11,067. RUDIMENTS, pt. 407

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

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

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.

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?