RUDIMENTS, pt. 213
Making Cars
When anyone caught up to me,
along the way, all I've ever said
was 'you've hooked up here with
a firebrand, and I'm not stopping
now.' Well no, I never really said
that, but it's a thought that's crossed
my mind - IF I was catching up
to people, if I ever was, which I
was not because they were usually
running the other way. I just like
to go on, and when I bring myself
to a cause or an idea there's no
stopping me if a productive step
can be made from it. Stepping
sideways into life, instead of
forward like that Grateful Dead
guy with big feet and the 'keep
on truckin' logo. You can't just
keep going forward because in
your haste too much gets passed
by. You've got to stop and smack
the flowers. To keep on truckin'
was just a dumb idea.
-
My years at St. George Press and my
years at Princeton - they had nothing
to do with each other, except for an
item which I'll mention - both taught
me and exposed me to many things.
Normal things, much different from
the sorts of things I was exposed to
and participated in while traipsing
around NYC. These were suburban
things - and it's funny also how in
my mind I always categorized the
seeking of money to be suburban. Of
course NYC itself was a money-seat of
the world with hundreds of thousands
of money-grubbing slaves and peons
all seeing that too, but this was different.
Suburban different; in that what went
along with it were wishes for family
and cars and a house and lawn and
property and possessions, Clean stuff.
In NYC everything was dirty - the
money guys got what they were after
through dirty means, the cabals of
insiders and double-dealers manipulated
all things and twisted them into the
providential shapes they wished, to
serve their ends. 'Suburban' money
quests were different : shopping malls,
plazas, stupid stuff with no discernible
refinement or class. Big cars in
big jars, sorta'.
-
At St. George Press I got a real good
foretaste of the sort of real crap people
will do to manufacture money, or an
idea. I can pick out a hundred of them
but here's one: There was a guy, about
1980, named Frank Greek. He bought
crap lands and built corporate spaces
and warehouse-truck plazas over them.
Usually named after himself, Frank
Greek this or Frank Greek that. I often
got to do their printing - because of
the printing buyer who worked for him
and who was assigned to all these new
places as they were happening. She'd
come in to work these accounts with
me - the usual endless choices of ink
colors, brochure layouts, paper-stocks,
illustrations, etc. There was really only
so much you could do in showing a large
open warehouse space with seemingly
unlimited trucking and storage capacity,
but she had to jazz all this crap up like
you were buying furnishings or perfume.
I actually forget her name right now, but
I remember here - large bosom, always
wearing shiny blouses, those buttons
with the little loop to button into, not
button holes, and let's just say sometimes
they gaped. These brochures went on and
on, and I stayed with it. (There used to
be a really nice swim-club/lake thing in
Edison, named Holiday Lake; all through
the 1950's and 60's and more - this Frank
Greek guy bought it up, filled it in, and
built about ten solid warehouse things
on it. Those was the sorts of projects
we had - at least the warehouses were
half hidden and off on some highway. Now,
around here anyway, the crooks who sell
this stuff build them right in the midst of
where people live. Can you say crapheads,
or is it only good for fish?
-
I used to really blanche at some of the
things I'd have to tolerate for that stupid
job. If I had to do it over again, I would
not tolerate it - thus the firebrand tactic.
I'd rather slice and burn right now -
screw all those development kind of
people. They're all rabid, hell-bound
hounds dying on the altar of lucre.
Anyway, one day she comes strolling
in with a whole other project. This Frank
Greek guy wanted to branch out. There
was a shitty piece of highway-end land
in Woodbridge: he'd (she said) made
all the connections, paid all the prices,
and made the deals needed to get the
zoning variances, for a bar/nightclub
on this parcel. OK, fine, what's he know
about booze and hospitality? She'd been
reassigned to that project. He wanted
the theme to be Churchillian-British.
The proper snuff and lounge and
Churchill cigar kind of place, with
booze, that you'd go to and never want
to leave. 'Maybe a British Bull Dog
logo, or even a name like that,' he'd
told her. Everything had to be themed
and packaged, logo, character, printing,
napkins, aprons, all that crap. We had
a few meetings, she took me there to
see the construction, etc., and then she
came in one Monday and said she'd
decided what to do - we were going
to create a character, very British, like
a cross BETWEEN Churchill and
Andy Capp. So the character had to
be designed, logo'd, and worked into
everything. Plus named. It took about
a week - sketches, preliminaries, etc.
The end result was this made-up, stupid
BS fake ideal of a place called, after
the character, 'B. F. Packee's,' this
B. F. Packee's guy being her false
creation of some British rich sot.
-
So, false as it all was, manufactured,
fake and fictional characterization as
it could be, B. F. Packee took life. It
was all, really, the dumb napkin creation
of this girl with the special buttons. The
building was completed, sort of sideways
on a weird little slice of property, and, in
fact, it lasted a solid ten years, and is still
there now, in its third or forth incarnation.
Sports Bar whatever. Mr. Packee, and that
whole idea, is long gone. The Frank Greek
warehouse kingdom is still intact (make
a left onto Mill Road, off Woodbridge
Avenue, in Edison), and pass the Middlesex
County High School of Commanding Arts
or Community College or, even, University
(I don't know what they call themselves
now, all these dumbass inflated names.
It's basically a trade-school for Criminal
Justice degrees with futures as mall cops,
or Homeland Security scrubbers). A
million trucks a day roll by.
-
B. F. Packee was as fake as all get out,
and it suited Woodbridge well. Nobody
blinked, as it was as meaningless as the
town itself. Unless, of course, in the
annals of Woodbridge history a particular
story could be manufactured that such a
guy really existed, that he switched
sides, fought in the Revolution for the
colonists, worked for the Parker Press
guy, defended the White Church from
a British crossbow attack, died in a
violent conflagration defending the
town and was buried in the Episcopal
churchyard on Rahway Avenue where
he once tended to the local gristmill
and wagon-coach stop on the Rahway
to Amboy road...I'll tell you the other,
Princeton, end of this story in the next
chapter. It gets better.
No comments:
Post a Comment