249. GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS

249. GOING THROUGH 

THE MOTIONS

How many people have

you heard of who have

who have ended up all

pretty much right where

they set out to be a long

time back? I mean, of

course, happily, and with

a satisfaction. The famous

and powerful, having

achieved goals, are still

always whining or

complaining about

their 'burdens' or the

sacrifices they've

undertaken to get there.

How 'tough' it is being

recognized, and owning

all these things and

places, and the demands

on their time, and the

constant stream of

wants and need by

others. Yeah, sure.

Why they don't complain,

as well, about all the

lawyers and accountants

needed to maintain and

keep up all their money

and trips to the bank,

is beyond me. They're

usually just full of crap.

Anyway, that's all

accidental stuff. I was

meaning to refer more

to the deliberate, the

set-out for places and

goals.

-

The funny thing is, as it

concluded, that for all my

own high-minded bravado

and quest for the gold and

the rest, I've ended up, lo

these many years later, right

back, for the finish line, at

my starting line. If that's

not, at least, a perfect

continuity, a completed

circuit, and rounded ending

to the great arc-turned-into-

circle of a poorly-run life,

I don't know what is. I walk

the soiled, lousy, streets of

the same dungheap of a

place where I began my

formative consciousness...

and then fled from screaming.

No it's over 50 years later,

and I'm walking these

streets again. Like some

jerk in a Green Day song,

walking those same empty

streets on the boulevard

of broken dreams. All that.

The same jagged routing of

teen angst that never went

away maybe, or something

to that effect. Hundred-year

old men aren't supposed to

be like that. The cars are

supposed to keep running,

not break down and have

you start walking away,

Anyway, new cars now stop

and re-start for you now at

every red-light. Who the

hell came up with that one?

-

I went to New York City at

age 17 precisely so that none

of this was ever supposed to

happen to me. I was going to

wipe the dust from this place

and be done with it like a

headache. A bad habit. Now,

in present hindsight, it doesn't

look all that bad  -  as long as

I can keep it rolling, as long

as the train station's near me,

as long as I can drive myself,

and roll. The rest of it all can

go screw. Five hundred years

ago most people were amazed

if they ever got thirty miles from

home. I can dig that  -  a local

guy today slowly passed me in

his shiny-like-new metallic

green '47 Willys Overland.

A big box on wheels. The

kind of cars most of the

relegated-to-poor people

around here drive are little

cars that regular people

would never think of

having as their 'first' cars.

It's that kind of place. This
was the guy's own hobby or
project car, but most others
have their work-trucks in the

driveways, home from

the job. The people who

leave from their homes

here, get into cars slightly

haggard, and often they

have a cigarette dangling

from their lips, with which

cigarette they accompany

themselves on their drive.

Windows up, no matter.

-

Today's up-to-date class of

modern-world people have

done away with all that.
All the ugly stuff of life, as
it once was, is gone. That's
all been cleared up. People
now just nicely do their
assigned tasks, willingly.

It's not often anymore

tolerated, the old and the 
ugly manners of the past. 
Just today, I saw two cops,

with their two cop-cars,

tending to a suspect in a

car they'd pull over. All

lights flashing, one cop

to the front, the other

standing at the rear. It

looked pretty important,

a serious stop. Then I

noticed the cop at the

rear slowly yawning.

I laughed it off then, the

whole scene. No importance

at all. In times of stress, the

body does not yawn. Not

part of the emotional or

chemical repertoire at that

point. Have you ever noticed?

Even flashing-lights cops now

just go through the motions.

-

People  -  probably at much

the same level as these local,

Avenel, folk  -  back then, in

NYC, kept everything ordered

within bounds. Few had cars,

or even thought about that.

IN the city, when you're poor,

having an automobile is most

probably the last thing on your

personal list of items to attain.

Right below the cottage on

Fire Island. It all takes money,

the getting of it, first, and the

the constant parking headaches,

insurance, gasoline, finding

places to go (there are none,

really, without getting also

involved in deep toll costs  -

unless maybe you just wish

to drive up to the Cloisters,

and stare out over Englewood

Cliffs, or whatever's across

the way there). At least a poor

man keeps the good sense to

not get carried away with

the normal bull of everyday

life. Which is why kids wrench

open hydrants on hot Summer

days and make their own frolic.

A '47 Willy's certainly wouldn't

mean much. The people in

Chinatown, where cars never 

moved much anyway, dealt

with a constant gridlock along all

those tiny, ridiculous car streets,

with parking and crowds to

boot. People there just walked

OVER cars, to get to where

they were headed. No one

ever got IN one. Truck

deliveries were done in the

dead-still of deep night, and

for the rest  -  even the foolish,

rich, Long Islanders who'd come

out in their Lincolns and Caddies,

in all their clothing and personal

finery (which didn't cut it for

anything there), were just trying

to impress others but only 

ending up embarrassing 

themselves as they struggled 

with their gigando-cars 

and all those tight spaces. 

No one really ever got

anywhere. 

-

In my own sense, I've always

been a social outcast; but it

never bothered me. I found

my own ways of solace.

When I was ten, my parents

gave me a stamp-collection

book and starter kit. I was

endlessly fascinated, and it

took me away. I gathered

any stamps I could, and 

ordered stamps too, from 

all over the world, from

those old stamp collector

companies, like Littleton 

Stamps, in New Hampshire,

it was, or Boston. There were

a few. Comic books too always

had those 'Send ten cents for

a thousand stamps from 

around the world,' or 'older

American issues.' Those were

my favorites  -  all those

commemoratives of dams 

and waterways and 

inventors and statesmen.

I loved those send-in offers.

I'd find ways, just a few years

later, to stay up as late as I

possibly could, reading.

Writing. Thinking about 

stuff. A different sort of

richness for a different

sort of poverty. 'I have

said that it is the sufferer 

from insomnia who knits

the torn edges of men's 

dreams together in the 

hour before dawn.' Loren 

Eiseley, a mostly 1960's

essayist. He sure got it right.

248. EVERYTHING FIT?

248. EVERYTHING FIT?

If my intentions were

never good, they were

never bad either. A friend

of mine's family, in some

crafty New Jersey town.

was putting up Joseph

Brodsky in his exile. In

1972 he was ejected

from the Soviet Union

forcibly, and needed

some real help relocating.

At that time W. H. Auden

lived at 77 St. Mark's

Place. He and others

facilitated some exile

lodging for Brodsky.

By 1987, he'd won  -

back when it really

meant something

-  the Nobel Prize

For Literature. You

could still see things

like that happening

back then. It was

pretty amazing. The

same sort of thing

went on, in Cavendish,

Vermont, when Alexander

Solzhenitsyn had all that

happen to him too. A

steady peak, a fiery

and subversive line

of writing was kept up.

Brodsky was the lesser

of the two, as he settled

in rather comfortably to

another sort of quasi-normal

American academic life;

teaching at Mount Holyoke

and all the rest. He even

became Poet Laureate of

the United States  -  which,

after the President, is sort

of like the silliest and

most very stupid position

ever imaginable. I kid

you not (no Billy Collins

humor here intended)

-

All sorts of things went by

me back then. I didn't even

realize. One time, up in the

Brill Building, which was

back then about 4 floors of

art galleries on 57th street,

I think it was, there was a

gallery retrospective going

on of some half-famous, old,

NY artist. A kid strolled by

wearing a football-logo coat.

On the back it just said

'Oilers.' Which was a Houston

football team. The artist guy

took it all in in stride, saying

nothing until after the guy

had left  -  whereupon his

painter-joke was to say,

'Well, at least he kept it to

Oilers.' I thought that was

really funny, and laughed

but good. In such a roomful

of stiffs, no one else laughed.

The painter, by the way, at

that time was some

middling-famous

conservative and finely

detailed constructivists  -

color, form and shape.

Maybe 50 then; I cannot

for the life of me recall

his name. All I remember

is how staid he was; not

one of those crazy NY

artworld abstractionists.

I'd been to other things

of this nature, and the booze

was usually flowing, the

artist and those around him

were well-lubricated, the

women were already

audacious, and the

art-game was but sport.

Not this on; it was more

like church, and that

jacket represented

someone who had

left their hat on.

-

What did I know anyway,

in truth, about anything

other than that which I

saw? Everything was

page one for me. I liked

it that way. I was spinning.

The flywheel was central,

and it kept me steady. As

long as I didn't lose that,

I could do most anything.

Back then, in his young-guy

heyday, it was Bob Dylan

who sang 'twenty years of

schooling and they put you

on the day shift.' Boy, that

rang true. As it turned out,

there'd be no way out of

that beleaguered crap for

me, or not for many

years anyway. I think

that was one of my first,

essential, mistakes.

I was unprepared and

I compromised. Essentially

I compromised my life

away. In school, kid-stuff,

no one ever tells you

anything real or substantial;

so I missed all those boats

I probably should have

caught, or tried to catch,

just by not being prepared

- my luggage wasn't ready,

my papers weren't

in order, my itinerary was

not set. All was disheveled.

Like Joseph, with his 'amazing

techni-colored dreamcoat,' I

was wearing the equivalent 

of a cover-garment with five

sleeves. Depending on 

whichever angle I turned,

I was still able, yet differently,

to get into the jacket. That's

not to say everything fit,

but it was easy to adjust. I

used to go around saying things.

Pithy type sermonettes, word

combinations I'd made up; like 

'Hitler was a nobody who

everybody knew.' It was my

way of coping. I used to think

I'd write a book of that sort of

content, hundreds of such little 

nuggets. What happened is that,

as one matures, it becomes

apparent that if there is no

context for things like that to be

part of, there's no reason for them

to be. My task was to live and by

living to build - CONTEXT.

I knew that early on. Before

long, all of life had become a

confusion for me. Time was

fleeing, and I was determined

I didn't want to be 'stuck' in 

place. That's what crazy kids do, 

that's why street movements

and anarchy and all those 

embroiled, angry obstructionists

are always young and untested

while they are screaming about

things. Even today, all those

Arab Springs and the rest of the

uprisings. Even 'Occupy New

York' stuff. In two years, it's over

and completely forgotten. Kids 

retain  nothing. There's no context. 

It's all vanity and bluster and 

a momentary bombast. All

my hippie cohorts and all that

crap from 1967 and 1968, except 

for altering at least a little the 

components of a shit- people-killing 

war, we did little and soon

enough everyone went on their

own ways. Perfectly to 

expectations. The guys who

only wanted to get laid, that's

all they ever got. The rich Jewish 

kids gave it up and became the

lawyers and doctors they were

always fated to be. The criminal

sorts stayed with their game, artists

to art, singers to song. And so on.

I plugged on. I dug and studied.

I went to wild places. My own

series of Chinatowns. The

rest? It all got turned upside

down and no one ended up

caring. Public relations and

all the media crap, just like 

Warhol; it heightened a sense 

 of nonexistence in those who

weren't 'known' to the masses, 

famous, or even half so. If

'strangers' didn't know you,

in that stupid context, it was

as if you didn't exist.

247. 'SEATTLED' TO DEATH

247. 'SEATTLED' TO DEATH

When you're a kid, adults

have a way of gleefully

putting you down. They

don't mean it, or they

don't know any better,

but it happens. 'Oh,

go on, you think too

much.' Stuff like that.

Apparently their idea is

that you should just

grab what comes your

way, examine nothing,

stay very normal, and go

with the flow. I quickly

understood all that, but

it never worked a darn

for me. In my day, (way

before Internet searches,

for bloody sure), that's

what books were for.

Another kingdom

within the King Dome,

so to speak. (It was

BS, meaning Before

Seattle). Seattle was

something that popped

up to me, in 1962. There

was, along about that time,

a spate of expo's and

smaller-scale World's Fair

type things that a lot of the

secondary, coming out of

nowhere, cities were trying

to latch onto  -  to establish

their name, get something

memorable engrained in

the minds of people, turn

some business, and be

remembered by. Montreal

Toronto did it too, with

Expo '67, in 1967. But

was in 1962 it was Seattle's

big dash for the ribbon.

which counted.They had

a Space Needle, and a

bunch of other schlubby

stuff which was supposed

to present them to the

world as a 60's hip,

cosmopolitan place.

Back in 1962, it all

caught my eye. The

inter-connected ideas

of supposed space-age

marvels and wonders,

all that progress and

wonderment to be, was

by it personified. I watched,

saw as much as I could.

This place called Seattle.

The entire west coast of

America was suddenly

waking up. That Space

Needle thing, it was

something I just could

never quite grasp  -  a

combination of the

Eiffel Tower and a

pencil-point stump and

a very cold, wandering

version of American

Dream. I knew it had

to be all lies and all false,

Any of that science, space

stuff and those 'modern'

and even 'futuristic' designs,

(that's what they called it all),

it always perplexed me; I

simply never understood the

direction or the point of

all that influence. A particular

level of 'cool' that was not

appealing to me at all.

But, this all expanded

my horizons, in  any case.

And a kid thus learns

about podunk and far-flung

places like Seattle, whatever

the merit or not. I was old,

inside myself. Everything

about me was somehow a

reference to the past. I

couldn't stand the present,

let along some scabby,

Space Needle future. It

was all presented, too,

in the very alienating

context of really stupid

things such as, in the

future, taking a food pill,

or a squeeze-paste blob

of something, instead of

eating. Real George Jetson

up-the-ass stuff. Gross and

stupid  - as if the land and

agriculture and human

heritage no longer mattered,

could be erased and forgotten,

and some glorious future

would be taking its place.

I wanted to die.

-

San Francisco, I could 

understand. Other places, 

not so much so. At least

San Francisco was literate,

had some cutting-edge stuff,

was spoken of and written

about in Beatnik literature,

old 1940's material. It had

Ferlinghetti, City Lights,

North Beach, the Tenderloin, 

Fisherman's Wharf. It connected

to Point Reyes, the Russian 

River, outrageous art and pomp,

writing, poetry, crazy people.

It spoke for itself. It had light.

Concurrently  -  using Seattle

as an example  -  these other

places had nothing. They 

were minuscule foghats of 

a make-believe, made-up

culture. Nothing madcap or

adventurous. They all

ended up  as some silly

Rocky-Mountain-High 

singalong type place  -  

happiness distilled into

good wishes. Man, 

I hated that.

-

New York City was 

everything these places 

were not. Rude, crude, 

tattooed, and lewd, as

it were. I learned it as I

earned it.  It had the 

backbone AND the 

edifice. These new 

places most often 

tried getting by with 

the edifice alone. Much 

like those planned 

communities, Radburn, 

and Celebration, fake 

towns wired into some 

larger grid, letting people

in, but never out. 

Strait-jacketing them, 

and squeezing. San

Francisco, and Seattle, 

both boasted of  -  and 

had a more physical 

nearness to  -  the

Asian influence : Chinese 

and the rest. Yes, their 

actual Chinatowns 

boasted of cuisine and 

people and sights and 

sounds. But the NY 

Chinatown, distant and

off as it was, existed in 

a hardier, grittier format, 

more by necessity than 

by any aspects of prettiness 

and charm. Like a 

two-by-four to the head

as opposed to a cupcake.

There was certainly 

nothing charming about 

the weather : four months 

of bone-chilling cold and 

dirty, piled-up snow and

ice that just ended up as

filters, as well, for all 

the road grime that it 

caught. Two months

of horrid, polluted, 

high-humidity hell-box 

days. Noise, cars, jams,

pile-ups, traffic, outrageous

people, disgusting habits, 

the acts of charlatans 

everywhere. There was 

never a let up. Maybe

two good weeks or

three, in April, May, 

or June, scattered

about. The rest, you 

really had to make

pleasant, or they 

weren't. That's what 

made New York what

it was  -  the existential

angst of pulling one's 

own teeth.

-

I never tired of it. I got

by. I was able to pattern

myself by where I was at

any given time  - all things

were a detective work, for 

me, of uncovering my timidity.

Deciding to 'Do.' Striking out,

not in the 'baseball' sense of

losing, or missing a shot,

but in the other sense of 

trying, of going at it. As

I look back  now, sometimes 

anyway, I realize it was all

a huge mistake. I really should

have just thrown in the towel

and moved on. Headed west,

where I was also 'wanted'  -

opportunities were there. I

just kept saying no. When I

did finally get there, in '76, I

traded one Chinatown for 

another, and realized they

weren't interchangeable :

the San Francisco world,

all of it, was too light, too

bright, to pleasant and 

predictable. The art, I 

found, had no dark spots, 

no shaded corners. All 

that 'Beats' and 'Semina' 

culture, and Jess, (a 

foundational artist of the 

early 'Frisco scene, fey

and weak, but with lots of

good stuff too mixed in),

and the rest, it didn't cut 

it as much as I thought.

Art History had already

been written, and this had

all been overplayed. There

was too much joyousness,

too much light. All those

good things. I wanted the

opposite. My dark and 

haunted subconscious was

what had always been 

calling me, and to that

I owed allegiance. It

was far, far better

represented by the

shaded and looming

power-presence of old

New York, in all its aspects,

than it was by the graceful

and clear glee of the west.

246. POVERTY AND HISTORY

246. POVERTY AND HISTORY

Back in Avenel, as a kid,

I never saw poverty, and

I never saw history 

either. Neither one of 

those factors played much 

of a part in a new form 

of suburbia into which

 I was entered. Everything 

was leveled out, blandly

 the same. There were 

rich guys, like Harry Halpern, 

who looked like a bum but 

had millions  -  developing 

apartment complexes 

everywhere around. It

was from him, through NJ, 

that I first learned about 

protecting one's 'business' 

identity and personal identity, 

(not that I ever cared about it),

separately, together. He was 

a customer as I worked at

New Jersey Appellate Printing

for a time, and he'd just

talk his business as we sat

around. About made-up 

entities and corporate names 

(Oak Tree Gardens, or 

whatever) and never one's 

own actual name. Protection 

from loss, protection from 

lawsuit and lien, etc. I'd 

never before given that 

sort of thing a thought. He 

had  -  he'd made tons of 

money, had a great old 

place on upper Main Street,

(it's all gone now, just a 

big, empty lot used for 

truck-parking), and he 

too is dead. But those 

business names of his 

live on, and he has 

some 'BestRent NJ' 

thing, all over town, 

with pick-up trucks 

and bunches of workers 

tending to his apartment 

complexes and running 

something called 'BestRent,'

like a caring house for 

those in need of apartments 

or condos. They do relocations, 

maintenance, garden and 

landscape work, repairs, 

etc. It always irked me, that

someone like Halpern  -  

tearing down woods, buying

up properties, building all

this stuff everywhere, and

essentially wrecking the 

place  -  would go on 

living, as he did, in a 

fine, brick and stone, long-

driveway, manor house.

If you tried going after

and wrecking his property

set-up and things, he'd 

probably sue you in a

minute. Yet, it was OK

if he did it, for profit

motives. It just always 

seemed to me, because

of things like that, that

the whole society was

rigged for those who 

made money off things,

and the poor suckers

beware.

-

There became, in the 

mid-sixties, a load 

of money to be made  

- garden apartments 

of that day were 

going up everywhere, 

with stupid names, 

next to highways. No 

one seemed to care 

where they lived. 

Close to a highway 

was fine ('Cloverleaf 

Gardens'). Cars, 

commute, and 

transportation were

all that mattered. I 

don't even know 

what people paid 

for things like this, 

back then; but they 

always got filled up. 

Where before housing

'projects' had been built 

more 'vertical' and 

ghettoized, such as 

the projects in which I 

was born  -  veteran's 

projects, on the edge 

of the water at the edge 

of old Bayonne  -  these 

were supposed to evoke 

better living, a park-like, 

horizontal, atmosphere. 

I had a friend, back 

then, who saw them 

as the best of all worlds  

-  graduate high-school, 

get a job, get a nice car, 

a girlfriend, get married, 

even have a kid, and 

these sorts of garden 

apartment living 

spaces would allow 

you to carry on, with 

ease, as if you were 

still in those high-school 

glory years. Easy living, 

coming and going at 

will, the upkeep and 

all the gardening and 

shoveling and all that, 

taken care of for you, 

a community pool, etc. 

He saw it as ideal and 

relaxing, for a deep, 

languid after-life. 

Sounded boring as 

all practicality to me. 

But I was an urban 

mind-set from the start.

-

Because of Vietnam, there

was even a undercurrent,

in these garden apartment

places, of situations where 

you'd have some guy who

was just drafted, did basic,

and shipped off to Vietnam.

He'd marry his girlfriend in

a hurry, leave her with

everything, in the garden 

apartment, give his car in

for best/safekeeping, get

her pregnant, and be gone.

She'd have the baby, and

they'd all stay there, 

awaiting 'Daddy's' return. 

Which didn't always 

happen. I saw it a few 

times  -  that situation,

I mean, not the dead 

soldier stuff. But that 

happened too. Fair 

enough amount of

lonely ladies around.

Boyfriend troubles 

often happened too, 

while 'Daddy' was 

away. That was a 

no-no, and police 

would say the domestic 

calls into places like 

this were often pretty

tough to deal with. It 

may have been a 

'garden,' but it

wasn't always a 

Garden of Eden,

no-ways. War can

sure make some

ugly people.

-

See, that was the Jersey,

suburban side of thing.

I don't know what they

did in Chinatown, nor

how many Chinatown 

soldiers there may have

been in Uncle Sam's Army,

but I never saw any of

that there. First off, the

poverty AND the history 

were both still in place,

almost perfectly. The 

problem was, one never

touched the other. The

rotten poor dude, living

in a family walk-up hovel,

spitting out all over the

sidewalks of Chinatown,

he never cared nor knew

nothing about the 'History'

of what he was living, or

his place and locale. That

was always a problem  -

all you'd get were outsiders,

like all those antsy debaters

and coffee-drinkers at the

Mayflower, coming in and

lording it all over the locals,

or trying to, or thinking

they could, and telling

them about their obligations

and glories as historical

people in historic places.

The sights and sounds of 

the grand old past. The

Chinese people would

just as soon throw a plate

of pork lo mein in your 

face than have to hear 

that stuff. (I remember

when a plate of that 

stuff finally did reach

 $1.25, about 1982, what

an outrage it seemed).

The people in Chinatown

were just hunkered down

for a lifetime, a lifetime

of service and servitude,

if need me  - they cared

neither for improvements,

nor their 'place' in some

scheme. It wasn't like that

there, at all. 

-

When, walking downtown,

you crossed Houston Street,

you'd begin sensing the

immanence of Chinatown.

First you'd have the portions

of Little Italy to get through.

Back then it was still pretty

strict. Now it's mostly been 

overrun by the steady growth

and encroachment of Chinatown.

There's still a 'Little Italy', to

be sure but it's tacky and

junky; almost a parody of 

itself. Chinatown itself has

now spread into much of

that area  -  Italians have

themselves moved on, 

moved up the 'better' 

places, as they achieved 

a little money  - suburban 

places, churches with lawns

and fancy Babtistry things

They're usually 'glad' to get

away. Not the Chinese. The

cheek-by-jowel aspect of the

Chinatown life draws them,

remains vibrant. The street

commerce thrives, just as it

did then. Shoe-repair stalls,

where the shoemaker, with

all those shoemaker tools 

and foot molds to work on,

will take your shoes in the 

morning and have them done

by evening for you  - new

soles, whatever. On the street,

right there, for less than half

the price. Same with watches.

They were, always busy too

and in most all weathers.

Much business was done on

the street  -  lines of open-air

shops, stalls and curtained,

covered booths. Foodstuffs,

fish, meats, roasted this or

that in the Chinese manner,

to buy and take away. In

good weather, old men,

throwing fortune sticks,

dominoes and mah-jongg,

reading I Ching forecasts.

All very different, and all

very vibrant. A poverty,

AND a history, all in one.