9686. TAKE MY HANGING BASKET, pt. 15

TAKE MY HANGING BASKET

- my Jazz Loft, pt. 15, 1967 -

Another time, at 300 Central Park West, I

got mixed up  -  nothing really to do with

the jazz stuff, nor delivering anything  -

with what passed for the combined ethos

of 1967 breakaway family politics; which

was really weird to me. Kids and parents

were all having trouble, I suppose. Central

Park West has a stone wall the entire length,

original stuff, from Olmstead and Vaux's

original plans and all, and with that wall

come benches. It's all still there  -  people

walk along, or promenade, it's a really

expensive street, more massive and gleaming

pre-war apartments and condos. Expensive

people, rock stars, theater and entertainment

people, the whole gamut now. I was sitting there

once, just idling away an afternoon, and

some girl comes over to me. She was maybe

15 or 16, to my 18, I'd guess, and she was all

starry eyed about me, filed with  wonderment

of certain shades I couldn't quite fathom.

It was an odd moment  -  quite human and 

all above board. To be frank, it's the sort

of stuff that still occasionally happens to 

me, though, of course, no longer in the

guise of youth. To put it succinctly  -  she

sat down, enamored, and said she'd been

watching me, lived across the street (in

that very expensive building), a few floors

up etc. From the little front windows there

she could see the street below. Her father,

still upstairs, didn't know she'd slipped out,

she had had a huge family argument, they

thought she was in her room, she hated them 

now and all they represented, wanted 

freedom and just to get out, run off, 

breakaway. When she saw me, it 

represented, in the seeing, all of this 

to her, escape, I guess. She just had to 
come down and tell me that, talk with me, 

etc. She stayed a few minutes, talked a 

little, and she said she had to get back 

before her father realized anything and 

she'd just wanted to be sure I knew 

what she meant. Then walking a few 

steps off, she stopped, and said 'don't 

go yet, I'll be right back.' Then she left.

I waited, deciding it was part of our bargain

and that I didn't wish to be just another

crumb in her life who broke deals and

dishonored pacts. I was a bit stunned, and

still wondering what had just happened. 

Maybe 15 minutes went by, and she showed 

up again, with a shoe-box sized parcel which

she handed to me : gave me the biggest smile 

in the world, said 'Here! for you, while 

you're out,' and she went away.

-

Knowing she'd maybe still be watching me, 

and too self conscious about everything, I 

got up and walked down the hill into the 

park, to another section entirely (it's a

huge park). Sitting down again, I looked in

and realized she must have raided the kitchen

and refrigerator or whatever  -  there was assorted 

food in the box to keep me steady for five days,

with or without refrigeration. Cold cuts, bread

(to eat first, while cold and fresh), crackers,

a cup of peanut butter, two apples, cherries,

triangles of cheese. It was like a food goldmine

to me. I type this now, and it's probably near 

to 50 years to the day and I could still almost

cry over that moment. I wish I had gotten 

information, learned more. I hope she's still

alive somewhere, in peace and happiness, and

in fact I hope she's living the promised life

that all her parents' money and position had

in store for her. I wish I knew her now. I

really do. It was an exceptional moment all

around  -  without however me having a

chance to tell her, at the same time, what a 

useless particle I was  -  certainly not the 

caliber for mentoring her or acting as an

example of the free and the unfettered she'd

transferred upon me in her vitality and vision.

Man, sometime life is just all about Love.

-

That's the ''romantic' aspect of living  -  the

starry eyed and the faraway. We weave the

fantasy we wish to live, and maybe, if we're

lucky, for a moment, a day, a year, whatever,

we get to live it. The jazz guys, there was no

romance there at all. They had hard-knocks

and rubble. Maybe the incoming flux of

hippie-culture was the romance and the new

fantasy-level of things to be, but these guys 

would never recognize that. Their times and

their music and ways were just dark, purple and

blue tones, brown moods of music, drifting and

toiling over and back upon itself. Sometimes 

there's nothing sadder than the sound of a 

horn, walking blindly, dipping in and out of 
its own solo. Looking,  maybe, for something, 

and not always finding it. Or, if they do find

it, it's the wrong damn thing.

-

I was easy, and I wound up liking a lot of

things. If I didn't, and if I was the fussy and the

particular type, I'd not have been doing all this.

I'd have been trudging instead to one of those

big-ass universities, learning all the nothings 

needed to claim it added up to 'something.'

This was better than all that could have ever 

been, and I was leagues ahead. I did a lot of

thinking being around these guys, and one thing

I always hated, I mean to death, was the music

of Charlie Parker. The stories about him were

told over and over; he was a God of sorts already

to these guys, maybe ten years after his death. I

never knew why, and just couldn't stand hearing 

his stuff. He was like a speed-freak sentimentalist, 

to me. All that music, 'Cherokee,' and the others,

it all amounted to old, schlocky sentimental-tune

stuff, I figured, done up in his crazy man, 

choppy-speed style that really just made no sense.

He seemed to mess up every tune he touched.

That was 'Jazz' at one of its final dead-ends. Yet,

lots of guys followed that, and it all led just 

to further dead-ends. Showy. Flourishy. Dark.

Charley Parker was an addict, and that wound 

up ruining everything. Heart attack, liver,

chirrosis, everything. By the end of his life, he was

wrecked. Charlie Parker died on Fifth Avenue, in the

east 70's, in the apartment of someone name 

Pannonica de Koenigswarter, a Baroness of some

sort, who'd taken him in and had acted as his patron.

995 Fifth Avenue, they call it now; back then it

was the Stanhope Hotel, where she kept a suite.

He died, in front of the TV, mid-laughter, at some

shtick on the Dorsey Brothers TV show he'd been

watching. Boom. Just like that, keeled over. 
March 12, 1955. A real driving shame. This 
was the kind of stuff that stayed in my brain.

9685. TOO MANY THINGS

TOO MANY THINGS

Too many things are driving me

crazy, and I have nowhere to go.

Like the suck-noise of a neighboring,

fitful pool-filter, the roar of jets from

Newark, the constant pain of highways,

and the flattening gulch of weed whackers

and mowers galore. I cannot take much more.

I'l take the silver silence of Winter, and all its

piles of cold, over this crap any day, for sure.

9684. RECOMPENSE

RECOMPENSE

Give it all back, in one fisted hand.

Like a balloon or a deadweight.

-

I want to sit here, so disheveled.

Just let me stay an hour more.

-

If I don't begin feeling better, yes,

then you can call them. 

-

But you know they'll only 

make thing worse.

9683. LUTHER IN THE COURTYARD

LUTHER IN THE COURTYARD
(maybe paul huthen)

It must have been 1532. Mainz or somewhere.

I was with Martin Luther in the courtyard of

the Abysse D'Sumiel  -  that's what it sounded 

like  :  heavy cloth with embroidered pillows

and the way they did things then. Drawing out

long-angled red knots on nicely carved tables

and eating strips of some sort of dried meat.

-

I had no cares, 'was just passing through.' I

put it that way to Luther, who replied he'd 

never heard that before. Sounded like Life 

to him. ('You're not trying to buy me off, 

are you?') - I said that back to him.

9682. TAKE MY HANGING BASKET, pt. 14

TAKE MY HANGING BASKET

- the Jazz Loft, pt. 14, 1967 -

One time I went way uptown, into the

deep east 60's. That was 'way' uptown

for me. One of the guys had sent me

there, as usual, with an envelope, to

bring back some stuff. I think that was

called being a mule, but I don't know;

I've heard it, but always on larger-scale,

international carries. I think, anyway. I

never cared. For me it was a way to 'see

the world' (my world) and make a few 

bucks too. I kind of knew what was going

on, but I convinced myself I didn't,

and didn't care anyway. When I got

to this place, I immediately realized

it was like no place I'd ever been before.

Absolutely palatial  -  a massive,

crenelated, townhouse thing, from

about the 1880's. Gilded era stuff.

Gigantic front doorways, bronze or

whatever that metal is, brass or just

iron  -  so massive that if one of them

fell on you you'd be dead. The hinges

alone could hold a car. The doorway

and the front lobby had attendants,

and a desk  -  where you had to check

in, be announced and all that, before

being let up. I'd use whatever name

I was given for that day, I guess the

name they'd called ahead with. Fred

Trench, Marvin White, whatever; it

didn't matter, but even the fictions had

to jive. I got upstairs, past all these

portraits and scenes and polished

stairway and doorway things When

I got where I was going, it was to this

guy, probably about 35, maybe. A

vicious, rich punk. I could just tell.

This guy was living in a sort of closed

glory, and I bet he answered to no one.

At that time, I really thought that, now, as

I look back, I figure he was probably as

big or bigger a schlub than anyone, and

probably felt himself to be enslaved as

well, or at least ensnared. And for sure

that he was -  I sensed he knew nothing

about anything at all, just dispensing

whatever crap he was dispensing. 60's

crap was all assaultive : you never knew

what you were getting and every 2 weeks

some university drug-lab or basement

crunch-up would proclaim that they'd

developed a new hallucinogen, a higher

high, a longer long. All that. This guy's

job was the peddle. His tight-white pants

girlfriend was no better, but at least she

looked like something. In addition, she

appeared actively on the make, which was

cool and a sparkle, in my then estimation.

This guy himself, he reminded me of some

TV Batman thing, Bruce Wayne, I think

the TV character's name was  -  some 

fuss-budget cake-walker living off some

trust-fund millions and commanding the

high city. That was a 1965 thing, maybe 

'66, a sort of NYC high-camp pop art 

show, all POW! and WHAM! and a

sort of sham cultural irony too. (I don't

even know if it was a NY show; probably

California). This guy sat there like that,

behind a huge old desk probably worth

six-hundred grand itself, pulling in cash

for the illicit supply network stuff he

commanded. Totally weird, and somehow

he'd connected with these music guys. I

was there, hopefully for the minute. He

started gyrating and talking, fast, and

with numbers and things I didn't understand.

The she came back with a silver tray, from

which he helped himself. Offered to me, 

I declined, just mumbling 'Can't.' I 

figured the jerk would get the drift

maybe that I was 'working' and that

would suffice. If he even knew what'

working was.' Later on I found out that

he was a walking joke, in spite of himself 

and success. He was also dead in about 

two years. I heard. Someone there once 

told me that this guy had been so dumb

that he 'probably thought a musical score

was drugs you got at a recording session.'

I thought that was pretty funny.

9681. BIBLIO-SCENTED

BIBLIO-SCENTED

I got what I was looking 

for on the library steps, 

when the southern man

went, 'well, well, well.'

-

'Three's a crowd, I

answered back.'

-

But then again, there's nothing to

be seen. This broadening web

contains itself, and I am

happy with all things.

-

He just smiled and said, once

more, maybe to make four :

'Well.'

9680. ONLY GREAT TIME

ONLY GREAT TIME

Something about, say, lemon and life, or

pineapple and preparation; that's what I'm

looking for. No, it doesn't exist, which is

all the more fun : riverboat captain, holder

of the dynastic palms. (I swear there's an

echo in this folder). Live and learn.

-

Three guys get out of the truck, the oldest

guy, white bearded and ancient, I take to be

the father. Maybe that's just grizzled, not

ancient. Not a word is spoken, They nod, 

I wave and move aside. They're pulling a

small boat, which they begin to unload.

-

Trailer on wheels, backed down into the

launching ramp, two seconds work, and

they're done. I'm watching, in my rear-view

mirror as I sit and wait. Marveling, all the

time, at all this gracious wonderment of life.

9679. I FORGOT YOU, BLASTED

I FORGOT YOU, BLASTED.

Nearing Katterskill Falls, I was thinking

to jump. Even though I hadn't brought a

suitcase  -  but that's one of the things

jumpers don't do, right? Leaving a note

on the mantle at home, they don't then go

and pack. Crazy. When I was a kid, my

mother was always putting my sister in

a jumper. Never got that one straight.

When John Berryman, the writer, jumped

off the Washington Avenue Bridge,

between Minneapolis and St. Paul, 

he waved at the city all the way.

down.

9678. TAKE MY HANGING BASKET, pt. 13

TAKE MY HANGING BASKET

- the Jazz Loft, pt. 13, 1967 -

One thing I guess you could say was

that I was never lonely. At every turn,

there was something. I think it was

fairly safe to say that I was experiencing

a concentrated form of foreign travel,

without going anywhere. Looked at

from my perspective, this was major

stuff : my little cubby-hole of place,

town, and, just before that, Blackwood,

NJ nestled into that combine of a

cloistered seminary school had made

all of  my outreach and expansion a

mental expansion only. One day it

was all I could do to corner-walk to a

local Avenel store, and a week later

I was immersed in the most bizarre

form of international-style immersion you

you could imagine. Avenel to wherever,

and quite quickly. To many others,

people I knew, the scenery of foreign

travel became mere SE Asia and a gun.

 I was much more happy on these

international streets. I quickly realized

that if you get the internal dialogue right,

you don't have to go anywhere; the whole

world will come to you. Languages, locations,

foods, habits and manners. Each little

new segment of time brought me

something. The jazz guys, and all their

what I considered essential support and

the glimpse they gave me of what I'd

missed and never new existed, startled

me. My father, for instance, had always

had this thing about strength and right

being manifested by muscle and brawn.

I had never had any interest in that at all

and it seemed pretty stupid to me : go to

the circus and take a look at any old

bodybuilder type  -  and aged waste of

flabby time, and no one wanted them

anymore. There was certainly more to

all that then what I'd been led to, and

these jazz guys showed me. There was

a steely strength in their determination,

and that strength was stronger than the

other kind.

-

Anyway, now and soon enough then, that

was all  a memory and was forgotten. I

found that people who just saw race were

cutting themselves way short. Race was

so immaterial, and on the wide-world

level, everyone pretty much intermingled

in a quite cosmopolitan fashion. I soon

decided that this was New York, and

Senegal to Saigon to Switzerland to

Saint Louis, the world was one big

puddle and I was wading in it because

it was right there around me. Parochialism

was soon to be out the window, and there

was a really grand life-harmony that, if

you learned to tap into it, it could be

immediately helpful. That harmonic

convergence is what people meant,

and still mean, with all their gibberish

about a person 'creating' their own reality.

Of course that's the case. If you learn to

do it right, it's a real easy way of going.

Most people don't  -  me included  -  and

there's a lot of sorrowful 'misses' walking

around. You just have to learn; a person

needs to learn to leave out sometimes as

much as he or she leaves in. Like cold

weather against hot weather, it's all just

part of life's grander mix. And it talks

to you, invites you in, for good, for

positive. It's like religion tries to do;

it's the 'Jesus' voice beckoning. You

have to let it in, not say 'No' to it,

or stop saying no anyway, and the

world is yours. Religion gets it all

mixed up  -  because of their own

hierarchical ways of thinking and doing,

using whimsical words like 'forgiven,'

'saved,' and 'Salvation,' instead. They

have it all mixed up, misusing that

'last shall be first and first shall be last'

 thing to their own evil ends. Of course,

what they preach is that everyone wants

to be first. Period. That's why they

have their Heaven. What is it anyway

but a big, endless 'first.' No retribution.

But it's the same thing. These black

jazz guys were like going to mass, or

church, everyday, and coming from

the environment I'd previously been

in, I knew all about that.

-

Ok, so all that was good and well

taken care of, but what I had to

safeguard against was the crack up,

or just going crazy. It was a fine line

to be walking  -  I was in terror of the

unknown most every step of the way.

That's a trait I still have; it's never left

me. I'm scared of every situation and

every possibility. Between my time on

8th street, and 11th, and then the jazz

loft stuff, I had the whole mix right

out before me and knew what surprise

was going to pop out of the bag I

was holding.  I'd go back to the loft,

under cover, usually, of a November

or early Winter spectacular cover,

just to be unseen. I had learned a

little something else too  -  about 1966

rock n' roll had really hit its stride, and

an entire range of people, from Dylan's

Blonde on Blonde to west coast stuff 

and more British stuff too, all of that

got jumbled up and simply became  -  

even though of course the bloviators 

made it out to be more than that, as 

they wrote about it all and were 

programmatic about boosting and 

pushing along a new level of crass

bullshit culture, Godless too - it

became (as I was saying) more 

about the performance and the 

presence of the little dweeby 'star'  

-  and the big propaganda lie 

machine took over. It had to, 

because there wasn't really any

music' there, going on at all. No

on ever called them out on it, and

that was OK for their purposes. But

these jazz-guys, they had none of that.

Their idea of 'performance' was more

in the middle finger range. Audience 

be damned. Everything in the key of F.
That's what 'cool' was really about.

9677. AND THEN MANAGEMENT TIPS THE SCALES

AND THEN MANAGEMENT 

TIPS THE SCALES

You know how they do that : bottom-line

profit-balance, scroll to the bottom, best

return. 'If there's profit in fungus or profit

in germs, good, we'll call it a new topping.'

They generate these people at home, at night,

under filthy covers of squirt. Thirty years later,

the squid-worms are running the corporate show.

Packing the yearly meetings with fans and keeping

stockholder riff-raff out. 'We don't need that kind

here. Just bottom line procedures please and thank

you ma'am. Have one of these, it's our latest project.

Spam. Pink matter. Squirrel paste. Dungy-doo patties.'

9676. WITTGENSTEIN'S SISTER

WITTGENSTEIN'S SISTER

They're good for five minutes, these messages

in invisible ink. Once you expose them to the

purple light, they fade slowly away. So if you've

got something to say, or a copy to make, do it

now and do it quickly. The rest is useless paper.

-

When Ludwig quit everything, and between 

his two philosophies, one version and then

they other, he built her a house. By hand. It

took years. Orderly, precise, and boring as

hell, with every predictable turn and right

angle assumed for and readied. You simply

knew everything before you knew : nothing

within was any fun. Dour stupid dapper dude.

-

He had a one-armed suicidal crazy brother too.

A pianist, believe that. Writing music for a

one-armed piano player. That's a lot of crazy

burden to carry. The perfect balance is sometimes

a mathematical bore : like take a piece of toast,

but butter it half on one side, and then half  -  a

different half, of course  -  on the other side. Now,

is that a two, or a four, you're dealing with?

-

Better shut up, and eat your toast.

9675. TAKE MY HANGING BASKET, pt 12

TAKE MY HANGING BASKET

- the Jazz Loft, pt. 12, 1967 -

The 'jazz' loft was not much like 

the 'art' loft - for one thing the 

jazz loft was always dark and 

crowded and usually did stink of 

alcohol pot or sweat and it was 

often airless or stale while by 

contrast an art loft tried to thrive 

on light and spaciousness and if 

it held any odor at all it was the 

odor seemingly of grand oily and

enticing tubs of paint - fresh and 

splattered dried and caked. People 

in an art loft had a complete and 

different view of things, and they 

went about things based on completion 

or work or achievement and values 

based on a tradition of things like color,

perspective, density, and content - and
I'd been to both types lots of times and   

even making it more odd was the fact 

that many times (as in the case of, say,

Larry Rivers) the artist was also the

jazz man with much less of that 
happening the other way around
but, whatever. The overlap is what

made for the interesting groups 

of intermingling people : late night 

jam sessions, dense and thick with 

smoke and booze, sex and fury, and 
the jazz loft was used by choice more
than the art oft for these sorts of
group and music encounter. Groups
of men with their horns and equipment
held long extended and wild jam sessions,

people coming and going. A car or taxi

would bring someone, or just a lot of

these people walked, now far I never 

much knew, nor where they'd been or 

where they were going, they'd shuffle 

in, as hot or hip and on fire as they'd

choose (a lot of it was pure styling, to 
the point of self-conscious put-on, I'd

thought then, and still do), no organized

sitting in any way, haphazard, and rotating 

session men in and out of the group - 
which eventually wound up playing for
hours and hours with shifting alliances and

personnel - and as hard to explain as it was,

it worked. I never exactly had it figured,

not that it mattered, whether or how much

of what they were playing these guys 
actually 'knew' about beforehand or if
they were just winging or hamming through.
Sometimes it as difficult to really tell.

See, the thing I noticed about jazz, or that 

kind of jazz anyway, (by the 70's there'd 

be other colorations, mellow-jazz, cool-jazz, 

table-top jazz, card-jazz, and even stuff

they'd call jazz  when they shouldn't have. 

But that was later, and with a whole 

other raft of people). 

-

The thing about jazz, this jazz, coffee jazz, 
or whisky jazz, I called it, be-bop, whatever, 
it was a solo language, What good is a

'language' you may ask if it's solo? And 

that's a good question because mostly it 

takes two to talk. That was the situation 

here  -  horn, piano, even a drum run, they'd

all maybe start out separately, like talking 

to themselves, then they'd find a word they 

shared, and then there'd be this quick 

dialogue and someone else's single language 

would want in because it had heard 

something too and, sharing a word or 

phrase, then it would come along  -  

one other or three others, it didn't much 

matter, then the room would shatter 

and there'd be a weird crazy moment 

of cacophony when they'd all smash 

together, in spite of each other 

seeking the solitary, and then 

someone would get the solo, 

talk alone for a while, until, after 

soaring, it would slowly land,

into some other mess of words, and 

someone else would pull it out, and 

run with it, and whatever the 

instrument, piano or drums, there'd 

be some magical thing passed between 

them, and respect would set in, and 

everyone else would stop to listen 

to the one guy doing whatever right 

then, quiet and thoughtful, and then 

it would go again. That confluence, 

you see, was supposed to take in 

everything -   the sorrows and the 

nights, the darkness and the happiness, 

the canyons and the fills, the misses 

and the gets and all the things being 

around, to a fill  -  those endless and 

mysterious things of race and servitude, 

fierce power and anxiety, and all the 

loss and regret too. But without any 

words, and mostly not even much 

sense. You couldn't 'line out' or 

graph what was going on, or I 

couldn't. To me, though, it was 

a music of theory, one that I was 

willing to follow, as I could. 

One moment I did, the

next I didn't.

-

As I said, people arrived all in different

ways  -  some guys coming in as legends

already  -  even if only to themselves  - 

and others sort of the humble-happy troupe,

merely being happy to be present, to play

with some real players. Lots of leather

and shine, long coats and funny hats

too. The stairways filled with hangers-on 

and people wanting entry but the crowd

sometimes was too much; a mess of things 

being around and present, the skill of

the fast-runner, the spin, the dive and 

the deep canyon again broke through,

 All in one. And no one had to talk. Nods

and slaps and all that brother stuff did

it. Here and there it always seemed there 

were one or two blind men who ended 

up playing grand solos on saxophones 

or other horns, and keyboard guys - often 

enough blind too - would bide their 

intensity and time away playing fills 

on one of the often two or three pianos 

in these lofts. All in all it was a 

remarkable and often sex-charged 

scene, with women as much an integral 

part of the music as anything else,

simply by their sexuality and elastic 

morals (let's say); long dark windows,

drab and moist with dewy sweat 

and stained by streaks of the

water-condensate rolling down. 

There'd be people huddled, or 

sometimes just nuzzling, making out,

(I think it was date-night too), or talking 

excitedly together - it was just never 

known what I'd run across or into 

upon entering any of these scenes. 

It was as if some great billowing 

New York artworld nuclear blast 

had occurred and expanded light 

and energy over the entire island,

and most intensely in these music

lofts where people stayed all night 

and sometimes for days, while 

others came and went and the 

great, black, resonating voices 

would cat-call back and forth all 

night to each other - jazz-inflected 

insults and jibes which kept much 

of the tension going and creatively 

added an element of frisson to the 

proceedings. Occasionally there 

would appear someone from the 

music press or the greater jazz-world 

to stay awhile and listen or take part, 

while others clapped or roared 

or got sick silently along some 

sidewall alone somewhere. The 

passed-out dregs of all this would 

be left alone or cradled by someone 

else - all in all an intriguingly and

always interesting scene, and by far 

I'd have to say jazz lofts were 

wilder and crazier than artlofts - 

which by contrast held professors, 

scholars, and the utmost of gentility, 

all swept along by the brush and 

broom of art's more graceful arc.