II. Interstate 30. Fort Worth.
Kimbell Museum Exit.
Population: 385,164
Elevation: 500
Climate: Semi-arid
Topography: Where the West Begins
Historical Oddity: For decades, Thomas Eakins' masterpiece, The Bathers
hung over the circulation desk of the public library.
Category: Nee' Cowtown (because of defunct stockyards), now oil, defense
aerospace.
Telling Detail: Home of one of the few great, small art museums in the
world, the Kimbell.
Prominent Amenity: Dallas.
Best One-word Description: Real.
Insight: Every mother's dream son, Van Cliburn, chose Fort Worth as the
site of the quadrennial international piano competition that bears his name.
1.–Somebody's eatin somethin.
–They're slobberin if they're eatin.
* * *
2. Honesty? Try a slaughterhouse daily for a month.
–Hank Williams III.
* * *
3. Compassion? Try a quadriplegic ward daily for a month.
Long John.
* * *
4. I'm not in a house. I'm next to the Coast Guard station over
here.
–Lorelei.
* * *
5. Tarzan, where are you?
–Sugar Britches.
* * *
6. You seek wisdom? Contemplate Picasso at 80, Horowitz at 80,
Babe Ruth at 80, Mao at 80, Mozart at 80, Mother Teresa at 80, and yourself at 80.
–Gray Wolf
* * *
6b. Poetic creativity is the genuinely, absolutely real. This is
the heart of my world. The more poetic, the truer. The truer, the more poetic.
–Novalis
* * *
6c. You know why roosters don't wear underwear? Cause their
peckers is on their faces.
–Mud Flap
* * *
7. It may not be so much that everything works out for "the
best." We may simply be exploring and expanding our vaunted potential, for whose mill
anything is adequate and ultimately satisfying grist.
–Green Mountain Man
* * *
7.a. This ol' boy's pullin' down 50 thou a year shovin' papers at
E on when the price of oil drops. His boss tells him he's gotta take a 50% pay cut. So he
goes home and tells his wife and they start talkin about how they can reduce their
expenses. "Honey," he says, "if you'd learn how to fix meals, we could fire
the cook." And she says, "Well, dear, if you'd learn how to fuck, we could fire
the gardener."
–Sugar Britches
* * *
8. Go to the source.
–Bullwinkle
* * *
9. The body is an anchor. At travel time, it wants weighing.fn1
–Pat Angeli.
* * *
10. There's a beer joint in Rosharon that's definitely gettin down
today.
–Ms. McCarthy.
* * *
11. What's the cotton-pickin deal out there?
–Hangin Judge.
* * *
12. Didja hear bout the dickhead went into a cafe and asks this
old girl of a waitress, "What's good tonight," and she tells him they got good
tongue, and he says, "I don't never eat nothin that come outa a animal's mouth, and
she says, "Well, honey, then how bout a egg"?
–Mud Flap.
* * *
13. The Cambodian, asked why he intended to see a moviefn2 about the holocaust there, said, "It
will remind me to be more careful with my life."
–Totaled.
* * *
14. I think he's just pullin' my leg cause he ain't got no dick to
play with.
–Sugar Britches.
* * *
15. Judge a culture only by its level of metaphysical etiquette.
There are of course degrees of rudeness, from the simple thoughtlessness of the bigot to
the dangerous, focused, destructive, entrapping rays of the Hitler.fn3
–Hyundai Hunk.
* * *
16. I can't believe it. I made it across three lanes in one swoop
and didn't hit nobody.
–Tail Fin.
* * *
17. Coming soon to a planet near you: a culture based on the law
of ethical parsimony.
–Wild Man
* * *
18. He was so mean my mother had to tie him on the back porch and
throw a raw pork chop out to make the dog play with him.
–Inch Worm.
* * *
19. Don't pay no attention to him. He's just itchin to drop his
britches.
–38 Special.
* * *
20. Art anticipates, like the Greek chorus, like the movie music
track. For the spectator or participant who pays attention, there are few total surprises.fn4
–Zig-zag Joy
* * *
21. The only thing you have any real control over is your point of
attention. It turns out, that is enough because it is everything.
–Monkey Business.
* * *
22. The weeping world. It is not enough to simply leave such a
world in the condition in which you found it. The epiphany of tears.
–Lorelei.
* * *
23. I'll catch anything you got to give me.
–.38 Special.
* * *
24. In any usual sense of the word "know," the amoeba
knows nothing of Michelangelo. Entities perceive structures "above" them as
threatening, beneficent, decorative, puzzling, or invisible. In doing so, entities, to the
extent of their own structure, perceive themselves as cosmocentric. Only in dreams, only
in dreams can we regularly meet unbounded.
–Gulf Stream.
* * *
25. They was this shipwreck, and the sailors was starvin on this
here desert island, so one day the captain finally says, "Look here, boys, y'all
gotta eat, so it's my duty, and I'm gonna cut off my pecker and y'all can slice it up
amongst yourselves," and he puts a gun to his head. The cabin boy, who's been
listenin' real close, chimes in, "Wait a minute, Captain, lemme stroke it a little
before you shoot yourself and we'll have enough for a week."
–Mud Flap.
* * *
26. Virtue is its own punishment.
–Jack Flash
* * *
27. Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.
–Mrs. O'Leary
* * *
28. I just put that old White in Mexican overdrive and rowed and
goed.
–Smokestack.
* * *
29. There are many paths. Each at some point passes through its
own chapel perilous.
–Mercan Beauty.
* * *
30. Art speaks the unspeakable which the Orient thought better
left unspoken. Or so they claimed.
–Zig-zag Joy
* * *
31. Nothing tears the curtain so vastly as the apparently perfect
elegance of personal tragedy.
–Hank III
* * *
32. I'm gonna pop if I don't stop pretty soon and drain my
radiator.
–Mongoose
* * *
33. So we leave a large pile of digitized artifacts to a vast,
inevitably analog future. Fitting, that a culture of incorrigibles should leave a heritage
of incomprehensibles.
–New Adam.fn5
* * *
34. Where is Judy Chicago now that we need her?
–Celia Celia.
* * *
34b. The millennium is constantly present among us.
–Novalis
* * *
35. The world wants, delights in, confounding. The magician
delights the mind. The popular artist delights the mind and the senses. The artist
delights the mind, the senses, and the soul. What to call those few who delight the mind,
the senses, the soul, and the heart?
–Mona Lisa.
* * *
36. The path of mystery leads everywhere.fn6
–New Adam.
* * *
37. Sonance? Dissonance? We are lulled by repetition of any kind.
–Backdoor Man.
* * *
38. The chorus : Greek drama = the music track : movies.fn7
–Ken Russell, Jr.
* * *
39. Y'all hear bout that old boy up in Walla Walla? He done shot
hisself on account his old lady wadn't gonna give him no peace till he bought her a Spuds
MacKenzie, and this old boy thought sow piss tasted better than Bud Lite. The truth, I
swear to God, it's the truth.
–Old Silky
* * *
40. The Robespierre's we shall always have with us.fn8
–Mr. Snowtree.
* * *
41.–Anybody know how far it is from Fort Worth to Abilene?
–Bout two pills.
* * *
42. In search of a metaphor? Open your eyes. All is metaphor,
whether camphor plant, computer chip, or teddy bear.
–Celia Celia
* * *
43. I wonder where a damn get-off is. We done went five miles.
–Brass Monkey
* * *
44. Choose your plot! We do it all the time, so why not
consciously? That's all gurus through the ages have had to sell.
–Orange Krishna
* * *
45. The wheel of the world turns on the axle of instinct, heavily
greased by culture.
–Horny Teen.fn9
* * *
46. Not time travel, but travel time.
–UFO
* * *
47. Tool: unselfconscious empathic contemplation of a given
moment. If the state can be maintained, a door opens. Thus does one rub new sticks
together to make new fire. Thus does one toss the jawbone of the hunted beast into the air
and transform it into the new path.
–Mr. Snowtree
* * *
48. Tool: Dreams, of course. John Dunnefn10 was
on a right track.
–New Adam
* * *
49. The ego posits the non-ego posits the ego posits the non-ego
posits the ego.fn11 Truth in games.
–Orange Krishna
* * *
50. I ain't–God forbid and God save us both–talkin for
the same audience that admired Wittgenstein.
–Trail Boss
* * *
51. Ain't nothin' free no more.
–Spark Plug.
* * *
52. I want a law: those, especially those men, who have not
studied the cock as closely as the cunt –and both lovingly, mind you–cannot
partake of this.
–Billy Boy
* * *
53. Y'all know what’s the three most difficult years for a
Aggie? Second grade.
–Mud Flap
* * *
53. I bet that thing smells like dead tuna fish. I don't want none
of that anyhow.
–Ramrod
* * *
54. The clock ticks but once.
–Orange Krishna.
* * *
55. I betcha money, marbles, or chalk, my dog can out-think Ronald
Reagan on a cold day in Idaho.
–Dr. Detroit.
* * *
56b. Self = non-self–the highest theorem of all science and
art.
–Novalis
* * *
56. None but the lonely heart?fn12 Hah!
–Trail Boss
* * *
57. "New England": an overlooked oxymoron. With John
Updike as its chief propagandist.
–Jack Flash
* * *
58. Epitaph for the American: "California, here I came."
–Gucci Vespa.
* * *
59. The platform called "the present" is vaster than we
think."
–Gulf Stream
* * *
60. Forget the "holy" books, forget the great
literature, forget math, forget philosophy. Read myth.
–Mr. Camp.fn13
* * *
61. Step two: memorize it.
–Mr. Camp.
* * *
62. Any man that brags about it ain't got shit in his pants.
–Sugar Britches.
* * *
63. Heraldic art. Is there any other kind?
–Zig-zag Joy.
* * *
64. There used to be some good fifty-cent pieces out here till
them Mexicans married 'em all.
–Prairie Dog.
* * *
65. Offspring of the marriage of heaven and hell? The microchip,
the disposable lighter, the question "Does Carl Sagan wear underwear?", the
question "If so, what does it smell like?", 7-Elevens, the Lamborghini Contach,
Christopher Hogwood,fn14 and Vanna
White's mother's pride.
–McLoony Tunes.
* * *
66. Schlachthoefefn15
we shall always have with us. Mormons hopefully not.
–Trail Boss
* * *
67. He or she who will start the Pagan Broadcasting Network will
have a leg up on the next millennium.
–Bullwinkle
* * *
68. There are two John Donne's. The second, who spelled it with a
"u", and who is forgotten, belongs to the beginning of this century another of
our overlooked gifts.
–New Adam
* * *
69. What was Marx's mistake?
–Ramrod.
* * *
70. Having added significantly to the tapestry of our being, this
century persists now in staring at and studying the loose ends and tangled threads of the
reverse side. It's very crowded back there, but quiet and peaceful out here. Don't be
taken in by crowds.
–Mahalia
* * *
71.–You oughta try me. I'm Cherokee and Irish.
–Shit. That's nothin compared to me.. I'm German and Apache.
* * *
72. If we have made the eye the path to our kind of rationality,
the ear remains the path to profound change. "When the mode of the music changes, the
walls of the city tremble."fn16
–Hank III.
* * *
73. Trailing clouds of glory?fn17 Yes. And they stay with us.
–Tinfoil Seagull.
* * *
74. Give me a piano and a proper vale in which to play it and I
can move worlds.fn18
–All Fingers.
* * *
75. What is most revealing about science is the questions it
doesn't ask.
–Pat Angeli.
* * *
76.–Lickety-split?
–Okey-doke.
* * *
77. Three hints for questing scientists (excuse the oxymoron)
desirous of a Nobel Prize: 1. Where do we–all 5 billions of us–go every night?
2. What do we do there? 3. How do we get back?
–All Bricked Up
* * *
78. The obvious: the children will remain in chains as long as we
do.fn19
–Widow's Might
* * *
79. A given art gives us usually safe glimpses into the many
universes. In music: Tchaikovsky takes us on a whirlwind tour of the Schlagtorte universe,
Sibelius of the melancholy universe, etc.
–Zig-zag Joy
* * *
80. The less obvious: we will remain in chains as long as the
children do.
–Widow's Might
* * *
81. I proceeded to raise seventeen kinds of hell, and I'll be
damned if that son of a bitch didn't let go with a fart that woulda killed Hitler.
–Road Runner
* * *
82. The saucer people come, intrude, intervene, and make mistakes.fn20 It's the same old universe.
–Trail Boss
* * *
83. Look around. You want more than this? Such greed.
–Mahalia.
* * *
84. Liars, like the ambitious, think they know no grief.
–Mahalia.
* * *
85. The unattended wounded really believe they are unattended,
which is why they cause so much mischief.
–Mahalia.
* * *
86. This peckerhead got a leg shot off in Nam but he didn't never
let on to his fiancée, so on their wedding night, the lights is out, and he puts his old
stump of a leg in her hand and say this be the big surprise he been promisin her. She
feels it and say, "You right, it is a big surprise, but let's put some Vaseline on it
and I'll see if I can take it."
–Mud Flap.
* * *
86b. Friends, the soil is poor. We have to strew many seeds to
enjoy the prosperity of even moderately successful harvests.
–Novalis
* * *
Fort Worth Notes
1I thought Pat was referring to death, but
in a later conversation he assured me he was thinking of so-called out-of-body
experiences, of which he was an avid practitioner. He in fact carried both of Robert
Monroe's books (Journeys out of the Body, and Far Journeys) in his cab at all times.
2The Killing Fields.
3Later that same night, Hyundai Hunk gave
forth with a long presentation of his ideas about what he calls "metaphysical
meteorology." Unfortunately my little voice-activated Radio Shack recorder chose that
time to go on the blink. Basically, Hyundai holds that the planet is engulfed by a sort of
emotional weather system generated by all sentient beings. He thinks it comes complete
with isobars, highs, lows, storm centers, etc. He also guesses that clouds are much more
than collections of water droplets.
4The recorder also lost Zig-zag Joy's
encomium of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies of the 50s and 60s in which, as I recall,
she found "the perfect union" of full symphony orchestra and zany scripts. He
was especially fond of Lover Come Back.
5It should be noted that New Adam, for all
his "new age" fervor, had a Compaq 386 portable plugged in to his cigarette
lighter on which he could be found playing computer games at truck stops and rest areas
all over America.
6A play on Novalis' line, "The path
of mystery leads within."
7CB offers clues as to the genesis and
transmission of ideas, including of course jokes. Note that here, Ken Russell, Jr., has
already picked up on Zig-zag joy's insight (see Note 4) and is passing it on as his own.
8A play on Jesus's puzzling remark,
"The poor ye shall always have with you."
9See "Handles." Horny Teen may
be the former but is hardly the latter. His remarks are thus not nearly as precocious as
they would seem from his name.
10John Dunne, a design engineer and
pioneer in British aviation, changed careers in mid-life. He began having prophetic
dreams, and, good scientist that he was, he spent the rest of his life carefully studying
his sleep experience. His ground-breaking little book, An Experiment with Time, was one
result.
11Here goes Orange Krishna again, this
time punning on one of the key statements of Western philosophy, Fichte's line, "The
ego posits the non-ego" (i.e., reality is what you make of it).
12Trail Boss's reference is to the song
by Tchaikovsky, "None But the Lonely Heart," based on a poem by Goethe
("Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss, was ich leide...").
13Need I point out that the handle is a
play on the name of the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell (Hero with a Thousand Faces,
World Mythology, etc)?
14The British conductor of the Academy
of Ancient Music.
15A reference to Vonnegut, I believe
(Slaughterhouse Five, in German, would be Schalchthof Fuenf).
16Hank III introduced me to the old
recording by the Fugs in which Allen Ginsberg sings the line.
17Wordsworth on Interstate 20? Sure. The
reference is to the "Ode on Intimations of Immortality."
18Archimedes said, "Give me a
proper platform and a long enough lever, and I can move the world."
19Reference: Filicide, by Vrana Hempstead.
20Jacques Vallee, Dimensions; Whitley
Strieber, Communion.
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