RUDIMENTS, pt. 291
Making Cars
It wasn't as if lightning ever
struck me, but over time a
number of good things came
through. That was my opinion
of it all anyway. Everyone
grows up differently, and at
their own pace. I took my
own sweet time, but it sure
felt like I was racing along.
As I look back now - I
don't know how this goes
for others - I can clearly
segment my life into maybe
four or five distinct sections
and episodic chunks. I guess
that's OK, and each one's
different, but it's hard to say
'how' the delineations are
made. There was a Princeton
philosopher once, Delia Graff
Fara, who had this thing she
worked out called 'the paradox
of the heap.' Sometimes I
felt akin to that - instead of
these clear separations of the
points of my life, it was more
like: 'Start with a heap of sand.
If you remove a single grain,
it remains a heap. Repeat this
process enough times, however,
and you have a heap of sand
tha contains, say, one grain.
This is absurd. One grain is
not a heap. Something has gone
wrong, but it is not obvious
what. Either there is a precise
number of grains at which point
a heap becomes a nonheap, or
there is no such thing as a heap,
or classical logic is flawed.'
I guess you can see where this
is going and to what end. It's
really just all definitions. It's
actually a paradox that originated
with the ancient Greeks, who
were good for paradoxes like
this. How else to figure out an
existence, back then? Just think
how bare-boned it all had to be
for them. One single person at
a time, and then another and then
another, and some itinerant teacher
guy hauling them along. Kind of
like a heap itself, that is. What
other means did they have though,
to advance things? Even writing
itself was a pain in the butt.
-
So I used to think about things like
that too - like the old Greeks again,
and I've told the story before, in the
seminary, training myself for the
oratorical contest I was in, statewide.
I'd selected two pieces to read, 300
or so words each, and - like
Demosthenes of old Greece,
an orator - I'd walk the woods
reciting aloud as practice. And
following Demosthenes' example
(who became a great orator
despite initially having a speech
impediment, not being able to
catch his 'R's and unable to
properly expend his breathing,
etc.), I'd have a few (cleaned)
pebbles in my mouth as I
belted out the words. It was
supposed to effect diction and
clarity, and make it sure that
your words were understood. It
worked for me, clearly. I won
through all the prelims and semis,
and, in fact, Statewide. I did
eventually win, and got this
ribboned medal thing presented
to me on stage by Governor
Richard Hughes. ('No one called
him Dick after that!' - that was
my joke about his name). I still
have it around here somewhere.
It's inscribed too, with my name
and the date and the stuff I read
to win.
-
Try walking the woods with
pebbles in your mouth, 'orating'
sometime. Or anyway try it as a
15-year old. It's a really strange
sensation. The fact of the matter
is that I was a driven, compulsive
nut-case for a number of my years.
Seminary years anyway, and
probably after that a few New
York years. I pressed really hard,
and constantly. How else does
anyone, truly, get motivated
enough to withstand some of
the stuff I went into action with?
The streets of New York kill
most people. I kept coming back
for more. The memories of the
places and life behind me, I have
to admit, motivated me and pushed
me along. I was a pretty rattled
young kid. Starting out life
on the rugged banks of the oily
Kill van Kull, all those constant
tugboats and ship and boat traffic,
the cars over the Bayonne Bridge,
and all the noise and frolic of Uncle
Milty's Amusement Park area right
outside my window, and then getting
thrown in an entire other direction -
some creepy new development of
newly-built homes, like 5,000 of
them, each one alike in rows along
three or four streets, bordering no
less a prison farm - a real farm -
right outside my back yard. It was
like Captain Kangaroo and Mr.
Greenjeans were my real-life
companions. That dichotomy, in
four short years, itself was more
than enough to flip me over. And
then the train wreck, and then the
seminary, after waking back up
from death, literally. And then
the screwed-up concentration
camp tactics of one last year's
push through Woodbridge High
School , a true sluice pipe of
ignorance, drudgery, perversion
and sloth dressed up as enforced
education. I was done.
-
One time, in NYC, I had taken
my bicycle up the east side, past
the UN. It was nighttime, and I
was headed to some music club
I'd heard of, run by this guy Scott
Muni, who was, back then, a local
NY disc jockey. It was 1968,
Pop Art and hippie stuff, and he
called his club, of course, why not,
the 'Rolling Stone.' It was a sort
of booze-bar, dance-club, live
music venue for bands. Riding a
bicycle back then was both unheard
of, on the city streets, and probably
suicidal too. I remember tailing it
up, past the UN and all, and getting
buzzed by all these large cars, taxis,
limos and the rest. Everyone drove
rude and unkind, and rudely and
unkindly too. I finally did get to
this half-fancy-ass hipster club and
just went around back. The back
gate-doors were open, for the
loading of equipment and stuff
and I just joined forces like I was
road-crew or whatever. No one
said a word. I went right in and
grabbed a chair near the band. I
remember I had an uncle that used
to tell me, when doing things, to
'just walk in there like you own
the place.' That was his version
of how to make things work for
you. It's pretty much what I did
here. The name of the band was
'The Fallen Angels.' They had an
album or two out, but I didn't
know anything much about them.
The thing was, it was a Thursday
night, first of three nights for them
there. Thursday wasn't a big night,
it was more like warm-up for their
bigger weekend; learning the place,
the sound, the layout. What had
already happened was that their
drummer was so f'd up, booze, drugs
and the rest, that he was in danger
of swallowing his tongue; he was
that bad off. So they put him away
and asked around, 'What are we
gonna' do? We need drums. Who
can play here? Anybody?' Of course,
I jumped up and volunteered my
totally tenderfoot services. 'You're
on.' And that's how I sat in on drums
for one night of Fallen Angels music.
If sand grains make a heap, I was
in the middle of a heap of really
screwed up morons. I could have
been drumming to Mary Had a Little
Lamb, for all anyone cared, for all I
knew, and for all anyone heard either.
Nothing to it. Patrons were lame,
and the rest of the band-mates were
long-gone over the ridge. The best
thing around were the babes I got
to watch wiggle and cavort in
mini-skirts. So high up they
should'a been shirts.
No comments:
Post a Comment