DICK CLARK: Not of This Earth?

Fifty years old but he doesn't look a day older than a clean urinal. All the personality of a hung jury. Mercury vapor smile solidly implanted in a face you keep expecting to melt. Drip. Stands so straight you'd think he's got a cookie cutter for an asshole.

Dick Clark. You gotta admire the guy. Even though he looks like an overgrown bird feeder, he's a primal proselytizer of trash, turning stupid teenage weirdness into commercially acceptable reality. His heavy-handed mastery of TV sublimation, rarely straying from his trademark of big, uncomplicated Iron Butterfly shots and fast pacing, and his distant early warning system for fads has kept him at or near the top for twenty-five years now. He deserved a hearty pat on the wallet, even if he characteristically had to do it himself.

As a testimony to his remarkable shelf life, Clark threw a prime time party on ABC and invited enough has-beens to make a Warner Bros. A&R man wet his Wellies. Cher lounging at a table with a half-filled Gregg Allman balloon. Tony Orlando chatting with the ghost of Freddie Prinze. A German beer hall table lined with ex-members of the Byrds. And at Dick's table, the Captain and Tennille; Ed McMahon slobbering down Toni's dress, Johnny Rivers scribbling the chords to "Tracks Of My Tears" on a napkin for Smokey Robinson, John Lennon with a Stayfree mini-pad taped securely over his mouth and, of course, Lassie.

What with Clark's deranged-psych -teacher talent for segmentation, the film clips and live performances were divided into numerous sections with about as much transition as the rest of this article:

The Obligatory 50's: Guys with Tonka Truck haircuts cryptojitterbugging with girls wearing cardboard 3-D glasses, Barry Manilow singing the Bandstand theme while Lady Flash shake their twin rubber plantations, Vice President Nixon trying to bug a hula hoop, the Bandstand Regulars lined up outside of Pop's Soda Shop in Philly waiting to buy rubbers.

What Ever Happened To All The Regulars?: asks Robert Thomas Vee. Well, sez Dick, Sal Delveccio is now a roadie for Johnny Cougar. Rusty Coathanger invented and manufactures the microwave rug. Ruby Scardallio was recently interviewed with a bag over her head for NBC's Violence In America special. Harvey Zuppke is the etiquette advisor at CREEM. Joe Anaconda is a 'Namvet now training killer carp for the Ugandan navy.

Dance Crazes Of The Past: The Twist, the Slop, the Shits, the Mashed Potato, the Stove Top Stuffing, the O.D., the Limping Flamingo, the Rock Writer On Speed, the Trying To Hide an Erection, etc. Timely Quote from Dick: "Girls dancing with girls, can you imagine that?" Guess he's never been to the bar where Isis hangs out.

Salute To Teen Idols (Men's Div.): Fabian in a jungle suit, Johnny Ray telling queer jokes, John Travolta locking and unlocking his jaw, Paul Anka singing "Having My Baby" while waving a tube of semen, Michael Jackson trying on Billy Preston's Afro wig, Rick Nelson peddling dirty Polaroids of Ozzie and Harriet playing Twister.

Salute To Teen Idols (Women's Div.) : Diana Ross in '65 looking like a skinny hepatitis piss stream, Anita Bryant squeezing Robert Plant's citrus, Helen Reddy in a wooden kimono, Linda Ronstadt eyeing the members of Firefall, Judy Collins singing 'tSend In The Clowns" while Elektra promo hacks in Bozo suits juggle in the background, Annette wiggling her ears.

The Swinging 60's: The English Invasion! ("George, who's your favorite painter?" "Hitler.") John Kay taking off his shades to reveal two more noses, Grace Slick looking like a stuffed boxing glove, the Mama's and Papa's singing "California Dfreamin' " with John Phillips scripting a One Day At A Time episode in the background, Brian Wilson and Frankie Valli playfully boxing each other's ears, Stevie Wonder's old "Fingertips" film. Woops! Somebody substituted an ear of corn for his harp! What a joker!

Famous Dead People: An indoctrination film for the Rock Euthanasia Squad. Jim Croce laughingly boarding a plane called The Big Bopper, Billy Stewart stuttering to death, Jim Morrison pretending to take a bath in Brian Jones' swimming pool, Bobby Darin singing "Mack The Knife" while threatening Sal Mineo with his switchblade.

The Duh 70's: Scenes from the Potsy Club episode of Happy Days, Bowie napping while a giggling John Lennon sprays New Dawn on his hair, Lou Reed trying to escape a runaway metal detector, Elton John coming on to Doc Severinspn, Iggy Pop's surprise appearance on Welcome Back Kotter, Jimmy Page teaching a groupie how to play Horsey, the entire world falling asleep.

The Finale: With every monkey ever to appear on Bandstand available and then some, Dick put together a supergroup of twenty-three stars to perform a fifteen minute version of "Roll Over Beethoven." With Gregg Allman, Booker T., Johnny Rivers, the Pointer Sisters, Nigel Olssen, Seals and Croft, Charlie Daniels and half a million other potential show-offs waiting to play The Last Solo, who do you think Clark gives the hottest spot to?

Mark Lindsay on sax, that's who. If that doesn't tell you why Dick Clark is a genius, you'll never understand.

Will Success Spoil Rocky Balboa?

Or Rib*Cracker Goes Legit

ROCKY If

(United Artists) Directed by John Avildsen

by Richard Riegel

Rocky is being hailed for its "positive" values, for its redemption of the supposedly long-denied theme of "the little man triumphing over adversity," and there's no question that the film embodies these virtues. So why, then, would the drugstore Dadaists who write and (presumably) read CREEM need to take time for a movie that sports not only a "PG" rating, but the enthusiastic endorsement of Gene "Family Hour" Shalit besides?

Well, just as reality always tends to dissolve into an existential stew of inextricably-linked cynicism and optimism, Rocky is more complex than any easy slogan could have it. The plot is simple enough: fading "club fighter" Rocky Balboa, who hasn't yet risen to '■ the top of the boxing ranks even in his own Philadelphia, is suddenly offered an opportunity to fight reigning champ Apollo Creed for the heavyweight championship of the world. Rocky loses by a narrow decision, but he has given'the ego-blinded champ more of a battle than Creed had planned to take, and Rocky has met his own stated goal of lasting the full 15 rounds.

That's the story line, the inspiration of all of the reviewers' warm praise. But the facet which interests me is not the ' idea that Rocky has deservedly earned his symbolic victory through his life-long moral sense, but that he is given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove his virtue only through the blindest muddlings of chance.

Rocky has already (by his own resigned, admission) fulfilled his father's prophecy—"You gotta be a moron to be a fighter"—but his own lack of sophistication ends up providing him the windfall offer he couldn't have expected to deserve: in a moment of naive creativity, he has billed himself as the "Italian Stallion", and this appellation is what attracts the glib, black Creed, a Muhammad Ali sterotype who sees an easy victory over Rocky as a sort of ethnic catharsis which will relieve him of his own insecurities. That impulse leads him to offer Rocky the championship bout.

Rocky meets his ultimate challenge with the engaging goofiness which has dumped him into the fight in the first place: he trains in the slaughterhouse where Adrian's brother Paulie works, boxing frozen sides of beef daily. ("Yeah, I come here every day to beat the meat," Rocky tells a patronizing reporter, proudly half-aware of his own pun.)

Beyond all that, Rocky also works as an allegory for the career of actor-screenwriter Sylvester "Sly" Stallone, who came virtually from nowhere (supporting roles in The Lords ofFlatbush and Death Race 2000) to star in what appears destined to be one of the biggest popular and critical successes of 1977. Stallone has pulled off the rock stars' "I'm a star because / say I am" media-move with better authority than David Bowie or any one else has brought to the procedure, precisely through his own self-effacing attitude toward his impressive talents.

Stallone has reversed Jim Bouton's accomplishment—moving from athlete to writer to actor—by writing a script, selling his acting as an integral component of the story; and then training as a boxer to give Roc/cy as crushing an authenticity as his awesomely-developed biceps could deliver. Besides that, Stallone co-choreographed the boxing scenes and enlisted various of his relatives (including his dog) for cameo roles and miscellaneous technical contributions.

Talia Shire is Stallone's match as a star as Adrian, the painfully shy ugly-duckling who gradually flowers under Rocky's gentle attentions. Their love affair seems as much of a worldbeater as pocky's potent left hook. Love is where you intended (but hardly thought you deserved) to find it.

Carl Weathers, as Apollo Creed, and Burgess Meredith, as Mickey, the broken down, cynically pragmatic gym owner who gets his cosmic-accident chance (as Rocky's manager) are particularly effective in redeeming their traditional fight-movie roles for one more go-round. Director John Avildsen brings home the squalor of Rocky's South Philadelphia origins (and his daily transcendence thereof) with simple, direct power throughout.

Rocky; is one of the best films of this new year, for sure; now it remains to be seen whether Sylvester Stallone will get the decision Rocky Balboa just missed.