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Misfit Pilgrimages
Self-Helpless: American Sutra #10.
Precis.
Hi. I have written a book wherein I reveal secrets (mine, those of others) and also make admonishments regarding the human race. It is called Self-Helpless: A Misfit’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
It can be purchased. And read. Virtually. Courtesy of the fine fellows over at the Outpost 19.
Last week, I shared American Sutra #9: Wherein High School’s Noble Truth Is Revealed.
This week, it’s #10. I wrote it five years ago. Alas, it still speaks to the current age. (more…)
Prologue
You may or may not be aware that I wrote a book of poems and that the fine folks at Black Lawrence Press have seen fit to put a couple of covers on it and help me hawk it to the world. It’s called In Order to Form a More Perfect Union and, if you’re so kind/inclined, you can buy it on-line here (among other places).
This is a fun thing to cross off the bucket list: “#343-B. Publish the strange little book you wrote with lots of white space in it and also in which you tell all your secrets (mostly in the white space).” Check! Or anyway: soon. (Checkmate: IT’S OUT NOW!)
So: fun, yes — but it’s also kind of weird because it turns out that you then have to take this Thing you’ve pieced together (with spit and gum and rubber bands) and figure out how other people can, I don’t know, access it or somehow maybe even inhabit it. Or something.
And that’s especially weird in this case because a lot of these poems (and a lot of these secrets) were conceived almost ten years ago, a long-gone time and place. To help other folks inhabit it, I’d first have to crawl back in there myself.
I didn’t really know how I was going to do that (or even if I wanted to: NEWSFLASH: I didn’t; they’re secrets; I crawled out of there for a reason; yes, I know, I should’ve thought of that before I made my bucket list (so-called); live and learn!).
That was until I realized I had already been doing it, just with different tools and tactics. Namely: a cheap camera + a cheap audio recorder + some not-so-cheap galavanting all across This Great Land of Ours. (more…)
30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Finish Line:
[06.30.12...THE MORNING AFTER. ETC.]
…A good night’s sleep. O sleep! (O wait…)
…The thing Guru Glen said. About signs. About how you go with your heart most of the time, “Fuck logic!” But you have to use your head sometimes, says the Guru Man. A little bit, anyway. Not everything’s a sign. (But. Um. Mister Guru? How come I don’t really believe you right now, even though the rule-following, i-dotting, t-crossing version of me really, really wants to? Actually. Maybe it’s because the rule-follower of my soul really wants to believe you and, though he’s, you know, a sweet guy and all, he’s usually a little clueless when it comes to saying Yes to the Universe. [Plus I guess it might also be because the aforementioned Guru Man saying something about signs at all is, in fact, given the context, quite clearly a sign in and of itself.])…
…Turns out Steve Earle’s right [which I already knew (a) because it's Steve Earle and (b) because I been to NYC before, but...]: the girls are really pretty. And if ‘talk’ is a euphemism for something, uh, more sensual, well, then, yeah: I got the sense most of them wouldn’t ‘talk’ to me (the middle-aged Misfit Pilgrim [so-called]) either. But a fair number of them were generally cordial. A few of them even talked to me. One in particular. To my delight and their/her great credit…
…Revelation: I don’t just want to be in the audience anymore…
…“I wanna do my thing.” — J. Brown…
…Revelation: L. Hannigan as Rockstar(ish) Avatar + Unwitting Guru: grace, poise… class… style/stylized… singular talent + authenticity + ambition (“…I was salted by your hunger…”)… keep an eye out for other people’s talent(s), fearlessly seek it/them, surround yourself with it/them… be smart… be fierce… be loyal… embrace new instruments, disciplines, even if it’s “late”… there is a path from background to foreground… Know (and honor) what you won’t say, sing, share. Etc…
…“…be the person you want to find…” (…Find the person you want to “be”? Hint: MoMA, Fourth floor, Gallery 19…)
…Which is to say: now I guess MoMA’s magic. A magic creative incubator or something. Or. No. Magic like a chrysalis…
…Revelation/reaffirmation: I want to draw…
…Revelation (I’ve been avoiding): I want to find my voice, literally: play music, learn and sing songs. The thing about audiences notwithstanding (always dangerous to take me literally, word-for-word), I don’t have to let anybody else hear me. I have to hear me…
…Revelation (I’ve been avoiding and really don’t want to acknowledge in public, but…): I want to write songs. Writing a novel? Not impossible. Writing a screenplay? Not impossible. Poem, essay, manifesto? Sure, sure, sure. But a song, even just one…even just a shitty one? That seems impossible to me. I mean. Jesus. I can’t even sing and play at the same time yet. So really the revelation is this: veer toward what seems impossible…
…The Queensboro Bridge, impossibly brazen hunk of metal that it is…
…Revelation (I’m clinging to): It doesn’t have to be good. It never has to be good. I’m still and always a poet. A poet who teaches. A poet who writes novels. A poet who takes moving pictures. A poet who talks to strangers. A poet who sings. Etc…
[REST EASY. REST ASSURED. WE'RE DONE.]
Preliminaries & Coordinates.
- What we talk about when we talk about 30 Things.
- What we talk about when we talk about The MoMA Moment.
- 30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List: Part I.
- 30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List: Part II.
- 30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List: Part III.
[FYI/411/FWIW: This is not my video. That is, however, my barbaric yawp c. 1:46 1:47.5 or so. In brash support of JohnSmithJohnSmith. Much to the chagrin of the mean old "I hope he plays some of the songs from Once" lady sitting in front of me. Amen...]
30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List Continues:
[06.29.12...THE NIGHT. ETC.]
…In fact: The dirty look the the mean old “I hope he plays some of the songs from Once” lady shot me after I whooped very loudly (acoustics!) for some dude she’d never heard of (AKA: JohnSmithJohnSmith) and certainly didn’t pay to hear sing in the Beacon Theater in New York City USA. Which is sort of why I did it. So he would know he was being heard. So he would know he was being heard here. In the Beacon Theater. NYC. USA. Also because he deserved it and so (of course) does the song. Rebel yell, indeed. (Or something.) Amen…
…[REDACTED: Unintelligible, mildly-to-moderately nonsensical, puzzling, and/or largely incoherent, etc.]…
…[REDACTED: Transparently self-serving and also, not surprisingly, mostly [if not, in fact, completely] inaccurate, etc.]…
…[REDACTED: Embarrassing, TMI, etc.]…
…Jesus. Whatever: “Adult Contemporary Music.” So-called. (“…Embarrassing, TMI, etc.”)…
…Loyalty to the band. I mean, like, from within the band. To each other, I mean. Demonstrably, I mean…
…Having seen your (my) favorite musicians as both headliners and opening acts. In different cities, different seasons (in your/my life, in theirs). Not unlike seeing your favorite sports team at home and on the road. “We’re in this together,” we can tell ourselves, which is, after all (for better or worse; please see the truth/prophecy below) how the audience is supposed to feel and be…
…This, as truth or prophecy: “Music is a succession of tones and tone combinations so organized as to have an agreeable impression on the ear and its impression on the intelligence is comprehensible….These impressions have the power to influence occult parts of our soul and of our sentimental spheres and…this influence makes us live in a dreamland of our fulfilled desires or in a dreamed hell.” — Arnold Schoenberg…
…The psychics stay open late in NYC…
…And yet: having the presence of mind to not avail myself of their services. The ‘occult parts of [my] soul’ can’t take much more influence right now…
…Which is to say: discretion…
…Which is to say: the better part of valor…
…After. Walking back down Broadway, in a sleep-deprived/occult/sentimentality-induced stupor (fulfilled desires + dreamed hell, etc.) and looking up at the high-rise at Broadway and W 70th: someone, a woman, I think, silhouetted for several unbroken minutes in a window at least a dozen stories up. The mystery, constancy, and grace of the dark shape she makes for the whole city to see, if they’ll only look…
[TO BE CONTINUED...]
Preliminaries & Coordinates.
- What we talk about when we talk about 30 Things.
- What we talk about when we talk about The MoMA Moment.
- 30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List: Part I.
- 30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List: Part II.
30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List Continues:
[06.29.12...CIRCA MID AFTERNOON.]
…The very freckled woman walking west on (near?) Central Park South…
…The way NYC sticks to your shoe…
…The way life is stranger than fiction…
…Cliches…
…New York. In June. (How about you? Except for it seems they’ve secretly replaced New York in June with New York in August.)…
…Ambient percussion…
…Heat in this city…
…Scope…
…Scale…
…MoMA. (Did I say that already? Yes. Yes I did.) Fourth floor, Gallery 19, to be exact…
…Random encounters that are simultaneously [REDACTED: Spurious, misleading, redundant, mild-to-moderate histrionics, etc. Please see: 'The MoMA Moment' link below and/or/better-yet this Frank O'Hara poem. (e.g., "...happy at the thought possibly so.") Even if happy isn't quite the perfect word, it'll have to do.]…
…“Cheers.” As both salutation and send-off…
…Also: MoMA, Gallery 16, the far wall, by the window. One: Number 31, 1950. My first-ever Pollock in person…
[TO BE CONTINUED...]
Preliminaries & Coordinates.
- What we talk about when we talk about Misfit Pilgrimage: NYC. 2012.
- What we talk about when we talk about 30 Things.
- What we talk about when we talk about The MoMA Moment.
- 30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List: Part I.
30 Things. NYC. 2012. The Running List Begins:
[06.29.12...CIRCA EARLY AFTERNOON.]
…#[?]. National treasures (i.e., NYC)…
…#[?]. Cockamamie schemes…
…This thought: living in NYC seems (to me) either an indulgence or an endurance sport. Notwithstanding these epic 8-mile afternoon walks I’ve taken to lately on my (so-called) mountain getaway, I’m not so much the endurance sport type. Indulgence, however, I can swing…
…but I mean, yes: endurance too. In quiet ways. As, too, a big loud aspiration…
…Walking. In NYC…
…Broadway. The actual street (or, if you prefer: the broad way)…
…Avenue of the Americas. The avenue and also the big loud aspiration. The plurality…
…The construction guys [see above] who hailed me, demanded I film them. [Me: "Say something. Say something. Say something...New York-y. Or what's your name? Make something up..." Construction Guy #1: "My name? My name is Nino!"]…
…MoMA. Misfit Mecca. This particular misfit’s, anyway…
…Jasper Johns…
[INSERT MIND-BOGGLING MoMA MOMENT HERE.]
…You seriously couldn’t write this shit. [Long pause, kneeling, pen poised, notebook on knee.] And maybe I can’t…
…This lines thing is pretty cool: “Sol LeWitt. Three kinds of lines and all their combinations. 1. Straight lines, 2. Not-straight lines, 3. Broken lines, 4. Alternate straight and broken lines, 5. Alternate straight and not-straight lines, 6. Alternate not-straight and broken lines, 7. Alternate straight, not-straight, and broken lines. Seven black and white etchings in an edition of twenty-five copies. Printed by K. Brown, Crown Point Press, Oakland. Published by Parasol Press, Ltd. NYC. 1973.”
…Except #4 and #5 are reversed. I f–ked it up. Because I’m still flustered. In fact, there’s a very good chance I could not be more flustered than I am right now. And. I mean. I can get flustered, with the best of ‘em. It’s one of my superpowers. But this here? This is a Whole New Realm of Flustered. Not bad, really. Just new. Big(ger). Loud(er). Etc…
[TO BE CONTINUED...]
Preliminaries & Coordinates.
- What we talk about when we talk about Misfit Pilgrimage: NYC. 2012.
- What we talk about when we talk about 30 Things.
- What we talk about when we talk about The MoMA Moment.
I like words and phrases generally, but sometimes I’ll like a particular word or phrase so much that I use it over and over again, sprinkling it into conversation even in places it might not fit quite right.
Sometimes these words or phrases are preexisting, but other times I sort of cobble¹ them together, you know, extemporaneously.² Either way, they enter the Beitelmaniacal lexicon. (Ooh: Beitelmaniacal! Beitelmaniacal lexicon!)
NOTE(S): A PRETENTIOUS/WHIMSICAL INTERLUDE
¹ ‘Cobble’ is a preexisting word I like. FYI/FWIW. I also like the preexisting verb phrase ‘to cobble together.’ Also, yes, of course: I like cobbler. All kinds.
² I like ‘extemporaneous(ly)’ too.
So one of the latter — a Beitelmaniacal coinage — has thusly elevated itself into my own personal Glossary of Terms.
The term in question?
‘The MoMA Moment’
Source: http://www.nyc-museums.org/moma-pics/
The Pithy Epigraph:
“I don’t use the accident because I deny the accident.”
– Jackson Pollock
The Long-winded Definition:
A (so-called) ‘MoMA Moment’ [noun] is any serendipitous real-world occurrence that brashly defies workaday logic and expectations, suspending the rules of the ordinary and instead hewing closely — if also fleetingly — to the more gestural and numinous reality of dreams. As such, there is usually very little “real-world” evidence to prove the MoMA Moment actually occurred, save for the subtly (or not so subtly) changed life you live in the Moment’s aftermath; often, attempts to recount the experience to friends and family are immediately met with emphatic incredulity (i.e., “Bullshit, dude! That shit did not happen. You’re totally making this shit up…”) and/or an unmistakable facial expression conveying mild-to-moderate concern for what appears to be your slipping grasp on reality.
But the MoMA Moment is real. As is, perhaps, the slipping grasp. (more…)
Yes. Well. So the following link leads to the post where, at some length, I made my preliminary musings re: a Pilgrimage (so-called) to see/hear some Irish people (et al) play the Beacon Theatre in New York this past Friday night.
Some Pull-Quotes So That You Don’t Have to Take the Trouble to, You Know, Actually Click the Link or Whatever:
- “I have done this before.”
- “I am a pilgrim. And a misfit.”
- “This is what I do.”
- “And then I write about it.”
- “Turns out, I’m writing a Bigger Thing about it (who knew?) — one that will take a while, that has already taken a while — and it may never see the light of day.”
- “This Bigger Thing is about misfits and pilgrimages, of course. So it’s about our gods and monsters, about our gurus, avatars, and muses. And our music. It’s also about our fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters.”
- “Which is really just to say: this Bigger Thing is about the bigger versions of ourselves. And the Place(s) in the World where we find Ourselves.”
All of that was — and remains — true.
Turns out there’s a new truth that this Pilgrimage uncovered. Or I don’t know if it’s new exactly, but I felt it in a new way on this trip.
- If you’re doing it right, a Pilgrimage is the exact opposite of a vacation.
Which is to say:
In the earlier post, I also made this promise specifically re: the NYC trip –
In the meantime, as all that gets sorted out (or not), I am gonna write a plain record of this latest crazy junket cum Misfit Pilgrimage. As plain as I can make it, anyway, which maybe isn’t very plain, but this might help: I’ve decided to do it in the form of a series of 30 Things(es) I Love Right Now. In “real time” (sort of). As it happens. 24 Hours at the tail end of June in the Greatest City in the World. Complete with Gurus. Muses. And Music. Etc.
That’s what makes these pilgrimages Pilgrimages for me. The noticing-and-documenting part. The heightened awareness. The going and the putting it down, in words and sounds and images.
And I did that. Man. Did I ever do that. But I wrote it, sometimes slow and contemplative, other times pretty fast and furious, in block letters in my notebook. Which now requires transcription. And time. If I’m going to share it here. “Publicly.”
But there’s a bigger bug in the ointment. Yes, what makes these pilgrimages Pilgrimages for me is the noticing-and-documenting, and, yes, I dutifully noticed-and-documented. There’s something more intrinsic to these trips, though. Perhaps it’s something enabled or even engendered by the noticing-and-documenting.
I don’t know…or maybe not… (more…)
FYI/411: The Grand Planyon
“The best laid schemes of mice and men / often go askew.” — Robert Burns
PREAMBLE
So. Here we are. Twenty-twelve, Year of Our Lord. (Whatever that means.) The Mayans thought they had it figured when the world was gonna come crashing to a halt. Twenty-twelve. Except for they didn’t have much truck with this Year of Our Lord business. The Nazarene never made it to the Americas, leastways nobody knew about it until 1830, when Joseph Smith let that particular cat out of the bag. Anyways…
Point being, even if the Mayans are wrong, time’s not slowing down and I got places to go, people to see. Things to do. Namely:
#1. Take a cross country road trip.
#2. See the Grand Canyon.
#3. Make a movie. A real one. (Whatever that means.)
There’s other things on the list. But that’s #1 – #3. And that particular triad, I gather, would be better with company. Especially if one got the wild hair that he wanted to do all three at once. Hence I approached three of my friends to see if they’d step out on this limb with me. A mega Misfit Pilgrimage. I thought it would be more, like, official or something if I wrote something up. A proposal of sorts, that they might ponder and, hell, maybe even sign or something. 3,748 words later, what was just a vague notion became a full-fledged Grandiose Scheme. Here’s some of what I wrote… (more…)
