11,392. RUDIMENTS, pt, 533

RUDIMENTS, pt. 533

(take my hanging basket)
As I mentioned previously, my
idea of New York City, once I
got there, was of a walk-around
sort of place; certainly no need
for cars or taxis that I could
see. Not on my part anyway.
For a solid two years  -  and I
still can't figure how it was  -  
along lower Fifth Avenue, never
moving, always there, piled in
snow or heat whatever, was an
old, maybe 1951, Hudson Hornet.
Right there was the Church of the
Transfiguration, and the Fifth
Avenue Presbyterian Church, both
large and famed congregations; quite
active. All those people came
and went, but the car just sat. It
used to baffle me, and I loved it.
I always viewed cars as sculpture
anyway  -  of a sort  -  and this fit
well as some in-place installation.
Then one day it was just gone. 
-
I walked around a lot, with big

thoughts. I'd walk up, from 8th,

to wherever I was headed  -  each

different direction, any old adventure.

The districts of the lofts and studios, 

west teens and 20's, they held the 

most interest  to me  -  as I said

previously, a step into a ways back 

of time. When things were different.

I never got much into the present day,

and those that did, who could calmly 

swim in that new ocean, they just sort

of most often bugged me.

-

The main thing, the big word, 

was 'vile'. I thought of that and 

from that point on the rest of 

life became fairly easy. It's a 

quiet concept, 'vile.' One that 

covers the entire, vile, world. 

And that's all it is. I think that's 

what the jazz loft guys had realized 

too  -   one big, vile world hardly 

worth connecting to. And they 

took it all out in jazz-music, of 

their own sort. The Studio School 

people, as nice as they were and 

as important and serene as they 

kept things, were of a different 

nature. As part of the 'other' 

world, in their way, they kept 

the other veneer -  a niceness, 

a business-like happiness, the 

sort of office-decor decorum 

you find in places with clerks 

and registrar-rooms and people 

keeping track of things. It's just 

different, a something different. 

I guess I had to admit, the world 

was breaking their way, certainly 

not mine, nor the jazz guys' 

way either. You have to separate 

the word 'vile' from the negatives 

that attach themselves to it. 

That's all just human thought, 

running on. The difference, in

fact, is pretty easy to discern  

-  too easy, maybe too simple : 

'Art,' nice. Badass 1960's black-guy 

jazz, bad. All these years later - 

now -  the little facts of the matter 

are the same, it's just the big 

quantities which are different. 

Hordes of toady touristy types, 

swarming the Trevi Fountain, 

say, without a clue. I mean the 

steely packs of idiots, straight 

out of central casting for some 

crowd scene in a new version of 

'The Blob' but his time in American 

colored-clothing, little phone-cameras, 

fat bellies and asses, luggage and 

stupid clothing and shirts. Adornments. 

Wives and husbands, kids and clowns. 

Yes, everywhere, as if the disinterred 

bodies of every cheesy street-character 

mime and cat-walker from the 1960's

has arisen from the dead and taken 

to the world. 'We go here, and we 

go there, and next we go to that.' 

Vile figments of nasty consumers, 

worldwide gainers ruining the world

 they seek to see. It's a paradox of 

the unknown, by the unknown. 

Maybe that's a good definition of 

'vile.' And then they get back, return

home, and know nothing again.

-

Oftentimes, really, I just wanted 

to starve to death. Maybe. Walking 

through the streets I often had a 

death wish larger than the Grand 

Canyon  -  all around me were 

the chances. Drugs. Jumping from 

any tall building. Grabbing a gun 

and blowing my brains out. A million 

things to just jump in front of, trains, 

buses, subway cars. Sometimes it was 

all I could do to stay living. Not that 

it really mattered. On one hand, 'The

Blob.' On the other, 'The Living Dead.'

But I stuck to it, to something, just in

order to survive. Why wander all those

dumb years in the wilderness just to throw

it all away now? That's what I'd tell myself.

There had to be an answer to the riddle

facing me. I kept returning to the source,

as if I was some archaeologist at a dig

whereat I kept moving too far afield 

with my little hammer and shovel and,

once realizing it, moves back in closer

to the initial point of the dig's start.

Otherwise you just end up searching

for completely other things than what 

you initially had set out for. Sidetracked?

-

As it turned out, I kept it well enough in one

piece to outlast it all myself.  It's a relatively

easy task. There were dark moments, and a

few dangerous times, but mostly it all turned

out for the good. I compartmentalized pretty

good too  -  I had one or two friends, like my

sometimes sidekick Jim Tomberg (again, 

material I've covered real well in previous 

episodes of other accounts). Jim was a

ham-fisted brawler, a strong but heavy

drinker, and a metal-sculptor. My travels

and times with him consisted of lots of

very cool things  -   train rides out to 

Brooklyn scrap yards to find, buy and 

somehow come back with, his odd little,

and not so little sometimes, pieces of

metal and things for his welding and 

sculpturing projects. Always a crazy trip,

and I never knew what was coming  -  

booze, brawn, outlandish stunts along 

the way and, inevitably, his (nearly 

always) middle-aged female pick-up.

I figured them for that anyway. If I was

18, he was 28 or 30, and he'd always

somehow wind up dragging home a 

40-year old. He had exquisite taste in

railroad and subway women. Sometimes 

I'd mutter, virile, not vile. He never did

have too much to do with Art, in that

sense of proper and fussy. He didn't know

it, but he was more akin to those jazz

guys than he'd ever imagine.

-

I always figured for something to come along,

one way or the other; so I just rolled ahead. 

Inherent in the deal I'd made with myself

was the idea that as long as I applied myself

towards a goal of learning and creativity, as

long as I could 'back up' whatever it was I

was doing, thinking or undergoing, it was 

OK. I wanted no falsity, no compromise.

Lo, these many years later, it's brought me

to this pass  -  which is good. Had I ever

tried to explain this or even bring it up 

to any of these guys, it would have been a

non-starter, not even within their language.

So it was always easier just to remain 

by myself, silent, sort of, and solitary.

-

I used to wonder if any of this little

microcosm of things that I was being

exposed to was, likewise, going on all 

over and in other places of the city. If there

were loft groups and crazy bunches of

musicians and creative types doing this

sort of thing all over the place? And there 

were, that was pretty apparent and obvious  

-  and now, in reading anything back from  

those old days, I can see the message clearly 

spread : that was what NYC was all about,

that overwhelming creative push, and it

was going on everywhere. There were so

many iterations of it, I think that's where I'd

get tripped up. Layers. Strata. Everyone going

on all at once. It was pretty incredible. Really,

the only 'artsy' thing I never dealt with at

all was dance. I had a friend or two who

got all caught up in dance. One of them, a

friend on my periphery, was the least likely

to have that interest, but he did and when

he started bringing it up to me all the time I

got perplexed. I just could not share any of

the attributes he was claiming for and about

dance. Modern dance, interpretive dance, etc.

At the time there were layers of dance groups

and an entire avant-garde of dance itself.

Martha Graham had a grand dance history,

Twyla Tharp, Merce Cunningham, to name

but a few. The entire Beatnik thing always

had its cliched black-leotard skinny girls

dance cult. It was part of that dealt, plus, of

course, the silent undercurrent of gay and 

male dancers  -  all those stage stars and 

Broadway choreograph people. But I just

never went there. I asked my friend about

it all once saying like, 'What's the deal with

your interest in all this ballet and dance stuff?'

I was really curious and just seeking an 

answer. It turned out, and I figure it was a 

cop-out answer on his part anyway, that he had 

an 8 or 9 year old daughter that I hadn't

known about, custody with the mother,

and his every-other weekend thing with

her, based  -  he said  -  on her interest in it,

pretty much rotated around dance 

recital, performances, shows and all that.

-

I guess there were attempts at dance-to-jazz

things. I never caught any, not cared. Nor 

did I ever see any of the jazz guys show an 

interest in that sort of thing. It seems to me 

that it's only when what I call 'culture-vultures' 

get involved that all this troublesome overlapping 

of arts begins to happen.  Otherwise, before that, 

it's just the simple dedication and drive of the 

people doing the art that makes it what it is. It's 

that whole purity thing, and it's like that everywhere. 

There's an entire outside race  -  I ain't saying and 

you must know what I mean  -  it's on you, not me  -  

that then always wants to jump in, do nothing, 

ride the coattails, extend crooked and cheap,

dirty contracts taking advantage of the artist,

setting up gigs and appearances, shows and 

the rest, and then walking off with the exorbitant 

profits of another's labor. It's always been like 

that, and that's how all this jazz crap, and art 

too, operated. Shysters and con men making 

coin of the labors of others. I learned that

quickly, and all these guys knew about it too.

Race, in this case, superseded color.