11,726. FRANK-O-RAMA

FRANK-O-RAMA

Your dirigible eyes and so-shady

face rip the heart right out of my

chest. It beats so fast, I hope it

lasts. I get a pounding headache

from thinking of you, and really 

all I knew was your bother's girl

Sue. I always thought she was nice 

too. I guess, as it stands now, I am

footloose and fancy-free, thinking

things like Frank O'Hara, dancing

on dunes but not a moment too soon.

Oh Jesus, how does one die like that?

Anyway, back to you : your dirigible

eyes, so-shady face, the heart in

my chest fastly beating. Yes, yes,

I know, you've heard that all before 

and it's really quite deadly boring.

11,725. INVENTING NEW THINGS

INVENTING NEW THINGS

'Malomar, (can I call you that?),

do you want to hear what I've

done? I invented the idea of 

reverse! Back before I did that,

no one ever thought of going

backwards.

17,724. INCENDIARY LEAFLETS

INCENDIARY LEAFLETS

We've got all that : sewn up battlements,

ISIS recruits, ladies with rifles and guns.

Another lethal morning looms, with the

sunup comes the sons. So much to do,

with so little too.

-

'Gonna' buy me an armored car I can

call my own.' Sit me down at the

searching wall, stand for screamers

and hear the wail. Then the silence

that brings the mourners out, while

we clean the curbside with hoses.

-

I am sometimes like a God myself;

taking two sides, for each equation.

17,723. LETHAL

LETHAL 

I was young once, 

so I  sat there, listening;

I was hanged once, so I 

hung there, twisting.

11,722. THEY SAY THE CARDS

THEY SAY THE CARDS

Wrist action, English on the ball,

reverse spin  -  any of those small

technical things  -  they'll tell you  -

can win your game. I wouldn't

know because I don't play. For

me it's all in the cards. I was

born on a leap-year Tuesday that

was running behind; a three day 

weekend at the home for the blind.

All I had were the fortune-teller's

gloves that she'd left behind and

her card pack of Tarot  -  bluebird

pattern, Wizard brand. Fine.

-

One card said I was goner, and in

combination with the hangman and

some other things about fire, the 

claim was I was doomed. Nothing

much to do on that count. Just give

it up. I turned in my room-key too.

Figuring nothing for nothing, I kindly

asked  - about this lake that was

mentioned; what kind of water? And

how about fire? I'd been to Lake

Gennesaret once, as it was burning.

-

My wild card was the five of Sinbad. 

My legend read, cryptic for sure, 'He

arrives in a dash of wind, survives two

storms, and perishes in an unlikely

situation.' So much for that, Madame

Blavatsky. Tell me something I

don't already know.

11,721. RUDIMENTS, pt. 670

RUDIMENTS, pt. 670

(these numbers kill)

John of Patmos wrote to

seven churches. He exhorted

them to persevere : faithful

obedience to...something.

Then, at that time, already

(I just made time go

backwards!), there was no

'church' to speak of, not even

any doctrine. He was firing

from the hip. A real mystery

hip too, it was. Wildly violent

tribulations, and a divine

judgment soon to come. To

end with the annihilation of

the present world. Now, in

thinking of this  -  and I did,

a lot  -  what could annihilation

of the present world mean? Banks

and cars? Swimming pools and

beaches? NO, of course not. And,

without any real doctrine, this

is where it got crazy : it meant

the 'outside' of, the ending of,

Time. Space. Distinctions.

Meanings. If that isn't (wasn't)

enough to wipe you out, have

another beer. You're a stronger

cat than me.

-

God, here creating a new heaven a
new earth, and a new Jerusalem,

seemed to me to have taken on a

whole bunch of redundant chores.

Why do all that crap twice? An

overwhelmingly violent end that

runs cosmopolitical and covers all

sorts of not really human bases in

order to make a new beginning in

which death and suffering will be

no more. But only for the elect?

And for the others, after 'Time'

is abolished, they get to spend

eternity (no time?) in a constant,

fiery, churning blackness, because

they goofed up? Perhaps it was

just something written, off-handedly,

by a highly disturbed individual?

First off, the guy didn't like women,

and went out of his way to declaim

their monstrousness. That's sort

of weird. In fact, in light of all else,

and especially those nurturing and

Gaia-like attributes all through

mythology and primitive (primitive?

This isn't?) religions, as well as the

portrayals of the women around

Jesus, and all those early days,

it seemed perversely twisted.

Wish I knew more on that count.

No one ever really 'pushed' the

Book of Revelation on me; I

sort of got to it myself. And then

I learned, too, what psychosis was.

Thankfully. Seven seals. Four

horsemen. Red dragon. The 'woman

clothed in the sun.' The mark of

the beast. The grapes of wrath.

The whore of Babylon. The

second coming. This guy had

it all covered.

-

I walked the streets of New York

City, in my own City of god, in a

way as perverse as it all was. All

that  -  once again  -  'God is the

noise in the street' kind of stuff.

I still saw myself as a person

with that kind of mission, a bit  -

lifting the schmuck in the gutter,

putting him or her back on  their

feet and walking with them. In

another way it was 'stressing the

unstressed, and unstressing the

stressed.' If that makes any sense.

You could have all your apocalyptic 

stuff, and hand over foot too.

It didn't go anywhere, and you

couldn't shake hands with it. 

Whenever I see some nitwit using

numbers on his or her concepts,

I shy off. This thing was full of

that. Four horseman. Ok, sure

not five, or three? Seven seals?

OK, why not eight? Second

coming? Why that? Two tries

at oblivion? Thousand year

reign? Yeah, OK. I saw the Son

of Man, seven stars in his right

hand. Seven? Right hand? This

all is psychotic stuff  -  demanding

placement, numbers, sequence.

It's wrong, folks. Don't go there,

I've studied it for you.

-

The best thing one can do, (this

is all Art of War stuff) to blunt

an enemy is co-opt it. Draw the

enemy to you, bring it in. Offer the

person something, Hire him.

Bring it (that enemy) into the

fold. It beats fighting it all out,

expending all that energy, killing

each other in endless sparring. I

think any wise opponent would

know that. It's quite simple. Well,

after all that time, the early church

formings, martyrs, Anti-Christ

bombast about Rome being the

Beast and Whore of Babylon, that's

precisely what it did  -  instead of

going down in flames, the 'whore

of Babylon' was now wed to the

church. "Rome's campaign against

Christianity lasted nearly a decade.

More even. In 313, a year after

Emperor Constantine purportedly

dreamed of a fiery cross inscribed

with the words 'by this sign you

shall conquer,' he and the Eastern

Emperor Licinius signed  the Edict

of Milan, which mandated tolerance

of Christianity, declaring that people

were free to worship as they saw fit.

Then in 324, Constantine moved the

capital to the predominantly Christian

city of Byzantium, renaming it as

Constantinople. [Another little bit

of vain-glory, I'd say, after the one

about 'conquering' under the sign].

And then, a year later (this is the

co-opt section, when real Christianity

got beat for good) he promoted the

unified church and convened the

Council of Nicaea, where all this

conflict and balderdash could be 

sorted out, codified, and turned 

into the law of the Roman land. 

That's how you kill your enemy! 

Take it in. Absorb it all.

-

After that, it was all real estate,

territory, Kingdoms, rules, doctrine, 

rites, procedures, and the rest. Any

religion of it was done  -  secular

serfdom, slavery, men tied to the

land and to working for others.

Thank God for thanking the new

God! Organizational structure,

and church hierarchy. (One time

I had one of those mission

proselytizing types say, about

organized, non-evangelical 

theology  -  'That's not Christianity,

that's Churchianity.'

-

I loved it. I loved it all, and along 

the streets and in the lofts and the

studios, on the bare-naked babes

I'd see, on the kids trouncing

around like half-dressed clowns, 

on the oldsters turning beads and

sideburns hip in  a fortnight, on

the words of the televised masses,

on the returning Vietnam guys,

coming back, late as it was, as

hippies, militant slaves making

peace signs, wearing anti-war

buttons, and making the peace

sign as they exited their transports.

It was all very weird, and, damn it

all, it was a new church of life.

For all of them, and for all of me.
-
Connecting this to something, it all 
came to Art. I was able to make it do 
that: Hildegard of Bingen; for instance  
- Revelation alone wasn't enough for her.
She lived 1098-1179. Hildegard, back then,
was what we'd call a 'picture thinker.'
She took Revelation, and went a step
further. Her image-rich descriptions
and lavish illustrations became more
popular then even the written text was.
'Scivias'  -  Know the Ways Of the Lord',
was a series of twenty-six apocalyptic
visions, ten years in the making. In an
oddly Blakean way (I switched time again,
she came firs by many years. Blake was
1757-1827). Captives of only the best of
their own times, each (and with this I add
Joachim of Fiore, to whom I'll be getting
later), she was the first to really envision
'Art' as encapsulating what the fevered
mind might see : this was easy stuff
for her, a sort of picture-book-gateway
fantasy into another world those
early people had never seen.
-
I'l get back to this later, but for me,
as well, in 1967, my holyland was
the streets I walked. My accompanying
guidebook, to NYC, was going to be,
and be that alone, one I wrote and
illustrated myself.

11,720. CHEMISTRY

CHEMISTRY

Steamrollers to Matchbox cars;

Los Angeles Lakers to New York

Mets. I can't take the mix, but I

can't claim regrets. I once read

a comic each week, called Funky 

Weatherbean, or something close.

Now I can't remember a thing about

it at all  -  what I read or what it said.

Things are funny like that  -  a Model A

quite car in a streamlined world.

-

Today, we sat around the marble-top

table you keep in that studio you keep.

Yes, it's probably too big for the space, 

yet it works. There wasn't much going

on; I watched you working  - colors,

and layers, and large tubes of paint.

-

We mentioned how different I was;

working all crimped, in small, not

majestic places. I said mostly my

work comes out looking like that, or

showing evidences of tight quarters.

That's how it goes, I suppose  - me

wishing I had the space to just throw

paint around, and you, intent on

filling each inch or your vast spread.

11,719. RUDIMENTS, pt. 669

RUDIMENTS, pt. 669

(left handed poster boys)

Throughout the 1970's I read

a hundred things of note; hedgehog

and fox stuff, Isaiah Berlin, Walter

Benjamin, all those German guys,

Hannah Arendt, and a hundred

probable other things by men and

women of note as well. Do you

know how that messes with your

mind? I was gunpowder gone

by the end of that decade  -  which

is about the time too I got hooked

up with St. George Press. Which

was like a crash-land into ineptitude.

All it really meant was a paycheck

on Fridays, and only whatever

else I could do in between times

to stay sane. What a bungle that

all was. Lower-level, small-scale

base-proprietorship stuff, instantly.

People in bad suits, coming and

going; 30 immediate half-shysters

representing printing clients and

accounts I couldn't fathom. I often

just stared at the wall, and said,

'why me?' I felt shell-chocked and

wasted.  I be told, by others, that I

was out of place, what was I doing

there, why wasting away so, why

destroying myself. It was, and very

quickly, not much fun at all. My

spy-ring was over. I was trapped.

-

Nothing to do, but  - as the saying

back then went  -  keep on keeping

on. I even hated that phrase. One

of the accounts I picked up was a

place called Magruder Color Co.;

they made inks, up along Frelinghuysen

Ave, at Newark, and they were a

demanding bunch, but I produced

and stayed on. The guy I dealt with

had a daughter on the staff of the

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

She lived in Colonia; so I got to

begin doing their printing too. I

also got free tickets to symphony

stuff  -  one in Newark was at the

old Mosque Theater  -  a down and

out place by then (1980's early) but

still in use. We went to one of those

events  -  it turned out to be the NJ

Symphony, but it was behind Sarah

Vaughn, singing all Gershwin, and

it was being filmed for some Channel

13 thing. The emcee of the night,

and narrating for TV too, was Robert

Alda, some big-name from the 40's

who was also the father of Alan

Alda, one of the dweebs in MASH.

A show and situation I hated. I can't

stand ironic situational comedy,

with a shoulder-chip too, about

being 'better' than you are for getting

all the sly jokes and allusions. MASH

was a really pathetic show, and sexist

as well in a time when that didn't

much matter. Yet, had I ever run

across Alan Alda, I'd have made

sure to punch his lights out. His

gather was mostly in a balcony

sound-suite, narrating crap between

songs, so I couldn't get to him.

Sarah Vaughn, for who she was and

whatever she represented, came off

really lame too  -  Uncle Tom'ing

all that Porgy and Bess stuff, singing

black but being like white. And the

stupid orchestra wrecked it all too,

overplaying everything, trying to

act casually classical in a hip-jazz

kind of way  -  befitting Sarah Vaughn,

as it were, and her past associations

with old Jazz-Newark, which had a

long history, but was all gone. She

should have been too. She betrayed

everything you could think of about

herself, and the stupid songs she sang.

I was never a big fan of the Gershwin

Brothers; Ira got on my nerves even

more than George, because it was

Ira who wrote all the blundering

lyrics. George's music, on the other

hand, was just nervous repetition and

parlor-boy  piano lesson stuff, in my

opinion. His music never came into

its own for me until I saw it used in

Woody Allen's Manhattan  -  wherein

it came off pretty brilliantly.

-

So, realizing right off the bat that I

was stuck in a really lousy scene,

outside of running away, and leaving

all my relationships  -  which also meant

wife and kiddie and house  -  I stayed

like a schmuck and ad-lib'd my way

through everything  I could. Boy;

St. George Press, on St. George

Avenue  -  also called Route 35, and

then Route 27 about a mile north,

at Rahway, was a hellhole and a

totally piece of crap environment.

I'd take the train or drive out of

that area at every slip I could. On a

 good day, back then, NYC was about

20 minutes away if you timed it right.

It's probably 3 times that now, with

traffic, lights, development and the

congestion of thousands of new

people. It always seems like the

worst people, quality-wise, are

the ones who somehow end up

having the most kids  -  in 15 years

or so, all those kids start doing the

same thing, producing another million

kids, and everyone needs a place

live, or stay. There's no advancement

in learning or knowledge, but the

power of endless fornication does

nest to wreck things, like right now

in Woodbridge, and you end up

with a billion losers getting cheap

and tacky places built for them, and

then being subsidized to live in them.

Slums get made like the skin that

forms on six-say old coffee.

Welcome to Paradise, MoFo.

The joke's on you.

-

My game was murder. Unfortunately

it was mostly of myself. To get by

in the position I'd gotten myself into,

my use of language had to be tamed.

Immediately. One of my first deals

was with this Brooklyn guy who

moved in locally and decided to

open a pizza restaurant in a nearby

abandoned A&W Root Beer stand

that was there from the 1960's. The

extent of the guys conversation was

one-syllable Brooklynese. That

was it. He'd come in, wearing his

Italian flaming pizza costume, usually

stinking the place up from the food

aroma his clothes cast off, and

proceed to 'dese and dose' his way

through the blunt-ass end of trying

to explain to me what he wanted.

It was a real joy. Thirteen years

previous I was having nice, learned

conversations with Philip Guston

and Mercedes Matter, each real

high-toned, famous NY art people,

and now I was stuck, jammed in, with

the grunts and groans of some Bunky

Lamborghini guy telling me what

color green ink he wanted his pizza

menu to match with the red. It was

almost disgusting, except he did

throw me free pizza passes and junk

often enough. Garlic knots, anyone?

-

Right next to him, next victim, was a

fresh out of vet school Jewish guy

opening a veterinary clinic  -  both

of these businesses, amazingly, are

still there. (Must have been my touch).

It was nice; he was about my age, but

totally, totally different. I knew nothing

about veterinary stuff, except what I'd

gleaned and seen working the farms

in Pennsylvania, but that was all

much larger stuff  -  horse pills and

cow-udder ailments  -  while his

concerns were dogs and cats. We

talked some, banter, about little

things, but not too much in common.

But at least he could talk in complete

sentences. Next to him was a mystery

place called Mary's Hill Top. I think

it was a roadside diner kind of place,

but it looked like nothing and never

seemed busy. All the sign ever said

was that  -  'Mary's Hill Top.' Next

to that was a Euro-trash used car

joint run by some Serbian guys or

Greeks or Macedonians or something.

Simcas, Renaults, VW's, etc. A lot

of trash-crap, but the place was cool.

The guys were cranky and odd though.

I got a kick out of them and made

it a point  to stop by every so often 

just to kick tires on their recent arrivals.

Did I say cranky and odd? I would 

be too, I suppose. Poster boys for

left-handed socket-wrenches?

11,718. SETTING NEW BOUNDARIES

SETTING NEW BOUNDARIES

So let's go off and run with the rest,

'take what you have gotten from

coincidence.' Tan the hide but spare

the child, spare the child but kill

the rod. Hell everything I drink

is effervescent. There's a new 

man on the corner, who wasn't 

there before. I think he's spying

on me. Damned government fools

and all their shit malarkey. Just

living off my dough. If my dog

was active, I'll sic her on him.

'Bring me back the balls of the

next man you see, (after me).'

11,717. MACHINES THAT HUM

MACHINES THAT HUM

Make the most of your moment, Jedediah,

for it's not coming back again The folder

you just slide into that cabinet, it's already

slipped into another realm.

11,716. FLOWERS AT THE GRAVE OF MAULIN ROGET

FLOWERS AT THE GRAVE 

OF MAULIN ROGET

You've got to love those French names. They

tipple off the tongue like doctrine; words and

things I can never say. Urns and cadavers. Do

they ever go together? Weep this willow weep

for me. Si je neurs, pleure moi.

-

I never held a true icicle in my own two hands;

the large ones, so big they can't melt very quickly

at all. Ice and heart that big will never break.

Si je neurs, pleure moi.

11,715. RUDIMENTS, pt. 668

RUDIMENTS, pt. 668

(a deep-seated mess by the end)

It's odd how so much of this

ended up being about highways

and roads and movement. I guess

America has always been like

that  -  those 'On the Road' type

crazy narratives and storylines,

the idea of ever-present flux and

movement and the unfixed nature

of everything. Even if most of it

was untrue and just used as a

gimmick for advertising or

pushing some product, the idea

stuck and became part of that

America myth stuff that gets

handed down. For all I know

there were roving bands of

Conestoga-wagon- teens running

off with their Dad's wagons to

their own points west. Maybe

they even wrote about it  -  but I

guess it all had to be in a rushed

longhand and just got washed

away. Leastways we've never

gotten to see it. The part of the

American myth would take

that idea up  -  to sell you

rugged road jeans, or hats

or dusters  -  things like the

cowboys all wore; because,

you know, at heart you're one

of them and you're Ram tough

too, driving that Chrysler product.

Except that none of that's true

anymore and no one knows what

anyone is  -  Chrysler is FIAT,

which is really Peugeot, and

it's all worse for wear. America's

really got no myth, except selling

lies. In New York City, in all

respects but for Robert Moses,

who was soon enough done away

with, you could live your entire

live without an automobile or

thoughts of car and travel. It

did, of course, cut down on the

possibilities for your travel, but

you could rent a vehicle if you

were wiling to pay, and do your

drive, travel, or trip. You just

never needed to be owning one  -

a car, not a trip  - and everything

about it all, like parking, storage,

and the rest, was crazy expensive

anyway. One time, in the early

1990's, I was driving a Mercedes,

an old one that I owned, and it

lost its brakes coming down a

hill entering Fort Lee, from up

Nyack way. It stopped itself,

oddly enough, right outside a

a 'foreign' car repair shop, at

which lot I left it, with instructions,

and walked a little ways to a

taxi stand. The ride home cost

us $99.00. I'll never forget that

number, and only later did I

realize, upon returning to get

the repaired car, that there was

an auto-rental place near there

too  -  for 99 bucks I could

probably have gotten a car

rented for 3 days. But, whatever.

Some years later, on a Sunday,

sort of the same thing happened

with an old Jeep I was driving,

but in that case, coming out of

Sloatsburg, I was able to take

Route 17, to the Parkway, and

home, using just the hand-pull

emergency brake to ease to

stops, and those two roads, up

there, kept me away from the

usual lights and stop and go.

That got pretty easy. There's

always a trick of some sort

one can do.

-

Anyway, cars and New York,

they only mixed, maybe in

the literary sense. I used to

read and re-read some of that

stuff  -  'On the Road,' for sure.

It only made sense to me for a

little bit, that whole beginning

section where he sets out

hitching and winds up going

the wrong way, unknowingly,

for hours in some old people's

car. Then it gets to the Old Man

of the Alleghenies part, which

is good too, mythic, Freudian,

and all that put together, and

sort of after that it just breaks

down into  lots of jumbles  - 

things I dislike; scenes of

people, parties, jazz, music,

drugs, antic behaviors.

Wrecking cars, running back

and forth up and down the

country, Mexico, drugs some

more, and on. I got bored.

I have a limited tolerance

for narrative books and

stories with lots of names

and characters you're

supposed to remember.

I don't like that kind of

story-writing, and I've

always felt a book, to be

read, needed more than

a yarn and a slew of

characters to make it

readable. I like real,

discursive stuff, with

info and insight all built

in. I remember once,

Pete Seeger said, (he was

looking out over the crowd

of thousands of faces out

before him at some folkie

concert when it was all

changing to more pop and

rock junk), and he said,

making his point that it

as all ruined by that time;

he said, 'You've got to keep

it simple, and keep it rolling.'

His point was 'folk' music

had lost it entire premise

with these crowds and formats.

It was no longer simple. I think

he meant it had lost any of the

'authenticity' it once may have

had, and, but, yes, that's one

of the problems with all this

stuff : 'Hanger-ons' and fakers.

But, in any case, it's like that

with a book too. Anything

with 10 or 15 names and

characters, all interweaving

in and out, and each with their

secondary line of characters,

well, it just all gets too much.

If I wished to read a phone

book (of old) I'd do that.

Otherwise, keep it simple.

And keep it rolling. Yeah.

And even that's not exactly

right, because getting good

at being discursive can

sometimes undo simplicity 

-  for the cool side-stories

and reference-lines can lead

a good writer anywhere. Not

just masses of characters and

names, emotions and foibles.

That's all crap.

-

If you think about it, with those

two cars that lost their brakes,

in each case I was trying to keep

them rolling, while keeping it

simple. It doesn't always work,

but lots of times it does; and

who's to say what simple is

anyway? Pete Seeger was

probably getting 700 bucks a

minute at concerts by this time.

Nothing simple about that.

-

Back to that book, 'On the Road'

Another thing about it was that I

always ended up considering it

to be exploitative, of women,

and emotions too. Just a lot of

virile crap that never seemed to

end. And the only real 'New York'

part was, again, at the end, by

which time it had all been changed

into emotion and sentimentality

anyway; and I felt it always ended

up refuting its own premises. By

the final pages, with that last

refusal of giving a ride, I felt

Sal Paradiso had reached a 

point of disgust with Dean

Moriarity anyway  -  which is

kind of how it happened in real

life with Kerouac self-destructing

as he did anyway. It was just

all a deep-seated mess

by the end.