The other weekend I was on a road trip with friends. We were playing oldies on the box.
One of the most maudlin tales of tragedy played — Ray Peterson’s “Tell Laura I Love Her.” Those of you who grew up with rock & roll, know the details all too well. Laura and Tommy were lovers. He wanted to buy her gifts, most of all a wedding ring.
Oh, why should you hear it second hand? Here’s Ray himself, still sharing the sadness after oh so many years (Wearing a tux out of respect for the departed.):
Listening in the car with more mature ears, I couldn’t help but wonder: 1) If Tommy and Laura were so close, why didn’t she know he was racing that night? 2) If Tommy couldn’t get Laura on the phone, why didn’t he text her? And, most of all, 3) Where was Laura that night, with Tommy’s best buddy, who apparently wasn’t at the race either?
I’m not sure exactly why, but there were any number of these teen weepers back in the Days of Top 40, News, Weather & Sports. The reason why is a cultural contemplation too serious for examination at this time.
But I do have some queries, since more than a few of these songs raised salient questions, which, frankly, we never asked back in the day. I guess it’s never too late to investigate.
Mark Dinning’s “Teen Angel” died in a car that was stalled on the railroad tracks. But, 1) If she went running back after safely out of harm’s way to get the high school ring, why wasn’t she wearing it around her neck, as was the style in the day? Didn’t she want her friends to know? 2) Why did the car stall? Didn’t her boyfriend have it serviced before their big date?
Did her family sue?
Speaking of stalled and smashed cars and dashed relationships, J. Frank Wilson’s “Last Kiss” was most sad:
I mean what happens if the kid 1) heeded his daddy’s warning to get some new tires and a brake check up at Ken Towery’s, or 2) kept two hands on the wheel instead of trying to cop a feel while driving?
Speaking of what on earth was he thinking — why was Jan Berry of Jan & Dean speeding in a Corvette at Dead Man’s Curve just two years after he sang these ominous lyrics, “Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve.?”
That, my fellow rock & rollers, is life imitating art.
It’s been said that his girlfriend’s dad put a voodoo hex on Jimmy, the Leader of the Pack. We’ll just never know.
But life back then was fraught with more than car crashes or motorcycle wrecks.
A walk on the beach could mean an end to a relationship that maybe just maybe wasn’t meant to be. Listen to Johnny Cymbal’s all too sad tale.
I mean if the kid was strong and courageous enough to kill the shark — with his bare hands — why on earth didn’t he do it before the beast chewed his significant other to death?
Speaking of being chewed to death, how about poor Timothy?
Well, we could go on and on, wallowing in the angst, decrying cars that stalled at the wrong place and wrong time. So let’s call it a day. But only after allowing eminent cultural observer Julie Brown to put it all in perspective.
Which means that all the questions I’ve got boil down to one.
Who’s Johnny?
Okay there’s more. Read on, s’il vous plait.
After being publicly humiliated by my host James Bickers during my weekly film review this morning, I feel compelled to add one more song to the mix: Dickey Lee’s “Laurie (Strange Things Happen)”. Laurie was an angel. Perhaps literally. Though she’s not to be confused with Teen Angel, who didn’t even live in the same town.
Anyway, the kid hooked up with Laurie — or so he thought — and she asked for his sweater to stay warm. Oh, the tale is too weird. I can’t go on. So, here’s Dickey:
Even though this was 1965, I must ask: Was this kid on LSD or what? Or was Laurie’s dad just being a schmuck?
As it turns out the iPhone 4 does do everything a customer could possibly want it to do.
With two exceptions:
1) It won’t scour the toilet in the bathroom when your cleaning service doesn’t show up.
2) Its reception — sketchy already with AT&T’s lack of enough towers and bandwidth — is further compromised when you hold the phone in a normal manner.
Since there came an avalanche of complaints about the latter from first day customers — Apple acolytes disinclined to utter a discouraging word — Mahatma Steve Jobs came out from his cave and pontificated.
To paraphrase The Holy One: “Get over it, dumbasses. Hold it differently.”
So much for the oldest adage in commerce, “The customer is always right.”
Seems the problem hasn’t a thing to do with a possible design flaw — the antennae is in the metal edge strip where 99% of users hold a cellphone. It’s the fault of customers who stayed up all night to be first in line to plunk down hundreds of dollars and be the first on their block with the latest of Jobs’ gadgets. They simply didn’t read the manual to learn how to properly hold the new smart phone.
And what a contemporary device it is. Tens of thousands of apps. It does everything. (Except scrub the tub.)
It does everything, that is, except connect speedily to its network.
Am I missing something here? Isn’t that the baseline?
Actually I’m an old school guy. I understand that smart phones are the future. The present actually. Pretty soon they’ll be able to safely drive your SUV, so you can text without worry while speeding down Shelbyville Road. But I’ll only have one when it’s the only type of cellphone available.
My current phone can send and receive calls. Period. (Okay, it has rudimentary texting capabilities, which I never use.) And that’s it. No internet. No email. No travel directions. No videos. No camera.
I bought this particular model because all the reviews said it had the best voice quality incoming and outgoing.
It wasn’t an easy purchase. When I hit the Verizon store, my trusty and helpful rep had never heard of the model. “Customers could care less about speaker quality.” She found one on a bottom shelf in the corner. The box was dusty. Literally.
I don’t have an innate dislike for cellphones. Except when people use them for any purpose when driving or at the dinner table or when I’m trying to talk with them face to face. You know, in person. I sit at a computer most of the day, so I don’t feel it necessary to have www access when I’m away from my desk.
Besides everybody else has one. So when I was at my daughter’s birthday party last night and wanted to know the draft status of UK’s Fab Five, several guys scurried to show they could connect the fastest.
As for my response to Steve Jobs: “Rotate on this, dude!”
Let me get the hyperbole out of the way at the start.
Here me now and believe me later. Little Feat is the most unappreciated band of rock’s halcyon days.
Period.
Bill Payne’s piano. Richard Hayward’s and Sam Clayton’s syncopated percussion. A southern sensibility that is both traditional and innovative. And, of course, Lowell George’s intelligent, nuanced, evocative and clever lyrics. Oh yes, there’s his signature slide guitar stylings, which legend says was taught to him by Bonnie Raitt.
When this album was released in ’73, the band, with a few personnel adjustments, had put out two albums to considerable acclaim, “Little Feat” and “Sailin’ Shoes.” Both are worthy of your attention.
But “Dixie Chicken” put it all together. The sultry funk. The aroma of magnolia and marijuana. The slinky sensuality. Plus it rocks and you can dance to it.
How about a taste of the title tune, with some superstar help:
In case you miss the rock & roll elegance of that cautionary tale, here are the lyrics:
I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis/ And the Commodore Hotel/ And underneath a street lamp, I met a southern belle/ Oh she took me to the river, where she cast her spell/ And in that southern moonlight, she sang this song so well
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland
We made all the hotspots, my money flowed like wine/ Then the low-down southern whiskey, yea, began to fog my mind/ And I don’t remember church bells, or the money I put down/ On the white picket fence and boardwalk/ On the house at the end of town/ Oh but boy do I remember the strain of her refrain/ And the nights we spent together/ And the way she called my name
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland
Many years since she ran away/ Yes that guitar player sure could play/ She always liked to sing along/ She always handy with a song/ But then one night at the lobby of the Commodore Hotel/ I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well/ And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song/ And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sing along
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken ill be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland, Down in Dixieland
Now, that’s a song, kiddies.
My favorite song on the album — truth be told, my favorite Little Feat tune of all — is “Fat Man In The Bathtub.”
Check it out:
Okay, some more over the top praise. Little Feat is the most underrated band of all time. How’s that for devotion.
Anyway, as happens so much, it was too good to last. At least in the group’s best incarnation. George, founder, leader and most aggressive drug advocate, broke the band up in the late 70s, casting aspersions on his bandmates Payne and Paul Barrere. Lowell George died not long thereafter of a heart attack, probably drug induced.
In ’88, the remaining members, with some additions, reconstituted. The group’s first gig was on the Riverboat President at the New Orleans JazzFest. (Did you have any doubt, we’d end up there?) Bonnie Raitt sat in on slide.
The band has evolved through the years, and still gigs. Various personnel changes on the periphery haven’t changed the essence of the group. They’ve put out any number of albums through the years, including some amazing live shows. Most all deserve a listen.
I’m going to start courtside at the Lakers/ Celtics NBA Finals series. Trust me, this isn’t about sports.
It’s about an LA hoops fan so iconic in a town full of them that, when spotted in the crowdby TV cameras — not difficult, he always sits in the front row by the court — he’s identified by only his first name.
Jack.
Since he burst on the scene — in his 29th film — as George Hanson, the stoned lawyer in a football helmet who talked about the “Venutians” around the campfire with Fonda and Hopper in “Easy Rider,” Jack Nicholson has been all that and a bag o’ chips.
His cinematic portrayals have been among the best and most memorable of the last half century.
He was J.J. Gittes in my second favorite film of all time, “Chinatown.” Robert Dupea, who only wanted some wheat toast at the diner in “Five Easy Pieces.” Jonathan, the scoundrel in “Carnal Knowledge.” R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” Not to mention the wacked, oh so blissfully Jack performance as Jack Torrence in “The Shining” — “Here’s Johnny!!!” – Jimmy Hoffa and the Joker, among many more.
As much as I love his portrayal of the private dick not as smart as he thought he was in Roman Polanski’s brilliant “Chinatown,” one guy’s opinion is his best performance ever was as retired police detective Jerry Black in Sean Penn’s “The Pledge.”
On the day of his retirement, Black, an honest, hard working cop, investigates the rape and murder of a young girl. He ends up pledging to her mother (Patricia Clarkson) that he’ll find the killer. It becomes his obsession, even after an addled Native American (Bencio del Toro) is suspected of the murder and kills himself during questioning by another detective (Aaron Eckhart).
The film is more character study than cop trying to solve a case potboiler. Yet it works as both. Nicholson, 57 when he made the film, is devoid of affectation here. His drive and demons and flaws and maturity reveal themselves subtly. He’s on to something in finding the serial killer. And such is his obsession that he’s driven to put those he loves in harm’s way to honor his commitment.
This is a movie full with anguish. But the nuance and intensity grow as the movie progresses to an unexpected finale.
Jaaaaack, the guy known for that lurid gleam in his eye that says he’s trouble, never appears in “The Pledge.” Jack Nicholson, the awrd winning actor worthy of his fame, does.
This is far from an easy film. But it’s well worth the watch.
“Did you see that, man? Look! It landed all the way over there. From a sitting position.”
The kid is 13, 14 maybe, covered with tats, hanging with the outcasts on the outskirts of the gaggle of teens outside the Eastern Parkway Qdoba. His eyes betray the ragweed he’s smoked. He talks like it was real reefer.
His fellow brooders pay no attention. Except the black girl. “You can’t do that. It’s just not healthy.”
The basis for his boast is a looey he’s hocked 15 feet across the patio.
It’s the first day of vacation.
School’s out for summer/ School’s out forever
A redhead walks to the table with a purpose, tells him, “We’re movin’ on, douche bag. And you’re not invited.” She stomps away with a gang, doesn’t look back.
“You can come,” the boy in a whitey on a skateboard rumbling by yells to the hocker. “We’re doing it because we’re bored. Because we can. You might see some blood.”
The kid in the black “Keep Highland Weird” t-shirt scurries after. “A fight,” he asks?
“A rumble,” answers that redhead with the acned chest.
Is that Highland as in Highland Middle f/k/a Highland Jr. High?
Let’s give a cheer for Highland Jr. High/ In every sport we’ll do our best or die
I wonder what Mr. Sanders thinks from his viewing spot? He was principal when I went there.
Hell, I know what he thinks. Why isn’t that kid wearing a belt on his pants? That’s what he’s thinks while shaking his head at an alien world out of his time zone he can’t comprehend.
Oh dear Highland High School/ We always will love you/
No matter what happens/ We’ll always be true
The guy I’d really like to talk to at the moment is Bob Denk.
He owned the beatnik coffee shop up near where Wick’s is now. Topaz Emporium. Or was it The Zapot? Or both one after another? He was Kerouacian in a post-beatnik world.
So he was out of his time too. But not like Mr. Sanders.
What would Denk make of ever changing just the same as it ever was Bardstown Road on the first night of summer vacation 2010? The skate board shops? Packs of kids all talking on cellphones to somebodies who are somewhere else?
What would Bob Denk think of the nearly empty record shop? There was a time when all those girls just freed from the imprisonment of braces and homework, the ones now purposely tattered for their first night on the strip, would have been tie-dyed, inside the store, nodding their heads in agreement at the dude carrying on about “It’s A Beautiful Day.”
Instead there’s two guys — one white, one black and stylin’ with a toothpick and pork pie hat — in the Hip Hop section. And a fellow in a suit, trying to figure out which Jimmy Buffet album to buy?
And I’m there too. Watching all the foot traffic through the windows, tracking down Janelle Monáe, who, bless her Mr. Please Please Pleas-adoring heart, may or may not be the next big R & B thing, like my man James Bickers says. Or she may get swallowed up in all the noise.
And I grab Jeff Beck. The “Live at Ronnie Scott’s” album, where he plays with such exquisite passion and clarity it’s hard to listen and breathe at the same time. My guess is Denk would approve. Beck plays some Mingus on the disc.
And the new one from The National, which sucked me into its vortex at the listening station. They are to Cincy as My Morning Jacket is to Louisville. Except they had to move to NYC to make it happen.
It’s Bardstown Road. Tuesday night.
Summer’s here/ And the time is right/ For dancing in the street
The Spanish restaurant is empty as always. Down the street the line is long for burritos. Further down there’s a pizza war brewing.
Thin slice vs. thick.
Papalino’s vs. Impellizzeri’s.
“I’m an old school guy,” I tell the girl at the nouveau yogurt shop. “Whatever happened to chocolate and vanilla?”
She doesn’t understand irony. Would I like Original Tart or Acaiberry? I want to ask when tart became a flavor?
I leave it alone, allowing her to eventually figure out I get ten cents change when I hand her three bucks, a quarter and 3 pennies for a $3.18 tab.
The coffee shops are wireless, devoid of poetry readers. Would Denk understand?
Revised 6/29 9:10 am
