Mort's Shorts

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Rock Around the Clock. Bill Haley and the Comets. In 1962 there was an A.M. radio program that kicked off at midnight..theme song for which was ‘Rock Around the Clock’. So you could count on it to play EVERY Friday night and Saturday night…right at midnight.

Well, seems that I had a pretty strict curfiew: be home by midnight or die.

No punishment.

No ‘missed allowance’.

No ‘restriction’.

Fucking death. Undertaker. Tears. Hymns. Flowers. Childhood pictures.

Dead.

So I made it my business to get there right at Midnight, mainly cuz there were several little unfulfilled needs that I had ....that I figured I would have to live past 16…....to get around to.

Every frickin’ Friday and Saturday night…after stretchin’ it out…....and waitin’ for the last minute to leave whatever social mandate it was that I had had to tend to…..I would be haulin’ ass in my ‘56 Chevy ( first rig was a flathead ‘38 pickup with Martinez upholstery that I shook for this 210 Del Rey Coupe with a 265 Dad had built for it).........anywho, I’d be haulin’ ass down Century Boulevard - just the other side of the river from Barris, Roth, Gaylord, Cerny and all them…........about one minute behind the place I needed to be to cop the drop-dead (I mean it) ETA…and I’d run up over the railroad tracks about 78 miles an hour…knowing that if I didn’t make the light at Garfield I was gonna be a footnote in hooligan history….......and that damn song would come on…......“one two three o’clock four o’clock rock..“and I’d down-shift that Chevy and pull air goin’ over the tracks….“five six seven oclock eight oclock rock”.........blow the light at Garfield….............“we’re gonna rock…. around….. the clock tonite….” (everybody but me)..............pull up to the curb, spin off the knockoffs (chrome wheels, spin-on two prong knockoffs).........run up to the door, put in the key and….....oh, shit. I forgot to get GUM!!! They’re gonna smell the cigarettes….......and kill me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can not  hear that song now without feeling that Chevy levitating right at midnight…................

It’s about the iron..always has been.

READ HOPUPLAND, T ‘n A, AND DRIP PAN, TOO….....