RUDIMENTS, pt. 580
('hold this on your head')
In the late 60's there was a
rash of art-inspired happenings,
sort of seat-of-the-pants type
provocations, done right out
on the street and in people's
faces. The idea was to drag
the morons out of their own
lethargy and push their myopia
forward a bit, to see other
angles - like Vietnam, for
instance. No one knew shit
about that 'war' - least alone
the grunts who had to go out
and fight in it, perhaps die in
it, and never get the full tally
of what was going on and why
they were being told to do what
they were doing. The average
stateside, at-home, person,
they'd get more worked up
about Muhammed Ali being
a Muslim, or Jimi Hendrix
screwing around with the
Star-Spangled Banner, than
most anything else, 'cept
sports and sex and TV shows
and the rest. Pure American
drivel, yeah, and expected to
be defended with a bullet to
the heart or through the brain,
just so those 'Yellow bastards
don't run down and take over
Vietnam...' as the wordings all
went. What a nasty crock of shit
that all was. Over at e11th, we
had kids coming in, scared to
death for the living of their own
lives, deserting in numbers and
running up to Canada. 16 at a
time, mostly, they'd be slumped
out all over the floor, sleeping on
blankets, until the next van came,
Toronto bound usually. To my
mind, that was patriotism. Get
outta' town Mr. Brown, and my
own patriotism too was in seeing
that it all got done. Guys, and
girls too, fleeing the military.
In all those days, really I don't
think I ever needed more than
two bucks a day to live on. It
was all easy; people leaving
clothes behind, money around
or left in their pockets, forgetful
stuff. One guy gave me a great
pair of shoes on his way out,
he didn't need carrying an extra
pair and they were just my size,
14 triple E (OK, just kidding,
ladies). I wore them for a long
time - real leather, round toe,
zipper side. Real different. It
was all like that - cast-offs and
things left behind. The part of
the street theater and all the
provocation, that was gravy.
-
To me, all this went to show how
broad, misguided, and lethal,
propaganda could be. It was
everywhere, even back then.
The Coke and Pepsi commercials,
heck, the Miss Breck print ads,
they were all set up as the sort
of propaganda that advances the
narrative of those in power -
same as now, it's still done, it's
just that now the people doing it
are smaller, have smaller brains,
and fewer references to fall back
on. That's what the street-theater
and art-provocation was all about:
to smack people around, wake them
up. You get a local representative
with a sixth-grade level mind now,
and you're supposed to be
thankful for it.
Most of my provocation was
in just going back and forth
and keeping people off-key.
Or off-stride anyway. Like
today, jumping ahead fifty
years, I got into this slimeball
Mayor's speech using a good
disguise (as Rabbi Ari Schneerson,
Temple Beth Orr). I stayed at
the rear, and just slid out as
he finished. It was funny, like
the President, he gives a 'State of
the Union' Address, to Congress,
to the assembled Senators and
Representatives, those are the
people to whom he answers,
as the Executor and they the
Legislators. To those to whom
he's beholden. So, what's the
asshole Mayor do? Talk to the
people, who pay him and for
whom he is supposedly Mayor?
No, he speaks to a roomful of
salivating business schmucks,
realtors, brokers, developers,
corporate handkerchief types who
can't wait to continue the destruction
of Woodbridge as they pocket the
dollars, deals, payoffs, and people
they can steal, and steal from. It's
all so disgusting I sat there thinking
about gun control. We can't have
them. I bet the Mayor has a gun.
I bet the assorted council babies
own guns. I don't know what
any of it's all for, but it sure
ain't Government, in my book.
And, by the way, this is one of
those times when I maybe just
get angry and stay that way. It's
all a provable case of pure and
reckless dereliction. When those
thieves come to get you in the
middle of the night, don't say
I didn't warn you.
-
Sometimes, better than other
times too, I was so lost in the
deep, green woods I had trouble
remembering my own name.
Everyone used to think drugs
were the answer to the tremolo
of trouble they all bore. Hell, that
wasn't anymore true than that
Alice in Wonderland was a whore
for Jesus. The truth of the matter,
and I found it out, dead serious
and on the money too, was that
it's all inside you, everything.
Every last one of us has the
resources to turn this world
ass-over backwards into truth
and allegiance, but all most
people do is screw it all up.
I never drove my car through
the drug-scene, nor their crowd;
mostly a bunch of self-absorbed
misfits with dicks for brains. I
didn't need any of that, and I
already knew I was better at
heart than any of them - the
Long Island drug-pushing sons
of bitches, the landlord-Jew-
excelsior types living for
money alone and expecting
to have to do nothing for it;
the fakers, the story-tellers,
the liars - I was sick of all
of them.
-
The farther I got out and away
from all that, the better it began
feeling. Except for the Winter
isolation - which never much
bothered me - most people really
would end up liking country life
better that the bottled-up gin
and misfit suburban crowd of
living they go through here. For
one thing, country people are
inured to realty. They don't take
keenly to misrepresentation or
being lied to. Around here, it's
just normal process.
-
Oftentimes I look around me
now, when I'm doing things, and
I realize they're all dead, lots of
the people I knew. They're
dwindling and dying off and
that whole old world with them
Right about now it's not charity
and it's not goodness that keeps
me going. The girls tell me not
to curse so much, that I should
start saying nice things and be
mindful - hell no, I say. Now's
the right time for me to be the
nasty alleycat nobody wants
around - because they're all
a bunch of shits anyway, those
people around. They have the
gall even to call themselves
men. The way they now lurk
about, with nothing going
on, no thoughts in fool heads,
beaming in their little uniforms
and hanging tight with their
on little asshole cliques while
pretending to be doing people's
business. The little midget
bastards.
-
One thing for sure, no one
ever says I'm true or not making
stuff up. Everything I do is a
mystery with a clue, and it's all
put out there, parable like, as if
it was holy writ. You take your
clues from where you hang.
-
The worst guy I ever knew,
really, in the wilds of Pennsylvania,
well, maybe second-worse, was
a newly returned Vietnam veteran
farm guy from out there, right
around where I lived. If you can
say morose, vile killer, you've
about summed it up for him.
There wasn't anything noble
about this guy at all. and the
first thing they did when he got
back, in the next, nearby little
town over, was make him one
of their police force. It was all
supposed to be some honor and
homage they were paying this
local boy for defending the colors
of Liberty in those faraway
hamlets and jungle scenes. I
don't know where any of them
got their thinking from, but it
was probably the usual civic
and municipal-minded upchuck
that usually runs things - this
guy was a certified, unregenerate
madman; he still fought some
strange, weirdly schismatic war
in his head, and his new battlefield
became the highways and roads
he patrolled. How you could deem
to, first, arm someone like that and
pay him for his services weekly,
and, secondly, give him a badge
and send him out there alone with
sole prerogatives as to what was
and was not the law and lawful
things, was beyond me. That's
the how; why would come next.
-
The big, old Troy Hotel was about
a block off from the small police
station, and I'm not sure the two
ever met. In between them was
a small, one-level cinder-block
thing they call Troy Hospital. That
was as good a middle-ground as
ever to have between the two,
since it probably well-served the
purposes (and overlap) of each;
even if it only had a part-time
doctor for whom the average wait
time for arrival was 45 minutes.
'OK, so don't die on us and press
this hard onto the wound while
you wait, to keep the bleeding
down. Doctor will be here soon.'
Yeah, the nurse-ladies were real
nice. I went in there one day
with a stitch-able head-wound,
early on in the morning, like
7am, and had to wait until
10:30 until they opened, or at
least until someone showed up.
-
Some of the stories this
cop-trawler guy used to tell
me were enough to make even
me shudder - and I can take
a lot, usually. His stories
seemed pretty much evenly
divided, sort of, between a
Vietnam setting (boy, none
of them were very nice, and
they all involved death, killing,
or snuffing. If that was 'war'
I was triply glad I'd never seen
it), and highway happenings
right thereabouts, Route 6,
Route 14, etc. From what he
told me, the last thing I'd want
to bee back then was a female
pulled over for speeding.
-
Well, that's my report for this
chapter. Rabbi Schneerson.