RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,228
(everywhere, but nowhere at all)
Face it. I've defied physics in
ways that defy physics. Without
much of anything really, I've
been able to live an amalgam
of lives - though if I was
forced to summate, would
amount to little at all. (You
will note that there is no such
word as 'summate' - most
people would say 'sum it
up,' or perhaps 'in summation,'
but one of my achievements
has been to realize that language
too is as plastic as the rest of
the world and can be formed
and manipulated into whichever
shape one chooses). So much
for that. I've found the world to
be rich, in lots of things. (Why
not the past tense? I wonder,
and I hope I can continue
finding that out too).
-
Pretty much I've run the gamut
in knowing different people:
train people, university people,
criminals, priests and 'angels,'
biker people, farmers, farmers'
wives, country preachers, angry
blacks, drug addicts, sex perverts,
hookers, whores, marksmen,
transsexuals, transvestites, and
even 'altered' gender types. None
of it has, in the end, mattered.
(That might be one of those
'don't bend over to pick up the
soap' shower jokes; not sure).
At one level it's all just been
a visual show of effects : what
the world appears like. What
'form' it takes. Perhaps it's
all momentary, and perhaps
it's illusory as well. Perhaps it
doesn't even exist. I remember
one time some old guy said
to me, 'I don't believe in God,
but I believe that things are
extremely complicated.'
-
I've also read that, when the
World Trade Center (Twin
Towers) went down, one of
the things that kept the site
burning for all those days was
the vast accumulation of papers;
'All of those notepads and
Xeroxes, and printed e-mails
and photographs of kids and
families, and books, and dollar
bills in wallets, and documents
in files.' That was the year
2001, and I guess there had
not yet been a true transition
to the sort of 'paperless' society
we're now encouraged to believe
has arrived, or is finally coming,
or whatever. What would burn
now? Phones and phone contracts?
I don't happen to believe any of
it, and whatever people say about
that new-present day, it's all crap.
No one knows, because no one
really experiences anything.
-
'Lovers pulled up each other's
underwear, and buttoned each
other's shirts.' I read that once
and felt it to be the most beautiful
image in the world.
-
On Sunday night, it's already
Monday morning in Japan.
-
When an animal thinks it's going
to die, it gets panicky, and starts
to act crazy. But when it knows
it's going to die, it gets very, very
calm. I wonder exactly where
that leaves us - as a race, as a
people, as a planetary population.
Let's go shopping, and waste
more shit.
-
One time, in New York City, when
I was living in the basement of the
Studio School, on Eighth Street,
which by then had mostly turned
to muck and a crass commercialism
that ranged from shoe and boot
shops, to tattoo guys, to an Orange
Julius stand - a little storefront
actually - I saw this guy walk
up to another guy, of whom he had
just been told was deaf, and, for
whatever bizarre reason, shout
right into his ear, 'FUCK YOU!!!'
and everyone he was with laughed.
It was a small cluster of kids, the
sorts of Long Island kids or from
wherever (Jersey?) who used to
come in, in '67, to visit NYC and
to slum, on places like Eighth St.,
(no one who actually lived there
ever used '8th' - it was one of
those hundreds of untold NYC
secrets that only residents knew
of. Avenues were always words,
(First Ave.; Second Ave.), but
street were always the digits,
(21st St. 79th St.). Except for
Eighth Street, for some
inexplicable reason. I always
wondered what that stuff was
about and why people were
like that, especially these false
hippie-type frolickers who'd
come in to the Village on
weekend nights to play-pretend
they were what they were not
on the street thereabouts,
falsely take in the 'sights'
and experiences, and then
always end up abusing it.
I guessed these were the
same asshole kids who were
the big deals in their local high
schools, the football and sports
guys and their loose-VJ'd
girlfriends. (When too, I now
wonder, did VJ become slang
for vagina? I'd love to someday
do a dense study of the forms
of 'epistimolgical' developments
of words and slang phrases
through time. I bet, like
puberty itself, it's a hairy
subject. (Joke?). In any case,
let me ask, would YOU go up
up to a deaf guy and scream
something foul into his ear
just to make a stupid point?
On Eighth Street, no less.
-
Other things on Eighth Street,
at that time, were The New
York Studio School, (that was
me), two bookstores (one well
known and quite exemplary,
and the other mostly ordinary
and non-descript some Chinese
guy piercing ears and selling
leather, belts, buckles, etc.,
a few nearly pretentious but
seedy British-style 'expensive'
men's clothing places, and,
lest I forget, and right next
to the Studio School, the
International Youth Hostel.
In the past eras, before this,
there had been legendary
Beatnik and era cafes and
restaurants, haunts and
mysterious locations, but
they were all gone by '67.
Wilentz's Bookstore had
moved to across the street,
the Jumble Shop was gone,
Romanie Marie's or whatever
it was called. Also gone; the
entire street was a ghost, and
the Hotel across from the
Studio School was a ghost
as well - even though, for
its day, the likes of people
such as Jimi Hendrix and
Patty Smith and many others
had passed through. I guess
what I'm meaning to say is:
'The entire world had been
turned to fluid-drivel, slow
drip, useless and watered
down ghost of its former
self. On the level, of course,
of those who wanted it that
way and accepted it as so.
Among whom, I did not
consider myself to be. I
had already decided to fight
back, somehow, even if it
meant my own invisibility.
Whatever excursion I had
been on, I came back burned
like a cinder and was never
able to truly' function' again.
I hated the world so much
that I sacrificed myself to
it, or for it - I was never
able to decide which of
those it would be; but
aren't they, really, the
same anyway?
No comments:
Post a Comment