roads in great profusion just a couple of years back still existed. This trip had been dealt out, been pushed forward, mainly, by tired big-load cross-country truckers looking for white-line road company, a son’s company really, and by an occasional curious tourist-type wondering, probably wondering hard, why a good looking, although oddly dressed, young man who looked like he knew what he was doing was out on some no job, no home, no prospects road in Muncie, Indiana, Moline, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Dallas, Texas or a million other just names stops on the road west.

“Hey, brother where are you heading?” came a question for the front passenger seat of the now fully stopped van. And the question, once Fritz came to his road senses, was uttered by a very sweet-looking woman all dressed in Native American regalia. “Los Angeles, and then Big Sur” answered Fritz. “Oh, we are going to the Intertribal gathering just up the road at Red Rock for a few days and then heading to Joshua Tree, does that help you?,” came the sing-song response. Fritz, for just a minute, thought that he would thank them for stopping but that he needed a longer ride and needed to make faster time pass but that sing-song voice, that van apparition, and just that flat-out road weariness made him say “Hell, yes, it’s good to see fellow freaks on the road, it has been a while. What are you guys the lost tribe that they are always talking about in the books?” That brought a chuckle from the occupants of the van as the side door slid open and Fritz threw his gear on to a mattress, maybe two mattresses, that filled the floor of the whole back portion of the van. And on that matting were two kindred guys, and a youngish woman, a girl really. “Hi, I’m Fritz,” he said as he closed the door and the van started up. “Hi, I’m Zeke,” Hi, I’m Benjy,” yelled the two kindred over the roar of the engine. ‘I’m Moonbeam,” whispered the girl, who actually, on closer inspection was older than a girl and also clearly deep in some mystical drug experience, either coming down or going up Fritz could not tell. From the front the sing-song voice called out her name, “I’m Sally Running Water and I am one-sixteenth Hopi,” and the driver yelled out, “Hi, I’m Doc and I know how to cure you,” as he passed back a pipe filled with some herb. “We are the Pink Fogs and we’ve just finished a rock concert in Austin and Sally wanted to go to the Intertribal to see some of her people before we head to Joshua Tree for the big alterno-rock jam that will put us on the rock ‘n’ rock map.” Just them Doc, steady, rock-like Doc, who was the obvious leader of this group, maybe more like a flock shepard turned the tape deck up and the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter came blasting away at us and they all, collectively, started blasting away at it in response-yes, "it’s just a shot away, just a shot away." Fritz, now a little high from that passed pipe, thought yes I finally made a right decision, these are my people, lost tribe or not.

Between this and that it was dark, very dark but also star-bright dark, where they got to Red Rock, found their assigned site and started to set up kitchen stuff for a meal, and prepare the van for sleeping, if sleeping time ever came. Doc, as Docs will do, started a fire from some heavy brush gathered in the area, and Fritz noticed as he hadn’t before in the dark that the campsite was adjacent to a high cavern wall and as the flames of the fire grew stronger he could see shadows, almost human form shadows bouncing off those walls. And in the distance, although he, to be honest was too stoned to know how distant, he could hear the steady, slow, rhythmic pounding of the war drums, or rain drums, or just plain entertaining drums that provided an almost mesmerizing effect. Fritz also noticed that Sally and Doc seemed to be sitting together just now, her head on his shoulder, listening to that same incessant hypnotic sound. And Zeke and Moonbeam were doing the same. Benjy was sitting by himself, off to the side just a little, and maybe a little miffed that he had “lost” the girl wars. And of course Fritz, new boy Fritz, was left to fend for himself. And just that moment he wished, he wished to high heaven, that he had not been girl-less and wished that Cindy was here with him.

Suddenly the air was filled not only with the tattoo of drums but sounds of rattles and some almost bass guitar sound. And that sudden change brought the little Pink Fog campsite to life. Because, for whatever reason, Doc started singing out in a very strong bass the words to that old time doo- wop rock song by the Five Satins, In The Still Of The Night, and his fellow Pink Fogs joined in on the harmony, even Benjy. Hell, even Fritz did a low-slung harmony just to help fill the air. And Doc, or Doc and Sally, or just Sally, Fritz never did quite figure it out after than song was over, started up on The Penquins Earth Angel and that really got Fritz kind of weepy for Cindy, and for his not so long ago lost youth.

But here is the real funny, funny odd, part. Fritz noticed as the flames flickered from the campfire that on the walls he could see human figures, women’s figures, a couple anyway, and when he looked over in the dark he noticed that a couple of young women, twenty-ish women from what he could tell, women who in any case knew, knew as well as he did the words, and, more importantly, the spirit and growing up absurd meaning behind the songs, and were moving closer to the circle. Then, like it was contagious, Zeke started in on the Capris’ There’s A Moon Out Tonight (and there was) and all joined in. Fritz waved the two shadowy women toward the circle and noticed that in the meantime they had been joined by two other youngish, twenty-ish women.

Benjy got into the act having also noticed the bevy of women standing in some ill-defined outer circle and bellowed out Don & Juan’s What’s Your Name and backed it up with Robert & Johnny’s We Belong Together. The other members of the troupe backing him up, backing him up big time. Now they are all in one circle, even Benjy is in tight, and with the drums and other instruments still beating time for them Fritz starts out low-voiced just above a whisper Johnnie & Joe’s Over The Mountain; Across The Sea as one of the women moved over to sit right next to him, almost on his lap. And that night, that ancient flame, ancient sounds starry night, was the night Red Rock did indeed doo-wop.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- Jody Reynolds “Endless Sleep”- Billie’s View

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Jody Reynolds performing the classic Endless Sleep.

Markin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the mad hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Ya, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own. This song, Endless Sleep, came out at a time when I my family was beginning to start the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe. I was in my 24/7 reading at the local public library branch phase in lieu of being Billie’s accomplice on various, well, let’s call them capers just in case the statute of limitations has not run out. Still Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.

JODY REYNOLDS
"Endless Sleep"
(Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance)
The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
‘fraid she's gone forever more
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Why did we quarrel, why did we fight?
Why did I leave her alone tonight?
That's why her footsteps ran into the sea
That's why my baby has gone from me.
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“I took your baby from you away.
I heard a voice cryin' in the deep
“Come join me, baby, in my endless sleep.

Ran in the water, heart full of fear
There in the breakers I saw her near
Reached for my darlin', held her to me
Stole her away from the angry sea
I looked at the sea and it seemed to say
“You took your baby from me away.
My heart cried out “she's mine to keep
I saved my baby from an endless sleep.

[Fade]
Endless sleep, endless sleep
*****
Billie back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over the Adamsville Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he told me his family is going to move out of the projects and who has developed this big thing for the local library and books lately, came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of my rock universe-adorned bedroom when we got to talking about this latest record, Endless Sleep, by Jody Reynolds. All the parents around here, at least the parents that care anyway, or those who have heard the lyrics screaming from their kid’s plug-in blaring radio (that’s why they invented transistor radios-so parents wouldn’t, or couldn’t, catch on to what we are listening to- smarten up is what I say to those kids still on plug-in mode, for christ’s sake) about the not so subtle suicide theme. Ya, like that is what every kid is going to do when the going gets a little tough in the love department. Take a jump in the ocean, and call one and all to join them. Come on, will ya. It's only a song. Besides what is really good about this one is that great back beat on the guitar and Jody Reynold’s cool clothes and sideburns. I wish to high heaven I had both.

But see the pope of rock lyrics, me, can’t just leave this song like that. I have to decode it for the teeny-boppers around here or they will be clueless, including big time book guy Markin. And that is really what is going to make the difference between us here. We had a battle royal over this one. See, Markin always wants to give big play to the “social” meaning of the song, whatever that is, you know where the thing sticks in society, at least teeny-bopper society. Ya, and Markin is also the “sensitive” guy, usually. Like pulling for the girl to get her guy back, or at least go back to her old boyfriend for some back-up love, in Eddie My Love. Or has a kind thing to say about the dumb cluck of a bimbo who went back to the railroad track-stuck car to get some cheapjack class ring in Teen Angel (although he agreed, agreed fully, that the dame was a dumb cluck on other grounds).

Here though I am the sensitive guy, if you can believe that. Here’s why. It seems that Markin has some kind of exception to the “social” rule when it comes to the ocean, to the sea, christ, probably to some scum pond for all I know as the scene for suicide attempts. Apparently he is in the throes of some King Neptune frenzy and took umbrage (his word, not mind I don’t go to the library much) at the idea that someone would desecrate the sea that way, our homeland the sea the way he put it. Like old Neptune hasn’t brought seventy-three types of hell on us with his hurricane tidal waves, his overflowing the seawalls, his flooding everything within three miles of the coast, or when he just throws his flotsam and jetsam (my words, from school, I like them) on the projects beaches whenever he gets fed up. So I have to defend this frail’s action, and gladly.

You know it really is unbelievable once you start to think about it how many of these songs don’t have people in them with names, real names, nicknames, anything to tag on them. Here it’s the same old thing. Markin would just blithely go on and makes up names but I’ll just give you the “skinny” without the Markin literary touches, okay. Rather than calling the girl every name in the book for disturbing the fishes or the plankton like Markin I am trying to see what happened here to drive her to such a rash action. Obviously they, the unnamed boy and girl, had an argument, alright a big argument if that satisfies you. What could it have been about? Markin, wise guy Markin, wants to make it some little thing like a missed date, or the guy didn't call or something. Maybe it was, but I think the poor girl was heartbroken about something bigger. Maybe boyfriend didn’t want to “go steady” or maybe he wasn’t ready to be her ever lovin’ one and only. Let me put it this way it was big, not Markin’s b.s. stuff.

Okay she went over the edge, no question, running down to the sea and jumping in. On a rainy night to boot. Hey she had it bad, whatever it was. But see old Neptune, Markin’s friend, maybe father for all I know, is taunting said boyfriend, saying he is taking his baby away. Well, frankly, and old wimpy Markin dismissed this out of hand, those are fighting words in the projects, and not just the projects either. And the girl, given the cold and what that does to you when you have been in too long is forced to taunt her lover boy, trying to bring him down too. This is the part I like though, although Markin would probably take umbrage (again), the boy friend is ready to reclaim his honey, come hell or high water. Ya, he’s taking his baby, and taking her no questions asked, back from that nasty relentless sea. Chalk one up for our side. Yes, Billie, William James Bradley, is happy, pleased, delighted and any other words you can find in the library that this story has a happy ending. Markin be damned.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Out In The “Submarine Races” Night- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Capris performing There's A Moon Out Tonight.

CD Review

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: 1961: various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987

Recently I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a Time-Life classic rock series that goes under the general title The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-60, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that Zeitgeist today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store street corner hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered) hanging from the lips, Coke, big-sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor juke box coin devouring, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, as well, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, naturally, eternally naturally. And the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their music, the eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing. Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them).

Ya but see, that was all basically innocent indoor stuff. Today I want to talk about the outdoors stuff, the, hell, we are all adults, the sex stuff. And just to show I am not being just another prurient interest dirty old man I would, in reviewing this compilation, direct your attention to the very, very on point album cover art work here (as I have on others in this series as well). What could be more on point that a guy and his honey (or a gal and her honey if you want to look at it that way) sitting, star-light nighttime sitting, nighttime after that last dance high school opening shot young love sitting, in some early 1960s model convertible (maybe dad’s borrowed, maybe in new-found teen discretionary spending America his, probably the latter from the feel of the scene) in the local lovers’ lane. And one “bashful”, befuddled, “where do we go from here?” guy getting an innocent seeming kiss from said honey. Nice, right

Sure all that stuff is nice for public consumption but like I said before, we are all adults, and that cutesy eyewash will just not do. So here is my expose. Every town, hamlet, hell, any place that has at least one teen-aged couple had its local lovers’ lane where more fierce lovin’ went on that I would every have time to tell about, although Billy and Sue will be glad to fill in their friends come Monday morning in the boys’ and girls’ room at school. Our local lovers’ lane happened to also double up during the daytime as a beach, a very public beach. Can you believe that? Wasting all that good natural teenage dreamy night scene on people going swimming, digging for clams or some silly sea animals, sunning themselves, or having some ill-thought out family picnic. Christ, what a scene.

No, a thousand times no, this place was meant for the sun to go down on, a big blazing sun turning fast into the blue-pink night, boy and girl in car (or poverty-bound, not privy to that discretionary spending mentioned above, walked there and are now sitting moony-eyed on the seawall). And all car-bound or wall-bound “watching the submarine races.”
What? Yes, intensely, forthrightly, intelligently watching the submarine races. Oh come on now, you all had your own local expressions for doin’ the do. Naturally, if you are from the great plains night, or rockymountain high, or some Maine forest this was not possible but doin’ the do is. And what is doin’ the do? Oh well, yes we are all adults but I just remembered this cyberspace thing allows for small, peeking eyes, so I will leave you to figure it out. Or wait until Monday morning in the “lav” and ask grinning Billy and blushing Sue. Know this though that old car radio (or transistor radio, if seawall-bound) was blasting out tunes from this compilation: Here’s my selection for “getting in the mood” songs in the face of the great white-waved, Atlantic Ocean night:

There’s A Moon Out Tonight, The Capris (hopefully this was a double-header, the last dance at school and kingdom come mood-setter in that old convertible); Blue Moon, The Marcels (not bad as a runner up to The Capris as everybody starts to get a little swoony); Dedicated To The One I Love and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, The Shirelles (incredible harmonies, and let me tell you sometime when the kids are not around about my own story of young love when the sun comes up in the morning, ya, the morning, and how I got a version of the will you still love me question); Runaround Sue, Dion (every boy, oops, young man’s dread); Hats Off To Larry; Del Shannon; Stand By Me, Ben E. King (great lyrics); and Daddy’s Home, Shep and The Limelites ( good for going home from that gentle beach night).

Thursday, February 10, 2011

***Out In The Be-Bop 1960's Night- The Salducci's Pizza Toss Bet

Markin comment:

You all know Frankie, right? Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, map of Ireland, fierce Frankie when necessary, and usually kind Frankie by rough inclination. Ya, Frankie from the old North Adamsville neighborhood. Frankie to the tenement, the cold-water flat tenement, born. Frankie, no moola, no two coins to rub together except by wit or chicanery, poor as a church mouse if there ever was such a thing, a poor church mouse that is. Yes, that Frankie. And, as well, this writer, his faithful scribe chronicling his tales, his regal tales. Said scribe to the public housing flats, hot-water flats, but still flats, born. And poorer even than any old Frankie church mouse. More importantly though, more importantly for this story that I am about to tell you than our respective social class positions, is that Frankie is king, the 1960s king hell king of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, if not then North Adamsville’s finest still the place where we spent many a misbegotten hour, and truth to tell, just plain killed some time when we were down at our heels, or maybe down to our heels.

Sure you know about old Frankie’s royal heritage too. I clued you in before when I wrote about my lost in the struggle for power as I tried to overthrow the king when we entered North Adamsville High in 1960. By wit, chicanery, guile, bribes, threats, physical and mental, and every other form of madness he clawed his way to power after I forgot the first rule of trying to overthrow a king- you have to make sure he is dead. But mainly it was his "style”, he mad-hatter “beat” style , wherefore he attempted to learn, and to impress the girls (and maybe a few guys too), with his arcane knowledge of every oddball fact that anyone would listen to for two minutes. After my defeat we went back and forth about it, he said, reflecting his peculiar twist on his Augustinian-formed Roman Catholicism, it was his god-given right to be king of this particular earthy kingdom but foolish me I tried to justify his reign based on that old power theory (and discredited as least since the 17th century) of the divine right of kings. But enough of theory. Here’s why, when the deal went down, Frankie was king, warts and all.

All this talk about Frankie royal lineage kind of had me remembering a story, a Frankie pizza parlor story. Remind me to tell you about it sometime, about how we used to bet on pizza dough flying. What the heck I have a few minutes I think I will tell you now because it will also be a prime example, maybe better than the one I was originally thinking about, of Frankie’s treacheries that I mentioned before. Now that I think about it again my own temperature is starting to rise. If I see that bastard again I’m going to... Well, let me just tell the story and maybe your sympathetic temperature will rise a bit too.

One summer night, ya, it must have been a summer night because this was the time of year when we had plenty of time on our hands to get a little off-handedly off-hand. In any case it would have had to be between our junior and senior years at old North Adamsville High because we were talking a lot in those days about what we were going to do, or not do, after high school. And it would have had to have been on a Monday or Tuesday summer night at that and we were deflated from a hard weekend of this and that, mainly, Frankie trying to keep the lid on his relationship with his ever lovin’ sweetie, Joanne. Although come to think of it that was a full-time occupation and it could have been any of a hundred nights, summer nights or not. I was also trying to keep a lid on my new sweetie, Lucinda, a sweetie who seemed to be drifting away, or at least in and out on me, mostly out, and mostly because of my legendary no dough status (that and no car, no sweet ride down the boulevard, the beach boulevard so she could impress HER friends, ya it was that kind of relationship). Anyway it's a summer night when we had time on our hands, idle time, devil’s time according to mothers’ wit, if you want to know the truth, because his lordship (although I never actually called him that), Frankie I, out of the blue made me the following proposition. Bet: how high will Tonio flip his pizza dough on his next pass through.

Now this Tonio, as you know already if you have read the story about how Frankie became king of the pizza parlor, and if you don’t you will hear more about him later, is nothing but an ace, numero uno, primo pizza flinger. Here’s a little outline of the contours of his art, although minus the tenderness, the care, the genetic dispositions, and who knows, the secret song or incantation that Tonio brought to the process. I don’t know much about the backroom work, the work of putting all the ingredients together to make the dough, letting the dough sit and rise and then cutting it up into pizza-size portions. I only really know the front of the store part- the part where he takes that cut dough portion in front of him in the preparation area and does his magic. That part started with a gentle sprinkling of flour to take out some of the stickiness of the dough, then a rough and tumble kneading of the dough to take any kinks out, and while taking the kinks out the dough gets flattened, flattened enough to start taking average citizen-recognizable shape as a pizza pie. Sometimes, especially if Frankie put in an order, old Tonio would knead that dough to kingdom come. Now I am no culinary expert, and I wasn’t then, no way, but part of the magic of a good pizza is to knead that dough to kingdom come so if you see some geek doing a perfunctory couple of wimpy knead chops then move on, unless you are desperate or just ravenously hungry.

Beyond the extra knead though the key to the pizza is the thinness of the crust and hence the pizza tosses. And this is where Tonio was a Leonardo-like artist, no, that’s not right, this is where he went into some world, some place we would never know. I can still see, and if you happened to be from old North Adamsville, you probably can still see it too if you patronized the place or stood, waiting for that never-coming Eastern Mass. bus, in front of the big, double-plate glass pizza parlor windows watching in amazement while Tonio tossed that dough about a million times in the air. Artistry, pure and simple.

So you can see now, if you didn’t quite get it before that Frankie’s proposition is nothing but an old gag kind of bet, a bet on where Tonio will throw, high or low. Hey, it’s just a variation on a sports bet, like in football, make the first down or not, pass or rush, and so on, except its pizza tosses, okay. Of course, unlike sports, at least known sports, there are no standards in place so we have to set some rules, naturally. Since its Frankie’s proposition he gets to give the rules a go, and I can veto.

Frankie, though, and sometimes he could do things simple, although that was not his natural inclination; his natural inclination was to be arcane in all things, and not just with girls. Simply Frankie said in his Solomonic manner that passed for wisdom, above or below the sign in back of Tonio’s preparation area, the sign that told the types of pizza sold, their sizes, their cost and what else was offered for those who didn’t want pizza that night.

You know such signs, every pizza palace has them, and other fast eat places too, you have to go to “uptown” eateries for a tabled menu in front of your eyes, and only your eyes, but here’s Tonio’s public offerings. On one side of the sign plain, ordinary, vanilla, no frills pizza, cheap, maybe four or five dollars for a large, small something less, although don’t hold me to the prices fifty years later for christ sakes, no fixings. Just right for “family night”, our family night later, growing up later, earlier in hot-water flats, public housing hot-water flats time, we had just enough money for Spam, not Internet spam, spam meat although that may be an oxymoron and had no father hard-worked cold cash for exotic things like pizza, not a whole one anyway, in our household. And from what Frankie told me his too.

Later , when we had a little more money and could “splurge” for an occasional take-out, no home delivery in those days, when ma didn’t feel like cooking, or it’s too hot, or something and to avoid civil wars, the bloody brother against brother kind, plain, ordinary vanilla pizza is like manna from heaven for mama, although nobody really wants it and you just feel bloated after eating your share (and maybe the crust from someone who doesn’t like crust, or maybe you traded for it); or, plain, by the slice, out of the oven (or more likely oven-re-heated after open air sitting on some aluminum special pizza plate for who knows how long) the only way you could get it after school with a tonic (also known as soda for you old days non-New Englanders and progeny), usually a root beer, a Hires root beer to wash away the in-school blahs, especially the in-school cafeteria blahs.

Or how about plump Italian sausage, Tonio thickly-sliced, or spicy-side thinly-sliced pepperoni later when you had a couple of bucks handy to buy your own, and to share with your fellows (those fellows, hopefully, including girls, always hopefully, including girls) and finally got out from under family plain and, on those lucky occasions, and they were lucky like from heaven, when girl-dated you could show your stuff, your cool, manly stuff, and divide, divide, if you can believe that, the pizza half one, half the other fixing, glory be; onion or anchovies, oh no, the kiss of death, no way if you had the least hope for a decent night and worst, the nightmarish worst, when your date ordered her portion with either of these, although maybe, just maybe once or twice, it saved you from having to do more than a peck of a kiss when your date turned out not to be the dream vision you had hoped for; hams, green peppers, mushrooms, hamburg, and other oddball toppings I will not even discuss because such desecration of Tonio’s pizza, except, maybe extra cheese, such Americanized desecration , should have been declared illegal under some international law, no question; or, except, maybe again, if you had plenty of dough, had a had a few drinks, for your gourmet delight that one pig-pile hunger beyond hunger night when all the fixings went onto the thing. Whoa. Surely you would not find on Tonio’s blessed sign this modern thing, this Brussels sprouts, broccoli, alfalfa sprouts, wheat germ, whole wheat, soy, sea salt, himalaya salt, canola oil, whole food, pseudo-pizza not fit for manly (or womanly) consumption, no, not in those high cholesterol, high-blood pressure, eat today for tomorrow you may die days.

On the other side of the sign, although I will not rhapsodize about Tonio’s mastery of the submarine sandwich art (also known as heroes and about seventy-six other names depending on where you grew up, what neighborhood you grew up in, and who got there first, who, non-Puritan, got there first that is) are the descriptions of the various sandwich combinations (all come with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, the outlawed onions, various condiment spreads as desired along with a bag of potato chips so I won’t go into all that); cold cuts, basically bologna and cheese, maybe a little salami, no way, no way in hell am I putting dough up for what ma prepared and I had for lunch whenever I couldn’t put two nickels together to get the school lunch, and the school lunch I already described as causing me to run to Tonio’s for a sweet reason portion of pizza by the slice just to kill the taste, no way is right; tuna fish, no way again for a different reason though, a Roman Catholic Friday holy, holy tuna fish reason besides grandma, high Roman Catholic saint grandma, had that tuna fish salad with a splash of mayo on oatmeal bread thing down to a science, ya, grandma no way I would betray you like that; roast beef, what are you kidding; meatballs (in that grand pizza sauce); sausage, with or without green peppers, steak and cheese and so on. The sign, in all it beatified Tonio misspelled glory.

“Okay,” I said, that sign part seemed reasonable under the circumstances (that’s how Frankie put it, I’m just repeating his rationalization), except that never having made such a bet before I asked to witness a few Tonio flips first. “Deal,” said Frankie. Now my idea here, and I hope you follow me on this because it is not every day that you get to know how my mind works, or how it works different from star king Frankie, but it is not every day that you hear about a proposition based on high or low pizza tosses and there may be something of an art to it that I, or you, were not aware of. See, I am thinking, as many times as I have watched old saintly Tonio, just like everybody else, flip that dough to the heavens I never really thought about where it was heading, except those rare occasions when one hit the ceiling and stuck there. So maybe there is some kind of regular pattern to the thing. Like I say, I had seen Tonio flip dough more than my fair share of teenage life pizzas but, you know, never really noticed anything about it, kind of like the weather. As it turned out there was apparently no rhyme or reason to Tonio’s tosses just the quantity (that was the secret to that good pizza crust, not the height of the throw), so after a few minutes I said "Bet." And bet is, high or low, my call, for a quarter a call (I have visions of filling that old jukebox with my “winnings” because a new Dylan song just came in that I am crazy to play about a zillion times, Mr. Tambourine Man). We are off.

I admit that I did pretty well for while that night and maybe was up a buck, and some change, at the end of the night. Frankie paid up, as Frankie always paid up, and such pay up without a squawk was a point of honor between us (and not just Frankie and me either, every righteous guy was the same way, or else), cash left on the table. I was feeling pretty good ‘cause I just beat the king of the hill at something, and that something was his own game. I rested comfortable on my laurels. Rested comfortably that is until a couple of nights later when we, as usual, were sitting in the Frankie-reserved seats (reserved that is unless there were real paying customers who wanted to eat their pizza in-house and then we, more or less, were given the bum’s rush) when Frankie said “Bet.” And the minute he said that I knew, I knew for certain, that we are once again betting on pizza tosses because when it came right down to it I knew, and I knew for certain, that Frankie’s defeat a few nights before did not sit well with him.

Now here is where things got tricky, though. Tonio, good old good luck charm Tonio, was nowhere in sight. He didn’t work every night and he was probably with his honey, and for an older dame she was a honey, dark hair, good shape, great, dark laughing eyes, and a melting smile. I could see, even then, where her charms beat out, even for ace pizza flinger Tonio, tossing foolish old pizza dough in the air for some kids with time on their hands, no dough, teenage boys, Irish teenage boys to boot. However, Sammy, North Adamsville High Class of ’62 (maybe, at least that is when he was suppose to graduate, according to Frankie, one of whose older brothers graduated that year), and Tonio’s pizza protégé is on duty. Since we already know the ropes on this thing I didn’t even bother to check and see if Sammy’s style was different from Tonio’s. Heck, it was all random, right?

This night we flipped for first call. Frankie won the coin toss. Not a good sign, maybe. I, however, like the previous time, started out quickly with a good run and began to believe that, like at Skeet ball (some call it Skee-ball but they are both the same–roll balls up a targeted area to win Kewpie dolls, feathery things, or a goof key chain for your sweetie) down at the amusement park, I had a knack for this. Anyway I was ahead about a buck or so. All of a sudden my “luck” went south. Without boring you with the epic pizza toss details I could not hit one right for the rest of the night. The long and short of it was that I was down about four dollars, cash on the table. Now Frankie’s cash on the table. No question. At that moment I was feeling about three feet tall and about eight feet under because nowadays cheap, no meaning four dollars, then was date money, Lucinda, fading Lucinda, date money. This was probably fatal, although strictly speaking that is another story and I will not get into the Lucinda details, because when I think about it now that was just a passing thing, and you know about passing things- what about it.

What is part of the story though, and the now still temperature-rising part of the story, is how Frankie, Frankie, king of the pizza parlor night, Frankie of a bunch of kindnesses, and of a bunch of treacheries, here treachery, zonked me on this betting scandal. What I didn’t know then was that I was set up, set up hard and fast, with no remorse by one Francis Xavier Riley, to the tenements, the cold-water flat tenements, born and his cohort Sammy. It seems that Sammy owed Frankie for something, something never fully disclosed by either party, and the pay-off by Sammy to make him well was to “fix” the pizza tosses that night I just told you about, the night of the golden fleecing. Every time I said "high" Sammy, taking his coded signal from Frankie, went low and so forth. Can you believe a “king”, even a king of a backwater pizza parlor, would stoop so low?

Here is the really heinous part though, and keep my previous reference to fading Lucinda in mind when you read this. Frankie, sore-loser Frankie, not only didn’t like to lose but was also low on dough (a constant problem for both of us, and which consumed far more than enough of our time and energy than was necessary in a just, Frankie-friendly world) for his big Saturday night drive-in movie-car borrowed from his older brother, big-man-around- town date with one of his side sweeties (Joanne, his regular sweetie was out of town with her parents on vacation). That part, that unfaithful to Joanne part I didn’t care about because, once again truth to tell, old ever lovin’ sweetie Joanne and I did not get along for more reasons than you have to know. The part that burned me, and still burns me, is that I was naturally the fall-guy for some frail (girl in pizza parlor parlance time) caper he was off on. Now I have mentioned that when we totaled up the score the Frankie kindnesses were way ahead of the Frankie treacheries, no question, which was why we were friends. Still, right this minute, right this 2010 minute, I’m ready to go up to his swanky downtown law office (where the men’s bathroom is larger than his whole youth time old cold- water flat tenement) and demand that four dollars back, plus interest. You know I am right on this one.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

***Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Frankie Roamed The Teenage Dance Clubs

Markin comment:

In a recent series of entries that I did in the form of scenes, scenes from the hitchhike road in search of the great American West night in the late 1960s, a time later than the time of Frankie’s early 1960s old working class neighborhood kingly time, I noted that I had about a thousand truck stop diner stories left over from those hitchhike road days. On reflection though, I realized that I really had about three diner stories with many variations. Not so with Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood, stories. I have got a thousand of them, or so it seems, all different. Hey, you already, if you have been attentive to this space, know a few Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood, stories (okay, I will stop, or try to stop, using that full designation and just call him plain, old, ordinary, vanilla Frankie just like everybody else alright).

Ya, you already know the Frankie (see I told you I could do it) story about how he lazily spent a hot late August 1960 summer before entering high school day working his way up the streets of the old neighborhood to get some potato salad (and other stuff too) for his family’s Labor Day picnic. And he got a cameo appearance in the tear jerk heart-rendering saga of my first day of high school in that same year where I, vicariously, attempted to overthrow his lordship with the nubiles (girls, for those not from the old neighborhood, although there were plenty of other terms of art to designate the fair sex then, most of them getting their start in local teenage social usage from Frankie’s mouth). That effort, that attempt at copping his “style” like many things associated with one-of-a-kind Frankie proved unsuccessful as it turned out.

But as this story will demonstrate old Frankie, Frankie from (oops, I forgot I ‘m not doing that anymore) was not only the king of the old neighborhood but roamed, or tried to roam far afield, especially if the word "girls" was involved. So this will be another Frankie and the girls story, at least part way. The milieu though will be somewhat different for those who only know Frankie in his usual haunts; the pizza parlor, the drugstore, or hanging around the corner of one of several mom and pop variety stores. This time, in a way, Frankie goes “uptown.”

One of the other places where Frankie tried to extend his kingdom was the local teen night club (although we did not call it that then but that was the idea). You know a place where kids, late teenage kids, could dance to live music from some cover band and drink…sodas. Ya, the idea was to keep kids off the streets, out of the cars, and under a watchful eye on Friday and Saturday night so they didn’t drink booze and get all crazy and messed up. Of course, anyone with half a wit, if they wanted to get booze, had no real problem as long as there was some desperate wino to make your purchase for you. But, at least, the idea was no booze on the premises and that was pretty much the case.

Now this club, this teen dance club, that Frankie has his eye on, was the primo such place around. Sure, there were other smaller venues, but that was kids stuff, young teen stuff, no account, no matter stuff. If you had dreams of kingship then the Sea ‘n’ Surf Club was the place to place your throne. But, see, this club was several miles away from the old neighborhood, and that meant several miles of other guys who were kings of their neighborhoods, but also several miles of all kinds of different girls that Frankie (and I, as well) had no clue about. And the beauty of this, the real beauty for Frankie was that it was doable. Why? Old ball and chain girlfriend forever, girlfriend, main squeeze, Joanne was not allowed by her parents to go to teen dance clubs, period. And period meant period, to old Frankie’s smiles.

This club had the added advantage, as its name gives away, of being by the sea, by the ocean so that if the dancing got too hot, or it was too crowded, or if you got lucky then there you were handy to a ready-made romantic venue. Now American Great Plains prairie guys and dolls may not appreciate this convenience (although I am sure you had your own local lovers’ lane "hot spots") but to have the sea as a companion in the great boy meets girl struggle was pure magic. See, and everybody knew this or found out about it fast enough, if a girl wanted to catch some "fresh air" and agreed to go with you then you were “in like flint” for the night. That also meant though that, when intermission ended, or when the steamed-up couple came up for air that nobody else was suppose to cut in on their scene. This may all sound complicated but, come on now, you were all teens once, and you figured it out easily enough, right? This in any case is what Frankie wanted to be king of. The scene that is.

This club, by the way, this hallowed memory club, could not stand the light of day, although at night it was like the enchanted castle. By day it looked just like another faux Coney Island low-rent carnival, bad trip place ready for the demolition ball ballroom. But the night, oh, the night was all we cared about. And for weeks before Frankie was ready to make his big move the conquest of this place thing, the imagining of it, took on something like the quest for a holy grail.

Finally, Friday finally, summertime Friday night finally, came (he had a date with his ever lovin’ big flame Joanne for Saturday that week) and he was ready to make his move. Let me outline the plan as he told it to me. The idea, if Tommy 40 Winks (I did not make that name up; I don’t have that kind of imagination. That was his nickname, hell, mine, was, for a while, Boyo, go figure), showed up was to make the scene with whatever girl he was dancing with, at least that was the idea. 40 Winks, for lack of a better term was the “king” of the club, although by default because no one had messed with him, or his crowd before. And also he was the “boss” dancer of the universe and the girls were all kind of swoony, or at least, semi-swoony over his moves, especially when he got his Elvis thing going. Ya, now that I think about it he did seem to make the girls sweat. Sure, 40 Winks was going to be there. See Frankie was going to upset that fresh air “rule” and since nobody, not even me, ever accused Frankie of not being in love with himself, his “projects”, or his “style” he figured it was a cinch. Now, forty or fifty years later I can see where there was a certain flaw in the plan.

Why? Well, let me cut to the chase here, a little anyway. When we showed up at the club everything was fine. Everybody kind of conceded that this was “neutral” ground, at least inside, and the management of the place had employed more college football player-types than one could shake a stick at to enforce the peace. So any “turf” wars will have to be fought out on the dance floor, or elsewhere. Tonight the music, live music from a local cover band that is trying to move up in the pecking order is “hot”. They get the joint, 40 Winks, and old Frankie fired up right away with a big sound version of Good Rockin’ Tonight. Now 40 Winks eyes this one sneeze (girl, blame Frankie) from our school, although none of us, including Frankie, had even come with fifty paces of her, here or in school. Her name was Anna, but let’s just call her a Grace Kelley-wannabe, or could-be or something, and be done with it. In any case when she had finished dancing that Good Rockin’ Tonight with some goof (meaning non-Frankie friend or associate) the temperature in the place went up a collective bunch of degrees. Even I was thinking of getting closer than 50 paces from her. Okay this is going to be the prize, boys

40 Winks and Frankie both approach Ms. Wonderful for the next dance (and, hopefully, for the full dance card), a slow one it seems from the way the band is tuning up. Ya, it is, The Platters, Stand By Me. 40 Winks gets the nod. Oh, boy. First round 40 Winks. They start dancing and other couples are giving them some room because they are putting on something of a show now. I don’t tell Frankie this but he, his plans, and his crown are doomed. His look kind of says the same thing. But here is where you can never tell about Frankie. After that dance he goes back for another ask. Again, no go. And no go all the way to intermission.

Christ, Francis Xavier Riley, purebred Irish man is red, red as a Dublin rose. He is done for, especially as this national treasure of a girl takes the air, the fresh air with 40 Winks. And makes a big deal out of it in front of half the couples attending, and more importantly, in front of Frankie. Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood but not of the wide teen kingdom. For one of the few times in our middle school and high school careers together I saw Frankie throw in the towel. It wasn’t pretty. He didn’t show up at that club for a long time afterward, and I don’t blame him.

But here is where life, teenage life is funny sometimes. My brother, my home’s, my be-bop buddy Frankie was set up, and set up bad. How? Well, Anna, old sweet Grace Kelley wannabe Anna (and now that I think about could be), actually was smitten, or whatever you want to call it, by Frankie from seeing him around school. Yes, Frankie. But, and this is the way Frankie told me the story some time later after the event, Anna and firebrand Joanne, sweet Frankie girlfriend Joanne, had classes together and, moreover, were related to each other distantly like a lot of kids were related to each other in the old neighborhood. Anna knew that Frankie was Joanne’s honey so they talked it out and Anna passed on old Frankie. But, see, Joanne got wind of Frankie’s no Joanne teen dance club scheme and she and Anna patched this deal up to keep Frankie out of harm’s way. Women!

Tales From Old North Quincy