13,237. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,092

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,092

(me?)

I never knew if I was disorder,

or order. Meaning more towards

one than the other? Actually, I've

always been, and felt, closer to

disorder; in fact, it was my whole

life. I've never made plans of

much any sort, and any I ever

tried to make went far awry.

I'd have rather jumped at

things, by any impulse I felt, 

and squared it all up later on

if any accounting arose that

had to be done  -  something

to explain my actions, or 

defend my moves. Mostly 

how people end up in trouble

or jail, and it never makes for

easy courtroom testimony or

alibis. 'Well, your honor, I

don't know, I just went ahead

did it.' Nature too is that sort

of maelstrom, always reeling

and raving about.

-

Pretty much par for the course,

the rest of the world around me

has unwittingly taken its own,

ignorant course, leaving no

regard of my opinion of it nor

it of me  - which is just fine. I

can guarantee you, ten dollars 

to a penny that  -  if asked  -  

people would answer 'The

constellation Astra-Zeneca?'

when asked where the solar

system had originated. That's

how dumb it all is. 

-

Sickeningly dumb? Banal and

gross? Ignorance greater than

Sunday professional sports?

Beer? Leasing automobiles?

Plastic siding houses, after

years of aluminum siding the

same? Toxic applications to

lawns, so that the grass can 

grow rich and thick with

fertilizer so as to grow with

gusto and then be trimmed

and mowed nevertheless to 

wih a half-inch of the very

ground it was just encouraged

to grow out of? And then the

big-balled man of the house

sues the companies making

this stuff, claiming it all 

harmed him? No one says a

thing, they just smile and

throw another steak on the

'barbie' while staring lustily

at their 15 year old niece's

budding breasts at poolside,

they having misconstrued

barbie for Barbie. The doll.

-

How disenfranchised has true

desire become? I think it's

as widespread as dope: Mass

culture has always been a

wreck. Once I first landed

in NYC, my sudden exposures,

at the low-end of my personal

scale, involved just that. I

was suddenly scrounging

around for any sort of those

unique, 'pocket-change' jobs

with fluid hours and limited

responsibilities by which to

carry aloft my (very-leaden) 

balloon of self. They all led

me into the black holes of

'mass-culture' jobs, whether

it was cheapo food-service,

work at a recod store, 

any of those Rappaport family

stores that ran lower 2nd Ave;

or, as it turned out, the hamburger

grub and ice-cream store which

bordered on the north side of the

Fillmore East, just then starting

out. Moby Grape, actually, was

the first guys I saw; not their

show, just them. 8:05 was

their song, then. Just guys; it

was cool. I didn't know anything

about any Skip Spence stuff or

any of that  -  or even the Fillmore

itself, whatever it became. It was

a complete mass-cult of nothing

much to me. Clumps of stpned

people, chugging out of rock

shows to stumble next door nd

get some ice cream, or a hamburger

or any junk to satiate their probably

raging and irksome pot hunger.

It was a gas. (That's humor!).

-

This writer guy by the name of

Ortega y Gasset, he once wrote,

in reference to this 'mass cult' 

stuff, some kind of interesting 

words. Way back then, and they're

still good. ('Revolt Of the Masses'

1930): 'The world is a civilized

one, its inhabitant is not: he does

not see the civilization of the world

around him, but he uses it as if it

were a natural force. The new man

wants his motor-car, and enjoys it,

but he believes that it is the spontaneous

fruit of an Edenic tree. In the depths

of his soul he is unaware of the

artificial, almost incredible, character

of civilization, and does not extend

his enthusiasm for the instruments

to the principles which make them

possible.

-

So now I still cannot tell if the so

called 'civilized' one is that one 

which demands the order and the 

compulsiveness to put things right 

and straight, but never does (after

all, let's face it, the entireties of the 

twentieth and now the twenty-first

centuries to date have been dedicated 

to the proposition that the fist, gloved

or not, caked with war-paint or just

well-concealed, can be set right by

arms, force, control, power, and

coercion), or the 'other' one  -  mine  -

which rather proclaims the mad-dash

to non-uniformity and an anarchy

ramble-fest of the creative and the

wild impulse. Which brings forth

progress? Growth? Satisfaction?

Me?