RUDIMENTS 179.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 187

Making Cars

Poverty led me to black coffee

because milk cost extra and had

to be refrigerated. I never liked

black coffee at all. Half the time

I never even liked coffee, especially

back then when coffee was most

apt to be dead, overdone and stale

diner stuff. Mud, commonly called,

tending to gray. In 1967 there was

no awareness of coffee at all, nor

quality nor roasting nor any of that.

Let alone coffee places just for the

drinking of. Everything was in urns,

kept hot and going stale all day long.

It was terrible stuff. Drinking it

black just made it all worse. The

only public awareness of coffee was

Savarin, Maxwell House, and this

concocted coffee-inspector guy on

TV called El Exigente. Supposedly

a happy but tough-assed mule-rider

who went through the fields inspecting

beans for quality  -  good enough for

somebody. I don't even remember

what brand. It was all a crock, an

advertising jumbo-campaign. And

they of course never mentioned the

racial and labor inequalities involved;

the exploitation, slave-labor conditions,

poor or lack of wages, and the cruelty

and dangers. I was living in pretty

much an equivalency to that, except

for the labor-slavery. Drinking the crap

in these restaurants and diners was the

same as drinking swill and calling

it lunch. Funny. I saw a cartoon just

the other day. It referenced that most

miserable of coffees, Folger's  -  some

supposedly high-elevation grown

African mountain coffee. Their theme

for a while was a song that went 'the

best part of waking up is Folger's in

your cup.' The cartoon  showed a guy,

waiting for his Folger's to brew as

he wakes up, still in his night clothes,

and the caption read 'the saddest man

in the world.' It was a reference to the

crummy coffee and his assumed horrid

expectations. I used to joke a bit with

my wife (not always a real appreciator

of my humor) as she dressed. It was a

bra joke. 'The best part of waking up

is my hand in your cup'. Oh well.

-

I admit I was kind of stuck. I'd spend

hours of days painting, in this space

the Studio School provided  -  pretty

much I could do whatever I wanted.

Select those artists I wanted, on staff,

to meet with and work with on the

days and times they came in  -  famous

guys mostly -  not Rothko or Picasso

level, but big-deal names nonetheless.

I got to know them, and about them,

and the times they'd come through;

stories and people. The cool thing

was to learn how not a one of them

was 'merely' what their fame and

reputation made them out to be.

They all had other interests too  -

amazingly, they shared. I think that

made my life right then, all the broader

and better too. Some of them also

wrote, little self-published books

and pamphlets, poetry, outlandish

stuff. Art, and not. Concept, theory,

philosophy. Warfare, anger and

angst too. These guys were major

insurrectionists in their way. David

Hare, Milton Resnick, all that

ex-patriot and Amsterdam

stuff; they each had stories and

histories. Philip Guston was

probably the strongest of them

as far as art-reputation, but

certainly not by personal character.

He was a big, bear-like happy

guy, and it was always nice to

spend time with him. He just

never seemed to have that focus

and fierce push of the other guys.

David Hare was distant and strange.

Milton Resnick was deep and severe,

but monk-like in his reserve and

intensity. Mercedes Matter was like

everyone's loving mother. There

was a lot of Jewishness going

around, but I loved it. In fact, some

time later, I was looking to 'convert' 

-  although that's not the right word

and I wasn't really 'converting' from

anything. It was more like joining.

But I never did, mostly because of

all that serious blood-line stuff.

There's a strange piece of different

genetics, I found out, in that strain,

alien stuff almost. I knew I didn't

possess that in the manner they'd

worked out -  a worldly, very

plain mix of brooding and

obsequiousness, on the one

hand making a slave race and

on the other hand making geniuses.

I don't know what I had, but

my strain was completely different

and it was to that which I answered,

not theirs, which was old, archaic

and twisted by comparison. I think

what attracted me were the 'similarities'

in at least the manner of acceptance

of things from 'beyond.' I was probably

a part of what they'd been waiting for

all their miserable and tortured years,

as weird and wild as all theirs was.

And I wasn't ready for any of that.

I'd also read that Jewish females

were crazy, self-possessed charmers,

always gushing with sexuality like

that were still in Genesis 6. That

seemed pretty true, though I'd

never find out  -  I just let

that entire thing go and remain

a mystery to me. Life had plenty

of mysteries for me, and I still

can't figure out a tenth of what

the heck is going on. Sex included.

It's all beyond me. I just figured

it was always good to be lusty.

-

A lot of this Art stuff got very

rabbinical anyway  -  secret readings

and meanings with reinterpretations

and ritual reverences and, almost,

secret words. Mystery abounded and

people had roles. There were 'parts'

reserved for this person or that person.

Mark Rothko had been a crazy zealot,

in both Art and religion, and the rest

weren't far behind. They all liked to

pretend they possessed that brash, worldly

strain of caring for nothing, but it was

all an untruth. Underneath, they were

answering to G-d alone and no other.

It was very strange, and sort of did

knock me over. There were plenty

of lessons to take from all that. New

York City, all along the lower east

side where i was, had plenty of

synagogues, in every state of use

or non-use, disrepair and damage.

Milton Resnick, among others, had 

in fact  purchased an old, abandoned

synagogue and that was his studio,

and his wife's too. He wasn't alone

in doing that. This area once teemed

with conclaves of Jews, every different

locale. Bialystok, Poland, for instance,

being one, had a synagogue of that

name (Bialystok) and to that the

immigrant Bialystokers owed their

allegiance. And gave it. All of that

permeated the area. The whole

world was turning secular. Girls

and boys were running around

with nothing or little on. Yet these

older folk were deep, deep in their

traditions and shawls and religion,

and stayed that way. it was a

delicate balancing indeed.