Drawings by Philippe Petit / Photos by Victoria Dearing

OPENING DEC 1TH 2008 6-9

TOMORROW

Drawings by high wire artist Philippe Petit and photos by Victoria Dearing

Clic Gallery
255 Centre Street
New York, NY 10013
Tue - Sun 11-7 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Coastal Pit Stop / Laem Mae Phim

Last Thursday my two-year son, Fenway, his mom, and older cousin hit the road early Thursday morning for a road trip from Sriracha to a small village near Ta Phyara on the Thai-Cambodian border. I had rented a Toyota Altis 1.6 with good AC. Mam wanted me to straight-line to see her two older kids, Noy and Fluke. 4 hours top. It was been over two years since I had last seen them.

I had a different route in mind.

The coastal route to Laem Mae Phim then north to Sakheo.

7 hours with a stop at the beach for a swim and a meal of fresh crab. Mam waived her choice and we stopped at a small restaurant on Cape Mae Phim. No one was on the beach. The full-moon tide was lapping at the sea grass.

Worrying high sea level.

Another sign of global warming, but I said nothing. The future was still another ten years away. Mam and her cousin ordered poo curry and fried oysters and I went swimming in the calm clear water. Fenway couldn't join me. My two-year-old boy had a fever. The food was excellent and I was thankful to be with my son and Mam on such a lovely day.

I toasted my deceased father with two bottles of Leo beer and paid the bill.

800 baht.

Mam said it was time to go.

She had been good enough to allow my communion with the sea.

It was time to get back on the road.

We had a long way to go and I stepped on the gas

Jahn Xavier & The Bowerytones - This Saturday Night!

Jahn Xavier, once a boy who is now a man

Tomorrow at 10:30pm - Sunday at 1:30am
Location Lakeside Lounge
162 Avenue B (Between 10th & 11th st.)
New York, NY

Come shake off that turkey with Jahn Xavier & The Bowerytones!

The Bowerytones are:
Jahn Xavier (Guitar, Vocals)
Denny McDermott (Drums)
Charlie Roth (Bass, Vocals)

One Big Plane

In 1960 my family moved south from the Maine Coast to a suburb south of Boston. Inbound planes to Logan Airport flew over our neighborhood of split-level houses That first night the roar of an approaching jet disrupted my sleep, while my brother was dead to the world. Somehow I thought one of them was going to crash into our home. My uncle came into the darkened bedroom and said, "All those planes are late flights. Maybe only half-full and everyone knows only full planes crash."

I took small comfort from his counsel, however my uncle had led his men out of Korea's Chosin Reservoir in December 1950. He was a hero to me and I went to sleep dreaming of floating planes.

The next day my mother stood in the backyard with her eyes raised to the sky.

"It's amazing that planes stay in the sky." My mother had graduated from high school. Her love for reading kept her up late at night. She had no grasp of aerodynamics and my father explained the concepts of how lift and thrust conquer gravity. He was an electrical engineer. I accepted his words as the truth and never suffered sleeplessness from the fear of a crash jet.

This last week I traveled from New York to Dubai on the Emirates' new A-380. My final destination was Bangkok. The new Airbus was enormous. I relaxed in my seat. More comfortable than a 747. A wide-screen entertainment unit before me. 13 hours to Dubai and I was content to be heading east.

Earlier this month the engine of an A-380 had blown up in mid-air. The plane had descended without mishap or injury to Singapore's airport. Several friends had expressed their apprehension about the palen's safety, but I have full faith in the aircraft, although my deceased mother would have marveled at the smooth take-off.

Airborne into the night sky.

The A-380 was SRO, yet I conquered my paranoia about the danger of flying in a full plane long ago. The passengers were mostly Arbic and subcontinental Asians. Few Americans trusted anything from the Middle East after 9/11. To my left was a young Arab woman with her newly-born infant. To my right a Virginian heading to work security.

"Where about?" It was a simple question.

"Someplace I'd rather not say." His tour of duty was 6 months.

"Oh." I figured him for an employee of Xe Services LLC working as a bodyguard in Afghanistan. That country has eaten its fill of occupying armies. Only the Mongols succeeded in pacifying the populace. They left pyramids of skulls to whiten in the wind. I kept my views on the eternal war to myself and offered simple advice based of the British Army's disastrous retreat from Kabul in 1842. "If the shit goes squirrely, then head north. South is all badlands."

"Yeah, I figured that." Xe Services LLC must have given their employees an escape strategy based on history. The Pentagon will probably go the other way and that is a hard slog to the coast through Pakistan. All of it bad road.

I eased back in my seat and enjoyed the flight, knowing nothing really bad can happen in mid-air. I was surprised to see that the dinner cutlery was steel. The Emirates Airlines were not scared of Al-Quada and neither was I.

Then again I was bound for Thailand; good food, friends, and family.

Sabaii sabaii.

'Ssippi Leads The Way

Enheartened by his gubernatorial mandate Mississippi Tea Party governor has thrown his hat into the 2012 presidential race by announcing budget cuts in all departments of the state government. His axe has targeted wasteful spending in education, highway police, mental health care, unemployment assistance, and welfare to the poor.

Mississippi presently ranks last or next to last in a wide range of categories; health and education, but leads the way with obesity.

Go you rebs go.

The Long Reach of the Law

Back in the 80s Brion Gysin was living his last days in Paris. I was working at the Bains-Douches. I fought a lot at the door. Brion liked rough trade. We were associated through a mutual friend, Jeffery Kime. Dinners, drinks, parties. The collage artist/poet was a gentleman in pursuit of the frontiers of humor. He once sneaked a recipe for marijuana into a cookbook by Alice B Toklas. Every head in America knows her name thanks to Brion's deceit. By 1985 his health was failing and an arms dealer suggested that I work for him in order to secure Brion a steady flow of income.

The man was renown for his dealing with 3rd world insurrections. No one ever said his name in public. My job was to be his right-hand man.

"Don't start any cars," Brion coughed through his oxygen mask. "Just joking. I don't need the money. remember this is France and bad health is free. It's only good health that costs something."

Brion passed away in July 1986. The arms dealer prospered during the final stages of the Cold War. I was sitting on the rocks of Cap d'Antibes later that autumn. A gigantic black ship was streaming east toward Cannes. I mentioned aloud to my companion, a fashion model from South Africa, now known as the ex-model from Paris, that it looked like a sleath warship.

"No, your friend's friend's yacht."

The biggest in the world.

"Why didn't you work for him?" The model from South Africa was married with a French fascist. He had one time thrown grenades into an Algerian mosque packed with women and children. The massacre never made the LE SOIR.

"I like waking up in the morning without thinking someone is getting ready to kill me or that I've killed hundreds of people to make enough money for my Ferrari."

"You'd rather make a little money for being a thug."

"It suits my temperament."

The life of an arm dealer is not easy and this week Viktor Bout, the merchant of death was extradited from Thailand to the USA. He had been arrested last year by DEA agents pretending to be left-wing Colombian rebels seeking ground-to-air missiles. The story sounded funny to me after reading about it in the newspaper.

Arms dealers are savvy people. They normally only trafficked with kindred spirits. Viktor Bout probably knew the pseudo-FARC guerrillas were DEA agents, who were trying to link the rebel movement to cocaine trafficking, and figured that their business is their business. He was only in it for the money.

No arms or money ever passed hands.

It was all talk.

Until the Russian national said he didn't mind if the weapons were used to kill DEA pilots.

The doors were busted down and Viktor Bout was remanded to Thai custody. His extradition angered the Russian authorities, but they said that the 43 year-old knows nothing about nothing. Facign 25 to life Mr. Bout pleaded not guilty in a NY federal court. I would have done the same in his shoes, which are now government issue.

Another mouth to feed on the teat of the American tax payer.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

The short-time bars of Soi 6 and go-go bars of Walking Street are not the only tourist attractions of Pattaya. Farangs and Thais travel down from Bangkok to enjoy lounging on the beach, dining at the thousands of restaurants, shopping at street markets, and taking in the sights. This week Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks promoted its pseudo-museum with a new billboard on Sukhumvit. Farangs couldn’t read the words in Thai, however the giant photo of Adolf Hitler sieg heiling said a million words to foreign travelers on the busy highway.

The ad campaign appears to be aimed at Thais, since the wordage is in the native tongue of Siam.

“Hitler is not dead.”

German and Israeli embassies immediately complained to authorities and the Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks manager apologized for this cultural faux pas.

“We think he is an important historical figure, but in a horrible way. We apologise for causing any offense which was not at all intended. We did not realise it would make people so angry.”

Thais were unperturbed by the mistake.

‘Man kill farang. Not kill Thai. What problem?” One of my Thai friends said over the telephone. Thais aren’t too concerned with anything happening outside their borders or the present. Neither are my fellow Americans. “If he bad. Why no one kill him?”

Indeed Hitler has been rumored to have escape the Berlin bunker. George Steiner wrote THE LAST PORTAGE OF AH about an Israeli intelligence squad finding the Nazi leader in the jungles of Brazil. Several films have centered their plots of the lost empire of the Third Reich. Adolf would be a very old man if he was alive. In fact he’d be the oldest person alive on this planet.

“120 years old.” An overweight Hassidic diamond broker told this joke the other day. “Things are bad on this planet. troubles so bad that people want a strong leader. someone finds Hitler alive in Brazil. 120 years old but still mentally capable. The world leaders struggle to persuade Hitler to take over the world. He refuses time and time again, until he agrees.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it, but this time no Mr. Nice Guy.”

Yes, Pattaya, Adolf still lives in the minds of many.

Good thing he can’t collect on his royalties.

AH 1889-1945?-2009? and beyond

Touchee Touchee

The TSA has gone crazy

The other day they stripped searched a young boy, as if they were pederast priest fondling an altar boy. I passed through their grips the other day on my way to Bangkok without any harassment, but you never know when it could be your turn for the 'full frisk'

To see a video of this young boy's introduction to the never-ending war of terror, please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQTz1bccL4

CUT CUT CUT

"Drill baby drill."

Thsi slogan first hit the ears of America during the 2008 GOP convention. Michael Steele was its originator. Saran Palin adopted the pro-Oil mantra during her VP debate with Joe Biden, who was proposing alternative energy investment. It didn't matter that any new wells would take ore than 10 years to bring on line and the feisty Alaskan responded with the peppery line, "The chant is 'drill, baby, drill.' And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into."

Engorged by the success of her Tea Party compatriots in the 2010 by-elections, Sarah Palin has promised to cut federal expenditures to the bone.

Little is sacred.

The new Health Care bill will be aborted under her rule. Same Sex marriage ceremony will be banned at public places. Creationism will replace evolution in order to save money on teaching children two opposing thoughts. Education will be optional for the 'refudiator'

'Cut cut cut'

Till there's nothing left of the government.

She can only dream until 2012.

Then it's all about the ax.

Arthur Weinstein Art Sale / SUNDAY NOV 21 2010 3pm - 8pm

Bobby Hull's 8th Hat Trick

The Boston Garden was a hallowed destination for fathers and sons in the 60s. Mostly for the Celtics. They were NBA champs year after year. I was a basketball fanatic and my father brought my older brother and me to several games after our move from Maine to the South Shore of Boston, but coming from that northern clime my father's preferred sport was hockey. He flooded an improvised rink in the backyard of our suburban lawn on frigid nights. The next morning the ice shined like a silver mirror. We played hockey before and after school. The Bruins were our team; American-born Tommy Williams, the Uke line of Johnny Bucyk, Vic Stasiuk, and Bronco Horvath along with Don McKenney and Fleming, but in the early 60s the Bruins ruled only the basement.

Their cellar status didn't deter my father from taking his sons to the Boston Garden and on January 31, 1963 we watched the Chicago Blackhawks played the home team. For decades I thought the game had been close and that Bobby Hull, the fearsome scorer, had tied the game with his third goal. A Google search wiped the sleepdust from my eyes. The Bruins had been annihilated by 1st place Chicago.

9-2

Stan Mikita first trifectaed the Bruins three goals.

Back then men wore hats and the Garden ice was deluged by a homage of homburgs and borsalinos. My father kept his hat in his hand.

"That was nothing special."

Bobby Hull # 9 changed his mind with his 8th career hat trick at 16:25 of the third. A wicked slapshot with his curved banana stick. The goalie never reacted to the blast.

My father flung his wide brim onto the rink.

"Now that was special."

The Golden Rocket was special and then some.

Just like my father.

Honor Guard for My Father

My father volunteered for the US military right after Pearl Harbor. His color-blindness excluded him from the army and marines, so he enlisted in the Army Air Force. He served in Kentucky testing radar-controlled 20mm cannons in B-25 bombers. He said they lost a crew a week. My father demobilized as a captain and the US Air Force send an honor guard to the cemetery. They folded the flag with precision and the bugler played taps.

The honor guard sergeant said, "On the part of the president and a grateful nation, we offer your family our condolences."

Everyone at the grave lifted their eyes to the sky. A plane flew overhead. A commercial liner heading for Logan.

The Air Force rarely do fly-overs at memorials, so this jet would have to serve my father's honor.

A man of peace.

Guts of Iron

After my mother's passing, a vegetable never passed my father's lips. He ate at restuarants and prided himself on his easy BMs or bowel movements. I never heard him burp. Not even when we ate at Tony's on Wollaston Beach. He would chase down fried clams with a chocolate shake without any indigestion. I mentioned this feat to several of my Hassidic friends on the diamond exchange and they lifted their hands in the air like they were listening to the heavy metal band Metalish.

"Oi vey, double tref."

Dairy and shellfish.

I've never tried it, but like I always say, "Like father like son."

My father loved the view from there and so did my mother.

I hope they are sitting there now in the glow of the universe.

Big Frank's Gone North

RIP

Frank Arthur Smith II (1921-2010)

A Son's Best Friend

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

Al Quada has issued a warning that the USA will die the 'death of a thousand cuts'. This term refers to the vicious punishment accorded Chinese traitors, mass murder or mother-father killers. Slow slicing or 凌迟 also known as the lingering death consisted of securing the punishee to a wooden frame after which the executioners lop off his flesh. Lingchi was always fatal. Most of the condemned died quickly, however a scribe in the Yuan Dynasty recorded one victim having survived several thousand cuts before succumbing to his wounds. Westerners considered the practice diabolical without any reflection of their history of torture ie hanging, drawing, and quartering.

Al Quada's reference to the Chinese legend comes at a time when the US Army is deploying heavy tanks in Afghanistan. An Abrams Tank costs about $6 million dollars, while an IED or 'improvised explosive device' comes to about $# is scrap metal and explosives.

During the Cold War the USA forced the Soviets to spend billions on upgrading their defense system. This war of financial attrition bankrupted the USSR, as they chased a way to make $4000 hammers and $40,000 toilet seats as well as heavy weapon systems.

Al Quada is copying our success and the Pentagon has fallen for the trap.

Expect more cuts from public services as the war without end heads into its 10th year.

Strangely I never found one of those $4000 hammers in an Army Surplus store.

I'm beginning to doubt that they ever existed other than in the budget.

The Eyes of Anger

Anger ignited the souls of American white males over 40. None of them had ever dreamed about a black man in the White House or the possibility of universal health care. The money spent on SUVs and re-mortgaging their houses have driven them to the brink of financial ruin. Their kids are fat and their wives won't have sex with them, because they are angry too about the way their lives have turned out and the right of the GOP have decided to seek the truth about how America got so fucked up by investigating everyone who isn't with them.

No legislation to counter global warming or spur investment in green technology or address how obesity costs our health system hundreds of billions of dollars.

"One of the problems we had in the previous two years was that we couldn’t agree on what the facts were therefore the conclusions that were different – each side blamed the other – that’s got to end," Rep. Issa (R-CA) told "FOX News Sunday."

Neither is capable of blaming each other, because they don't want to look in the mirror.

Me too, although I only look at my shadow.

Join the Party

Where do I sign up?

The Footsteps of the End

Jesse Ventura, ex-pro wrestler/Governor of Minnesota, abandoned America for a secluded beach on the Baja California. He spends his days with his wife and the waves of the Pacific. "There are no newspapers down where I live. Where I live, I'm an hour from pavement and an hour from electricity. I'm completely off the grid."

President Barack Obama might have wished for a similar change of address after the GOP landslide in the November elections. Tea Party victors are calling for a radical return to America of yesteryear. Small government, isolation, the return of Jim Crow, bigger SUVs, the right to carry arms in kindergarten, cold war with the Russians, queers back in the closet, and a pledge to make the rich richer. Their congressional compatriots are vowing to join the fight to roll back Health Care reform and cut the budget deficit by taxing food and water. No one has mentioned withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan to alleviate the money drain.

My friend, the ex-model from Paris, has sent an email of warning. Her born-again radio station has predicted that hyper-inflation will send the prices of wheat bread to $23 and a package of sugar to $62. The concession prices in Yankee Stadium have already reached that level. She says that the End is near and I should prepare to flee the States for Thailand ASAP.

"Don't leave it too late."

Maybe I've already missed the last plane. President Obama had fled into momentary exile in Far East Asia. His domestic opponents have criticized the grandeur of this trade mission as wasteful opulence. Dancing with children, while Americans are told not to drink soda. The Tea Party guard at the diamond exchange complained that the cost of the president's tour was about $200,000,000 a day."

About 60 cents from each American and we know that 60 cents doesn't buy anything in the USA. Not even a hot dog. So Obama has skipped the country for good.

"He's going back to be a Muslim imam in Indonesia." Andy shouted with one hand cupped to his mouth. He heard this from Fox News. Everything they say is his truth. "Then he's going to organize Al-Quada to attack America."

"You're fucking crazy." I shook my head, because many of his friends feel the same way. They are many, but thankfully most of them are post-middle aged and fat. Their mouths are the only part of their anatomy capable of a fight. One boot to their guts and these 'patriots' will be on their knees sucking wind. Maybe not Andy. He's still in good shape for a man his age. It hasn't come to that yet, but it will one day. Having worked nightclubs, I can tell when a bully is itching for a fight.

And that day I'll get on a plane for Thailand and join Jesse Ventura and Barack Obama in exile.

Adios motherfuckers

Tell 'Em Jesse

"It's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law. ... Waterboarding is drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders. ... If it's done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. It could do a whole bunch of stuff to you. If it's done wrong or — it's torture, Larry. It's torture."

Jesse Ventura - pro wrestler/UDT Navy diver/ex-Governor of Minnesota

He's no Chuck Norris.

Jesse for President 2012

The Exquisite Fatness of Farangs

“Why farang so fat?” Lil’ Noi the 16 year-old waitress from Chez Michel asked at the end of the night. “Kin mak.”

Lil’ Noi was right.

Farangs ate a lot, although not as much as a hungry Thai woman during the course of the day. Morning rice and chicken, mid-day sum tam with Chinese noodles, fruit, snacks, dinner of fried shrimp and maybe a little vegetables, then a big dinner of everything in the refrigerator followed by a bunch of satay from the evening food cart and end the evening with ice cream.

I can’t keep up with their pace and neither can Thai men, so I couldn’t tell Lil’ Noi that over-eating caused fat farangs.

“Kin mai mak. Kin mai di.” It’s not how much you eat, but what you eat.

I have studied the rock documentary GIMMIE SHELTER for any seminal signs of the epidemic obesity striking the West and edges of the developing world. The only fat people are two members of Canned Heat, a fat naked girl on LSD, and another fat black man who gets the snort beat out his by Hell’s Angels. Otherwise millions of young thin hippies.

Hippies were notoriously skinny, so I surveyed a stadium of beer-drinkers. at the 1986 WORLD SERIES GAME #6. A No really fat people in the Fenway Park stands. Bloated maybe, but not fat.

Obese Americans were a rarity, until something was added to the national diet and it wasn’t Mcdonald’s supersized meals. In the late-80s farmers from the fly-over were stuck with mountains of excess corn thanks to the federal subsidy programs. Midwestern silos were bursting with the unwanted crop until a FDA flunkie OK’ed the conversion of billions of kernels into HFCS or high fructose corn syrup as a cheap alternative to sugar.

If you couldn’t believe margarine wasn’t butter, then how smart could you be to accept high fructose corn syrup as sugar?

“Damn, it’s sweet.”

HFCS entered the food chain through soda, ketchup, jellies, yogurt, cereals, soy product additives, pastries, cakes, chips ad nauseum, except Americans didn’t get sick, unless more than 300 pounds is an illness.

I still couldn’t explain the impact of this sugar substitute to Lil’ Noi.

The 16 year-old hadn’t finished high school and worshipped 7/11, the temple to high fructose corn syrup, plus Lil Noi wasn’t fat. Only a little pleasingly plump to speed up the blood of older men to a dangerous pace.

“French man not same America. Why did they have big bellies?” French men made up the everyday clientele of the small restaurant on Soi Buffalo and frogs definitely eat better than Americans. There was only one answer.

“Farang penh uwan lahkor farang chob dim lao beer.” I blamed the Gallic waist on beer consumption.

“Thai man drink beer too. Not fat.”<

“”Young not fat. Old fat.”

“So old man fat.” Lil Noi’s eyes went a funny with the realization that all men end up fat.

“Old man fat.”

“Like you.”

I weigh 90 kilos and am a six-footer. My BMI is a nudge over 25. ”I’m only a nidnoi fat.”

“Nidnoi uwan.” She laughed and rattled several Thai sentences off to the cook. They thought it was a good joke. “What part nid noi uwan?”

“Maybe my feet.” I refused to tell them that a man’s penis is the only part of his body that doesn’t gain weight, although I suspected this phenomena was common knowledge.

“Nid noi uwan.”

I gave up right there and went home to examine myself in the mirror.

Nothing nid noi about it.

At least someone thought it was funny and I might have even cried if I didn’t have a beer in my hand, for a bottle of beer will never say you’re fat.

Never.

Invasion of the Fat People

WHERE DID ALL THOSE FAT PEOPLE COME FROM?

To find out please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK3PJn9Dfl4

The Land of the Fat

Obesity was a rare condition in the 60s and 70s. Fat people were confined to carnival sideshows, yet in 2010 nearly half of America is extremely overweight. Fat people are everywhere and new studies have suggested that hanging around fat people can lead to increased weight. At 6 feet tall and 195 pounds I am at the high end of the BMI or Body Mass Index. I don't eat with fat people. Not that I don't like them, but I have rejected the kind of processed food on which they depend.

No potato chips. No soda. No candy.

Not no never, but no almost never.

No one in government is willing to speak about the true cause of obesity. Overeating is a warning symptom that the food industry has debased the nutrients in their products. People eat more because the food they eat doesn't offer enough nourishment.

Potato chips are not food.

42% is not far from 50% of the nation.

This holiday season could achieve that goal.

USA # 1.

Stolen Beauty

“No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.”

Oscar Wilde

Stolen Beauty

“No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.”

Oscar Wilde

24 Songs

In 1956 The Teenagers scored a big hit with WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE thanks to Frankie Lymon's high tenor. The producer from Gee Records lifted the publishing credit from the three young men and the two surviving Teenagers were awarded ownership in 1992, however four years later the Court of Appeals overruled the judgment under the statute of limitations and authorship. There is no such thing as intellectual rights for an artist. Everything belongs to record companies and this point was brought home to a Native American woman in Minnesota who was fined $1.5 million for downloading the following 24 songs belonging to the copyright fiends.

Aerosmith "Cryin'"
Bryan Adams "Somebody"
Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
Destiny’s Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
Gloria Estefan "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You"
Gloria Estefan "Here We Are"
Gloria Estefan "Coming Out of the Dark"
Goo Goo Dolls "Iris"
Green Day "Basket Case"
Guns N' Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"
Guns N' Roses "November Rain"
Janet Jackson "Let's Wait Awhile"
Journey "Don't Stop Believin'"
Journey "Faithfully"
Linkin Park "One Step Closer"
No Doubt "Different People"
No Doubt "Bathwater"
No Doubt "Hella Good"
Reba McEntire "One Honest Heart"
Richard Marx "Now and Forever"
Sarah McLachlan "Possession"
Sarah McLachlan "Building a Mystery"
Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
Vanessa Williams"Save the Best for Last"

Paying for the songs online would have cost the woman $24

A jury decided the verdict.

None of them were under 30. None of them had ever stolen a thing in their lives. All of them believe in corporate welfare. $1.9 million for 24 songs and not one penny for the authors of WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE from EMI and I suspect that the musicians of the songs purloined by the Minnesota woman will not receive any royalties either.

Call it a hunch.

I don't download any music or movies, but I once stole two LPs from a discount store at which I was working. Zayres in South Quincy. The records were FREAK OUT by the Mothers of Invention and A DAY IN THE LIFE by Wes Montgomery.I only confess to this crime, since the statute of limitation has run its course.

Neither artist received any money from me, but the discount store had to pay the record company for the LP, so theft only hurts the store. It went out of business in 1990. I had nothing to do with its collapse.

Honest.

Excerpt from WHEN FAT MEN FLY

My failures of German 101 and Multivariable Algebra in 1971 destroyed my chances of graduating 'magna cum laude'. I worked nights at a discount chain next to the Quincy Shipyard. My best friend from store lived up the street. Wayne's second-story bedroom accommodated a bed, table, two chairs, a sofa, black-and-white TV, and a stereo. The windows overlooked the Fore River. His Pioneer stereo system was light-years ahead of my parents’ Zenith Hi-Fi. Nearly 2000 LPs were alphabetically stacked against one wall according to genres. Wayne picked up a double LP from his coffee table and pushed back his greasy long hair. I had never seen him use a comb.

“You know I could steal records out of the store real easy.” My friend, Mitch, headed the record department.

“I don’t want any trouble and I got money for records.” The heavyset New Yorker unwrapped the plastic from Love’s OUT HERE and placed the 33 on his turntable. The first song was SIGNED DC. I had heard it once on WBCN.

“I’ll do it then.” I owed him a good Christmas present.

“Don’t be stupid.” Wayne joined me on the sofa and lit up a joint.

“I won’t be stupid.” I should have realized that ’stupid’ was every 18 year-old
boy’s middle name. The store needed extra help for the holiday, so I worked double shifts Monday to Saturday. Wayne also pulled overtime.

Three days before Christmas we punched out at closing. He buttoned up a thick overcoat with a fake fur collar and pulled a cheap Chinese Army cap with flaps onto his head. I had on a ski parka, jeans, and Fyre boots. As we passed the records department, I grabbed two LPs; Wes Montgomery’s A DAY IN THE LIFE and the Mother’s of Inventions’ FREAK OUT.

“You said you weren’t doing anything stupid.” Wayne waddled toward the exit. He could move fast for his size.

“No one’s will stop us.” I waved to the two girls at the cash registers. They were counting out the night’s take. Marie was sweet on Wayne. Sookie was skinnier than the super-model Twiggy and I liked the way she looked, but 20 year-old girls weren’t so interested in younger boys.

“You’re on your own.” Wayne pushed open the glass door. The air was cold and he cursed under his breath. “Shit.”

The 20 year-old assistant-manager was trailing us out of the store. His title added 30 cents to the minimum wage of $1.45/hour. This extra wealth granted him the delusion that he was a big deal with the check-out girls. They called him ‘Mr. Pizza-face’ behind his back and he was pissed at me for puking on him at the Christmas party. It wasn’t personal, but drinking Jack Daniels on an empty stomach was never a good idea.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Wayne was holding an ounce of pot. Possession was almost a felony in the State of Massachusetts. A station wagon pulled out of its spot and I flicked the LPs under a black 1965 Thunderbird.

“Stop right there.” The assistant manager shouted from twenty feet behind us.

“What for?” Wayne’s words turned to frozen mist.

“I saw you steal those records.” The assistant-manager eyed our hands.

“What fucking records?” Wayne was tough for a fat boy, then again his older brother ran with a biker gang in Pomona.

“You can’t talk to me like that?” The assistant-manager stepped within Wayne’s reach.

“I can talk anyway I want once I punched out.” The squat New Yorker didn’t take any shit.

“Tell me where those records are or you’re both fired.” The assistant-manager’s voice peaked an octave.

“Then fire me.” Wayne bumped into the skinny 20 year-old’s chest.

“That’s assault.” The assistant-manager spun toward the store. His loafers lost traction and he slipped on the snow, hitting the ground face first. Both of us laughed, as the assistant-manager scrambled to his feet like a duck running on ice. Blood streamed from his nose.

“You think that’s funny. I’m calling the cops.” His clothes were wet from the slush. He stomped off to the store.

“It was funny.” Wayne shrugged to me.

“As funny as my throwing up on him?”

“No, that was hilarious.” Wayne pointed to the T-bird. “Get those records.”

“Are we giving them back?” This was my first act of larceny.

“Fuck no.” He walked off to his house. “We’re getting rid of the evidence. You take the back way to my place.”

I crawled under the car. A little snow was on top of the records. I brushed them off and then ran from the parking lot in a crouch. Wayne was waiting on his porch. He checked the street for the coops and then ushered me inside. His mother had food on the table; a tuna-and-cheese casserole. He said nothing about the LPs.

After dinner his step-father watched HARPER’S VALLEY PTA on the TV. He had worked a double-shift. A cigarette died between his fingers and Wayne plucked the smoldering butt out of the old man’s fingers. His mother waved for us to leave the old man alone and we climbed the stairs to his room.

“Merry Christmas.” I handed him the two records.

“Thanks.” Wayne laid FREAK OUT on the turntable and loaded the bong with Panama Red. We listened to HELP I’M A ROCK in a reefer haze and harmonized to the chorus twenty times. The check-out girls arrived two hours later. Marie threw off her long sheepskin coat and sat on Wayne’s lap. Her friend, Sookie, stood in the corner like she had a curfew.

“You guys are lucky.” Marie’s big breasts were nearly popping out of her store uniform. Some boys might have called her chubby. To Wayne she was the new Jayne Mansfield. He liked his girls big.

“Lucky how? We got fired.” No one in my family had been fired in two generations.

“The assistant manager wanted to call the cops.” The blonde cashier had graduated from Weymouth High School last summer. Her job at the store was full-time. She had planned on attending beautician school in the summer. Her make-up was impeccable. “He said you beat him up. I told the management that he had slipped on the snow. The manager ordered him back to work.”

“So we’re not fired?” I was counting on my Christmas check.

“No, you’re fired all right.” Marie grabbed the bong out of my hands. “What’s that shit on the stereo?”

“The Mothers of Invention.” Wayne hummed two bars of the melody. I sat next to Sookie. She smelled good. It was a fun night for thieves.

SEA BREEZE / Frankie Lymon

Famous people lead fast lives. Frankie Lymon achieved success with The Teenagers' first single, 1956's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love". The youthful hustler from Harlem had his way with prostitutes and older women. He penned the hit song with two band members based on a teenage girl's love letters. A host of hits rocked the R&B charts, however Lymon had been hooked on heroin at an early age. His solo career suffered from bouts and binges, as the falsetto faded from his voice and record companies discovered the depths of his habit.

12 years later Frankie Lymon returned to New York. Clean for three years. He recorded two songs "I'm Sorry" and "Seabreeze". Roulette Records was offering a contract. Lymon celebrated with a needle and a spoon. His body was overcome by the first hit. His grandmother discovered his body. Only his music survived his passing.

To hear SEA BREEZE by Frankie Lymon please go to this URL


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yo4UE-p864

Memory Loss

The Catholic Church and other derivatives of the Judeo-Christian faith extol monogamy as the true state of man and woman, then explain sex with the mystery of the birds and bees. Actually I don't ever recall getting that lecture from my parents, although the stork was mentioned whenever a new brother or sister arrived unannounced from the hospital. Storks at hospitals made no sense to me, but my parents remained faithful to each other till death like mating pigeons.

On the other hand I have been a wanderer. I can't count the number of my paramours on one hand or all my digits either. I've never made a list. Somehow that seemed a little too gauche. While I don't remember all their names I do recollect their faces, smiles, and smell. Strangely very little of the sex. Woman pride themselves on their memories. They can quote you twenty years after the utterance left your lips. I thought that females would be the same about the act of love.

Not all of them.

Several years back I ran into Valda at a studio opening in Manhattan. I had been out of town for a half-year in Asia. We sat on a window sill and spoke of our lives. Past and present. Two younger people came up to us and asked if we were a couple.

"You seemed so comfortable together." The male beamed with the promise of two hearts beating as one. He held his girlfriend's hand with tenderness. They had a lot to learn, but I wasn't giving them any harsh lessons, so I said, "No, we're not a couple, but we once were lovers."

"No, we weren't." Valda's answer was quick and harsh.

"We weren't? I was certain we had slept together on my futon. Sweat slickening our bodies on a hot August night.

"Not at all." She was adamant.

"Are you sure?" Her kiss had been long.

"100%."

Those encounters couldn't have been a phantasm of my fantasies. She had scratched my back to shreds. A fury dwelt in her eyes. The young couple were aghast. I admitted surrender. "Sorry, guess I was thinking about someone else."

I had slept with two of her best friends; Mary Beth and Lucille.

They would know if I was right, but those two had vanished from New York at least a decade earlier. Valda walked away angry. She glared at me the rest of the night.I hadn’t thought I was so bad, but you never are bad as long your memory is outdated by reality.

Faster Faster

The fastest speed recorded on the French Autobahn was approx. 320 KPH or 205MPH by a BMW out past Strasbourg. The police never chased the violator. Catching them would have been impossible, so they radioed ahead to the toll booth to arrange a reception for the speed demon. Of course everyone exceeds the speed limit. we would get anywhere if we didn't, especially out West.

My friend, Johnny Justice, works for the Arizona Highway Patrol, and says, "If I stopped every speeder then they would be no one left on the road. I just go for excessive speed."

An Ohio trooper felt the same way and waited on I90 for a prize. An hour passed and then two, finally he hears the whine of a Ferrari. A flash of red zips westward and he flicks on his light. The high-speed pursuit ends as soon as the driver of the Ferrari realizes his crime. The cop pulls up behind him and then goes to the window of the sports car.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting for you." He was ready to write him a thick stack of ticket, except the driver quipped, "And I tried to get here as soon as I could."

Supposedly the police officer cut the driver loose.

A reward for his humor.

Faster faster is not always a crime.

Obama Where Are You

Barack Obama is 6-3. My friend attended the same school in Hawaii. Ty Spaulding is a libertarian. He said upon his classmate's election to the White House. "Barack's not a bully."

But at 6-3 no one ever picked on him and now he got avalanched by a good percentage of fat white men and their spawn. Thin white men voted against Obama too. They hated hearing about how Health Care was rammed down their throats like they were a compatriot of Linda Lovelace.

"I'm no fag and I'm no nigger lover."

That was the bottomline in this election.

White man waking up to their greatest horror.

Back of the bus.

But now is not the time for Obama to cry, time to nigger up and kick some ass.

If you got the gut for it.

Nigger up.

Waiting For My Man

The year was 1997. The night New Year’s Eve. West 18th Street and 7th Avenue. The Helmuth Building. The party was hosted by my good friend, Juliana. Great food, music by her music fanatic ex-husband. A Chelsea loft filled with old jazz musicians, real estate moguls, and Italian visitors.

The latter wanted drugs.

Cocaine to be exact.

I had a connection.

The desired amount was an ounce.

The dealer gave a rendezvous. He was more than two hours late. I overcharged the Italians $500 and pocketed 2 Gs. No one at the party had a scale. The Italians understood the delay and one of them said, “Waiting for my man.”

They loved that song. The wait had been true New York. Never obsolete. We huffed lines and that night I spoke Italian with a fiery tongue. I had studied Latin in high school. A dead language reanimated by the New World.

Never better.

Never again.

Could I Have This Dance?

Victory At All Costs

The GOP and its Tea Party constituents swept the Democrats from the House of representatives in the biggest shift of power in the 21st Century. I was greeted at work by the security guard, Andy, who boasted, "We had a revolution last night."

"Obama is the worst president in my lifetime," another white man said with heartfelt conviction. Errol came from within the Beltway. His father sold truth serum to right-wing believers. The lies tasted better with single malt Scotch.

"Worst than GW Bush or Ronald Reagan?" I didn't mention WH Harding, the traditional choice for presidential dishonor.

"Roanld Reagan was a great president." Not many people read history and I launched into a list of 'Old Dutch's sins. "Tax cuts with a 40% increase in defense spending, cutting taxes for the rich in belief of the 'trickle down theory' while cutting Medicaid, food stamps, and federal education programs, Iran-Contra, the savings-loan debacle, cut and run in Lebanon, forcing NASA to green light the Challenger Space Shuttle launch, the arming of Islamic fundamentalist in Afghanistan, SDI, and worst for the nation the War of Drugs, while the CIA was funneling cocaine into the USA to finance the Contra War.

"Do you have any proof of that?"

Like millions of Americans voting for the right in this election Errol prefers a lie to the truth because that is all he had heard since birth.

I don't have any proof of the CIA selling crack in LA.

15 years ago I was hiking on the Inca Trail in Peru. 4 day journey from the railhead at KM82 from Cuzco by train. The travelers broke into groups sherpaed along the trail by Quechuan porters and guides. My girlfriend, Mrs. Carolina, and I were separate from these instantaneous collective. The next smallest aggregation was a DEA colonel stationed in La Paz and his two sons. He was severely gungho about endurance. One look at me and Mrs. Caroline. A challenge. Under normal condition the colonel might have bested me, however I had several bags of coca leaves, a present from the coca dealers in the Cuzco plaza.

$2 each.

Enough for four days of high altitude hiking. Mrs. Carolina and I cruised along the trails like Steve McQueen's escape in PAPILLON after the convict gives him coca leaves. At the second night stop colonel gasped that we were cheating.

"Cheating? I didn't know that we were playing a game." I stuffed a wad of leaves into my cheek. The juices were strong and I felt no cold or pain or boredom, as the sun set behind the sharp Andean ridge. The guides were huddled around a fire. It gave little warmth.

"No game, I see you every day chewing those leaves, looking back at me, thinking that i can't walk as fast as you."

"Well, you can't." I'm pro-drug. The DEA is the enemy.

"Only because of those leafs."

"Hey, it's all natural." I had a bone to pick. A persistent rumor. "Unlike the crack the CIA was selling in LA."

"The CIA never did that. They are too many people involved. Someone would have said something."

"Not unless they killed them and that is what the CIA and DEA do best. Kill people." I stood up and walked away before the words got angry. The colonel left early the next morning. We passed him and his sons several hours later. They were in bad shape. The boys look to me for help, but I had nothing to offer. A father knows best for his kids even when he's wrong.

As a father I know that all too well.

Thankfully I never had to say anything about Reagan to the DEA colonel.

At high altitude all conversations are short.

Money - Tony Montana SCARFACE

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."

Tony Montana - cocaine dealer in Brian dePalma's SCARFACE 1983

for more quotes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcHndOfbSaE

Back From The Edge

California failed to legalize marijuana with the defeat of Proposition 19. Rednecks, fat white men, law officers, and oldies united to turn back the clock to the 1950s, however proponents of the proposition have vowed to seek victory in 2012. A leader of the anti-pot movement ridiculed any chance of success by saying, "If they think they are going to be back in two years, they must be smoking something." and the White House showed their true colors, when the drug policy director said, "Today, Californians recognized that legalizing marijuana will not make our citizens healthier, solve California's budget crisis, or reduce drug related violence in Mexico."

Obviously they are on something else than weed.

Probably prescription drugs, so their war of drugs continues in defeat, but it's only a question of time before the armies of Tony Montana march in the street to celebrate freedom.