RUDIMENTS, pt. 484
tommy hilfiger
Jean Paul Sartre said,
'I am always making
myself up as I go along.'
In those early years, I
did find much in his
words to take solace
from, though now
looking back at most
of it I find it all rubbish.
That entire, WWII and
postwar Existential thing
had no legs. It fell apart,
I felt, once society went
the way of possessions,
materialism, credit and
advertising. The entire
focus of what was supposed
to be living was lost and
cast-off. It had been a long
way down. Everything had
become, anyway, symbols.
In the same way that I was
always troubled by F. Scott
Fitzgerald and that light he
kept staring out at across
the harbor to Daisy's, so too
did the general direction
and the assumed endings
of the current culture,
trouble me. Gatsby was
a faker, and a very early-on
symbol of America's largest
fake and con : Consumerism.
Amassing junk. Whatever
the contrived symbolism of
that Gatsby stuff was meant
to be, I found it in a hundred
other ways never spoken of:
In any case, I always thought
the book was anti Semitic,
though no one ever made
mention of that. There was
first the issue of Gatsby's
false name (really 'Gatz'),
and all the rest of his falsehoods.
And then there is the Jewish
gangster guy, Meyer Wolfsheim,
representing pure Evil, the dark
presence, the filthy schemer.
These things were so obvious
to me as to be incomparable to
any other reading. But, never
mentioned. The legacy there
is long and wide and deep.
-
Up in the part of Pennsylvania
I was at, you could probably
count the Jewish people with
two sets of fingers. I guess
that means 20, but that's
too many. I was hardly
aware of that, of course,
except for that Harry Glass
guy, the school superintendent
who hired me for the job I
had for a bit. He was actually
a 'Glassman' and a transplant
from Plainfield, NJ too. It was,
in that case, fairly obvious.
But, other than him, every
other spire, steeple, bell,
landmark and place of worship
up there was lily-white and
Christian. Baptist-church huts
proliferated, mostly. Again, the
white Baptists. There was also
a sect of 'black' Baptists, but
not up there. They went by
another name, maybe it was
'Southern Baptist.' I forget.
-
Each one was the same as the
next, and each was poor and
pathetic, with always some
sort of 'added-on later' social
room or wing. Any of one
hundred different reasons
and holidays were used to get
locals out for cake sales,
bake sales, prayer meetings,
'meet the missionary' gatherings.
When I had been in the lower
east side of NYC, a lot of
the east European churches
had a bit of the same feel -
blessings of the animals,
and pets, and food baskets.
They'd bless anything to
draw people in. It was all
very pious and quite serious,
and they fell for it all. In
Pennsylvania, in the same
way, if it was, say, 'Mother's
Day,' there'd be this stupid,
sloppy, afternoon ceremony
of awarding the 'Youngest
Mother Award.' Which I
always thought outlandish,
since any girl of 14 was apt to
get knocked up out in those
parts. Why in the world promote
that? They never did the same
for fathers, nor for Father's
Day. Old Rev. McKnight,
I'm pretty sure, knew he'd
be laughed out of court on
that one. But all this stuff
brought the ladies out, and
got him some attendance.
brought the ladies out, and
got him some attendance.
-
Back to Sartre's making
himself up as he went along -
in the same vein, but in a
lighter fashion, Mark Twain
remarked (Hey!) : 'I remember
everything, and what I can't
remember I make up.' The
somber, dark, 'pin the tail
on the donkey' aspect of
despair had not yet settled
over Mark Twain when he
said that - showman and
raconteur as he was; but
he himself was never a
bundle of optimism beneath
it all. If you read some of
his closing remarks, he
was a dark dude; a black
soul in a white suit.
-
There never was much overt
religiosity in the area I lived.
There was plenty of local
'church' stuff, and the presence
of Ministers and visitations
and all that crap. But nothing
of it was really 'religious' in
the sense of large, heavy
cosmic questions being
addressed. It was a jumbled
mush, instead, of childish,
Bozo the Clown moments
purporting to target the soul.
It's still like that here, now,
around where I live. Avenel. I
never much cared for children;
never much cared for children;
kids bore me, I find then
self-centered, vain, and
talentless too. Yet, all of
the churches I come across,
and see in action, treat their
parishioners as children and
target all of their efforts as
if everyone was 7 years old.
Easy to placate with promises,
and even easier to push around
with promises of a tomorrow.
I could never understand why,
as Society matured, churches
didn't just disappear. Now I
realize why : because Society
never matured.
-
I'd often tried my hand at
simplicity - sometimes I had
no choice. The concept of it
attracted nonetheless, and I
am pretty sure that if I won
a million dollars tomorrow
afternoon I'd remain as
dullingly simple as I am
now. Up there, as I was
living a hand-to-mouth
existence (figure that
phrase out? I guess it
means is all you're ever
doing is trying to ways
to have food, or get food.
The problem, even there,
isn't much for me - not a
big food guy at all), so
overcoming simplicity
was never a big project.
I was simple. Period. Two
flannel shirts and some
sort of jacket could carry
me for two months. I had
a few old, paint-stained
sweatshirts that, when they
got too bad I just wore inside
out and they looked new! I
probably could have started
a fashion trend. You may
remember, since I've mentioned
it before, that at about this time,
up in Elmira, I'd made my
acquaintance with a young
guy who ran a small, jeans and
shirts store, just starting out.
The store was named 'Peoples
Place'. I'd written a few local
newspaper things, and the old
man who ran a store next to his,
which sold the opposite of what
he sold - suits and ties, formal
overcoats, and all the old-line
Republican tweedy stuff - had
replied back to me and asked
me to meet him, at his store, and
discuss some ideas. Which I did.
Which is how I found Peoples
Place, perched right next door.
The next few times I went back
with my wife and child, who was
about 4 then, and this young guy
gave us a nice tee shirt, 'small size'
so the kid could sleep in it, etc.
He was a real local nobody then,
the store owner, but I liked him.
His name was Tommy Hilfilger.
Yep, that Tommy Hilfilger, for all
you hot-to-trot fashions buffs out
there. Indian Madras got nothing
nothing on Tommy. The logo, by
the way was terrible, I thought, nor
did I think much of the name. It
was a catchall place, sort of, with
records, music, clothes, and all
other sorts of paraphernalia. They
went back and forth to NYC, to
stock up on all this 'trending' stuff.
All little behind the current of the
day, but for up there it sufficed. in
a place like Elmira, back then, you
could get away with being two
years behind the curve and
still be seen as hip. If you did
really want the cool stuff, 20 miles
up the road was Ithaca. I always
figured, 'First it was Goldfinger,
now it's Hilfiger,'
-
When you look at any of this
fashion stuff - and I'd bet Tommy,
back then would have owned
up to it - it's just a bunch of
hogwash. Clothing is a need,
not an elitist tendency; nor is
it a means of 'showing' you're
better than anyone else, more
classy, more tasteful, or smarter
or wiser than. Only a stupid
person would think that way.
To spend one hundred and
seventy five dollars on a shirt,
I'd think you'd need your head
examined. Just down the street
from the Peoples Place, which
had quickly up-classed and
glamorized itself into a black
and gloss Soho basement kind
of 'look,' replete with pounding
music that was even pumped out
onto the street, was a smaller
place, owned by two people I'd
met once at an Elmira College
house party. That place was called
'Fat City.' In much the same way,
they had clothing, often used, for a
modest 4 or 5 dollars. They also
'made' shirts, vests, etc., as an
artisanal craft. I have one. They
were pretty neat, but went
nowhere. And there was a
third location too - used and
salvaged clothing - cheap.
It was called 'Glad Rags.'
Whatever fashion bandwagon
had somehow cruised into Elmira's
quiet habitats, it was only Tommy
Hilfiger's that came up with its own
code, brand, elan, and pizazz enough
to take it all out of town, and then
go big-time forever. The needle
and thread trade started
making itself up.
I was simple. Period. Two
flannel shirts and some
sort of jacket could carry
me for two months. I had
a few old, paint-stained
sweatshirts that, when they
got too bad I just wore inside
out and they looked new! I
probably could have started
a fashion trend. You may
remember, since I've mentioned
it before, that at about this time,
up in Elmira, I'd made my
acquaintance with a young
guy who ran a small, jeans and
shirts store, just starting out.
The store was named 'Peoples
Place'. I'd written a few local
newspaper things, and the old
man who ran a store next to his,
which sold the opposite of what
he sold - suits and ties, formal
overcoats, and all the old-line
Republican tweedy stuff - had
replied back to me and asked
me to meet him, at his store, and
discuss some ideas. Which I did.
Which is how I found Peoples
Place, perched right next door.
The next few times I went back
with my wife and child, who was
about 4 then, and this young guy
gave us a nice tee shirt, 'small size'
so the kid could sleep in it, etc.
He was a real local nobody then,
the store owner, but I liked him.
His name was Tommy Hilfilger.
Yep, that Tommy Hilfilger, for all
you hot-to-trot fashions buffs out
there. Indian Madras got nothing
nothing on Tommy. The logo, by
the way was terrible, I thought, nor
did I think much of the name. It
was a catchall place, sort of, with
records, music, clothes, and all
other sorts of paraphernalia. They
went back and forth to NYC, to
stock up on all this 'trending' stuff.
All little behind the current of the
day, but for up there it sufficed. in
a place like Elmira, back then, you
could get away with being two
years behind the curve and
still be seen as hip. If you did
really want the cool stuff, 20 miles
up the road was Ithaca. I always
figured, 'First it was Goldfinger,
now it's Hilfiger,'
-
When you look at any of this
fashion stuff - and I'd bet Tommy,
back then would have owned
up to it - it's just a bunch of
hogwash. Clothing is a need,
not an elitist tendency; nor is
it a means of 'showing' you're
better than anyone else, more
classy, more tasteful, or smarter
or wiser than. Only a stupid
person would think that way.
To spend one hundred and
seventy five dollars on a shirt,
I'd think you'd need your head
examined. Just down the street
from the Peoples Place, which
had quickly up-classed and
glamorized itself into a black
and gloss Soho basement kind
of 'look,' replete with pounding
music that was even pumped out
onto the street, was a smaller
place, owned by two people I'd
met once at an Elmira College
house party. That place was called
'Fat City.' In much the same way,
they had clothing, often used, for a
modest 4 or 5 dollars. They also
'made' shirts, vests, etc., as an
artisanal craft. I have one. They
were pretty neat, but went
nowhere. And there was a
third location too - used and
salvaged clothing - cheap.
It was called 'Glad Rags.'
Whatever fashion bandwagon
had somehow cruised into Elmira's
quiet habitats, it was only Tommy
Hilfiger's that came up with its own
code, brand, elan, and pizazz enough
to take it all out of town, and then
go big-time forever. The needle
and thread trade started
making itself up.
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