Oneness

I am not one with the universe. I am many. - James Steele

Auld Lang Syne

2012 will come to an end this evening. 2013 has already dawned on my young family in Thailand. Seven hours remain in 2012 at the Fort Greene Observatory. Darkness lay heavy over the borough of Brooklyn and a bottle of Riesling stands on my desk as my passport to the new year. Tonight I will celebrate the final moments of the year with my friends at Frank's Lounge. It should be a festive occasion and I doubt that we shall sing AULD LANG SYNE at tock of midnight. Robert Burns wrote the Scottish lyrics in 1788, although the song dated back into times unknown as a traditional folk song according to Wikipedia. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne? CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne. And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp! and surely I’ll be mine! And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne. CHORUS We twa hae run about the braes, and pu’d the gowans fine ; But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit, sin auld lang syne. CHORUS We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn, frae morning sun till dine ; But seas between us braid hae roar’d sin auld lang syne. CHORUS And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere ! and gie's a hand o’ thine ! And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught, for auld lang syne. CHORUS James Steele's version is more cheerful; Old acquaintances are not forgotten, and will always be brought to mind? We should always speak of gone, For without them there is no Auld Lang Syne. CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my Comrades, For auld lang syne indeed, A shot of tequila and a beer chaser For Auld Lang Syne, my Comrades. And another for the new year. It's good for you and all of us. And one more before we go insane For Auld Lang Syne, Comrades.

Chestnut Mare You GOP Fuckheads

For the past months the media with the help of the GOP fuckheads have been fear-mongering about the US government falling over a fiscal cliff on January 1. 2013. On that date the Bush tax cuts will die and unemployment benefits will cease. President Obama has offered compromise after compromise to the Republican Congressional Representatives without their leaders responding with a counter-offer. Doom is upon us according to CNN, ABC, CBS, and Fox News. Except the vast majority of the American public were thrown over a cliff years ago by the GOP, so I say to both sides of the floor in Congress, "C'mon down. The water is fine." And ten we can sing the Byrds' CHESTNUT MARE together. And we were falling down this crevice, about a mile down I'd say! I look down and I see this red thing below us Comin' up real fast and it's our reflection in a little pool of water About six feet wide, and one foot deep Crawling down right through it We hit and we splashed it dry That's when I lost my hold and she got away But I'm gonna' try to get her again some day. Yeah, ride 'em, cowboy or cowgirl.

Wounded Knee

The Wounded Knee Massacre, South Dakota, 29 December 1890 Lest we forget whence we came to be who we are.

SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN / Johnny Cash

LET THE WORDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

To hear SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN / Johnny Cash please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E824r7KrVPw&feature=related

Sunny Cold And Loud

Last night I went to bed at a decent hour. My eyes closed reading AMERICAN TABLOID by James Ellroy. He really hated the Kennedys and I dreamed about my meeting RFK at the Lower Mills trolley stop in 1966. JFK's younger brother shook my hand with the a reincarnated firmness. I attempted to warn him about the gunman in the LA hotel, but a pounding noise disrupted my Sunday morning slumber. The thumping came from the construction of a condo a good ten blocks from the Fort Greene Observatory. I checked my telephone for the time. 7:01. The contractors had their workers at it early probably to catch up on a yesterday lost to snow and rain. I looked out the window. This morning's sky was blue with wispy clouds. I hadn't turned on the heat. My bedroom was cool, although I couldn't see my breath. The work crews on the condo wouldn't be so lucky and I hoped that they were getting double overtime and buried myself in my pillows, hoping to regain contact with RFK. He was still back there in my dreams.

Modern Forever

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue to be the crown jewel of corporate modernism and the 38-story skyscraper has withstood the architectural assault of time. Last week I was walking past 375. My eyes were drawn into the granite plaza and my gaze rose up the steel and glass tower in awe of its spare aesthetics. At the time of its completion the Seagram Building was the most expensive office tower in America and that money continues to show the beauty of modern forever. Fotos by Peter Nolan Smith

Au Revoir Les Quebecoises

Christmas trees appeared in Fort Greene the day after Thanksgiving and the pine aroma of the Northern Woods permeated the corner of Lafayette and South Elliot for the weeks leading up to Christmas. The two young people selling the trees were from Quebec and I greeted them each day with a 'bonjour'. Amy and Vincent hailed me on my return at night with a 'bon soir' from their spruce and balsam forest. They were amused by my ability to speak French and I gave each of them gifts of warm clothing throughout their stay on the corner; radio to share, a white scarf and cashmere jacket for Amy, and Yoji trousers for Vincent. I had found them on the street. South Oxford between Lafayette and DeKalb was a rich block. Last Sunday night the two of them announced their impending departure for their village south of the mighty St. Lawrence. I returned to their depleted stand with a bottle of wine. They were delighted by this last gift and we drank to each other's health. Christmas Eve I spent at my doctor's house on Staten Island. The next morning I arrived back in Fort Greene. Amy, Vincent, and the trees were gone as was the scent of pine. But they'll be back next year and with luck I'll greet them with a bon jour.

Snow, Rain or Ice

New York was spared a White Christmas for the holiday, but weathermen predicted a winter storm due for this weekend. I woke early in the Fort Greene Observatory. The skyline over the brownstones promised to back up their report. Within an hour snowflakes swirled in the air and I touched the window. It was cold to my fingertips and I pulled on my heavy-duty clothing for a walk to Ralph's Meats on Lafayette. Opening the front door I was disappointed to see that the snow had turned to an icy rain. Puddles formed on the sidewalk and umbrellas shielded pedestrians from getting wet. I phoned a friend on West 137th Street. Her apartment had a view of the Hudson River. "We have snow," she declared with pride. "And we have rain." Somewhere in between there had to be ice.

Peace In No Man's Land

On Sunday 28 June 1914 Bosnian assassins attacked the motorcade of Austrian Archduke anarchists Franz Ferdinand. The first attempt was foiled by the Hapsburg heir deflecting a diabolical device. His bodyguards strongly recommended seeking safety, however Franz Ferdinand insisted on a hospital visit to see bystanders injured by the bomb. His driver took a wrong turn and nineteen year-old Gavrilo Princip stepped out of the crowd and fatally wounded the archduke and his wife with a Browning .32 pistol. Within weeks massive armies mobilized across Europe. In August Germany invaded Belgium, routing the French and British troops. The Emperor's troops were stopped 43 miles short of Paris a month later and after the Battle of Ypres millions of soldiers on the Western Front occupied two opposing sets of trenches stretching hundreds of miles from the Channel to the Swiss border. The deadly stalemate continued into December without any end in sight. Peace feelers were rejected by the High Commands of the Axis and Allies. The daily grind of blood, sweat, and tears abated with the approach of Christmas and hundreds of thousands of soldiers declared an unofficial truce on December 24. Germans and British soldiers met in no man's land. Shared carols were sung in both languages. Fallen comrades were retrieved from the shattered battle ground. The truce continued past Christmas, but military commanders recognized the danger of fraternization and prohibited any repeat of the Christmas peace for the rest of the War to end all wars. I myself am having a truce in Fort Greene and wish everyone peace and love. It's my gift to the world. Peace, brothers and sisters.

Christmas Truce

Peace on earth. I'm declaring a Christmas Truce on all bad thoughts. Enjoy.

Back To Work

Last week I had no work ahead of me and the rest of the year promised to offer more of the same. I luckily sold two diamonds to make enough money to pay rent and send my kids in Thailand, but my own existence was threatened by a dismal lack of funds. I called friends to any leads. Most of them were leaving town from the holidays. My luck seemed to have crapped out, until I spoke to my old employer, Richie Boy, on 47th Street. "I can use you over the holidays." "Thanks." I started last Tuesday and have worked every day since. Getting up at 7am and not getting home until 7pm. My entries into Mangozeen fell to zero. Today will be the seventh in a row. "Working every day sucks," Richie Boy stated yesterday. "Not working every day sucks worse." Don't I know it.

Almost There

Two Days To Go

In 1990 I visited Tikal with my Aussie friend Cathy. We stayed at a horrible hotel, but slept atop the Mayan pyramids surrounded by the thick Peten jungle. Howler monkeys dashed from tree to tree and the buzz of insects hummed outside our mosquito nettings. This abandoned city had had a population of 90,000 souls around 600AD. No one lived there now. And this was before the time of Baktun. Enjoy the last two days of the 12th Baktun. The 13th will be a good one.

The Hour Of The 13th Baktun

A little more than three days remain until the end of the 12th Mayan Baktun, which began on August 11th, 3114 BC. Supposedly the Egyptians invented written language on that date. The rest of the Neolithic world was recovering from the ravages of the Great Ice Age. Agriculture wouldn't revive in Northern Africa for more than a hundred years about the same time as the foundation of Troy and Caral the first city in the Americas. Stonehenge had yet to be built by the Celts, but beer had existed since 9500 BC as the first stepping stone of civilization. Billions of people have lived since then. The supposed approach of doomsday on 12/21/12 had leadened the spirit of the world. A tenth of Americans are concerned whether they will survive the dawn. The mother of the Sandy Hook shooter was purportedly obsessed with the End of Times. The director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe has declared that the entire apocalyptical prophesy has been a hoax foisted on mankind by the media. According to him there is no planet Nibiru in this galaxy, planet alignments have no effect on the Earth, and a magnetic polar shift occurs every million years and if it happened now north becoming the south would take centuries to complete. So I guess I'll drink beer on December 22. Heck, I'm drinking beer on December 17 and I will on December 18 too. Happy Beermas.

You Bet I Would Lingerie

I might be three times her age, but in my mind I'm still 15. So she would reject me for being too young. Drat.

A Xmas Tale/ BET ON CRAZY

Three years ago Christmas sales were few and far between on 47th Street. The depression has robbed the middle-class of their imagined wealth. Diamonds and jewelry purchases have been sacrificed to pay mortgages and credit card bills. America as a nation continued to suffer from the banking debacle, the collapse of the car industry, and the two wars in Asia. Thankfully Richie Boy has rich clients who are taking advantage of the downturn to buy high-grade diamonds and luxury jewelry with ruthless bargaining.

"We squeaked out another year." Richie Boy toasted our few successes at the Oyster Bar three days before Xmas. The wine was Austrian and the oysters had been harvested in New England. His wife was happy with both.

"A million-dollar ruby sale, a couple of rich guys buying big items, and a few lucky sales off the street." I had sold an Italian suite of pearls and sapphires to a Swiss couple and the ruby to a woman from Boca Raton. Richie Boy's client was the richest man in New York. I'm sworn to secrecy about his purchases and his name. "We were lucky."

"And we showed up to work every day. 90% of success is showing up on time."

"Or not too late." I arrived at the diamond exchange fifteen minutes after the opening time of 9:30 every day without exception. It was my one perp after working there for twenty years. "Here's to 2010."

As happy as we were with the season, Richie Boy's father shared none of our positivity. The bills came in faster than the money. His son's spending was profligate, but Richie Boy deserved every c-note. Without him the firm would be another dark window on 47th street.

The next morning Manny brandished the bill from the Oyster Bar.

"$4 for an oyster. They sell them at Doc's for $1 at Happy Hour." Doc's was his local bar on 34th Street.

"Happy hour ends at 7 and we worked until 7:30." I had worked 7 days a week since my return from Thailand the week after Thanksgiving.

"And only two of them were $4. Willapas as big as your palm." Richie Boy had been disgusted by the size. "The goy loved them."

"Almost as much as the clams casino. Oysters wrapped in bacon." I turned to Benzy, my Hassidic diamond broker. He's a big Yankee fan. We're friends anyway. "If oyster are tref and bacon is tref, do two tref make something kosher like two negatives make a positive in math."

"That's a good question." Benzy laughed with the joy of a man with six healthy children, which was a small family for the Hassidim in Williamsburg. "I'll ask my rabbi. He has a good sense of humor."

Not Manny.

He hated Richie Boy and me for spending money on oysters.

"Why are you so miserable?" Richie Boy wasn't allowing his father to ruin his holiday. He was heading up to Vermont on Christmas Eve and then off to St. Bart's with his wife for the New Year's. Richie Boy had a good life and his father ruined every success with a bucket of Grinch. Manny reviewed our sales, as if each was a dead loss.

"You should have got more profit for the jewelry suite."

"I'll take $20,000 on a $50,000 sale any day." The commission paid the flight to Thailand.

"Big hero." He thought that I should have hit them for 70K. "I would have let them walk."

No one was exempt from his holiday gloom. He schlepped every dealer to the last minute. He chided my co-workers for every supposed fault. I told Richie to give us our bonuses before his departure to Vermont, otherwise his father would divine some way to make us miserable.

"I'm out of my here at 2:30." Richie Boy distributed our pay and Xmas bonus. He had wanted to give me a G. Manny cut it down to $800. I thanked them both. Manny had stiffed me with a nothing bonus the previous year.

"Manny, let them out early. They're goys and have family." Richie Boy cared about us, although not enough to stick around to insure an early Christmas Eve closing. He had a long drive in front of him and was eager to leave behind the grumblings of his old man.

"I'll let them go at 7." The exchange closed at that hour from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

"Funny."

Only Manny wasn't joking about his remake of Dicken's classic Xmas tale. Manny was Scrooge and I was Bob Crachtit. Everyone wanted to go home, but Manny wanted to show he was still boss.

"Manny, could you at least let Deisy go home early? She has a baby and needs to go to church." I pleaded between muttered curses.

"She's go home at the normal hour."

And we sat there for another two hours without a single customer entering the store, so I went out and bought some beers to drink. I didn't offer Manny a sip. He kept his head down and crunched numbers on his ancient accounting machine.

"Fucking mean old shit."

At ten to 5 I started pulling the back showcases.

"It's not five yet." Manny lifted his head and tapped his watch.

"Then buy a new watch. The computer says 5. My watch says 5. My phone says 5. The clock in the back says 5 and you had the landlord retime it five minutes slow to get another few minutes of shopping time. We're closing."

"Since when have you become my boss."

"I'm not the boss. I'm a goy and we celebrate Christmas."

"You're a non-believer." Manny remembered my many rants against the Church.

"Not today. Deisy start pulling."

"Deisy, don't do anything."

"Manny, give it up. We're going home."

"Why don't you go home and don't come back?"

"I can't, because Richie Boy asked me to look after you."

"I don't need anyone looking after me."

Manny was seething with anger. The octagenarian's friends have died or retired to Florida. His girlfriend lived in Miami. He doesn't want to join them and rightfully so because most of them sit in their rooms watching the wall. By coming to work Manny got to pretend that he was actually doing something useful and truthfully the only reason I could show up fifteen minutes late was that Manny arrived at 9:30 every day without fail. Richie Boy's 'extravagant' life style was managed by his father's careful balancing of the checkbook.

Manny might have been Scrooge, but he was my Scrooge and after closing the safe I wished my longtime boss a good holiday.

Deisy was gone. It was just him and me.

"You feel like a drink?" Manny got up from his papers and I handed him his coat. It was cold outside.

"Down the street?" I had nowhere to go this Christmas Eve.

"Anywhere as long as they had wine and maybe some oysters." He knew me well.

"Sounds good to me." I was still pissed at the old git, but Manny wasn't that different from me and neither is everyone else.

We all have a little bit of the Grinch in us this time of year, for as Manny likes to say, "There is no season for giving."

And ain't that the truth, especially if you like oysters and they tasted might good on Manny's tab.

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Michael Moore's 2002 BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE examined the reasons for America's phenomena of gun murders. Other countries have similar histories of violence, our gun movies are seen all over the world, and even a well-armed Canada has only a fraction of the murders that occur in its southern neighbor. Last year Detroit had 298 murders. Across the river Windsor, Ontario had none. Michael Moore suggests the cause is not the culture, the murders on TV, the hideous gun movies, the mass killings on video games or even the access to guns. "It's the fear." America the Land of the Freaked. Where even the shadows are scared of the shadow-givers. ps Charlton Heston is dead, so we can rip the gun out of his dead hands. Please watch BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE by going to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jGtAcDefHg

Bullet Control

Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollar, we wouldn't have any innocent bystanders. Chris Rock To view his comments please go to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II

Time To Talk

After the Sandy Hook shooting several right-wing TV pundits admonished the call for a national dialogue on gun control. There was no mention of guns during the presidential debates between President Obama and Mitt Romney the GOP challenger. When Bob Costas commented on a KC football player shooting his girlfriend and then himself, the NRA ramped up its media machine and Mr. Costas had to retract his criticism on guns. Even the White House came out with a statement; “I think that day will come, but today’s not that day, especially as we are awaiting more information about the situation." I not now, when? The Bill of Rights guarantees our freedom of speech. "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable." And this is no matter what the NRA thinks about gun control.

SAD SUNSET by Peter Nolan Smith

Friday evening Mr. Dithers was driving back from Amagansett. I had spent the day laboring on his post-modern beach house in the dunes. It was much easier work than smashing knives. The sun was setting into horizon tipped with magenta, as we drove west on Route 27 into the early evening. The mirage of open road would shift to rush hour congestion after Easthampton. Mr. Dithers and I admired the celestial alignment of Venus over the sliver of a crescent moon. This was the first trip out of the city in months and I was in no hurry to get back to the Fort Greene Observatory, although my good friend/landlord AP had mentioned a need for a babysitter. "You want to get something to eat on the way?" The younger Mr. Dithers asked from behind the wheel of the rented car. "That would be nice." "I know a lovely restaurant on the way." My boss for the day had a strict diet of tasteless food thanks to a finicky stomach, but he was quite an aesthete with the palate of others. "Sounds great." I was getting tired of my own cooking. The telephone rang on the console. The caller was identified as Mr. Dithers' wife. He answered the phone with the push of a button. "Where are you?" Nancy's voice was sad. She worked as a psychiatrist at a major hospital. Most of her patients suffered from addiction. "Just coming to Easthampton." "Did you hear about the shooting in Connecticut?" Nancy had been crying. "A young man went into a primary school and killed 6 adults and 20 children under the age of 10." Mr. Dithers said nothing, but I swore, "Damn." Nancy recounted the news from the TV at their apartment on East 57th Street. Another lone gunman had torn a hole in the fabric of life. "What makes someone do this?" Mr. Dithers wanted to know. He was a calm person. I doubted if he had ever had a fight in his life. "He was either a psychopath or psychotic?" Nancy added that most of the killers with white males on prescription drugs to deal with anger issues. "It's more than that." I had been bullied in grammar school. I never wanted to revenge myself on innocent people, only the two thugs who had beaten me up every day. "This boy must have been in pain. The school reminded him of this pain and he wanted other people to feel the same pain, but also he went to the school knowing that he was going to commit suicide and like a Viking chief he wanted people to accompany him into the afterlife." "I don't think so." Nancy wasn't buying my theory. "Honey, I'll be home as soon as I can." Mr. Dithers hung up the phone. "Sorry, but dinner's cancelled." "I understand." It was time to be with your loved ones. The last vestiges of the day were fading from the western horizon. The sun was rising halfway around the world in Thailand. My children would be going to school soon. I sat back in my passenger seat, knowing that they were safe and sound and far from America. I only wished that I could say the same for myself and those poor children lost to a madman's rage.

B'ak'tun Tsunami

Doomologists have pinpointed the end-date of the Mayan's 5,125-year-long cycle as 13.0.0.0.0 or December 21, 2012 without predicting the cause of Armageddon. Various options for the B'ak'tun have been offered by opposing camps. Fundamentalists are hoping for the Second Coming of the Messiah and survivalists are arming up for collapse of the New World Order, while New Ages search the cosmos for an errant asteroid or black hole. The apocalypse was supposed to start May 21 and culminate with a cataclysm on 12/21/12.

Last evening I had a dream in which I was staying on the 8th floor of a Honolulu high-rise. The waves surging into Waikiki grew larger and larger, until a surfer duck-dived under the crest of a monster tsunami. The wave crashed into the condo and water splashed against the terrace windows.

I looked out the window.

An even bigger wave surged towards the submerged beach and I backed away from the window in time to escape the wave shattering the glass. The sea was only two stories below our floor. Another wave was coming and it was huge.

I woke up with a start and looked around my room.

Dreams about tidal waves are often the result of life's overwhelming pressures and our tendency to not dealing with our problems. I have to admit that I don't have everything under control, however not everything in the world is about me and I got out of bed to look out the window. It was still dark and no wave rose over the skyline of Brooklyn, but I don't really have to worry about a tsunami.

Fort Greene is only 104 feet above sea level and the doric column of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument adds about 149 feet of elevation. This added height would provide sufficient elevation to survive a tidal wave of epic proportions, but I would only be one of hundreds of Brooklynites seeking refuge from certain doom.

A jug of moonshine is under my kitchen sink.

It was a good back-up plan for doomsday and I went back to sleep content that the world was not ending today.

Ka xi'ik teech utsil, which is Mayan for good luck.

We'll be needing in the months to come.

The End Of The World

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those were good times in New York.

Punk and disco.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

666

It's an address on 5th Avenue.

High Ground

12-21-12 is nine days away and doomsday believers hoping to survive the predicted end of days are flocking to Mount Rtanj in Carpathian range, which supposedly has a 'special energy according to the late Arthur C Clark. A French town in the Pyrenees has also been targeted by cultists and the village authorities of Bugarach has warned travelers to Pic de Bugarach that the mountain will be closed on 12-21-12. A Turkish town has joined the hysteria for a safe place to ride out the end of the Mayan calendar thanks to the legend of Jesus' mom ascending to heaven from its mountain. I don't have the money to reach any of these havens, so I'll sit out the apocalypse at the Fort Greene Observatory. I most definitely will have a beer in my hand.

Richard's Ark

Noah was warning by God that all life on Earth was threatened by a Great Flood. Few people believed him, but according to the Bible Noah built a great ark to hold the faithful and two of each kind of animal. The rain of forty days and forty nights cleanse the world of sin and now Fundamentalists claim that the rising ocean will not wipe out mankind, since their Lord had vowed never to use water again to right the wrongs of Man. Only one man is building an ark, however Reverend Richard Greene's forty year quest to construct the ark will offer to shelter to his flock. His folly is bare steel girders set near an interstate in the hills of Maryland. "I am just like Noah. They're laughing and mocking just like they did Noah. But the flood still came, and Jesus is still coming." 12-21-12 is less than 10 days away. And no one is gathering the animals two by two. We are doomed.

ATLANTIS by Donovan

Atlantis has existed as a mythical lost continent long before the opening of the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. Plato wrote of an ancient sea kingdom dating back to 9500 BC doomed to sink under the ocean. Eurocentric historians have attempted to place the legendary island within the Mediterranean, however I favor the theory that Atlantis was drowned by the rising waters from the glacial ice-melt and its ruins lie on the continental shelves of Europe in dispute with the classic story of Man's rise from obscurity to become the dominant race on the planet. 12-21-12 is almost upon us. I have no fear. "We have all been here before." is a line from Crosby Stills and Nash's DEJA VU, but I prefer the more poignant telling of the tale from Donovan's ATLANTIS. "Way down below the ocean, that's where I want to be." To hear ATLANTIS please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJSpLY0KcNQ

We Will Bury You

The skies are gray over New York. The global economy is in the shitter. I don't have a job and I asked myself, "What is this world coming to?"

I answer myself with the words of Nikita Khrushchev, "We will bury you."

The end of capitalism could happen, it sounds like the grave is already dug, however don't count out the ruling elite yet. They've been in this position before and come out of it just like Dracula, plus the USSR leader never really said, "We will bury you."

From WIKPEDIA

On August 24, 1963, Khrushchev himself remarked in his speech in Yugoslavia, "I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you," [4] a reference to the Marxist saying, "The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism"; a popular articulation of the materialist conception of history as the inevitable progression of class struggle towards communism. Huh? All I know is that we only have a few days left on this Earth. Please make them good ones and don't pay your credit card bills.

12 Days And Counting

Biblical creationists judge the age of the Earth to be roughly 6000 years in agreement with adherents of Islam. During the elections Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) claimed that he had no idea about the age of the Earth, but last week he switched his position of ignorance to the scientific claim that our planet is about that 4.5 billion years old. His admission was deemed to be a conversion to rightful thinking, except I prefer the Buddhist thought that the universe is recreated millions of times every second, which means it ends millions of times every second. Only 12 days separate this existence from the termination of the Mayan Baktun on 12-21-12. Days have only been measured since the coming of Man over a million years ago or roughly 365 million days. The clock is ticking to doomsday. 12 days times 24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds equal 86400 seconds. Live them as if they were your last.

Could I Have This Dance?

Frank Sinatra liked skinny. Nancy Reagan fit that description. He had an affair with the 1st Lady in the White House. I don't know if that's rumor is true, but this photo says a million words and all of them is 'adultery'.

The Words of Sinatra

1956 "Get your hand off the suit, creep." To House Speaker Sam Rayburn, at the Democratic National Convention, as Rayburn requested Sinatra sing The Yellow Rose of Texas.

1963 Asked about his religious beliefs, Frank Sinatra tells Playboy magazine: "I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniels. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle."

1966 "I finally found a broad I can cheat on." Commenting on wife Mia Farrow.

According to Mia Farrow's biography, 'What Falls Away', he offered to have Woody Allen's legs broken when he was found to be having an affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

1966 Glen Campbell performs as a session musician for "Strangers in the Night." Sinatra inquires: "Who is the fag guitar player?"

"I'm next. I ain't scared, either. Everybody I ever knew is already over there." After the deaths of Sammy Davis Jr., Ava Gardner, Jilly Rizzo, and Dean Martin."

"A fella came up to me the other day with a nice story. He was in a bar somewhere and it was the quiet time of the night. Everybody's staring down at the sauce and one of my saloon songs comes on the jukebox. 'One for My Baby,' or something like that. After a while, a drunk at the end of the bar looks up and says, jerking his thumb toward the jukebox, 'I wonder who he listens to?"

Sinatra was a man who knew his place in time.

To do is to be - Plato

To be is to do - Descartes

Do-be-Do-be-Do - Sinatra

ONLY A FEW REGRETS by Peter Nolan Smith

"Regrets I have a few, but not too few to mention." Frank Sinatra sang in MY WAY. I myself only have regrets about the things I have not done for I can live with those I have done; the good, the bad, and the in-between, however other people are not so self-forgiving.

The other day I ran into female friend from the 80s at a restaurant in the Meat Packing District. Her face had graced the covers of French fashion magazines. Men fought over her beauty with fists and compete for her attention with money.

My attempts to seduce Valla ended in unrequited frustration and I resigned our relationship to friendship along with many of the other models populating Paris. We bid farewell in 1988.

Decades passed without our seeing each other until this chance encounter.

"I heard you were living in Paris."

"Yes, I have a family there."

"Children?" Valla explained about traveling between France and Africa for her clothing line.

"Four and you?"

"One, but she's all grown up and following her mother's footsteps."

"A model?"

"Cover girl." Valla was still beautiful in the way that beautiful women are when they refuse to be anything else but beautiful.

We had a few wines and then a drink. I was feeling a little more of the wine than the drink. Her hand touched my arm. "You want a night cap at my hotel?"

"I have to go to work tomorrow." It was almost midnight and the L train was shit after that witching hour.

"You could always sleep over." Her touch became a caress.

I had wanted this woman so badly twenty years ago. I would have set myself on fire to get her in bed. Now I could only say, "Not really."

"Not really." Her face adopted hard lines. No one had said no in a long time. "You know I was talking about you and several of my friends. We all asked why none of us slept with you."

"And what the answer?" I could see her at a table in Paris. All these great beauties reviewing their love affairs. I had been with none of them

"We always thought you were with one of us."

"Oh." It was too late to relive the past and I pulled away my arm. My Thai wife would be happy with my decision.

"Guess it is getting late."

"I guess so." I walked her over to the hotel. She was gracious enough to not repeat her request and I kissed her on the cheek, smelling the same perfume I had breathed 20 years before. There will always be regrets, but only for the past and not the present and I'll avoid those to prevent getting run down by those naked fantasies. They are too many to count on any man's fingers.

MY WAY my way

I love Frank Sinatra's MY WAY, which was reprised from the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed by Claude François and Jacques Revaux. The American words were written by Paul Anka and blisslessly adapted by Sid Vicious.

At 61 I'm ready to do my version.

I FUCKED IT UP MY WAY

And now I’m no longer young
I can admit to what I’ve done.
Of my past I’ve made a mess.
And I'm to blame more or less.

My teacher failed me in religion
He said I was going to hell.
And I laughed knowing he was lying
Because I fucked up my way.

Mistakes I’ve made a lot
And way too many to remember,
Some stand out of the crowd
Like the time I burned down the woods
Cooking marshmallows with a lighter.

No one got killed or even burned
And I tried to be good.
But I failed and more than once
Because I fucked up my way.

I trashed an abandoned missile base And the police chased me for miles.
I avoided arrest, because I ran fast
And fat cops are much slower.
I’m not proud, but I’m not ashamed I did some things I won't mention I'm cool with all of them
Because I fucked it up my way.

I’ve seen the world
I’ve been in love In many towns and many places. I've broken hearts, had some myself
And I won’t ask anyone for forgiveness.
Because I fucked up, yes, I did, And I will in the future. Oh yeah, I know the truth, I fucked up my way.

I’m not a saint but I’ve not Satan.
I’ve lived my life to the fullest
And I sleep without bad dreams And wake up with a clean conscience I wish I could do it all Over again the same as before Because when you fuck up, it's a good thing
When you fuck up your way.

MMMMYYYYYYY WAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY

DRINKING AGAIN Frank Sinatra

Few sings about drinking better than Old Blues Eyes To hear this exquisite chanson, please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZfl45GHvo

Somethings Never Change

In the autumn of 1997 I lived in the West of Ireland with my cousin, Ty Spaulding. We were both writing novels. His book on political intrigue was set in his native Hawaii and mine took place in Hamburg. The two of us experienced the full beauty of the Irish fall. "It's either just rained, going to fall, or will rain." That adage holds true to every corner of the British Isles, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. To this day. But it a sunny one in Fort Greene.

Survival Of The End

Pluto Pluto

The Mayan star-gazers studied the Xibalba be or Black Road or Milky Way from the tops of pyramids and predicted the end of the 26,000 year cycle on 12-21-12 and modern day astronomers of the apocalypse have suggested that the grand alignment of the planets will mercilessly annihilate the population of the Earth. Of course this line-up of the celestial orbs only worked due to the downgrading of Pluto to a smaller galactic orb. I reject the rejection of Pluto as a planet. Doom is avoided by acceptance of the old way of the solar system. I am a man of tradition.

A Little Brando Maybe

From 2012

Last week I was playing pool at the Abbey. Maz was in town from Alaska. THe jewelry salesman was leaving for the islands on Wednesday. His time in the Far North had not effected his hand and eye coordination and the bald-headed genji ruled the table for several games. I lost to him on a double-miss on a game-ending corner shot on the 8-ball.

While awaiting my next shot at the champ, I watched the popular bar on Driggs Avenue filled with young people. I spoke to several sci-fi fans about RESIDENT EVIL and a BBC correspondent about the current BBC sex scandal. We agreed that Jimmy Sevillem the TV announcer was an unpentent child molester, but he argued that Jimmy Savile was the only person involved during the decades of under-age sex at the media center in London.

"Not bloody likely."

He dropped his quarters in the slot and Maz offered him the break.

His pool cue was missing the tip from the ferule.

"Your stick's accent is 100% Cambridge." It was a good guess and he admitted to having graduated from that prestigious university. "Playing pool well is the sign of a misspent youth."

His blonde girlfriend thought that was funny. She was a literary agent.

"I handle mostly non-fiction." She was young and smart with long legs. She would have been beautiful in any bar in New York. Her unnaturally curly hair discounted her tale about working only with the truth. Her friend lost to Maz and after they left he asked me, "Would you slept with her?"

"No." I am faithful to Fenway's mom.

"No." Maz is astounded by my self-imposed celibacy.

"She's not my type."

No one believes my restraint, since my reputation as a ladies man had once been world-wide. I looked around the bar. The women in the Abbey were laughing with the freedom of youth. None of them had eyes for a man my age. I had once looked like an Irish Brando. Probably still do but more like his appearance in APOCALYPSE NOW plus thitty years. I'm overweight, but he was a giant in that film. More like he had transformed into Orson Wellles. I dropped four coins into the pool table slot.

"Not a single woman in here is my type.

"I don't worry about types." Maz was a free agent as was I at his age.

I was forty years old twenty years ago.

I accepted the truth of my ruin and racked the fifteen balls tight. After Maz's break I ran the table with a series of combos and bank shots. The next player was a black girl in her 20s. She was wearing a short black skirt.

"Nice shooting."

"Thanks."

I lost once more on the last shot, which was always better than the first.

Doom Soon

Reuters reported that 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think that the end-date of the Mayan calendar will signal a planetary cataclysm on 12-21-12 according to a poll of over 16,000 people in China, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, the United States, Argentina, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, France, Spain, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Italy, South Africa, Great Britain, Indonesia, and Germany.

While many westerners are influenced by the end date of the Mayan calendar, other pro-apocalyptical respondents are leaning toward the Hand of God, asteroids, or natural disaster. Russians and Poles were the most positive about Doomsday.

My old co-worker Ava called me this afternoon and asked if I wanted a job.

"Not really."

"Why not?" Ava was a born-again Christian.

"Because the world is coming to an end and I'm not going to waste my time at work."

"You don't really believe that?" She was very familiar with my non-belief in God.

"No, but it's a good excuse." I took the number from her, because if the world doesn't end on December 21, 2012, I'm fucked.

Countdown To Doom Minus 18

December 21, 2012 or 12-21-12 will mark the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Positive New Agers are expecting a transition to the new era of enlightenment, while the fundamentalist are predicting a doomsday collision with an unseen planet called Nibiru drawn to our Earth by the Grand Planet Alignment. This gloomy forecast was based on Mayan scholar Michael Coe writing in his 1966 book THE MAYA, "there is a suggestion ... that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b'ak'tun]. Thus ... our present universe be annihilated in December 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion." Annihilation? Only 18 days away? NASA and none of the other space agencies have announced impending doom, although that silence may be keeping with the classic line in disaster movie by the leader of the Free World, "We don't want the people to panic." Panic. The world is in a throes of a major economic depression. Wars are fought across the globe. Weather patterns are shifting to challenge the coastal populations with floods and the interiors with drought. But those in control of the world are afraid of panic. If we are not panicking now, we never will, then again I favor the renewal of the world spirit rather than a planet-ending calamity. Peace will rule the world.

When Insults Had Class

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

The exchange between Churchill and 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

Born Into This Charles Bukowski Movie

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

Poetry Police

My hillbilly girlfriend in the 70s was funny. She was even funnier drunk. Her limit was two drinks and then she transformed from an ingenue actress into a white trash beauty. I wasn't sure which I liked better. One night at CBGBs she launched into a tirade about the poetry police coming to arrest Patti Smith and William Burroughs. "Here come the poetry police." I had to pour her into a taxi for the ride home to our apartment on East 10th Street. Alice stopped drinking soon after that night, but I remembered the poetry police this week, when the Qatari government sentenced Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami to life imprisonment for insulting the ruler of that wealthy desert country. Al-Jazeera has made no comment about this draconian punishment in fear of losing their financial backing from the news agency's royal sponsor. This offense against the ruling family was supposedly directed at the crown prince. I couldn't find any copy of the poem TUNISIAN JASMINE online. The US has a big military base in Qatar. No one in our government has said a word in the defense of free speech. Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami has been held since November 2011. His trial was closed to the public. His lawyer said, "The judge made the whole trial secret. Muhammad was not allowed to defend himself, and I was not allowed to plead or defend in court. I told the judge that I need to defend my client in front of an open court, and he stopped me." Ajami was jailed in November 2011. Beware of the poetry police.

Lunar Twin Eclipse

There was a lunar eclipse of Gemini on 11-28-12. I was born under that celestial star. The full moon should have some effect on me. I drank with my good friend and landlord of the Fort Greene Observatory at Mo's and Mullane's on Lafayette Street. We had more than one beer each, so I experience not a full stomach of beer rather than the lunar eclipse. Happy Beermas. Mine was so good that I missed the following two days and I've moved off the beer to a Chilean Merlot. In vino veritas. In more wine oblivion.

Pattaya Beach Report - Ban Samae San

Ban Samae San is the southern terminus of the Friendship Highway. This road was built by the US Corps of Engineers in the 1960s to supply the US Air Force's northern airbase to bomb Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The 10,000 Day War has no meaning to the residents of Ban Samae San now. Colorful fishing boats crewed by low-paid Cambodians ply the waters of the off-limit navy islands and the catch is sun-dried to sell to Thai tourists to the defunct fishing ports of Ban Saray and Ban Amphur.

The town is very picturesque despite the horrendous smell and I’ve always enjoyed swimming off the navy pier. The water is a million times cleaner than Pattaya and the languid atmosphere reminded me a Maine sea ports lost in time. plus the only swimming was off the Navy pier and for the longest time I had the place to myself.

All that changed in 2007, when the Thai navy has opened up a sea museum on the hill. Tourist buses navigate the narrow streets and sailors guarding the gate demand 100 for Thais and 200 for foreigners, but not me, because back in 2003 I was diving off the pier. The Thai Navy Seal team was watching me from an old boat. My style was strictly backyard swimming pool, yet none of them could duplicate my headfirst plunge.

One muttered, “Farang bah.”

“Mai bah. Pom bin Kon talay.” I told them I wasn’t crazy and my family came from the sea.

50% of it was true.

As my French friend said about my ability to speak his native tongue, “You can not speak French, but you sound as if you can.”

The same goes for my Thai, so the navy divers picked the most believable half and I became friends with their CPO Robert.

He invited me to the museum opening and said, “Whenever I have something special I’ll invite you down for the day.”

Special meant a tour of the navy islands, on which no one, Thai or farang is allowed to step foot.

This week I got a phone call from Robert.

“Phueng-ni chaao. Phed mung.” His military cadence was easiest understood.

“Tomorrow morning. 8am.” I almost saluted the phone.

I woke with the dawn and packed my bag with snorkel, mask, fins, towel, suncream, book, water, fruit, knife, duct tape, change of clothes and a Thai-English dictionary. Within two minutes I was back asleep. I was no early riser. The maid knocked on the glass door.

It was 7:30.

Water in my face and a rocket ride on my motor scooter to Satthatip.

I arrived at the Samae San navy pier.

No Robert. No boat. A sailor wetsuit asked, “Khun James.”

“Chai, kap.” James is my nom du bar in Pattaya. It’s more memorable than my birth name and gives the Thais a chance to say, “Meuen James Bond.”

Just like 007.

"Ching ching." I might be American, but I will drink anything even a martini shaken and not stirred.

The guard guided me to a hall. All the Seals were celebrating Navy Day. Robert had me sit with the officers. He explained that I was a champion diver. The guard guided me to a hall. All the Seals were celebrating Navy Day. Robert had me sit with the officers. He explained that I was a champion diver. I smiled and nodded my head. I would show them my style later. But first it was time for beer, whiskey, and food. Ban Samae San. I smiled and nodded my head. Ban Samae San. It's a beautiful place to be.

THE DEATH OF ME by Peter Nolan Smith

Last December I attended the opening of the "Dream' exhibition at Luxembourg's Mudam Museum. Madame l'Ambassador bailed from the event early for a formal dinner with diplomats. I was not invited for supper. "It's a diplomatic thingee." Madame l'Ambassador explained, as we walked through a thickening fog to the waiting Jaguar. "I understand." A writer-in-residence has to understand his place in the scheme of plans. Francois the driver opened the right-hand rear door for Madame l'Ambassador. It was the safest seat in the back of the car. He asked if I needed a lift back to the city. The museum was located on the opposite side of the gorge running through the city. I had traversed it several times on foot and refused his offer.

"You go with Madame. I'll be fine." After all I am simply the guest writer.

I lingered at the soiree for another half hour. The crowd was young and artistic. The curator waved to me. The amiable Italian was chatting to an aristocratic couple in their 70s. Patrons of the museum were much more important than a well-unknown writer and I ordered a beer. The bartender poured it into a special glass with reverence. Mittel Europe worshipped its beers.

I leaned at the bar and studied the passing faces. The queue at the bar seemed contently unconcerned by the chaos of the Euro. Their luxurious clothing cloned the bare threads of down-and-out artists, then again Luxembourg has the highest individual income in Europe and even the poor are rich in comparison to America.

The first beer had gone down quick and I ordered a second.

Luxembourg doesn't possess the ancient heritage of Belgium's Trappist beers, but their offerings are better than the Bud of the USA. The grand duchy also marked the highest beer consumption per capita in 1993 with an unbeatable score of seventeen beers for each man, woman, and child in the tiny country. A light-weight in my late-50s I put down my third beer and called it a night. The alcohol content of 6.7% was strong enough for a fourth to knock me off my feet and I had a good walk ahead to the upper city across the canyon.

Outside the I.M. Pei structure was shrouded by a gloomy fog. I skirted the spectral display of shadow and light, remembering my High School German teacher's telling the class the word for fog.

"Nebel." Bruder Karl spoke with a muted thunder.

Nebel coupled with Spiegel became fog and mirrors, the mystic atmosphere for magic and the intrigues of the Gestapo.

No one else challenged the deepening murk and I descended through the reconstructed fortifications in a silence of darkness. The Mudam disappeared into the gray murk. I followed the switchbacking trail like a man going blind. A train sounded its whistle on the tracks below. It was the 7:43 from Troisvierges.

Luxembourg had housed thousand of soldiers during its reign at the Gibraltar of the North. This path from Fort Thungen would have been travelled by hussars, dragoons, and mercenaries back in the 17th Century. Tonight my footsteps ricocheted unanswered against the stone ramparts.

The slurry of leaves crossed my path and I thought about a film a friend of mine who had made here several years ago. The story concerned a director casting a real vampire in his film. My friend Bill had played a vampire. The city's medievalism had lent the movie's exterior scene an unexpected aura of horror and this evening I glanced around me with a rising apprehension.

I was all alone.

The city was old.

I no longer believe in God, but I had watched enough vampire movies to know that I offered a fairly easy target for a bloodsucker. Were-wolves were not a worry. The earth was in the middle of the synodic month.

A twig cracked in the surrounding woods. Something was out there in the forbidding shadows. I wished for a sword, instead I bracketed a set of keys in the knuckles of my right hand.

A single pinpoint of light broke through the swirling overcast. Venus was too bright to be to be a star and I salvaged a little confidence by sighting a familiar object in the night sky. When my eyes dropped to Earth, a lisping wind scrapped the bare branches to chant an incantation from a time before electricity.

My pace accelerated to reach the tunnel underneath the bastion. A shiver scrapped a dull razor against the skin of my spine. My cellphone dimly illuminated the black passage of stone. Running would have been a sign of fright and creatures of the night prey on the weak. I arrived on the other side and the 7:45 train to Wiltz raced beneath the steep embankment. The smooth cobblestones gave way to gravel and the trail bore the ruts of wagons.

A rusting grate blocked the tunnel under the railroad tracks. Something inhuman was in the trees. I hopped over the metal fence and bushwhacked through the underbrush to the tracks. I looked both ways and clambered across the double set of steel rails to the other side.

I safely reached the street ten seconds later.

A streetlight glowed overhead.

My cell rang. It was Francois the driver. He asked if I was all right.

"Okay." The word meant the same in English as in French.

"Sure?" Madame l'Ambassador was concerned that something bad might have happened to me. She was a longtime friend. We shared mutual acquaintances. Neither of us wanted anything bad to happen to me on her watch.

“Fine, I'll be back at the residence within fifteen minutes. Thank the ambassador for asking." It was a nice feeling to know someone care and also that a good scare makes a man feel alive and that's 100% better than being killed by vampires any night of the week.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST by Peter Nolan Smith

Punk died before Disco. The next alternative defender of rock and roll was the New Wave, which combined electronic and experimental music with a minimal beat. Bands such as The Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, and Echo and The Bunnymen achieved critical and financial success during the early 80s, however American New Wave acts were shut out of the surge. TuxedoMoon, a San Francisco Post Punk group, had attained a modicum of fame within the USA, although not enough to satisfy their egos or pockets and the band emigrated to Belgium hoping to break into the European market.

Sell-out concerts Paris, Berlin, and Milan did not translated into box office boffo in America and the group toured the States in abject poverty. Battered vans and second rate-hotels were complemented by long road trips to isolated college towns always in hope of a lucky break. Few came their way in the Lower 48.

The group played the Bains-Douches in 1983. I was working the door at that fabled Paris nightclub. I saw two great SRO shows. After a tumultuous encore the band retired to dining room. I offered drinks to Steven Brown and Blaine L. Reininger. We knew each other through mutual friends.

"How was your last tour?" I was avoiding America. Reagan was in power and the NYPD Internal Affairs had a few questions to ask me about pay-offs to the 20th Precinct. The Atlantic acted as a good buffer zone between me and them.

"College campuses loved us. New York and LA too. Only problem is that the record companies could figure out what to do with us." Steven was eying the blonde bartender. She smiled at him. Corinne was a darling.

"It's not like you're Top 40." I loved their songs The Stranger, Scream With a View, and What Use?/Crash. No Tears should have been a hit in 1978, although 'no tears for the creatures of the night' stood little chance against Andy Gibbs SHADOW DANCING.

"We never said we wanted Top 40." Steven protested, starting an argument between Blaine and him about band direction. Within a minute they agreed that they were not destined to replace the BeeGees.

"Strangest Top 40 experience on the trip was during our drive through Tennessee. Wintertime in those hills the roads get dangerous. Snow, ice, and fog." Steven sounded like he did most of the driving.

"Don't forget the mountains." Blaine held the horror of the suicide seat close to his heart.

"One afternoon I'm driving from Knoxville to Johnston City."

"I know that highway." I had hitchhiked it in the summer of 1975. "Pretty country in August."

"Bare trees and blowing snow in January." Steven's words were a granite testimony to the highway's treachery in bad conditions.

"Fog too." Blaine was feeding lines to Steven. They were poets as well as musicians. "No one else on the road."

"Hit a stretch where I could see much, except a glow in the mist. Then we spot an accident. Three cars torn to shreds. One was on fire and a man lay on the highway."

"We missed him by inches." Steven and Blaine had transported me to that interstate by imitating the screech of brakes. "We stopped and walked back. Everyone was dead. Four people. Couldn't tell what had happened, only something bad. We drove another mile to the exit, where we pulled into a diner. There were two waitresses, a cook, and a few customers inside. Blaine called the cops, as I told them what we had seen and the waitress put down her apron said accidents happen there all the time. She went over to the jukebox and dropped in a quarter."

"Played B-5." Blaine was the straight man.

"Queen's ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST."

"Biggest crossover hit in 1980.

"Number 1 in the USA and UK."

"You could always do it as a cover." I loved covers.

"We don't do covers."

And they never had another #1 hit like ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST, but I loved them still.

To hear NO TEARS go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z-DC66THOU

THE FOG November 2012

Shannon Greer captured the morning fog lingering off the Southern California coast. There are no ghost ships within the fog, only within our minds thanks to John Carpenter's movie THE FOG. It did not star Kurt Russell, but Jamie Lee Curtis had a role. I think she survived to the end.

Man Or Beast

The bedroom in my old East Village apartment faced an air-shaft. One summer evening I had to listen to a woman in the throes of pleasure for hours. My hillbilly girlfriend hollered for her to shut up. She was more the quiet type. The same scenario repeated itself night after night. Moving into the living slightly eased the noise. My girlfriend and I figured the woman was living two stories above us and my friend was giving her the business. My girlfriend wanted me to speak with him and the next morning I confronted Bill on the stairs. "We need to talk." "Yeah, we do." "Can you do something about your girl's screaming?" "My girl's screaming? I thought it was you." "No, it's not me." "Well, if not you, then who?" The door opened for the fourth floor apartment and out stepped two very content-looking females. One was petite and the other was three times the man Bill and I would ever be in this lifetime. We moved out of their way. Even back in the 70s a man knew his place amongst his betters.