Sunday, August 17, 2008

DRIVE LALLY DRIVE

I was always the “wheel man” when I was a kid. Some folks thought I drove a little too fast or too dangerously close to other objects when I slipped between two cars or trucks or whatever. But pretty much everyone recognized my driving skills.

On my first movie as a “professional” actor (i.e. not student or “underground” or avant-garde flicks, which I started acting in at the request of filmmakers when I was a kid and continued to over the years until I decided to finally get paid for it at almost 40) I replaced the stunt driver when the director saw that I could “stop on a dime” (i.e. the “mark” designated for the car to be shot correctly) better than him.

I always feel good behind the wheel and often through the years when I was down or confused or had to think things through by myself I’d jump in whatever vehicle was available and take off.

I hated driving in L. A. by the time I left there, when it would take an hour to go somewhere that should have taken twenty minutes. But I still dig driving in Manhattan, where I learned to maneuver traffic when I was a kid starting out driving, and I love driving up to the Berkshires on the small country roads I prefer to the big highways.

Like I did yesterday. I drove back down to Jersey from Western Massachusetts on one of the most beautiful days I’ve experienced at any time of my life. I’m not big on camping out or trekking through the woods getting eaten up by bugs and all that, more of a city kind of guy that way, but I love being in the presence of beautiful natural landscapes.

One of the reasons I moved back to the East Coast from the West was to live among the natural landscapes of my childhood that I sorely missed. And there is nowhere they are more beautifully preserved than in the Berkshires.

There are stretches of scenic routes that cause me to gasp with a stunned sense of nature’s perfection, or thank God or the Spirit of the Universe or the Life Force or whatever you call what led to such beauty.

And yesterday the sky was so perfectly blue, as in my memory it seemed to be a lot in my younger years, with billowy pure white clouds floating amid that blue. I just rode in silent communion with the world for a while.

Then I turned on the radio and instead of hitting scan to find the few radio stations I can get in the countryside up there, I decided to turn the tuning knob by hand, like you had to when I first started driving, only now you just turn the knob a hair and it clicks into position, locking onto the next digit down on the radio station numbers.

The closer I got to New York City, of course, the more stations there were until everyone of those clicks seemed to have a unique perspective on sound.

But still up in the country, the few stations that came in clearly played “rock”—often screaming derivations of what was new and exciting in the late 1960s and now seems played out to me. With the occasional more “pop” singing that sounds these days, to me, like the vocalist is having trouble finding the right note so they decide to try all the notes in the area.

But eventually I stumbled on a station playing the Beatles’ album REVOLVER, which the DJ informed me and whoever else was listening was voted the greatest album ever by rock critics in 2003 I think he said. It made me wonder if I agreed or not, though it certainly would be in my top ten.

Not too much later I stumbled on a station playing the Rolling Stones from the same period, or not long after (LET IT BLEED) and once again thought of the contrast between those two groups that defined attitudes and style and taste in those years.

I dug both of them but preferred the Beatles because I identified with them in more ways. They seemed like working-class guys, with at least two of them being descended from the Irish (Lennon and McCartney) who believed “love” might be the answer to the problems they had faced before, and even after, they made it.

Jagger on the other hand was a college boy who had a degree in business, the way I heard it, who tried to sound like he was African American (in contrast to Lennon and McCartney who copped the approach to singing of many “American” rock’n’rollers, both African- and European-American but retained their Liverpool accents etc.) and also tried to sound like he was “bad”—even “evil”—but then when confronted with true evil at Altamont couldn’t handle it (and an “evil” he and the Stones unleashed in many ways with their songs and attitudes and glorifying of negative attitudes and behavior (that sounds like a parent talking, but I felt it at the time as someone who, like the Beatles, had actually experienced some street fighting and confronting of those out to do actual harm)).

The contrast between those two groups, or earlier between the writing of Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs or even earlier still between the poetry of William Carlos Williams and T. S. Eliot, always made me think this way.

The critics love the dark, cynical, bitter, negative approach to life that often comes, ironically (and the critics never seem capable of recognizing this, or at least pointing it out) from the privileged artists who rarely have to face anything darker than their own taste and thoughts.

Burroughs was the scion of a wealthy WASP family who had some kind of allowance for most of his life that he could rely on. Kerouac was the working-class, ethnic guy who knew what it meant to face those odds. T. S. Eliot had a job in a bank and then in publishing, while WC Williams was a doctor serving the lower class ethnic families of Northern New Jersey and seeing things that probably would have made Eliot faint.

Yet somehow Eliot, in his sheltered life, represents to the critics a more realistic and intellectually rigorous perspective than Williams, whose work to some was seen as pedestrian and common, though in many ways William’s was the more revolutionary writer (as you can probably tell I feel like I have a personal stake in this argument because my poetry has been dismissed by critics over the years as not “literary” enough, too much about working people concerns and not enough about intellectual ones, etc. as if they were incompatible, which is what Williams and others have faced as well).

Anyway, that’s where my head was led by my turning the tuning knob now and then as I drove the back roads of the Northeast on one of, if not the, most beautiful day(s) of my life. (It made me think of McCain vs. Obama as well, where the political operatives for the Republicans are doing a great job of positioning the wealthy privileged McCain as the “regular guy” and the welfare raised Obama who embodies the real “American dream” story as some kind of privileged elite—and unfortunately the Democrats are letting them get away with it).

But as I said, closer to the city it became more interesting as I found more and more stations I’d never heard of before, including one playing Russian music and speaking Russian (or so I guessed from the sounds and the few words I could recognize), many Spanish music and language stations, one show that featured the Irish language and music sung in it, though a lot of the talk was in English (“Radio Free Erin”), and Asian ones, and ones playing Afro-Caribbean music etc.

It made me think of the news recently that “white” “Americans” will be a minority in two decades, and how so-called “whites” and “blacks” and the other categories that are more social than natural are becoming even more diversified (with immigrants from places different from where many of our ancestors came from).

Some of the forces of the future are unstoppable, “good” and “bad.” Just like they were in my past, and will always be. The secret to happiness, at least in my experience, is accepting that and getting on with life (and not being afraid to work for the “good” as you see it anyway, and even helping make a difference in how that “good” and “bad” get worked out).

Or at least getting into a car (hopefully a hybrid like my Prius, and with passengers, like that ride usually includes for me so that I don’t feel too bad about the gas used and pollution contributed to) and listening to the sounds of, well, no longer just “America” but the world—in “America.” It brought a grin to my face, I can tell you that.

15 comments:

-K- said...

There's a radio station here in LA that plays Beatles music every Sunday morning until noon. I could be listening to it right now but I'm not. The contrast between their world of the 60's (the 60's that I relate to of joyful optimism) and this world since that time is just too great. Although there's a lot of things about the early 21st Century that I like, not the least of which being the Internet, it seems like the worldview of the Rolling Stones, cynical, derivative, materialistic, etc, has won the day.

Lally said...

It's interesting to me that during times of serious trouble in early 20th-Century history—WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, etc.—popular music, and other forms of entertainment, was mostly upbeat and positive, optimistic even and certainly fun. The Viet Nam era had that with at least most of the Beatles catalogue, especially the earlier stuff, but maybe because that war wasn't so clearcut, there was room for the cynicism and bitterness, the darkness and pessimisim. I remember being bugged by the whole "punk" thing that came after that (even though it's another trend I felt at the time I helped influence!) because the war was over and the civil rights battles had mostly been won (at least on the legal front and starting to on the cultural) and these kids didn't have to face the draft and the unwinnable war they might die in etc. so what was their beef, besides hating the previous generations hippie optimism.

Lally said...

Toby Thompson sent this comment to me:

"Michael,

For some reason I couldn't post this comment on your blog. Am getting a message that says "javascript void." So tack it onto today's post, if you can. All best, T.

Beautiful post. You touch on the relationship between rock and physical speed, which has always fascinated me. And that between cars and radio, changing radically in this age of satellite stations. Used to be you could drive across country and hear one independent station after another, with individualized playlists and individual djs, each with faves that soon became ours. No more. You also capture that state of meditation endemic to driving the American road–one that makes our addiction to automobiles so hard to kick. That state is as close as most of us get to Zen-like sitting; indeed it’s the only time many of us are alone. I call that state "The View from Behind the Windshield." From it we see not only our souls, but what’s grand and grim about this complicated country."

And interestingly, my first title for the post was DRIVING MEDITATION.

Anonymous said...

Lal--Not to worry about anyone who dumps on your poetry for "not being literary enough." That's a straw-man argument and plain nonsense, an avoidance of addressing the subject matter of much of your verse. These same critics will turn around in a NY minute and dump on you for being a pedant at the merest hint of a literary allusion. It's all part of what Neruda meant when he said that the writer who does not address the offenses against humanity is nothing but a showcase puppet for the slick magazines.
Bob Berner

Another Lally said...

It seems your mind meandered into the presence of the Creator through the wonders of Nature. I had to chuckle at your escape from such a presence into the radio and the search for civilization. It represents an escape from the realization that each one of us is an insignificant speck in the picture of time and space. That realization is just too humbling for the 'rational humanist'.

The escape brought with it scars and memories of that time of Presence. Thoughts and speculations on the nature of 'good' and 'evil' are subjective. Were you evil when you replaced the driver in the scene mentioned? Did your action cause him a loss of income and sustenance?

Your escape was complete by the time you mentioned politics. You wrapped yourself in that illusory world of self-importance and omniscience. I wonder what your politics were while in that brief rapture of the wonders of the world and the power beyond our understanding that brought it into existence.

It seems thoughts so confused and blinded by self-importance could use more time in that Presence of the Creator's humility lessons. (That is before winter sets in. The realities of Life may be too much to attempt to grasp in contrast.)

Lally said...

Self-importance may be in the eye of the beholder, and "God" can be found in humans, including ones on the radio, as much as in any other aspect of creation. (And the stunt driver kept his job since there were many scenes that did not require me as the driver "stopping on a dime.")

Harryn Studios said...

drive on michael - what a great journey ...
to 'another'; seems like that confusion and self-importance is part of the human condition with nearly seven billion flavors ...

Another Lally said...

That 'confusion and self-importance' is a luxury for those with enough free time to ponder. The great majority of the seven billion are too busy in their daily endeavor to survive to ponder such vanity.

One great vanity of the confused is the disemination of disinformation. The example of which is the claim that Obama was a 'welfare child'. In fact, he and his mother (as well as the previously married father) were well financed by his grand parents. The grand father a successful furniture salesman and the grand mother a successful bank executive made sure that he attended the best schools and never wanted for anything, except that which a child may seek in the affection of a mother.

It was a great journey. It traveled from the 'high' of the Presence of the Creator in the beauty of 'protected park lands' to the depths of partisan political rhetoric.

Lally said...

"The depths of partisan political rhetoric"!? Obviously "another" hasn't been paying too much attention to partisan rhetoric in the last few decades. And Obama's family circumstances included a stint of his mother's receiving "welfare" for him and her and as for his grandparents they were working people who got by, unlike the John McCain's parents and grandparents who were among the financially elite segment of the population, and his wife came from and remains wealthier than less than one percent of the population. And as a veteran, McCain and his father and grandfather had and have no idea what it means to live in a "capitalist" society and have to earn a living, since the military is more like a socialist or "Communist" (with a capital "C") state, having job and meals and healthcare and shelter and all that given to you by the state and if you are among the leaders, like McCain and his father and grandfather, you are like members of the politburo or KGB, with not only all the basics taken care of but the luxuries of big houses and servants and so on as well as almost unlimited power.
And as for having the "free time" to ponder these questions, I've been pondering all my life, many years of which I worked manual labor jobs and lived below the poverty line, in fact, I did some of my best thinking while doing those kind of jobs.
And the only wuestion I'm pondering now is why this "another" person feels the need to spend so much time reading these thoughts of mine and objecting to them in comments that contain as much misinformation as they do condescension.

Another Lally said...

I enjoy your posts as a source of great humor.

As with most 'rational humanists', you endorse many short sighted ideals that do not take human nature into the equation. You remind me oftentimes of men of the 'Enlightenment' in France.

Men such as Gerard Lally and Voltaire often voiced high minded ideals, but did not expect actual revolution in their days. Once their opinions became popular, they were unable to stop the flood of emotion and degradation that ensued.

They were lucky when Napoleon appeared as their hero to restore order.

Harryn Studios said...

just another flavor of ...

and what about the old menu of aristotle, socrates, plato, ghandi, mohammad, jesus, kerouac, emerson, thoreau, lennon, ginsberg, motzart, whitman, coltrane, davis, pollock, matisse, gorky, ad infinitum ...

was it really 'free' time ...

'another' has much to learn ...

Another Lally said...

all beneficiaries of strong governments maintaining order and relative peace.

douglang said...

Perhaps "another Lally" should examine his own vanity before he uses the plight of the world's underprivileged folk to bolster his own moral superiority.

Another Lally said...

ah, subterfuge.

What a baseless claim that I bolster my own status at the expense of the underpriviledged.

I acknowledge the fact that I live in the greatest country in the world. I often take for granted the luxuries that I and all of us are gifted with. I expect electricity to be at my finger tip. I take for granted that water will flow from the tap when I turn it on. I do not think twice when flushing a toilet as to where the contents of the flush travel to. I know that medical attention, or fire fighters or police are at the other end of my phone when I dial 911.

I have lived for a short while where these things are not the case, but the people did not consider themselves underpriviledged. They did not even moan and complain about their lot in life. They were too busy living life.

In this country in our society, we have far too many people who choose to be poor and deny themselves a better life. They are not underpriviledged since they live in this wonderful nation. They make conscious decisions to be poor or drug addicted or criminal.

Why is it that an immigrant can come to this nation penniless and within a generation have attained the American Dream? What keeps natural born Americans from having the same thirst for a better life?

When I laud the greatness of our nation and our form of government, I do it at the expense of no one.

Harryn Studios said...

and if it weren't for lally driving, the liklihood for such a diverse range of comments and thoughts might never have congealed in one place ...
i love the soulfull intelligence that this blog inspires ...
thank you all ...