12,704. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,015

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,015

(that must have gone over big)

Newark New Jersey, back

in its day, used to be quite

the hotspot for jazz clubs.

In addition to the New York 

scene, the 1940's, etc. black

jazz players made an entire

scene there of appearances,

gigs, recordings. Older photos

of the area at Broad and Market

show numerous marquees, clubs 

and drink-spots. It's, alas, all

gone now, like everything else

from those days. Newark was

left to crumble, as a dis-service,

in the very typical, white suburban

fashion, to blacks. Negroes. Niggers.

Whatever 1950's word was used to

characterize that portion of the

black population. (I want you to

know that I wrote out here the

entire N-word, to make my point.

I'm sure facebook will disallow it.

But that then too makes my point.

Idiocy ascendant. The legacy of

dis-respect, theft and stealth about

the back population is long and

legendary. All of a sudden pretending

a sort of 'respect' for it reeks of

hipster-yuppie bullshit.

-

Chinese people eating rodents and

causing an epidemic worldwide. I

probably can't say that either. Jewish

tribals effecting an exceptionalism

that they alone are outside the rules 

and regulations in place for everyone

else also makes me sick. The whole

world is upside down and I don't

like none of it. OK?

-

What do you think the world needs

now to be energized? Probably a

military complication is not far

off; another distant war-theater to

act as a diversionary tactic, churcn

up some more guys, and kill a bunch

of locals who are only 'local' to

somewhere else and thereby of little

concerns to us. I think everything's 

been manipulated, BUT not by one

or another of the sides, but by the

force that's 'over' each of the sides.

Hidden manipulators. You really

think it makes a rat's-ass worth of

difference whether we continue with

the gloriously peevish ignorance of

Trump, or the ignominious aged

zombie-force petrol face of Biden, or 

the ready-to-break-out imperiousness

of Sanders? You really think any of

those other fallen-away candidates,

or the Clintonians of any ilk make

a difference? No way, Jose. This

is the real world; I'm talking the

proverbial western equivalent of

the hammer and the sickle. It's all

already part of a greater five-year

plan in some vast conspirational

takeover-slowly planbook. The

plague is but a late-game elbow

thrust to the chest now.

-

This manipulation runs the entire

gamut, and because in actuality

I do very little, the only part of

this gamut I get to see is the one

that touches on those things I

am concerned with. Not social

niceties, not business, not commerce,

not correct discourse. I detest all

of that and see it merely as a cloud

of smoke thrown up between people  -

all those 'niceties and best wishes'  - 

so they really don't need to deal

directly with each other. The

few things I deal with are less

affected by the general rot 

around me, but affected they

get nonetheless. Normal writer

procedure now would be for me 

to throw in a few examples of

what I mean. But I'm not doing

so. Bad writer! Heel! Bad!

-

Early America, the colonies, the

Puritans, certainly, never had a

written culture. It was verbal, and

by words. The public-speech, the

sermon, even the 'commencement'

address or whistle-stop tour campaign

speech, sufficed for heavy-hitting.

But they always had to be 'official'

to maintain that distance. Not real.

That in itself must have been very

limiting. Writing allows so much

more of a reflective freedom, even

over the edge, to get across emotions

and ideas that for the most part, in

day to day face contact, people would

shy away from. On one hand, I always

tended to think of the early aettlements

and arrival days as free and unfettered,

but in many respects they were worse;

probably almost strait-jacketed, unles

one took oneself way off, to a 'frontier.'

And it's pretty funny when you can

think of a 'frontier' being, maybe, 70

miles west. Cross the upper Delaware

River, for example, and you were gone.

-

But, back to the spoken against the

written word, in colonial days...

a 'spoken' body or words is a

different thing, because it sort of

assumes a common body of values

and a shared discourse, words,

and approaches. Has to be, otherwise

why would anyone back then have

assembled or listened. There wasn't

much dissension, and everyone

assumed and shared the same ideas.

Community; as rigorous and punitive

as it may have gotten. Why people

ever lived like that is beyond me,

and why they enforced it on the

locals and natives, in the most

punitive ways, is even more

beyond me. I know I'd have

been gone, and with a gun too.

The 'spoken' word is always

more topical, and pushy too, like

a sermon or some gushy moral

crap making its point.. Preaching.

Yuck. Those Puritan and Protestant

people had locked themselves into

a dead corner but good : If the

intermediaries between humankind

and God were to be done away

with, then the 'message' of God

had to be brought home to each 

person. In order to do that, the

sermonizer or the preacher then

had to assume he or she knew

what that message was meant to

be. I always figured that in itself'

to be vain and pretentious, and

really no better, behaviorally or

by doctrine, than having that

same presumption delivered by

some weird mitre-head and

robed reptilian priest, bishop,

cardinal or pope. (Whew! What

a line up!). Like a big belt on a

skinny guy  -  way too many 

holes on it. Most of those

sermon guys were bloviators

anyway, thinking they were 

wiser and more important than 

everyone, or feigning a humility

by which to get over one the

poor suckers they were talking

down. All that church and religion

taffy is just bullshit anyway. The

best of anything comes from within,

and is yours and yours alone, as

the person bearing the message 

direct. Of course there were no

books or writings  -  at that point

all these blowhards lose control.

-

Jeremy Taylor. John Donne. All

those frightful English and Puritan

sermons. It all became style after

a while  - some hot-wired preacher

guy spouting fear while eyeing

the wives in the first few rows. 

John Donne, and Lancelot

Andrews (cool name), had a

'high, metaphysical' style to

their stuff. The Puritans in the

'New' world came at it differently.

They developed a 'plain' style,

as it came to be called : a lighter
wording, a strong attempt at

persuasion; and they got all

practical instead of metaphysical.

How to live an everyday life; where

to put the forks and spoons, so

to speak. 'The Puritan sermon

was more like a lawyer's brief'

than a work of art.' So said one

Perry Miller. Sermons in the

plain style were 'in every way

the opposite of high-faluting; 

swelling words of humane

wisdom.' John cotton said that

was Jesus' way, in speaking: 'He

gave men an intimation, kind of

spoke their own in English, as

we say. He let fly poynt blanck.'

Two germane phrases by preachers

then were, "God's altar does not

need our pollishings," and "The

resurrected body is like a great

onyn. Like an onyn hung up on

a wall, the resurrected body grows

not because anything is added,

but because it spreads itself further;

so then there shall be no new body,

but the same substance enlarged

and increased." (Huh? That's not

exactly as plain and clear as they

say...and I wonder what the

dieting Pilgrim ladies thought 

of that one? The same body, 

enlarged' and increased?'

That must have gone over 

big. No pun intended....

-

A culture without writing is

just a dead hole in the ground.

We may be bad, but I don't

think we've yet reached that 

nadir; and I hope we never do.