Hoboken.
I convinced some friend, sometime ago, that Hoboken was founded in the Depression, back when the town still had the trolley, the tracks of which now only remain at Hudson Place. Legend had it told, I whispered, proverbial fire crackling, that the founder came riding in on a boxcar, all his worldly possessions tossed over his shoulder. Kenneth, he was called, as he jumped off the trolley and emerged from the dust.
He was not a man known for his modesty, king of the road, and named the town after himself.
Thus, Hobo Ken settled down in Hoboken.
I convinced myself, selflessly sometime ago, to write the mayor and ask him for an addendum to the "Welcome" sign. My will was weak and my handwriting poor, and I never got past a blank sheet of looseleaf. "Hoboken: Hometown of baseball and Frank Sinatra" the sign currently greets, although no one believes me when I tell them about the former and Sinatra himself hated his origin.
"Hoboken: Hometown of baseball and Frank Sinatra -- and Dorthea Lange and the Oreo and Alfred Stieglitz
and The Chicken Emergency" was my fifth grade dream and failed social action. Even if The Hoboken Chicken Emergency snubbed my street, and Oreos made me sick, and I could not spell "Stieglitz" or pronounce "Dorthea" without repercussions.
I took creative writing. It was boring. My mind dissolved in a solution of boring. I walked home one night. It was not raining. I wore a Nets gym bag, not because I like them but because of soccer. If I did like the Nets, my sports cheer would be a rhythmic snap of Mets-Jets-Nets. And the bag wore a rash on my neck, and I adjusted it, and I thought, mind melting:
There are several
misconceptions about New Jersey.
IT is a throwback to the 801s,
big hair
big belts
clacking red nails and pink gum.
IT is a pasteled suburb,
Avon ladies,
Danny Elfman in the background.
IT is the primordial soup
of crusty films
by Solondz-Smith,
the prodigal sons of
entertainment.
I live in Hoboken.
It smells like bread
I hear Frank Sinatra,
and out my window I can see a World Trade
Center
with a spire hat.
The class commented, constructively, that "Avon ladies" was product placement and "Solondz-Smith" was arcane and "Elfman" was esoteric and "bread" was too, probably.
Hoboken has good bread.
I like Frank O'Hara.
I lied when I said my poetry was spur-of-the-moment.
It actually originated in April 1998.
My three favorite bands are somehow Hoboken-connected. They Might Be Giants' first couple of albums were released on Bar/None Records, a distributor based in Hoboken. Pavement's Steve Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich lived in Hoboken in 1989. Yo La Tengo is Hoboken.
Eventually, this page will be prettier. Eventually, I'll shut up.
back.
back further.
