12,607. RUDIMENTS, pt. 981

RUDIMENTS, pt. 981

(goodbye old paint, pt. 2)

When I talk of stepping back

into time, I need to ask also,

'Time?' What is time? Time

is appearances,and I think

that's all. (Or at least it appears

so). Here I am telling you the

facts and furies of thousands

of horses, while telling my

story of, at most, caring for

one or two workhorses at a

time. (Does that mean at a

'TIME?')...

-

This was all slow and plodding;

these weren't racehorses, nor 

were the vendor guys in any

way sportsmen. This was a

tedious workday, a non-jovial

trek through streets and corners

to find some assigned location

from which to sell the most

base of foodstuff to those

walking past. The horses were

part and parcel of all of this.

-

How did all this go? Well, I

found some more information

that told me more about old New

York and all this horse business. 

Endlessly fascinating - 'The

dead horses were collected

from street and stable, hauled

to a Hudson River pier, and

loaded for Barren Island (in

Jamaica Bay), which location

was in use for dead-animal 

rendering. They were hauled

there on scows or an aged

schooner known as the 'horse

boat.' There the animals would

render their last service to

humankind through a process

of reduction that began as

soon as the boat docked. The

carcasses were lifted from the

deck, skinned, and gutted, and

the flesh was cut off and carted

to a boiler house. The carrion

was then placed (as reported in

the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper),

and boiled until every particle

of fat is taken from it. The heat

breaks down fat molecules,

which rise to the surface.

Skimmed off and congealed,

the horse fat was sold to 

chandlers to make soaps and 

candles. [By this means, the

horses, in death, helped to

illuminate the very shops and

homes they trotted past in life].

Bones were carved into buttons,

combs and knife handles, or

burned to make 'bone black' 

used as a pigment and as a

filter in the sugar-refining

process. Hides were salted

down and sold to tanners. 

Hooves were rendered for

glue. If there was a glut on

the island, or if demand

for products fell, carcasses

would simply be dumped

en route, fouling the shores

of the upper and lower bay

['and forcing those seeking

the delights of the water's

edge, to give up the pleasure

because of the hideous objects

that floated on the waves' (NY

Times)]. In May, 1866, actually

an inspection by the newly

formed Metropolitan Board

of Health, touring the scene, 

in response to complaints

about horrific odors wafting

out for two miles, found 

'thousands of dead animals

lying under the sun, sending

forth a highly offensive stench. '

The carcasses were 'washed

away by every high tide and,

becoming bladders, float up

and down the coast...' Yikes!

-

If history was time, then what

ever was the 'now?' I questioned

that too. Was the hammer and the

anvil I'd see at the horse-shoer's

place, was that now or then?

What sort of sullen history was

being kept under wraps? The

blacksmith shop? The wagon

wheels? When I'd go back to

Avenel or Woodbridge, there'd

always be some fool using

these old things for decoration,

a mere 'pleasance' to try and

evoke some old-times they

knew nothing of. The guy

at the ranch house, with two

wagon wheels out in front,

one on each side of his mailbox

post (as if it was rural-free-delivery

out on some paradise in the sticks).

A guy over by the high school

had 2 milk cans on his lawn.

What were these people thinking?

At that bullshit level, history

is reduced to stupid nostalgia;

'This is Great Grandma Kendrick's

weaving wheel and loom; she

made many of the family clothes

right from there!' I could see

any of that, next to candlabras

and household kerosene wall

lamps. All useless as history;

useless as nostalgia too, because

it's all been ruined. People now

are so vacant, the flames would

scare them, from the candles,

and just the thought of a lantern

lit by kerosene would have them

down in a frenzy of heat.

-

I never saw things more clearly

defined as when I'd leave one

world and enter the next, in

whichever the direction. The

one guy I knew, Gerald, an old

man filled with good intentions

but never having any way of

getting those intentions across,

and therefore often misread,

was the main character of my

little horse-career drama. He

liked eating peanuts, and it

seemed no one else did. So

they'd carp at the shells he'd

leave all around. Whenever

I could I'd sweep in his area,

just to keep some sort of peace.

If someone got on his wrong

side, over another peanuts

comment or by some general

complaint about something, it

often got under Gerald's skin

and the the whole time was 

ruined. They never sent him

out because he was, for those

sorts of reasons, not good 

with people. I used to think, 

'Well it's not the circus, he

doesn't have to please people,

just hand them their stuff.'

But, he never was out  -  so

instead lots of times we'd 

just be there, doing little 

chores  -  or I would  - while

he most generally just kept

the place in inventory order,

for sacks of feed, supplies, and

product by which to re-load 

the carts. I guess he never had

a family, any number of these

guys were loners. Every so

often there'd be a surprise;

some really cute girl coming

by because she knew someone,

or on her way somewhere. I

used to like that a lot; girls

always kept me fascinated,

even there. Girls always

seemed to like horses too;

Gerald would say 'Cause of 

their schlong. Ever see?'

That was never funny, but

I did use it a few times, later

on, in bar life when I'd have

to explain my train accident

injuries to some inquisitive

girl. I'd say I'd lost mine in

the wreck, and all they had 

to replace it with was a horse

one. Funny, maybe, but it

never worked. The joke, jerk.

I'd never met anyone before

named Gerald, either. It never

seemed like a right name to me.

Then in 1974 we got a President

name Gerald Ford. Imagine that;

except that wasn't his real name.

His actual birth name was

Leslie King, and that's not

much better, but it has a

nice ring. Endlessly

fascinating too.

Get it?

12,606. BY THE END OF NIGHT IT WAS MORNING

BY THE END OF NIGHT 

IT WAS MORNING

As simple as all that too. Gargantua

had come home, and the make-peace

statues were newly in place. I too was

going home again, and it all seemed

peaceful and wise. There wasn't

much to be said, and a morning

shift was beginning : The guy I

knew, Randy, who worked at the

zoo, was just leaving his front

walk. 'Hey, Randy,' I said. 'Hey,'

he said back. I wondered if he 

looked forward to work.

12,605. RUDIMENTS, pt. 980

RUDIMENTS, pt 980

('goodbye old paint,' part one)

Hard to believe that when

I got to NYC there were

still horses, but there were.

It was just about the era of

wind-down for all that, but

there were enough cart-guys

and old-time vendors, of

food and snacks that they

were still around. They

needed care and feeding,

wipe-downs, rest, and

quarters to stay in. There

were still some guys around

to shoe and care for their

feet too (taking a beating

on those nasty streets). I'd

get some daywork here and

there, around those parts,

west 17th and 18th mostly.

Sweeping. Shoveling, and

unhitching, from the carts.

Mostly it was stuff you

seldom heard about any

longer; the world having

passed on all that. Nobody

cared any longer about it.

The pretzel carts, chestnut

carts, they all needed attention

too. Little charcoal burners

and the like. The pretzels got

re-used for sale-display, until

they were gone. Could be 2

days, could be 4. The older

they got, just closer to the

heat they went. The idea

was that the 'strollers' who

bought them, enticed by all

the scent and scenery and

the atmospherics conjured up,

and the quaintness of the scene,

didn't really much care what

they tasted like. Offers of

mustard always went too.

Back then the whole wrap-up

was like 35 cents. I never

much cared, I just got a real

hoot out of the horses and

wagons as they came and

went along their routes. The

guys were crazy! Back then

they were still white and

American  -  lots of old and

grizzled guys, and then, later,

Scotch and Irish got around too.

Normally they had a lock on

the horse and carriage rides,

not the food ones. That was

a whole other racket  -  around

Central Park, through the paths,

pointing out the sites and buildings.

Everything had a story, and I never

heard so much made-up crap.

The people from Iowa and

Arizona, they ate all that up;

forget the pretzels. Now a lot of

that is double-decker, open buses,

with some microphoned geek

telling stories of his or her own.

They get stuck in traffic, up above

the crowd walking by, and you

can often hear a lot of the crap

that's spewed. All kinds of stories.

-

Anyhow, back in the time I'm

talking about it was quiet and it

was horses. I saw, alter, too, a

few years on, in Pennsylvania,

how a lot of that was like farmer

stuff too, and I hadn't a clue :

oats and horses, tending those

big bags of feed, watering, taking

away the horseshit. Cows were

much the same, except of cows

got filthy no one much cared.

Field cows have a tendency

to lie down in their own messes,

and often enough you'd see farm

cows coming in from pasture,

for milking, with dried up patches

of their own cow-plops on them.

By contrast, for those NYC horses,

part of the gimmick was to keep

them looking nice, shiny even,

so as to delight those same strollers

from Iowa and Arizona and Jersey

who would just buy stuff because

they thought it was all part of

the experience. In its own way

it was all a dirty racket, but I

soon found that in New York

most everything was. Even the

stocks and bonds guys, downtown,

they were 'shysters.' You're not

supposed to say stuff like that

anymore, but that's only because

we live in a dishonest age and

no one can belly up any longer

to the truth. The bad truth is I

was brought up with my mother

using, truthfully using, the word

Shyster often, and I make no

excuses for it. It mostly meant

when Hy Goldberg or Sammy

Slime would come around to

Inman Avenue trying to sell,

or misrepresent his sale of, storm

windows, installment plan savings

clubs, or book clubs, or meat and

freezer plans for each household.

We got lots of that, at first, when

the houses were new. There were

guys twice a week peddling some

crap door to door, and she most

often just called them shysters.

Satisfied me, and I apologize

for nothing.

-

Here's some cool horse stuff:

Between the end of the nineteenth

century and the end of the 1920's,

to just choose a random era, therw

were like 130,000 horses in

Manhattan alone, and tens of

thousands or in Brooklyn and

Queens. Horses hailed most of

the city traffic and fright, all

of it, probably. (Some study

had it that 8,000 horse-drawn

vehicles passed the corner of

Broadway and Pine on a typical

day (lower Manhattan, that is).

'The animals supported a vast

network of trades  -  including

blacksmith shops, wheelwrights,

and saddle makers. With the

introduction of the 'horsecar' in

the 1830's, horses had even

helped expand the footprint

of the city. Essentially a carriage

on wheels, the horsepower might

not seem like much but the minimal

friction of steel on steel enabled

a fourfold increase in a horse's

pulling power. This allowed

operators to carry a larger

payload per animal and thus

charge lower fares. With the

increased ridership, companies

expanded their systems. Because

the lines required a costly up-front

investment in track, routes were

'sticky' and not easily changed.To

real estate developers, this was a

bankable asset. Wherever the

horsecar lines went, houses

followed, driving residential

development outward from the

city center  along corridor served

by the new mode of transit.'

-

I'd never before given much thought

to any of that  -  who would, really,

having come from a slick-suburbia

wherein George Jetson and all his

conveniences certainly had a rocket

ship precedence over horse manure

and tedious animal-care. A very

curious thing about my stepping

into NYC was that, in a way, I'd

also stepped back in time. Not just

horses, but the entire scene was a

relatively very dated atmosphere.

Postcard like, sometimes, and at

other times classically bleak, like

Dickens.

-

The aromas were often thick too.

The olefactory aspect was like

being, I'd say, in an 'Ole factory.'

The urban horse, back to that,

produced an avalanche of waste

You think cars and pollution were

bad? The average horse produced

50 pounds of manure, per animal,

every day (7 tons a year). One horse!

New York's horses, in those same

years before 1925, produced 1.8

billion pounds of horseshit annually.

(the reference here is 20 battleships.

(?), in weight. As fertilizer local

farmers carted some of it off. But

it was heavy, consisting mostly

of water, and difficult to move

in quantity. As farms were forced

farther and farther out because of

the spread of the city it came to a

point when stables had real problems

giving the stuff away. it clogged

and 'littered' the streets, which

were a mess anyway. Pigs often

roamed freely, as garbage scavengers.

They brought another problem, of

stench and waste too. By the turn

of 1900, NYC faced a real problem;

plus the growing masses (of people)

needed massive amounts of unsoiled

water. Thus the Croton Reservoir and

other systems of water distribution

took on serious municipal roles.

Horse manure was a steady, and 

a constant, aspect of city life:

It poled up in yards,  empty street

lots, and and corners. Dead horses

sometimes remained where they'd

fallen, for days. Blocks were bathed

in barnyard stench, attracting rats

and biblical clouds of flies. As

mentioned, horses sicked and died,

in large numbers each year  -  most

especially in years of epidemics

and deadly contagions, like the 1872

Great Epizootic, an outbreak of

equine influenza that ground all

transportation to a halt, and

sickened and killed horses all

through the northeastern states. 

-

(Part Two follows)...

12,604. PEOPLE ARE THUSLY WANDERING

PEOPLE ARE THUSLY WANDERING

'I'm too busy to get my own groceries; I'll

just call up and have an order delivered.'

Hearing that, I wanted to scream. Such 

lazy bumpkins, having lost the point of

their lives, can't even distinguish the

moment from the non. That's what a

Hell consists of  -  truly missing the

points of being. Delivered by livery?

Redeemed by the coupon? Go watch

your life : learn what you're seeing. 

12,603. SANDERS AND BELLS

SANDERS AND BELLS

The industrial might of a dying nation

once had mills and sanders on hillsides

and slopes. Bluffs of rocky soil with

water at the base. Lynn, Mass, and

Burlington, Vermont. Those fine gals 

from Hoosick at the catering hall,

they made food enough for forty

during the mine collapse, when

no one else knew what was really

happening. And then, twelve dead

men and a weekend later, everyone

back to work.

12,602. JUST FOR A COUPLE OF MOMENTS

JUST FOR A COUPLE 

OF MOMENTS

So once I thought of Taos, I was

gone. It led me beyond belief, to

making other things of solid value.

Sands and adobe and...Art?

-

There's something uniquely sordid

about radio stations that troll for

'money' with their fund-raising

weeks; they come off like crank

whiners. Five thousand selfish

dollars for the joy of supporting

your classical station, but not a

dollar of tribute for that beggar

in the street.

12,601. RUDIMENTS, pt. 979

RUDIMENTS, pt. 979

('a raucous, waxy blob')

Reaching pinnacles is never

that easy. Nor is recalling

them afterwards. The struggle

takes your mind off things, and

just catches you up. It was like

that for me. There are a thousand

things I try to recreate, and some

come easily, others not.

-

My first visit into the Electric

Circus was not that memorable.

I can't even recall when it was;

I'd guess late Winter, 1967, or

maybe Jan/ Feb of  '68. I'd gone

in with that Andy Bonamo guy

I've written of, and it was, let's

say, a business trip. He was

vending 'pharmaceuticals.'

Certainly nothing out of the

ordinary with that; it's how

we lived. That little hovel I

was in, as I've said, was not

supported by money; rent was

paid in other ways. Andy was

the chief magician of all this.

St. Mark's Place, in its original

representation, was a ghetto

street, made up of, mostly, it

seemed, old-line Poles. By

this time 1967, the turmoil was

that it was all in upheaval. The

neighborhood, so to speak, was

changing. The old-line Polish

and Slavic immigrants, by then

in their 70's and 80's, were dying

off. Their places were being taken

by, I want to say, 'hippies' but

that's not true. I'll put it another

way, as I saw it. Their places were

being taken by Long Island.

-

That sounds ridiculous and you'll

surely say, 'Huh? What's he mean?'

What I mean is that outside real

estate interests had by then taken

over. Most of these walkups and

apartment places were by this time

owned by outside landowners, 

landlords, and real estate people

who lived off-site; Long Island.

They did little to upkeep these

places, and were more intent on

having the old people pass, and 

re-enter the new mix renting the

same junk to kids wandering in,

often at twice the rate. What was

left of the community that had

been there was slowly fading.

The Electric Circus itself had

once, just a few years back, been
a Polish Community Center,

something called The Dom. That

was all over, and now it was

lightshows, pounding music,

rock concerts, bands and weird,

drug-induced frenzies by a

new influx of very busy, yet

often lethargic, kids. And what

made it even weirder, was that

the old still lived on  -  every so

often there'd be old-world

religious festivals and processions,

crazy things like blessings of

pets, or food. These old Euro

types would stand in line, outside

the one or two churches along

the way, with their pets, or holding

their pets  -  cats in cages, birds

in cages too, and plenty of dogs,

to have them blessed inside  -  to 

be sprinkled, with some holy

waters, after some prayers. It 

went the same way with food.

They'd line up with baskets, filled

with food. Also to be blessed. I

was never able to figure it out,

and had never before seen that.

It was ethnic, and seemed naively

stupid to me; but what did I know?

Maybe it was vital.

-

All the while this went on, the

live of the street itself was taking

place on an entirely different

level  -  the two had no connection

with each other and it was just

crazy, and incongruous too. Old

Polish and Russian ladies, in their

long coats and babushkas at their

heads, sauntering along a street

filled with young kids, in better

weather, wearing rags, or nearly

nothing or tattered, suggestive

garments bespeaking a carefree,

distant atmosphere, one without

any of that heavy grief and guilt

and consciousness that had almost

locked these streets in place for the

previous 25 years. There was still

a lot of real anguish and sorrow 

there  - the war dead, the camps, 

the survivors, the old, decimated 

families, all and each living on, 

surviving, with that memory 

(surely as a 'reverse' pinnacle

to my mention at the start). 

There was death and grief and 

sadness, and these kids had 

no part of it at all. They, like

the landlords letting the places 

rot, were now outsiders, from 

somewhere else, yet there 

nonetheless.

-

It's very difficult to explain, today,

what the mid 1960's were like, or

what they presented to someone

in their late teens anyway. It was

a multi-level affair, at all times:

The remnants and the scattered

survivors of WWII were still

around, often, as here, still in

some form of shock over what

had occurred, the proverbial 'New

York' Jewish survivor took root

in that period, from the later

1940's. These old folks were still

around, usually arrayed silently

and morosely along park benches,

staring our as they wiled away

their time. They were usually

well-dressed, with their canes 

and top hats and caps. Ladies 

in dresses. lots of dark clothing 

and colors. There was just a

real sadness still haunting them,

while, it seemed, the rest of

America was rolling along on

its ribald, silly way. Disney and

suburbia, tied together somehow,

in a fantasy-land. I always thought

that these people, representing

the old world, knew what was

passing them by would also leave

them behind. That world was gone.

It was sad to see, but no mention

was made. And that was but ONE

aspect  -  other aspects of the more

'modern' day that presented themselves

was the ongoing acceleration of the

Vietnam War, churning through

males of the era, fearsomely trying

to use them up for no real purpose;

The opposition to all of that, with

its sometimes violent ways; the

societal changes underway  -  kids

and hippies, spirited and flighty

people with, it seemed, few cares.

-

No one I ever met had a care or a

concern over nay of this, if they

even were aware of it at all. All

those sit-ins and be-ins and marches

and anti-war proclamations were

just an empty energy being put to

some use. It probably could have

been anything. Cesar Chavez. The

organizing of mill workers. The

factors of incarceration and prison

reform (eventually, Attica). All

that was out there, but the focal

points and lenses had not yet 

come together to magnify them 

as causes. A lot things were just

air-head, foolish kids, groping

around for something to find

meaning in. Hippie kids, and

fishnet stockings. Sex on the

half-shell. There was no way

of translating any of that back

into a new reality; it was all

too haphazard. The resultant 

mishmash, like the noise I 

witnessed in The Electric Circus, 

was just a raucous, waxy-blob;

a light show of nothingness.

12,600. TO SLAKE MY THIRST

TO SLAKE MY THIRST

My own? I often wonder whose

is it. To slake my thirst I shall

wait here for death; listening for

arrivals as they turn into departures.

My shoulders are weak from carrying

these bags. I can no longer see a thing.

I shall rest, as I thirst.

12,599. HERE WE SLEEP

HERE WE SLEEP

Once, long ago, it was anthrax;

now it's anything else  -  lies, bad

arithmetic, pornography, cheap

exaltation, and lies again. It all

works, and no one cares.

-

You can kill anyone now, and

in any way you choose. I myself,

am sick of tattoos. They kill me.

I'm tired of the clowns who get

them, overly strenuous ones too 

(I'd always thought the idea was 

the perfection of an understated 

elegance, but that's lost now), and

then have to wear Summer clothes

in Winter so as to show them off.

Assholes, you know....everyone's

got one.

-

I'm also sick of journalism, and

Nancy Pelosi too, and Donald

Trump, and Joe Biden. And Nancy

Pelosi's daughter too, Alexandra.

I'd had personal experience with

her, and she's a monster-jerk. She

lives on W. 10th; and it's all so

strange. While I'm spouting, who

let Bernard Sanders in this temple?

-

Here we sleep? Or have I gone mental?

12,598. HALF-STEPS

HALF-STEPS

Mendicants at the corner, and

a guy named Braden coming up

the walk. The knives are out for

the elite again : Hello doesn't

quite do, but how are you?

-

By chance, I was reading a book

today, about Nature, versus the

un-natural things we live with.

It all came together by the

conclusion : WE should not be

here at all. Should have gone

extinct very long ago.

-

I see. And to that I can agree.

Chiming in bells : The fellow

waxes his car; the music he

plays is dastardly loud, and I

am forced to hear. He spits

at the ground once. He looks

around. He's a gentle killer,

by the sound.