Ornette: Made in America Page #4

while I was sleeping,

from my father,

and he said he had just been

tied up and beaten

by six teenagers

that came in to rob him.

So I immediately

called the police

and called other people

here in the building

and told them what happened.

And I ran down from where I was,

which was about 12 blocks away.

By the time I got here

the police were here

and people were already up here.

And he had been tied up and hit

in the head with a hammer,

actually, by these kids,

which they didn't have to do,

but they were scared

and they were trying to take

his equipment, lake his money.

Someone saw them on the way out,

and they had to drop everything,

but they got away.

He crawled across the floor,

actually, to call me

while he was still tied up,

and you know, it was amazing

that not more happened to him.

He just got a concussion,

but it was bad.

He had to stay

in the hospital a few days.

Then about six months later,

still at this building,

we were walking up the steps

and in the dark

two guys attacked us.

They hit him with a crowbar,

and I grabbed one guy

and was hitting him with a board

that I'd picked up.

We took him to the hospital and

they released him that evening,

but during the next day he had

a lot of trouble breathing

and we knew something was wrong,

so we took the ambulance

and came back to the hospital.

That's when we found out

he had a punctured lung.

But all that happened,

let's say,

within a six-

or seven-month period,

and all because he was

just trying to do his work

here in this building

where he could be peaceful

and people wouldn't have to

bother him

and he wouldn't have to bother

other people,

and he would have enough space

to take care of things that he

wanted to take care of.

It's a dangerous area.

At one point it was known

as the most heavily

drug-trafficked area-

you know,

it's the Lower East Side.

And you always have people

who are going to mug you

or rob you or take your money,

anything.

A lot of junkies,

a lot of poor people, also,

and that's the conditions

that are in this neighborhood.

But this building he got

through a public auction.

It used to be

a New York City school building.

It has a tremendous amount

of space

and potential to do a lot here.

He's going to develop it

and have maybe a music school

or galleries and performances

and a lot of things happening,

once it's developed.

But until that point,

or until things get a little better,

it's always going to be

dangerous, you know.

And I worry about him a lot.

He's not necessarily going

to stay here or live here,

but just being in this area,

you law, will be dangerous.

I'd like to go

out in space tonight,

and one reason why

is because all the things

such as religion,

science, astrology,

death, survival,

and all those things,

they leave you

without any answers

other than what's going

to happen to me when I'm gone.

So why not think about

what's going to happen to you

while you're here?

About four months ago

I got a questionnaire from NASA

asking me about my interest in

working in space as an artist.

And in this category they asked

if you wanted to come to NASA;

Did you want to work

in the shuttle;

Or did you just want to work

on different projects.

So I went,

I look their documents

to a lawyer friend of mine,

and we filled them out,

and I put several

of my friends down

that I thought I'd like to have

there with me.

Well, I think that whatever

out in space I have met

and whatever is not out in space

I have met.

I mean, in other words,

if space is only space

to communicate to us

if there is a being or a theme.

So therefore the earth

itself is in space,

so we're already out in space.

It's just the difference between

looking up and looking down.

In fact that's why I admire

Buckminster Fuller.

He said in his last lecture

that I attended

that there's no such thing

as up and down.

There's only out

So in that sense I don't expect

to find anything

that I haven't already

experienced, out.

Say a million years from today

the image of what we know

as human beings

might become altered

or might become extinct.

I don't believe

that the human form

will ever cease to exist.

So if it's not

on what is called this earth,

then I guess the next place

would be what is called heaven,

and in a sense heaven

is a form of space,

could be considered

as a place in space.

And for some reason,

if the earth is not here

or if it's destroyed,

humanity is not going

to go with it.

That's why I would like to go

out in space

because I'm not interested in,

personally,

what's going to happen to me

after I pass.

I'm more interested in what can

I experience while I'm alive.

This beautiful woman

was coming down this street,

and the more we got close

to each other

she started smiling.

Finally when I got

really close to her

she grabbed me and kissed me

real passionate.

Then in my broken English

I asked, 'What is your name?"

Who are you?

And she started screaming.

And she didn't have no idea who I was

than a bullfrog, you know?

And I said, "Oh, my goodness.

Maybe if I hadn't

opened my voice

we would have had a good time. "

Tell us

the castration story.

Nu

But I'll tell you

a story about it.

When you said tell them

about sex, well, when I was...

I guess I was turning

to be a teenager,

and I remember

having to walk home

with girls from high school.

I got involved in, you know,

trying to court

my little high school playmates

and things.

And during that time I started

playing music as well.

Also, when I played music

I always got a different kind

of relationship to girls.

And then I started wondering;

I wonder if this...

if playing music

has anything to do

with these girls liking me,

and if I wasn't playing music,

how would they respond to me?

I'd really become very serious,

and so I started traveling,

and when I was traveling

I always found

that I could pick up a girl

because I told her

I was playing music.

No, not yet, not yet.

I never

got over the feeling

of knowing whether some girl

would like me

because of me

just being a person

and not just a performer.

And so after having been married

and having a kid

I was thinking about eliminating

any sexual feeling I could have

in my body.

So I was told that was called

castration.

So I went to the doctor

and I told him

that's what I thought I was

interested in him doing.

So he looked at me very strange

because I think I'm about 30, 32,

I'm in my early 30s.

So, you know, he looked at me

very strange and said,

'Well, are you sure

that's what you really want?"

I said, "Yeah,

that's what I want".

And so he said,

'Well, I'll tell you what.

Before you try that, why don't

you try circumcision first?"

I said I didn't have any idea

what he was talking about

because, you know,

it's just something

I hadn't thought about.

And I said, "Is that

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