RUDIMENTS, pt.827
(they really need that drug)
One time after I'd done
some work with Polygram
Records - the second
album, a gatefold record
set with about 14 printed
pieces of art as inserts -
we had an opening at the
old Norah Haime Gallery.
The usual gallery show
opening stuff, finger
foods for the cocktail
and art-fart crowd, with
everyone voraciously
eyeing everyone else up
for possible gain, profit,
or protection. None of it
particularly edifying, but
quite fun nonetheless. I'd
brought my son along,
and two of his friends, each
at this time about age 16.
To my (and their) surprise,
we look up and there before
us is Joe Strummer, of the
Clash. Any of you young
tykes not knowing who the
Clash were - look it up.
It wasn't even the Clash that
mattered to me, more the
fact of Joe Strummer being
there. Bad English teeth and
all. I said my best, 'Hey, Joe,
what's up?' and got back some
wildly garbled and syntactically
unmentionable mouthful of
British locution amounting to
a sort of, 'Hey OK Whadda
fuck to you going nice this is
pretty good happy to be here.'
We hung out a little, saying
less - but Joe was very good
company, and later, some ten
years, after old Joe bit the
dust, someone had painted
up a really good wall mural
of him, down at 7th street and
First Ave. Something like that.
-
A sort of personal renown is
one thing, but 'presence' is
another. I'm not sure Joe Strummer,
in isolation, had that, but there
was something about him that
stood out. The whole idea of
the Clash was sort of a
communal politico-action
movement, within music and
within the bounds of a small,
moving troupe of like-minded
performers. In isolation, he
shouldn't have been very much,
nor stood out - by the rules
he played. Yet, he did.
-
It wasn't even, anyway, strictly
an art-world thing, this record
album. It was music, by 'artists'
accompanied by the graphics
and art they selected and/or did.
Somewhere out on the periphery
of that concept Joe Strummer
found a place to hang his hat.
He just sort of stood around,
looking at the walls, and
listening to the projected
sounds. I was unsure what
he was actually after or
seeking - something of
interest to him or some other
idea for use or inclusion. I
never did find out, and that
was the extent of our contact.
This gallery opening, on the
east side, overlapped with the
grid-lock factor of the yearly
United Nations opening sessions;
lots of clogged streets, diplomats,
police and security. So it was a
really special sight, about as
urban-rich as they come.
-
So maybe I'd not known really
what was going on around me.
I was still a novice, by a large
margin, lost amidst conglomerations
of way-worldlier people than me.
My very localized upbringing
had prepared me for none of this.
Everything I'd ever known was of
small-time morality and very
localized reference. Going to
Perth Amboy was considered a
trip. Going to Elizabeth was a
trek. The world had its tiny
confines, the likes of a daily
local-newspaper comic strip
making one laugh. That doesn't
happen any longer. We've
somehow been gelled to sleep
- those 'confines' may now be
wider and more broad than
ever before, with the entire
universe now at peoples'
point and click fingertips but
people still act oblivious to
most anything except their
next meal. As if they were
voraciously hungry scavengers
trolling the Serengeti. As if
it mattered mightily that they
next eat with lust, in style. The
same people who wear stylish
shirts. Or what they think,
perhaps, is stylish. What a
crazy world - while hunger
stalks some, supermarkets are
crazy-jammed with chemical
foods, and people elsewhere
are staving to death, turning
to bones before our eyes. No
one can clearly explain any
of this, although many try.
-
The art crowd bore its own burdens:
Joe Strummer wasn't one of them.
He was already borderline when
he got within three blocks of the
place. Those inside, except for the
bottom tier, and below (me) had
no way of even knowing who he
was or what he did - yet I'd bet
that, had he been on that record
and had some scribble showing,
hanging on the wall, he'd have
had an instant and nodding renown
and acknowledgment. It wouldn't
matter what he'd done - he could
have outlined Siberia in yak dung -
and he still would have reached the
'success' that those in the room
demanded. Their own knowledge
of him. Nothing else mattered.
-
A sense of moral superiority floats
a lot of boats : it's smug, boastful,
and filled with empty pride, all at
the same time. You can sense it
right way - a 'stance' for the same
of stance, a conformity with a
movement, so as to be able to
excuse thinking on one's own
part. I see it all the time. Thieves
and judges have it. Mayors and
Council people too. Here where
I live, they send the snakes
through the mail, and get
away with it. A sort of smug
matriculation of the ill-informed,
from pillar to post, as it were,
all the time hoping that no one
gets too inquisitive, or begins
asking for the fine print. They
boast their accolades, which
amount to lies and, yes, boasts. It's
the sort of thing an overachiever
psychotic does to confirm the
moral superiority of pulling the
wool over 'your' eyes as his enabler.
His, and her's, lies and cheating
and chicanery need the smooth
validification of ignorance. First,
by your ignoring it so they can
continue to control the psycho-show,
and, second, simply by it being
'ignorant.' They really need
that drug.
-
The art-world, the music-world,
and the world of politics and theft,
they really have little to do with
each other, except when they do.
Accumulating, each, their own
pastiches of object and feint,
they eventually do become so
broadly entwined that you end
up with fake 'Arts Districts,'
horse-ass gallery shows, and
local small-politicians showing
up at these things to talk their way
through newly mangled sleaze.
Maybe that's an art-form, a
new one, invented once by old
Joe Strummer, and stolen from
him by the megabites who
then turn on people and prance
about as political landlords in
really bad clothing.
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