RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,184
(just passing through and ain't that the truth)
I remember hearing once that
detectives have a saying which
goes something like, 'Absence
of evidence is not evidence of
absence.' It refers in some way
to the idea of alibis, and that is
somewhere 'appears' to have
been elsewhere but it still under
suspicion, it's because the evidence
of the crime still leads to that
person in some manner to be
determined. I'd guess, in that
sense, a detective's determining
mind never stops trying to
'determine. Even if - on the
face of things - it appears to
lead in another direction.
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Well, perhaps, and all that. For
myself, my operation has always
been a ongoing determination, one
that, whether of stupidity or wisdom,
most often brought me nowhere. I
never knew what we were supposed
to take from the facts and evidences
of this life (as taught to us), but the
evidences always abounded:
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America has always had the seeds
of its own destruction built in. It
was part of the 'restlessness' ethos
by which a supposed 'Capitalism'
moved itself along, relentlessly at
work work posing new products for
consumption and purchase, sort of
as a cat chasing its tail, but a tail
that was not connected to the rear of
that cat but which, instead, dangled
out front of it, just out of reach. The
reach of course was manufactured -
always something new, bigger, better,
or more stupid. Never attainable; since
all that was ever done was the production
of still another 'newest' and 'best' which
everyone then again has to seek after.
Like a treadmill it went, always one
without a landing to rest or stop on.
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You can detect this when you hear
those people who drone on about the
loss of a downtown, or the passing of
that old, 'village,' America, those
quaint old days for small town and
town square. A type of stupid,
'Pepperidge Farm Remembers'
moment - such a moment was,
of course, as false as a nine dollar
bill because it remembered nothing
but instead tried to push some trembling
ad-gimmick outlook so you'd buy some
other form of chem-loaded loaf, this
week's newest and most wondrous
need-to-have. The Death of Downtown.
The loss of yet more, picturesque, old
time Americana; mostly false anyway.
Nostalgia, I guess it ends up as. Called
that anyway : porches, shopkeepers,
bandstands in the village center, with
lemonade, and all those small stores
of a local upkeep.
-
As I write this - point of fact - I am
sitting in a huge vehicle, waiting at one of
what are conveniently called 'strip malls,'
though no one strips - though I have seen
that too, say along Rt. 22 in Union, NJ,
or along Route 17, Paramus, NJ, or
Waverly, NY, to cite only a few. Tonnele
Avenue (Rt. One) in Jersey City, has
strip mall brothels, if so interested; much
of that trade now transplanted from the
horrid streets of nearby Manhattan.
-
Anyway, I sit here while arrayed before
me are, in a row, two supermarkets, a
shoe and sneaker store, a motor-vehicle
office, shipping stores, a card 'shoppe,'
a few hairdresser and nail places, an
abandoned movieplex, two liquor stores,
(or, 'Pennsy style,' what are called 'state
stores' where hard liquor is sold, the state
having taken over and controlled that
unique trade), a phone/app store, a
Dollar Tree store AND a Family Dollar
store (?), a Harbor Freight store (tools,
etc.) - which is essentially a front for
China and Chinese goods, the 'Harbor'
reference simply referring to the fact
that all these goods first arrive here by
sea, from the east and Asian areas,
manufactured often by prisoners and
slave-market inmates, forced labor,
or Chinese serfs. Another card shop,
a candy shop, and one or three
eateries and cafe-type coffee places
along with the obligatory fast-food
and hamburger palaces, two tire and
repair shops, and at least five of the
usual other sorts of dens these areas
attract. Across from me, as well, and
at the 'other' side of the roadway, are
a massive Walmart Superstore, and a
Home Depot.
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What's it all tell you? There are all stores
that, once, would have established that
quaint downtown they all pine about -
with independent and local proprietors,
a few banks and a police station - all
going into the lost pharmacy-store charm
of yore. Capitalism? Strange automotive
stupidity? A concentrated deluge of
product pushed and finagled into the
domain of people and consumption? A
fevered pace of get and have? At least
40 acres of parking lots, by the way,
go along with this strip-mall fever -
and the resultant polluted run-off, sluice
and drainage, and crowded lines of
vehicles coming and going along a
once-pristine highway, while the old
'downtown' languishes and crumbles in
its suit of 'old' clothing. Now valueless
unless viewed as civic nostalgia.
-
That deadened downtown may still try:
The local civic masters yammer on about
goodness, planning and order, while gaveling
their public meetings weekly, while cash
flows and deals are made to continue the
farcical 'progress' - growth and expansion.
In that 'downtown' you may yet find traces of
the old - streets named 'Pine' and 'Walnut,'
'Church' or 'Park,' each of those streets
once referring to real fact, not the version
of today by which such fictions pass.
-
We've done it to ourselves, I suppose. The
camoflauged sewer that Capitalism is is
now the only stink we get; one high stink
after the other with - no less - things
having lost all meaning and a soft-socialism
of means having been put into place. All
things have lost all meaning: 'Food' is no
longer food; rather it's all now a processed
effort at turning coin, with cheapened
ingredients for the sake of efficiency
and storage, chemical additives of an
unknown base, additives of bleak science,
and the use of words like 'savory,' and
'succulent' to entice the unwitting. Yes,
people seem willing to eat most anything.
They come and they go, cars lining up
at pick-up windows in an indecorous
haste within the new wonderland of
fat and grease. Just look around you.
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Yes, all of this, once, used to be the
make-up of 'downtown.' That same
downtown that's supposedly missed
remarked on, History spread its margarine
wings from its marginalized perch? Each
of these places I've described or listed
would once have been a storefront; not
the widespread panic which is now
presented by the national-name stores
of carparks and parking lots, mega-stores
and other bestialities. By name and by
personality, each local store different:
Wesley's Pharmacy, Doris' Dry Goods,
Armstrong's Hardware. Local people,
with a grant and a feeling, each, for
their friends, the customers. Now,
instead, we get assigned 'District
Managers' and departments heads
and the like, transplanted for two-year
stints from anywhere lese in the country,
bearing no local stamp, and not knowing
Missouri from Arizona except by the
light of the resultant sameness they
bring, and represent.
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I admit to being a desperate man. And
I defend not myself or what I say. But,
the evidences of my eyes must be the
witness to what I relate and to which
stories I tell you here. What it is I see
and bemoan, that I give to you. no
matter what any toilet-paper local
politician will tell you, every downtown
now is but a vacated dream and a less
than solid, and scarce, remnant of
some elixir which once was America's
spirit. Drink it up. Imbibe. Like the
traveling wagon-guy of old ('olde?'),
with his snake-oil concoctions, 'Just
Passing Thru!'
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But why stop at this? When a people's
place are gone, so is their spirit. When
the lamp-posts and banners across any
old downtown street can now only
remember and recall the war-dead and
the veterans, the local soldiers, or
this year's batch of 'graduates,' all
is lost, and truly so. They should have
a milkshake on me, at the olde malt
shoppe - but a milkshake now is not
really a milkshake, and ain't that
the truth!!
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