RUDIMENTS, pt. 256
Making Cars
It's just a nervous energy, a lot
of times, that makes all this
happen. I think everyone has
something they do to send
their personal energy along :
And who knows what it can
be. Tech stuff; computer
science; bowling; auto
mechanics; working on
old things; restoration; or
mathematics. It's really
just one of those things
that people have put names
on because they don't know
what else to say or do about
it - personal drive, energy,
commitment. I've always had
a lot of that and I run my life
like a factory - with punch-in
times, stretches and bloc periods
for this and for that. It's always
work. When I actually held
jobs, with others, it was very
difficult to stay with - the
usual patter and the office
chatter, discursive stuff, job
responsibilities, getting things
right. Now I don't care and I
don't have to.
-
In 1967, what was then called
the 'politics of liberation,' was
going around - as a movement,
as a life style, and a choice; a
means of protesting the Vietnam
War, a counter-cultural way of
spreading the conflagration. No
one uses 'counter-cultural' any
longer, because there is none.
Neither 'Culture,' nor a 'Counter'
to it. All that has been destroyed
and swept away in the varied
crash-landed remnants of that
time. The fallout fell all through
the 1970's and 1980's. It was
still around in the 1990's too, by
then having added cross-currents
of 'triangulation,' and violence, and
faulty translations of the original
impulse. But, it was all still around
and in pieces - it could be seen
in small pockets, as it never really
came together : Grateful Dead,
Bob Dylan as leather-bound
pop-hipster (boy, that never fit
and it all looks so dumb now);
The parched packets of Timothy
Leary stuff, Baba Ram Dass, and
Dr. Alpert too. Like the Comintern
in Russia, the big portals of all
the important things - Harvard,
UofC, Yale, UPenn, Cornell, and
the rest, still flamed and blew up
every so often - BUT by the
World Trade Center destruction
it was all over. Everything and
everywhere. Probably even,
before that, people of the likes
of Bill Clinton had seduced and
then killed it anyway. No words
were spoken, and there no longer
was a counter-cultural language,
nor a wheel of it left to spin.
-
In those days, culminating in about
1972, any 'Politics of Liberation' as
a proper thing had degenerated into
hedonism. Any excuse would do to
loosen up, nay, to break any old ties
that may still have been. Anyone
who felt like it cast off their mate -
husband wife, partner - and proudly
began sleeping around as they
wished. In Elmira, my friends on
Irvine Place, and others, were
running near swingers' clubs,
brothels in all but name. 'He'
was a high school art teacher,
and 'she' was just a real babe; and
the place was supposed to be their
home. House. Clouds of marijuana
smoke wafted; granules in the coffee,
anything everywhere. Runaway kids,
showing up at the door (local high
school kids, these were) were
put up. Harbored. Frantic parents
were told nothing. Sexual hi-jinks
was the rest. Unlike today's kids
with their walking out of school
over generated-response issues
and mouthed juvenile platitudes,
these kids, in spite of themselves
were seeking liberation and a newer
form of power through diversion.
Politics was the cover, but not like
today. No one ever really owned
up to what they were doing. Steeleye
Span, and Fairport Convention
music was always running. It
was joyous stuff, and it was mostly
unbroken. Kids need guidance at
these stages. Simply putting
them up front as the leaders
and the voices of everything is
stupid. They're know-nothings
and all they can do is think in
'today's' terms, because any form
of 'traditionalism' has never been
entered into their thinking. These
Elmira kids had some real
unbounded stuff going on, but
at least they were of more value
unto themselves than just to call
themselves, as happens now,
a 'voice, a generation' because
of merely being a large, new
contingent of 'consumers' who
want things their way. Which
is how I read a few of them
putting it. 'Tired of shackles'?
Oh really? Get real, brats. Who
the heck wants to just be a
'consumer?'
-
I grew way out of everything -
a weird limb veering way off
from the main tree. In Elmira,
a sort of landing pad for me
as I slowly decompressed
from all that fateful NYC and
then deep-country living, I
went through - in singular
manner - much of the same
decomposition that the 'cultural'
counter-movement was going
through. Up in Ithaca, a few
miles north at the Finger Lakes,
Cornell was still smoldering. It
had nearly been wrecked in
black-power and counter-cultural
revolts. All through those corridors,
the lanes and roadways around the
Finger Lakes, Elmira, Corning,
right out and over to Binghamton
and then NE Pennsylvania's
corner, there were still remnants
of communes and group-living,
which were, by this time, mostly
falling apart and grappling with
issues and with themselves. Even
hedonism only takes you so far.
Nonetheless, it was exciting to
be in and really cool to watch.
Oddball people, fractious, within
sometimes insane, little, isolated
environments. Each one a little
pod unto itself, with its own
personnel and allegiances and
belief structures. There were
mini-Gods, demi-Gods and
new Gods everywhere. It was
like a huge bunch of people
reading 'scriptures' but scriptures
each of their own, nothing
unified, and with a hundred
apparently different interpretations
of each phrase and clause. And
for each interpretation there
was a quasi 'clerical' leader,
holding the reins. Funny, how
fragmentation only brings
you so far, and then the
usual structures begin all
over again. Name, rank,
and serial number too.
Adherence was formulated
and pushed. or you were out.
I always wondered, was the
push west like this, the pioneers
along their was westward? Is
this what the Mormon treks were
like. Nauvoo and Salt Lake too?
Angel Moroni's everywhere, and
tablets of gold in the dirt, scrawled
with new messages and secret
scripts? In fact, if you read
the early Mormon histories
and stories, they'd started out,
initially, right about from there.
Joseph Smith and the rest.
Counter-culture was always just
a 'wandering' - look at the
biblical Jews. And then something
happens, the tribes either click,
or they all go nuts.
-
I made my way by living in
fantasy - another world of my
own completely. And I'm still
proud of it. Instead of 'finding'
a scripture and a tribe, I'd decided
I'd write my own and garner my
own people. Good luck, fancy boy,
good luck. : "Marina is sick. The
headache is just a symptom of
the deeper sickness of not knowing
whether she can handle any more.
Any more exposure, any of that
'outgoing' stuff. 'I can't take it
anymore,' she exclaims, 'I don't
have the right to go, but I can't
stay.' Right from the start her
problem is deeper than just a
headache. It's whether to go or
stay. 'If I'm not fully aware of
where I'm going, how can I keep
going there?' I told you I was deep
where I'm going, how can I keep
going there?' I told you I was deep
into drama and play-writing
back then too.
-
I was able to get in anywhere I
went. Everything was wide open.
Cornell University had become
such a rapacious hippie rathole
that every door was unlocked,
and a jerk like me could attend
classes as if I actually went there.
And had paid. Ha. Whatever
authority there was or had been
at Cornell (and Ithaca) was still
bent over grimacing from the
most recent kick in the gonads
they'd just received. Cops were
dumb, dense and scared. No one
did a thing. 20 miles south, Elmira
College itself wasn't quite that
loose - it was too small and
still too gracious about itself
to let go like that. Even though
they got their daily distribution
delivery of 'Granma' - the Cuban
Communist government newspaper
that was distributed free from the
Elmira College campus Post Office.
(Granma was the name of Castro's
boat that had landed him and Che
in Niquero or somewhere, for
the Revolucion!) - a Communist
Party organ, distributed daily, for
free, as a hand-out newspaper.
And, as I've long ago described
here, in the college Art Dept.,
Gandy Brody was the NYC
Artist in residence. Thank
God for his being around. He
too was a lifeline, and to
Hell with Cuba.
No comments:
Post a Comment