Ken Nordine Sendup

Air Lift Underground
Sending Up Ken Nordine

Why don’t I know about Ken Nordine?
Who?
Never heard of him.
I mean, wasn’t he always there
Before we were born
Before we even thought of being born
Did we? Did we think of being born?
Maybe. We’re thinking about it now
You don’t say…
Well, what do we think of it?
Think of what?
Of being born?
I’m not partial to it myself. Doesn’t seem like a very good idea.
Partial birth
The non-stop redeye
From the womb to the tomb
You know, existence isn’t really consensual.
I mean, no one asked me
If I wanted to be…
If I wanted to exist…
How do you know?
How do you know that no one asked?
It doesn’t seem possible.
It’s a little strange. Like a loop. A strange loop…
But what would be the alternative?
Well, not doing it.
That’s a clear option.
Or incarnating as an elemental entity instead
In a purple paisley polyester pantsuit
Doing the disco dance of discord
Lurking on the rim of a swirling
Subatomic exit drain to the underground innards
Underneath the underbellly
Of the unbound mind entering

The Void…

An unending abyss
A vast chasm
Of pure emptiness
You mean a black hole?
But we don’t like to say that.
Why not?
It sounds perjorative.
That’s ridiculous.
I mean, it seems a little unfair.
Your insecurities are really annoying. And rude.
I’m sorry I’m so insecure.
You missed your cue.
Are we shooting pool?
Cube ball in the pants pocket
Or are we shooting the breeze?
And the studio erupted in a hailstorm of bullet points
Killing the vibe, man. Killing the vibe.
Okay, pool, then. But no shooting.
Cube ball in the back pocket
The pocket of my jeans
Hand-me-down genes
What’s with Q anyway?
Never goes anywhere alone
Attached to U at the hip
That’s a little co-dependent
U goes out all the time
U is pretty outgoing
But Q only sits at the head of the table
With U
The round table
Sitting at the head of the round table
Let’s have a pool table
We’ll just dive right in
the pool at the bottom of the stream
what stream?
you know, the stream
oh that stream
the never-ending stream
the stream
of consciousness
soft-core
Stream of consciousness
consciousness? what’s that?
well, that’s a tough one

we’re gonna trip we’re gonna drip we’re gonna slip into the stream
we’re gonna deal with the unreal and spin it into a dream

there is nothing I would rather do
than think about what I’d rather do
there’s a lot to unpack
yeah, let’s leave that alone
but about this cube ball
what about it?
Well, how does it roll with all those angles and edges?
That’s a pretty square question
I mean a cube ball
Like one of those Rubrick do-hickey’s?
Hickeys are so sophomoric
So do you want to reinvent the wheel?
They say you shouldn’t do that.
They say that?
All the time.
It’s one of those, how do you say?
Aphorisms
Cliches
Maxims
But what happens if you reinvent the wheel?
Well, then I guess you’d get a Nobel prize
That’d be dynamite
But there’s one catch
Always a catch
Everybody’d have to believe you’d invented it
So they’d have to forget ever seeing a wheel
Or using a wheel
Or referencing a wheel
Everywhere in the Cosmos
Yeah, we’d have to get rid of all the wheels
And everybody who remembered ever having one
Maybe wait a generation or two
There ought to be a law
Against wheels?
Well, that won’t work.
Why not?
Because if there’s a law against wheels, then how will everyone forget the existence of wheels?
Good point.
Is there a point to a wheel?
That’s the problem with the cube ball
Things never get rolling
What if we
What?
What if we sanded down the edges
Made it less edgy
Less edgy?
Sure
Or tumble it like a rock in a waterfall
A cascade
Make it roll a little smoother
The cube ball?
Yeah, like, dip your toe in the pool
Before plunging in
Plunging sucks
Like a vaccum
Like the void
A little pocket
Pocket in the side
The side of my jeans
My Levi’s jeans
Dungarees
Pocket of nothing
What’s nothing?
What’s that?
It’s the opposite of everything
But how can everything have an opposite?
Isn’t the opposite of everything still part of everything?
That’s sort of a paradox
Some asshole once said
That asshole sure talked a lot
That paradox is nature’s way of saying you aren’t open-minded enough
Open-minded?
That’s something we like other people to be
Not me?
Not you what?
Open minded.
What about it?
Don’t I want to be open-minded?
How should I know?
Speaking of non sequiturs…
Let’s get back to nothing
Nothing, yeah, nothing.
I’m not sure it really exists.
I feel we’re skirting the issue.
The approach avoidance two-step .
Are you afraid?
Of what?
Of Nothing.
Why would anyone be frightened of nothing?
Aren’t you?
I just like to jig a void dance. Cause the Void, well, that’s just nowhere, dig?
So…about this Ken Nordine.
Why don’t we know about him?
Because we’re from another ear
Another era
Kids these days
I have a theory
You and your theories
It’s because when you get the groove
Your mind just turns to Word Jazz
Yeah, Word Jazz
And people just
Get all wrapped up
They dwell
On the infinite labryinth
It’s a maze-ing
And they forget about everything else
They dry up and fly away
Things fall apart
Center cannot hold
That’s really good. We should get that down.
It’d interrupt the flow
What flow?
Let’s see how it sounds
See how it sounds
We were jamming on Nordine
Oh right. Who’s Ken Nordine?
And why don’t I know about him
And his Word Jizz
Let’s see how it sounds
See how it sounds
Don’t you mean Jazz?
Call it what you like, it’s all between the sheets
Word Jazz
Where the fabric meets the flesh
Under the covers
Maybe we should put it to rest
Put it to bed
Put what?
This whole jam
Jamming on Nordine
Who?
Ken Nordine.
Do I ken? Know Know Know
Ken Nordine.
Is he kin? Ken Ken Ken
Ken Nordine
Why don’t I know about him?
I’m not sure I get it
Get what?
Ken Nordine.
Who?