11,136. RUDIMENTS, pt. 430

RUDIMENTS, pt. 430

(avenel long-lines)

Sometimes a straight line

has nothing at all to do with

being the shortest distance

between two points. I've found

that any old way will get you

there; you can fly, right over

the poles and in any zig-zag

manner you select. It's all

meaningless in the long run.

Or, as put by John Maynard

Keynes, 'In the long run, we're

all dead,' and all the pride and

pretension of hugging chuckles

with Tom Hanks won't bring

you home again. (Yes, I do 

actually know someone who 

dines with Tom Hanks. It's

nothing to me, but I thought

I'd make mention). So, in that

fashion, I tolerate a lot of

crap. Remember that previous

chapter's fake drug-deal in

my father's presence  -  much

to his consternation  -  the two

people who did that were pretty

good at a form of street-theater

that should have been better

promoted. The later 60's had a

lot of that : there were little

storefront theater groups

popping up on every (well,

just about) lower east side

street : psychic theater,

anti-war aggression, stage

tactics taken to the street

to smack people's attention

and consciousness around.

It sort of had to be done,

because the world mostly

had just fallen asleep, into

some crestfallen darkness of

tract housing and sameness.

These days we have robots

and drones. Don't kid yourself,

they were just as prevalent

then, except that they were

alive, and had to eat and shit

and talk. And carry guns

and bombs in armies of

the dead so as to kill,

poison, and maim others.

What's so different about

different anyway?

-

There had to be a great shaking

out, I sensed it and I knew it

was coming. Day by day it

was building. It's said now

that the largest pollution in

the world, and perhaps the

biggest culprit, are the two

daily-commute periods of

the millions who work. Of

course, no one ever talks

about that, or there being way

too many people now. The

eco-goons now would rather

steer you into buying 'cleaner'

eco-toilet paper or toothpaste,

and make you recycle every

tinker-bell piece of crap paper

and wrapper provided by

the gazillion poison eateries

and fast-food factories where

sick people line up for more

sick food. No one ever gets

to the bottom of things. (Hey!

Is that a toilet paper joke?).

Insufferably going nowhere,

or slowly. Sitting in traffic

lines, steaming themselves

into heart attacks, anger and

anxiety, and the rest, while

besmirching the world we

live in. For what? I don't

know what we even make

anymore, but in the 1960's

there were still factories

and manufacturing plants  -

all along the rail and roadway

corridors : smoke and yellowing

pollution. Now at least, since

we really 'handle' nothing,

and technology has taken

over a lot of the tasking, I

guess people can work more

from home, maybe. A lot of

that smoke and corridor smog

is gone, yes, but surely now

it's been replaced by other

things  -  worse things, as

a pollution of the mind is

always worse.

-

I've known two people who

drove those enormous 1970

era Chryslers. One was my

printing boss in Elmira, Floyd

White, of Whitehall Printing.

(His wife's name was Margaret

Hall; thus 'WhiteHall'). I used

to think it sounded so important

and exalted and British. Floyd's

was a huge, green (that terrible

Chrysler green from those days),

aircraft carrier of a car, all flat

planes and single lines. Here

in Avenel/Colonia, in the early

and mid 80's was another guy,

Martin D'Aigle, of 90 East Hill

Road or one of those 'hill' roads.

His was the exact same, green

and all, as Floyd's. Martin was

one of the 'eccentrics' I skipped,

because he didn't walk around

and confound others, he just

angrily drove around in this

huge Chrysler, cursing out

everything he saw. Martin was

the hanger-on helper of sorts, in

his old age, at St. George Press;

old friends with the owner, and

basically repairman, mechanic,

builder and fixer of anything we

needed. He'd built, in fact, his

own house, in the early 1950's,

by hand at that little hillside

site. It's still there too. His

wife was dead, and he had a

grown daughter. As he aged,

Martin got progressively more

angry about the present day

(that present day, then). I ran

into him one time, on a Saturday

morning, in the parking lot of

the old Rickel's. The hood was up,

he was cursing out the car, the
engineering, the way it was built,

the entire thing. I approached

him, to help, and he about tore

my head off too. The gist I got

was, basically, 'I hate this world

and this car too, and I don't

want to be here any more.' It

was all too bad. I never seen 
anyone, before this, undergo
such a gradual and declining 
personality shift. And it is to

this day, the way people age

and turn sour, get strangely

upset and cranky enough to

turn on others, their peers

and the rest. Towards the

end, in real pain, he had

developed a nasty limp,

his hip was shot, and he

could hardly get around.

My printing boss guy, his

friend, arranged for, and

provided him with, a hip-

replacement operation.

Martin died in the post-op
recovery about two days after.

It was a terrible, sorrowful

scene, all that. He had, until

that point, been a crazy dynamo.

-

In a previous chapter, I made

my own mention of 'eccentrics'

wading through Avenel. Like

Martin. I made my point, and

was done, and moved along.

What I don't understand is how

I get notes now about how I

missed this or that wealthy

lawyer who collected snuff-boxes,

or entertained famous people

with his movie collection or

the butcher who sang opera.

Obviously, I've got one weird

reader who insists that I write

only what he sees. Ain't gonn'a

be. They're not 'eccentric,' they're

just someone else's idea of elite.
And frankly, if I didn't 'know' of
them, how could I write of them?

-

Those large, long Chryslers were

sure ugly. There's a design point,

in the autos of that period, where

the simplicity of line and stretch

was fully played out. Designers

had nowhere else to go  -  hiding

the headlamps and putting them

behind automated grill flaps and

such was a horrible joke. Taking

one huge piece of heavy chrome

and grinning it around the front

as the bumper-lead was just plain

ugly. Side-slab features were

barren and gross. Tail lights and

rear ends went begging. It was

all over, yet people were still

gleefully driving their 220 inches

(length I mean) of lethal steel

to the candy counters and

supermarkets of the world. The

seventies were just so senseless.

-

I guess each town has its pet

themes and favorite things - a

local car dealer gets the cop-car

contract over a deal at the local 

diner, a handshake seals it, a few

signatures, and then the money

turns hands. The local pols duck

and dive, and the numbers never 

do see the light of day. It's always

that way. Yet, still people go on 

as if they live in a place they 

can  actually 'change.' I can 

assure you, anyone, that the 

actual retards who run things

allow you no such chance. 

You may talk and testify 

and protest, sure, and they'll 

hear you and let you go on

for the sake of the 'process' and

for cover too, but anything that

happens 'tomorrow' has already

been placed and assumed and

dealt for, two years previous.

That's the real process, behind 

the scenes, by the dirty criminals

you call friends and neighbors.

You have as much chance of

changing the design-look of that

old Chrysler than you do of

effecting change in tomorrow's

daily gay planet of perversion 

and Gomorrah-like pleasure

about to be hoisted onto your

tax shoulders. The real straight

line is that you're already fried

in oil and cooked.

-

Whenever I returned to Avenel

from New York City  -  whether

for two hours or two days  -  all

I could ever do was compare the

gimcrackery of foolishness and

parochialism I'd see here with the

finer points of an 'already descending-

though-chaos but at least with a

history and a brain,' New York.

The equivalences were of sitting

out front of the New York Public

Library, or behind it, in Bryant

park, sniffing the drug-deals and

hookers, as against hanging out

in the Rickel's parking lot having

Martin snivel and carp about

whatever he would. Yes, my

friends, street-theater now

is everywhere.
-
I slowly eased into my new
circumstances. It was all much
like learning a new language  -  
which task gets more and more
difficult as we age. Younger kids
have a great facility, early on, for
learning new tongues quickly. 
That's the time to get them  -  pick
up some French and Spanish, 
German or Chinese, and it all 
comes easy. Like the 'Suzuki 
Method' of violin-training  -  
again, for the young  - catching
that stream early on works
wonders. My new time in
the city was still under the old
influence of my Avenel-hick
twang, a kind of wheeze and 
snort of the dumb and unformed.
I soon caught on, and I did, soon
enough, start losing that underpass
twang. It was important that it
soon enough be gone.