Heaven On This Earth

Heaven is where the police are Thai, the chefs are Mexican, the mechanics are Robots, the lovers are busy elsewhere so you can drink in peace and everything is organized by anarchists. And Hell is what you make it. Fuck the filth. Free Ireland.

The Last Executioner Of Thailand

In many ways books are much better than DVDs. While used ones in Thailand cost about 160 baht as opposed to 100 baht per DVD, movies rarely last longer than 2 hours, especially if you hit the fast-forward button. The BLACK DAHLIA flashed before my eyes in less than 12 minutes. It sucked.

Reading a book is a journey of days, unless the book was no good, however last year I was lucky enough to find THE LAST EXECUTIONER by Chavoret Jaruboon, the Thailand's last prison executioner.

The functional writing recounted Mr. Jaruboon's life as a teenage rock musician, soldier, prison guard, executioner, and finally monk. Neither of his first three careers prepared him for the fifty-five executions that he performed at Bang Kwang prison.

To him the job of poo sam-re?t toht or executioner meant more money.

2000 baht a job.

In the book he outlined the crimes which led the condemned to their fate. Their crimes were often heinous. On the day of execution they were tied to a crucifix and shot up to fifteen times by a machine gun. This humble man respected the dead for fear of their ghosts. In the end Khun Jaraboon was glad to see the deadly fusillade replaced by fatal injection.

His last job was on 12/8/2002.

Eight bullets into the back of a murdering rapist.

After that Jaruboon became a monk.

His favorite band was the Beatles.

One more thing.

Paperbacks are better than hard-covers.

You can swap mosquitoes with them.

Death Song Of Thailand

Norman Mailer wrote his 1979 Pulitzer-winning EXECUTIONER'S SONG about Gary Gilmore's execution by the State of Utah.

His crime had been murder.

Gilmore had a slim choice of methods; shooting squad or noose. He opted for the shooting squad rather than the noose and refused any reprieve from his fate. “Death is the only inescapable, unavoidable, sure thing. We are sentenced to die the day we’re born.” Norman Mailer considered this insight extraordinary, yet didn’t extrapolate further to the fact that everyone was privy to the hour of Gary Gilmore’s date with destiny, especially the shooting squad. He walked the Last Mile on the morning of January 17, 1977. His last meal from the Utah State Prison consisted of steak, potatoes, milk and coffee and a six-pack of beer. He ate nothing and drank the milk and coffee. Smuggled Jack Daniels was his last sustenance on Earth. The Death House was an abandoned cannery. Five riflemen from the local police served as the Death Squad. His last words. “Let’s do it.”

Chavoret Jaruboon, Thailand's # 1 executioner, was familiar with such bravado.

Thailand's method of capital punishment has combined a ritual crucifixion with shooting the victim in the back. The target was the heart and the state killer shoot his victim from behind a screen. Fifteen bullets were allotted for each occasion. Even the best get sloppy with a blind shot.

Chavoret Jaruboon's total number of kills was 55.

55 victims are less than the 150 Texans killed by GW Bush's stroke of a pen.

Americans rationalize that death by injection as a merciful method.

Personally I'd choose a hot shot of heroin over a chemical concoction of dubious origins. 

The majority of this country also consider the death penalty as an effective weapon against murder. The FBI reports that each execution deters at least 3-17 extra victims. Guess they aren't taking into account Columbine or Virginia Tech, where the killers don't make it to court.

China kills thousands of criminals each year. None of them can make an appeal. The manner of death comes as a bullet to the head and the family has to pay for the bullet.

Back in 1995 I witnessed a parade of trucks in Chengdu transporting about thirty death row inmates to the nearby sports stadium. People watched the procession from the sidewalks without comment and the resignation on the condemned faces betrayed none expected a last minute reprieve.

Neither had any of GW Bush's 150.

China even has a mobile execution van.

Death is by injection with comfortable sitting for six witnesses and no body damage for better organ harvesting. 

During the lead-up to 2008 Beijing Olympics the Chinese cut their executions from 12,000 to about 7500 per annum, which was more than all the other countries in the world combined.

Thailand tried to do its part in reducing the criminal population.

A bullet is better than previous methods.

Until 1934 Thailand decapitated criminals. A swordsman would leap from behind the victim and lop off their head. This ambush was to designed to prevent the dead man's ghost from haunting the killer. The head was then stuck on a pole and the bodies fed to birds of prey i.e. vultures. This was an improvement on earlier techniques such as inserting a red-hot iron in the brain or immolating a bound and impaled prisoner.

Unlike Gary Gilmore, none of the prisoners on Thailand's Death Row are told the time of their death. Guards show up one morning and select a victim.

Surprise.

No last meal.

No phone calls. Just, "Mung, bpai."

Most are dragged kicking and screaming according to Mr. Chavoret, who was promoted to Warden of the Foreign Prisoners' Section at Bangkok's Bang Kwang Central Prison. He deemed that capital punishment acted as a deterrent to crime, despite its prohibition by Buddhist teachings.

"An eye for an eye," he quoted the old Hebrew standard of retribution.

Of course no one speaks about the 3000-plus killings during Thaksin's War of Drugs.

Not if they know what's good for them.

Gary Gilmore's last words were 'Let's do it."

Godly Good Looks In the 2nd Person

Yesterday the ex-model from Paris has announced the following;

"It is written in the book of ISIAH that Jesus would have no physical attributes that would be physically attractive to others. Jesus did not have long hair and look effeminate, He was a carpenter, strong physically and probably what we would term as 'ugly'."

Next she'll tell us that he wasn't white.

A US Army squad was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi
insurgent, badly injured and unconscious.

On the opposite side of the road was an American soldier in a similar but less serious state.

The soldier was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the platoon leader asked the injured soldier what had happened.

The soldier reported, "I was moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road.

I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable, lowlife scum bag who got what he deserved and he yelled back that GW Bush is a coke-sniffing, Israeli-loving Jesus freak and that Barack Obama takes it up the ass from his wife.

So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and acts like a frigid, mean-spirited lesbian.

He retaliated by yelling, "Oh yeah? Well, so does Hillary Clinton!"

"And, there we were, in the middle of the road, shaking hands, when a bus hit us."

This joke was thanks to Nik Reiter of Tottemham Hotspurs Infamy.

Go you yids.

CHINGADO

There is something fucked up in the world. Iraq is fucked up, Afghanistan is fucked up, but Mexico is chingado. Seven murdered men were found in a park in Michoacan. Their corpses sat in plastic chairs. Each head was hooded, but red stains told the tale in Uruapan. "Warning! This will happen to thieves, kidnappers, sex offenders and extortionists" was posted on their chests. Summary executions are fucked up, but only one group of people write like this. And in America those people like donuts. Chingado!

Wild Wild Wild

Things will get out of hand on . Imagine the freedom. No debts. No old worries. Only the new. International Write-Off Day 4/1/2013

PATH THROUGH THE FOREST The Factory

PATH THROUGH THE FOREST is an unknown classic from psychedelic UK. It came from a seven song LP. I have no idea about the band members. This song rocks. To hear PATH THROUGH THE FOREST by The Factory, please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVCKA99vScQ

Beer Heaven

The Comfort Of A Siesta

Last week I worked every day 8 to 5 at my cousin's metal shop. I cut bronze with a band saw, picked up steel from a Newtown Creek foundry, installed bathroom fixtures at a West 14th Street luxury condo, and delivered decorative storage bins to the patio of a 5th Avenue penthouse. The work was exhausting and non-stop day after day. Rick and I worked Saturday and we were glad to complete the last bathroom in the condo. I thought about going up to see the Basquiat show at the Gagosian Gallery, but opted for the A train to Fort Greene. My body and soul needed rest and wine. Bedtime came early and I woke on Sunday morning with the dawn. My Sabbath was dedicated to recovering from the week's labors; a long bath, a bacon and eggs breakfast at the Academy Diner, reading ON THE ROAD, writing IN HEAVEN ABOVE as well as a few entries to mangozeen, then an afternoon nap, otherwise known as a siesta. Siesta is derived from the Latin words 'hora sexta' for the sixth hour after dawn and people of the Mare Nostrum have perpetuated the afternoon nap for centuries. I lived in Perpignan in the late-80s and my cousins ate a large lunch after which we draped our bodies across couches and chairs for a good hour repose. I considered this practice extremely civilized in comparison to the Northern European work schedule of lunch and right back to work, however the siesta has suffered from the recent economic decline in Spain, as workers are threatened by dismissal for any signs of lax work ethics. Doctors have failed to find any concrete benefit from siestas, although people sleeping after lunch supposedly are 37% less prone to heart disease. This afternoon I didn't care about anything other than hitting my pillow for some ZZZZZZs. I spend a good hour in slumber and woke to gray skies. Tomorrow it's supposed to snow. Winter is taking its time saying good-bye and I rolled over to catch a few more minutes of rest in respect of the Dalai Lama's belief "Sleep is the best meditation."

Sleeping Beauty

The actress Tilda Swinton has been scheduled to sleep in a glass box at Mew York's Museum of Modern Art throughout the month as a performance called THE MAYBE. Museum goers enjoy the spectacle of celebrity within arm's length, but the talented Ann Magnuson related her sleeping beauty story at Area in 1983. "Eric Goode and Sean Hauseman set up a bed in one of their dioramas along the corridor at the entrance. When I heard they were paying someone $100 a night to just sleep there, I said HIRE ME! (I was so broke.) It was a nightmare. Strobe lights going off in the room, you could hear the disco music even earplugs, assholes were pounding on the plexiglass window screaming WAKE UP BITCH! I toughed it out for a few hours then quit. Made Eric pay me the full $100." $100 was good money back in 1983. Hell, I'd do it now for the same sum, but who would want to watch me sleep. HAL WINDSTON the great London Art Spiv said the following about Tilda's slumber, "I don't get the tilda-swinton-sleeping-in-a-box thing at moma, ny. well, I do, but it's depressing. why give away valuable museum real estate to a non-artist? anyway, james franco has that territory well sewn up. wasn't tilda's box (office) a cornelia parker piece from 1996 now being repackaged as a tilda original? can someone please pour in some formaldehyde? Or Jello.

Hide Easter Bunny Hide

Israel versus the Palestinian Easter Bunny. No chance.

Stop Swearing

My only comment - It's just a fucking job."

Genesis 1 Redux

In the beginning there was light and darkness. Even before the beginning there was light and darkness. Neither the light nor the darkness was either good or bad. They were light and darkness. The planets took forever to be part of the light and darkness and water even longer, but they were always there only in another form.

There was no 1st day or 2nd day or 3rd or 4th or 5th or 6th or 7th day.

There was only always.

Infinity.

Day and night were part of infinity thanks to gravitational spin.

Life came onto Earth in the recent always.

The creatures of earth small and great are wonders of life and thereby marvels of infinity.

Women and men are part of that infinity.

We were not always and we will not be always.

We are now.

So enjoy every second of infinity.

It is a long time until forever.

So says James A Steele, Blasphemer

DARKNESS DARKNESS by the Youngbloods

At summer's end radio stations compile the 1000 best songs of all time.

HEY JUDE was dethroned by STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.

SATISFACTION by the Rolling Stones enjoyed a brief moment in the sun, however my choice for best song was always DARKNESS DARKNESS, which Jesse Colin Young wrote in 1969 and performed with the Youngbloods. The words reputedly were very popular with grunts in Viet-Nam for describing the fears of the jungle. DARKNESS DARKNESS has retained its power, whereas HEY JUDE is a joke.

Sorry Beatles fans, but how many times can Paul McCartney repeat two words and you think that it's cool?

Like a million times.

The Youngbloods scored #438 for GET TOGETHER in the KZOK Top 1000.

DARKNESS DARKNESS was nowhere.

To hear this classic, click on this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-CYWbfFoXY

EARTH HOUR

8:30 EST I'm shutting off my lights for Earth Hour. One hour without lights. And you?

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 20 -by Peter Nolan Smith

Two seconds after the woman hung up, Sean Tempo dialed 911.

"Yes, may I help you?” the 911 operator answered within ten seconds.

Sean explained the nature of the emergency and gave the operator the woman's address. Several seconds passed in silence before the operator stated, "EMS no longer responds to that address."

"What do you mean? No longer responds?"

>"EMS has logged seven suicide attempts, four domestic violence calls, and four reports of attempted break-ins from that address in the last year. Always from the same caller. Che Chasta."

The name strummed a chord in Sean's memory.

"Which means?"

"No one will answer that call. Not the EMS, the Fire Department, or the police. Sorry."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Go over yourself,” the operator suggested and signed off saying, "Have a nice day."

If the State of California was abdicating its social responsibility, then he would answer this woman's plea, if only to take her to a hospital. Sean star-69ed the caller's number. The phone was busy, and he reckoned the caller had dropped it on the floor. He searched the Yellow Pages for a taxi service. A dispatcher informed him that a cab would arrive in less than five minutes and the ride over to Hollywood at this time of the afternoon would take no more than twenty-five minutes.

Sean hung up and stuck the sheets from the bed in the dryer, then plucked a real $100 bill in his pocket. He snatched a set of house keys off the kitchen counter and left the apartment. The door shut behind him. Maybe he should have left a note for the women, but every second counted in matters of life and death.

The corridor led to the elevators. The walls were unpainted sheet rock and the hallway smelled of damp concrete. Most of the doors to the other apartments had no knobs or locks. Light bulbs hung by a wire from the ceiling by a wire.

Whoever had financed this repair project had run out of money, but at least the elevator was working and Sean stepped inside the car.

When the doors opened on the ground floor, Sean ran through the dusty atrium to the waiting taxi.

He gave the driver the destination and the Sikh driver pulled out of the parking lot.

Rain bounced off the pavement of a broad boulevard lined with body, brake, and transmission shops. The lights ran in sequence to the Hollywood Freeway. Sean could barely see out the windows and cracked open the window. The driver chattered in Punjabi over the radio, as the taxi swerved through traffic. The cab narrowly missed sideswiping several trucks, although none of these close calls fazed the driver. At Highland he sliced across four lanes to the exit and slipped past the single queue of vehicles to stop abruptly at a yellow light.

Sorry, sir, there are too many policemen to burn the light." "No worries."

The driver waited out the oncoming traffic, then swerved right onto the boulevard, maintaining the speed limit until turning onto a street of sad bungalows. The taxi halted before a dull green house with an overgrown lawn. The rain had let up, but the air was thick with a cold damp.

"Just wait a few minutes." Sean opened the taxi door.

"No problem, if you give me something to hold."

"You mean like money?"

"Exactly, sir."

Sean was a little hesitant about handing the Sikh a hundred, but this woman might need a ride to the hospital, so he noted the driver's permit number and said. "I'll be right out."

"And I shall be waiting, sir." The driver held up the bill.

Sean got out of the taxi.

Several stray cats sulked through the lawn's high weeds, ignoring a crow pecking at a crumbled piece of trash. The only sound was a dog barking in he distance. People lived in these houses, but no one was walking around in this weather.

Overhead dark clouds were preparing for another downpour and a wet wind rustled through the bushes.

Sean tried the front door. It was locked. On a hunch he lifted the doormat and found a rusty key. It turned the lock.

The scent of musty mildew welcomed him into the living room. An old RCA TV was surrounded by stacks of videos and the furniture was buried under soiled clothing. The fireplace was filled with take-out containers and garbage overflowed from two trash cans. Whoever had called him earlier certainly didn't hold with cleanliness being close to godliness and he heard a phone off the hook.

"Anyone here?”

No one answered him and he studied the life-sized posters publicizing the various adult videos. They featured a big-breasted blonde surrounded by muscular men. The photo told the storyline of the movie in one word.

Gangbang.

Many men with one woman.

Sean connected the face and body with the name Che Chasta.

Six years ago he had seen her dance at the Triple Threat Theater in Times Square for ten men at the afternoon show. This had to be her place.

He pushed open the last door. The busy signal was coming from inside. The bedroom was surprisingly tidy in comparison to the rest of the house.

A video camera was pointed at the blonde woman on the bed. She was naked other than the cuffs restraining her to the bedposts. Che Chasta was in the proper position to perform her cinematic specialty, except Sean wasn't sure she was breathing. After shutting off the video camera and hanging up the phone, he touched her neck. His fingertips felt a pulse under the deathly cold skin. He tapped her face.

"Wake up."

The blonde opened her eyes and croaked, "Who are you."

"Me?" Sean stared at how her unnaturally firm breasts were stretched to a translucent thinness.

"Yes, where did you come from?" Her eyes wandered in and out of focus. A needle mark reddened the inside of her elbow. Someone else had shot her up and tied her to the bed. The video was for fetishists into sleeping women. There was an audience for every genre in porno.

"From Sherri's." He resisted touching her breasts, but undid the cuff from her wrist and then loosened the restraints on her ankles. "I came, because you sounded like you were in trouble."

"I still am.” The blonde lazily rubbed her wrists, as her eyes drifted up inside her skull. The taxi blew its horn outside.

"Who's that?"

"The taxi." The smell of woman roiling in his nostrils. His arousal felt like a betrayal of Sherri and he stepped back toward the door. Sean was not the type of man to take advantage of a woman in this condition.

Even of a porno star.

"Where you going?"

"I was going to take you to the hospital."

"No hospital." An expression of recognition passed over her face. "I know you."

"How?"

"You're the man from the highway."

"I am?"

"Yes, the man from nowhere."

"It seems to be my new name."

Che had fit in another piece in his puzzle.

He saw himself asleep in the back of a car with Lena and Che in the front seat. His mind played a dirty movie. Looking down at Che he started another. The horn blew outside. "I got to pay the driver. I'll be right back."

Sean threw a blanket over the blonde and ran to the street. The driver gave him the change and Sean handed him a $10 tip. He returned to the house and locked the door. When he entered the bedroom, the blonde said dreamily, "Funny, you showing up again."

"Why?" Sean sat on the edge of the bed.

"Just we help you that night and now you help me." The blonde actress touched his face, as if she were a blind person trying to read his features.

"So I guess we're even, but who did this to you?"

The blonde licked her parched lips.

"I'd love to tell you everything, but I need a glass of water first."

"Sure thing." Sean went into the kitchen. finding a clean glass was impossible. He washed a tea cup in the sink. When he got back to the bedroom, Che Chasta was crashed out in a distorted parody of Sleeping Beauty.

Sean rechecked her pulse.

It was stronger, but she didn't react to his touch and he surrendered to the temptation of caressing her breasts. They were as hard as they looked. His other hand fingered her soft hair. She was completely at his mercy, yet however easy as it was to think about doing it, which in many women's minds that was just as punishable as rape, he was incapable of executing the actual deed.

Sean pulled the covers over her body and unplugged the telephone, since Che needed sleep a lot more than any contact with the outside world.

Sean entered the living room and cleared off the sofa room. His body was shaking with frustration. He hadn't been with a woman in six months and nothing in the last two days suggested that this stretch of celibacy would end in the near future.

The only women he had met in Los Angeles were two lesbian lovers and a drugged sex star.

Both scenarios were promising in his fantasies, but not in reality.

He sank onto the couch and noticed the hundreds of videos scattered around the TV.

They were all X-rated.

Che was in every one.

Sean flashed Che Chasta watching these videos as Gloria Swanson had viewed her old black-and-white films in SUNSET BOULEVARD. He fought off the disturbing image, since he cast himself as William Holden, and picked out a box titled NEW PUSSY ON THE TOWN. The video dated back to the early 80s. The starlet wore her darker hair in a Farah Fawcett shag and her body mirrored the nubility of a teenager out for her first wild fling.

Sean decided to reward himself for saving her life by setting in motion a one-man Che Chasta Film Festival. He armed himself with a remote control and pressed the PLAY button for YOUNG AND BAD, which captured Che right off the pumpkin truck. None of the bearded studs were memorable, while Che demonstrated a star quality ready to blaze nova.

He fast-forwarded through the inane dialogues and the repetitive sex scenes. Hundreds of males spurted semen onto her breasts, backside, thighs, face, belly, yet never inside, for long ago someone in the porno business had decided that the money shot was more visually dramatic than the man just groaning in pleasure.

Psychologically this institutional coitus interruptus also helped the masturbating viewer regard his own onanistic orgasm as the greatest sensation a man could experience. None of it was the truth.

Somewhere in the middle of the retrospective Che Chasta's body artificially morphed the physical ideal the worshipped by brainwashed American males, though this corporeal modification thrust her into a maelstrom of more and more men and women.

Pornography was supposed to be sexy or maybe even erotic, yet Sean was unaroused, until selecting A THING CALLED LUST whose cover portrayed Che and Sherri embracing a nude statue.

They were both ten years younger and their eyes glowed with scorn for damnation. He slipped this video into the VCR and returned to the sofa, pressing the remote control's PLAY button.

The film's quality was low-grade, the dialogue worst, the lighting muddy, however the sex scenes between Che and Sherri was like watching two cougars fighting over the same kill and for the first time this evening Sean wished a time machine would transport him back in time to the two women on the TV screen.

Thwarted by temporal physics, Sean did the next best thing and undid his jeans. Part of him became Che, while his stroking hand mimicked Sherri's vagina and tightened. A lava flow surged from him with a shudder, though within seconds the fire died out and the dream was over. He was just watching a TV and zipped up his trousers, feeling emptier than ever, for there was something about the act that no longer fulfilled him. He was tired of being alone, but that was not going to change tonight or any time in the foreseeable future.

Worse was that he would have no warning, when it all went to shit, but then that fate went with his territory.

It went with the territory.

Everyday Spam

Everyday spam promoting the use of various male-oriented products floods my email inbox.

Increase your sperm load.

Grow 3-4 inches of penis instantly.

Viagra for renewed sexual vitality.

Having lived in Pattaya throughout the 90s and 00s I understand their targeting a man in his 50s surrounded by go-go bars, bars, and promenades of promiscuity. He wants sex and he wants it now, but there is a urban legend particular to Pattaya rumors that the local hospitals bodybag 50-60 middle-aged western males per month.

The Thai coroner is kind with his cause of death, however their cardiac arrests are usually the result of too much excess at one time, for freed of their purgatorial lives in the West, farang men hit Pattaya like a cowboy on the range.

These lustful pilgrims spy the girl of their porno fantasies on stage at a go-go. She's less than half their age and some objects of desire are even a third as young, since old boys arrive in the Last Babylon like it's the fabled elephants' final resting place, however chronic penile dysfunction is a buzzkill for an old timer in bed with a 19 years-old go-go dancer with skin smooth as silk.

THe remedy this affliction the old git drops a Viagra. 'Blue boys' revs his heart to supply more blood to energize his loins for a 'money shot'. His temples throb with pain from the overload to the system and the farang ignores the warning lights until a capillary implodes in his heart.

A groan and a clutch of his heart frightens the go-go girl, who flees the hotel room and the next morning the old geezer is bodybagged by the Pattaya Police.

I can understand why farang men buy sexual performance drugs, but why would anyone in the USA buy the stuff, since none of them are having sex with the living?

There's only one answer.

American men are purchasing Viagra, penis size growth pills, and pumps to aid their masturbation, while watching internet porn.

Viagra to get wood.

Zinc pills to increase sperm load to masturbate.

Endurance drugs to lengthen the time of masturbation.

A scary thought, which is why I don't shake any men's hands in America anymore.

There's no telling where it's been.

Worst was when the Pentagon announced that they wanted to dose the mountain troops in Afghanistan with Viagra to aid their breathing in the high altitude.

Now that's some real military genius.

Have a bunch of soldiers take Viagra and walk in the mountains with Superman like erections for 8 hours.

They'd be better off with coca leaves.

Of course that's against the law.

Pattaya has cured me of porno and I don't ever feel the need to be an ancient XXX star ever since having met my hero back in 1986

That winter I was staying North Hollywood with my cousin. Sherri was a veteran porn star.

One evening the phone rang.

The mumbling caller was Harry Reems, the star of DEEP THROAT. He was bad shape from drugs.

We called the 911. The operator informed me that EMS didn't go to that address anymore, since Harry had reached his limit of near-death experiences.

Sherri and I drove over his Hollywood Hills bungalow. The trip in the rain on the Hollywood Freeway was life-threatening, since my cousin was legally blind.

Upon arrival we found Harry sprawled on his bed at death's door. We brought him back to life.

In the morning he was back to normal and ready to meet his public, who were demanding another stellar XXX performance. He asked if I wanted to be an extra.

I turned him down even if you haven't skated on thin ice. 

Sometimes you have to know when to hang up your skates.

Nobody's Cock HARRY REEMS

The actor Jack Nicholson helped BATMAN hit $411,348,924 in 1989. Warren Beatty scored his greatest hit with DICK TRACY's box office earnings of $162,738,726 worldwide. Neither came close to Harry Reems, who acted in DEEPTHROAT. That film grossed over $600,000,000. Reems was paid $250 to play opposite Linda Lovelace in the XXX blockbuster hit. She earned $1250 for her performance as Linda Susan Boreman. Her Svengali husband took all the money. DEEP THROAT has grossed over $600,000,000 since 1972. Harry Reems died without getting anything extra from the film. Life certainly isn't fair sometimes.

SMASHING KNIVES by Peter Nolan Smith



In the Greater Depression the employment opportunities for a man my age were limited in New York City, however my absolute willingness to work overcame most obstacles and for the past two months I have labored at a different jobs every few day.

I have surveyed pawn shops for loose diamonds, videoed off-off Broadway plays, transported bronze flower planters to a 5th Avenue penthouse, installed intricate radiator covers at Dolce / Gabbana’s fourth-floor penthouse constructed theater sets for PS 122, and babysat sullen children in Brooklyn brownstones.

Hoping for a holiday position as a part-time Santa Claus I grew my beard long, except the daughter of my landlord and good friend AP said that I looked scary.
Off came the St. Nicolas scruff and I subwayed to West 47th Street to sell a gold ring at my old diamond exchange.

After buying the ring Lak asked from behind his counter, “Don’t you work in a metal shop?”

“Yes.” The foundry was located in Greenpoint by the Newtown Creek. My cousin’s shop had every metal-cutting machine needed for that trade. I held up my hands. “And I’ve kept all my fingers, why?”

“We have thousands of silver knifes.” The young Indian from New Jersey showed me one. The fancy piece of cutlery had once been part of a family’s heirlooms. Its sentimental value was nothing. “The blades are stainless steel and the handles are silver. I’ll pay you $1 a knife to get rid of the blade and plaster inside the handle. I have one guy who does 500 in a night.”

“Sounds good.” I calculated Rick’s workers would process several thousand knives in a week. “Give me ten. I’ll see what my cousin thinks.”

Lak stuck the knives in a bag and I walked down the aisle to the door.

“What’s that?” Manny my ex-boss looked at the bag. My old position was taken by Hlove. He had once had his own jewelry company. Manny said that he was a good salesman. I nodded a silent hello.

I explained the job and the octogenarian said, “Sounds like easy money.”

“I’ll let you know how easy.” I exited from the exchange and rode the train to Greenpoint in Brooklyn.
Rick and his crew were assembling a steel project for a Midwestern museum. I showed the knives and he said,

“This sounds like an Uncle Carmine job.”

“Only if making the money is easy.” Rick and I were related through the plumber from the Lower East Side.

“I hope this is easy. Uncle Carmine never liked breaking a sweat.”

“We split the take 50/50, but only if two of my workers can knock out a hundred each hour.”

I waved to Oscar and Julio. The Mexican brothers were hard workers. If anyone could find the right method, those two could. They came from Oaxaca.

“It’s a deal.”

I left Rick with 600 knives.

I brought 400 back to my apartment, figuring that I could whack out a good two hundred a day.

That Thanksgiving morning I sat in the backyard of the Fort Greene Observatory with a hammer, chisel, and pliers. No one was home to hear my hammering hundreds of times per hour, so I offered a prayer to Thor and began my task.

Poultice fogged the garden. I ripped the blades from the silver one by one by one.
No music. No beer. Only the clank of steel on steel.

After one hour I felt like one of Santa’s helpers, after two hours I had descended to a coal miner, after three hours I was on the chain gang and at sunset I was as exhausted as a slave laborer in Stalin’s Gulag with only 150 knives to show for six hours’ work.

After a hot shower I dressed for drinks at Frank’s Lounge. Martina the blonde bartender served me a Stella.

“You don’t look happy.”

“I’m not.” I drained the first beer in less than a minute and told her my tale of woe.

“That next beer is on me.” Martina had a good heart and I drank five Stellas before stumbling home to my bed and weary dreams filled with knives.

The next morning I woke up with my right hand twitching for the hammer. I dressed in my unwashed clothing and descended from my apartment, dreading the day ahead of me. I sat at my perch under the porch and began to hammer.

The five hours lasted ten in troll time. Saturday was worse since I had another 100 knives to do on Sunday.
That night AP, my landlord, returned from his holiday in the Hamptons and his wife took one look at me.

“You want a glass of whiskey?” Betsy was a kind-hearted soul from San Diego. She understood that I was slaving for my kids in Thailand.

“Yes.” I was too weary to say more. The shot of Jamison’s reminded me of life. I had been that close to death.

On Monday morning I called Rick. He didn’t sound happy.

“We finished the 600.”

“You want me to bring over more?”

“No.” He didn’t have to explain why.

“I’ll come pick them up.”

“You know, Uncle Carmine would have never accepted this job.”

“I didn’t know it before, but I know it now.”

At the metal shop Oscar and Julio didn’t say hello. Another worker, Chris, called me a name. He was absolutely right, but at least the handles weighed less without the blade and I trudged to the subway, calculating the value of the silver at about $20,000. Any thief would have loved that score, but I looked like a dirty worker and I arrived safely on 47th street at noon.

"How’d it go?” Manny asked from his desk.

“I’ve never been scared of hard work.” The powder from the handles was scratching my lungs and my right hand trembled with cramps.

“How you do it?” Hlove stood at the counter.

“Brute force.”

“A better technique would be to have a compressor cutter and boil out the pumice with ammonia.” Hlove knew the backend of the jewelry business from over twenty years as a manufacturer. “But without ventilators you’d kill everyone in the shop.”

“So I was stuck with Plan A.”

“Better you than me.” Hlove sat down to my old desk. We both understood that the only thing worst than working a bad job was not working at all these days and he meant it when he said, “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I walked back to the gold buyers.
Lak was impressed with the results and paid me on the spot.

$1000 filled my pocket. $300 went to rick. The rest would be gone by the next dawn. I had kids to feed in Thailand.

“You want more?” Lak asked, as if he expected me to refuse his offer.

“Yeah.” I took another 200 to pummel in the backyard.

The following morning I resumed up my position.

Hammer in hand I smashed apart the first knife. My young downstairs neighbor opened the garden door with a frown on his face. Martine worked nights. It was barely 9am and he asked, “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Sorry.” I lugged the knives upstairs to my room.

AP suggested that I work on the roof. A steel beam stretched across the building. I pounded out a hundred in three hours, while AP was in the city. A minute after his return he climbed onto the roof.

“Yo, man, that’s enough.” AP was furious with the clanging noise. “The entire house is shaking.”

“I guess I don’t know my own strength.” I packed up the knives and rode my bike down to the river, where I finished off the last 100 on a East River dead-end. After three hours the police arrived on the scene and the older cop asked for my permit.

“Permit for what?” Dust from the knives hovered three meters around me. Its ingredients violated every EPA mandate.

“For working here.” The cop was confused about the proper misdemeanor.

“I need to finish this off, so I can feed my kids.” It was the truth.
The two cops looked at each other. The had kids and the driver warned, “Don’t let us find you here in thirty minutes.”

“I’ll be gone in twenty.” The sun was dropping behind the Manhattan skyline.

I biked back to Fort Greene devastated by the day’s toils.

“Are you done?” AP had forgiven this morning’s trespass. His children were attending private school.

“I was done two days ago. Now the task was done.”

“Good.” We drank a bottle of wine in celebration. The second bottle was to get drunk. I deserved it.

The next day I stopped by 47th Street. Lak examined my knives. They weren’t as clean as the first patch.

“It’s getting you, isn’t it?”

“Truthfully, I never worked so hard in my life.”

“You’re doing them?” Lak was shocked that I possessed the strength for this work.

“Yeah, the shop said it wasn’t worth the effort and the truth is that it isn’t worth mine either.” I handed him the last load.

“What about for $1.50 a knife?”

“I’ll think about it.” I had enough money in my pocket to last until Monday.

Something better had to come my way before then.

After all this was New York City and if you can’t make it here, then I’ll be damned if I have to make it somewhere else.

Reading Mr Beller's Neighborhood

MR BELLER'S READING SERIES WHATEVER IT TAKES I'll be reading March 21 at Dixon Place 161 Chrystie Street 7PM LOVE TO SEE YOU. I'll be reading SMASHING KNIVES In the Greater Depression the employment opportunities for a man my age were limited in New York City. A younger man would perform the job for a third of the wage, however my absolute willingness to work overcame most obstacles and for the past two months I have labored on the black market at a different job every few day. I have surveyed NY pawn shops for loose diamonds, videoed theater pieces, transported bronze flower planters to a penthouse on 5th Avenue, installed bronze radiator covers in Dolce / Gabbana’s fourth-floor penthouse on the Hudson River, constructed sets for PS 122, sold gold for friends, and babysat children. Hoping for a seasonal job I grew a beard to be a part-time Santa Claus, except the daughter of my landlord and good friend AP said that I looked scary. Off came the scruff of Xmas and I found my next job in my old exchange on West 47th Street. PETER NOLAN SMITH

A Letter To GW Bush

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From: Tomas Young I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care. To read the rest of this letter please go to the following URL http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_last_letter_20130318/#.UUk0d72ucpI.facebook

Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago GW Bush green-lighted Operation Iraqi Freedom. This morning ABC or NBC made no mention of 'shock and awe. Of course Saddam had asked for a billion dollars from Bush and Cheney to leave Iraq without a fight. They refused his request. Cheney quoted $55 billion for the war. $2 trillion later he still can't count on his fingers.

Good morning, America.

Where's Ralph

Last Saturday I went down to Ralph's Meats on Lafayette. The Fort Greene institution had its metal shutters down and a police poster announced that the deli was closed until further notice pursuant to gun and drug charges stemming from a 2012 arrest. I was hoping that the DA might have seen irregularities in the case, but this latest event shows that the City will attempt to prosecute the Mayor of Fort Greene. Personally I hope it never gets to trial, because Ralph is good people.

Coyote Crazy

Wiley the Coyote survived countless seemingly fatal disasters during his cartoon career. None of his plans to capture the Roadrunner ended in success, despite the aid of the Acme Corporation. Wild dogs in Thailand are much less lucky and this past summer I hit one outside of Chai-nat.

Thump.

I thought it was dead and kept on driving.

Later that evening my ex-wife said that my leaving was a good idea.

"Stopping only make trouble."

The next day I rode by the spot and examined the pavement without finding a trace of blood or guts. Maybe the dog had been lucky, although not as lucky as a wild coyote in the western desert of the USA.

This story comes from Allison of Palm Beach.

Daniel and Tevyn East were driving at night along Interstate 80 near the Nevada-Utah border when they noticed a pack of coyotes near the roadside on October 12. One of the animals ran in front of the car, the impact sounded fatal so the siblings thought there no point in stopping.

'Right off the bat, we knew it was bad,' Daniel explained. 'We thought the story was over.'

After the incident around 1am, they continued their 600 mile drive to North San Juan - even stopping for fuel at least twice. Upon reaching their destination at 9am they examined what damage their car may have sustained during the collision.

'[Daniel] saw fur and the body inside the grill,' Tevyn East said. 'I was trying to keep some distance. Our assumption was it was part of the coyote - it didn't register it was the whole animal.'

Daniel East got a broom to pry the remains out of the bumper and got the shock of his life.

'The coyote flinched,' Tevyn East said. 'It was a huge surprise - he got a little freaked out.'

Wildlife officers freed the coyote from the car.

Guess that they had a lot of practice from saving Wiley Coyote's life after the cartoon character's various failures to capture his prey. Unless each reappearing Wiley the Coyote was a resurrected clone like Alice in RESIDENT EVIL.

So many lives to give for the cause of comedy.

Meep-Meep.

Sounds of Massachusetts

A 2007 article by Laura Barton in the UK Guardian suggested that the Modern Lovers ROADRUNNER should be the state song of Massachusetts. Such a good idea took time to fester in the minds of Bay State residents, but a local politician picked up the torch for the underground hit extolling riding on "Route 128 when it's late at night". A slam dunk was prevented by two perverse state reps countering with Aerosmith's DREAM ON. In 1971 my friend Russ and I were working as waiters at the Hi-Hat Lounge on Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton. The low-life bar had a good jukebox, cheap drinks, and underage drinking. We sold quaaludes to BU coeds and a band living at 1325 Comm Ave. Arrowsmith. At least I think it was them, but we also dealt mescaline, so the accuracy of my recollection can't be written in stone. DREAM ON was a big hit from their 1973 debut LP, but ROADRUNNER was everyone's favorite, because they sang about our state. In my mind the contest isn't even close. To hear ROADRUNNER by the Modern Lovers, please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy88-5pc7c8

Zai Jian Fung Wah Bye Bye

On March 4 the mythic bus line Fung Wah was shut down by the Feds, who cited the Boston-based company's reluctance to open their safety records to inspectors, who discovered cracks in the drive axle and engine cradle in eight of the nine buses tested in late January. The $15 bus ride between Boston and New York was popular with college students, the poor, and travelers seeking to avoid the high prices of Greyhound and fucking Amtrak. Fung Wah was a risky boon to its customers. The cheap cost was balanced by the legends of crashes, crazed drivers, and speeding buses. Since its conception in 1996 millions rode the route established by Pei Lin Liang, an immigrant from Zhuhai, China. Most of us made it to our destination without a problem, although the discount bus line was ranked as dangerous by the Department of Transportation. I was never scared on Fung Wah and neither was Courtney, my niece. We shall miss our dear Fung Wah. Zai Jian. A young singer parodized of Bob Dylan's "Farewell Angelina" in tribute to the Fung Wah bus company. Lyrics and performance by Marc Philippe Eskenazi and directed by Myles Kane. To hear FAREWELL FUNG WAH, please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6_iKO65TXM

3Is And A Genie

An Israeli, an Iranian, and an Irishman are lost in the desert. They discover a brass lamp in the sand. The Israeli rubs it and frees a grateful genie, who will grant a wish to each of them. The Israeli insists on going first and demands a wall 100 feet high around all of Biblical Israel with no Muslims inside the wall.

The genji claps his hand and the deed is done.

"What about you?" the genie asked the Iranian, who says, "I want a wall 200 feet high around the lands of the Muslims with no infidels.

The genji claps his hands and the deed is done.

The genie turns to the Irishman, who asks, "Can you fill those walls with whiskey?"

The genie smiles and says, "Your wish is my command. Fainne oir ort!"

The Irish are a sensible people, although an old friend asked after hearing the joke, "Jameson or Bushmills? It matters."

Jamesons of course with its pure pot still taste.

Slainte."

Irish Ha-Ha

An Irishman who goes on to a building site looking for a job and is told by the foreman that he will have to undertake a brief test.

'Fine,' says the Irishman. 'OK then,' says the foreman. 'First up, can you tell me the difference between a joist and a girder?'

'That's easy,' the Irishman replies. 'Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust.'

If we can't laugh at ourselves who can we?

The rest of the world because today everyone is Irish.

Except for anyone not drinking beer.

The Vanishing of Belief

My aunt Gloria loved to tell the story about my baptism. The christening was on a hot June day in 1952. Her husband was my godfather. He wore Marine officer whites and a smile. Uncle Jack was glad to be back from Korea. The priest recited the rites and my aunt said as soon as he mentioned Satan that I started bawling like I was possessed by the Devil.

"You didn't stop crying until you were out of the church."

My aunt was a good Catholic as was my mother. They sent their children to Our Lady of the Foothills to educate us in the Ways of the Church and I had entertained an avocation for the priesthood until my best friend drowned in Lake Sebago. Chaney was a good boy. No god should have let him die, however my friend had perished without any divine assistance and I rejected the existence of god from that day on.

I was 8.

I refrained from telling my mother about this apostasy. She would have been devastated by my atheism and I acceded to her wishes that I serve as an altar boy at our local church.

"Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be a priest like your uncle." The priesthood was a favored destination for second sons.

"Maybe one day."

But there was no chance that I would regain my faith. My soul was lost to heaven and hell. My godless spirituality was a secret to friends and family for years, since most Americans couldn't get their head around the idea of life without religion. Non-believers were considered heretics to be avoided by the faithful until President Obama recognized non-believers in this inauguration speech.

We were on the map and neither the Vatican nor the Baptist ministry could deny our presence in the modern world. Our numbers are estimated to be about 15% of the US population and our ranks are growing so fast that the Vatican has proposed a meeting in Paris between believers and non-believers, although I can't see any reason for dialogue with our persecutors.

They can go their way and I will go mine.

A man at peace with the cosmos.

We are not alone.

We are together.

Humans and the stars.

For I was only crying at the Baptism because I was rejecting not only Satan and all his deeds, but god and his too.

Jesus Jah Ma

“I have nothing against Christ. It’s your Christians I hate.” This remark has been attributed to Saladin the Arab Jihadist during the Crusades. I feel the same way about most religions except beer-worshippers.

“Every day is Beermas.” My mate Nick declared with the fervor of a suicide beer-drinker. I’m an apostate Catholic. I don’t believe in God, Jesus, or an afterlife and certainly not that Mary was a virgin. That story about the Immaculate Conception was a cover-up for her affair with a mere mortal and it’s about time the church gave up that ghost.

Several years back a newspaper reported that a female convict achieved a virgin birth in solitary confinement.

I don’t remember where.

Thankfully there have been no calls about the 2nd Coming of Jesus, although Christians have been ratcheting up their efforts to convert Thai youth to the passion of God.

Big G wearing a muumuu like Buddha.

Several years ago my friend Ek lost his brother to preachers in Chonburi. Now he’s a Sunday boy. Praying to God. Happy to be saved for the heaven beyond this life and bible-thumpers have established a several footholds down the street from the Buffalo Bar.

Jehovah Witnesses.

I spraypainted 666 on the wall.

The next day the small congregation prayed for the number to disappear by the grace of God.

After 30 minutes they switched to soap and water.

By nightfall the 666 was a shadow.

Only 1% of Thais answer to Christ’s summon. The number is bound to rise with the increased uncertainty of the times. Maybe they’ll get 1.1%. And if Jesus comes they can go to heaven and leave the rest of us behind.

Bon Voyage true believers.

The Dirty War Of Francis I

"Let anyone without sin throw the first rock." In John 7.8 the New Testament cited the Christian Messiah admonishing any angry mob set on stoning an adulteress. Few people are without sin. Certainly not I in deed and thought, however the recently elected Pope Francis I has been accused by reporters from the Guardian of condoning the arrest and torture of two Liberation Theology priest during Argentina's Dirty War. He warned the two Society of Jesus clergymen to avoid the slums of Buenos Aires or else he couldn't protect them from the right-wing death squads working for the junta of Jorge Videla. The army disappeared the two radical priests for months. They were finally freed by the military and found naked in a field, which was a much better fate than being thrown out of an airplane into the ocean, which was the junta's favorite way of cleaning up their mess. Francis I has yet to comment on the allegations, although he has long stated that he worked behind the scenes to save their lives and others, but the years of silence bring on questions that have to be answered and questions are much easier to field than thrown stones. And angry mobs have good aim.

The Red Waltz Of The Cardinals

White smoke issued from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel signaling that the Catholic Church has a new pope, Francis I. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elevated to the Papal throne to replace Benedict XVI who unexpectantly retired from the world earlier in the year. The new Pope is the first from Argentina. He is also a Jesuit and probably took the suname of the founder of the Society of Jesus, Francis Xavier. I was educated by the Jesuits at Boston College. They showed a zeal for bettering the minds of their students. They haven't been mentioned in the widespread scandal of child-abuse rocking the Church. During his time in Buenos Aires, the conservative cardinal opposed abortion and birth control as well as writing about same-sex marriage as follows, "Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God." So the Church has chosen. Life shall be as life has been for thousands of years. Not like I was expecting a change from Old Time Religion. I remain faithful to atheism. It's the modern way. ps The new pope is 75, meaning the cardinals weren't looking for a pope with longevity. And they found their man.

Colonel James Steele

While running my F1 shopping internet website in Thailand, I decided to adopt an alias. I told the Thai selling Ferrari shirts and McLaren jackets that my name was James. "James Bond," they remarked with a smile. "Not James 007, but James Steele." And like that I became James Steele to hundreds of people in Pattaya. The name stuck with the mother of my son and her two children. Everyone in her village called me "James' and I continued to use the moniker upon my return to the USA in 2009, however the other day the Guardian published an article about Colonel James Steele, the Pentagon's dirty war expert. In 2003 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dispatched the retired Green Beret to Iraq. His mission was to set up torture camps to interrogate insurgents with the blessing of General Petreaus, whose recent sex scandal eliminate him from the post of CIA director. His course of action in Iraq was pure evil and he has shamed my pseudonym. James Steele. There are good ones. To watch the Guardian's film of Colonel James Steele, please go to the following URL http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/mar/06/james-steele-america-iraq-video

Across From Burma

Throughout the 90s I biked up from Chiang Mai to Mai Sai on the Thai-Burma border. A small river separated the two countries. The people on both sides looked the same and the houses were built in a similar fashion. I stayed at the Mai Sai Guest House to the left of the Friendship Bridge. They offered clean A-frame bungalows for 100 baht a night or about $3. Butterflies flirted with the flowers and a pleasant waitress served breakfast in the morning and beers at night. The guest house never hit full capacity during my visits. I traveled strictly in low season, but the owner said, "High season. Many farang. Smoke opium. Sleep too much." Smoking Ma or Horse was a ritual of the Golden Triangle and I liked a pipe once in a while. Young Burmese boys swam across the river at night. A ball of O was cheap. I slept late every day and rode a Triumph through the hills. It was a good place to be. 1994. I was 42.

Shut Your Mouth

The other day Samira Ibrahim was denied her State Department award after the right-wing Zionist Weekly Standard supposedly found anti-Semitic comments on her Twitter account. According to the Weekly Standard Ibrahim has since “refused to apologize” for her tweets, writing on Twitter that the “Zionist lobby in America” is to blame, who was being honored for her protests against virginity tests by the Egyptian authorities. The State Department reacted with knee-jerk spontaneity and their flak Victoria Nuland said. “So it was on that basis that she was initially selected, but obviously, these comments need to be looked into and we need some time.” The comments in question are indeed offensive to Zionists, who profess to be Semites. One was attributed to Hitler. ”I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it.” Ibrahim deleted the quote once it was found on her account. The Weekly Standard failed to contact Ms. Ibrahim and reported this as news without any investigation once more revealing the depth to which the Media has sunk in the last decade. "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. ” ― Joseph Goebbels You learn best for your masters.

Monday Monday

It has been a gray day. No rain. Not cold. All day long sirens have been wailed enroute to Brooklyn Hospital. People are getting hurt out on the streets or falling ill in their houses. The frequency of these sirens say this gray day is a bad day, but I can't decipher the causes of the sirens. A few are fire, many more are cops. It's a busy day and I'm staying close to home. Something bad is happening out there. At least it isn't Zombie Apocalypse. It's Monday Monday and to hear the Mamas and Papas sing MONDAY MONDAY, please go to the following URL ps Mama Cass is the best dancer in the band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81Ojd3d2rY

Peace on Women

Last Friday I helped a friend film the UN Women for Peace March. The weather was sloppy snow and the pavement of Dag Hammarskold was wet under foot, but hundreds of women and a few men trudged across 1st Avenue from the UN Building to hear speeches. The first speakers addressed the surge of violence against the women of the world. Actress Susan Sarandon read a special message from Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl shot by extremists angered by her attending school. I searched the internet for this letter without finding a single word, but I recalled coming close to tears thinking about the madness men visit on people and vow to be a better person in the years to come. Peace is the answer.

Back To Normal

Last Friday started with snow. I woke early since I had a schlepping job at the UN. My friend Eric was filming the first march against Violence toward Women from the General Assembly to the small park on 47th Street. I arrived at his place at 9. Eric drove his van down to the Lower East Side to pick up the other cameraman. The streets were thick with slush, as the snow changed to rain. At Dag Dag Hammarskjold Plaza I got us a spot before the stage. It was cold and I wasn't feeling well. Thankfully the march arrived on time and the speakers were short-winders. The work day was finished by 4, but Eric, the other cameraman, and I went to 169 Lounge on East Broadway for drinks. I got home around 10. The next two days I slept the sleep of the dead. It's Monday morning. I'm back to normal. It takes longer in the second half of your century on Earth.

Not 100%

2013 had passed through the summer and September without any serious hurricanes hitting the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. I thought to myself that we had been lucky and that misconception exited from my skull to be carried by the Gulf Stream winds to the birthplace of all storms. Hurricane Sandy struck New York and New Jersey with an unprecedented fury. Such was the power of thought. This last week I was working out in Montauk. I thought to myself, "I haven't had a cold all winter." The result of that wrong-thinking was as predictable as an October hurricane. My nasal passages are clogged with mucus and my head is throbbing from impacted sinuses. All and all not 100% and I failed to score some Sudafed or Nyquil before my return to the Fort Greene Observatory, so I'll cure myself with a glass of wine, water, and rest as well as listening to Sonny Rollins' SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS. It doesn't make me feel any better, but damn can that band blow the cold away. To listen to Sonny Rollins' SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS, please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onPyI9yzag8

Saudi Justice

Saudi Arabia hit the headlines across the globe after a young Saudi prisoner announced that he had been sentenced to crucifixion. The condemned man had been convicted of theft in 2009 and Sharia law in the southern province demanded capital punishment, even though he was 15 at the time of the jewelry store robberies in 2004. "I killed no one. I didn't have weapons while robbing the store, but the police tortured me, beat me up and threatened to assault my mother to extract confessions that I had a weapon with me while I was only 15. We don't deserve death." According to the UK's Guardian, Qahtani faced a judge three times during eight years in detention. He said the judge did not assign a lawyer to defend them and did not listen to complaints of torture. "We showed him the marks of torture and beating, but he didn't listen. I am talking to you now and my relatives are telling me that the soil is prepared for our executions tomorrow." International protests forestalled the executions and the Crown Prince vowed to review the harsh sentences. PRI’s THE WORLD stated that Saudi Arabia defended its handling of the case, saying Islamic law, or Sharia, is “above all.” The BBC, Al-Jazeera, and Drudge Report failed to mention the potential crucifixion, almost as if they were paid to not report this news or the news was a hoax. UPI's mention of the execution refute the latter possibility. Once more Saudi Arabia shows its firm hold on the Dark Ages.

THE WRITING OF HISTORY by Peter Nolan Smith

The dead never come back to life and I know that since I've almost died on several occasions from motorcycle accidents, beatings, and chemical misjudgments, although none of these near-fatal incidents must not have been too serious, because my soul was never enveloped by the tunnel of light.

When I returned to the USA from Thailand in 2008, my friends and family recited the list of the missing. Few of the deceased were close, however I was deeply saddened by the demise of Howie Hermann. The owner of our diamond exchange was a 15 year-old at heart.

Each Monday evening we met at the 2nd Avenue Deli for a sandwich and then drove over to the 20th Street shooting range. His other friends pulled off a few rounds on their personal weapons, but Howie would bring special guns for me.

22 Sportsmans.

Lugers.

Colt 45s.

Whatever I wanted, because I liked shooting a pistol and Howie liked having someone with whom he could shoot for an hour. He was as good as they get and his death was even more traumatic, since his loving son Josh had preceded him into the cosmos. I counted my blessings to have known them both, especially since Howard was a man of peace.

"Everyone in the world is the same."

Howard treated everyone like they were family and I was glad to have him call me a friend.

Over the next weeks I noticed a few more faces missing from 47th Street and I asked for Lenny the Bum.

No one had seen him for months and finally someone said that he had passed away in 2007.

"He's a Trombenik." Manny my boss hated Lenny.

The Yiddish expression was new to me, but I divined its meaning, since Manny had worked from the time that he was old enough to wear long pants and Lenny begged for his living.

"Better he should be in Gan Eden without a penny to his name." Manny wasn't very religious, but his hard edge bestowed him with a belief of suffering in the after-life for bums like Lenny.

I'm a humanist. My heaven and hell exists in the now, but I was surprised to see Lenny back amongst the living in 2009 and he was angry at my listing him among the deceased on mangozeen.com.

I was surprised that he read my writing.

"I'm a big fan, but could you bring me back to life?" he pleaded with a whining tenor.

"Like Lazarus and you won't smell as bad." Lenny looked in better shape than when I departed the States in 2001, although his balding head was sporting an ugly growth and his weight had to be over 250.

"I don't wash too much, but I have some place to live. I have to take care of my sister. If it was just me, I'd still be living on the street. I like the fresh air." His clothing was clean and his breath was shy of the old bouquet of cheap brandy. "I stopped drinking too much. Now a little too much, but not often."

Lenny asked about my kids in Thailand and I gave him another dollar. He knew his audience.

Over the past years we have discussed politics, Israel, heaven, Obama, Iraq, and my trips to Thailand. His stock advice made me a few dollars last year and I hold my sand about the personal stories that he tells me about his life.

This week Lenny and I have been engaged in a debate about Egypt and the threat to Israel from the change of regime.

"Lenny, this is not about democracy. This is about revolution and the rich versus the poor. Democracy has failed the Egyptians. It has failed the Iraqis and it has failed in America."

"Maybe, but the Muslim Brotherhood is going to kill all the Jews."

"Lenny, you're too smart than to believe that propaganda."

"Have you ever read the Koran?"

"No." I haven't read that book or the Talmud or Thomas Mann's THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN or James Joyce's ULYSEES and millions of other books.

"You know that Mohammad married an eight year-old?"

"Alyessa." The Mother of Islam was young. Some people say that the prophet bedded her at ten. Others at 15. I could only counter with the truth, because the truth of history is understanding that nothing is true. "Abraham was 86 when he bedded Hagar and he threw her and his son into the desert. So don't get high and mighty about the old times."

My boss Manny rapped on the window.

He had no time for my discussions with Lenny. Every second with the Jewish beggar was one lost to his business and I re-entered the diamond exchange.

Later that evening I passed Lenny on my way to the bank. Angie had to buy school books and Fenway needed some medicine and Fluke and Noi were asking their mother was sweets.

Lenny stopped me in front of the 20 Exchange.

"Damian, you know the Arabs hate us. Mohammad killed all the Jews of Medina."

"Because they backed the idolaters of Mecca." I had been surprised to read how deeply the Jews of Arabia had figured into the rise and fall of Islam.

"Islam comes from the Bible."

"And the Bible comes from the ancient religions. It's all bullshit to me and the Christians and Jews and Muslims kill each other for their beliefs. There is only one good and one evil." I was tired and had lose my track, but then asked, "How many Palestinians were on the plans of 9/11. How many at Dachau? Answer me that."

"The grand Mufti of Jerusalem had 10,000 SS troops at his command." Lenny shouted in the cold winter air and I made a note to check this riposte once I got home to Fort Greene.

Lenny might have been crazy, but he was no fool and I read online about how the Grand Mufti fled Palestine to Nazi Germany, where he encouraged Bosnian Muslims to wage jihad against the Serbs and Jews of Yugoslavia. The 1943 Hanzar SS Division were ruthless during the savage civil war during the Nazi occupation, horrifying their German overlords, but I could find nothing about Palestinians working for the Nazis.

Only the Grand Mufti who worked both sides of the fence between the Axis and Allies to restrict Jewish migration to Palestine.

"Lenny, let me ask you a question." I confronted Lenny the next afternoon.

People on the street had heard about our discussion and stood close to hear what the Sheygutz and the Trombenik had to say about Nazis in Palestine.

We spoke for several seconds. I told him my findings.

"They still hate us." He was talking about the Palestinians.

"As would anyone who stole their lands." I was Irish and my antipathy for the English was buried by knowing too many good people from Britain, even if they thought the Irish were the first niggers. "You know Howard had nothing against anyone."

"Howard was a good man. He didn't let me into the exchange, but he was generous." Lenny sniffed back a tear.

"He was good people, same as you, same as me, same as everyone, fi you give them a chance.

I had to get home and gave him a dollar. It was not a bribe and he said, "Thanks for bringing me back to life."

"It's an easy miracle with a live person."

"I love you, Damian."

"And I love you."

Omnes vincit amor.

But anyone coming back from the dead knows that 'love conquers all'.

A Curse On The Pharoahs

Yesterday the US government honored a 2011 commitment to Egypt democracy by doled out $190 million of a $1 billion pledge. Newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry warned the Morsi government must adhere to IMF monetary demands and expected improvements on protecting the rights of women and religious minorities. His departure from Cairo was delayed by soccer hooligans from the Al Ahly club, whose supporters were imprisoned after last year's deadly riot in Port Said.

Right-wingers in America were quick to criticize the White House by accusing Obama of bribing radical Islamists at a time of GOP-imposed austerity due to last week's sequestration of the budget.

"How many meat inspectors will be laid off to pay for this? How many air traffic controllers? How many kids will go hungry?" asked a radical friend on FB.

Another true believer accused the President with stronger words. "The Traitor has to keep our enemys strong, for his revolution to come."

I retorted their heated rhetoric by writing, "We gave $12B to Afghanistan, $3B to Israel,$2B to Iraq, $1.7B to Pakistan, $1.4B to Egypt, and $154 Million to the National Endowment of the Arts doesn't come close to the billions to prevent the collapse of a corrupt banking system. Over $30 billion in overdrafts alone. $67 Billion in ATM charges. Plus Egypt flooded smuggling tunnels to Gaza with sewage to block the destabilizing flow of weapons and militants into Sinai. It's amazing what $194 million buys."

But then the right prefer war not peace, except we've fought two wars over the last ten years with no concrete improvement to the stabilization on the Middle East, then again killing foreigners on the other side of the world something they understand better than the economics of a nation ruled by the banks.

Heresy For Egypt

There are not many deep thinkers in America. People beleive what they are told by the media. This week www.americanthinker.com has attempted to excoriate Obama for paying $190 million to Egypt Right-wingers were incensed by our committment to Peace in the Mideast and asked, "How many meat inspectors will be laid off to pay for this? How many air traffic controllers? How many kids will go hungry?" None of them bothered to question the trillions the American taxpayer has laid out to pay for GW Bush's Wars and I responded by writing, "$12B to Afghanistan, $3B to Israel,$2B to Iraq, $1.7 to Pakistan, $1.4B to Egypt, and $154 Million to the National Endowment of the Arts doesn't come close to the billions endowed to the prevent the collapse of a corrupt banking system. Over $30 billion in overdrafts alone. $67 Billion in ATM charges. ps Uncle Sam should pull down his pants when he's taking a dump." One fascist responeded by posting, "Obama has 1 agenda. How to turn America into a Socialist State as fast as possible. Period end of story." I retorted, "Better than a fascist religious state under GW Bush. I like my beer cold and there is no good beer in the buckle of the bible belt Oklahoma" He thought bitching about GW had lost its zing and I said, "Bitchin about GW. It's starting to get old. has not gotten cold anyone in Iraq looking for WMD." Fuck the GOP.

An Apathetic Apocalypse

Two years the GOP forced the White House to accept a $85 billion sequester from the US federal budget. Barack Obama has attempted many compromises with the Republican austerity hawks. The countdown ticked to zero at midnight. The forced cuts will swiftly effect the US economy, especially the military. The newly appointed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned, "Let me make it clear that this uncertainty puts at risk our ability to effectively fulfil all of our missions." And the Pentagon had many missions across the globe after ten years of the War on Terror. While I haven't heard a single New Yorker talking about the cuts, the right-wing pollster Gallup reported that the president's approval rating has slipped to 45%. Their election prediction had Romney a winner with 49% of the vote, but Gallup's errors and public ignorance doesn't minimize the sequester's danger to the nation. The Speaker of the House and his compatriots refused to discuss any increases in taxes. They prefer a doomsday scenario, but this is not the end of the world. I looked out the windows of the Fort Greene Observatory. Lights marked the Brooklyn Skyline, Duke outlasted Miami in an ACC basketball showdown, and I have a cold beer in the fridge. Skyward a few stars shine in the night sky. They care nothing at all and neither do most Americans, for apathy is the only freedom left when all freedoms are gone.