RUDIMENTS, pt 407
(avenel amperage)
Main Street Woodbridge used to
hold, in August, Sidewalk Sale
days - all the merchants, with
discounted merchandise, would
line the sidewalk; just as it says.
Wheeled carts and tables of the
merchandise about to be out of
season, or leftover, unsold stuff.
There were, at those times, (all
gone now) shirt shops, clothiers,
shoe-stores, a nice Army-Navy
store, surplus stuff, stationers,
etc. The full idea of 'Main Street,'
when it made sense; when it was
actually worth putting a flag out
in front of the Post Office. As the
present days have it, things have
gotten so bad and pig-headed, that
the stupid malls around, (right here
there are 2, within 2 miles of each
other and along the same road), and
without any logic or sense, considering
they are clinical and controlled
locations, unlike any 'sidewalk' life
- now these 'Malls' - each roofed
locations, unlike any 'sidewalk' life
- now these 'Malls' - each roofed
and separated all from real life -
have the audacity to pose 'Sidewalk
Sales' of their own. I don't do malls
at all, nor have any need or intention
to, mostly because of what I am,
but I'm told it's the same thing.
False sidewalk images, racks of
things for passers-by, etc. It's
even gone so far as to have
the 'Mall' insides once a year
turned over to 'Food Truck'
fairs, where people walk the
mall and buy their fries,
grease-patties, and falafels
from industrial food-trucks,
the sorts of trucks you see at
job-sites, etc. Truly, that's how
false and artificial the thinking
has become. What sort of person
would live like that, and what
sort of life would be lived? -
I often wonder - about someone
whose brain could accept these
falsities?
-
Mall culture is absurdly stupid,
and dead. Pure pretense rises to
the surface. Two weeks back, the
highway sign was still reading,
'Now Open! 'My Little God, and
Goddess!' Locally owned, locally
curated.' I guess it's a kids' store
of some sort, but the current use
of the trendy word 'curated'
makes me ill. Of course it's all
locally curated, you moron. It's
a local Mall, no one else is going
to step in and do it. The word
'Curated,' by the way has now
been usurped by commoners.
It once was an actual and
intelligent term for learned
members out in the art world,
museum directors, art historians
and art scholars - who'd then
arrange exhibits based on
style-schools, eras, and themes.
In 40 years now it's pretty much
degenerated, in fact, into use
for the sorts of people who say
yes or no to the crap hanging
in coffee shops. This further
step-down is used for those who
select the shoes, toys, pants and
rattles for kiddies. Good God,
what a miserable world. I 've
found this life to be mostly
a cockamamie scheme.
-
It's really just a problem
of how words get used for
concepts in play to be
disabused. (I never liked
that word, it never made
much sense to me, and I
can't even get why it exists.
- except that in old use it
really did mean 'to deceive').
'Disabuse me of that notion.'
People fluff everything up,
ending up ironically parodying
every aspect - and they
don't even realize it. I want
to wonder, if you lie to
yourself, is that self-disabuse?
-
Let's take this one step past
this, and look at the Avenel
Arts Center. I'm sure the crap
in there soon will want to have
'curated by' attached to it, by
some fey flagellant parading
as an egghead. Little do the
parents (and 'family portrait'
dweebs) realize how their little
daughters are soon to be exposed
sets of mid-level staged parade
junk affecting their brain and
demanding acceptance (on
tax dollars) for such disgusting
local fare as 'Housewives of
Hoboken,' or the likes of 'My
Big, Gay, Greek Wedding'.
The entire 'I'm gay and you
better be too' contingent will
soon be hitting Avenel under
the guise of fake Art and fake
Theater. This is 'Mall-Culture'
brought to center stage, in your
face and on your dollar. The
last place in the world that needs
needs this is, certainly, Avenel.
Because there's no filtering
discernment here to see through it.
All is, apparently, accepted. This
is high-amperage mind-bending.
Only because no one knows any
brought to center stage, in your
face and on your dollar. The
last place in the world that needs
needs this is, certainly, Avenel.
Because there's no filtering
discernment here to see through it.
All is, apparently, accepted. This
is high-amperage mind-bending.
Only because no one knows any
better, but that's it. Like the
'My Little God, and Goddess'
people, it's a pre-determined
(but locally curated!) foray
into today's new-version of
an overriding false-seriousness.
Are you going to explain all this
to your little Katherine and
Kenny? A backwater highway
hovel like this running fourth-tier
leftover slum theater by some
fluff-burger in from out of
town on our jitney buses?
Your own kids are now under
assault as Perversity has been
invited (and paid for) into town.
I wonder too how the church
whose parking lot is going to be
used feels about any of that.
I wonder too how the church
whose parking lot is going to be
used feels about any of that.
So please don't any of you purity
heads on the local streets here go
barfing up your goodness stories
about the local-team you love
so well. Sometimes the Devil
comes in the name of the Lord.
-
Back to the Sidewalk Sales of
yore along Main Street. The day
my son was born, in Rahway
Hospital, it was a July 19th. It
was hot then too. I knew I needed
a shirt, a real shirt, presentable,
buttons and sleeves and all that,
in which to go visit, see the Mom
and kid, enter the hospital, and not
like a bum. I went to the Army/Navy
store then in town, right in the
middle of Main Street, next to
Handerhan's Fish Market, and
got a really nice, high-quality and
official looking, shirt for myself,
for like $4.95, back then. Which
was a fortune for me to spend.
But I felt like a King!
-
During the time I worked in that
bank building, my two sidekicks were
a cool guy from Milltown, name Bill
Konowalow, of Kulthau Street (I
walkways thought that was cool),
and another guy named Dick Martin.
He was bit older, and was really hooked
on 1. his new Buick, which his in-laws
had bought for him, and 2. a girl named
Marlo Thomas, who was or had
starred in some TV thing called 'That
Girl,' and which he loved to watch.
Dick bought the TV Guide each week
at the stationery store nearby, and he'd
just study it. Bill Konowalow, of
Kulthau Street, he had a 1958 pick-up
truck, a Chevy, that was primered, but
nice. One time I went to his house for
a requested visit, because he wanted
wanted to show me something - at
the end of his street was a wooded
lot, pretty large, untended, and tree'd ,
and lost in the middle of it was a tee-pee
and a real American Indian native guy.
Bill said he'd been there a long time, and
they just let him stay, the town never
bothered him, or anything. It was
sure weird, and I couldn't figure
what he did all day, how he did
the usual bathroom and food stuff,
or any of that. Nor do I know what
ever became of it, or him, or,
for that matter, Bill. He lived with
his mother and sister, and he had
some other job too, driving dump
trucks for Harry Halpern. Halpern's
long ago dead now, but he used to
have a nice place up the other end
of Main Street - big home behind
hedges. He was a millionaire from
developing and building all around
the darn town, but you'd never know
it. He walked and dressed and looked
like a bum. He'd come into NJ
Appellate a lot and just hang around
some - grunting some small talk;
he never spoke much or said anything
long-winded or smart. He just always
made me wonder how who gets what
and all that. No gems of wisdom about
the town, or anything. A complete blank,
as far as all that goes. Once he died,
they tore his house down in about
a year, tore all the hedges and trees
down too, and now they park trucks
there. Right by where that crazy
anti-abortion Knights of Columbus
Catholic bunch is always
picketing the clinic. Will
they also picket the theater?
-
During the time I worked in that
bank building, my two sidekicks were
a cool guy from Milltown, name Bill
Konowalow, of Kulthau Street (I
walkways thought that was cool),
and another guy named Dick Martin.
He was bit older, and was really hooked
on 1. his new Buick, which his in-laws
had bought for him, and 2. a girl named
Marlo Thomas, who was or had
starred in some TV thing called 'That
Girl,' and which he loved to watch.
Dick bought the TV Guide each week
at the stationery store nearby, and he'd
just study it. Bill Konowalow, of
Kulthau Street, he had a 1958 pick-up
truck, a Chevy, that was primered, but
nice. One time I went to his house for
a requested visit, because he wanted
wanted to show me something - at
the end of his street was a wooded
lot, pretty large, untended, and tree'd ,
and lost in the middle of it was a tee-pee
and a real American Indian native guy.
Bill said he'd been there a long time, and
they just let him stay, the town never
bothered him, or anything. It was
sure weird, and I couldn't figure
what he did all day, how he did
the usual bathroom and food stuff,
or any of that. Nor do I know what
ever became of it, or him, or,
for that matter, Bill. He lived with
his mother and sister, and he had
some other job too, driving dump
trucks for Harry Halpern. Halpern's
long ago dead now, but he used to
have a nice place up the other end
of Main Street - big home behind
hedges. He was a millionaire from
developing and building all around
the darn town, but you'd never know
it. He walked and dressed and looked
like a bum. He'd come into NJ
Appellate a lot and just hang around
some - grunting some small talk;
he never spoke much or said anything
long-winded or smart. He just always
made me wonder how who gets what
and all that. No gems of wisdom about
the town, or anything. A complete blank,
as far as all that goes. Once he died,
they tore his house down in about
a year, tore all the hedges and trees
down too, and now they park trucks
there. Right by where that crazy
anti-abortion Knights of Columbus
Catholic bunch is always
picketing the clinic. Will
they also picket the theater?
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