***Out In The Be-Bop Night- In The Time Of The High School Hop, Circa 1960-Take Two

A YouTube film clip of The Drifters performing Save The Last Dance For Me.

Lately I have been in something of 1960s high school remembrance mode, mainly as a result of evaluating the influence of the “beats,” on my youthful political, social, and cultural (lots) development. You know, million word fellahin Jeanbon Jack Kerouac, sainted Buddha Allen Ginsberg, drugstore cowboy madman William S. Burroughs, street gunsel/poet Gregory Corso, Zen roadmaster Neal Cassady, not Cassidy by the way, and the usual suspects and hangers-on who hung around the 1950s Village, Greenwich Village of course, Frisco town when Allen howled the new dispensation and Jack washed dishes and had sexy affairs with hookers and junkies, and other more exotic ports of call. Creating tabula rasa (nice, huh) the be-bop jazz-soaked sounds and angst-filled words that would help those of us a generation later make our jail-break, make it messily but make it.

I concluded, and rightly so I think, that that movement (although they might shudder at that idea) had little influence on my political development since, except for that strong almost libertarian streak that pervaded the scene, and maybe Ginsberg by default (his parents had been serious left-wing supporters) talking about one million Trotskyites coming to cleanse industrial Amerikkka, that bunch was apolitical, or rather anti-political. The fresh breezes out of Camelot were stronger, much stronger and I don’t believe I was alone in that feeling. Their social influence was greater in that I affected, like many other faux beats (but with real teen angst and alienation, very real) caught up in the style rather than the substance of beat-ness beatitude stance as I understood it. Strange and forbidden travellings at midnight to Harvard Square to soak up what there was to soak. For my efforts though and this may relate to that previous political point I was called, called incorrectly at the time, Bolshevik rather than beatnik(quaint, right). Jesus. Culturally though was probably their greatest influence because I was crazy to read their poetry (not always understood but read), read of their adventures (On The Road being the max daddy read),and their love of words, many words,words straight and all jumbled up, but words.

No question those recent readings, or rather re-readings drew out some serious nostalgic feelings but an immediate cause was a result of re-watching George Lucas’ American Graffiti, a 1960s coming-of-age film that fits comfortably in my own high school mode. I have reviewed the film itself elsewhere in this space but I wish to make a special point about the high school dance segment of the film (See American Left History blog- The Baby-Boomer Birth Of The Search For The Blue-Pink American Western Night- “American Graffiti”-A Film Review, dated September, 8, 2010).

George Lucas’s inclusion of a local high school dance segment in the film was truly inspired. The segment was not central to the action of the film, such as it was, mainly the ins and outs of looking for the heart of Friday or Saturday night (and in the summer almost any night except Monday “rest” night) cruising the local strip, the teen strip part, the only part that counted. However , it certainly was calculated to evoke almost universal nostalgia for anyone (meaning almost everyone these days) who has ever had to deal, in one way or another, with the question of this time-honored (if hoary) high school tradition. Each generation probably has its own take on what this experience was (or is) like, but most of the real action was behind the scenes and done prior to the actual dance. And in that sense the film caught the three high points. Women (uh, girls at that time) can fill in own blanks in reverse, but here are some of them from a man’s (uh, boy’s, ditto on the time frame) perspective.

First of all was whether to go stag or with a date. But if stag not as a single, Jesus no, no way, with the guys, with your corner boys if you had them and they could get their foot off the wall at the Doc’ Drugstore hang-out locale or not at all, although how many and who was always up for grabs, especially on the important riding “shotgun” in the car question. Even the goofs had enough sense to stay home if they couldn’t find at least one other goof to go.

If on a date then whether to double-date, if not with that certain she you had been wearing your eyeballs over in study who already had a date, or worse, a true blue boyfriend then somebody’s left-out sister, some corner boy sister so be nice, or else, your sister, no need to be nice, anyone, anyone breathing just to not be a wallflower, a sickly wallflower among the ‘losers’ to boot, as those dance moments ticked slowly, so slowly by. Best though to go solo just in case, pretty please lucky, and she consented, get it, consented to fog up the car windows down at Adamsville Beach (or whatever served as a teen lovers’ lane in your town). Take the ticket, take the ride.

Many an ungodly hour was spent on that critical world-class, world historic, world-shattering (okay, I’ll stop) date question mulling over, no, not what you think, who to invite, no that was usually the easy part, whoever you were eye-balling that week, but rather getting up enough nerve to make the call to make the invitation (if it was not that corner boy sister or yours). And check this out, on more than one occasion, and I am sure the same was true for you, somehow your intelligence network had failed and it turns out that the certain she, your dreamy certain she, damn, her, had a “steady,” and true blue no way was she going anywhere in public with a not boyfriend. (Although, and on more than one occasion this actually happened , if the “boyfriend” was out of town, “in the service,”[military] or she was just mad at him for one of a possible seven hundred reasons, she might go with you. Just as friends of course.) Usually though, christ, what a waste of time.

Secondly, there were the grooming preparations, stag or dated it did not matter. I will propose here, in best scientific method form (or at least quasi-scientific form for that is all this tidbit will hold) that there was an inverse relationship to the amount of time that one spent on this work, you know, shower, shave (in those days you had to, if you could, even that light stubble had to go), comb always at the ready, a little something for the underarms and some men’s fragrance to give the smell of being the least bit civilized, and the answer to the stag/date question. In this sense the inverse relationship is the extra time spent in order to attract that certain she (remember women just reverse the gender, or today everyone fill in your own preference experience) so when the next goddam dance or mixed social event came up you were dated up with that certain she and you could just throw a little fatal after-shave on and fly out the door.

Oh, by the way, while we are on the subject of grooming, I refuse, I totally refuse to go over the number of times that I cooled my heels while that occasional captured “she” made her grooming preparations, first date or any date, even if it was just to make preparations to go to the drugstore soda fountain to listen to some latest tune on Doc’s super-jukebox. Mercifully, on that score I did not have a sister to scream at or else I might not be writing this screed today, at least not this side of a cell block.

Thirdly, the gathering of the dough, the always short of dough problem that plagued our poor working- class household and that I noticed did not seem to be any kind of problem in that California suburban valley locale of American Graffiti. There seemed to be plenty of money for exotic appearing food at Mel’s (hey, it was California, remember, even the fast food drive-ins had to be retro-fine, with the requisite retro-fine carhops to serve the stuff) double-dip hamburgers (with fries), cherry cokes, for two, for two, my god, plus some gas money, plus, plus, plus, you know a guy has got some expenses in this world if he want to impress that certain she, or even get the chance.

The real question was whether to borrow from parents, or pick up some chattel slave job. Getting it from the parents always came with some awful terms, usually worthy of some international diplomatic accord, and more grief than it was worth, unless I was desperate, or girl-hungry. Oh yah, and this too, you had to hear the obligatory “we do this and that to keep a roof over your head” along with the bucks. You know the drill, I am sure.

And while we are on the subject of parents the inevitable question comes up about what time one should be home by. They say X, and make that loan, that hard-scrabble hideous loan that has more conditions and enforcements than a loan shark, contingent on the observance of a “reasonable” (parent reasonable) hour. I say Y, because in the back of my mind I, if I get lucky (no further discussion necessary, right?) then I need plenty of time and can’t be worried about curfews, or reasonable times. Come to think of it, even fifty years later, I can recall on memory request my plaintive “come on Ma, you be reasonable” (and it was always Ma on this one, on this time thing, in our old working- class neighborhoods, and maybe yours too. Dad was brought in, if he was brought in at all, at this point in our lives only for the heavy artillery stuff like yes or no on the car or to dole out serious punishment. Enough said).

Once these preparations and battles have been settled then, and here is where American Graffiti is like from a dream, the question of transportation to the dance comes into play. Here I mean a car, and if you’ve read my review of American Graffiti you know I mean a “boss” car. You would have to go to an automobile museum to see such treasures these days. By the way don’t even utter the words public transportation for this occasion or I will think that you grew up in New York City or some such place like that and that you really have not been paying attention after all my paeans to the California endless highways and the search of the elusive blue-pink great American Western night. And cars were central to that exploration, east or west.

In any case, this car-less writer, this foot-sore, shoe leather-beaten, car-less writer, depended, sometimes cynically so, on cultivating friendships with guys who had such “boss” cars, particularly the renowned ’57 Chevy that still makes me quiver at the thought. Needless to say, in expectation at least, of the night’s successes a stop at the local gas station for a fill-up (a couple of bucks and done then) check the oil and water, kick the tires and so on preceded our big entrance at the dance.

Part of the charm of the American Graffiti segment on the local high school dance is, as I have noted previously elsewhere, once you get indoors, once you get into the high school gym where these things inevitably take place it could have been any place U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet any time U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance scene could have taken place at my high school, North Adamsville, Massachusetts-Class of 1964, when I was a student in the early 1960s). American Standard gym and American standard preparations. From the throwaway crepe paper decorations that festooned the place to the ever-present gym bleachers to the dragooned teacher chaperones to the platform the local band covering the top hits of the day performed on was a perfect replica. (A band that if it did not hit it big and breakout from local-ville would thereafter go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other seminally important occasions).

Also perfect replica were the classic boys’ attire for a casual dance, plaid or white sports shirt, chinos, stolid shoes, and short-trimmed hair (no beards, beads, bell-bottoms, it’s much too early in the decade for that) and for the girls blouses (or maybe sweaters, cashmere, if I recall being in fashion at the time, at least in the colder East), full swirling dresses, and, I think beehive hair-dos. Wow!

Of course, perfect replica as well were the infinite variety of dances (frug, watusi, twist, stroll, etc.) that blessed, no, twice blessed, rock and roll let us do in order to not to have to dance too waltz close. Mercy. And I cannot finish up this part without saying perfect replica “hes” looking at certain “shes” (only if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell) and also perfect replica wallflowers, as well.

Not filmed in American Graffiti, although a solo slow one highlighted the tensions between Steve and Laurie (Ron Howard and Cindy Williams) but ever present and certainly the subject of some comment in this space previously was that end of the night dance. I’ll just repeat what I have repeated elsewhere. This last dance was always one of those slow ones that you had to dance close on. Maybe something swoony like Could This Be Magic by the Dubs going back to junior high school days but still a show-stopper or the Drifters’ Save The Last Dance For Me, a mood thing. And just hope, hope to high heaven, that you didn’t destroy your partner’s shoes and feet. Well, as I have noted before, one does learns a few social skills in this world if for no other reason than to “impress” that certain she (or he for shes, or nowadays, just mix and match your sexual preferences) mentioned above. I did, didn’t you?

And after the dance? Well, I am the soul of discretion, and you should be too. Let’s put it this way. Sometimes I got home earlier than the Ma agreed time, but sometimes, not enough now that I think about it, I saw huge red suns rising up over the blue waters down by the ocean near my old home town. Either way, my friends, worth every blessed minute of anguish, right?