12,650. RUDIMENTS, pt. 997

RUDIMENTS, pt. 997

(at the bongo club)

I never had much direction,

or what direction I had I gave

to myself, be it good or bad.

On looking back now (seems

that's all I do these days) I

sense that I was easily swayed

and was often quite zig-zag

in my ways. (I don't mean

zig-zag in the sense of the

Zig Zag rolling papers guy,

which papers were used for

rolling joints, and which

name I was often told by a

guy I worked for once, that

I resembled. Well, the person

of that name anyway, shown

on the packaging. Fact is,

I never smoked much pot.

Maybe three or four times.

It never interested me, whereas

this guy who said it smoked pot

like other people ate chocolate.

I was around lots of that stuff,

and more (pot, not chocolate).

First off, pot was for babies.

Beginner's stuff. The kind of

people I knew then who were

potheads were all in a sort of

stalled, infantile regression, and

their pot-smoking only dragged

them deeper onto place  -  they

never did anything, just moped

and smiled stupidly. The same

sorts of people who'd get a tattoo

on their forehead. Just annoying.

Adventurous druggies were more

my style, even though I didn't

do that either. I used to like to

watch them fade, get zombie-like

in their torpor, and then start

dragging around for more. It

was never enough, whatever 

they'd just done, and it always 

had to be topped. A junky's a

freaking waste of time, always.

No matter for what purposes

they claim to be 'using'  -  high

art, music, comedy, whatever.

They're never truthful, not

even to your face; they'll steal

you blind; and they're generally

miserable people all caught up

in their own web. Nothing you'd

ever want to share. The best drug

guys were the dead ones; as in

'good riddance.'

-

There are some preposterous

things the world is better off 

without. I could name a bunch:

drug people and Gallo wine

are suitable starters.  But, let's

just let that go, for now. Long

about 1964, I think it was, there

was a guy, Clark Kerr, and I

think he was regent or something

at the University of California.

I can't remember it all now, and

I'm not looking it up, but what

kept me interested in it all was the

Free Speech Movement, fronted

by a guy named Mario Savio.

Sproul Hall was the location;

they shut down the University

for a time  -  students protesting,

and it was all over some foolish

item of 'free' speech. Savio

articulated it pretty well, but

I do forget the gist  -  you can

look all that up. Anyway, it

was all on the other side of the

country, and I was only like 14,

but I stayed with it all, whatever

years it was and however it did

all go down. Some Japanese guy,

Hayakawa or something, he took

over, restored order, ran the formal

University, and shut down the

movement. I think it had mostly

to do with two hidden issues,

more than anything  -  Vietnam,

and girls. That was always an

undercurrent of everything, back

then. You can take all your high

minded issues and ideals and 

park them  -  college guys were

always only about girls, and

Vietnam was getting in the way

of all that. So, combining the two

into one issue and calling it 

'Free Speech' got you the whole

bonus package, plus coverage

by Time and Newsweek! Once

any of these guys got to Vietnam,

if they did, it was over  -  there

was NO free speech, and the

Military supplied the females 

for you. Along with cigarettes.

-

So maybe my 'direction,' like

that Harrison Ford scene in '

Raiders of the Lost Ark,' was

just to keep ahead of that huge

round, crushing, boulder of

Fate that was always running 

behind me, and ready to crush 

me. I was slightly mad, and I

knew that. I was trying to be 

an expert in a hundred things,

even though I should have 

known that never happens.

An expert is only an expert 

in  the one thing he or she is 

an expert in. Over-reaching

is sure failure. I've always

over-reached. There was a

certain time (I admit to this)

that I haunted movies. Maybe

it was the 1970's, or the 80's;

I forget. 'The Man Who Fell

To Earth;' 'Eating Raul;' 

'Chinatown;' 'Hold That Tiger;'

'The Conversation.' I could go

on  -  Rod Steiger, in 'The

Pawnbroker.' 'Poltergeist.'

Stupid crap, really, but I used

it all  -  to prove to myself,

again, that nothing really exists. 

That viewing a film can prove

that for you  -  angles and light, the

shifting myopics of a cameraman's

operation, the over-arching ideas

of the direction upon something a

screenwriter has written, which is

probably taken from something

else someone else had written.

Layers upon layers of imaginings,

portraying images that we end up

believing? Thinking that the

characters induced are actually

coursing blood and breathing air

and reacting to circumstances.

Fixed circumstances, no less  -

for once on film, they cannot 

change, while life itself, even 

more unreal and unwieldy, 

changes constantly. Unreality

as reality? Or is it actually

Reality as unreality?

-

I never much did drugs, because
my own reality was already larger
then that, more spacious, and 
more important to me too. If I
were to get tripped up with them,
I knew it would just become a 
long, losing season of bad results.
I detested the people who were

doing drugs. And I saw them all, 

they paid my rent, they lined my

way  -  through my third party

'roommate guy, Andy, who was

peddling enough weekly junk to

fuel a small country on its way to

happiness. Happiness? Did I say

happiness when I meant unreality?

We should live. We should live 

forever. No plague, No death.

Just Love and Truth and Belief.

Yes, yes, join me in the Bongo

Club. Nothing is real.