RUDIMENTS, pt. 402
(avenel - razzmatazz and egg mcmuffins)
I kind of split my time entering
New York City into three segments.
Summer of 1967 was a difficult
time : everything was embroiled
with everything else. It was hardly
anything I could compare to Avenel,
which, used as a point of reference,
did not fare too well. On my night
of 'Graduation' in June, '67, which I
was not permitted to attend, because
of my 'look' - hair and the rest, yes
it was that idiotic - my friend, home
for a few weeks from the San Francisco
Art Institute (to which I also had
been accepted, but declined, opting
instead for NYC and the Studio
School), and I took his family's
Valiant and drove it (this was our
idea of a prank) rakishly into the
McDonald's parking lot, swiftly
parked, quickly and at an angle,
and darted out of the car, doors
hanging open, while we both
yelled, 'It's gonna' blow! it's
gonna' blow!' You need to
understand that McDonald's was
still a new concept back then, it
had curiosity value and novelty
too. They had a really lame-brained
old guy on duty as 'Security', and
he just kind of staggered out, as
if he'd just been awakened, telling
us he'd called the cops and not to
go away. (See the illogic of his
thinking already? The premise
was the car's immobility and
our claim that it was about to
blow up, and his concern was
that we not go anywhere). So,
yeah, we got a cup of coffee
(about 15 cents, then), waited
around maybe 10 minutes, and
told the guy the car had cooled
down and all was good. And we
started it up and left. No one
ever came, and I guess no one
there was immersed in us enough
to take a plate number.
-
Any real societal craziness had
not hit Avenel yet. It took almost
another year to sift down. There
was an arty guy in town, he worked
at Shop-Rite, believe it or not, by
the name of 'Bobby Greco.' He ended
up at the School of Visual Arts (as
did Cathy Cacchione, another local),
or maybe it was Fashion Institute,
or Pratt, I actually do forget, but
anyway one night he asked my
girlfriend over to a house party, and
she told me that when she arrived
there she was treated as royalty -
only because of her connection with
me, of whom she said the others
were agape because I'd escaped to
NYC and lived! So weird. If
they only knew the stuff I was
immersed in - struggling
through fiery magma while
they house-partied in their own
happiness. I think they'd have
thought twice. Like a heroin
addict who loses the needle and
can't get another. That frenzy-level.
-
The first part of the three-parts
was the getting there. NYC was
and is never difficult to 'get' to -
there are trains and buses, and
easy car-access too. In addition,
now they have ferries and such
plying the waters to bring people
in. That's the easy part of arrival,
the physical. What more difficult
is the purely psychological means
needed to bring yourself around
to the acceptance of being there.
Like a Mexican jumping the
border, a person needs to ask,
'Is it, will it be, can it be, worth
it?' Good questions always need
answers. Sometimes, however,
they remain unknown and unsaid.
Let's say, 'Any fool can get there.'
It's what happens next that counts.
That's the second third of this
little (false) equation (it's really
not thirds; it's more like three by
three by three by nine, in an endless
progression of expanding numbers).
Landing in New York can be like
stepping in quicksand, a quicksand
comprised of a hundred things - shit
and oil, tar and fire, danger and death
too. Sinking is always the main option.
I used to look around me, Summer '67
anyway, and see death on every stairway:
People slumped over in that staggered
heap of melting drainage that Death is.
They'd given up. Drugs, alcohol, or
merely the haze in the insipid.
The burial business must have been
pretty great that year.
-
A person needs to make personal
arrangements - back then, whether
rooming house, or the streets, or an
actual apartment. I started out real
slow - poking my way around. My
'section two' was slow and deliberate,
and I began, of choice, with the
streets. Immediately, I staked out
a small section of Tompkins Square
Park as my own 20X20 spot. The
park itself was quite amenable. No
one ever bothered me. The place was
filled with hippies and turn-outs,
losers, addicts, sex-fiends, homos and
strange, cranky old men too. The
options were many and clear. If you
wanted sex, there were a hundred
girls around and the price was probably
two-for-nothing. Sure beats today's
BOGO, but it's about the same. And
that was just girl sex. Guys could be
had with a wink and a smile.
-
The only discontents were the
old East-Europeans still dying
off in those days, still staggered
from the war and the pograms and
exterminations. People with numbers
on their forearms, the usual camp
tattoos. (Yes, that's Pograms, NOT
programs. Look it up). They'd be
sitting about, glumly staring out,
from the park benches, almost
silently talking, one to another to
another, like you see groups of
foreigners always doing. It was sad,
and the harsh, strange sounds of
their languages baffling. No contact,
no communication; they were just
there. The other disgruntled group
were the Puerto Ricans, whose park
this had been - by privilege of the
ghetto, the slum, and their presence.
They never been challenged before,
their endless basketball stuff, drums
music, always being played. Their
girls were hot and tight and nasty
too, and spoiling for a fight. Hippie
versus Puerto Rican - never good -
and always over some female. These
Rico guys were fiery, bantam-like,
and always ready to scrap. Any fey,
week-knee'd hippie, versus them
was wreckage for sure. One learns,
however, very quickly.
-
By taking to the streets and the park,
my thinking was part economics (by
necessity) and part shock-treatment;
the shock-treatment end of it being, in
my eyes the most quick, and most
harshly defined, way of immediate
learning to be had. I didn't want to
chance omitting something, or not
seeing something from its real and
actual angle - I sought no small talk
nor any smoothing out of the rough
edges. So, that was what I got. It
was, this step two sequence, like
getting a tattoo to the brain.
(Next chapter, 'section three.')
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