93. LBJ?
I've always held to the
tenet that all perceptions,
of whatever sort - events,
time, place - are initially
non-verbal and non-visual,
more like pure feeling only
later interpreted into sense
terms. It was always like
that for me - reading
expectations and reading
atmospheres, knowing just
ahead of time what was
about to happen. Even as
a little kid, I'd ask myself,
'can you picture it?' knowing
that if I told myself I could,
it usually happened. Fairly
straight-line stuff, no matter
how long it took, and that
sometimes could be years.
So this entire draft episode,
in my mind, had long ago
already occurred. I knew
the outcome and I knew
the work, before it came
through. That's pretty
heartening but it takes a
lot of work and can
sometimes leave quite
a lump in the throat. As
an individual, I had lots
of opinions of my own,
not all of them to be
considered proper or
polite.
-
Turning Jews away from
Manhattan Island, his
colony, by the way and
as it were, cost Peter
Stuyvesant just about
everything : he was first
recalled to his homeland,
and then only later returned
again as a landowner to
the island his successors
had by now given to the
British. As for that initial
boatload of Jewish folk,
he turned them away at
the shoreline, 'I'll not have
them here, nor their product:
no money-lenders, no
interest, none of their
usury. No ancients here
befouling the island.' Very
weird, maybe more right
wrong, or not, who knows,
and how different could it
all have been. That first
boatload tipped the scales
of everything else. And now
I too knew it. This was a
Jewish island, for sure : the
merchants and moneylenders
ruled these rocks, and in order
to supplant their means and
manners, right down to this
present day, they needed
wars. Just as much as
anything else, it filled
their coffers. 'We make
pillows and we make vests.
We make blankets, and we
make nets.' The incessant
streetcall of the garment
people, the sewers and
stitchers jammed into
ghettos and sweatshops.
They may as much have
just said 'We make money!'
It was that historic story
that first caught me. A
land without merchant
piracy, a land without fee,
would not happen here.
Could not ever be.
-
Well, back to the draft
board; they said their, I
guess well-rehearsed words,
after actually presenting
me with a 4F card of my
very own - signifying my
utter uselessness to them.
Most other draft-rejectees,
with 4-F cards of their own,
were perhaps missing a limb,
or an eye, or a kidney. Or
something. I had somehow
been granted an exemption
to be a 'dead' person among
living, or maybe a living
person among the dead.
It didn't really matter to me.
They told me to 'watch the
mailbox,' - for what they'd be
sending to me (still listed as
at the address of my parents,
the old NJ address where I
no longer lived anyway).
They'd diagnosed me as
'suffering' from 'anxiety
phobia', what they called
it - a real disease or
syndrome, I guess, in
that crazy psychological
world. They said I needed
'treatment', and they said
I'd be receiving a list of
psych. doctors for my area,
any one of which, locally,
I could initiate treatment
through. And they wanted
me to occasionally report
back, to them. Like, sure
that's gonna' happen. I
was not sure what anyone
in these offices had been
smoking, but I knew it
was all incorrect. Being
seen as the one in error
here, that just didn't really
set right with me. In a
Peter Stuyvesant way
of looking at things, now
it was the turn of the Jew
doctors to have a go at me.
The innards of my head?
For not killing? For not
wishing to be killed? Not
willing to decimate land,
nature, and people in the
false service of a false
ideology, a sick American
dream? I didn't rightly
recall too many of these
people themselves exactly
'volunteering' for a stint
in Auschwitz. Or did I
somehow miss that?
But, now this! They
still were crying and
wailing over their
God-forsaken 'Holocaust',
and now an array of
these Hebraicists were
to sit me down and
explain what was 'wrong'
with me? At the very
bottom of my lined,
columnar-list, yellow,
legal-sized paper, I
inscribed the words :
'fuck them all!'
-
At this time, about, the
1970's were bounding
in. The country was in
turmoil, people pretty
much just sick of it all.
On our own grounds,
we had, all of a sudden,
retarded National
Guardsmen shooting
down kids - it had
filtered down to that
most local of levels -
play-soldiers themselves,
these guardsmen were
IN the guard so as to
stay out of Vietnam.
They were given guns
and armaments, with
the most meager of
training, and then
allowed to shoot,
kill, and maim kids
not much different
themselves, who were
protesting the very
war that they themselves
were avoiding by being
National Guard. It was
all very strange, perverse,
and check-mate style.
All things were screwed
up and had begun
overlapping. Reasons
for anything had become
foggy and mystifying.
LBJ had gone mad; he
simply walked away,
went back to his Texas,
Pedernales ranch and
was little heard from
again - until his memoir
came out a few years
later. It was funny, how
he himself, in those
intervening years, had
grown 'long' hair, just
to, as he put it, 'see
what it felt like.' I felt
like saying, instead,
'hide away, brood, and
die, please.' Nixon too
had gone mad, but he
waltzed his new and
progressive madness
right into the White
House, instead of away
from it. In that very same
situation room, he began
turning the same wretched
screws, tighter! And then,
shades of Stuyvesant here,
his own Jewboy-killer-arriviste
Kissinger was at his side,
running the 1970's war
machine as if the 1960's
had simply not occurred.
Expanding all this, in fact,
into Laos, and Cambodia,
and calling it all, brazenly,
as a 'Peace Offensive.'
-
Hide away, brood and die
again, please. I never knew
how America lived any of
that down. All I knew was
that, continually, I wanted
no part of it. So ends that.
No paperwork ever arrived,
or nothing I was ever shown
anyway. My parents said
nothing. I was free of all
that. In reality, however,
it can be said, one is never
really free. Whatever freedom
there is, a person just as
quickly goes about
displacing it with some
other form of servitude.
House. Things. Cars.
Mortgage. Marriage.
Babies. Or even the
endless routing of
some advanced
academic degree -
another form, and
certainly, of extending
that freedom from
circumstances that
childhood seems
to present. Any of
those items are as
addictive as nicotine.
You get one thing, you
want something else. You
get this, you seek bigger
and better that. It all
becomes a 'watch out
for this' moment.
-
I wasn't going anywhere,
smartly anyway. Any stupid
idea of 'Art Education', it
was soon apparent, was
no different than anything
else : It simply 'commodifies'
art, for other purposes. And
'purposes' they are, of coin
and profit, and return on
investment. Yep, all that
Stuyvesant 'we won't have
any of that here' stuff again.
He lost that battle when he
tried turning that ship away.
Did this guy see the future,
or what? When it comes to
Art, there really isn't any of
that stuff anyway. I learned
that, by being an Outsider,
a Renegade, a basic, beyond
the pale, loser. If that stuff
does exist, then it isn't really
'Art'. When it comes to art,
what it is is without any
communication (any means
of community either, or of
'communicating' its place
or presence or meaning or
sense. It simply is. The
soul sings out from all
its other places, at once.
No meanings. No discussion.
No interpretation. Merely
produce, and stay quiet
about it. That's all the
task and job of 'artist' is.
Anything else is more BS.
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