I don't have real deadlines for this site. I have in place (in my head) a policy of posting three times a week and for consistency I try to make the updates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I am sure that since I was attending a Chubby Checker event on Sunday, most readers expected the update yesterday.
I would have liked to accomplish that, but my plans for Sunday included seeing Chubby Checker in the afternoon and then going to (my first) Wild game that evening. I thought I would have time in between to write the first draft, but then I had to go sign a lease on an apartment instead.
Sure, that didn't take all that long, but then I had to go be pleased about finishing the apartment search and then it was time to have dinner and head to the arena. After the game I had to watch ESPN to enjoy the highlights and then I had to go to bed since I hadn't gotten enough sleep because of my early trip to the mall.
No problem, I thought. Monday night I could write up my trip to Camp Snoopy and it would still be reasonably fresh. I had been at work for a couple of hours when I got the phone call.
3:53 PM
LCG: Are you in front of the computer?
Me: Yep.
LCG: Go to Yahoo! news!
Me: Okay.
LCG: (bordering on hyperactive) I mean go to Yahoo! and look over to the right where they have the news links.
Me: That's what I was going to do! I thought that was what you meant. That's another reason I use Yahoo! instead of Google. I like to look at the headlines on the main page and pretend to be informed.
As I was talking, I was skimming the list of news links. And near the bottom, there it was. Chubby Checker Stages Rock Hall Protest.
Me: Oh, no.
LCG: He is protesting. Not that he isn't in, but that he performed The Twist.
Me: But he didn't write it!
LCG: It does say that.
Me: Didn't Hank Ballard write it?
LCG: Yep.
Me: Woo-hoo! I win!
LCG: Hank Ballard is already in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame so The Twist is in there.
Me: So, what is his problem?
LCG: I don't know.
We got off the phone and I read the article. I took great delight in the fact that the article was listed as thirty minutes old. Thirty minutes! My Chubby Checker news chain is in tip-top form, let me tell you. Anyway, it seems that Mr. Checker is upset about the lack of airplay he receives. Well I am upset about that time in 1996 that The Limbo Rock went through my head for several months. We all suffer for his art in one way or another. Speaking of One Way Or Another, I'm still ticked that the image of Chubby Checker dancing with Debbie Harry is seared into my memory forever.
I finished reading and sent the link on to CEB and the Mustachioed Drummer as well as Miss Megala. I thought she needed fair warning that Chubby Checker was no longer in my neighborhood, he was in hers. I was starting to wonder if the article was exciting enough to make me bump the concert story for a day so I could write up the (allegedly good-natured) protest.
4:00 PM
I got a message from CEB with the subject line does the fun ever stop :D and I knew he had gotten my email because CEB doesn't just throw smileys around all willy-nilly. There was no commentary, just a link to the Yahoo! story. He hadn't gotten my mail but he had found the story himself! I told him I had just sent him the link.
From CEB: I never got an email from you. Maybe that is why Chubby only performed for 7 minutes, he had to rush to NYC to protest. I would love to have a giant picture of him greeting people at the r-n-r hall o' fame. it would be hilarious (hopefully he would also be selling Chubby Checker Steaks).
That's right, Chubby Checker performed for exactly seven minutes at the Mall Of America. You can be sure I will provide the full story very soon.
4:18 PM
Email from M. Giant!
Subject: FW: Chubby Checker News!
Just got this from Al of Hate Your Daddy. I'm forwarding it to all of your addresses that I have because it seems pretty urgent.
She couldn't find my well disguised email address so she sent it to M. Giant asking him to forward the breaking news and he sent it to all three email addresses. It was a link to the Yahoo! story. I was starting to feel like the president of something important as opposed to being someone who just tried to go see Blondie.
4:48 PM
I checked my main email, and two helpful readers had also sent in the news. But what was this? A reader had sent me the scoop at two o'clock! That predates the Yahoo! item! Well, this helpful reader had sent a link to the Philadelphia Daily News write-up of the same story.
This version was even better, because it mentions that Chubby doesn't want music from the years 1959-1963 to stop getting airplay. Hey! Neither do I! It is a constant source of irritation to me that my oldies station is playing more and more tracks from the seventies and cutting out the fifties almost completely. That's something I have been planning on writing up in more detail because I am not hearing the early rock and roll and doo-wop that I crave. I think listening to early rock and roll is necessary groundwork for understanding the music that came later.
Not that I want to hear The Twist, I don't. However, I do miss the days when I could hear Silhouttes by Herman's Hermits and Silhouttes by a doo-wop artist within a few hours. I see that The Diamonds, The Rays, and Frankie Lymon all recorded it so I don't know which version my oldies station used to play. I think it was the Diamonds version. I don't know for sure! My education is incomplete! And I don't want Chubby Checker's help getting my doo-wop back. Who is going to listen to him anyway? I would suspect that he isn't as interested in all music from 1959-1963 as he is interested in his own music from 1959-1963.
6:00 PM
Miss Weez had also sent the Yahoo! link. She had mailed it via the Yahoo! email this story option at around 3:45 but for some reason it didn't arrive until later. I can only assume their network was overloaded with people sending this to each other. She also had this to say: Poor Chubby! No wonder he has been reduced to selling meat.
Ah, the meat. Part of the original reason that my friends and I have developed an almost unnatural interest in Chubby Checker. I would feel bad about the meat products, but I can't. The man actually thinks that food items containing the words twist or checker refer back to Chubby Checker and The Twist.
No, they don't. Imagine a corporation that makes food products. The R&D department has just come up with, I don't know, a new variation on that disgusting product that mixes peanut butter and jelly in the same jar. But instead of a stripey formation, it is swirly. Do you suppose that the savvy marketing team looks at that and says, "Swirls. Twirls. Twists! Twists! We have to use Twist in the product name because of Chubby Checker! He's very popular, you know." That doesn't happen. But if it ever does, he can sue them for the rights to the spread and sell it along with his meat products.