RUDIMENTS, pt. 812
(high sledding on a low plain)
Probably I could admit to
a lot of things, but I won't.
I killed a man in Reno, just
to watch him die. (Ok, fool,
that's a joke). It's a Johnny
Cash song. I never could
stomach him - part showman,
part preacher, part naive
faker. I never even liked
his side of Country music
either. And then those Carter
Family singers he hooked
up with - cheap hickory
hollow religion, spirituals
by whites, hokey fake
deliverances. Earnestness
sucks when it's dripping
out every pore. I couldn't
ever stand, as well, those
prison-story blues types, and
what's he go and do? - makes
a live album while singing to
a bunch of dumb perps at
Folsom Prison. Stupidest,
foul album I ever had to sit
through, and I knew lots of
people who liked all that
crud and insisted on playing
it. Anybody who sides with
Johnny Cash hasn't got me
as a friend; fare thee well my
own true love.
-
My time in NYC was all jazz
time, except for when I worked
three weeks or so in a record
store, until I just left, after I
got tired of stealing an album
or two every few days - some
creep in the store had this
album-by-order stealing
business going on and he
roped everyone else in,
with the threat of trouble,
for squealing. How management
could never see that each week
there'd be 30 or so LP's gone
that didn't show up on the
receipts was beyond me. I
ran with it, and then decided
it wasn't for me. I got a Donovan
album out of it; some 2-album
hippie crap called 'Gift From
a Flower To a Garden' - which
was his way of pretending his LP,
hippie-dippie, flowers all over it,
was music from him (the flower)
to all his jerk fans (the garden)
who'd listen to it. The only
reason I got it was because
one of the girls I knew at
the Studio School was
friends with him and he'd
been in NYC recently then,
and visited. Whooppee for that.
Gift from a lamebrain to a
lummox, as I saw it. The
LP was loving and deep,
supposedly a true gift to
the world. I gave it to my
girlfriend because she liked
'Sunshine Superman,' except
I don't think it was on that
album. She figured I'd bought
it for her and was all happy.
-
Crazy-world stuff like that.
Back in those days everything
wanted to be about transformation;
all of a sudden no one was happy
with their old, straight, selves.
You'd wake up one day and see
all these weird businessmen types
all of a sudden growing sideburns,
working guys letting their hair
grow just a little; some stupid,
chubby businessman selling
combs and brushes to retailers, as
a supplier, would all of a sudden
have a vest on, some beads, and
a Nehru Jacket - looking for
all the world like a browned,
Jewish, 'Weebles Wobble But
They Don't Fall Down' type.
It was weird. Even the cops
on the beat started looking
like beat cops! Hey!!!
-
I wondered what it took to
do all that; not being able to
figure it quite out, because
none of it seemed really to
come from within for any of
these people. A bat-boy like
Sammy Davis, Jr., suddenly
being Mr. Hipster; Jerry Lewis,
suddenly sporting a beard. They
all acted as if each of them,
also, were now peculiar fonts
of wisdom, on all this new
stuff, as if we should have
been listening to them all
along. What a bunch of crap.
What was it, too much
watching of 'Laugh-In,' or
Reel Camp,' or some really
early 'Saturday Night Live?'
Over in Elmira, at the same
time, weirdly enough, and
whatever the date, I forget,
the people over at Elmira
College, and some friends of
mine too, just about stopped
the world for a communal
viewing of Sixty Minutes
the Sunday night the Shah
of Iran was on - mostly for
some ass-kissing by Mike
Wallace and Morley Safer; that
stupid trademark stopwatch
of theirs clicking on every
seven minutes or so, yeah,
for, yep, commercials about
jock itch, acne, autos, banks,
or soap. The Shah, watching
America from behind the
wall of commercials. What
an idiot; no different in his
way, from Johnny Cash
and the rest of those lame
doghounds.
-
Anyway, right then where and
how I was could have appeared to
others as f I was stalled. But I was
not. I was always moving forward,
getting to new things, sometimes
more troubling things than before:
I was still hounded, and hurting
some, from before my NYC years
even, my seminary years. There
were things that hadn't settled
or set right. Too much crap was
still inside my head, and people
seemed to be concentrating on
anything but God. I was adrift,
in a lost and sodden world.
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