RUDIMENTS 997.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 997
(at the bongo club)
I never had much direction,
or what direction I had I gave
to myself, be it good or bad.
On looking back now (seems
that's all I do these days) I
sense that I was easily swayed
and was often quite zig-zag
in my ways. (I don't mean
zig-zag in the sense of the
Zig Zag rolling papers guy,
which papers were used for
rolling joints, and which
name I was often told by a
guy I worked for once, that
I resembled. Well, the person
of that name anyway, shown
on the packaging). Fact is,
I never smoked much pot.
Maybe three or four times.
It never interested me, whereas
this guy who said it smoked pot
like other people ate chocolate.
I was around lots of that stuff,
and more (pot, not chocolate).
First off, pot was for babies.
Beginner's stuff. The kind of
people I knew then who were
potheads were all in a sort of
stalled, infantile regression, and
their pot-smoking only dragged
them deeper into place - they
never did anything, just moped
and smiled stupidly. The same
sorts of people who'd get a tattoo
on their forehead. Just annoying.
Adventurous druggies were more
my style, even though I didn't
do that either. I used to like to
watch them fade, get zombie-like
in their torpor, and then start
dragging around for more. It
was never enough, whatever
they'd just done, and it always
had to be topped. A junky's a
freaking waste of time, always.
No matter for what purposes
they claim to be 'using' - high
art, music, comedy, whatever.
They're never truthful, not
even to your face; they'll steal
you blind; and they're generally
miserable people all caught up
in their own web. Nothing you'd
ever want to share. The best drug
guys were the dead ones; as in
'good riddance.'
-
There are some preposterous
things the world is better off
without. I could name a bunch:
drug people and Gallo wine
are suitable starters. But, let's
just let that go, for now. Long
about 1964, I think it was, there
was a guy, Clark Kerr, and I
think he was regent or something
at the University of California.
I can't remember it all now, and
I'm not looking it up, but what
kept me interested in it all was the
Free Speech Movement, fronted
by a guy named Mario Savio.
Sproul Hall was the location;
they shut down the University
for a time - students protesting,
and it was all over some foolish
item of 'free' speech. Savio
articulated it pretty well, but
I do forget the gist - you can
look all that up. Anyway, it
was all on the other side of the
country, and I was only like 14,
but I stayed with it all, whatever
years it was and however it did
all go down. Some Japanese guy,
Hayakawa or something, he took
over, restored order, ran the formal
University, and shut down the
movement. I think it had mostly
to do with two hidden issues,
more than anything - Vietnam,
and girls. That was always an
undercurrent of everything, back
then. You can take all your high
minded issues and ideals and
park them - college guys were
always only about girls, and
Vietnam was getting in the way
of all that. So, combining the two
into one issue and calling it
'Free Speech' got you the whole
bonus package, plus coverage
by Time and Newsweek! Once
any of these guys got to Vietnam,
if they did, it was over - there
was NO free speech, and the
Military supplied the females
for you. Along with cigarettes.
-
So maybe my 'direction,' like
that Harrison Ford scene in
'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' was
just to keep ahead of that huge
round, crushing, boulder of
Fate that was always running
behind me, and ready to crush
me. I was slightly mad, and I
knew that. I was trying to be
an expert in a hundred things,
even though I should have
known that never happens.
An expert is only an expert
in the one thing he or she is
an expert in. Over-reaching
is sure failure. I've always
over-reached. There was a
certain time (I admit to this)
that I haunted movies. Maybe
it was the 1970's, or the 80's;
I forget. 'The Man Who Fell
To Earth;' 'Eating Raul;'
'Chinatown;' 'Hold That Tiger;'
'The Conversation.' I could go
on - Rod Steiger, in 'The
Pawnbroker.' 'Poltergeist.'
Stupid crap, really, but I used
it all - to prove to myself,
again, that nothing really exists.
That viewing a film can prove
that for you - angles and light, the
shifting myopics of a cameraman's
operation, the over-arching ideas
of the direction upon something a
screenwriter has written, which is
probably taken from something
else someone else had written.
Layers upon layers of imaginings,
portraying images that we end up
believing? Thinking that the
characters induced are actually
coursing blood and breathing air
and reacting to circumstances.
Fixed circumstances, no less -
for once on film, they cannot
change, while life itself, even
more unreal and unwieldy,
changes constantly. Unreality
as reality? Or is it actually
Reality as unreality?
-
I never much did drugs, because
my own reality was already larger
then that, more spacious, and
more important to me too. If I
were to get tripped up with them,
I knew it would just become a
long, losing season of bad results.
I detested the people who were
doing drugs. And I saw them all,
they paid my rent, they lined my
way - through my third party
'roommate' guy, Andy, who was
peddling enough weekly junk to
fuel a small country on its way to
happiness. Happiness? Did I say
happiness when I meant unreality?
We should live. We should live
forever. No plague, No death.
Just Love and Truth and Belief.
Yes, yes, join me in the Bongo
Club. Nothing is real.