From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night:
“And then... .
the great Western shore, surf’s up, white, white wave-flecked, lapis-lazuli blue-flecked ocean, rust golden-gated, no return, no boat out, land’s end, this is it coast highway, heading down or up now, heading up or down gas stationed, named and unnamed, side road diners, still caboose’d, ravine-edged sleep and beach sleeped, blue-pink American West night.
Yes, but there is more. No child vision but now of full blossom American West night, the San Francisco great American West night, of the be-bop, bop-bop, narrow-stepped, downstairs overflowed music cellar, shared in my time, the time of my time, by “beat” jazz, “hippie’d folk”, and howled poem, but at this minute jazz, high white note-blown, sexed sax-playing godman, unnamed, but like Lester Young’s own child jazz. Smoke-filled, blended meshed smokes of ganja and tobacco (and, maybe, of meshed pipe smokes of hashish and tobacco), ordered whisky-straight up, soon be-sotted, cheap, face-reddened wines, clanking coffee cups that speak of not tonight promise. High sexual intensity under wraps, tightly under wraps, swirls inside its own mad desire, black-dressed she (black dress, black sweater, black stockings, black shoes, black bag, black beret, black sunglasses, ah, sweet color scheme against white Madonna, white, secular Madonna alabaster skin. What do you want to bet black undergarments too, ah, but I am the soul of discretion, your imagination will have to do), promising shades of heat-glanced night. And later, later than night just before the darkest hour dawn, of poems poet’d, of freedom songs free-verse’d, of that sax-charged high white note following out the door, out into the street, out into the eternity lights of the great golden-gated night. I say, can you blame me?”
Leading to this …
High School Drag: Phillipa Fallon [1958]
My old man was a bread stasher all his life.
He never got fat. He wound up with a used car,
a 17 inch screen and arthritis.
Tomorrow is a drag, man.
Tomorrow is a king sized bust.
They cried ‘put down pot,’ ‘don’t think a lot,’ for what?
Time, how much? And what to do with it.
Sleep, man, and you might wake up digging the whole
human race giving itself three days to get out.
Tomorrow is a drag, pops, the future is a flake.
I had a canary who couldn’t sing.
I had a cat who let me share my pad with her.
I bought a dog that killed the cat who ate the canary.
What is truth?
I had an uncle with an ivy league card.
He had a life with a belt in the back.
He had a button-down brain.
Wind up a belt in the mouth with a button-down lip.
We cough blood on this earth.
Now there’s a race for space.
We can cough blood on the moon soon.
Tomorrow’s dragsville, cats.
Tomorrow is a king size drag.
Tool a fast shore, swing with a gassy chick.
Turn on to a thousand joys.
Smile on what happened, or check what’s going to happen,
You’ll miss what’s happening.
Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum.
Tomorrow, DRAG.
Phillipa Fallon [1958]
High School Drag
(Welles / Glasser)
MGM 12661
*******
I ain’t saying that High School Confidential and this low budget be-bop B-film’s (although with a solid A on the rock and roll intro with Jerry Lee Lewis sitting at the piano in back of a flat-bed truck flailing, yes, flailing away on his classic rock and roll song, teen angst-busting , teen alienation-busting song, High School Confidential, heralding the hint, just the hint, of a possibility that we of the generation of ’68 might be getting ready for that big jail break we were sitting under some atomic bomb air raid school desk looking for a sign of) “beat” poetess will make you throw away your personally autographed first edition City Lights copy of mad monk om om man Allen Ginsberg’s Howl or even some torn-up paperback copy of Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues or even some shotgun version of street gunsel mad poet Gregory Corso’s machine gun sonnets but she was a sister, a sister in the struggle to break out of squaresville, to break out of the void, to break from nine to five, to break from soda fountain giggle girl dreams, to break from seventy-six, count ‘em, forms of teen angst and sixty-six, count ‘em again, forms of teen alienation, to break from same old, same old, to, ah hell, just to break as portrayed by know nothing Hollywood with its angst-less dreams and its alienation-less non-sorrows. So be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.
I ain’t, furthermore, saying that everything the sultry sister (1950s sultry don’t touch me just listen tea-head, but what were we to know of that kind of sultry out in Podunk teen land, cashmere sweater, black skirt, maybe devil black stockings not shown, teen boy dreams sultry whatever her message, or even no message but bop) had to say had its head on straight. Or that if we, we meaning those fledgling angst-filled, alienation sorrowed‘68ers mentioned above, had heard her in some forbidden teenage night club (no liquor allowed, no petting allowed, no, no allowed enforced by burly guys with direct access to parents/priests/teachers/cops/authorities and hence to some mischievous god),a club filled with smoke, cigarette smoke and djinn smoke and weed smoke and maybe hash pipe smoke too although that might have been for more private moments, and maybe too train smoke and dreams, road dreams to see mystic vistas,sitting with some cashmere sweater frill, not quite old enough to do the apparel justice, blonde maybe, red-headed for sure, in ancient landlocked celtic strongholds where some fierce blue-eyed boys stood waiting, holding forth against the squares, against the cubes, against the pentagonals,against the angry young men, against the not angry young men, and ditto women, against the death-dealing old men, against the country club uncertain certainties, against that cold war hot war red scare night, against the break-out blockers as fierce as any New York Giants monster linebacker, that we would have understood half, hell, a quarter of what she said but like some mad dash shaman, oops, shaman-ess, it would have stuck, stuck to be mulled over, stuck for later times and so…be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.
And I definitely ain’t saying that even ifall she said did have its head on straight that we, we meaning those fledgling ‘68ers mentioned above, had heard her in some forbidden teenage night club,a club filled with smoke, cigarette smoke and djinn smoke and weed smoke and maybe hash pipe smoke too although that might have been for more private moments, and maybe too train smoke and dreams, road dreams to see mystic vistas,sitting with some cashmere sweater frill, not quite old enough to do the apparel justice, blonde maybe, red-headed for sure, in ancient landlocked celtic strongholds where some fierce blue-eyed boys stood waiting, holding forth against the squares, against the cubes, against the pentagonals,against the angry young men, against the not angry young men, and ditto women, against the death-dealing old men, against the country club uncertain certainties, against that cold war hot war red scare night, against the break-out blockers as fierce as any New York Giants monster linebacker, would have dug, yes, dug, in dig beat language dug, exactly what she had to say any more than when our time did come (when we shed teen know nothing-ness, Hollywood know nothing-ness,parent know nothing-ness, cop know nothing-ness, priest know nothing-ness, authorities know nothing-ness), the time when we got our bloody jail break time signal, that we more than echo-listened to om om-antic New Jersey mad monk Allen Ginsberg (tea head, acid head, Buddha head) howl against that evil night, or to Jeanbon (Jack) Kerouac, sweet Lowell mill boy gone sour, sitting in some hell-hole mere florida trailer park (or bungalow, maybe) sweating whiskey and hubris against his children, or to New Jack City Gregory Corso playing the lone ranger against the death night, but it would have stuck, stuck to be mulled over, stuck for later times and so…be-bop, be-bop sister, be-bop.
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