Friday, July 10, 2026
The Barren Pine Barrens
Thursday, July 9, 2026
The One The Only Evel Knievel - 2015
America has not elected a bald president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Every candidate with a hair issue has been rejected by the voters, although the outcome in the electoral college proved to be a landslide for the GOP, Hubert Humphrey missed defeating Richard Nixon in the 1968 popular vote thanks to George Wallace diverting the Deep South to support his cause of segregation now and segregation forever.
This year Donald Trump has surprised media pundits by seizing the lead for the GOP despite sporting a sweep-over. His attacks on migrant workers has resonated amongst white voters fearing the loss of their majority rights and the media have showered the billionaire with increased coverage despite his covert baldness.
Yesterday I found a photo of George Hamilton playing the daredevil Evel Knievel, the second greatest athlete of all time. Andre The Giant is # 1. The movie actor renown for his deep brown tan sported a coif very similar to Donald Trump and that might be another reason GOP voters are attracted to the billionaire candidate.
Of course Donald Trump is no Evel Knievel, but then again he's no Dwight Eisenhower either.
To view Evel Knieval's first jump in 1967, please go to this URL
ps Never trust a man who lies about his baldness - James Steele - Fugitive
Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18
Much more to come.
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
DUST THEN MUD by Peter Nolan Smith
Bangkok was an impossible city in hot season of 1991. Shady trees thankfully shaded the airless sois. The tepid klongs led to the Chao Phyra River. Weary barges transported rice from up-country. The air-conditioning of Patpong's go-go bars chilled the flesh, but not the bones of the dancers. After a short stay at the Malaysia Hotel I was ready to head north to the mountains north of Chiang Mai.
I had read of Lanna Thai or the Kingdon of a Million Rice Fields in the travel books. Roads became dirt and then buffalo paths in the mountains . Opium was the dominant crop. The tribespeople lived on less than $1 a day and the Thais didn't consider the Lisu, Karens, Hmong, Yao, Lahu, Lisu, Akha, Lua, Khamu, and Thin Thai. Warlords and secret armies governed this wilderness dedicated to cultivation and transport of Fin or opium.
I booked a 2nd Class AC sleeper at Hualamphong Station and vacated the Malaysia Hotel.
A Tuk-Tuk brought me to Bangkok's main station, Krung Thep Aphiwat. The train pulled out at dusk on time. 6:40 pm. and slowly snaked through the trackside ghettoes into the central plains. Sunset along with the balck of night.
I sat next to an open window. The wind was warm and I drank 80-proof Mekong Whiskey with off-duty cops in the dining car. They stripped off their shirts and thier skin glowed with sweat. Mine too. Buckets of ice kept our drinks cold and slightly diluted the powerful liquor, but not enough and I crashed in my A/C berth around midnight.
The next morning I woke with the dawn. Sleeping past that hour was discouraged by the staff. They kicked everyone out of the beds and gathered the sheets, blankets, and pillow cases. Breakfast was served by a surly porter.
I headed for the dining car, where I poured the last of the Mekong into a cup of watery instant coffee. Kai Jiaoo on scambled eggs on rice was than the cold fried eggs with small hot dogs than served in the sleeping cars.
THe train pulled into the Chinag Mai station on time. 6:40. A tuk-tuk conveyed me over the Ping River to the Top North Guesthouse. Young children of all ages wore various uniforms according to their grade. Shop owners were serving customers and sidewalk stalls fed the young and old.
The Top North had been suggested by a ploice on the train. The hotel in the ancient city had a swimming pool. I spent most of midday wallowing in the shallow end, but once the sun dropped behind Doi Suthep I wandered along narrow roads to ancient temples and beer bars near the old Silk Road city's brick fortifications and moat.
Close by a farang bookshop at the Eastern Gate rented dirt bikes.
125 cc MTXs and 250cc ATXs.
$10 OR $12 a day.
None of them were new.
The owner was a Brit yellowed by malaria. Tobie's wife glowered in the kitchen. She clearly didn't trust falangs or westerners.
"He's an American. Not an Israeli." Tobie wagged his nicotine-stained finger at his diminutive wife. He wasn't planning on leaving a good-looking corpse.
"All farangs, all men, same. Kee," she said, wrapping herself in a wraith of wrath.
"Kee?" My Thai consisted bsically of 'sawadee kap' and 'ek nung kyat beer' plus 'u-nai hong nam'. Hello and more beer were almost as important as 'where's the bathroom', since my stomach was having a hard time adjusting to Thai food.
"Kee means shit. The Thais are the French of the Orient. They think they are better than anyone else and in some ways they aren't wrong. This country was never conquered by the West." He smiled at his wife, happy to be Free of the French, who were still despised in Laos, Cambodia, and Viet-Nam.
"The only country in Indochina to escape that fate." I knew my Far East history. The defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 sealed the fate of the French in Indochina. The Thais hd supported the USA in Vietnam, but only committed troops to Laos and Survived the Communist avalanche to disprove the 'Domino Theory'. No battles had been fought in Lanna Thai for hundreds of years and I preferred mountain paths to battlefield and said, "I was thinking about taking a motorcycle trip."
"The North has great trails." He whipped out a map of the tribal hills skirting the Burma border.
"Mai Hong Son was one of the last market towns on the Silk Route." The broken nail of Jerry's index finger tapped a location to the west of Chiang Mai.
"You could fly there for $15. Driving on a dirt bike can take up to ten hours. It's hard riding and busts your ass. Every corner is a turn into the 15th century, especially in the dry season. The Thais are trying to pave it, but the steep hills devour the road like land sharks and this time of year the road has dust deep as your knees."
"Better than mud."
"Yes and no. What do you want rent?"
"I'll take the 250."
"Good choice."
I gave Tobie my passport as a guarantee and motored around town like Marlon Brando in THE WILD ONES. The bike's short pipes glowed red from the exhaust. The backfires spat out blue flames. I returned to the hotel and dropped into bed early. Ten hours on a bad road could become fifteen easy. Thailand was famed for bad roads s was the USA.
The next morning I ate a quick jook or rice porridge and the barman at the Top North Guest House looked at the hazy morning sky and said, "Lom Mak."
And he was right about the heat.
It was already 91F and I drank a 'bon voyage' Singha.
It was as cold as the air was hot.
After checking my bag with the hotel, I strapped a small daypack to the bike and set north from the old city. The Trans-Asia Highway was smooth as a baby's bottom.
50 Kilometers out of Chiang Mai was an elephant camp. Tourists rode the massive khangs through the forests. I snapped a few photos and kept on going. It was a long way to Mae Hang Son.
Heavy construction trucks labored up the two-laner and I weaved through the swatches of destructed pavement in 2nd gear, climbing into the mountains scarred by the slash-and burn-agriculture of the hill tribes.
The centuries disappeared with every mile.
I made good time to the Mai Hong Song turn-off.
Outside of Pai the ankle-deep dust replaced the pavement.
I wrapped a scarf over my mouth and nose. Sunglasses partially protected my eyes, but within a mile powdery dirt coated my denims and dust caked my teeth and nostrils.
Opium trucks rolled past police barriers without inspection and I promised myself a taste in Mae Hong Song. Chasing the dragon or smoking opium would go good with a cold Singha.
As the Honda climbed into the mountains, the air grew too hot to breathe and the sun was strong enough to make me think that someone was ironing my skin. I drained my water bottle and looked up the word for water in a Thai dictionary.
It was 'nam'.
Bottle was 'kuat' and I repeated both and sped by dry rice paddies, hoping to reach a village soon.
Water buffalo wallowed in troughs of mud.
They were called 'kwaii' like the movie BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAII.
By noon I estimated the temperature in the high 90s.
There were no towns or villages. Only the road and dust. I twisted the accelerator to the max. The wind offered no relief.
Fifty miles short of Mae Hong Son I entered a Lisu village. The various tribes lived pre-industrial lives. The young tribal girls sold iced water. I bought three bottles and gave them all candy.
They thanked me with a bowed 'wai'.
Two miles farther west I topped a pass. The hot season had scorched the trees brown. PArched leaves huddled at thier trunks. Three buses were parked at the bottom of the valley and I slowed down to a stop. Their passengers sheltered under the shade of withered trees. The drivers stood at the edge of a 10-meter bog. A trickling stream had transformed the red dirt into a thick muck.
The Thais looked at me and I looked at them.
We studied the road.
One of the driver smoked a Krueng Tip cigarette.
He pointed to his knees to indicate the depth of the mud.
"Mai bpen rai," I said, which was all-purpose Thai phrase meaning 'no problem'.
I revved up the engine and the Thais shouted out, "Farang Bah."
I thought it was encouragement.
I maxxed out the 250cc engine.
A beautiful Lisu girl caught my eye.
I smiled at the twenty year-old and roared 200 meters back up the road for a good running start.
One of the drivers waved his hands to warn that crossing this mire was impossible.
He hadn't seen Evel Knievel leap over Caesar's fountains in Las Vegas and I u-turned the bike spraying a rat tail of damp earth.
The Thai men on the roadside rose to their feet. The women stopped eating and their children ran closer to the soggy road. They knew that there was going to be a show. In their minds all farangs were crazy. I goosed the accelerator and torgued out the bike at 7000 RPMs. I wasn't wearing a helmet.
My only protections were my courage and stupidity.
"Farang bah!" I shouted and raced toward the muck at full speed. The front wheel hydroplaned over the mud and then buried itself up to the fender, catapulting me into the air with outstretched arms like Superman.
I was no George Reeves, the Original Man of Steel, and bellyflopped into the puddle.
I rose from the mud covered from head to foot like a troglodyte and the Thais laughed insanely, as the men hauled the stalled bike to the other side of the bog and I promised to buy them beer in Mai Hong Sing.
"Farang bah," shouted the driver.
I shook off the slop like a wet dog.
The stranded Thai passengers laughed harder.
"Farang bah. Farang bah."
Later I learned that 'farang bah' meant 'crazy foreigner' and that I was. A farang bah, but I waved to the Lisu girl and she waved back. Seconds later I remounted the bike and punched my fist in the air before speeding away dripping clods of wet earth.
The sun baked the mud to every inch of my body. I loved riding in the mountains. I was free.
Mae Hong Song was a small town and I pulled into a restaurant across from a small temple and ordered beer. I drank several and each one tasted better than the previous one.
The bus rolled into town at sunset. The passengers sat down and joined me. They told the store owners the tale of my failed feat. I bought beers. Everyone laughed and the driver raised his bottle and said, "Chok dii."
Good luck.
"Chaii yo." I was happy not to have been hurt by my failed feat.
The Lisu girl came to my table. She opened the paper bag and peeled off the shells of the insects. I ordered ice for the beer, because cold Singha beer went well with fried grasshoppers and even better with mud.
The Thais retold my feat to each and every new Thai and let me give the punchline.
"Farang bah."
Each time it earned a big laugh, because even in a remote backwater like Mai Hong Song Thais were used to 'farang bah'.
Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18
Plenty more to come___ Fotos by Peter Nolan Smith
HITCHHIKING PROHIBITED by Peter Nolan Smith
During August of 1972 my college friend Ptrov and I hitchhiked from Boston to San Francisco and then up the coast to Seattle before crossing on I-90. We were eastward bound to start our second year of university and we crashed a night with a trio of carpenter gypsies constructing a rest stop on the new interstate through Montana. Bulldozers had churned the dirt highway into a muddy bog for the passing trucks. At night few drivers dared to brave the four-lane quagmire and six of us watched the stars wheel across the heaven without the glare from the headlights of long-distance truckers.
The weather along Continental Divide shifted overnight from summer to fall. Snow fell to dust the ground white. The mud froze to ice.
In the morning Jackson offered us jobs.
"Why don't you stay here?"
The mountains stretched to a big blue sky.
"I'd loved to, but my draft number is 93, so I'm staying in school."
"I was in Vietnam. 1967 to 1969." He had memorized the number of days forever. "Hard times and I thought anyone who didn't go was a commie. The Tet Offensive changed my mind."
"It did that for a lot of people."
The forces of the Viet Cong had been decimated, but the Pentagon had lost the hearts and minds of America. Now Nixon was into the fourth year of his Viet-Nam War and the draft board was inducting nineteen year-olds as deep at 251.
"Better you stay in school for the duration."
"And I'm in love." Ptrov had a girlfriend in Milwaukee. Sue attended the same university studying nursing.
"Both are good excuses." He wished us good-luck and we went out to the highway. Three minutes later a broken-knuckled miner driving his Ford 150 stopped on his way to work.
"I'm going to Butte."
"Evel Knievel came from here."
"That he actually came from Anaconda and he got fired from the copper mine for doing a wheelie with an earthmover. Lots of wild men come Butte too. For a small city is has a lot of good bars."
"I'd like to check them out, but we're heading east."
Out of the pine-lined mountains the day turned bright and sunny in the open valley. The miner left us at the entrance to the Anaconda Copper Mine. A slender chimney rose from the smelter. The brick tower was probably the tallest structure between Seattle's Space Needle and the Sears Tower inChicago.
The next ride took its time in coming. We were between shifts at the mine. An hour later a trucker hauling potatoes drove us to Logan. This section of I-90 was also under construction, so he switched onto the Montana Route 2. Train tracks separated the road from a river. We got out of the and he said, "I'm going a little farther down the road to the prison. Maybe another twenty miles. I'm not allowed to drop off riders on that stretch of the highway, but you should get a long ride from here."
The long-hauler dieseled south.
While the traffic was light, the road had a wide shoulder and cars drove slower this close to town but after a half-hour Ptrov pointed to a road sign.
"You think that sign have anything with our not getting a ride?"
"Might."
A hundred feet from us stood rose a yellow sign stating HITCHHIKER MAY BE ESCAPED INMATES pocked by bullets.
"Maybe people will think that anyone before the sign isn't a convict, since what fugitive hitchhikes back to where he escaped?"
"Probably because he couldn't get a ride. This place sucks."
"Only if you're in a hurry."
A steep bluff rose from the other side of the river. The long trains lurched across the web of tracks and, as the trains departed the marshaling yard, Northern Pacific engineers waved from diesel locomotives moving at a walking pace.
We took turns sticking out our thumbs. Ptrov stood in the same spot, figuring that that tactic of getting a ride was better than my strategy of moving from place to place. There were no numbers involved in either equation, because the end result was zero. No one was stopping for us and the sun was getting low in the West.
"What if we get stuck here forever?"
"We could always hop on a train. They're headed in the right direction." A freight train was hauling empty box cars with their doors open to air out the interiors.
"But where? North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming?"
"It's just a thought." Walking was not an option.
Evening came fast and a little past sunset we lucked out with two brothers driving a Ford Falcon all the way to Cape Cod. Neither of us were hitchhiking at the time. The older brother had just gotten out of the Navy and they were going home. They had nothing against hippies.
"Been there long?"
"Long enough."
"Where you headed?"
"Boston.
"We're going to Maine."
Then let's get going."
It was good to get out of Lodge.
We were no convicts and home was on the other side of America.
Only two days away.
Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18
Plenty more to come___
A Boy Of Montana
My second choice for greatest athlete of the 20th Century has always been Evel Knievel. Mohammad Ali might have been the greatest fighter and Bill Russell won more NBA championships than any other basketball player, however the Butte, Montana native rode a motorcycle like a bank robber with the cops on his tail and refused to quit no matter how badly he had broken his body.
The public expected nothing less from a man who was fired the Anaconda Mining Company for popping wheelies with a earth mover. Evel might have gotten away with this stunt, if the monster machine hadn't knocked down Butte's main power line.
Bobby Knievel changed his first name to Evel after spending a night in the Butte jail for a wild motorcycle chase.
According to the night jailer, who came around to check the roll, he noted Robert Knievel in one cell and William Knofel in the other. Knofel was well known as "Awful Knofel" ("awful" rhyming with "Knofel") so Knievel began to be referred to as Evel Knievel ("Evel" rhyming with "Knievel") according to Wikipedia.
He was not a simple man as demonstrated by this quote;
"You come to a point in your life when you really don't care what people think about you, you just care what you think about yourself."
Evel Knievel was a lucky lucky man.
I wish I could have been a little more like him, but couldn't do wheelie with an earth mover, but Evel didn't do everything for the camera.
He did them, because 'I love the feeling of the fresh air on my face and the wind blowing through my hair.'
Same as me on a bike.
Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18
Much more to come.
4Q45&47
A year and a half into a very fat Donald Trump's second residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC the USA has lost in the World Cup, the Pentagon needs more money to fight Israel's proxy wars throughout the Levant, food has become increasingly very expensive, the dollar has inflated almost 100%, ICE continues to arrest thousands, and the world suffers from everything as Zion rules the politics of America. Trump threatens at the NATO conference to take Greenland. His madness due to his cocaine addiction quells his insanity. The news always serve up a plate of his craziness, yet his crowd revere him as a saint making America great again with the helpof his stacked Supreme Court; mandatory bible studies in Texas, free speech stymied by arrests for reading leftist material, sueing everyone, threatening to ban all trade with Spain and travel overseas, more tax cuts for the wealthy ad nauseum.
When will this end?
When it is too late?
Resist!
It is never too late.
Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18
Much more to come.
The Power Of Bertell Ollman
Several months after my liver transplant in December 2022 my friend Raoul asked , if I could elder care his father, Professor Bertell Ollman, a renowned Marxist scholar. The eighty-nine old has just retired from NYU. He was in the early stages of forgetting everything. I agree. I neeed money. His father was a kin man to me. The job entailed eating lunch with him and watching TV unti he fell asleep. Raoul had a four hour break from his 24/7 existence with his father, who wasn't quite sure who he was.
After Raoul departed the apartment on Bleecker Street, we watched nature programs and popular movies. Nothing heavy. We sat surrounded by walls of books. Maybe ten thousands on philosophy and revoution. Two hors on his father retreated to his bedroom. A nap. I returned to the living room and picked out books. I I searched each book for a meaningful paragraph about overthrowing the capitalist state in the upcoming revolution. Later I read to him. Each a word to flourish his still revolutionary soul.
Two years ago I read his 2011 Letter of Resignation from the Jewish people to him. Forty-five minutes of his writing condemning the Zionists abandoning the Jewish culture of the Diaspora to seize Biblical lands from the Palestinians. All of it is pure genius and ends with these words.
"As far as I’m concerned, the comedian, Lenny Bruce, provided the only good answer to this question when he said, "Dig, I'm Jewish. Count Bassie’s Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor is goyish… Marine Corps – heavy goyish… If you live in New York or any other big city, you’re Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you’re going to be goyish even if you’re Jewish… Kool-Aid is goyish. Evaporated milk is goyish even if Jews invented it… Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish.… Negroes are all Jews… Irishmen who have rejected their religion are Jewish… Baton twirling is very goyish.”
To this I would only add, “Noam Chomsky, Mordechai Vanunu and Edward Said are Jewish. Elie Wiesel is goyish. So, too, all ‘Jewish’ neo-cons. Socialism and communism are Jewish. Sharon and Zionism are very goyish”. And, who knows, if this reading of Judaism were to take hold, I may one day apply for readmission to the Jewish people.
When I shut the letter, Professor Ollman said, "I don't agree with all of that."
"You wrote that."
"I did?"
"Yes."
The professor shrugged and smiled kindly. Still the Marxist monster of the Capitalists. No recollection in his cobwebbed mind of the struggle, but I recognize his genius and anytime I speak to him about the impending revolution he smiles and wishes us success. He was a man to be followed. By the CIA and FBI. An enemy of the state. Forever. Every time we were together at his aparment in the NYU professorial dorms, I assured him that I was there to protect him from the Feds. And I was serious.
The only way to forget is not to remember - James Steele - Fugitve
1968 forever never forget, comrades!
Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18
Much more to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)