RUDIMENTS, pt. 445
(avenel at the root)
'Good King Wenceslas went
out, on the feast of Stephen /
when the snow lay round about,
crisp and white and even....'
That was always, has always
been, my favorite 'seasonal'
song. I don't know if it's a
Christmas Carol, per se,
but neither do I care. Phooey
on them. This song, even as
I was quite young, just rang
something nice for me. It's
got a presence and a power
somehow. Even the 'sound'
of it and the arrangement,
are different. In the goofball
late 1950's they (whatever they
may have been, that 'industry')
tried supplanting it with a
childish-drivel type song of
sentiment called 'Little
Drummer Boy.' Boy, what
a waste. I always hated the
sentimental froth of it; unlike
Good King Wenceslas, there
was no majesty to it at all.
-
In the early '60s, there was
all that folk music stuff and
hootenanies and the rest.
There was a certain drive,
within it all, for authenticity
and real, helpful feelings, but,
like even the Peace Corps, it
was really no more than a
white form of colonialism,
or imperialism - there was
just something wrong with
all those skinny-tie teens
and thin, nervous Hebrew
helpers wanting to be and
act black, downtrodden
bluesy and slick. No way.
To me they were just trading
on the backs of others - I'd
never seen any Jewish
sharecropper trudging the
fields of Alabama, with the
lash at his back, shukking
and dragging the cotton sack
upon his back. I got tired of
that routine pretty quick,
along with all the flaxen haired
and virginal babe-madonnas
who ran with it. Even in the
seminary, come Spring, they
started that outdoor-on-the-quad
sing-along kum-bay-ya crap
with a few guys with folkie
guitars and white pants and
booming voices. The same
ones who always made sure
they had pennies in their loafers.
Fortunately, by the time I got
to NYC, by '67, most of that
stuff was over and had evolved,
each part of it, into its own
direction - the hash-parody
of drug-culture, the cut and
smack of rock music, and the
fragmentation of black-power
and its twin, anti-Vietnam
War rhetoric AND action.
-
I'd come a long way since
those woe-begone days of
Avenel. In most ways, dearer
to me than that locus, a
high-way by-way, was the
farm and field of religious
edifice of the seminary, and
I don't think that has ever
left me. Whatever sort of
living memory (or memorial)
it is, it still has power to it
that I can draw from, even
in light of the twists and
disgusting turns of the
shambles that churches and
organized religions have
become. Savanarola I'm
not, but they should all
be burnt down in his
Bonfire Of the Vanities
way. Things are w-a-y
off key.
-
It took a long time, and it
had a long evolution, but one
day I woke up and decided
I would undertake to live a
life without limitations. I
was to be free and unhinged
(double-meaning) and decided
to just go at it. I realized that,
in all other respects, and no
matter what they may 'proclaim'
schools, churches, parents and
the rest do not ever teach that.
In fact, everything that teach
is a limitation and a shackle.
It's no wonder, I realized, that
things pent-up break out : jobs,
careers, rules, regulations, pomp,
procedure, false respect, lying
and cheating, double-speak,
faking, those are each and all
part of the system of ropes by
which we spend the remainder
of our days tied up. Ineffectual.
We are lost, early on, because
we willingly let ourselves be
led into the land of that loss.
-
I was, fortunately, able to see
quite clearly, for myself and in
my own vision, only that which
I'd accept. For me that was Art
and writing. Period. No questions
asked, and I didn't wish to hear
'no more.' That was my bluesman
stance. I was to be King Wenceslas,
and what I looked out over was
my own white and level field.
-
The idea of Artist became
something important to me;
I was probably supplanting
religion with it and through
it, but it seemed better to
me anyway - there's nothing
more powerful than taking
a message through and from
your own soul - staring with
nothing - and have it come
as a tangible, magnificent,
self-created something. A lot
has been written about all that
Art and artist stuff, and I'll
add to it right now, as some
punch-drunk Avenel boy
ready to pounce: What do
we really need? Do we want
the 'Art', or is it also necessary
to know about the Artist doing
it? Is one able to be separated
from the other? You often hear
about 'great' art, how the Art is
great, but this Artist was a
real bastard. The 'Artist' is a
free, detached spirit which
looks down on the 'man' from
a distance. The 'Man' is the
individual of average needs
and means, for whom the
act of living is essentially a
process of dying. The'Artist'
looks down on all that and
tries to transcend it through
creative effort. (Let me add,
'constant' creative effort).
-
The 'Man' spends himself,
dying. The 'Artist' saves
himself - along with the
'Artist-Spirit' - by becoming
one with his works and thus
escaping the bonds of time.
-
The 'Artist' within (me) achieves
this state [this is where Avenel
stays important] only after
throwing off the domestic,
social, and religious demands
imposed upon him by his
environment, testing and
rejecting the claims of love
and life, God, home, country,
and the hundred bagatelles
that go hustling along the
ways with him. I know it did
for me : my blood wrote most
of what I recorded, no two ways
about that. It all falls away then,
until nothing is left but the true
self and the consecration as
artist. Quest-for-self, being
completed, then supersedes
all else - every definition,
reaction, and examination
is influenced.
-
Some part of me, a figment
of the 'ideal' me, can still
go back into time and re-visit
and see again what I make
as my own past 'reality' (no
such thing), and if someone
does not agree with it,
(Shh, quietly spoken here) :
'It's not my problem.'
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