60 Minus 1

Friends, family, and strangers constantly say that I don't look my age. I've stopped looking in the mirror in favor of regarding my shadow against a wall, so the innate narcissistic nature guillibly believes the complements and lies. This weekend was my birthday. One short of the next big one. Andrea from across the aisle in the diamond exchange said that I was a monument to perpetual youth. My wife Mam professed that I was forever young. Emails and phone calls from across the globe mirrored this sentiment. Emboldened I went out Friday night with no good intentions.

Drink drink drink.

No women.

Drink drink drink.

Watching the Stanley Cup at Mullanes on Lafayette. Beer chasers afterwards at Franks Lounge. A glass of wine with my landlord AP to finish the night and then the next day more of the same.

Drink drink drink.

I woke Sunday morning feeling like five pounds of cow paddy in a one pound bag.

As a youth I could have drank a glass of water and been ready for some more action.

At 59 I was destined for an early grave. I called my doctor in Staten Island. Nick and I have been friends since European History 101 at BC.

1970.

"What can I do to stop this pain?" We had hitchhiked across America in 1973.

"Sleep, water, sleep, water, and more sleep." Nick was a good doctor. He didn't give me any pills. My only Rx was sleep and water.

"Anything else?" That recipe might have worked in my early 50s, but I was feeling mighty twattered by my overstepping the boundaries of moderation.

"A good hot bath with a big book. That way when you fall asleep the book will drop in the water and you won't drown."

"Thanks for the advice." Nick didn't charge me for any of consultation. We were good friends. For over 40 years and both of us expect to make 70.

"More of the same."

Last Stop Joplin

This Sunday President Obama returned to the USA after a successful European drinking binge with Irish drunks and gin-lovers at Buckingham Palace. His first stop was not McSorley's in the East Village, but the devastated Midwest city of Joplin. 2/3s of the Missouri town has erased by mega-tornadoes. The President viewed the widespread wreckage and pledged his support to revitalize the community. The fanatical members of the Westboro Baptist Church attempted to protest the nigger president's visit. They were turned back by 300 bikers who believed that the freedom of speech can be defended by a loud exhaust pipe.

Fuck the religious right.

I guess that I can still say that in the Land of the Free.

Beering with da Obamas

Ireland is the home of Guinness Beer and President Obama lifted a pint of the brown sludge at a local pub in Moneygall. His wife sipped at her beer with relish. It was a moment of joy during a brief detour from his busy schedule of his European trip. Family, friends, and Guinness. A proper toast.

"Slainte."

Happiness abound.

Fox News was quick to negativize the occasion by accusing the President's ignoring the plight of Missouri's tornado victims.

We Irish around the world have one thing to tell FOX News.

"Téigh trasna ort féin."

Anyone knowing my feelings will not need a translation, but also when you happy, drink beer, when you're sad drink beer, and when you're feeling so-so drink beer. It's good for you."

Happy Beermas and my sympathies to the people of Joplin.

Our president will be with you tomorrow.

Where's Whitey?

The World's Top Ten Wanted Fugitives took two hits this past month. # 1 Osama Bin laden was erased by an executive order from President Barack Hussein Obama. Two bullets to the head and a burial at sea. Secondly the Balkan War criminal Gen. Ratko Mladic was arrested by black-clad security forces in a small Serbia farming community. The FBI, Interpol, and law enforcements across the globe are utilizing every tool possible to capture men on the run and the new tactic is to put 'wanted' posters on the beer condoms of Thailand go-go bars.

My favorite is the one for Whitey Bulger, Southie criminal / FBI snitch.

I named my dog after him.

17 years on the lam.

A stone-cold killer and turncoat, still I have to toast him for staying free.

Of course he has help as did OBL and Ratko Mladic

It helps to have friends in high places.

ps I have not seen Whitey in my travel.

Dropping Like Flies

The GOP regained control of the House of Representatives in 2010. White men were pissed off that the modern world had turned out nothing like the promise of THE JETSONS. Cock-hating women had positions of power and the President of the United States was a nigger. Silenced by the forces of political anal retentiveness the white male heart of America voted to reverse the flow of time. Slavery was a good thing. Women were better off in the kitchen and gays had better learn not to lisp. The right would have captured the Senate, if women hadn't come out in Nevada and California to save their rights. They weren't scared of a semi-white black man.

Barack Obama reacted to the climate change with a doctrine of appeasement. He said let's work together. The new congress said no fucking way. Presidential contenders emerged from the woodwork like cockroaches immune to RAID. Fat governors contemplated a run for the White House. Donald Trump led the pack. MILF # 1 for fat white men, Sara Palin, beamed a smile from pulpit of FoxNews. The Mormon ex-governor of Massachusetts was raising millions from his supporters. The horizon was as bleak as a Kansas sunset during tornado season for Barack Obama and then he ordered a hit on Osama Bin Ladin, his cousin, like Michael Corleone. At the end of the day the sitting president could say 'OBL sleeps with the fishes'.

Game set match.

Donald Trump out. Mike Huckabee out. Newt Gringrich smeared by his spending sprees at Cartier. The right saw the future and it was a second term for the assassin.

He's a bad motherfucker.

ps one more thing

go fuck yourself and your dumbass sweep-over, Donald Trump.

Lame-ass running dog.

$25,000,000 Dead or Alive

$25,000,000 Dead or Alive

My family has suspected me of working for the CIA ever since I moved to France in the 1980s. Friends have announced accusations of my association with ‘the Company’ at parties and dinners. Everyone gets a good laugh out of matching my absence from America with dubious espionage misadventures. I have denied any ties to this country’s intelligence community and have a rejection letter from a Leon Woodcock of the CIA recruiting wing stating that the agency has no need for a person of my skills at that moment.

The year was 1980.

I was working at an illegal nightclub in New York. Our main investor was a KGB renagade selling religious icons to the FBI. I moved to Hamburg two weeks before the Continental was closed by G-men. They wanted to speak with me. I had left no forwarding address.

At the beginning of the month I traveled to Thailand to see my precious son, Fenway. Barack Obama okayed the assassination of Osama Bin Laden several days after my departure. I don’t think that OBL had anything to do with 9/11, but I pumped a fist in the air. Obama showed that unlike GW Bush that he had the balls to defy the Al-Quada leader’s supporters in the CIA, ISI, and the Mossad.

The reward on OBL’s head was $25,000,000.

No one was claimed the price.

No one is willing to risk the reward. They fear the revenge. Not me, I’ll take the $25 million in a sec, because having lived in Pattaya, the last Babylon, I know how to spend money of the 77 virgins.

Oh yeah.

And I sleep like a baby, because I had nothing to do with his death no matter what my friends think.

Bible Belt Tragedies

The Bible Belt extends across the southern USA from Virginia to Texas. The white population is dominated by conservative evangelical Protestantism and the black populace of those states are equally enthralled with their churches. Several cities have fought for the title of ‘the Buckle of the Bible Belt’ and this last month the wrath of their god has visited in the deadly personae of mega-tornadoes.

Philadelphia, Mississippi. Oklahoma City. Joplin, Missouri.

Three cities devastated by vast walls of twisters.

Floods threaten towns and cities along the Mississippi and other river systems of the Midwest. Drought withers crops. Crystal Meth steals the lives of children and adults. The Bible Belt is suffering the pests of Moses.

New York City, home of the homo army, refuge of atheists, and protector of beer-drinkers, has evaded the hand of God. Our weather today could only be described as ‘pleasant’, although I did break out in a sweat in the late afternoon.

Sweat versus tornadoes.

Godlessness versus Godliness.

And we all know what is close to Godlessness.

Sympathy for the believers.

We hope the weather changes for the better.

Unlike Pat Robertson who said that 9/11 happened because New York was filled with queers, none of us non-believers think that the Bible Belt is getting its just desserts. We ain’t built that way.

WARNING

ST. LOUIS, LITTLE ROCK, CLEVELAND, MEMPHIS up next.

Macho Man Drops an Elbow on Jesus

The atheists set off fireworks at midnight down by Red Hook. May 21 had come and gone without the Messiah of the Christians showing his face. I didn't see much cause for celebration. Those fanatics are mostly trouble-makers and shit-stirrers, but AP, my landlord, Alaska Jack, and I raised our glasses on top of the roof of our Fort Greene brownstone and toasted the strength of non-believers. After downing our drinks we descended to my apartment, where we finished my bottle of Irish Whiskey. Alaska Jack was obsessed about his bachelor status.

"I have no wife. I have no kids. Nothing." Alaska Jack wiped his shaved head with a towel. He had a tendency to sweat in his present condition.

"You don't have nothing. You have me." I broke out another line of some noxious blow. Nothing complimented nihilism better than cocaine. Even GW Bush liked yee-ho.

Alaska Jack left 30 minutes later to trawl Billy-Burg for a one-night bride. He was funny. His pocket was filled with cash. Bartenders knew his first name.

"I'll join you." My spirits were aflame from surviving 'the Rapture'. I wanted more sin. I had money too.

"You're not going anywhere." Alaska Jack refused to let me leave my apartment. "You have a wife and kids. Getting fucked up at your age is fine as long as no one sees how fucked up you are."

"I don't want to be the oldest man in the disco." I was abdicated that title to my boss, Richie Boy. He didn't drink to make the girls pretty. The diamond dealer boozed to reverse the flow of time. He was the Peter Pan and Dorian Gray rolled into one, but I understood his undying commitment to the nightlife. It was a wild world past midnight in New York.

I watched Alaska Jack get into his cab and then joined AK inside the brownstone. he had kids too. I bid him goodnight and went upstairs to my aerie. Within minutes I was out cold.

Nothing says a drunken coma more lucidly than waking in your clothing on the floor. My taste buds were stiff from bourbon residue. The gray morning was too bright for my eyes. They felt like aborted ice-cream scoops. I got to my feet and staggered into the bathroom. The water ran cold from my shower head. I stood under the spray until the temperature hit boiling. A shave was unnecessary. It was Sunday Morning and I went downstairs to the kitchen.

AP was sitting at the table with his wife and kids. His son and daughter were smart for their age. They recognized that their father wasn't feeling his oats. This divination was easy. AP sat at the table with his head in both hands.

"Have a good time last night?" His wife asked with dirt on her hands. She had spent the early part of the morning tearing up the garden in the backyard. The kids had been out of bed since dawn. She wanted her revenge and said, "You going for a greasy breakfast?"

The kids chanted 'greasy breakfast' in a high-pitched tone and AK groaned in pain. My kids were on the other wide of the world. They were experts of ruining mornings. It's a gift all children like to give drunken dads. I picked up the front section of the NY Times and left AK to his misery.

At the Academy Diner on Lafayette I had my 'usual'; eggs over-easy, bacon, home fries, whiskey down wet, and coffee. The NY Times had nothing to say about the failed 'Rapture'. I looked around the restaurant. The tables and stools at the counter were empty. The clock on the wall said 10:35. Church-goers were still in their pews. The diner would be packed after 11. I opened the paper to the Obits. At my age I like to see whom I have outlived, but I didn't like reading that Randy Macho Man Savage had died in a car crash a day before the failed 'Rapture'.

The Macho Man was a true hero to wrestling fans in the 80s and 90s. His epic battles with Ricky the Dragon remain a highlight of Wrestlemania. He had fought all-comers and smote the winners and losers with a pantheon of signature moves such as the Atomic Drop, the Lariat Takedown, the Piledriver, and the ever-vicious Vertical Suplex. The Macho Man reigned as wild man of the ring for over forty years. His athleticism dignified a sham sport. His 'Oh Yeah' sold millions of Slim Jim Beef Jerkys. He was something else and I reread the obit.

Dead from a heart attack. Randy Savage was my age. 58. Actually several months younger. The perennial champion must have exited this mortal coil to the blaring horns of POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE. I exited from the Academy Diner thinking that the Macho Man was back together with Miss Elizabeth, his lovely consort, who preceded his demise with a OD. Neither of them were waiting for the 'Rapture' and I returned home to read the Drudge Report, the BBC News, and Al-Jazeera.

None of the online press sites could verify any Christians transported to eternal bliss. GW Bush was still in Texas. The Jehovah Witnesses were knocking on doors around the world. Fundamentalists were exhorting their flocks to read the bible to the bone, while atheists were celebrating their triumph over the religious fools. Harold Egbert Camping warned the non-believers that May 21 was a 'spiritual day of judgment'. October 21, 2011 is the new dawn of destruction.

His followers await Armageddon with bated exhilaration, however their Rapture will never come in this lifetime, for their beloved Jesus was drop-elbowed by the master of the square circle, Randy Macho Man Savage.

He saved the world.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe Next Time

To see what a wonderful world this planet would have been without the Christians and all the other extreme religious, please go to the following URL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f9KlMWzKj4s#at=132

What a wonderful world it would have been

Dogs In Heaven

Heaven on Earth

The first three entries on the Google search engine for ‘heaven on earth’ are the Heaven on Earth Salon & Day Spa | Honolulu, Hawaii, Heaven on Earth weddings, and Britney Spears' hit. None of those choices answered my perception of ‘heaven on earth’ so I went www.heavenonearth.org

This website proposed a multilevel approach to reaching a terrestrial nirvana; peace and security, freedom, democracies, prosperity, spiritual harmony, racial harmony, ecological soundness, health, and moral purpose and meaning.

Long lists tend to create dissent since different factions have varied illusions of heaven.

The Hassidim try to recreate their vision of heaven every Shabbath through prayer and devotion to their God. Mormons follow the teachings of Joseph Smith, a distant relative of mine, while the Wahhabist Muslims think of heaven as a garden with 77 virgins. I don’t need to be cockteased by the sexually uneducated, worship Yahweh in a temple or marry a multitude of wives. Instead I seek to attain a simpler Eden as prescribed the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

These words were written in Persian over 1000 years ago.

I have traveled around the world. People ask, “What makes you live somewhere?”

“Good food, beautiful women, a nice climate, and cheap wine.”

The rest of it; SUVs, MacMansions, Plasma TVs, and fast food, are only delusions.

Heaven is as simple as facing the sun to feel its warmth, but then that’s me.

Wine, woman, my children, song, and a room with a view.

In the end I am a simple man

May 21 2011 minus 2

Sex, drugs, rampant homosexuality, godlessness have earned the wrath of God. HE has a heavy hand, but His Son seeks salvation for the righteous and tomorrow the minions of Jesus will rescue the 'good' from this Earth. Next stop for the true believers will be heaven, where they will worship the Big G for the rest of eternity on their knees. Some of the devout followers of the Man from Narazeth will failed to enter the
rapture', because they weigh too much. The scriptures promised nothing about saving the Mo-Obs or morbidly obese, for even the strongest angel can't fly with a fat person over 350 pounds.

Central to Family Radio's and Camping's teaching is the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and completely true. However, he emphasizes, this does not mean that each sentence in the Bible is to be understood only literally. Rather, the meaning of individual Biblical passages needs to be interpreted in the light of two factors. The first is the context of the Bible as a whole. The second is its spiritual meaning: in Camping's words, "the Bible is an earthly story with a Heavenly meaning." In Camping's latest publication, "We are Almost There!",[15] he states that certain Biblical passages point unquestionably to May 21, 2011 as the date of "Rapture", and October 21, 2011 as the end of the world.

Since leaving the Reformed Church in 1988, Camping has taught doctrines that may conflict with doctrines of the Reformed Church and other church denominations. The principles of Biblical hermeneutics upon which Camping frames his present teachings are:

1. The Bible alone is the Word of God.
2. Every Biblical passage must be interpreted in the light of the Bible as a whole.
3. The Bible normally conveys multiple levels of meaning or significance.[16]
4. Numerology cannot be applied to numbers in the Bible when following the Biblical rules—some individuals have attempted to apply the concept to Camping's research.
5. That salvation is unmerited and cannot be achieved by good works, prayer, belief or acceptance. It is a pure act of God's grace and that those to be saved were chosen "before the foundation of the world". He has been accused of adding conditions to salvation and teaching relative free will of humanity. However, he has admitted that some, though very few, could be saved, while still in the worldly churches, just as there would be those saved inside the nation of Israel, and that leaving the churches is merely something a believer should do, just as a believer should not lie or cheat. He also gives credit to God for what has been called "common grace", where the unsaved, the yet to be saved and the saved are blessed to do good works, but this is not considered the gift of salvation itself.

Examples of how Camping's teachings vary from past conventional doctrines are:

* Departing from doctrines stating no one can know the time of Christ's second coming, he teaches that the exact times of the Rapture and the End of the World are to be revealed sometime towards the end of time: (Daniel 12:9-13) prophecy.

* Camping teaches that the "Church age" is over, that Satan now rules in all churches, and that no person remaining in a church at the time of the Rapture can be saved. He distinguishes his ministry from a "church", saying that Family Radio does not have a "membership" or hold "authority".

* Camping now teaches that "hell" is synonymous with "death" and the "grave", and that there is no everlasting torment.

* Camping now teaches that The Cross was just a demonstration of what had already happened before the foundation of the world.

* Camping teaches that the world will end May 21 2011 [[1]] using the following reasoning:

1. According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
2. Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
3. If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.
4. The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
5. 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
6. (5 x 10 x 17)2 or (atonement x completeness x heaven)2 also equals 722,500.

Camping has gained recent[when?] notoriety due to his prediction that the Christian Rapture will take place on May 21, 2011[29][30] and that the end of the world will take place five months later on October 21, 2011.[31] Followers of Camping claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world's population) will be raptured.[32] As for the remainder of the human population, Camping himself believes in annihilationism, which is the view that those who are not saved will simply cease to be conscious rather than spend eternity in Hell. Those who were "unsaved" and died prior to May 21 will not be affected by or experience the Rapture or the end of the world.

There are no KFCs or MacDonalds in the next life.

Or beer which is why we drink it here.

Enjoy the end.

The End Times

Early Christians expected the return of the Man from Nazareth to Earth. Their Messiah failed to show up to save them and converts gave up on the 2nd Coming for the End Times or 'days of vengeance', when their persecution would be revenged by fiery angels. Revelations in the Bible forecast the horrors of the End of Times.

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

The signs were to be a host of disasters befalling man. Different sects arose to offer various and contradicting version of the Last Day. Presently Christian premillennialists eagerly entertain the notion that the End Times are now. Dispensational pre-millennialists await the Call of Jesus to heaven for the bliss of the Great rapture. Fundamentalists believe that the doom written in the Bible is what will occur to purge the Earth of sinners and non-believers and they will resume their place in the Garden of Eden.

Even more extreme sects exist on the fringes of End Time thought. Preterists teach that the Christian surviving the holocaust of God will be whisked into heaven. Dispensationalists are given to the belief that the Antichrist and the Beast are ruling the world. Barack Obama is their demon. Post-tribulation pre-millennialists, Restorationists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims have their own versions of the End of Times. Listening to their arguments has to be maddening, but no one was madder than the great Gothic horror writer HP Lovecraft who defined the signs of Armageddon in THE CALL OF CTHULU.

"The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

That sounds a little like now, but more like the 70s.

Those were good times in New York.

Punk and disco.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

666

It's an address on 5th Avenue.

The Downside of Heaven

A holy man from Bali died from old age. He arrived at the Pearly Gates to be greeted by St. Peter.

“Welcome to Heaven.” St. Peter led the Balinese holy man inside the holy rest home of eternity.

“I thought heaven was only for Christians.”

“No, no, heaven is for everyone. Over there are the Balinese. To the right the French. Back there the Muslims. Up front the Christians. Over there the Irish.” St. Peter pointed out every segment of heaven, then as they walked through a forest of euphoria, St. Peter whispered. “And over there are the Fundamentalists.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because they think they’re the only ones up here.”

Read Stanley Elkins THE LIVING END

The Great Disappointment 1844

This world was a cesspool of sin for Christians in the early 19th Century. The powers of Satan threatened the souls of the White Race through race mixing. Women's demand for equality was an attack on the eternal domination of men over the weaker sex. Children were losing their religion and the United States was driven not by godliness, but Mammon the filthy idol of money. The Millerite movement defended Christian values with the power the Second Great Awakening, but in August 1844 their Baptist leader, William Miller, interpreted the Bible writing of Daniel and declared their Saviour would return to Earth on October 22, 1844.

His followers gave away their houses, horses, and possessions in preparation for the Rapture. Some climbed church steeples to leap into the air, so angels could seize them for a flight to heaven. Thousands of Millerites gathered for the moment on October 22.

Dawn came and went without the horns of salvation sounding in the heaven. Few of the devout jump from their perches. they struck the ground with a thud. None died, but many suffered broken bones. Noon passed without the appearance of the Man from Nazareth. Non-believers ridiculed Miller's flock throughout the rest of the day and the sun set on what would become known as 'The Great Disappointment'.

William Miller re-predicted the 2nd Coming for 1845. The preacher was wrong yet again.The faithful examined the text of the Bible and the Millerites fragmented into different camps. Many joined the Quakers, but two camps arose from the wreckage of the Great Disappointment. The 'shut door' camp believed that the door to heaven was closed to foolish virgins and only the wise virgins would be accepted through the Pearly Gates. The majority of the remaining Millerites rejected this theory and even convinced their leader that heaven was open to all believers. William Miller died in 1849 without achieving his much desired rapture. His followers continued to believe as Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Advent Christians.

Madmen and madwomen.

I'm disappointed that their Messiah hadn't taken them away on October 22, 1844.

The world would have been a better place without them.

Scorpion Day

Last year astronomers downgraded Pluto or as its known by its formal designation 134340 Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet. Its low mass was a problem, especially since beyond the Solar System larger objects orbit the Sun. Some scientists were not so quick to accept the IAU’s finding against Pluto and its three satellites; Charon, Nix, and Hydra. The public also questioned the validity of the scientific body’s decision. California called the decision ‘heresy’ and New Mexico passed a resolution in honor of Pluto’s discoverer and native son Clyde Tombaugh to affirm that Pluto would always be a planet while over the skies of the Enchanted State.

A few skeptics espied a more sinister aspect to the IAU’s celestial coup de Pluto.

With Pluto out of the way the religionists could plot the date of the Grand Planetary Alignment in accordance with Mayan prophecy as to the End of Times. Doomsayers have predicted the actual date of The End to be December 21, 2012 or 12-21-2012. Andy the security guard at the diamond exchange has warned non-believers that the magnetic pull of the planets will knock Earth off its axis.

“South will be West and East will be North.” Andy served in Vietnam. He has seen death. The End is not the opening song in APOCALYPSE NOW. “The clock is ticking.”

Andy is not alone in his affinity for The End. Millions of his religionists are praying for the Event to spur the 2nd Coming of their Messiah, the Ugly Son of god, however last month the date of The End was pushed forward by a biblical conjurer from California arguing against the 2012 termination of all things good, bad, and in-between.

“That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,” laughed the head of Oakland’s Family Radio, whose math calculations coupled with prophecies from the Good Book have guided his determination. “It’s like a fairy tale. The real end of times is 2011. May 21, 2011 to be exact.”

That date is a little more than three months away and last week I spotted a group of doom-believers marching down the sidewalk of 5th Avenue. Placards were attached to the bodies of Mayan men.

“Repent. May 21, 2011 is nigh.”

Pedestrians ignore the warning just like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. I shouted for them to take their shit to Kansas or any of the other square farm states or South of the Mason Dixon line. If The End is on May 21, 2011, then I’m quitting work on May day and flying East to be with my family. We will see out the End of Times drinking beer, for after May 21, 2011 the Book of Revelations predicts five tough months until the real End.

“And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.” Revelation 9:5

The Thais love eating scorpions.

Bible-thumpers are not welcome on my soi. The Thais call the missionaries ‘ET’ because they don’t sweat in their white shirts and ties. I tell the Thais that these religionists are dangerous and the greatest threat is their all-consuming ignorance.

The founder of Family Radio has listed the most important events in history as the following;

11,013 BC—Creation. God created the world and man (Adam and Eve).

4990 BC—The flood of Noah’s day. All perished in a worldwide flood. Only Noah, his wife, and his 3 sons and their wives survived in the ark (6023 years from creation).

7 BC—The year Jesus Christ was born (11,006 years from creation).

33 AD—The year Jesus Christ was crucified and the church age began (11,045 years from creation; 5023 calendar years from the flood).

1988 AD—This year ended the church age and began the great tribulation period of 23 years (13,000 years from creation).

1994 AD—On September 7th, the first 2300-day period of the great tribulation came to an end and the latter rain began, commencing God’s plan to save a great multitude of people outside of the churches (13,006 years from creation).

2011 AD—On May 21st, Judgment Day will begin and the rapture (the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will occur at the end of the 23-year great tribulation. On October 21st, the world will be destroyed by fire (7000 years from the flood; 13,023 years from creation).

2011 is 7000 years after the Deluge.

And while their god promised to never flood the Earth again, the seas are rising around the world thanks to the rapacious progress of globalization. Food is scarce due to crop failures. Dictatorships are falling in the Middle East. Sin is a sales technique for the multi-nationals. Greed is rampant. The rich are very rich and the poor are many.

The situation looks bleak for Mankind, but there is no grand alignment of the planets scheduled for 2011 or 2012.

Then again the reilgionists’ god is a cruel god.

Yahweh pogromed the 1st born of Egypt without mercy.

Jehovah killed Job’s family.

The bad god also turned Lot’s wife into salt. A good god would have chosen gold.

And the motherfucker has no education or watch, so beware of May 21, 2011.

To err is human, to err all the time is the right of a god or the very rich. – James Steele, blasphemer.

Learning Curve

In the movie CITIZEN KANE a corrupt politician attempts to blackmail the wealthy Charles Kane by releasing information that the married publisher is seeing another woman. Kane thinks that he is bigger than sin and refuses to play the game. Gettys, the crooked pol, leaves the love nest shaking his head.

GETTYS
You’re making a bigger fool of yourself than I thought you would,
Mr. Kane.

KANE
I’ve got nothing to talk to you about.

GETTYS
You’re licked. Why don’t you…

KANE
Get out! If you wanna see me, have the Warden write me a letter.

GETTYS
Anybody else, I’d say what’s gonna happen to you would be a
lesson to you. Only you’re gonna need more than one lesson. And
you’re gonna get more than one lesson.

KANE
Don’t worry about me, Gettys. Don’t worry about me! I’m Charles
Foster Kane! I’m no cheap crooked politician, trying to save
himself from the consequences of his crimes. Gettys! I’m gonna
send you to Sing-Sing! Sing-Sing, Gettys! Sing-Sing…

Unlearned Lessons

The New York Media is having a party at the expense of the jailed head of the IMF. The french socialist contends that the sex with the hotel maid was consensual. DSK has been convicted by the Press and public opinion. His innocence is a foregone conclusion, for the millionaire has a history of aggressive behavior toward women.

Back in 2002 the career politician attempted to rape a young reporter in Paris. She had arranged to meet DSK for an interview. Here is her account of what happened on that night.

"He asked for us to meet, and gave me an address I didn't know. That was surprising because I know a little bit about his life, more or less, where he lives, where his offices are. ... But this was nothing of the sort.

I came up in front of the building, parked my car, went up, and it was an empty apartment, completely empty, with a VCR, a TV and a bed. A very beautiful apartment, for a Gentleman of good taste. ... He wanted me to hold his hand while he answered, he said "I can't do it if you don't hold my hand." After the hand, it was the arm, and after the arm it was a bit further, so I stopped him. ...

It ended very badly, because we ended up fighting ... I told him clearly. ... We fought on the ground, it was more than a couple of slaps, I kicked him, he opened my bra, tried to open my jeans. ... It finished very badly. ...

I got out of there and he immediately sent me a text message saying "So, are you scared of me?" ... I had said the word "rape" when we were struggling to scare him, and it didn't seem to scare him, as if he was used to it. After [the incident] he wouldn't stop sending me text messages saying "Are you scared of me?"

The French newspapers and TV ignored this story. DSK used the power of his position. The chapter on DSK was dropped by her publisher and her mother asked her daughter to drop any criminal proceedings against DSK in fear of losing her position with the ranks of French Socialism. The mother approached DSK, who apologized saying, "I lost my head."

More like he was looking for head.

Last night at Frank's Lounge the verdict was 90% for guilty, although Pacco didn't think that DSK would serve any time.

"He's a rich man. Rich people get off with murder."

"Just like OJ Simpson." I added from my stool.

"Why you white people always got to bring up OJ."

"Because guilty or not guilty OJ got off with murder and for once in America a black man was able to buy justice."

OJ didn't learn his lesson. A jury found him not guilty of killing his wife. Trouble followed him down the road and in 2008 OJ was convicted of armed robbery. The Juice won't see freedom until 2017. His address for the foreseeable future is Lovelock Correctional Center, Nevada.

DSK will probably get off somehow. Rich people are lucky that way, but the judge and jury might see DSK in a different light and teach him a lesson that he should have learned a long time ago.

When a woman says 'no', it means 'no'.

Pauvre Con

America loves a good sex scandal. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Tiger Woods and his many gold companions. GW Bush and his alleged rape of a Texas woman and the accusation of a former stripper. The first shot herself and the latter vanished into the aether. America missed those scandals, since the Press gave GW a pass for any sins following 9/11. Any mention of sex can end a political career, however European leaders have been safe from any accusations of impropriety. Sex is not a sin in the Old World.

The Italian PM has paid for under-aged girls. He remains in power. British leader John Profumo was ousted not for having sex with the call girl Christine Keeler, but leaking secrets to her Russian spy lover. The present French president dumped his wife to marry a younger movie actress after his wife left him for another man. They do things different on the Continent.

Back in 1988 I was dating a movie star in Paris. The blonde beauty was a welcome addition to any public function. One evening we attended a presidential dinner. Her young cousin was our invitee. 18 and a precocious nymphette. Security saw us to our table and the assembled guests rose to their feet at the entrance of President Mitterand. The Socialist leader shook hands with friends and political associates on his way to the podium. The last minister to have ordered the police to fire upon workers lifted his head and his eyes on the young girl to my right. Mitterand shrugged off his minders and beelined across the room to introduce himself to our guest.

"Madamoiselle, je suis votre president."

There was no confusing what he had in mind and my girlfriend protectively shielded her protege from the old lecher's gropes. The crowd smiled with admiration. Their president was still a man. France is so France.

America is an ocean away from that country. The religious right tolerate no deviation from the path of sex for procreation. They crucified President Clinton for a mere blow-job. The rich in their ranks escape scandal through payments to the victims. The powerful play by a different set on rules than those imposed on the masses, however no one likes the French; rich or powerful.

This week the head of the IMF or the International Monetary Fund was arrested at JFK for raping a NYC hotel maid. The NYPD are holding DSK as he is known in France until arraignment on Monday. The Euro dropped against the Dollar, since the IMF is considering another bailout for the besieged economies of Portugal and Greece.

"I can't believe his accusation against my husband." The wife of the accused rapist declared from Paris. The French in general regard the charges with suspicion. The present president of France is renown for his dirty politics. DSK also has a history of forcing himself on women. His supporters are as disbelieving as his wife and claim this arrest is an act of political assassination. His guilt in the court of the American media is not helped by his Socialist background. Fox News is reporting allegations as fact. Facing a possible 15 year sentence DSK is in big trouble and all for the sake of his cock.

Still the French are running 80-20 that this scandal was a set-up, but while adultery is a mere sin, rape is a felony. The first forgivable, the second not so.

There is no first-class in the Tombs just as in the United States a person is innocent until proven guilty.

No hotel this time.

If DSK is lucky, Rikers will put him in a special holding cell.

If not general population.
Pauvre con.

Flee Flee Flee

A madman for Live For God's Kingdom has reinforced the convictions of my old friend, the ex-model from Paris, that the world is coming to an end. We are meant to flee for Jerusalem. It is the only refuge for believers.

"The Beast is a new world order and I think has tied to the International Monetary Fund--which will prevent those faithful to Christ from buying or selling because they will not bow down to this satanic world's demand of receiving its mark of 666 upon their forehead and hand. The love of God in Christ and His Word are eternal."

Normally I respond to her warnings of the End of Times with sardonic derision, however the other day a friend spotted a caravan of doomsayers in the West Village. The loudspeakers chanting out the date, May 21, 2011, the new and revised End of Times. The religious are chomping at the bit for Armageddon, so their beloved Jesus will transported them into the Rapture. They have no sense of humor, but the beauty of humanity is that we see the funny side of tragedy.

"Comedy is someone falling down the stairs. Tragedy is your getting a paper cut." - Robert C Cea

But here's how the media will report the End.

USA Today: WE'RE DEAD

The Wall Street Journal: DOW JONES PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS

National Enquirer: O.J. AND NICOLE, TOGETHER AGAIN

Playboy: GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Microsoft Systems Journal: APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE

Victoria's Secret Catalog: OUR FINAL SALE

Sports Illustrated: GAME OVER

Wired: THE LAST NEW THING

Rolling Stone: THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR

Readers Digest: 'BYE

Discover Magazine: HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?

TV Guide: DEATH AND DAMNATION: NIELSON RATINGS SOAR!

Lady's Home Journal: LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW "ARMAGEDDON" DIET!

America Online: SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN. TRY CALLING BACK IN 15 MINUTES.

Inc. magazine: TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE

Japan Abloom

The beauty of nature as an apology for its destruction.

You Bet I Would # 9

"My girl likes to party all the time."

Tokyo Void

My preferred airline from JFK to Bangkok is Korean Airlines. The Boeing 777 is serviced by young beautiful hostesses and the in-flight entertainment offers films other than the usual Hollywood drivel. My attempt to book a seat for my most recent trip met with failure. My travel agent at Pan Express said that all the planes were full.

"But I can get you on an American flight via Japan."

Japan on American.

I equate American with Delta, which is the worst of the international carriers. Narita terminal 2 is a horrible limbo. I had no choice. It was American through Japan or nothing. I booked the flight and arrived at JFK on my departure date expecting the worst.

I was pleasantly surprised by American Airlines. They were running 777s to Asia. The planes was far from full. The aged stewardesses were friendly. We stopped at Haneda Airport instead of Narita. The following flight was equally empty. No one was flying in or out of Japan, unless they had to get somewhere.

The return flight was a repeat.

Seats aplenty. Terminal devoid of passengers. The stewardesses said that the planes had been full prior to the earthquake and tsunami. The cracked reactors have frightened travelers from passing through Japan. Radioactivity has been detected as far away from the stricken N-plants as Yokohama. The country is in danger of becoming a no-go zone.

A marine on the eastbound segment said that his battalion was ordered onto aircraft carriers to help the survivors, but turned around when the geiger counter went off the charts. No one is telling the truth.

Poor Japan.

It's aglow.

Mile High Club

Ever since the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk man has been attempting an endless assortment of tricks and risks in flight. Most aviators and passengers are content to get from points A to B. Up and down without ragheads hijacking the plane for an unscheduled landing in a prominent building or getting arrested for drinking too much duty-free liquor.

Of course a safe flight doesn’t exclude a little fun such as joining the ‘Mile-High Club’ or MHC. This society is open to those passengers who have experienced sex on an airplane. I surveyed twenty male friends. Five professed to be members. Three of those were lying for sure. One of the remaining members said his girlfriend satisfied him manually under a blanket, which along with fellatio isn't consider sex according to the President Clinton Rules of Engagement.

The act of sex on a plane is considered contrary to British Law, but whipping is regarded as okay. Those Brits are strange birds. Singapore Air banned sex in the Airbus A380 for first-class passengers. Coitus in the beds of the deluxe cabins is off the menu. No surprise, since Singapore is the least sexy city in Asia. Laws and regulations are damned by those libertines seeking a thrill.

My friend Dean explained that his moment of glory came in university.

“I was young and agile, which are required skills for accomplishing this deed in a tiny bathroom. It was sort of like having sex in the back of a VW Bug, but those diaper changing tables are much stronger than they look. At the moment of truth I flushed the toilet which caused atmospheric havoc and gave my companion a thrill.”

Several years ago I myself joined the club as an honorary member, having abused myself during a trans-Pacific flight. I know it’s not the same thing, but it’s not like the airlines have a go-go bar in the cargo hold, which isn’t such a bad idea, unless you’re traveling on an Islamic airline. Strippers in chadors are as much as turn-on as a fat lapdancer.

Everything has its place.

The Beauty of FREEBIRD

My youngest brother’s health suffered a precipitous decline in 1995. The experimental drugs had failed to stem Michael’s ruthless aliment’s advances. I received a telephone call from my older brother in Boston. I was running a nightclub in Beverly Hills. He told me the bad news. The next day I was on a plane to Logan. My family was waiting at the hospice on the South Shore. I had seen friends die of AIDS. None of that prepared for the sight of my brother. His only nourishment was a morphine drip.

I guessed his weight to be 120. His family sat by his bedside. My mother patted his hand. My sisters wet his lips. My father met the tragedy with a noble stoicism. He had done his best. Tears were for another day. My older brother read from the Bible. My youngest brother responded to none of this.

One night I entered Michael’s room and my younger brother was playing FREEBIRD on his guitar. Paddy was a kind soul, but my youngest brother was more into show tunes and disco than southern rock. I mentioned this to my brother.

“You’re right, but in his state I figure that he would hear this song and know it was me.” My youngest brother strummed his guitar and I joined his singing the song. I was more a punk than anything else, but I knew every word. FREEBIRD had been a huge hit in 1972.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.
‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can’t change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I can’t change.
But please don’t take it badly,
‘Cause Lord knows I’m to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.
Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you’ll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can’t change.
Lord help me, I can’t change.

My younger brother put down his guitar and kissed his emaciated brother on the forehead. I kissed the other side. His skin was waxen. Michael had only a little further to go.

“Let’s take a photo.”

“Now?” Paddy knew how vain Michael was. It was a family trait.

“If not now, then it will be never.” Michael had hours left in his heart. I positioned my camera on the bureau. The timer ran for thirty seconds. The camera snapped a shot of Paddy and me with my baby brother between us. He died a day later. We buried him in the town cemetery. I fled the sorrow to Asia and mourned my brother at the holiest temples in the Orient.

Upon my return I developed the roll of film from Michael’s last days. I didn’t show the shot on the bed to anyone but Paddy. He shook his head.

“What? You thinking about how thin he was?” I asked taking the photo back from his hand.

“No, just thinking about how fat we were.”

I looked at the picture and laughed at the truth. Michael would have laughed someplace in the afterlife too. We were such good friends, but I’m sure that he curses us for sticking FREEBIRD in his celestial ears for the rest of eternity.

It is a lot better than FLY LIKE AN EAGLE, because that’s what I have in my head.

Grace Grace Grace

The last time I saw Grace was at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

1995.

I knew her from New York We had mutual friends. Arthur Weinstein for one. I was working at a bar in Beverly Hills. The Milk Bar. Our clientele was rich. Their fun began late.

The after party was thrown by a banker later indicted for insider trading. We were seven. He had a bag of blow for twenty. Grace and I grabbed the stash and locked ourselves in the bathroom rather than listening to three zooted investors brag about their millions to coke-glazed starlets.

It was a bad remake of Tony Montana from the last scene of SCARFACE.

Grace and I did our own movie and spoke about friends from New York.

Rock sex and rock and roll

In Hollywood was only the drugs.

The bankers banged on the door. I opened it and told them to fuck off. Grace and I spent a few more minutes in the bathroom, then rejoined the party. At dawn we shared a taxi home. Her to the Marmont. Me to a small bungalow over the Hills in North Hollywood. The sun was harsh. Both of us had sunglasses I didn't get to sleep until noon.

That was in 1995.

Grace is my age.

41.

Maybe my math is bad.

Everyone lies about their age and weight after 30.

You Bet I Would # 8

Faye Dunaway achieved instant fame in 1967 for her portrayal of the 20s outlaw Bonnie Parker opposite Warren Beatty's Clyde Barrow in Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE. The blonde actress from Florida was the antithesis of the all-American girl. A machine on a protruding hip said sex. She seemed to have appeared on the scene out of nowhere, however I saw a younger Faye on Groucho Marx's YOU BET YOUR LIFE. The year must have been 1959. She was only 18. Her partner was a military man, but the budding actress answered the questions with a cobra snapping at a tone-deaf swami's hand.

I was 7 at the time.

Too young for anything other than love.

I might have met her in a Boston nightclub in 1976. She was married to the harp player of the J Geils Band. I was friendly with the owner. The club was gay. He invited me to sit at his table. The blonde looked very familiar. Movie star beautiful. I was stunned by her allure. Not a word issued from my mouth. The owner laughed at my paralysis. 'Faye' left to meet her husband. I deserted Boston for New York the following week.

I loved her in BARFLY.

She was a goddess ruined by Hollywood.

Fat People Love More

"Every fat person says it's not their fault, that they have gland trouble. You know which gland? The saliva gland. They can't push away from the table." - Jesse Ventura - ex-governor of Minnesota, WWF wrestler, Navy Seal, surfer, prospective American President.

Fuck KFC

Workers rights have suffered reversals around the world. Richie Boy responded to my request for a raise by saying that keeping my job at the diamond exchange was my raise. He thought the line was funny. I did not see the humor.

The GOP are attempting to roll back the social advances of the FDR era. Their leaders are calling for the end of collective bargaining, the privatization of Social Security, and an end of Medicare. Strikes are rare in the USA, however workers around the world are in even worse straits.

KFC workers in Thailand were treated with contempt by the franchise owners. Any complaints were ground for dismissal. The bosses followed Richie Boy's line on bonuses. Bonuses were continued employment. Wages were short of the national minimum and employees were given instant noodles and leftovers for dinner.

KFC and Pizza Hut Thailand earned almost 6 billion baht or about 100 Mercedes-Benz for its share owners.

Chicken bones for the staff of 10,000 makes for good profit.

Poo-Yai happy. Everyone happy. Even the workers sabaii jai at KFC, because the rich know how much the por love eating bones. it's better than dirt.

Party Goat Boy

This week police in West Virginia came upon a man wearing lingerie as he stood over a dead pygmy pig. The 19 year-old fled the scene of the crime in a thong. They captured the fugitive in seconds. The end of party boy in the hollows. Police suspect that he was high on bath salts. I have never heard of that rush, but I'm an old geezer raised on the classic drugs; pot and cocaine.

Natural highs, but they can take their toll.

Back in the 90s a gay friend in new york was into rent boys. The tougher the better. One night things got out of hand. Drugs and violent sex. Alex was thrown out of the apartment by the hustler. He stood out on the street shouting at his window; naked, bloody and covered with feathers from a torn pillow. A good citizen in need of sleep called the police. A cruiser rolled up to the curb. As the officers got out of the car, Alex turned to them and asked, "What? Haven't you ever seen anyone after a pillow fight?'

The two officer looked at each other and returned to their cruiser. They drove off knowing that in New York when the going gets strange, the strange get stranger.

Wild party boys are cool as long as no one gets hurt.

ps drug freaks in the Deep South are huffing Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky to attain a kick from the stimulants in the bath salts.

Legalize cocaine.

And pot too.

It's the only answer to stop the insanity.

Osama Bin Laden WHO II

Osama Bin Laden was fingered by the CIA as the mastermind of 9/11. His name on Google has 124,000,000 results. The Al-Quada fugitive was # 1 on the FBI's Most Wanted list. He evaded capture and death for over a decade and three president. Last week Barack Obama ordered his death.

"Kill the motherfuckah."

He succeeded where his predecessor failed, however teenagers around America hit the Yahoo search engine to seek out the 10-4 on the name blazing across TVs and newspapers.

The top ten searched were the following;

1. Is Osama bin Laden dead?
2. How did Osama bin Laden die?
3. Who killed Osama bin Laden?
4. How old is Osama bin Laden
5. Who is Osama bin Laden
6. Where was Osama bin Laden killed?
7. Is Osama bin Laden dead or alive?
8. How tall is Osama bin Laden?

On Yahoo 1 in 3 searches for "how did osama bin laden die" on Sunday were from teens ages 13-17.

According to Yahoo!, 40% of searches on Sunday for "who killed osama bin laden" were from people ages 13-20.

It comes as no surprise that most teenagers had no idea who the fuck Osama Bin Laden was, because 66% of searches were for "who is osama bin laden?"

This information came as no surprise, for as HL Mencken said, "No one went broke underestimating the ignorance of the American public."

More true now than then.

The Promises of an Exile

The hot season precedes the monsoons in Thailand. The oncoming cooler weather provides the opposing political parties a good time frame for strategies designed to renew the conflict between the deposed PM Thaksin and the ruling leader of elite or 'khong chan suung'. The upper classes are fighting to retain their aristocratic privileges, while the populist exile seeks to broaden his working class base. The Poo-yai promote tourism for the rich. They cast the 'farangs' as debasers of Thai culture, however the red shirts accuse the rich of suppressing.

In November of 2010 the protesters were fired upon by the army. The orders were issued from the government. Hundreds were killed and thousands were admitted to the hospital with grievous injuries. The ruling classes had won back the country by force.

The struggle is not over.

The most recent skirmishes with the Cambodians over the rights of visitation to ancient temples straddling the border are attempts to revitalize the weakened strains of nationalism naturally native to citizens of any land.

Divide and conquer.

Ex-PM Thaksin is a wanted man by the present Thai government on charges of corruption. His place of refuge is Cambodia. His missives to his supporters are aired from the frontier to Isaan, his power base. The wily politician is promising free computers to every child in school, lower taxes, free tourist visas, and many other pie-in-the-sky materialistic delights.

"Promise them anything, but give them the world."

This strategy worked for demagogues throughout the ages.

Elections in July.

Pheu Thai is the favorite.

Jatuporn Promphan from Surat Thani will score big. He is the red shirts' best speaker. A real crowd-pleaser. I've seen him on TV. The mob loves him. Thaksin probably has a contract out on the political activist. Big men hate rivals. Here, there, and everywhere.

Pheu Thai Party MP Jatuporn Promphan, a core red leader

Fat People in Small Cars

The reason fat people drive SUVs is that they look thinner in big cars.

Gas Junkies Are Weeping

Gas prices hit $6 a gallon in Hawaii. On the mainland the gas stations are demanding $4 a gallon. 9% of the average person income is dedicated to the pump. Exxon and Shell and the other oil companies are reporting record profits. There is no oil shortage. The price fluctuates according to the whims of commodity speculators.

Gas, silver, gold, copper, corn, wheat et al hit peak prices this April. Their value plummeted the first week of May after a Mexican billionaire sold off his silver stocks. A 27% drop in five days. I sold off my silver before coming to Thailand. A lucky move or else I would have lost more than a thousand dollars thanks to a money-mad beaner wanting more more more.

Gas prices have yet to drop in the USA and not a single senator or congressman is calling for an investigation into the crimes of speculators. The American public continues to fill up their tanks. Suburbanites have no other transportation choice.

SUVs and mini-vans.

Living in New York I have no need for a vehicle. The subway, a bike, and Fort Greene's proximity to JFK airport answer my requirements. No car payments, no car insurance, no mechanic bills, no parking tickets, no car washes. Free from the gas addiction of America and the rest of the world and feeling free too.

It's a good thing.

And so are the high prices, because the fat people will have to walk to the 7/11 to get their potato chips.

Quote of the Day - Jack Kerouac / ON THE ROAD

Written May 8, 2011

"One of the biggest troubles of hitchhiking is having to talk to innumerable people, make them feel that they didn't make a mistake picking you up." Jack Kerouac / ON THE ROAD

Truman Capote commented about the writing style of ON THE ROAD, saying it wasn't writing so much as typing. I read ON THE ROAD and Capote's IN COLD BLOOD this summer. Kerouac's paean to the open road wins hands down, but then I'm more into the windblown highway than tales of murderers.

Life versus death.

An easy call most of the time.

The Death of the Road

My summer holiday plans fell apart one by one. The Nantucket house had too many guests, my friend in Millbrook had accepted an invitation to the Rockefeller’s’ Adirondack estate, and my sister was leaving Maine for a conference in Boston. All the flights to Thailand were out of my budget. Sunday evening came with a harsh realization. I was stuck in New York.

At least it wasn’t New Jersey.

Earlier in the day I had bought a small painting off the street. $1. It hung on my kitchen wall. Telephone poles outlined against a cobalt sky. The words HIT THE ROAD in the corner spoke the ancient language of wanderlust and I contemplated hitchhiking across the USA, following Jack Kerouac’s route in ON THE ROAD.

“That’s a great idea.” My landlord AP loved adventure. He had two kids. His freedom was linked to their attaining 21 in the year 2025.

“Have you seen any hitchhikers?”

“Not on the LIE.” AP drove once a week from Fort Greene to Southhampton to check on his building site. “Or anywhere else.”

“Me neither.” The spring of 2009 I had traveled over 2000 miles through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin without seeing a single hitchhiker on the roads. I called several friends in Florida, Maine, and California. None reported a sighting.

“Maybe they’re extinct.” AP was puzzled by their disappearance and I rethought my trans-American travels. The USA west of the Rockies was experiencing a heat wave. Denver was a good two days from New York by car. Maybe 3-4 by thumb. If I left Monday morning, I wouldn’t get to Colorado until Wednesday. Another 2-3 days to the coast. Saturday or Sunday. Online flights one-way from San Francisco to JFK cost over $300. I had $700 in my pocket, plus two kids in Thailand.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

But I had known that all along.

Bonneville Salt Flats – August 1971

I was a 15 year-old boy living on the South Shore of Boston. 3000 miles separated my body and soul from San Francisco. My entreaties to convince my parents to visit California proved fruitless and they dropped me once a month at the Terminal Barber Shop in Mattapan Square. My father had a crew-cut. None of his sons were going sissy.

Scott McKenzie scored a huge hit with ARE YOU GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO. Several older teenagers in my home town joined the westward exodus of teenagers seeking the hippie paradise of Haight-Ashbury. They returned in the fall with tales of the Jefferson Airplane at Winterland, love-ins, long flowing dresses, free love, communes, and sex.

I was no druggie. Beer was my high, but I read about the movement of youth in LIFE and TIME as well as Boston's underground newspaper, the AVATAR. My hair lapped over my ears. My father protested to my mother. She defended my decision to go hippie. I really didn't care about being a hippie. I was into free love with hippie girls. They had to go all the way.

"You were the same at your age." She had grown up swooning to Frank Sinatra.

"I was no bobby-socker." My father was raised by the banks of the Presumpscot River. His father had been a doctor. His teen years were spent during the Depression. Mindless fun was for the rich, not the working classes. "Only girls wore bobbysox. I'll give in this time, but I don't want to see my son wearing his hair down his back. Call me old-fashioned, but there's something wrong about the hippies."

His views on the counterculture didn't prevent him from driving my brother and me to rock concerts. We dressed in bell-bottoms and fringe suede jackets. Sandals were tough on the feet in the winter of 1968. Fyre boots with buckles kept out most of the wet.

None of us realized that the hippie movement had been declared dead in the 'Death of the Hippie' mock funeral on Oct. 7, 1967. Haight-Ashbury had devolved into a hellhole with rip-offs, rapes, and bad LSD. The Second Summer of Love was canceled in 1968. Woodstock promoted a return to the land, however San Francisco remained a magnet for youth of the loose.

My hair drifted down to my shoulders in college and I hung around Cambridge Commons listening to the Beacon Street Union and Ultimate Spinach. Upon completion of my freshman year my good friend Petrus Gorski and I hitchhiked west at the end of the summer. $300 in our pockets and a telephone number in San Francisco. We planned to loop up to Seattle and recross the northern states. On Friday the 13th Petrus and I walked over to the Mass. Avenue exit of the Mass Pike and stuck out out thumbs. We were California-bound.

By that evening we had reached Buffalo. The next day dawn on Iowa. A trucker brought us to Omaha, where a speedfreak in a GTO stopped for by the Platte River. Lucky was headed for LA. It wasn't really in the same direction as I-80, but Lucky was into fast.

"I stay off the highways. The cops in these bodunk towns like catching hippies and cutting off their hair." He was transporting medical meth back to the Coast. Lucky talked for 20 hours straight, as his GTO thundered through small farming communities. Lucky was a good name, because the police never bothered to chase him. The GTO had too much engine.

Lucky drove at 120 mph through Nebraska into Wyoming. The landscape was turning to the scenery of a thousand cowboy movies. Drivers in pick-ups wore Stetson. Rifles spanned the rear windows.

"EASYRIDER land." Lucky refused to make eye contacts with the cow-punchers. At our speed they only had a second to look at us. No chance to reprise the ending of the hippie biker movie. We were safe from harm at 120 mph.

Lucky played every tape on the Doors. It had been almost two months since Jim Morrison had been found dead in Paris. He thought that the CIA had killed him.

"The Lizard King had too much power."

Petrus and I heard THE END ten times in a row someplace west of Cheyenne. Lucky was losing it. He fell asleep at the wheel and I steered from the passenger seat. Petrus wanted out of the GTO, but it was the dead of night and no a single light dotted the desert mountains. I opened the window and breathed in the perfume of the road. We were over two thousand miles from Boston. Finally a little after Salt Lake City Lucky pulled off the highway. It was one in the morning.

A few truckers were parked in the rest area. The moon lit the stark white pan stretching north and south as far as the eye could see. The Bonneville Salt Flats were famous for speed trials. Our speed was zero.

"I need to crash." Lucky mumbled and two seconds later his head flopped against the steering wheel, as if he had been shot in the head.

"I crashing on the ground." Petrus threw his sleeping bag on the hard-packed salt. His long hair was stiff from the road. Neither of us had washed more than a face since Boston.

"Me too." I stretched out my kinks and laid atop my sleeping bag. The stars numbered in the billions. Petrus was a math major. I had been one also until nearly failing Multi-Variable Calculus in the autumn semester. His minor was astrology and he picked out lesser-known constellations in the heavens. The mantra put me to sleep like listening to sine and cosine angles.

We woke the next morning. The sun was swelling over the eastern mountains. I half-expected the GTO to be gone, but Lucky beeped the horn.

"Let's go, I got places to be."

LIGHT MY FIRE was booming on the stereo.

"Do we really have to?" Petrus was over the Doors.

"It's not like we can stay here." The only civilization within sight was the rest rooms and the highway, but I inhaled deeply. The air was tanged with salt and diesel fumes. This was the West. Land without man. If we walked north, Petrus and I would perish from exposure to the elements. The siren of the Bonneville Salt Flats desired my bones and I understood the pull of nature on the dog Buck in Jack London's CALL OF THE WILD.

Only I was no dog. San Francisco was 1200 miles from where we stood. I sang the song.

"If you're going to San Francisco,
be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...
If you're going to San Francisco,
You're gonna meet some gentle people there."

Petrus joined the chorus. Lucky shook his head. He revved the engine. The V-8 drowned out the words.

"Let's go."

I sat in the front seat.

"You looked like you wanted to stay there." Lucky stamped on the gas. The tires peeled rubber and the GTO fishtailed across the oil-stained parking lot onto the highway. It was a straight line to the mountains.

"No staying there. We were heading to San Francisco."

"They got some pretty women there, but none of those hippie girls shave. Someone should take a mower to them." Lucky shuddered with disgust and hit 130 with a tailwind. The Coast was only 10 hours away at this speed. In Reno Lucky realized that he was was on the wrong road.

"It's been real, but my deal in in LA." He waved good-bye.

"Sad to see him go." Petrus stuck out his thumb. We were standing by the Truckee River. San Francisco lay over the Sierras.

We had been on the road 30 hours. The rest of the trip was with 4 ex-cons in a Riviera. Two Indians, a Mexican, and a black man. All in their 40s. They were drunk and asked me to drive. Peter had to sit in back between the Indians. They finished four bottles of whiskey by the time we pulled into the Bay Area. The owner said he was going to drive and I pulled into a gas station.

“We’ll get out here.” 43 hours had elapsed since our first ride, so we were in no suicidal rush to reach San Francisco. The Riviera pulled out of the station, stopped, and then backed up to roll over the service island. The crash ignited the pump and I pulled the drunks from the car. The gas station attendant extinguished the fire before it killed anyone. Peter and I got a ride from a Marine just back from Viet-Nam. He dropped us in the Haight an hour later.

The girls had long hair.

Everywhere.

44 hours coast to coast.

The ride back was much slower.

Bonneville Salt Flats – August 1972

I worked the summer of 1973 at an office of the New England Telephone Company. My father was the head engineer for the new computer section. My job entailed updating the cable lay-outs on the vellum sheets for the autumn transfer to the massive IBM main frame.

Three months of 40 hours a week. $5/hr. My wages helped to pay my college tuition of $1500. My mother banked over $2000. She said the other $500 was for an emergency.

My overtime left a surplus of $400 and I decided to spend the last weeks of August traveling across the USA. A college friend, Nick, was in Oklahoma, visiting his girlfriend, Vickie. He had a BMW. His cousin lived south of LA. A week in Seal Beach before a drive up the coast to San Francisco.

A good plan.

I celebrated my departure at the Hi-Hat Lounge. My next-door neighbor in Bug Village scored some hash. I drank beer till closing. Andy and I bought a small pizza and smoked hash at my apartment.

"Next year I'll come with you." Andy was a pianist with a funk band. The Long Islander was two years older. We played basketball at a nearby park. He beat me with ruthlessness.

"Next year is a long time away."

"So is Tulsa."

"Last exit to Tulsa." I sang the chorus to Gene Pitney's hit.

In the morning I took to trolley to Mass. Ave. I stuck out my thumb at the entrance to the Pike. A VW bug stopped for me. The driver was headed to Albany.

30 hours later I was in Oklahoma.

Nick had bad news.

Two days earlier his girlfriend and he had visited the State Fair in Oklahoma City. Passing the roller coaster his eyes drifted off the road and he rear-ended a truck. Parts for the damaged front end of his BMW were scarce in the Midwest. A Chicago dealer was shipping the parts via Greyhound.

A week's wait at best.

Tulsa was fun and Vickie was beautiful, but I was California dreaming.

"I'm heading west."

"How?" Nick might have been a doctor's son, but he was in the same mood.

"The same way I got here." I lifted my thumb. We had a country to see. The first day of university was in two weeks. It was time to go.

Vickie dropped us on the highway. Our first ride was with a Yale student headed to LA. It was our only ride.<

Seal Beach was fun.

A greasy ocean next to the oil rigs of Long Beach.

One night we stopped at a bar. A convertible Porsche was parked in the shadows. The keys were in the ignition. Nick and I discussed stealing the sports car. He was destined for medical school and I was thinking about joining the Peace Corps. Honesty ruled our decision and we brought the keys into the bar. The driver was happy, but didn’t even buy us a beer.

The next morning we started our trip north.

Hitching through the coastal towns wasn’t easy, for LA is basically one big suburb filled with crackers. They shouted out threats. By sunset we had reached LAX.

The beginning of the PCH.

Planes were taking off every minute. Nick and I abandoned the lure of the road for a midnight flight to San Francisco. $15 one way. Our friends met us at the airport. We saw the Grateful Dead in Berkeley and strippers on the Barbary Coast. My money was running low. Nick could fly back, but decided to hitchhike with me across the West to Tulsa.

Our starting point was Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. A hundred hippies competed for a ride. A Pinto rolled along the curb with the window open. The driver was interviewing prospective passengers. None of them made the cut.

“You want a ride to Denver?” The woman was 25. She was a long-haired beauty. Her daughter was in the crowded backseat. The little girl was about 7. The driver explained with a southern accent, “I only have room for one.”

“You want to go?” I asked Nick, knowing he wouldn’t abandon me.

“No, what about you?”

“I have $10. If I had more than I’ll stick with you.”

This wasn’t the truth. I had $12. I was asking for a loan, but Nick hesitated and I jumped into the Pinto. It smelled of patchouli.

“I’ll see you in Boston.”

I felt like a shit for ditching out on Nick, until we wound through the Sierras. The surrounding mountains were twice as high as Mount Washington. Someplace east of the Donner Pass she told her story.

She was leaving her husband. He was in the Cockettes. A queer transvestite show group. Gays were queers for straight men back then.

"Are you gay?"

"No." I had danced with more than a few men at the 1270 Club in Boston. They pawned me off to fag hags as a homo on the wire. To them every man was gay, if the situation was right.

"Good, I've seen enough gays to last me a lifetime or at least until I hit the East Coast." She was a fag hag. Straight men scared her. It probably had something to do with her Father or uncle.

Marilyn let me drive the night across Nevada. Her daughter slept in the back. her name was Merlyn. Her mother and I talked for hours. She was from Atlanta. Her father preached the Bible. Her mother drank gin. She had run away from home in 1967.

San Francisco and the Summer of Love.

The September air in the high desert was cold and the sky dotted with the stars of the Milky Way. A Boulder radio station played Slade and Deep Purple. My eyes had shut several times since crossing the state line into Utah. First the right, then the left. It was a dangerous game and I pulled into the Bonneville Salt Flats rest stop well past midnight.

“I can’t drive any further.”

"I was surprised you made it this far."

I got out of the crammed Pinto and stretched my muscles.

A friend and I had crashed here with the previous summer on a westward journey. Nothing had changed in the past year. Trucks thundered past the rest stop. The flatness stretched to the horizon. Speed demons challenged the limits of man and machine on the evaporated salt lake. The most famous was Craig Breedlove. His Spirit of America broke the sound barrier at 600.601 mph in 1963. I stood on the firm crust and looked north.

No one raced at night.

Dawn was 6 hours away.
Marilyn looked in the back seat. Merlyn was out cold.

“You want to sleep outside?”

“Yeah.” Not really because I suspected for a few seconds that she would steal my things once I was unconscious. “You want to sleep with me?”

“Sure, it’s been a while since I had a man.”

I hadn’t expected this response and we had sex on my sleeping bag.

Twice.

Several trucks caught our shapes in their headlights. There was no place to hide. No trees. No bushes. They blew their horns. I tore off my clothes and we laid naked under the desert stars. It was magic, although headlines caught her daughter watching us. She smiled for a second, as if she had seen a familiar mirage and dropped out of sight.

I didn't mention this to Marilyn. She was lost in lust. The wetness on my loins was more than I had experienced with other women. it wasn't until the dawn that I noticed that my ride was having her period. My sleeping bag was ruined and my jeans weren't much better. She said she was sorry and we stopped in Little America to shower.

Marilyn and her daughter in the Women’s room and me in the Men’s room. I was clean, although my jeans looked like they belonged to a butcher.

Late in the evening we reached Cheyenne. Marilyn turned south to Colorado. She was heading to Boston in the fall. I gave her my number.

“I’ll see you in Boston maybe.” Some of her college friends were living in Brighton.

“Sure.” I watched her drive away thinking I’d never see her again. I was wrong. One month later Marilyn and Merlyn showed up at my apartment building. She was friends with Andy's girlfriend. I had told him all about the episode. Marilyn had her daughter sleep with them. We shared my bed. She fought off my every move. It had something to do with her period.

Nick was surprised to see us together at a bar.

"Nice."

"Indeed." It looked good, but we never had sex again. Much as I wanted and I’ve never been to the Bonneville Salts Flats again either, except in my dreams and in those I am still 20, for your youth lasts forever when you were young and that's something I never intend to forget.