11,080. RUDIMENTS, pt. 411

RUDIMENTS, pt. 411

(ancient sanskrit fake web sites, pt.1)

Here's how things go: No matter

which town I've been in, from

Elmira to Nabinger Hill, there

have always been people with

dirty hands on the wheel. I grew

tired of it all, long ago. The

Elmira Star-Gazette was a sort

of local Home-News Tribune

for the crazy hill-people of the

Chemung River area. Nut cases,

all, and about as parochial and

famished for quality as those

we have here now. Somewhere

back here I've already told my

Vince Murphy story, the local

Elmira to Binghamton bus driver

who also read the TV news, and

was fired because he swore one

day he saw Jesus in the clouds.

A cloud formation anyway.

So, anyhow, it goes to show the

sort of strictures a person has to

live within to prosper, rule  -  say

nothing out of line, shut your

trap, and keep moving. I learned

all that a long time ago, but

around here now  -  this trumpet

forest of the small minded  -

they have to contend with the

onslaught of internet commerce,

trading in opinion  -  an often

unstoppable force. Ask Morsi in

Egypt, ask any of those tyrants.

Just don't ask Avenel, mostly 

because horse's asses can't talk. 

So, all the the keg meisters,

cheats, and liars here, under

their various names, consort

with each other (hopefully

they're clothed) to gun up

a new fake town-site, filled

with their own comments

and people, talking back to

each other the imaginary

situations and constraints

they see. It's in a sense,

child-abuse too, because

they've taken a naif and are

trading falsely on her name.

No shame like the mirror's

shame, I guess, and Avenel

be damned. Funny too, up in

the old hills, as I related in my

Jennings schoolbus story way

back, justice was settled and

scored with a gun. Here they do

it with lies and obfuscation. A 

notch on a belt ain't nothing.

-

I left that place like fill-dirt

getting taken away in a dumper.

As I settled in to NYC, though

it took time, it all became clearer.

Humans are humans, all those

fidgety foibles and crotch-picking

itches, they're about the same

wherever you go. Transparency

has no hold, however, as the

insiders just keep clutching

their filthy night soils. (If you

don't know what night soil is,

look it up under, 'night soil,

old China')  -  but at least, in

1967 anyway  -  the NY people

I was dealing with had brains.

Art brains, ideas of finesse and

genetic success. However, just

under the surface, the ancient

world lurked (by the way, I saw

one of those church signs today

on some bum-ass church in

Clark. It said, 'Come inside,

learn about ancient Christianity.'

I got news for those people, the

only ancient Christianity study

you'll get from that angle is the

ancient pagan religions  -  which

go back way before Christianity

(which Christ didn't even know

of) and from which Chrstianity

was pieced together, supplanting

all the 'ancient' feasts and rituals.

Sorry, ample wives and children,

but perhaps that'll get your parking

lots paved anyway).

-

Sometimes I used to like to just

go nuts, run rampant, wild with

ideas. The guy at NYU once told

me I had a world within a world

within a world within my head,

and that I should probably soon

be changing the world. And I

agreed with him, and then I asked

him to sit with me while we read

the Upanishads. That was good.

Lal Sastri, was his name, revered

ancient Sanskrit scholar. I always

enjoyed new found treasures and

new found people. Not so much

these days. Everything's different.

One time, in a coffee-shop in

Montclair, a guy sat next to

me and began talking  -  said

he was a Seer and had been

drawn to that location because

his ancient powers had stirred

and told him I'd be there. And

I was, with my wife and kid too.

He said I was about to have the

best year of my life-to-date and

that things would begin ringing

in my frequency. That was 1986.

nothing ever happened. No bells.

No frequency. But he wasn't the

first of the 'weirds' who'd been

driven to seek me out. There

have been a number of others.

Omens are always omens, I

guess, yep, but wasn't that a

bad one more than good?

-

Anyway, it all ended up very

weird  - as I realized, underneath,

that a lot of these people are all

the same. They 'routined' the

usual services of life in the most

ordinary things  -  except as New

New Yorkers they did it slightly

slightly different. 1967, remember.

Back then, only a New Yorker

would squeeze and smell a

fruit or a vegetable, to check

for ripeness, before buying.

Suburban people would be

leaning into supermarkets and

the heck with freshness and

smell. Answers and meanings

differed greatly, yet some things

were the same too  -  the older 

and more Euro ones were way

stuck in the past  -  old rites and

rituals. It was really odd to see.

Another thing I noticed was

how people kept going back

to the well, time after time,

even after they knew the pail

had no bottom and wouldn't

hold water. It wouldn't matter,

and there was never that level

of introspection in them to be

considering any of all this. Even

with their apparent strict belief

in logic and sequence, it all

passed them by   -  the fact that

their packaged beliefs were all

untrue. I had to make sense of

that, on my own, in order to

continue. Over on St. Mark's

Place, around Eastertime one

year, I witnessed two different

events when the cap was

figuratively blown from

the top of my head. There

were two separate Sundays,

at this little Polish parish,

across the street right there

from the Polish National Home,

a sort of apartment building,

and next a few doors over from

what later became The Electric

Circus, of hippie, Andy Warhol,

and Velvet Underground fame,

where they had, in the 'spirit'

of the season, two events which

startled me. People flocked

to them. You know how T. S.

Eliot wrote that he 'did not

know that death had undone

so many' about all those people

walking the bridge over the

Thames -  well, that's how

I felt. I was simply not aware

there were so many old-world,

naively honest people around

who held to such tenets. There

was nothing modern about this.

One Sunday it was 'The Blessing

of the Animals'. I wasn't sure

what it meant, but it appeared

to mean pets. There was a

streetload of people, standing

steady, babbling away in

whatever Slavic tongue they

spoke, each with something :

dogs, cats, birds, hamsters,

snakes, lizards, even globes

of fish. In their own religious

way, the idea was for procession

with the animals through and

in the innards of the church,

for an eventual blessing by a

priest. The very next Sunday,

the same thing occurred, but

with baskets of food  -  to be

representing bounty, not just

that particular basket. I guess

for people used to hardship,

it held a real meaning. I was

just baffled. There was such

a pervasive, back-time, old

feel to all of this. From it, I

sensed the reality of all these

people - suffering, hunched,

laden down with a million

things. The same strenuous,

rigors, dictates and strictures

which ruled their beliefs,

ruled, as well, their lives. To

be honest, to me they just all

looked as equal to dead. Why

bother to go back again and

again just to repeat the same

errors?

-

It began becoming apparent to

me that many aspects of New

York City were just as barren,

or worse, than what I'd left in

Avenel. At least in Avenel, all

besides my fighting against it,

they were letting 'modernity'

take them in, and move them

along. The incidentals were

new, and things were changing

as much of that 'old' was pushed

aside and left with Mom and Dad

in other places, like Bayonne and

Newark, and Irvington. All the

places they'd left. Not here however;

these people were ancient in their

ways, medieval in their beliefs,

and fixed and certain of it. Small,

squat old women still in their

babushkas and hats. Stern men

yet saddled within by something

still horrid. Faith in God the Supreme

and Fiery, who would, perhaps,

if asked right, deign to stoop down

and bless this pitiful food and

these horrid creatures, lest we

forget his power and his glory

and He smite us anew, in some

other way. Boy, was I stuck, and

seeing it. I could walk over to

McSorley's  -  where the average

age of the men sitting around

was about 114, give or take  -

and imbibe their sorrowful blues

along with them; mug after mug

of a fastidious, home-brewed

McSorley's Ale, which you

had to buy six at a time - until

some knock-out power came

along to strike you, and then

knocked you down - and try

to learn their ways by hearing

their stories  -  pretty much just

like the bums and hobos I'd sit

with at the piers, with their

barrel fires. But these guys here,

at least they had ten bucks or

so with them. Bills as folded

and wrinkled as they themselves

sometimes were. Anything 'new'

about New York City did NOT

happen down here; this was

ancient throwback land. All

those hotmouths always going

on about New York and the

wonder of the city, the glamour,

excitement, the adventure,

the new, well they meant

about 50 blocks uptown. That

was all where magazine and TV

New York was, the Batman Gotham

high-society bullshit, which the

average Joe couldn't touch with

a 500 mile pole. Truman Capote

and Norman Mailer and all those

bravado-faggot-creepfest types.

You'd never get near it, and any

Holly Golighty Audrey Hepburn

cockamamie horseshit would

never cut it here. Like I said,

these people were dead.