Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing their classic Sweet Talkin’ Guy
CD Review
Classic Rock: 1966: Shakin’ All Over, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1998
Scene: Brought to mind by one of the pieces of artwork that graces each CD in this series. In this case, this 1966 case, the then almost ubiquitous merry prankster-edged converted yellow brick road school bus, complete with assorted vagabond minstrel/ road warrior/ah, hippies, that “ruled” the mid-1960s highway and by-ways in search of the great American freedom night. We never found it in the end, but the search was worth it then, and still worth it now.
*****
A rickety, ticky-tack, bounce over every bump in the road to high heaven, gear-shrieking school bus. But not just any yellow brick road school bus that you rode to various educationally good for you locations like movie houses, half yawn, science museums, yawn, art museums, yawn, yawn, or wind-wept picnic areas for some fool weenie roast, two yawns there too, when you were a school kid. And certainly not your hour to get home daily grind school bus, complete with surly driver (male or female, although truth to tell the females were worst since they acted just like your mother, and maybe were acting on orders from her) that got you through K-12 in one piece, and you even got to not notice the bounces to high heaven over every bump of burp in the road. No, my friends, my comrades, my brethren this is god’s own bus commandeered to navigate the highways and by-ways of the 1960s come flame or flash-out.
Yes, it is rickety, and all those other descriptive words mentioned above in regard to school day buses. That is the nature of such ill-meant mechanical contraptions after all. But this one is custom-ordered, no, maybe that is the wrong way to put it, this is “karma” ordered to take a motley crew of free-spirits on the roads to seek a “newer world,” to seek the meaning of what one persistent blogger on the subject has described as "the search for the great blue-pink American Western night."
Naturally to keep its first purpose intact this heaven-bound vehicle is left with its mustard yellow body surface underneath but over that primer the surface has been transformed by generations (generations here signifying not twenty-year cycles but trips west, and east) of, well, folk art, said folk art being heavily weighted toward graffiti, toward psychedelic day-glo hotpinkorangelemonlime splashes and zodiacally meaningful symbols. And the interior. Most of those hardback seats that captured every bounce of childhood have been ripped out and discarded to who knows where and replaced by mattresses, many layers of mattresses for this bus is not merely for travel but for home. To complete the “homey” effect there are stored, helter-skelter, in the back coolers, assorted pots and pans, mismatched dishware, nobody’s idea of the family heirloom china, boxes of dried foods and condiments, duffle bags full of clothes, clean and unclean, blankets, sheets, and pillows, again clean and unclean.
Let’s put it this way, if someone wants to make a family hell-broth stew there is nothing in the way to stop them. But also know this, and know it now, as we start to focus on this journey that food, the preparation of food, and the desire, except in the wee hours when the body craves something inside, is a very distant concern for these “campers.” If food is what you desired in the foreboding 1960s be-bop night take a cruise ship to nowhere or a train (if you can find one), some southern pacific, great northern, union pacific, and work out your dilemma in the dining car. Of course, no heaven-send, merry prankster-ish yellow brick road school bus would be complete without a high-grade stereo system to blast the now obligatory “acid rock” coming through the radiator practically, although just now, as a goof, it has to be a goof, right, one can hear Nancy Sinatra, christ, Frank’s daughter how square is that, churning out These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.
And the driver. No, not mother-sent, mother-agent, old Mrs. Henderson, who prattled on about keep in your seats and be quiet while she is driving (maybe that, subconsciously, is why the seats were ripped out long ago on the very first “voyage” west). No way, but a very, very close imitation of the god-like prince-driver of the road, the "on the road” pioneer, Neal Cassady, shifting those gears very gently but also very sure-handedly so no one notices those bumps (or else is so stoned, drug or music stoned, that those things pass like so much wind). His name: Cruising Casey (real name, Charles Kendall, Harverford College Class of ’64, but just this minute, Cruising Casey, mad man searching for the great American be-bop night under the extreme influence of one Ken Kesey, the max-daddy mad man of the great search just then). And just now over that jerry-rigged big boom sound system, again as if to mock the newer world abrewin’ The Vogues’ Five O’ Clock World.
And the passengers. Well, no one is exactly sure, as the bus approaches the outskirts of Denver, because this is strictly a revolving cast of characters depending on who was hitchhiking on that desolate back road State Route 5 in Iowa, or County Road 16 in Nebraska, and desperately needed to be picked up, or face time, and not nice time with a buzz on, in some small town pokey. Or it might depend on who decided to pull up stakes at some outback campsite and get on the bus for a spell, and decide if they were, or were not, on the bus. After all even all-day highs, all-night sex, and 24/7 just hanging around listening to the music, especially when you are ready to scratch a blackboard over the selections like the one on now, James and Bobby Purify’s I’m Your Puppet, is not for everyone.
We do know for sure that Casey is driving, and still driving effortlessly so the harsh realities of his massive drug intake have not hit yet, or maybe he really is superman. And, well, that the “leader” here is Captain Crunch since it is “his” bus paid for out of some murky deal, probably a youthful drug deal, (real name, Samuel Jackman, Columbia, Class of 1958, who long ago gave up searching, searching for anything, and just hooked into the idea of "taking the ride"), Mustang Sally (Susan Stein, Michigan, Class of 1959, ditto on the searching thing), his girlfriend, (although not exclusively, not exclusively by her choice , not his, and he is not happy about it for lots of reasons which need not detain us here). Most of the rest of the “passengers” have monikers like Silver City Slim, Luscious Lois (and she really is), Penny Pot (guess why), Moon Man, Flash Gordon (from out in space somewhere, literally, as he tells it), Denver Dennis (from New York City, go figure), and the like. They also have real names that indicate that they are from somewhere that has nothing to do with public housing projects, ghettos or barrios. And they are also, or almost all are, twenty-somethings that have some highly-rated college years after their names, graduated or not). And they are all either searching or, like the Captain, at a stage where they are just hooked into taking the ride.
One young man, however, sticks out, well, not sticks out, since he is dressed in de rigeur bell-bottomed blue jeans, olive green World War II surplus army jacket (against the mountain colds, smart boy), Chuck Taylor sneakers, long, flowing hair and beard (well, wisp of a beard) and on his head a rakish tam just to be a little different, “Far Out” Phil (real name Phillip Larkin, North Adamsville High School Class of 1964). And why Far Out sticks out is not only that he has no college year after his name, for one thing, but more importantly, that he is nothing but a old-time working class neighborhood corner boy from in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor back in North Adamsville, a close-by suburb of Boston.
Of course then Far Out Phil was known, and rightly so as any girl, self-respecting or not, could tell you as “Foul-Mouth” Phil, the world champion swearer of the 1960s North Adamsville (and Adamsville Beach) be-bop night. And right now Far Out, having just ingested a capsule of some illegal substance (not LSD, probably mescaline) is talking to Luscious Lois, talking up a storm without one swear word in use, and she is listening, gleam in her eye listening, as ironically, perhaps, The Chiffons Sweet Talkin’ Guy is beaming forth out of his little battery-powered transistor radio (look it up on Wikipedia if you don’t know about primitive musical technology) that he has carried with him since junior high school. The winds of change do shift, do shift indeed.
Showing posts with label sexual revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexual revolution. Show all posts
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Face (book) Photo That Launched A Thousand Clicks- Or “Foul-Mouth” Phil Hits Pay-Dirt-Finally
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Facebook for those three or four people who have not gotten the word about this new form of "social-networking" yet.
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).
Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.
But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.
Phil Larkin comment:
Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.
You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.
Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.
Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?
Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.
Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.
Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:
“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”
The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.
Markin comment:
Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Yes, I know. I know damn well that I should not indulge my seemingly endlessly sex-haunted old-time corner boys. After all this space is nothing but a high-tone “high communist” propaganda outlet on most days- the good days. I should, moreover, not indulge a “mere” part-timer at our old North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor hang-out be-bop night “up the Downs” like one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. (For those who do not know what that reference refers to don’t worry you all had your own “up the Downs” and your own corner boys, or mall rats as the case may be, who hung out there.) Despite his well-known, almost automatic, foul mouth in the old days Phil had his fair share, more than his fair share given that mouth, of luck with the young women (girls, in the old days, okay). I am still mad at him for “stealing” my old-time neighborhood heartthrob, Millie Callahan, right from under my nose. (And right in the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church after Mass to boot. If he is still a believer he stands condemned. No mercy. As for me, an old heathen, I was just glad that I stared at her ass during Mass. I stand condemned anyway, if things work out that way).
Well, that was then and now is now and if you read about “poor” Phil Larkin’s trials and tribulations with the ladies recently in a post here entitled -“Sexless” sex sites” you know that his old Irish blarney ( I am being kind to the old geezer here) had finally given out and that he was scoreless lately. That is he was scoreless as of that writing. As Phil pointed out to me personally as part of our conversations while I was editing his story he felt that he would have had better luck with finding a woman companion (for whatever purpose) by just randomly calling up names in the telephone directory than from that “hot” sex site that he found himself embroiled in. And, in an earlier time, he might have been right.
But we are now in the age of so-called “social networking” (of which this space, as an Internet-driven format is a part) and so, by hook or by crook, someone placed his story (or rather, more correctly, my post from this blog) on his Facebook wall. As a result of that “click” Phil is now “talking” to a young (twenty-something) woman graduate student from Penn State (that is why just a few minutes ago he was yelling “Go, Nittany Lions” in my ear over the cell phone) and is preparing to head to the rolling Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania for a “date” with said twenty-something. Go figure, right? So my placement of this saga, or rather part two of the saga (mercifully there will be no more), is really being done in the interest of my obscure sense of completeness rather than “mere” indulgence of an old-time corner boy. As always I disclaim, and disclaim loudly for the world to hear, that while I have helped edit this story this is the work of one “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin, formerly of North Adamsville and now on some twisted, windy road heading to central Pennsylvania.
Phil Larkin comment:
Jesus, that Peter Paul Markin is a piece of work. Always rubbing in that “foul-mouth” thing. But I guess I did get the better of him on that Millie Callahan thing back in the day and he did provide me a “life-line” just now with his posting of my story on his damn communist-addled blog. It is a good thing we go back to “up the Downs” time and that I am not a “snitch” because some of the stuff that I have read from him here should, by rights, be reported directly to J. Edgar Hoover, or whoever is running the F.B.I., if anybody is. We can discuss that another time because I don’t have time to be bothered by any such small stuff. Not today. Not since I hit “pay-dirt” with my little Heloise. Yes, an old-fashioned name, at least I haven’t heard the name used much lately for girls, but very new-fashioned in her ideas. She is a twenty-five graduate student from Penn State and I am, as I speak, getting ready to roll out down the highway for our first “in person” meet.
You all know, or should be presumed to know to use a Markinism (Christ, we still call his silly little terms that name even forty years later), that I was having a little temporary trouble finding my life’s companion through sex sites. I told that story before and it is not worth going into here. [Markin: Fifty years Phil, and every other guy (or gal) from the Class of 1964. Do the math. I hope you didn’t try to con Heloise with that “youthful” fifty-something gag-christ, right back to you, Phil.] Let me tell you this one though because it had done nothing but restore my faith in modern technology.
Little communist propaganda front or not, Peter Paul’s blog goes out into the wilds of cyberspace almost daily (and it really should be reported to the proper authorities now that I have read his recent screeds on a Russian Bolshevik guy named Trotsky who is some kind of messiah to Markin and his crowd). So a few weeks ago somebody, somehow ( I am foggy, just like Markin, on the mechanics of the thing, although I know it wasn’t some internet god making “good” cyberspace vibes or anything like that) picked it up and place it (linked it) on his Facebook wall ( I think that is the proper word). Let’s call him Bill Riley (not his real name and that is not important anyway) Now I don’t know if you know how this Facebook thing works, although if you don’t then you are among the three, maybe four, people over the age of five that doesn’t.
Here’s what I have gathered. Bill Riley set up an account with his e-mail address, provided some information about himself and his interests and waited for the deluge of fan responses and “social-connectedness” (Markin’s word). Well, not exactly wait. Every day in every way you are inundated with photos of people you may know, may not know, or may or may not want to know and you can add them to your “friends” pile (assuming they ‘confirm” you request for friendship). Easy, right?
Well, yes easy is right because many people will, as I subsequently found out, confirm you as a friend for no other reason than that you “asked” them to include you. Click- confirm. Boom. This, apparently, is what happened when Bill “saw” Heloise’s photo. (I found out later, after “talking” to Heloise for a while, that she did not know Bill Riley or much about him except that he has a wall on Facebook. So the weird part is that Bill “introduced” us, although neither Heloise nor I know Bill. This has something Greek comedic, or maybe a Shakespeare idea, about it, for sure.). In any case Heloise, as a sociology graduate student at Penn State, took an interest in the “sexless” sex site angle for some study she was doing around her thesis and, by the fates, got hooked into the idea that she wanted to interview me about my experiences, and other related matters.
Without going into all the details that you probably know already I “joined” Bill Riley’s Facebook friends cabal and through him his “friend” Helosie contacted me about an interview. Well, we “chatted” for a while one day and she asked some questions and I asked others in my most civilized manner. What I didn’t know, and call me stupid for not knowing, was that Heloise not only was a “friend” of Bill’s but, unlike me (or so I thought), had her own Facebook page with photos. Now her photo on Bill’s wall was okay but, frankly, she looked just like about ten thousand other earnest female twenty-something graduate students. You know, from hunger. But not quite because daddy or mommy or somebody is paying the freight to let their son or daughter not face reality for a couple more years in some graduate program where they can “discover” themselves. Of course, naturally old cavalier that I am said, while we were chatting, that she was attractive, and looked energetic and smart and all that stuff. You know the embedded male thing with any woman, young or old, that looks the least bit “hit-worthy.” (Embedded is Markin’s word, sorry.)That photo still is on Bill’s wall and if I had only seen that one I would still be sitting in some lounge whiskey sipping my life away.
Heloise’s “real” photos, taken at some Florida beach during Spring break, showed a very fetching (look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know that old-time word means) young woman that in her bikini had me going. Let’s put it this way I wrote her the following little “note” after I got an eyeful:
“Hi Heloise - Recently I made a comment, after I first glanced at your photo wall, that you looked fetching (read, attractive, enchanting, hot, and so on). On that first glance I, like any red-blooded male under the age of one hundred, and maybe over that for all I know, got a little heated up. Now I have had a change to cool down, well a little anyway, and on second peek I would have to say you are kind of, sort of, in a way, well, okay looking. Now that I can be an objective observer I noticed that one of your right side eyelashes is one mm, or maybe two, off-balance from the left side. Fortunately I have the “medicine” to cure you. If you don’t mind living with your hideous asymmetrical deformation that is up to you. I will still be your friend. But if you were wondering, deep in the night, the sleepless night, why you have so few male Facebook friends or why guys in droves are passing your page by there you have it. Later-Phil.”
The famous old reverse play that has been around for a million years, right? Strictly the blarney, right? [Markin: Right, Phil, right as ever]. That little literary gem however started something in her, some need for an older man to tell her troubles to or something. And from there we started to “talk” more personally and more seriously. See I had it all wrong about her being sheltered out there in the mountains by mom and dad keeping her out of harm’s way until she “found” herself. No, Heloise was working, and working hard, to make ends meet and working on her doctorate at the same time. Her story, really, without the North Adamsville corner boy thing, would be something any of us Salducci’s guys would understand without question.(I was not a part-time corner boy by the way, except by Frankie Riley’s 24/7/365 standards and The Scribe’s). [Markin: Watch it, Phil. I told you not to use that nickname anymore.] I’ll tell you her story sometime depending on how things work but right now I am getting ready to go get a tank full of gas and think a little about those photos that launched a thousand clicks.
Markin comment:
Phil, like I said to Johnny Silver about what people might say about his little teeny-bopper love. Go for it. Don’t watch out. And like I said before we had better get to that communist future we all need pretty damn quick if for no other reason that to get some sexual breathes of fresh air that such a society promises.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
On Intergenerational Sex-“…And Keep Me Young As I Grow Old”- With A Tip Of The Stetson To The “Belfast Cowboy,” Van Morrison
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Van Morrison performing The Beauty Of The Days Gone By which has the "... and keep me young as I grow old" line in it.
Markin comment:
This space, fundamentally, is devoted to political struggles, the big picture communist future political struggles that reflect the hard fact, as noted by Leon Trotsky's definitive biographer, Isaac Deutscher, that we communists have in the past, and continue now, to devote the bulk of our energies to the most immediately pressing of the three great tragedies of life, the struggle against hunger. The other two, sex and death, have gotten short shrift other than to be dealt with in broad brush stokes, basically arguing that in our communist future those two acknowledged mysterious passages will be dealt with more thoughtfully, less traumatically, and with deeper insight.
That said, where does that leave my old North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 corner boy class mate, Johnny Silver, and his twin sex and death dilemmas-growing old and still having a yearning for sexual adventure, sexual adventure with younger, much younger women. Other than calling him, rightly I think, a “ dirty old man” for even thinking about having sex with a young, curvaceous, nubile woman, to speak nothing of what it might do to his physical condition, we have no immediate communist program to alleviate his problem. Sorry Johnny. No question though under such a now seemingly utopian regime inter-generational sex will be no more the subject of scandalous gossip that various other homo and heterosexual variations of sexual activity that are the norm now.
Now, if one has been attentive, I have, with the exception of Leon Trotsky’s brief fling with Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in the late 1930s during his Mexican exile, not spent much time on the personal sex lives of our revolutionary forbears. That has been in keeping with the traditional reticence of revolutionaries to discuss their personal sexual lives. And with my own preferences in the uses of this space. I, however, feel that Johnny Silver’s case can be instructive for those of us who are going into our “golden years” and are still as randy as middle schoolers. Therefore I have posted Johnny Silver’s story, non-communist, non-political, Johnny Silver’s story, here for your perusal. The weak of heart, those under a doctor’s care, and assorted outraged moral philistines should avoid reading this for the good of your lives and/or souls. Note, and note carefully that other than a little editorial work this is strictly Johnny’s responsibility although I will admit my temperature and pulse were vicariously rising somewhat while performing this onerous task.
Johnny Silver’s comment:
I always liked younger girls when I was just a kid and I never got out of that habit, that sweet young thing habit. I used to take a lot guff from Frankie Riley, Peter Paul, and the other corner boys “up the Downs” at our hang-out, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, when at sixteen I dated up twelve-year old “Luscious” Linda Lorraine (but “hot,” hot way beyond her years as I found out, have mercy, when she practically “raped” me, raped me if you can believe that, on our first date down at the North Adamsville Beach one summer night. I won’t say more because Peter Paul, who is editing this thing, might take a heart attack when he reads this since he never got to first base with her, and he tried, at least that is what she said, they all tried). They would yell “jail bait,” “baby-snatcher,” “cradle-robber,” and all that stuff that has been said by people, guys especially, since about the time Adam tried to date up Eve (who was a lot younger than he was and must have been pretty “hot” herself to get Adam off the straight and narrow) but she was fine, some sweet soap-smelling fine, and just getting some nice curves and stuff. Maybe that is where I go the habit. [Markin: All we ever said was “watch out” Johnny. Linda, who lived the next street over from me then, was nothing but a “man trap,” a serious man-trap and Johnny was only one of several who enjoyed her “favors” in those days. Despite Johnny’s obvious lapse of memory I never tried to get to first base, or any base with her. As for the others, the corner boy others, I would not be surprised if on some “horny” girl friend-less nights they didn’t take a shot at it. It wasn’t hard. Last we heard of Linda she had had several kids by her early twenties and died of a heroin overdose in her mid-thirties so it wasn’t the age thing at all about Linda whatever Johnny might say now.]
And it's always pretty much was that way going forward. My first wife, Laurie, whom I met and who Peter Paul knows, was nothing but a fox when I was in graduate school and she was in high school and whom I met when I came back for a North Adamsville –Adamsville high school Thanksgiving Day football game. She was captain of the Red Raider cheer-leaders and I took dead aim at her [Markin: I agree Laurie was a fox, no question, but again we told Johnny to “watch out” on her as well because she was nothing but a man-eater as he found out a few kids, and a lot of alimony payments, later. I admit I took a “run” at her myself when they split up but I am still grinding my teeth over the way she treated me during our short “affair,” if that’s what you could call it.] When I met my second wife, Alicia, she was just in graduate school and I was in my late thirties. [Markin: Johnny and I started drifting apart then, mainly different parts of the country, so I don’t know about Alicia’s qualities but Johnny says that she treated him “good,” which to Johnny always meant good at giving him oral sex and stuff like that. Okay, get used to it we are adults and more explicit sexual details will be coming up so be forewarned. And take your heart medicine for god’s sake.] My third wife, Becky, was barely out of college and I was in my forties when we met but she was “good.”
After that I stopped marrying them and just settled into a steady diet of “dating” seemingly ever younger women that I met through my work contacts or other social situations. [Markin: Johnny was, and is, a very good construction site consulting engineer.] And then, after Carrie left to pursue her screen-writing “dream” in California things dried up, dried up hard for this older man [Markin: Carrie was Johnny’s last serious live-in girlfriend, emphasis on the girl part, barely legal]. Well, first, damn the computer age for one thing, since it meant I could do more of my consulting work from home. And get more work done (and charge more as well). But it meant that the social situations also dried up. And no 50-something guy, no 50-something guy in his right mind, is going to the “meat market” singles bars around town trying to pick up the young ones when they have plenty of young guys around to moon over and get worked up about. [Markin: I am trying to be gentle with Brother Silver here but he “forgot” to mention getting laughed at, ridiculed and told to go “back to the nursing home” by those self-same younger women. He also “forgot” to mention that he was not a 50-something guy but a 60-something guy when the “heat” came on him.]. And second, damn, whatever that Adam “spreading his seed” thing was because even if things dried up socially this old man wasn’t dried up, if you get my meaning. [Markin: Translation; he was still as randy as a middle- schooler] So I did whatever any “on the information super-highway” guy would do, I went online looking for sex sites, younger women-centered sex sites. [Markin: Johnny didn’t have to work up a sweat finding them they practically come at you from the homepage onward.]
Of course “dating” services have been going on since just after Adam and Eve got it on. (Eve, by the way, a younger woman, a much younger woman and probably pretty “hot,” with a firm, curvaceous, naked body hot from what I heard, if I didn’t mention it before). Nowadays though (thank god, and thank god I took my medicine beforehand) the sexually explicit stuff women are putting online for your perusal is “over the top,” especially the younger ones, thank god. So naturally I filled out my “profile” page, paid my dough (via credit card but be careful), and “joined” all the other guys, horny guys waiting, wanting to “get laid” tonight.
Well things were kind of slow for a while since I blocked off returning messages to any women over thirty, and rightly so as they started looking kind of sad sack by then (although there were plenty of them around, around with kid baggage, if that is where your tastes run go see). I though at first it might be because there was a prejudice against 50-something guys in this hellish youth-drive universe. [Markin: See note above on the age question, the Johnny Silver age question.] And then Tracy, sweet eighteen-year old Tracy, answered my plea.
Now Tracy was not your average young woman (girl really but let’s leave it at that). She was eighteen, bright, intelligent, ambitious, resourceful, and looking for a “sugar daddy,” whatever that might mean. Yes dear, Johnny Silver is just your meat. [Markin: After some research this old-fashioned term “sugar daddy” could mean, like in the old days, someone, some man, who paid the freight to today’s “hook-up” or “friends-with benefits," or something entirely innocuous.] But here is where the problem came in. We sent many message back and forth and we were making some headway. She stated clearly that she was not into “mere boys,” but older men who had been around, and knew a thing or two (or three). Yes Tracy, Johnny is very, very just your meat.
Eventually she agreed to meet me in a public place to discuss, discuss our “the exact meaning of sugar daddy" business, and the like. But here is where the wheels started to come off, almost. She wanted some pictures of me, presumably recently up-loaded digital camera-produced photos, before we met. Her idea, innocent enough, and actually reasonable enough, was to make sure I was not some three-headed monster or, perhaps, someone recently released from parole for any number of charges from sexual offenses to murder and mayhem [Markin: Smart girl. As for any possible sexual offenses, as far as I know, they were all consensual and not in the least bit criminal although a few irate fathers might differ. The murder and mayhem I would advise that Johnny plead the Fifth on that one.]
And that was the first stumbling block. See, old guys like Peter Paul and me, were not suckled on computer technology practically from birth like today’s kids. We survive on the “information super-highway” but juts barely and while I know, as Markin does, enough to get by let’s just call us “primitives.” In short, I confess, bitterly confess, any pictures I had were not digital, and even if they were I did not know how to up-load them onto any site, sex site or not. Truth. However Tracy did not believe me, and it made sense in her iPhone, iPad, texting, Facebook world that everybody knew how to do such an eight year old simple task. I only avoided total defeat by producing some older photos and reading every manual for up-loading that came with the printer. But it was a near thing.
I won’t bore the reader with the details of our first meeting, or our later meetings but she was certain fetching in person and wiser in age than some of the older young women that I have been with through the years. But the big thing was that she was wonderful in bed. And this is where the faint-hearted, or just plain perverted, can get off and find your own sex site. Well let’s start off as always with the firm, soft, wrinkle-free skin, breast, buttock, thighs, that has driven me wild since old-time Linda Lorraine (hell, I can still smell her Palmolive soap, or perfume or whatever she used to drive the boys wild even now). Then of course the school-girlish strip tease that always gets me going. And then placing her mouth, well, placing her mouth where it did some good. Hell though everybody who reads this knows what’s what. I don' t have to draw a diagram, do I? Yes, we did it did several times (not all in one day, Viagra is good but no that good). She was very inventive with positions and of course, I knew a thing or two (or three) that got her going (read: moaning and groaning for her sugar daddy and not the old –fashioned meaning of the word either whatever Markin’s research said it meant in the old days). She still smiles about those two (or three things when I bring it up).
But the point is really about “… and keep me young while getting old” as the line from the Van Morrison song, The Beauty Of The Days Gone By. Some guys get it by pumping iron or other maniac strenuous exercising, and some by endless youth-enhancing operations. And some, like Markin, by writing endlessly about the old days like they were coming back, or could do anybody any good. [Markin: Watch it, Johnny, watch it brother.] Me, no, I want a young thing, a young firm thing, a young sex-crazed thing, a firm young thing that wants a lesson in those two (or three) things I could teach her (and have her sweaty-smiling a couple of days later over) right next to me right up until, and maybe past, judgment day. Can you blame me?
Markin postscript comment:
We had better get to that communist future in a hurry, a real hurry. In the meantime I’ll go off and take a shower, a very cold shower. Oh yes, Johnny, by the way (BTW for the cyber-slang crowd) what is Tracy’s cell phone number? Or does she have a geezer-craving girlfriend? Whatever you do, Johnny- “don’t watch out, not now.”
Markin comment:
This space, fundamentally, is devoted to political struggles, the big picture communist future political struggles that reflect the hard fact, as noted by Leon Trotsky's definitive biographer, Isaac Deutscher, that we communists have in the past, and continue now, to devote the bulk of our energies to the most immediately pressing of the three great tragedies of life, the struggle against hunger. The other two, sex and death, have gotten short shrift other than to be dealt with in broad brush stokes, basically arguing that in our communist future those two acknowledged mysterious passages will be dealt with more thoughtfully, less traumatically, and with deeper insight.
That said, where does that leave my old North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 corner boy class mate, Johnny Silver, and his twin sex and death dilemmas-growing old and still having a yearning for sexual adventure, sexual adventure with younger, much younger women. Other than calling him, rightly I think, a “ dirty old man” for even thinking about having sex with a young, curvaceous, nubile woman, to speak nothing of what it might do to his physical condition, we have no immediate communist program to alleviate his problem. Sorry Johnny. No question though under such a now seemingly utopian regime inter-generational sex will be no more the subject of scandalous gossip that various other homo and heterosexual variations of sexual activity that are the norm now.
Now, if one has been attentive, I have, with the exception of Leon Trotsky’s brief fling with Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in the late 1930s during his Mexican exile, not spent much time on the personal sex lives of our revolutionary forbears. That has been in keeping with the traditional reticence of revolutionaries to discuss their personal sexual lives. And with my own preferences in the uses of this space. I, however, feel that Johnny Silver’s case can be instructive for those of us who are going into our “golden years” and are still as randy as middle schoolers. Therefore I have posted Johnny Silver’s story, non-communist, non-political, Johnny Silver’s story, here for your perusal. The weak of heart, those under a doctor’s care, and assorted outraged moral philistines should avoid reading this for the good of your lives and/or souls. Note, and note carefully that other than a little editorial work this is strictly Johnny’s responsibility although I will admit my temperature and pulse were vicariously rising somewhat while performing this onerous task.
Johnny Silver’s comment:
I always liked younger girls when I was just a kid and I never got out of that habit, that sweet young thing habit. I used to take a lot guff from Frankie Riley, Peter Paul, and the other corner boys “up the Downs” at our hang-out, Salducci’s Pizza Parlor, when at sixteen I dated up twelve-year old “Luscious” Linda Lorraine (but “hot,” hot way beyond her years as I found out, have mercy, when she practically “raped” me, raped me if you can believe that, on our first date down at the North Adamsville Beach one summer night. I won’t say more because Peter Paul, who is editing this thing, might take a heart attack when he reads this since he never got to first base with her, and he tried, at least that is what she said, they all tried). They would yell “jail bait,” “baby-snatcher,” “cradle-robber,” and all that stuff that has been said by people, guys especially, since about the time Adam tried to date up Eve (who was a lot younger than he was and must have been pretty “hot” herself to get Adam off the straight and narrow) but she was fine, some sweet soap-smelling fine, and just getting some nice curves and stuff. Maybe that is where I go the habit. [Markin: All we ever said was “watch out” Johnny. Linda, who lived the next street over from me then, was nothing but a “man trap,” a serious man-trap and Johnny was only one of several who enjoyed her “favors” in those days. Despite Johnny’s obvious lapse of memory I never tried to get to first base, or any base with her. As for the others, the corner boy others, I would not be surprised if on some “horny” girl friend-less nights they didn’t take a shot at it. It wasn’t hard. Last we heard of Linda she had had several kids by her early twenties and died of a heroin overdose in her mid-thirties so it wasn’t the age thing at all about Linda whatever Johnny might say now.]
And it's always pretty much was that way going forward. My first wife, Laurie, whom I met and who Peter Paul knows, was nothing but a fox when I was in graduate school and she was in high school and whom I met when I came back for a North Adamsville –Adamsville high school Thanksgiving Day football game. She was captain of the Red Raider cheer-leaders and I took dead aim at her [Markin: I agree Laurie was a fox, no question, but again we told Johnny to “watch out” on her as well because she was nothing but a man-eater as he found out a few kids, and a lot of alimony payments, later. I admit I took a “run” at her myself when they split up but I am still grinding my teeth over the way she treated me during our short “affair,” if that’s what you could call it.] When I met my second wife, Alicia, she was just in graduate school and I was in my late thirties. [Markin: Johnny and I started drifting apart then, mainly different parts of the country, so I don’t know about Alicia’s qualities but Johnny says that she treated him “good,” which to Johnny always meant good at giving him oral sex and stuff like that. Okay, get used to it we are adults and more explicit sexual details will be coming up so be forewarned. And take your heart medicine for god’s sake.] My third wife, Becky, was barely out of college and I was in my forties when we met but she was “good.”
After that I stopped marrying them and just settled into a steady diet of “dating” seemingly ever younger women that I met through my work contacts or other social situations. [Markin: Johnny was, and is, a very good construction site consulting engineer.] And then, after Carrie left to pursue her screen-writing “dream” in California things dried up, dried up hard for this older man [Markin: Carrie was Johnny’s last serious live-in girlfriend, emphasis on the girl part, barely legal]. Well, first, damn the computer age for one thing, since it meant I could do more of my consulting work from home. And get more work done (and charge more as well). But it meant that the social situations also dried up. And no 50-something guy, no 50-something guy in his right mind, is going to the “meat market” singles bars around town trying to pick up the young ones when they have plenty of young guys around to moon over and get worked up about. [Markin: I am trying to be gentle with Brother Silver here but he “forgot” to mention getting laughed at, ridiculed and told to go “back to the nursing home” by those self-same younger women. He also “forgot” to mention that he was not a 50-something guy but a 60-something guy when the “heat” came on him.]. And second, damn, whatever that Adam “spreading his seed” thing was because even if things dried up socially this old man wasn’t dried up, if you get my meaning. [Markin: Translation; he was still as randy as a middle- schooler] So I did whatever any “on the information super-highway” guy would do, I went online looking for sex sites, younger women-centered sex sites. [Markin: Johnny didn’t have to work up a sweat finding them they practically come at you from the homepage onward.]
Of course “dating” services have been going on since just after Adam and Eve got it on. (Eve, by the way, a younger woman, a much younger woman and probably pretty “hot,” with a firm, curvaceous, naked body hot from what I heard, if I didn’t mention it before). Nowadays though (thank god, and thank god I took my medicine beforehand) the sexually explicit stuff women are putting online for your perusal is “over the top,” especially the younger ones, thank god. So naturally I filled out my “profile” page, paid my dough (via credit card but be careful), and “joined” all the other guys, horny guys waiting, wanting to “get laid” tonight.
Well things were kind of slow for a while since I blocked off returning messages to any women over thirty, and rightly so as they started looking kind of sad sack by then (although there were plenty of them around, around with kid baggage, if that is where your tastes run go see). I though at first it might be because there was a prejudice against 50-something guys in this hellish youth-drive universe. [Markin: See note above on the age question, the Johnny Silver age question.] And then Tracy, sweet eighteen-year old Tracy, answered my plea.
Now Tracy was not your average young woman (girl really but let’s leave it at that). She was eighteen, bright, intelligent, ambitious, resourceful, and looking for a “sugar daddy,” whatever that might mean. Yes dear, Johnny Silver is just your meat. [Markin: After some research this old-fashioned term “sugar daddy” could mean, like in the old days, someone, some man, who paid the freight to today’s “hook-up” or “friends-with benefits," or something entirely innocuous.] But here is where the problem came in. We sent many message back and forth and we were making some headway. She stated clearly that she was not into “mere boys,” but older men who had been around, and knew a thing or two (or three). Yes Tracy, Johnny is very, very just your meat.
Eventually she agreed to meet me in a public place to discuss, discuss our “the exact meaning of sugar daddy" business, and the like. But here is where the wheels started to come off, almost. She wanted some pictures of me, presumably recently up-loaded digital camera-produced photos, before we met. Her idea, innocent enough, and actually reasonable enough, was to make sure I was not some three-headed monster or, perhaps, someone recently released from parole for any number of charges from sexual offenses to murder and mayhem [Markin: Smart girl. As for any possible sexual offenses, as far as I know, they were all consensual and not in the least bit criminal although a few irate fathers might differ. The murder and mayhem I would advise that Johnny plead the Fifth on that one.]
And that was the first stumbling block. See, old guys like Peter Paul and me, were not suckled on computer technology practically from birth like today’s kids. We survive on the “information super-highway” but juts barely and while I know, as Markin does, enough to get by let’s just call us “primitives.” In short, I confess, bitterly confess, any pictures I had were not digital, and even if they were I did not know how to up-load them onto any site, sex site or not. Truth. However Tracy did not believe me, and it made sense in her iPhone, iPad, texting, Facebook world that everybody knew how to do such an eight year old simple task. I only avoided total defeat by producing some older photos and reading every manual for up-loading that came with the printer. But it was a near thing.
I won’t bore the reader with the details of our first meeting, or our later meetings but she was certain fetching in person and wiser in age than some of the older young women that I have been with through the years. But the big thing was that she was wonderful in bed. And this is where the faint-hearted, or just plain perverted, can get off and find your own sex site. Well let’s start off as always with the firm, soft, wrinkle-free skin, breast, buttock, thighs, that has driven me wild since old-time Linda Lorraine (hell, I can still smell her Palmolive soap, or perfume or whatever she used to drive the boys wild even now). Then of course the school-girlish strip tease that always gets me going. And then placing her mouth, well, placing her mouth where it did some good. Hell though everybody who reads this knows what’s what. I don' t have to draw a diagram, do I? Yes, we did it did several times (not all in one day, Viagra is good but no that good). She was very inventive with positions and of course, I knew a thing or two (or three) that got her going (read: moaning and groaning for her sugar daddy and not the old –fashioned meaning of the word either whatever Markin’s research said it meant in the old days). She still smiles about those two (or three things when I bring it up).
But the point is really about “… and keep me young while getting old” as the line from the Van Morrison song, The Beauty Of The Days Gone By. Some guys get it by pumping iron or other maniac strenuous exercising, and some by endless youth-enhancing operations. And some, like Markin, by writing endlessly about the old days like they were coming back, or could do anybody any good. [Markin: Watch it, Johnny, watch it brother.] Me, no, I want a young thing, a young firm thing, a young sex-crazed thing, a firm young thing that wants a lesson in those two (or three) things I could teach her (and have her sweaty-smiling a couple of days later over) right next to me right up until, and maybe past, judgment day. Can you blame me?
Markin postscript comment:
We had better get to that communist future in a hurry, a real hurry. In the meantime I’ll go off and take a shower, a very cold shower. Oh yes, Johnny, by the way (BTW for the cyber-slang crowd) what is Tracy’s cell phone number? Or does she have a geezer-craving girlfriend? Whatever you do, Johnny- “don’t watch out, not now.”
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die- British Style- “Pirate Radio”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the movie trailer for Pirate Radio.
DVD Review
Pirate Radio, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Richard Curtis, Focus Film, 2009
First Question: Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll? Well, of course, Bo Diddley (okay, okay others too). Second Question: Who brought rock ‘n’ roll to your double-locked bedroom, dank cellar, storage-filled garage, or other secret ear place back in old time battery-operated transistor radio (pre-iPod, alright) days? Well, of course, your local dee-jay who helped you while away your night, your dream-plagued rock ‘n’ roll night, with his (mainly) mile-a-minute-banter, selection of platters (records, pre-CD, DVD, iTune, youtube, you’ve heard about them, right?), and, yes, selected advertising targeted to the newly enriched (maybe) teenager with disposable dollars. Such names as Allan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Murry the K, and Arnie Ginsberg come quickly to mind. And although the music, praise be, outlasted the careers and remembrance of that lot this classic rock period is associated in my mind (and yours too, I bet) with that very dee-jay night. And that, my friends, is the premise behind this very nicely done trip down rock memory land- British version.
In many ways the British 1960s rock explosion paralleled the American classic rock scene, although later than that genre’s American 1950s heyday. The greatest difference, however, is the way that British audiences heard their rock- literally through the pirate radio of the title. Off-shore, out in the ocean depths, white waves splashing against some barnacled old tub of a ship, rock radio. Without getting into the ins and outs of British broadcasting traditions the battle, the age-old battle really, here is between those who wanted to listen to rock and not just in that double-locked bedroom mentioned above, and those nasty governmental officials and their hangers-on who want to outlaw it by shutting down this uncontrolled method. That battle drives the tension and plot line to almost bizarre (by today’s cyberspace standards) ends. But what this film is about is a bunch of guys (mainly, again) who loved to play rock, who loved to present it in their own fashion, and who wanted the fame, fortune (and, incidental sex) that came with heroic dee-jay-dom.
This motley crew is ready to go down with the ship, literally, in order to keep rock freedom alive. Of course there are more than a few gag (British gag, ala Monty Python) scenes that are better left unmentioned but this is a feel good movie with plenty of drugs, sex, and rock and roll on the high seas. Jesus. You might ask what was wrong with that? Ah, come to think of it what was wrong with that? The cast includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman (a very versatile actor when you realize that he also played American novelist Truman Capote in the In Cold Blood execution-driven drama Tru) as the Count, the only American in the lot. But this whole mix of radio personalities is a good out in the seas rock night, late night, early morning and so on. So, here is the drill. Bo (and, yes, others) put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll but the Count and the boys put the bop in the be-bop pirate radio night. See this one.
DVD Review
Pirate Radio, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Richard Curtis, Focus Film, 2009
First Question: Who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll? Well, of course, Bo Diddley (okay, okay others too). Second Question: Who brought rock ‘n’ roll to your double-locked bedroom, dank cellar, storage-filled garage, or other secret ear place back in old time battery-operated transistor radio (pre-iPod, alright) days? Well, of course, your local dee-jay who helped you while away your night, your dream-plagued rock ‘n’ roll night, with his (mainly) mile-a-minute-banter, selection of platters (records, pre-CD, DVD, iTune, youtube, you’ve heard about them, right?), and, yes, selected advertising targeted to the newly enriched (maybe) teenager with disposable dollars. Such names as Allan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Murry the K, and Arnie Ginsberg come quickly to mind. And although the music, praise be, outlasted the careers and remembrance of that lot this classic rock period is associated in my mind (and yours too, I bet) with that very dee-jay night. And that, my friends, is the premise behind this very nicely done trip down rock memory land- British version.
In many ways the British 1960s rock explosion paralleled the American classic rock scene, although later than that genre’s American 1950s heyday. The greatest difference, however, is the way that British audiences heard their rock- literally through the pirate radio of the title. Off-shore, out in the ocean depths, white waves splashing against some barnacled old tub of a ship, rock radio. Without getting into the ins and outs of British broadcasting traditions the battle, the age-old battle really, here is between those who wanted to listen to rock and not just in that double-locked bedroom mentioned above, and those nasty governmental officials and their hangers-on who want to outlaw it by shutting down this uncontrolled method. That battle drives the tension and plot line to almost bizarre (by today’s cyberspace standards) ends. But what this film is about is a bunch of guys (mainly, again) who loved to play rock, who loved to present it in their own fashion, and who wanted the fame, fortune (and, incidental sex) that came with heroic dee-jay-dom.
This motley crew is ready to go down with the ship, literally, in order to keep rock freedom alive. Of course there are more than a few gag (British gag, ala Monty Python) scenes that are better left unmentioned but this is a feel good movie with plenty of drugs, sex, and rock and roll on the high seas. Jesus. You might ask what was wrong with that? Ah, come to think of it what was wrong with that? The cast includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman (a very versatile actor when you realize that he also played American novelist Truman Capote in the In Cold Blood execution-driven drama Tru) as the Count, the only American in the lot. But this whole mix of radio personalities is a good out in the seas rock night, late night, early morning and so on. So, here is the drill. Bo (and, yes, others) put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll but the Count and the boys put the bop in the be-bop pirate radio night. See this one.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
** Out In The Be-Bop Night- First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, Then Comes X With a Baby Carriage- In Honor oF The 50th Anniversary Of The Pill
Al Johnson comment:
This year, as many of you may be aware, marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the Pill. (If you need any further explanation for that term then perhaps you should skip this little piece.) The Pill that heralded in the s-xual revolution of the 1960s to the joy (and relief) of many, the yawns of a few, and the fervent scorn of those with traditional religious or philosophical scruples on the matter of human reproduction. In short though, s-x now no longer had to be absolutely tied in with procreation, and with fear and loathing. That said, I am trying to offend no one's sensibilities here, although I make no apologies for being glad, glad as hell, for the Pill and would encourage as many scientific breakthroughs as possible to make it even safer and easier. This little screed rather is more, since we are children of the 1960's and came of age, most of us anyway, by 1960, about our woeful ignorance of sex, the actual acts of sex and their consequences. (There I said it. Sex. Sensitive souls can take shelter elsewhere.)
Someone recently told me a story that placed this notion in stark relief, and hit a nerve that required me to make, no, impelled me to make this commentary. On a trip, some kind of group social outing up into New Hampshire, a state that has a younger marriage eligibility age than Massachusetts, a young teenage couple, deeply in love, in love its seems the old-fashioned 1940s movies way that way it was described to me, but probably too young for marriage anyway, decided on a whim to get married. Off they go to some Podunk town up there seeking a Justice of the Peace. They find him and fill in the paperwork. Before the ceremony the "been through it all before" JP asked whether the young couple were "expecting," you know, in the family way. Here is the kicker though, their reply, "Expecting what?" On reflection, once they got the gist of what the JP meant, they, innocently I am sure, also said, "we don't know about that stuff." The laughing, but wise, old JP told the kids to come back in a year, or so, and he would be more than happy to marry them.
Ya, that's a cute story and I still chuckle over but, my friends, I will argue that you and I could tell such stories as well. Well, maybe not about getting all the way to the altar clueless but nevertheless filled with every kind of misinformation, every kind of fear tactic and every kind of prohibition. All while our hormones were raging, raging to the point of distraction, out of control. I will make my own public disclosure here. Did I learn about sex from my parents giving me careful information about the birds and the bees, seeing that they had plenty of experience having given birth to three sons? No. Did I learn about the do's and don't of sex from the Roman Catholic Church of my youth. Hell no, well, about the do part anyway. No, I learned about it "on the streets" (and in the locker rooms) just like most of you. And later, much later and more interestingly, from some women friends (and the Karma Sutra). Whoa. Let's just put it this way, I thank a disapproving god for the Pill back in those young and careless days. Ya, that The Pill.
This year, as many of you may be aware, marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the Pill. (If you need any further explanation for that term then perhaps you should skip this little piece.) The Pill that heralded in the s-xual revolution of the 1960s to the joy (and relief) of many, the yawns of a few, and the fervent scorn of those with traditional religious or philosophical scruples on the matter of human reproduction. In short though, s-x now no longer had to be absolutely tied in with procreation, and with fear and loathing. That said, I am trying to offend no one's sensibilities here, although I make no apologies for being glad, glad as hell, for the Pill and would encourage as many scientific breakthroughs as possible to make it even safer and easier. This little screed rather is more, since we are children of the 1960's and came of age, most of us anyway, by 1960, about our woeful ignorance of sex, the actual acts of sex and their consequences. (There I said it. Sex. Sensitive souls can take shelter elsewhere.)
Someone recently told me a story that placed this notion in stark relief, and hit a nerve that required me to make, no, impelled me to make this commentary. On a trip, some kind of group social outing up into New Hampshire, a state that has a younger marriage eligibility age than Massachusetts, a young teenage couple, deeply in love, in love its seems the old-fashioned 1940s movies way that way it was described to me, but probably too young for marriage anyway, decided on a whim to get married. Off they go to some Podunk town up there seeking a Justice of the Peace. They find him and fill in the paperwork. Before the ceremony the "been through it all before" JP asked whether the young couple were "expecting," you know, in the family way. Here is the kicker though, their reply, "Expecting what?" On reflection, once they got the gist of what the JP meant, they, innocently I am sure, also said, "we don't know about that stuff." The laughing, but wise, old JP told the kids to come back in a year, or so, and he would be more than happy to marry them.
Ya, that's a cute story and I still chuckle over but, my friends, I will argue that you and I could tell such stories as well. Well, maybe not about getting all the way to the altar clueless but nevertheless filled with every kind of misinformation, every kind of fear tactic and every kind of prohibition. All while our hormones were raging, raging to the point of distraction, out of control. I will make my own public disclosure here. Did I learn about sex from my parents giving me careful information about the birds and the bees, seeing that they had plenty of experience having given birth to three sons? No. Did I learn about the do's and don't of sex from the Roman Catholic Church of my youth. Hell no, well, about the do part anyway. No, I learned about it "on the streets" (and in the locker rooms) just like most of you. And later, much later and more interestingly, from some women friends (and the Karma Sutra). Whoa. Let's just put it this way, I thank a disapproving god for the Pill back in those young and careless days. Ya, that The Pill.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
*From The Be-Bop Night -The 'Real' Scoop on "Tri-Hi-Y"- An Investigatory Report- "Inside Edition" Move On Over
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film Club of the modern doings of one school's Tri-Hi-Y Club. Hey, don't shoot the messenger on this one. I just like to provide a relevant link with my posts
Al Johnson, Class of 1964, comment:
Originally posted in June 2008. Revised and updated in March 2010
Today I have my investigative reporter's hat on. This is intended to be a light-hearted look at an old school organization. But I have a lawyer in the wings just in case.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. That was good, if unheeded, advice a few thousand years ago. Apparently it is advice that we should have also heeded back in our school days. The subject today is the mysterious, seemingly nefarious, doings of Tri Kappa Phi, colloquially known as Tri-Hi-Y. (I have, as yet, been unable to untangle the relationship between these two names but I suspect the latter is merely a classic front name.) Ostensibly this was a girls' club devoted to public service. Or, at least, that is what they would have us believe. However a glance at page 17 of the 1964 "Manet" belies that story.
According to their own words this organization was committed to furthering "pure thoughts, pure words, and pure actions" among the members. This, my friends, reads, to these old eyes at least, more like the program for the vestal virgins in the temples of pagan Greece than a program for a society then on the edge of a sexual revolution. That should have been the tip-off. Now we live in a more skeptical age and would have had our antennae out when confronted with such shameless hyperbole. Then, naive as we were, we bought the story hook, line and sinker.
Look, I am a fair person, or try to be. In order to get a grasp on this unfolding story and learn more about the group I, innocently, e-mailed the president of the organization in 1964. Result- Nada, a resounding no reply. I then pursued another avenue that I thought might be more fruitful. I e-mailed the chaplain of the group in her junior and senior year on the North Quincy Alumni site. Now she is not just any fellow classmate but currently the secretary to the headmaster at North Quincy High. Dear readers, she has access to the records!
I, good-heartedly, offered this ex-chaplain the opportunity to place our correspondence under a confidential attorney-client blanket. I further suggested that she might fall under priest- penitent immunity provisions concerning her testimony. Result - Stonewalled, no reply. Apparently, this is one secretary that went to the Rosemary Woods Secretarial School. Moreover, another closer look at the "Manet" told the tale. The winsome smile and twinkle in her eye of her class picture on page 117 did not jibe with her Cotton Mather-like visage on page 17. I then determined that I needed to investigate this matter further.
Right now, I admit, there are more questions than answers. Little did this pair and their accomplices know that some forty-four years latter an intrepid alumnus with some time on his hands was going to fall onto their little threadbare operation. I will continue to try to unravel this tangled story to the bitter end. Here are some questions that I have right now though that you, my friends, can help me with. Why did a so-called 'public service' group in a democratic, secular institution need a chaplain? What deep, dark secrets were being kept from us? Moreover, apparently, from the lack of response to my inquiries, members are sworn to secrecy unto the grave. Why? And here is another little tidbit to feast on. Why was the turnover rate in the organization so high, especially in senior year? Was it impossible to keep to the public "3 purities" slogan mentioned above with a straight face or did a number of members fall afoul of the cabal at the top? Are there any whistle-blowers out there? More later. Tri-Hi-Y, indeed!
Al Johnson, Class of 1964, comment:
Originally posted in June 2008. Revised and updated in March 2010
Today I have my investigative reporter's hat on. This is intended to be a light-hearted look at an old school organization. But I have a lawyer in the wings just in case.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. That was good, if unheeded, advice a few thousand years ago. Apparently it is advice that we should have also heeded back in our school days. The subject today is the mysterious, seemingly nefarious, doings of Tri Kappa Phi, colloquially known as Tri-Hi-Y. (I have, as yet, been unable to untangle the relationship between these two names but I suspect the latter is merely a classic front name.) Ostensibly this was a girls' club devoted to public service. Or, at least, that is what they would have us believe. However a glance at page 17 of the 1964 "Manet" belies that story.
According to their own words this organization was committed to furthering "pure thoughts, pure words, and pure actions" among the members. This, my friends, reads, to these old eyes at least, more like the program for the vestal virgins in the temples of pagan Greece than a program for a society then on the edge of a sexual revolution. That should have been the tip-off. Now we live in a more skeptical age and would have had our antennae out when confronted with such shameless hyperbole. Then, naive as we were, we bought the story hook, line and sinker.
Look, I am a fair person, or try to be. In order to get a grasp on this unfolding story and learn more about the group I, innocently, e-mailed the president of the organization in 1964. Result- Nada, a resounding no reply. I then pursued another avenue that I thought might be more fruitful. I e-mailed the chaplain of the group in her junior and senior year on the North Quincy Alumni site. Now she is not just any fellow classmate but currently the secretary to the headmaster at North Quincy High. Dear readers, she has access to the records!
I, good-heartedly, offered this ex-chaplain the opportunity to place our correspondence under a confidential attorney-client blanket. I further suggested that she might fall under priest- penitent immunity provisions concerning her testimony. Result - Stonewalled, no reply. Apparently, this is one secretary that went to the Rosemary Woods Secretarial School. Moreover, another closer look at the "Manet" told the tale. The winsome smile and twinkle in her eye of her class picture on page 117 did not jibe with her Cotton Mather-like visage on page 17. I then determined that I needed to investigate this matter further.
Right now, I admit, there are more questions than answers. Little did this pair and their accomplices know that some forty-four years latter an intrepid alumnus with some time on his hands was going to fall onto their little threadbare operation. I will continue to try to unravel this tangled story to the bitter end. Here are some questions that I have right now though that you, my friends, can help me with. Why did a so-called 'public service' group in a democratic, secular institution need a chaplain? What deep, dark secrets were being kept from us? Moreover, apparently, from the lack of response to my inquiries, members are sworn to secrecy unto the grave. Why? And here is another little tidbit to feast on. Why was the turnover rate in the organization so high, especially in senior year? Was it impossible to keep to the public "3 purities" slogan mentioned above with a straight face or did a number of members fall afoul of the cabal at the top? Are there any whistle-blowers out there? More later. Tri-Hi-Y, indeed!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
***The Generation Of '68?-For Mary, Class Of 1964 Somewhere
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia entry for the "Summer Of Love", 1967.
Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:
The first draft of this comment was written before I got my grubby little hands on a copy of our Class of 1964 "Manet". After intense examination of that document I find nothing there that would indicate that the future foot soldiers of Woodstock Nation were seething to be free to try alternative ways of living. Nor do I get a sense from those pictures that people were getting ready to challenge the way political institutions were being run in this country. I will thus let my original remarks stand.
Do you consider yourself a member of the Generation of '68?
"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.
I mentioned in the Tell My Story section that while we were all members of the Class of 1964 some of us were also members of the Generation of '68. I guess to those of us who considered themselves part of that experience no further explanation is necessary. However, if you are in doubt then let me give my take on what such membership would entail.
This question is actually prompted by an observation made by my old friend, and our classmate, the great track and cross-country runner Bill Cadger (See On The Matter of Bill Cadger-Runner for a comment on his exploits). Part of my motivation for joining this site was to find him. I have done so and we have started to keep in touch again. At one of the "bull sessions" that we have conducted I asked him whether he had gone to any class reunions. I had not done so and therefore I was interested in his take on the subject.
Bill said that the only one that he had gone to was the 5th reunion in 1969. Of course that is the high water mark for the Generation of '68. A key observation that he related, as least for my purpose here, is that when he went to that reunion and people came up to him to introduce themselves he had trouble identifying people, especially the guys, because of all the beards and long hair that were telltale tribal symbols at the time. So that is one, perhaps superficial, criterion for membership.
Frankly, dear classmates, among the reasons that I turned my back on the old hometown right after high school was that it seemed like a "square" (remember that tribal term from our youth meaning not "hip", another term from that era) working class town that did not fit in with my evolving political and cultural, or more correctly counter-cultural, interests. Thus, Bill's comments rather startled me. My assumption would have been that the "squares" would have gotten a job after high school (or gone to college and then gotten a job), gotten married, had kids, bought a house and followed that trail, wherever it led. This new knowledge may tell me something different.
Is it possible that there were many other kindred spirits from our class who broke from that pattern, at least for a while? Who not only grew their hair long (male or female) or grew beards (male) but also maybe dressed in the symbolic Army/ Navy store fashions of the day (male or female) or burned their bras, symbolically or otherwise (female)? Or did some dope (Yes, I know, on the advise of counsel, we are all taking the Bill Clinton defense on this one. Now!) and made all the rock concerts? Or hitchhiked across the country? Or opposed the damn Vietnam War and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported the black liberation struggle and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported an end to the draft, ROTC on campus, etc. and got......well, you know the rest of the line? Or lived in a commune or any number of other things of like kind that were the signposts of the generation of '68? In short, tried to "storm heaven". We lost that fight but the same kind of storm clouds are gathering again, at least a little, in 2008. Your stories, please (and that includes those "squares" who now do not now seem quite that way anymore).
Al Johnson, Class Of 1964, comment:
The first draft of this comment was written before I got my grubby little hands on a copy of our Class of 1964 "Manet". After intense examination of that document I find nothing there that would indicate that the future foot soldiers of Woodstock Nation were seething to be free to try alternative ways of living. Nor do I get a sense from those pictures that people were getting ready to challenge the way political institutions were being run in this country. I will thus let my original remarks stand.
Do you consider yourself a member of the Generation of '68?
"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.
I mentioned in the Tell My Story section that while we were all members of the Class of 1964 some of us were also members of the Generation of '68. I guess to those of us who considered themselves part of that experience no further explanation is necessary. However, if you are in doubt then let me give my take on what such membership would entail.
This question is actually prompted by an observation made by my old friend, and our classmate, the great track and cross-country runner Bill Cadger (See On The Matter of Bill Cadger-Runner for a comment on his exploits). Part of my motivation for joining this site was to find him. I have done so and we have started to keep in touch again. At one of the "bull sessions" that we have conducted I asked him whether he had gone to any class reunions. I had not done so and therefore I was interested in his take on the subject.
Bill said that the only one that he had gone to was the 5th reunion in 1969. Of course that is the high water mark for the Generation of '68. A key observation that he related, as least for my purpose here, is that when he went to that reunion and people came up to him to introduce themselves he had trouble identifying people, especially the guys, because of all the beards and long hair that were telltale tribal symbols at the time. So that is one, perhaps superficial, criterion for membership.
Frankly, dear classmates, among the reasons that I turned my back on the old hometown right after high school was that it seemed like a "square" (remember that tribal term from our youth meaning not "hip", another term from that era) working class town that did not fit in with my evolving political and cultural, or more correctly counter-cultural, interests. Thus, Bill's comments rather startled me. My assumption would have been that the "squares" would have gotten a job after high school (or gone to college and then gotten a job), gotten married, had kids, bought a house and followed that trail, wherever it led. This new knowledge may tell me something different.
Is it possible that there were many other kindred spirits from our class who broke from that pattern, at least for a while? Who not only grew their hair long (male or female) or grew beards (male) but also maybe dressed in the symbolic Army/ Navy store fashions of the day (male or female) or burned their bras, symbolically or otherwise (female)? Or did some dope (Yes, I know, on the advise of counsel, we are all taking the Bill Clinton defense on this one. Now!) and made all the rock concerts? Or hitchhiked across the country? Or opposed the damn Vietnam War and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported the black liberation struggle and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported an end to the draft, ROTC on campus, etc. and got......well, you know the rest of the line? Or lived in a commune or any number of other things of like kind that were the signposts of the generation of '68? In short, tried to "storm heaven". We lost that fight but the same kind of storm clouds are gathering again, at least a little, in 2008. Your stories, please (and that includes those "squares" who now do not now seem quite that way anymore).
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