People who mistakenly confuse "Detachable Penis" and Evil Wiener.
BETH MARICH
Chapel Hill
Campus High-lights
- Memorial Rock
- Any porch with a nice dirty couch
- Forest Theater
- Arboretum
- The Hippo
WHITNEY WALDENBERG, 12
Whitney Waldenberg, a future actress/psychiatrist, hopes that people
over age 15 don't watch "Beavis and Butt-head."
The Best Instruments
- The Voice I like the voice best because it is the most natural
instrument anyone could ever get. It's not really complicated to sing,
everybody can, unless you're voiceless. You don't have to be a
coordinated person to sing.
- Double Bass I love my bass, I love to play the blues on it, but
the teacher won't let me. She'll only let me play classical. The
teacher says it's a classical orchestra, and you can't play the blues in
a classical orchestra.
- Flute I think the flute's the most beautiful sounding
instrument in the whole orchestra. I don't like anything about the shape
though, it looks really confusing.
- Drums Not the kettle drums, not the kind of drums in an
orchestra. Like a drum set in a rock band. They look difficult to play,
there's so many of them, but they can sound awsome. When you're mad you
can bang on them; you can really get on people's nerves, which I like to
do. I like to get attention that way.
- Harp The harp is beautiful because it reminds me of a
waterfall. It sounds more flowing; the flute sounds more awake. The
instrument itself is big, but it has a very delicate sound.
JOHN MILLER,School o' Science & Math
Durham, NC
Back before most of us had much access to television and before any of
us had heard of rock and roll, I collected stamps. American stamps stood
for understandably weighty subjects - war heroes, centennials, etc. As
part of the Famous Americans set, musicians made it onto stamps in 1940.
Though no twelve-year-old could doubt the rightness of Stephen Foster (we
sang his songs in school) and John Philip Sousa (already versions of
high school bands were marching), my friends and I argued the worthiness
of one Ethelbert Nelvin. The only thing assuring us he belonged on a
stamp was his 19th century appearance - clearly he had pleased long and
well. Unfortunately, we were trapped by our inability to nominate an
altertive. Crosby, Como and Sinatra would not do. Too new, too now, they
lacked the antique patina that our notion of postal immortality required.
But things change when one grows from 10 to 15. I stopped collecting
stamps and started listening to music that was, in my household, my own:
rock and roll. Now, 35 years later, the subjects of stamps appear to be
closer and closer to my own life. My getting older simply increased the
likelihood of the country's history and my own being the same. Now my
music, my rock and roll, my youth, and even my present (one's lower past
is always somehow present) has made it to postage paper. Elvis, Dinah,
Clyde, Bill, Buddy, Richie and Otis are all stamps.
Comfortably, my contemporaries and I argue the worthiness of this crop
just as we did long ago, but this time we have substitutes for possible
Ethelbert Nevin's. Elvis, of course, bestrides the world like a colossus.
Who could fuss? And thank goodness for Clyde McPhatter, who, aside from
being from Durham, made one of the first albums I bought, Clyde and
the Drifters.
However glorious the others might be, history can also include more. So
for next time, here are my suggestions to the Postmaster General.
- BIG JOE TURNER
Bill Haley's honor must stem largely from "Shake, Rattle and Roll," an
anthem almost as worthy as Francis Scott Key's. For me, the problem is that it isn't
Bill's that I want to honor but Big Joe Turner's earlier and, in his
celebration of all that mess, rock and roll swaggered fully grown into
our first awareness.
- GENE VINCENT
The careers of Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent all have an
unfulfilled quality about them. Their strings of hits were too short.
Death came too early to the first two, but Vincent's failure is our own.
We never heard his music as we should have. In 1956 and often in the
years to come, no one had more hot guitar licks behind him. No singer's
vocals were wound so tightly, so painfully as Gene Vincent's. Certainly
no one was raunchier, no one was closer to the edge.
- TONY WILLIAMS
Could we have Tony Williams by himself even though there will probably
always be somewhere a version of the Platters? His voice is what they
were at first. I've read so many disparaging things about the Platters -
how they weren't rock and roll, just a pop group prostituting itself. It
didn't sound that way in the '50s! The emotional intensity of Williams'
throbbing tenor stirred and clarified for a whole generation the yearning
and angst of 16. As we shuffled across the steamy dance floors, he posed
the great issues - falling in love ("Only You"), the danger of putting
oneself on the line ("Smoke Gets In Your Eyes") and identity ("The Great
Pretender").
- JACKIE WILSON
Where was Jackie Wilson this time. Mr. Excitement's vocals punched
stringy orchestras and flaccid choirs into rock and roll. His operatic
and lowdown single, "Night" b/w "Doggin Around" must be the most
remarkable and most schizophrenic vocal adventure; and the live version
of "Doggin Around" must be on Heaven's jukebox.
- Finally, I've left out JESSIE BELVIN, CHUCK WILLIS, DOC POMUS,
SONNY TIL, RICKY NELSON, and THOMAS INGLE, each of whom richly
deserved that 29cents worth of fame.
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