10,877. RUDIMENTS, pt. 340

RUDIMENTS, pt. 340

Making Cars

Hitting a baseball was always

a false nostalgia to me. What

I mean is, as a kid, coming

from the age of the presented

dichotomy of Fred Flintstone

and against George Jetson,

it was the equivalent of a

Yankees/Dodgers conflict

game every day. Parody,

each, of the other. What made

it more bizarre was that the two

shows presented were exactly

the same and, interchangeable.

Whatever one did in the stone

age was pretty much reenacted

into the space age for the other.

In the same way, baseball got

presented as some zooming

trademark of the grace and glory

that was (once) America. And

they really expected us to believe

it all. That timeless play of no

clocks, an open ended game, one

without limits, all that sun and

grass, famed American rural

skies, seats and bleachers,

romance, possibility, traditions.

Making it worse was all the

record-keeping and accounting,

the endless statistics. It was

all a crock, because what they

were really trying to do was sell

us stuff and put us in the mental
no-land of imagined bliss -  the 
Yogi Berra once-over equivalent
of Yoo-Hoo for the brain. A 
dangerous elixir to be presenting

to kids  -  it all ended up in

disenchantment and anger, of

those lies presented (by 1967, to

all those same kids, feasting

instead on the angry antics of

Curt Flood, and Kirk Gibson).

The resultant and fiery episodes

of Vietnam and cultural revolt

(as it were), put an end to all

that  -  for about ten minutes.

I realized, along the way, that

I probably loved the conflict.

-

We had damned-good reasons 
for all of that. The problem was, 
no one else saw them and 'they'

wouldn't really let us articulate them. 
So what's left? Of course, violence. 
The knowledge that a Molotov
Cocktail is NOT a drink wasn't long in
coming. Every 1920's Soviet Revolution
history book told you all about it, and 
Molotov too  -  they guy. People who 
are labeled, now, 'terrorists,' which
which leaves out the point that there 
were  good reasons around for the 
terror. But most of the kids who were 
doing it had no real reason or clue 
why. Back then they gave them a gun

and said 'Kill.' Now they give them

a vote, and they say 'vote.'  Big

difference or no difference, I

don't know. Maybe one kid

in five had the requisite brain

power to talk through what

was going on and what he

or she was underway with.

And maybe now one kid in

fifty has the brains to  -  

maybe  -  vote with. 

Apparently.

-

When you approach Cooperstown,

New York, after all those happy

hours of mindless driving along

farm roads and apple fields (if

you go that way and remain

off the pathetic interstate-type

roads that allow you to see nothing

but the backsides of motels and 

trooper barracks), it's a funny

feeling. You sort of feel dead,

or like dead feels on a billboard

that purports to tell you about it.

And, yes, they have them, or at 

least had them, in the nineteen

eighties. The good Jesus had

infiltrated everywhere in the 

places I speak of. That's a

positive, although oftentimes

the portrayals and the reaches 

of it are not. They all portrayed

their own versions of accepted

'death' and their prescribed ways

of getting past it to see Jesus,

yet  -  and this is a major yet  -

for some reason unless you did

it their way, this graciousness

and salvation was denied to you.

I never quite figured that out,

rolling past, as I was, probably

three million two hundred thousand

six hundred and twenty four apples

ripening on the branch, each one 

a treat from their Eve. It all just

became too much to think about.

-

So, when you get to Cooperstown,

all that open-country stuff ends and 

you can feel the presence of another

class of 'town-dwellers', burghers

with a different feel for, and possession

of, money. Gigantic, old, nineteenth-
century homes, large lawns, big porches
and entryways. At least back in those
1980's again. Perhaps now it's all 
changed. A lot of it is, I guess, baseball

money, when you come right down to it.

The town trades on it  -  along with

all that Deerslayer and Natty Bumpo

stuff I mentioned  -  which too is all

the same compound of falsity that

the gimmick of baseball itself it.

They're both trying to support, and

bolster for each other, the fantasy

league of bucolic, old, America.

Which they've both in turn destroyed

and try to recreate falsely by their

racketeering. It's like the Flintstones and

the Jetsons, had they been neighbors

somehow, or psychic neighbors able 

each to pass on their demonic seed,

reinforcing, by their offspring, George

into Wilma, and Fred into whatever 

the name of George's wife was, and

producing some weird hybrid kid

representing.....US! Neither stone

age nor future. Just here, now.

Us! Dumb, stupid, and addled to

death with delusions everywhere

we go  -  on the highways and 

billboards we pass, in those 

police barracks, in the baseball

museum, swimming lakes, boat

docks, eateries and sandwich and

souvenir shops, car dealerships and

truck depots; sex shops and Home

Depots and Office Depots, and,

I swear, I even saw once, along 

the way in Hamburg, Pennsylvania

environs somewhere, a vast,

plumbing-supply place called,

yep, Nipple Depot. What we have

become is what we have become  -

as stupid, circular, and self-serving

as that phrase is. man on third, taking

a long lead, two outs, bottom of the

ninth, with the count at 3 and 2 from

a nasty, fiercely awesome black guy

staring down from the mound to

kill. Tie game, all hell waiting to

break loose, and nowhere to go 

because the roadways and exits

are already full, with people

screaming and trying to escape

in their cars already..running....

out..........of...................gas.