10,256. RUDIMENTS, pt.156

RUDIMENTS, pt. 156

Making Cars

I gave up on this country a

long time ago. It's only gotten

worse. A creeping allowance

for infantilism has taken over,

and apparently everyone else

agrees with it; so, who am I to

buck that? Rather, just walk off.

I used to think  -  and this is a

funny jaunt  -  things of that nature

were all modern-day stuff, of the

now, of the post-Disney, crap-laden

world we were given. But now,

as I listen back, even to some of

the things I used to revere  -  say,

Dizzy Gillespie, in 'Ten Tin Deo,'  -

'(Shoo-be-Doo-Bee,' so trite now),

what is any of that but a fairy infantile

music. Lots of that stuff was; all

those silly progressions and shout-outs,

riffs and trills, driving nonsense

phrases, swaggering stage-junk that

went with it, the funny puffed-out

cheeks, the tempo breaks and the

shifts. Besides the drugs and abuse,

booze and crime  -  what a bunch

of junk, most of it. Why wallow in

levels of subversive self-pity when

you don't have to?

-

When I first got to New York City,

to my eyes, that was one place that

had not yet been 'infantilized.' Perhaps

it had, yes, but not in any of the

directions I was looking. I don't

know from where any of that goofy

stuff began coming from, but it was

somewhere back the in the 1940's

when all these black jazz guys

started doing their dinner-club and

night-club routines  -  along 52nd

street and all that  -  when they

began thinking they had to lighten

up things somehow and start acting

goofy.  The rest of it all was fairly

brutal, a scourge of heroin, drugs,

drug-deaths and lost minds; black

jazz guys all zoned out and lost in

space. By the mid-sixties only the

tiniest traces of any of that remained,

but it was still around. I never figured

out the crowd who partook of all that

anyway  - really, who in their right

mind would want to sit, in a dimly

lit cove, and try to eat and drink, in

finery, while these forsaken black guys

badger about their intemperate jazz,

syncopated nervousness, lips and

trembling hands, drums and stand-up

bass guys, and  - most ingloriously  -

the stupid xylophone? No wonder a

form of clownishness stepped in.

-

The more attention any of it got the

more serious were the accolades paid.

I always figured it was out of guilt by

the white people listening. Atoning

for slavery and all that, by readily

accepting some black guy's groveling

into foolishness and a form of black

minstrelsy that was more black-real

than a minstrel-show ought ever be.

Even for me, I guess I liked Dizzy

Gillespie  -  or claimed to  -  because

I'd been told I should. Too bad, there.

The final days of Charlie Parker only

underscored the hideousness of the

scene, and his death, as it occurred,

put a perfect end to a lot of that. That

scene was  over. I began about then

actually disliking that rollicking

black sound of rolling laughter

you'd hear at one of these things

after an antic. Try to give 'My Gal

From Calico,' by Dizzy Gillespie,

again, for instance,  a listening,

and you tell me. Pretty pathetic.

I have nothing against fun, but I

hate sad fun. By the time it came

around for  -  finally  -  someone

like the transformed Miles Davis, to

actually get angry and give it back

to his white audience, play with his

back to them  and ignore them as

he went on his musical way, this entire

world was ready for its changeover.

-

I always worked hard  - writing and

drawing and painting, all of it  -  I

preferred having things around me

in a mess; all that middle-class idea 

of order and neatness drove me crazy.

An absolute nothing ever comes of it.

Stinginess, malice, meanness, anality.

My life was always a free-flowing river,

of something. If I had money, it would

have been that, as it was it was anything

else  -  good-feeling, possible comradeship,

or at least a kindredness to working it out.

Creative endeavors are different than any

other kinds  -  there are no goals of money

or attainment, and they don't use the same

standards, certainly not ones of neatness

and order. 'It was the way I must live,'

and the mind could make its own place  

- to make even a Heaven from this Hell.

-

One time, early on, I turned over a sheaf

of 'poetry,' I guess it would be called, to

a fairly well-established literary type.

He'd asked to see what I did, probably 

out of morbid curiosity (that's a joke), 

and told me he'd sit down with it, 

red-pencil it, look it over, write some 

margin notes and things, and give it 

back to me. Basically editorial BS, 

for which he was volunteering. I

didn't know what was up, nor was 

I that much interested in what he 

said he would do, because it was a 

bunch of nothing anyway. Academic 

exercise stuff. I almost wanted to say

'exercise, don't excise,' to him, but 

he wouldn't have gotten the joke. I

was hoping he'd ask what it all was

about and I wanted to say 'It's all in a 

secret key, a codified trek through 2000

years of our time.' But he didn't, so

neither did I. And, really, as a beginner,

I really turned over to him a crummy

bunch of stuff  -  I didn't know and

I didn't care. It was sort of Ferlinghetti-

style, with lots of brand-names and 

references of the cultural moment, etc.

The kind of stuff that doesn't last and 

why should it? All that stuff dates.

-

He eventually turned it back, scribbled

over here and there with little, enticing,

emendations, changes, suggestions, 

editings, and suggested removals. I 

was reminded  of the T. S. Eliot/Ezra 

Pound thing, where Eliot turned over 

to Pound this great, heaping mess of 

writing, and Pound returned it, most

perfectly cut and sundered into what 

has become now, all these years later, 

the perfect and classically-referenced-to 

Eliot poem, 'The Waste Land'  -  April 

is the cruelest month, and all that. This

person's  comments to me in essence 

amounted to saying  -  and perhaps it

was correct  -  that, paraphrasing,  'if 

you claim to be against so much of 

today and society, and all these things

you make mention of, by mentioning

all you validify them, in spite of what

you're saying.' A little tough to figure, 

but I think I know what he was saying. 

If you take it up, it's already yours,

you're making it yours, you still own

it. Better to just leave it be, abandon it,

and walk away. Find your own quest.

Or  -  anyway  -  that's what I take from 

it now, looking back. No annihilation

without representation!
(Or the opposite?).