# 7,000,000,000

The population of the world in 1952 was 2.635 billion. My birth in May of that year was lost in the infantile deluge of America's Baby Boom. I was anonymous to everyone, but my family. Today the population clock hit seven billion and the Philippines declared a baby born at a Manila hospital was baby # 7,000,000,000. The press flocked to the maternity ward and little Danica May Camacho was given her fifteen seconds of fame, which might last longer since a UN official was in attendance with a cake and financial support for the baby's future. The Philippines also claimed baby # 6,000,000,000 in 1999, although the UN gave the honor to a baby in a Sarajevo hospital. Best wishes to all the babies in the world. From # 1 to # 7,000,000,000. The more the merrier.

7 Billion More or Less

The population of the planet in 1952 was approximately 2.635 billion people. I was born in May that year. I will be 60 in seven months. The UN announced this week that humanity has reached seven billion people faster than predicted by the most Malthusian experts on growth. The death rate of 150,000 people each day can not keep pace with the birth rate. 50 million short every year from the 1952 population means that over 3 billion people have died since my birth. 3,000,000,000 is a rough figure as is my estimate that 700,000,000 people out of 7,000,000,000 are 60 or over. One-tenth of the world older than me and 90% younger. That latter percentage includes my son Fenway and Fluke and my daughters Angie and Noy. Forever young one way or the other. ps I heard a population expert asked a question by a TV interviewer. "What will be the population of the world in 2050?" "One billlion," the venerable scientist answered without a pause to think. "One billion? The UN predicts 8 billion." The reporter checked his notes. "They're wrong." The scientist was not impressed by the UN numbers. "One billion worldwide." "And what will happened to the extra six billion people on the planet now?" "They will be gone." The scientist laid out his thoughts about how nature will reduce the global population through floods and natural disasters due to environmental change. "And there is nothing we can do about it." "That is a very dire forecast." The reporter was taken aback at such pessimism. "No, because those years will be very exciting for the young. The old will not survive. Not them it will be hell, but for the young, it will be a new time of adventure." In 2050 I will be 98. I will be living in Thailand on the shores of the new ocean. My rice factory will turn out the best beer on the planet. My children will be happy. Their children too. And their children too. It's all about location for the oldest man left on the planet. Shotgun in my hands.

A Last Sherman Tank

Yesterday I trained north from Luxembourg City to Clervaux. The guidebook stated that the chateau exhibited the works of Edward Streichen. His family had emigrated from his native land to the USA in 1880 and the famed photographer had donated over 500 photos to the Grand Duchy. The train ride was less than an hour and I bicycled through the narrow valley to the steep road climbing up to the chateau. The ticket taker informed me that the exhibition was closed for construction, but the Musees de le Battaille De Bulge and Chateaus des Luxembourg were open. I toured both in less than thirty minutes. Outside in the sunlight I walked the bike through the gateway and rolled over to a WWII memorial honoring the American defense of the town in December of 1944. The Sherman tank on the grass was the only one to have survived the engagement, in which a hundred American soldiers held off superior German forces for a night. In the morning a fierce attack set fire to the chateau and the remaining troops surrendered to the Wehrmacht. The tank stands guard along with a 57mm cannon, testaments to the defense of Luxembourg. It is a grateful duchy.

In the Words of Albert Finney

Few films are as bittersweet romantic as the comic road movie TWO FOR THE ROAD starring Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn. The two play star-crossed lovers traveling throughout Europe. Their honeymoon brings them to a country hotel in France, where they observed older couples speechlessly dining together.

“What kind of people don’t speak to each other.” Audrey asks in a haze of smitten amusement.

“Married people.” Albert Finney answered with a vow to never be like their aged compatriots. Of course within the movie’s plotline the two evolved into despicable people riven by greed. The ending had them abandoning the ways of the flesh and driving off into the scenery to save their love.

There was never a sequel, however years later a British TV host interviewed Albert Finney and asked, “You’ve been married six times. What was the similarity between your wives?”

“They all left me.” Albert Finney quickly quipped, fully understanding that some men are not made by the women behind them, but by those who have left them behind.

That last line is from James Steele, America's leading pseudo-intellectual.

He speaks.

He lives.

He left no one behind without a thought to see them one more time.

Men Versus Women – The Eternal Struggle

“Women are always right and they are never more right then when they are wrong and you try to convince of this." James Steele Women are different animals from men as proven by this mail from Brian LeBouef featuring a short story exercise written by a male and female student at the U of Phoenix. The professor told his class: “Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and copy me on the email. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also copying me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails, and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.” The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:Rebecca and Gary. THE STORY (first paragraph by Rebecca) At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question. (second paragraph by Gary) Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. “A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,” he said into his trans-galactic communicator. “Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…” But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit. (Rebecca) He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. “Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,” Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. “Why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?” she pondered wistfully. (Gary) Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. “We can’t allow this! I’m going to veto that treaty! Let’s blow ‘em out of the sky!” (Rebecca) This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent. (Gary) Yeah? Well, you’re a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. “Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F—ING TEA??? Oh no, I’m such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steel novels!” (Rebecca) Asshole. (Gary) Bitch. (Rebecca) F__K YOU – YOU NEANDERTHAL! (Gary) Go drink some tea – whore. (TEACHER) A+ – I really liked this one

To Grope or Not Grope

Somehow when men from the West come to Pattaya they lose whatever manners their parents had beaten into their thick skulls during their dullard childhood. Bad behavior becomes almost a prerequisite for a good time. Drunkenness, rowdyism, and macho studity are usually forgiven by our Thai hosts and hostesses, but there is always a boundary past which a breach of etiquette veers from fun to criminal. Go-Go bars in Pattaya are famed for the friendliness of the dancers. Their search for the golden buffalo necessitates their abandoning the natural conservativeness of Thai culture for a cheap grope or dtae ang from slobbering farang men. Not everyone in a go-go bar is on the game and several years ago a Swedish sex monger overstepped the lines of propriety at the Lucifer’s Discotheque, which is not a go-go. The Swede had touched a woman’s behind, unaware that she merely sang for the establishment's show band. The singer called the police and the men in brown showed up at Lucifer's in force. The Swede protested with contrition, but the woman demanded that he be taught a lesson. The police handcuffed the Swede and dragged him to Pattaya Central Booking to be arraigned for the crime of groping. At the Soi 9 police station the irate singer demanded his incarceration and the Swede was sentenced to a night in jail. The next morning the judge assessed a small fine and warned he didn’t want to see him again. The Swede’s only defense was that he thought the singer was an ex-girlfriend, which means fondling ex-girlfriends is an old Nordic tradition as is a slap in the face. Some men can’t keep their hands to themselves. Then again I can't recall another man before or since being arrested for that crime. At least in Pattaya.

Live Long and Prosper LOL

Q: How many Klingons does it take to change a lightbulb? A: TWO: One to screw it in, and one to stab the other in the back and take all of the credit. Q: How many Klingons does it take to change a lightbulb? A: NONE: Klingons aren't afraid of the dark. Q: What do the Klingons do with the dead bulb? A: Execute it for failure. Q: What do the Klingons do with the Klingon who replaces the bulb? A: Execute him for cowardice. Q: How many Romulans does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-ONE: One to screw the light bulb in, and 150 to self-destruct the ship out of disgrace. Q: How many Vulcans does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Approximately 1.00000000000000000000000000000000 Q: How many Borg does it take to change a light-bulb? A: All of them!

The River Is Wide

In August I took my daughter Angie to the highest point in Thailand. Doi Inthaton was wraithed by fog and I lent her my jacket, even though I had bought her a bright pink poncho in Chiang Mai. She liked anything to do with me. Angie is my daughter. She and I climbed to the highest pagoda and there she asked if i still loved her. "Pon lak kunh mak." She was my first child. We spent most of her first five years together, until her mother deserted me for an up-country lover. I have gotten over the pain thanks to my new wife, Mam, and our son Fenway, but my love for Angie remained strong despite her mother's betrayal. I had to ask, "Why?" Angie explained that she opened my computer and saw pictures of another baby, Fenway, and none of her. I felt her hurt and held her in my arms. "I will always love you forever." I told her this in Thai with a Boston accent. She made a face like I was speaking Klingon, but then buried her face in my chest. I could feel her heartbeat. My daughter said nothing. She has never told me that she loves me. Angie is a funny girl that way. Her mother was waiting at the car. We had a serious conversation about Fenway. I had kept him a secret. He was no secret now. "Angie has a brother." We drove to Sukhothai in long silence ripped to shreds by angry accusations. "You left me. You had a boyfriend. You made your bed. You keep up this shit and I'll get out of the car now and you'll never see me again.Is that what you want for Angie." My anger was verging on cold blood. "I love her 100%" She sat in the back. Like always she said nothing. Nu shut up. No one was right, but Angie came first. Night came fast. The road was difficult. My phone rang. It was Mam. I spoke with her and said that Nu knew everything now. No one was happy, although i had Nu stop at a gas station so i could buy some beer. Sukhothai seemed father away every time I looked at a distance panel, but around 9pm it was only 30 klicks away. The radio warned of flooding. The Yom River was over its banks. Nam tuam. Sukhothai was the ancient Thai capitol. The Burmese had burnt it to the ground on several occasions. There was nothing in the history about flooding, but as we reached the city proper, the water rose higher and higher until it was up to the doors. "This is fucked up." I kept driving towards the muang bulan. The ancient city was on higher ground. "Jam dai 5 pii gon. Anthong mii nam tuam." Nu was referring to high waters in Anthong 5 years before. "Jam dai." Sandbags lined the Asia Highway. Water gleamed an inch below the rim. I had never seen flooding like this. It was like New Orleans a day before it went crazy. We reached dry road and found an open hotel. Sukhothai is a town that closed early. We ate a late dinner and I had Angie sit on my lap. She was scared on the racing waters. "Mai huang." I told her not to worry. "I will be there always." And the same goes for Fenway. We are family.

The Polling Of The Right

RealClearPolitics was founded by a Wall Street trader an an ad flack to combat what the duo perceived as anti-conservative and anti-fundalmentalist bias in the mainstream press. They are backed by the pro-business Forbes Magazine, which is well-known for its annual release of the 400 richest people in the world. It comes as no surprise that there are no black Americans in the top 100, but a single race's exclusion from the wealth of the nation is of no great concern for RealClearPolitics, since they are dedicated to announcing poll results on President Obama's Job approval rating. Pro - 43.8% Con - 51% Obama has been GW Bush low in RealClearPolitics' polls throughout his first term, despite his staving off economic disaster, OKing the summary execution of Osama Bin Laden, pulling all the troops out of Iraq, and not telling the GOP to fuck off and die. The recent increase in the poll numbers reflect the public's exhaustion of negative news about the president, but the force of the right are relentless in their pursuit to paint the president 'Red' as well as black. Fox News attacked Obama's plan to finance the higher education of Americans by portraying this scheme as a socialist take-over of private enterprise, even though many of the private institutions are simply profiting from the distribution of public funds. Fox News even dredges out the name of a mythical Frank Zappa character from the Mothers of Inventions album FREAK OUT. Suzy Creamcheese. Fox News extract: "Take this example: If Suzy Creamcheese gets into George Washington University and borrows from the government the requisite $212,000 to obtain an undergraduate degree, her repayment schedule will be based on what she earns. If Suzy opts to heed the president’s call for public service, and takes a job as a city social worker earning $25,000, her payments would be limited to $1,411 a year after the $10,890 of poverty-level income is subtracted from her total exposure. Twenty years at that rate would have taxpayers recoup only $28,220 of their $212,000 loan to Suzy." They further suggest that Suzy Creamcheese is plotting to damage the credit markets, as if the banks hadn't done a better job during the housing bubble. Better for America to shut the colleges, universities, and high schools, because the private sector has no intention of creating any jobs from the wealth that they plundered over the last thirty years and it's not even the Forbes 400 who are to blame. The guilt lies with the bankers mad with the hoarding bug. They want to accumulate every last dollar in the system, so everyone else in the world is poor. Even the rich. Future Steve Jobs and Bill Gates beware. Not only will there will no free lunches, but the universities will be closed. Get ready to count on your fingers or turn outlaw like Pretty Boy Floyd. He never robbed an honest man.

You Bet I Would # 15

More Than 10% Divine

right before I left for Luxembourg, my co-worker Deisy announced that she had no gay friends. She was a fundamentalist and a firm believer in the Bible. Hell was reserved for sinners and God has a special oven for the worshipers of man-sex for her church. Her church was not Catholic in origins.

"Deisy, you know many gays. And you probably have many gay friends, only they won't tell you." Most of my gay friends never mentioned their sexual preference, although it was fairly obvious by the way they checked out my rack.

Most people have no idea what is a gay man.

Certainly Rock Hudson didn't fit the caricature and I told Ava, "Jesus was gay."

"Blasphemy."

"He hung around men, lived with his mother, had long hair, and wore a dress. You're lucky if he wasn't a transvestite." There was no mention in the New Testament about his liking Broadway show tunes or gladiator movies. "Some people could have considered him 'gay'."

"Why are you saying this?" She had her hands over her ears.

"Because my brother was gay and he wasn't bad. You only think gays are bad, because your pastor tells you that." She had no knowledge about the recent Gay Jesus exhibition in Europe and the USA. Most of the art was second-rate, then again Jesus faked dying on the cross, but that's another story.

"I did know a gay man."

"And?"

"He belonged to my church." Deisy is a very good person. She loves her daughter and friends. I never discourage her prayers for my soul.

"And the pastor threw him out?" Gays weren't welcome in many churches.

"Yes, he was asked to leave."

"And you stopped being friends with him?"

"Yes."

"You're better than that. The church does not own your heart and mind. Those belong to who? "My baby." "Same as me." I will say prayers for you." In her mind I was doomed to hell and I gave her fundamentalist prejudice against gays a pass, for Ava loved her church, but later in the day I showed her the great YouTube ex trait of a faux Jesus lip-syncing I WILL SURVIVE. She shut her eyes. Ava was into see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, but you can see it by going to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j6ie0qFSgY

Needless to say my beliefs are my own.

Civil Disorder

The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder. - mayor richard daley at the Chicago 1968

More now than ever

Ding Dong Gaddafi's Dead

Muammar Gaddafi’s decades long reign in Libya came to a bloody end last week. NATO airplanes attacked a convoy of vehicles fleeing Sirte, his last stronghold. Gaddafi ran for cover, as local militia surrounded the area. Finding refuge in a drainage pipe, the colonel fought for his life, but NTC fighters pounded the concrete tube with an anti-aircraft gun. The deposed ruler surrendered with his famed gold-plated pistol in hand. Badly wounded by fighting Colonel Gaddafi was put into an ambulance. He never made it to Tripoli. Someone shot him in the head. A summary execution and Libyans throughout the liberated country celebrated his death with honking horns and machine guns fired into the sky. No more assassinations. No more wars in Africa. No more money pouring into his coffers from the oil riches of the nation. No more prison massacres. The Leader of the Revolution is dead. Some people have criticized the manner of his death as inhumane. I say good riddance. The world is a better place without him, but the West would be sorely mistaken to think that this revolution was one for democracy. It was an uprising against the ruling classes of wealth. That is the story. The poor versus the rich. Free the world.

Burn Berlin Burn

This September my benefactor took me to the Monaco Boat Show. We landed at the Nice Airport and I was about to ask him how we were traveling to Monte Carlo, when I saw a Maybach waiting by the curb. Padraic looked over his shoulder and said like he could read my mind, "Our ride." The Maybach Guard is a sports car limo. 0-60 mph in 5 seconds. The company had built the Maybach T3 Assault Gun (Sturmgeschütz III) as well as the Maybach T3 during WWII. The car is now known for super-luxury and I enjoyed the ride to Monaco. The driver hit the pedal once and we were traveling at 120 mph for a second on the autoroute. My ass felt like a million dollars and a million dollars means something to someone in my position. We got out in front of the Hermitage Hotel and people stared at us and then the car. Padraic rode in them often. I doubted that I would ever again in my life, but luxury cars are having a hard time in Berlin. Over 300 Porsches, Mercedes-Benzs, Audis et al have been burnt in Berlin in 2011. The arsonists have been targeting cars in previously poor neighborhoods altered by gentrification. Rising rents and prices have driven people from the center of the city in favor of the new rich. The right-wing Bild-Zeitung has descried the attacks as class-warfare terrorism and citizens are wondering if houses are next on the menu. The German chancellor asked, "What sort of behavior is this?" The answer is no one knows the answer. The police are clueless, although this week they arrested a man for over a hundred incidents of the pyromaniacal vandalism. The accused was unemployed and indebted to the credit card companies. His reason for these attacks seemed to be wealth envy according to the BBC, but they haven't told the truth about anything since the Iraq War. The man did tell the police the following; 'I've got debts, my life stinks and others with fancy cars are better off and they deserve this'." Cars burned last night in Berlin. They will burn tonight. Burn baby burn. It's only the beginning.

Froide Comme Une Reine

The Financial Times, which is the foreign rival to the Murdoch-onwed Wall Street Journal, has reported that Buckingham Palace has joined millions of other homes throughout Britian in 'fuel poverty' in which a homeowner pays more than 10% of their income on fuel. Oil prices in Britain are at an all-time high as commodity traders have accelerated the value of coal, gas, and oil with speculation to steal more wealth from the people. It is not just the poor or middle class who are the target. It is also the rich. Wall Street wants no one to have money. Not even the Queen of England. According to the article ERII roams the palaces shutting off lights. The rest of the nation would be wise to follow her example, for the only peaceful way to hurt the oil companies is through non-consumption. Walk, don't drive. Shut off all vampire power drains such as power transformers without cut-off switches. Heat only the rooms in which you live. It will be a cold winter. Cruel only if you maintain the ways of the past. The Queen knows and you should too. By the way she will never be poor.

FIELD GREY by Philip Kerr

Philip Kerr has been writing about a pre-WWII Berlin detective for more than a decade. These novels cover Bernard Gunther's career from policeman to private detective to SS soldier to post-war criminal. The books introduce infamous Nazis at various points of their lives and in FIELD GREY the old veteran is entrapped by the CIA and French to undercover a mass murderer heading back to Germany from captivity in the USSR. Bernie is no friend to the Nazi, but likes his Cold War masters even less and given the chance to betray them to save an old nemesis, Bernie does the right thing. The Financial Times thought Kerr's crisscrossing time plot was too convoluted to force the storyline forward without confusion, but I read the book with enthusiasm, especially since Bernard Gunther never takes himself or life too seriously, but Kerr puts the right words in his hero's mouth for the wrong times such as telling a beautiful Cuban revolutionary, "Whenever someone talks about building a better society, you can bet he's planning to use a couple of sticks of dynamite." Bernard Gunther holds true to his honor. He is simple and pure. Like a glass of schnapps in a bad bar. Drank and not stirred.

What's Yours Is Ours

AN OLD JOKE FROM THE 60S. A rich man comes out of his mansion and spots a young man camping on his lawn. Filled with indignation he strides up to the squatter and demands him to leave or else he'll call the police. "How did you get this land?" The young man remains seated by his fire. "What difference does it make?" The rich man wishes he had his shotgun to put the fears in this interloper. "The difference between my staying or leaving." "I worked for it." 18 hours a day when he was a young investment banker. "And who owned it before you and your kind?" "I don't know." Rock salt in the young man's ass would get him moving. "It belonged to the Indians, right?" "I suppose so." Buckshot might work better. "And how did they lose their land. Someone took it from them and I'm taking it from you." "You're only one." The rich man was thinking of a .45. A single shot to protect his estate. "Not one." The young man pointed to the ivy-covered wall. Hundreds of people were climbing over the barrier between those that have and those that don't. "We're many." "This is theft." The rich man would need more than the police to evict this many people. "We like re-appropriation better, my name's Jake, neighbor." And they lived happily ever after on the rich man's wine cellar and grilled foie gras, because a barbeque was better than a bonfire.

Anti-Protest Camp - London

After Fingers and I were scourged by the flail of high ticket prices from St. Paul's Cathedral, we walked to our respective Tube stations. A six-man patrol of riot police tramped down the sidewalk without a step in unison. They had been posted to the other side of the church from the anti-Wealth protestors in anticipation of any violence from the squatters. Weeks had passed in peace. The coppers looked bored, but their hands rested on long batons and their feet sported manly boots. They were waiting for the order to disperse the crowd of dirty counter-culture demonstrators. It would be their pleasure to break a few heads, although it is in their interest to play the waiting game, since they are collecting overtime for these extra hours of serving and protecting the public interests. Fingers and I walked by the four white riot trucks. I counted the police. Twenty of them were huddled within the trucks. The engines were running to heat the police. The weather was cold for late-October. None of them wore a smile, but this was a good gig. They still had jobs and in these days having a job was not a small thing. Occupy everywhere. It's a good thing.

Scrounging At St. Paul's

Last Monday I crossed the Thames on a pedestrian bridge. I had been at the Gerard Richter exhibit at the New Tate Museum with Fingers. He resembled a reformed pirate. We hadn't seen each other in 10 years. Most of my friends in Europe could say the same. Fingers took a few photos of me on the bridge. None of them made me look young. That accomplishment is a demanding trial in a city as old as London. St. Paul's Cathedral loomed over the buildings lining the banks of the river. At 365 feet high the church was the tallest building in London for centuries. My friend Fingers explained its history on our approach. "To this day nothing can be built to disturb the view of St. Paul's from the four cardinal points of the compass. Nothing taller can be erected to disrupt the line of sight. It's an unwritten law obeyed to this day. You ever been inside?" "Never." I recollected walking around it, but never down the aisle like Princess Diana during her wedding ceremony to the Prince of Wales on July 29, 1981. "Sounds like a plan." We approached the Christopher Wren cathedral from the south and worked our way to the western door. Hundreds of Occupy Wealth protestors were camped to the north of the entrance. A band played rock songs. I donated 5 quid to their cause. Fingers gave them 2 pounds. They looked harmless. We entered the cathedral and stopped at the ticket booth. The price of admission was 13 quid. "Fucking hell." Fingers remembered it being free. "Screw this." Thirteen was an unlucky number for an atheist to spend on a visit to a Christian church. We left the church and headed for the subway. Several passing police were carrying truncheons and plastic arrest bands. They belonged to the riot squad. Five armored trucks were parked on the opposite side of the cathedral. Craig shouted from a protective distance, "Attica Attica." The riot squad didn't even turn their heads, but the demonstrations against wealth were taking their toll on the church. This week the reverend canon announced the closure of the cathedral, the first since a bomb stuck in its dome during the Blitz. The protestors understand that the church is losing money, but they also refused to surrender to a government deeply connected to the powers of wealth. The church is not so sacred, for its daily operation costs about 20,000 pounds. At 13 pounds a head they need to reap over 1500 customers in a day. The reverend canon refused to say that his decision to close the cathedral was based on pressure from the Friends of St Pauls such as Sir Paul and Lady Getty, Goldman Sachs International, UBS Investment Bank, Prudential Plc, Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP, Standard Chartered Plc, J.P. Morgan, Canary Wharf Group Plc, the London Stock Exchange, and American Express. The telephones never stop ringing when they call. According to the BBC a wedding at St Paul's nevertheless went ahead on Saturday despite its closure to the general public. Natasha Ighodaro arrived at the cathedral to marry Nick Cunningham against a backdrop of dozens of tents and a banner reading "capitalism is crisis". Leaving the service, the bride said: "There hasn't been any disruption at all – it's been wonderful, really amazing." Wedding guest John Giles, from Godalming in Surrey, offered his support to the demonstrators. He said: "I think there are valuable comments being made and it seems to have been done in a peaceful way. They have a democratic right to protest." It's not about love. It's about no love.

London Redux

The City of Oxford is served by an express bus to London. The cost of a return ticket is 20 quid. I caught an afternoon bus last Saturday. The trip was quick and painless. I jumped off in Nottinghill Gate. It had been over ten years since my last visit to London, but my memory synapses clicked into action the second the soles of the shoes hit the sidewalk. My internal GPS plotted the Underground voyage to Putney and I descended into the station to buy an Oyster weekly pass for 27 quid.

"Where are you headed?" the clerk asked from behind a thick glass window.

"Putney." The District Line ran direct to Putney, where my godson was waiting on Swinburne Road with the keys to his mother's house.

"Not today, sir." The polite clerk explained that the Underground was undergoing weekend work. "The District and Circle Lines are closed."

"Closed?"

"Best you go to High Street Kensington by bus and catch the train to Parsons Green."

"Thanks."

His advice filtered through the dusty bins of my hippocampus and provided a concise map backed up by the amygdala's store of emotional recall. The double-decker bus provided a view on the sites of past incidents; a young girl shaving her armpit in Nottinghill Gate ( her name was Victoria ), breaking a tooth on a baguette at the Kensington restaurant, and meeting Osama Bin Laden's brother at an apartment behind Harrods. I jumped on the train at the High Street and proceeded to Parsons Green. The Fulham bus carried me across the Thames into Putney. Dusk was thickening into darkness. I thought about calling my godson for directions, but I am a man and preferred to rely on semi-intact brain cells and opted for a bus traveling along the Lower Richmond Road.

There is no such thing as bad luck in a situation like this, only bad choices.

I was lost within three minutes and couldn't remember the street name of my destination. My Luxembourg SIM card wasn't operating in England, but I was able to vampire a phone call from a perfect stranger. My godson muttered a swear. I was supposed to be on the Upper Richmond Road. It wasn't a huge mistake like Columbus thinking his discovery was the fabled isles of the Indies, but righting my direction required some trans-navigational re-interpretation of advice from the bus driver.

30 minutes later I was sitting with my godson, drinking a beer.

The house was warm and we were cooking steaks.

It was good to be back in London.

Back In The Smoke

Last week I arrived in the UK for a tour of London. It had been over 10 years since my last visit and my friends sought my presence like I was the only ecstasy dealer at a Berlin Rave. Saturday night a teenage party on Edgeware Road with my godson. There was no way I was taking a bus to Putney at 2 in the morning. I shut the door to a vacant bedroom and crashed out to the shouts of loud youth. Next morning I woke and took the 320 bus to Putney. I arrived at my friend Sara's home. MY afternoon was spend resting and that evening she, me, and her boyfriend went to a dinner nearby. Bangers and mashed. Beer and wine. My head on the pillow before 10, because the next day I was watching early to watch the stags joust with furry antlers in Richmond Park. Oh joy. My apologies for disappearing. I will be back tomorrow in full form. With an explanation too. Peter Nolan Smith

No More Zrooom

Facebook put the following poll on its site. Toyota Research Poll Do you believe that Toyota can make the world a better place by sharing its technology? 30% Yes 25% No 11% Not sure 32% Not aware of Toyota's technology sharing. Your response will be kept anonymous. I voted NO since cars are a thing of the past. But I've been wrong before. Disco for example. I was dancing to YMCA at an RAF Gala. Quelle blasphemy!

Hell No We Won't Go

"Hell, no, we won't go." This famous chant of the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era has been reincarnated by the Occupy Wall Street protestors in Lower Manhattan. Mayor Bloomberg had announced plans to vacate the park for cleaning and the eventual re-occupation of the property. No one believed the lying rich bastard and the owners of the park backed down from the proposed cleaning after more demonstrators flocked into the park to prevent the eviction. Park ordinances have been waived for the duration of the truce between Brookfield Properties and the squatters. City councillors have backed the occupation to show the major that his 3rd term means nothing to New Yorkers on conscience. Zucotti Park was once called Liberty Plaza Park. The space was created by United States Steel in return for a height bonus in 1968. The new name is in honor of the owner of Brookfield Properties. Like all rich men he doesn't want any trouble that will cost him. "Hell, no, we won't go." ps Fuck Mayor Bloomberg.

Burn Credit Card Burn

In the 60s we burned our draft cards. Now it's time to burn our credit cards. Hit the banks where it hurt. And re-connected with the end the war non-movement. ‎2 trillion and hundreds of thousand dead. And america says pass me the potato chips. They burn as good as credit cards.

Wait Till Next Year

When I left America in early September, the Boston Red Sox seemed destined to finish first in the American League East or show up in the AL playoffs as the wildcard. They ended the month with a record 7-21 allowing Tampa Bay to replace them in baseball's October classics. The Red Sox Nation have experienced numerous debacles such as the unexpected homer by the Yankee's Bucky Dent's homer in 1975 and Bill Buckner's error against the Mets in 1986, but this year's agony lasted a month. It all came down to two games. Red Sox versus the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees versus the T-Rays. Late innings had the Bosox with a 3-2 lead with two outs and the Yankees goose-egging the T-Rays 7-0. Our star relief pitcher gave a double to a batter with a 0-6 lifetime against him. An expensive acquisition from Tamp Bay blew a difficult ball to the outfield.. 4-3 W Orioles. And the T-Rays came back from 7-0 to win. Arrrgggh! Thankfully I was thousands of miles away across an ocean, but after an epic collapse such as that I can't even bring myself to say, "Wait till next year." How am I going to break this news to my 3 year-old son? His name is Fenway. Is ti too late to change it to Bobby Orr?

Two Horses' Asses Wide

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. This gauge was used because that's the way they built them in England and English expatriates designed the US railroads. They English build them like that, because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways. Those people used that gauge then, because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing and wagons had that particular spacing, because any other gauge other than those used on the long-distance roads would break the wagon wheels. Imperial Rome built those long distance roads in Europe for their legions and the ruts in those roads were formed by Roman wagons and war chariots, therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process, and wonder, 'What horse's ass came up with this?', just remember that Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. The more things change the more they stay the same. This information thanks to the the nymph of Palm Beach. Her ass is much smaller than that of a horse or even a pony.

WOMEN'S ENGLISH / MEN'S ENGLISH

WOMEN'S ENGLISH Yes = No

No = Yes

Maybe = No

We need = I want

I'm sorry = You'll be sorry

We need to talk = You're in trouble

Sure, go ahead = You better not

Do what you want = You'll pay for this later

I'm not upset = Of course I'm upset, you moron

You're very attentive tonight = Is sex all you think about?

MEN'S ENGLISH

I'm hungry = I'm hungry

I'm sleepy = I'm sleepy

I'm tired = I'm tired

Nice dress = Nice cleavage

I love you = Let's have sex right now

I'm bored = I'd like to have sex with you

May I have this dance = I'd like to have sex with you

Can I call you some time = I'd like to have sex with you

Do you want to see a movie = I'd like to have sex with you

Can I take you out to dinner = I'd like to have sex with you

Those shoes don't go with your dress = I'm gay

This lesson in political incorrectness comes from the ever-popular Nick Tottenham ex of Pattaya.

Thanks wanker.

Lady Words That Men Don't Know or Use

JFK was reputed to be the fastest speaker in the English language. Whereas expert typists can tap out 120 words per minute, JFK could string over 300 words in a minute.

JFK is the recognized champ, however my fast-talking mother could have whipped the Boston-bred president like a red-headed step-child, mostly because women have a larger everyday lexicon than men.

16,215 versus men's 15,669.

Feeling has to be one of them.

Men only say that word singing the song FEELINGS.

Here's a sampling of words listed by The Magazine which will never cross our lips.

Book club: A female dominated affair, perhaps because women read more fiction, or perhaps because men aren't very good at talking about it.

Accessorize: If men were ever to use this word it would only be in the context of cars.

Empowering: Men never use this word, perhaps because for the 200,000 years humans have been on the planet, men have had all the power.

Burlesque: Something involving strip-tease that can apparently involve the above.

Size zero.

Home birth.

Pilates: Men in the UK, particularly, seem to have no interest in building up their core strength.

Pomegranate: Men seem ill-equipped to understand the significance and full range of superfoods.

Absolutely beautiful: The words women often use to describe friends who are not.

Breastfeeding.

Emotional intelligence: Something that men usually do not possess, instead preferring the kind of intelligence that involves dates of battles.

What are you thinking?: The classic female condition check.

Feminism: If even veteran feminists can't agree on what this means then it's probably best avoided by men.

Airbrushing: The process by which magazine picture editors oppress women in an underhand way.

Babies.

Superwoman.

Why: As in "why do you never call?" Now that I think of it, JFK never used any of these words, because he was a real man. Just don't tell my wife I said that.

SUNNY by Bobby Hebb

Bobby Hebb's SUNNY was a massive hit during the summer of 1966. I sang it to a beautiful blonde 13 year-old girl on a Cape Cod beach. We stood barefoot in the sand. Sally had blonde hair. The sun was setting into the sea. It was the last week of August. Tomorrow the weekly vacationeers headed home. I was one of them. "Are you going to kiss me?" She closed her lips. I had a girlfriend. Kyla expected me to be faithful. I shut my eyes and pretended the lips were hers. The name in my head belonged to neither Sally nor Kyla, because the words of a song were too strong to deny. "Sunny, thanks for being so true." I never saw Sally again, but each time I hear the song SUNNY I can feel the sand between my toes. Here's the URL for SUNNY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82-vs3Ga2-U&feature=share 1966 redux. The other day Peter Crowley send the YouTube link to SUNNY along with a Wikipedia excerpt; "On the same day that JFK was assassinated in November of 1963, Bobby Hebb's older brother Harold was killed in a knife fight in Nashville, Tn. Devastated by the tragic events, Bobby wrote "Sunny" in the spirit of keeping a better disposition. Interestingly though, he did not immediately record the song. A Japanese artist named Miko Hirota who was very popular in Japan recorded it first, and she did quite well with it there. Bobby finally recorded his own version of it in 1966 and the song became a monster hit in the U.S. peaking at #2 that summer." Bobby Hebb reputed this myth by saying that he had been comforted by the music of Gerald Wilson's LP YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT. "All my intentions were just to think of happier times – basically looking for a brighter day – because times were at a low tide. After I wrote it, I thought "Sunny" just might be a different approach to what Johnny Bragg was talking about in "Just Walkin' in the Rain." I was unfamiliar with that jazz trumpeter and listened to several of his tracks. None were from YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT, but they epitomized cool. Having lost my baby brother in 1995, I know the power of music. It's as strong as the power of love. "Sunny, you're so true." To hear BLUES FOR YENYA by Gerald Wilson please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgzepsWGSns

A MEAN OLD MAN / Bet on Crazy by Peter Nolan Smith

This summer our Israeli landlords on West 47th Street were squeezing every commercial cent from their property. Contractors reconstructed the entrance to create space for another diamond store along the facade. The new owners are longtime dealers in the Diamond District. I put on my suit jacket and Manny, my boss, asked, "Where are you going?"

"Next door to offer the new guys my best wishes." I believed in the goodness of humanity. "Don't you have anything better to do?" Manny meant like making him money. "No." It was slow this time of the morning.

"What happens if they're not lucky. They'll blame it on the goy. Better you than me." Manny came from the old school of the Bowery. Trust no one and don’t spend the money until the check clears were the eighty year-old's two favorite mantras. Time has proven the wisdom of each adages more than once.

"That may be true, but it's a good neighbor policy." I dealt with everyone on the street. The merchants hailed from every corner of the earth and sold an unbelievable array of gems and jewelry. Richie and I spoke them all, because one can own everything. "Good neighbor. You think this is the suburbs?" "No, but its' a lice gesture." "Nice, schmice. It's a waste of time." At his age time could be counted on fingers and Manny returned to shuffling the papers on his desk.

"Talk about a waste of time, if we had online banking, you would only have to spent 20 minutes a day on those papers.

"I like papers." Manny resisted every attempt to modernize the business. Chaos protected him from having to pay his memos on time. "Those people next door. They'll never be a good neighbor. They're trying to steal money out of your kids' pockets." "You don't even know them." "I don't have to. Its every man for himself on this street."

Good attitude." I was used to his negativism and exited from the exchange without a backward glance. I would have kept going to the subway, except tomorrow was payday and I wanted a full week's wages. I had four kids. That made me smile and I looked up at the sky.

It was a sunny day.

A customer was coming later in the day. She had gold to sell. My commish would pay off the last debt of my wife in Thailand. I knocked on the glass window of the new store. The two young owners waved me inside. Its decor was standard clean lines with bright lighting unlike the yellowing lights of our exchange. Their diamonds sparkled white.

"Congratulations and good luck."

"Good luck depends on God," the younger brother said with uplifted eyes.

Good luck depends on good decision." Bad luck was determined mostly by bad decisions.

"And not God?" The younger brother frowned with disapproval. He was good-looking for his age. Both of them dressed with style.

"If God grants you good luck, sie gesund." I had no argument with people's beliefs.

"Are you religious?"His question sought out my faith.

"I am a shabbath sheygutz. A goy. I was baptized a Catholic, but now I'm a non-believer."

My atheism dated back to Vatican II. The Mass in English exorcised the magic out of the Old Religion.

"I believe more in luck. Hard work too, for luck is 95% hard work and 5% being in the right place to take advantage of the hard work."

"Yes, but God has a hand in our luck." The younger brother was not Hassidic. He didn't wear a yamulke either. They were the new wave of Jews from Central Asia. They liked fast cars and young wives. None of them were Hassidim.

"For you."I was loyal to my conviction, but didn't want a fight over a god in robes. "I just came over here to wish you good luck."

"Good luck from God." He wasn't compromising on his dogma.

"Good luck or God luck. It's only one letter difference. Sometime neither does you any good. Twenty years ago we were across the street." The year was 1991. "A nice spot. Always good to have your own entrance.

"I liked it too."

That store supported my travels in Asia for 15 years.

"Anyway one winter day the glass door shatters. Maybe it was too cold. We swept away the glass and I said to Manny that we have to close. Snow was falling and the temperature was well below freezing. Manny told me if I wanted to go home, then I would only get paid a half day. I cursed his meanness and sat next to the store's only electric heater. Manny wanted it, but I wasn’t giving the old bastard anything. Even with the heater my feet and fingers were losing sensation. I was about to walk out the door, when a black man entered the store wearing gang colors. Delroy was from Detroit. I knew him from the clubs. He had a roll of cash in his hand. "I need something for $80,000." I sold Delroy everything I showed him. My commish came to over $2000 and later I realized that this sale had nothing to do with luck or god. It had to do with the meanness of an old man."

"Your boss." The older brother understood the connection. He wasn't a friend of Manny, but then again Manny thought everyone was a piece of shit.

"And worse was that I had to tell him that he was right not to close the store. So good luck." The younger brother smiled with the irony.

"And God bless you." The older brother and I shook hands.

"You know how it is on this street and everywhere else in the world."

I returned to my store. Manny looked at his watch. I had been gone ten minutes.

"How long does it take to say good luck?"

"That's a good question." I had never heard Manny wish anyone 'good luck. I sat down at my desk. Manny waited for several seconds for my explanation, then realized that I wasn't going to give him an answer.

"You are trying my patience." Manny was shuffling his papers like a blackjack dealer. The house was winning either.

"Manny, you don't have any patience." I sat at my desk and his head disappeared under the pile of bills, invoices, and memos.

"I'm a boss. No one pays us for that." Manny had been a boss for over 50 years.

"Believe me I know." I had had my own business and it had failed three years ago.

Manny muttered under his breath about 'pieces of shit'. They were not connected to a pirate chest of pieces of eight. I had a lot to learn from him, because while Manny was a mean old bastard, he was my mean old bastard.

And neither luck nor God had anything to do with a piece of shit. They just are.

Okie City Sex Avenger

Anita Bryant, former Miss America and Orange Juice spokeswoman, campaigned with a vengeance to pass a 1977 anti-gay adoption measure in Florida. Her ceaseless efforts proved successful and the ban went into effect for over 30 years. Encouraged by her triumph Anita nationwided her attacks on gays and lesbians, but met with defeat with even President Reagan coming out against her discriminatory proposals. Later in Iowa she was subjected to a pie in her face by a gay activist.

Anita instantly quipped,”At least it’s not a fruit pie.” and then beseeched her attacker to repent from his ways of sin.

The nation rejected her campaign and she was ousted from her job for the Florida Citrus Commission and her marriage failed due to pressure from her fundamentalist husband. Her attempt to recoup her losses through music ended in bankruptcy and she retreated to Oklahoma City to lick her wounds.

The capitol of the Sooner State appealed to Anita Bryant mainly because over half the population are registered as Evangelists and nearby Tulsa is heralded as a major buckle of the Bible Belt. Religion grasps the faithful with heartfelt devotion, but Oklahoma City has earned a more wicked reputation for rampant prostitution of South Robinson, three strip clubs, and a widespread swinger’s scene.

The city court responded to the uprise in sin by seizing all videos of the Oscar-winning German film THE TIN DRUM on the grounds that any sex scene with a minor is both obscene and a crime. The judge explained his decision by saying,

"The police brought me by a movie with one scene. The scene involved what appeared to be a young boy about 6 or 7 and he was having oral sex with a girl who was about 16 in a bath house. By definition of our criminal code, if anyone under 18 or anyone portraying someone under 18 is having sex, it is by definition obscene.”

Street prostitution has proven harder to combat, but a video vigilante has taken on johns, pimps, and hookers with his camera by unmasking their wanton ways on his website. Brian Bates aka the Video Vigilante has posted hundreds of bushwhacking VDOs on YouTube to fight the sex trade on old Highway 77. This do-gooder goes the distance by dropping a VDO to the offender’s house and informing their girlfriends or wives of the sin living under their roof.

His fervor got him in trouble, as he was arrested in 2008 for soliciting prostitutes to bring johns to a locale better suited for his video sniping.

Some consider him a hero or others call Bates a villain.

I have another word for him.

Snitch and the Bowery Boys never hung out with a dirty rat.

Me neither.

When a man takes justice into his own hands, his greatest danger is that he get caught jerking off - James Steele

ps Bates recorded a pimp sending a teenage hooker to sell her flesh. He caught it on his video. Isn't that obscene according to the judge involved in THE TIN DRUM case?

Anita Bryant would know the truth.

She believes in God.

Only 40%

Millions of foreigners will come to the Philippines every year. The government promotes festivals celebrating religious, animist, and modern tradition to appeal to the diverse tastes of different nationalities with the Cebu City’s Sinulog Festival kicking off the calendar of celebrations in January. year. The archipelego’s many attractions appeal to tourists, because of their historical significance or natural beauty. Manila’s old walled city and hot nightlife are counter-balanced by the beaches of Borocay, Aklan and Palawan, diving at the 100 islands, the eye-soothing symmetry of the Banaue rice terraces, the stunning vista from Taal Volcano, and the diverse biosphere’s of Mount Apo. This week the island nation received a surprising evaluation of its tourist market from the American ambassador, when the long-time diplomat stated that the main purpose of 40% of the male arrivals in the Philippines was sex.

The ambassador’s word created an outrage and the harlem native was fast to apologize for his off-the-cuff comment at a conference on human trafficking. His missive via text was met by scorn by the Philippine press and guffaws from the local and foreign sex tourists seeking the services of the 800,000 women working the brothels, karaoke bars, massage parlors, streets, and go-go across the country, despite its illegality. The money earned by these workers support numerous families, lazy boyfriends and husbands as well as provide a good income for the under-educated female population. Few revel in sin, but men being men don’t care about the feelings of women when it comes to sex no matter what number of male tourists come to the Philippines for the business of pleasure.

The ambassador also said at last month’s conference that he was not proud of his countrymen making up a large percentage of the sex tourists. I have never been to the Philippines, but many farangs voyage from Thailand for a change. They are not seeking such culinary delights as echon, mechado, or crispy pata or deep-fried pig foot.
Sex is the drug, because there is none in the western world.

Not for the unfuckable.

Western men live for a dream and who can blame them with all the fat women in the West.

Stop easting potato chips, you buffalo ladies of Europe and America. It's time to save the souls of your mankind. The end of the world is around the corner in 2012 and a guilty conscience lasts a long time in eternity..

Worthless Billionaire BackLash

Thousands of demonstrators have been protesting against the banks and the rich in New York. The NYPD outstepped the boundaries of ‘to serve and protect’ during the first rally by beating and tear-gassing women. Arrests for civil disobedience climbed into the hundreds, as the anti-rich mob was directed onto the Brooklyn Bridge by white-shirted NYPD police officers. These two events served as a waking call to the sleeping rebelliousness of the young, disenfranchised, union workers, and those angered by the ‘let them drink piss’ attitude of the wealthy and their Wall Street lackeys. The media ignored the disturbances for a good week. CNN and Fox News typically ridiculed the outburst against the ruination of America’s economy for the sake of corporate bonuses as the rantings from the radical fringe. The numbers increased with each passing day and New York’s billionaire mayor has criticized the protests with all the vitriol of an outraged czar. "What they're trying to do is take the jobs away from people working in this city. They're trying to take away the tax base we have because none of this is good for tourism. If the jobs they are trying to get rid of in this city -- the people that work in finance, which is a big part of our economy -- we're not going to have any money to pay our municipal employees or clean the blocks or anything else." Mayor Bloomberg is on the wrong side of the argument. The reason the city doesn’t have money for pay for its schools, bridges, parks, police et al is not the fault of a few thousands protestors, but the direct result of kowtowing to the finance industry. They pay little taxes into the city coffers and then expect the federal government to bail them out when they rolled craps at the casino they called the stock market. As always I only have two words for Mayor Bloomberg. “Fuck you.” And I really mean it.

When Humor Had Class

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." “ Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.“ Winston Churchill

A modest little person, with much to be modest about.“ Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."“ William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?“ Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.“ Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.“ Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.“ Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.“ Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend. if you have one.“ George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second¦ if there is one.“ Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.“ Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator.“ John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.“ Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."“ Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.“ Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.“ Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."“ Thomas Brackett Reed

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.“ Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.“ Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?“ Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.“ Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.“ Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts¦ for support rather than illumination.“ Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music.“ Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.“ Groucho Marx

Thai Perfection or Lák-sà-ná têe dee próm

The standard joke about the perfect western girlfriend is her father owned a pub, she’s 3' 4"; with a flat head so you can put your beer on her.

Few girls answer those simple needs, but in Thailand it is more than likely that your girlfriend’s father is distilling moonshine lao khao or rice whiskey, she’s 5-3, and there is no way any Thai will let you mess with their head even if it’s flat.

So what qualities make up the perfect Thai girlfriend?

I googled ‘perfect thai girlfriend’ and the search engine came up with over 870,000 results.

The late mangosauce’s contribution was his reverse alchemy factor where a Thai girlfriend can turn gold into a base metal. His comment was funny, but it was more a warning shot over the bow than a helpful hint as to what pluses might answer a farang’s fondest desires.

Thailovelinks.com promises the perfect Thai girlfriend on their website.

The girl on the home page seemed right for me, but she’s nowhere to be found within their promo pages, plus my attraction was only physical. Being near-sighted I don’t need a beauty queen. Pretty yes, but I don’t want to fight duels over the perfect Thai girlfriend every other farang wants. The next website was asiastreetmeat.com.

No one is looking for girlfriends here.

Only girlfiends who serve the purpose of lust.

I’ve had several Thai girlfriends. Everyone of them was nice, until they weren’t nice and I made up my own list for the perfect Thai girlfriend.

No tattoos / especially if it’s a heart with a name scratched out.

Minimal to zero English / Not long on the bar scene.

No cigarettes or drinking / nasty habits in a woman, but makes for a good bloke.

Dead Thai boyfriend / hopefully by a meteorite to the head so everyone would be scare shitless at the mention of his name.

No children / Mam and I have three. Fenway, Fluke, and Noi. I can deal with that number. Four too. But I’m very happy with three.

No internet skills / Dead give-away of a foreign boyfriend, who strangely shows up when you are leaving town. “Not worry, he only friend.”

No Gold necklaces / Another indication of sucker boyfriend, although we have to defer to mangosauce’s theory of reverse alchemy. Diamonds to ashes.

Your first date shouldn't be a short-time from Soi 6 although there no more blinding passion than lust at first sight.

And penultimately of all no slash marks across the wrists, which are the warning sign of a true dangerous maniac. Also great sex.

She also has to be beautiful, funny, and loving.

Needless to say no such creature exists in Thailand or America or the rest of the world, because no one is perfect.

Not now.

Not ever.

Charles de Talleyrand manipulated kings, emperors, and statesmen during the 18th Century. This powerful eminence gris had been in love with the most beautiful and erudite woman of the Paris salons. The haute-class courtesan ditched him for a captain in the Swiss Guards, who was supposedly gay. Being smart she needed a challenge. Talleyrand was broken-hearted, but his friends and critics were shocked by his marriage to the daughter of country gentry, until he confessed, “One must have loved a genius to appreciate the love of a fool.”

And I’m no different.

No matter what qualities I admire in a woman they will be never enough to satisfy my dreams, so we have to be content with what we get, because as the great philosopher MICK JAGGER said, “You can always get what you want, but if you try some time you might end up with what you need.”

Deviant Londoners would love to see Mr. Jimmy, except the Chelsea Drugstore is a Mickey D. fast food chain instead of a nihilistic heroin connection as featured in the movie CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

Nothing is sacred anymore, especially the profane.

Shakespeare 101

The middle-aged male teacher had been hitting on a pretty female student. He thought she was a little stupid and during class asked her, "Name three plays by Shakespeare." The blonde co-ed thought about it a few seconds and then replied wisely, "4 inches, 8 inches and 12 inches." "What's that supposed to mean?" The professor smirked like he had caught her naked. "Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream." Not all blondes are stupid. Special thanks once more to Sam Royalle of Pattaya. He has kept his humor when many of those around him have lost theirs, then again they never had one to begin with.

Mipples For Moobs

“I’m like the Acropolis. In a state of ruins, but you can tell at one time I must have been splendid.” David Tidball said more than twenty years ago.

The English painter was describing himself, but I have quoted his words on many occasions to Americans without a single reply.

I attribute their lack of response to an absolute ignorance of classical ruins, for my fellow countrymen have a limited scope of history, except for sporting events.

27% of my countrymen have no idea what year the WTC collapsed in flames, so why should they remember a stack of carved stone atop a Greek hill?

No reason, but my body has lost its resemblance to a glorious marble statue of antiquity. The six-pack abs are a plastic sac of beer gut. My tight buns are sagging like melted cheese and worst my chest has ceased to be a chest. It’s man boob territory. My friends mocked my decrepitude. Women envy my 38 C Cups. I have shaved them to enhance their beauty, but I have come to see that they are missing an essential accessory.

Cigar-sized nipples.

I need an operation to enlarge them or get transplants from well-teethed teats.

The ridicule of my moobs would end the instant that I took off my shirt at the beach.

The critics would be stunned to silence by the sight of mipples hanging from my moobs like strangled worms. They will avert their gaze, except for those those possessing twisted minds, because when the weird get weirder, things get out of control and while my ruination might rival the neglected Maya pyramids of Tikal, mipples on moobs will resurrect the dead.

The photo is the glory that was 256 East 10th Street – 1978.

RIP Steve Jobs / 1950 Something - Now

Steve Jobs came out with a box-ready computer and changed the world. His public adored how he touched their lives. The outpouring has been extraordinary, but Sam Royalle of Pattaya had a good question to pose the people at Apple. "Has anybody at Apple checked if Steve Jobs isn't on Airplane Mode?"

For The Love Of Hockey

My paternal grandfather had a saying about the seasons in Maine.

"There are two seasons up here; winter and preparing for winter."

My early childhood contradicted this adage, for my five year-old senses recognized a very short and wet spring followed by a little longer and slightly warmer summer capped by a short and wet autumn before a very long and cold winter. Whenever I mentioned this to my father, he would correct my theorem by saying, "Spring, summer, and fall exist, but only as a time for battening down the hatches for winter."

My mother was from Boston. The distance from Falmouth Foresides to the Charles River was a little more than 90 miles. The difference in climate was immense. Winter continued into April and started in earnest the beginning of November. She dreamed of swimming at Nantasket Beach. The water temperature at Old Orchard Beach rarely rose over 60. My mother had her own comment on the Maine weather.

"There are only two seasons; winter and August."

My older brother and I knew winter was coming by my mother having us try on the previous year's snow clothing. He and I were the same size. We never got hand-me-downs. Every year my mother was disappointed by our steady growth.

Benoit's Department Store had a sale in mid-November. My mother waited for that day and drove across the Back Cove Bridge into Portland. She had five kids. My sisters got pretty coats and galoshes. My baby brother two snow suits. My older brother were given matching outfits. My mother liked passing us off as Irish twins. My eyes were more blue.

The savings was appreciated by my father.

Once the temperature dropped below freezing, he would construct an ice rink from long 2 by 10 planks. We played hockey from the minute that we arrive home from school to after dark. The Boston Bruins were our team. I listened to their games on the radio. The Chief, Johnny Bucyk, was my favorite player.

I dreamed about playing in Boston Garden. My father's attempt to teach me how to skate backwards was cut short by his tripping on the backyard rink's uneven ice. Blood gushed from a jagged gash. I never got the hang of skating in reverse. This failing didn't prevent my playing pond hockey or celebrating the Bruins' Stanley Cup victories in 1969 and 1971. Their theme song was NUTTY, but as Ranger's defenseman Brad Park said, "Bobby Orr was—didn't make—the difference"

The owners' dismantling of the Big Bad Bruins sent the team into a hockey purgatory. The fucking Canadians beat them in the finals in 1978 and 1979. I was living in New York. Two days before Xmas 1979 a Rangers fan stole a Bruin's hockey stick at the end of the game. The team charged into the stands and I cheered every punch. It was a lonely town to be a Bruins fan.

My Aunt Jane had moved to New York in the early 60s. Her husband retired from the Merchant Marines and bought three tenements on East 11th Street. Carmine earned good money as a plumber on the Lower East Side. Landlords called him to right violations. The two of us did some business together. We never told anyone what. The cigar-chomping curmudgeon loved his wife for putting up with his idiosyncrasies and bought her season tickets to the Rangers in 1987.

Aunt Jane had attended U Maine. My alumni was a rival of the Black Bears, but we shared our love for the Bruins and hockey.

"The only way you're going to Madison Square Garden is if you accompany me to the opera." Jane came from Columbia Falls. She called it the last place God created before he had his rest. They grew people tough that far Down East.

"The opera." Opera was theater with screaming fat people on stage. It hurt my ears.

"Yes, opera. You don't get to see the Beast unless you sit through the Beauty." Jane drove a hard bargain. Her husband Carmine had nothing to do with opera. He was a a jazz man.

"I've never seen an opera." CBGBs had been my La Scala during the late 70s.

"Not Jesus Christ Superstar?"

"I'm an atheist." The Red Sox had tested my faith early and I had failed the final.

"Tommy?" Jane was a decade younger than me. She had been a hippie, which was another shared brick in our heritage.

"Rock opera's different?" I knew every word to The Who's opus of a blind pinball player. "It has soul."

"And so does Carmen." The heavy-set Maine native held up tickets in both hands. The left two were for Lincoln Center and the right pair were seats for the Bruins-Rangers. Raymond Bourque and Cam Neely had transformed my hometown team into a Stanley Cup threat. The Rangers had been exiled from since 1940. They sucked and their fans were even worse, but Jane's tickets were good seats.

"Count me in." Five rows from the ice was an easy sell.

"The opera too." Jane wasn't one to let his fish wiggle off the hook.

"Carmen." Somehow I knew the opera was about a cigar. They were Uncle Carmine's favorite vice.

A week later Jane and I taxied uptown to Lincoln Center. The Upper West Side was terra incognito for the denizens of the Lower East Side. I had worn a suit for the occasion. Aunt Jane proudly entered the red and gold auditorium, as if I were a gigolo. She waved to her fellow affectionados. Our seats were dead-center in the second-tier balcony. I examined our fellow opera lovers.

At 34 I was one of the youngest men in the audience.

I liked that.

"See if isn't so bad." Jane smiled with contentment. She was with her nephew at the opera.

"Ask me in 30 minutes." I resisted any sign of pleasure. I was a punk, not a fat lady fan.

"Sssssh."

The curtain parted on the stage and two seconds I was transported to Seville, Spain 1820. Carmen was a bitch. The fat lady playing Carmen fucked with the stupid love-smitten corporal. I sympathized with his throwing everything away for her love. I had done the same on more than one occasion and if Aunt Jane hadn't stopped me, I would have jumped to my feet, when Don Jose killed Carmen for betraying his love.

"Not bad?" Jane applauded softly with gloved hands.

"Good. Not bad." I answered from my standing ovation. I was a convert. "Count me in."

"I knew I would."

A week later Carmine drove Aunt Jane and me to MSG.

"Don't do anything stupid." Carmine had frisked me before getting into his modified station wagon.

I was clean to his touch.

"I'll be a good boy." I was wearing a black leather jacket and heavy boots. My gloves had pennies stitched into the knuckles. Three of them taped together packed a good punch.

"Just remember it's only a game." Jane waved good-bye and the station wagon roared up 8th Avenue. Carmine was heading up to Charley's Soul Kitchen in Harlem. He liked their fried chicken.

We walked into the arena with thousands of Rangers fan. They hated the Bruins, but their real enemies were the Devils and Islanders. A flutist played POTVIN SUCKS. I hadn't been to an NHL came in years. We stood above the ice and I thought about my father's rink in the backyard.

"Fucking hockey."

"Damn right." Jane clapped my back. Women from Columbia Falls liked a good swear.

Sadly the Rangers bettered the Bruins on the ice. The fans nearest us were familiar with Aunt Jane's ties to Boston and assailed her with light-hearted ribs. I almost changed my opinion about Ranger fans.

The two seats next to me were empty, until the 3rd period. Two drunken yahoos from the upper decks commandeered the seats. I said nothing, since liberating the good seats was an honored tradition at sporting events, but the one closest to me caught my accent.

"Boston sucks." He was in his 30s and wearing a toupee.

"Tonight, but not all season." They were 2nd in their division.

"Boston sucks." Rogaine had failed to cure his baldness and his rug was slipping off his head.

"Keep it clean." Aunt Jane sensed the water boiling in my pot. Her hand clasped mine. The message was to let it go.

"Don't tell me what to do, old lady." He smelled of Budweiser. It was a cheap beer for the masses. They didn't sell it at Lincoln Center.

"Old?" The word body-checked Jane harder than 'fuck'.

"Old like Gerry Cheevers." The rug-wearer knew his hockey. His friend laughed at his quip. The bald guy never saw me flick the gloves.

I heard a ring when the wrapped pennies stuck his temple. He was out cold. Jane covered her mouth. Her smile was too wide for her fingers, even though the Bruins were losing 4-2.

Outside in the winter air Jane asked, "So what is better? Hockey or opera?"

"The crowd is better at the opera."

"And hockey."

"Hockey is hockey." I shrugged and pointed to Carmine's station wagon.

Inside the car he asked if we had a good time.

"The Bruins lost, but we had to good time." Jane patted his hand. He loved him more than hockey.

"No trouble." He looked at me in the rear view mirror.

"Hey, it's only a game." I put my gloves in my pocket.

"Only a game?" Carmine didn't believe me, but he didn't know anything about hockey otherwise he would have known that Kate Smith sang at the beginning of the Philadelphia Flyers games and nothing ever starts until the fat lady sings.

Not in hockey and most certainly not in opera.