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.
-
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.
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:
Post a Comment