Kickin' Hippie's Asses And Raisin' Hell

 March 13, 2023

   A Desert Noir from 1971 continues on its merry way. It practically writes itself.

   In the summertime in the Valley of the Sun, it can be ninety-five at midnight, but on Grand Avenue in Glendale it could be even hotter.

Upstairs-Downstairs

   Mr. Lucky's on Grand Avenue featured Country Music upstairs and Rock and Roll downstairs. During the volatile Sixties and early Seventies, a long-haired customer had to pick just the right time (usually in the middle of a hot Country tune) to slip past the buzzcuts upstairs and hurry down the ramp to the basement.

   Meanwhile, the parking lot was a whole other obstacle course where the collisions and the confrontations, the taunts and the threats were no idle matter. Nobody has ever summed up this situation better than this guy:

"And it's up against the wall Redneck Mother. Mother who has raised her son so well. He's thirty-four and drinkin' in a honkytonk, just kickin' Hippie's asses and raisin' hell."

—Jerry Jeff Walker, who sang the most popular version, but this classic dittie was written by Ray Wiley Hubbard