RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,385
(peter yorn and the tid-bit kids) pt ONE
Long about 1999, or the year 2000,
that whole rollover time, I had just
about given up on everything. I was
designing (somehow) my own change.
I had become disgusted and disillusioned
with business, money, and 'world affairs'.
I was tired of drinking, having spent
probably an entire mortgage's worth of
money on 'Biker' beer. Every bar in three
states knew my ass print. I'd drunk enough
beer to fill NYHarbor. I'd had it. I was done.
-
We'd taken to spending inordinate amounts
if time in NYC, albeit without any motorcycles
or others in tow. The uptown west 150's, oddly
enough often beckoned, visiting, oddly enough,
old jazz places, like Minton's, or the ghost of
what it was anyway, in the old Cecil Hotel on
W118th street. That was all ghosts and old
memories of 1950's and 1940's jazz - the
crazy tales and stories, all. Even President
Clinton, out of office by then and moved
up to Chappaqua, where his dog, 'Buddy'
sadly got killed by a car almost immediately;
even he made his 'office location' right smack
in the middle of Harlem's 125th Street!
-
To me, everything was over; the world had lost
definitions, new roads beckoned. I wanted out,
truly - short of just being another asshole
suicide headcount. Believe me, I knew all the
tricks by then, had touched base through all
the so-called religions, and only had come out
of that with another Halloween bag full of poorly
wrapped, cheap candies. I knew my beacon light
was within me, and it talked to me. That was all
that mattered. The peacocks at the cathedral of
St. John the Divine made more eminent sense to
me than did any prancing religious figures prattling
to the crowds. Now, in 2023, they've even removed
the peacocks - which had given the place charm;
a visual aid to some sort of weird religion.
-
Remember the Bloes McGoos, in 1967? (They
used a really funny spelling at first, yes). That's
kind of what I had come out of, the Bronx
guys like that with their early-on absorptions
of proto-psychedelia that was just then
taking hold. Their big and defining song was
entitled 'We Ain't Got Nothing Yet.' Not the
later Bachman Turner Overdrive song, in the mid
70's; thatwas different song, entirely different,
called You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.' Elementary,
plodding, 'early rock' music, both, yes, pushing
along that strange envelope of change. Those
were the sorts of failed start-ups that people
used to do. Now it's all done differently, and
I have no idea where those guys from the
Bronx or, now where Randy Bachman ended
up. It was all a societal thing, and I'd missed
it and was, by the year 2000, ready for death.
In fact I should already have been a motorcycle
road-death statistic and everybody knew it
and many told me so. Over and over. I should
have, maybe been killed, instead, in any one
of those petty, endlessly stupid Biker Gang
wars that somehow I got stumbled into
representing ABATE. Probably the dumbest
Biker idea in the whole fucking world. I
shilled that feeble crap for years - that
'Bikers' could be - no, were - good people
and worthy of making their own decisions
and legislation pertaining to their rides. 'Let
Those Who Ride, Decide.' What a crock.
-
One day, I just up and quit it all. No one
understood what I had done. Of course no
one had just experienced 9-fucking years of
Biker Terror with me, except maybe my wife.
The visits, the threats. The taunts. Hells Angels.
Pagans - Equidistant runners of the dumb-shit
race of the absurd. The IRS and the Biker Task
Force were hounding me, always seeking info,
about nothing which I'd ever divulge. Local
Metuchen cops, two of them anyway, dropping
in to 719 Main Street to 'chat'. What in the
world was anything worth. ABATE itself was
dwindling, the money was gone, my salaried
days were over. Our Accountant/CPA, Ed
Zampella (RIP too), of Jersey City had washed
his hands of us - no money to pay out. It was
over. I shuttered the place, and walked hard off.
It was the equivalent of a nervous breakdown,
and I began NOT greeting people at my door,
nor speaking to anyone. Eventually it all
faded, and it was 2003.
-
In this interim, and at the very end of 1999,
I somehow got my mangled self together
enough to get hired by Barnes & Noble. I
fit that job like ice cream fits on a stick.
It was an infernal form of quiet rehab for
me. Both calming and confusing at the
same time. At first it started part-time :
8 miles to commute, often 1pm to 7pm,
or then 9. And after a while they asked
me to 'consider' full time hours (they
still had that then). I said yes. Another
routine started, and an entirely different
set of rules and work etiquette was in
place, and it got weird for me. It started
early, as I recall, 7 or 6:30 - morning
set-ups, shelving, doing displays, all
that crud. The cafe food deliveries
would arrive. The coffee would flow.
Bagels from Clark Bagel were delivered
(until that was discontinued). Then,
without them really knowing what to
'do' with me I was asked to take on
the job of 'Receiving' Manager - a
sort of 'back of the store' overview
and command of all that was 'behind
the scenes - multiple and huge daily
deliveries of books, breaking out
the freight, sorting and separating, etc.
Seasonal merchandise crap was always
being stored or sent back. I had a
staff of kids, to do my bidding. They
were my new and coolest additions!
-
It was all good the first five years or
so, and then the corporate crap started.
I realized I was again stuck, or soon to
be. 'Regional' Managers and all sorts of
creepy, clipboard types began hanging
around, watching how we moved, and
what we did. They'd hand us directives
about 'taking too many steps' to do a task,
using better efficiencies as we did things,
cutting hours, showing us prescribed ways
to handle and store things. Just another sort
of bullshit, and but same scuttlebutt nonetheless.
-
Now it wasn't cops and Bikers. It was kids
and rotten management. I hated everyone of
those zone-heads who came in to rule over us.
I lasted maybe 6 years, and went to Princeton.
(Part two next. Yes, Peter Yorn)
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