RUDIMENTS, pt. 953
(even at that end of the scale)
I used to often go down by
the west side piers, just to
muse at the docks and
workers. It always kept
me fascinated, to watch.
The stevedores and haulers,
by whatever job-names it
all went by, were intense.
A boy can live in entire,
suburban, life, as I had,
insular and corralled into
rows of homes and schooling,
and never realize - because
no one will tell him - the
amazing world of grit and
brawn that was outside all
of that. The Irish piers, for
instance, and pretty much the
whole of Hell's Kitchen, was
harbor for all sorts of felons,
fighters, beaters and killers.
They did day work, as best
they could, all along these
waterfront places. The crime
was rampant, but often just
kept silent. Any version of
the Italian Mafia that you
could come up with would
have easily been equaled
by the force and antics of
these waterfront Irish and
Slav guys - later Russians
too. The idea was not to say
a word. I remember one time
there was some violent burglary
guy looming about. He had an
apartment a few blocks over,
had found a way of cascading
himself, building to building,
to do break-ins and such. You
really had to figure, in that
company, he'd eventually get
mixed up with stealing from
someone's mother's or aunt's
apartment, purely by chance,
and that would be the end of
it all. Kept silent as it was,
the invisible word was out
for getting the guy the first
moment he screwed up. He
had hit some big-time places,
and skillfully secreted lots of
stuff around. And then one day
he was beat to a bloody pulp.
Alive, but mashed meat. It
had happened, somehow, that
he'd robbed the wrong people,
or place. That was the end of
him. He didn't die, I don't
think anyway, but he was gone
like skin from a knee in a
playground. Somebody probably
drove him to Kansas and just
threw him out of a car, saying
'Don't come back.' It's like a
witness protection plan, but
without the protection.
-
Dave Van Ronk picked up
a small 'group' for himself,
after many years of solo work,
and by the early 1970's there
were a few albums out, maybe
two anyway, under the name
Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson
Dusters. It was a curious choice
of name, but for him it fit OK,
being sort of earned. The Hudson
Dusters had long ago been an
actual gang, in the early days
of NYC, along with the Dead
Rabbits, Bowery Boys, Eastman
Gang, and others, but much
later and with immigration
differences. Owney Madden,
The Gopher Gang, and, lastly,
the Westies. Actually, they
were all murderous thugs and
gangs of thieves, all now fully
romanticized, but to see Dave
Van Ronk, Greenwich Village
folksinger and informal 'Mayor'
of MacDougal Street, as it was
said, pick up the name was a bit
effete and funny - mere singers,
after all - and it required a
knowledgeable stretch to know
(of the imagination) to know
what was going on. I think now
it's called, and battled against,
as 'cultural appropriation.' That
too is stretching it, but I did
always think it was a bit out
of order for him to pin that
name onto what amounted to
a gaggle of men singing. I
never liked men singing
anyway.
-
My problems, believe it or
not, have always been fear and
anxiety. And that's never changed.
It's a path to ruination for sure,
in that instead of heightening
one's approach to things, it
deadens it - and even though
I saw an was exposed to very
many things in my time, I never
truly 'experienced' much that
I saw. The 'gift' of a writer,
if it's to be called that, is that
he or she has to stand outside
of all things in order to write
about them. Once the writer
'steps into' the story or the
picture, it becomes, instead,
almost a for of advocacy, a
la Norman Mailer or Tom Wolf
- each of them were writers of
the 1970's years who picked up
good-sized, late-career, followers
by taking up a viewpoint (and
the then-prevailing viewpoint) of
of cultural witnessing rather than
austere observing. That presence,
that advocacy, firstly, never dates
well. Fifteen years later it all reads
as ridiculous. And, secondly, it
comes across as literary vanity and
egotism as well. Once it's done it's
done; nothing else to do about it.
Like unscrambling an egg, it can't
happen; so they end up on endless
talk shows and public fripperies,
just advocating their advocacy,
proclaiming their proclamations,
and singing their own songs.
-
It can't really be helped. That's just
the way the 60's and 70's went. by
the 1980's it had all churned into
just pure junk. Even the Art crowd
ran into a lot of that - with shows
and expositions, by varied popular
artist of the new-found day and era,
taking up causes or almost comedic
stances, and then trying to reinterpret
all of that as deep art. A Brillo box
or a Campbell's Soup can, or an f-85
jet fighter, or a hairdryer with some
big flouncy sitting under it reading
life a]magazine - all that is fine as
it goes, irony, snarkiness, fun - but
these society-crowd people got behind
the wheel and started brimming it
over as America's contribution to the
highest art of the ages. I was never
sure about that one, but the cocktail
chatter crowd loved it. Even at that
end of the scale, alas I was a failure -
abject, complete, and brimming over
with my own sort of self-destroying
remorse.
-
I had a sort of friend at one of the
corner restaurants don that way (Villager),
as she worked the counter, etc. I think her
name was Theresa, but she was called
Trey. I also heard Terry, once or
twice. She was nice girl, a bit nervous,
and her brother was some sort of wild
man mixed up with the Sullivan Street
Boys, or Gang. I forget. She used to tell
me some of the things shed heard and
seen, as well as family conflicts and
neighborhood crap all because of it.
Her father never sounded much better;
she said he'd started calling her Tres
because he had a bunch of kids and
she was the third. I guess it was true.
Anway, I figured, between the docks
and Sullivan Street, a person could
get a regular college education in the
ways and means of Hell. Or was
it all just Purgatory?
-
I had a sort of friend at one of the
corner restaurants don that way (Villager),
as she worked the counter, etc. I think her
name was Theresa, but she was called
Trey. I also heard Terry, once or
twice. She was nice girl, a bit nervous,
and her brother was some sort of wild
man mixed up with the Sullivan Street
Boys, or Gang. I forget. She used to tell
me some of the things shed heard and
seen, as well as family conflicts and
neighborhood crap all because of it.
Her father never sounded much better;
she said he'd started calling her Tres
because he had a bunch of kids and
she was the third. I guess it was true.
Anway, I figured, between the docks
and Sullivan Street, a person could
get a regular college education in the
ways and means of Hell. Or was
it all just Purgatory?
