12,530. RUDIMENTS, pt. 953

RUDIMENTS, pt. 953

(even at that end of the scale)

I used to often go down by

the west side piers, just to

muse at the docks and

workers. It always kept

me fascinated, to watch.

The stevedores and haulers,

by whatever job-names it

all went by, were intense.

A boy can live in entire,

suburban, life, as I had,

insular and corralled into

rows of homes and schooling,

and never realize  -  because

no one will tell him  -  the

amazing world of grit and

brawn that was outside all

of that. The Irish piers, for

instance, and pretty much the

whole of Hell's Kitchen, was

harbor for all sorts of felons,

fighters, beaters and killers.

They did day work, as best

they could, all along these

waterfront places. The crime

was rampant, but often just

kept silent. Any version of

the Italian Mafia that you

could come up with would

have easily been equaled

by the force and antics of

these waterfront Irish and

Slav guys  -  later Russians

too. The idea was not to say

a word. I remember one time

there was some violent burglary

guy looming about. He had an

apartment a few blocks over,

had found a way of cascading

himself, building to building, 

to do break-ins and such. You

really had to figure, in that

company, he'd eventually get

mixed up with stealing from

someone's mother's or aunt's

apartment, purely by chance,

and that would be the end of

it all. Kept silent as it was,

the invisible word was out

for getting the guy the first

moment he screwed up. He

had hit some big-time places,

and skillfully secreted lots of

stuff around. And then one day

he was beat to a bloody pulp.

Alive, but mashed meat. It

had happened, somehow, that

he'd robbed the wrong people,

or place. That was the end of

him. He didn't die, I don't

think anyway, but he was gone

like skin from a knee in a

playground. Somebody probably

drove him to Kansas and just

threw him out of a car, saying

'Don't come back.' It's like a

witness protection plan, but

without the protection.

-

Dave Van Ronk picked up

a small 'group' for himself,

after many years of solo work,

and by the early 1970's there

were a few albums out, maybe

two anyway, under the name

Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson

Dusters. It was a curious choice

of name, but for him it fit OK,

being sort of earned. The Hudson

Dusters had long ago been an

actual gang, in the early days

of NYC, along with the Dead

Rabbits, Bowery Boys, Eastman

Gang, and others, but much

later and with immigration

differences. Owney Madden,

The Gopher Gang, and, lastly,

the Westies. Actually, they

were all murderous thugs and

gangs of thieves, all now fully

romanticized, but to see Dave

Van Ronk, Greenwich Village

folksinger and informal 'Mayor'

of MacDougal Street, as it was

said, pick up the name was a bit

effete and funny  -  mere singers,

after all  -  and it required a

knowledgeable stretch to know

(of the imagination) to know

what was going on. I think now

it's called, and battled against,

as 'cultural appropriation.' That

too is stretching it, but I did

always think it was a bit out

of order for him to pin that

name onto what amounted to

a gaggle of men singing. I

never liked men singing

anyway.

-

My problems, believe it or

not, have always been fear and

anxiety. And that's never changed.

It's a path to ruination for sure,

in that instead of heightening

one's approach to things, it

deadens it  -  and even though

I saw an was exposed to very

many things in my time, I never

truly 'experienced' much that

I saw. The 'gift' of a writer,

if it's to be called that, is that

he or she has to stand outside

of all things in order to write

about them. Once the writer

'steps into' the story or the 

picture, it becomes, instead, 

almost a for of advocacy, a 

la Norman Mailer or Tom Wolf  

-  each of them were writers of 

the 1970's years who picked up 

good-sized, late-career, followers 

by taking up a viewpoint (and

the then-prevailing viewpoint) of

of cultural witnessing rather than

austere observing. That presence,

that advocacy, firstly, never dates

well. Fifteen years later it all reads

as ridiculous. And, secondly, it

comes across as literary vanity and 

egotism as well. Once it's done it's 

done; nothing else to do about it. 

Like unscrambling an egg, it can't

happen; so they end up on endless

talk shows and public fripperies,

just advocating their advocacy,

proclaiming their proclamations,

and singing their own songs.

-

It can't really be helped. That's just

the way the 60's and 70's went. by

the 1980's it had all churned into

just pure junk. Even the Art crowd

ran into a lot of that  -  with shows

and expositions, by varied popular

artist of the new-found day and era,

taking up causes or almost comedic

stances, and then trying to reinterpret

all of that as deep art. A Brillo box

or a Campbell's Soup can, or an f-85

jet fighter, or a hairdryer with some

big flouncy sitting under it reading

life a]magazine  -  all that is fine as

it goes, irony, snarkiness, fun  -  but

these society-crowd people got behind

the wheel and started brimming it

over as America's contribution to the

highest art of the ages. I was never

sure about that one, but the cocktail

chatter crowd loved it. Even at that

end of the scale, alas I was a failure  - 

abject, complete, and brimming over

with my own sort of self-destroying

remorse.
-
I had a sort of friend at one of the
corner restaurants don that way (Villager),
as she worked the counter, etc. I think her
name was Theresa, but she was called
Trey. I also heard Terry, once or
twice. She was nice girl, a bit nervous,
and her brother was some sort of wild
man mixed up with the Sullivan Street
Boys, or Gang. I forget. She used to tell
me some of the things shed heard and
seen, as well as family conflicts and
neighborhood crap all because of it.
Her father never sounded much better;
she said he'd started calling her Tres
because he had a bunch of kids and
she was the third. I guess it was true.
Anway, I figured, between the docks
and Sullivan Street, a person could
get a regular college education in the 
ways and means of Hell. Or was
it all just Purgatory?