12,854. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,073

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,073

(so sick and tired of everything)

A bit of a haggard dichotomy,

this country has become; a

bedraggled pandemic of

stupidity, actually, and in

ways I'd have never been 

given preparation for. All

those long years of being told

of our 'Superiority' and the

general sense of righteousness,

over and over, are now gone.

The sick bathos of the reality

of it all is now front and

center. 1967 men would have

no understanding of this fall;

their descent, as swift as any
of NASA's ever were. All

those old guys with their heads

down, working, or sulking over a

beer, or just brooding anywhere

they were, they've all now  -

besides being dead  -  achieved

a startling sort of afterlife here,

as all we've got from what they

left behind, is afire and crumbling.

My friend, Jeff Gordon, himself

dead now probably at least 15

years, or more, was probably

the last person with whom I

had any dealings that predated

any of this ethereal and computer

sort of world. On that basis, we

together were quite different 

already in the face of that world;

an apple remained an apple, and it

all stayed that way. By him I sort of
of mark the parting of one form
of living from another. When we 

spoke with each other, art-to-art

or whatever the subject matter, it

was plain and simple, usually

quite traditional, and old too.

Based on the legacies of an

older world. Names and 

persons, titles, authors and

all that. Eventually he'd moved

from w87th street out to Hancock

NY, by Binghamton, where his new
artist wife (name now forgotten,

and I'd never met her anyway)

had a studio in an old, converted

barn. Jeff had become diabetic,

then lost a leg to the disease, and

then one day called me up, at

Barnes & Noble, and we talked

the old days, together again. But

separately. That was modern

enough for us, that telephone

thing. Then I learned he was 

dead. It was a funny feeling,

having all that flush out of me,

as if an entire era of time was

now over. That was probably

maybe 2005. The ending of

that 'older' sensation never did

happen for me, and I still dwell

in that and constantly bring up

what's escaped.

-

No one ever wins. No one ever 

loses either. Everything's by

degrees, until the life runs out 

of each of us. I was always

facing problems, of the sort

never thought of when I got 

started with whatever the

issue was. That's painful; but

that's how things develop too.

A big bummer. I always tried

staying ahead of that curve, like a

surfer, before the wave breaks;

maybe to get out of the way. If

not - crack!  -  the surfboard

can get you, right in the head. 

The funnel that life ends 

up being just throws you 

out the thin end anyway, and

the wide end was your life, 

filling that funnel up with a

million of the moments you 

lived. It looks great enough,

all filled and everything, 

but at the end, really, only

a small, little bit comes 

dripping out. I've always 

been in mortal fear of just 

about everything  -  and then

it happens. It just happens, and 

that's that. Fear mixes with pain, 

and I go standing off afar just 

wanting to die. Like right now, 

my own dog is slowly fading. 

I know it, I can see it and only 

by talking about it, here, can I 

lessen the pain of what I'm

seeing. That old dog's gonna' die;

and she's been a good cracker to

me. Best thing in my world. But 

when I got started with all that, 

with her, I'd forgotten, I guess in

my enthusiasm, how dogs die. 

Earlier than you'd ever expect. It 

runs out, like now, and it's the

saddest thing in the God-almighty 

world. And it's where I'm at right now.

Why oh why hadn't I remembered?

-

I'm not used to hurt. I just plug along.

I don't feel much; to tell you the

truth, the current events of these

last few weeks, I couldn't have cared

less: Virus, deaths, sickness, controls,

mandates, masks, reviews, all those

things  -  people screaming in the

streets now, wrecking things, cops

shooting people or just otherwise

killing them, and the mindless dumb

ass people fighting it all right back  -

I'm totally unaffected and, for all 

I care they can all kill each other to

death, back and forth, both sides,

and be counted as Corona victims 

too. Maybe they'd like that big

inflated, combined, figure more.

It would certainly give the usual

shitheads something to talk about.

-

I can always find something to go

back to and recall; and pull something

from it. Family matters, work history,

things from books, oddball places

seen. There's one, for sure. People

spend ten thousand dollars, or used to,

to cruise or fly to some outer or inner

Mongopolavia for the beaches or

the food or the ruins or the music.

They come dragging their asses back

always complaining about something:

The wait-service, the stewards, the food,

the shows, the trek, the rude people,

how they didn't understand a thing, etc.

They have two bagfuls of trinkets, a

bunch of stupid phone photos (photos

on their phone, not photos of phones),

and ten minutes after they return they're

right back into their old grunt and

process. I can, by contrast, take 20

dollars and find, within 50 miles

of right here, any number of the 

most interesting and mystifying

places, past events, histories,

remnants and investigatory gold

mines, and stay fairly happy over

it all. If I don't so much like that

idea, it (used to be) was possible to

jump on a train (in the train, not on

it) and get to NYC in about 6 stops,

and walk away for an entire day and

find 50 things to hold my attention.

For the time being, and they're a real

gripe, that's all on hold, mainly

because of the horse-manure weavers

who demand all that distancing and

face-masks, and open-streets crap.

How to change a world in ten easy

lessons.

-

I don't understand a lot of things

anymore, and that's good. Because

it's not my intent to stay here and

try to figure it out. My ante-rooms

are already filled with plenty to

keep me busy before entering the

big room. Which of course reminds

me of 'The Enormous Room,' by

John Dos Passos  - a writer now

so out of date and neglected that

the shame of his being ignored 

and unread in these days is quite

indefensible. I guess people just

don't do things like reading the

past any loner. Virtual, ephemeral

waste now fills so many toilets.

I'm the one now grown so sick

of everything.

12,853. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,072

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,072

(the curved needles of fate)

Among the many things that

worried me all my life, besides

money and staying at least solvent,

has been clarity. I've always tried

to remain very clear in what I was

doing, saying writing; what my

intents were. Clarity, for the creative

person, or the creative act, is very

difficult to achieve, and to then

maintain. When I'd see those

guys, working along the west side,

at their tasks, whatever they were

and menial or not as they may

have been, they always seemed 

to be clear on one thing : the

precision of the one act that

they were doing. It is only

when cross-purposes and mixed

intentions get involved that one

loses that focus. A person begins

to fritter away time, lose the

intent. Some fashion guy who

opens a shoe-store  -  high-end

and of the fashion crowd   -  he

'produces' nothing, has his head

in 15 directions, thinking of style,

trend, the store look and the

store fixtures, the attitudes 

and poise of his employees, 

and all the rest  -  having little,

at that point, to do with shoes.

Perhaps he merely picked as his

subject, shoes, because they

were easily saleable and stylish

with the breaking trends. It's a

lost-in-space deal before it even 

gets rolling. A writer, for instance,

can't be that way  -  the focus-beam

must remain  on, lit, and must hone

in on something, precisely, and

not all over the place. It's a nice

thing to get done, but it's not

easy.

-

Let me use an example. Ernest

Hemingway  -  to be frank, not an

author I'm over the top with, but

a highly interesting character 

nonetheless. Picture him, faced

with the problem of getting across

the idea of men out hunting birds.

Look at this wonderful evocation

of scene he came up with : "In

shooting quail you must not get

between them, or when they flush

they will come pouring at you,

some rising steep, some skimming

by your ears, whirring into a size

you have never seen them in the

air as they pass." That may be a

one-position scene, in fact a single

sentence, but it punches home 

with all the wallop of a champ. 

If everyone wrote like that, we'd 

simply be overwhelmed.  And he 

was never known as a 'writer's' 

writer, the kind who gets heavy 

and florid. It's simply 'accurate' 

writing, but done with polish.

It was an ideal too; something

to be reached for.

-

My confusion always stemmed

from home. I remember lots of

things, but I don't recall any 

moments of 'learning' in the 

sense of picking up information 

as knowledge. My father, for 

some reason, from his Navy

days had a stack, from an old

subscription I guess he'd kept,

of a glossy, military sort of 

monthly called 'Modern Aeronautics.' 

They were intriguing and fascinating.

Articles, specs, diagrams, photos 

and stories of any of a hundred 

different versions of military craft  

-  nothing in color, just a white, 

glossy, paper, a bit more thick than

usual, and black, and some blue, 

ink. Captions and things usually 

set off in blue. There were the

collected, monthly, recollections

guys who'd flown  'this'  or 'that; 

accounts of wartime aerial dogfights, 

bombing runs, all retold. At first I was

all confused. I'd never known my

father as having had any flight or

airplane interests, except maybe

when he'd begin relating tales of

his South Pacific fleet days being

under kamikaze assaults. Those

Jap planes lunging in low and

furious, and something called

'Zero' bombers, as I recall. He

was a 'Gunnery Captian,' having

something to do with the big deck

guns and their maintenance and

use. I forget the calibers and all

that; they had swivel-bases, and

circled around trying to pick off

the kami's incoming, before they

successfully suicided into the

ship(s). Maybe that was the 

lingering residue that kept the

plane subscription coming. At

first, I didn't even know what

'aeronautics' meant to be saying.

It seemed Greek or something,

in origin, to me.

-

Surprisingly, in my father's very

sparse telling of these tales, there

came across to me a 'clarity' that

surprised me. He never meant it

that way, hadn't even a clue, but

his stories were vivid and succinct,

and he seem still infatuated by it

all. That was a stunner to me, for

otherwise his life with, in most

other aspects, quite mundane.

-

I've told this before  -  my father

was an upholsterer, by trade, redoing,

stripping and re-packing and sewing,

new fabrics, etc, older furniture. He

hated the new, cheap stuff; furniture

mills in North Carolina selling cheap,

soft-wood junk with lousy fabrics, in

shopping center parking lots, right

out of the big trucks they'd drive up.

Not even a store or a showroom.

To him it was all an atrocity, and a

betrayal, he had a real feel for the

craft, for the old furniture, the kind

from past generations, that have 

been in families for sometimes 

100 or more years. He did a lot of

work, from home, right in the small

basement workshop area he'd rigged

up. We'd find old coins and odd things,

some from the 1800's, down in the 

cushions and paddings when he

ripped stuff apart. Not always, 

but lots of times. That was his

life's work, in any case, and it was

a weird sort of fate : he'd only gone

in that direction because, back on

that Navy ship, one of his jobs was

sewing up the dead, in burlap or

canvas, for burials at sea. The big,

curved needles he used for that

piques his interest. It turned out

they were upholstery needles.

So, after he mustered out, with

his GI Bill money he went to an

upholstery craft school in Newark

NJ. It was all that accidental, but

turned out fated too. One focus?

Could he have written it as well?

12,852. THE MUDDLED HEN AT HER OWN FUNERAL

THE MUDDLED HEN 

AT HER OWN FUNERAL

'Did she always have that bump, 

or is that a final tick? She sure looks

pretty though, as good as the last

day I saw her.' The procession

took off down the Landing Lane,

and that noisy, crowded little

bridge. That was the plan, as

it went, not much. Now just an

urn, looking more like a box,

and some waters on the surface

of the lousy canal.

12,851. NOTHING

NOTHING

'I ain't about nothing,' the man with the

flared nostrils was saying while flailing

about. He seemed to be about fury to me.

Chinaman in a glass house? I forget what

they say  -  about something out of control.

Madman O'Leary, taking out 25 souls on St.

Crispin's Day. I think I read that somewhere

once too. We have too many stories to digest.

And you? How's your day? Have you read

your installment of Nothing today?

12,850. THE GREAT BIOHAZARD

THE GREAT BIOHAZARD

Here comes Jiminy Cricket, dancing

with a tophat and cane saying something

about Mylanta or a least is sounded the

same. He was talking about Atlantis.,

that old island in the sea. It disappeared

too, a long time ago. Fire from the sky,

some lickety-split attraction of infinities.

Another great biohazard just dragged it

away. Maybe it's beneath the Aegean,

the say. That sea there holds many

secrets  -  thee are strange and ancient

temples, and blue pools, beneath the

water. Electrified and pure.

How can that be?

-

(The great bio-hazard perplexes me).

12,849. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,071

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,071
(hidden glories ? why)
A number of things I 

want to cover. Sometimes 

I forget them, and have to 

go back. To begin with, 

from early on I've been 

all screwed up with words; 

they've always sort of inhibited 

me, kept me in check, all 

those meanings and variations. 

I never did get too far off-center 

from any of that. The different 

tongues of different people.

Sometimes I'd go over to 

Williamsburg, Brooklyn just 

to hear the strange and

ancient inflections of the 

Jewish people there. That 

sort of religion is very layered; 

there are all levels of Jewishness 

going on, and they each have 

their own proclivities, and they're 

all clawing at the same old 

mythology that comes out 

of that strangely distant and 

alien Hebraic tongue. Weirder 

yet, it all sounded somehow 

unearthly to me, as if this massive 

wave of people from some other 

'place' certainly, had been

dropped here as aliens. And  I'm

not meaning the Middle East or

Kiev and Russia or Eastern Europe 

either. I'm meaning outer space; 

the deep environs of some old

and timeless and matriculated 

culture of another blood entire. 

There was no way I was fitting in, 

and I knew that. Just walking there 

had me suspect  -  I'd pass tables,

a few times more organized than 

other times, at which there'd be 

stern Israeli types, anguishedly 

angry, seeking funds, support, 

money for trees, and any other

sort of support they could get. 
Militants, spitting words out
in that common tongue they
just heaved around, brusquely.
The Christian embrace of the
'reverence' afforded by acting
and speaking softly, whispering;
of that there was none, or little.

There was a big campaign for 

tree-plantings too, and all I could 

ever think of was how barren 

and sandy it must be? Or, must it 

be? I remember, in the seminary, 

the land there was like that, but 

with lots of grassy places too,

and with small rises in the 

topography. In fact, back there 

when I'd walk around, or when

Leo Benjamin and I were out 

walking  on those great, odd 

jaunts we'd take, it all seemed

very Biblical; New Testament 

topography for sure. It was easy 

to picture a bunch of seedy,

cast-offs, itinerant disciples, and 

their lead guy, just waltzing 

and talking their way across the

landscape until some town or 

village was reached and a small 

scene suddenly arose, for preaching 

or further talk. Appearances were 

always miraculously pre-announced, 

and people would already then be 

gathered, with their sick and lame 

too. And with pointed maps for 

where the newest dead were.

How weird was that? All my 

imaginings. 

-

But, anyway, back to Brooklyn.

Everything was a storefront, which

was also strange : Some old homes, 

even houses, that had somehow 

outlasted time and which had 

been given Yeshiva or Temple

uses. It was all strange, and cheap

too, cheesy. I noticed these people

gave little over to the churchly sort

of 'decoration' that Christians often

did  -  these places were as unkempt

and plain as the Hebrew clothing

I'd see hundreds still wearing. The

long, black coats, and the tufted 

hats that denoted various ranks 

within the religion, or the usual,

plain old Jewish fedora, tophat 

things, whatever they may have 

been called. The tallis, the vest,

the robe, everything most often

already soiled or creased or 

dirtied. None of that mattered;

this was all God stuff. Of course,

for them it was G-d stuff. Why one

couldn't even utilize the proper

name, that baffled me; all that 

Yahweh stuff and the rest. It all

seemed like the one same word

to me; Jesus looked enough like

Yahweh, over eons of language

years, that I could even believe

that happening  -  again, all the

layers of Messiah tales, stories

untold of the Meschach to come,

all the differing faction, those

saying He'd already come, those

saying He was here now, but

hidden from us, keeping the

world together, doing magical

Hebraic things all past recognition

and exposure. The secret mantelpieces

of a G-d of unspeakable atrocities and

bizarre promises, rejections, changes

of mind alterations, second tries,

enhancements and finally, to my

mind, abandonments. Until?

Until He, She, It, or They return

again, which always brought me 

right back to my initial point  -  

these people really were aliens. 

They distinguished in a million 

ways,  differences between meat, 

pork, clean, kosher, bled correctly, 

or not. They haggled over sweaters 

and shoes, prices, torn weaves 

and variable shekels and dollars. 

Who knew and who cared? Women 

in wigs? The plainest-looking

women in the world? But said to

be sexually voracious? The married 

women had to cover their real hair 

with wigs to not be seen? By others? 

Hair? Head hair? What gives? The 

little sitdown eateries, to be then

carefully considered and marked 

as 'dairy' or 'non-dairy.' Each had 

terrible coffee, no matter, but in 

half of them you couldn't even 

beat the wrap by using milk or 

cream! They'd throw you some 

artificial crap instead, a steely 

powder, to color of one's coffee. 

How real or authentic a Creation 

was any of this if the real world 

couldn't even be faced? They 

seemed to worry over every 

little iota of the strangest things, 

each a blemish, and yet ignore

completely other things. Their

supposed other-worldly concerns

were superseded, constantly, by

their concerns over money. Each

day yellow school-buses, with

adults aboard, thirty, forty at a 

time, and with Hebrew lettering

on the sides of each bus, would

be seen crossing the bridge, back

and forth, to the diamond and

the jewelry district around 47th

Street, where their only concerns

turned suddenly very real and

material  -  jewels, gems, diamonds,

and all the glitz that 'their' Heaven

held. A heaven of profit and gain,

one penny and nickel at a time.

So strange, but plant a tree in the

holy land nonetheless.

-

Secret words. An ancient language.

Tribal clannishness. I once went

to Emerson, NJ, in order to find

the grave of the (Jewish) writer

Delmore Schwartz  -  (who died

in midtown, miserable, mad, and

abandoned, and was only buried,

later, by his uncle, after the body

laid unclaimed)  -  and, asking

for his name - location - burial

site, amidst thousands there, not

one of the ancient Jews in the

directory office recognized the

name, the reputation, the writer,

but their first questions were of

'Which tribe was he?' They meant

'Cohens,' Levi's,' etc. I guess 12

in total; which each had their own

sections. I had no clue, but we

were able to locate him by the

name anyway. This was just one

of my quandaries. 

-

I always wondered about how 

people would say, for instance,

that the 'vowels' were AEIOU,

and sometimes Y. English was

quirky. What did they mean,

sometimes 'Y'? All I ever figured

was, for words like myopic, or

synthetic, or synergy, or mystic,
or symbolic, or psychotic or cyclic.

that the 'Y' in those words acted

really as an 'I'. But, like the Jewish

wig thing, who cared? Then I just

figured, maybe they meant to

say, 'And sometimes Why?'

Strange word, that 'why.' Is

that a vowel at the end, or not?