RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,050
(Little Richard)
Have you ever wondered why no
one can actually speak the truth?
Like someone to say 'Little Richard
was a darn fool?' Instead, we get
nothing but panygyrics about the
most dumb and miserable creatures.
All that 'Speak no ill of the dead'
stuff I can understand, but nowhere
does that include 'falsely praise the
man whose foolishness went before
him.' It's been going on forever,
but by now I'm pretty tired of it
as well. Elvis died like a pig in a
poke; Hugh Hefner want sliding
down; JFK, with his perforated
head (more on that foul phrasing
in a moment); every other Axis
of Evil charlatan (that phrase
there didn't exist until recently),
too. You can each here review
your own local cases; we've all
got them. The list in endless, and
each little sect, whether its music
or literature or science or racing,
has their own handful of these
sacred cows. They all wait in the
Zimmerman lobby for the same
fate to befall. I remember, funny
enough, the same feeling when
James Brown died. And then I
learned how he had been a quite
generous person, secretly giving
money away and, backing behind
the scene, many things in Detroit,
or whatever town he was from.
Unheralded. Goes to show.
-
What the good man does is shielded
by appearances. I guess that could
be a message from this : It doesn't
always work as well for politics,
as in the case of JFK, for instance,
all that did was usher in a magnified
version of his own tendencies :
Jungle-rot, death, and destruction
too. By that the only thing that
was -'re-defined' was America
itself. It became just another start
for the manipulation of the masses
to be pointed in the direction that
the new nation-state chose. I can
never, to this day, (and this is
rather odd) look at a '64 Ford,
or a '63 Chevy, or any other of
the normal, everyday cars of the
common life from that period,
and not think of the pathetic
Kennedy era. There was that
one moment, for my generation
anyway - perhaps previous
ones had had it with FDR,
in the same fashion - when
that 'certain' design element
that went into cars somehow
bespoke the general thinking
of the society from when it was
generated. (Car designs usually
run a 2 or 3 years cycle ahead
of themselves). This all ran itself
out by the '66, '67 model years,
when things changed again. If
you look at a '66 Ford today, it's
hideous. In the same way, maybe,
that Little Richard too is hideous,
when now viewed back.
-
I don't know what I'm talking
about. Right? That's the usual
tripwire canard that gets given.
But the essence if this writing is
not so much the context, as the
thought and the use - such as
'tripwire canard.' You're not going
to find that anywhere else, Uncle
Jethro, and I can guarantee you
of that. They just don't do that
outside the walls of my pen.
(That's a cool pun. Using 'pen'
of course).
-
Back in the early 1960's, how else
was Society to be altered except
by first being made (the new stuff)
to look ridiculous? To be presented
at once and en masse, it had to be
slam-dunked onto the mass of the
populace, and presented as happening,
wiser, smarter, more chic. Hipper, etc.,
that anything before it. That was the
only way for it to be entered and
presented. It was, essentially, an
inauthentic cultural shift to make
Society into a vast, advertising
machine of manipulation. All hail
the conquering heroes : 'We are all
customers now.'
-
They tried, and oh how they tried.
Even eventful New York City felt
the rub. Truman Capote's flaming
Masked Ball. A pure stupidity on
altar of reverence for the wealthy
and the powerful. 'The Ruiners,'
as a group. Mayor Lindsay some
form of originator for the carry-over
of the Silk Stocking District (an
old name for the wealthy upper
east side) which suddenly
demanded and then got some
localized representation for itself
localized representation for itself
in public politics. Fun City! And
fires ablaze. Riots. Blackouts.
and irony amid garbage strikes
and a snowfall-plowing failure
leaving clogged and impassable
outlying streets for more than
a week. A no-solace shut-down
that the wealth and the riches
couldn't solve. Carmine DeSapio?
Oh yeah; and hello Michael Quill.'
-
Life took on the attributes of a
tired rap, no longer a so-fun
adventure. I had fallen in love
with NYC, but for no real reason.
My attachment with it had little
to do with the present day (those
first 1967-8 days) and was pretty
much based on dreams. I'd never
settled into a routine'd life there,
had no real resources, no solid
abode, and oftentimes was just
one step ahead of the trouble
that I was living. Whatever
I saw or engaged with was not
really of those 'present' days.
Most of my time was spent in
comparing what I'd see with
what had been in place before.
There were a couple of bars
where I knew there was
one-way glass in place. I'd
been clued in by various others
on the ways and whys of all
that - mostly it was either
some weird mob-connection
or because someone 'famous'
actually owned the place and
wanted, if and when there, to
be left alone yet know what was
entering or leaving. Yeah, well
maybe so. Then there were other
places, like the 'Subway Bar'
over by Bloomingdales, like 69th
street and whatever it all was,
which was a shit-heap of nothing
but a place too where lots of times
the Yankee baseball guys would
converge after a game, maybe or
on an off day. Billy Martin, back
then a crafty, bantam manager way
past his playing days, was always
brawling away in there. It was a
messy place, and not worth much
but because of that one trait and
scene, with the Yankee guys and
the manager scene, it was always
worth a look. Plus the babes
crawled the place. I could never
figure why, really, because the
home-team Yankee guys were
on a tight leash or were already
married New Yorkers, because
of it being the City's team. Along
with the Mets, I guess, but who
cared about them? I figured any
babe worth her business salt
would be trawling the visiting,
out-ot-town, other team, at
wherever they drank and at
whatever hotel they stayed.
They'd be the rootless guys
needing it. Always a funny
scene, sports.
-
Most of my friendships and
connections anyway were
west-side and downtown. Or
lower east-side. Except for
gallery forays, there wasn't
much use for me uptown -
lacking money and contacts.
The west side guys were at
least real, and at work. It was
an area, in the west-teens, of
taxi-repair shops, tire changers,
engine guys, machine shops and
the like, as well as whatever
remnant of the horse and the
work carriages trades were left.
It lingered. When I go back
there now it's all almost
disgustingly cleaned up and
changed. That's acceptable and
understandable too, with real
estate having taken over, all
those old people now died off,
and the entire gamut of
what-once-was-lived having
been erased. It's all what's
now called 'Service Industry'
stuff: Techno-trades, computers,
cafes, eateries and art, and
all of those things now, as
well, have been melded into
one sort of 'stylized' ethos of
living - worrying about how
one looks, the socks and shoes
worn, the companions, mates
and hook-ups, caring for others,
the appeal of the mass, and all
that socialized 'it takes a village'
stuff; quickly also becoming
now as passe as Clark Gable.
The whole world is again
flipping around like a swordfish
just dragged onto the deck. No
one knows how that flipping
around is going to end up -
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