RUDIMENTS 212.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 212

Making Cars

The first time I ever saw a

Tesla was in Princeton : the

very early hours there would

bring out these on-the-way-to-

office types, stopping and 

dashing in, to either Small

World, or Starbucks, for their

coffee. A veritable array of

expensive cars set loose. I

for some reason thought this

was a one-off car that the guy

himself had manufactured. I'd

had no exposure before that to

any of this Tesla electric-car auto

manufacture stuff. After enough

times I began talking with the guy,

and we'd go over his car, and I

learned the finer points of Tesla

electric ownership   - range,

charging, power, expense, etc.

These were all big money people,

and this guy was quite proud of

his Tesla ownership. (Here's that

moral-superiority riff again). After

a while, roundabout conversations,

we realized, (he, jokingly  -  me, to

heart), that the entire idea of Tesla

automotive design was essentially a

farce. This bothered me to no end, 

but to him it was massive, miraculous

marketing. You see, the Tesla is

built and designed as if it was a large,

long-hood, muscular, powerful car.

Like some sort of big Jaguar or 

Maserati. It's all illusion  -  the car 

itself needs none of that. It could 

be shaped like a shoebox as long

as the component batteries and

electric motor were in place. He 

said, in fact, that they could even 

be purchased, somehow, with the 

recorded sound of a bristling, 

mechanical power-plant, as if it

WAS a muscle-car. Now I don't

know what obligation, (if any),

that pretension has towards function,

but it seems to me that something

here was amiss  -  the pretense of

a muscle-car in the real-coat of

a lamb  - but that falsity suited this

fellow just right. It's an electric

motor, and if that's the choice you've

made, why then does it need to look

like it isn't? May be it was all

OK and of no matter anyway. I

didn't want to go getting all filled

with philosophical insight over this

issue, but it seemed to me, as I

thought about it, fairly fitting. He'd

be the guy to eat the sugar cube, but

leave out the LSD droplets that were

in all his friends' cubes, just to say

he was there. Come to think of it, as

he ordered his daily 'de-caf' coffee

it made total sense. Completely.

A Tesla was the equivalent.

-

That was, I suppose, what passed for

the muscular in Princeton. Fake cars.

They probably were working on

having fire trucks that no longer had 

to make loud noise  -  just a sign out

front reading, 'Loud Fire-Truck Noise!'

to which you'd have to react. As I said

previously, in the early morning hours  

-  5:30 or so on  - the Royal Foods trucks

and Sysco Systems trucks would come

barreling in, each with two or three pallets 

of a day's supply of eggs, butter, bread,

cold cuts, meats, vegetables, milks, sauces,

etc. Places like 'Olive's' and 'Lahiere's'  - 

when it was there; 'Alchemist & Barrister.'

'The Nassau Inn', and many others. There

were all sorts of dining places. The army 

of slow-street trucks   - along the streets 

yet too early for any real traffic  -  was 

met by a mass of Mexican heads from 

below the ground. They'd come tumbling

out from the Trenton or New Brunswick

buses, 15 at a time, and walk down the

street to their jobs, both males and

females  -  chattering away and almost

running in place  -  plus there was an

entire bevy of bicycle-riding, also

Hispanic, locals who lived about and

reported in. These folks manned every

kitchen, washroom, dish-wash station,

pizzeria, and sandwich job you could

find. Beneath the sidewalks, they worked

monumentally each morning  -  ice, rain,

snow, hail  -  to get all this stuff in and

down to the basements as quickly as they

could. Deep, narrow stairways, close

quarters, ramps and rollers. I truly

don't think there was a meal in town 

that you could by that had not been

prepared by someone other than the

properly named or shown and/or the

titular name and ownership. Massimo's:

pizza, by Mexicans. 'Olive's' - an otherwise

pert and half-classy take-out venue for

heavily detailed fresh and fast foods  - 

Mexicans and Hondurans, top to

bottom. It was the same everywhere.

-

Princeton was a bubbling illusion,

and even in the University dining spots

and lounges, all the food service, or 80%

of it anyway, was by Central Americans.

I used to try to dwell on this, thinking,

'what has happened here? How have we

transformed all this, this country, from

one thing into another?' There was an

entire, sub-class industry of doers and

servers, underground and out of sight,

and I just wasn't sure this sort of thing

had ever been in the planning of the

nation. Unseen to anyone, a whole

sub-set of serfs doing the all of the

dirty bidding. The whereabouts of all

this complicity, I figured I could see  -  

all around me. But it was all, by others,

unspoken and unmentioned. I knew

it had happened in New York, and had

seen much the same thing, but there it

was all cut-throat living and people

swam or drowned. Here, by contrast,

it was a form of subterfuge  - of others 

climbing up all atop the servant class

of slobs that they kept hidden. There

was no talk of this. In the center of

Witherspoon Street, by the library,

there was a sushi place run by the

most in-your-face, brash Asian guy.

He worked; took orders, cut fish and

prepared the such rolls and seaweed,

all the while carrying on a monologue 

of sorts for anyone to hear. Almost

embarrassingly rude  -  a young couple

would come in, clingy and shy, to sit

and order. He'd start going at them :

'So; good looking girl! You lucky guy!

She giving you much yet, ha! I bet

you getting plenty!' Not to be leaving

anyone out, he'd then turn to the girl

and say 'And I bet you likee too, ha!'

Sometimes I'd sit there eating shark

or eel rolls, almost in shock.

-

I never knew how much of any of this

the rest of Princeton knew, but it was

out there, as general knowledge, and

just went on. A co-worker of mine, 

named Andrew, first sent me there  -

'Go, go, you gotta' hear this stuff; you

won't believe it.' I went. Andrew used

to go almost every day, at his lunch 

time, for 'eel.' He'd come pack every

time all fired up by what he'd witnessed.

Was this some sort of ersatz Princeton

theater, a play-act to keep people amused?

What did this crazy guy know? How 

aware was he, of how he came across,

what it all looked like? At least it was

authentic  -  a sushi place with but

two real Asian workers. For real.

Andrew lived in town, was a real

Princeton person, all his life. He soon

left the bookstore, after some feud

with management, and went back to

his old jobs, at the far other end of 

Princeton, at some retreat/monastery

place where he helped take care of

'severely-challenged' and troubled, 

kids, and at the local health-and 

natural-foods store. I last saw him out 

on the library plaza, quite near the sushi 

guy's place, actually,  years back, taking 

names and donations for Occupy New York.

He remembered me, and said, 'You likee?'

-

Everything else in Princeton was just

a twist away from real lemon: the nose

in the air type, for whom buying a

pen was a huge process. Let alone

the leather travel-journal. The

sublime there ran right alongside

 the ridiculous, and neither saw each 

other  -  because, and by design, they

made sure to remain invisible all

across the board. No racism to be

admitted; nor subservience, or

superiority, or disdain or hatred.

 It just all had to work, because

the cameras were always on.