Читать книгу Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself - Lewis Grizzard - Страница 11

AS MOST MUSIC historians know, soon after Elvis became the undisputed King, Colonel Tom Parker hid him out for nearly the next two decades. The only time we were able to see him was at a rare concert or in one of those idiotic movies he began making, such as Viva Las Vegas, which featured Elvis singing and mouthing ridiculous dialogue while several dozen scantily-clad starlets cooed and wiggled. Today, Elvis movies normally are shown very late at night after the adults have gone to bed, so they won’t be embarrassed in front of their children.

However, the rock ’n’ roll storm that Elvis started did not subside after he took leave of the public. As a matter of fact, the music flourished and reached new heights, and when it got its own television show, our parents’ battle to save us from what some had considered a heathen sound was over. They had lost.

Dick Clark was apparently a very mature nine-year-old when he first appeared on “American Bandstand,” because that has been nearly thirty years ago and he still doesn’t look like he has darkened the doors to forty.

Bandstand. I wouldn’t miss it for free Scrambler rides and cotton candy at the county fair. The music they were playing was our music, and the dances they were dancing were our dances. It was live on television, and Philadelphia, from whence Bandstand came, was the new center of our universe. (Previously, it had been Atlanta, where our parents occasionally took us to see the building where they kept all the things you could order from the Sears Roebuck catalog, and to wrestling matches and gospel singings.)

Danny Thompson and I always watched Bandstand together in the afternoons. Danny was not nearly the geographical wizard I was (I had been born seventy-five miles from Moreland in Ft. Benning, Georgia, and had traveled as far away as Arkansas as the quintessential Army brat before my parents had divorced) so anything that had to do with where some place was, Danny asked me.

“Where is Philadelphia, anyway?” he queried one afternoon as we watched the kids on Bandstand do the Hop to Danny and the Juniors’s “At the Hop.”

“Pennsylvania,” I told him.

“How far is that?”

“Thousands of miles.”

“Wish I could go.”

“To see Bandstand?”

“See it up close.”

“Wish we lived in Philadelphia.”

“We’d go on Bandstand every day, wouldn’t we?”

Besides the music, Danny and I enjoyed watching Bandstand in order to select objects of lust from the group of Philadelphia girls who were regulars. I picked out a blonde with large breasts. Her name was Annette something-or-other. Danny picked out a raven-haired beauty named Shirley, who chewed gum; we could never tell exactly how she voted when she rated a record because in the first place she talked funny, being from Philadelphia, and secondly it’s difficult to discern what someone is saying when they’re saying it through three sticks of Juicy Fruit gum.

We spent hours discussing whether or not, at their advanced ages of probably sixteen, they were engaging in any sort of sexual activity off camera.

“Wonder if Annette and Shirley do it?”

“I bet Annette does.”

“Why?”

“She’s got blonde hair. Blondes do it more than other girls.”

“How do you know that?”

“My cousin told me. He said you see a girl who’s blonde, and she’ll do it.”

“I’d like to do it with Annette.”

“I’d like to do it with Shirley.”

“Shirley’s got black hair.”

“I’d still like to do it with her.”

“I’d give a hundred dollars to do it with Annette.”

“I’d give two hundred to do it with Shirley.”

“You don’t have two hundred dollars.”

“I could get it.”

“How?”

“Sell my bicycle.”

“You’d sell your bicycle to do it with Shirley?”

“You wouldn’t sell yours to do it with Annette?”

“Maybe I would.”

Of course, I would have. The desire to do it strikes young in boys, and the delicious idea of doing it with a Bandstand regular was my first real sexual fantasy (which must be accepted as proof of our parents’ fears that interest in rock ’n’ roll did, indeed, prompt the sexual juices to flow).

* * *

The music was good back then. There were The Drifters, and The Penguins, and Paul and Paula, and Barbara Lewis, and Mary Wells, and Clyde McPhatter; and Sam Cooke sang about the men workin’ on the “chain ga-e-yang.” We had Bobby Helms doing “Special Angel,” and there was Jerry Butler talking about his days getting shorter and his nights getting longer. There were great songs like “A Little Bit of Soap” and “Duke of Earl” and Ernie K-Doe singing about his mother-in-law.

We danced and held each other close and took two steps forward and one back to “In the Still of the Night,” and later we shagged to beach music — The Tarns, The Showmen — and we twisted with Chubby Checker and did the Monkey with Major Lance. We had the soul sounds of James Brown — “Mr. Dynamite, Mr. Please Please Me Himself, the Hardest Workin’ Man in Show Business” — and Jackie Wilson sang “Lonely Teardrops,” and Marvin Gaye did “Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” and Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs did “Stay.” And I don’t want to leave out Fats (Antoine) Domino and Chuck Berry and Joe Tex and Bobby Blue Bland and Soloman Burke and Jimmy Reed moaning over radio station WLAC, Gallatin, Tennessee, brought to you by John R., the Jivin’ Hoss Man, and Ernie’s Record Mart and White Rose Petroleum Jelly, with “a thousand-and-one different uses, and you know what that one is for, girl.”

There were a thousand singers for a thousand songs. It was truly an enchanted time. But then ever-so-slowly yet ever-so-suddenly, it changed. It seemed that one day Buddy Holly died, and the next day The Beatles were in Shea Stadium.

I’m not certain what it was that caused me to reject The Beatles from the start, but I suspect that even then I saw them as a portent of ill changes that soon would arise — not only in music, but in practically everything else I held dear.

The Beatles got off to a bad start with me because the first thing I heard them sing in 1964 was “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” and it was basically impossible to do any of the dances I knew — the Shag, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey, the Pony, the Gator, the Fish, the Hitchhike, the Twist, or the Virginia Reel— to that first song. About all you could do to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was jump and stomp and scream, which, of course, is what every female teeny-bopper at the time was doing whenever The Beatles struck guitar and drum and opened their mouths.

Also, patriot that I was, I stood four-square against the importation of foreign music, just as I have since stood steadfastly against the importation of Japanese cars and Yugoslavian placekickers. The only materials we really need to import from foreign countries, in my way of thinking, are porno movies. It doesn’t matter that you can’t understand what anybody is saying in those movies anyway, and I like the imagination of, say, the French when it comes to doing interesting things while naked.

But the British? I still have problems with them, especially with the current royal family. I’m sick and tired of Lady Di getting pregnant, I don’t care if Prince Andrew is dating Marilyn Chambers, and every time the Queen comes to the U.S., she is always getting offended by something a well-meaning colonist has done to her. I wish she would stay in Buckingham Palace and give the Cisco Kid his hat back.

Even then, I didn’t like the way The Beatles looked. I thought their hair was too long, I didn’t like those silly-looking suits with the skinny ties they wore, and Ringo reminded me of the ugliest boy in my school, Grady “The Beak” Calhoun, whose nose was so big that when he tried to look sideways he couldn’t see out of but one eye. Grady was a terrible hitter on the baseball team because his nose blocked half of his vision.

Soon after The Beatles arrived in the U.S., I started college. At the fraternity house, we were able to hold on to our music for a time. The jukebox was filled with the old songs, and when we hired a band, we had black bands whose music you could dance to and spill beer out of your Humdinger milkshake cup on your date. The Four Tops and The Temptations, The Isley Brothers and Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts, and Percy Sledge (which always sounded to me like something that might clog your drain) were still in demand at college campuses — at least all over the South. A few white bands were still in vogue as well, the most notable of which was The Swinging Medallions. They sang “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love,” and even now when I hear that song, it makes me want to go stand outside in the hot sun with a milkshake cup full of beer in one hand and a slightly-drenched nineteen-year-old coed in the other.

But the music, our music, didn’t last. At least, it didn’t remain dominant. Elvis’s music was switched to country stations, and every wormy-looking kid with a guitar in England turned up in the United States, and rock ’n’ roll meant something entirely different to us all of a sudden.

I didn’t like the new sounds or the new people who were making them. I found The Rolling Stones disgusting and The Dave Clark Five about a handful short.

Suddenly came the dissent associated with the Vietnam escalation, and with that came hippies and flower children. And one day I found myself (just as my own parents had done when Elvis peaked) condemning modern music as the hedonistic, un-American, ill-tempered, God-awful, indecent warblings of scrungy, tatooed, long-haired, uncouth, drugged-out, so-called musicians.

I didn’t know Jimi Hendrix was alive until he overdosed and died, and I thought Janis Joplin was Missouri’s entry in the Miss America pageant.

All the new groups had such odd names. There was Bread, and Cream, for instance. And there was Jefferson Airplane and Iron Butterfly and Grand Funk Railroad and a group named Traffic. I wondered why so many groups were named after various modes of transportation. I theorized that it was because those performers had all been deprived of electric trains as children.

I expected the members of musical groups to wear the same clothing when they performed — like white suits with white tails — and to do little steps together like “The Temptation Walk.”

These new groups, however, apparently wore whatever they found in the dirty clothes hamper each morning before a performance. T-shirts and filthy jeans seemed to be the most popular garb. Some, of course, performed without shirts. I found this to be particularly disturbing, since I have no use whatsoever for any music made by a person who looks as if he has just come in the house from mowing the grass on an August afternoon and his wife won’t let him sit down on the good furniture because he’ll sweat all over it and probably cause mildew.

I didn’t like drug songs and anti-war songs, and I didn’t like songs that were often downright explicit. Even The Beatles just wanted to hold somebody’s hand. The new groups, however, wanted to take off all their clothes, get in the bed, smoke a bunch of dope, and do all sorts of French things that have no business being watched, discussed, or sung about outside a porno flick on the sleazy side of town.

The only piece of raw rock ’n’ roll we ever knew about before The Beatles came along was a song by The Kings-men called “Louie, Louie,” and we really weren’t certain that what they were saying about “Louie, Louie” wasn’t just a rumor.

It was basically impossible to understand the words, except the part which went, “Louie, Lou-eye, Ohhhhh, baby, we gotta go.” After that, it sounded like, “Evahni ettin, Ah fackon nin.”

The smart money had it, however, that if you slowed the record down from 45 RPM to 33 RPM, you could make out some of the words and that the song was really about doing something quite filthy. Naturally, we all rushed home to slow down the record. I still couldn’t make out any of the words. It simply sounded like I was hearing the bass portion of “Evahni ettin, Ah fackon nin.”

I made myself a vow never to spend money on any of this new music. But as naive as I was concerning what was taking place in my once placid, sensible world, I was bound to break my vow. I did so by attending an Elton John concert... completely by mistake.

I was dating a girl who was several years younger than me. I was in my late twenties at the time, but she could still remember where everybody sat in her high school algebra class.

“What do you want to do Friday night?” I vividly recall asking this young woman.

“Elton John is in town,” she said.

“He’s somebody you went to school with?” I asked, in all honesty.

“You’ve never heard of Elton John?” she said, an unmistakable tinge of amazement in her voice.

“Well, I’ve been working pretty hard and....”

“Elton John is a wonderful entertainer. You would love him.”

She was a lovely child and had big blue eyes, so I managed to purchase excellent tickets for the Elton John concert — third row from the stage.

I had never been to a concert by anybody even remotely connected with modern rock music. As a matter of fact, the only concert I had been to in years was one that Jerry Lee Lewis gave. “The Killer” came out and did all his hits, and everybody drank beer and had a great time. I didn’t see more than a dozen fights break out the entire night.

What I didn’t know about attending an Elton John concert was that Elton didn’t come on stage until his warm-up group had finished its act. I don’t remember the name of the group that opened the show, but I do remember that they were louder than a train wreck.

When I was able to catch a word here and there in one of their songs, it sounded like the singer was screaming (as in pain) in an English accent. One man beat on a drum; another, who wasn’t wearing a shirt, played guitar. They were very pale-looking individuals.

“What’s the name of this group?” I tried to ask my date over the commotion. I heard her say, “Stark Naked and the Car Thieves.” I thought that was a strange name, even for an English rock group, so between numbers I asked her again. Turned out I had misunderstood her; their real name was “Clark Dead Boy and the Bereaved.”

“So what was the name of that song?” I pursued.

‘“Kick Me Out of My Rut’,” she answered. I was having trouble hearing, however; my eardrums had gone into my abdomen to get away from the noise. I thought she said, “Kick Me Out on My Butt.”

After the next number, I asked her to name that tune, too.

“It’s called ‘I Can Smell Your Love on Your Breath’.”

That’s what she said, but what I heard was, “Your Breath Smells Like a Dog Died in Your Mouth,” which sounded a great deal like “Kick Me Out on My Butt.”

Finally, Elton John came out. He wore an Uncle Sam suit and large sunglasses.

“Is this man homosexual?” I asked my date.

“Bisexual,” she answered.

That must come in handy when he has to go to the bathroom, I thought to myself. If there’s a line in one, he can simply walk across to the other.

I had no idea what Elton John was singing about, but at least he didn’t sing it as loudly as did Stark Naked and the Car Thieves.

As the concert wore on, I began to smell a strange aroma.

“I think somebody’s jeans are on fire,” I said. “Do you smell that?”

“It’s marijuana,” said my date. “Everybody has a hit when they come to an Elton John concert.”

I looked around me. My fellow concert-goers, some of whom weren’t as old as my socks, were staring bleary-eyed at the stage. Down each row, handmade cigarettes were passed back and forth. Even when the cigarettes became very short, the people continued to drag on them.

Suddenly, down my row came one of the funny cigarettes. My date took it in hand, took a deep puff, held in the smoke, then passed it to me.

“No thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll go to the concession stand and get a beer.”

“Go ahead,” said my date. “It’ll loosen you up.”

This was my moment of decision. I had never tried marijuana before. I had never even seen any up close, but now here I sat holding some, listening to a bisexual Englishman wearing an Uncle Sam suit sing songs I didn’t understand. I was completely lost in this maze and wanted to bolt from the concert hall and go immediately to where there was a jukebox, buy myself a longneck beer, and play a truck-driving son by Dave Dudley — something I could understand.

I looked at the marijuana cigarette again. Would I have an irresistible urge to rape and pillage if I took a drag?

It was very short. “You need a roach clip,” said my date.

“There’re bugs in this stuff?” I asked.

“When a joint is short like that, it’s called a roach,” she explained, pulling a bobby pin from her purse. “Hold it with this.”

I took the pin in one hand and clipped it on the cigarette I was holding in the other.

“Take a good deep drag and hold it in,” said my date.

“Suck it or send it down,” said somebody at the end of my row.

I continued to look at the roach. The smoke got into my eyes and they began to burn. Suddenly, to my horror, I noticed the fire at the end of the roach was missing. It had become dislodged from the clip and had rolled down between my legs. I quickly reached between my rear and the seat cushion to find it, lest I set the entire arena aflame.