’86
Berkeley summer
by Malcolm Lawrence
I hitchhiked to the Bay Area for four months in 1986 when I was 22 years old (Valderie!), after I left Bellingham (Valderah!), believing that the earth will give to you (ValdeRIE!!!) and ask for nothing in return (Valderah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah), and that summer, those four months, meant more to me than perhaps any other summer I've ever had, meant more to me than the Expo up in Vancouver I missed that year. That summer I took my sleeping bag and nestled under the stars on top of the Berkeley Hills, and camped in the eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus, and finally began camping with the homeless on the grounds of one of the major churches in Berkeley, and fed them meals the next day at a mission and found a few folk so shattered, so full of something to give to whomever wants it, folk clenched so tightly together strictly out of centrifugal force. The congregation of that same church had decided (that summer) that the sight of the tired, poor, huddled masses under the cloisters was too unsightly and never permitted us refuge again.
Later I lived in a house on Delaware Street, a house with five women and one son. Steve (my traveling buddy) was seeing Linda and I was seeing her housemate Sue, a woman with a voice, untrained, which could easily match Sade, who was her heroine. I don't believe anyone other than her housemates and lovers ever heard her voice though, which is a pity. She loved putting brewer's yeast on everything she ate. Later Steve and I were house-sitting for a lawyer when I discovered Carlos Castenada and read Tales of Power in three sittings. I met filmmakers and musicians and Basques and 40-year-old punk musicians. I could fill five books on that four month period alone.
There was just something very magical about that summer. It felt as if I had evolved in leaps and bounds spiritually what only turned out to be four months. Basically, I had always wanted to prove to myself that good people outnumber bad people by a sizable number, so I anted up, threw myself into the arms of the world, and me coming from an overprotected suburban background I still had way too much naiveté, paranoia and fear of the world that I needed to unload. Camping by the 200 ft cliffs by Davenport; working at a movie theatre where "Mona Lisa" was playing; reading The Gnostic Gospels and The Nag Hammadi Library and realizing that The Bible (like any other book) was subjected to the prevailing censorship of the times (in this case, the Romans), and understanding how the teachings of the spiritual disciplines of the east (such as reincarnation) had been excised from The Book and only in the past hundred years have those edited sections been found and studied to provide the essential spiritual complement to what has been passed down as the word of God in Western society. (Nihilistic Western thought finally goes down on naive Eastern philosophy. Film at 11.)
This is a card I sent to Jackie a week after hitchhiking from Bellingham:
Jackie,
We’ve only been gone seven days, but I’ve learned more in that time than five years of college. We hitchhiked down in 30 hours. About 14 rides. About 17 people. Almost giving up at noon Thursday, with Bob Dylan in seven and a half hours and stranded on an unfriendly highway in Roseburg, Oregon. Brian and Roland were heading to Fresno and got us to the Cal Expo at 7:15. We met Theo and his friends after, camped at Lake Fulsom, Sugarloaf mountain, bid them on their way, got a ride from Santa Rosa into SF. Met a Deutsch madchen, camped in the parking garage of an apartment building out of the rain, slept on the beach with ocean in our hair, headed to Berkeley on BART, camped on the hills overlooking the Bay. Camped with the homeless in front of a church, then helped serve dinner to the homeless the next day, met a woman who works for the Pacific Film Archive who gave us shelter, showers, beds and breakfast. Friends are fast and warmth is welcome on the road. I lost $100, we are down to $15 and are going to sell plasma tomorrow. Jobs are scarce but not altogether extinct. Berkeley will probably be home for the summer. As comfortable as B’ham, but more colorful, radical, and exciting. Life is precarious, living day to day, hour to hour, but so much more intense and so much more rewarding. The earth will always give to you and ask nothing in return. I miss your smile…see. How is Bothell? Mary Mannix has a clone down here. You don’t…yet. This heat takes getting used to. Energy is shot. Motivation for employment is drained. I’ve scalded my feet already. We’ve met Buddhist monks who were in monasteries in Tibet and are now street people. We’ve met people that have served time. Life is so much more invigorating when you put your ear to stone and open your heart to the sky. With the forest for a bedroom, the stars for a ceiling, and a silver earring for a good luck charm. How does it feel? Like 17 wasted years, like God and the Devil are always by your side, like you take the cyclones of your mind and bury them deep in your heart and unravel the nights doing somersaults through your childhood only to find that the horse and rider prancing by the edge of the sea as you lay weary and empty are the only real things in the universe and all life springs from them. The sun shines for you, Jacqueline. Never let it go.
Everything everything everything
Malcolm
PS. RSVP?
General Delivery
Berkeley, Calif.
94704
And this was the journal I kept on the road with me:
perfectly understandable
you can walk around the world
if you must
in your shoes
if enough people
come into your room
remember if you sleep
on top of the hills
you might as well buy a couch
and when you’re tired
of chasing the same sunrise
turn around
and chase after your own
and when you find the significance
of jumping through a window
don’t complain
if you find its not raining
another neighborhood I know
buys their own dumpsters
of playgrounds and pencils
and prom queens
his pages may be few
by sleeping at night
with your eyes open
you see father christmas
clutching his contract
as he slides down the tube
as anybody else
you know how they stare
as somebody else
you like to be scared
there must be a better pillow
there must be a voice
there could be a voice of yours
you use sometimes
inbetween the lines
I’ve heard you use
and mistake for mine
and I can’t recall
losing anything that I dreamed
when the graveyard shift waited
until I was too tired to scream
of all the names you saved
and wished could have been yours
the only one you can’t hear
is simply whispered, never roared
in the portraits you showed me
I never saw a skull
just someone halfway to their wrists
waiting for something to get pulled
coco at the waiters union
listens for his name
as the morning crew ties off the road
flicking matches at the tame
Felice walks the length of her mother’s house
dropping petals in a bowl
scrapes the tobacco off her bed
and dries her hair with his towel
she steps towards the mandolin
that started playing after dinner
recalls the song she waited for
as she pressed against the
fingers of the singer
when she left for the airport
she knew she’d find
that a smoking jacket and a
bullet proof vest
would make her change her mind
for five straight years
he asks her if she’s still on the stage
and chokes on his cigarettes
when he asks her
what she thinks of her latest phase
one time she caught
his old professor
with a stopwatch and a pen
watching someone inconsiderately
jumping from Big Ben
she chose not to think about
the life she very rarely saw
but memorized the details anyway
that she’d picked up in a bar
you can’t hide a child that fast
she could see it in his beard
she put a slash by his name
dropped his bag of dice
and reared
he only saw one key dangling
from her sleeve
but he remembers who she asked for first
counts his change
and turns to leave
he passes by her daughter's room
as he follows her up the stairs
with the heroes that her mother framed
and asks him if he’d like to share a stare
he leaves his address by her purse
drops his name and number on her lap
as she nods to her sister
reminds herself to take a Valium
and a nap
no one on the next block noticed
when they heard him pull away
backfiring at every traffic light
and playing chariotteer for a day
she wrote the same letter back to him
but this time, she rearranged the words
and asked if he could please correctly spell
everything she might have heard
he knew he’d get an answer
but he didn’t know he'd have to wait
six weeks
and everytime he saw a map of Denmark
he measured out the difference of their peaks
you can’t hide in a child’s eyes
you can’t obey your own reflection
and make allowances for size
you can’t remember blind man’s bluff
and expect to hide in Friday’s child's eyes
when you’re done for another weekend
I’ll show you where you’ve been
and how long it takes the paint to dry
before you start another scene
if its a choice between a new pilot
and the same old engineer
pick the one who packed your bags
and left them waiting here
10 Aug 86
There was a soldier I met
when we were both too old to know
any better, who was born without
a sister or with his fathers
cigarettes. We were standing
in line leaving the theatre of
a play he kept auditioning
for, long after I started to forget
my lines. He asked me why I
had never taken the time to learn
how to bow at the same time
the director's niece found her
ringside seat. And I asked
him if he ever learned how
to flinch and still hold a tune.
Then we talked about how often
he read the books I let him borrow,
and he numbered the parties he said he
had wanted to invite me to.
As we parted that night, he told
me he liked my sweater. I offered
it to him, and asked if he
had a match. He said
everytime we meet its like
he’s never met me, and
I told him everytime we
part its like we’ll probably
never meet again.
I hadn’t seen him for
a couple of years, and although
he never had the time to write,
I noticed how often he remembered
what I wore. One day I
found myself spending twice
as long in San Francisco
than he ever cared to, and
I heard he was coming down
on business for a couple
of days. I sent him a
telegram and asked him
where he wanted to meet.
I told him there’s a roundhouse
in the middle of town, with a
bookstore right next to the
street parade, you can’t miss
it, and he said he’d be there
an hour after he saw his
favorite team play.
That night we found the
bar where he used to mix drinks,
the same one where I went to
shuffle cards for pieces of
change, and he asked me what
I was listening to these days.
And I told him about an empty club
I’d found that used to be open
all night, and how the house
guitar player let me listen to him
in exchange for some of my beer.
Then he talked about the years
he had made his own wine,
and of his friends, who printed
their own money, and
how old he wanted to be.
He asked me what I had
in mind for the day after
tomorrow, and where I’d be
for Christmas, and I asked
him if he had a spare
cigarette. Then I mentioned
a sunrise or two I’d always
wanted to see for myself,
and the patch of trees where
I was supposed to meet
Katherine, but that place
is still a couple of
miles down the
road. Then he asked
me how I was fixed for
money, and who was sleeping
in my bed these days, and
he followed my glance
as I looked over at
Cassie making change
behind the bar.
I asked him if he’d seen
his brother and if he’d
heard anything about the
wedding, and he gave me
his number and the hours
he was to be found.
Change your environment
change the things in your environment
change your attitude to your environment
and/or the things in your environment
Victor Byhire
nursed his patience
and likes to dine
on sweets
he was new at his game
he played by ear
as he learned to march
into the summer on the streets
The ambulance had some time to kill
the medics stayed behind for
the last call
in suspended animation
directing traffic
like they’d forgotten how they stalled
and the doctor on his own time
had all the patience in the world
taking his pulse like he was
expected to
Labor Day
Some journeys remind you
where you started, some
journeys keep you guessing
I started with a sky,
the tallest sky I ever saw
and always see, reminding me
of songs I fell down dizzy singing
to on the highway in Oregon
near silhouetted trees and
fatally bright diners with a
kitchen sink on my back and
Angel by my side. Angel whose
cheek veins burst everytime he
smiles, Angel who kept
reminding me I had nothing
left to remember but imagining
itself. And all imagining
surrendered to the road, the
god of all, for all souls
will at one time or never
discover they are always
on the road whether they
look down when they’re driving
or being driven, or not.
Where rest stops are churches,
interstate signs are icons,
and the holy sacrament anything
shared amongst fellow
intrepid travelers that can
fit into a bottle, a bowl,
a paper, or a hoarse night
of tripping up life by its
heels. The road, the grand
and glorious road, where
rent is never demanded
and roomates are multitudes
refusing to shave their joy
for the sake of 40 hour
weeks that come round every
week never stopping to let
you wonder how many times
you’ve counted up to forty
no more no less, twenty years
of schooling and they put you
on the day shift; the road,
with its endless parade
of gods and damsels, goddesses
and dukes, barons of all
flavors and age, age of
all haircuts and eyes,
eyes of all the worlds and
then some, buried in faces
etched with lines
and scars and terrible
elation and ticklish pride,
silver sorrow and pennywhistles,
faces too scorned to fit into
a world of masks, a world
busy concentrating on merging
all masks into one. The perfect
mask. And I sit, straddle
cajole and cadiddle, counting
how many years its been
since I saw a clock,
clocks that try to tick out
my time, as if any number
of set of cascading digits
could put its starting gun
to my ear and measure
my r.e.m. sleep with
a freudian book or a
fellini film or a pollack
painting or a simone
song and I can’t help
it if I have too much
time to hurry up and
wait
yes
it’s me pounding on your door
if its you who’s answering it
so drink up your glasses
of brandy and wine,
whatever the cost, I shall pay,
so be easy and free
when you’re drinkin’ with me
I’m a man you probably meet
every day
but I keep thinking of who my gods are
and how damned well they
shuffle their cards, revealing
the high priestess BEFORE
the empress, and showing
me stumble into a video store
showing Roy Scheider/Bob Fosse
in All That Jazz and the
scene where he’s editing the
Lenny Bruce film he’s working
on, and that night on the
way to the only coffee shop
open past midnight, passing
a marquee with Dustin Hoffman’s
Lenny film playing and the
owner leaving the theatre
with the film in tow, ready
for mailing, like I mailed
back films last school year,
and how the one time I
remember carrying a film
across campus hearing
Jacqueline call my name
for the first time I’d seen
her since the abortion class
we were in twelve weeks
before and her giving me her
number and the letter I sent
to her last week like Ulysses
to Penelope screaming at the
top of my pen for her to either
beat them and join me or
wait and stretch out and
wait and the day after I
mailed the letter getting
Joanna's phone number,
Joanna who worked at the
place that intercepted my
mail, how she always knew
if I had a letter and what
handwriting I kept getting
letters from and her black
bicycle from last century with
the seat I rubberbanded a
dinner invite to and how she
knew Farouk and Andrea
who were at the dinner she
couldn’t make which I was
the only one who knew of these
connections the afternoon
after the dinner as she
simled over her kelly green
shoulders and blazing white
parachute pants off into the
middle of the sun on her
Yamaha 160 with room
enough for two as we headed
to the marina by the bay
with the quarter mile pier
and her room with Bob
Marley on the wall, a dulcimer
on the floor and her eyes
sharing the same vicious
demons I had seen but
had given explicit instructions
to leave my dreams at once
and how she asked me of
the child I had been and
how I spoke of a child I
had once known intimately but
hadn’t heard from him in years
probably because I had let him
die in the cages he had been
thrown and how all I asked
him for was the key before
I ran as far away from him
as malcolmly possible, a
key I inherited and
I shall find the door it fits
even if it takes all of this
life and half of the next
to find. Joanna with her
tousle of red hair and
Irish freckles
her swap meet jars and
her plane ticket to
Vienna in ten days
wait there until December Joanna
and Angel and I shall find you there.
Angel who is in the city tonight
teaching himself to
speak without words. Angel
caught being his yesterday
of possessions and his tomorrow
of monkhood with the today
of losing things in its way.
Toothbrushes, checks, walkmen,
ad trivial nauseum, Angel who
I can hide nothing from except
the things I hide from myself
Angel who is trying his hand
at panhandling tonight
after I showed him the ropes
because he needs the fifteen
extra dollars to get a pedi-cab
license to make more mass
bucks and the radio plays the
Seekers version of "Yesterday,"
the Seekers from a land I
spent last summer exploring,
for a year ago today I was
back in the part of the country
I grew tired of exploring as soon
as I realized there was nothing
much to explore and I think
of New Mexico Greece Bangkok
and all points east and my girl,
talkin’ ‘bout my girl, Steve
and Malcolm, World Tour ‘86-’90,
SOLD OUT, tickets NOT to be
found at ANY suburban outlets
and September First, happy
birthday Brad, happy
birthday Jennifer, happy
birthday Bruce and the
leaves and the mist has been
falling here three weeks now
and the 49ers are yet to
play the first game of the
season, with the Mets 20
games in front and Farouk
enters stage left after getting
off work where I work, too, uh-huh,Farouk leaving, home to bed
in his VW van still in need of
a garage where he can drop the
engine to get at the transmission,
Farouk who installed a milk bar
at the Telegraph Rep to coincide
with last weekend’s showing of
Clockwork Orange. A warehouse,
we need a warehouse to live in.
Tomorrow, in the day, yes, I shall
scout out warehouses while Farouk
still decides whether or not to
acknowledge school’s existance,
and I need a decent book of
matches, not to mention fawning,
decidely female eyes glazing
over at me, advertised in a yellow
dress, from across the room; this
place is thinning out, leaving me
to scribble god knows what and
now its September 2 and
I must save time NOW so
I can kill it later and its
no secret that those same
eyes remind me of Jennifer
or is it the
silken face and the misbegotten
hair who know who can care
two years on as Brad asked me two weeks ago
if I was still madly with
her and how much he never
realized we were brother
and sister long before we
briefly stumbled into being
lovers Isis o isis you’re
a mystical child what draws
me to you is what drives me
insane and these lights are
going out and this cigarette
needs some nursing still and
this hose of words goddamnit how do you
turn off this faucet?
13 pages. Lucky. C’mon…seven.
9-4-86
Thursday bright warm
over the shoulder Thursday complete
with traffic brick walls Ma
Raineys big black bottom and
the last few scenes of beer
filtering out of me head and
a spare Camel from across the
way and 25 hours later I
still have on the leatherest of
black motorcycle madonna jackets
and last night, Joannaless, in
order to recall Jacqui at
midnight near the wall after
downing a Mickeys torpedo in
twenty minutes, and an hour and
a quarter of things that need
the right time of day and
artificial stimuli to
discuss, new ice to break,
skirting everything so well,
questions disguised as
answers, time frames
for her to construct,
a plea to forgive her
simply because she needs
academia as if any
forgiveness is needed.
Penelope who wants to
know a little more about
her job description before
she agrees to wait for Ulysses.
Ah, yes, tales of brave
Ulysses. Who is dat guy?
Pigeon siesta to the
right of my feet. The
universe contemplating
pensioners with fingers to
their chin to my left
and straight down the
middle: another candidate for
a spare cigarette, self-imposed
latter half of life female
crumbs and toothless philosopher
shouting liltingly to the boys
waiting for the bus and work
tonight, Matador might show
up after two-day hiatus,
doubly healthy I’m sure,
babys in black and the flies
know that, boom schicka boom boom,
please baby, please baby, baby please,
the camera pulls back about
two miles and Berkeley Berkeley,
split my head wide open and
this summer is now turning
Indian, the road calls then
it screams, and I could sure use some patience right now,
yawn yawn, Women’s designer
shoes 13.88, yawn (large), dream
last night of calling Alison
without speech from me
and she simply talking herself
into oblivion. I would not
mind oblivion, but oblivion
has other plans for me.
And I could waste a lot
of time believing I were searching for something,
I am just grateful to
join the parade and
watch the parade watchers
pass by. Wherever the
children go, I’ll follow them.
Over and out.
I forgot about the mirror
when I learned how to disappear
I left town when it started saying ‘mine’
I sat back and stared
as the darkness stroked my hair
but oblivion had plans of its own
the black rake of the streets
who dined on too many sweets
somehow managed to drift out
of his dreams
when he worked it all out
and refused the leap of doubt
that had pierced all his scenes
She never wanted to realize
how easily she hypnotized
or the tricks she inherited by luck of the draw
she told him not to whisper
she was only his sister
my mother and the first memory
I have of my mother taking me
outside behind the kitchen and
offering me a "Krackel" bar when my
older cousins wouldn’t play with me
my mother and the first time I
saw my mother in a colour photograph
of the queen on her nightstand and
obviously assuming it must have been her
my mother hearing me call out
in the night when the pain wouldn’t
cease and sitting near me stroking
my head
my mother who would call out to me
when my father got too ticklish and
I would run like Batman to her rescue
my mother who would be hypnotized
by my little words and encourage me
long before I believed I had anything
worth encouraging
my mother who would always
ask if there was anything else
I wanted to say
my mother who always knew
I had something to say, but
not if anyone asked
my mother who realized my
success lies not in chemistry
or accountancy and realized my
failures only lie when I am
someplace I do not belong
my mother the proudest
part of the audience when
I spoke to my peers and told
them things they didn’t
realize they wanted to hear
my mother carrying a
harvest of patience and
a lethal load of worry
my mother who would
defend me when I had no
defenses
my father who taught me
to question everything and
may not have realized that
by saying so, he
left himself wide open
my father admitting he’s
strangled by ties, but still
wondering why I don’t own any
my father and I, reluctant
victims of a timeless historical
chasm, who will only become
friends when I am his father
and he is my son
my father and I, big and
little mongoose, an Englishman
growing up in an American jigsaw
and an American son growing
up in the puzzle of an English
heritage
my father clutching his
Bob Dylan records always
reassuring me my Glenn Miller
tastes would change
my father who unwittingly
cornered me only after
I let myself be cornered
and turned around to find
a casual enemy built
of his own fears and a
dedicated friend created
from his own hopes
my father who may one
day realize that to be the
best the only competition
is with oneself and
the only racetrack is
one's own life
my mother who never
knew why it took me so
long to acquire a taste for
mushrooms, just as I never
knew why it took so long
for her to acquire a taste
for my lifestyle
my father who will one day
have the finest English garden
in America and the tastiest
pasty shop in the States
my mother who sometimes
forgets that curiousity killed
the cat but still believes
my life is more dangerous than
even I could handle
my mother who knows Africa
is only a few hundred miles
from Bournemouth even though it
seems as far away as Jupiter
my parents who will hopefully
realize that I never ran away
from them, only myself, because
I knew the planet I was invited
to opened its arms to me, and
that sometimes in order to be
closer you must first go further
away
malcolm whose periodical
rebellions were not out of
spite but only a need
for self-preservation
malcolm who was always
there when no one else was
and learned to accept me
malcolm who is a royal twit
my parents and I who will be
much better friends long after
I have ceased being simply
their son
my parents who may
one day realize the need to
be alone is only an attempt
to explain how one fits in
with everything
my parents who will
understand that they
take credit for many but
not all of the good points
they have heired, just
as they take the blame for
many but not all of the bad points
they have heired
malcolm who sat down to
herald as many trumpets and
bury as many hatchets to
ensure the autumn years
of his parents are not as
chilly nor as dark as they
could have been
malcolm the last one to carry
the torch for the branch
of the family that risked
coming to a foreign land
to seek its fortune, and must
now carry the torch
lighting out his own territories
tasting his own risks and
seeking his own fortunes
wherever they may lie
malcolm iain geoffrey lawrence
with a name only as long as
it takes to be in league with
the best rugger players, no matter
what kind of scrum his life
unwinds into
malcolm who was always
too stubborn to let those
around him pigeonhold his life
when he believed in things
so many others tried to make
him doubt and doubted things
so many others tried to make
him believe in
malcolm who understands
22 to be only a number
Letters
By the time you read this
nothing will have changed.
But as long as there’s always
one last cigarette, and as
long as the road – not the road,
but the drive – remains long
and circuits its way anywhere,
somewhere….As long as
transit keeps ten or
twenty car lengths ahead of
destination, and life is only
as short as your skin tells
you it is, and life is only as
long as you can remember
everything. And there’s only
one person in the world willing
to sit through your life, usually,
to see the credits at the end,
and find out who ends up with whom,
and who you’ve always anticipated,
and who you’ve always disappointed
and who you’ve always amazed.
No, nothing will have
changed very much. The faces
will change to protect and
reflect what you need,
be they stone or silk, bright
or dark. Just like the last
person you want to see is
always on your mind, and
your mind constantly juggling
all the individual things that
if Atlas realized he was
holding would have sent him
looking for a buyer.
And rest assured, there
will always be commmentary.
Who was he? What was he
saying? What was his
special problem? And
when they talk about him, they
will speak only of things they
recognize and have had the
luck to straighten out, as if
he must have realized himself
so why was he like that?
But talk to the artist,
the fireman, or the bank
president, and, hmm, it all
makes perfect sense, the
professions they’ve chosen,
and how the creativity of
their lives is very much
warrented.
Or is it? The very
sad thing about it is
that everybody has their
reasons. The one sheer
pitfall of independence.
What is life beyond childhood?
Creating reasons
He wanted her
to have that written
on his tomb
and burn anything
she finds
in his room
but she took the money
bought a keg of stout
and tossed his
dust in the wind
and sang about
the day he said
"fleur-de-lis is your
name" to her heart
then she went to give
herself in
the networks may run
when the Super Bowl’s won
but they’ll crawl
when the revolution takes
too long
if I’m only
12 hours away from you
is your world the
same as mine?
The hills remember to
bring the sunrise,
the river wakes up
in time to flow
the reels are threaded
for a washed out sun
will the children be
allowed to grow?
mine eyes have
seen you falling
at a speed you cannot tell
that pain and pleasure
blur into the
giddiness of hell
the dragons that became you
and the strangled cry
of the trees
I’d hear when you
were calling
in the blinding nights
you’d just tease
when the sky had
swept into your eyes
you knew it would explode
if you watched the stars long enough
from the checkpoint
by the side of the road
and I heard a song
you were singing
when you carry yourself
off to sleep
about longing for
something you may
have seen
like the shearing
of the sheep
mine eyes have seen
some glory
from the canopies
of a few Fords
where they trampled
over the deserts
and made bets
on who would swallow
the swords
and who will lose their
pants at blackjack
and gun down
everyone to the floor
...and that was Berkeley.
For comparison, this is the very last thing I wrote before I hitchhiked to the Bay Area, bringing to a close five years of college:
How I Walk
Waking one morning I forgot my malcolm lawrence mask, and found, instead, a planet or two I was standing upon, an eye, an idea, a thought, and I didn’t doubt it, because I had no reason to doubt it, and I didn’t believe anything because I hadn’t yet discovered anything that needed me to believe in it. And it was good.
And before any sign could be put up proclaiming no loitering, I littered my self across land, stopping only to rearrange the sky for the rain dancer when he cried too softly in front of the Committee To Proliferate Sunnyness and Disposable Sunglasses. I asked him why he didn’t just join the Umbrella Coalition and he told me he had already had too many problems with the Hat Patrol, and besides, he already promised his thirsty hair that he’d pass no more injunctions over his head for at least the next three fiscally precipitative quarters. So I gave him an empty Coca Cola glass and said "Use this when you’re collecting Exhibit A," and left his teepee, excuse me: wigwam, and waited four hours to cross the freeway because I didn’t have a car, and headed into what the road sign proudly announced as an All-American City that starts just past the Indian Reservation and extends three or four states into the Apple Maggot Quarantine Area. I was so happy to be here that I took out the camera I almost had broken in a bar because it had Japanese skin, and aimed it at a skyline that wouldn’t have netted me a win, place or show at the Museum Photo Contest until I waited for a raven to perch itself on the powerlines that split the mountains into High Art and Low Art and had discovered a whole new "Dead Heat of Socially and Aesthetically Acute Contrast in 20th Century Photography Which Yearns for the 19th Century and Inherently Shuns the 21st Century" without even realizing it. I decided I wouldn’t sound very articulate between the pages of the Atlantic when they knocked on my lens cap to ask me how I discovered my accident, so I slung my camera back on my shoulder and took off.
I passed my favorite petition, the one that’s against what those who are against it are against, but they wouldn’t let me sign it because it would still be another 18 hours or so until I remembered what my name was. But they were very nice and gave me a bumper sticker for my coat and sent me on my way.
I was going to head back to the spot where I first told Elizabeth that the sun shines for her, but I remembered just how close that spot it to her best friend’s house, and if her best friend saw me she may remember I was there, just in time for the testimony that comes out, with me having the same profile and favorite toothbrush as the person who always asked her about the moon before raping her. I made sure I had a condom in my wallet as an alibi, and whipped out the BLT I made the night before at Chuck the Vegetarian’s house and decided not to put mayonnaise on it because although it had taken 8 years of free elections before the Mayonnaise Union was allowed to take out of the formula the last known cancer-causing ingredient known to people after 13 years on the endangered illness list, the bottle it was in was still being made with sand imported from the rich country right next to the poor country that exports glass. So I developed a taste for horseradish instead and gulped it down.
I remembered how they wanted to kick me out of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because I was a Miami Dolphins fan, so I joined the Sex Pistols until they found out I liked the Beatles. I applied for college and they were seriously considering my application until they realized I didn’t know everything. I was asked to leave my parents church because I wanted to grow my hair as long as Jesus. I wanted to buy the new mascara that comes with a mirror but they wouldn’t give me the mirror because I didn’t buy enough mascara. I walked by what the local newspaper placed in the top ten of the states best schools, and asked the first mothers son I saw how he felt about being made to say "I Ching, You Ching, We all Ching for I Ching" every morning, but all he was interested in was why, after his dad took off, that his mom took off to try and find him, and how memorizing the back of a Spoon Size Shredded Wheat box is only for the times when Gilligan’s Island is pre-empted by the President’s speech at dinner. And how, after 3 older brothers, what else can he possibly do with his life that hasn’t already been tried? Except finally read the words on his sisters ceiling, written in blue, corrected in red, which read:
"If you’re happy and you know it, say "Hell, yeah;" if you’re sad and you realize it, say "Hell, yeaher;" if you’re quiet and you know it, because you’ve always tried to show it, but everybody just wants to say "Hell, yeah."
Why aren’t you worried? Say the bells that are hurried.
How do you walk? Say the hands that hold chalk
Show me a paycheck say the ones that try to collect the playground during recess and have them recall green is for money and traffic lights, not trees, and the ulterior motive of a Karl Marx sneeze,
but it’s only a fistful of credits
not a blade or a noose
you were supplied
and this is neither the time
nor the place to discuss suicide.
Besides, I don’t want to be me,
I’d rather be you;
unless you want to be me,
then I just might agree.
But you still don’t understand
what makes you say "no"
when everyone else says "yes,"
or why you wear pants instead of a dress,
and why they ask you to beg for something
from someone who thinks that you need
what you haven’t even wanted yet,
or paid for with the deed that you’ll do
and finally get your name in neon that flashes
from your old TV that your brother keeps
by the kitchen when he cooks you your first breakfast
since you came down from the mountain
with clouds in your mouth instead of a pen
for an application
or a haircut,
a tie,
a ring,
and a bed,
and a piece of paper that reminds you
that you’re still happily wed
to the mirror you read
that told you you’re chained
to what you want to see
and how you listen to your own name."Also spiraling around his sister’s ceiling were the words
"Yes, yes, yes, but what’s your outline? What’s your thesis? God’s harder to impress these days," and a C+.
He comes down from the ceiling and thinks to himself:
You’re the only person I know
still believing they know
what it’s like not to know
how to find what you need
until after you’ve agreed
that you’ve grown your own seed
and mixed it with the blood
of the sofas where you lie
trembling and untied
with the rivers by your side
and a raft anchored down
with a wake-up call to a throne
where nothing’s allowed to fade
or quietly decay
beside the waters of a tank
ungrateful & unthanked
sparkling and brut
in the land of the cute
and the home of the crave
sheltered and saved
by this land and your land
crowned with the thorns
of a prince twice born
in the fields of corn
too plentiful to share
with other lions and lambs
waiting to be fleeced.
And I am living proof
of a prayer uttered once
forgotten and aloof
by a stumbling dream
in a buzzsaw bed
with a hundred different pillows
where nothing was left unsaid
to a ghost trailing off
with his words in my mouth.
I’ve thrown my own coins
upon the cards I was dealt
splintered and kindling
and packaged in felt
wrapped loosely and itching
and signed with the bows
used year after year
in the medicine show
I excused myself from
for dancing too slow
to the whimpers that drift
from infinity’s den
and the fireworks that spark
so incredibly dim
and stop just in time
by the rocket’s red rim
coming up over the moon
like a brand new sunrise
on a newly bruised planet
prepared and surprised
that no one cared to advise
in a quieter voice
with surrounding words
how deep the grave would be
before anyone heard
the cry of a child
petrified by dust
as he ran through the jungle
to notify the bus
where he’s told to sit behind
anyone remotely blind
with tomorrow’s supper on their eyes
and yesterday’s lunch tab on their minds.
"The truth isn’t found in the rules,
but in the consequences of the rules"
says the streetsweeper
between buildings,
between mornings,
to his shoes. He asks
"should we have circles on the flag or triangles?
Red, blue and white or black and white?"
Don’t tread on me,
please don’t squeeze,
reach out and touch,
don’t kill me very much,
love me or leave me,
on any given day,
is this your jury,
or are these just your peers?
I don’t care what the surgeon general thinks of me and she told me it’s mutual. Where is the book which tells me not to read books?You shouldn’t be told what you should do,
you shouldn’t be told what you can’t do,
you should only be told what you can do.
It doesn’t matter what you believe it, but if you believe in it strongly, others will feel the gravity of your beliefs and begin questioning their own. But if you’re very strong in your beliefs of not having any beliefs you will be treated like the abyss. People will pay good money to ride on your carnival just for a short while to see what it’s like. And they will not know what they think about the ride they’ve just taken unless they don’t get off the ride; and they will be giddy. And know enough not to believe in things that require no belief.
Bob Dylan has the answer, but not everybody likes Bob Dylan.
Thorstein Veblen has the answer but not everybody likes Thorstein Veblen.
Jesus Christ has the answer but not everybody likes Jesus Christ.
You might have the answer but you might not like me, and, of course,
I might have the answer but I might not like myself.
And here comes the best part: This is where he breaks down and cries and maps out his Answer to Yahweh. Oh yeah, this is the part where he refuses a label, so they label him a non-conformist, and then he sells everything he owns and hitchhikes across the world trying to seek his fortune, but gets lonely and wants a wife, so he gets married, but gets itchy feet, so he gets divorced, but realizes it was just a phase and goes back to find her working the counter in McDonalds with his two children with their own daddies already picked out,
so he picks up a magazine
and he picks up a book
and finds he’s gone farther
than anyone knows how to look.
But every time they look
they think they aim closer at the
exception to the rule
they must pin down
and the key to mystery,
which has no locks,
but still must be found.
But everybody knows
when you got an earring
and everybody knows
when you started wearing black
and why you remembered intuition
and forgot about facts
and you remember a sign
that you saw just last season
saying that love can hope
when despair can just reason
so you start reading the words of an outlaw
who was hung from a birch
that they advertised as certainly not you
when they taught you in church,
and the only reason they don’t accept you
is because you accept someone
who would’ve accepted you
gangrene and all
and sinful to boot
regardless of the books you haven’t read
your cigarettes
or your lack of a suit
and you catch yourself soon enough
to realize
to not be dogmatic
about dismissing those who are dogmatic
about not being dogmatic.
And the only thing you see
is someone next to you
holding and rowing the same oar
on the bench where you sit
staring out of the porthole
of a slowly sinking ship
and you don’t look at his face
you don’t note the color of his ties
or the size of his sentences
or the fear in his eyes,
but you find vodka in common
and gladiola’s and scars
from two different sides
of the very same war,
and your mothers were both born
just above the same bar
where your grandfather spread his seed
after a hard day of laying tar
on the roadway specially built
for the carriage of the king
to ride down and proclaim
to anyone who can sing
that he promises his daughter
her dowry
and a wing
to whomever can pull
the sword from the stone
or the mote from his castle
or explain how life conforms to algebra
without very much hassle.
There is only one thing in the universe and everything else is not it. But it’s not it’s fault: it was born into the wrong family
and chose the wrong color
and likes the wrong music
and wears the wrong clothes
and thinks the wrong thoughts
and asks the wrong questions
and likes the wrong people
and finally finally
admits that he's wrong
but keeps on doing it
pretending to prove a point:
a human irony;
and suddenly, he’s all right:
he sacrifices himself,
he saves us the trouble,
but he must be a crazy man
because he lives in the bubble
he retreats to all the time
just because his dreams have been crushed
and his faith has been stolen
and his sympathy is obsolete
and his tears are bleeding
but why is he crying?
He’s still got the BMW,
his significant other,
a lifelong career
and a generous mother;
what more could he need
that he hasn’t already seen
pressed between the pages
of his own life’s magazine.
Watch the company he’s been keeping
you can see how he’s always led
away from himself and in need of a bed
but he refuses to sleep
and his stomach he cheats
and how shall we teach him to grow his own heat?
but all he keeps promising
is that he’ll do what you want him to do
as soon as you stop telling him to do it.
He must have once read that book that starts out:
"Man is born free, but every man has his price"
or something like that.
Who is he?
Who am I?
I have been a son,
a pupil,
a student,
a lover,
an ex-,
a writer,
a wanderer,
the quiet one in the back,
the joker,
the one who says "yes" when everyone else says "no",
who giggles after a six-pack makes him sign his pseudonym in the snow,
who wonders if it makes any other sense than philosophical to interrupt the food chain. Aaah, but he who INVENTS the food chain escapes from it,
just like those who have a concept of oppression inflict it.
Just like only the oppressed know how to oppress.
Just like the only secret of achieving enlightenment
is realizing there’s no such thing as enlightenment.
Just as there’s no past,
nor any future,
just a continually verb-filled present
that leaves lines on your face
and your teeth in a glass.
And what is it like to be here?
What is it like to have a tour of your own home?
What is it like to forget your own name,
and disappear inside the eyes that behold your thimble of pain?
Just a brief excursion down the other side of the river everyone sails down
at a predetermined pace
established by what I’ll permit my ego to let me do,
and round off my edges for the reasons I’ll have ready
when I’m bombarded with
"Why’s?"
and
"Wherefore’s?"
and
"What are you trying to prove?"
and I’m just trying to prove that I’ve never seen any substantial proof for anything I’ve ever seen,
with the possible exception of me,
who changes into you,
when you tell me I’m selfish
because I don’t understand you,
but if I understand me,
it will all come back around
and we’ll have much more in common
than a fence on this ground.
Talk to me about the Mets
or the stars
or your favorite film
and our rifles will grow rusty
and our gods will be combined
and taken back for the deposit
and our borders realigned
and like excess baggage, your vanity and pride
will spill from your Yamaha when you go for a ride
just the ground underneath you
and life in your hair
and the hum of the sunset
and the rise of the road,
and yes,
there are starving people in India,
just like there are street people in America,
just like there are jails in every city
and food banks in every town
and farmers told not to grow things
until the cows come home.
If I offer you a flower
will you ask why I offered it to you
or why, since I don’t know you,
or where did you get it
or how much did it cost
and by the time I get an answer
I might get hit by a bus.
Dear Diary, I have this class this quarter called Moral Problems Colon The Self
and Society, as if it’s polarized, right? But no matter how you slice it, you just can’t slice it. The bottom line is a circle: you can’t have a healthy society until you have a healthy self, because society is made up of selfs,
the self
is not made up of societies.
And only after you have a healthy collection of selfs
will society spring up healthily,
without prodding,
or conniving,
or cheating,
or lying
or phonying.
Anyway, I have to do this final project, and the closest thing I can get to a thesis statement is
is
is
is
Why, when you drop the needle at the beginning of the 12 minute song "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan, and light a Camel filter cigarette at the same time, having a drag after each and every verse, why the flame gets down to the filter just narrowly after the second to last verse, which sings:
"Praise be to Nero’s Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn; and everybody’s shouting ‘which side are you on?’ And Ezra Pound & T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower while calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow and nobody has to think too much about desolation row."
And it’s social, spiritual and musical influence on the quivering moral and ethical tapestry of our ever ancient and constantly contemporary universe, in one million words or less.
…and if my thought-dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine, but it’s alright, ma, it’s life and life only. J
P.S. It’s now a much long time past Halloween and I have still yet to find my malcolm lawrence mask. If found, please return to
Janus
c/o Cerberus
Bellingham, WA
98225
USA
P.P.S. He has traveled. Now, he rests…briefly.
Take care,
if I miss you at the dog races,
I’ll see you at the powerlines
Love & Obligation
n m
Malcolm Lawrence
June 15, 1986
The title, How I Walk, came from a proverb I once heard George Sidles use in an advanced social theory class I took once. (Talk about being out of my depth. I'd never even taken a "basic social theory" class, but I knew I could handle it and I did. In fact Connie Faulkner, one of the profs, always tried to get me to say more in class because she could tell my gears were working even though I never said anything. I never said anything because I didn't have any kind of grounding in social theory to be able to posit any of my thoughts reasonably enough (or so I thought, at least).) The proverb concerns a caterpiller who is questioned by an owl. "How is it that you walk with so many legs?" The caterpillar looks down at his legs and thinks to himself: "How DO I walk?" And he never walks again.
Since the technique had served me well when I wrote my play Widowspeak, I also wrote this in one twelve hour blast, from seven at night until seven in the morning, on the night before the last day of class for the final project I discuss in the "poem." Is it a poem? I guess. Heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, this was what five years of college had done to my brain. I had SO much to unlearn. Later that very day I stood on the I-5 onramp with a ticket to see Bob Dylan live (for my very first of what are now fifteen or sixteen times) at the Cal Expo Amphitheatre in Sacramento in my pocket and Steve Degermark by my side and we hitchhiked down to the Bay Area for four months (Valderie!), after I left Bellingham (Valderah!), believing that the earth will give to you (ValdeRIE!!!) and ask for nothing in return (Valderah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah), and that summer, those four months, meant more to me than perhaps any other summer I've ever had, meant more to me than the Expo up in Vancouver I missed that year. That summer I took my sleeping bag and nestled under the stars on top of the Berkeley Hills, and camped in the eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus, and finally began camping with the homeless on the grounds of one of the major churches in Berkeley, and fed them meals the next day at a mission and found a few folk so shattered, so full of something to give to whomever wants it, folk clenched so tightly together strictly out of centrifugal force. The congregation of that same church had decided (that summer) that the sight of the tired, poor, huddled masses under the cloisters was too unsightly and never permitted us refuge again.
Later I lived in a house on Delaware Street, a house with five women and one son. Steve (my traveling buddy) was seeing Linda and I was seeing her housemate Sue, a woman with a voice, untrained, which could easily match Sade, who was her heroine. I don't believe anyone other than her housemates and lovers ever heard her voice though, which is a pity. She loved putting brewer's yeast on everything she ate. Later Steve and I were house-sitting for a lawyer when I discovered Carlos Castenada and read Tales of Power in three sittings. I met filmmakers and musicians and Basques and 40-year-old punk musicians. I could fill five books on that four month period alone.
There was just something very magical about that summer. It felt as if I had evolved in leaps and bounds spiritually what only turned out to be four months. Basically, I had always wanted to prove to myself that good people outnumber bad people by a sizable number, so I anted up, threw myself into the arms of the world, and me coming from an overprotected suburban background I still had way too much naiveté, paranoia and fear of the world that I needed to unload. Camping by the 200 ft cliffs by Davenport; working at a movie theatre where "Mona Lisa" was playing; reading The Gnostic Gospels and The Nag Hammadi Library and realizing that The Bible (like any other book) was subjected to the prevailing censorship of the times (in this case, the Romans), and understanding how the teachings of the spiritual disciplines of the east (such as reincarnation) had been excised from The Book and only in the past hundred years have those edited sections been found and studied to provide the essential spiritual complement to what has been passed down as the word of God in Western society. (Nihilistic Western thought finally goes down on naive Eastern philosophy. Film at 11.)
