13,006. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,126

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,126

(campbell soup cans, on fire)

My military friend, Brian,

what a putz he was. Meltzer,

the last name, as I recall. From

Westchester somewhere, one

of those more high-falutin'

places stuffed with money.

He'd done two stretches in

Vietnam and now was home

for keeps, but I don't think he

really knew why. What was

weird were his intentions. He

wanted a new car. He wanted to

'study art.' He was most often 
with this really beautiful girl
who tailed  around with him. She
wanted to get married, she told
him, but he wasn't 'ready'

for that. I told him once to get a

move on because if he didn't

someone else for sure would.

I ended up liking her more than

I liked him  -  at least  she was

funny, and witty too. But that's

all I knew about her. When

someone says they want to

'study art'  -  that gives me the

heebies; it makes no sense at all.

Why in the world would someone

'study' art?  There's not even

anything to study. If you can

draw a line, it's a club you're

already in. No big-deal famous

artist ever came out of a 'study' 

academy. Art, with Creativity, is

one of those things you're wildly 

born with, or not, and the rest is 

crap. It's a dare most people never 

take. Like knowing five other 

languages, but they're all yours 

alone. When you're really good 

you even make up your own 

talk. All it showed me was

that  person was already failing

at it by having no gusto at all:

Has to be told everything, has

to be 'instructed' for goodness

sake, probably, on how to breath,

even though he's been doing it

since birth and it comes pretty

easy. I could see if someone says

they want to study 'Art History.'

OK then, that's a different story  -

you can teach, or catalogue, or

write about it, or even become

one of them darn 'Curators' now

like everyone's always wanting to

be. Some jerk hangs up 12 paintings

of clowns at a local burger joint

and right away there's some fry

chef claiming on the label tags that

the 'show' is 'curated' by him or her.

I've seen it twenty times : coffee

shops, cafes, all those tweaky kinds

of places; they each always now have

their wall-hangings  'curated' by

Tessie Baines or someone else, who,

when not otherwise busy hanging

pictures, are serving coffee and

scones.

-

So, anyway, Brian comes back from

two tours of Vietnam, it's about 1969,

and he's ready to go at an entire career

of playing at Michaelangelo, if some

other person would please just instruct

him on how it's done. A little strange,

I'd say. First, put down the gun, remove

the beret, and for God's sake stop biting

that cigar in your teeth; you're not Ernest

Hemingway either. Let alone Michaelangelo.

-

Boy, I could never figure where people

got their ideas from. This guy's in Vietnam,

what is it, two hitches, 18 months, I forget?

He comes back stateside and wants to be

an artist. One of the first things out of his

mouth, I well recall, was how all the girlie

mags on the flight home were so different.

I asked what he meant, really not knowing.

He managed to say that, since he left, the

nudity was now total, top and bottom. It

was a shocker for him. I said, 'Enjoy it,

artist boy, it's all anatomy now!'

-

I introduced him to a guy that I shared

my studio area with, when he was present,

which wasn't all that often; maybe 2 or 3 days

a week, he lived in Montclair, NJ, still at

home, and had some other job too, out there.

His name was Mike, and he too had some

sort of military service in his recent past,

though I wasn't all that sure where he had

been. The funny thing, I found, about

Vietnam was that some guys just got

bum-lucky and never went there! It was

crazy to me, with all the anti-war stuff

I'd gotten involved with and my fugitive

apartment people at 11th street, all hiding

out along their ways to Canada, to realize

that not everyone ended up in that miserable

spot. There were still plenty of troops and

support back-up places like Germany, and

even Korea and that 38th parallel stuff,

where guys ended up and comfortably did

their pleasant time. You never think about

that, being as all the noise and nervousness

centered on the guys getting ass-hauled to

Pleiku and Danang and the Plain of Reeds.

Hello Ho Chi Minh Trail, good-by Route

One. (You know what's also funny? 58,000

American guys died in Vietnam, pretty much

for nothing except maybe a few IHOP

franchises, and the stupid spell-check

thing here doesn't recognize 'Danang,' or

'Pleiku,' or even the 'Minh' in 'Ho Chi

Minh Trail.' I think that's pretty rotten).

-

Brian's name, now that I think of it, may

have been Metzler, not Meltzer. He used

to occasionally wear one of those military

jackets the soldiers get, some kind

of fatigue-wrap or something, with the

stenciled last name on the pocket area.

I could never read it well. A lot of

those guys too, I noticed, never get

that stuff out of their systems : wearing

old combat stuff around, as if in some

half-world of 'where-do-I want-to-be?'

They never re-acclimate that well at

first, and why should they anyway. 

-

So, I introduced these two guys one

morning, up in the studio. He had

Nancy with him, that girl I mentioned.

She and I got to talking too, as the

two guys went over things, and I did

get from her, paradoxically, the idea

that she was just doing all that 'I want

to marry you' stuff only because she

knew he'd keep saying no but she

wanted to extend support. Some

support! But I figured I could

understand that as well. I told her,

trying to be real and funny at the

same time: 'Geez! That's like one

leper saying to another, 'Can I have

your hand in marriage? Suddenly,
you've got the hand! And it's
yours then for life.'

-

The thing about Mike, the Montclair

guy, was that all he ever painted were

these rather meticulously done, and

good, in that regard, 'portraits' of

military guys. I guess it was all so

deep in his head  -  straight-back,

uniformed, Lieutenants and the

big-deal brass guys, with all those

bars and service pins, and the dress

uniforms, etc. They'd just be standing

there, mostly at the center or near

center of each one, with some

green hills or military junk around

them, as a background. Nothing

much else, but they all had steel eyes

and seemed possessed of a harsh

determination. I never worshiped

at that altar, so it never much

mattered to me, and anyway I thought

they were pretty lame, except for the

technique, which he had down pretty

pat. All in all I couldn't figure who'd 

want one of these or where'd they

be considered 'Art' or even what

gallery or anything would want

his work or hang it. The Vietnam

thing, back then, wan't anything to

goof about and the distance in time

between it and the 'present,' back

then, didn't yet allow for any sorts

of nostalgia or irony. This was tough

and weird stuff. Like a Campbell Soup

can, by Warhol, maybe, but on fire.

-

Mike was apparently working something
out still, some ghost in his army brain
that just wouldn't leave him alone. Some
people fight all their lives to negate their
father; Mike monkey-on-the-back was
apparently sill the military. Anyhow,
I never did see such steel-eyes on two
guys, even more than in one of Mike's 
paintings, as when Brian, and Mike,
were faced off in front of a few of
Mike's paintings. I couldn't tell if it
was good or bad, really; anything
might have broken out.  It was a weird
ten minutes. They smoked, and talked
a little though not much. I stayed back,
as did Nancy. Mostly what stays with
me, and what was almost tangible for 
those moments, was the idea that, you
know, how when the mind is hard at
work, responding to something, a
person can just stand in front of the
object, staring at it, but you know
they're no longer 'looking' at it.
Instead, what's going on is a movie
of sorts, internal and to only their
internal vision, of all the thoughts,
wants, anxieties and furies, or the
pleasures, maybe, that the object 
being viewed evokes. I think that's 
how it was with thee two, for about 
five minutes. The fires were burning,
the eyes were hot, and, for a spell,
nothing moved at all.