Friday, March 30, 2018

10,682. RUDIMENTS, pt. 270

RUDIMENTS, pt. 270
-Maple Tree, pt. 9-
I was never one for just having
music as entertainment. Having
a fair amount of advanced musical
education behind me, it was more
an example of theory and process
at work. Funny how it goes, but
it takes a long and laborious study
of music to begin to appreciate
what otherwise sounds as hateful
music. Dissonance, abstracted
tonal leaps, disharmonious
transitions, and the rest  - yes,
including pauses and silences.
By this context, the usual bar
music, juke box or live, was
mostly laughable. The processes
of an eager third grade level
overflow into an advancement
of noise and tempo on a
three-chord grid. In addition,
putting it with couplets and
rhymes only made things worse.
But, that's what bars and cover
bands brought out. A kind of
music for people who don't
particularly want music around.
Background redundancy, and
something familiar and hummable.
We had one guest, a female with
a strong voice, who for a while
was the solo non-event night's
music  -  I forget her name, and
I'm sorry if she's here. But, as an
example  -  and she was pretty
good  -  to my mind there's nothing
worse than someone laboring over
a guitar and song thing, their own
arrangement and words or someone
else's, while in that room no one
really cares about it either way.
And, truly, it's hard to care for
what is not really music. Emoters
and whiners, that's one thing. The
screech and the faux-tenderness
gives all that weakness away
quickly. It's the lack of anything
going down that breaks it. Music
needs a progression and a development,
the secreted moments between notes
and the relished growth of sound, to
reach a point of completion or at
least a point of deliverance where
the composers stops it. Mathematics,
and storm-sense. That's music. You
don't get that in bars. In the Maple
Tree and with these biker parties,
one of the hardest things was meshing
the band with the  crowd. Bikers
have music tastes that are basically
the equivalent of mustard and
mayonaisse. One against the other,
and neither one worth much  -  except
maybe the expensive mustards, which
we didn't get. We had a few really
solid bar-bands, and one or two
individuals who shone. Solo or
not. The problem was the endless
repetition, ad nauseum. Allman
Brothers,  Lynyrd Skynyrd, all
that Biker vein tough stuff, and
then the road guys  -  Petty, etc.
Everyone did serviceable and fine
jobs with those, keeping the crowds
happy with set lists and mixing it up.
Two times I hired a real mixed-up
group of noodle-heads calling
themselves 'World Within.' They
were actually good  -  they had
some girls, some guys, two drummers,
but all they played was a strict, very
mimicy Grateful Dead set card. They
were a little big on the Deadhead
road circuit, had some credits. But
no one liked them at all. Somehow
the Avenel and area Bikers did not
fit well with the twirly-whirls and
extended jams and stuff of Deadheads.
Plus, they brought in their own
festival like crowd, well 20 or 30
people anyway, and that mix wasn't
the greatest anyway. Girls and guys.
I used them twice, had to watch
carefully for nothing breaking out,
they were more expensive than usual,
and by 45 minutes in they were
stoned out of their heads. Ok, then,
I tried. I wasn't rigid and, because
of that I was always willing to try
thing of this nature, flop or not;
live and learn. For my own tastes
here, the best were Dirty Pool,
and Counterfeit Cowboys. Their
also was a bunch of Lynyrd Skynryd
guys called 'The Whiskey Band.
-
When I said 'Avenel Biker' crowd
just before, I guess I didn't really
mean that. The whole thing was
more county-wide, Union and
Middlesex. In Avenel itself,
there were maybe 30 or 40
bike people, only three or
four really badass hardcore,
The rest of our draw was
from all over and other places.
And they're still out there, but
far-flung now, and older too.
Way older, or dead. There were
always 40 or 50 people for sure
you'd know would show up; the
rest was hit or miss  -  sometimes
depending on jail-time, parole,
or ankle bracelets. It was
nothing; after a while you learn
to talk to people, even the most
hardcore. Biker to Biker, it's
a weird respect thing, with a bit
of fear, I guess. The higher up
in these club echelons you go,
actually, the better it gets. It's the
bottom level, prospects or new
guys, who were the toughest,
nastiest, and most brutal. I guess 
trying to make their rank, their 
way in, or their name. Into the
Maple Tree they most all eventually 
dribbled  -  fantastic packs of club 
colors very occasionally. Making 
a showing, as if to say, 'Don't forget 
about us, because we're always 
watching.'  You had to be careful. 
It was all problems.
-
Some of the clubs were crutch clubs,
meaning their best membership was
old, grizzled vets, old-timers who all
remembered older, other days. Everyone
was slow, creaky, wounded. Then there
were the newer identification clubs,
just getting started. They  were pesky 
too, because they were nothing. Blue 
Knights were cops who rode. It was
club by identification  -  Firefighters
had one, EMT's, all sorts of small
divided military groups, etc. They
maybe came off as tough, but they 
wanted comfort. They had kids and
mortgages and big cars, and wives
who wanted jewelry and vacation
destinations worth it all. Riding
was their relief valve. A lot of it
was play-acting; so I play-acted
back. I always liked just the regular,
general slob-riding friend type.
Guys I knew. No pretense, none 
of that attitude crap either. They all
knew a lot more than me about
their engine and machine stuff, and
I knew that  -  they rebuilt cars and
bikes on a weekend or two. They
built decks and dormers as easy
side projects. These guys were
gold, and friends. We had fun.
-
One time there was a guy named
Curly. I don't know his real name. 
His wife was tough as nails. He was
kind of goofy, and got really angry
when drunk. Didn't understand 
much, but was a good guy. He 
lived, they lived, just off St. George,
and on the end of Woodruff Ave., 
I guess it was. There were a few
Sunday mornings, riding out, we'd
wait for him in the lot of a Jiffy Lube
or something right there, across from 
the bank. We were usually heading 
south. Curley was always late. We
could see his 2nd floor window from
the street, and his signal to us that
he'd seen us and that they were almost 
ready, was to open the window and
moon us  -  so the big signal of the
morning was his bare ass sticking 
out the window. One time we were
at the Maple Tree, and Curly, already
a little toasted, went around the bar
inviting everyone to his 50th birthday,
in a week or two. Whatever. This
went on, and I guess in his mind 
he'd had a big party planned. All
of a sudden his wife comes over.
'You're off by a year, asshole. That's
next year. Your gonna' be 49, now
sit down and shut up!'















10,681. CAUGHT WITH NOTHING

CAUGHT WITH NOTHING
The empty sleeve that holds no arms,
the jellybean with no insides. These 
are old-school conflicts. (We cannot
challenge what we cannot see).
-
Peace and distance are the two words
we know : learned by repetition only
maybe. When I was seven, I had a
Visible Man. Like me, it was unseen,
but totally there, only after you put
its pieces all together. Before that,
I never challenged, for I
could not see.

10,680. THE BROKEN YIELD

THE BROKEN YIELD
Take that man by the collar and
throw him out. He is not my father.
Wrath is the seventh of the deadly sins.
How many gates has Heaven? Just one?
You can check in any time you like,
but you can never leave?

10,679. RUDIMENTS, pt. 271

RUDIMENTS, pt. 271
- Maple Tree, pt. 10 -
And then one day it was gone.
I can't remember the actual
day of closing, or of demolition
either. It would have been sad,
had I been there. But (here my 
own story takes a turn) I was
done. By the year 2002 I'd faced
a breakdown of my own. My 
wife kept going, Friday nights,
Saturdays, on her own. I could
no longer bear it. I stayed home,
usually listening to Sibelius CD's
(Scandinavian/Finnish classical
composer, who earned himself a 
lot of trouble over his 'Patriotic'
Finnish-national, music). His
2nd symphony seemed it was
about my while, life back then It 
carried me along. My nerves 
were shot,  I'd had real problems 
coping, people bothered me, I'd 
closed up ABATE and had to 
discontinue everything, plus the
eight thousand dollar personal 
loan I'd taken out to try and 
continue was a long-lasting
marker dogging me, to which I
answered by working in a nice
capacity for Barnes & Noble; lucky 
break at the time. Plus it helped 
me alter my world, back towards
books and 
intellectual/creative 
pursuits. It was the push I needed. 
The Maple Tree? I can't remember
my last time there  -  can't really 
remember a thing. I'd totally 
retreated, was unreachable; I
wasn't answering the phone.
I'd completely broken down.
People would come to visit, 
and  I'd not come out; my wife
carried the ball for me. Joey,
Gary R., Jackie R., Harry, sorry 
for all that. Those were among
the people who came knocking
and were turned away.
-
One day Harry came by, and spoke 
to my wife on the porch  -  full of
condolences, offering help of any sort
as needed. She didn't understand. The
word was, evidently, that I'd cracked
up, gone nuts, and was dead. She
stayed non-committal, more in
the shock of the story than in
anything else. This is all true; I
make none of it up. It took me 
a good 5 years to get back  -  by
that time working still at B&N
in Clark. And occasionally, still
reluctantly, people would now 
and then come around for hello
or talk. Then I moved out of there,
in 2007, to Princeton, and started
everything anew. No one knew a 
thing. I was a different person.
-
You come back from something 
like this scarred for life, burned 
by a holy ember, like Moses at 
some stupid mountaintop coming 
back down and everyone's around 
the bar worshiping some golden calf.
At least if they still made Ballantine 
beer, you could say they were 
worshiping Ba'al. If someone 
were to ask me, I'd have to say, 
really, NO, I hadn't survived. I killed 
that person; I buried myself and 
those fiery embers, and walked. 
First off, if I had half of the money 
back that I laid down and pissed 
away on bars over those years, I'd 
have a ton of needed money. 
Second, maybe I did screech it 
all to halt in time to salvage my 
gooseneck life. I moved on, 
decided what I really wanted, 
and went steady at it, ever 
since and screw the rest. I 
surely could have died. One 
time, a Hell's Angel prospect 
friend, Frank, and his girlfriend 
were visiting for some reason 
or another. I think it was an 
Englishtown Swap Meet and 
Bike Race day  -  by the end 
of the long day I was toasted 
and so was he. And her. He 
asked for the way out, back 
to the Parkway and Tunnel to 
the city. I said I'd take him. 
I was so piss-drunk I could 
hardly think, and he and I 
saddled up and took off. I 
stayed with them, along the 
Parkway up to Union and the 
Rt. 22 turn, and then stayed 
with them, and then stayed 
with them. (That's a deliberate
repeat). My brain had locked 
(it used to happen), alcohol on 
two wheels had taken over. Frank 
was usually a hard-ass, wildman  
rider, but I amazed even him. And 
her. In a total booze-haze, I'd left 
them in the dust. He said he 
watched me, saw me, maybe 
kept me with a quarter mile if 
he could. In a fairly-packed, 
Sunday Summertime north 
flow of traffic, between cars, 
in and out of cars, around cars, 
I was doing 90. On a 4-speed, 
shitted-up first-year 1984 Softail, 
that was a lot. Pushing a hundred 
was beyond control. I don't know 
how I did it. I don't know where 
or why no state troopers or cops 
bagged me. Frank was ready 
to shoot me when we got to 
our extended good-bye point. 
He just shook his head. His 
girlfriend was in shock. She
mumbled that it was 'quite
arousing.' And I still had to 
ride all the way back yet, alone. 
I felt like Hunter Thompson on
one of his gonzo-journalism trips.
That was the last I saw of Frank, 
until one day, some time later, 
he was out front of Third Street 
posted as watchman for the 
H.A. bikes out front. I rode 
back, slightly more sober, 
and made it OK. It was 
my miracle. 
-
There are a lot more stories 
I can tell; real-life stuff, not
stories. I lived all this shit and
got nothing for it but the telling.
No drop-bag of money ever came
with a bagman my way. Just dead
people (they started dropping like
flies, for a while). Wakes brought
me out again, but I kept being afraid
of getting bumped off or beaten
by someone for something. Now
I'm old enough not to f'n care a
whit. Let the bastards have me,
it'll be a fair fight. You want
more stories; you pay me, OK?
-
Somewhere in that time, I honestly
don't know when, the Maple Tree
closed up and was torn down. What's
there now is a level, flat field upon
which has been erected some generic
sort of senior-housing tower. Not 
worth much, not even to look at. If 
those people only knew. The town
has put up some half-assed excuse
for a plaque about the old days. I'm
not even sure what they're trying
to say, and those lying sack-o-shit
bastards would never own up to the
truth of old Avenel anyway.




10,678. FIGHTING TENACIOUS ' THE BLACK & WHITE TURKISH TAFFY GIRL

FIGHTING TENACIOUS -
'THE BLACK & WHITE 
TURKISH TAFFY GIRL'
If you had anything then, you had a nickel.
Splitting the splat of the Turkish Taffy flat,
the point I guess was sharing. The girl's
voice was like iron, something metallic
that grated. Didn't come off right; and 
her friend, the Dennis the Menace type,
needed a swipe to the head. It was all like
that then  -  malicious bicycles and evil
deeds done in the name of good. The 
spinning orb above us high, later, was a
distant land's satellite flying. We looked
up and watched : some dribble in a 1957
deep, dark sky, while industry rolled and
everything fell. There wasn't any sense to
cartwheels after that. And Fred Flintstone
and Barney Rubble hadn't yet arrived.

10,677. IN THE HANDS OF AN INSTANT

IN THE HANDS 
OF AN INSTANT
I've got the drainpipe to hang onto,
along Bedford and Barrow Streets.
-
A few drunk carousers, old Chumley's
like it was still alive. Anne Adams, 
and me. Rolling along. carefree.
-
Too bad she was a hundred years old
already when I knew her. Well, not
really. But eighty for sure. A pity.
-
A pithy pity really, and a
pithy one at that.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

10,676. BUTTERFIELD 8

BUTTERFIELD 8
That's John O'Hara, for those not in
the know. He's buried in Princeton too,
with the rest. They made a film of this;
one of those sexpot, dame things they
used to do in black and white. His house
was in the woods on Fakler Lane. Cocktails
at three each day, the whole bit. He had
a Rolls Royce he drove around town, 
maybe 1956. You get stuff like that when 
your name makes it big  -  the lucky break, 
the right talent, the need. I never had that 
stuff myself : the goings-on of my own 
life owed more to bread and butter needs,
the nasty slog of getting on. And then again, 
I never needed cocktails at three, either. And 
He was dead at 65, and for me, as it is,
I'm still alive.

10,675. NEW ENDS, OLD MEANS

NEW ENDS, OLD MEANS
It's a mighty long way down. 
Having had a Sherpa guide for 
the long climb up, should I have 
another for this climb back down? 
Tenzig Norkay, where are you now?

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

10,674. RUDMENTS, pt. 269

RUDIMENTS, pt. 269
- Maple Tree, pt. 8 -
Sometimes, when the task ahead
seems overwhelming, or too
daunting, I've found that the best
way, or most effective, or satisfying,
is to go forward, doing just what
must be done  -  getting the necessary
out of the way and leaving the frills
and extras alone. Most of all the
pressure is in your head anyway,
and self-imposed. Like Franklin
Roosevelt meant, when he said,
'All we have to fear is fear itself.'
He may not have known it in exactly
the same way as I'm putting it here,
but that's the essence. You begin
reacting to the horrors that MIGHT
be, and not to the situation presenting
itself. The Depression and WWII
wasn't a party for anyone; no. But
two parts of the same machinery,
once faced off, solved each other's
problem. The War ended the Depression
(goes to show the engrained power of
the Military); and the Depression, in
turn, had empowered the War, by
weakening people, beating them
down, and making them pliable
and weary. I always liked to think
that the Maple Tree came out of that
war, was a cultural result of it.
-
Certain things, in their way, about
the Maple Tree, and any of the other
5,000 bars of that era, that worked me
down into an almost hatred of things,
was the atmosphere in the places. All
of them: Mid-1990's, large TV's suddenly
everywhere, no place to be alone, the
visuals always running (only very seldom
was there any TV sound heard over the
din). Endless crap, and everyone buying
into it unwittingly. I always sought to
live very privately. The last thing I
wanted was to have to be force-fed
television, which I've managed to
keep out of my life, thank you. Yet,
in the Maple Tree and everywhere
else, it was ever-present : Somehow
over the years the dark, silent presence
of a tavern had been replaced by the
loud, useless give-and-take of a
gymnasium, with alcohol. Besides
every freaking Led Zepplin song in
the world being over-played on the
jukebox, along with AC/DC, Eagles
and The Band, I had to sit through
forty different lectures on Jon Bonham's
'always just behind the beat' drumming.
I used to think to myself, 'how can he
be behind the beat, when he IS the beat
for the rest of the band?' Thrills. In
reality though, hey, that's a pretty
deep question.
-
Certainly there was no thrill involved 
in this, yet I couldn't communicate my
dislike. Super Bowl? Winter Olympics?
Summer Olympics? Yankee baseball?
O.J. Simpson, trolling around in a white
Bronco? I had to be endlessly subjected
to this junk while people bought beer and
talked tortured talk about everything.
Clinton. Clinton and Monica. Clinton
and Hilary. Clinton's daughter. Jail, Sex.
The Press. Impeachment. Stock Market.
Techno crash. Market bottoms. Talk
show hosts. It was all deadly, and the
later at night any of it got, the more
wasted I'd be, forced to be subject to
drivel. Who wanted any of this, and 
how did it get mixed in with being
some sort of badass, imagistic Biker?
When the scenarios here were lad out,
I don't think anyone was paying 
attention. Also, Hazel was as religious
as they come. Our Lady this, and Holy
Father that. St. Andrew's Church drew
here second allegiance, after the bar.
Strange stuff. She'd go on  retreats, 
and church sponsored big-deal trips,
and come back telling about them,
while right behind her or next to us
someone else is railing on about,
'Who the fuck took my money off the
bar and where are my god-damned 
cigarettes?' Not any exact quote, no,
but the idea is the idea of the mixing 
of all these weird cultures. Cussing
was part of the territory, so I'm not
apologizing here for that, but in the 
same vein no one ever apologized to
me for having to be subjected to all
of this 3rd grade, cartwheel level
crap at every turn. 
-
I wasn't a good mixer, but I played at
being one, and apparently I did a fairly
good job. Not Oscar material  -  or, if
so, more like Oscar Madison, that slob 
guy from the Odd Couple. One thing
we did every year, for at least 6 or 8
years  -  incredibly without any
mishaps, deaths, scarrings or real
fiascos  -  was put 16 or 20 motorcycles
in the Woodbridge St. Patrick's Day
Parade. It was a stupid, slow crawl,
really horrid on clutches, people
got impatient waiting. The problem 
was the staging area. We'd be told to 
be fully accounted for by something
like 12:30, in our section, which was
away from everyone, down at the rear
of Woodbridge High School, right at
the football field. Which was good, 
and was bad. It was good, because
there were heated rest rooms underneath
the stands. And it was bad because
all we did, for two hours waiting, was
booze it up, work on bikes, hang
around, grumpy and complaining, 
drink (did I mention that?) make 
fun of wives and girlfriends present.
Once the slow route of the parade got
going, it was antics, loud behavior,
even burn-outs occasionally, here
and there. One year, problematically,
we got placed just behind some
drill and marching team  -  girls
in tights and skin-clothes, bands
noise, etc. It was a battle, and we
disrupted things, especially as a
few well-lubricated guys wouldn't
leave the cheerleaders alone. The 
next year like a bunch of idiots, we
were placed near the end, just before
some dumb-ass Woodbridge Go-Kart
Club, whose fool members kept
trying to show us up and nose into 
our motorcycle spaces. Bad news. 
After that we were always placed
before or after the fire department 
trucks. Steaming through Woodbridge,
drunk out of our minds, supposedly
showing up for prim and proper
motorcycle rights, wasn't a cool
idea, 'for the cause', let's say. It
was more like the Acoholic
Anonymous Drop-Outs Riding
Club. We'd end up at the Maple
Tree anyway, where Hazel and the
house crowd and a band ('Dirty Pool,
and Tony, you out there') was at
the ready with (yep!) more beer, 
ten tons of corned beef and
boiled potatoes, and a party-time
atmosphere, set to roll. It just
usually grew from there. One time
we actually got the trophy for
'Best Mobile Unit.' Which of 
course, as Emcee and presenter,
I quickly altered to Best Mobile
Eunuchs. Always fun.
-
No matter what was ever going on,
we drew people. They'd come out,
for us  -  a small contingent of locals,
a group of sweet-enough girls drawn
to our antics; the locals who'd be
drinking there anyway; people
suddenly 'interested' in motorcycles.
We were antic clowns, free-booters
and leaders too. The same went for 
Halloween  -  a huge, yearly (mostly
indoor) costume party, this one of
grunge, make-believe, taunting,
music and weird revelry. Emcee'd,
again, and as usual, by me. Always 
throwing the 'stupid-pepper' in
someone's eyes. One Halloween,
one of our regular cuties from those
days showed up as 'Pocahantas.' Up 
at the mike, getting a prize or  ribbon 
for Best Costume, she was quickly
re-dubbed. in good-nature, to be
'Poke-er-Heinie.' Cue the crowd 
laugh, and cue it loud. A
regular damned riot, Alice.