I think the dye was cast then. The Beatles appeared on American TV for the first time on my birthday, and somehow that seemed an omen. We all had been listening to their records and hearing wild tales about the way they looked (those lovable mop tops), but that Sunday night Ed Sullivan show was going to be the test. I sat with my parents in our living room as we did every Sunday evening to watch Ed Sullivan, but even my parents knew that this night was different. The usual menu of plate twirlers, Las Vegas singers, and Topo Gigo was about to be upstaged. More than seventy million viewers were tuned in to see the British Invasion.
Not long after, I was in the lunch line at school when one of the lunch ladies spoke to me. She had never done this before. None of them ever spoke to any of us. "Look at his hair," she said to the other women working behind the counter. "What do you think you are, a Beatle or something?" At that time, I had a pretty standard haircut for boys, clipped on the sides, longer on top and in front, and, like my father, I used Rose Hair Oil or Brylcreem to slick it back when I combed it in the morning. But it was afternoon and I probably hadn't been to the barber for a while and we had played outside already, and I hadn't bothered to comb my hair because I was a boy of twelve, and as a result, my hair was hanging down. The snotty injustice of her comment resonated in my tender, fledgling soul.
"Yup," I told her.
I was a Beatle.
And, as I reported in my Jimmy T story, I went to a new junior high school that had just been built the next year. There were a lot of new kids there from other schools I didn't know, so I was a little nervous. But when I got there, it seems I already had a reputation, not for hitting home runs, but for playing in a band. There were sweet and terrible deserts that went with that I will soon tell. But for now, I have told the story I meant to tell, that moment when hair and rebellion became forever wedded for me. I wish it hadn't, but it had and there was nothing to do about it. I would forever suffer through it.
This photo and yesterday's were taken with my seventh grade band. I was in the seventh. The other kids were older. We were more Monkeys than Beatles, but that would soon change. We were called "The Circle of Confusion" and we won the school talent show. But I go on too far. I'll tell it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next.
But Jesus Christ, when I think that my life may have been most profoundly shaped by the lunchroom lady. . . .
Make sure you watch the end of the clip with the Beatles in the Peppermint club, Ringo dancing with the girls.
I didn’t get to a Beatle naturally. I got military buzz cuts in the driveway with my Papa’s clippers he had bought at the Army commissary serving in Korea. He did everybody’s hair in the neighborhood; they all got the same cut, but it was free. Three or four men would wait sitting in lime green and sky blue plaid aluminum and plastic fold up lawn chairs sitting in front of the garage that had been made of the splintered lumber left over when a tornado took off our front stoop and part of the roof.
ReplyDeleteSometimes one of the men would have to hold me rigid while the buzz cut took place.
Up the road a fair piece was a Giant Tiger store. When I was 12 they started selling Beatle wigs. I don’t know if you remember them – black crepe hair fitted over nylon mesh with an elastic band – they looked like coal colored fuzzy bathing caps.
I saved up enough collecting bottles along the river and turning them in for the deposit to buy one. I’d stuff it in my jeans pocket and shove it on walking to our newly built junior high school built on the edge of the woods that spread up from the banks of the river. I had no idea how ridiculous I looked. Course the assistant principal didn’t let me wear it long, but I would still stuff it over my bald head to and from school. Later, after a whupping or two or a dozen, I just started letting my own hair grow though it didn’t look nothing like the Beatles.
I had a band too. A trio – we played more than a dozen instruments between us – crazy mix of country, hillbilly, rock, and even Elizabethan lute songs with the groove laid different. Larry’s Pop was a teacher at a reformatory school, so that boy was more high tone than Bill and me. He had been a regular teacher but got caught fondling some boys so they turned him loose on the troubled kids. Anyhoos that’s where we heard the Elizabethan music in the basement from Larry’s Pop’s record collection
I was most times the lead singer and rhythm or bass guitarist. One time we were rehearsing in Larry’s basement. His Pop was standing at the base of the steps listening to us rehearse with his arms folded. He hollered out to me: “Boy, you sound like a nigger when you sing.”
Larry piped up: “Shit Pop, don’t tell him that or he’ll never stop.”
I did wear sounding like a nigger as a secret badge of honor along with the stringy long hair.
I haint been here for a whiles, I been reading from time to time, but haint had the gumption or the time to comment. I got a bit of a lay about after some long runs. I’ll try and catch a few more for the road trips hit again.
Oh man. I smiled and smiled watching Ringo dance. But the flash to Lennon sitting at the table got me. I miss him. We need him.
ReplyDeleteMy own sort of Bye Bye Miss American Pie story.
Brandon went away to school at Villa Nova. He never loved me the way I loved him, Brandon, until it was too late for us (another story, another day).
We spent countless hours and days together, first as friends and then as secret lovers but
see Brandon's parents had both died and he was being raised by his older brother Lee. Lee was an attorney and "well respected" in the community (whatever the hell that means). He instructed Brandon that, now being in college, he had to find a "nice Girl" meaning someone who wore lacoste and could do the country club. Even though Brandon was about as punk as there was -- he felt some allegiance to his brother and perhaps his dead parents to "do the right thing." Being in college meant finding a wife.
And so our escapades were clandestine and passionate and hugely wonderful and almost always musical. He had several girlfriends all this while -- most of whom I would be forced to party with and be nice to. Or so I thought that was what was expected of me. If Brandon wanted me, he would have chosen me right? Boy we were way a head of Alanis Morrisette and her "friends with benefits" concept.
I digress. John Lennon.
Brandon called to say he had tickets for Springsteen's concert at the Spectrum in Philly. It was the River tour, could I get there. I didn't drive yet but of course I was going to get there. Much of the River was dark and moody like I was feeling or at least I thought of myself like Mary by the River (sans the pregnancy) and being Jersey kids, we always went to see Springsteen whenever and wherever we could.
I found some people going to the show from Parsippany and hitched a ride with them.
As Springsteen often did, he got us up and Twisting and Shouting during the last set. It was nearly a four hour set (though I think, looking back it was probably 3.5 hours but the length of Springsteen shows tended to grow ....like the big one that got away from the fishing pole, back then).
I couldn't stay in Philly and so hoped back in the van to head back home. Everyone was buzzing with the energy and Michael (the driver) tuned the radio in to WNEW out of New York hoping to catch some review of the show --
instead as we hit South Jersey and the Pinelands -- a somber DJ told us the news. John Lennon had been shot and killed.
Michael pulled the van over to the side of the road and we sat there listening in the cold dark for I don't know how long. No one said anything. Michael (already in his 20's and a serious Beatles fan) cried quietly. I will always remember that -- the quiet and Michael, who was a tough as nails guy from a huge Irish Catholic family, his muffled weeps.
My brothers had Beatles records that I would sneak in and steal to listen to in my room (along with Pet Sounds which probably made more of an impression on me than any Beatle album) but even they weren't huge Beatlemanians. I remember wishing I was Paul McCartney's daughter but feeling something more about George & John in those early days.
It wasn't until I was much older that I really realized what had been lost that night. I often hear people talk about "where they were when Kennedy was shot..."
I often play Give Peace a Chance like a chant, over and over and over again (up to 100 times in a row) and maybe it's time I go listen to that now ..
Sorry long one today.
P.S. Love your sullen and tough guy look. You were definitely the hottest in the group. ;) The photos were taken at a Fire Department -- I read the chair. They are great and somehow -- impending.
cc,
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, this stuff is always here whenever you want to come. It just gets deeper and deeper. I remember the wigs. You are lucky you didn't get a worse beating.
Lisa,
Yes, wasn't I, though. The chair was stolen, I guess. We were all poor and poorer class kids who had cabinets full of jelly jars for drinking glasses. Everything had value.