A Complaint, and Quite Rightly

[Peg Herring]

Letter to the Editor

New York Times

Sept. 12, 1963

Dear Sir:

I wanna know what’s goin’ on wit kids these days. It ain’t right, I tell ya.

Yesterday I’m down St. Luke’s Place in the West Village to meet a couple of the boys. Here’s a bunch of long-haired hippie freaks and their weirdo chicks: faces painted, wearin’ beads, and passin’ out flowers. My ma wouldn’t have let me out of da house lookin’ like that!

This curly haired kid sits right in da middle of da sidewalk, playin’ his guitar. The case is open, and would ya believe it, people’s throwin’ change in. I know better uses for a guitar case, let me tell ya.

Anyways, he’s singin’ bout bein’ mellow yellow and bein’ mad about saffron. I’m pretty sure that’s one of those herb teas my grandma makes, but I don’t know why’d that’d make him mad unless someone made him drink it. Then he sings he’s mad about bein’ fourteen. Well, didn’t we all wanna grow up fast, but bein’ mad won’t make it happen any sooner.

The thing that really threw me was when he sang bout this electric banana. That made me feel creepy, like it was a warning that Joey “Bananas” Bonanno was after me. Maybe I’m just superstitious.

I think these kids are on those psycho drugs, the kind that makes you see all sorts of silly stuff. What they need is a couple slugs of good ol’, normal hooch.

Da good people of New York City shouldn’t have to put up with this nonsense. It ain’t good for the city’s image. They should round them all up, stick their daisies and their dandelions in their hair, and tell ‘em to fly to California on their “flower power.”

Sincerely,

Carlo Gambino