11,578. RUDIMENTS, pt. 611

RUDIMENTS, pt. 611

(I'd rather starve)

The only diet I ever had was

poverty. It concentrates the

mind. I'm not sure what

people do any more, but

back then you'd still see a

lot, or enough, of working

people with their little brown

bags of lunch. Nowadays

I see portly construction

worker guys with wheeled

suitcases of lunch. Outside

Grace Church, on a Summer

day not so long back, there

was a long row of some 15

construction guys, mostly

all Hispanic or Mexican

these days, all gorging on

the contents of plastic take

out flip trays loaded with

tons of food. Probably an

18 dollar NYC lunch, I'd

guess. I'm still amazed

how people do it. I skip

all that and just do without

eating anything until the

usual nightfall meal, once

a day. It's so long engrained

in my system that I don't

even think about it. But,

anyway, back in the real

days of subsistence, I got

by on 25 cent corn muffns

and 10 cent coffee. A 35

cent knish was like eating

at the Ritz. There used to be

a knish place on 8th Street,

not too far from the Studio

School. And then one day

I realized they throw some

of that stuff out at night;

still usable, and good, in

my book. I beat the freshness

date by beating the freshness

date!

-

Just the same way I used to wonder

'What is hunger?' I wondered too

What is pain? And why?' Those

were some of the telegraphic

moments of life that I could

never figure out. I'd see lots of

pain on the streets  - people in

pain, grimacing, sores, twisted

legs, breathing problems, and

the associated filth and grime

that went with the habits of the

booze and cigarettes. Thunderbird

liquor; Night Train Express. And

these crazy you-know-whats would

be in suits and ties, like they had

not changed since 1948. It was

fairly incredible how I could read

the pain in their faces by the

freeze-time of their clothing.

I guess 'pain' is meant to be a

symbol of something, otherwise 

why would it have been built

into our systems? Is it to be

telling us something? Something

we don't already know? Pain

is, then, a means of bringing

an aberration to our attention?

That seems pretty odd. Like in

the Lord's Prayer, where it says

'Thy will be done.' I never got 

that  -  nor, I'm sure, would any

of those pure schmucks sucking

it up around the 12th street fire

barrel. If the idea is that 'God's

will' be done, than where's the

truthfulness to all that other

stuff that says God made us and

gave us 'Free Will' so that the

determination of our own

Salvation is up to us, or not.

There is no plan; free will is 

what makes us human. Excuse 

me? I thought someone just

asked that 'God's will be done.'

In fact, a whole sorry lot of

people, in fact, ask that, daily.

It all sure got confusing and

random for me. I couldn't hardly

take it any more. 

-

The men around the fire-barrels,

in the late chills of Autumn  -

man, they were a sorry bunch.

Half of them were dead by

Winter's end, I'm sure, and the

other half, in March, would

come stumbling out of their

shelters and Bowery homeless

hotels, blinking at the daylight

-  like a kid coming out of a

movie after three hours in

the dark. It used to be called

a stupor, but now, like so

many other things, it's a

situation and a word that's

 just fallen out of use and

no one even knows what

is meant by it. This grime

infested kingdom of snark

now is run by talented geeks :

they get around a lot of

things simply by avoidance.

-

There's a cemetery over at

1st Street, actually it's First

and 1st. The Avenue and the

street converge there. Pretty

weird. It's locked and under

key, and there's some funeral

home from the old days there

too, with its entrance on the

avenue. Some old Italian name,

from when they claimed the

area. That's all gone now.

Anyway, Allen Ginsberg used

to have an apartment there,

and it looked out over this.

The cemetery's real early-NY

old, and right at the street

entry (1st street) the a couple

of graves of the Fish family.

The Fish name was a big deal

in the early days of NYC, and

even late into the 1970's there

was, and maybe still is, some

Hamilton Fish, Jr. guy in local

metropolitan politics. Anyway,

the big entryway memorial grave

and stone, like the first thing you

see, is of a guy named 'Preserved'

Fish. (That's pronounced old-style, 
with the heavy emphasis on the
ED; in a sort of old Englush 
fashion). That name cracks me

up each time I see it; such an

intriguing name (and I guess,

yeah, he's embalmed?).

-

A lot of funny things have

happened to me over the

course of a life. They were

always unique  -  some were

simple, and some complex;

not that I ever judged or made

any approach to them in that

manner. I just usually went

along and let things run their

course  -  maybe a lazy man's

way of doing things, but then,

if so, that's what I was. And,

heck, besides, I never really

cared. One time, back abut 1990

maybe, I got a phone call at

work, from a guy I knew at

Edison Harley Davidson, back

when it was still on Route One

down towards the New Brunswick

bridge. He asked if I wanted to

come next Weds. to the New

Brunswick Hilton to see Sean

Landeta? I said sure. It got me

a big, free lunch and some drinks,

and it was all on someone else.

The problem was, who the hell

is Sean Landeta? I just pretended

I'd known, figuring, from a

motorcycle perspective that

he was probably some racer or

motorcycle designer I'd know

about eventually. So I took the

time off from work, and went.

I get there, to a room full of

Dads and young sons, all

active and happy. There was

food everywhere, tables of it  -

I learned the Hilton doesn't

scrimp on such things  -  little

sandwiches, dips, soups, cakes,

all sorts of things. And drinks

too. I wondered, hmmm, who

is this guy? Turned out, he was

a football player, a field goal

kicker, of some note, for the

New York Giants. That explained

immediately the Dads and kids

with shirts and Jerseys, and

helmets, to be signed. I should

have known; two hours of a

football jock going onto a bunch

of kids about his career and

youth and childhood and habits.

Football! Arghh! But, I stayed.

(I asked later what was the deal,

and the guy who called me, and

attended by the way, told me they

get comp'd tickets all the time for

things like this, at the dealership,

and, no matter what, they were

always good for food and beer

anyway). I told him next the

time Victoria's Secret called,

ring me up for that instead.
Joking, of course. 

-

This football guy, whatever his

merits may have been, was a

big bore  -  but at least he could

talk OK and hold a crowd. You 

know how it is with kids  -  really

dumb, easy questions just already

begging for obvious answers, and

the large kid-smile then that the

questioner puts on his face. The

answers were fairly pathetic.

This guy was telling the kids

then (talk about simple!) how

he'd mostly spent his entire

life  -  each day, after school,

all Summer, blah, blah (with

of course a plug thrown in for

staying in school, doing all your

lessons and homework first,

etc.), kicking a football in

simulated field-goal situations,

over and over, ten or twelve

footballs at a time, in a row,

and then traipsing across the

field to kick them all back 

again to the other end. I got

tired, and bored, just listening.

I was thinking, Jeepers, tell the

kids to read the Odyssey, or,

heck, anything, get out of that

rut, find a girlfriend, beat up

your neighbor's dog...anything!

Yes, and now I know you're

probably sitting there saying,

'Hey, he got the 2.8 million

a year for kicking a football

maybe 15 minutes week in

game time, while you're writing

here about being hungry. Idiot.'

And, yeah, I accept, and probably

understand too. But still, I

think I'd rather starve.

-

I have found that there are 

a great number of great men, 

and they all amount to nothing 

at all. The rafters are piled high

with reputations. Some are

'reputed' to have a reputation.

Others are mere repudiation.

-

I have a taste for the discursive,

which means I run on. It's not

directionless, though it may 

seem so, some. It's more 

indirect, a passage through 

some hazardous strait before 

the ship finally comes in.

Pretty simple, I'd say. Not

complicated at all.