RUDIMENTS, pt, 1,099
('solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short')*
It wasn't movieland, though
probably there had been a few
crime films done there : dumped
bodies and isolated slayings. I
never knew of any 'stars' that came
out of down there, excpt maybe that
one guy, from something Weapon,
I think - Bruce Willis. Maybe, or
it somehow sticks in my mind. As
a rich guy, coming back to town
and buying up the whole place, to
keep it whole. That would be a good
film. Like one I saw called, 'Local
Hero,' long time back; that was a
good one, and really well done.
Scotland or Ireland somewhere,
some helicopter bigwig sends a
flunky out to buy the town and
take it all for mineral rights or
whatever. But the flunky, once
landed there, falls in love with
the place and its people, and he
gives up on the whole program
of exploitation and ruination. It
all turns out nice in the end, though
I really can't remember much. I
think maybe there was some local
beauty or some romantic interest
involved too, that overruns
everything, and then the bigwig
Corporate takeover tycoon comes
out to see what the heck was going
on, and I think he falls for the place
too. I don't ever tell people what
to watch or anything; I don't tell
anyone anything actually, about
that stuff. I just write, whatever I
feel. If it fires up an interest for
someone, all the good. Find 'Local
Hero' somewhere. I bet you'd like
it. Back to Bruce Willis, heck you'd
think some Hollywood wreckmaster
like that could have come back, at
least, and plunked $300,000 down
to save and preserve Buzby's. The
old one, not the tourist trap that
failed. Heck, everything failed.
Guys like that though, they ought
to get more involved. There are
so many write-offs for crap like
that when you're wealthy he
could have probably made
money doing it. What a bunch
of crap this American, banking,
world is. Somebody that needs
it, they can't get a thing. Some
guy like him, and a thousand
others, already flush with dough,
they can get whatever they want.
-
My time in Wrightstown made me
think about poverty too. Government
poverty, actually, I could never figure
out how, 30 miles to the east, maybe,
millions of dollars were being dumped
at the very shoreline, of beaches and
the old fishing piers and all, just to
build some fantasy-kingdom of
gambling and show meccas for a
hundred bussed-in bozos a minute
to regale in, while 5 blocks inland,
the entire, pathetic, predominantly
black-ghetto'd and white-trashed,
existed in abject squalor; crime
and drug infested, without jobs or
any incentive to find one. What
they'd be offered at the new casinos,
after the fancy-assed croupiers and
gaming people were assigned there,
would be service jobs, cleaning up
sheets and shower stalls, or frying
chicken and cooking food for the
imported AC bus trip crowds, from
dismal terminals like Sayreville, or
Bayonne or Union City. Those buses
were lined up for blocks, when it
finally got rolling, and all that minimum
wage, 1980-level, slob work almost
became mandatory, and the locals
still seldom wanted it. Meantime,
over, inland, by Chatsworth and in
all that woodland sand, you could
find the same sort of situation,
incredibly enough, and sanctioned
by the US Government, wherein
the same sorts of people, though
maybe way more white, got the
same sorts of jobs servicing, at
feeble rates, the Military! Its brass
and its visitor, the strips of motels
and stay-overs, and the whole town
of Wrightstown too. What a strange
way to treat, or mistreat, people. I
saw it all as a dead-end, one with
little or no exit. Everyone did seem
oblivious to it, I'll admit : No bad
attitudes nor any grumbling about
the whole deal. None I ever heard
anyway. Probably the saddest day
in that town would be if the whores
ever got to unionize.
-
There was a liquor store nearby,
where I bought some booze, and
next to it was, as I mentioned, one
of those dollar-store deals selling
all sorts of cool and outdated stuff;
it made me sad to see some big
white lady even buying outdated
cough medicine for the scrappy
little kid she had in tow, who was
hacking away. It was a one of a
kind place almost, in a far-off
burg like little old Wrightstown.
We went in there too, and bought
bunch of cool stuff, New Year's
Eve, daytime. That's where I got
the cool sack of cruddy pens I
mentioned, for like 79 cents.
Fair warning, though, everyone
else in there, working OR shopping,
was fat, foul, annoyed, and impatient.
That I could NOT figure. But then
too, I realized, that was probably
really almost racist too, on my part,
or white-trash racist anyway; why
should I make the assumption that
these odd bumpkins in their faraway
land of strangeness, should be happy
and glib in the conditions I just
described? See how there really
are lessons to be learned and gotten
from everywhere, if a person just
tales the time to think, and stop,
and look around.
---
*"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst
of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death. And
the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
..........Thomas Hobbes
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