11,793. RUDIMENTS, pt. 700

RUDIMENTS, pt. 700

(nary a soul around)

One of the things I always

noticed was that doing boring

things really cuts down on

production; it's hard to stay

engaged. The boredom kills.

The best way to keep going

strong is to do outlandish

things -  that sounds crazy,

yes, but I'm not talking about

horrible things, ruination,

offense, bombs and theft.

I rather mean for the

personal aspect of taking

a stand, saying something,

digging a little deeper than

usual. Finding something

out and working with  -  or

from  -  it. Society itself,

the way it's been set up,

is against all that. It would

have you do nothing more

than act the dutiful peon;

accepting everything, doing

nothing about anything, never

poking your head out of your

own you know what.

-

In 1967, when I 'graduated'

(who are they kidding?) from

high school, every regurgitated

and disgusting factoid that I'd

learned, I soon realized, was

an ingredient in the entire

trayful of deceit and poorly

represented falsities by which

'they' simply shunt you off onto

the next level of the same crap,

or into that other playland of

mute obeisance of following

orders, learning the rules, and

trading everything for a measly

slop of Friday fodder in the

shape of some sort of paycheck

or cash envelope. And I guess

that's OK, though it never worked

for me. In my own feverish way,

other things have always held

my attention -  even weird

memories of things I'll never

live down. On that fateful June

'67 day, my parental graduation

gift  -  get this  -  was a newly

released Beatles' album. Holy

Music, Batman! Get a load of that.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts

Club Band. You need to see the

larger scene here : I had no idea

what other people got for graduating

high school, so there was absolutely

no context, to me, for any of this.

A car or motor bike? $500 dollars?

A new suit of clothes? A complete

college tuition? This was pretty

bizarre to me; I'd never known

much about Beatles and Stones and

all that. I'd heard and kind of got

intrigued by 'Revolver' at a friend's

house. 'Rubber Soul' too was OK.

But, hey, face it, no gravitas lurked

within the portal of whatever these

boy-lads were doing. By contrast, this

new get-up and pomp and costume

was curious and something different

for these fellows. And then it hit me!

[For the benefit of Mr. Kite, there 

will be a show tonight on trampoline.

The Hendersons will all be there;

late of Pablo Fanque's Fair. What 

a scene! Over men and horses, 

hoops and garters, lastly through 

a hogshead of real fire! In this way 

Mr. K. Will challenge the world!]

I was intrigued that they used the

word 'lastly.' But more than that,

this had become the sort of

linqua franca, common language

stuff by which post-op social

directions were heading? If this

Paul guy really was 'dead,' what

better way then this to sneak in

the unobtrusive arrival of a near-

to-lookalike, left-handed, bass

playing, replacement? With all

this get-up, new hair, and facial

hair, and uniforms, it was near to

impossible to see anything that

resembled the past, AND the 'cover-

art' collection of people and faces

even showed the previous four

'lads' as cast-off relics, their old

selves thrown to the heap. Perhaps 

my parents, with their $7.99 effort,

were onto something : Life could

be transformed. It all meant nothing.

One was free to go, or stay; to pick

and choose whatever and from 

wherever you wished. Thank you,

dear Mary and Andy, for the slam

dunk. And I was 'gone again.'

-

Besides being a man of mystery,

in my own way I always wished to

be a sleuth. The guy who saw things

that others missed, but saw them

because of  -  not by accident  -  a

serious and diligent search. I always

liked slowness and deliberation too.

It was all very paradoxical and I was,

if nothing else, a serial paradoxifier.

(New word). Nothing seemed ever to

be right. I was suspicious and had

to look twice. It used to come to

me that I had been born into a

certain level of Paradise  -  a low

level, to be sure, and there were

many other tiers above that to

be sought after and reached for,

BUT isn't the idea of Paradise

meant to be one that you did NOT

have to strive for or reach at  -  was

it not, instead, and by definition,

something that was 'given' to you?

No yearning, no work, no reaching.

Paradise is what was always intended.

So I accepted all that; I accepted all

the physical things around me,

because I sensed, by intuition, that

they really didn't matter. Real life

was within.

-

Down at the end of my block (I

say 'down' because, in the other 

direction Inman Avenue dumped

you out onto Rt. One, north, up

to NYC; so I call this other end,

'down'), There was a lumber yard,

and a couple of factory/warehouse

places. Not really 'warehouse,'

because no one was really 'housing'

wares there  -  instead they made

things. A cabinet shop, the lumber

yard, and another place. The other

place, this last one, had an old, rusted

1947 Cadillac slouched and at rest

in the side yard, right next to the

first house on the bloc, that owned

by the 'Millers.' [It was funny too, how 
Inman Ave, started, at that end, with
the M (Miller), and W (Wilk) families
across from each other, and ended at 
the other end, with the same initials -
by having the M (Mulligan) and 
W (Wolchansky) families also then
facing each other]. That old car always

fascinated me  -  and it wasn't 'old'

then in the sense of antique; a mere

20 years. But the way the paint and

color had tarnished, its size and shape,

the manner it sagged on its old springs,

probably not having been running in

5 or more years  -  the tires and rims

had begun sinking into the dirt.

It just always presented something

special to me, some visual spectacle

of lost time, space and being, gone.

I'd known a guy, somewhat in this

same time frame, who'd been willed

his grandmother's '52 Chevy. That

was once am ordinary and ubiquitous

car, plentiful and seen around a lot,

mostly in black. He had it still

running and in use, with the

ordinary black paint still in not

so bad shape. That car in its way

did not carry  the power to hit me

within as this older Caddie did.

The fact that the Chevy was still

running and in an everyday

use of sorts, kept it from having

a mystique. It was utility while

the stranger and far more distantly

dignified Cadillac was Magic and

Form. An echo, if you will, from

somewhere else. 

-

The openness of the limber yard

too was a sort of enticing thing.

At the end of each workday, they'd

just close up their store and yard

and go home. Security was so bad.

The store part was all closed up,

but the lumber yard  -  a few acres,

piles of cut-board and raw lumber,

was just left out, and openly

accessible, entirely, from the

railroad side of things, or even

the dirt rise along the underpass.

It was pretty magical to get in there,

long Summer evenings, and see

the layout of wood, sheeted and

cut, boards and flats; sawdust

piles and power units for cutting

and trimming; that certain aroma

or odor that lumber yards exude,

the particular colors you'd get

in the changing light of evening.

Often I was left just as speechless

by it all as I was cheerfully vocal.

Trains, tracks, sidings, boxcars,

lumber and tired old trucks and

cars. And nary a soul around.
Paradise with a capital P.