RUDIMENTS, pt. 179
Making Cars
Poverty led me to black coffee
because milk cost extra and had
to be refrigerated. I never liked
black coffee at all. Half the time
I never even liked coffee, especially
back then when coffee was most
apt to be dead, overdone and stale
diner stuff. Mud, commonly called,
tending to gray. In 1967 there was
no awareness of coffee at all, nor
quality nor roasting nor any of that.
Let alone coffee places just for the
drinking of. Everything was in urns,
kept hot and going stale all day long.
It was terrible stuff. Drinking it
black just made it all worse. The
only public awareness of coffee was
Savarin, Maxwell House, and this
concocted coffee-inspector guy on
TV called El Exigente. Supposedly
a happy but tough-assed mule-rider
who went through the fields inspecting
beans for quality - good enough for
somebody. I don't even remember
what brand. It was all a crock, an
advertising jumbo-campaign. And
they of course never mentioned the
racial and labor inequalities involved;
the exploitation, slave-labor conditions,
poor or lack of wages, and the cruelty
and dangers. I was living in pretty
much an equivalency to that, except
for the labor-slavery. Drinking the crap
in these restaurants and diners was the
same as drinking swill and calling
it lunch. Funny. I saw a cartoon just
the other day. It referenced that most
miserable of coffees, Folger's - some
supposedly high-elevation grown
African mountain coffee. Their theme
for a while was a song that went 'the
best part of waking up is Folger's in
your cup.' The cartoon showed a guy,
waiting for his Folger's to brew as
he wakes up, still in his night clothes,
and the caption read 'the saddest man
in the world.' It was a reference to the
crummy coffee and his assumed horrid
expectations. I used to joke a bit with
my wife (not always a real appreciator
of my humor) as she dressed. It was a
bra joke. 'The best part of waking up
is my hand in your cup'. Oh well.
-
I admit I was kind of stuck. I'd spend
hours of days painting, in this space
the Studio School provided - pretty
much I could do whatever I wanted.
Select those artists I wanted, on staff,
to meet with and work with on the
days and times they came in - famous
guys mostly - not Rothko or Picasso
level, but big-deal names nonetheless.
I got to know them, and about them,
and the times they'd come through;
stories and people. The cool thing
was to learn how not a one of them
was 'merely' what their fame and
reputation made them out to be.
They all had other interests too -
amazingly, they shared. I think that
made my life right then, all the broader
and better too. Some of them also
wrote, little self-published books
and pamphlets, poetry, outlandish
stuff. Art, and not. Concept, theory,
philosophy. Warfare, anger and
angst too. These guys were major
insurrectionists in their way. David
Hare, Milton Resnick, all that
ex-patriot and Amsterdam
stuff; they each had stories and
histories. Philip Guston was
probably the strongest of them
as far as art-reputation, but
certainly not by personal character.
He was a big, bear-like happy
guy, and it was always nice to
spend time with him. He just
never seemed to have that focus
and fierce push of the other guys.
David Hare was distant and strange.
Milton Resnick was deep and severe,
but monk-like in his reserve and
intensity. Mercedes Matter was like
everyone's loving mother. There
was a lot of Jewishness going
around, but I loved it. In fact, some
time later, I was looking to 'convert'
- although that's not the right word
and I wasn't really 'converting' from
anything. It was more like joining.
But I never did, mostly because of
all that serious blood-line stuff.
There's a strange piece of different
genetics, I found out, in that strain,
alien stuff almost. I knew I didn't
possess that in the manner they'd
worked out - a worldly, very
plain mix of brooding and
obsequiousness, on the one
hand making a slave race and
on the other hand making geniuses.
I don't know what I had, but
my strain was completely different
and it was to that which I answered,
not theirs, which was old, archaic
and twisted by comparison. I think
what attracted me were the 'similarities'
in at least the manner of acceptance
of things from 'beyond.' I was probably
a part of what they'd been waiting for
all their miserable and tortured years,
as weird and wild as all theirs was.
And I wasn't ready for any of that.
I'd also read that Jewish females
were crazy, self-possessed charmers,
always gushing with sexuality like
that were still in Genesis 6. That
seemed pretty true, though I'd
never find out - I just let
that entire thing go and remain
a mystery to me. Life had plenty
of mysteries for me, and I still
can't figure out a tenth of what
the heck is going on. Sex included.
It's all beyond me. I just figured
it was always good to be lusty.
-
A lot of this Art stuff got very
rabbinical anyway - secret readings
and meanings with reinterpretations
and ritual reverences and, almost,
secret words. Mystery abounded and
people had roles. There were 'parts'
reserved for this person or that person.
Mark Rothko had been a crazy zealot,
in both Art and religion, and the rest
weren't far behind. They all liked to
pretend they possessed that brash, worldly
strain of caring for nothing, but it was
all an untruth. Underneath, they were
answering to G-d alone and no other.
It was very strange, and sort of did
knock me over. There were plenty
of lessons to take from all that. New
York City, all along the lower east
side where i was, had plenty of
synagogues, in every state of use
or non-use, disrepair and damage.
Milton Resnick, among others, had
in fact purchased an old, abandoned
synagogue and that was his studio,
and his wife's too. He wasn't alone
in doing that. This area once teemed
with conclaves of Jews, every different
locale. Bialystok, Poland, for instance,
being one, had a synagogue of that
name (Bialystok) and to that the
immigrant Bialystokers owed their
allegiance. And gave it. All of that
permeated the area. The whole
world was turning secular. Girls
and boys were running around
with nothing or little on. Yet these
older folk were deep, deep in their
traditions and shawls and religion,
and stayed that way. it was a
delicate balancing indeed.
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