I walk with angels that have no place —Bruce Springsteen, "Streets Of Fire"

The middle-aged white man who runs the biggest oldies shop in the very old city of New Orleans is ranting hysterically on the edge of tears. He has recently seen the movie American Hot Wax and senses that history has passed him by one last time.

"That's right. I was a disk jockey in Canton, Ohio when Alan Freed was a d.j. in Akron. I was playing nigger records, and you know what Alan Freed was playing??? He was playing country & western! Country & western music! Then he starts playing nigger records and they fire him after a day. One day!

"Well, I'm sitting in this coffee shop with him afterwards, and he's stirring his coffee real slow and looking over my shoulder out the window. I says to him, 'Alan, just look at what you're doing. ' And he says, 'What?' And I say, 'Alan,; you're stirring your , goddamn coffee with a spoon! And there's the cream and sugar sitting right over there and you haven't put a one of them in!'