Monday, December 31, 2012
Auld Lang Syne
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Chestnut Mare You GOP Fuckheads
Wounded Knee
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 URLhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E824r7KrVPw&feature=related
Sunny Cold And Loud
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Modern Forever
Au Revoir Les Quebecoises
Snow, Rain or Ice
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
CROSSING THE CHANNEL by Peter Nolan Smith
I had moved away from Boston in 1971, but every Christmas of my adult life had been spent with my family on the South Shore. This streak of thirty-three years was broken in 1985, when n art dealer invited a female French singer and me to his cottage on the Isle of Wight for the holiday.
I phoned my mother to break the news on December 23.
“Oh, really.” The hurt was audible over the trans-Atlantic static. “This will be the first one you’re not home.”
“I know, but I will be flying to Boston on the 26th.” Our club in Paris was closed until after the New Year. My bosses had given me a good bonus. We were more friends than co-workers.
“Where are you going for Christmas?” My mother was worried about her second son. The rest of my brothers and sisters lived within ten miles of our parents.
“The Isle of Wight.”
“Didn’t Queen Victoria have a palace there?” My mother was extraordinarily well read and I had inherited that love. My father liked to travel. I was his son too.
“Yes, and I’m staying at a cottage on the grounds of the former royal residence.”
“Osbourne House.” My mother had a bear trap of a memory for details.
“Yes.” Victoria had lived in Osbourne House with Prince Albert, from where she had ruled the vast British empire. The Italian palazzo was visible from the windows of the cottage.
“Sounds very grand.” My mother had loved visiting the big cottages of Newport, Rhode Island and robber-barons' mansions along the Hudson River. She breathed the history with her senses. “Supposedly when her husband died, the Empress went into mourning at a pavilion on the beach.”
“That’s what I heard too.” I refrained from mentioning that the empire had languished without her participation in its day-to-day governing. Finally Her Majesty’s ministers approached the Scottish gillie, John Brown, to bring Her Majesty out of her grief.
My mother offered no knowledge about the rumors of the Queen’s affair with a common huntsman. Sex was for procreation. She had six children. Queen Victoria had had nine.
“After her death it became a convalescent home for navy officers. They still walk around the grounds.”
“That is so fabulous.”
“I suppose it is.”
“I love you and we’ll spent our Christmas together a day later. They will be plenty of left-overs.” She was succeeding in seeding guilt into my heart.
“I’ll see you on the 26th.” I fought off the urge to take a taxi to Charles De Gaulle Aeroport. There were direct flights to Boston, but the beantown had not been my home for a long time.
I hung up the phone and called the singer.
The singer and I had met at an after-hours club in Lower Manhattan. Her friends were starting a fight in the decorated loft. I was security. Stopping them was a matter of a single punch and bum-rushing them out of the club. Lizzie liked telling her friends about that incident. She really was a punk
We had been having an affair for the past month. Neither of us pretended that we were serious about our time together. She and I were free spirits. Our paths met and joined in many cities. Paris was just one of them.
“I’m ready to go.”
“No more mama and papa.” The petite brunette had a vicious streak tempered by an adoration for danger. She had been the first punk in France and she had scored a # 1 hit in 1984. I had bought her a bottle of Chanel # 5.
“For Christmas." I mentioned the flight leaving Heathrow on the 26th.
“And how do I get back to France?” It was a good question.
“Vonelli will take you back.” It was my only option.
“And is he a gentleman like you who abandon helpless women in a foreign country filled with beef eaters.” She had never met the bearded Floridian.
“Much more of a gentleman than me.” .
“We will see.” The singer could take care of herself. She had lived in the Lower East Side in 1975
"Meet me at the station.” The train left from Gare St. Lazare at 4:45pm. The station was across the Seine from my apartment on Ile St. Louis.
I showed up at the train terminal a good half hour before departure. The holiday queues at the ticket booths were breaking down into mobs. I spotted Vonelli at a news kiosk. He was looked smitten by prosperity in his tan cashmere coat and his beard had been trimmed to a respectable length.
“Where is she?” Vonelli had our tickets. The art dealer was excited to meet the singer. He liked beautiful women.
“Women are always late.” I planned on any female companion to be at least thirty minutes behind schedule. “But not my friend.”
The singer was running through the crowds of homeward-bound travelers to Normandy. A cigarette hung from her mouth. Her unruly hair was wrapped under a scarf. A heavy coat hid her petite body. Doc Martens shielded her feet from the cold. She lifted her head to acknowledge seeing us. A shroud of tangled hair fell onto her face. Her gloved hand pushed away the matted strands and the singer kissed me on the lips and then pecked Vonelli on both cheeks. Other passengers stared at her. She was famous.
“Let’s get on the train before I have to sign an autograph.” The singer dropped her cigarette on the ground. Her left boot extinguished the embers of the discarded butt. She had studied ballet in Lyons and that the gracefulness of that training showed with her most insignificant gestures.
“I saw you sing on TV.” Vonelli offered to carry her bag. It was twice the size of mine and the singer liked to travel with thick books of philosophy. The art dealer grunted , as he hauled the heavily laden bag over his shoulder.
“French pop stars never sing on TV. We lip-synch the words. It’s good for our voices.”
The Paris-born singer handed her bag to Vonelli and lit a cigarette. She was a heavy smoker and her naked skin smelled of tobacco. The Gitanes were hell on her throat and she made no effort to stop. “But I am on holiday and we are taking a big boat. So no more talking about music.”
The three of us boarded the train and Vonelli had commandeered a 1st Class compartment. The singer was very pleased with his arrangements and I noticed the warmth in her smile. The same glow had greeted me the first time that she had seen me in Paris. I thought about whether I should be jealous, then decided that Vonelli and the singer made a good couple.
The train pulled out of Gare St. Lazare on time. The French were very German that way. We were comfortable in our compartment. It was cold outside. Tomorrow would be Christmas.
“Here’s to Noel.” Vonelli poured champagne into three glasses. The bearded art dealer had come prepared for the journey. We ate foie gras on crispy baguettes, as the train rocked on the rails through the night. Vonelli amused us with humorous tales of sales at the Hotel Drouot auction house.
“They have their own Mafia. The cols rouge in the black uniforms with red trim come from the same region of the Alps and nothing gets shipped or stored at the Drouot without their okay. This morning one of them said that he couldn’t transport a painting to London, because it was in violation of Christian holiday traditions. 200 francs converted him to atheism.”
Vonelli fawned on the singer and she adored his manners.
“You know how I met your friend?” She pointed at me.
“I stopped her friends from having a fight at an after-hour club.” I hated people bringing up my past as a bouncer. In Paris I was deemed a physionomiste for my talent to recognize faces as much as my ability to decipher if the person was a welcome addition to the melange of personalities within the club. It was not a skill learned in schools.
“You stopped them and then threw me down the stairs.”
“I didn’t throw you down the stairs.” I couldn’t remember the particulars of that night.
“Yes, you did, but I forgave you.”
Vonelli shook his head.
“Bad boy, but that’s why we like you.”
I sulked in my seat for several minutes. The singer sat at my side and admonished me in baby language.
"You want everyone to love you like your momma loved you, but only one woman can do that."
Vonelli thought that she was very funny and I had to admit that she owned a biting wit. My anger dissipated with another glass of champagne. Snow drifted against the windows. The darkened landscape was covered with white. It was beginning to look like Christmas.
At le Havre Vonelli steered us out of the station. The city had been heavily damaged during the Battle of Normandy and he joked about how the church’s Belgian architect was awarded a medal from his government for his masterful uglification, “Le Havre is the most dreary city in France. Think grey and grim. Concrete and more concrete and no building in the city has more concrete than the Eglise of St. Joseph.”
“But even this city has some charm.”
We ate dinner at a fantastic fish restaurant. Several diners asked Lizzie for autographs. The singer was in a better mood than Gare St. Lazare. She even posed for photos with her fans. Vonelli and the singer engaged in a conversation about Sartre. They ignored my comment about his collaborating with the Nazis. I was becoming the third wheel.
It was a short walk to the ferry.
We boarded the ship. So far neither the singer nor I had put our hands in our pockets. The three of us rendezvoused at the stern railing and watched the ferry slip from the harbor.
“Fuck you, France.” The singer gave her native land the finger.
“Its better than America.”
“But not New York.” The singer had been introduced to the scene at CBGBs by a legendary singer of a punk band. Forkhead had shown her his world. In 1975 the East village was the only place to be in the world for people like us. I got there one year later.
“New York is special.” The veterans at Max’s considered me a late-comer. My pinball play won friends at CBGBs, but no one ever called me ‘Tommy’. I was just me.
“I want to wash up. I’ll meet at the bar.” Vonelli returned to his suite. It was a double.
I stood with both hands on the railing. The singer leaned into me. The ship’s wake glowed with froth and the stars shimmered with increasing numbers, as the ferry left the light of land. Its prow cut through increasingly larger waves. The singer gripped the railing and leaned over to kiss me. I put my arm around her and we walked back inside.
“Your friend is very generous.” The singer shucked her heavy clothing in the cabin and entered the shower room. It was too small for two people, but she left the door open. The ferry was pitching from bow to stern in heavy seas. Tonight’s crossing promised to be a rough one.
“I guess he had a good year at the Drouot.” I had the feeling that his extravagance was aimed at impressing the frail-boned brunette.
“He seems like a nice man.” Her voice was sappy with dreams.
“He is a good friend.”
The singer and I had been on a train to nowhere with our affair. It had just pulled into the station and I was getting off. The singer had a new destination and I asked, “Do you like him?”
“He’s cute.” She lathed her body with soap. It was a show with one purpose.
“Really?” No one had called me cute since I was a kid.
“Almost like a Santa Claus in training.” The singer was my age, but looked much younger in our cabin's dim lighting.
“It must be the beard.”
I reminded myself that she was in my cabin this evening and not his. I took off my clothes and staggered into shower. It was big enough, if you stood close.
Thirty minutes later we went to Vonelli’s cabin. We drank a bottle of wine holding onto the table to stay in the chairs. They had been screwed into the deck for just such weather. This was the Channel. The Spanish Armada had been destroyed by this stretch of water and I was beginning to understand why.
“I suggest that we skip dinner in this weather. Always better for the stomach.”
The singer and I concurred with his suggestion. The uneven motions of up-down-sideways-back was testing my constitution and I put down my glass without finishing the wine. This was going to be a long night.
Vonelli suggested that we visit the midship casino.
I hadn’t gambled since losing big time at Reno in 1974, but we sat at the blackjack table together. Two other players greeted us with green faces. The crossing was not agreeing with their stomachs. The dealer wasn’t much better and our first five hands were winners. The slick-haired pit boss replaced her and succeeded in cooling the table.
Vonelli and the singer were more interested in each other than the cards in their hands. Their inattention gave the pit boss an edge and the odds of the house shifted against the six people at the table. The balance shifted a minute later, as the power of the sea overcame the inescapable grind of blackjack.
Casinos are constantly on the watch for card-counters, but my mind was calculating the time between troughs. The ship rode down one wave and struggled up another for the same length of time. The spray covered the windows with foam, almost as if the ferry was a half-submerged submarine.
The rhythm of the waves stretched into an extra long descent to the bottom of a nautical chasm and the deck shuddered, as the ferry’s engines fought to climb the steepening slope of a ship-crushing wave. Everyone’s eyes went wide and the bow cleared the crest and the ferry dropped into the next trough in a free fall. I grabbed my stack of chips before floating out of my seat. My head grazed the ceiling and then I fell right back into my chair. Vonelli and the singer were also lucky, but the pit boss landed on the table.
“I think it’s time to call it a night.” The pit boss was visibly shaken by his flight. The rest of us nodded assent to his suggestion. “Go to your cabin and we’ll cash you out in the morning.”
He shouted to close the casino and ordered the passengers to their cabins.
“Sorry about this.” Vonelli helped the singer to the door. He had wanted everything to be perfect. We separated to enter our rooms. For a second the singer seemed ready to go with him and if this had been a voyage from Southampton to New York instead of Le Havre to Southampton, then tomorrow night she would have made the move.
“See you two in the morning.”
The singer stripped off her clothing and slipped into bed.
“You like Vonelli?” I asked lying next to her. I hadn’t bothered to take off my clothes. If the ship sank, I wanted to be ready to abandon ship.
“Yes.” This question only needed a one syllable answer.
“I mean more than like.”
“Yes.” At least the singer was honest.
“Then I wish you luck.” Vonelli was a complicated man, then again men are much more simple than women.
“You do?” Her surprise was tempered by relief. No one liked a nasty ending.
“It’s obvious that you two like each other in a way that we would never come close to.”
“It is?”
“I think so. Remember I’m a professional physionomiste.” I could divine everyone’s future, but mine. I caressed her shoulder without daring to touch a more intimate stretch of flesh. This was it. “I’m happy for you. For you both.”
The ferry shuddered with a wave slapping the port-side.
“You think this ship will survive.” She was frightened by the ocean.
“Ships make this trip all the time. They are built for La Manche. Everything will be fine. Go to sleep.”
It was easier sad than done, but after two hours the sea surrendered its fury and the ferry resumed a gentle course to England. The singer kissed me on the cheek and went to sleep. I followed her within seconds. We woke with the announcement that the ferry would soon be docking in Southampton.
“How you sleep?” Vonelli was waiting at the railing. The low coastline lingered under a low grey overcast. We were approaching England.
“Good once the storm ended.” The singer stood between us, although a little closer to Vonelli. She made her choice. I watched the ferry about Southampton at half-speed. The captain had brought his ship to safety. Tonight was Christmas Eve. The day after was Christmas. I would fly home on Boxing Day. My mother would love the Chanel # 5. It was just her style and like all men I loved left-overs.
THE LAST GO-GO BOY by Peter Nolan Smith
Americans judge the nation’s fiscal well-being by the rise and fall of the Dow Jones Index, even though Wall Street’s accumulation of wealthy has reaped a mostly negative effect on the vast majority of workers. Next month's bonuses will not add a penny to the buying power of consumers buried under debt and corporations will trim benefits and wages to the bone in order to maximize profit. Other than Occupy Wall Street few employees protest working condition for fear of losing their job.
The economy is still in the shitter and I ask myself what jobs are available for a 60 year-old man.
Very few is the answer.
Years before I had been lucky that Manny always reserved a place for me on West 47th Street, but this year has been the exception. Times are that tough in the Diamond District.
Last month I sold some rings for a gay writer. I flogged his family heirlooms to a black gold dealer in another exchange for the best price possible. Going through Manny would have cut into the final number and the writer needed every dollar to pay his health care bill.
My friend showed his gratitude with a dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant in the East Village. Every seat was crammed with young people enjoying the fast life in the city. These go-getters were my competition in the morning for a subway seat. Luckily these happy-go-lucky youths were not ruthless enough to throw me under the train.
“I never see anyone my age on the subway.”
“Most men our age are retired.” Bruce was a world-known novelist. The heavyweight Syracuse native had won awards in Europe. Critics had recognized his genius. Sales for his last book totaled a little over 2000. “Do you have a retirement plan?”
He ordered with his finger darting over the menu. The waiter paid attention to his every word like he was a seeing-eye dog. Bruce had a way with young men.
“When I hit 70, I'm taking a plane to Norway to rob a bank. I'm going to shoot someone in the leg too so it's armed robbery, then they'll sentence me to 20 to life. I've seen photos of the prison for armed offenders. The rooms have computers and are furnished by IKEA.
“Ten years from now the Norwegian prison officials will have instituted euthanasia for the elderly, so robbing a bank in Oslo is not really an option."
"You have any other suggestions?" I had been doing a little non-union extra work for TV shows. The pay was $8 an hour with a meal. Twelve hours added up to almost $85 with overtime.
"Ever think about taking steel pole lessons from strippers? You could always lose ten pounds and work as a go-go boy at the queer retirement home.” Bruce’s biting wit was best suited to attack rather than self-deprecation.
“More like twenty pounds.” December hadn’t been so cold, although a steady diet of stress had melted the fat from my bones.
“Honey, those old wrinklies aren’t so particular about the weight. They like the young flesh.” Bruce had written a book on the rough trade in Times Square. His tricks had called him Papi. None of them were under 20 and he never sunk under 250 pounds.
“A scary thought.” I felt my age and my young Thai wife kept reminding me over the phone that I wasn’t 17 anymore. Mam was 28 and my son was four years-old. I couldn’t quit working until I was 78.
"Those old fags want someone young.” Bruce was a year from Social Security. “None of those old queens in the nursing homes have seen anyone young as you in decades. You could charge the homes $100 a visit, which has to be better for the old geezers than any other medicine.”
“Thanks for the idea, but I'd rather rob a cradle than a grave."
"Times change and people like you and me have to change with them, plus graves are richer pickings than a cradle. Hell, you could franchise it in Florida. How many retirement homes you think are in the Sunshine State? Thousands? There has to be a demand for middle-aged men from the elderly.”
“Supply and demand.” I ordered oysters with seaweed noodles, plus a glass of wine. The waiter was thin and handsome. He had to be 35 years younger than me. He wouldn't think of me as middle-aged. I was almost 60.
“And who knows? You might be able to sex them up for a little more money on the side.” Bruce caressed the waiter’s behind. He was a regular here. The waiter walked away content to know that he would be receiving a good tip. Bruce liked to pay for sex even if it was merely a grope.
“No way. I barely wanted to have sex with myself let alone with someone else.”
“Why, because you’re too good to have sex with someone older than you. Like me.” He frowned at this unintended insult. “What about the woman you had sex with in Palm Beach?"
"Helen?" She had been unnaturally blonde and thin.
."That's the one. You said she was over 70.”
“That was different.” The heiress had been the publisher of a Florida magazine. We had smoked reefer in her apartment overlooking Lake Worth. The address had been in West Palm Beach. "She wasn't really rich."
"But she had your number." Bruce was fascinated by the sordid.
“How?" The blonde septuagenarian spent part of a good part of her fortune on soaking her body in Botox like it was fondue cheese.
"As I remember it, she said she hadn’t had cock in her mouth in ten years. She had begged for it and you gave it to her like you were shooting a remake of SUNSET BOULEVARD.”
“It was a mercy mission.”
With the lights off, the curtains billowing with the breeze, and Helen wearing sheer lingerie and satin high heels, I imagined that she was Paris Hilton in the year 2040. On her knees the mirage had performed fellatio like she was entering the Porno Hall of Fame. Thankfully she had never said, “Ready for my scene, Mr. DeMille.”
Maybe the first time, but what about the second time?” Bruce sat back, as the waiter delivered our appetizers; fried calamari for him and raw bluepoints for me. “Gore Vidal said about orgies that once is experimentation, but twice is perversity.”
“The second time was because I was drunk.” Two bottles of wine and a joint had loosened by inhibitions and she had had her way with me. “There was no third time.”
Only because you saw her with another man at the Chesterfield.”
“She was in the Leopard Lounge.” The other man had been in his late 60s. He had once been an Elvis impersonator. I felt cheap.
“And you heard her use that ‘haven’t tasted cock’ line on him, so don’t tell me you can’t go-go boy anymore. We all have a price.”
“I’d rather rob a bank in Norway.” I sucked down an oyster tasting of the Atlantic.
“And end up a stick boy in prison.” Bruce was enjoying himself. "You don't look like you'd like being a bottom."
"Never." I never would be a bottom, except with my wife Mam. She got off better that way.
“You do what you have to do to survive. Believe me. I know.” He had taught creative writing at a dude ranch college two years ago. He was lucky to have escaped the range without any charge for perversion.
“I know you do.” Bruce was in his 60s. His novels were in every bookstore in the East Village. His tales of hustlers and go-go boys were cult classic within the gay community. His name in in Wikipedia.
All that meant almost nothing. Bruce was forever broke. Same as everyone in America, for the very rich have no use for old go-go boys.
And I know, because wealth has a funny way of making an old man young, but I had a few good years in me yet and one of them would be in Florida.
Maybe Bruce was right and there was only one way of finding out and high season was only a summer away.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Tis the Season BET ON CRAZY
My boss at the diamond exchange hailed from Brownsville, one of the toughest neighborhood in Brooklyn and those streets bred its own language. For years Manny greeted Christmas shoppers to his diamond store with the phrase 'there is no season for giving'. His son Richie Boy tried on many occasions to explain that he was basically saying that at no time should anyone ever give gifts.
"That's not what I said." Manny had a problem with accepting criticism. Most bosses think they are infallible.
Thirty years on the Bowery and twenty years on 47th Street had deafened the eighty year-old's ability to hear his own speech.
"Then what are you saying?" His son was mystified by his old man's vernacular.
"I'm saying that you can give a gift whenever you want."
"We know that's what you're trying to say, but sounds hinky." Richie Boy's command of the queen's language had been polished by his friends in high places.
"Wrong way? You understood what I was trying to say, so what's the problem?" Manny was at the age when being wrong wasn't an option unless you wanted to admit decades of mistakes and admission of one error would lead to an avalanche of realizations. It was better to think yourself forever right.
"Nothing at all." Richie Boy shrugged his defeat and soon 'no season for giving' became our holiday motto.
Of course like a corked wine Manny aged either way and on the day before Christmas my boss was showing a young man a diamond ring.
"I'm not looking for an engagement ring. "The customer was too young to want to get married.
"Not want to give a gift." Manny's hearing was gone so he only hears whatever he wants. Richie Boy motioned for me to TO or take over the sale. I shook my head.
"No, I want earrings." The young man was shaking his head.
"So buy a ring already. This is Christmas, a time for giving, not a time for jerking off."
Richie Boy and I exchanged a disbelieving glance. His father couldn't have said that gem. We laughed aloud we heard and Manny continued to insult the morning's only customer and he wasn't stopping either.
"I don't that the time to waste on someone who would rather jerk off than buy his girlfriend a present."
"All I want is earrings." The young man had never expected holiday abuse from an 80 year-old man.
"I already showed you rings, now stop wasting my time." Manny threw out the young man and went back to his desk. He looked at us and asked, "What?"
"Nothing." Richie Boy and I went back to our desks. We knew better than to ask any questions during the season of 'not jerking off'. It wouldn't be Christmas until we shut the safe and we were counting every minute.
Peace In No Man's Land
Monday, December 24, 2012
Back To Work
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Two Days To Go
Monday, December 17, 2012
The Hour Of The 13th Baktun
You Bet I Would Lingerie
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
Texas Tower Massacre
On August 1, 1966 Charles Joseph Whitman started the day by killing his wife and mother. He left a note in his apartment.
"I do not quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts."
Charles Whitman left his apartment and drove to the Texas University. The ex-Marine climbed the 307-foot tower with a cache of weapons. From this aerie he shot dead 13 and wounded 32 others with telescopic rifles. This rampage lasted for hours. Finally two Austin police officers put down the killer with shotguns.
"We got him."
Medical examiners found a brain tumor in his head. He was also on speed and rumors abounded about his abuse as a child by the Catholic priests from his home parish of Lake Worth, Florida.
No one blamed the guns.
Not then.
Now now and not when gunmen assail 'soft targets' such as school, fast food chains, and malls. Strangely no deranged gunman has ever attacked a gun show.
Guns and guns and guns.
Not once in America has a mass murderer assailed a gun show, proving that either the madmen are scared of not accomplishing their murderous mission or gun shows calm the burning blood of a killer's brain.
Don't get me wrong. I like shooting guns. Just not at people.
Unless they are after my family, then it's open season.
Lock and load.
Bullet Control
Time To Talk
SAD SUNSET by Peter Nolan Smith
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
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.
The Great Disappointment
This world was a cesspool of sin for Christians in the early 19th Century, as Satan threatened the souls of the White Race through race miscegnation and women's demands for equality were an attack on the eternal domination of men over the weaker sex. The United States was losing its religion to Mammon the filthy idol of money. The Millerite movement chose to defend Christian values with the Second Great Awakening, but in August 1844 their Baptist leader, William Miller, interpreted the Bible writing of Daniel and declared their Saviour would return to Earth on October 22, 1844.
His followers gave away their houses, horses, and possessions in preparation for the Rapture.
On the predicted End of Days some of his faithful climbed church steeples to leap into the air, so angels could seize them for a flight to heaven. Thousands of Millerites gathered for the moment on October 22.
Dawn passed without the horns of salvation blaring from the heavens. A few of the devout jumped from their perches and struck the ground with a thud. None died, but many suffered broken bones. Noon passed without the appearance of the Man from Nazareth. Non-believers ridiculed Miller's flock throughout the rest of the day and the sun set on what would become known as 'The Great Disappointment'.
William Miller re-predicted the 2nd Coming for 1845. The preacher was wrong yet again. His flock examined the text of the Bible and the Millerites fragmented into different camps. Many joined the Quakers, but two camps arose from the wreckage of the Great Disappointment. The 'shut door' camp believed that the door to heaven was closed to foolish virgins and only the wise virgins would be accepted through the Pearly Gates. The majority of the remaining Millerites rejected this theory and convinced their leader that heaven was open to all believers. William Miller died in 1849 without achieving his much desired rapture. His followers evolved into the Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Advent Christians.
Madmen and madwomen.
I'm disappointed that their Messiah hadn't taken them away on October 22, 1844.
The world would have been a better place without them.
Maybe this time.
High Ground
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Richard's Ark
ATLANTIS by Donovan
Sunday, December 9, 2012
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
Friday, December 7, 2012
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
TORA TORA TORA 2012
Like JFK's assassination everyone of a certain age remembers where they were during the announcement of the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Many had to ask, "Where's Pearl Harbor?"
This morning to commemorate their ignorance I posed the same question to younger people on the streets of Manhattan. Few of them had a clue other than two Japanese punks who said it was a group from the 1970s.
"As we get old, we forget. As we get older, we are forgotten."
TORA TORA TORA
ps Pearl Harbor and The Explosions released their debut single, "Drivin'". It was backed by "Release It" on Nov. 21, 1979. I have no idea where I was, but I think it was CBGBs.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Somethings Never Change
