7778. BELOW THE WATER LINE (pt.155)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt.155)

If I took anything from the rather ragged simplicity

of Avenel, it was that 'pretension' is the worst thing
there is. I left there with the motto 'Simplify' ringing
in my head  -  and it is still right. As it turns out, very
little of what I've actually become has much to do with
Avenel. 'Stranger in a strange land,' as Robert Heinlein
put it, but I (try to) make it work. I'm way too vulnerable
sometimes, and have numerous problems with both
mind and heart. Those traits aren't very 'Avenel', but
I've always been like that. Probably have just been
clonked one too many times on the head, like those

boxers and football guys who then zone out. Anyway,

you can't define what you can't define. My whole life,

even as a little kid, was mostly spent in a bundle over

someone else. Happened enough. Heartfelt wound after

heartfelt wound, and nowhere really to go. So, what kind

of introduction to anything is that I walked away a long

time ago from any recognition factor that would sub-limit

what I'm about. Too many branches, on a strange, straight

tree maybe. Guys in Avenel were supposed to be strong and

rugged, without any of that vulnerability stuff. While I was

growing up, over on Monica Court, but actually in Frankie

Stroehlein's backyard, as shortcut, right across the street

from me, was a kid named Bruce Kelber. He had an even

younger brother too, name now forgotten. Bruce was a

wildman as a kid, a complete, unruly nut case. The whole

house was nuts  -  people screaming and yelling, always, in

the backyard, what I could see. Bruce and his brother doing

weird things; throwing marbles at cars, starting little fires.

You'd understand trouble if it came out of that house. Some

years later, all of a sudden I see long-haired Bruce, about

25 or so then, being lauded and cited for bravery  -  as a

fireman, with the Avenel station  -  he ran into a fire or

something and saved a burning kid. Whatever the story,

I forget. But the locals and the newspapers ran the

story, all big, about bravery and valor and the guts to

do right, on the spur of a moment. Brucie Kelber,

it was. Damn it all.

-

That was more of what you'd expect from Avenel

stock. Certainly not me  -  I'd fallen weakly, by

comparison, into another realm, a world

distressingly soft, when put side by side to

Avenel, or to Bruce. The 'Artworld' was another

psychic realm entire, and one that I'd have been

hard-pressed to explain to anyone. If they'd have

even listened. The rough and tumble ragamuffin

world of our little streets never included people

leaving them for softer endeavors or the followings

of aesthetics and art categorizations. It was as if

I'd suddenly been turned into the UN ambassador

or something. Even the idea of the priesthood and

missionary work, a few years before, had cancelled

me out of the 'Avenel' running. None of that mixed

well. it just seemed all the time to me that Life was

getting too complicated. The idea of 'simplfy' seemed

right, but the more I trod on, the more I complicated

things, deepening levels of meaning and thought, and,

in turn, fussying up more than simplifying anything. 
-
Simplify works in the artworld too - but there
it usually just means 'stay old, remain outdated,
work in an outmaoded fashion, remain small.' All
that is the language of Art. not grandiosity or 
pompousness and grand, enormous outreach. 
Most of Art today has turned into a public-realtions 
gimmick, tie-ins, big bucks, and personality cults.
It's like a visual rock-music for mostly moronic 
hangers-on. Now, as I see this, it just hit me that 'visual 
rock music' could be an art concept of its own any day  -  
there's already a place in close-by Pennsylvania where
people go with hammers and strike the rocks  -  which are
strewn about everywhere in a huge-glacial-rock-dump formation
of about 40 acres  -  and each rock makes a different tone and
sound. The huge field of gray rocks, large sizes, just sits there,
left where they were as the 'glacier' melted right there. That's
what they say anyway. The varied iron content of all the
different rocks makes then each have a different, and distinct,
ring sound when hit. I would have no way of knowing how this was
discovered, or why anyone would nave been traipsing around there
with a hammer, but it's there, it works, and it's true. 'Ringing Rocks 
County Park', Ringing Rocks, PA. It's also a campsite for campers
and travelers with hook-ups on their camper vehicles for plug-ins.
I had a friend, from Germany, a music-theorist and a music-major, 
who in fact produced, performed, and recorded some sort of
'suite' of this music from the rocks (rock music?) andm back
in Berlin, had it performed, or at least played publicaally
somewhere, to great reviews. He'd woven in a few other
musicians and instruments  -  bass, oboe, and the rest. In some
strangely connected and tenuous way, the same string connects all
these things. But the monumental art of the Earthworks people
still strains. I don't know why. I'm from Avenel. I need the tidy 
frame, not the wide, broad one. 
-
It's always amazed me how I've probably missed the boat
on everything that's interested me. Art, music, writing, 
poetry, and the rest  -  I've got tons of material but just
have never caught onto the many-laced strings of going
anywhere with it. I can't stand the dealings and the
pretensions, the arrangements and the credentials and
interview kinds of things. I refuse to make a public presentation
which woule be characterized as 'correct.' I should have
special license plates. Avenel was certainly never meant to be
a home for artists anyway  -  nothing good comes out of Nazareth,
and all that. The art frenzy is not Art, it's just a frenzy. I keep
doing the working  -  when you're merchandising, you're not
working, producing. I'd rather be doing that (the work itself).
Merchandising is business, which blows. They've now even 
managed to make war and theft into business. So far be it
from me to interfere or even to get involved. I can't stand the
'type'. Let me be discreet. Next year in Jerusalem.

-

When I would be at home, all I'd think about was not

being at home. That was pretty weird, mainly because,

as a kid, you're supposed to grow and dwell into your

surroundings and environment. I guess that never

happened with me. It was always, 'get out, move on.'

I'd never see it anywhere else. My friend Jim Cruise,

over on Park Ave., he always seemed to have the most

beautiful home life. His sister was grand, his mother

was grand, and his father always seemed just right,

settled, quiet, smart. His mother used to make us

'soft' baseballs, one after the other -  she take like

gym socks, or something, roll them onto one another,

a few together, and then somehow stitch them, as a ball,

to stay. Just a tad larger than a real baseball, tightly

done, and all drawn together into a fairly hard ball.

Jimmy had a deep, long yard, as did the Hoffman's,

behind him. With those 'soft' baseballs, we'd spend

hours hard-pitching and hitting, in his yard. With the

occasional really great long fly balls these 'sock-balls'

were perfect for. The other, crazy thing  -  and here's all

that weird Catholic crap again  -   Jim had a set up

of an altar in his back room  -  a simple, but identifiable

altar and he'd actually perform 'Mass' in there. Pretty

strange; stranger too that I'd 'attend', along with his

sister, once or twice. He had the entire Latin liturgy

down, some mini-sermon stuff, and even went as far as

pressed circles of some stupid Wonder-Bread middles

as the distributed host. Man, I announce to you now,

my brothers and sisters, it was weird! Go in Peace.