Final Sunset 2010

The view from Fort Greene

12/31/2010

4:33 PM

North End Miracle

Even back in the early 60s finding a parking spot in Boston's North End was nearly impossible at the best of times, but my father miraculously found one in front of George's Lounge off of Hanover Street. Someone at work had told him that this restaurant served the cheapest and best Italian food in the neighborhood. My mother had six mouths to feed. Cheap and cheerful was always a good recommendation to her ears. The two burly men standing outside the eatery frowned at my father, but said nothing, as our tribe trooped into George's.

The restaurant had no customers. The men at the bar glanced over their shoulders and then returned to muttered conversations. The tuxedoed waiter approached our family, as if we were lost.

"You really wanna eat here?" He waved his hand at the empty tables.

"I have six hungry kids and you have food. Where else you want me to go?" My father came from Maine. There was only one Italian restaurant in Portland. Every Sunday night of my early years he would drive across the Martin Point Bridge from Falmouth Foresides to pick up pizza and antipasto, which we ate while watching THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW on our Zenith TV. We were no strangers to Italian cuisine.

"Nowhere but here. I give you da best table." A big booth underneath a painting of Naples. My father ordered meatball and spaghetti for us. My mother had a plate of pasta reeking of garlic. they shared a small carafe of red wine.

A few more men entered the bar.

They narrowed their gaze upon seeing us. One of them pointed at my father. They were scary like gangster just out of prison and I ate with my head down to avoid their black eyes. My brother did the same, but my mother and father ordered another carafe of wine. The waiter put a coin into the jukebox and played YELLOW BIRD. The men in the bar spoke louder, until my mother started singing along with Harry Belafonte.

I had seen her quiet a cathedral choir with her voice. My father beamed with pride as she wrenched every emotion from the Jamaican song. I was embarrassed by her singing so loud. In many ways I never understood her gift, however when she finished the men at the bar stood to give applaud my mother.

The toughest man crossed the floor to our table. A scar bisected his forehead. He bowed to my mother.

"Lady, you have the voice of an angel. My name is George. This is my place. Anytime you want to come, you call and we'll have a table ready for you and yours." He gave my father his card and waved for the waiter to bring another carafe of wine and ice cream for us.

My mother sang Dean Martin's THAT'S AMORE and VOLARE. Her rendition of those two songs sealed the eternal gratitude of the gruff clientele and her version of I'LL TAKE YOU HOME AGAIN, KATHLEEN brought tears to every man's eyes.

We returned to George's at least once a month throughout the 60s. My father parked in front of the restaurant and his kids thought this driving feat was a miracle. We never strayed from the meatballs and my mother would sing a few songs for the bar. My father beamed with pride and love. She was the one woman in his life and his kids were his pride and joy, even as I rebelled against his way of life.

One night in the Spring of 1971 I decided to take my hippie friends down to George's. Hank Watson and two co-eds from BU. We took the T to Haymarket and walked under the Artery into the North End. The parking space in front of the restaurant was filled by a big Cadillac. The two men on the sidewalk blocked our entrance. Hank had hair down to the back of his ass. Mine was shoulder-length. Guys like us weren't welcome in the North End.

"Youse ain't coming in." One of them placed a hand in my chest. I looked over his shoulder. George was sitting at the bar. His eyes glared at me with a puzzled recognition and then he snapped his fingers.

"Hey, Louie, let them in, the good-looking one's the son of the songbird." George shouted from the bar. He waved me to the bar and shook my hand. "Drinks for the kid. How's your mother and father?"

"Good." The bartender served us wine.

"Come here. I wanna talk to you a second." George led me into the back of the bar. He spoke with a quiet voice with his arm around my shoulder. "Listen, I don't got no problem with longhairs, but my people they don't like hippies. You coming here is no problem, but other hippies and people will start talking, you understand?"

"Sure," By this time in my life I knew that George didn't earn any money from an empty restaurant and his source of income was his own business. "You want me to leave?"

"No, I can't do that to you, but next time dress a little better and only come with a girl. No friends. Out of respect for your mother."

"Whatever you want." I was a good boy still when it came to family. "Can I ask you one question?"

"Maybe."

"That first time we came to your restaurant and my father parked in front. He wasn't supposed to do that, was he?" THE GODFATHER had come out the previous year. Any questions about George's business were answered in that film. He was one of those guys about whom no one talked if they knew what was good for them.

"That's my spot. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that, but when your mother sang it became her spot. Still is. Enjoy your meal and give your best to your mother." He started to walk to the bar, then stopped, "One more thing, don't ever tell your father that. He's a good man. Name's Frank, right?"

"I call him 'Dad' and my lips are sealed."

"Good boy, one more thing."

"What?"

"Cut your hair. You look like your mother with that thatched roof."

"My mother?" Like most teenagers in the 60s I had told myself that I would never grow up to be my father. Nothing had warned me about my mother. The hair had to go.

"Yes, your mother."

I never mentioned this incident to my father or mother. Every time he drove into the North End my father would call George and the parking spot would be waiting for him and my mother. It was a miracle, but then again so was her voice.

Blizzardholes

The first disaster in the Bible is the Flood. 9/11 was a modern catastrophe meant to change the way America lives. No more SUVs. No more fast food. No more stupid fat kids. Unfortunately this was not the case and New York was laid open for a winter attack of snow this Xmas weekend by the laissez-faire regime of the Bloomberg regime. Thousands of streets remained unplowed. Subways are running on weekend schedules. Sidewalks are buried under tundras of snow.

Adversity was supposed to bring out the best in people, however this Xmas storm showed the incivility of New Yorkers and most everyone else in the modern world. People only cared about themselves and cared about themselves at the expense of others. Blizzardholes were too numerous to count, but they could be categorized into five groupings.

Fifth, assholes owning cars who shoveled the snow into the street, then tried to drive to the local fast food restaurant, because they were too fat to walk through the snow.

Fourth, New Yorkers who had not prepared for the storm. They bitched about not being able to order Chinese food. I had ordered General Tsao's a day in advance knowing the problems facing those fearless delivery bicyclers in the arctic condition besetting the city on 12/26.

Thirdly was the right-wing media blaming the labor unions for not clearing the streets with flamethrowers or neutron bombs so they could get to fast food joints to get fatter than anyone else in New York. I had to clear my sidewalk. 30 feet. It took me two hours. Mayor Bloomberg cut 1000 sanitation workers in order to save tax cuts for the Rich in the Upper Easts Side. No one is pointing a finger in the direction of John Paulson or other hedge fund directors, because they're on St. Bart's.

Second comes fat people walking down the streets of New York with a cup of coffee in this mitt, while text their loser friends about how high they are on caffeine. What the fuck about saying no to coffee?

Legalize cocaine.

Sell it to China.

Balance the trade deficit.

And Blizzardhole #1 has to be Mayor Bloomberg.

Too many reasons why, but mostly because he paid $100 million to convince New Yorkers that his opponent had no chance against his money machine.

Fuck Bloomberg.

He doesn't give a shit about the cars stranded in any of the boroughs.

Ain't he rich enough to not care what we think?

Pieces of Shit / BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

My opinion of people is based on the premise that we are all the same. Everyone wants good for themselves, their families, and friends. Adolf Hitler is the exception instead of the rule, however my boss on 47th Street holds people in a different regard. The year was 1994.

All people are pieces of shit." Manny was adamant in this declaration. The 60 year-old tough guy had been selling diamonds for over 40 years when I joined his employ in the diamond exchange. This view was heavily jaundiced by experience. Little of it good. "And the worst are your family."

I argued against his damnation of Man.

"You're a communist. What would you know?"

"People will prove me right." I was in my late-30s. Friends had done plenty of favors for me. They had lent me money without ever asking for it back. Few had the courage. I had been the meanest man in the world during the 80s. Nightlife does that to a man.

"People will prove you wrong wrong wrong and it won't take long." Manny came from Brownsville. Danger was a way of life in that part of Brooklyn. He pointed his PBK at me. It normally was in the safe.

"Fuck you, Manny." I wasn't scared of him. I had taken the bullets out of the clip a month ago. "You're wrong."

"No, you're wrong wrong wrong." Manny had to have the last word and each time I failed to close a deal on a sale that week, he would wait until the customer left the store and say, "Another piece of shit."

"They said they would be back." All customers said that.

"Never, because they're pieces of shit."

His son and my friend, Richie Boy, told his father to lay off. Manny swore at him too.

"What are you getting weak too?"

His 'piece of shit' sermon killed my drive and I contemplated just quitting, until a couple from Denver walked into the shop. They were looking for an engagement ring. The budget was $10,000. The price of a good 2 carat round stone.

They were both lawyers. Horrible buyers since they spent their lives listening to the lies of their clients. The woman was in her early 30s. She had dedicated her life to the law. It had washed the soul from her body. Her fiancee looked as if he had been kicked in the head by a horse. Manny was mouthing 'piece of shit'. I gave him the finger and turned back to the forlorn couple. Pity got the better of me.

There was a 2 carat F/VS1 round brilliant diamond in the front window. A gem stone. I pulled it out of the tray and showed them the ring. It put fire back in her heart and her beau said, "How much?"

"9500." It cost us 8000. Manny grimaced at my success. His 'piece of shit' campaign had been thwarted by these sad, but good people. "How will you being paying?"

"Credit card. Visa." He dropped the plastic on the glass counter. Manny went to the bathroom. The defeat on his face could not be wiped off by toilet paper.

"Better than Amex. That cost us 4%" I told them about our charges and added 3% to the price. Richie Boy gave me the thumbs up. My commish was $400. A nice pay day for the firm and me.

"Can you put that in writing?"

"Sure, why not?" I wrote up the invoice as requested. They paid tax and later that afternoon I shipped the ring within a pretty box to Denver. As we were shutting the store, Manny examined the bill and said, "What's this?"

His finger pointed at my handwriting at the bottom of the bill.

"Why did you write that about 3% extra for Visa?" Manny should have been a lawyer. His voice was draped with accusation. Luckily for the guilty he had dropped out of high school at age 15.

"Because they asked me too."

"And if they asked you to jump off a bridge would you do that too?"

"Fuck off, Manny. I made a good sale. My mind calculated 3% on $9500. Almost $300. "If it's a problem, I'll make good for it."

"Richie, you heard him say that?"

"Yes." Richie Boy was my friend, but he was his father's son and shit doesn't drop far from a donkey's ass. In other words blood was thicker than water, except when it wasn't thicker than water.

A week went by and it came time to settle up for the commish. I showed Manny my figures. He smiled and pulled a letter from the pile of letters on his desk. "Remember that nice couple from Denver?"

"Yes."

"Well, they called Visa and said that you had charged them 3% extra for using their card. Visa said that this was against their policy and if we didn't refund the money then they would pull our account."

"Shit." $300 was almost the rent for my apartment on East 10th Street.

"No, pieces of shit those nice people and it could have cost you $300, except I'm a nice guy and for one time and one time only I'll ignore this lapse of judgment and you know why?"

"No." But I had a good feeling I was going to hear why.

"Because I'm a bigger piece of shit than anyone else. I told Visa that I didn't know this and would never do it again, but would always figure the cost into my future invoices. It took an hour, but we fucked those 'nice people'."

"Thanks, Manny." And I meant it and I also acknowledged his victory.

People are pieces of shit, but at least Manny was my piece of shit and sometimes that better than anything else in the world.

If Only I Could

If only I could go back in time, it wouldn't be to see Rome at its might or right all my wrongs. My destination would be wherever Charlotte Rampling was in this photo.

Heaven or hell wouldn't matter to me.

She was an angel.

Blonde Snow

Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints. - Alfred Hitchcock

Where Am I

Two years ago I left Thailand for the USA. My good friend AP promised a soft landing. I had $100 in my pocket and Mam was pregnant with our son. No job. No place to live. Pressure and stress. I survived that summer as a dog minder in Palm Beach. Pom Pom was a crackhouse refuge from the dog shelter.

80 pounds of angry Airedale.

The local police had Pom Pom on a 'put-down' list, if she attacked another dog or human being. We lived in a mansion. My pay was $350/week. Most of it was remunerated to Mam. Some of it to Angie's mom. I lived on $50/week.

The owner of the mansion, Derek Sabre, said I could drink his liquor. The cellar was stripped of non-vintage wine two weeks before the family's return from Italy. being sober wasn't either, but I never lost my temper with Pom Pom. She was cured of her attack mode. Derek was happy. His wife called me a miracle worker.

I returned to New York and my friends asked where I had lived on Palm Beach. i couldn't remember the address. They thought that It was another story, even after I showed them photos of Pom Pom and the house.

My next domicile was with Vladmar in Williamsburg. A basement room next to the boiler. Vladmar was a collector. The path to my room was a crooked canyon of boxes containing discard clothing and comic books. The rent was $600/month. I couldn't afford anything better. Fenway was a baby and Angie was going to school.

Richie Boy gave me a job at his new store in the Plaza Hotel. He asked my address. I told him the street.

"What's the number?"

"I don't know."

And I never did for almost a year.

Over a year ago I moved out of Vladmar's basement after discovering my cold weather clothing covered with fungus. AP offered his top floor for the same price as Vladmar's dungeon. A floor-through with a western view. I have gone from the worst place that I had ever lived to the best and the rent was the same.

"What's the address?" Richie Boy asked one afternoon. We had closed the Plaza store. It had been a disaster. I was once more on 47th Street.

"I don't know." My mailing address was the store. I knew the way home from the nearest bar. Frank's Lounge on Fulton. The number was unimportant, until Ms. Carolina asked for my address this Xmas.

"How can you not know your address?"

"I am where I am."

"You are such a precious pill." She sighed with resigned exasperation. "No address. No apple pie."

I'll get the address." Ms. Carolina's apple pie was the best in the world. It took me a week to email her the details.

She laughed at my GPS-less sense of position.

"You most certainly are where you are."

And I like it just fine in Fort Greene.

This Xmas Ms. Carolina a

End of Moneyless Utopia

My daughter was born seven years ago on New Year's Day. My son will be two and a half. My two step-children are still under ten. I love them all and reacted immediately to their mothers' request for money by tramping through the snowdrifts of Brooklyn to the nearest Duane Reade to send money.

"Couldn't it wait until tomorrow?" a friend of mine asked from the comfort of his house.

"Kids don't wait for nothing." I was standing on Fulton Street, snow tornadoes tugging at my winter clothing. The temperature was minus 3 Fahrenheit. I felt none of the cold only the warmth of taking care of my kids.

I'm a bad man, but have a little good in me too.

Not bragging, just telling the truth.

No Bah Humbug

Few holidays are more commercialized than Christmas. The chorus of BUY BUY BUY on TV drowns out any rendition of SILENT NIGHT, as hordes of Americans flock to the malls in their SUVs to buy products made in China. Credit cards are whipped out at the cash registers to complete their Xmas gift list on December 23 and 24, the last two shopping days of the shopping frenzy. My last purchases on Christmas Eve were two beers at Jacob Wirth's in Boston, a good luck cat from a Chinatown shop, and a T ticket from South Station to Braintree.

My hand went into my pocket in the train parking lot. My sister had bet that I wouldn't be on time. Our first rendezvous of 5:45 was blown, so I doubled or nothing for 6:10. I was three minutes late. Her lovely daughter Sara got the $20. I sat in the back of their Benz and we drove through Weymouth Landing to a party at my old neighbor's house. The orgy of buying was over. It was time to consume.

Drinks, food, friendship.

My cup slippeth over and my other brother-in-law dragged me from the house, a glass of whiskey in my hand.

"Merry Christmas."

My exit was cheered by the stayers-on. David said, "You won the drunk of the party award."

"There was never any doubt in my mind."

The next morning I woke in a wounded state. I called my kids in Thailand. They were happy and Mem still had a little money left in her wallet. I wouldn't have to go to send a Moneygram on Christmas. We opened gifts and no money passed any out of or into any of our hands. Dinner was free and I begged off going to the movies with my nephew and my sister that evening to drink with my brother-in-law.

Free.

I crashed on the sofa around 10pm.

A day without money.

If only every day was Xmas.

Lilacs

The director Blake Edwards passed away in late December. His greatest hits were BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, 10, and VICTORIA VICTORIA. Fame fled him in the 80s, but his star rose on Broadway in the musical version of VICTORIA VICTORIA. My cousin was Julie Andrews' understudy. Tara got to perform the leading role on several occasions. I caught her once with the rest of my family. After the performance my aunts and mother asked what Julie Andrews was like.

"She calls me 'darling'." Tara was enthralled by the superstar's allure.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that she probably called everyone 'darling', so she never forgot anyone's name. Julie Andrews' must have had a pet name for Blake Edwards. They were married for 41 years.

Before they met, he explained her success to a gathering at a party by saying, "She has lilacs in her pubic hair."

And having seen them once, he never wandered again.

Faithful to the end.

This is the power of pussy.

Nearest Planet

Recently I asked a graduate of Princeton what was the the planet closest to Earth. He was the top of his class. A genius at 21.

"The sun." He answered within a nano-second.

"The nearest is Venus."

"Isn't that a moon?"

"No, it's a planet." Only the once-planet Pluto had been rejected from the list of heavenly bodies. "The Sun is a star."

"Then why's it's so big?"

It was obvious that he had never been taught anything about the universe. His major was finance. He wanted to be a stock broker. His father had a job for him lined up at an investment firm. His economic soul was a belief in the return to 2006.

"And there's no way the Sun is a star."

His ignorance was bliss and he wasn't alone. I asked several more of his friends the same question. None of them gave the right answer and I thought that I might be wrong. Maybe the Sun is not a Star. After all Pluto is no longer a planet. Only a frozen asteroid. It's out there somewhere.

Multi-Variable Calculus 101

During college in the early 70s I drove cab to pay tuition. I was in the taxi more than university. My first class in the morning was math. It was my major. I rarely showed up for Multi-Variable Calculus 101. The professor was Rene Marcus. His daughter was my friend. I rarely showed up in class. At the end of the autumn semester I arrived at the final. Professor Marcus pulled me to the side.

"You haven't been in class more than three times." Rene Marcus was about 45. A genius of telemetry. NASA paid him big money to figure out missile attack on Russia. It was still the Cold War.

"That's right." I had won a high school scholarship thanks to my natural aptitude in math. I had been accepted to college early thanks to my SAT scores in Math.

710.

"How do you think you can pass this test?"

The rest of the class stared at me with pity. Multi-Variable Calculus 101 was not Geology 101 or Rocks for Jocks.

"Give me a test paper and let me put my hand on the textbook."

"And this will help?" Mathematicians only believe in numbers.

"It can't hurt." I placed both hands on the book. My palms read nothing. I took the test. My score was 45. The whorls on my flesh were very sensitive.

"I thought you'd get nothing right." Rene was amazed by my idiot-savantism.

"I still failed."

Yes, but if you drop out from Math, I'll give you a D+"

"It's a deal." A failure would have resulted in my losing a draft exemption. Vietnam was a meat grinder. I was no John Wayne. My new major was economics. I graduated sine laude or without praise. I worked for me for by 1974 the Vietnam War no longer needed my corpse.

That summer I drove cross-country with my good friend AK to celebrate the end of my education.

It was a great trip.

An Artist’s Fast Fingers

My boss Manny started selling jewelry on Canal Street in 1954. He says that he didn’t sell his first diamond until a year later.

“Back then all diamonds were white. We didn’t know any better and better still neither did the Gs.” Manny’s speech is colored by hundreds of diamond selling terms interspersed with Yiddish. It’s his only foreign language. A G was a customer and G referred to their status as a goyim or now-jew. “I sold him a one-carat stone for $500. It’s probably worth ten times that now.”

Manny’s guesstimate was on the money. I did the math to make sure. He was rarely 100% wrong. Back in the late-70s I would visit Manny and his son, Richie Boy, at their store at the corner of Elizabeth and Canal. Lunchtime meant sandwiches from Little Italy. Salami and red peppers on crisp bread. Manny liked me, because I took care of his son at Hurrah, where I worked as the doorman. One Xmas he gave me a classic Pulsar watch. It showed the time whenever you moved your wrist. I loved that watch.

One Thanksgiving Eve I was at my friend RT’s apartment next to the Natural History Museum. His lovely wife and he held a party every year, so their friends could watch the workers inflated the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.

It was probably 1990.

Richie Boy and I went to the party together. We drank more than anyone else at the party. People thought we were silly, but one young man admired my Pulsar watch. I took it off and he tried it on. I didn’t think anything about the watch, but several minutes later he was gone. I asked RT about his guest. RT said he was a painter. So was RT.

“He’s a painter.”

RT gave me his phone number.

Alexis Rockman.

He never answered the phone. New York is a small world and I have longevity on my side. Alexis is well-known for his futuristic paintings. They are sold for big money. Not really my taste, but one day I’ll run into him. he won’t remember me, but I’ll remember that he has my watch. I’ll be nice and ask him for it.

If I’m lucky, he’ll be cool and give it back after a few days.

It’s only the right thing to do, even after all those years.

Painting by Alexis Rockman

Heavy Metal Accordion

Every boy has a best friend in his youth.

In 1959 I was lucky enough to have two. My older brother and a neighbor Chaney. We were in the same year at Pinewood Elementary in Falmouth Maine. We did almost everything together. Our street ended at a bluff overlooking Portland harbor. We swam in the shallow waters beyond the marsh grass.

The two of us crawled under the fence into a strawberry field and ate summer fruit on our backs. The farmer caught us and my father paid him for four quarts. Cheney and I were in love with the same girl. Kathy Burns. She was in love with Chaney. He played the accordion. I had no musical skills, even though my mother was famed for her voice. She could silence the cathedral choir with her singing.

Chaney was a protege on the squeezebox. He played SINK THE BISMARCK and DAVY CROCKETT as well as the standard songs that he had learned from his teacher. YELLOW BIRD and MACK THE KNIFE. I envied his virtuosity as well as Kathy's admiration. She had a birthday party to which I was not invited. Chaney brought me a piece of chocolate cake and told me how he had kissed Cathy in her basement. The cake tasted like chalk, but congratulated Chaney on his success. We were best friends.

When my family moved south from Maine to a suburb south of Boston in 1960, Chaney and I vowed never to go swimming unless we were together. His parents had a place on Lake Sebago. That summer was warm in New England. One day in August my mother received a phone call from Chaney's mother. I was told to sit in our station wagon. After a few minutes my mother exited from our split-level house and said, "Chaney drowned this morning."

I sat in the car for a long time, staring at the silhouette of Great Blue Hill.

Chaney was gone.

He had broken our vow, but so had I at Nantasket Beach. One of us paid the price.

Since that sad day every time I see an accordion I think of Chaney and any time I see a street musician with an accordion I ask them to play SINK THE BISMARCK. None of them know the tune and I request IN-DA-GADDA-DA-VITA. No one knows that 60s hit either, however I'm sure that Chaney would have liked Iron Butterfly.

After all we were best friends.

To hear some heavy metal accordion please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mm3VS0g6MU

Santa’s The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

John Water’s 25 Days of Xmas

Day 1… Get naked and smoke.
Day 2… Ask a neighbor if they find it funny that every man in the neighborhood has a penis.
Day 3… Flash someone.
Day 4… Get your hair done.
Day 5….Go to a porn theater (or rent a porno movie)
Day 6… Whenever you hear someone say “shit” tell them you hate the brown word.
Day 7… Exclaim “What a day for an execution!” to strangers.
Day 8… Stomp on someones foot – laugh maniacally.
Day 9… Play “car accident.” (Be sure to have plenty of ketchup on hand.)
Day 10… Get a baby sitting job – throw wild destructive party. Trash everything.
Day 11… Admit to God that you are a whore.
Day 12… Tell your nephew (or other younger male relative) you’d be so happy if he turned nelly and found a nice beautician boyfriend.
Day 13… Seduce a bus driver.
Day 14… Refer to your daughter (or young female relative) as “that little MF”
Day 15… Write “I sniff jury underpants” (or other obscenity) in a bathroom stall.
Day 16… Have sloppy joes for dinner.
Day 17… Go to doctor and demand “a wang.”
Day 18… At the dinner table exclaim loudly “I’m so hungry I could eat cancer.”
Day 19… Tell someone that you’re a thief, a shit kicker and that you’d like to be famous.
Day 20… Condone first degree murder. Advocate cannibalism.
Day 21… Have sex with a midget in the back of a car.
Day 22… Be celibate for celluloid.
Day 23… Watch “Christmas Evil” with JW commentary.
Day 24… Send someone a bowel movement.
Bonus day – Return all your Christmas gifts for money because-”you can do that you know.”

A Winter Rainbow

My baby brother died on AIDS in 1995. My mother succumbed to cancer in 1996. I mourned their passing with a circumnavigation of the globe. Every holy site on the route was my destination; Luang Prabang, Zhongdian, Lhasa, Benares et al. My soul was washed by the waters of the holiest rivers in the world, my feet circled the well-worn path of pilgrims, and monks burned incense throughout Asia for my dearly departed. My spiritual voyage ended at the statue of St. Brigid in NY’s St. Patrick Cathedral. It was January. As a non-believer I worshiped her as a pagan saint. A dollar bought a candle and my prayer was silent.

I took the Lexington subway to Astor Place. I emerged from the station into bright sunshine. The air was frigid. I pulled up my collar and noticed a NYU co-ed looking at the sky.

I joined her gaze. High above floated a double rainbow created by the sun piercing high-altitude moisture. I had never seen a rainbow in winter. I recognized the miracle as my mother and my brother.

They are with me forever as I am with them.

The photo of the rainbow is thanks to Amos Poe.

Girls = Money

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Wicked XXXmas

My wife Mem is very jealous. The Thai word 'itsah' pertains to envy of objects, however the true way to express jealousy is the word 'huung'. Mem can't believe that I spend months in New York without sex.

"All you think about with me is sex."

"That's different. I only want you." Her love potion has yet to wear off and I'm not ready to take the cure, which is having an old crone stand over a pot of boiled rice to sweat into the rice after which I must finish the entire bowl.

"Not believe you not have sex." Mem likes sex with me. She even fakes an orgasm for me.

"I do have sex, but only with the computer." No one in New York believes that I can be celibate and in some ways I am not. "XXX films and my hands. Is that cheating on you."

"No, only butterfly when you go with another woman."

"Then I'm a good man, unless she finds out that I XXXSurf through a cosmos of sex-ravaged women, some only for a second, others long enough to burn them faces and bodies into my memory.

Let’s face it, I've not been a good boy in that sense. maybe even too wicked to celebrate Xmas, so bring on Beermas or even better XXXmas.

Thai Fried Rat

“What did you eat for breakfast, fried rat?” Americans classically asked this question after a friend’s methane netherhole expulsion.

“It wasn’t me.” The guilty party protested without forgiveness. Fast Food is more to blame for their noxious flatulence than dining on strange meats, because no one knows for sure what 100% Beef means for Micky Ds. Everything cow except for the moo.

Rat, owl, vulture, and crow are four animals Americans will never eat and only owls will eat crow. I’m sure there are several other animals missing from any menu of the 50 states, such as seagulls, seals,jellyfish as well as a legion of endangered species, especially whale, which I ate as a child in Boston fish market next to Fanuiel Hall.

But this last trip to Thailand I ate fried field rat or noo yang.

Mem, Fenway, and I had spent a week in a Cambodian border town and she brought down several fried rats for her cousin, uncle, and me. The rats are fat for eating only rice. Field rats. Not house rats. Clean creatures.

Back in Sriracha her cousin opened the plastic plastic and was immediately transported to a rapture like a glue-sniffer huffing a tube of Dupont after a year’s sabbatical. Nai is 100% a native of Bannok. The uncle pranced like a trained bear in anticipation of feasting on his two rat carcasses. Needless to say my enthusiasm was a little more decorous.

“You no want eat.” Mem was upset. Cooking rat takes hours. She had saved me the largest corpse. If I didn’t eat it, she would have been insulted by my refusal. Thais have thin skins and long memories.

“Who say I don’t want to eat rat?” I gave Nai money to buy 6 large bottles of Leo beer. it was good enough to take the sting out of a scorpion tail, on which I had dined the previous evening.

Mem happily fried the rat and cut the body into sixths.

It still looked like a rat and not Mickey Mouse either

New York rat on a plate.

“Why you not eat?” Mem had her arms crossed. Everyone else asked the same question.

“Wait for it not to be hot.”

Two minutes later I cracked off a leg. The meat was dark. I took a bite. Not bad, in fact good.

Rat does not taste like chicken or pig or beef.

Something entirely different yet familiar.

I finished my serving and had seconds. We threw the bones to the mongrel dogs in the street. They fought over these scraps. Mem was happy and the assembled Thais said, “James not same other farangs. He eat same Thai.”

“That's not true. There’s no thing I won’t eat. Chicken feet.”

Ting gai.

Bleech.

But the Thais love to suck on the rubber feet.

Even my son.

He's definitely not 100% farang, but not 100% Thai either.

Fenway was scared of rat.



Good boy.

The Cardiac Danger of Illicit Sex / Asia

Several years ago while surveying 5,529 heart attack deaths in Asia, Dr Wong Teck Wee discovered that 34 fatalities occurred during sex and 27 of those deaths occurred while the male was engaged in an act of illicit sex ie adultery. The Universiti Putra Malaysia cardiologist concluded from these findings that stress of illicit sex could lead to sudden death due to the narrowing of the artery and insufficient blood supply to the organs or even worse your merciless wife walking into the hotel room with a shotgun or machete.

That’s a shock to the system.

But all things considered kicking off in the sack is not a bad way to go as long as you come before you go otherwise it’s coitus interruptus fatalis, which is how Nelson Rockefeller, the former US President, departed from this mortal coil. On January 26, 1979 Nelson was riding male superior atop his mistress, Megan Marshak, when his heart overloaded from adrenalin, stopping almost every body function other than breathing.

Nelson was a big man and the 26 year-old aide had to squirm from underneath the portly politician, but rather than dial 911 for help, she telephoned her girlfriend, news reporter Ponchitta Pierce. Neither helped the ex-VP from his sprawled position on the floor as they discussed for the better part of an hour.

“911 or not 911.”

911 won in the end.

Too late for Nelson Rockefeller who expiated in the ambulance.

His corpse was cremated 18 hours after the coroner pronounced him DOA, mainly since his wife, Happy, was anxious that the Medical Examiner might find traces of sexual activity, however everyone in New York understood how Nelson went out of this world.

In the saddle.

I wish that his demise could have been at the hands of his wife Happy or a mob of rioting convicts, for Rockefeller's draconian laws have ruined millions of lives in the Empire State and his order to retake Attica prison resulted in many senseless deaths.

Law and Order.

For an adulterer.

Even better would have been for Nelson to suffer death by stoning.

That's the old punishment in the Bible.

And I would not hold my hand, for I am not a sinner like him.

Faithful to Mem forever, and not only because she dosed me with a Thai love potion.She swears that's not true, but I know better.

Socialized Medicine

My mother liked to say that she went down to the valley of death during my birth. 12 hours spent trying to push my infant body from her womb. Finally the doctor clasped my fragile head with steel forceps and dragged me from my mother's body. The procedure is a common practice in childbirth, however my skulls still bears the indentation of the obstetrician's surgical tongs. I survived that encounter with the medical profession and avoided hospitals for the rest of my life other than a couple of stitches here and there. My daily intake of medicine consists of 4 herbal capsule of cryptolepsis buchanani and several glasses of alcohol.

Last night some moonshine while watching the Celtics-76ers game at Frank's.

My local on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.

This morning I woke with my skull filled with felt. A mild hangover is my most common ailment. No sore muscles bones since I stopped playing basketball 5 days a week. My remedy for the morning-after sickness is a long hot bath. After a long hot soak my restitution-coefficient was hovering around 30%. A good sleep would restore another 30% by the next day's dawn and a greasy breakfast of bacon and eggs would top up my energy reserves.

Unlike most Americans I believed good health was a result of sleep, hot baths, herbs, and organic eating habits, plus nothing scared sickness from your body like threatening it with death-defying bouts of drinking. At 58 my medicine cabinet was home to a bottle of flu syrup and an unopened bottle of aspirin.

"You should get health insurance." Richie Boy was worried about my health. He depends on me to be at work every day. Never on time, but at work nevertheless. Stress deflection is another detour from illness.

"I can't afford it." $300/week is the minimum cost for a health plan offered by the insurance companies. My salary supports my two families in Thailand and a working life in New York.

"It's only____"

"I know how much it is." I've asked Richie Boy and his father for a raise. They have yet to come through for their only employee.

"Well, you just got money from your father's estate."

"Yeah, and what?" I hate the idea of giving money to the insurance companies. Obama's Health Plan neither. I'm healthy and I intend on staying that way, although this summer I was speaking with a farmer leading an upstate organic co-op. The 62 year-old looked in top form, but he admitted that he had suffered a heart attack at the age of 58.

My age.

"Up to then everything was fine."

And so far everything is fine with me too.

Of course I am an Irish citizen, so I should never get so sick that I can't board a flight to Shannon and take a taxi to the nearest hospital. Socialized medicine might be decades away from the USA. It's only 6 hours distant from JFK.

And there's also plenty of Guinness on tap.

Like the adverting states, "It's good for you."

GOUT

My earliest exposure to gout came from movies showing Henry VIII hobbling about the set with his foot swathed in bandages. The disease came from rich foods. Only the very wealthy or obese were supposedly prone to such an ailment, although in recent years friends have limped into restaurants or parties to explain, “I have gout.”

Healthy folks would laugh at the sufferer’s prediction.

After all you are what you eat and everyone thinks that there’s no way they’ll ever get gout.

Me too.

The first symptom of gout is a sore toe.

Two weeks ago my toe was more sore.

Gout is caused by a rich diet of red wine, meats, and peas.

I eat a lot of frozen peas and drink wine too.

Being a hypochondriac I feared that swelling pain might spread.

I went to the Internet and scoured the online medical journals.

Bad news.

Avoid alcohol.

Good news.

Eat asparagus, spinach, and broccoli.

I like those.

My friend Sam Royalle called from Thailand and asked, “Why don’t you go to the doctor?”

I only visit the doctor for my annual check-up. Doctor Nick is my friend from History 101 at Boston College. He is a GP in Staten Island. It's a long way from Brooklyn.

“I don’t have gout.” The pain was minor.

“And if it doesn’t go away?” Sam liked hospitals. He was living in Thailand. A visit to a doctor in the USA costs over $200, unless it’s to Doctor Nick. He does it for free.

“Then I’ll go to the hospital.” Until then it’s broccoli sandwiches once a day with a glass of white wine.

Red is supposed to be the killer.

Of course I'll stick to that diet only in my head, because in the morning was toe was fine. Probably just a sore muscle. That happens to guys my age.

Surrender to the Rich

The chasm between the very rich and the poor in the USA was once separated by the middle class. The poor could rise to that status, but no one could become very rich, for the masses are mostly denied the three ways to get rich; birth, marriage, or theft. Birth is strictly a gene lottery. The rich baby is rich thanks to his rich parents. No poor baby had ever been born rich, although the heirs to the GM fortune adopted a poor baby. A miracle, but ever so rare. Poor women can marry the rich, especially if they are beautiful, however these trophy wives had a shelf life lasting as long as their beauty. Divorce is accompanied by an alimony settlement and this wealth is soon squandered on maintaining the living standards of the rich. Lastly a thief can steal a fortune in money, art, or jewelry, but he will always remain a thief, whereas a rich person who steals from the poor is considered a success, since the government ie law and order is on the side of the rich.

The middle class was a haven from the greed of the rich, however for the last ten years the Bush Tax Cuts have ennobled the very rich with even greater wealth and the middle class have suffered immensely as social services are cut to deal with the increasing budget deficits incurred by this favoritism to the very rich.

The Bush Tax Cuts were supposed to lapse on 12/31/2010. The GOP refused to accept this timeline and their off-year election victory has forced the White House to prolong this gift to the very rich in order to maintain unemployment payments to those Americans out of work. My boss Richie Boy cheered the news, for the only people buying diamonds this holiday season are the very rich.

"The recession is over."

"The recession never began for the very rich." I countered quickly. Our customer base was included the middle class and working people. The only time they enter our store is to sell gold or old jewelry, which gets melted down and shipped to China or India, the two countries profiting most from the off-shoring of America's industries.

"Well, if it weren't for them, then we'd have no business at all." Richie Boy loves the rich. He likes fine food, fast cars, and multiple homes. Richie Boy ain't rich, but he plays that way and his toys confused his vision. His father knows better, since he pays the bills.

"We're lucky to have the business we have." Manny started on the Bowery. The very rich never came that far downtown unless it was to Wall Street. Manny didn't trust the rich. His father had been a carpenter. Money only came his way through hard work and no one we know ever got rich through hard work.

"That's true." I had to admit that I was glad to have a job. The times of easy money ended with 9/11. They probably ended before that attack on the World Trade Towers, only I was immune to the disease ravaging the lives of the middle class.

"We have rich clients. They pay our bills, so I don't want to hear any of your commie bullshit." Richie Boy is a die-hard capitalist. He fervently believes that he can elevate his standing through his connections. His father shrugged upon hearing his son's zeal. Manny is a commie like me. We believe the more money people have the better it is for us.

"Yes, sir." I have not lost my faith, but the stock market reacted adversely to the news of two more years of deficits, so there's only one way to keep the rich very rich and that's to cut from the poor and everyone earning less than a million is poor to the very rich. They are living in their own world.

Just like all their followers.

Wicasset Ghost Ships

The old bridge at Wicassett spanned the Sheepscot River for decades and I loved the hum of tires over the steel gird. A new bridge replaced the old, but Wicassett's primary attraction were the two rotting hulks wallowing in the mud flats. Their state of ruin spoke shipwreck to my boyish mind, but these two ships once transported timber from Maine to the world along with hundreds of other coastal schooners.

The Hesper and the Luther Little were the last two ships of their kind. Every year Maine's winter ravaged the sailing schooners, yet they withstood the harsh treatment of Nature. Two teenage boys set fire to the relics, damaging them to such a state that the town had them dismantled as a safety hazard.

Of course they could have remained in their final berth for another half-century if it were not for the threat of legal suits. The Hesper and the Luther Little joined the hum of car tires over the Wicassett Bridge. Something gone but not forgotten

Bridges and Typewriters

In Jan. 1982 I flew from JFK to London with one bag and an Olivetti typewriter. I visited with friends and then continued over to Paris to start my job at the Rex Club as doorman. Train to Dover-Ferry to Calais. A short walk to the train station in the cold night.

My typewriter weighed a ton and I contemplated ditching it while crossing a bridge before the train station. The world didn't need another writer nor another doorman at a nightclub, then again this world doesn't need much, so I trudged into the terminal and bought a ticket to Paris.

Gare Du Nord.

For me and my typewriter.

I have no idea where it is now, but me I'm in New York. My typing as bad as ever.

Skies Above / Photographer Sean Heavey

Tennyson Walk – the Isle of Wight 1985

December 1985 Alan Vaughan invited Lizzie Mercier-Descloux and me to the Isle of Wight. My holidays were normally spent with my family in Boston. This would be the first one on which I would be absent from the Christmas table. I phoned my parents and said that I would see them after the New Year and on December 23rd the three of us trained to Les Havre to catch the Southhampton ferry.

We drank wine in Alan’s cabins and then visited the gaming hall. The weather was typically rough for the crossing. At one point a wave lifted the ship’s bow so swiftly that all the players around the 21 table were lifted from their seats and then slammed back down. The croupier called the hand over and the captain advised the gamblers to retire to their cabin. Lizzie and I bid Alan tonight. The tousled hair singer was nominally my girlfriend. We had sex and I huffed a line of heroin. The drug cured my mal de mer. The next morning we docked in the English port of Southhampton.

Another ferry took us across the Solvent to the Isle of Wight. Bob Souter was waiting at the dock and drove us to his house in Ventnor, buying lobsters on the way to eat for lunch. I wasn’t too hungry. Heroin is also a good appetite suppressant. Lizzie and I had our own bedroom. Alan and she played “Mais où Sont Passées les Gazelles?’ her African-influenced hit for Bob’s children. He on piano and she a guitar. They were definitely interested in each other and I gave them free rein that evening. High on smack my bones were invulnerable to jealousy.

Christmas morning was festive with gift-giving and drinks.

Never too early on the Isle of Wight. The weather was temperate and the sun stripped away the clouds. Bob proposed the Tennyson Trail, although in reverse, starting at Alum’s Bay and ending at Carlisbrooke. I stayed off the dope. Nodding out on a long walk would be unfair to my hosts, who would have to carry me to the nearest road. We were joined by Anthony, Bob’s teenage son. He had a crush on Lizzie. She was French same as his mother. Lizzie was pretty in a very continental way. She kissed my cheek, as we sat in the car and said, “I like Alan.”

“Like?” The word had many variances.

“Yes, like.” Her intonation narrowed them to one. She lit a cigarette. They were never far from her touch. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” It was the truth. She wanted a lover and I was too wasted to be one. “You two stay here and I’ll go up to London. That work for you?”

“Yes.” Something on her face said that this exchange was gone more smoothly than she had expected, but women are always seeking drama.

It was a beautiful walk along the chalky cliffs overlooking the plowed field of Atlantic rollers. Alan and Lizzie separated from Bob, Anthony, and I. We laughed at Alan stealing my date. At least Bob and I laughed. Anthony thought it had a chance with the singer.

Never.

It was Alan’s day and on Boxing day they drove me to the ferry. Only one train was running to London. My plane was leaving for JFK that evening. If everything went according to schedule then I would be in Boston tomorrow.

I bought a ticket and Alan carried my bag to the gangway.

“Sorry about this.” His smile was contrite.

“No worries.” I patted my coat. The packet of heroin was still had a few lines left in it. “I’ll find a way to get over it.”

And by the time I arrived in Southhampton the world was cool.

I kicked heroin on the 747. I was no junkie. It was easier than I feared.

The next day my mother was happy to see me and my father was glad to have his second son home. And so was I. Left-over turkey tasted better the next day and no one made apple pie like my mother. It was good to be home.

Froggie Fatale

How does a Frenchman kill himself

Froggie holds a pistol six inches over his head and shoots his superiority complex

International Write-Off Day

My first credit card came via Mrs. Carolina. 1995. An American Express for emergencies. She loved the way I kissed and visited me once a month in New York. Ms. Carolina told her husband that I was gay. His believing her mapped a faultline in my masculinity. Ms. Caroline was blonde and beautiful. In bed there was never a need for words.

When I moved to LA to help Scottie Taylor open the Beverly Hills' Milk Bar, I used this card to support us. Orders from Jerry's Deli and groceries from Trader Joe's. After three months the bill ran up to $1000 and I had no way to pay back Mrs. Carolina. She flew out for a road trip to Death Valley. Ms. Carolina told me not to worry about it until I had the money. She liked my writing.

I still owe her that $1000.

She might not have cared about my insolvency and seemingly neither did the credit card companies, who issued me a playing deck of plastic from Visa and MasterCard. I was credit rich without no standing debt.

I thought I was smart juggling various new offers of 0% interest between competing companies. My limit rose with my payments. I soon was given a ceiling on $70,000 despite no visible source of income or assets other than an elephant foot in my East Village apartment. By 2001 my debt was a mere $3000.

Manageable minimal monthly payments while I traveled back and forth to the Orient.

Debt of $10,000

9/11 changed all that routine. I had no work for several months and lived on the cards, transferring debts back and forth like an off-shore banker, until I resumed employ at the diamond exchange.

My debt was $15000.

The winter of 2002 I sold a Burma sapphire for big money and informed Richie Boy that I was heading for Thailand. I had a book to write. I was only 48. The future was still in my favor and Sam Royalle had promised to set me up with an internet website selling F-1 copy merchandise. Leaving America seemed like a good idea, especially since my Thai girlfriend and I were expecting a baby and GW Bush was in the White House.

The credit cards paid for the birth of Angie.

Up to $25000.

I faithfully paid the increasing monthlies with the money from my sublet of East 10th Street. Apartment 3E. My business was generating enough income to support a family of three. The problem arose when I lost my ATM card with which I withdrew funds from f1-shopping.net

The other other option was to take cash advances from the cards. I didn't notice the small print of the contract stating that this move would bump my interest rate to 29%. And my debt started to balloon, so that by 2008 when the Thai police shut down my website for copyright infringement, I owed something like $70,000.

More money than I could pay back and I did the numbers. I had already covered the original debt, but was now servicing the interest. I called the credit card companies to ask for an abatement in the interest levels even though I had no income. They refused my request. I told them without this help that I would be forced into bankruptcy.

"New laws have been written to prevent that."

"Laws?" I was living in Thailand beyond the reach of America. "Could I speak with your manager?"

"He won't change a thing."

"Then I guess this is the last time we speak." I had no credit line. "Good-bye."

And like that I was free from their debts. Different creditors phone from time to time. They have purchased my note at probably 5%. Maybe less. I'm not scared of speaking to these faceless voices from the Midwest. I ask them if they are willing to reduce my principal. They refuse and demand the full balance plus interest. I explained that I'm not in a position to pay them this sum. It is 100% the truth.

I have written off this debt in my mind.

My own personal write-off day.

And I have survived with a credit card thanks to throwing out my TV. No strangers tell me what to buy. My purchases are generated by necessity. Food and Shelter and transportation. A few beers too. I like the buzz.

An anti-consumer of any offering of globalization.

Broke, but free.

It's a good feeling.

America: The Grim Truth / Late Breaking News

Posted in Truth http://en.wordpress.com/tag/truth by lancefreeman76 on April 5, 2010

Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:

Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.

If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.

If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.

If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

If change can’t come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.

No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.

While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?

There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).

Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.

Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.

On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.

Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.

I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.

So what should you do?

You should leave the United States of America.

If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.

You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.

In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?

She's # 3

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Congress fractured in two. Israel subverting the Press. Wikileaks publishing transcripts of US diplomatic wires. The economy in shatters.

The list is too depressing for most people and Americans have responded to the challenge by electing Miley Cyrus, teen idol, #1 on Yahoo Search.

A few young people have rejected the 17 year-old's coronation.

"It was weird ... I feel like she acts 25. She looks so old. She is too old for herself."

No one is crueler than the young, for no one is forever young.