Heads Or Tails

Koln was devastated in World War II. The US Army Air Force stated that the bombardiers avoided hitting the famous medieval cathedral. In truth they used the stone church for a point of reference and the cathedral was struck on many occasions. The massive structure only remained standing thanks to the workmanship of Middle Age masons. Since WWII America has sought to resolve conflict with bombing. Korea, Viet-Nam, the shock and awe in Iraq, and now President Obama is proposing a bombing campaign against Syria's dictatorial regime in revenge for its use of Sarin gas on its people. The UK PM was rebuffed by Parliament on any participation in this 'humanatarian' mission and now America stands with France in sharing the desire to get involved in yet another overseas war. My opinion is to wait it out. Assad's troops are at the end of their tether. But the hawks want to strike out at an enemy, even though Assad helped the CIA rendition hundreds of torture victims throughout the War on Terror. But no one is talking about that now. Only war.

The Beauty of Zatoichi

Bored with Netflix and HBO I hunted the web for another source of entertainment and luckily stumbled onto ZATOICHI, the Blind Swordsman. This Japanese TV show portrayed the traveling trials of a blind masseur and swordmaster living in the Edo period circa 1840s. The actor Shintaro Katsu masterfully breathed life into novelist Kan Shimozawa's creation throughout the twenty-six films from 1962 to 1989. Zatoichi's roguish harmlessness was a ruse for his deadly skill with a zue or cane sword. His whirlwind speed defeats any opponent and his yakuza honor resurrects the goodness in the bad man unable to atone for his murderous life. Shintaro Katsu led the life and could honestly say in character, "Kurayami nara kocchi no mon da" or "Darkness is my advantage." He was one of 'us'. According to Wikipedia Akira Kurosawa cast him for the lead role in KAGEMUSHA (1980), Katsu left before the first day of shooting was over. Though accounts differ as to the incident, the most consistent one details Katsu's clash with Kurosawa regarding bringing his own film crew to the set (to film Kurosawa in action for later exhibition to his own acting students). Kurosawa is reputed to have taken great offense at this, resulting in Katsu's termination. KAGEMUSHA sucked with Katsu. I love these Zatoichi films and everything about them. To hear Zatoichi sing, please go to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_jKvfRTzP8

A Nation Of Squares

Last weekend former Disney child star Miley Cyrus upset countless people who don't matter with her scantily-clad dance performance during a duet with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. The religious right reacted, as if the pert singer/dancer had shit in the Pope's mouth during a remake of THE ARISTOCRATS, and Sean Hannity of FoxNews was outraged without having seen the act. Finding the 'offensive' video was impossible, as inept talking heads of the various meaningless media sources dissected every nuance of Miley's butt twitching aka twerking. I thought that she was cute, but I'm not a square and her dancing wasn't close to horrible or obscene. That honor goes to Billy Squier's ROCK ME TONIGHT, which hit # 15 on the charts in 1984. Nothing rivals it. Check it out; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR0j7sModCI began with Cyrus performing "We Can't Stop" in bear-themed attire. Following this, Thicke entered the stage and Cyrus stripped down to a skin-colored two-piece outfit. Cyrus subsequently touched Thicke's crotch area with a giant foam finger and twerked against his crotch.[196] An article published in The Hollywood Reporter described the performance as "crass" and "reminiscent of a bad acid trip". Media attention of the performance largely overshadowed the attention that was given to other major events of the night, such as the reunion of 'N Sync and performances by Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.[197] Cyrus' performance was described by XXL critic B. J. Steiner as a "trainwreck in the classic sense of the word as the audience reaction seemed to be a mix of confusion, dismay and horror in a cocktail of embarrassment",[198] while the BBC said she stole the show with a "raunchy performance".[199] The performance also became the most tweeted about event in history, with Twitter users generating 360,000 tweets about the event per minute; breaking the previous record held by Beyonce's Super Bowl XLVII halftime show performance six months earlier.[200] Following the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, news and social media sites featured numerous articles about parental concerns with the performance's impact on children.[201]

I WALK THE LINE leonard nimoy

To hear the genius of Leonard Nimoy, please visit this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9NSpAdGxgU

Helmut Newton Of Course

Sex for Helmut Newton was different from the Playboy's softcore offerings, however Hugh Hefner recognized the Berlin-born photographer's talent and hired Newton to shoot 'vanilla' pictorials of Natassia Kinski and Kristine DeBell.

Newton's fixated vision of sexuality will always be renowned for a departure point far beyond most people's ken of fetishism, because his models' lingerie was almost as expensive as the settings.

His ashes were buried next to Marlene Dietrich at the Städtischen Friedhof III in Berlin.

Click on this URL to see more of his photos

http://www.ocaiw.com/galleria_fotografi/index.php?author=newton

Sehr Mittel Europa and Stanley Kubrick failed to capture that spirit in EYES WIDE OPEN, mostly because neither Nicole Kidman nor Tom Cruise are sexy.

But what else can be expected from Hollywood's Barbie and Ken.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

The short-time bars of Soi 6 and go-go bars of Walking Street are not the only tourist attractions of Pattaya. Farangs and Thais travel down from Bangkok to lounge on the beach, dine at the thousands of restaurants, shop at street markets, and take in the sights.

Several years ago Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks promoted its pseudo-museum with a new billboard on Sukhumvit. Farangs couldn’t read the words in Thai, however the giant photo of Adolf Hitler sieg heiling said a million words to foreign travelers on the busy highway.

The ad campaign was aimed at Thais, since the wordage was in the native tongue of Siam.

“Hitler is not dead.”

German and Israeli embassies complained to authorities and the Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks manager apologized for this cultural faux pas.

“We think he is an important historical figure, but in a horrible way. We apologise for causing any offense which was not at all intended. We did not realise it would make people so angry.”

Thais were unperturbed by the mistake.

‘Man kill farang. Not kill Thai. What problem?” One of my Thai friends said over the telephone. Thais aren’t too concerned with anything happening outside their borders or the present. Neither are my fellow Americans. “If he bad. Why no one kill him?”

Indeed Hitler has been rumored to have escape the Berlin bunker. George Steiner wrote THE LAST PORTAGE OF AH about an Israeli intelligence squad finding the Nazi leader in the jungles of Brazil. Several films have centered their plots of the lost empire of the Third Reich. Adolf would be a very old man if he was alive. In fact he’d be the oldest person alive on this planet.

“120 years old.” An overweight Hassidic diamond broker told this joke the other day. “Things are bad on this planet. troubles so bad that people want a strong leader. someone finds Hitler alive in Brazil. 120 years old but still mentally capable. The world leaders struggle to persuade Hitler to take over the world. He refuses time and time again, until he agrees.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it, but this time no Mr. Nice Guy.”

Yes, Pattaya, Adolf still lives in the minds of many.

Good thing he can’t collect on his royalties.

AH 1889-1945?-2009? and beyond

Gay Nyet

The 1932 Russian criminal code condemned "muzhelozhstvo" or men lying with men as a criminal act punishable by exile to Siberia for up to 5 years. The police rarely arrested men for this crime against nature, since the hunger that dare not speak its name was reserved for the upper classes of Tsarist Russia, however homophobia has been deeply engrained into the national psyche and a third of the population think that homosexuals should be executed and another third call for their exclusion from society. That draconian attitude has improved since the collapse of the USSR, but gay men or boys are regularly persecuted by their countrymen.

According to www.pinknews.co.uk a Moscow teenager escaped from a rehab clinic after his traditionalist father locked him up after he came out to him aged 16.

“I’d rather have you disabled or a vegetable than gay,” the father told the son according to local Ekho Moskvy radio.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Back in 2009 I was in Moscow during the gay protests. Thousands of cops encircled the Kremlin to prevent any demonstrations before the palace. I retreated from the chaos and sought refuge in the baroque confines of Sandunovskye Bani.

In this famed banya naked straight men were beating each other with oak branches for their health. None of them were ashamed by this act of S&M, then again there are few more profound blindnesses than hypocrisy, then again nothing more relaxing that a good whipping.

2013 and Putin is banning gay rights demonstrations.

Nothing better than putting him to the knout, which was how the rich punished the serfs in Russia.

By breaking their bones.

Times don't change.

JFK on the March to Washington

Today the BBC News reported that JFK had attempted to block the March on Washington for fear of violence and painted a picture of a president apathetic to the plight of blacks in America, however the article ignored to mention the Justice Department descending on Birmingham after the police chief sicced dogs on peaceful Civil Rights demonstrators and focused on Martin Luther King's Statement that 'the events of the early summer had transformed the struggle for black equality from what he called a "Negro protest" into a "Negro revolution". America, he feared, had reached "explosion point". For the most part the violence was one-sided with white supremacists bombing churches and firing at SNCC volunteers, however the specter of a slave uprising scared whites and JFK was concerned about losing the South to the GOP on the issue of equal rights. Upon hearing on the March on Washington JFK called out the National Guard and the FBI spied on march organizers and radicals opposed to non-violence. Snipers were placed along the parade route. But on August 28 there was no violence. JFK listened to King's I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH. He's good - he's damned good” I thought the same thing in Boston. I hoped for a better day. And so did JFK. It was hard to stop being a white man and see all men as men, but this country was founded on the tenet that all men are created equal. JFK understood that and his brother even more. We are all family.

Thailand Is Not Egypt

On August 22 Jonathan Tepperman, managing editor of the FOREIGN NEWS, had a story entitled Can Egypt Learn From Thailand? published in the New York Times. This ill-reserached Op-Ed piece further demonstrated mainstream media's inability to tell all the news that is fit to print. Thailand is not Egypt, but neither is the Land of Smiles a country which according to Mr. Tepperman has gone from "a virtual wreck to a booming, and relatively stable, success story." Poverty remains deeply rooted in ban-nok or the countryside. Millions have gone into debt to feed their families. And the battles fought between the military, police, royalists, and politicians have split the country in two, as the entitled rich practice 'divide and conquer' to sap the people of their money and lives. Mr. Tepperman is smitten by the nak-lak of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and buys into the report from Morgan Stanley's Ruchir Sharma, that Thailand's economic outlook is the brightest in 15 years. Stock market up. As if the stock market had anything to do with real people. And Ms. Yingluck's accomplishments have solidified the stakes of the rich. Nouveau and ancien. As for the people, no one in powers cares about them as long as they work for hand-to-mouth wages. It is obvious that Mr. Tepperman has spent little time in Thailand and sad to say he probably wrote this article from his New York office. Travel expenses are first to go in austerity. As for Egypt it is no Thailand, but its government was democratically elected by the people. No matter what the media doesn't say, because they have no idea of the truth. Fuck the New York Times. Fuck me too. I know nothing or phom lu bplaao

$8.75 Steak A La Danceteria

I bought a steak with three drink tickets or two with a bump 56 minutes ago · Like Henry Benavides commented that he and Ann the elevator girl made Guacamole one night with main ingredient Vodka. It sold out. Then I picked up Ann and put her butt first in the garbage can in the kitchen. Danceteria was so elegant. And I still have some drink tickets left thanks to the graciousness of Chairman John Argento.

Unlucky Someone

This evening a biker ran a light at West Broadway and Houston. He didn't make it to the other side in this life. Drive safe, bikers. The first Kawasaki Ninja came to America in 1986. We called them 'widowmakers'. They were too much speed for a man. Same as this Unlucky Someone.

Lucky Me

New Years Eve 1986. I was riding my Yamaha 650 through a snowstorm. Approaching Houston and 2nd Avenue the light changed to red. I skidded through the intersection excepting the worse. Cars crisscrossed my path. I stopped against the curb. A 9th Precinct cop said, "Damn you were lucky." "That I was." "Where you Headed?" "Home to 10th Street." "That's not a bad idea." He was right. I was lucky. But if anyone was luckier, it was Indian Larry. I bet he's having a Mr. Softee somewhere wherever and maybe with the jingle in his ears. The jingle came from a famous tune from 1915 A WHISTLER AND HIS DOG. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FDtVe04Z5I WHERE'S MY MR. SOFTEE TRUCK.

Perpignan 1982

In the summer of 1982 my college friend Nick Napoli came to Paris. We were closing the Rex Club with a 24-hour marathon of new wave and ethnic bands ending Toure Lunda and Virgin Prunes. The club's manager Olivier had a family beach home on the Cote Vermillion i.e. Perpignan on the Spanish border. Nick rented a car. We greeted the next morning on the Autoroute Du Sud.

Here are fotos of my friends.

We are still good friends.

England was taking back the Falklands, Israeli was aiding massacres in Lebanon, and Roland Garros was featuring championship tennis.

It was on the TV.

Olivier told his father that I was the 17th ranked tennis player in the USA.

He believed his son.

Dodo told the entire town about his guest

To this day I am # 17 in Perpignan.

Perpignan was an old city.

Old people lived within its walls.

For drinking we drove farther down the coast to Collioure.

It was for les jeunes.

We brought two girls back to Carnet-Plage

They were good fun.

But only in a non-Biblical sense.

For some reason William Buckley, Jr. was in town. He followed us around the city. I don't think he was after me.

Oliver agreed.

When he asked about wearing espadrilles, I said, "They look good on you."

It was the South of France.

Espadrilles sucked for climbing around the Templar ruins of the Langue d'Oc.

I thought it was funny.

Olivier was less amused.

But he didn't stay angry. Olivier, Walter, Nick, and I went to Collioure. The two girls were at a harborside cafe. The six of us drank pastis till sunset and switched to wine. I don't remember those girls names or the ride home to Carnet-Plage, but I woke in bed alone.

A lucky man.

We said 'au revoir' to the Brials.

And drove north to Paris.

It was a different France than Perpignan, especially for # 17.

Very Seriously Cool

Jacquiline Bisset Steve McQueen. BULLITT Steve had his hands full.

Horse Action Saddle

According to Wikipedia female hysteria was once diagnosed by Victorian doctors as a widespread affliction with symptoms of faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and "a tendency to cause trouble". Women always caused trouble in the minds of men and medical authorities sought to cure this female plague with the introduction of Horse Action Saddles. The saddles' rocking motion was guaranteed to sap the mysterious sensation within a frail woman's body. Water massage and vibrators were also useful tools in defeating this curse on womankind. Electro-shock was introduced as another weapon for this crusade, but the Sexual Revolution of the 1950s brought light to the female condition of desire and women's sexual partners (both male and female) granted release through the all-wonderous orgasm. Of course poor people knew the cure for hysteria, because they didn't have the money to fool themselves about morality. Remember: Sex is good for you. And so is Guinness Beer.

BULLITT 1968

Last night I returned from dinner. AP was in the TV room. His children were asleep. I poked my head into the room to say hello. AP motioned for me to sit down.

"BULLITT. It just started."

I needed no further encouragement.

No one was cooler than Steve McQueen and I joined AP on the couch. We put our feet up on the settee.

We were two men in paradise.

Widescreen TV.

A puff of marijuana.

Within seconds the terse movie directed by Peter Yates transported us to San Francisco of 1967. This was not the City of Love. Bullitt had to dealt with hard-nosed cops and killer crooks. He drove a muscle car and hung out with hip people, not hippies.

A young Jacqueline Bisset as Bullitt's girlfriend.

Cathy: What will happen to us in time?"

Bullitt: Time starts now.

McQueen always cool.

There were no special effects or gun ballets.

No jerky cinematography. A clean soundtrack.

Just a stunning car chase with a "Highland Green" 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 CID Fastback versus a "Tuxedo Black" 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum at speeds up to 110 on the streets of San Francisco plus a great bike laydown by the legendary motorcycle racer Bud Ekins.

BULLITT won Academy Award for Film Editing.

Last evening I sat through this film without looking at the time. I doubted young people could do the same. Maybe, but what does an old man know about the young other than what they tell him.

I was 16 in 1968.

We all wanted to be McQueen.

And lay in bed with Jacqueline Bisset.

To see the car chase go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy5oyr4DRZ0

Seriously Cool

Who else was cool? Steve McQueen

mos Poe Opening In Linlithgo, NY

If I was up there, I would go, but I had to ask myself, "Where the fuck is Linlithgo, NY?"

North of Rhiengoldbeck.

Mlle. Cool

Lorraine Glover 1955 Donald Byrd's Wife She is so cool, although there was a question around her identity, because some people argued that the trumpeter's second wife was named Yourma. www.burnedshoes.com solved the mystery with research and wrote that in April 1958, Donald Byrd (Pepper Adams Quintet) recorded the song "Yourna" They suggested that Yourna was Lorraine's pseudonym. Here's their wedding announcement.

The Free World

Back in December of 1981 I showed up late at JFK for a Pan-Am flight to Boston.

"No worries." The young clerk picked up the phone. "The plane is still on the tarmac. We'll drive you out to it."

"Really?" I couldn't believe my good luck.

"We aim to serve."

I followed him out of the terminal. Snow was melting on the ground and the sky was a winter blue.

Air France's Concorde was across the runway.

There wasn't a guard or cop in sight and I said to the clerk, "What if we hijack that to Paris?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea." He blew into his hands. "It's already going to Paris. I would want to go to Miami."

"Not a bad idea."

A Pan-Am car rolled up to the gate and took me out to the waiting prop plane.

The ground crew shut the door and I sat in my seat.

It was great living in the Free World.

The Romance Of Blow

The 1970s were a beautiful time. And so were the 80s. And I liked it.

Waiting For My Man

The year was 1997.

The night New Year’s Eve at the Helmuth Building on West 18th Street and 7th Avenue.

The party was hosted by my good friend, Juliana, and music provided by her music fanatic ex-husband.

A Chelsea loft filled with old jazz musicians, real estate moguls, and a crew of Italian visitors.

The latter wanted drugs.

Cocaine to be exact.

I had a connection.

The desired amount was an ounce.

The dealer gave a rendezvous. He was more than two hours late. I overcharged the Italians $500 and pocketed 2 Gs. No one at the party had a scale. The Italians understood the delay and one of them said, “Waiting for my man.”

They loved that song. The wait had been true New York. Never obsolete. We huffed lines and that night I spoke Italian with a fiery tongue. I had studied Latin in high school. A dead language reanimated by the New World.

Never better.

Never again.

The Meaning Of Money from Tony Montana In SCARFACE

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."

Tony Montana - cocaine dealer in Brian dePalma's SCARFACE 1983

for more quotes

go to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IlMVZm1C0g

Run Don't Walk

My position on drug legalization has been well-stated over the years, however I am not naive enough to ignore the problems besetting those using drugs in extreme or the people surrounding them, mostly innocent family members or neighbors.

Pot is no longer pot. It's turbo-powered skunk.

I don't smoke that mutant shit.

Blow is a concoction of cocaine, heroin, and Viagra.

The Mexican cartels exercise no quality control at all and it's driving addicts crazy along with their insensate dealers and a female friend was totally stressed by the dealers across from her house In Bushwick.

"I'm looking to move because of the ignorant drug dealers and surrounding neighbors who are users and the gossipers and the fact that I need to get out before it gets out of hand as I am apparently the only one with a small child who has a living reason to care."

"The war on drugs has failed you." I was surprised to hear that cocaine was making a comeback.

"Because the government didn't go for the Chairman Mao option." Cheryl hated having to deal with cokeheads 24/7

Chairman Mao had killed most of opium dealers and those addicts who the Communist Party could not rehabilitate. That tactic was not an option in the USA, although PM Thaksin of Thailand had death squads murder most than 3000 suspected druggie in his War on Drugs.

Result?

No change, so I suggested that my friend move ASAP.

Sometimes Tai-Flee is the best course of action.

cocaine.com

Last night I had nothing to do and searched cocaine.com online.

The URL has nothing on it and obviously a free-thinking entrepreneur has bought the site in expectation of cocaine's legalization.

One day it will happen, for the armies of Tony Montana are ever-victorious.

Tony Montana: You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!

And there's nothing wrong with cocaine as long as the user tempers its excess with moderation.

Take it cool.

Drinking Not Writing

Olivia Laing of the UK Observer noted on Saturday 27 July 2013 that writers like to drink. The first paragraph of her article depicts John Berryman's suicide as a drunken tragedy without a single mention of his poetry. Henry rested, possessed of many pills & gin & whiskey. He put up his feet & switched on Schubert, His tranquility lasted five minutes. And those five minutes were an eternity to a troubled mind. Olivia Laing continued to recount Tennessee Williams' demise in sordid detail, then laid accusations against Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, John Cheever, Patricia Highsmith, Truman Capote, Dylan Thomas, Jack London, Marguerite Duras, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Rhys, and Hart Crane, as if she had been elected the Taliban's art critic.lves. Granted the reporter researched her subjects. But she called drinking a trick as if a quaff of alcohol was a magic potion. Suicide. She loved this theme. Self-destruction ever more, but she quotes John Cheever's to capture the horror, "In the morning I am deeply depressed, my insides barely function, my kidney is painful, my hands shake, and walking down Madison Avenue I am in fear of death. But evening comes or even noon and some combination of nervous tensions obscures my memories of what whiskey costs me in the way of physical and intellectual wellbeing. I could very easily destroy myself. It is 10 o'clock now and I am thinking of the noontime snort." She expertly explained the excess of alcohol. But she's not Irish and she's not a writer. We drink, because we don't want the treatment. We love the horror. The horror that is life. Sorry, Olivia, you just don't get it. But that bottle of wine on my desk is looking half empty, while the night over New York is a silent shade of black.

Vanishing New York

"What did you miss about New York?" My friends ask me and looking around the city I have to admit that during my 6 year absence I missed nothing of the now, but everything of the then. Gone are CBGBs, the St. Mark's Theater, The Orchida, Times Square, the Babydoll Lounge, Max's, Dave's Luncheonette ad infinitum for as you get old you forget, but as you get older you are forgotten.

When I was living in Boston as a child, my father took his family to Warmuth's once a week. The restaurant had children's menu which could be worn as a pirate mask., a hamburger platter with thick gravy, and a mast from a schooner in the entrance. I loved that restaurant and so did many Bostonians, but it has vanished from the universe and now the only reminder on the internet of Warmuth's is a matchbook for sale on Ebay.

So many places, people, and things leaving our collective memories to be replaced by useless information such as who's on DANCING WITH THE STARS, however one online site is dedicated to vanishing New York and it's worth a visit to remember what we were when those places still were in existence.

Ain't many of 'em left.

So enjoy them while you can.

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com

CBGB's The Movie

I walked by CBGBs in the Autumn of 1976. I heard a band playing a cover of CALIFORNIA SUN by the Rivieras. It was the Ramones and I went to CBGBs every night for the next two years. Yes, I was a lucky man, because this movie can't ever come close to the truth of that era of errors, but Alan Rickman looks like Hilly. It was a beautiful time and I remember a lot of it. To view the trailer of CBGBs The Movie please go to this URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1ZNfaOpqKo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

30 Years From Nomi

Thirty years ago my good friend Klaus Sperber aka Klaus Nomi passed from this world. This photos hang on my wall. He is never far from my thoughts as well as my many friends and family missing from the Here-Now. Catch him in the following URL of YOU DON'T OWN ME, please go to the following URL He certainly was free. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Yrg9xNSS0

Happy Birthday Andy

Happy Birthday Andy. He would be 85 today.

Once Upon A Time by Slim Aarons

Few photographers captured the rich at ease as did Slim Aarons in the 50s,60s, and 70s. It was a world onto itself. And the rich loved him, for Aarons knew everyone and said in 2002, "They would invite me to one of their parties because they knew I wouldn't hurt them. I was one of them."[ Few people could make that claim today. A few of his photos.