12,154. RUDIMENTS, pt 825

RUDIMENTS, pt. 825

(loco luna?)

You know how adios really

means 'Go with God,' as in

a'Dios  -  like Deus, as in

God. It's not the sort of thing

you think about when saying

it or hearing it said; but, yes,

is so. Much of all this is just

Tower of Babel stuff, the

flow of tongues and words

which keeps people apart

from each other, or without

any recognition of things

anyhow. When I was working

at that little place next to

the Fillmore East, back

whenever, on Second Ave.,

and that big, hulking Mexican

was next to me, he always

was blurting things out, like

'Madre Mio' and 'Loco

Luna!'or something, which

I just assumed meant 'My

Mama!' (like Mama Mia in

Italian), and 'Crazy Moon!'

these Mexican street phrases.

It was OK, but I soon tired

of all that. The only thing cool

about him was his weird story

of being there, on the lam;

escaping out of Colorado

after killing his wife, he

said, by pushing her out the

car door while driving a

mountain curve at a high

rate of speed. I never got too

deep into that story, but it

never washed for me. Based

first on who he was and how

he operated, he didn't seem

crafty, or cool-blooded. How

did he know she died? Did

she actually go off the cliff?

How did he know that? No

one else was around? None

to witness? And, lastly, how

does one manage all that

while 'driving' swiftly around

a mountain roadway, good

enough to open a far door,

flop a person out, and at

the same time do all that

serious navigating at 70,

and re-close the car door?

Sorry, Carlos, but your BS

didn't work on me. I didn't

tell him that, nor cross his

cover story; but I just knew

it stunk. He probably was

apprehended in Jersey City

for stealing a Christmas Tree.

That seemed more like it, and

they had Mexicans there too.

-

I met all sorts of characters,

and not always because I

wanted to. It just happened,

as people hung around,

someone knew someone,

you'd hear about them

or this or that, and suddenly,

there they were! Usually a

big, nervous bore. That whole

scene was made up of things

and types I'd certainly never

seen before. I had no clue

what these people did with

their lives, but they sure were

always having a go at it. If

it wasn't one thing, it was

another  -  a lot of those

neurotic, Jewish deep-state

things too, which I learned

quick was a whole subset

of a New York type. Pushed

way out into Brooklyn and

across Williamsburg and all

that, seeded from the old

immigrant quarters of the

lower east side Jewish ghetto,

just a bit down below from

where I was, was an entire

'other' culture of ancients.

They were still fighting

Biblical wars! Sects and

sub-sects, conflicting readings

of Talmud, scholars and all

their bizarre interpretations.

This was way before any of

today's cultural overlaps of

Muslims and Africans. The

Muslims and their Kaabah

stuff, and pilgrimages to it

(it simply means 'cube' in

Arabic, and is the very box, 
supposedly wherein some strange 
extra-terrestrial origination
rock is kept for worshippers to
pass by  -  and, no, that story
doesn't wash either) are very much

into alien and extra-terrestrial

originations for their holy

stuff  -  and so were the Jews.

You don't hear much of that,

but the clear interpretations

of their ancient and original

cults was all of extra-terrestrial

origins. It still is, I imagine,

because you can't change that.

But, it's all kept quiet now. As

I was exposed to the deep NYC

part of all this, I learned it

myself, and I'd always shared

those ideas anyway, so it fit

well. For a few years there I

actually wanted to become a

Jew, but it was all too much

trouble and it's not really the

sort of thing you just 'decide'

to be anyway. The Jewish

manner of explanation was

never a real 'explanation'

anyhow; it was more another

layer of questioning. It all

got less and less transparent

and more and more dense as

you went along and by the

end, if you stayed with it,

it all turned too symbolisms

and oddball representations

of a very enigmatic 'presence'

they refused to refer to by

name. The most surprising

and most frank thing I ever

learned, in covering all this

Jewish and Hebraic stuff, was

that after the heavy coatings

of ethics, procedures, ritual,

remonstrances and atonements,

this 'G-d' did not exist, was

found to be without presence.
In all actuality, and when you
came right down to it, they
actually believed that G-d did
not exist. Now how weird
is that? 
-

That was the essential basis 

of all that lower east-side Jewry,

and these people studied this

deeply and worked it into their

every daily moment. At Seward

Square, or Park, which was

surrounded by a few all-night

dairy restaurants and dairy-bars,

(sort of a safe, Jewish diner 

scene), The Jewish Daily 

Forward, The Seward Branch 

Library, and even the hulking 

ruin of that old Jarmolofski's 

Bank building or whatever 

it was. In 1967, you had two

strongly religious things going 

on, Jewish, but in its real

sense of Jewishness, that is

not 'religious' at all, but far

more concerned with ethics 

and the society of mankind.

One was the Jewish-intellectual

congregations of rabid and

doctrinaire Communists. They

would still be reading and 

spouting, and studying, 

their Marxist and socialist-left 

ideologies. Strongly. They

meant it. Much like today,

I found that to be more a

generational thing than 

anything else; kind of a 

quiet revolt. Psychologically

it was all a transference or

a projection  -  they were

fighting to break away from

all that Jewish-engendered

Mother-dedicated control.

It irked them and they let

this 'politics' take them 

over and concentrate their

rebuking; sort of like giving

guilt a purpose and use.

That's all Communism and

crazy socialism was  -  a 

newly found means of 

compensating for 'killing'

Mama. In light of my Mexican

Colorado murderer friend, I

found it all very interesting.
-
The active part of that religion
and ideology was essentially in
taking care of your fellow beings.
An offshoot of that was their very
off penchant for strange forms
of commerce and making money
for the smallest things : One side
of the street, East Broadway, or
Grand Street, would be pickle sellers;
vats of brine, onions, cucumbers
stewing. Endless arrays of 1o cent
pickles. The same went for the
deli guys and the fish mongers, 
shirt vendors, and, even, religious
supply houses and bible tract sellers.
It was all endless in a penny-ante
sort of way  -  but the dedicated
assemblage and their fidelity to 
even the smallest of these works 
was immense. I had a friend at
one of those religious-supply
houses, and it was, surely, 
intense and infinitesimally
amazing. 
-
Let me clarify one special NY
point here : the fact of this G-d
not existing  -  in spite of their
fierce penchant for religiosity 
and fierce dedication to that, was
rooted in a sad, fated, hopelessness 
about the human condition.
Concerning that, there was no
around : The way they'd had it
divulged, they'd dug too hard. A
box canyon. The deeper you dig,
the less you find there. I'd
had it admitted to me, just
like that, and from someone
I did truly respect.

12,153. THERE'S FUN VALUE IN A CAN OF WORMS

THERE'S SOME FUN 

VALUE IN A CAN OF WORMS

The aisles were warped by fat

feet. I was watching Boss Tweed

beat the heat. 'Herm' Melville

came by; took a switch to my

eye, and said, 'Say what I say,

but don't repeat.' I didn't get

a whiff of what he meant.

-

In the other room, they were

playing cards while The Sorceror's

Apprentice was on the Victrola.

You've got to love that word,

'Victrola.' They don't make them

like that anymore.

12,152. RUDIMENTS, pt. 824

RUDIMENTS, pt. 824

(so long, it's been good to know you)

There are a lot of things

I like - the problem usually

works out to be that the

things I like are the same

things, often enough,

that most people have 

an incipient bias against.

I'm old enough now to

no longer care, and to just

say my piece and move 

along. Society has gone

crazy. The world is a

dirty, old sock.

-

John Stuart Mill put it once,

"But it is the time for great 

men to come forward. With

small men, no great thing

can be accomplished..." He

wrote that in 1859, which,

I admit, was a long time back

for a world that changes and

rolls over ever 30 minutes, but,

'On Liberty,' for the rest of

what it is, filled a nice spot

for me. To be truthful, I

always felt fated for something,

but it never happened and even

though that feeling lingered

through the dumbest of my

days. And I had some dumb

ones. One time, I was giving

a reading on the roof of the

Plainfield YMCA; it was

like June of 1979. I love

doing a public reading, but

haven't done one in a very 

long time  -  not that I'd not 

want to or wouldn't jump

at the task. It's just that no

one listens anymore; they 

don't know how to listen. 

The basis for all that is 

gone; outlook and what's 

ruefully called 'education' -

which is now more the 

empty bucket that gets 

to sing. That night though, 

in the very last days of old 

Plainfield, before the 

troglodytes took over and 

the town was thrown to 

the wolves, the derelict 

hordes of landscape

Hispanics who treat 

the place as their own 

guava plantation now,

I had the literati of that day 

in my hands  - enraptured, 

enthralled. It was pretty cool, 

let me say. And out of the 

audience, some guy later

comes up, thrusting a real

serious business card in 

my face, saying his name 

is Roger Williams, from

upstate in NY somewhere;

A monied guy; married, or 

living with anyway, an ex-nun. 

He thought my reading was 

great, and wanted in. He 

wanted to run me everywhere;

ringer, washer, and any 

conditional form of fame and 

fortune he could find for me. 

I said, 'Roger Williams? Are

you the same guy who founded

Rhode Island?' He laughed. We

exchanged names, faces, numbers

and addresses. He said he'd be

back in touch, to send paperworks

and things for me to sign, etc. It

all sounded good, for ten seconds 

and then it also felt way too slick; 

too glib. For the next couple of

years, 6 or 8 anyway, all it turned

out to be was seasonal Christmas

card greetings, here and there a 

'progress' letter, but never any

terms, contracts, requests or

anything to sign. It all faded 

away, and then he died. That 

was the end of that career. I

found I didn't even really care.

By that time, anyway, I had

started my own small publication.

At least that opened some small

doors for me  -  nothing big  -

but through it I got to meet a

lot of people and had some

interesting experiences.

-

Anyhow, can you even imagine

what it felt like for me, on the

cusp of 30, as I was? I felt like a

rocket, up on that warm rooftop,

ready and set to blast off for the

moon. It all faded away, but it

was a cool moment, and the Y

did ask me back. The problem

is  -  and this I find still prevalent  -

that the towns and boros who take

up on this stuff ruin it. They don't

know shit about arts or poetry, or

how to present that stuff. It ends

up bureaucratized, needing

approval, for both format and

content, and they also have the

stupid urge, every time, somehow

to hook it up with workshopping

first. Which is so typically

municipal  -  they can never have

anything just 'be.' It has to fit

their small-brained zoning

fixations on fitting a format,

following a rule, and even making

that strange and broad assumption

that someone who 'writes' can

then successfully impart to others

the hows and whys of writing.

Which is pure bullshit, but which

gives a feeling of validity to the

blowhards who do this stuff.

Boy, it just makes me sick.

Whenever I see any of those 

people I feel the need to run. I

think 'they' should all workshop

one another, and maybe they'll

come up with half a person.

-

I feel like I've done lots of things

and been to lots of valuable places,

but places you'd never think

had value. Because most people

just don't think there's value 

anywhere. What I'd most wish 

to do, turning my back on all 

the rest of the normal crud, is

go to Avenel Park, throw down

a hat, for coins and dollars, and

give a two or three hour reading,
with the semi-circle of people
around me; out loud, raw and
unamplified,  the old fashioned 
way, like in ancient Greece, or

or like Lincoln on the hustings,

unworkshopped and so real, 

and let people hear some real

truth for a change, let them hear

the Sing-Out from a talented

heart.

-

Avenel Park? You know that place?

They call it something else now,

named after a local mayor who

was killed  -  giving us what we're

getting now. I'd bet the usual scum

and cops and street-sweepers would

be there in an instant to shut it down.

That's the kind of stuff that doesn't 

happen anymore. That old America

is so long dead and gone.
-
The new America? It tries telling
us that rap and hip hop stars are
talented. That graffiti is where it's
at. That old ways are dead and
gone. That music and art and
writing must now be colloquial
to have any value. That we must
only cater to the low. That no effort
need be made for anything. That
you can, yes, truly, find numerous
was of doing nothing, having no
value, being not roadworthy
for anything at all, and yet have 
ways of living off the taxes
and the dollars of others.
That's actually what they teach
in school now: 'Work for the
Government; you'll do great!'
I respond viscerally : Open
up the floodgates, and let
the flaming waters in.

12,151. IT MAY BE BUT NOT

IT MAY BE BUT NOT

It may be but not that the stars

and sun are in my being and

instead they rise in my heart and

soul. I cannot say for sure how

much any of this is mine.

-

Maybe I should qualify that

statement :  Walking home

again along less engendered 

streets, I find taxicabs letting

off people and very few words

being spoken; as if everyone

lives in their hearts and souls.

-

Alone, I stay in these watershed

ideas, and keep all my counsel

to myself. The loading-dock

nearby is receiving pallets. I

cross myself, and walk away.

12,150. DELIVERANCE CENTRAL

DELIVERENCE CENTRAL

The optional bias of the militant class

unhinges my axial nature. Like you,

maybe I can sit around and stay drunk,

or act like a Hollywood starlet and

roll with the punch. Do you, then, not

see how everything runs together? We

are lame, but only until we are healed.

-

I think I read once that the Red Baron

was shot down by some rogue fighter-jet 

at loose in the decadent sky. Forgetting 

how the story went, I can only recall that 

'flying' was new and no one understood

what to make of it at all. All they knew

was that a plane shouldn't stall.

12,149. NO MORE JUGGLE

NO MORE JUGGLE

How these hands hold dreams I

never know : Miraculous, I suppose,

all that odd matter falling through

fingers to make a transparent world.

When I was young I liked everything

about it; now I disdain the merger.

-

Here's a sound of Heaven's making.

There's the roar of the nether world.

12,148. RUDIMENTS, pt. 823

RUDIMENTS, pt. 823

(from zero to sixty in four seconds flat)

The subject was telephones;

frightening things even in

1967. The household wire

phone was a bad blemish,

yet nearly every house had

one or more, and those that

didn't, wanted to. People had

'gossip-benches' in their homes.

Sort of a portmanteau seat

(my father reupholstered any

number of them; I've seen,

and lugged, my share), but to

the right or the left was a sort

of desk-compartment shelf

thing, for the telephone, as

a table-top, and for storage

too. Phone books, etc. I

detested phones, from day

one, and could never abide

them and to this day, unless

for emergencies and the like,

I simply do not use one; do

not have one; will not report

to one. Besides that, I have

nothing to say. Back to the

Gossip Bench  -  we had one

in my home when I was a kid,

covered in some horrid green

fabric, almost plastic-like, but

not. It was, honestly, seldom

used but at the same time was

 also not really part of the

house furnishings; it was

upstairs at a spare phone. I

had sisters, and the extension

phones, and Princess Phones

(incredibly, that was a pastel

colored, or pink, phone

marketed exclusively for

yappy girl teens). Nowadays,

I see men, or 'males' anyway,

with phones, yapping as much

as females. I always considered

the telephone something a man

would not use. Still do. It's a

feminine thing  -  its borders are

sentiment and emotion, or rank

babble. In the old days, my days,

a 'Man' didn't do that crap. Now

they do, and still insist on that

gender identification; wrongly.

I keep no place in my life for

either of those things : sentiment

or emotion. They went out with

the Nina, the Pinta, and 

the Santa Maria.

-

The earpiece and mouthpiece in

one unit, did you know, is a

French design - development.

The 'French phone' has a single

unit mouthpiece and earpiece.

(Old land-line phones, of course).

It shows itself as a singular

indication of the French

connection of the senses that

English-speaking people mostly

keep separate. French, the

'language of love,' was called

that because it unites voice

and ear in a unique way; a close

way. So does the telephone. It

is quite natural to kiss by via

phone, but it's not easy to

visualize while phoning.

-

Once I came across a statement

that really stopped me dead : 'To

the blind, all things are unexpected.'

Like the telephone conversation,

so with the blind. There's nothing

visual about it. One may think

they are visualizing, perhaps, the

other person on the other end of

the call, but it's only imagined

that that is so. Pushing even the

prostitute aside, the phone gave

us the 'call girl!' The prostitute was

a specialist; the call girl is not.

She is someone who listens.

She may even be be a 'matron, at

home, making some extra bucks....

off your imagination. All that

stuff is the power of extension,

(no pun) and the comfort of

the 'Gossip Bench' gets then

superseded by other uses. I

wonder, did anyone expect

all this?

-

I just never had anything I

cared to talk about on the

phone. One time, a friend

of mine got in the habit of

calling with each new

record album or interview

of some rock and roll demon

he came across, and we'd,

or he'd, go on and on at great

length about the comments

or the cuts. Frankly I was

bored, and added little. Any

contribution I made to these

conversations was to simply

reiterate or agree with what

he'd just said. It dawned on

me that NOTHING was

getting done, no real

information was being

transferred, and all we were

doing was validifying some

dumb status quo. The phone

was proving itself useless.

I was that distanced. The

format of the phone just

really annoyed me. Later,

in the so-called 'business'

world, the phone was

everything. My God, I

could have died with

that one  -  placing orders,

for paper, ink, binding,

rags, whatever; or arranging

trucking and delivery, or

even the endless pricing

and bidding on print-jobs.

Hideous, nasty stuff  - not

worth the language  and

not worth ten cents of my

time. I often wished to be

deaf, and dumb. Figuring

I was, at the least, halfway

there, on the dumb.

-

One of those African 

countries, right now I 

forget which, let's say

Gabon, they went from

'nothing' in the last 30 

years, to complete cell 

phone coverage. OK? 

Big deal? They skipped

ever having telephone poles

and wired lines! Think of 

that. They were propelled, 

en masse, into this era 

without the tedious

compunction of land 

connections, telephone 

poles, wires and lines.

I guess 'infrastructure' for

the phone companies  -

which we had years and

years of time to get used

to, sort of makes a grasp

or understanding of what's

going on a bit more stable.

A sense of craziness is less

pervasive? (In Pennsylvania,

we had a 'party line' of maybe

the next five or six gabbers 

down the road  -  for the first

few years before they then

modernized. I'd never heard

such annoying stuff. What 

was the most annoying part was

the way it rang : You had to

listen to all the ringings. I

think we were, as newest 

entry, four rings, for our 

party. So you'd have to 

carefully listen for the 

pattern and see if it

stopped and repeated 

at 4-rings. Really pesky, 

because you had to go

through the whole sequence,

and because of that you'd

get everyone else's rings

too, even if not for you. It

seemed like the darn phone

was always ringing).

-

Anyway, think of these

African people, going right

from a nomadic, bushman,

status, let's say, to cellphones,

as civilization settled in on

them. What magic was that!

It must have been incredible, 

plus I bet it wreaked havoc

on all their old and tribal

beliefs in spirits and shamans

and tribal tokens and 'contact'

with other-worldly stuff. It

could have driven them all

to a proven insanity  -  it's no 

wonder we see all those crazy

photos of them now, walking

about in all those cast-off

American tee-shirts and 

clothes. Joe's Plumbing.

Teddie's Pizza. Ralph's

Army-Navy. They had no

longer any 'reference' to

the outer rim of all that old

and spirit-magic stuff which

had buttressed them and their

societies  -  or what there was

of them  -  for all those years.