Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Year's Eve 2007 Pattaya

On the afternoon of December 31, 2007 heavy lorries, pick-up trucks and 125cc motorcycles with sidecars exited from the distributor at the end of my soi with thousands of beers every minute. Thousands of Thai and farang tourists were flocking into the city for the year's final drunk in the beach resort's countless bars, go-gos, hotels, and brothels from Jomtien to Naklua.

"What are you doing tonight?" Sam Royalle asked on my porch in the shade of a Norfolk pine. He had been out the previous night with our friends and couldn't remember coming home. His skin exuded a sheen of excess alcohol.

"Nothing." I had avoided the debauch and fallen asleep before the TV during a Star Trek ENTERPRISE marathon. The mozzies had partied with my feet during my unconscious state and I was scrubbing the red splotches with salt.

Nothing?"

"Sounds good to me." I had worked in nightclubs through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. My fellow workers referred to 12/31 as 'amateur's night' and the same stupid behavior of fights, accidents, and stupid conversations held as true for Pattaya as it did in New York, London, Paris, or LA. "I'm giving it a miss. My wife is going out with her friends though, so I get to care back of my daughter. We're going to watch the fireworks from my garden."

"Have a party." Sam was a family man and understood kids came first. He drove off my his scooter in the direction of home.

My wife left the house at 8:30 without any good-byes. Angie didn't care. She and I had KFC and played rodeo on the bed. We had a glass of Pepsi and watched some more Star Trek. It put both of us to sleep before 10. I was dead sober.

I heard the fireworks and tried to open my eyes.

Not a chance.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

What has happened to my wickedness?

Children.

They tend to rescue a bad man's soul.

Better them than the devil.

Monday, December 29, 2014

MOVEABLE XMAS by Peter Nolan Smith

Christmas 2014 belongs to the past. I was too sick to travel to visit my family in Boston. My Christmas Eve was spent hacking clear my lungs like I reincarnating the final agonies of Doc Holiday on his last legs at the Hotel Glenwood. Reputedly the tubercular gun fighter looked at his bare feet and said his last words.

"Damn, this is funny."

Doc didn't die with his boots on, but I bare-soled through Christmas with my lungs choking for precious oxygen.

My condition on December 26 mimicked Camille's demise, but on the 27th I attended a soiree with longtime comrades. Between us we knew each other for centuries. Our departed friends haunted the gathering and we drank hard liquor with the abandon of the wicked. Old Evil David lanced me with insults. I smiled back with a glass of gin in my hand.

I was too drunk to be mean, but one of our friends. Suzanne, was having an affair with a born-again reprobate. The tortured painter deserved happiness, but her beau's high-pitched dialogues were dotted with Jesus and he had bad words for us sinners.

I have been a devout atheist since the age of eight and hate Bible-thumpers, so I avoided born-again Ben throughout the evening.

After a venerable cinema professor recounted his parents' curtailing his possible baseball career with the New York Mets, we went to main table laden with deserts and bottles.

Ben stood before the unsullied chocolate cake. He was contemplating the size of his slice. His lips were moving in prayer and a knife quivered in his hand. Every sinew attached to my bones shivered a warning to shut my mouth, however the gin spoke for me.

"You look like Adam the first time he saw Eve, but a chocolate cake is not Satan." I pushed down on his hand.

The knife pierced the chocolate.

I smelled it on the air.

"I know that." Ben cut himself a miserly slice.

Amos, the cineaste, directed himself out of the scene.

I cut my hunk and raised the richness in the air in my bare hand.

"To another Christmas to come." I hoped to spent 2015 with my family in Thailand. My children meant the world to me. Every parent in the world shared the same feeling and I stuffed the chocolate cake in my mouth.

It stuck in my craw and I washed the crumbs down with gin.

"But there's one thing that bothers me about Christmas."

"Such as?" Ben shut a small pice of cake in his mouth.

"I worked every day of the holiday season and I'm not complaining since the one thing worse than too much work is too little work."

I had relearned that lesson through 2014.

"So what is the problem?"

"This year Christmas fell on a Thursday, which meant I couldn't take off Friday." My boss had cut out to Florida, the Holyland for the Chosen Tribe. "Not that I had anyplace to go, but millions of workers would have benefit, if Christmas was a moving holiday."

"Moving?"

"Yes, like Labor Day, so it creates a three-day weekend for the workers."

"Christ was born on December 25."

"Says who?"

"Says the Bible."

"I never saw that date in the New Testament, besides God knocked up Mary on August 8, which means that Jesus was probably born on May 8 as a Taurus."

"Jesus' birth was recorded by the Romans. He is God. His birthday is December 25th."

"What did you give him this year? An iPad, a tie, a blowjob?" I really hate Jesus freaks.

"Shut up, you old git." Old Evil David interfered with my fun, knowing I was about to get ugly.

"But___"

"But nothing, you wicked sinner." David swung his fingers over my head in a Picasso sign of the cross and led away, whispering, "Our friend like this guy. Leave him alone."

I turned my head.

He was right.

Suzanne was in Ben's arms. They were a happy couple in Christ. Ben gave her a bite of his cake.

"Thanks, Dave." I gave my friend a hug. He looked out for me and I looked out for a change as would any atheist on the days after Christmas.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - YouTube

Christmas Truce

Peace on earth.

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

Enjoy.

The Xmas Drunk


This holiday season I had a great part-time job being invited to office parties as the Christmas Drunk. $500 an appearance and all I could drink. Bad behavior was a must. Insulting the boss was a showstopper. Punching out the hated brother-in-law was most requested extra. $100/punch. Insulting a wife's obesity was a secret request by many husbands. I refused this boon. Punching a jerk was one thing. Hurting a fat woman's feelings was bad taste.

It was a good deal and the only downside was that I had to be drunker than anyone else at the party so the family members and guests and co-workers could say the next morning, "At least I wasn't as drunk as the Christmas drunk."

Big Dave from the diamond exchange served as my back-up in case a situation spun out of hand. I knew the limits. Big Dave never had to save my ass.

None of my clients knew my real name. I was always James Steele.

"Who was that drunk guy?" Most guests asked at the end of a successful performance.

"The Xmas Drunk," the host would answered with pride. I made everyone feel good about getting drunk.

My popularity increased as the shopping days shrunk to single digits. I couldn't handle the demand. I boosted my rate to $200/hour. No one complained about my performance. By December 21st I was at the top of my game.

At a Hedge Fund soiree atop a skyscraper I ambushed the ruling CEO in the bathroom. I pointed a gun at him. Actually it was only a finger in my suit pocket. The capitalist fool was drunk enough to not question me.

Either that of very guilty.

I accused this czar of finance of impoverishing the world. He swore that he was simply doing his job.

"I'll give you a check for a million if you let me go."

"Money means nothing to the Christmas Drunk." I grabbed him by his tie and dragged him into the main office, where his fellow execs ridiculed his surrender to a besotted revolutionary. At most parties people were people. Here these investment bankers consider themselves better than anyone else. I left to applause and superglued shut the doors of the office. They didn't get out until 3am.

The next morning I received a complaint from the banker who had hired me.

"What do you expect from the Christmas Drunk? Emily Post manners. Fuck off." I had a wicked hang-over. I probably should have apologized, but he had paid me in cash. Everyone did, because there's only one person worst than the Christmas Drunk and that the guy trying to seek revenge by stiffing me, so I'm a strictly cash enterprise and the Christmas Drunk knows where these jerks live.

Being naughty and not nice all part of the Christmas Drunk's job and noohing says asshole better than the Christmas drunk.

Fenway's First Beermas


Susan Cheever entered the ranks of prohibitionism with today's NY Times DRUNKENFREUDE. Her glib mangling of the classic German term 'schadenfreude' meaning taking joy in the misery of others opens with a 10 year-old tale of a woman's heavy drinking at a Christmas party then shifts into an observation that New Yorkers no longer get drunk at festive gatherings.

While heavy drinking is sometimes a sign of alcoholism, it's more often an indication of heavy drinking leading to more heavy drinking in a time where nothing really matters.

Not your job, your life, and certainly not what any writer in a newspaper or blog have to opine about the issue of inebriation.

Several years ago at the retail basement of the Plaza Hotel I was running a jewelry store for Richie Boy. The place was a disaster. The Israeli managers played one Cd.

From opening to closing like this space was a truing ground for Shin Bet interrogators. The two Turkish-Austrian managers of the exquisite patisserie Vienese Demels, The other evening and last evening as well I was drinking wine. My friend Richie Boy scolded my drinking, but only because he wanted something left for the other guests. When they didn't show to our little gathering, we finished of the rest of the wine. It was only one bottle and went to dinner upstairs at the Oak Room at the Plaza. I got home at 10:30 and fell into bed with GHOST TOTEM, a novel about Chinese dissidents trapped in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. The book lasted about two pages, but I awoke refreshed by a good nine hours sleep.

So am I an alcoholic or just a drinker?

I claim to be the latter, while recognizing the approach of the former at times.

At least my drinking doesn't interfere with my job as a diamantaire, mostly because there are no sales this holiday season. None. So what me worry whether Susan Cheever doesn't think it's attractive to get drunk. She's probably only attractive when I'm drunk.

I checked Google to make sure.

She's at least five drinks from being attractive, but then she is smart and that is more lasting a quality than beauty and I guess that I shouldn't be so hard on her for being a non-drinker, but let's face it the real reason she hasn't seen anyone drunk is that like all reformed sinners or children of drinkers their reproach is a buzzkill.

So happy Beermas to all my friends.Let everyone else drink tea.

ps the beer in Fenway's stroller is empty.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Warfare In America

President George W Bush rightfully understood that the attacks on 9/11 were acts of war, but the hijackers were not soldiers from a foreign land. The nineteen 'terrorists' had been organized by a shadowy cabal affiliated with Osama Bin Ladin's Al-Qaada into four separate cells, each with a different target. After the collapse of the Twin Towers, the destruction of the Pentagon and downing of the United flight into a Pennsylvania field, few Americans asked why were attacked. In fact the effect existed without cause other than the standard 'they hate us'.

If that was the case, why didn't anyone ask why?

Because we eat bacon, which is 'haram' or forbidden by the Koran?

No.

Because our women wear short skirts?

No.

In truth it didn't matter why as long as the USA exacted revenge from an Islamic victim or victims.

No Iraqis or Afghanis on the jets of 9/11 didn't prevent us from going to war with those distant countries

That nineteen of the hijackers were Saudi was no 'casus belli' for the Pentagon, although the American media backed up the war with red, white, and blue dripping from the headlines and this morning Fox News, CNN, the Daily News, the New York Post, and hundreds of news outlets whipped up the sheep into a frenzy about how the protests against the police killing unarmed black men and white men and anyone else led to a mad man's shooting of two NYPD officers.

The Head of the NYPD Union SkullBreakers 109 accused the Mayor of inciting his communist cohorts to acts of retaliation. Ex-police commissioners were fast to protect their blue bloods and the NYPD union leaders vowed to not make arrests during the coming days. In other words they are threatening to go on strike and as much as I support the unions I would cross the picket line to be a cop during the crisis.

Hire some old Black Panthers too.

The tragedy of this shooting is that no one is asking why the gunman could get a gun from a Georgia pawn shop.

Georgia has no check-up of gun purchases.

Secondly why don't cop cars have bullet proof glass?

Because cities are too cheap to protect the boys in blue.

And lastly the Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sean Bell, and Darren Wilson did not kill the two cops. the protestors didn't not shoot Officers Liu and Ramos> A crazy man pulled the trigger.

All I want is power for the people.

White, black, yellow, coffee et al, but as Chairman Mao said, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

And Mao knew what he was saying.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Kids On Bikes

I love riding with my kids.

I've only had one accident with Angie.

Nothing bad.

Only scrapped skin.

All accidents that don't kill you build character.

Viva

Viva wore band-aids over her nipples.

Andy Warhol was never sexy.

She was a goddess.

She lives in Palm Springs and paints landscapes of what she sees.

Wickedness Runs In Vain

42nd Street was paradise for sin. Satan prowled the streets surrounding the Doo-Wop. It was wickedness at its best and worst. Mayor Guiliani shut it down like Dorothy chucking a bucket of water of the Wicked Witch of the West.

"Who would have thought that some little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?"

A pig like Rudy.

"OHHHHHHH!!! NO!!! I'm going...ohhhhhhh..ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...."

But we will be back.

Both me and Clover.

The Wall Of Unfreedom

The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 by the East German Communist regime to prevent its citizens from fleeing the repressive Soviet-led government. The concrete barrier was constructed was constructed with 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 metros (12 ft) high and 1.2 metros (3.9 ft) wide, and cost DDM 16,155,000 or about US$3,638,000 according to Wikipedia.

In 1982 I visited Berlin. The Wall or Antifaschistischer Schutzwall was a must-see for tourists. Henri Flesh, a Paris DJ, and I stood atop a viewing platform. A death zone lay beyond the wall brimming with mines and surveyed by assassin snipers. In 1982 one person was killed by the border guards. His name was Lothar Fritz Freie. He was shot in a restricted area.

The Berlin Wall fell with the collapse of the USSR in 1989, however in recent years the Zionist government of Israel has built a greater wall to protect themselves from the wrath of the Palestinians. The West Bank Barrier is much taller and thicker than the Berlin Wall. Its path cuts across the Occupied Territories with the express purpose of seizing more land for the creation of settlements for right-wing settlers dedicated to the expulsion or extermination of any non-Zionist population.

The British built a similar wall in the Lost Provinces on Ireland.

They failed to prevent the rise of the IRA.

Same as the wall failed for the USSR or the Border Patrol on the Mexican border.

People flow like water and freedom of movement is the way of the world.

Free Palestine. Free Ulster. Free the world.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Friday The 12th

From my irreverent brother, Patrick Anthony Smith.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

In Vino Veritas or Oblivio

Published Dec 10, 2014

Back in the summer of 1985 I resided on the grounds of Osbourne House, Victoria's palace on the Solent. I shared a cottage with Vonelli, a retired CIA agent.

His cover was that he was an art dealer.

No one believed the native Floridian, but the hotel was a special place and attracted special people. One of them was a Danish sailor married to a Saudi princess.

Kurt’s Harley Street doctor's had advised the elimination of vodka from his diet and the bearded Viking decided to take the cure on the Isle of Wight. It was the sunniest isle of Britain.

“I’ll only drink from dawn to dusk.”

“Good thing he didn’t pick the dead of winter for this regime,” Vonelli muttered from behind me.

The days were very long this far north of the equator.

At the hotel Kurt instructed the help to only serve him rose wine. Every day the broad-bellied sailor sat on the porch in the same kaftan. It was a warm summer for England and after a week his outfit smelled of an animal was trapped underneath it.

His presence was tough on our sense of smell, so we avoided Kurt throughout the lengthening day.

One very early June morning I descended to the dining room for a solstice breakfast. The sun was breaking through the trees. Birds were greeting the dawn. The sea captain was sitting with his lovely Saudi Princess wife. I couldn't hear thier conversation. Her words were whispers, while Kurt's elocution was already in deep distress.

“I’m celebrating the longest day of the year.” He raised a glass of Rose.

“You’ve got a good start on it.”

Four empty bottles lay at his feet.

“I might score my personal best.”

“You know when your doctor said to stop drinking. He meant everything.”

“No, he said a little wine was okay.”

His wife shrugged and Kurt quaffed his wine.

That day we finished seventeen bottles.

We had to carry him to bed.

“You’re no fun,” he said lying on his bed like a beached whale.

“He’s not wrong.” Vonelli sniffed at his jacket sleeve, as we descended to the dining room.

Our clothing smelled of him and we washed them that evening.

We drank wine till midnight. We got drunk, but not like Kurt.

And the next morning he was in the dining room with four bottles at his feet.

Drunk before his time and while Pliny the Elder said, “In vino veritas.”, Vonelli put it more simply, “In magma vino oblivio.”

Or in wine truth, but in more wine oblivion.

And that’s the truth.

Buddha's Enlightenment

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Welcome To Ulster 2014

Three nights ago I exited from the subway into the XXXL Mall at Atlantic Terminal. Scores of uniformed police were scattered about the shopping center. Outside on the street even more cops slunk in groups. At first I thought they were protecting the mall from any protests against years of endemic police brutality against people of color and the lower classes, however I overheard someone say, "Jay Z is hosting Prince William of England and his wife to a Nets game."

The Royals in Brooklyn.

The helicopters overhead and flatfooted men in blue were protecting the Second In Line to the Throne. Cops regarded everyone as a potential terrorist. Scorn swan in their eyes. Last week a Staten Island grand jury deemed the police innocent of murdering Eric Garner. They could kill anyone; white, black, latino, young, and old without consequence and I realized that we are living in the New Ulster.

The rich can do anything.

The poor pay with their lives.

And the cops are paid to serve and protect on class against the rest.

I hope it never comes to this.

New Ulster 2014.

No justice.

No peace.

ps the Nets suck. Go Celtics.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Keep The Rose Reading Room Alive

This summer the filthy rich came close to killing the Rose Reading Room, once one of the greatest research library. They had the trustees transfer three million books to New Jersey saying that it is cheaper to keep them on the other side of the Hudson. What these guardians of books really wanted was to build a high-rise luxury condo with a shopping plaza to replace the newly-renovated storage stacks beneath the 42nd Street Library. They were all friends of Mayor Bloomburg, a Zionist billionaire from Bermuda.

The plan was only less costly, because great minds seek knowledge in the relative present. I can remember requests for books were sent by pneumatic pipes to the subterranean stacks. 30 minutes in 1977. 30 hours in 2014 thanks to the wicked rich.

With DeBlasio's election the diabolical plan of the other 1% was forestalled by outrage, however this week they will attempt to push through their strategy to steal one more asset of people.

It is not a small thing to lose the Rose Garden.

It is like the Burning of the Library in Alexandria.

No commercial value, no sell out.

No wasteland and I like wastelands.

Da Bronx in the 70s when all that shit was going on all the time.

This is a plea to save the Library.

Fuck consumerism.

Dear lover of libraries, On December 10th at 1:00pm, the NYC Council Committee on Cultural Affairs and the Sub-Committee on Libraries will hold a hearing on capital needs in the Council Chambers in City Hall (see attached). Charles Warren has been invited to testify on behalf of the Committee to Save NYPL. New York Public Library President Anthony Marx will also be testifying and is expected to request an unprecedented increase in capital funding for projects that will have profound effects for our branches and research libraries. The hearing will be open to the public in the City Council Chamber, and we would like to encourage anyone interested in attending to join us as we demand a halt to the sale of the Science, Industry, and Business Library, the return of the three million books exiled from the 42nd Street library’s stacks, and greater accountability from NYPL leaders to the taxpayers who provide a large part of their funding. You can enter City Hall through the gate on the East side of Broadway opposite Murray Street. In order to allow time to go through security, we recommend arriving at least 20 minutes in advanced of the hearing. In addition to attending the public hearing this Wednesday, now is an excellent time to contact your local city council member and borough president and let them know that the battle to save our libraries isn’t over, and this critical public hearing will shape the future of our libraries. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer: Email: info@manhattanbp.nyc.gov Phone: (212) 669-8300 Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz, Jr: Email: webmail@bronxbp.nyc.gov General Office: (718) 590-3500 Staten Island Borough President James S. Oddo: Phone: (718) 816-2000

Sunday, December 7, 2014

The 10 Unanswerables


According to the Old Testament Moses descended from Mount Sinai with two stone tablets inscribed with 17 Commandments and although the adopted son of the pharoah was the only man in the crowd who could read, Yahweh deigned not to write in Egyptian, so there could have been a thousand commandments for all Moses or Charlton Heston knew in the DeMille's version of THE TEN COMMANDMENT.

The re-interpretation in the ensuing millenia have whittled the 17 to 10, although the late comedian George Carlin shrank the list to One Commandment 'THOU SHALT KEEP THY RELIGION TO THYSELF!!!'

I have religiously obeyed his non-divine edict, as have an increasing number of non-believers, however American education has ignored Judeo-Christian thought for the last half-century along with geography, history, math, art, PE, and any science with an -ology at the end of the word.

People know less and less. Few can complete all the Ten Commandment, however anyone can resurrect the list by going to ask.jeeves.com and the interactive website had come up with its own list called the Ten Unanswerables, which are the following.

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

4. What is the best diet?

5. Is there anybody out there?

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

10. How long will I live?

Having recovered from my Friday night occupation of a bar stool at Solas on East 10th Street, I will try to provide Ten Answers for the Ten Unaswerables.

1. The meaning of life is simple. Live today for tomorrow you die.

2. There certainly isn't a bearded God wearing a muumuu in the clouds.

3. Blondes have more fun, if you like blondes.

4. The best diet is excess in moderation.

5. There are plenty of anybodies out there. They just don't know where we are.

6. The famous person in the world is Andre the Giant. To me at least.

7. Love is like pornography, I know it when I feel it.

8. The secret to happiness is loving yourself and the world around you. Even in North Philadelphia, which can be a very bad place.

9. Death on TV is cancellation. Even Tony Soprano can't escape swimming with the fish on TV.

10. Everyone lives until they die. See answer one.

Not trying to be smart, for anyone who thinks that he has heard all the answers has not heard all the questions.

The God Of Beermas

Several years back one of the guards at the diamond exchange was drinking on the job. Joe had a Bud for breakfast. He drank another two on his coffee break. His lunch consisted of six beers. According to his calculation Joe consumed 15-16 beers during the course of a day. Finally his doctor advised Joe to cut down of his beers.

"I'm not stopping nothing." Joe was stubborn and ignored the warning, as his belly bloated to an enormous size.

On his next check-up the doctor informed him that his distended stomach was from the beer carbonation seeping through his stomach lining into his body. The only remedy was a complete cessation of beer and soda and Joe bemoaned his fall from grace.

“Even after the four week abstinence I won’t be able to drink beer. Not like a man is supposed to drink beer.”

I commiserated with my friend, because I’m a lightweight in my old age.

I have no more 20-beer nights.

These days five beers are too many, although I can put down ten when the thirst is on me.

Neither Joe nor I were world-class drinkers like Andre the Giant who drank enough for 30 men according to this piece from Wikpedia.

“He has been unofficially crowned “The Greatest Drunk on Earth” for once consuming 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours. On an episode of WWE’s Legends of Wrestling, Mike Graham claimed that André once drank 197 16-ounce beers in one sitting, which was confirmed by Dusty Rhodes. In her autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah alleges that André drank 327 beers and passed out in a hotel bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, and because the staff could not move him, they had to leave him there until he regained consciousness.”

327 beers.

I’d died after drinking a 10th of his epic feat.

Andre the Giant would rise from the ashes of his hangover and drink as if there had been no yesterday.

My next beer is to him.

The God of Beermas and his ghost wants his beers during this Oktoberfest, so lift your beers to the Giant.

To hear tales of his drinking please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kwyb65J_d4

Andre The Giant Had A Posse


Andre the Giant is a legend. His presence in the WWF gave the wrestling federation credibility. This man was big. He entered Studio 54 when I was working there. I opened the ropes and said, "Right this way, Andre."

He smiled and ushered in his three guests.

No much of an entourage and I was surprised to hear that a graffiti artist from Providence RI had tagged numerous cities with the words ANDRE THE GIANT HAS A POSSE. Supposedly this phrase was everywhere in the world where there were graffiti artists and skateboarders. Neither were my crew nor Andre, although I'm sure that he approved this expansion of identity.

This story from wikpedia is why Andre might have traveled light, but he did have a posse.

'Another feud involved a man who considered himself to be "the true giant" of wrestling: Big John Studd. Throughout the early to mid-1980s, André and Studd fought all over the world, battling to try and determine who the real giant of wrestling was. In December 1984, Studd took the feud to a new level, when he and partner Ken Patera knocked out André during a televised tag team match and proceeded to cut off André's hair. André had the last laugh at the first WrestleMania on 31 March 1985 at Madison Square Garden. André conquered Studd in a $15,000 Body Slam Challenge. After slamming Studd, he attempted to give the $15,000 prize to the fans, before having the bag stolen from him by his future manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.'

We are Andre's Posse.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Making An Entrance

Area on Hudson was one of New York's most popular nightclubs in the 80s.

Every night hundreds of people waited beyond the velvet ropes for entrance.

Admission wasn't a given.

But in this photo the baldish man in the foreground was headed to the bar to order a cognac and coke. It was his drink. I know, because later Jack Lesko was part-owner with Scottie Taylor at the Milk Bar. He loved the nightlife.

"Ah, the magic of Studio."

He was a little magic himself and I was glad to hear recently from a diamond client that Jack had survived a bout with the Big C.

"Give him my best."

And I meant it.

We are the nightlife.

You Bet I Would - Skimpy

I love skimpy clothing except on me.

Quelle vroom.

Monday, December 1, 2014

102 For Linford

This evening I stopped into Frank's Lounge. The venerable owner was in the corner.

"I heard you said Linford is gone." The old Jamaica has returned to the Blue Mountains in the Here-After.

"Yeah, I heard it from a bartender on Myrtle Avenue."

"He drank over there."

"The bartender was cute."

"Cute as Rosa." Frank nodded his head to his main attraction.

"No." Rosa was a Shaolin goddess. "But Rosa doesn't work every night of the week."

"When he die?" Shaynay asked from the corner. The beautiful 'chang noi' called me 'White Chocolate', because I used to come into the bar with Austrian candy from the Plaza Hotel.

"Saturday I think."

"You know Linford played 102 all his life."

"No, I don't gamble." I don't play the numbers, but if I did I would play 109. The number of my parents' house on the South Shore of Boston.

"What number you think come up Sunday?"

"102?"

"Straight."

"Damn, those number boys know everything."

"You got that right, White Chocolate."

We drank rum for Linford.

One shot.

Good luck for a Jamaican on the other side of life.

102.

RIP Linford

Another chink of Brooklyn gnu to the Here-After.

Linford, I knew him from Frank's Lounge.

A good man and a gentle Jamaican.

RIP.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

The Sins of Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton portrayed sex differently from the Playboy magazine version. S&M tainted photos versus airbrushed farm girls, however Hugh Hefner recognized the Berlin-born photographer's talent and hired Newton to shoot soft-core pictorials for Playboy, including pictorials of Nastassia Kinski and Kristine DeBell. His true vision of sexuality will always be renowned for its departure point being far beyond most people's ken of fetishism.

Me too, but only because the lingerie looks so expensive.

He was a god and rightfully his ashes were buried next to Marlene Dietrich at the Städtischen Friedhof III in Berlin.

Schlafen gut, Helmut.

Dinah Willis - Playboy Miss December 1964

I left Barbie for her.

Mea Culpa Barbie


Barbie was a doll born of the 60s. Her original body scale if set to 5-9 would give her dimensions of a 36-inch chest, 18-inch waist and 33-inch hips. Her unearthly body was never questioned by the millions of girls, who loved the Mattel creation, and certainly not by their brothers, who undressed Barbie whenever no one was home to recreate the act of sex between Barbie and her boyfriend. Few of us were imaginative enough to realize the possibility of a menage-a-trois.

Barbie was the first women 60s boys ever loved and anyone who tells you different is a liar, unless they were into Ken.

And a lot of my friends did love Ken.

He was so cool.

Especially when watching us ply with Barbie.

Ken never squealed to my sisters.

He was a good guy and there was nothing wrong with playing with dolls. At least not my method, because rubbing Ken and Barbie together like two sticks inflamed my pubescent mind to a fever pitch.

Mea culpa Barbie.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Testimony For A Dead Man

Darren Wilson According to the leaked testimony to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on October 22 the incident began as Wilson was driving down Canfield Drive, having just handled a call about a sick baby, when he saw Brown and Johnson walking down the middle of the street. Wilson told them to move to the sidewalk and was met with verbal abuse from the pair in response. Wilson saw that they were carrying cigarillos and he noticed that Johnson matched the description of a suspect in a strong-arm robbery where cigarillos had been stolen. Wilson parked his vehicle and called for assistance, then tried to get out of the vehicle, but was punched in the face by Brown through the open window. Wilson thought he had no choice but to draw his weapon, because Brown was "incredibly strong". He was unable to use pepper spray due to the close quarters, and his baton was out of reach. Brown grabbed Wilson's pistol while punching him repeatedly in the face. Wilson could feel Brown pushing the weapon back toward his body, and it was at one point pointed back at his hip. Wilson pulled back inside the vehicle and attempted to shoot Brown, but he failed the first time because Brown's finger was jammed in the hammer of the gun. The gun fired on the second attempt, resulting in a wound to Brown's hand, as well as scattering fragments of glass inside the vehicle. A second gunshot failed to hit Brown before Brown fled. Wilson's shoulder radio had been knocked off-setting during the struggle, and he decided to give chase. After he got out of the vehicle, Brown turned back toward him, then charged at him despite his commands to stop. Wilson fired at Brown, hitting him four times, including a final, fatal shot to the forehead, which brought Brown down. Wilson told investigators that he did not recall yelling or saying anything when he was chasing Brown, but when Brown stopped, turned and began running toward him, he yelled stop.[66] According to a source reported in The Washington Post, Wilson testified to the grand jury that he ordered Brown to stop and lower himself to the ground, but Brown instead turned and moved toward the officer.[67] Wilson said that Brown's hands were not raised at the time of the shooting.[65]

Dead men can't tell their side of the story, but eyewitnesses can tell what they saw that day.

Dorian Johnson Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown, was walking with him in the street. Johnson said that Wilson pulled up beside them and said, "Get the fuck on the sidewalk."

The young men replied that they were "not but a minute away from their destination, and would shortly be out of the street". Wilson drove forward without saying anything further, only to abruptly back up, positioning his vehicle crosswise in their path, almost hitting the two men. "We were so close, almost inches away, that when he tried to open his door aggressively, the door ricocheted both off me and Big Mike's body and closed back on the officer."

Wilson, still in his vehicle, grabbed Brown around his neck through the open window.[39] Brown tried to pull away, but Wilson continued to pull Brown toward him "like tug of war".[73] Brown "did not reach for the officer's weapon at all", and was attempting to get free of Wilson rather than attack him or take his weapon from him.

Wilson drew his weapon and said, "I'll shoot you" or "I'm going to shoot", and almost instantaneously fired his weapon, hitting Brown.

Following the initial gunshot, Brown was able to free himself, at which point the two fled. Wilson exited the vehicle, after which he fired several rounds at the fleeing Brown, hitting him once in the back.

Brown turned around with his hands raised and said, "I don't have a gun. Stop shooting!" Wilson then shot Brown several more times, killing him.

Johnson's attorney stated that Wilson did not attempt to resuscitate Brown, did not call for medical help, and "he didn't call it in that someone had been shot."

Johnson told local TV stations shortly after the shooting that Brown had been surrendering, when Wilson opened fire without cause or warning.

Johnson's attorney, Freeman Bosley, stated that Johnson had confirmed with law enforcement his and Brown's roles in taking the cigars prior to the shooting incident

Piaget Crenshaw

Piaget Crenshaw said that, from her vantage point, it appeared that Wilson and Brown were arm wrestling before the former shot Brown from inside his vehicle. Wilson then chased Brown for about 20 feet before shooting him again. "I saw the police chase him ... down the street and shoot him down." When Brown then raised his arms, the officer shot him two more times, killing him.

Michael Brady

By the time Michael Brady got outside, Brown had turned around and was facing Wilson. Brown was "balled up" with his arms under his stomach and he was "halfway down" to the ground. As he was falling, Brown took one or two steps toward Wilson because he was presumably hit and was stumbling forward; Wilson then shot him three or four times. Brady said that the pictures he took of Brown with his arms tucked in under his body is the position he was in as he was shot three or four more times by Wilson before hitting the ground

Tiffany Mitchell Tiffany Mitchell arrived in the area to pick up coworker Piaget Crenshaw. In an August 13 televised interview with a local CBS affiliate, Mitchell said she saw Brown and Wilson struggling through the window of Wilson's vehicle. "The kid was pulling off and the cop was pulling in." She started to take out her phone to record video, but then she heard a gunshot, "so I just started getting out of the way." After the first shot was fired, Brown started to run away. "After the shot, the kid just breaks away. The cop follows him, kept shooting, the kid's body jerked as if he was hit. After his body jerked he turns around, puts his hands up, and the cop continues to walk up on him and continues to shoot until he goes all the way down."

Mitchell also appeared on CNN that evening, describing what she witnessed as follows: "As I pull onto the side, the kid, he finally gets away, he starts running. As he runs the police get out of his vehicle and he follows behind him, shooting. And the kid's body jerked as if he was hit from behind, and he turns around and puts his hands up like this, and the cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground and his face just smacks the concrete. Grand jury witnesses On October 16, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an interview with a black Canfield resident who testified before the grand jury. The man, who did not want his name released, said he saw the entire event. Wilson drove past Johnson and Brown and then backed up again. A scuffle ensued in the police vehicle and Wilson's hat flew off. There was a gunshot at the vehicle, and then Brown ran down the street followed by Wilson. Wilson aimed his gun at Brown and repeatedly yelled "Stop", but did not fire until Brown turned around and stepped toward Wilson. At that point Wilson fired three shots. Brown staggered toward Wilson from 20 feet away with his hands out to his sides, when Wilson fired again. The witness said that Brown was already falling as the last shots were fired and that, in his opinion, the final shots were murder.

Tonight helicopters are hovering over the Farragut Projects on the other side of Fort Greene Park. I hear the whoop of sirens. The pigs.

White America

Saturday, November 22, 2014

When It All Went Bad

Bridges and Typewriters


In Jan. 1982 a french magazine ACTUEL hired me to work the work at their Paris nightclub, Le Rex. I bid good-bye to New York and flew from JFK to Heathrow with one bag of my best clothing and an Olivetti typewriter.

After a brief visit with friends in London, I boarded a train at Waterloo Station for Dover and caught a night ferry to Calais. The immigration officials stamped my passport with a six-month visa and I passed through customs without any of the smoking officials casting an eye in my direction. It was cold outside and I walked to the Calais train station.

My typewriter weighed a ton and I contemplated ditching it, while crossing a bridge. The tide was out and the river bottom was thick with mud. The world didn't need another writer or another doorman at a nightclub, then again this world doesn't need much, so I trudged into the terminal with the Olivetti and bought a ticket to Paris.

Gare Du Nord.

For me and my typewriter.

I have no idea where it is now, but me I'm in New York and my typing is as bad as ever.

The Dream Is Never Over

After spending a lovely night in Houston, JFK and his wife boarded the presidential jet for a short hop to Dallas. The crowds lining the route applauded the president and his hostess, Mrs. Connolly, commented, Dallas loved him and he replied, "That's very obvious."

The single bullet and then another struck JFK within a second of his reply.

November 22, 1963 was a bad day, however the video shows that he was having a good time in Texas.

The love was real and real now too.

Johnny Boy we miss you.

To view the lovely night in Houston, please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQlw-U8l6YY

THE BIRTH OF THE BOUFFANT by Peter Nolan Smith

In the late-18th Century Marie Antoinette' coiffeur sought to camouflage the queen's baldness by upsweeping her thinning tresses to cascade over her ears. The femme fatales of the ancien regime imitated 'le bouffant, until the royal coif lost its popularity with the Marie's final haircut by the guillotine.

Almost two centuries later Jackie Kennedy, JFK's wife, reincarnated the fashion during her tenure at the White House.

American women idolized the glamorous First Lady regardless of their politics.

Overnight millions of housewives hit their local hair salon to acquire the look.

Movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Kim Novak further popularized the rage and within months the only women rejecting the coif were Durgin Park's gang of crew-cut bull dyke waitresses and the nuns at my grammar school, Our Lady of the Foothills.

The bouffant died out with the advent of the hippie era.

Young women grew long hair and coif was once more threatened with extinction, except for brief respite from the lead singers of the B-52s and the late English singer Amy Winehouse.

Last year Jamie Parker and I were happy-houring at Solas in the East Village. We had the Irish bartender to ourselves. Moira liked a good laugh and Jamie told her stories of his go-go bar in Pattaya.

After our second margharita an attractive woman walked into a shadowy bar. Her bleached blonde hair was stacked high on her head. Stiletto heels added another five inches to her Amazonian height.

"A model." Jamie Parker smirked at the passing beauty in designer drag.

"Probably coming from a shoot." The actresses in TV show MADMEN had revitalized the early 60s, although few woman in present-day America could pull off the time-travel make-over.

"She looks like a 1960s transvestite." The lanky ex-con squinted down the bar.

"And that's a bad thing." I caught the scent of Chanel No.5. She was high-class.

The goddess sat at the end of the bar and Moira went to attend to her need. She was into girls.

"Not in this light." It was almost night that deep in Solas.

"You don't like the bouffant?"

"Not at all."

"And why not?"

"Because the Mr. Kenneth who re-invented the hair style for Jackie Kennedy was queer."

"You have something against gays?" Back in the 60s gays were feared by young men, unless they were looking for a good time. This was the modern times. Gay-bashing was not in fashion.

"Me, I love gays, but gay hairdressers used the bouffant hair style as a strategy to turn straight men gay."

"What do you mean?" I wasn't following Jamie's line of thoughtlessness.

"Just that it's not a really natural look and women refused to have sex to avoid ruining the helmet of hair on their head, so men sought release elsewhere."

"With other men?"

"The sexual revolution freed us from our chains." Jamie was a couple of years older than me, although he didn't look it.

"I had a girlfriend with a bouffant in 1965." Jo and I met in the Mattapan Oriental Theater. We were both 13.

"And you went all the way?"

"Not even close." Steel-rimmed bras safeguarded against any attempts by unschooled boys to reach 'second base'.

"See."

"It had nothing to do with the bouffant."

"You're from Boston. Men from Boston love Jackie Kennedy's bouffant. You probably went to bed jerking off to the First Lady."

"Not that I can remember." Jackie O rode horses and spoke French. Women like her were destined to marry rich regardless of their hairstyle. "Jo was my muse. I know my place."

"Don't we all." Jamie was in the States visiting his mother. She lived in the Bronx and thought that he was teaching school in Thailand, instead of running the Pigpen A Go-Go featuring fat pretty bar girls and skinny ugly pole dancers.

"My mom had a bouffant."

"Mine too."

"It had them feel like a queen."

"Better than knowing your place."

"Send the princess a drink on us," Jamie told Moira.

"Happily." Moira played for the other side.

"Do you like the bouffant?"

"It's very Kim Novak." The blonde had mesmerized Hitchcock in his film VERTIGO.

"Wasn't she gay?" Jamie asked eying me.

"I think so." Moira played for the other side. She was holding the model's hand. They looked like a nice couple.

If only for happy hour.

"Ah, here's to the bouffant." Jamie raised his glass.

"And Jackie O."

At my age I might think about her once in a while.

After all she was the mother of the modern bouffant.

Wear What November 22,1963

Not only do I know where I was 50 years ago when I heard about JFK, I know exactly what I was wearing.

The school uniform for St. Mary of the Hills.

We miss you JFK.

Always have.

Always will.

Fuck the debunkers of Camelot.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

$1.19 Steak At Tad's

I ate my first steak at Tad's.

1964.

Someplace near Penn Station

$1.19

I made five times that as a newspaper boy.

We were not wage slaves in the age of Tad's Steakhouse.

Stranger Stranger

Family.

Sigh.

Maybe I remember the better moments of life.

I don't think so.

Then again I am far from a perfect person.

As anyone can judge from this missive from my cousin.

"I think of you all every day, unfavorably and with sorrow. It is, I suppose, kind of you to contact me but, sadly, too late, too little, too meaningless. I remember how I was there for you for Michael and for Angie. But you were not there for me following David's suicide. A wonderful, joyful childhood, rich in cousinly play and adventure, evaporated into nothingness. Memories betrayed and made distant. Of the lot, only Gina retains any claim to ethical conduct.

Nevertheless, I wish you happiness and prosperity, as I would any stranger."

I was her brother's friend.

The Bishop and I played B-Ball together.

I spoke to him a week before his deciding to end it all.

I think about Davie all the time.

I am not a stranger.

Not to the Bishop.

All The Leaves Are Brown

Sunday morning I took this photo from the top floor of the Fort Greene Observatory. The sky was gray and the Mamas and Papas' CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' rang in my ears. I was 2900 miles from the West Coast and rain sloshed on the sidewalk. I went to work in wet gear. The streets of Manhattan swelled ankle-deep with the overflow of every deluge. Thankfully I was wearing a good boots and returned home at dark only a little wet.

My landlord and I smoked some reefer after which I fell into bed with the windows open to the cool autumn night.

Sirens sang on Fulton.

Ambulances, not fire or police.

Brooklyn was dangerous in the rain.

I watched WALKING DEAD and read PORIUS by John Cowper Powys. The Celtic fairy tale was a tough walk through the weeds of words obscuring the Arthurian legend. My eyes shut after two chapters, dreaming of my Pictish blood. I lasted two seconds as a near-sighted thane with a dull sword against the Roman shield and I wandered through the sleeplands until a whoosh of wind withered a shiver through the trees outside my window.

Golden leaves fluttered to the floor.

My breath floated on the darkness.

The temperature dropped every second.

Autumn was gone.

Winter was here.

I shut the windows and watched the wind rip away the leaves.

Mercy was out of the question for the new season's invaders.

Three layers of blankets shunned the cold, but this was only the beginning.

I was winter and winter was bound to get colder.

Earth was in Space and the temperature in Space was Absolute Zero.

To hear CALIFORNIA DREAMIN', please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Le Livre de Philippe Waty

The Steamin' Musselmen or les Muselmans Fumant were an artistic troupe de force in Paris through the 1980s and 1990s. Philippe Waty co-founded the group and his vibrant iconography adorned the walls of the abandoned city quarters. Philippe painted with the spirit of Chester Hines's Black America matched by his collaborators; Fabrice Langlade, Tristam de Quatremere, Franky Boy, César Maure and Dominique Gangloph.

Sadly Philippe passed into the Here-Before in September of 2012.

He was a friend.

Tristam has organized a book of Waty's work.

On December 3rd at le Favel de Chic, 18 Rue du Faubourg du Temple there will be a soiree to celebrate his life and art.

If I can get there, I will be there.

Le Etoile De Waty.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

The Last Of Millions

George Lawrence Price (1892 - 1918)

The last to fall in the Great War.

A Canadian from Falmouth, Nova Scotia.

Monday, November 10, 2014

MY LIFE by Big Albert Harlow

MY LIFE

Sometimes I wonder what happened to my youth As I look in the mirror and see the truth My heart becomes heavy as I see the grey hair Time has marched on and it doesn’t seem fair It seemed like only yesterday I was young and life was free I had no idea what was in store for me I believed I was invincible and nothing could bring me down But somehow my life got turned around I traded my freedom for a cell of concrete and bars I spent too many years without seeing the stars My spirit was crushed and my heart turned to stone I was surrounded by killers and gangsters, yet still I was alone My love for the world slowly turned to hate Patiently I waited for the day they would open the gate That day finally came and I took my turn But not for long, I had so much to learn When they let me out my world had moved on I had nowhere to go, everything was gone The system is designed for people to fall They gave me 200 bucks and no hope at all But I was too young to give up and die Yet I felt I was too old to cry So I picked up a gun and robbed gangsters and thugs I took all their money and then took their drugs I lived my life hard and fast Letting my guard down was a thing of the past I did what I did so I could survive Right or wrong I am still alive I played with fire and many times burned Life’s lessons were hard, but finally learned I left my home and traveled around I stopped in Asia and finally settled down Married to a lovely wife who gave me a beautiful son And when he is older I will tell him about the things I have done So he may know what not to do I will teach him to be smart and always think things through And it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’ve been It’s not the tough guy, but the smart guy who knows how to win.

Albert Harlow 2014

A gentle gunman although not in his day.