RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,187
(tracing pictures with a broken finger)
So where was I and what
was I doing? Much of my time,
as I see back to it now, was spent
oblivious to any crises and removed
from any real engagement with the
factualities of life. In most respects,
I was an 18-year old runaway. I'd
torn myself apart from any connections
which, at this time of life, hold most
people to their lives. Late-teen sex,
which is usually a ravishment for
most people, meant little to me; it
was everywhere, and it was boring.
Like the infrastructure of some
crazy city it was there, but not
often surfacing - pipes and junctions,
connections and relays, switches and
flows; whatever a 'college' connection
is called, I had completely blown it off.
That sort of learning seemed to me to
be for the usual idiots who balance
their present against the promised
hopes of a 'future' they've bought
into. Who needed 'book learning'
when all it ever amounted to were
channels and conduits of accepted
thought into which one was then
supposed to fit the accepted ideas of
learning, family, house, and society,
so as to be an accepted member
of the fold? No thanks. People were
living too fast, and dying that way
as well. Drugs, overdoses, and even
murder, had become the norm of the
day - all of 11th street reeked of
trouble, and I'd seen more vagina
and tits, in six months, than I'd ever
care to tell about. It was all so stupid.
-
In retrospect, now, I'm still bored, but
bored by the idea of memory itself.
How many of those people are now
dead, I don't know. It all reminded
me of those memorials and death
markers you'd see along the mountain
passes and roads of South and Central
America; where the entire Jesus thing
was still quite revered and entire
chapels were built at crash sites.
Markers where someone had died;
cars running off the road or over the
cliff. Now, the same thing happens
often; local highways marked with
flowers and signs, dates and photos
where a highway worked had been
killed by a truck, or some lame
dude or dudette had crashed,
leaving the roadway and barreling
thorough or into some collection
of trees. They get a marker, and
a photo and dates, and a mention.
I haven't seen a chapel or a shrine
yet, but I'm sure that's coming.
The problem, in this society, is
what's left out - the highway worker
was probably making 42 dollars an
hour, benefits built in, to drop cones
and markers for the pavers, and the
crash victims were most likely to
have been alcohol-fueled. None of it
natters anymore; the aspect of the
peasantry, with roadside reverence
for God and fate, is gone. it's all
now just Bullshit for the taking.
-
What sort of world has it all turned
out to be? Certainly a messy one.
Most messy indeed. No one can
defend what they're doing, because
a proper defense takes a certain
modicum of intelligence, and
that's left town already on last
month's final bus - along the
mountain pass we shudder to
think about. 'Dangerous Curves
Ahead.' Have you ever thought
what you're going to be doing
when the final anarchy comes?
When you are forced to accept the
words and conclusions of freaking
morons, at knifepoint? No, I daresay
you haven't - and if you have I'd
proclaim that you already be at the
hustings with the bullet and the
barrel. Safety off.
-
One time, when I was in New York
with my nefarious 'roommate' friend
Andy, he took me up to e61st street -
for one of his 'business' deals, which
mostly included the passing off of
monies for another supply of 'raw
material.' There was a fancy Jewish
guy behind an enormous desk. His
'secretary' brought us Cokes on a tray;
the hospitality was perfect, or at least
good enough for me, who'd never seen
any of this before. The guy talked like
he had a seat on the Nirvana Stock
Exchange and treasured it. Hippie kids,
over in the park and down our way,
at the lower eastside, were sprawled
everywhere and just waiting for the
crap he peddled. Andy (the roommate)
knew all this and he also knew how to
turn it his way - into money, sex, and
connections. I was just a local bum,
along for the ride, and assumed to have
been just another of his 'consumers' of
product. The dumb Jewboy behind the
desk cared little either way - he could
have been a porno-producing faux-movie
asshole, or some stock-market genius
ready for his big break. I neither knew
or cared. I just stared and wondered.
My other friend, Jeff, was in the
rock-record business, of sorts. When
he spoke it was the same way. I really
hate to keep harping on the Jewish aspect,
but everywhere I turned, within these
'industries' that's what kept turning up.
Jeff's father had had some peripheral
connection to the up-and-coming
industry of rock n' roll, and Jeff's
stories were of these same sorts of
meeting - record-industry moguls,
on the NY side, not LA, meeting with
Bob Dylan, who was devised by
description as some un-cooperative,
weird character who sat on the floor
in the rear of these meeting, against
the wall, and interacted with no one
at all except in weird and eccentric
grunts and asides. My mind reeled at
all I was seeing. Drugs again? Money?
Music? Hippies as a 'market'? What
the hell was really going on?
-
I tried resting; just turning off and
removing my presence. yes...I had to
eat and get by. No one understood my
words, and anything I said was viewed
skeptically; but I neither cared or
noticed. I was in a time-warp of
essence that I was not yet sure of;
hearing weird noises off-stage;
tracing pictures with a very
broken finger.
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