I was flabbergasted. You would be too. I met a great man, a statesman, one of the fathers of the counterculture. Dick Clark has been dishing up a leggily acceptable euphemism of the teenage experience on ABC-TV’s American Bandstand for twenty years now, and recently celebrated that achievement by airing a twentieth anniversary show featuring everything from dredged regulars out of the show’s acne heydays (now looking very staid indeed) to Cheech and Chong rating records (they gave one a nothing, and broke it). The show managed to Joll a 42 share of the viewing audience, unprecendented for the time it was aired, and now Buddah has marketed a companion album, 20 Years of Rock ’n ' Roll, a perfect assemblage including Dick’s mug up front, a 24 page souvenir yearbook, a cardboard bonus record of Dick’s “inside stories,” and 30 original hits running all the way from “Cryin’ in the Chapel” by the Orioles to Gallery’s “Nice To Be With You” (a hefty portion of it old Buddahowned noise, of course).

So in spite of hipcult accusations of galloping obsolescence, Dick Clark is currently riding higher than ever, and obviously deserves to be heard in thetfe sargasso times of youthful post-unrest nebbishhood which some have even sworn are like the Fifties all over again. They’re not, of course, but Dick Clark may well have come full circle.