RUDIMENTS, pt. 736
(be prepared)
I think when I was hit by that by
that train a lot of other things happened
to me that transcended space and time.
I can't say - but since I was never
(apparently) sworn to any silence
I'm gonna' anyway - and keeping
my tone and tongue in order was
never a strong suit. There's a wall
of this life, kept at its perimeters,
that, once broken through, dissolves
into nothing. If you're no longer in
this life, it has no meaning. Get that?
Everything you might ever think, and
categorize, and value, and judge,
they're all gone. The parameters
and any concepts behind them carry
nothing, and are left at the gate.
Forget everything. All gone; in
a uniquely encapsulated forgotten
figment, the whole concept of the
footnote that this life might have
been disappears wordlessly. BUT,
at the same 'Time' (nonsense), only a
human would then ask, 'What's next?'
It's so typical - linear, straight line,
anxious. Nothing's next, silly. None
of that exists. The only thing we know
is that everything connects.
-
Let me think here of a hundred things.
Mostly contradictory, and, ultimately,
mostly pretty useless. Being brought
up a boy - I can't speak for girls - (Yes,
Mohibo, there is a telling difference),
a lot of this is thrown at you. You're
supposed to take it all in, absorb it,
and turn it into useful protocol for
your own life, one of careers, action,
energizing and edification. To be
satisfied. The Boy Scouts begin it all,
if your father doesn't : 'Be Prepared!'
Yes, that's, dynamically and said so
electrically, the Boy Scout motto.
Preparation is everything, never get
surprised, don't get hit with the
unexpected, be set up for all things,
know what's coming. All that sort
of thing. Yep, and fellas, it works
until, surprisingly say, your girlfriend
gets pregnant. Not so prepared now,
are you, or THAT wouldn't have
happened. (Did I really say I can't
speak for girls, just before? Can
I actually say even that anymore)?
-
Being prepared - when you come right
down to it - I always thought anyway -
is a pretty stupid affair : Mr. Button-up,
Mr. Know-It -All, Mr. Never Letting
Anything Cool or Unexpected Happen.
To me that always sounded like a pile
of really boring you know what. I
always figured, 'give me the unexpected,
throw me the surprise, any old day. It's
more fun, better to learn from, and far
more the way I want to be.' Going back,
now, to about 1966, let's call it, way
before Internet days and all that crap
now - I know, I have friends that I've
traveled with, they can't take a dump
without Miss Candy-Ass on their
'Mapfinder Questorama How Do I
Get There and Where Am I Now?'
voice accessory damning their every
free move. They fall for it every time,
while I, the one driving, have to hear
the consequences. A blind bird can
have more fun flying around than
can anyone following one of those
things. What's life to be about?
If you're so weak-knee'd that
you have to have some lady-voice
scratching your back for you so as
to find the next turn, I say go ahead
then, take that and go. Just don't
call me up, I'll be lost.
-
If someone had told us kids, back
about 1960, that there'd be God-voices
telling us where to turn and how to
get somewhere, we'd have spit up
our noodles in the Brandywine
Junk Yard we were sitting in. Before
us stretched war, and then adulthood,
all to be lived, we hoped, without
direction finders. Turned out the joke
was on us; ten years later half the
new, modern things that started
happening, through the 80's and
90's, came from developments
in Vietnam military situations
and needs, or the space program.
Strangest damn world, indeed.
The entire 'Arpanet', or whatever
it was called - today's Internet,
now - was first made for military,
inter-staff, communications and
intelligence and information
passing. Go ahead, if you don't
believe me, look it up. The product
we know of as 'Superglue' was
first developed for field wounds
and military dressings, Vietnam,
battlefield injuries, to immediately
close up wounds and things, to stop
bleeding and field death. Too weird,
but all true. Same goes for the space
program but, really, when you come
right down to it, who now cares?
-
Avenel kids, we busted windows with
glee, just to see how the patterns of the
cracks went. We'd start fires with the
leftover gasolines found in old trucks
and cars. Incendiary crazy fools, but we
never thought. Explosions? Cool! Those
poor houses going up on Doreen Drive
and Mark Place; jeez it's a wonder they
ever got done. Those poor guys, every
Monday morning, must have had to
spend three hours first counting up the
damages and repairs needed from the
weekend just past. 'Those rat-bastard
kids on Inman hit us again!' Unlike
today, there was never a guard posted,
no one around, nothing being watched.
We were alone in a wide-open world,
ill-defined, without definitions, but
ready for it all no matter. Be prepared?
For what? They ought to be prepared
for us, thank you.
-
Have I ever told you that wet noodles
were invented so people could say bad
jokes and stuff 'went over like a wet
noodle?' OK, just kidding on that one.
(be prepared)
I think when I was hit by that by
that train a lot of other things happened
to me that transcended space and time.
I can't say - but since I was never
(apparently) sworn to any silence
I'm gonna' anyway - and keeping
my tone and tongue in order was
never a strong suit. There's a wall
of this life, kept at its perimeters,
that, once broken through, dissolves
into nothing. If you're no longer in
this life, it has no meaning. Get that?
Everything you might ever think, and
categorize, and value, and judge,
they're all gone. The parameters
and any concepts behind them carry
nothing, and are left at the gate.
Forget everything. All gone; in
a uniquely encapsulated forgotten
figment, the whole concept of the
footnote that this life might have
been disappears wordlessly. BUT,
at the same 'Time' (nonsense), only a
human would then ask, 'What's next?'
It's so typical - linear, straight line,
anxious. Nothing's next, silly. None
of that exists. The only thing we know
is that everything connects.
-
Let me think here of a hundred things.
Mostly contradictory, and, ultimately,
mostly pretty useless. Being brought
up a boy - I can't speak for girls - (Yes,
Mohibo, there is a telling difference),
a lot of this is thrown at you. You're
supposed to take it all in, absorb it,
and turn it into useful protocol for
your own life, one of careers, action,
energizing and edification. To be
satisfied. The Boy Scouts begin it all,
if your father doesn't : 'Be Prepared!'
Yes, that's, dynamically and said so
electrically, the Boy Scout motto.
Preparation is everything, never get
surprised, don't get hit with the
unexpected, be set up for all things,
know what's coming. All that sort
of thing. Yep, and fellas, it works
until, surprisingly say, your girlfriend
gets pregnant. Not so prepared now,
are you, or THAT wouldn't have
happened. (Did I really say I can't
speak for girls, just before? Can
I actually say even that anymore)?
-
Being prepared - when you come right
down to it - I always thought anyway -
is a pretty stupid affair : Mr. Button-up,
Mr. Know-It -All, Mr. Never Letting
Anything Cool or Unexpected Happen.
To me that always sounded like a pile
of really boring you know what. I
always figured, 'give me the unexpected,
throw me the surprise, any old day. It's
more fun, better to learn from, and far
more the way I want to be.' Going back,
now, to about 1966, let's call it, way
before Internet days and all that crap
now - I know, I have friends that I've
traveled with, they can't take a dump
without Miss Candy-Ass on their
'Mapfinder Questorama How Do I
Get There and Where Am I Now?'
voice accessory damning their every
free move. They fall for it every time,
while I, the one driving, have to hear
the consequences. A blind bird can
have more fun flying around than
can anyone following one of those
things. What's life to be about?
If you're so weak-knee'd that
you have to have some lady-voice
scratching your back for you so as
to find the next turn, I say go ahead
then, take that and go. Just don't
call me up, I'll be lost.
-
If someone had told us kids, back
about 1960, that there'd be God-voices
telling us where to turn and how to
get somewhere, we'd have spit up
our noodles in the Brandywine
Junk Yard we were sitting in. Before
us stretched war, and then adulthood,
all to be lived, we hoped, without
direction finders. Turned out the joke
was on us; ten years later half the
new, modern things that started
happening, through the 80's and
90's, came from developments
in Vietnam military situations
and needs, or the space program.
Strangest damn world, indeed.
The entire 'Arpanet', or whatever
it was called - today's Internet,
now - was first made for military,
inter-staff, communications and
intelligence and information
passing. Go ahead, if you don't
believe me, look it up. The product
we know of as 'Superglue' was
first developed for field wounds
and military dressings, Vietnam,
battlefield injuries, to immediately
close up wounds and things, to stop
bleeding and field death. Too weird,
but all true. Same goes for the space
program but, really, when you come
right down to it, who now cares?
-
Avenel kids, we busted windows with
glee, just to see how the patterns of the
cracks went. We'd start fires with the
leftover gasolines found in old trucks
and cars. Incendiary crazy fools, but we
never thought. Explosions? Cool! Those
poor houses going up on Doreen Drive
and Mark Place; jeez it's a wonder they
ever got done. Those poor guys, every
Monday morning, must have had to
spend three hours first counting up the
damages and repairs needed from the
weekend just past. 'Those rat-bastard
kids on Inman hit us again!' Unlike
today, there was never a guard posted,
no one around, nothing being watched.
We were alone in a wide-open world,
ill-defined, without definitions, but
ready for it all no matter. Be prepared?
For what? They ought to be prepared
for us, thank you.
-
Have I ever told you that wet noodles
were invented so people could say bad
jokes and stuff 'went over like a wet
noodle?' OK, just kidding on that one.
'My friend got busted for counterfeiting
pennies. He put Lincoln on the wrong
side. Hmm. I never realized it
made a difference.'
-
What the use of any of this? I wonder
sometimes. Everyone used to say I was
a 'rebel' from Avenel. Huh? I never
understood any of that - I certainly
wasn't what they said, and it just
showed really how little they knew.
What a poor grasp they had of my
reality, assuming they even knew
what it was. My problem wasn't
so much 'rebellion' per se - if it
was I'd have been a druggie or a
criminal or something - it was,
really, more that I simply didn't
understand anything - like living
in a foreign land where people kept
talking in a language I wasn't really
hip to and caught only a few words
of here and there. All I ever really
-
What the use of any of this? I wonder
sometimes. Everyone used to say I was
a 'rebel' from Avenel. Huh? I never
understood any of that - I certainly
wasn't what they said, and it just
showed really how little they knew.
What a poor grasp they had of my
reality, assuming they even knew
what it was. My problem wasn't
so much 'rebellion' per se - if it
was I'd have been a druggie or a
criminal or something - it was,
really, more that I simply didn't
understand anything - like living
in a foreign land where people kept
talking in a language I wasn't really
hip to and caught only a few words
of here and there. All I ever really
did was keep taking messages and
writing stuff - like a hundred things
an hour, it seemed like sometimes.
-
It was the measure of me to judge
myself by myself alone. I learned all
that, I suppose, from those seminary
years - where the whole point was
that there's to be always someone
else judging you. Even after you're
dead. Finito! I always felt more
like a spiritualist, a real fervent
believer, in a roomful of jaded
atheists. Who all believed nothing,
but chattered on endlessly, trying
to believe in something. Or convince
each other that they did. I don't
believer, in a roomful of jaded
atheists. Who all believed nothing,
but chattered on endlessly, trying
to believe in something. Or convince
each other that they did. I don't
think even those really religious
guys, the leaders and local
saints and brothers, ever knew
what they really believed anyway.
Once the sixties broke wide
open, many of those guys bailed
as quickly as the getting let them.
They threw their collars away
and took out with their girl or guy
friend to lead regular, crazy, secular
lives like they'd had it all in reserve
just waiting during all that time they
were pounding all the opposite crap
into me and the rest of my little
seminary boy-tramps. I mean, I
didn't care. I was out of there. They
could go on and do whatever the
heck they pleased. Glory to God in
the highest! Hallelujah too. Like
on Easter - my whole life, it was
always about the clothes and the
food and the visits and the better
weather, and all that crud. I never
once heard anyone, amidst all those
'believers' and celebrators, say, 'He
Is Risen!' What gives, I wondered?
Why be quiet about something
like that? It always seemed to
me that if such was the ostensible
reason for basis of your actions, you'd
at least want to own up to it. But no
one ever did. It was, truly, as if I wasn't
understanding the words or concepts too
well. I was a fairly simple guy, a little
aloof maybe, and my simple bodily
presence is fairly normal - everyone
should have related. It was only my own,
inside, thinking that was different, but I
figured they gloss over that - like the
same way of not saying, 'He Is Risen!'
-
So, all this 'being prepared' stuff, it was
pretty useless - 1966 again, all those
new and breaking rock and roll dudes,
the music that supposedly stirred so
many, you think they didn't work
by the seats of their pants? It was
all chance and the serendipitous
arrival of some chord breaks and a
better-knack for the tune producer
or engineer. Nothing was down pat,
let alone culture and personal life.
Avenel to L. A., nationwide, it was
all on the wing. Be Prepared! Ha!
always about the clothes and the
food and the visits and the better
weather, and all that crud. I never
once heard anyone, amidst all those
'believers' and celebrators, say, 'He
Is Risen!' What gives, I wondered?
Why be quiet about something
like that? It always seemed to
me that if such was the ostensible
reason for basis of your actions, you'd
at least want to own up to it. But no
one ever did. It was, truly, as if I wasn't
understanding the words or concepts too
well. I was a fairly simple guy, a little
aloof maybe, and my simple bodily
presence is fairly normal - everyone
should have related. It was only my own,
inside, thinking that was different, but I
figured they gloss over that - like the
same way of not saying, 'He Is Risen!'
-
So, all this 'being prepared' stuff, it was
pretty useless - 1966 again, all those
new and breaking rock and roll dudes,
the music that supposedly stirred so
many, you think they didn't work
by the seats of their pants? It was
all chance and the serendipitous
arrival of some chord breaks and a
better-knack for the tune producer
or engineer. Nothing was down pat,
let alone culture and personal life.
Avenel to L. A., nationwide, it was
all on the wing. Be Prepared! Ha!
-
Cool thing about NYC, once I finally
got there, set free, was that I was
still a 'bird' but now my cage was
gone! I knew nothing, really, and
was just to be learning everything
as I stepped along. It's easy to learn
the normal junk of living : money,
banks, the costs of things, the best
spots for this or that. I was always
'setting up' for something to write,
as I'd get titles and lines coming
into my head. That's how I reacted
to things, but it wasn't 'reactionary'
stuff - moreso that it was always
almost perfectly natural strips of
words that sort of made sense and
brought with them a context too.
Like free raw material, if I looked
at it as a business person or a
manufacturer. Yet, in the same way,
it was all reactions to what I saw
and lived : midtown, Port Authority
Bus Terminal, 42nd Street, all the
sleaze and hookers and porn,
and the new young kids from
everywhere pouring in on their
hippie-quests far from home:
"Wish I could take a Greyhound
bus to your drawstring pants."
That was a classic.
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