The Natural Intellect of the Osk Brothers

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The Minister of Selections

Ted Coop and what ever happened to the Sunny Cave?

This is a story about loss, about what was and what is, and even about what is right now. It should be read out loud by someone who knows how to not read the ending, but knows how to say recite it by heart. There is only one of those people left now.

By the time his liver said "enough" and the news of his death spread, he had only three fingers left on one hand and four on the other. Burned off. Taken by helicopter. Actually pulled out of his own fireplace and put on the helicopter. Early reports had him dying as a very real possibility, then the presumptions about the vastness of his burns and the hideousness of the damage. Rumors (this happened fairly recently) have it this was done by a policeman, the other boyfriend of his girl, the one nobody liked but supported him, bought him what he needed, including the house. The cop clunked him on the head, threw his guitar and him in the fire, and left him to burn. I never went to see him. I did go back with a friend about three years ago because the word was he had kicked heroin, and the rat guests out of his house. He tore it out himself, the raging darkness and flailing sweat. Locked himself in his own home for a week. Looked like he might be pulling it together so we went for a visit. I had stopped seeing him fifteen years ago, he seemed too dangerous to be around and this latest version of the tales of Kim seemed another in the litany of myths and legends that surrounded him. How can one person get one hundred and twelve points on his license? Did he really have open-house naked Monday nights? And, as the reports began to fade over the years and he didn't command the same everyday press that he used to, you got used to other news. But, what we found out was it wasn't long before he traded in the needle for Vodka. He needed something and bottles seemed harmless in comparison. It taxed him heavily.

I first heard of Kim by way of my younger brother who went to his house now and then to play poker. They were sixteen. I never played, never knew how, but my brother somehow jumped in. He went to Kim's house near the lake and they practiced at being gamblers. It was after college when people started to move back to the area that his presence grew. In the mid eighties we lived in a rural area of central New Jersey (before Toll Brothers replaced fields) in houses across the street from one another, a quarter mile away, old farm houses in the middle of soy bean fields. Five, six or seven of us in each house; collections of people that became characters even though we didn't come into them as one. Partly this was because of an inherent universal willingness of people to congregate and create, but it was also the time that created the mix; a last fling of people doing things together when jobs didn't matter as much as they do now. Inexpensive big farmhouses and some bent notion of the sixties lingering, with active dartboards in the kitchen, working fireplaces, lights in the yard for quoits, ponds to swim in, dogs without leashes, large gardens, outbuildings and barns for big ideas. The two houses, Mullen and Buttonwood, were partners. For example, at the first snowfall, there was an agreement that one dropped what they were doing and we would meet and turn the day into an event. Stepping outside to consider the weather; does this qualify as the first snow? Is this flurry a five minute brief hint at what, a week from now would manifest the significant day? You could feel your neighbor considering it, out of sight a thousand feet away. The houses did things, made things, started things, redid things, initiated traditions. The Strawberry Festival, Art Festival Day, Photo Scavenger Hunt ~ slides gathered by each person for various odd categories and projected on the side of the house, Buttonball ~ all handmade outside contraptions and croquet utensils for "miniature golf", the Wood Pits ~ enormous piles of wood burrowed into, setting up three head-high indentations for percussive music, performed for a live but unseen fireside audience, Sunny Cave ~ a neglected dirty barn turned into a cozy living room, Summer Souls Dice ~ an elaborate tent city set up in the field complete with markers for each participant, High Noodle Party, Bad Taste Party, Auction Party, Sinking Ship Party, Invite a Complete Stranger to Dinner Party.... There was, in these two houses, a vocabulary of interest. We played with words, the law, the rules and regulations of expectation and all recognized the possibilities when you entered into such an arrangement. Playing "Know Your Jail Cell" didn't become a tradition (thankfully), but when placed side by side in identical rooms, three to a space, with nothing to do but listen to each other, we didn't surrender but entered into nuanced observational skill games. That was how we operated.

Kim, we all acknowledged, was a master. We knew him as Kim, Walt or Walter K or Wally, Waldo, Walter Peckerinpaw, Full Nook or His Fullness or just Full, Chosky, Nippy the Nibbler, the Minister of Selections. He lasted less than a year in college, not one for books and assigned definition. He was one of those people who could always name things; people, objects, games etc. That only works when the naming is right and is accepted; he just had the knack: Saw Bone, Raw Bone, Yosingy, Dinklage, Fling Flang Flinger, Bingo Dinetti, Kunglaro, Goose, the Mayor, Butzoon, Leuben. It was Kim that got things going; he had the lively pursuit of celebration. It was Kim, the Minister of New Food Sources and Chief Exterminator of Nook Land who caught the big snapping turtle and not knowing what to do with it, cooked and served it for dinner. Some other concoctions from his bar and kitchen were known by names he invented: the Secret Sinner, Best Robbie, Happy Glow Desert, Eggplant Sangy, Summer Cooler, Winter Warmer, Rum Babaa, the High Noodle, the One Eyed Egyptian, Casserole Rasputin. He was an odd combination of The Grateful Dead and Springdale Golf Course. Style was paramount to him, finesse of presentation mattered above most everything else. He would groom carefully, slick his hair, slap on the cologne and talcum. When he went to jail the second time (a week rather than a night), he laughed about being told, after having to strip down, that next time he needn't powder his ass. Kim didn't want to stop though. His addictive personality had a difficult time knowing when to slow, and, though we all tried to coax him out of his destructive habits, he could, and up to the end continued to practice no other way.

I miss those days. Most of us are nostalgic for earlier happy moments. They are some of the richest times that I know and it is sad to see them recede, especially sad when part of their demise coincided with the slide of Kim. I like to think there is plenty out there that still needs doing, and I don't pretend that all of us didn't play an important part in furthering what was brilliant and vigorous about those days. There are ways to keep some of that with us, simply by retelling the tales. For example, the story of Ted. It comes in handy now and then, when I might ask somebody if they know my friend Ted.

At Mullen Farm, in the back room there was a piano and a pool table. I was doing a lot of artwork back then and had many of my paintings around the house. In that back room there was a print on the wall, mounted on a smoothed over and burnt-edged piece of plywood. It was a large 36 x 24 image of a puma, resting and looking at the viewer. It had a clear coat of Verathane over it so it had a very polished appearance. This looked like something out of a nature magazine, a cliche meant to evoke the beauty of one of god's creatures. It was signed Ted Coop. My paintings were not in the same category and I found this print a bit odd and a little disconcerting. I got to thinking about this fellow Ted Coop. What was that signature doing on something so commercial? There must be thousands of this puma print out in the world, What did his name have to do with that sedate mountain lion? Sure he was the photographer, but there was something about it that irked me. His signature was in bottom right corner, and one day I decided to alter it a little. As carefully as I could (this was somebody's poster) I added an e and an r. His name was now Ted Cooper. It fit perfectly, my black pen mimicking his hand. I waited to see if anyone noticed. Nothing. Exactly my point - Who looks at that shit anyway? A week goes by and I figure, well, there's some more room, how about sneaking in Ted Cooperoni. Oh yes, that looks good! It's still believable, would I catch any fish? Another few days go by. I can't stand waiting any longer and go almost all the way to the edge this time with Ted Cooperoninski. And then it happened! One day, there it is, turning the corner and crawling up the side, the new artist had entered the scene. he was Ted Cooperoninskiwitz. Yes, the game was on.

Now, what makes this a story of today, of now, is something that doesn't lend itself to the written word, but that which is spoken. In the house there was some admission about who was playing the Ted game, and it was agreed upon that in order to add a suffix, you had to be able to pronounce Ted's name. There were two players, and so as we added, we kept learning and repeating the now famous artist's name"

Ted .... and then pronounce the name.

For those of you who don't know how;

Ted

Cooperoninskiwitzenbergenhausvillemeyero'dyersteinleinriorezmagionioninskybodoodlemanflanstanbilliondoogenbarrydanglemyerschtoopinicktickwickfahrtazhenchin.