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Rodney Bingenheimer: The Patron Saint of Teenage

John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, March 1975

FORGET THE hillside enclaves of those who either can not yet or no longer afford Beverly Hills, and what's left of the San Fernando Valley is a gigantic anonymous post-Korean War suburban sprawl sliced, in theory only, into distinct communities by a grid of boulevards lined with gleaming, invariably-ten-minute-old-looking fast-food joints and indistinguishable shopping plazas. The Rolling Stones, marihuana, and The Revolution notwithstanding, the most cherished institution of its teenagers remains cruising Bob's Big Boy, as it has since they put the area up one week in 1954.

Total word count of piece: 5180

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