RUDIMENTS, pt. 669
(left handed poster boys)
Throughout the 1970's I read
a hundred things of note; hedgehog
and fox stuff, Isaiah Berlin, Walter
Benjamin, all those German guys,
Hannah Arendt, and a hundred
probable other things by men and
women of note as well. Do you
know how that messes with your
mind? I was gunpowder gone
by the end of that decade - which
is about the time too I got hooked
up with St. George Press. Which
was like a crash-land into ineptitude.
All it really meant was a paycheck
on Fridays, and only whatever
else I could do in between times
to stay sane. What a bungle that
all was. Lower-level, small-scale
base-proprietorship stuff, instantly.
People in bad suits, coming and
going; 30 immediate half-shysters
representing printing clients and
accounts I couldn't fathom. I often
just stared at the wall, and said,
'why me?' I felt shell-chocked and
wasted. I be told, by others, that I
was out of place, what was I doing
there, why wasting away so, why
destroying myself. It was, and very
quickly, not much fun at all. My
spy-ring was over. I was trapped.
-
Nothing to do, but - as the saying
back then went - keep on keeping
on. I even hated that phrase. One
of the accounts I picked up was a
place called Magruder Color Co.;
they made inks, up along Frelinghuysen
Ave, at Newark, and they were a
demanding bunch, but I produced
and stayed on. The guy I dealt with
had a daughter on the staff of the
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
She lived in Colonia; so I got to
begin doing their printing too. I
also got free tickets to symphony
stuff - one in Newark was at the
old Mosque Theater - a down and
out place by then (1980's early) but
still in use. We went to one of those
events - it turned out to be the NJ
Symphony, but it was behind Sarah
Vaughn, singing all Gershwin, and
it was being filmed for some Channel
13 thing. The emcee of the night,
and narrating for TV too, was Robert
Alda, some big-name from the 40's
who was also the father of Alan
Alda, one of the dweebs in MASH.
A show and situation I hated. I can't
stand ironic situational comedy,
with a shoulder-chip too, about
being 'better' than you are for getting
all the sly jokes and allusions. MASH
was a really pathetic show, and sexist
as well in a time when that didn't
much matter. Yet, had I ever run
across Alan Alda, I'd have made
sure to punch his lights out. His
gather was mostly in a balcony
sound-suite, narrating crap between
songs, so I couldn't get to him.
Sarah Vaughn, for who she was and
whatever she represented, came off
really lame too - Uncle Tom'ing
all that Porgy and Bess stuff, singing
black but being like white. And the
stupid orchestra wrecked it all too,
overplaying everything, trying to
act casually classical in a hip-jazz
kind of way - befitting Sarah Vaughn,
as it were, and her past associations
with old Jazz-Newark, which had a
long history, but was all gone. She
should have been too. She betrayed
everything you could think of about
herself, and the stupid songs she sang.
I was never a big fan of the Gershwin
Brothers; Ira got on my nerves even
more than George, because it was
Ira who wrote all the blundering
lyrics. George's music, on the other
hand, was just nervous repetition and
parlor-boy piano lesson stuff, in my
opinion. His music never came into
its own for me until I saw it used in
Woody Allen's Manhattan - wherein
it came off pretty brilliantly.
-
So, realizing right off the bat that I
was stuck in a really lousy scene,
outside of running away, and leaving
all my relationships - which also meant
wife and kiddie and house - I stayed
like a schmuck and ad-lib'd my way
through everything I could. Boy;
St. George Press, on St. George
Avenue - also called Route 35, and
then Route 27 about a mile north,
at Rahway, was a hellhole and a
totally piece of crap environment.
I'd take the train or drive out of
that area at every slip I could. On a
good day, back then, NYC was about
20 minutes away if you timed it right.
It's probably 3 times that now, with
traffic, lights, development and the
congestion of thousands of new
people. It always seems like the
worst people, quality-wise, are
the ones who somehow end up
having the most kids - in 15 years
or so, all those kids start doing the
same thing, producing another million
kids, and everyone needs a place
live, or stay. There's no advancement
in learning or knowledge, but the
power of endless fornication does
nest to wreck things, like right now
in Woodbridge, and you end up
with a billion losers getting cheap
and tacky places built for them, and
then being subsidized to live in them.
Slums get made like the skin that
forms on six-say old coffee.
Welcome to Paradise, MoFo.
The joke's on you.
-
My game was murder. Unfortunately
it was mostly of myself. To get by
in the position I'd gotten myself into,
my use of language had to be tamed.
Immediately. One of my first deals
was with this Brooklyn guy who
moved in locally and decided to
open a pizza restaurant in a nearby
abandoned A&W Root Beer stand
that was there from the 1960's. The
extent of the guys conversation was
one-syllable Brooklynese. That
was it. He'd come in, wearing his
Italian flaming pizza costume, usually
stinking the place up from the food
aroma his clothes cast off, and
proceed to 'dese and dose' his way
through the blunt-ass end of trying
to explain to me what he wanted.
It was a real joy. Thirteen years
previous I was having nice, learned
conversations with Philip Guston
and Mercedes Matter, each real
high-toned, famous NY art people,
and now I was stuck, jammed in, with
the grunts and groans of some Bunky
Lamborghini guy telling me what
color green ink he wanted his pizza
menu to match with the red. It was
almost disgusting, except he did
throw me free pizza passes and junk
often enough. Garlic knots, anyone?
-
Right next to him, next victim, was a
fresh out of vet school Jewish guy
opening a veterinary clinic - both
of these businesses, amazingly, are
still there. (Must have been my touch).
It was nice; he was about my age, but
totally, totally different. I knew nothing
about veterinary stuff, except what I'd
gleaned and seen working the farms
in Pennsylvania, but that was all
much larger stuff - horse pills and
cow-udder ailments - while his
concerns were dogs and cats. We
talked some, banter, about little
things, but not too much in common.
But at least he could talk in complete
sentences. Next to him was a mystery
place called Mary's Hill Top. I think
it was a roadside diner kind of place,
but it looked like nothing and never
seemed busy. All the sign ever said
was that - 'Mary's Hill Top.' Next
to that was a Euro-trash used car
joint run by some Serbian guys or
Greeks or Macedonians or something.
Simcas, Renaults, VW's, etc. A lot
of trash-crap, but the place was cool.
The guys were cranky and odd though.
I got a kick out of them and made
it a point to stop by every so often
just to kick tires on their recent arrivals.
Did I say cranky and odd? I would
be too, I suppose. Poster boys for
left-handed socket-wrenches?
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