10,684. RUDIMENTS, pt. 272

RUDIMENTS, pt. 272

Making Cars

So I said I walked and I did.

Right now I'm some 130 miles

away, walking some graveyard

woods. Levon Helm is here,

dead beside me. Rick Danko

too, a few rows off. Ain't that

peculiar, and I'm shakin' the

dust  -   that is, ashes to ashes,

dust to dust, all others pay cash,

'cause in God we trust. Gone,

down, dead and over, everything

goes away  -  like the Maple Tree,

and Snooky's, and Hank's and

Flip's, and the Roxbury and the

Hillcrest too. All over now, Baby

Blue. OK, got that done  - I did

just want to wash the 'Tree' dust

off me. That was some shaking

ten days  -  putting up those

episodes every day, walking

like a Bluebeard skeleton down

memory lane, things I shouldn't

do and things that never changed.

Now here. Here. I'm in Woodstock.

It's a much better place. The streets

still hold candles. Not like Avenel,

which rapes. I'm free like a flat-top,

hep-cat, Roto-Rooter in the space of

my own cleared out dreams. Plochman

Lane, Streibel Road, Tinker Street,

Rick City Road, Still Road, Parnassus

Lane, John Joy Road and Zena Road

too. I'll tell you what I'll do  -  I'll

bring some pictures, from the zoo.

-

I find it nice to be real, to be alive,

to strip the needle skin vibe off some

part of me ridden and creepy with

bugs and snakes. Sometimes, in order

to do that, I just have to flee. Me.

-

Even here, though there's a lot fewer,

the damned American flag still flies.

What is it with people and flags?

I can see the library or the cop shop,

some of the stores begging for dollars.

But that should be it. Long may you

wave, and all that. I'm tired of patriotic

gore. (Edmund Wilson wrote that).

-

Three and a quarter for coffee. But at

least I get a seat and people are passing

me by. Thy still exist, those rich and

famous, those catalogues without a

home. People nod and smile. I have

to ask them not to get carried away.

My clothes are three days old, my hat's

unwashed, and with me is my mangy

dog. Not really. It's all on me, the dog's

a simple gift of joy. Dogs never see

the bottom of the bowl  -  they just

see the food, and make their judgments

based on that. Tomorrow is April Fool's.

Have I got a trick for you!

-

I like Woodstock, It's a barrel of a burgh,

with really, or seemingly, little care for

the rest of the world, or for any of that

stuff the media-world tries to pin on

it : leftover hippie kingdom, folkie

free-love capital, anarchic, crazed

lefty burgh. All that junk's over, this

place just is. It lazes in another time.

These haunted rounded mountains

look down, flavoring the old wood and

the old buildings  - where things still

creak and sag. Strange old photos

are in windows. Nobody ever looked

like a space man here anyway  -  not

Todd Rundgren, not Richie Havens.

None of those 1960's characters did

much except put, on automatic,

their own spin on a dark, weird,

(old) American place. There's truly

something in these hills and in the air

  -  whatever it may be, the ancients,

aliens and extra-terrestrials, native

stuff. Ohayo Mountain, Overlook

MountaIn, they're just not 'there.'

They have a reason and a bold

natural consciousness of their own.

Ghosts and glimmers, the dimensional

past  -  you have to remember things

were never the way we've been told.

That's all fantasy, woven around

the dreams of those who want it to

'be' that way  -  for their own gain.

Profitable for them, and we have to

remember as well that 'profit' doesn't

always just mean money. A lot of

this old-time Catskill stuff, in the

last 160 years anyway was/is Jewish.

The search for lucre remains paramount

to that contingent, though it's not at

all what I'm talking about. Money is

so simple its silky. But it's junk.

They thrive on it nonetheless and

make hoary old tribal stories out

of it. To advance their remonstrances

of atonements and deliverances.

Those stories are always present.

But they're short-lived, in cosmic

terms. Hard to explain. Time,

life and being are nothing until

they're slowed down enough to

become objects. To become

'mass.' That's what 'E=MC squared'

is all about. These mountains slow

things sown enough so you can feel

the past, yet the energy around the

place is still fast. A cosmic quandary.

-

Up some of these roads, you go

sideways right into another aspect

of being. Here it still slithers around.

The meaning of 'wood'  -  like the

most basic Eric Sloane concept  - 

still lingers about. There are homes

here, lush and sloppy, on some of

the back ridges with cut, burnable

lumber piled high enough for 2

seasons yet coming. The simplicity

of what I see is amazing. Open

fires, and people sitting about. It's

very communal yet separate, and

separately communal only at one

level. Heck, even the dog park

here is woods. Every other one

I've ever been near where I live

is a bare, naked, bad-field of

grass, either toxic or dangerous,

from some other use. Dogs being

expendable, I suppose, in municipal

thinking, even more than people.

Here, you sit in the woods, 30

tall trees and 8 or so dogs while

talk thoughtfully. History here

wears a double-sleeve; one for

now and one for then.

-

So, I guess I went crazy, crazy

enough to have at least been

someone who turned on the

force of my own dreaming.

I turned numerous times and I

track the course of those stars

on the inside track of my own

head. 'I got to go grow up here

before I had a GPS in my pocket.

I was born in 1976 in a dilapidated

house on the creek. My father

got out of Queens and went to

Woodstock in '69. My folks were

more just country folk hippies, 

as opposed to the kind trying

to change the world. From the

earliest time I was always hearing

all that stuff  -  Dylan, Hendrix,

The Band, Van Morrison. Yeah,

you can feel it, you're right.

There's a mystical quality to

these hills. People still come 

up here for the same reasons  -  

for the quiet, for the nature, as

well as the proximity to New

York City and the belly of the

beast. You can get out into the

woods here and feel the Pre-

Columbian vibrations. Once

you tap into it, it's pretty

amazing. I still get-teary-eyed

coming home. I have friends

who don't even know what time

IS, spiritually OR metaphorically.

Overlook Mountain, yeah; the

smoky evening smells of Fall

coming through the car windows.

Others say every Summer they get

the urge to come back, a longing to

be in Woodsock  -  beautiful and

mysterious and, green; a green

that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Woodstock is like a Venus flytrap;

whether you get stuck in it or not

depends on whether your vibration 

is in harmony with it. It's like they 

say there are vortices in Sedona

or Nepal, certain spiritual places,

and I would say Woodstock is

most certainly that.' I was talking 

to three guys in the town's center

square; there were a few dogs and

people around, mine as well. We

didn't 'do' anything, just were.

This sort of composite and 

imaginary monologue is part 

of all that; but they didn't fit, 

actually, they were just too modern.

I don't 'think' they really knew what

they are talking about, probably just

using stuff they'd heard. Modern 

people neither talk or think this way.

The awarenesses are too different.

That old human-selfhood is gone.

'It's got a way here of down-shifting

you from high gears into neutral; no

coincidence that it's a strange attractor

for the Tibetans and the zen people.

Buddhists have a word for that neutral.

They call it 'the Void.' There's more

to this town than just being a cute

little town in the mountains. Funny

things happen here; people get

changed up. It's the place, the creeks

and the winding roads and the rocks,

and the pitch-black nights. But that's 

all on the inside  -  it's the mountans

of the mind. It's, maybe too, like

backwards, like this : We're not

just up here in the woods; New 

York City is an industrial suburb of

Woodstock. Places like Key West,

Sedona, and Taos, they're what 

they are because of where they 
are; don't you see? It's an extra-

ordinary place; cold, sometimes 

real cold, and hot too.'
-
You can see the photo for a glimmer
of all this : careerist malcontents but
not that really. They shine too in
all their dull glitter.