155. JOHN LENNON/WAR
One thing I noticed right
off was how time is fluid.
There was no solidity to
the time of things - and
nothing had any substance
in time. That meant, for
me, that things were fairly
limitless I was able to come
and go at will. Previous to
that, things had been different
- everything had established
schedules and expectations
about 'Time' being solid and
serious. In New York City,
it seemed it had none of that.
Rigor was gone; people stayed
up all night - as they chose -
doing the most frivolous things,
or very serious things. Loves,
drugs, drink, music, dancing,
hanging around - I never
really knew when people
slept, or how their apparent
irregular aspects allowed them
to keep going. I, just as soon,
took up pretty much the same
habits. Things got twisted up
pretty quickly and often enough
I'd just fall asleep when I did so.
Not consciously, I mean; my
body just said 'sleep'. The
library floor, the wooden bed,
wherever I may have been.
There were a few all-night
eatery kinds of places - I
can't say 'diners' because
they weren't auto-oriented
like a diner; these were more
places for people to crash
themselves down, stare at
coffee or pancakes or
something for a while at
like 4am, and be gone.
Eventually. There was one
on West 12th street
or whatever, I think I've
written of it before; I was
there often. There was
some sort of movie palace
across the street - I never
went, but did see the
constancy of the changing
marquees as new titles
came in. A long series
of Winter/Springs/Summers
of that stuff. It brought me
things and names I knew
nothing of : Jack Lemon,
Walter Matthau, Rod
Steiger, and more. I never
cared. Only now, sometimes,
I see something like 'The
Pawnbroker', or 'Hold
That Tiger', or 'The
Conversation' being
played somewhere,
TV or whatever film
festival retro crap goes
on, and I try to think
what those years meant
or at least what they
attempted to present
to me, as an 'individual.
I knew something was up,
the country was off-kilter,
and the newer movies were
beginning to, or trying to
begin, reflecting that - and
then people like Pauline Kael
or whomever began 'reviewing'
movies ideologically, to reflect
the tenor of the times and not
just as movies anymore. Each
review was an essay with an
ideological message imparted.
You were with the hip 'ins'
or you were nobody/nothing.
Everything started to have
to have 'import', be heavily-
fraught with an integral
meaning which grew out
of our societal re-structuring,
(which wasn't really 'ours'
anyway), and it all went south.
I can't be accused of being
anti-Jewish again, because it's
just not worth it, but it was that
entire bullshit industry which
then twisted and perverted
everything. How could it be
watched? Yet, inside this
diner-place, I'd watch the
comings and goings of epic
loads of filmniks, babbling
on about what they'd just
seen or were about to. Even
outside of time as it was, the
false premise of any movie -
where everything is calculated
and manipulated for effect -
is invalid and had nothing to
do with anything at all. Yet,
these people all bought into
it. All it amounted to was a
cultural void into which all
sorts of debris would fall,
and then a mini-industry
of people writing' about
it all, and seriously, as if
it did have import, just
took over. They were
talking to each other, and
to the faux-seriousness of
their made-up fantasy. It
was all a deeply-fantasized
perversion - of which
'certain' people were
better at than others.
-
There was a long period of
time, starting maybe Oct. '67,
I can't remember, when all
you'd see around - like it
was some big, major deal -
was a shot of a fairly forlorn
John Lennon in a World War
I pith helmet, unshaven, and
staring out. He was starring,
or had a featured role evidently,
in some movie called 'How
I Won the War'. I never saw
it, nor did I ever have the
money or the interest to
plunk down to go see it. But
nonetheless it was a big
leap forward - or I thought
so anyway. It was one thing
to have seen Elvis - big,
vapid, dumb cocoon of
an insipid jerk cavorting all
over Hawaii and places, with
bimbo-beach-babes - but this
was suddenly something else
entire. This was some sort of
implemented cultural turn-out
being undertaken in real 'time'.
In one-to-one reversal of things,
a real-day, resoundingly 'new'
cultural icon was being used to
portray some sort of 'anti' message
to the lumpen schmoeletariat who
ate this stuff up. I had to pause to
think : what, for God's sake, was
John Lennon up to? Who put
him up to this and how had he
gotten himself involved? Cultural
naivete? Pure opportunism?
Another big-payday? Was he
then in collusion with the same
brats who'd been running all
these media extensions all this
time. Was the entire music thing
then a sham too? What really was
going on and how was it that
our country, or his, could be
pulling in two directions at
once? Sending boys home in
boxes for burial while at the
same time purporting to have
an entire industry, worldwide,
wherever, now targeting
messages from the other
direction. Anti-war? Pro-war
too? And having people pay
for it? Both directions? Whew,
what a mess! Everyday
language bore no greater
burden than to carry that
message along somehow.
I was a fringe character, only
and at best, and I knew that,
and all that I saw was what,
from my position down in
the trenches, any Joe Schmo
saw. Except I never went to
their movies; all I saw was
the real-life madness of the
manipulation undertaken to
actually try and 'freeze' time
in place, in a status quo of
push-pull stasis where nothing
would ever change because
both sides were kept so
busy pushing and pulling
back, and yelling about it
all, that they neither realized
how they were both being
used. Martin Luther King had
been shot, and those riots
had gone nowhere. All the
Vietnam stuff had been
going on - riots and
demonstrations, explosions
and death too. And that had
gone nowhere. By this time,
and even as the early 70's
began slipping away, I
thought if the Revolution
didn't come now, it never
would; real time or not.
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