10,096. RUDIMENTS, pt. 117

RUDIMENTS,  pt. 117

Making Cars

Back on 11th street I knew guys who

would sneak into apartments, their own,

mostly, crouching down low, under the

peephole sights, or climbing around to

the rear, fire escapes or window sills,

in order to sneak in  -  anything so as

not to be seen by someone to whom

they owed money or had taken something

or messed with a girlfriend (or wife).

There was a lot of undercurrent-madness

around that area. It was as if, in a curious

period of adjustment, the world was just

opening up to things like sex and drugs,

to a lack of rigid rules, to the very start

of society's own little breakdown. Since

then, of course, every cookie that could

have crumbled has done so, and we live

in a sure and a precise 'other' world. In

the time of which I am speaking here,

beginning with July/Aug, 1967, as far

as I was concerned it was year zero all

over again for me. There comes, into

each person's life, a certain moment when,

for whatever reason the lights suddenly

blink off and stay that way for a bit  -

you've lost power; things stop. It's a

time for just a bit of reassessment as the

remainder of life looms  -  then of course

it all comes back on and that moment

is completely forgotten. That's when a

lot of guys get married, or join the army,

or decide to search out that doctorate

or attempt to make 'partner' at Solomon

Brothers (an old-line, defunct NY securities

firm, once a huge powerhouse). I'd call

it a moment of redefinition.

-

Up until that point, for me, life was a

series of regularities, on the surface

anyway. I knew how things were,

and sort of accepted all that routine

crud in the same way anyone accepted

going through grade school  -  nothing

much you can do about it, just get

through it. A shrug and a dimple, and

'look at Sally grow!' You dream, or you

take pleasure where you can. I interrupted

all that by going to the seminary, where 

-  all of a sudden  -   there were no girls

and that entire side of things no longer

needed to be dealt with  -  or so they

thought. I think it just compressed

everything and made it even worse.

Holy prep-school Jesus, nothing to do

but power on. Every one of my shirts

and each pair of socks had my name

tags sewn onto them, (craziest task in

the world, I thought, but then I had an

aunt, a seamstress, who, once I received

my letter telling me how to prepare my

goods and belongings for Sept. 1963,

was elated to be able to do this. She

got like 200 fabric name tags made,

from somewhere, and set about that

Summer actually sewing them onto

the inside collars and tops of socks

and shirts and jackets and the rest. It

was so crazy, and the reason for it all,

they said, was 'laundry service' - so

we'd get out right clothes back. I could

never have cared about that). So, as I

said, no girls, but my clothing was all

marked. Had I been at some New Orleans

brothel as an eighteen year old sailor I

could have been no more secure about

getting my own clothes back. As it was,

from what I heard, a few of the guys often

used their name-tagged socks, under the

covers at night, to wank off into. Keeping

things 'dry,' so to speak. In years after

that, I'd hear, say, the Kinks' song, 'Pictures

of Lily,' and understand completely  -  let

alone The Who's 'Marianne, with the Shaky

Hand.' That's the sort of crazy messed-up

place this was. Since that time, I've heard

even worse stories about the joint, believe

me, in ways I'd have never imagined

were going on  - naive, little me.

-

My leap-frogging was necessary, I

guess. In my own rough and tumble

way, I careened from one thing to

another, and in a quite accelerated

fashion too. If you do any of this

quick enough, there's no spot or time

for self-reflection, mostly. That too,

for the ones who miss their own boat,

is when things go wrong : criminals

are born at about 11 years old. Right

about this time. Hoodlums and delinquents,

as they used to be called (and politicians

also, I suppose), they start sprouting up

with their curse-words and mannerisms.

You can tell where these guys are headed

in an instant. And it keeps going  -  all

through life you can still keep seeing

people in their 50's, 60's, and 70's being

tried and hauled off to jails and prisons

because their habitual renegade factors

finally did them in : theft, extortion,

violence, etc. As for myself, the wringer

of whatever machine was throwing me

around just kept flinging, but I got off.

-

I used to walk around and, while working

in my studio as well, think about Art and

the society at large that it engendered. I've

made mention of that other guy in there

who painted nothing but Vietnam-era

military people. Most of the art I saw and

was involved with, unlike that, was harsh

and striking, cerebral and abstract, inviting

a whole-new formal and language and way

of seeing. That's how I'd walk the streets,

with all this this in my mind: it was totally

apparent to me the world I saw. It used to

be, in say the year 1200, that most people

had nothing (it's not called the 'Dark Ages'

for no reason). Then a slight, ever-so, light

dawned and we entered the Medieval era.

People still had nothing but they got a

glimmer that something else existed  - 

somewhere, outside. There were actually

people, here and there, who talked and

wrote of this other world. It was at this

time, and shortly after, that, in royal circles

and slowly disseminating outward, people

began seeing Art. Thy had nothing else - 

certainly even a mirror, even seeing a

reflected world, was a stunner, so they

used paintings to learn from; how to

act, what to do, how to stand and

comport. How others lived and did

things. They'd see these royals and

important people in their regal get-ups

and poses, and all that  -  even as little

as it was seen  -  became for them the

internet-newspaper dissemination

equivalent of their dark days. Then

of course, the church stepped in, and

the most famous of those painters and

artists became those who portrayed the

correct religious tales in the correct

religious ways, and society was formed

and by that it prospered and became

nation-states and borders and all that

which we have today. One way or

another. That lasted a long time, and

then it all fell away. The 67 yeas of the

1900's that right then stretched behind

me were calling out  -  they were all

lost. The artists and the movements

and the men and women I was involved

with were suddenly the new vanguard

of the language and truth-tellers at large

and I as one of them. By the manner of

just being there  -  even without real

knowledge, being in such a vanguard

is pretty earth-shaking. It was funny to

me that the people involved in developing

the atomic bomb and all that power,

destructive or not, were in a project 

dubbed 'The Manhattan Project.' Boy,

did I know the feeling. Everyday, for 

me, for a while, was like a bomb went 

off. I was fighting, as well Hitler's

equivalent of a two fronted war; head

spinning, eyes aglow. At 509 e11th, I

had an apartment in my name that had

been turned over to a resistance center, a

headquarters for those in transit to Canada

and for others actively protesting the war.

And I mean actively. That was all very

maddening, like juggling pistols or

firebrands. People crossing, they came

and they went in a buzz of acetylene and

smoke. 16 people at a time, crashed out

on (my) floor, in a small apartment I

could no longer even fit in let alone be

identified in. And, three blocks over and

a little west, my own lair, my pace, my 

alcove, in the welcoming basement of 

the Studio School. My time was spoken

for, and my time was spent.