RUDIMENTS, pt. 117
Making Cars
Back on 11th street I knew guys who
would sneak into apartments, their own,
mostly, crouching down low, under the
peephole sights, or climbing around to
the rear, fire escapes or window sills,
in order to sneak in - anything so as
not to be seen by someone to whom
they owed money or had taken something
or messed with a girlfriend (or wife).
There was a lot of undercurrent-madness
around that area. It was as if, in a curious
period of adjustment, the world was just
opening up to things like sex and drugs,
to a lack of rigid rules, to the very start
of society's own little breakdown. Since
then, of course, every cookie that could
have crumbled has done so, and we live
in a sure and a precise 'other' world. In
the time of which I am speaking here,
beginning with July/Aug, 1967, as far
as I was concerned it was year zero all
over again for me. There comes, into
each person's life, a certain moment when,
for whatever reason the lights suddenly
blink off and stay that way for a bit -
you've lost power; things stop. It's a
time for just a bit of reassessment as the
remainder of life looms - then of course
it all comes back on and that moment
is completely forgotten. That's when a
lot of guys get married, or join the army,
or decide to search out that doctorate
or attempt to make 'partner' at Solomon
Brothers (an old-line, defunct NY securities
firm, once a huge powerhouse). I'd call
it a moment of redefinition.
-
Up until that point, for me, life was a
series of regularities, on the surface
anyway. I knew how things were,
and sort of accepted all that routine
crud in the same way anyone accepted
going through grade school - nothing
much you can do about it, just get
through it. A shrug and a dimple, and
'look at Sally grow!' You dream, or you
take pleasure where you can. I interrupted
all that by going to the seminary, where
- all of a sudden - there were no girls
and that entire side of things no longer
needed to be dealt with - or so they
thought. I think it just compressed
everything and made it even worse.
Holy prep-school Jesus, nothing to do
but power on. Every one of my shirts
and each pair of socks had my name
tags sewn onto them, (craziest task in
the world, I thought, but then I had an
aunt, a seamstress, who, once I received
my letter telling me how to prepare my
goods and belongings for Sept. 1963,
was elated to be able to do this. She
got like 200 fabric name tags made,
from somewhere, and set about that
Summer actually sewing them onto
the inside collars and tops of socks
and shirts and jackets and the rest. It
was so crazy, and the reason for it all,
they said, was 'laundry service' - so
we'd get out right clothes back. I could
never have cared about that). So, as I
said, no girls, but my clothing was all
marked. Had I been at some New Orleans
brothel as an eighteen year old sailor I
could have been no more secure about
getting my own clothes back. As it was,
from what I heard, a few of the guys often
used their name-tagged socks, under the
covers at night, to wank off into. Keeping
things 'dry,' so to speak. In years after
that, I'd hear, say, the Kinks' song, 'Pictures
of Lily,' and understand completely - let
alone The Who's 'Marianne, with the Shaky
Hand.' That's the sort of crazy messed-up
place this was. Since that time, I've heard
even worse stories about the joint, believe
me, in ways I'd have never imagined
were going on - naive, little me.
-
My leap-frogging was necessary, I
guess. In my own rough and tumble
way, I careened from one thing to
another, and in a quite accelerated
fashion too. If you do any of this
quick enough, there's no spot or time
for self-reflection, mostly. That too,
for the ones who miss their own boat,
is when things go wrong : criminals
are born at about 11 years old. Right
about this time. Hoodlums and delinquents,
as they used to be called (and politicians
also, I suppose), they start sprouting up
with their curse-words and mannerisms.
You can tell where these guys are headed
in an instant. And it keeps going - all
through life you can still keep seeing
people in their 50's, 60's, and 70's being
tried and hauled off to jails and prisons
because their habitual renegade factors
finally did them in : theft, extortion,
violence, etc. As for myself, the wringer
of whatever machine was throwing me
around just kept flinging, but I got off.
-
I used to walk around and, while working
in my studio as well, think about Art and
the society at large that it engendered. I've
made mention of that other guy in there
who painted nothing but Vietnam-era
military people. Most of the art I saw and
was involved with, unlike that, was harsh
and striking, cerebral and abstract, inviting
a whole-new formal and language and way
of seeing. That's how I'd walk the streets,
with all this this in my mind: it was totally
apparent to me the world I saw. It used to
be, in say the year 1200, that most people
had nothing (it's not called the 'Dark Ages'
for no reason). Then a slight, ever-so, light
dawned and we entered the Medieval era.
People still had nothing but they got a
glimmer that something else existed -
somewhere, outside. There were actually
people, here and there, who talked and
wrote of this other world. It was at this
time, and shortly after, that, in royal circles
and slowly disseminating outward, people
began seeing Art. Thy had nothing else -
certainly even a mirror, even seeing a
reflected world, was a stunner, so they
used paintings to learn from; how to
act, what to do, how to stand and
comport. How others lived and did
things. They'd see these royals and
important people in their regal get-ups
and poses, and all that - even as little
as it was seen - became for them the
internet-newspaper dissemination
equivalent of their dark days. Then
of course, the church stepped in, and
the most famous of those painters and
artists became those who portrayed the
correct religious tales in the correct
religious ways, and society was formed
and by that it prospered and became
nation-states and borders and all that
which we have today. One way or
another. That lasted a long time, and
then it all fell away. The 67 yeas of the
1900's that right then stretched behind
me were calling out - they were all
lost. The artists and the movements
and the men and women I was involved
with were suddenly the new vanguard
of the language and truth-tellers at large
and I as one of them. By the manner of
just being there - even without real
knowledge, being in such a vanguard
is pretty earth-shaking. It was funny to
me that the people involved in developing
the atomic bomb and all that power,
destructive or not, were in a project
dubbed 'The Manhattan Project.' Boy,
did I know the feeling. Everyday, for
me, for a while, was like a bomb went
off. I was fighting, as well Hitler's
equivalent of a two fronted war; head
spinning, eyes aglow. At 509 e11th, I
had an apartment in my name that had
been turned over to a resistance center, a
headquarters for those in transit to Canada
and for others actively protesting the war.
And I mean actively. That was all very
maddening, like juggling pistols or
firebrands. People crossing, they came
and they went in a buzz of acetylene and
smoke. 16 people at a time, crashed out
on (my) floor, in a small apartment I
could no longer even fit in let alone be
identified in. And, three blocks over and
a little west, my own lair, my pace, my
alcove, in the welcoming basement of
the Studio School. My time was spoken
for, and my time was spent.
