10,516. RUDIMENTS, pt. 225

RUDIMENTS, pt. 225

Making Cars

I don't think there's really a

place for something like

Hackelbarney any more, in

American life. Hacklebarney

as I found it anyway. When

you think about it even the

New York Public Library was

unable to keep the painting

'Kindred Spirits' in their

possession and on display.

I used to go look at it, often.

In the Berg Museum, inside,

whatever they called that

large exhibit room on the

upstairs, library, floor.

It wasn't at the ground-level

entry exhibition rooms, of

changing exhibits, etc. This

had its own, favored niche

on a very rich, traditional

wall in a usually very interesting

room. Seeing it there always

brought peace. It's gone now.

They sold it, for 'budgetary'

reasons, to the WalMart Museum

in Bentonville. Arkansas. The

daughter of Sam Walton put

together, I'm told, some sort

of slam-bang-museum, 'The

Crystal Bridges Museum of

Art.' Whatever its value, it's

not value to me. Dispersed to

Arkansas. No bargain.

-

Once something is emptied out,

it's empty. The emptiness then

becomes part of the overall

consciousness, and after that

there's not much else going on.

You begin walking in that

emptiness because there's no

place else to go. It's a sorrowful

thing. I used to take, for way

too many years, the early train

to Princeton. I mean early;

like 5:17 or something  - the

only other people on that train

were the overnight-shift people

from hotels and restaurants and

things in NYC, and early guys

for construction jobs and other

transit jobs. Most people had

passes or ID cards (this was

before today's scannable stuff

they do now). Night shift, second

tier people; mostly asleep, tired,

groggy, or quiet. Which is why

I took it; no others on the platform

to bother me, no one to yap during

the ride. It was quiet and peaceful.

The two conductor ladies, after a

while, just stopped coming to me

for tickets, and insisted I just ride,

for free. Every so often I'd bring

them some Entenmann's donuts

or cake, and coffee. Good deal.

Everything else had just, by then,

rattled me so much I couldn't

much any longer stand it. The

problem was, the rides home

held no such solution  -  people,

talk, noise.

-

It was difficult, but I tried to

develop a habit of not letting

things throw me, just remaining

aloof, and calm. Even today  -  God

knows it's often the last thing I can

do, and the hardest too. But when

I look at the way we all live now,

the general 'climate' of things, it's

just too painful for me. I'm always

hurting and some little voice is

(mostly) guiding me slowly along,

remaining calmly at sideline. It

works. But the modern world tries

to make it as unworkable as possible.

And I watch carefully, in that I

usually can see when bad things

are coming. Just ahead of their

arrival. Like omens  -  something

will jump out at me and a part of

my mind will begin doing the

momentary reading for me. After

it happens, too, then it is all instantly

clear what was trying to be told to me.

But I end up thinking that if that alone

is the best Life has to offer, as far as

foretelling things or giving one 'advice'

as it were, then what good is any of it?

My computer blows up, a car quits,

something gets lost, hurt, injured or

broken.  I'm still left holding the bag,

omens and advice notwithstanding.

What does it avail a man to gain

his life but lose his soul? Or

however that goes. One tough

hombre, this spirit-guide,

or God.

-

Funny too, I remember once being

somewhere and hearing Bob Dylan

splurt out, 'Uh uh, God don't do

vacation homes.' Pretty cool. In

the context, it was right  -  someone

had asked him about praying for

needed favoritism from the Spirit

to achieve a wished-for end. Fun

stuff, especially when you think of

the way people play things  -  lotteries

and games and chances. Me too. 'If

just this once, here's what I'd do....'

I guess none of that cuts anything,

but I go to bed angry half the time

at the proclaimed uselessness of a

life with no tangible ends.

-

See what solitude does to a brain?

One of my late friends, Jeff Gordon,

his father had something to do with

the music industry, and Jeff, as a

late teen, early adult, sometimes

was allowed to sit in on production

meetings and record-industry stuff

in NYC. (He too later became a

record-producer). He said once or

twice the guest at a meeting, the

subject of the meeting, was Bob

Dylan himself, Columbia Records,

etc. He said Dylan was the strangest,

antsiest person he'd ever seen.

Uncommunicative, at the rear of

the room, sitting against the wall,

twisting and nervous. Not much ever

spoken. Just a real personality of

pestilence. He still shook his head

at some of the things he'd remember.

You work at being alone, you do

eventually get there. BUT, the world

isn't made for that sort of person  -

instead it's an in-your-face social

assault, a soiree demanding that you

come join the dance. Cakes, soda,

and donuts, all for tempting free.

'Stuff ain't stuff if it ain't the stuff

you wanted.' I said that.

-

Dylan lived first at w.4th, then

for a while he stayed at Gramercy,

and then Bearsville, and then

Woodstock, and then he bought

this place at the end of MacDougal

Street. I forget the address, but it

was significant, for me. #94-96,

I think it was, he made one place

out of the two. I used to say that,

thinking it was holy, a really nifty

thing to say. Then I'd try and think,

from my hole in the ground, how'd

he get all that together, how'd his

vacation home happen? No different

from mine  -  except he made one

from the two. World and spirit?

Heart and soul? Life and death?

I and Thou? (That's Martin Buber,

an old Jewish mystical guy). He had

this (Dylan, not Buber) Ford station

wagon I'd see around. It was cool

like a '64 or something that he'd got

his record company to buy for him

and Victor Maymudes, his sidekick

and gofer. Whatever needed arranging,

doing, getting, stopping, forbidding.

Victor did all that for Bob. If Bob

didn't want someone around, Victor

made sure that person wasn't around.

Sure as sure  -  it became a shielded

Jewish phalanx of folkrock-like

proto-hipsters intent on filling the

hole that had been created between

the end of the Beats and that putrid

interlude of hippiedom. Dylan

wanted no part of that at all, and

Victor made sure he got none of it.

Except some of the drugs and stuff.

They were making, really, a new

culture entirely. These two places 

he'd connected, 94-96 MacDougal, 

were really great. He'd convinced 

the other rowhouse people (there 

were about ten of these homes stuck 

together in a nice row, with a massive, 

shared yard area, private spaces, 

seclusion) that he'd be no trouble, 

bring in no riff-raff, conduct himself 

lightly and not get unwound. Nice.

They'd used that Ford, much earlier, 

on their west coast trip , about 

(and back), about '65, to visit some

of the west-coast stuff that did too,

later, get Dylan's attentions by the

later 70's. This 94-96 MacDougal

place was almost at the end of the

street, at Houston Street. There was

a basketball court/playground across 

the way, always busy, and lots of

cars and traffic, (always busy) inching

its way along Houston Street, heading

east or west (or both, it sometimes

seemed  -  again that he made the

'two into one' theme). Then it all

got too much, they went upstate,

he cracked, they concocted a 

motorcycle tragedy story out of 

a small tumble, and the rest was 

history once he got going there with 

The Band  -  again provoking and

again concocting a whole other 

Americana line of shame on 

everyone. Once that Woodstock

Village thing got going, there was

no stopping any of it.
-
None of those guys ever really knew
what they were in the middle of  - you
see, they just DID. They worked, without.
the worry. All these little, rabble, folk
you see now, all straining and trying to
get to some imagined, flaccid end.
But they actually WANT something,
or have convinced themselves they do.
Pretending at improvements and at
rectitude, but making all this junk up
too, as they roll along. I stayed pat.
My NY streets weren't made of anything
like that. As I said in the previous chapter,
when Judy said 'provinces' I said huh?
-

As for Zimmy, I always wanted to 
drag his skinny little Hebrew ass to 
Hackelbarney. But I never did. Never 
got that vacation home either. And
he'd not ever have understood.