Friday, December 14, 2018

11,395. RUDIMENTS, pt. 534

RUDIMENTS, pt. 534
(saul bellow comes home...)
It always amazed me 
to realize how much 
of this all was really
generational. Things,
or rather, groups, come 
through time like tides.
A good number of these 
jazz guys, older ones 
anyway,  were, in '66 
and '67, just a clean 
20 years from having 
been mustered  out 
of their services at the 
close of WWII. That's 
not a lot of time at all,
especially for something 
like that, an experience 
of that depth and presence.
It stays within and is
always processing and 
growing  -   I'd figure 
that was what a lot of 
these guys were (still) 
playing to. Music was a
way out, some fractional
morass, a web of things 
that grows inside and 
wants outlets. What better
way than a crackling new 
sort of music  - blow a 
hole right through the 
soul. That was all one 
fist of a  generation 
punching through. 
As I said, generational,
as even a lot of those 
'beatnik' high-flyers 
were, the dark, brooding 
existential ones, the early
1950's rejects. As a group, 
they all  shared, picking
up the pieces,  mean or
not, of the broken worlds 
around them. Same with 
the Hell's Angels I saw, 
also right there  - same guys.
They were often originally 
WWII veteran pilots, the
fighter-jet guys, back an
on the lam and trying to put 
something together in a crummy 
post-war world not for them,
while keeping a distance from 
it to. That's one thing I noticed
right off  -  about crummy people  -
the ones I'd see who always got
on my nerves. They always 
wanted to be 'part' of the way 
things were. To my eyes it had
to be just the opposite  - the
real stand-out guys wanted 
nothing to do with any of that;
stand alone, stay alone. That
was the mark of distinction for
my eyes  - the way I wished it.
All my life before that  -  all 
that Avenel and do it at home
stuff  -  had just been miserable
junk, nothing stand-out at all.
Lawns and driveways. Swing-sets
and lawn furniture. That was 
the problem, coming up from
where I did  -  there was never
anything 'defining' except crud:
order, rigor, directions, and
crude melancholy; like have
Paul Anka drilled into your
skull and kept there.

What the jazz guys and
motorcycle guys kept in
common was 'attitude.' None
of it was music, per se, but 
instead a shared and a
noisy fury of attitude, horns,
staccato and motorcycles 
fire and grease. Twenty 
years behind  them again, 
generational, was my own 
brood of shits  -  somehow 
bizarrely breaking through 
and coming in as 1967 hippies. 
Flower and love, mirth and 
lightness. A real tub of crud.
What the hell that was all
about I never knew  -  but 
I didn't want any of it 
touching or rubbing off 
on me. I hated that crap. 
Just being around them,
I found, they always figured
you wanted to BE one of
them. Wrong! I was all
dysfunctional before 
anyone had figured that 
term out yet. Now the 
same creeps are having 
60 year high-school 
reunions, and bragging 
about  it all in their wallpaper 
smugness as old Hippie 
Legionnaires. I always tried
to be a gentleman, yes, but
when you live dark and 
stark, there's not much 
real hope for any of that 
 -  people dislike you,
just for what you 'seem.' 
They don't know any 
better, nor would 
they want to.
-
I knew a guy there, Jerry, 
who swore that the things 
he'd seen in his wartime 
would  never cross his 
lips again and that the 
only thing that would 
cross his lips would be 
his horn. No women, 
not food, if he could help
it  -  then he'd joke and 
say, of course he  hoped 
not, wine women and 
song being some part of 
his well-being. And at 
least he could laugh, 
he wasn't a zombie about
it. That's a bit of what 
you had to watch for
with these guys  -  they 
liked to laugh  and blow 
things off with each 
other. It  was their 
camaraderie and their
flippant ways that kept 
them running so hot. 
On the other hand, 
it became the fear of 
all that any one of the
dark, quiet and angry 
ones would  snap, at 
any time, and needed 
to be watched. For fear 
of something happening.
The dark monster was 
always around.
-
There wasn't much of 
that with the jerk  kids 
I'd see coming in  -  not 
to the loft, I mean to the
hippie outdoor central 
that Tompkins  Square 
Park had become; and 
Washington  Square, and 
ten other places too. In
Tompkins, if you wanted
food, and didn't care what
it was nor the waiting, it
always came out, and for
free; afternoons were great.
There'd be 150 people lined
up like the walking terminal
dead, gagging around for
half a meal. And in their
rags too. All they  cared 
about, besides the scoring 
of a  stash, any sort of 
lame recreational drug 
by which they all claimed 
their Nirvana, and this
grubby food. Some people
really would just put up
with anything  -  I always
thought  -  to stay dumb.
Not a one of them would 
have had a real clue as to 
the things I was running 
through.  They may have 
thought they saw themselves 
in me, but I would have
blasted them to disprove
the integration  -  and I 
sure didn't see myself in 
them. I had slaved my 
way out of the same bad
situations they were 
working their way into. 
I knew for sure that 
I wasn't going back in. 
Both my heart and my
mind were elsewhere, 
and intended to stay 
elsewhere, as long as 
I had anything to
do with it.
-
In 1956 a writer named 
Saul Bellow, an American 
writer, later of some 
very great renown, for 
a time (they fade, they all
fade,  these reputations), 
wrote a book which came 
out as 'Seize the Day.' A 
little, skinny book, maybe
120 pages, most. I scored 
a copy of it for a 15 cents in
one of those silly book-stall 
places that just sold most
anything that may have 
been in someone's house
when they died  -  15 cents
back than as maybe a buck
now. For a week or two I 
carried that dumb little 
book everywhere, probably 
reading it 4 or 5 times. 
I do that often, like a 
concentrated read of, 
say, a music score, so
it gets into my head
and stays there, sings
and hums at will. (In 
fact, I still have that 
copy of the 1961 95 cent, 
original Compass Books, 
by Viking Press, version).
Bellow, and this book, 
was always just a major
whiz-bang Jewish writer, 
mostly Chicago; heavily
themed and indoctrinated 
with all that myopic, literary
Jew-guilt and persistence 
about everything, warts, 
women, marriage, angst, 
money, money problems, 
betrayal, alienation, ritual,
rites, sex, rabbis, sex, women.
These Jewish guys, Bellow, Roth,
etc., they can write about these 
things  and no one really bothers 
them because it's 'about' them,
and, hell, it's BY them. Writing
about their own gleanings.
Obviously they are consumed 
by this stuff. So is this book. 
The main character, all 
entwined in conflict with 
his aged father, and some 
shyster guy named Dr. Tamkin. 
These old Jewish guys live
in a long-residence hotel 
filled with other versions
of themselves, over and 
over. It's all talky,  and filled 
with, actually, self-consumptive 
and pretty boring stuff. The 
son, 'Tommy  Wilhelm,' (typical 
fake 'American' name), is going
broke, his ex-wife demanding 
more and more, the kids, 
the father, everyone in forms
of disagreement, Wilhelm 
takes up with Tamkin, 
giving him his last money 
to make some sort  of killing 
on lard futures and other 
commodities. Like I said a 
few chapters back, typical 
stuff, these creeps trying to 
make money off of others 
by doing nothing at all, 
like the music-contracts 
guys. It all falls flat, Tamkin 
runs off with the dough,
the kid is ruined. Etc. But
 -  he says the following 
two things, which I loved.  
First, (his crummy sister's 
an artist, or maybe his
sister's a crummy artist):
"Anyway, he and his sister 
were generally on the outs 
and he didn't often see her 
paintings. She worked
very hard, but there were 
fifty thousand people in
New York with paints and 
brushes, each practically 
a law unto himself.  It was 
the Tower of Babel in paint."
And, second, which I really
 liked, : "He breathed in the
sugar of pure morning. He 
heard the long  phrases 
of the birds. No enemy 
wanted his life.  Wilhelm 
thought, I will get out of
here. I don't belong in New 
York any more. And he 
sighed like a sleeper."


No comments: