8351. PARA-SAIL

PARA-SAIL

No glide but what the air drags out,

no feeling for the rain at the end of

a drought. I am sailing, high and above,

and everything passes by far below me.

8350. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #100

100. THE SLOCUM FIRE

Like the little dump of a town I

live in now, 50 years later, the

lower east side had all the ways

and means of a poor person's

paradise/ghetto. Which is why

I liked it, and why I like my town

right here now too; a simple 20

miles off. No pretension, no

make-believe goo-goo about

being or acting like something

we're not. Noises, and curses.

Overgrown kids, just slightly

too big, rolling down the street,

on the side of the roadway, on a

little bicycle, some home-made

derogatory version of what may

once have been a Sting-Ray or

something. Behind them, standing

on the rear-wheel bolts, standing

and above the bike-pilot, is some

12-year old, long-haired, dirty

grimy kid. The two of them,

oblivious to all else, jamming

along. The kid on the back with

a big, shit-eating grin while his

face hits the wind. That was just

today, in fact, right here in Avenel,

down by the Post Office  -  for

now the 'ghettoiest' part of this

town. Kids shooting driveway

hoops, loud bastards with their

firecrackers. My dog, asleep

here at my feet, in the yard,

catches the breeze too. Just

yesterday, back at 10th street,

over by Astor Place, and 4th

Avenue's corner, sitting out

having a slow, early-morning

coffee, same kind of kid goes

down the street, older, bigger,

on some hot-rod skateboard, looks

at me as he approaches, and loses

control somehow, and hits the

ground. Hard, but he was OK.

The skateboard, and this is honest,

literally, goes flying down the street

towards the big intersection at

Astor Place, honest, like it has a

dedicated life of its own. The kid,

and me, are in awe; it's flying,

through two lights and streets,

hitting nothing (early morning,

light local traffic), and only finally

comes to rest by the cones and

pylons protecting the work site

down that way at Cooper Union.

It finally comes to rest, flying a

flip-jig at the barricades. The kid

looks at me 'so great, man, thanks,'

and skitters off down the street

in pursuit of his retrieval. Any of

that could have been right here,

and vice versa. It's the world

I like.

-

Point is, I guess, I'm not really

going anywhere. The Macadamia

nut that's been presented to me

has been OK. I always laugh at

my own jokes: What do they serve

on an airline flight of Professors

headed for vacation in the islands?

Academia nuts. Everything around

me has always been swirling  and

any question ever asked of me I've

usually come up with an answer for.

It's like a still-life, this living; all

things settled now and set. Is that

the way it ends up for everyone?

I wonder if what we end up taking

with us is just what we were given

to begin with anyway  - as if all

numbers and every equation of life,

in the very end all adds back up to

the same number you started with.

Divine justice everywhere : or

maybe just zero. Ashes to ashes,

and dust to dust. Underneath it all,

and I know this, that still-life of

my familiarity is still there. Where

the problem comes in is how the

overlay of all the new stuff just

takes over. Over at Astor Place, 

by Cooper Union, there used to 

be this arty thing, a sort of big

black cube, tilted on its point, and 

if you pushed it, it rotated. No big 

deal, almost stupid, but it was there

for years  -  blues guys and punk

guys and dancers and magicians,

they'd all come by and do their

little stuff with the hat out. Guitar

stuff all hours. People selling crap

on blankets all along the Cooper

Union base  - the mysterious old

building looming over it all, like

the rancid ghost of some dead

Abraham Lincoln lording it over

a seedy and run-down Bowery

America, wordlessly telling you 

it had somehow turned to filth.
That the dream was over. Now?

It's all gone, and you can't find

a trace of it. The old stuff maybe

is still there, but it's dwarfed now

by these atrocious new crumpets 

of way over-busy architecture. 

Chrome and steel, burnished 

aluminum, all that crap; no straight

edges, everything swirling and twisting. 

They don't even use bricks and mortar 

now. Little would Andy Bonamo 

know, if and wherever he is now, how

it's like the whole entire world 

now is suffering from some 

brutal LSD trip, all on its own.

-

I used to sit and stare at the
General Slocum Memorial and
just try to think of tragedy, and what
tragedy must be like. But, I realized,
tragedy no longer existed. I was in
a curious, closed-pocket of time.
Especially about tragedy. Little did I
even know, but down from me about
20 blocks they were beginning the
close-to-final aspects of the
Twin Towers, which would
later, much later, be viewed as a
tragedy, perhaps in line with this
Slocum steamship of 1900 or
whatever it was. I didn't yet know
the future. I hardly knew the past,
but they were both there, out before
me; and I was trying to read both.
The Slocum disaster, right nearby,
had killed many Germans out for a
day-excursion. Children, and adults.
They just burned in the harbor, on a
blazing wooden ship. The community
was devastated, and after that most
Germans just packed up and left; giving
up the lower eastside entirely, they just
all went, en masse, up to the east 90's,
a section called Yorkville, and simply
transplanted themselves  -  free of the
awful memory and remnants of that
fire. That's still where you go now,
in NYC, for the German community
and all their foods and cultural
traditions. I was living in the ghost
hole of all that had been theirs. What
really can you do when one day
you're in some oddball smalltown
highway pit-stop on the way to nothing
and the next morning you awake on
park grass, in the heat, with about
10 or 15 other people doing the very
same thing. Indigent. Lost. Sleeping
on open grass. 'To be indigent you
can't be indignant' -  that was another
one of mine. I was at the very same
park again, at sun-up the other morning
(that skatebboard kid day I just told you
about). Nearly the same time of year too.
Travelers around. School out. End of
June. And lo and behold, I walk
over to the Slocum Monument to
bid it a hello, and there again, on the
grass, some 7 or 8 bodies  -  bags,
blankets, shoes, hats  -  all asleep or
just rousing, on that grass. As if the
fifty years intervening had just never
occurred. Everything about the same.
That's what New York was like  -
one little heritage-ghetto after the
other. The Germans left, and then
the Jews came, and then the Slavs
and Poles, and then the Russians.
I wandered about, at times almost
listless, from my concern and
my confusion towards all
that I was seeing.

8349. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #99

99. RUINATION CENTRAL

My erstwhile roommate, Andy

Bonamo, that first August, had

somehow gotten involved with

the procedural planning and

set-up of what was being billed

as 'The First Annual Psychedelic

Festival', in Forest Hills, NY.

I stayed out of it, but it was

being billed and planned for

as what now would amount to

a forerunner of the Woodstock

Music and Arts Festival, of

'Woodstock' fame, a few years

later. Except that part of the

actual, advertised, allure for

this  -  in addition to rock music

acts  -  was psychedelia and

drugs. Make no bones about

that  -  a good portion of the

idea was to push product.

Andy's and his suppliers'

products. The music list was

secondary, although it was

pretty good too, for what it

was, and it would draw people.

I knew little of any more of it.

They'd had tickets printed up,

(I got one for free; it's around

somewhere, saved and unused.

Though I don't know what it's

called when you save something

so well that you can't quickly

find it. Supersaver?) - flyers

made, a couple of goofball

kids hired to hand out flyers

everywhere they could, and

all the requisite planning and

set-up done. I remember Andy's

big job was to arranging the

power-light show, kliegs,

strobes, and the rest  -  all

sorts of things to be dancing

in the sky. Kind of like a new

version off drug-hippie

fireworks. Anyway, it was

fairly tedious and seemed to

go on for a long time. I can't

remember exactly, but I think

maybe it was for Labor Day's

newly-extended weekend (those

3-day holidays things weren't

around back in the 60's. That

was all arranged a little later).

Anyway, whatever came of this

'festival' I never found out. I'd

'split', as it used to be put, from

that apartment by then, even

though it was still in my name

and all that weird criminal stuff

going on there could still have

ostensibly be called mine, or

traced back to me if authorities

were really digging. By the

dead Winter of that year, as I

related way earlier, the place

had been raided, cleaned out,

police-taped, and everyone was

gone. I never stuck around to

find out what had occurred.

Psychedelic Festival, for sure.

-

I only mention this stuff because

it's part of the strange and new

experience that I'd stepped

myself into, all by getting on

the Carteret bus to NYC that

first day, with my five dollars

in hand given to me by Bill

Yorke. Had I only known. But

then again had Columbus only

known, we wouldn't have

America.

-

Getting to New York by bus is

different even than getting their

by train  -  yeah, they're both

cattle-calls, granted, but the

bus depot routine is bizarre.

You enter from that strange

Weehawkin helix that brings

you down to the Lincoln Tunnel

past all that grand skyline

waterfront 'New York staring

you in the face' stuff, like it's

some wonderland. The

slowness of traffic just extends

it all and presents it to you

as some sort of unreal, imagined

still-life stretched out before

you but separated too by a

half mile or so of water. It's

visceral, and real; but you

can't touch it. You can tell,

just even from the Jersey side,

that it's thick and dense, noisy

and packed, even though you

don't know any of that from

 there. It's all sensation. It's

all thought. The buses slide

through the tunnel with their

unique bus gait and bus manners.

Traffic, honking, buzz-flash

noises and views. The buses

queue up and make their way,

each, to their intended spots,

from which you get off and

enter a warren. A maze, of

shifting people, luggage

carts, heat, noise, porters,

carriers, those confused

and those concerned.

Looking at subway maps,

trying to discern where

they are and who to ask.

Cops used to be scarce  -

now they're everywhere,

with machine guns and

dogs, staring down

anything that moves.

Seeing how it was all

a daze to me, I can't

remember how I made my

way down to the Greenwich

Village area. Subway?

Walking? My second-sense

here tells me, initially,

back-then it would have been

subway. Ten-cent token, or

whatever it was.  Nowadays I

never use the subway, and find

it, and its people, despicable.

I've grown quite comfortable

walking anywhere I need to be

going  -  within the city, I

mean. Ninety blocks, one

way or the other, and back;

all good. Back then, however,

from all my previous visits, 

and from the standard NY 

romantic lore, the subway 

was all part of the experience.

All I know is that I got myself,

by first nightfall, into my own 

new world  -  an entire 'something

other' than what I'd ever known 

before. Oh yeah, it's hard to
put, and I'd be hard-put to put it.
-
I made some friends quickly.
Some I've mentioned, others I've 
not. There were some quite a few 
characters, to be sure. I used to think 
about all that I'd learned, or tried to 
learn or had jammed down my throat, 
in high school, about civics and the 
American system. Too much of it
was high-minded bullshit, and still is,
with no bearing in truth at all. Like
that leather-sandals guy would say, 
'If  you can't make a dollar one way,
just find another way.' I think they
could take all their civics and history
textbooks, and just chuck them  -  
because that almost haiku or zen-like
saying better sums up 'America' for me.
Make a buck, entrepreneur stuff, the
unfettered, Adam Smith work of
free enterprise, deals and money.
That's all you need, and that's what
it's about  -  make no mind about
who gets hurt, what lands and waters
get ruined and spoiled, how many 
die or get diseased or injured over 
your quest for a self-satisfaction  
that seems only measurable in the 
whore-like measure of money.
Despoliation. Grunge. Dirt. Fire. 
Filth. and Death, Yes, always and
ultimately, Death. Look at China. 
Look at Russia. Hell, look at us. 
Look at Andy Bonamo : the true
American entrepreneurial spirit, 
setting' up a fee-enterprise festival,
gleaning some profit, tickets, etc.,
all in the name of the grand American
capitalistic spirit of selling drugs and 
poison to kids and being applauded
for his courageous, business spirit.
Ruination everywhere. 

8348. I AM AFRAID OF ONE HUNDRED THINGS

I AM AFRAID OF 

ONE HUNDRED THINGS

I have a really good nightmare: I am

walking along these canyoned streets

with you, and no one knows we are here.

The kettle-drum guys on the corner are

playing, and their idiot dancers are

running around. Hats out, and the 

monsters from Dubuque and from

Quebec are giving them dollars. Oh

what a nightmare world we've made :

this is now 'so New York' that it 

makes me afraid. I am afraid of

one hundred things. And I am

afraid of nothing at all.

8347. SLOTH

SLOTH

By opening these decadent Himalayas,

you've marked me out new trails in

the hills. These are all too high, yet

I must carry this load. There's a new

saint in this roadside chapel, but I

can't yet remember his name.

-

Saint Alphonse of the Spitfire, 

that's what I'll call him  -  praying 

incessantly too. For greed, and for

avarice both. Let's see what he brings

of the seven deadly sins.

-

Why do you think this all is easy? I work

and I slave over five thousand words

to but whittle it down by day's end to

two hundred. And even then it takes

more, and it all must make sense.

Too much work, Saint Alphonse.

If you're bringing things out,

I'll take some sloth.

8346. DR. MAX

DR. MAX

I am caught up in duct tape

and can't move a thing. My arms

are behind my head, my feet are

ringed like a donut. If this is

torture, I am insipid. You've

read me all the scripture lines

you say I should know about   -

the meek inheriting the Earth, 

that 'don't look back' thing and 

the pillar of salt, the prodigal 

son bit, the plague and the 

locusts. It's all over the place,

this is  -  all that anxiety and

fearsome angst. And then

they part the Red Sea like

they were parting Rachel's

hair. You want me to wail 

and pray to this? Dr. Max,

I'm all twisted, and I

need to be fixed.

8345. IT'S ONLY NOW

IT'S ONLY NOW

And how I can make things stop?

I just really don't know but I don't

wish to sleep and I don't want to go.

I am maxilla and mandible together.

Like in a kitty-cat car at the carnival rides, 

I gather my brothers and sisters as one to 

crash-land this boutonniere into something 

other than us. They've let all the water out 

of the Tunnel of Love, and these boats 

shall be stranded forever.

8344. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #98

98. AUTHENTICITY

You can stretch things until

they break, or, if you're really

fortunate, they just keep on

stretching. Or maybe the trick

is to just know the breaking

point and only go that far.

Some sort of engrained talent,

maybe. But, no matter, because

it only works in limited formats;

you can't kill five people and

then figure that a sixth would

just be too much.

-

In Avenel, back when I was

just busy being a kid, there, to

me, existed none of the finalities

or closed doors that arose later

in life. Partially, that was just

because of youth  -  raw and

unblemished, wide open, trying

out all sorts of different scenarios.

I can remember, once, deciding

I wanted to be an airplane pilot,

but only based on the experience

of riding my bicycle almost

endlessly over the sidewalks,

and the cracks and rises and

dips and cracks in that sidewalk,

all up and down the street, on

alternating sides, and pretending,

or almost actually 'experiencing',

that sidewalk terrain below me,

as I looked down riding it, as if

it were the land and terrain of the

world below me from the window

of the plane I was piloting. Every

dip and crack and gouge meant

some differing geographic point

and blemish to navigate. It was

pretty glorious, and I'd get done

feeling as if I'd just traversed the

entire USA. What a feeling! I

wonder how many other kids

were influenced in that manner

by their J. C. Higgins or Huffy

or Schwinn bicycles? I ran

through the years of my

budding youth in a lot of

that same fashion  -  the quite

grandiose adventures of saving

an entire town single-handedly,

by fighting it off from strong-armed

evildoers and malingerers by

taking on the sole and heroic

challenge of besting their 'violence'

with my own courage and return

violence. Beating the crap out

of the gunslingers, in front of

the entire 5th grade no less!

Undertaking some grand and

glorious quest, in full view of

a hundred others, and succeeding,

to the cheers and accolades of

all others. How all very weird?

Do all kids go through this?

Just boys? Just psychotic boys?

Simply nut-maniacs? Or, on

the other hand, is that how

Mt. Everest and the South and

North Poles were conquered

and attained? Which is which,

and what really is 'heroics'

anyway? Can it not be done

alone and in solitary, a solo

self-quest of bettering demons?

I certainly felt it could, and all

the parts of this new environment

were to where it brought me.

To me, it all was the home of

that rebellious street-music, the

psyche and the embodiment of

turmoil and quest. All the deep

writing and thoughtful reflection

that had gone into erecting the

vast, intellectual world of 'self'.

I'd here and there talk to people,

a couple of guys on Bleecker

Street I'd see  -  they were

getting by cutting leathers

and making sandals in their

little workshop and storefront

right there on Bleecker, and

though you'd never know it

were all hip and savvy with

the stuff of business and profit

and loss  -  all that annoying

stuff I could never get right

with. He'd tell me, the one

guy  -  a big Italian-faced

born and bred local  -  not

to worry about that stuff if

it wasn't me. 'A dollar's a

dollar,' he'd say, 'and if you

can't get it one way you can

get it another.' I never knew

what that meant, but just let

it in  -  words of comfort? Or

just advice? Or maybe nothing

at all. I could never tell. I knew

within that those words were

not really advice for anything,

more like a translatable

small-talk for 'what else is

new.' So I never let it bother

me. Greenwich Village used

to have, also, these outdoor

art-exhibits, like roving

collections of not-quite

'Sunday' painters but real

artists, except they painted

to sell  -  mostly schlocky

stuff, junk, what I used to

call 'tree on a bridge' art.

Nice, comfy wall scenes

of country stuff, horse's heads,

boats and harbor, vague and

colorful harmless abstractions.

I meant, by 'tree on a bridge'

art, of course, the complete

opposite of any art I've ever

approached, or done. It's

art without concept, just a

representation of the world

around us for means of

'reporting' it back and happy,

which it never is. Which is

why I always considered it 

dishonest, and which is why 

I was at least glad it was 

relegated to sidewalk sales

by hobbyists. However, these

people, like those sandal guys,

felt at least that they were

really in business  -  their 

little cash-boxes handy, 

accounting sheets, replacement 

paintings for whatever they'd

maybe sell off their little

wall-stands and displays.

The guys wore berets, and

they all tried throwing off some

blase Parisian 'we're so 50's cool'

art vibe - the ladies with colorful

scarves and hats and glasses,

smoking from cigarette holders,

men in tight Euro pants, 

everything just so. It was, 

really, all fairly ridiculous and

so very magazine-oriented it 

was never any wonder that 

things like Look Magazine 

and Life Magazine would do 

photo spreads  -  'weird art 

confabs, crazy beatnik girls 

and women, loose and free,

who didn't even shave under

their arms!' That was easy, but

when it got difficult was when

all this did get reported back to

hinterlands, through such publicity

as this, and those people believed

it all  -  lock, stock, and barrel. (I

wonder, is that a gun reference 

that we soon shall be considering 

indecorous?). And then, believing

it, those very same people began

streaming to New York City to

'BE' that, to become that weird

imagining they envisioned. Wow!

What a world is that, and where

does 'authenticity' start or stop?

I never really knew, but I was always

on stage for the lookout towards

'authenticity'. That was always

important to me, from the heart 

and made with love. Even then, like 

today, that was all that ever counted.

8343. BOUND IN THE TEMPLE WITH THE AFTERMATH

BOUND IN THE TEMPLE 

WITH THE AFTERMATH

Grapefruit bathwater, pomme-frites

broth? The landing on the right takes

any size boat, at least long as as this

restaurant stays afloat. Here's the 

checklist of things you might like. 

Or, 'drown sorrow in the Turnpike

Inn.' For some reason that's the

motto at the bottom of this chart.

8342. CREATE A WIDENING LOAD

CREATE A 

WIDENING LOAD

There's this Anglo-Saxon guy, 

bending way low. A scowler 

from way back. Says he

remembers Jethro Tull, the 

plow guy, not the band. I 

can't make all the connections

any more. It's a blurry mist, 

and I am lost in some 

Avalon time. Oh, 

Dominic, from

where have

I come?

8341. LOVE DOCTOR

LOVE DOCTOR

Yeah, so I went. She looks

at the cards thrown down on 

the table, her freaking kid 

shrieking behind us, with his

whole hand in his mouth. I

asked her what she saw. The 

message.  She said, 'Not much.

But are you in love? It says to

me, for your personal message, 

'My saltshaker was made for your 

shoes.' I said, 'Hmm, ain't that odd to
to you?' She said it would take another

forty bucks for me to find out; the bitch.' 

8340. JUST MADE FOR THE ENDING OF TIME

JUST MADE FOR 

THE ENDING OF TIME

There are always to be variations, there

is no one precise way. You can turn the

screw, but know her eyes are always

watching. And isn't that what a distant

love is anyway? Something you can't

do a damn thing about. My heart,

and my mind, like some Hatfield 

and McCoy at the end of time.

8339. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #97

97. CHASM CLUB

Another thing I noticed was

how people kept going back

to the well, time after time,

even after they knew the pail

had no bottom and wouldn't

hold water. It wouldn't matter,

and there was never that level

of introspection in them to be

considering any of all this. Even

with their apparent strict belief

in logic and sequence, it all

passed them by   -  the fact that

their packaged beliefs were all

untrue. I had to make sense of

that, on my own, in order to

continue. Over on St. Mark's

Place, around Eastertime one

year, I witnessed two different

events when the cap was

figuratively blown from

the top of my head. There

were two separate Sundays,

at this little Polish parish,

across the street right there

from the Polish National Home,

a sort of apartment building,

and next a few doors over from

what later became The Electric

Circus, of hippie, Andy Warhol,

and Velvet Underground fame,

where they had, in the 'spirit'

of season, two events which

startled me. People flocked

to them. You know how T. S.

Eliot wrote that he 'did not

know that death had undone

so many' about all those people
walking the bridge over the
Thames -  well, that's how

I felt. I was simply not aware

there were so many old-world,

naively honest people around

who held to such tenets. There

was nothing modern about this.

One Sunday it was 'The Blessing

of the Animals'. I wasn't sure

what it meant, but it appeared

to mean pets. There was a

streetload of people, standing

steady, babbling away in

whatever Slavic tongue they 
spoke, each with something:

dogs, cats, birds, hamsters,

snakes, lizards, even globes

of fish. In their own religious

way, the idea was for procession

with the animals through and

in the innards of the church,

for an eventual blessing by a

priest. The very next Sunday,

the same thing occurred, but

with baskets of food  -  to be

representing bounty, not just

that particular basket. I guess

for people used to hardship,

it held a real meaning. I was

just baffled. There was such

a pervasive, back-time, old

feel to all of this. From it, I

sensed the reality of all these

people - suffering, hunched,

laden down with a million

things. The same strenuous,

rigors, dictates and strictures

which ruled their beliefs,

ruled, as well, their lives. To

be honest, to me they just all

looked as equal to dead. Why

bother to go back again and

again just to repeat the same

errors?

-

It began becoming apparent to

me that many aspects of New

York City were just as barren,

or worse, than what I'd left in

Avenel. At least in Avenel, all

besides my fighting against it,

they were letting 'modernity'

take them in, and move them

along. The incidentals were

new, and things were changing

as much of that 'old' was pushed

aside and left with Mom and Dad

in other places, like Bayonne and

Newark, and Irvington. All the

places they'd left. Not here however;

these people were ancient in their

ways, medieval in their beliefs,

and fixed and certain of it. Small,

squat old women still in their

babushkas and hats. Stern men

yet saddled within by something

still horrid. Faith in God the Supreme

and Fiery, who would, perhaps,

if asked right, deign to stoop down

and bless this pitiful food and

these horrid creatures, lest we

forget his power and his glory

and He smite us anew, in some

other way. Boy, was I stuck, and

seeing it. I could walk over to

McSorley's  -  where the average

age of the men sitting around

was about 114, give or take  -

and imbibe their sorrowful blues

along with them; mug after mug

of a fastidious, home-brewed

McSorley's Ale, which you

had to buy two at a time - until

some knock-out power came

along to strike you, and then

knocked you down - and try

to learn their ways by hearing

their stories  -  pretty much just

like the bums and hobos I'd sit

with at the piers, with their

barrel fires. But these guys here,

at least they had ten bucks or

so with them. Bills as folded

and wrinkled as they themselves

sometimes were. Anything 'new'

about New York City did NOT

happen down here; this was

ancient throwback land. All

those hotmouths always going

on about New York and the

wonder of the city, the glamour,

excitement, the adventure,

the new, well they meant

about 50 blocks uptown. That

was all where magazine and TV

New York was, the Batman Gotham

high-society bullshit, which the

average Joe couldn't touch with

a 500 mile pole. Truman Capote

and Norman Mailer and all those

bravado-faggot-creepfest types.

You'd never get near it, and any

Holly Golighty Audrey Hepburn

cockamamie horseshit would

never cut it here. Like I said,

these people were dead.

-

Thing was, I mingled with

everyone; which was kind of

cool. I could ride the subway

uptown, looking like a slouch,

some out of touch artist bum,

and get up to the Fuller Building,

at 57th and Lex., wherever it was

- 5 solid floors, back then, of

class A art galleries, get off the

elevator, and mingle like the rich

among all the art schmoozers. Or,

a few blocks away, at another

corner, some building above

Bergdorf Goodman's, as I recall,

right by the Plaza Hotel, and

do the same thing there. Layers

of rich people, day-wives with

jewels and binoculars, swishing

around looking at an Arp for the

living room, or a Picasso for the

dining chamber, all that crap. No

one here was hurting about

anything, 'cept maybe a leak

in the yacht. And they weren't

even the really, really rich. Those

people would have agents out,

buying for them, or scanning the

art-auction houses and placing

enter bids and threshold bids

from the catalogues or in-person

viewings. Yeah, like some

bizarre funeral home. I always

fantasized about some filthy-rich

person ambling about, looking

for a schmuck artist to subsidize,

take on as a patron, send 7 grand

a month to just to make and produce

art. Never happened, and not even

one of those rich babes out for the

day ever asked me to go home with

them for an 'afternoon tea', like

the sleazy storybooks had it,

happening all the day, everyday,

every afternoon at 2pm. 'Horny

rich housewife boffs new and

upcoming artist on speculation

of future merit as an artist.'

Talk about misplaced faith.

Too bad.

-

Years later, what astounded me

was how motorcycle guys, Bikers,

when I got involved with them, a

lot of them fell for the very bizarre

practice of a yearly 'Bike Blessing.'

Like those people with their kittens 

and ducks on old Polish St. Marks.

Pretty much the me thing as those

old food and pets people; a remnant

of some medieval, quaint custom 

from the Vatican hierarchy in Rome. 

Selling indulgences, anyone? I

wonder, did the Teutonic Knights

have Father Jimeny Althazar bless

yearly their horses? Strange world.

I was free, or free enough, yes, and

determined to stay that way. Plus,

sort of, you can't step backwards

too easily when you cut loose the 

rope bridge over which you've just

crossed the hellish chasm.