RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,246
(all things at once: pt. one)
Always having problems,
that was me. Often enough
anyway. The unforeseen is
usually what gets you. Lots
of people, in that regard,
recede or fade back. Mostly
I just went the other way: into
the maelstrom, as it were, and
head-first into the storm.
-
New York City was a weather
central for me, in 1967: get
on the bus Gus and all that.
It brought me right into the
center of everything I'd never
known about. A person can
learn a lot from sticking two
arms into fire. I used to watch
the TV images of those Buddhist
monks who would 'immolate'
(nice word for burning oneself
up) themselves as a protest of
some sort against whatever the
heck was their problem in
Vietnam. I'd think, 'Boy, they
don't mess around.' I never
was able to figure why it went
that way, except maybe in their
Buddhist conception of separation
and detachment. But that was
really extreme, except that once
you're in that 'moment,' the
rest comes easy and just plays
itself out. There's no turning
back. Out along the Bowery, it
seemed pretty much the same -
all those ancient drunks guys,
wham-doodled already out of
their skulls by alcohol, just
kept making the same step,
over and over, and if nothing
anymore mattered. I connected
that to the same emphasis as the
Buddhist one. Even though I
knew I was way-off and wrong,
the idea at least gave me something
to stay with as I viewed the new
world I'd entered.
-
When a person piles too much
upon one small pivot, it's apt
to topple. I got to thinking, years
later, that perhaps that's what I
had done. Too much of nothing,
and too quickly too. No wonder
the house fell down. I was just
a kid still, from a dumb place,
where I grew up professing little
but wanting to escape with less.
The streets of Avenel didn't harbor
much 'learning.' The people were
dull and straight to the grindstone
sorts, who went to work and
struggled, and to whom the
actual idea of being there - a
strangely swampy hell-pit cut
out of shiftless woods - was
achievement enough. There
really wasn't enough in that
place to build a real 'character'
from. It was a lot of 'drone'
stuff before there were drones.
The plodding-people kind, not
today's airborne-camera things.
Trying to think back to the
days of being a kid, I can
recall any number of old
people I'd meet, but none
of them ever said a word,
nor seemed to have any
recollections, of the place
they'd lost. There was nothing
'traditional' left, and they just
accepted it all. Maybe they'd
never even realized it as 'lost.'
It always seemed to me that
they ought to be screaming
and squealing over what was
being - and had been - taken
from them. One of the good
things (and there are plenty)
to be had from learning and
searching, reading and then
researching, on one's own
and leapfrogging past the
rigid protocols of school and
university, was that you could
see from the needed distance
what a pile of crap the rest of
it all was. Formulated attainments,
of the sort that make a 'success'
out of planners and developers,
the people who actually ruin and
destroy the world we live upon.
And call it gain.
-
That's what it was like around
there. Every new interchange
or highway or strip mall or
cluster of stores was applauded.
By the late '50's, a chrome-zoo,
or any parking lot of the bizarre
and outlandish 'family-cars,' was
seen as positive growth - replete
with screaming-backseat-kids,
traffic jams, and the aromas of
boiler-plate meats and goodies
to chew upon while waiting. Just
make sure they'd been given their
One-a-Day vitamins, Mom. The
weird thing too, about America,
was that by the mid-'50s, a broad
and essential idea of a looming
Armageddon was pushed, and it
was used as reason and means
for getting all this garbage done.
No one whimpered; they just
kept taking - The Russkies
were going to blow us all to
Smithereens; traitors and
Marxists were hiding behind
our every curtain, sabotaging
and infiltrating towns, cities,
schools, colleges, and universities.
There were two great pulls, each
tugging against the other and in
opposite directions. Behind it all
was a Government that was
lethally growing and protruding
in every direction - interstate
highways being built for purposes
of 'national defense,' but instead
becoming catacombs and byways
for more building and zoning
corridors which then absorbed
even more of the birthrighted
lands 'we' thought we had. It
was, in time, all lost - coastal
corridors of glass and steel and
highways to nothing, bringing
people down without their even
knowing. Everyone was seen as
a consumer, and nothing more.
Even Medicine and Education
went commercial. The Rutgers
college kids I'd see were just
faces entered into a trance-like
state of extended adolescence,
their ideas of adapted learning
doing nothing but chancing them
up for four more years of fun
and a thin veneer of picking their
lessons off a tray. The future was
a fun house, or so it was said.
-
I guessed that a person wasn't
supposed to get mad over things
like this - wasn't even supposed
to have an opinion about it. That
was the American way, though
it never worked for me. I ended
up with opinions about everything,
and to no real effect: Brazzaville;
U Thant; the war in the Congo;
Dag Hammarskjold; Algeria;
Vietnam. Then the World's
Fair came - Belgian Waffles,
an ice-cream/waffle concoction,
soon took the place of the Belgian
Congo. Were they from the same
place? What the heck was going
on. There were issues and wars,
and rumors of wars and famines,
flying everywhere right over my
head. no one cared, not even a
whimper. About anything at all.
What was going on? What did
any of it mean?
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