Bo Diddley beat

There is a thing called the Bo Diddley beat. You will recognize it as soon as you hear it. It is one of the fundamental sounds of rock and roll. Sort of a "Wilhelm Scream" of music, if you will.

But there is one example of its appearance in the world of music that is not currently recorded in its Wikipedia entry. It forms the basic rhythm of "The Naked Handstand Man," the song apparently written by a group of surfer bums, when they were teenagers, about the father of Sandra Tsing Loh -- who, among his other eccentricities, as she has often regaled us NPR listeners, does in fact perform naked handstands on the beaches of Southern California. Duh-duh-DUH-duh-duh -DUH-DUH/ He's the naked handstand maa-aaan. 

So that explains at last why, as a kid, when you first heard this radio story, the "Naked Handstand Man" song sounded so strangely familiar -- so unmistakably rock and roll -- even though it was the first time you were exposed to it.