323. DAYS OF
DARK GOLD
Any number of
things remain funny
to me about 1959.
That's a fairly random
number, just because
it was a fairly random
year in a really dumb
world. We had this
guy down our way
with a TV repair
business. He called
it 'Sentry TV.' I
used to think that
was hilarious.
Sentry. What a
crazy concept -
that people needed,
or were expected to
be needing, a sentry
to watch over their
TV viewing. A sentry,
I thought was a guy
who watched your
borders and lands and
the places you lived.
People's heads were
already getting all
screwed up. Who
needed that? Nightmare
versions of squalor
and want were being
twisted into their
heads nightly, already,
and here they wanted
to be sure they had
some local nitwit
able to fix their
tubes and channel
selectors when
they blew. It was
as if the Twilight
Zone wasn't just
a show, it was the
freaking environment
I had to step in each
day. 'Sentry TV' was
around for years, it
moved to maybe
three different -
each slightly larger
- near-by locations
as it grew. The last
vacant place was
finally replaced,
after years of sitting
there destitute but
with the old sign
still in place, like
a ruin on Mars or
something. New
construction is there
now. It no longer made
any sense, solid state
TV long ago replaced
tubes, and people
anyway just threw
their junk out now and
bought new. Now,
in fact, they watch
their crap on
postage-stamp-size
screens on phones
or whatever. This
Sentry guy would
have shit a brick.
Across the street
from him too -
another cool old
lineage thing -
was a 'Chippery' -
which was a sort
of fast-food-but-you
-could-sit-down-if-
you-wanted, and
eat, fish and chips
kind of place. I
actually liked it.
You could sit in
there, until about
1982 anyway, and
just douse your
fried and battered
fish and fries in
their version of
malt vinegar, and
it was good.
-
I never watched
TV after I left home.
Sentry be damned.
In NYCity, I don't
even know where
they sold TV's, I
guess in the regular
stores or something.
I never really saw a
TV store; nor do I
know - but I guess
there were - if
there were just
regular people in
the city that cared
about that stuff,
family manners,
watching television
while sipping and
dining. I suppose,
though I'd never
know why. New
York City represented
everything you did
NOT need a TV for
- adventure, interest,
knowledge, places,
history, art, color,
vibrancy, all that.
Who the heck would
sit in their dumb
apartment and watch
some detective crap
or a variety show
on TV? For that
matter who in the
world would do
that now and why?
But they do. So I
guess I don't know
much about that.
Any interesting
character I ever
met never had a
whit of TV about
his or her self. The
everyday make-up
of our lives there
most certainly did
not include a television
component, Not that
I knew anyway. And
that was fine with me.
Any taxi-driver or
vagrant truck driver
could be more
interesting to me
than some televised
psycho-geek drama
- most of that stuff,
I found, was always
Heeb stuff anyway -
guilt and mother
issues never rectified,
people all twisted
up over stuff, murders
and crime. If you
dwell on or wish
for that stuff, that's
what you're going
to get. No wonder
they're such whiners
and problem-prone
people. Ridicule.
Shame, Taking
advantage of others.
It's all televised
fake-life stuff brought
to real-life fruition.
Watch out what you
wish for, I always say.
-
Last chapter I touched
on the e.e. cummings
subject, and before
that I was writing
about the heavy-duty
academic types who
get all ponderous and
high and mighty about
things. Cummings
summed it up once,
in a great way,
when someone
was dumb enough
to start asking deep
and looking long,
into his work for
meaning and subject
and messages and
all that. (It's more
like, 'just take the
poem and shut-up.
It's all whatever
you want to make it').
Sometimes he'd get
heavy about it, yeah,
but this one time
they wanted to know
about his 'technique'
- and his perfectly
politically-incorrect
answer (now) was
"I can express it
(my technique) in
fifteen words by
quoting the Eternal
Question and Immortal
Answer of burlesque
(old-time stage stuff) -
that is, 'would you
hit a woman with a
child? - No, I'd hit
her with a brick.'
Like the burlesque
comedian, I am
abnormally fond
of that precision
which creates
movement."
-
I never knew exactly
what that meant, but
I always felt I got the
general drift of it,
and as it turned out
it represented the
complete opposite
of televised anything.
It was an artist's way
of saying that
everything is bunk.
That logic and
clarity don't always
go together, and
that the 'slap' on
the had can be
mental or physical,
but usually not both.
His crap always gave
me a jump; a good
one : "Today's so-called
writers are completely
unaware of the thing
which makes art
what it is. You can
call it nobility or
spirituality, but I
should call it intensity.
Sordid is the opposite.
Shakespeare is never
sordid. His poetry was
the most intense. Take
Prospero, saying: 'To
do me business in
the veins of the
earth / When they
are baked with frost.'
Words which in prose
would be nonsense.
But these words happen
to be in poetry and the
greatest poetry." I
walked around with
all this running in my
head, you see -
balancing pencil line,
art, words and all
of that creativity
stuff together in
my head - while
others, I guess, were
watching their televised
crud and getting their
life lessons from that.
No wonder there
was carnage and
death - body bags
of Mekong Delta
glory floating home
in steerage and
freight. And fright
too. I know I had it
- I didn't want to
become one of their
numbers, and they
sure weren't in my
personal algebra.
That was one of
the problems (still
is, again) with
being a soldier -
you had to be
defending
all that.
-
My heart was
broken early. It
happens - the
vacant tumble of
Life had already
broken me. Back
on Inman Avenue
and before. People
swear a person is
too young to
remember things
when they were
five or four or
earlier, but I've got
news for them.
When I was born,
I can tell you the
numbers on the
clock and the
color of the nurse's
smock. I can tell
you what was
outside the window
in the shitty little
apartment they
brought me home
to - those McAllister
tugs, the waterway
outside my window,
the ships at the
Bayonne Bridge,
the slow, filthy
lap of ripple and
wave the big boats
made slogging
through that
narrowest part of
the Kill Van Kull,
those parked cars
along the curb,
rounded and bulbous
forms of '48 Chevies
and '49 Fords.
The little strip
of amusement
park that ran right
by there, Uncle
Milty's, and all
those furtive
people lurking -
dark guys, and
their women, girls
and their boys, ladies
with the black-seam
of stocking running
up along the backs
of their legs,
those funny hats
with black or brown
feathers or fuzzies
on the top, worn
rakishly on a
female head,
too fraught with
lipstick and
far too red.
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