Angel Tendencies

One of the rules to live by (besides "make no rules"), found in Keith Johnstone's "Impro," when in doubt: BREAK A ROUTINE. Let's say you're down and out, adrift, out to sea, etc. Let's say you've misplaced your mojo. What's a Lone Pilgrim to do? Jump into a parallel universe, try on a new suit of clothes, buy something (it's the driver for this mad, mad, mad, consumer culture - in my case, I finally found the mythical, "ultimate guitar," and I took the plunge!), crack a new book (I suggest the superb "The History of Hip" by John Leland - it's a "hipology," that explains it all!), listen to new tunes, (In my case I rediscovered an old disc of Bluesbreakers cuts with the sublime blues guitar of Peter Green), go to new place, (I wandered the down and out streets of LA sprawl), eat exotic foods, (Indian, French and Asian), fly in the air at 32,000 feet, meditate until the golden light envelops your entire being, repeat until well done, although it's important to remember that even all this can become routine, which you then must assiduously break!

So, in my head, (deep into the tome on HIP), I was hanging with the hipsters, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Dashiel Hammet, and of course, Jack Kerouac. I discover this little tidbit: Kerouac was kicked out of the Navy because of his dedication to "complete and absolute freedom," and what the Psychiatrists called "Angel Tendencies." Hmmm, every hipster (as per the African word "hepi" - enlightened) has a little bit of the Angel (Angel of Joy, Angel of Doom), in them. According to Walt Whitman we must be "poets of goodness, and poets of wickedness too." Sounds like an ambitious regimen, but it's where the mojo is to be found.