The Cool School

by Glenn O'Brien

  Anyway, they assumed such control was understood, and perhaps, with the tradition of power always shifting about, the fall-out from the technological competition would continue to be available and not become an elected or fixed or licensed privilege.

  Access to information, as well as access to the software that sent and received the information, was a concern. The independent, the “mom and pop” brand of business, had suddenly reappeared, and in communications, of all places. Technology, unlike industry, had the enormous advantage of being domestically centered, and the translationships being produced as a result of this access and location would, no doubt, redefine the idea of “home-made.”

  The new cottage industry probably wouldn’t last, but who could say? People in power were always screwing up, and sometimes had a whole lot of trouble keeping a lid on the techy, the science nerd, the gadget man . . . the stranger with the thick glasses . . . making sure they didn’t slip away and turn outlaw.

  HE LIKED to think of himself as an audience, and located himself on the other side of what he and others did . . . looking back at it, either by himself or with a group, hoping to exchange an emotion that was once experienced only as an author . . . an exchange he willingly initiated for reasons he felt necessary . . . necessary because he knew if he didn’t make the switch from author to audience he could never say, “I second that emotion.”

  Being the audience, or part of one, was for him a way to identify himself physically, and a way to perceive rather than affect . . . a way to share with others what might be described as a kind of impossible or promissory non-fiction. A way to see or realize what essentially was a surface with public image, a surface that was once speculative and ambitious, as something now referential and ordinary. Referential because the image’s authority existed outside his own touch, and ordinary because its frequency of appearance could be corroborated by persons other than himself.

  “You don’t have to take my word for it,” he would say, as if defending against a cross-examination . . . “These pictures are more than available, and unless you’ve been living in an alley, inside an ash-can, wrapped up in a trash liner (with the cover closed), chances are better than even that you’ve seen them too.”

  SHE ALWAYS sounded like she actually knew what she was talking about. And this certainly wasn’t the kind of presumption he was interested in rediscovering right now. His deal was about almost knowing but not quite . . . preferring not to care to know the little extra, even if he could . . . somehow knowing that that, too, wouldn’t be quite true anyway.

  She would say something like, “Yes, that sounds generous,” and make a little noise, and disappear into a room before he could voice his objections.

  She needed clear beginnings and endings, and the idea of feeling reassured with a version of what appeared to be the truth seemed to her almost unfriendly.

  What they said to each other about this was, of course, political. And their decision to talk about themselves to each other while talking about “versions” was a big, monster mistake. The mistake made it easier to remember that the other (each of them), was a separate person, and that particular fact should have been the other way around. They should’ve tried to see themselves as almost the same person, and if they couldn’t, they should at least deny their differences or try to avoid bringing them up.

  They should’ve been in on this thing together. In collusion. Almost like outlaws, holed-up, waiting for whatever they tried to pull off to die down, disappear, and be forgotten.

  “The trouble is this,” he said; “some of me is about feeling like I’m somebody else, and about the desires and threats in actually believing I can think about being someone besides what I already think I am.” And she would say, right after, “Mine is about my ability to control my identity so I can deliberately undermine what is good for me, so maybe what I see and what I come to know will be too good to be true.”

  For him, the next best thing was still a condition far from being categorized, and the fidelity of a hands-off sensation. However painful the separation, it not only made sense, but was a way to manage what was always promised, no matter how desperately the promise was made.

  She couldn’t handle his sense and felt more comfortable qualifying what she received . . . wrapping it up, and sometimes separating what was good from bad with a little gold star.

  She was on top of it and he was close. She was faithful and he was sophisticated. Her sense was one of conclusion, and his a shrewd agreement. The two senses were never shared, and the meaning of what that meant to both of them was anything but sensible.

  In the end, she would accuse him of being jealous.

  “You just don’t like it that I’m good at pulling the rug out from under my own feet.”

  And he’d say, “Not true, I am just as good as you, and if you don’t believe me, here, let me show you . . .”

  HE’S A thief. He steals. But he’s generous.

  “Without lifting a finger,” he says . . . like a slogan, something he repeats so often it sounds like a law.

  He goes to church and steals candles. He never panics. He’s selective. He knows which ones to take.

  “Not the ones already lit. They’ve been spoken for. Their history has been written by whoever made the flame and their light is to be respected. There are lines that cannot be crossed and this is one of them. Their light is an offering, a kind of ceremonial consultation between an image and its maker.”

  She didn’t steal. She raised her hand and asked permission.

  “Would you mind if I steal candles like you do?”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  He hung up the phone and never spoke to her again. As far as he’s concerned their affair is over, finished, impossible, and too stupid to begin again. She occasionally calls but he screens the calls. She should have known not to ask. There are things a thief doesn’t ask permission for, and two of them are approval and blessing.

  It was too bad. She thought the stealing was some kind of party. A birthday. She went to church. She made a wish. She took a breath. And made it dark.

  He doesn’t pray and he doesn’t wish either. But now, every once in a while, he lights a candle for her, hoping it will be the one she takes. It’s not what he wanted but it’s what he has, and the matter between what he’s got and what he doesn’t is something that he finds painful to separate.

  Perhaps even now his attempt at lighting a candle is more a settlement than a put-down. A coming to terms with cutting her off . . . a gesture for forgiveness. And when he wants to admit it, an effort to share what he steals . . . a way, his way, to stay for her, wanted and remembered.

  1993; Collected Writings, 2011

  Glenn O’Brien

  I spent my life at magazines. Almost on arriving in New York I landed a gig editing Interview at Andy Warhol’s Factory. From there I went to Rolling Stone, where I too was too humorous, then to Oui, Playboy’s experiment in new journalism which was too far from New York, then to High Times which was too far out, and to Spin which was too spun. But I managed to keep the writing going and met a lot of great writers, some of whom are represented here. I also managed to make a living in a world where art was becoming an investment and fashion was becoming artistic. “Beatnik Executives,” which first appeared in Verbal Abuse, deals with the hipster’s place in a corporate world with a “creative department.”

  Beatnik Executives

  I saw the best minds of my generation

  depressed by lawsuits, dieting, sober, all dressed up,

  limoing through the negro streets at dawn

  looking for an angry member of the Screen Actors Guild.

  Angelheaded hipsters renegotiating the social contract,

  trying to rewrite the lease on life

  and cool a world aflame.

  We are beatnik executives and we are just doing our job.

  It’s the end of the world and we’re selling the future

  because our pitch is all t
hat’s left of it.

  We are beatnik executives.

  In the face of certain annihilation we say

  we’re open for business as usual

  and the first thirty three customers receive

  a complimentary get out of Bardo free card.

  Earth is less than user friendly.

  Heaven is closed for repairs.

  Hell is overbooked.

  So what’s the alternative?

  We are the alternative.

  We are cool beatnik executives

  and we are trying to fix the unfixable

  and everything is broke.

  Hey, let’s get this show on the road.

  What road?

  The interstate?

  Interstate is how I feel Jack.

  Put her in overdrive and hit the fast lane Dean,

  we’ve got to catch up on old times.

  We’ve got to pass somebody

  just to feel like we’re standing still

  and not backing up into whatever the hell is chasin’ us.

  We’ve got to stay ahead of the times

  even though the times went thataway. Whichaway? Thataway.

  Life is disappearing.

  So what can we do about it?

  Hey, let’s sell it.

  Maybe if we sell life itself people will place some value on it.

  It’s all in the pitch.

  And I’ve got the pitch.

  I am a beatnik ad man.

  I’m selling a future just in case there is one.

  I am young, younger than Pepsi

  I am free, freer than Tampax.

  I’m live from New York.

  I’m a beatnik executive.

  I’ve got bongos in my briefcase and when I wheel and deal

  it’s a wheel within a wheel and what a deal.

  It’s Chango that calls the shots

  and when we say possession is nine tenths of the law

  we mean possession.

  And when the spirit enters my body

  woe be to the client who tries

  to pull the polyester over my eyes.

  We are beatnik sales reps marketing fertility in the face of doom,

  our expense accounts are deducted directly from our karma.

  We are flaunting pleasure in the house of pain,

  because if we can sell it maybe, maybe just maybe it will fly.

  We are here to fathom the unfathomable and plan around it.

  We’re selling vision like it was real estate.

  Want to buy a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge?

  We are beatnik executives

  and we are in Gnostic digging distance of the godhead.

  I’ll show you our flowchart and you’ll see

  that this corporation has Jah on the board of directors

  and our prospectus is without end.

  We are beatnik executives.

  Lock up your daughters, we are coming to your town with

  release forms.

  We are beatnik executives.

  Our entire organization is free lance.

  Our meetings are phantom conclaves.

  The jury is always out to lunch.

  Don’t ask me about my personal business.

  I mind my business because my mind is my business.

  My database is my art.

  Judge me by my product and its reliability.

  You have my word. It’s the famous word that was in the

  beginning, is now, and is backed by our legendary

  moneyback guarntee.

  We are the beatnik executives.

  We wanted to take the easy way out.

  And so we did. And here we are. And isn’t it fine?

  Can we book you into the easy way out?

  All it takes is a little hard work.

  Inspiration will come later when you least expect it.

  Have you met our corporate liaison Cody Pomeroy?

  Cody heads up our group of dharma consultants.

  Have you met Dr. Benway our man in R & D?

  The streets are our laboratory and this week we’re test marketing

  a condom inscribed with the Mayan Codices.

  We believe it might be possible to fuck your way back to 3000 bc.

  For the prevention of disease only.

  We are the beatnik executives.

  Anybody can drop out of society.

  But it takes a disciplined organization to drop society out.

  And so, blowing gage and roller blading down the corridors

  of power, we’re getting our kicks on route 666.

  We’re changing the rules.

  We’re making business a pleasure.

  Stalinist art students may say our advertising is immoral

  but we don’t want to live in a world without fine Italian

  restaurants and firm mattresses.

  We are here to change the world from the top to bottom.

  We’ll start at the top thank you.

  We learned that trick from the painters.

  We are the beatnik executives.

  Step into our private elevator.

  No that’s not Muzak that’s John Coltrane, a Love Supreme.

  I want to show you the view from our penthouse headquarters.

  I want to outline our plans and show you the bottom line.

  We’re a corporation with a message.

  And the message is crazy, man, crazy.

  The message is farout. Dig.

  I’m a beatnik executive.

  I don’t want to drop out. I did that already.

  I want to turn on, tune out and drop in baby.

  We’re the drop in generation.

  We can turn this thing around.

  We can change the course of history just by switching

  the road signs

  and that’s why our salesmen are always on the road.

  What road?

  The interstate?

  Interstate is our mode of existence.

  I’m not comfortable unless I’m in two places at once.

  We’re beatnik executives.

  We’ve got a finger on the pulse and we’re gonna quicken it.

  We’re going to drop straight to the top.

  So maybe he can’t inhale.

  We’re putting the president on an IV drip and teaching him

  hard bop straight from the Bird, Charlie Parker appearing

  as the holy spirit.

  A beatnik president? Why not?

  We haven’t had one since Lester Young.

  We are the beatnik executives.

  Our values are visions and our neckties are art.

  We can turn this company around like about face Daddy-o.

  Let’s talk about quality. Let’s talk about production.

  Let’s talk about cornering the market on cool

  and putting it in every home in America, can you dig that?

  This may be the land of the dead,

  but it’s a living, man, it’s a living.

  Hey Buddy, this Buddha’s for you.

  Verbal Abuse, Summer 1993

  Emily XYZ

  (b. 1958)

  Emily XYZ is a New York poet who lives to perform and I was always delighted by her poetry readings with co-reader, actress Myers Bartlett. Few poets today use the power of voice to make words come alive, and that’s what this act is all about. Live, on stage. They tend to bring the house down with two-voice poems such as “Jimmy Page Loves Lori Maddox,” “Separation of Church and State,” and “Sinatra Walks Out.”

  Sinatra Walks Out

  (for 2 voices)

  The bars close and Sinatra walks out

  just a man in a hat and a trenchcoat

  A standing ovation always follows

  He is a terminal delinquent in a bad mood

  Because he is such an incredible entertainer

  A temper tantrum over three generations

  An inspiration to three gene
rations

  Age has not mellowed nor time sweetened him

  He is the greatest of them all

  He is the greatest of them all

  He is the living embodiment of

  the fine tradition of macho

  American overkill

  He is the last man I want to

  applaud

  sleep with

  The opposite of Andy Warhol is Frank Sinatra

  The opposite of Andy Warhol is Frank Sinatra

  Irredeemably corny

  violent heavy-handed and horny

  He is all/He is nothing at all

  You cannot make jokes about Frank Sinatra

  You cannot make jokes about Frank Sinatra

  Some say he sings like a dream

  and gives

  voice to emotions most men

  don’t even know they have

  can never admit to

  moved me to tears

  that tie up the heart

  night I met my first wife

  or break it in pieces

  Some say he speaks for men

  Some say he speaks for men

  men unable to speak

  men unable to speak

  unfortunate men of the 20th century

  unfortunate men of the 20th century

  trapped in ridiculous cages

  trapped in ridiculous cages

  cages they never imagined

  cages they never imagined

  cages of their own making