Hide Away

In his book “Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up To Me,” Richard Farina helped repopularize an old tagline – Here’s to Plastic Man, for hipping us to Changes.

Plastic Man is a genuinely elastic superhero capable of extreme physical alterations. Among the Beats and Folkies of my time, the occasional tagline was “Here’s to Plastic Man, for hipping us to Changes“. We’d slip this into the conversation when some weird, wonderful, or foul thing was going down, and it would change something in our lives.

Occasionally, it still slips out of my mouth instead of something more srcuatable in today’s world. During my years of wanderlust, I used it a lot. As I wandered away from the folkies, beats, and musicians of my past, it slipped past my mouth less often.

Blogging has helped make what was old new again. For years, I hid the old stuff behind the curtains. Many people who knew me professionally and socially knew nothing about my former life. A whiff might waft forth once in a while, but no more.

It was a protective cover from prejudice I had put in place in college and grad school. I maintained it afterward through habit and once again as a protective screen. Afterall, I was a kid from Washington Heights, a Greenwich Village habitué, Pius Itinerant, and familiar with people who lived wildly alternative lifestyles. I was not a simple “I’m just like you” sort of guy among the middle and upper echelons.

The actual people I did research among, informants, craftspeople, musicians, and the like, were cool. I didn’t have to maintain cover among them. It was the “professionals” in my line of work, the people from the burbs who hadn’t paid for their education, and drew an unconscious line between themselves and others. Those I hid from.

I hid it so well that I hid parts of it from myself. Blogging helped break the screen down. Now, I spend time writing about how I fit the pieces together. In some ways, it’s like finding an old trunk stored away for years. As you go through it memories pour out. It’s like soul food after years of eating bland fare.

So “Here’s to Plastic Man, for hipping us to Changes“