Rant Around the Clock

So, I’m watching Rock Around the Clock, a fictitious movie about Bill Haley and the Comets starring Bill Haley and the Comets (it’s the part they were born to play), and I’m looking at the weird greased up hair and clothes and mannerisms and it makes me kind of nostalgic for the fifties; then, I remember I hadn’t been born yet in the fifties and have just seen so many movies and television shows that I THINK I lived through the fifties. I think I even remember voting for Eisenhower… TWICE. This movie had a LOT of music in it, which was a welcome relief from the insipid plot and superlatively unnatural dialog.

And, it had The Platters, as well. The Platters were a vocal group who crooned songs like Only You, Magic Touch and I’m Satan’s Goat-whore, although I may have misheard that last one. I noticed that one of the Platters didn’t seem like an actual Platter and then it occurred to me that it might be due to the Platter Relocation Program that Federal law enforcement had created after impressing Platters into undercover service to try to gain convictions for organized crime bosses. It was a supremely bad idea whose time had come. Problem was, you could only relocate four or fewer Platters to any one municipality, because, if you got five of them together, everyone would know exactly who they were… especially after they introduced themselves. Although I’m not really sure how members of the group would identify themselves without the added explanation, “I’m a Platter”. You could probably number them, but as Platters are relocated to avoid violent mob reprisal, WOULD YOU REUSE THE NUMBERS? Or, would you give the new Platter a new number? And, if you DID reuse numbers, what if a Platter was really talented and popular? Would they retire his number? Would there be a ceremony? Would it seem like an empty ceremony without at least a U.S. Senator in attendance… and maybe a bishop? I don’t know how many Senators listened to the Platters… or bishops, for that matter. I doubt many of them listened to Bill Haley. It was Rock ‘n Roll… at its genesis. The term had just

been coined. When they originally trademarked it, Rock ‘n Roll’s logo was a very old woman hitting a dog with a rake. Some say that they didn’t put much thought into the logo; but, my theory is that they put way too much thought into it. You can definitely do that. Good ideas are sinusoidal and they alternate with really crappy ideas with the same period our entire lives. The only way we can be successful is, when you get a crappy idea, to repress it… although, if I came up with that theory during a low-quality ideas cycle, it’s probably seriously flawed.