'Switchblades were scary to deal'
Schools in Texas were segregated when I was growing up. There were separate schools for whites, blacks, and Mexicans. In 1954, Allen Junior High in Austin burned down and the Mexican students had to go to school somewhere, so the white kids at University Junior High started classes an hour early and left school at lunch. As we marched out under watchful eyes, the kids from Allen marched in. Thus was created the greatest place in the world to conduct walk up retail trade for contraband, even though there was never enough time to dicker. “You like it?” “How much for it?” Yes or no, we had to keep moving. Coaches lurked around every corner. I couldn’t charge a markup so I never made a dime but I got to handle a lot of really fine merchandise. Cigarette lighters with naked women moved fast. So did loaded dice and marked cards with dirty pictures. Switchblades were scary to deal, but I enjoyed the cheap thrill of being into east side shit that the west side kids weren’t hip to yet.
I was in love with two girls named Chip and Dale. They were short and tall, brunette and blond, glamorous and sexy and sweet and attentive in the eyes of this twelve-year old. I was a regular Saturday customer at Liberal Outlet on Sixth Street where they worked. They would take switchblade knives, throwing knives, and brass knuckles out of their locked cases and let me handle them. If I seemed interested, they would go talk to their Lebanese boss and come back with a slightly better price. They also mimed hit songs of the day on a teen music show called “Now Dig This” hosted by Cactus Pryor that aired on KTBC, the only TV station in town.
Each week a panel of junior high and high school students would debate the merits of songs that Chip and Dale would lip-synch to. Each song would be declared a hit or a miss, indicated by whether a bell or a gong was struck. I hadn’t actually seen the show on television because it aired on Saturdays, which coincided with my weekly bus ride downtown to Sixth Street. But, by the time I finished prowling Scarborough’s basement, Woolworth’s, and White’s Pharmacy, the girls would be at work in Liberal Outlet to enhance my browsing.
One Saturday they approached me simultaneously before I could find an excuse to bother them. Chip, the tall one, looked down at me, smiled, reached out and twirled my Sal Mineo spit curl around her finger. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. “You’re cute,” Dale told me. I tried to stay cool but in fact I was trying hard not to pee in my pants. They said they were responsible for getting the panelists booked for “Now Dig This” and they were in need of help getting a good looking group together for the show in two weeks. Of course I lied and told them I watched the show all the time. They asked if I knew some hip kids to invite to the show. Boy, did I ever. I named the five cutest girls I could think of, all way out of my class, from schools around town. What an opportunity to make up my own dream team. Chip and Dale giggled and allowed that they appreciated my maneuver but I was going to have to share the spotlight with at least one other boy. I quickly named a big, dumb tackle named Sidney whom I was pretty sure would make me look sharp. I started wondering if there was any way to get laid without having a car.
Richard 'Cactus' Pryor
Cactus had been bald when I’d seen him on television. In the restroom at the Channel 7 studios, as I took one last nervous pee before the show, he suddenly appeared wearing a toupee. He preened into the mirror, running a wet comb through his glossy new hair, and glanced over his shoulder to say to me, “Nice ducktails, kid. Let’s go play ‘Now Dig This!’”
My music education came from listening to the radio in my little house back by the alley. It was a red GE model that I bought with earnings from working at a fireworks stand two years before. I’d tune in KVET 1300 AM to hear to Dr. Hepcat, the cool talking Black disc jockey who also authored of the definitive book of hip lingo, “The Jives of Dr. Hepcat,” and I’d tune in KTAE 1260-AM in beautiful downtown Taylor in the farm country east of Austin, to listen to another black deejay, Tony Von (“The only color TV on the radio!”) I didn’t know what other kids listened to. I didn’t talk radio or music at school, just contraband and girls. But I knew there was good music and there was bad music.
When the “Now Dig This!” panel was asked to listen and judge “Blueberry Hill” by the Andrews Sisters, I was appalled. I didn’t even appreciate the effort Chip and Dale put into their mime. “Blueberry Hill” was a Fats Domino song, and I made an issue out of it. “Why weren’t they singing to Fats?” I asked. Cactus butted in to pipe up that the girls probably wouldn’t be very convincing miming to Fats Domino. Though I knew the Andrews Sisters version had been a hit for weeks because I’d heard it played on the radio, I couldn’t back down. I voted that their version would be a miss.
Each successive panelist voted the record was a sure hit. The remainder of the show was a blur. The girls left with Sidney to the Paramount for a movie. I left alone and went to the Ritz to see Lash LaRue. I never again shopped at Liberal Outlet. I was too embarrassed to face the girls. I suffered my first public humiliation on television. It would not be the last.