9197. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, Pt. 333

333. 'THERE'S YOUR 

STORY, MR. WHITE'

Just wielding a pen or

a pencil, back in the day,

(I hate that phrase, but

just ended up using it),

with a piece of paper

or a small-sized

scrawl-notebook, it

was easy to really feel

like something : being

a writer, the idea as it

was encapsulated in the

mobility and ease of

getting thoughts down.

There were typewriters

too, yes, and I had four

of them over time, but

no one really lugged

around a typewriter

while they were out

on jaunts. I remember

in 1964, when Bob Dylan

(you know, that Nobel

Prize for Literature guy,

the writer) and two of his

geeky friend-folk-singer

types drove across country

on '64 in their new 1964

Ford station wagon and

Esquire Magazine made

a big fuss over the fact

of him traveling, in the

back, with a typewriter,

and typing away much

of the time. If any of that

typing stiff was true, the

mobility of a typewriter

I guess can be said to

also have been proven

by him. End result?

'Tarantula,' his really

stupid Aretha book of

dashing beat poetry.

Yes, I can hear it all

now  -  these days

anyone can type on

anything and 'damn

the torpedoes, full

speed ahead.' (Don't

hear that much

anymore).

-

 'Going glib,' I guess

was the world's answer

to lots of things back

then. At least in this

country. You could

still probably find

a lot of the 'old'

stuff in Paris and

France and Britain,

if you looked. But,

mostly, by the

mid-60's, America

had taken over the

real push and prod

of the world's 'culture'

and the way it was

headed. No one really
cared nor even raised

much of a warning
finger. Not even

T. S. Eliot; and I

think he was still

alive. End result?
Bob Dylan gets
a Nobel Prize.

-

The world is different

now, and the 'words' are

different too. 'Tradition
 and individual talent,'
as Eliot again put it are as
forgotten as big bloomers
on young girls. I don't

much care, remaining

somehow fortunate

enough to be still writing

off of, and trading on, the

basic, personal premises

of writing and contact

that I'd laid out for myself

back about 1966, to be

factual. So none of this

modern styling stuff really

gets to me and I don't

care much about it :

purple-hair nose-pierced

flop-faced chubby arms

tattooed kids-stuff young

adult fixation trans-gender

bullshit street crap slam

hip street lingo who-am-I

stuff. You can take it all

to the well and then

piss on it too.

-

'Under the magic forest

mute with shadow, I will

utterly greet the blown star

of her face.' Yep, that was

e. e. cummings, as a college

guy, in November, 1914.

Man, can you believe that.

That's all part of what I was

talking about the the other

day  -  taking poetry and

trying to give it equivalency

in prose. What's it take?

How's it go? All-around,

knock-out crazy. Nonetheless,

that's the sort of stuff I was

walking through the streets

of New York City on my

own in 1967. Where my

head was at. What was all

bouncing around in it. I

n 1967, November 1914

 was 53 years back. 1967

to now, amazingly, is

51 years. Talk about

equivalency, isn't that

am amazing fact, a

startling and closed-up

distance of time between

two places? So, I

guess maybe you

can see where I was

at. You can't end up

being a regular boring

everyday guy and

still be doing this

stuff. It doesn't work.

That's why I never

made it to anywhere

 special. I was in a

 half-world of between

 two places, and I

willingly kept it

that way  -  so that

I'd be able to

continue creative

work only, and stuff

your jobs and dollars

where the old,

bombastic, sun

doesn't shine. It

was almost impossible

for me to talk with

others or communicate

sensibly anyway  -

because I was

inhabiting a place

where I was closer

in time and being than

I was to the actual place

I was in. I mean, what

the heck? Who wanted

to be in 1967 anyway?

-

There was a place, also

not too far from me,

called the Hotel Albert.

At University Place and

11th Street. The place was

great  -  actually it was a

fleabag stinkhole, all run-

down and the rest, (I used

it, along with the Marlton
Hotel, another one on 
Eighth Street, across the
street from me at the Studio
School, as a composite 
in the 'Miasma Arms

Hotel' in a long piece I 

wrote)  -  but it took my

heart away. Hart Crane

(no pun on that one)

wrote a good portion of

'The Bridge' there; the 

NY artist Albert Pinkham

Ryder (whose brother

managed the restaurant there

and pretty much fed him

for free), and a hundred

other pre-rock n' roll

grandees, stayed there,

hung there, lived there, 

whatever. 1920's, 1930's,

the big heydey. By my 

time there it was every 

rock-act's crash pad  -  

every bunch of twerps 

from Moby Grape to the

Lovin' Spoonful and

more ended up staying 

there while they played 

places like the Fillmore 

East or the Electric

Circus or the Cat Club 

or the Mud Club, any 

of that. Man oh man,

how rock music has 

killed a good world. 

I liked it there  -  any

one of those rock 

babes would show

you whatever body 

part you requested, 

they were so blind 

and stupid. It didn't 

matter; it's all just 

living history, and 

now it's condos and

and apartments 

anyway. The creeps 

now, they never leave.

One of Albert Pinkham 

Ryder's best (most famed 

anyway) paintings, called 

'Death On a Pale Horse' 

originated there when 

one of the waiters in 

that restaurant was 

given a 'sure tip' on 

a horse for an 

upcoming race, 

and bet everything 

he had and more

on it. The horse 

fizzled out, and lost

big-time. The guy

committed suicide. 

Ryder painted. I 

love stuff like that. 

And there's your 

story, Mr. White.

-

I wondered about 

that waiter, in the 

restaurant : if he

got that tip, as a 

tip, he certainly

could have called

it a 'killer tip.'