155. - pretension / bruce kelber

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt.155)

If I took anything from the rather rugged simplicity

 of Avenel, it was that 'pretension' is the worst thing

there is. I left there with the motto 'Simplify' ringing

in my head  -  and it is still right. As it turns out, very

little of what I've actually become has much to do with

Avenel. 'Stranger in a strange land,' as Robert Heinlein

put it, but I (try to) make it work. I'm way too vulnerable

sometimes, and have numerous problems with both

mind and heart. Those traits aren't very 'Avenel', but

I've always been like that. Probably have just been

clonked one too many times on the head, like those

boxers and football guys who then zone out. Anyway,

you can't define what you can't define. My whole life,

even as a little kid, was mostly spent in a bundle over

someone else. Happened enough. Heartfelt wound after

heartfelt wound, and nowhere really to go. So, what kind

of introduction to anything is that I walked away a long

time ago from any recognition factor that would sub-limit

what I'm about. Too many branches, on a strange, straight

tree maybe. Guys in Avenel were supposed to be strong and

rugged, without any of that vulnerability stuff. While I was

growing up, over on Monica Court, but actually in Frankie

Stroehlein's backyard, as shortcut, right across the street

from me, was a kid named Bruce Kelber. He had an even

younger brother too, name now forgotten. Bruce was a

wildman as a kid, a complete, unruly nut case. The whole

house was nuts  -  people screaming and yelling, always, in

the backyard, what I could see. Bruce and his brother doing

weird things; throwing marbles at cars, starting little fires.

You'd understand trouble if it came out of that house. Some

years later, all of a sudden I see long-haired Bruce, about

25 or so then, being lauded and cited for bravery  -  as a

fireman, with the Avenel station  -  he ran into a fire or

something and saved a burning kid. Whatever the story,

I forget. But the locals and the newspapers ran the

story, all big, about bravery and valor and the guts to

do right, on the spur of a moment. Brucie Kelber,

it was. Damn it all.

-

That was more of what you'd expect from Avenel

stock. Certainly not me  -  I'd fallen weakly, by

comparison, into another realm, a world

distressingly soft, when put side by side to

Avenel, or to Bruce. The 'Artworld' was another

psychic realm entire, and one that I'd have been

hard-pressed to explain to anyone. If they'd have

even listened. The rough and tumble ragamuffin

world of our little streets never included people

leaving them for softer endeavors or the followings

of aesthetics and art categorizations. It was as if

I'd suddenly been turned into the UN ambassador

or something. Even the idea of the priesthood and

missionary work, a few years before, had cancelled

me out of the 'Avenel' running. None of that mixed

well. it just seemed all the time to me that Life was

getting too complicated. The idea of 'simplfy' seemed

right, but the more I trod on, the more I complicated

things, deepening levels of meaning and thought, and,

in turn, fussying up more than simplifying anything.

-

'Simplify' works in the works in the artworld too  - 

but there it usually just means 'stay old, remain outdated,

work in an outmoded fashion, remain small. All that is

the language of Art, not grandiosity and pompousness

and grand, enormous outreach. Most of Art today has

turned into a public relations gimmick, tie-ins, big bucks

and personality cults. It's like a visual rock-music for

mostly moronic hangers-on. Now, as I see this, it just

hit me that 'visual rock music' could be an art concept

of its own any day  -  there's already a place in close-by

Pennsylvania where people go with hammers and strike

the rocks  - which are strewn about everywhere in a

huge-glacial-rock dump formation of about 40 acres  - 

and each rock makes a different tone and sound. The

huge field of gray rocks, large sizes, just sits there, left

where they were as the last 'glacier' melted right there.

That's what they say anyway. The varied iron content of

all the different rocks make them each have a different,

and distinct, ring sound when hit. I would have no way

of knowing how this was discovered, or why anyone

would have been traipsing around there with a hammer,

but it's there, it works, and it's true. 'Ringing Rocks County

Park' Ringing Rocks, PA. It's also a campsite for campers

and travelers with hook-ups on their camper vehicles for

plug ins. I had a friend, from Germany, a music-theorist

and a music-major, who in fact produced and recorded

some sort of 'suite' of this music from rocks (rock-music?)

and, back in Berlin, had it performed, or at least played, 

publicly somewhere, to great reviews. He'd woven in a

few other musicians, bass and oboes and the rest. In

some strangely connected and tenuous way, the same 

string connects all these things. But the monumental

art of the Earthworks people still strains. I don't know

why. I'm from Avenel; I need the tidy frame, not the

wide, broad one.

-

It's always amazed me how I've probably missed the

boat on everything that's interested me. Art, music,

writing, poetry, and the rest  -  I've got tons of material

but just have never caught onto the many-laced strings

of going anywhere with it. I can't stand the dealings and

the pretensions, the arrangements and the credentials

and interviews kind of stuff. I refuse to make a public

presentation which would be characterized as 'correct'.

I'm handicapped. I should have special license plates.

Avenel was certainly never meant to be a home for

artists anyway  -  nothing good comes out of Nazareth,

and all that. The art frenzy is not Art, it's just a frenzy. 

I keep doing is working  -  when you're merchandising,

you're not working, producing. I'd rather be doing that

(the work itself). Merchandising is business, which

blows. They've now even managed to make war and

theft into business. So, far be it from me to interfere

or even to get involved. I can't stand the 'type'.

Let me be discreet. Next year in Jerusalem.

-

When I would be at home, all I'd think about was not

being at home. That was pretty weird, mainly because,

as a kid, you're supposed to grow and dwell into your

surroundings and environment. I guess that never

happened with me. It was always, 'get out, move on.'

I'd never see it anywhere else. My friend Jim Cruise,

over on Park Ave., he always seemed to have the most

beautiful home life. His sister was grand, his mother

was grand, and his father always seemed just right,

settled, quiet, smart. His mother used to make us

'soft' baseballs, one after the other -  she take like

gym socks, or something, roll them onto one another,

a few together, and then somehow stitch them, as a ball,

to stay. Just a tad larger than a real baseball, tightly

done, and all drawn together into a fairly hard ball.

Jimmy had a deep, long yard, as did the Hoffman's,

behind him. With those 'soft' baseballs, we'd spend

hours hard-pitching and hitting, in his yard. With the

occasional really great long fly balls these 'sock-balls'

were perfect for. The other, crazy thing  -  and here's all

that weird Catholic crap again  -   Jim had a set up

of an altar in his back room  -  a simple, but identifiable

altar and he'd actually perform 'Mass' in there. Pretty

strange; stranger too that I'd 'attend', along with his

sister, once or twice. He had the entire Latin liturgy

down, some mini-sermon stuff, and even went as far as

pressed circles of some stupid Wonder-Bread middles

as the distributed host. Man, I announce to you now,

my brothers and sisters, it was weird! Go in Peace.