The All-Seeing Eye

Young Catholic school children were taught by the nuns and priests and their parents that God was all-seeing. His Divine Eyes was more penetrating that Superman's X-Ray vision. Our every thought and deed were an open book to The Almighty, but as the population of the world increased by billions, I as a non-believer detected blind spots. Neither The Father, The Son, or The Holy Ghost flashed on my juvenile or adult self-abuse. They had no interest in watching the zillionth repeat of another man flogging the dolphin. I reveled in this freedom for years upon realizing that the Gods were bored with man's sins

Massacres were nothing new.

Adultery older than prostitution.

Idolatry in the modern era was embarrassing.

The gods had averted their eyes from the sheer volume of venial sins and shuddered at witnessing the avalanche of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony, however the slack was tightened by the street and building CCTVs. Their cameras are everywhere and my friend Amin was caught by Google Earth smoking a cigarette in front of a jewelry store in Juneau, Alaska.

Busted by the all-seeing eye of the Internet.

You never know who is watching.

On The Run Forever

THe assassination of Osama Bin Laden and the capture of Southie mobster Whitey Bulger had depleted the ranks of the FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives. The seven of the hold-overs consist of a Russian stock scammer, a drug trafficker escaped from prison in 1991, a bisexual bank robber evading the law since 2004, a Chicano drug killer, a cocaine dealer, a man who killed his family, and a child killer.

The only honorable fugitive on the list is Victor Manuel Gerena, who ripped off Brinks for $7 million without a gun. He supposedly gave to the money to the Puerto Rican Liberation Front. No one knows where he is. The FBI will give one million dollars for any information leading to his arrest.

Say nothing.

Andale Victor Andale.

Run Down By The G-Men

Heroes for young boys in the 1950s were Marines, Davey Crockett, and the Three Stooges. The latter led us to the Young Rascals and the Bowery Boys on Saturday morning TV. Our parents despised the three shows as trash, but young boys across America envied these juvenile delinquents for their lively adventures in the city. None of us knew that the original Bowery Boys were a notorious anti-Irish gang from Manhattan's deadly Five Points. Hollywood had resurrected the black-hearted pimps and murderers of Bill the Butcher as fun-loving thugs of the Great Depression.

In the 1938 gangster film ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES the Bowery Boys admire the killer Rocky Sullivan played by James Cagney. He goes soft at the sight of the electric chair in order to save his disciples from following to a bad ending, but we weren't fooled by Cagney's going yellow. PUBLIC ENEMY was a triumph for the actor and Tom Powers was infamous for the line 'you dirty rat', even though Cagney never said the line in that movie or any other.

It didn't really matter to us, because we understood that to rat on someone was the greatest sin this side of adultery and we were too young to break that Commandment.

Fink, stool pigeon, pilferer, stoolie, and snitch were only a few of the epithets tagged on betrayers of trust by boys under the age of 12. Holding your sand in the face of authority was considered an honor. Anyone breaking their bond was doomed to the hell of Judas, so when Whitey Bulger was captured by the FBI in Santa Monica this past week my friends emailed me their condolences.

While I had admired the South Boston gangster for his ability to stay in front of the law for 14 years, I disapproved of his terrorizing his own. He never had the courage to bang out the big hitters on Beacon Hill or Dover or any other rich suburb of Boston. He took it out on his own and if anyone stepped on his toes, they were shot down like dogs.

Silence was bought with murder, but Whitey Bulger was not above snitching out his opponents. He grassed out any rival; Mafia, Irish, hometown.

"Oh, you dirty rat."

He was never anyone in Boston's hero.

A snitch is always a snitch.

Then again I did name my dog after him.

A hypocrite maybe, but a snitch never.

I hold my sand, because I know nothing unlike Whitey Bulger or my dog.

He knows how to lick his balls, because he can.

ps the Feds always knew where Whitey was same as they knew about Osama Bin Ladin's hide-out.

The Filth know everything.

Food Superstitions in Thailand

Thais have more superstitions than the Irish and some of them are devoted to food, since it’s their third greatest love behind fun and sleep.

Here’s a short list of Thai don’t for eating.

Eating a double banana will give a woman twins, which must be tough for those showgirls doing the banana tricks at go-gos.

Eating before your elders will reincarnate you as a dog. This rule is waved for disasters and fast food restaurants.

Eating food without rice will give you rickets.

Eating salt under a tree will kill the tree.

Eating other people’s food without permission will swell your throat, so schnorrers beware. Schnorrer is a Yiddish term for people who eat from another person’s plate without permission. I’m sure there’s lots of Yiddish superstitions too.

Eating a kids’ left-overs will make them naughty.

Eating before monk during the day will turn you into a ghost.

Eating corn with the flu will raise your temperature.

Never eat all the rice on your evening plate. Leave a little for the ghosts.

Eating chicken feet will give you bad handwriting. My wife loves chicken feet. Yech.

Eating chili sauce from a mortar bowl will give your kid big lips.

Eating turtles will make you walk slow. Eating chicken feet make me sick.

The last is about eating dog. I’ve feasted on dog in Indonesia. It doesn’t taste like chicken feet. It’s actually delicious, but Thais think if you eat it, then you will be possess by the dog’s spirit. Arf Arf.

Is that such a bad thing?

To Live in Pattaya

Pattaya isn't what it used to be. The coconut plantations have been replaced by luxury villas. Interpol and the Thai Police hunt fugitives and the Russians have taken over the hills.

Two summers ago I moved north to Sriracha. It was a quiet town. Too quiet some nights and Fenway's mom doesn't mind my visiting old friends in Pattaya. I worked hard in the USA. My trips are basically to see her and Fenway, but Thais understand the concept of fun or sanuk better than westerners. She knows my heart is hers and hers alone, swearing that my longtime fidelity has nothing to do with a magic potion.

"I not need magic to make you love me."

Mam is right. I love her for her and she loves me for me. No one else can handle either of us.

"You want go out. Go out. Not get too drunk." Mam worries about my getting into an accident more than cheating on her. At my age I'm too lazy to butterfly, so I called Jamie Parker and we arranged to meet at an old haunt. I kissed Mam and my son good-night and caught a slow bus to Pattaya.

40 minutes later I walked into Chez Michel on Soi Buffalo Bar. Jamie Parker was on his first beer. He had always been thin, but the new gauntness was worrying.

"I know whast you're thinking, but I'm okay." The exiled New Yorker explained that he had goen on a six-month Ice binge with little Ort, the 23 year-old go-go dancer from the Paris A Go-Go. "It's all over. Ice, Ort, and not eating food."

He ate three courses; salad, steak, and dessert.

Afterward we walked to the Buffalo Bar for a nightcap at a slow pace. Jamie was in a New York state of mind. “Tomorrow will be nine years since 9/11. Remember everyone saying how it would change the world. Nothing’s changed. Nothing at all.”

He paused and a second later a woman’s body hit the pavement with a soft thud. We looked up to see from where. A second-story balcony. A groan reverted our attention to the woman. Her fall hadn’t been fatal. Jamie knelt down to help her.

“Pai ke ki.”

She didn’t want our help. Two women came from the small restaurant. They regarded us as assailants, until seeing the woman’s face. She was no stranger to them. I would late find out the jumper was one of the other woman’s lover. She had found out about her seeing someone else. Her leap to the street had been an act of love. The police took the failed suicidist to the hospital and Jamie helped me hobble into the Buffalo.

“If she had wanted to kill herself, she would have jumped from the roof.”

“Have a little heart.” People jumped to their death frequently in Pattaya; mostly jilted lovers and bankrupt farangs.

“She broke her arm. That’s all and you know what day today is?”

“September 10th.” I couldn’t recall anything significant about the date.

“World Suicide Prevention Day.” Jamie ordered two Chang beers. They were stronger than Heineken. “I read about it in the Bangkok Post. She was trying to kill herself on a day like that.”

“Suicides aren’t interested in dates only a relief from their misery.” Last year during my black period I had contemplated killing myself, although only with a gun and rejected jumping as too messy.

“Then she should have picked another day. The terrorists from 9/11 did.”

“9/10/2001 was rainy. Ceiling visibility in New York was a 1000 feet.” no way they could have found the World Trade Towers in that slop.

“I know but the real reason they didn’t pick 9/10 was that it was World Suicide Prevention Day.”

“You really think 19 Arabs had any idea about that.” I had never heard of World Suicide Prevention day until Jamie mentioned it.

“Yeah, I do. If you’re going to drive a plane into a building then you want things right. Everything. They did it on 9/10 out of respect for what they were about to do. Suicide.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Then you give me a good reason why they chose 9/11.”

“It had nothing to do with 911 being the telephone call letters for many countries.” I sipped the beer from my glass. The ice made it nice and cold. I had actually researched the numbers once and said, “9 is the first cube and 11 symbolizes threat in numerology. Revelation 9:11 warns of destruction. George Bush Senior declares the creation of The New World Order on 9/11/2000. Eleven years later 9/11 and 9+1+1=11. September 11 is also the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.”

“Stop it before you go mad.”

“They’re only numbers.” I wondered how many times 9/11 had been said since 9/11. Billions of times a day. Those numbers added up to no good. “But not if you consider GW Bush as the anti-Christ.”

“And you do?” Jamie’s eyes rolled in his head like a broken slot machine.

“I don’t believe in anything, but I think I’ll keep trying to kill myself with beer.” No God. No country. No Santa Claus. Just my son, my wife, and beer. I lifted my finger to signal we wanted two more Leos. “Is that all right with you?”

“It’s not like we have a choice.”

“Beer.” We clinked glasses. “The only way to go.”

Cut To The Flesh

Bill Mahr of HBO considers most of the media lazy and this week CNN, ABC, the NY Times, the Daily News, and hundreds of other news sources proved the comedian right by reporting that the DEA and FBI had discovered that cocaine entering the United States was cut with a common deworming medication. The Drug Enforcement Administration conjectured that the drug traffickers were adding Levamisole to cocaine to bulk up the drug and enhance its high. Unlike previous inert cuts this drug has the nasty side effect of eating flesh and hospitals from Texas to Canada was treated users for this condition. Supposedly in 2009 73 percent of cocaine seized by the DEA tested positive for .

For decades traffickers transport pure cocaine for economy. Dealers in the States like their gear pure, so they can cut the drug locally with milk sugar, vitamin C, or baby powder. They tested the cocaine with Clorox. If it dissolved 100% then the shipment was considered pure. Levamisole passed this test and the drug assisted the brain in getting high, preventing the onset of adonia or lack of pleasure associated with continued cocaine use. A boon for the Columbian Cartels, however hospitals have yet to see a rise in deaths from levamisole use.

In fact there have been none.

Unlike pharmaceutical drugs which are ravaging the heartland of America.

20-30,000 dead each year.

And these drugs are made in the USA by Big Pharm.

They are the true killers along with Big Tobacco.

3-400,000 smokers per annum, but CNN and ABC report nothing about that.

It isn't in their best interest.

You Bet I Would # 11

Michelle Pfieffer in SCARFACE 1983

I was in Paris. She was in LA. Out paths never crossed that year or any other.

Shame.

Iowa Snow

Many people living on the East and West Coasts of America refer to the land in between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as the fly-over. The State of Iowa is in the center of the United States. The nearest big city is Chicago. Most of its residents are devoted to growing corn. The Federal government has been generous with subsidies for this crop. The vast majority is used to feed cows and a good 20% is contributed to the ethanol fuel program.

I have one friend in Iowa. Colonel Rockford lives outside of Iowa City, the home of the state university. His family farm has laid fallow for decades. His crop lies underneath the soil in subterranean bunkers. The entire process was governed by science. Twice a year his harvest of hydro was sold to the highest bidder. The coastal pot smokers like Iowa. It's a green state.

Colonel Rockford and I first met in 1974. My good friend AK and I met him north of La Jolla during a hitchhiking tour of the West. He was a hippie musician with a following of three girls. We dropped LSD on Black's Beach. The girls danced naked by the sea. AK and I spoke to a seal. He told us the secret of the ocean. His words sounded like barks. No one else could understand the seal, not even Colonel Rockford.

The three of us remained friends throughout the years and Colonel Rockford would visit AK and me in New York. We had a standing invitation to come to Iowa. Somehow our travels avoided the fly-over until in May of 2009 an English friend, Brock Dundee, asked for my assistance in the Brit's filming of a famous sculptor's pieces scattered across the Midwest.

"No one is better on a road trip than you." The Londoner had heard about my gift for the highway from many of his friends.

"Thanks."

The offer was more than tempting and I phoned Colonel Rockford about the possibility of hooking up in Iowa City.

"I'll be waiting." Harvest time was months away.

Brock and I rode from Chicago to St. Louis to Kansas City to Des Moines. We stayed off the Interstates. The police were looking for revenue on this roads. The two-laners criss-crossing the plains were straight-lines. Our rented Ford Taurus never dropped beneath 80.

Iowa City was a little off the route from our next destination, but we were running ahead of schedule. We pulled into a cheap motel and called Rockford. he couldn't believe that I was actually there.

"I said I was coming."

"Saying and doing are two different things, but I'm happy you're here and have a special reward." Rockford told us to rendezvous at a downtown dive.

The Deadwood Tavern had a long bar, pool tables, drunks, and a smelly men's room. Brock loved the ambiance. The beer was cheap. College boys avoided the Deadwood. They preferred the sports bars. Co-eds frequenting the tavern looked like white trash. It was a good look. Rockford entered the bar without anyone saying 'hello'. He flew under the radar. We had a good night drinking and retire to our motel to demolish the mini-bar.

"I told you I had something special." Rockford pulled a small vial from his pocket. The contained substance consisted of a flaky pink-white powder. "Bolivian Blow 1978. I've been saving it for a special occasion."

"Impossible!" Brock couldn't believe that someone had held onto coke that long.

"Not impossible." He pointed to me. "He has the last Qualludes on Earth. Four jars from 1975."

"1974." I had found the extinct muscle relaxants in 1997. They were still active.

"I have five jars of this left." Rockford's stash came from a deal gone bad. He had been arrested for weed, but imprisoned for trafficking in cocaine. The amount was small, but the state police never found the six jars in the cornfield. He poured a small mound on the coffee table. The flakes shone like smashed opals. The lines were thick. We were eager to huff them. The coke was gentle on our nasal passages.

"Damn, it works."

"Of course it works. It's pure."

"No cut."

Pure was a myth in New York. Most of the blow I had done over the years was cut with corn starch, vitamin c powder, or milk sugar. Rockford was speaking the truth. He had no reason to lie. His blow was as clean as a snowstorm sweeping the tundra.

"This is the real deal." Brock was in love, but it was a one-night stand.

In the morning Rockford returned to his house on the prairie. Brock and I compassed north to Minnesota. Brock never did cocaine after that night. I was less eager for a cure and dreamed of driving to Iowa. It was only 13 hours from New York and 13 hours is nothing, when Bolivia was at the end of the line.

The Death of Cars

The population of the world was well under a million in the 17th Century. A horse was the fastest means of travel. China was the most populous nation. The Celestial Kingdom was ruled by the Qing Dynasty. Europeans sought favor with the Manchu court and a Flemish Jesuit supposedly presented the Chinese Emperor with a 65 cm-long steam-powered vehicle. It was the first car.

Today over 800 million cars and trucks travel over roads on every continent in all weather. Most are powered by carbon-based fuels. Oil companies suck oil and gas from the earth to feed Man's need to travel on wheels. Global economies are dominated by the demand for gas and politics are designed to control the sources spread across the planet.

Last night Richie Boy and I decided to have a drink at a nearby hotel. The bar is deco. The crowd consists mostly of businessmen and their clients. The room was designed to throttle the noise level and we spoke about our plans for the future. Diamonds are increasingly difficult to find. The Chinese and Indians are cornering the market. They pay top dollar for the goods. The cartel couldn't be happy with their new partners and everyone on 47th Street is feeling the pressure of the increasing costs of diamonds.


"At least we're making money." Richie Boy raised his glass to toast a successful week. We have completed a 30-inch chain of gem 40-point round-brilliants for a discerning hedge fund operator. The necklace was a work of art.

"That we are." I had sold a diamond eternity band of certified oval diamonds to an NBA basketball player. We worked hard five days a week. Richie Boy put in extra hours over the weekend. His phone never stopped ringing. He had rich friends. Mine were struggling to keep their jobs.

The man next to us ordered a Negroni. I was drinking a gin-tonic. My tastes are very simple. The 50 year-old was in the oil business.

"Things couldn't be better." The upstate native had switched from Wall Street to analyzing the oil industry in the mid-90s. "Back then the business was dying in the USA. Now we're extracting oil off-shore and fracking gas out of shale in North Dakota."

"I'm one of your best customers." Richie Boy liked luxury SUVs. He had forsaken a Land-Rover for a Mercedes GL 450 with a 4.6-liter V-8 engine. "I figure that I'm being green by burning up all the gas I can, so there'll be none in 20 years."

"We aren't running out of gas soon. There's enough reserves in the USA to last the century." The analyst lambasted President Obama for opening the Strategic Oil Reserves. "Government should never determine prices."

"I agree, the price should react to demand." I had majored in economics at college. Some of that knowledge stuck in my head, also a good part of the politics of the early-70s. "Except when the industry is price setting for profit. There is no shortage of gas, yet prices have hit $4 a gallon thanks to speculation. Not that it matters to me. I don't have a car."

"Neither do I." The analyst lived on the Upper West Side. My apartment was in Fort Greene. Both of us traveled by subway or taxi. "No parking tickets, no garage fees, no car insurance."

"Freedom from the car and I foresee the day when the car will no longer be part of our lives."

"There will always be cars." Richie Boy loved his cars. They hauled his skis to Vermont and his surfboards to Montauk.

"There were cars a little over 100 years ago. Everything comes to an end." Trolleys and trains once connected cities to towns and towns to farms. "People rode horse an buggies. In 1919 the future president Eisenhower accompanied a convoy of WWI army trucks from Washington to San Francisco in 1919. The main route was the Lincoln Highway. 3000 miles of dirt roads. The trip took 62 days."

"And that trip impressed on Ike the need for highways. He had seen the autobahn in Germany and he created the Interstate Highway System." The balding analyst knew his history. Oil and cars went hand in hand. "New highways, suburbs, shopping malls, fast food."

"America at its best." The golden era of the car ended with the 1974 Gas Embargo. GTOs were replaced by Pinto, but the cheap gas of the 90s brought back big; trucks and SUVs.

"Cars aren't going anywhere." Richie was a member of the faithful.

"Twenty years from now cars will have disappeared from the planet."

"And what will replaced them?" Richie Boy didn't share my vision of a carless society.

"Nothing will replaced them." I envisioned a world population of one billion. Cities across the planet would disappear or shrink to a fraction of their size.

"And what do you base this claim on?" asked the analyst. He was used to hard facts and sheets of numbers.

"Just a hunch." I would miss the cars. Motorcycles too. I wasn't a very good horseman.

"That's not very scientific." Richie Boy signaled for another round of drinks.

"No, I'm no scientist." I has been born with the placenta around my head. The Irish considered that a sign of foresight. Seeing the future was no gift. I took my drink and clinked glasses with Richie Boy and the analyst. "Here's to the car. GTOs, jeeps, Porsches, and the VW Bug. I love them all."

"So what are you trying to say?" The analyst was perplexed by my flip-flopping and Richie Boy explained, "He's a Gemini. They change their opinions like a weather vane. According to their moods."

We drank up and spoke about Troy, New York. It was the analyst's hometown. Richie Boy drove through on the way to Vermont. He knew most of its restaurants. None of them were good. I had hitchhiked through Troy in 1974. It was rundown then and it's rundown now. Someplace to drive through on your way to somewhere else.

And that remains the beauty of the car.

It gives people escape.

Good News Every Day

These are hard times for people my age. My friends are fired from long-time jobs by bosses seeking to maximize profit. Their houses are underwater in debt. Pensions are threatened by the GOP, corporations, and Democrats. Health care is a myth. The world is supposed to end in 2012 and many people are anticipating the apocalypse with expectation of relief, however good news does occur from time to time.

My boss Manny is going on vacation for three weeks. He needs the rest.

A good friend, Ralph, informed me that he had just become a grandfather at 48. His son is serving under the flag. 26 and back from his 3rd tour overseas with the military. Ralph's father is 70. The great-grandmother is 90. They hail from Martha's Vinyard. The wheel remains unbroken.

My family is intact after the passage of my father last year. We speak to each other without too much rancor. The Bruins won the Stanley Cup and I have been appointed the writer-in-residence of a foreign embassy in Europe. I'm quitting my job on 47th Street to write a book about free love in a Utopian commune in Northern New England set in the 1840s. Room and board and a small stipend. My commute to Thailand has been shortened from 26 hours to 11 hours. I will see my kids more often.

"You are entering a time of perfection," a friend said upon hearing the news.

It's been 10 years since I've been in Europe.

TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS.

I can't wait to see the Alps.

Life is good.

Even at 59, because family and friends are more important than money.

They are the chain of life.

Past, present, and future.

No-Man’s Land at Prum

Farangs aren't smart. Westerners might go to good schools. Their jobs might be respected in the West, but to Thais that prestige means nothing. Thais love Thais. Farangs are considered kee-nok or bird shit. I had moved to Thailand to be with the daughter and her mother. Our loveless bliss ended after two years. My 'mia' to whom I never married at the wat or village or city hall, because she had betrayed my trust at the birth of my daughter, decided to move up-country. Her excuses vary from month to month. I don’t lift them to the light, because the truth is an onion with many layers. Once you peel them all, you have nothing.

Neither did I question her returns, which coincided with my wandering farther from home. I’m happy to end my ersatz-singledom, because her arrival meant I got to spend time with my 3 year-old daughter.

My friends understood during her visits my status around Pattaya is persona non persona. My daughter and I went swimming at the Shaba Hut and rode around town with our little dog in the motor scooter basket. No bars, no late nights, and I spent bedtime reading my little angel Winnie the Pooh in horrible Thai. My wife recently found this good behavior very suspicious and after two weeks ordered me to take a break on a weekend night.

I needed little encouragement to bust out of the domestic kraal and once my daughter was asleep, I drove my bike to Walking Street like a rat with its tail on fire.

Sam Royalle was waiting at Heaven Above A Go Go.

His girlfriend had a posse of girlfriends retired by out-of-town boyfriends.

After my 3rd drink they were no threat to celibate state. My daughter's mother and I hadn't had sex since her conception. I was bored by the go-go bars. They were too loud to speak over the boy band disco and ’suck-my-dick’ rap. Naked girls held no thrill. Not when they’re shuffling the old bored one-two step, but Sam kept ordering tequilas. After three my tongue reverted to Neanderthalism.

As Sam called for a round of Kamikazes, I escaped from Heaven and staggered down the stairs to Soi Diamond. Every step was a challenge and I wondered how to negotiate the two blocks to my parked bike. A catapult was my only solution, until Jamie Parker commented, “Man, are you really that fucked up?”

“Tequila on an empty stomach.” I was trying to lose weight. Not drinking beer was the answer. Not a diet.

“Are you really thinking about driving home?” Jamie was alone.

“I’ve driven in worst condition.” I hadn’t seen him since the disastrous 9/11 opening of his defunct PIGPEN A GO GO.

“Which is why your wrist looks like a Klingnon warship.”

“I wasn’t drunk then, only distracted.”

“I’ll help you on your way.” Jamie and I went back to New York. The East Village to be exact. Drugs and crime to be precise. Neither of us tempted fate in Pattaya. We were the few 50 year olds to be that wise, but not tonight, because Jamie dragged me over to the Jennie bar. World famous for the most beautiful TVs in the world. He ordered two vodka tonics. Doubles.

“Is this Drivers Ed 2006?”

“No, I had something weird happen today. On a visa run.”

“Weird?” Visa runs are as interesting as an airport transit lounge.

“Yeah, I get on the minivan. 6:30. Crack of dawn. Sleep two hours. Listen two hours to the various bullshit from the other visa-runners. The only one not speaking was this old guy. Maybe 65. He’s reading a book. I like reading like you and ask him what he’s reading. He says with a German accent, “Zarathusa, but this version is called BANGKOK 8.”

"We spoke about the ubermensch and the untermensch. The old guy originally from Austria. Fled the Nazis but he wasn’t a Jew. Father was a commie or a criminal. He’s been out here since before electricity. Runs a restaurant in Made in Thailand.”

“I know the place.” His wife made a great veal schnitzel. “His name’s Frank.”

“Yeah, that’s right, but I have bad news.”

“What?” I was expecting him to ask me for money.

“Frank’s dead.”

“Frank’s dead?” He was only 65. I knew his daughter. She was beautiful.

“Yeah, we crossed the border into Cambo. No problem. He’s fine. Gets his visa stamped and lowers his head into his book. I thought he was asleep and went to get a bottle of wine. Nice Bordeaux. I come back and see he hasn’t changed position. I touch him and he’s cold.”

“Dead.”

“Than a bucket of nails.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I told the guide and he said the same thing. We had a little conference and decide to risk taking him back across the border. I mean, i didn’t want him stuck between the borders like Orson Welles in A TOUCH OF EVIL.”

“No one would have wanted to take responsibility for him.” Frank could have been stuck there for days. “Bad luck.”

“The guide wasn’t too happy about the situation, but we got him upright. You ever notice how heavy dead people are?”

“A bucket of mud in a plastic bag.” I had worked as a janitor in a terminal ward during university. The orderlies were my friends and I helped them move the dead to the gurneys.

“You know the border. Shitty muddy waiting area. Crappy bridge.” Jamie downs his drink ad orders two more. Doubles again. “We get to the passport control. The officer looks at Frank and asks what’s wrong. We say he’s drunk. The officer knows drunk. Frank is more than that and signals us to come to the side.”

“How much?” Thai border officials are quick on the take.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“The guy had seen ‘papa’ for years and says he’ll stamp the passport for a renewed visa, but only if we declared him dead in Thailand.”

“Good guy.”

“That’s why we live here. Thais understand reality.” A Britney Spears look-a-like TV sits on Jamie’s lap. “We carry Frank’s body into Thailand. Everyone waied his corpse. They respect him as an old man who loves Thailand. The cops think about taking him back to Pattaya but let the minivan bring him home. His wife cried a bucket.”

“Guess we’ll be going to the wat for cremation.”

“Better than being buried in a box.” Jamie and I never thought we were going to die. We clinked glasses and I knew I wasn’t going home soon. Sitting the dead took time and I still have plenty of that. My daughter would understand. I didn't give a shit what her mother thought.

New Words for the Modern Age

Every year Webster Dictionary enters modern slang into the lexicon of the English language. Most English speakers are light years ahead of the educational tome in their depravity, but here are some words which might make it into the 2012.

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject
financially impotent for an indefinite period.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious
bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve
accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit
you’re eating.

And the pick of the litter:

18. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

Bannok Loves Farangs

Middle-Age farang males vacation in Thailand for the beaches and the temples. A friend sometimes suggests a visit to the Last Babylon. In Pattaya the man meet a girl. Past and present are unimportant. She is something out of a dream and they spent an idyllic vacation on Koh Samet.

The disgust of fat western women rivals the envy barely hidden on these obese cows’ husbands. The two make love five times a day, mostly to make up for years of abstinence. Upon their return to Pattaya, she doesn’t seem to mind accompanying the farang to go-gos. Love so blinds the western male that he can’t see that she doesn’t trust him out of her sight.

This has to be paradise and two weeks into the honeymoon his beloved says, “I want see my family. You come with me?”

It seems like an innocent proposition and his agree to this journey to Ban Nok.

Hearing your plans his bar friends exchange a knowingly glance.

“What’s wrong?” You really want to know.

“Nothing.” They smile like the farang had brought a blind donkey “Have a great time.”

“Thanks.”

He rents a car for several days and leaves Pattaya for this great adventure. Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai is not on the map. He asks his sweetheart for directions. She is about a minute from a semi-coma and points north. “Isaan.”

Isaan.

The mythic plateau of Northeast Thailand which has figured into his friends jokes about the sick buffalo, blind aunt, feeding a host of hundreds and drinking lao whiskey with toothless rice farmers till dawn. The farang suddenly realize that he don’t know what he ahs gotten himself into and his tilat isn’t explaining either, because she scrunched against the door in a state of exhaustion.

Oblivion comes easy are two weeks of making love to a Viagra-crazed farang.

The highway turns into a two lane road. At one point his darling opens an eye and indicates a dirt road. By the time the car hits the first pothole, she has lapsed into another coma.

The electric lines disappear and dry fields stretch to a hazy horizon. Buffalo laze in a torpor. No cars. No people. Crossing a bridge over a muddy creek and his girlfriend opens her eyes. “We here.”

“Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai?”

“My home.” She beeps the horn, as the car pull into a forested complex.

A horde of Thais surge from several wooden houses. He haven’t seen any place this ramshackle outside of a National Geographic magazine, but everyone is all smiles. He smiles back. Kids pull on his leg. An toothless old geezer man greets him with a bow. The farang gracelessly effects a wai back as directed by his girlfriend. Everyone chortles at his clumsy gesture. The farang smiles back. Food appears out of nowhere. Everyone sits down and eats on the ground. The westerner think this isn’t too bad, until his legs cramp up and everyone laughs at his uncomfortability.

His girlfriend’s ‘brother’ gets him a chair dating back three centuries. Sweat pours from his skin. He is offered beer with ice. The farang disdained drinking it before. Now it’s perfect. The heat is stultifying. More food is eaten. Some of it he doesn’t recognize. He tastes a little. Your mouth is on fire. He drinks more beer. Soon it’s gone.

“Need more beer.” His girlfriend holds out her hand.

The farang reaches into your pocket. Hss girlfriend grabs 2000 baht and jumps on a dilapidated motorcycle. “Be back soon.”

The remaining crones clear the food and he is left to drink lao whiskey with the male family members. They insist on his drinking this villainous concoction, even though he passed triple the legal limit for DWI an hour ago. His girlfriend hasn’t shown up and the man peak his ears for the sound of the motorcycle, only to hear the buzz of the early evening’s mozzies.

Several hours later the man wakes on the floor of a house with three men downing a plastic bag of lao whiskey. His GPS is off line. His wallet is still in his pants. Thais are very honest. Female voices babble under the floor. Nothing they say makes any sense. The man climbs over the pile of drinking men and descends a vertiginous set of stairs to the ground.

Over head stars blaze in their billions. A fire burns in the yard. Some of it is plastic. His girlfriend is sitting with a gaggle of women. She smiles at him. He smiles back, wishing a doctor could shoot him with an injection to get rid of his growing hangover.

Footsteps sound behind him. The men are carrying down the plastic bags of lao whiskey. The farang protests against being offered a glass. His girlfriend frowns. The lao goes right to his stomach and he rushes into the bushes to heave like a Girl Scout drunk from sherry. Everyone laughs and that’s the last sound he remembers before waking to the sound of roosters cowing. it’s dark. hell, it’s night.

His girlfriend is asleep and so is everyone else.

He triesto go back to sleep but his feet have been bitten to death by mozzies hungry for a new taste of blood. Soon dogs are barking and the sky is getting light. Before the dawn a loudspeaker crackles to life. For the next hour a man rants in Thai. No one stirs from their slumber and the westerner wishes that he could click his heels like Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ to trasnport himself back in his hotel.

Air-con. Cable TV. Swimming pool. Mobile phone service. Western food. Chairs. Beds. Beaches. bikinis. Go-go bars.

Of course his girlfriend doesn’t respond to any hint about a return to Pattaya other than to say that tonight is a big party, which ends up a repeat of the first night only with more family members. Everyone is having a good time, since no one has put a hand into their pocket since his arrival and the farang mentally calculates that he could have flown to Bali for the price of the last two days ie bar fine, car rental, and expenses.

And his girlfriend hasn’t as much as kissed you, as she has reverted to a village girl. Food, friends, family, everyone having a good time. And she knows how to play a man, farang or Thai, because at the night’s end, she comes up to him and says, “Everyone like you. Me, I love you, because you not make face.”

“Make face?”

“Yes, make face same dog, because you spend too much money.” She sneaks a kiss and everyone laughs. The farang too and he decides to stick it another day.

On the fourth day the farang wakes up and packs the car. Everyone waves good-bye, except for the three family members joining him for the voyage south.

Back in Pattaya the farang drops off the relatives. They get out of the car without a word of thanks. He delivers the car three hours late for a half-day penalty. At the hotel the westerner is glad to be back in civilization, although his girlfriend cries, “I miss my family.”

They make love for the first time in four days and she cries throughout the labor. The farang feel like he's having sex with a war widow and almost stops, except those years of abstinence have created a monster and he completes his mission, after which the farang leave the girlfriend in the hotel room watching TV to meet his friends. She is on the phone to a family member. She barely notices his departure.

Later night the gang at his favorite bar ask, “How was it?”

“It was great.”

And they nodded in unison because they’ve said the same thing too.

And it's all true, because they've never experienced anything in years.

Bannok loves farangs.

Pattaya Always Pattaya

Back in the 1970s Miami Beach was a neglected beach resort populated by ancient retirees in moldy art-deco apartment buildings. Elderly snowbird males dine at Wolfie's Deli sporting Sta-press shirts, plaid trousers, and gleaming white shoes. Attired in their polyster finery these septagenarians trolled Miami Beach for blue-haired widows with a little extra income.

The tropical sun set early in Florida. Darkness was not an old man's friend. Females in their 70s looked 50 to a man with poor night vision. Desire youngified every senior female on Collins Avenue. The sidewalks emptied after dusk and the windows female compatriots in looked better than good after dusk and the sidewalks were empty by the end of dusk. Hotel windows glowed with TV lights and the ACs hummed to frost the bedroom to the temperature of the Belleville morgue.

That somnambulent elegance was vanquished by the trendification of South Beach in the 90s. The decaying hotels were renovated by New York hoteliers, the decayed rooms were filled with hipsters, and the night was animated by bars and discos for the first time since MIAMI VICE.

The city was re-born as a super-cool destination. Nothing kills a city faster than a hipster.

I lived in Pattaya from 1998 to 2008. The population was 90,000. A good mix of thai go-go girls, drag queens, and fugitive farangs. It was good fun and citizens avoided the Costa de Mafia like we had the pox, then Pattaya was discovered by the squares.

Luxury condos replaced decrepit beach resorts with hopes of replacing the its faithful clientele of European sex tourists with more fashionable tourists from the Pacific Rim.

Gucci instead of tee-shirts.

Prada took from knock-offs.

Upper-class Thais from Bangkok besmote by the need to flaunt their success with au courrant styles have exiled the lager louts and steroid juice monkeys from Walking Street the same way Madonna pushed Meyer Lansky's widow off the throne of Miami Beach, however this transition will take time in Pattaya, for the city on the Gulf of Siam reamins the most unfashionable city in Asia.

Dressing well is considered a sign of respect for yourselves and those around you, so Thais can't understand why farangs dress so badly in their wife-beater t-shirts, soiled shorts, and grubby sneakers. I expect nothing better from retired postal workers from South London and divorced accountants of Berlin.

Slobs are always slobs.

It's in their blood.

And they will save Pattaya for the scourge of the good.

Gold Frenzy in Thailand

The price of gold has rocketed during the last year. The rise has been fueled by the drop in the dollar combined with tremendous demand from India and China. Sadly gold has been the staple gift for Thai girls from their farang boyfriends since the Vietnam War. 5 baht of gold on a bar girl’s neck or wrist is a dead give-away she has a love-struck sponsor in the closet. The girls love this show of wealth, for the sheer pleasure of rendering other bargirls green with Goldfingeresque envy or it-chaa.

“My boyfriend love me 5-baht.”

Jamie Parker, who’s a STAR TREK fan, once likened Thai bargirls to the unscrupulous Darbo girls hungry for gold-plated latinum.

”Thanks the stars they don’t know diamonds are a girl's best friend.”

His comment rang clear with truth. 5 baht of 24 Karat gold is a little more than $6000. A 2-carat diamond ring for a western woman, whose virginity is uncertified, can run $20,000, so the Thai mania for gold is a blessing in disguise.

If you want to make a Thai girl happy. Buy her some gold, but there are several standard rules of gold-buying to obey;

1.) If the girl already has gold, the odds are that she has a sponsor and you are being taken for a ride. Not that your generosity isn’t appreciated. You will be her darling until the guy who bought her the bigger hunk of gold comes into town, then she’ll have to leave to take care of a sick family member. The one week usually runs from Saturday to Saturday and she seems to have telephone problems during her absence.

“Signal no good. Too many buffalo farting.”

2.) You buy it, it’s hers.

A diamond engagement ring is a contract in NY State. No marriage, the ring goes back to the man. Not so in Thailand. A girlfriend or wife considers the gold a safeguard against a time of drought or a brother in the monkey house or a sick buffalo.

“Sick buffalo need glasses to see grass.”

Never question these problems too deeply since to question more means your obligation increases. Accept what you are told on face value and go out and get drunk. The drunker the better. At least the money is going into your gut instead of bunch of upcountry farmers who owe more money to the banks than their famrs are worth on the open market.

3.) If you’ve done something really wrong, gold will save face for your girlfriend.

You’ve disappeared into a k-hole for a week, had sex with ka-toeys or lady-boys, smashed the family car in an impromptu F1 race on Sukhumvit, and been seen with her best friend at a karaoke bar.

Unforgivable?

5 baht of gold will soothe her anger like a OD on Valium.

I used to work in a New York City diamond exchange. 47th street. One morning a man knocks on the window. We let him in thinking he’s a thief, until he hurriedly says, “Gimme something for $3000.”

I show him a gold/diamond necklace.

“Fine. I’ll take it.” He peels off 100s like he’s spent the last five days in a casino and needs a gift to show his wife, (who he hasn’t called in that time ) that he was thinking about her.

Same for you after this weekend from hell.

Buy the gold before you walk in the door.

Believe me, she’ll drop the carving knife on the floor and be on the phone the rest of the day happily bragging to her friends.

Lastly buying gold means that you have to go along.

If you give her the money, it will never make the distance to the gold counter.

“Sick buffalo rob me.”

Here’s a few facts to help you,

Caveat emptor which is Latin for ‘let the buyer beware’.

Som nam nah or ‘serves you right means the same in Thai.

Go to someplace where the people look more honest than a car salesman.

Check if the gold has a stamp.

Have them weigh it.

40 years ago Thai gold was 98% gold with a special alloy called nam prasam tong.

This gold was soft as putty and was replaced by the present melange of 96.5% gold and the rest silver and bronze. The basic measure is more than a half ounce or 31 grams. The price of gold is usually about $30 over the gold market price.

Gold in recent weeks has bounced to new heights.

21000 for one baht.

Yikes!

So if you’re thinking of doing something really wrong, make sure you do so in another town.

“Darling, I have to go to Bangkok to see a sick friend.”

“Who you go see.”

“Derek, you remember him.”

Five baht of gold now is a motorcycle or 50 short times at a go-go.

Five baht of gold or 50 short times?

Peace at home or paradise for 15-20 minutes.

Your choice.

Lame Ass Poser

Editors and agents have asked for a definition of my writing. Corporate executives like neat niches. I tell them the easy answer, "Semi-fiction."

"What's that?" None of them are familiar with that genre, since it doesn't really exist in their marketplace.

"Whatever is interesting is true." My employer Richie Boy had once described my story-telling technique as that. I have never disputed that my tales are a melange of truth, demi-truth, and outright fabrication. The same goes for my grammar.

Most recently I had written a story about a concert by the English punk band, the Damned. I recounted the evening to the best of my memory's ability. One reader took exception. Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys lambasted my remembrance of that night.

"Nice story , too bad it never happened. Do yer research man.The only gigs we ever did with the Damned in the US were at CBGB.The only tour we ever did with them was in England. Documented fact. Christ, you lameass posers."

Lameass poser.

Coming from Cheetah Chrome, I consider that a comment.

Thank you for SONIC REDUCER.

Fried Chicken Feets

White people don't eat chicken feet. Ham Hocks or Eisbein might be tasty for Germans and other Aryan races, but chicken feet have never graced the menus of Mickey Ds, although there is no telling what part of the chicken KFC doesn't use in their nuggets. Chicken feet are for poor people from the Deep South, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It's even cheaper than offal.

Thai women love ting gai or chicken feet. Cooks fry or boil the feet until the skin, cartilage, and tendons are edible. All classes of Thai people eat chicken feet. Hi-so and Lo-so. They claimed ting gai cures aching joints and smooths out wrinkles.

My son's mother loves them.

The sound of her sucking on them drives me crazy.

And not in a good way, but love is not only blind but sometimes deaf, if there's a door in between you.

Chicken or the Egg

The question 'which came first the chicken or the egg' has befuddled mankind for centuries. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato have pondered on this case of circular cause and consequence without satisfaction. Darwin argued that the chicken came first and lately Stephen Hawking has backed the egg. DNA testing on ancient fossils have failed to enlightened modern science. Christianity supports the 'Big Bang' creation miracle of the Old Testament, while Buddhism contends that the wheel of time leads to nowhere and in nowhere the chicken and egg are meaningless.

I am a simple man.

My education was extensive. My de-education even more so, for I have come to realize that anyone knowing all the answers hasn't heard all the questions. My mind has been erased countless times by drink and drugs.

The other morning I awoke from a near-death stupor gifted more by oblivion than enlightenment. It was Father's Day. My children are far away in Thailand. They are my reason for living along with beer, my wife Mem, the Boston sports teams, western movies, books, art, and a pantheon of interests. They are my everything, but in truth I know that I came before them.

My eggs ie sperm predated their existence. My semen is the river of life. Without it women are merely women, so laying in my bed on a Sunday morning I came to the momentous conclusion that I as a man am the egg and the woman is the chicken, for all a woman does is sit on my egg to hatch the chicklet.

Of course I would never say that within hearing distance of a woman, because chicken has big ears and short tempers.

Heading Up Country

Heading up country. Leaving 0069 in charge. She is a good agent.

Have a good weekend one and all.

Victory At Last

My history with the Boston Bruins dates back to the 50s. My father took my older brother and me to a game at which both Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull scored hat tricks for the Chicago Blackhawks. My youngest sister and I watched Bobby Orr score the winning goal against the St. Louis Blues on the grandmother's black-and-white Zenith TV in Maine. The following spring the great comeback by the Canadians crushed the hearts of the faithful, although the following year the hometown team recaptured the Cup against the NY Rangers.

Then nothing.

39 years of blank.

My interests in the Boston Bruins dwindled with each disappointment and last year's collapse against the Philadelphia Flyers ( up 3-0 and losing 4-3 ) relegated my longstanding allegiance into the same category at my support for Boston's soccer team. Wait till next year became a mocking chant. Wait for never was the reality, so when the Bruins began their Stanley Cup campaign of 2011, I prepared my wounded pysche for yet another short show, however they beat Les Habs in a 7th game overtime. Revenge against the Flyers took 7 games. The same number were required to vanquish the Tampa bay Lightning. Last team on the slate were the Vancouver Canucks; tough goalie, hard-hitting, dirty, great power-play, and their name had never graced the Stanley Cup.

The Bruins went two games down on the West Coast and then pummeled the Canucks at home. 2-2. We traded the next two games to set up a 7th game in Vancouver. Last Wednesday I walked down the street in my Bruins regalia. Brooklyn is not a hockey town, although the few Ranger fans on the sidewalk raised their fist and shouted, "Go, Bruins."

The Canucks were a dirty team and our teams came from the original 6 of the NHL. My skin sizzled with anticipation of the dropped puck and I entered the bar to take a seast at the bar. Two other Bruins fans were staring at the TV. We acknowledge each other with a nod. Our nervousness allowed no further greeting. The bartender put a draft Stella in front of me. He knew my order, since I had abandoned Frank's Lounge for Mullane's during the Stanley Cup. Frank's is even less hockey than Brooklyn.

The national anthem were sung by fat men in tuxedo and the sell-out crowd cheered their team for every hit, shot, and save of the first period. The score was 1-0 Bruins. The 2nd period ended with us up 3-0. The final was 4-0. I had drunk at least six beers and was good friends with everyone in the bar. A young Bruins fan and I traded shots of tequila. I fielded phone calls from friends and family. I got into a stupid fight with my younger brother about racism in Boston. Paddy hung up on me and wouldn't answer the phone. I staggered home and fell into my bed wearing the Bruins jersey that Paddy had bought me in 1988. I remembered stuffing cherries into my mouth and then woke to a dream about teenage girls' hardened nipples.

It was 8:20. I had to be at work within the hour.

Cherry pits were stuck to my face and chest along with smushed cherries.

Sometimes your dreams are a way of telling your brains that you had too much to drink and I rubbed the cherry pits off my bodies. I tried calling my brother. He wasn't answering my call and I opened my emails. Somehow I had been stupid enough to write him a message before crashing out. His response titled DON'T EMAIL ME ANYMORE.

"I called to talk hockey and Stanley Cup, not to suffer your sanctimonious pontifications. If I cannot talk sports to you without offending your over-inflated opinion of yourself which others do not share, then we just won't talk to each other."

Opps.

My calls were cold-shouldered without any response.

"Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

I went to work and read about the riots in Vancouver. The Canucks were sore losers. My hang-over disappeared by mid-afternoon. My regrets about what I had said to my brother lingered into the night. We were family and I had to make this wrong right.

I was fifteen minutes late to the diamond exchange. Manny was pissed at me as usual. I hadn't been on time for years. My Brazilian co-workers arrived ten minutes after me. Traffic in New Jersey was brutal. Too many people came to the City for work. There were no new jobs in their state.

Ava draped a scarf over her shoulders. The air-conditioning in the exchange worked great in the morning. "I was walking by the NHL store on the corner and there were a lot of people inside. TV cameras too."

TV cameras, fans, and NHL store said one thing. Some Bruins were in the store. I put down the diamonds and ran out of the store, telling a perplexed Manny, "I'll be back in five."

I hurried down 47th Street, weaving through the gauntlet of gold buyers blocking the sidewalk. The pedestrian light at 6th Avenue was against me. I dodged the oncoming traffic like a matador avoiding a herd of bulls and beelined into the NHL store. Bruin uniforms adorned the two mannequins at the entrance. A crowd of fans stood beneath the TV room on the 2nd floor. Their eyes were locked on the silver object above them.

The Stanley Cup bracketed by the MVP goalie, Tim Thomas, the monster defenseman Chara, and Bergeron the attacker. They were finishing the interview for ESPN and Bergeron exited onto the walkway to the stairs carrying the trophy.

"Go Bruins. Show us the Cup." I shouted like a 12 year-old and Bergeron hoisted the Cup. Tears came to my eyes and for the briefest of moments I was 8 years-old at the Boston Garden with my father and older brother.

"Go Bruins."

I went outside and called Padraic. His last message had included the ultimatum 'call me if you're a man'. He answered on the first ring.

"I just saw the Cup at the NHL store. I just saw the Cup. I can't talk right now. I'm too overwhelmed. Go Bruins."

"Go Bruins." My brother was a big fan. All was forgiven. Sports are like that. They span the ages and differences.

"Go Bruins."

Indeed.

Hockey in June - Game 7 Bruins versus Canucks

Call me old-fashioned but it's hockey in June. The Bruins versus the Canucks in the last game of the season for the cup. It's down to this but we'll have TIME TO GO forever.

To watch TIME TO GO by the DropKick Murphys please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP5g-Pjpg_I&feature=related

1970s Boston Bruins Fight Song

Hockey night in Boston. The bruins versus the Canucks. 6th game of the Stanley Cup Finals. This song rocked the original Garden.

Go # 4 and let's not forget the great Derek # 16

To hear THE NUTCRACKER by the Ventures, please go to the following URL

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

Fishing With the Israeli Navy

To see Israeli fishing tips please go to this URL

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7xfc6_la-lachete-de-l-armee-israelienne-e_news

Solar Flare

The sun has traveled around the center of the Milky Way about 25 times. Each orbit takes about 250 million years at a speed of 250 kilometers per second. The Earth and its companion planets are dragged through the cosmos without protest, although the sun absorbs the blunt of this peregrination through Space and this week a plasma cloud was flayed from the solar surface.

Probably enough energy to power the American SUV fleet through eternity or scorch our celestial home to a charred cinder.

We survived the event and continue our voyage into the heavens.

Where we stop no one knows.

Not even the Baptists.

The End of Anti-Semiticism

Twenty years ago I'm walking through Jakarta to the port. A man of indeterminable race approached me with a smile. His greeting was in Hebrew to which I responded in Yiddish thanks to my studies of the writer Isaac B Singer.

"Are you Jewish?" The portly 30ish man asked with anticipation.

"No, but I'm the shabbos goy." I had spent the previous year on 47th Street schlepping diamonds between the Azhkanazi and the Hasidim. A good sale bought a round-the-world ticket. I was coming from Bali and headed to Sumatra.

"Then you're the closest thing to a Jew in this city." Jakarta was 99% Muslim.

"I like pastrami and don't mix dairy with meat." The Javanese weren't too friendly to Christians and the imans reserved a special vitriol for non-believers like myself. "Some of my best friends are Jewish."

"And I'll be your newest." David Mussery introduced himself as a Syrian Jew running a nightclub called the Pink Panther. We were the same age. I had worked at nightclubs in New York and Europe. We had mutual friends on three continents. That night I danced to LOUIE LOUIE and the Youngbloods DARKNESS DARKNESS with lithe hostesses and scary drag queens. David and I debated the truth according to the Talmud and Clint Eastwood. we drank gin and tonics with goddesses. I called mine 'Mata hari' or the eye of god. Her kiss was a dream. She could have been Miss Indonesia 1991. At dawn he offered me a job with very little pay.

"A sheygutz like you could make a fortune."

"Money and I are distant cousins." I was counting on getting rich in my next life.

"I could teach you the ways of my tribe." David was lonely. I had lived in Hamburg during the winter of 1982. Everyone was a German, but me. I also knew loneliness, but I had a ticket for a ferry this morning. David accompanied to the port with his hostesses. They bid me Selamat Jalaan with their hearts. The ladyboys cried on cue. David asked me to call him, if I passed through town again and I did the following year. He was a good Jew and being a good Jew has nothing to do with Israel.

It's a state of mind.

Not a nation.

The Damned Live

Hurrah was a walk-up nightclub on 32 West 62nd Street. The second-floor had been a disco in its previous reincarnation. Studio 54 put it out of business. The new owners brought downtown uptown by booking punk bands into the dance space. Video monitors played music and strobed a kaleidoscope of images. My friends and I worked the punk disco for its heyday. Barmen, DJs, bookers, management, security, cashiers, and me employed as the doorman.

Our crowd were cute high school girls, models, drug dealers, movie stars, musicians, teenagers from the outer boroughs, off-duty cops, diplomats, doctors, and artists as well as a diverse collection of undesirables. $20 bought entry for anyone other than a rat pack of macho boys. They were trouble.

Dancing was the main attraction to Hurrah, a cool alternative to 54. The bookers loaded the stage with New York bands such as Klaus Nomi, ESG, Polyrock, and Ballistic Kisses to warm up the audience for headliners like the B-52s, Gang of Four, the Dead Boys, and the Ramones.

In June of 1979 The Damned from the UK hit Hurrah for a one-night stand with the Dead Boys. I was familiar with the band from their newly-released LP MACHINEGUN ETIQUETTE. The Jefferson Airplane’s WHITE RABBIT was a cover from the album. I had the single. RABID was on the B-side.

Aside from letting in underage girls from Fieldston Academy and cuffing twenties for extra wages, one of my tasks as doorman was to lead the top billing bands from the dressing room in the rear corridor through the crowd onto the low stage. A distance of 150 feet. People crammed together past capacity since a cashier and I had racketed the door and resold tickets to SRO shows.

The night of The Damned’s concert I probably had packed another hundred fans into the club. The Dead Boys had torn up the 700+ boys and girls. They wanted more and the more that they were going to get was The Damned. Hundreds chanted for the band. Their boots stomped hard on the wooden floor. The booker signaled me that it was time to get the band onstage. I went to the dressing room. The band was sitting on its asses, surrounded by the usual punk groupies. Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys sulked in the corner. The lead guitarist was not used to being ignored by his faithful sluts.

“What’s the problem?” It was obvious that the Damned were going anywhere.

“No Vodka. Our contact stipulated four bottles of Vodka. We ain’t got none.” The lead guitar was wearing a gorilla suit. Pink top. Yellow bottom. It was a warm June night and sweat rivuleted down his face. Hot pants and a tube tops would have been a better choice.

“No vodka. No show.” The black-haired singer announced with folded arms. His skin wwas covered by a film of white. He so wanted to look like a vampire.

“Gimme a minute.” I reckoned that the owners had refused the vodka fearing the band would hit the stage drunk, but if they wanted vodka, I was going to get them some. Jhoury was the head bartender. Long thin and gay, he had a thing for the lead singer. I told him the problem and his hands elegantly seized four bottles of bar-well quality.

Old Cossack.

“Lead the way.” The bottles, glasses, and mixers appeared on a tray, as if Jhoury had been waiting for this call all evening. He had a thing for straight boys with English accents and reveled in his glory, when the band sprang to their feet at the sight of the vodka.

“Good man.” The albino lead singer grabbed the bottles and distributed to his fellow band members. He waved away the glasses and mixers. “We’ll be drinking it neat.”

The Damned screwed off the tops and lifted the open bottles to pour the vodka down their gullets like baby birds swallowing their mother’s spew. Some of it made it down their throats. The rest spilled onto their clothes and floor. Jhoury was in wide-eyed awe. He like his drink too. The bottles were half-empty within a minute. Cheetah Chrome drank most of one. The drummer Rat Scabies smirked at him and said, “It’s showtime. Get us on the stage and keep any lit cigarettes away from us. We’re combustible.”

“Jhoury, you’re coming with me.” I eyed his tray. Jhoury smiled with thanks. He never got out from behind the bar and now he was leading rough boys through a thick crowd. He didn’t have to be told twice and we wedged out way through the phalanx of fans. The band picked up their instruments and opened the set with NEW ROSE.

It was a great show.

They did WHITE RABBIT as an encore.

By 3am Hurrah was empty and the band ready to hit the road on their bus. The Dead Boys with them. They were a double bill for the tour.

Destination Cleveland.

No one could find Cheetah Chrome and the bus pulled out without him. It wasn’t until Buffalo that someone opened the storage area under the bus and found Cheetah passed out on the speakers. He didn’t wake up until Cleveland. It was his hometown.

I never saw the Damned again, but Jhoury and I spoke often about them drinking the vodka. They were our heroes, then again so were so many of the bands that appeared at Hurrah. It was the best of times.

Ratsach Ratsach Ratsach

The Israeli Air Force launched a pre-emptive strike against the airfields of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt on June 6, 1967. This Pearl Harbor attack caught the Arab MIG fighters and Russian bombers on the ground. Having won air superiority the Zionist Army destroyed the massed tank forces of the UAR and within 6 days a ceasefire was declared by the warring factions.

The West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem were occupied by the victors. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes to escape the burned earth tactics of their new overlords. June 6 is a day of infamy for the native of these seized lands and the exiles call this day 'an-Naksah' or 'The Debacle'.

The Israelis have defeated every effort by the Palestinians to attain nationhood. Hijackings foiled by Mossad. Bombing campaigns condemned by the world. The PLO crushed into exile by the Lebanese incursion. The infatidah minimalized by western press. Gaza turned into a ghetto and the West Bank chopped to pieces by Jewish settlements.

Any protests against the Zionists are met with accusations of anti-Semiticism, even though the Arabs are also sons and daughters of Shem.

Not that I believed in the Bible; Old or New.

But I do believe in justice and yesterday Palestinian protesters attempted to awake the world by assailing the security fences in the Golan Heights. The Israeli command responded by warning the hundreds of unarmed men and boys to turn back from the border. Tear gas was fired from the patrol road. The protesters persisted in their plan to fly flags to mark the Day of Infamy.

Someone in the Israeli High Command gave the order to clear the fields with live fire. The dead and wounded bled on the embattled earth. People in America were more concerned with a congressman's sexting to a young girl.

Drudgereport.com filed the following reports; Israel sees Syrian hand in Golan clashes, 23 dead...

REPORT: Protesters paid $1,000 to riot along border.

The BBC soft-pedaled the confrontation by saying 'tear gas has been used to clear protesters'.

The US State Department said that 'it was troubled by the loss of life'.

No signs of condemnation.

Wankers.

Free Palestine.

To view the incident please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YHLKpeLZY&feature=relmfu

Israel has bought ads against Palestine on Youtube.

Youtube has trivialized the shootings by headlining the banner with 'dog surfing in California'.

Fuck the rich.

Tank Man Plus 22

22 years ago young protesters gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn the passing of a liberal official. Communist countries in Europe were collapsing like dominoes and the Chinese Politburo feared this non-violent threat to their regime. The hardline Premier Li Peng attempted to establish martial law, however the city troops had no heart to suppress their compatriots. Finally on June 4, 1989 the PLA cleared the square with live ammo. Thousands were wounded and hundreds killed by the People's Liberation Army.

The date lives in the Chinese psyche as the "Six Four Incident".

Order was restored in Beijing with an iron fist, however one brave man stopped a column of tanks cruising down Tiananmen's Chang'an Avenue on June 5, 1989. White shirt, black pants, bags in both hands. His face hidden from the cameras of the foreign press. He stood his ground and the tanks came to a halt. The young man climbed onto the lead tank to harangued the commander, then re-established his blocking position. Two men pulled the man into the crowd. Some people say they were police. Others say the two men helped him escape the police. His fate is unknown to this day.

His name is simply Tank Man.

And his act of courage is legend.

To view Tank Man's heroic confrontation, please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcvaSnmqZ40

You Bet I Would # 10

AVR -1971

GASLIGHT PINBALL by Peter Nolan Smith

Pinball was banned in New York City until 1976 when a pinball wizard proved to a courtroom that pinball was not a game of chance but one of skill by calling out his shots to the amazed judges. The ace later acknowledged that his called shot was pure luck, however pinball machines once more populated amusement arcades and bars. Coming from Boston I had spent hundreds of dollars in the pinball arcades along Washington Street, honing my skills on the slanted playing field.

In 1976 I quit my job as a substitute teacher in Boston and moved to New York in a stolen car. I lived in Park Slope and ran the lunch a gay restaurant in the 30s. Waiter, cook, busboy, barman, cashier. 10am-3:30pm. I earned about $50 a day. New York's premier entertainment area was Times Square. Porno store, go-go bars, massage parlors, XXX movie houses, pool, bars, and pinball. The amusement centers were filled with good players. The best was a Frenchman. We competed head to head once a week. Michel had soft hands. His flipper work was extraordinary. He won most of the time, but not always.

Michel worked as a bartender in Park Slope. The Gaslight Pub on 7th Avenue had cheap drinks, a good jukebox, a few beautiful girls from the neighborhood, and a great pinball machine. It was also two blocks from the apartment that I shared with a gay jazz impresario. The straight crowd at the bar didn't like queers. James didn't care whether they liked him or not. He was a drinker and bought the regulars drinks. They never questioned his largess, especially since I was friends with Davie Corr, an insane bank robber, who once robbed three banks in Flatbush back to back to back. Whenever a stranger challenged me to a pinball game, Davie backed my play. A dollar for 1000 points. I sometimes won by 100,000. It was a good business for a game of skill.

Michel and I battled regularly on SLASH. I maintained an advantage since he couldn't leave the bar long enough to get into his rhythm.

One night I entered the Gaslight and ordered a drink. Jack and Black. The men at the bar kept turning their head to the pinball machine, where a dark-haired skinny girl with big breasts was bumping the pinball machine with her pelvis like she was on a burlesque stage. She was wearing a band-aid of a mini-skirt and a skimpier tuebtop. Her skin was white as a zombie and she was showing most of it. Stiletto heels made her my height. Michel lifted his eyebrow and leaned over the bar.

"She had been playing like that for an hour."

"Non-stop?"

"Non-stop." He motioned with his head to go play with her. She wasn't his type. He liked black girls.

"Anyone play with her?"

"No one good enough here."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence."

At that time I had a theory that the way someone danced was the way they made love. Extending this hypothesis to pinball was a leap of faith and I asked the pinball player, if I could play a game.

"Pinball?" Her voice was pure Flatbush. She was a hometown girl.

"It's the only game in here." I slotted a dollar's worth of quarters in SLASH. We played for a half-hour. I beat her by thousands, but mostly because of how savagely her hips thumped the machine. After the tenth tilt I risked a slap in the face and asked, “Do you make love the same way?”

“Only one way to find out.”

She drank the rest of her drink and took my hand. I waved goodnight to Michel. James was walking down the block with two tough boys. He was into rough trade. Seeing me with Fran he smirked at the both of us without saying a word. He knew better than to cockblock a friend.

Fran lived a few blocks away from the bar. She taught kindergarten. I told her about teaching in South Boston during the busing riots. Her school was in Bed-Stuy. Her pupils were good kids. None of them ever saw her this way.

"Enough talk about school." She pulled me inside her ground-floor apartment and secured a series of locks. The windows were covered by heavy curtains. She didn't bother to switch on the lights.

"I have a crazy ex-boyfriend. He won't leave me alone." Fran stripped off my clothes. She knelled on the floor and shucked off my jeans. "You don't mind if we do it on the floor. I like it that way."

"Not at all."

It took Fran three seconds to get out of her clothes. She left on the high heels. They scraped over the wooden floor like spurs on a horse's back. Her white skin was covered with baby powder and she left a trail across the room. Her pelvis was breaking my bones, but she wouldn't let me go, not even when someone knocked on the door.

Her ex-boyfriend.

“Fran, I know you’re in there.” He called out her name several times and pounded on the door.

“Don’t stop. He’ll go away.” She humped upward with the same power as when she had been playing pinball. I was her SLASH and there was only one way for her to tilt me. The ex-boyfriend finally left the front door only to bang on the window. His persistence was a turn-on for Fran. A good kindergarten teacher and a wicked pinball player. She whispered dirty talk in my ea rand whimpered out a moan of release.

"That was good."

"For me too." It was a lie, but I had no intention of leaving her apartment, until I was certain that her ex-boyfriend was gone.

Back at the Gaslight Pub Michel set me up with a beer. I was exhausted from the first, second, and third times. James was in the back with his boys. He pretended not to see me. The rest of the bar was drunk. I had been gone two hours.

"So how was it?"

Normally I never discussed the secrets of the bedroom with another man, however Fran and I hadn't used her bedroom and Michel was a fellow pinball player.

"She did it just like she played pinball."

"I thought so." Michel winked at me and I went over to the pinball machine. My pelvis was bruised and my hands were weak. I tilted SLASH on the first go and that lack of skill had nothing to do with luck.