RUDIMENTS, pt. 376
(avenel's riotously laughable lies)
I probably should have been
a comedian; everything else
has been a bust. I should
never have gotten started.
Mostly, all my days, I was
genuinely pretty funny. A
quip, an aside. The problem
was, I was often enough
pretty foul : Not too much
of a filtering mechanism
in play between words and
routines in search of a good
punchline. Seinfeld? Hell,
I gave him his first joke :
(What did Adam say to
Eve on their first night
together: 'Stand back, Eve,
I don't know how big this
thing gets'). A comedian
can get away with lying;
it's easy and it's part of a
stand-up shtick. You expect
to be laughed at, and the
material to be skewered,
so you naturally get
outlandish. 'I had a dog
once. Named it Spot. It
was a nice dog; but I don't
have it anymore. Spilled
Spot remover on it.' All
untrue, and not even an
original, but so what and
who cares? You can't do
that with 'writing.' It's a
much more difficult gig :
You need to be ready, at
any time, to defend what
you just said; give sources;
describe it in some other
form. That sucks, all around.
It's akin to a straitjacket; a
straitjacket, of course, a
comedian never dons. 'We
have nothing left here,' the -
rich guy said. 'The cook has
gone back to Honduras, the
gardener is in Mexico City
for a month's vacation, and
the two pool guys are back in
El Salvador, getting their work
permits updated. All I've got
left is Carmina, the Peruvian
maid, who, let me tell you, ain't
such a bad deal (wink, wink).
This new slavery has its perks.
We keep messing up the bed,
she keeps re-making it!I say,
'Bring your Andes Mountains
over here.' She says, 'OK Mr.
Andy, anything you want.'
-
I don't remember any 'comedy'
clubs, per se, back when I first
lived in New York City, although
I wasn't exactly looking. Now I
know a few, and read their marquee
boards as I pass - a lot of local,
passing schlock, but maybe it's
funny. I never go in. I never enter
anywhere where there's a table
waiting for you, or cloth, or
candles. Doorman-types and
welcomers; forget about it, as
the old New York joke thing
goes. That's immediately like
a 9 bucks a drink, 3 drink/set
minimum; so you can drool at
some jerk's Jew jokes, or his
making fun of that guy's date's
cleavage. Even if it's another guy.
The entire comedy thing has turned
into an industry now. A circuit.
There's one right next to the entry
of the Chelsea Hotel; but I never
know any of the names. And
along Bleecker Street too.
-
There were a lot of situations
in my life that were, or would
have been, great comedy plants,
for jokes and routines - beginning
of course, first and foremost, with
my own crazy family. Extended
family too. A boatload of nutcases.
It all depended on how clinical
you wanted to get, and how much
you wanted to skewer these people.
The Brooklyn guy next door, who
was a 'chemist' at Schaeffer Beer,
and was even on a Channel 9
Schaeffer Beer documentary, in
his beer-lab jacket, no less. What
was up with that? Taking blood?
He was walking around for the
documentary with his little hypo
and some test-tube the whole time.
One time, when I used to hang
out a lot at the Avenel train station,
reading my Lawrence Ferlinghetti
in the cool little wooden shed that
used to be there, on the northbound
side, as the shelter for the train-waiters,
I got to know this guy I kept seeing
there - gay as a fruit cake (I think
he said his name was Wilkinson) -
he kept showing me his fashion
drawings - which, as his job, he
drew in NYC for Sak's, or
Alexander's, or Ohrbach's,
one of those dumb stores. He'd
start explaining all this crap to
me - skinny little pencil-line
girls, perky and cute as all
get-out, and their outfits. 'The
outfits must take precedence,
you realize. My drawings are
secondary, always. But there
are rules too I must stay by -
the distance from the top of
the (unhatted) head to the
eyes must be 1/3 the distance
to the bottom of the (usually
upturned) chin bottom.' There
were other things too, I forget,
like about the length of the arms,
ratio of the body-trunk to those
arms, etc. Real crud. It too
seemed like a 'straitjacket',
but for stupid drawings, and
he didn't seem to mind. Then
he started getting personal - he
was probably 23 maybe, to my
17. All that 'waiting for your
girlfriend' stuff. The bastard.
Really. Asks if I've 'gotten in her
panties yet, seen her tits?' Totally
bonkers, and this from a guy
so obviously gay he had
hammer-toes. I couldn't
believe it. He purported to
know everything - 'here's
what she'll be doing, this is
what they want, here's what
you do, this is how it works.'
What an asshole. (Mothers
- don't let your kids hang
around train stations, not
even in Avenel). I finally
told him I was a cartoonist
for Playboy, and pretended
to give him my card. I told
him to call me, I might give
him some work. And I left.
-
One of the things that irk me,
now, is how 'encroachment'
happens; almost by accident.
For instance, go ask the local
Woodbridge State Senator,
Vitale, if he's gay. Then try
and find that Wilkinson guy
who was hired here, 2 years
ago, at full salary, and who's
as gay as pig's feet too. Then
look at the swoosh staff he's
assembled (in abstentia) to
purportedly run this local
Art Center (Avenel having
an art's center is about as
funny as Vesuvius and
Pompei together running
a chain of sweet shops), at
like 100 plus grand a year,
and who's had nothing ever
to do with Avenel. See if
there's a connection there.
(Not that there's anything
wrong with that!!) [stealing
back from Seinfeld]. There's
a big lie here too, in that
Wilkinson at first said he was
'traveling the country' seeing
how other places do their arts
centers, but who on his own
page says he's happily packed
and ready to be off! to Atlantic
City for the Summer. I wonder
on whose dollar that is. (Comedy
again calls. What that noise I
keep hearing? It's like a big
swoosh coming in to Avenel.
I'm wondering why we allow
that stuff?)...
-
If you read Henry David Thoreau,
he has a book, commonly called
'On Civil Disobedience,' although
that's not the actual title of it; it
somehow just ended up with that.
In it he claims for us the right to
resist. I here close with this quick
compendium of how Authority
coerces us into believing and
accepting their comedy bullshit:
The political classes are constantly
at work, even at the very smallest
of levels - think municipal, think
'senior centers,' think 'music and
free concerts in the park.' Primary
here is the idea of getting people to
where they can no longer distinguish
the natural from the false (it's easier
here in Avenel, because no one knows
anyway). All theories of the ideal
organization of life become equal.
None of them can be understood
any more or any less connected to
planetary truth. So the person or
group, then, that can speak the
most loudly or forcefully or
'organized' (easy when you're a
mayor's task force of lackey's
working off tax money), can be
made to be convincing. It's a
strategy. Reality and its definitions
are now up for grabs and have
become a game. They become
better at the game than anyone
else - re-shaping disordered
minds and tilling a new soil
from which monsters will
inevitably grow (their own
monsters). Confusion is also
sown, no one knows what will
happen next (parking permits?
lawn restrictions?), they are
adrift. All information becomes
believable and not believable at
the same time. Nothing is not
arbitrary. A park is 'built' and a
grand opening is held. 9 months
later it is closed. Walkways are
paved. 'You can only walk here.'
Completely randomly done).
People cannot defend themselves.
(RESIST! said Thoreau, resist!)..
The past gets completely obliterated.
History is revised. It is impossible
to prove contradictions, so the
efforts gets abandoned. Without a
point of comparison, all information
is equally real. Contradictions can
no longer be proven, so the efforts
are abandoned. This effort by
'Authority' is to then purge all
references to any alternative.
Whatever is offered as real (Ernie
Oros fake BS nature park) can no
longer be faulted. Nothing is now
provable by direct experience
because all experience is manufactured.
All existence is arbitrary, subject to
the creation of Authority. Ghetto
housing projects built, with grandiose
names and stations and art centers,
all to nothing but theft, corruption,
and money-laundering, well-hidden
within contracts and pay-offs.
-
Now the hard part : The goal becomes
keeping people focused on their own
satisfaction and limiting their needs
to those that can be satisfied by
social engineers. This precludes
discontent. People are led to believe
that anything 'natural' is wrong.
Experience must become confined
to predetermined patterns. Human
feelings and any wildness within
are complicated and unwieldy and
reveal alternatives. They are seen,
therefore, as dangerous to the
'controllers.' Any of that must be
ridiculed and eliminated, and all
experience must be contained
within artificial, controlled
environments ('This is a tree;
you will walk here, not there').
Lastly, they try to eliminate
personal knowledge, making it
hard for people to know about
themselves, and 'people' must be
kept separate from each other;
no crowds unless in pre-arranged
experiences (control) like [you
guessed it. Think municipal, think
'senior centers,' think 'music and
free concerts in the park, again.'] -
events that occupy all attention
at once. Concerts, sports, circuses;
any spectacle in which focus is
outward and interpersonal exchange
is subordinated to mass experience.
Think of all that the next time some
local monkey posts happy-talk
messages. Or maybe just go to a
comedy club. See if I'm on the bill.
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