RUDIMENTS, pt. 346
Making Cars
The extremes to which
most people will go are
fairly startling. In a Maori
tribesman sort of way.
There are those folks who
get themselves all tattoo'd
up and then always need to
have them showing to be
worth anything: so you have
all sorts of hideous-looking
clothing worn, in most all
seasons, poor things, to be
sure that the shoulder-blade
is exposed, showing the
ruins of a castle with a
bluebird flying out, or
the thigh with the portrait
of Che (who?), the calf
with (their) bill of rights
(what?), or the long face
of their totem witch, each
and every straining to be seen.
Cannot be hid, never, please.
'I don't usually wear Guinea tee's,
but this tattoo made me do it.'
-
In the Biker world it was rather
different, but only in that some
Bikers needed to be acutely aware
of where they were, whose little
'tuft of turf' they might be on.
A wrong tattoo in the wrong
geographic location, South Jersey
v. New York, one county against
another, even, could get you
maimed. It was a riotous and
steady childishness let to roam.
Or not roam. The necessity there
was to wear long-sleeve garments
and be very steady about it. I've
know a flayed patch of skin, or
an acid removal of same, as a
consequence. Not fun, and
take it away, Johnny.
-
What do you make of that? What
do you make of any tattoo - the
real ones; before the silly and
the frivolous stepped in. Is it a
tribal signification, a fantasy
rank? Is it remembrance? Then,
why? The body obviously always
fails in that mission. I could never
understand it except as some
wordless attempt at cross-message
communicating, almost as if saying
something by jumping the verbal.
OK then, what's Art, by those
standards? And how far back do
we each go in our primitive efforts
at such communication - even
though in all other aspects as we
'advance' we deny spectacularly
the primitive within us, suddenly
too enlightened for any of that.
I never knew, even as my first
contacts with tattoos were on
grumpy old losers, dead in the
brain, dyed in the wool, sailor
types and hulking gang-bangers
trying to lift weights - all except
the one on their shoulders. The
world's a really mixed up place.
The rich throw dice to win money,
as if they were some nomadic
wanderer out on the savanna
throwing bones of station and
prestige. Talismans of their own
dreary Gods. The destitute play
at being rich, setting up rights
and ranks in their legions of
the unknown huddled behind
the 79th street bridges of old
Riverside Park. Everything gets
flipped, and then flipped again.
-
New York people have a weird
streak too, and a tendency, while
bloviating some about others,
to go way over the top with
their own stupidities, and then
refusing to admit it in their quest
of some version of total purity
that they hold about themselves
and their own must-be rightness
(or righteousness). It too is a
form of blindness, but at least
the blind will readily admit to
being blind. Look at it this way:
To a dyed-in-the-wool New
Yorker, the worst you can
be is someone from New
Jersey. (Honestly). A rube,
jerk, goofball, fool, idiot,
crass and, generally, dumb.
(But, please, please, come
in and spend your money,
visit our disgustingly gauche
and banal Broadway shows,
eat our rat-infested meals, and
visit our museums an social
palaces; etc. In other words,
let us sucker you). No comment.
To a person from New Jersey,
their worst enemy is the
half-pants drawn-down ghetto
denizen, Trenton, Newark,
Harlem, Jersey City, New
Brunswick, you name it,
who deserves nothing but
contempt and spittle - for
their cultural inadequacy,
disgusting habits, sloth,
disdain, gluttony and
drunkenness and dependency.
And profligate one-parent
family breeding. Bringing
down the 'social order,'
as it's put. Yet, to the New
Yorker, skipping a social
order down, they would
give everything to these
specific people - relief,
discounted housing,
subsidized schooling and
privileges, and the rest.
To them, ruinous or not,
these are the needy, the
dispossessed, and those
deserving of help and
uplift. It's a complete
flip-flop, and it's funny
as all get-out. Both ends,
ripping at the middle. (And
good luck Meher Baba).
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