Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King OF The Beats" Jack Kerouac-The 60th Anniversary Of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"-Ain't Got No Time For Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise”-The Mean Streets Of Working Class Times- “The Fighter”- A Film Review

The 60th Anniversary Of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road"-Ain't Got No Time  For Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise”-The Mean Streets Of Working Class Times- “The Fighter”- A Film Review

DVD Review

The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, Paramount Pictures, 2010

I know the mean streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, although of late that geographical reference point would center on a more literary sense of the place around the figure of 1950s beat novelist/poet Jack Kerouac. I do not, by the way, mean that I know Lowell from actually growing up in that old-time textile mill town that has seen better days, mainly. I mean I know Lowell because I know the double-deckers, the triple-deckers, the seedy bowling alleys, the back lot gyms, the mom and pop variety stores, the ethnically-tinged bars, biker hang-outs, and flop houses that dot that working class town and form the backdrop to the cultural life of that place. I grew up on the southern side of Boston in North Adamsville. That past its prime working class town (formerly a shipbuilding center rather than Lowell's textile but they shared the same ethos) had its full compliment of tight housing, rundown stores, sparse entertainment possibilities and cramped view of life’s prospects just like Lowell.

I know Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) and, more importantly, I know Dickie Eklund (Bale) and their mother Alice (Leo). I do not mean that I know any of them personally but I know their ilk. See North Adamsville also had its fair share of club fighters (or other sports king wanna-bes), working out of some third floor back door gym that smelled of tiger’s balm and other liniments, looking to make it out of the dead-end town and on to the big tent, whether they actually left North Adamsville or not. And most didn’t and most did not even get a shot at hitting someone like Sugar Ray Leonard down on some matted ring floor like Dickie did. Frankly, I spent most of my time as a youth being attracted too but ultimately trying to run, run very hard, away from the Dickie guys, the street-wise corner boys who fall sort of catching the brass ring. While they may be street-wise corner boys, unlike in this film, they are strictly bad-ass cut your throat for a dime characters best left behind. That was hard lesson to learn back in the day, and as the film makes clear, now too.

That said about the social realities of working class life what is there not to like about a film that highlights, Mickey Ward, one of our own getting out from under by sheer perseverance, wit, and his own sense of street smarts, mainly on his own terms. And to be a bloody stubborn Irishman to boot. Some of the stuff concerning his family connections, his eight million family connections, the “us against the world (you do not air your dirty linen in public, period)” while hard to take at points rang true. As did many of the confrontation scenes with Mickey’s high-flying girlfriend Charlene, when she tried to break her man out of the family’s grip. Finally, the acting from Wahlberg’s conflicted (between family and career, between being a “stepping stone” and a champ) boxer, to Bale’s mad monk ex-boxer who had gone a long way down from those Sugar Ray days (a not uncommon fate for those who are just not good enough to wear the crown, whatever the crown might be) to Leo’s (Alice)one-dimensional family worldview (with nine kids, seven of them girls, that might have been the beginning of wisdom in her case) was uniformly fine. Still, I am glad, glad as hell that I made a left turn away from those corner boys down in the streets making all that noise. But it was a close thing, no question.

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Out In The Corner Boy Night- Rock “Em Daddy, Be My Be-Bop Daddy

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Elvis Presley performing a sassy, sexy, alternate version of One Night, One Night Of Sin.

CD Review

Rockin’ Bones, Four CD set with booklet, various artists, Rhino Records, 2006

This is the way Betsy McGee, an old time, very old time Clintondale Elementary School flame (locally known as the Acre school, and everybody knew what you were talking about, everybody around Clintondale anyway), and now (1961, in case anybody reads this later) a fellow sophomore classmate at North Clintondale High, wanted the story told, the story of her ill-fated brother, twenty-two year old John “Black Jack” McGee so this is the way it will be told. Why she wanted me to tell the story is beyond me, except that she knows, knows even in her sorrows, that I hang around with corner boys, Harry’s Variety Store corner boys, although I am more like a “pet,” or a “gofer,” than a real corner boy. But that story has already been told, told seven ways to Sunday, so let’s get to Black Jack’s story.

John “Black Jack” McGee like a million guys who came out of the post-World War II Cold war night and came out of the no prospect projects, in his case the Clintondale Housing Project (the Acre, okay, and hell’s little acre at that to save a lot of fancy sociological talk stuff), looking for kicks. Kicks anyway he could get them to take the pain away, the pain of edge city living if he was asked, by the way, politely asked or you might get your head handed to you on a platter asked. Needless to say Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff even when he was nothing but another Acre teenage kid, with a chip, no, about seven chips, on his wide shoulders. Needless to say, as well, there was nothing that school could teach him and he dropped out the very day that he turned sixteen. As a sign of respect for what little North Clintondale High taught him threw a rock through the headmaster’s window and then just stood there. The headmaster did not made peep one about it (he was probably hiding under his desk, he is that kind of guy) and Black Jack just walked away laughing. Yes, Black Jack was rough stuff, rough stuff all the way around. That story made him a legend all the way down to the Acre school, and so much so that every boy, every red-blooded boy, in her class made his pitch to get along with Betsy.

The problem with legends though is unless you keep pace other legends crowd you out, or somebody does some crazy prank and your legend gets lost in the shuffle. That’s the way the rules are, make of them what you will. And Black Jack, wide shouldered, tall, pretty muscular, long brown hair, and a couple of upper shoulder tattoos with two different girls’ names on them was very meticulous about his legend. So every once in a while you would hear a rumor about how Black Jack had “hit” this liquor store or that mom and pop variety store, small stuff when you think about it but enough to stir any red-blooded Acre elementary schoolboy’s already hungry imagination.

And then all of sudden, just after a nighttime armed gas station robbery that was never solved, Black Jack stepped up in society, well, corner boy society anyway. This part everyone who hung around Harry’s Variety knew about, or knew parts of the story. Black Jack had picked up a bike (motorcycle, for the squares), and not some suburban special Harley-Davidson chrome glitter thing either but a real bike, an Indian. The only better bike, the Vincent Black Lightning, nobody had ever seen around, only in motorcycle magazines. And as a result of having possession of the “boss” bike (or maybe reflecting who they thought committed that armed robbery) he was “asked” (if that is the proper word, rather than commissioned, elected, or ordained) to join the Acre Low-Riders.

And the Acre Low-Riders didn’t care if you were young or old, innocent or guilty, smart or dumb, or had about a million other qualities, good or bad, just stay out of their way when they came busting through town on their way to some hell-raising. The cops, the cops who loved to tell kids, young kids, to move along when it started to get dark or got surly when some old lady jaywalked caught the headmaster’s 'no peep' when the Low Riders showed their colors. Even “Red” Doyle who was the max daddy king corner boy at Harry’s Variety made a very big point that his boys, and he himself, wanted no part of the Low-Riders, good or bad. And Red was a guy who though nothing, nothing at all, of chain-whipping a guy mercilessly half to death just because he was from another corner. Yes, Black Jack had certainly stepped it up.

Here’s where the legend, or believing in the legend, or better working on the legend full-time part comes in. You can only notch up so many robberies, armed or otherwise, assaults, and other forms of hell-raising before your act turns stale, nobody, nobody except hungry imagination twelve-year old schoolboys, is paying attention. The magic is gone. And that is what happened with Black Jack. Of course, the Low-Riders were not the only outlaw motorcycle “club” around. And when there is more than one of anything, or maybe on some things just one, there is bound to be a "rumble" (a fight, for the squares) about it. Especially among guys, guys too smart for school, guys who have either graduated from, or are working on, their degrees from the school of hard knocks, the state pen. But enough of that blather because the real story was that the Groversville High-Riders were looking for one Black Jack McGee. And, of course, the Acre Low-Riders had Black Jack’s back.

Apparently, and Betsy was a little confused about this part because she did not know the “etiquette” of biker-dom, brother John had stepped into High-Rider territory, a definite no-no in the biker etiquette department without some kind of truce, or peace offering, or whatever. But see Black Jack was “trespassing” for a reason. He had seen this doll, this fox of a doll, this Lola heart-breaker, all blonde hair, soft curves, turned-up nose, and tight, short-sleeved cashmere sweater down at the Adamsville Beach one afternoon a while back and he made his bid for her. Now Black Jack was pretty good looking, okay, although nothing special from what anybody would tell you but this doll took to him, for some reason. What she did not tell him, and there is a big question still being asked around Harry’s about why not except that she was some hell-cat looking for her own strange kicks, was that she had a boyfriend, a Groversville guy doing time up the state pen. And what she also didn’t tell him was that the reason her boyfriend, “Sonny” Russo, was in stir was for attempted manslaughter and about to get out in August. And what she also did not tell him was that Sonny was a charter member of the High-Riders.

Forget dramatic tension, forget suspense, this situation, once Sonny found out, and he would, sooner or later, turned into “rumble city," all banners waving, all colors showing. And so it came to pass that on August 23, 1961, at eight o’clock in the evening the massed armies of Acre Low-Riders and Groverville High-Riders gathered for battle. And the rules of engagement for such transgressions, if there is such a thing, rules of engagement that is rather than just made up, was that Sonny and Black Jack were to fight it out in a circle, switchblades flashing, until one guy was cut too badly to continue, or gave up, or… So they went back and forth for a while Black Jack getting the worst of it with several cuts across his skin-tight white tee-shirt, a couple of rips in his blue jeans, bleeding but not enough to give up. Meanwhile true-blue Lola is egging Sonny on, egging him on something fierce, like some devil-woman, to cut the love-bug John every which way. But then Black Jack drew a break. Sonny slipped and John cut him, cuts him bad near the neck. Sonny was nothing but bleeding, bleeding bad, real bad. Sonny called it quits. Everybody quickly got the hell out of the field of honor, double-quick, Sonny’s comrades helping him along. That is not the end of the story, by no means. Sonny didn't make it, and in the cop dust-up Lola, sweet Lola, told them that none other than lover-boy Black Jack did the deed. And now Black Jack is earning his hard knock credits up in stir, state stir, for manslaughter (reduced from murder two).

After thinking about this story again I can also see where, if I played my cards right, I could be sitting right beside maybe not-so-old-flame Betsy, helping here through her brother hard times, down at the old Adamsville beach some night talking about the pitfalls of corner boy life while we are listening to One Night of Sin by Elvis Presley; Boppin’ High School Baby by Don Willis; Long Blonde Hair, Rose Red Lips by Johnny Powers (watch out Johnny); Sunglasses After Dark by Lo Lou Darrell Rhodes (Clintondale's pizza parlor max daddy Frankie Doyle’s favorite song); Red Hot by Bob Luman (yes, red hot); Long Gone Daddy by Pat Cupp; Put Your Cat Clothes On by Carl Perkins; Duck Tail by Joe Clay; Switch Blade Sam by Jeff Daniels (maybe not); Susie-Q by Dale Hawkins; Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins; Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran; Rumble Rock by Kip Taylor, Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On by Jerry Lee Lewis; and, Get Hot Or Go Home by John Kerby on the old car radio. What do you think?

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Seaside Heights South Elementary School Class Of 1958-With Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen In Mind

The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-A Pauper Comes Of Age- For the Seaside Heights South Elementary School Class Of 1958-With Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen In Mind

By Allen Jackson

[Hell even “the projects” boys, hell, maybe especially projects boys have dreams of grabbing some slumming Cinderella and turning the course of their lives around having that cachet nightingale wrapped around your very live dreams. I know I did, did three times later on when I got the marrying bug and scored three very bright, very pretty but most important very upper- middle class young women, no not rich like in the Scotty Fitzgerald sense that is almost too much to expect from someone born down in the mud, way down like I was. Of course that marrying bug took its toll what with alimonies, pay on time alimonies buster-or else-harsh talk from those so-called gentile Waspish wags and that fistful of nice brood of kids college tuitions that I am still clawing to get under control and which is the undertow of why I was in Frisco last year and why those horrible rumors about me working some whorehouse pimping with Madame La Rue anywhere from Frisco to Buenos Aires, Frisco where she is-without me- and blessed old neighborhood corner boy Timmy Riley known out there in North Beach for many years now as Ms. Judy Garland ( I think Timmy uses Miss to go back to the times but I will keep up with the times on this one.) who was supposed to be my transvestite lover and me high as a kite of sweet boy-girl opium bong pipes. WTF.

Strangely, or maybe not so strangely when I was in high school at North Adamsville High in the early 1960s I had nada, nothing for dates with any girls from high school or even from North Adamsville because of that social stigma which attached to guys down in the mud. The mud that I have never been washed clean from and in some senses, senses about sharing my fate with the poor people of the earth as Cuban nationalist Jose Marti said in his song made famous in America by Pete Seeger and the folk revivalists of the early 1960s, I don’t want washed away. In that former sense the caked mud sense, Markin, the aforementioned Scribe who would also have three marriages, three quick marriages before he went to ground down Sonora way, was ahead of me even though he too never got date number one from high school girl classmates or again from the town. (We didn’t either of us go dateless since under Scribe’s tutelage I got a few dates when we hit the late fading faux beat complete with black beret scene and the early folk scene over in Harvard Square but none of that was for serious dough young women but the arty type which we both fell head over heels for in those days).

So it is a little hard for me to tell a sweet little sixteen story straight up like Fritz Taylor could do up in high school New Hampshire, a guy I, we, met out in Southern California some years after our respective Vietnam War tours of duty. Met through lightening rod Scribe at first when I was just getting started on my series about those lost brothers who were having a tough time, as Fritz was, as I was although I didn’t know it until I went down in the mud again with my fellow soldier brothers who couldn’t adjust to the “real” world after “Nam, and as the most surprising of all the Scribe was but we were clueless about whatever pains and sadnesses possessed his beautiful bastard heart. No question what Fritz had to say below was one hundred percent or close just from seeing him with the young women out West who fell all over him even in his desperation times when he really should not have been dealing with women at all (something he denied at the time but has acknowledged since proving you can learn something in this wicked old world). So when he talks of some Cinderella princess that disturbed his sleep, some virginal sweet sixteen from the early 1960s you know that he was in synch with the times, keep his head down and ready for anything. Allan Jackson] 

***********        

They're really rockin Boston
In Pittsburgh, P. A.
Deep in the heart of Texas
And 'round the Frisco Bay
All over St. Louis
Way down in New Orleans
All the Cats wanna dance with
Sweet Little Sixteen

Sweet Little Sixteen
She's just got to have
About half a million
Framed autographs
Her wallet's filled with pictures
She gets 'em one by one
She gets so excited
Watch her look at her run

Oh mommy mommy
Please may I go
It's such a sight to see
Somebody steal the show
Oh daddy daddy
I beg of you
Whisper to mommy
It's all right with you

Cause they'll be rockin on bandstand
In Philadelphia P.A.
Deep in the heart of Texas
And 'round the Frisco Bay
All over St. Louis
Way Down in New Orleans
All the Cats wanna dance with
Sweet Little Sixteen

Sweet Little Sixteen
She's got the grown up blues
Tight dress and lipstick
She's sportin' high heal shoes
Oh, but tomorrow morning
She'll have to chang her trend
And be sweet sixteen
And back in class again

Cause they'll be rockin on bandstand
In Philadelphia P.A.
Deep in the heart of Texas And 'round the Frisco Bay
All over St. Louis Way Down in New Orleans
All the Cats wanna dance with
Sweet Little Sixteen

********

This is the way my old corner boy, Fritz Taylor, from down in “the projects” told me the story one night years later when we were sitting on the grey granite steps of our high school, Miller High, in Seaside Heights, that’s in New Hampshire. Those projects by the way, all white projects  unlike the ones you hear about lately which are mostly populated by minorities, had originally been build right after World War II to help stem the heavy demand for housing from returning servicemen with young families and not enough dough to finance a house. The original idea as well was that the housing was temporary and had been built with a certain careless abandon by some low-bidder contractors. Fritz’s and my family had been among those families in the 1950s who did not get to participate in the “golden age” and so we were long time tenants all through our school years until we graduated from Miller High. Between the isolated location of the projects and the high number of kids the place had it had its own elementary school, Snug Harbor (sounds nice right, however, that school was also expected to be temporary and built as such by those same low-bidder contractors), where we both had gone through all six grades together (we started in the time before kindergarten became a step in one’s education). I am telling you about this because the story happened down there long before we got to high school.

So there we were sitting there on the steps, no dough in our pockets, our main guy for a ride out of town, Benny, also a corner boy, on a family vacation up in Maine, no girls in hand, or prospects either since any girls we were interested in had no interest us either because we had not car or because we were from the projects, come to think of it forget that last part it was because we were car-less and that world was filled with guys with cars, “boss cars,” swooping down on the interesting girls, talking slowly. Talking kind of softly for us although loudly or softly no one would have been around to heard us that warm summer night with about six weeks to go before school started again and we could go back and start our junior year, kind of dreamy too really about the first times we had been smitten by a girl, not necessarily a forever smitten thing but with a bug that disturbed our sleep (forever then being maybe a month or six weeks, no more except for some oddball couples who found love and stayed together for the next fifty years if you can believe that in this day in age).

Yeah, that is exactly the way to put it, when some frail disturbed our sleep, the first of many sleepless nights on that subject.  (That “frail” a localism for girl, heavily influenced by our corner boy with the car Benny watching too many 1930s and 1940s George Raft or James Cagney gangster and Humphrey Bogart hard-boiled private detective movies.) So we were sitting there thinking about how we were now chasing other dreams, well, maybe not other dreams but older versions, sweet sixteen versions of that same dream.  Of course at sixteen it was all about girls but as it turned out that subject had its own pre-history way back when. Just ask Fritz Taylor if you see him.

Fritz Taylor, if he thought about it at all and at times like that dream vision night at sixteen on the steps in front of the high school he might have, probably would have said that he had his history hat on again like when he was a kid, loving history or even the thought of history since Miss Winot blew him away with talk of ancient Greeks and Romans. Blew him away so that when he got in trouble with that teacher for saying something fresh, and it really was, a swear word expression, “what the fuck,” that he heard all the time around his house which he thought everybody said when they were angry, assigned him a paper to write of five hundred words and he wrote an essay about Greek democracy which she actually read to the class she was so impressed. Miss Winot, blew him away more when she freaked him out with talk of Egypt and Pharaoh times with the Pyramids and the slaves and all the times he had begged his older brother to drive him all the way down to the art museum in Boston to look at old Pharaoh stuff some guys from Harvard had unearthed. But all that is just stuff to let you know what kind of guy Fritz was in elementary school before he wised up, or kind of wised up, in high school. Funny one time when I wanted to take the bus down to Boston when I got the Pharaoh bug in high school he dismissed me out of hand. Done that, he said. So that night he had his history hat on so I knew I was in for a story, a bloody silly story if I knew Fritz but we had nothing better to do so I let him go on. Let him go on that sixteen years old summer night when out of the blue, the memory time blue, he thought about more modern history, thought about her, thought about fair Rosimund.

No, before you get all set to turn to some other thing, some desperate alternate other thing, to do rather than read Fritz’s poignant little story, this is not some American Revolution founding fathers (or mothers, because old-time Abigail Adams may have been hovering in some background granite-chiseled slab grave in a very old-time Quincy cemetery while the events to be related occurred since Fritz was crazy about her too once he figured out she was the real power behind John and John Quincy) or some bold Massachusetts abolitionist regiment, the fighting 54^th, out of the American Civil War 150th anniversary memory history like Fritz used to like to twist the tail around when you knew him, or his like. This is about “first love” so rest easy.

Fritz, that early summer’s night, was simply trying to put his thoughts together and figured that he would write something, write something for those who could stand it, those fellow members of our class who could stand to know that story. Although, at many levels that was a very different experience from that of the average, average Miller High class member the story had a universal quality that he thought might amuse them, amuse them that is until the name, the thought of the name, the mist coming from out of his mouth at the forming of the name, holy of holies, Rosimund, stopped him dead in his tracks and forced him to tell me that story and to write that different story later.

Still, once the initial trauma wore off, Fritz thought what better way to celebrate that milestone on the rocky road to surviving childhood than to take a trip down memory lane, that Rosimund-strewn memory lane. Those days although they were filled with memorable incidents, good and bad, paled beside this Rosimund-related story that cut deep, deep into his brown-haired mind, and as it turned out one that he have not forgotten after all. So rather than produce some hokey last dance, last elementary school sweaty-palmed dance failure tale, some Billie Bradley-led corner boy down in the back of Snug Harbor doo wop be-bop into the night luring stick and shape girls like lemmings from the sea on hearing those doo wop harmonies, those harmonies meant for them, the sticks and shapes that is, or some wannabe gangster retread tale, or even some Captain Midnight how he saved the world from the Cold War Russkies with his last minute-saving invention Fritz preferred to relate a home truth, a hard home truth to be sure, but the truth. Here is his say:

At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably supposed to learn, maybe required to, depending on the whims of your school district’s supervisory staff and maybe also what your parents expected of such schools, to do two intertwined socially-oriented tasks - the basics of some kind of dancing and to be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. After all that is what it is there for isn’t it. At least it was that way a few years back, and if things have changed, changed dramatically in that regard, you can fill in your own blanks experience. But here that is where fair sweet Rosimund comes in, the paired-off part.

I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present this scenario. You are ready to flee, boy or girl flee, to some safe attic hideaway, to reach for some dusty ancient comfort teddy bear, or for the venturesome, some old sepia brownie camera picture album safely hidden in those environs, but flee, no question, at the suggestion of those painful first times when sweaty-handed, profusely sweaty-handed, boy met too-tall girl on the dance floor (age too-tall girls hormone shooting up first, later things settled down, a little). Now for those who are hopped up, or even mildly interested, in such ancient rituals you may be thinking, oh well, this won’t be so bad after all since I am talking about the mid-1950s and they had Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on the television to protect us from having to dance close, what with those funny self-expression dance moves like the Stroll and the Hully-Gully that you see on re-runs. And then go on except, maybe, the last dance, the last close dance that spelled success or failure in the special he or she night so let me tell you how really bad we had it in the plaid 1960s. Wrong.

Oh, of course, we were all after school black and white television-addled and addicted making sure that we got home by three in the afternoon to catch the latest episode of the American Bandstand saga about who would, or wouldn’t, dance with that cute girl in the corner (or that leering Amazon in the front). That part was true, true enough. But here we are not talking fun dancing, close or far away, but learning dancing, school-time dancing, come on get with it. What we are talking about in my case is that the dancing part turned out to be the basics of country bumpkin square-dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy, yes, sweaty-palmed, star-crossed ten-year-old boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” and some off-hand “doze-zee dozes(sic)” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with the girl that I had a “crush” on, a serious crush on, and that is where Rosimund really enters the story.

Rosimund see, moreover, was not from “the projects” but from one of the new single-family homes, ranch-style homes that the up and coming middle-class were moving into up the road. In case you didn’t know, or have forgotten, I grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks” down at the Seaside Heights Housing Authority apartments. The rough side of town, okay. You knew that the minute I mentioned the name, that SHHA name, and rough is what you thought, and that is okay. Now. But although I had started getting a handle on the stick "projects" girls I was totally unsure how to deal with girls from the “world.” And Rosimund very definitely was from the world. I will not describe her here; although I could do so even today, but let us leave it at her name. Rosimund. Enchanting name, right? 

Thoughts of white-plumed knighted medieval jousts against some black-hooded, armored thug knight for the fair maiden’s hand, or for her favors (whatever they were then, mainly left unexplained, although we all know what they are now, and are glad of it)

Nothing special about the story so far, though. Even I am getting a little sleepy over it. Just your average one-of-the-stages-of-the-eternal-coming-of-age-story. I wish. Well, the long and short of it was that the reason we were practicing this square-dancing was to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of school-time activity unless one can impress one's parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. Parents, refreshments, various local dignitaries, half the school administrators from downtown whom I will go to my grave believing could have cared less if it was square-dancing or basket-weaving because they would have ooh-ed and ah-ed us whatever it was. But that is so much background filler. Here is the real deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosimund, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square-dancer look, some now farmer brown look but back then maybe not so bad.

I thought I looked pretty good. And Rosimund, looking nice in some blue taffeta dress with a dark red shawl thing draped and pinned across her shoulders (although don’t quote me on that dress thing, what did a ten-year old boy, sister-less, know of such girlish fashion things. I was just trying to keep my hands in my pockets to wipe my sweaty hands for twirling time, for Rosimund twirling time) actually beamed at me, and said I looked like a gentleman farmer. Be still my heart. Like I said I thought I looked pretty good, and if Rosimund thought so well then, well indeed. And things were going nicely. That is until my mother, sitting in a front row audience seat as was her wont, saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me, and started yelling about my disrespect for my father's and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity.

Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home by said irate mother and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father also heard about it when he got home from that hard day’s work that he was too infrequently able to get to keep the wolves from the door, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my 'chances' with dear, sweet Rosimund.

Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the nature of class society that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Just like you might have remembered about me back in the day. Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? A little. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in the world? Damn right. That is the point. …But, oh, Rosimund.

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Ain’t Got No Time For The Corner Boys-Harry's Variety Store

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing his song Jersey Girl that formed part of the inspiration for this sketch.

Markin comment:

Riding down the old neighborhood streets a while back, the old North Adamsville working- class streets, streets dotted with dilapidated, worn out, and ill-repaired triple-deckers housing multiple families (big immigrant families as of yore, just the countries of origin have changed, trying to make up in person per packed space for lack of dough, as of yore, too) along with close-quarter, small cottage-sized single family houses like the one of my own growing to manhood time. Houses, moreover, that reflected, no exclaimed right to their tiny rooftops, that seemingly eternal overweening desire to have, small or not, worth the trouble or not, something of one’s own against the otherwise endless servitude of days. Suddenly, coming to an intersection, I was startled, no, more than that, I was forced into a double-take, by the sight of some guys, some teenage guys hanging, hanging hard, one foot on the ground the other bent holding up the infernal brick wall that spoke of practice and marking one’s territory, against the oncoming night in front of an old time variety store, a mom and pop variety from some extinct times before the 7/11 chain store, fast food shop, no room for corner boys, police take notice, dark night.

Memory called it Kelly’s of yore, today Kim’s. From the look of them, baggy-panted (actually double-panted the outer pair hanging low, ground low, the latest fashionista footwear name sneakered, baseball cap-headed, all items marked, marked with the insignia (secretly, and with no hope of outside decoding) signifying their "homeboy" associations (I would say gang, but that word is charged with deep negative old time juvenile delinquent murder and mayhem associations these days and this is not exactly what it looked like, at least to the public eye, my public eye). They could be the grandsons, certainly not biological because these kids were almost all Asians speckled with a couple of Irish-lookers, red-faced, blue-eyed shanty Irish-lookers, shanty Irish –lookers out of the ghost be-bop night guys that held me in thrall in those misty early 1960s times.

Yah, that tableau, that time-etched scene, got me to thinking of some long lost comrades of the schoolboy night like the hang-around guys in front of Harry’s Variety, although comrades might not be the right word because I was just some punk young kid trying to be a wannabe, or half-wannabe, corner boy and they had no time for punk kids and later when I came of age I had no time for corner boys. Yah, that scene got me to thinking of the old time corner boys who ruled the whole wide North Adamsville night (and day for those who didn’t work or go to school, which was quite a few on certain days, because most of these guys were between sixteen and their early twenties with very jittery school and work histories better left unspoken, or else). Yah, got me thinking about when the white tee-shirted, blue-jeaned, engineer-booted, cigarette-smoking, unfiltered of course, sneering, soda-swilling, Coke, naturally, pinball wizards held forth daily and nightly, and let me cadge a few odd games when they had more important business, more important girl business, to attend to.

Yah, I got to thinking too about Harry’s, old Harry’s Variety Store over there near my grandmother’s house, over there in that block on Sagamore Street where the Irish workingman’s whiskey-drinking (with a beer chaser), fist-fighting, sports-betting after a hard day’s work Dublin Grille was. Harry’s was on the corner of that block. Now if you have some image, some quirky, sentimental image, of Harry’s as being run by an up-and-coming just arrived immigrant guy, maybe with a big family, trying to make this neighborhood store thing work so he can take in, take in vicariously anyway, the American dream like you see running such places now forget it. Harry’s was nothing but a“front.” Old Harry, Harry O’Toole, now long gone, was nothing but the neighborhood “bookie” known far and wide to one and all as such. Even the cops would pull up in their squad cars to place their bets, laughingly, with Harry in the days before state became the bookie-of-choice for most bettors. And he had his “book,” his precious penciled-notation book right out on the counter. But see punk kid me, even then just a little too book-unworldly didn’t pick up on that fact until old grandmother, jesus, neighborhood saint old grandmother“hipped” me to what was what in that section of the old neighborhood.

Until then I didn’t think anything of the fact that Harry had about three dust-laden cans of soup, two dust-laden cans of beans, a couple of loaves of bread (Wonder Bread, if you want to know) on his dust-laden shelves, a few old quarts of milk and an ice chest full of tonic (now called soda, even by New Englanders) and a few other odds and ends that did not, under any theory of economics, capitalist or Marxist, add up to a thriving business ethos. Unless, of course, something else was going on. But what drew me to Harry’s was not that stuff anyway. What drew me to Harry’s was, one, his pin ball machine complete with corner boy players and their corner boy ways, and, two, his huge Coca Cola ice chest (now sold as antique curiosities for much money at big-time flea markets and other venues) filled with ice cold, cold tonics (see above), especially the local Robb’s Root Beer that I was practically addicted to in those days (and that Harry, kind-hearted Harry, stocked for me).

Many an afternoon, a summer’s afternoon for sure, or an occasional early night, I would sip, sip hard on my Robb’s and watch the corner boys play, no sway, sway just right, with that sweet pinball machine, that pin ball machine with the bosomy, lusty-looking, cleavage-showing women pictured on the top glass frame of the machine practically inviting you, and only you the player, on to some secret place if you just put in enough coins. Of course, like many dream-things what those lusty dames really gave you, only you the player, was maybe a few free games. Teasers, right. But I had to just watch at first because I was too young (you had to be sixteen to play) , however, every once in a while, one of the corner boys who didn’t want to just gouge out my eyes for not being a corner boy, would let me cadge a game while Harry was not looking. When you think about it though, now anyway, Harry was so “connected”(and you know what I mean by that) what the hell did he care if some underage kid, punk kid, cadged a few games and looked leeringly at those bosomy babes in the frame.

Yah, and thinking about Harry’s automatically got me thinking about Daniel (nobody ever called him that, ever) “Red” Hickey, the boss king of my schoolboy night at Harry’s. Red, the guy who set the rules, set the style, hell, set the breathing, allowed or not and when, of the place. I don’t know if he went to some corner boy school to learn his trade but he was the be-bop daddy (at least all the girls, all the hanging all over him girls, called him that and later alone down at some splash Seal Rock ocean front rendezvous did whatever daddy wanted, although that is strictly hearsay on my part) because he, except for one incident that I will relate below, ruled unchallenged with an iron fist. At least I never saw his regular corner boys Spike, Lenny, Shawn, Ward, Goof (yes, that was his name the only name I knew him by, and he liked it), Bop (real name William) or the Clipper (real name Kenny, the arch-petty Woolworth’sthief of the group hence the name) challenge him, or want to.

Yah, Red, old red-headed Red was tough alright, and has a pretty good-sized built but that was not what kept the others in line. It was a certain look he had, a certain look that if I went into describing it now I would get way overboard into describing it as some stone-cold killer look, some psycho-killer look but that would be wrong because it didn’t show that way. But that was what it was. Maybe I had better put it this way. Tommy Thunder, older brother of my middle school and high school best friend and a corner boy king in his own right, Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, who was a big bruiser of a legendary North Adamsville football player and human wrecking machine and who lived a few doors up from Harry’s went out of his way not to go near the place. Yah, Red was that tough.

See, he was like some general, or colonel or something, an officer at least, and besides being tough, he would “inspect” his troops to see that all and sundry had their “uniform” right. White tee-shirt, full-necked, no vee-neck sissy stuff, no muscle shirt half-naked stuff, straight 100% cotton, American-cottoned, American-textiled, American-produced, ironed, mother-ironed I am sure, crisp. One time Goof (sorry that’s all I knew him by, really) had a wrinkled shirt on and Red marched him up the street to his triple-decker cold-water walk-up flat and berated, berated out loud for all to hear, Goof’s mother for letting him out of the house like that. And Red, old Red like all Irish guys sanctified mothers, at least in public, so you can see he meant business on the keeping the uniform right question.

And like some James Dean or Marlon Brando tough guy photo, some motorcycle disdainful, sneering guy photo, each white tee-shirt, or the right sleeve of each white tee-shirt anyway, was rolled up to provide a place, a safe haven, for the ubiquitous package of cigarettes, matches inserted inside its cellophane outer wrapping, Luckies, Chesterfields, Camels, Pall Malls, all unfiltered in defiance of the then beginning incessant cancer drumbeat warnings, for the day’s show of manliness smoking pleasures.

Blue jeans, tight fit, no this scrub-washed, fake-worn stuff, but worn and then discarded worn. No chinos, no punk kid, maybe faux "beatnik," black chinos, un-cuffed, or cuffed like I wore, and Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, king of the faux beatnik middle school night, including among his devotees this little too bookish writer, who was as tough a general, colonel, or some officer anyway, as corner boy Red was with his guys. Frankie example: no cuffs on those black chinos, stay home, or go elsewhere, if you are cuffed. Same kingly manner, right? Corner boys blue-jeaned and wide black-belted, black always, black-belt used as a handy weapon for that off-hand street fight that might erupt out of nowhere, for no reason, or many. Maybe a heavy-duty watch chain, also war-worthy, dangly down from those jeans. Boots, engineer boots, black and buckled, worn summer or winter, heavy, heavy-heeled, spit-shined, another piece of the modern armor for street fight nights. Inspection completed the night’s work lies ahead.

And most nights work, seemingly glamorous to little too bookish eyes at the time, was holding up some corner of the brick wall in front, or on the side of, Harry’s Variety with those engineer boots, one firmly on the ground the other bent against the wall, small talk, small low-tone talk between comrades waiting, waiting for… Or just waiting for their turn at that Harry’s luscious ladies pictured pinball machine. Protocol, strictly observed, required “General Red” to have first coin in the machine. But see old Red was the master swayer with that damn machine and would rack up free games galore so, usually, he was on that thing for a while.

Hey, Red was so good, although this is not strictly part of the story, that he could have one of his several honeys right in front of him on the machine pressing some buttons and he behind pressing some other buttons Red swaying and his Capri-panted honey, usually some blond, real or imagined, swaying, and eyes glazing, but I better let off with that description right now, because like I said it was strictly speaking not part of the story. What is part of the story is that Red, when he was in the mood or just bored, or had some business, some girl business, maybe that blond, real or imagined, just mentioned business would after I had been hanging around a while, and he thought I was okay, give me his leftover free games.

Now that was the “innocent” part of Red, the swaying pinball wizard, girl-swaying, inspector general part. But see if you want to be king of the corner boy night you have to show your metal once in a while, if for no other reason than the corner boys, the old time North Adamsville corner boys might be just a little forgetful of who the king hell corner boy king was, or as I will describe, some other corner boy king of some other variety store night might show up to see what was what. Now I must have watched the Harry’s corner boy scene for a couple of years, maybe three, the last part just off and on, but I only remember once when I saw Red show “his colors.” Some guy from Adamsville, some tough-looking guy who, no question, was a corner boy just stopped at Harry’s after tipping a couple, or twenty, at the Dublin Grille. He must have said something to Red, or maybe Red just knew instinctively that he had to show his colors, but all of a sudden these two were chain-whipping each other. No, that’s not quite right, Red was wailing, flailing, nailing, chain-whipping this other guy mercilessly, worst, if that is possible. The guy, after a few minutes, was left in a pool of blood on the street, ambulance ready. And Red just walked way, just kind of sauntering away.

Of course that is not the end of the Red story. Needless to say, no work, no wanna work Red had to have coin, dough, not just for the pinball machine, cigarettes, and soda, hell, that was nothing. But for the up-keep on his Chevy (Chevy then being the “boss” car, and not just among corner boys either), and that stream of ever-loving blond honeys, real or imagined, he escorted into the seashore night. So said corner boys did their midnight creep around the area grabbing this and that to bring in a little dough. Eventually Red “graduated”to armed robberies when the overhead grew too much for little midnight creeps, and graduated to one of the branches of the state pen, more than once. Strangely, his end came, although I only heard about this second hand, after a shoot-out with the cops down South after he tried to rob some White Henconvenience store. There is some kind of moral there, although I will be damned if I can figure it out. Red, thanks for those free games though.

The "Projects" Boys... And Girls-For Denny And All The Other Adamsville Housing Authority Survivors From The Class Of 1964-With Tom Waits In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing Jersey Girl

"Ain't Got No Time For The Corner Boys, Down In The Streets Making All That Noise"- The first line from Tom Waits classic working class love song, Jersey Girl. The best version of the song by Tom Waits is the one that you can link to on YouTube above.
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Peter Paul Markin, Adamsville Housing Authority Alumnus and North Adamsville, Class Of 1964, (although most AHA alumni graduated from cross-town rival, Adamsville High) comment:

Funny how some stories get their start. A few years back one of my old Adamsville South Elementary corner boys, Denny Romano, he of the squeaky burgeoning tenor in our impromptu 1950s back end of the school-yard summer nights doo wop group (and I of the squeaky bass, low, very low bass) “connected” with me again. He did so not through this site but through one of those looking for old high school graduate-based Internet sites that relentlessly track you down just as, in your dotage; you think you have finally gotten out from under that last remnant speck of fighting off the last forty years of your teen alienation and teen angst.

Denny asked me to speak of the old “corner boy” days down at “the projects,” the Adamsville Housing Authority low-rent housing where the desperately poor, temporarily so or not, were warehoused in our town in the post-World War II good night when some returning veteran fathers needed a helping hand to get them going back into civilian life. Corner boys, in case you were clueless (or too young to know of anything but mall rat-dom), were guys, mainly, who “hung out” together. Poor boy, no money, no other place to go, or with no transportation to get some place, hung out in front of a million mom and pop variety corner variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner bowling alleys, corner fast food joints, hell, even corner gas stations in some real small towns from what some guys have told me when I asked them. Here is the odd part though. Ya, we were corner boys even that young, although we had no corner, no official corner like a corner mom and pop variety store, or a pizza parlor like I did later at Doc’s Drugstore in middle school and then as the king hell king’s scribe to Frankie Riley in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor but just the back end of the elementary school, as long as we were quiet and nobody cried murder and mayhem to the cops. The following, in any case, a little revised, represents my “homage” to Denny and the gang from those by-gone days and even the girls that ninety-three point four percent of the time I was scared to death of/ fascinated by. Well, some things haven’t changed anyway.
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Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, the Old Sailor’s Home, the Shipyard (abandoned now) and Sea Street. Yes, those streets and places from the old public housing project down in the Germantown section of Adamsville surely evoke imagines of the near-by sea that touched its edges, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And with the wherewithal to hold on to their booty (no, not that booty, dough, prizes, stuff like that) But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville had to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turns her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.

Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind, the human kind . No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.

Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor & Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs.

The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route to greater Adamsville. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street but police take notice off limits to corners boys young or old, another lifeline. Many a time I reached in Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small hoodlum wanna-be larcenies, in order to hike down that long road and get my sugar-drenched stash (candy bars, soda, a.k.a. tonic but that word is long gone, Twinkles, Moon Pies, and so on, sugar-drenched all)

And the kids. Well, the idea in those “golden” post-war days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turn-over of friends but there was a core of kids, kids like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Or get beaten down by guys just a little hungrier, a little stronger, or with just a little bigger chip on their shoulder. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and "thems were the rules." Rules that seemed to come out of eternity’s time, and like eternity never challenged.

I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With old elementary school classmate Rickie B., Denny knows who I am talking about, who, later, served twenty years, maybe more for all know, for a series of armed robberies, I worked my first "clip" in some downtown Adamsville Square jewelry store, Sid’s I think, the one with all the onyx rings on display in the front and the twelve signs about how you could have anything in the place on very easy terms, only a million installments (with interest piling up, of course). No, thanks. The clip, again for the clueless, is nothing but kids’ stuff, strictly for amateurs because no professional thief would risk his or her good name for such a low-rent payoff. The deal was one guy went in and got the salesperson’s attention while the other guy ripped off whatever was “hanging low on the tree.” In that arrangement I was usually the “tree” guy not because I had quick hands, although come to think of it I did (and big eyes, big greedy eyes for all the booty, and you know what booty means here now since I told you before), but because I didn’t have the knack of talking gibberish to adults. Hell, you probably did the clip yourself, maybe for kicks. And then forgot about it for some other less screwy kick. Not me.

Okay, so at that point maybe every kid, every curious kid ready in whatever manner to challenge authority and I (and most of my then corner boys, although not Denny if I recall correctly) are even. Here is the tie-breaker though. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting, a lonely gringo deal down in Mexico, went south on him). See George was a true artist, a true sneak thief who was able to get into any house by stealth and sheer determination. Mainly houses up in Adams Shore where people actually had stuff worth stealing unlike in the projects where the stuff was so much Bargain Center specials (the local Wal-Mart-like operation of its day). He needed me for two, no three, things. First, I was the “look-out” and even the clueless know what that means. Secondly, I actually held and carried some of the loot that he passed to me out of the window or door, and one time out a backyard bulkhead (the good stuff, televisions, silverware, a stamp collection, a coin collection, and some other stuff that I have forgotten about, was in the basement family room). Lastly, as George started to draw school and police attention I actually “held” the stuff in a safe location (which I will not disclose here just in case the various statutes of limitations have not run out). That went on for a while but George got busted for something else, some unruly child baloney rap thing, and that was that.

That was just a kid’s gangster moment, right? It was not all larcenies and kid dreams of some “big score” to get himself, and his family, out from under though. It couldn’t be for a kid, or the whole world, poor as it was, would have just collapsed over my head, and I would not be here to honor Denny’s request.

Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires on New Year’s Eve where we scurried like rats just as soon as neighbors put their trees out to be taken away in order to assemble them on the beach ready to be fired up and welcome in the new year. Or annual Halloween hooliganism where we, in a sugar frenzy, worked the neighborhood trick or treat racket hitting every house like the 82nd Airborne Division, or some such elite unit running amok in Baghdad or some Iraqi town ...

Hey, wait a minute, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in my memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening." Girls. Girls turning from sticks to shapes just around the time that I started to notice the difference, and being interested in that different if not always sure about what it meant. You don’t need a book to figure that out, although maybe it would have helped. And being fascinated and ill at ease at the same time around them, and being a moonstruck kid on every girl that gave me a passing glance, or what I thought was a passing glance, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you. And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Remind me to tell you some time, and here is where Denny comes in, how we put together, a bunch of corner-less corner boys, a ragtag doo wop group one summer for the express, the sole, the only purpose of, well, luring girls to the back of the school where we hung out. And it worked.

Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects." And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I was seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle, that “holding” stuff with my corner boy comrade George, I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Adamsville South Elementary School (now further up the street toward Adamsville Square). And one summer I just started to read every biography or other interesting book they had in the Children's Section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult Section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale. Is that good enough for you, Denny?


Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics

Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.

'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And i'll take you all on the rides.

Down the shore everything's alright,
You're with your baby on a saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When i'm walkin' down the street with you,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.

You know she thrills me with all her charms,
When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,
My little angel gives me everything,
I know someday that she'll wear my ring.

So don't bother me cause i got no time,
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,
Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,
When you're in love with a jersey girl,
Sing sha la la la la la la.

And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,
Sha la la la la la la.

***Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1960-61, Take Two- In The Time Of Donna Blanchard’s Time- With Elvis Presley In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mark Dinning performing his 1960s teen angst classic, Teen Angel

CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61-Take Two, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1997

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series.

Doc’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain(not shown), located in the heart of the North Adamsville shopping streets, and most importantly, just a few minutes walk from North Adamsville High School. The soda fountain counter area is complete with a dozen single stools, a speckled faux-marble formica countertop with assorted pastry trays, candy boxes, pie cabinets and various condiment combinations for Doc’s ‘greasy spoon” hamburgers and hot dogs. Said single stools are strictly for losers, girl friend-less guys (or once in a great while a girl just trying catch a quick soda on the way home) or old people waiting for Doc to fill their ancient medicines prescriptions. They are no factor, no factor at all in this teen-worthy world. No, less than no factor. Every once in a while, however, one of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys takes his foot off the wall in front of Doc’s and enters to get a take out Cherry Coke, the de riguer drink of Fritz’s boyos.

But the fountain is strictly for food and drink, food and drink that is also strictly secondary to why Doc’s is a teen-worthy heaven. The real draw is the quiet booths that line both corner walls and are only for after school boy-girl couples, four-some girls looking for guys to dance with, and at night, mainly school year weekend and summer every nights, Fritz’s Cullen’s corner boys when they tire of holding up Doc’s wall out front (or more realistically when the hour is late and the girl prospects have dimmed). But the booths mean nothing by themselves except as “resting” areas after some fast dance coming from Doc’s super-charged juke box, complete with the very latest records straight from Pete’ Platters Record Shop so you know the are hot.

Right now, just this very teen ear minute, one can hear the sassy sound of The Drifters This Magic Moment in the background as we fix on a boy and girl taking a break from deep conversation (deep conversation related in teen world to either sex, setting up dates, analyzing the state of their eternal relationship, or some combination of all three) and taking a straw sip from their shared Cherry Coke. The Cherry Coke automatically means that rank and file Doc’s corner boy Harry “Red” Radley is present on one of the straws. On the other Donna Blanchard, one of the hottest sixteen year old sophomore girls at North Adamsville High, with a nice shape, a sweet smile, and a “come hither” look that has had more than one boy moony-eyed for her affections. But no dice, no dice at all. In this autumn of the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty Miss Donna Blanchard only has eyes, and whatever else she has to give, for one Red Radley. Let’s listen in as the eminently forgettable Booby Vee is droning on in the background about some lost love (and rightfully so, if the truth be known) on Take Good Care Of My Baby.
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“What the matter, honey, don’t you want me like that, “ murmered Donna Blanchard after being told for the fifth or sixth time by our corner boy Red Radley that, if you can believe this, no he was not ready for heavy sex (meaning of course, in the language of the young, some variety of “going all the way”). It seems that last Saturday night down at Adamsville Beach, the local “parking” heaven where one and all went to see the ”submarine races” in the local teen code parlance Donna, making no bones that she was ready, more than ready, to go all the way with Red got turned down. Turned down flat. Fortunately for Red Donna, embarrassed by such a fool for a boy friend, had “neglected” to mention this hard fact of life when the obligatory Monday morning Girls’ “Lav” talk got around to the subject of the weekend scorecard. In short, who did, and didn’t do it. Right now Red and Donna are trying to sort things out as a strangely ironic song by Cathy Jean and the Roommates, Please Love Me Forever, spins on the juke box.

What? A member in good standing of Fritz Cullen’s corner boys, corner boys who have, publicly anyway, notched up (went all they way with) more North Adamsville girls than maybe there were girls in North Adamsville turned down a chance at paradise. And turned down a certified fox like Donna Blanchard. No way. Moreover, Red, displaying he not uncommon teen male bravado had lied to his fellow corner boys and said that he had had already “gone all the way” with Donna. Jesus. Did our Red have a medical problem? No. Did he have some religious scruples about pre-martial sex? Hell, no. Our Red, as it turns out was a virgin and was terrified when Donna, a virgin herself but ready for the time of her time, came on so strong. Especially when she went wild on Saturday night when the local 24/7 rock and roll station, WMEX, played a medley of Elvis tunes including his latest, Surrender.

Some times things end right in the teen universe, sometimes they don’t. This time they didn’t. Well, at least for Red. After their little conversation at Doc’s Red and Donna agreed, but mostly Donna agreed, that they should see other people. That’s teen code, and maybe universal code, for “breaking up.” So now one sees the fetching Donna Blanchard riding around in Jimmy Jakes '59 cherry Chevy, and sitting very close indeed. Moreover she has that look, that certain look like she now knows a thing or two about ways of the world. Well, after all it was the time of her time, wasn’t it? As for Red, well, Red is seen more and more occupying one of those single stools at Doc’s counter sipping a Cherry Coke and endlessly throwing nickels, dimes and quarters in the juke box playing Elvis’ It’s Now or Never. Enough said.

Out In The Be-Bop Be-Bop 1960s Night- The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Rock: 1960-61- Take Three- When Sammy Russo Ran The Skee Ball Lanes- With Bo Diddley In Mind

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Shirelles performing their classic Tonight’s The Night
CD Review

The Heart Of Rock ‘n’ Roll: 1960-61, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1996

Scene: Brought to mind by one of the snapshot photos that grace each CD in this series. The then newly built Gloversville Amusement Park created out of farmland just west of the old home town, Clintondale. Of course it had all the latest rides, including two Ferris wheels, two different-sized roller coasters (one for the faint-hearted, the other for the brave, or fool-hearty) refreshment stands seemingly without end, and other refinements, including for our particular purposes not one by two game pavilions anchored by rows of skee lanes. Skee lanes that Sammy Russo ruled (that‘s the guy eating the proffered popcorn in the photo) claimed kingship over and over which Patty Smith (the popcorn profferee in said photo) sought to be his queen. If she could handle the gaffe.
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“Christ, Patty how many of these damn, god awful kewpie dolls do you need anyway?,” yelled Sammy Russo, the King Of The Skee Ball night at Gloversville Amusement Park and also a 1960s king hell king of a corner boy at Doc Sweeney’s Drugstore (complete with soda fountain, natch, and a juke box too else why be a corner boy there, or anything else) out in the Clintondale be-bop night to his wanna-be sweetie, Patty Smith. And it was a question that he expected an answer to, a prompt, no sass answer, newness wearing off or not, newness of their “steady” hood-ness, that is.

See, Patty got big eyes for Sammy right here at the FUNland game pavilion (no that is not a typo that is the way the name in front of the game pavilion read) at the beginning of summer, right after school let out. School, of course, being North Adamsville High in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty if anybody asks you, and they might. And, for that matter, how else would I know of the Sammy-Patty love story, I ask you, if that wasn’t so. I am one of Sammy’s Doc’s corner boy, uh, associates. Gloversville proper, by the way, is too new and rural raw to have its own high school so kids from Gloversville come over to North Clintondale where there is some extra room just now. But Gloversville kids, farm boys and girls mainly, are strictly squaresville. No dispute. The only reason that anybody from North Clintonville High, any corner boy (or his girl) would even set foot in Gloversville for one minute, no one second, was to pass ever-loving Main Street (really Route 16) through to the edge of town seeking the newly built Gloversville Amusement Park. And that is the reason why Sammy and Patty are standing here in front of the FUNland skee ball lanes having their first “argument.” Well, kind of an argument.

Patty was either in some high funk, or did not hear Sammy the first time over the din of the Gene Daniel’s A Hundred Pounds Of Clay followed immediately by The Chieftains Heart And Soul, blaring over the loudspeaker. A loudspeaker that we finally figured out was used by the management to juice up the pinball/skee ball/games atmosphere so no one could think so he repeated himself. And Patty faux-demurely answered (as was her way when Sammy got this, well, this Sammy Doc’s corner boy way)-“Until I get the whole set of twelve, and not before.” [Markin: For those who are breathlessly on the edge of their seats waiting to know why there are twelve it is simple. There are twelve kewpies representing twelve different nations/major ethnic groups, natch, they had that part of the soft sell down easy] “Christ,” said Sammy under his breathe, “We will be here all night.”

All night skee-ing when Sammy, king of the skees or not, had other things, other wrestling in some secluded spot out back by the artificial lake that formed one of the edges of the park things, on his mind. With one Patty Smith, of course. And that would not be the first time, the first wrestling time. Funny, just then the newest Shirelles' hit came over the speaker, Tonight’s The Night. But just now he knew deep in his bones, knew as if he had been married to Miss Smith for fifty years, that tonight was not going to be the night if she did not go home with not ten, not eleven, but exactly twelve f—king kewpie dolls.

Now this skee thing, on an average night is nothing but a sure thing when Sammy has his motor running. When his mind is on skees, okay. But playing enough games to “win” twelve dolls, or for that matter twelve rabbits’ feet or twelve leis (lesser prizes in the skee universe) requires a certain perseverance and good aim. [Markin: For those who do not know skee it is like bowling, candle-pin bowling (small balls for those not from New England) in that you roll the bowl up a short lane and like darts or rifle target shooting in that you have a target. The idea is to get as many points (and hence coupons) with nine balls as possible. The points convert to coupons which are dispensed near where you place your money to start a game . Get enough coupons and you win prizes from those lame leis to kewpie dolls. Simple.] But, like I said, Sammy’s mind had been elsewhere, especially when Patty, yes, Patty brought up the subject of wrestling down by that lake if things worked out at skee. And as if to punctuate her sentence Brenda Lee’s You Can Depend On Me came on while these “negotiations” were in progress.

But this night Sammy, king hell corner boy is whipped, just plain whipped by the task before him. It is almost closing time (11:00 PM) and Sammy has won exactly five dolls. And Sammy, while he can be as smooth as any Doc’s Drugstore corner boy, except maybe Fritz Gentry, or as cold as any hard-boiled Hell’s Angel motorcycle corner boy from the Blarney Bar&Grille in the hard-night part of Clintondale is ready to explode at Patty. Not for her foolish girl desire for the damn dolls. That is how girls are and what makes them tick. No, Sammy is fed up that his prowess at skee had to be put in play by Patty’s silly notions. So come eleven o'clock and defeat Sammy, cold as ice, says to Patty, “Okay, we are finished, I’ll take you home now but I have had it.” So they walked, walked pretty far apart for two people on the same planet, back to Sammy’s father’s car and he did not even open Patty’s door for her. Bad news, no question. She got in and as the car radio heated up wouldn’t you know in a night filled with omens and portents that just then the local all-night rock ‘n’ roll station would be playing Connie Francis’ Breakin’ In A Brand New Broken Heart. And both Sammy and Patty were absolutely quiet while that song was being played.

On “Sexless” Internet Sex Sites- Or How “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin Got His Comeuppance- Finally- With The North Adamsville Salducci's Pizza Parlor Corner Boys In Mind

Normally I provide a link to some relevant topic in the headline on my posts. Do not click on the headline to link to an Internet sex site. Are you kidding? All you have to do is type in the word sex on any search engine and you will be inundated with every type of fetish you every wanted, or didn't want, to know about. We are all adults here-happy hunting-on your own.
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Peter Paul Markin comment:

Hey, everybody knows, or should be presumed to know to use some legal parlance which may become necessary before this latest “fire storm” is over, that this site is an exemplar of politics, mainly communist propaganda politics. No way is it some way station for AARP-worthy sex-starved refugees and fidgety lonely-hearts from back in my corner boy youth days. Although apparently that fate, short of some drastic legal action on my part, is what looms before me after I, unwittingly I think, let an old corner boy friend from the North Adamsville Salducci’s Pizza Parlor high school hang-out night, Johnny Silver, have some space here to tell what turned out to be a pretty salacious story about how he “hooked-up” with some young, very young, barely legal woman that he met through a sex-oriented Internet site.

My permissive attitude on this not strictly politically-driven subject was to let Johnny hold forth on the basis that intergenerational sex is still, more or less, socially taboo in this society and that under a future communist society we will take a much more liberal attitude on the subject as well as on many other now sexually-repressed notions. Johnny’s story, which I admit had even my temperature going up a bit after reading it, however set off this current fire storm.

Not about the struggle against imperialism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Not the struggle to make some headway against the bosses and their relentless drive for profits at the workers expense here in America, and internationally. Not even commentary on the death penalty, gay marriage, the perfidy of Barack Obama, or the lunacy of the tea-partiers. No, I have been deluged with e-mails by every AARP-type that I know who want to harass me in order to tell their misbegotten tales of missed sexual opportunities, the sexual discrimination against oldsters by younger, well, younger women okay, or whatever else is on their minds except those much more important subjects. Please, please stop. Tell it to Oprah, or whoever is working that street these days.

The worst of the lot was my old corner boy (part-time corner boy at Salducci’s but full-time at the Surf and Sea Club in summer and whatever and wherever in winter) “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin. Now Phil, who I actually met in junior high school (a.k.a. middle school) through my chieftain in those days, Frankie Riley, really did deserve that nickname. Even Frankie and I walked away from Phil when he got going with every swear known to the English language (and some in Gaelic too-at least that is what he said his grandfather taught him). So you can imagine what the girls felt when he went full-bore. Strangely Phil, unlike now as his story below will explain, never lacked for girlfriends, and not just wrong side of the tracks, low-life, slutty girls either but many girls who you could see, see and stare at, every Sunday at 8:00 AM Mass over at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. So, maybe, he touched off something basic in them with his language. Personally, while I could swear like a trooper when necessary, I didn’t around girls or in public that much.

In any case, as I have already telegraphed above Phil, still using that ill-bred language has threatened murder, mayhem, and, more importantly, legal action (something about gross denial of freedom of expression) if I don’t post his sad-ass story. Needless to say that approach by itself does not get one anywhere with me. However in line with my idea in posting Johnny Silver’s salacious little sex tale noted above I have agreed to post Phil’s saga if only to use it as an example of sexual repression under capitalism and why we need, desperately need, that socialist revolution that is the hallmark of the real purpose of this space. Needless to say I take no personal, political, social, linguistic, or, most importantly, legal responsibility for this story. I have edited it lightly for language and content but this is strictly “Foul-Mouth” Phil Larkin’s story. If you want to take legal action against him feel free to do so. Needless to say as well that Phil is in no way (thankfully) political, much less a communist, although he desperately could use a shot, a big shot, of what our communist future promises.

Phillip Larkin comment:

First of all before I get into my f--king hard luck story about my sexless life on the sex sites let me clear the air about something that that twerp Peter Paul Markin said about my “foul-mouth.” You know in junior high school (now known as middle school) young,f--king hormone-juggling guys (and girls I found out later) don’t always know how to deal with that hard fact of growing up and my way was to swear a little. Big deal, right? Big deal then, or now. But you also know, and even f- -king Markin knows this, at that age you get a certain “rep” and it carries around with you like a lead balloon all through school, especially with guys that you hang around with. Like Markin was always from day one that I met him “The Scribe” (always capitalized, by the way) anointed by Frankie Riley and it stuck even though he hated to be called that. [Markin: Okay Phil we get the point. Let’s move on.] And so my little swearing episodes, not much really, got me tagged as, well, foul-mouthed [Markin: Phil must have a slight case of amnesia on this “little” thing. He was the world, well, at least the North Adamsville Junior High, champion swearer. He is the only kid, and Frankie Riley will back me up on this, who was able to make a sentence using only swear words. Some feat. Phil is, apparently, far too “humble” now to take a bow for that now.]

The thing about swearing though is that it never got me in much trouble with the girls. The Scribe [Markin: Watch it, Phil] was always (and Frankie too) very prim and proper in his language around girls although it never got him anywhere. And The Scribe (oops, Markin) could swear worst than me when he got his Irish up. But that is neither here nor there. Unless he wants to make something of it now. What it all ties in with though is that I have always used a certain amount of rough language around girls and they have either found it “cute” or, and here you have to take my word for it, kind of got “turned on” by it. [Markin: Sure thing, Phil]. I’ll give an example and Markin will be surprised. Millie Callahan the best, or one of the best, looking sixteen-year old girls in old North Adamsville was very prim and proper as well as hot-looking. She went to 8:00 AM Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart every week. And every week I would meet her after Mass and walk her to old Adamsville Beach. Sweating like a trooper. Maybe once in a while she would blush but mostly she got “turned on.” Turned on especially by one word that I used in many contexts on our walks. One Sunday, I swear, she got so aroused that, well let’s say we “did it” and you can figure out what the “did it” part was, right down on the beach near the old North Adamsville Yacht Club (there was a little secluded area that everybody knew about). And we were together through the rest of high school, “doing it” just fine. [Markin: Yes, Phil, Millie was a fox, for sure. I used sit a couple of rows in back of her at Mass to look at her ass. By the way everybody knew you two were “doing it.” And I was jealous, no question. It was only because she went to St. Anne’s High and not North Adamsville High that it was not more widely known and commented on. Nice work, Phil.]

The whole point of bringing this swearing thing up this many years later though is that, more often that not, the way I got entangled [Markin: Nice word, Phil] with women later on was that same basic approach. Sure I went through three marriages, and a several girlfriends, so maybe my “sticking” power wasn’t so great but it got short haul, short ashes hauled results. Anyway after the last one left a couple of years ago I started to notice that because of that lost and my changed work situation (working out of the house more with the luxury of the Internet age computer niceness) I wasn’t running into women to swear to, any maybe turn on.

Now I have read Johnny Silver’s wicked little story about his “trials and tribulations” with the young quail and how he was wasting away without it. [Markin: Young women, not quail Phil. Did you hear about the women’s liberation movement in your travels?] And how he finally “got lucky” with some teeny-bopper. Well we all knew Johnny was that way. In fact I had to f--king warn him off of my younger sister, Kate, one time. [Markin: Oh ya, I remember that time. I think you had a baseball bat in hand at the time, right?] Me, I like women a little older, more my own fifty-ish age and so I figured since nothing was happening elsewhere I would, like Johnny did, give one of the Internet sex sites a try. [Markin: Is every lonely-heart guy over the age of about thirty “running” to the sex sites for love and whatever? Am I missing some important sociological trend here? Also what is it with you old corner boy guys. Nobody expects you to tell the whole true to strangers, especially on the Internet, although it helps, but this age thing is weird. We are all sixty-something. That fifty-something was a while back but I never was a snitch, and I won’t be one now.]

I don’t know if you know how these sex sites work. Let’s just call the one I went on Get Laid Fast and you will get the flavor of the thing. [Markin: Phil, you don’t have to tell anybody over the age of about ten about Internet sex sites. All you have to do is Google the word sex on any search engine in the world and you will get more sex sites than you can possibly imagine, including, I assume, your Get Laid Fast site.] Naturally the lure (for an old-time heterosexual man) is sexy, semi-and unclothed women, young and middle- aged (nobody, nobody in their right minds that is, confesses to being, well, mature, hell, I will just say it straight here, old), just waiting to get their hands on you (where I will leave to the reader’s imagination but you get the point) and show you paradise, yes paradise. Just my cup of f-- king tea. Where do I sign up, and how quickly.

That signing up was the easy part. Well, almost easy. See, the hook is that everybody can sign up and put whatever they want on their very own personal profile page. The problem is that unless you pay up, pay up a fee, nobody in the known cyberspace world is going to know about your sex hunger, especially those alluring semi and unclothed young and middle-aged women. Hey, I am a man of the f -- king world so I know that I have to pony up, and gladly to get in on the action. And so I am off to the races for a few ducats.

Well, almost. Almost on two counts. First I have to figure out what my profile message will be and then my “message” to those women’s profiles that strike my fancy. So, naturally I go light on my personal profile. You know how I am looking for the love of my life (already had it). [Markin: I bet six, two, and even it was old time Millie Callahan, hands down. Hell, she might have been the love of my life too if I could have ever gotten beyond staring at her ass during Sunday Mass.] And companionship and all that other crap when everybody knows it a roll in the hay that is driving me, and about three billion (or whatever number of guys are in the world), to sites like this. And, maybe, women too. Or at least that is what I my worldly assumption would have been. The really, the Phil Larkin reality, is that I might have been better off on some mix and match dot com square dating service. Hell, I am willing to bet Markin his six, two and even I would have had more rolls in the hay by now that way than on this “hyper”- sex site.

Here is why. And don’t laugh at a f - - king fifty-something guy for being so silly. [Markin: Phil, I know you, we went to school together, get real-sixty-something, okay.] I went back to my old tried and true strategy with my personal messages to various women who struck my fancy. Nothing like in kid time but still basically- “babe, do you want to f- - k tonight, don’t be a bitch, call me now, here is my cell phone number," and the like. Now the site is loaded with women within about fifty miles of my residence so I naturally click on all those thirty and forty something women who have been around a little, are looking for a little sugar in their bowl, and are bound to go for rough and ready fifty-something guy. No sweat.

Actually my line, as I found out later, was kind of tame and “civilized” compared to some of the younger guys who were swinging their dicks in full view and stuff like that. Hell, it was tame and civilized compared to some of the women’s profile information and photos. I blushed, actually blushed, at some of the stuff they, theoretically, wanted to do, and do right this minute. Notice that word "theoretical" though. For example, first off I got a proposal from a thirty-something woman who wanted me to help her in her new career as a cosmetologist. She had, foolishly, gone to art school when she was younger and when the art-related job that she had didn’t survive the recent economic downturns she saw the light of working the women who are still working hair and nails racket. Still kind of artistic, right?

And I was willing to give the idea some consideration; although unlike Johnny Silver I did not play the older, wiser “sugar-daddy” angle. Or give any thought to such a notion with older women. If I was looking for Johnny’s teeny-boppers sure. But with older women, no way. Here is the hitch though. Said future hairdresser in return for my largesse was only willing to be a companion, a platonic, no sex companion for an “old geezer” (my term, hers was a man “old enough to be her father”).

And it went down from there. Although nobody, absolutely nobody that answered my messages was put off by my so-called lewd language. Case closed on that. What was also case closed though was my faulty understanding of the cyberspace “meat market.” I will not run down every click but just give some observation examples.

Many of the semi- and unclothed women whose profiles spoke of sexual adventure on personal contact wanted, desperately wanted in fact, not be a “one-night stand” and therefore put off any notion of sex with them to the Greek calends. That happened several times. Needless to say, other than the question of false advertising on their part here that I may speak to my lawyer about, I stopped communication very quickly. No sale, no way. Moreover, many women were carrying “baggage” of various sorts. Kids, broken marriages, bad-ass ex-boyfriends, you name it. That would not have put off old Phil but one or two messages was enough to indicate that their “get laid tonight” come-on was nothing more than getting some psychic comfort for their old wounds, and nothing more until the Greek calends. Again, no sale, no way.

So you can begin to see why I suggested the title “sexless” sex sites to Markin. And why he grabbed onto the idea right away (aside from my admittedly incessant badgering him after pure-as-gold Johnny Silver got his say). A couple of “conversations” warrant special attention though. One woman, an otherwise very interesting arty-type woman whom I actually met in person if you can believe that, did not believe that her “aging” thirty-something life would be complete unless she had a lip-enhancement operation so she could have those pouty Angela Jolie lips. Jesus, what the hell has the world come to. I admit I was tempted, sorely tempted, to help her out although her lips looked perfectly kissable to me. But again the notion of sex before I was placed in an assisted- living facility was out of the question. Ya, you have got it by now. No sale, no way.

Another woman, and here she can serve as an example of other similar instances that happened, was fired-up to chat (as I was with her as well) and we e-mailed a blizzard of messages back and forth. She, more than many others, was someone I wanted to meet in person and I brought the subject up in one e-mail after we had been “cyber-chatting” for a few weeks. Kaput. She went off-site the day after that and left no forwarding address, no e-mail address, as they said in the old days. Maybe I have to change my line. Or better, and here I could get back at Markin as well for his silly “comeuppance” remark in the headline. Maybe, Mille Callahan is out there is cyberspace somewhere. Honey, I still remember that swear word that “turned” you on. Help.