IMPURE AT HEART by Peter Nolan Smith

In the early 60s the nuns of Our Lady of the Foothills taught their students that our sins were punished in the burning fires of Hell, until then Mother Superior subjected the palms of potential heretics and religious backsliders to a cane. Whisperers and jesters suffered the yardstick. All of her victims were boys, for Sister Mary Josef had a sweet spot for girls who were made of sugar and spice, while boys were scrapped together out of snails and puppy dog tails.

As the star student of my class I had escaped her persecution by studying the Old and New Testaments. My grade for religion was always an A+ and no altar boy could fake the Latin of the Mass better than me. Mother Superior even spoke to my parents about a possible scholarship to a seminary, but even as the star student of my class I couldn't escaped her persecution.

This was the Spring of 1965 and I had prayed to Satan for the Rolling Stones SATISFACTION to vanquish the Beatles from #1. My hair ran over my collar. No one knew that I was an atheist.

"Yes, my son." The priest had been advised about my prospects. "Do you have something to say? Something about sin?"

I had plenty of them; Cher from WHERE THE ACTION IS, Julie Christie in DARLING, the French Yeh-Yeh singer Fr

ancoise Hardy, my classmate Kyla Rota, and a fantasy about a naked female guitarist were my succubii.

I had never ratted out my loved ones out in confession and I wasn't about to start.

"Father, you said 'eternal damnation'. Forever and ever."

"Yes.” His eyes squinted with hesitation. "Hell will not freeze over."

"Never?"

"Nunca."

No altar boy could fake the Latin of the Mass better than me. Mother Superior even spoke to my parents about a possible scholarship to a seminary.

“That whisper in your ear is the voice of Satan. Your hand becomes that of Lucifer. Eternal damnation awaits any boy succumbing to the siren song of the Devil.” The priest glared at his captive audience, as if he were seeking out young sinners of the flesh and pointed over our heads. “The Lord knows your hearts. Jesus loves the pure. An eternity of flames awaits the hands of onanists.”

The last word was unknown to the assembly. Heads turned to friends for guidance. Mother Superior caught the movements and cracked the nearest trespasser with her pointer. She showed no mercy to the 6th Grader and pinched his reddened ear with painteresque fingernails. The boy squealed in pain and the priest glowed with satisfaction.

"Masturbation."

We gasped at this word. The Boy Scout manual called ejaculation nocturnal emission. We had many names for it.

There hadn't been a priest in my family for a generation, however my reign as the Great Catholic Hope died on the day Sister Mary Josef had assembled the 6th, 7th, and 8th Grade Boys to hear the rant of a diocesan priest warning us against the temptation of touching ourselves.

We knelt on the floor throughout his hour-long tirade.

"That whisper in your ear is the voice of Satan. Your hand becomes that of Lucifer. Eternal damnation awaits any boy succumbing to the siren song of the Devil." The priest glared at his captive audience, as if he were seeking out young sinners of the flesh and pointed over our heads. "The Lord knows your hearts. Jesus loves the pure. An eternity of flames will burn the hands of onanists."

The last word was unknown to the 99% of the assembly and stupified heads turned to friends for guidance.

Mother Superior caught the slight movement and cracked the nearest trespasser's cheek with an open palm. The perpetrator was a 4th Grader, yet she pinched his reddened ear with claw-like fingernails. The boy squealed in pain and the priest glowed with the ecstasy of reviling masturbation.

"Satan is everywhere." His hands sought something to hold.

"Father?"

This was the Spring of 1965 and I had prayed to Satan that the Rolling Stones SATISFACTION would vanquish the Beatles from #1. My hair hung over my collar. No one knew that I was an atheist.

"Yes, my son." The priest had been advised about my avocation to God . "Do you have something to say?"

If he was expecting an admission of impure thoughts, I had plenty. Cher from WHERE THE ACTION IS, Julie Christie in DARLING, the French Yeh-Yeh singer Francoise Hardy, and my classmate Kyla Rota were my succubus. I had never ratted them out in confession and I wasn't about to start.

"Father, you said 'eternal damnation'. Forever and ever."

"Yes." His eyes squinted with hesitation. "Hell will not freeze over."

"Maybe not, but after the Last Judgment won't the universe will be reincarnated with a new heaven and a new earth meaning that eternity will come to an end."

"St. Luke says "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! ... ‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

His voice shook in anger.

"So there will be no new heaven and no new earth?" I rose to my feet; 13 years-old and 5-10. There was no fear in my eyes.

My best friend had drowned at the age of 8.

The priest's god had done nothing to save Chaney from death.

Whispering footsteps announced the Mother Superior's approach and I sought redemption in the Scriptures.

"Matthew 13:40-43: Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth

. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!"

"Exactly." The priest waved for me to join him at the podium.

"They say that abusing yourself makes you have hairy palms." He grabbed my wrists and turned my palms upward.

"Like a werewolf." I unclenched my fingers.

"I knew it."

My palms were bald and the priest smiled at my purity, placing his hand on my shoulder.

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. Revelations 20:11-12."

"Yes, father." I accepted his faith in those beliefs without questioning my disbelief in his.

"Then we are good?" He lifted his face to heaven.

"Yes, we are good." I glanced over to Mother Superior, who was not so easily fooled by words.

"I'll be watching you." Her narrowed eyes studied me, as if I was a triple agent between her Holy Trinity and the Prince of Darkness.

"Yes, sister." I was none of the above.

"Assembly back to your classes." The lecture on masturbation had come to an end.

"Yes, sister."

Like all good boys and girls of Our Lady of the Foothills we obeyed Mother Superior's command.

Even me, for I was scared of someone damaging my hand and I needed my hands smooth for the better things in a young man's life.

There was no telling when the real thing was coming in 1965.

Robert Wilson's THE OLD WOMAN at BAM

THE OLD WOMAN was loosely based on the absurdist stories of Danil Kharms, an avant grade Bolshevik writer who survived a Soviet purge to retreat into safety of children literature.

His adult stories were short.

FALLING OLD LADIES is the basis of THE OLD WOMAN

Because of her excessive curiosity, an old lady fell out of the window and smashed into the ground. Another old lady looked out of the window, staring down at the one who was smashed, but out of her excessive curiosity she also fell out of the window and smashed into the ground. Then the third old lady fell out of the window, then the fourth did, then the fifth. When the sixth old lady fell out of the window, I got bored watching them and went to Maltsev market where, they say, someone gave a woven shawl to a blind.

Willem Dafoe repeats these lines to be echoed in English and Russian by the great ballet dancer Misha Baryshnikov.

Both men are dressed in black suits to be a mirror image of each other.

The play worked at straight angles to the curves of light-directed images reincarnating a pantheon of forgotten styles. The brilliant lighting telegraphed moods of yearning. The music sought our memories. The actors were silhouettes of dreams.

Willem was a good dancer. Misha was better, but only just.

The audience laughed at parts

I didn't get it, but as Robert Wilson said, "If you know what it is, then what the point of doing it."

Huh.

I guess I am a simple man.

And that is no sin.

Sleeping Swan Lake Couch Potato

Some people born graceful even in slumber.

HOW TO LIFT A MOTORBIKE Video

Bikes are heavy.

They fall over.

Here's how to get one up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOCTsna2jiI

A Letter from Huey Newton

A Letter from Huey Newton to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters about the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements" is considered the first pro-gay, pro-woman proclamation to come out of the black civil rights movement.

During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements.

Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion. I say "whatever your insecurities are" because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the women or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.

We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor. Many times the poorest White person is the most racist because he is afraid that he might lose something, or discover something that he does not have. So you're some kind of a threat to him. This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we are angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior, or their particular kind of deviation from the established norm.

Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women's right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society.

And what made them homosexual? Perhaps it's a phenomenon that I don't understand entirely. Some people say that it is the decadence of capitalism. I don't know if that is the case; I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact that exists, and we must understand it in its purest form: that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body in whatever way he wants.

That is not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn't view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. And maybe I'm now injecting some of my prejudice by saying that "even a homosexual can be a revolutionary." Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary.

When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women's liberation movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We should not use the actions of a few to say that they are all reactionary or counterrevolutionary, because they are not.

We should deal with the factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge, somehow, whether they are operating in a sincere revolutionary fashion and from a really oppressed situation. (And we will grant that if they are women they are probably oppressed.) If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action. If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice, but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy, or they do not understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we should criticize that and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free. And the same is true for homosexuals. We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest. They are just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women's liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.

We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say "insecurities," I mean the fear that they are some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process which builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hang-ups in us. I have hang-ups myself about male homosexuality. But on the other hand, I have no hang-up about female homosexuality. And that is a phenomenon in itself. I think it is probably because male homosexuality is a threat to me and female homosexuality is not.

We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms "faggot" and "punk" should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.

We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women's liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner.

posted by Jim Fouratt, longtime revolutionary

Gay Pride Day

Today tens of millions of Americans celebrated Gay Pride Day across the country. New York City was the epicenter of the festivities, but the police presence on the streets reminded gays and lesbians and people of color that freedom can be given and freedom can be taken away.

"No amount of disco music, nor number of scantily clad boys can render the juxtaposition of this completely commercialized Pride event within the corralling barricades of a police state "gay." Jorge Socarres posted on Facebook and further excoriated the NYPD by writing, "NYC cops are so stupid - their barricades are creating dangerous bottleneck situations around huge, wide open closed off spaces - for no practical except control. Madrid takes in 2 million people for Pride, and nowhere do you see a barricade - the city becomes one great, unbroken celebration. Leave it to people who've survived fascism to know how to stay free."

The Gay Pride Parade has always been a spectacular out event, but the holiday commemorates the Stonewall Riots of 1969 during which the gay clientele of a Mafia bar resisted a police raid on a Christopher Street dance club in the early hours of June 28. Four undercover officers shouted, "Police! We're taking the place!"

There were about 200 men in the bar. They obeyed the cops for a half-hour before realizing that they had numbers on their side. A handcuffed bull dyke fought four cops singlehandedly, as they forced her into the paddy wagon. All hell broke loose in the next minutes with police cars getting their tires slashed and officers retreating under the hail of hurled bricks and coins. The drag queens fought the hardest. They had old scores to settle with the men in blue. Gays chased the cops for blocks. The streets were theirs.

Gay power came alive those nights and nothing the police, the church, the government, the right, the bible-belters, and all those against gays, lesbians, and drag queens have failed to put the Genie back in the bottle, although that doesn't keep them from trying.

Gay Power.

Now more than ever.

Enjoy, but never forget.

So High The High

Plenty of Manhattan apartments have views of Central Park, the Hudson River or the Empire State Building. But this $118.5 million penthouse has something truly unique. "You can see Colorado from here!" real estate broker Ryan Serhant said, standing on the 40th-floor terrace overlooking the New Jersey highlands. "There's nothing else like it!" Sign up for top Business news delivered direct to your inbox. He's kidding—sort of. Serhant, one of the three stars of Bravo's popular show "Million Dollar Listing New York," was a boundless marketer while giving CNBC an exclusive tour of the penthouse in The Ritz-Carlton Residences in Battery Park City.

The Blindness Of Justice

In 2003 online postings from US soldiers working at Abu Ghraib prison showed photos of torture. The Pentagon called this an isolated incident, however the CIA had established a secret empire of prisons throughout the world for terror suspects of their 'rendition' program. "This is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are over here. I'd say the same thing to the American people ... Don't judge your army based on the actions of a few. Americans chose to believe their leaders, despite the condemnation of Amnesty International," said Brig. Gen Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of Coalition operations in Iraq. Military commanders punished eleven soldiers and announced an end to torture. It was all lies. Especially since most of the torture was condoned by the higher ranks of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency. It was not an isolated incident and neither was the News of the World's phone hacking. The British newspaper sought headlines by tapping phones with sophisticated methods gleaned from the various spy networks of the UK and USA. This week the chief editor was found guilty of phone-hacking, but then according Al Jazeera the jury failed to arrive at a verdict on whether former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and ex-royal editor Clive Goodman were guilty of paying police officers for royal phone directories. The trial cost over $3 million. Most of the other conspirators have been acquitted of all charges and the media magnate Rupert Murdock was never charged with anything. This too was only an isolated incident. His other newspapers were innocent of any wrongdoing in the eyes of the media, who are equally guilty of the same charges and worse. Once more justice has been blinded by the news. The truth will always out. Especially for Mssr. Murdoch, who was known to have said, "Bury your mistakes." The deeper the better.

Duro Olowu @ Salon 94

Nigerian Designer, Duro Olowu presented

Last evening I attended the opening of Duro Olowu, a Nigerian fashion designer. I had almost blown off the event, except I had spent the entire day writing ALMOST A DEAD MAN and needed a break from my novel about a black pimp in Hamburg.

Samantha McEwen had two pieces on the wall and I was happy to see the London painter. I was equally pleased to view Duro Olowu's new works, which harken back to the fetish costumes of West Africa, especially a towering colossus of color.

His capes were exquisite;y executed for maximum visual impact.

The event was well attended by well-attired guests. Writer Glenn O'Brien looked very summery. He introduced to his friend as 'an adventurer'. Returning to Samantha, she commented, "People in London don't dress like this anymore."

Young Camille showed up and said, "Linen from head to toe."

"It's the season."

"Tomorrow I'm leaving for London. You know anyone there fun."

"A dozen people, although most leave on the weekend." I promised to make some phone calls.

Also in attendance was a ghostly reincarnation of Winona Ryder.

She was very interested in the fashion and the people.

I said goodbye to Samantha. She had plans for dinner and I was meeting Dakota, the lead singer of WEIRD WOMB, on Canal Street.

On this way out I asked Winona's ghost, if I could take her photo.

She smiled with pleasure.

"Sure."

I went outside and got on my bike.

Canal Street was only five minutes from the Bowery.

SALON 94 BOWERY 243 Bowery New York, NY 10002 Tuesday – Saturday 11:00am – 6:00pm Sunday 1:00pm – 6:00pm T: 212.979.0001 F: 212.979.0004

BAD DRIVING by Peter Nolan Smith on KINDLE

I am not the best driver in the world. Accidents happen. I've had more than a few and BAD DRIVING is a collection of short stories about my mishaps on the road. I survived them. although in an alternative universe I died on more than one occasion.

Drink was involved in several and I swore off driving in that condition way back in the 20th Century. It was a life or death decision.

These stories date back to the 1960s.

My last accident was on a skateboard in Pattaya, when I tried to slalom down a hill. A face plant on asphalt is not a happy ending.

Drive safe and even more important drive sober.

The life you save might be someone other than yourself.

To purchase BAD DRIVING by Peter Nolan Smith on KINDLE for $1.99, please go to the following URL

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LBACXLW

Gay Re-Education Camps

Yesterday former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) was suffering from summer media disappearance and claimed on the radio anti-gay marriage business owners were being sent to “re-education camps” for refusing to serve gay customers. “You now see situations with bakers and florists and photographers who are being forced to provide services for same-sex weddings or get fined, lose their business. In the case of Colorado, there was a Colorado case recently where someone had to go to a re-education camp if you will. And the amazing thing is that in Colorado gay marriage isn’t even legal!" According to Huffington Post Santorum appeared on the program in order to promote his new movie on the persecution of Christians in America. Personally I think that anti-gay people should be sent to gender reassignment clinics, where our beliefs can be shoved down their throats, since they loved that sexual innuendo. Cram it down, cram it down, way down.

Zrooom

Citroën DS Campaign. Helmut Newton

Sexy Car

Sexy Woman

Sexy photgrapher

Helmut Newton

BAD CROSSING by Peter Nolan Smith

My college tuition in 1973 was $2000 for the year. I hacked a cab for Boston Taxi to support myself. Our garage was next to the old Boston Arena. If a driver booked more than $100 a night, the payout jumped from 45/55 to 50/50. My classmate Hank Watson and I were the top earners for the company. We caught the 12am operators from the NET&T building and ended the night with a final ride for the strippers of the 2 O’Clock lounge. The drinking age was 18. Hank and I rendezvoused at 1:30am to watch the headliners finish the night.

Tuesday night was the best.

The girls got paid their commission for the drinks to the suckers.

The 3-piece band played our requests. We tipped them with our tips. IN DA GADDA DA VIDA was priceless on a stand-up Hammond organ.

One evening we stayed after hours.

Neither of us were aiming for magna cum laude.

The strippers taught us life.

My favorite DANCER was Claudia. She was a 17 year-old blonde. Marilyn Monroe could have been the mother who abandoned her to the nuns. After closing Claudia and I drank three tequila at the Hillbilly Ranch and smoked a joint with the country-western band. Hank was driving his favorite, a sister named Shaleen, to Roxbury. My first class RADICAL ECONOMICS with Barry Bluestone was scheduled for 9am.

6 hours away.

“If you want to go, then we have to go now.”

Claudia was glad to go.

She had a jealous biker boyfriend.

Ben liked showing up at the Hillbilly ranch to take his cut of her take.

I had Claudia sit in the front. Anyone sitting in the back triggered the meter. The $7 fare from Combat Zone to Forest Hills was better in my pocket than that of the greedy owner.

Claudia talked about her childhood.

Nuns. Beatings. Priests. Wandering hands.

“A-huh.” I was having trouble staying on the road. Smoking weed and tequila was a deadly combination and Claudia asked at her address, “Are you okay to drive?”

“Fine.” My head was strapped to the end of a helicopter prop.

"You want to come upstairs?"

"Another night."

I had a class in the morning and headed back to the garage ignoring the radio dispatcher. Anyone in Dudley Station was stuck in Dudley Station until the train opened at 6am. I stepped on the gas. Columbus Street was naked of traffic. My Checker cab had some tiger in its engine. I hit 70, which was too fast to stop for an Olds 88 burning the stop sign at Centre Street.

I t-boned the big car at the doors. My taxi snap-tailed across the intersection at 1000 rpm. The Checker came to a stop against a curb. The driving wheel was in my hands. The windshield had been shattered by the impact of my head. I dropped the steering wheel and touched my forehead.

No blood.

No missing parts.

The Olds 88 was bent in half.

A black man lay out the door.

I walked over to the wreck. Steam vented from the engine. People were exiting from the nearby projects. Blood was leaking from the man’s ear. This was not a good sign.

“That look like my Uncle Milton.”

“That white boy killed Milton.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” I leaned over Milton. He was wearing a red silk suit. Wilson Pickett style. “Can you hear me?”

“White boy you done kill me.” Crimson bubbled from his lips.

The crowd was going in anger. Someone had a gun at his side. I eyed him as if I were not white. He didn’t buy the lie.

This was a Mob.

Soon it would be a riot.

I stood alone.

A Boston cab drove between us. Hank was behind the wheel. Shaleen stepped out of the back in pink hot pants splendor.

“Leave the white boy alone. He’s good people.”

The crowd's indecision was detoured by the whoop of a police car. They backed away from the crushed Olds. Shaleen had done her job. Hank drove away with Shaleen in the front seat. He didn't have a class until the afternoon.

“Get in the car.” The officer behind the wheel ordered with urgency. I obeyed his command and we escaped, as an ambulance pulled into the intersection.

“I think I killed that man.”

“Not at all. And besides he was just a nigger."

"Excuse me." I didn't think I had heard him right, but Boston was renown for its racism.

"They have thick skulls. He'll live and we’ll write it up in your favor. You’re from Boston, right?”

He could tell I was a townie from my accent.

"Jamaica Plain down near Forest Hills."

My grandmother lived there. I was from the South Shore.

"Don't worry about nothing."

The next morning I made my economics class and slept through most of it.

At the end of the semester I received a C and I was never charged with manslaughter, because Milton survived the crash. He had been drinking too. The cab company was angry. Milton was suing them for damages.

The stop sign had been turned the wrong way by vandals.

"I didn't do it," I explained to the taxi company.

"Well, someone did."

They fired me without blinking an eye.

Six months later his lawyer called my house to ask me to testify against the cab company.

"I'll give you $100."

I received a check.

No one showed for the court date, but ever since that night I’ve always thought that the state should have a drunk driving hour. No one on the road but drunks.

2am to 5am made sense to me and probably Milton too.

We were survivors.

For that night and beyond.

Faster Than Hell

Back in 1984 a Paris friend bought a fiendishly fast KZ 1100 cc bike. One evening we were sitting at le Savanne, an African transvestite after-hour bar in Les Halles, Francois dangled the keys in front of my face, “How you like to take the monster for a ride?”

I had a Vespa. Its top speed was 120 kph downhill.

"It's a little late for a test drive." Francois' bike was out of my league.

"You can drive around the tunnels of Les Halles. There are no cars this time of the morning."

"Do it," cooed a gloriously thin slender ladyboy. "I like fast men."

"Pourqui non?" I downed a glass of tequila to quell my survival instinct and I grabbed his keys.

The bike felt big between my legs. I turned on the engine. It growled with more power than all the horses in BEN HUR's chariot race. I goosed the throttle. The bike asked for more. The pre-dawn streets were slick with winter rain.

"See you in five minutes."

I screeched down the street.

My wrist flicked through the gears and I entered the tunnel system beneath Les Halles in 3rd. Its maze of parking garages has been featured in many films. Francoise was right. An hour before dawn the subterranean passages were devoid of traffic. I leaned forward on the gas tank with the RPMs coasting at 3000. A twist of the wrist redlined the dial. I hit 160 in a second. The flesh peeled from my face. The KZ hit 200 kph on a straight-away. My death wish competed with the desire to live and I returned to the bar at a conservative 40 kph. I had been gone three minutes. Francois asked with a junkie smile, “Fast?”

“Very.” My eyes were wet wind wind tears

My assault on the Paris speed record was a good effort, however nothing in comparison to that in the film C'ETAIT UN RENDEZVOUS.

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9. A professional Formula 1 racer drove through the heart of Paris to meet a beautiful blonde in Montmatre. The Benz was an automatic. No streets were closed, since Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit for the film, which was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes,

The driver ran twelve red lights, nearly hit a few delivery trucks and pedestrians, and drove the wrong way up one-way streets, and completed the course from Porte Dauphine through the Louvre to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur under nine minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches.

Lelouch added the sound from a Ferrari to the short movie to pump up the adrenalin.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was supposedly arrested for speeding, although critics have calculated that the top speed never broke 160. The same as me underneath Les Halles.

The director has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

I remember seeing the short film in Paris.

Damn that car was fast.

But few people drive as fast as drunk Thai boys on their little scooters. No helmets. No lights. Death wish 2011.

To see C'ETAIT UNE RENDEZVOUS, please go to this URL http://vimeo.com/88309465

JETS OVERHEAD by Peter Nolan Smith

Falmouth Foresides was a quiet neighborhood in the 50s. Ships blew their horns leaving Portland Harbor and channel buoys tolled out their passing wake. At night I listened to the Celtics game on a small transistor radio from Japan.

I set the volume to almost silence.

My older brother was a light sleeper.

My mother worried about my hearing and I pulled the earphone out of my ear before falling asleep to my brother's breathing.

None of this coastal quietude preparation me for our move in the summer of 1960 to a suburb south of Boston. The neighborhood itself was peaceful, however our split-level ranch house lay directly beneath the landing pattern for Logan airport. The jets powered down their engines sixty seconds apart, as if Boston was under attack from a bombing run.

I was eight.

Our first night in the house I lay in bed crying. My brother was dead asleep. Sobs and planes didn't disturb him, only the hoarse voice of Johnny Most calling the Celtics and they weren't playing this time of year.

Downstairs adults were laughing in the kitchen. My parents were having a house-warming party for the neighbors. Cocktails were popular in the suburbs. Their drunken conversation grew louder with each overflight and then subsided with the planes passing our house.

I covered my face with a pillow.

My Uncle Jack entered the darkened bedroom and sat on my bed.

"I thought I heard crying." Uncle Jack was the youngest of my uncles. "What the problem?"

"The planes." I whispered, as a set of jet engines whined down its speed.

"The planes." He laughed with relief. "Those planes are bringing people home from trips far away. Soldiers, sailors, mothers, fathers, and children. They're a good thing."

"But they're loud." Maybe the fireworks for the 4th of July were louder.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Jack followed the plane with his eyes. His house was up the street. He shrugged a shoulder. "Believe me you'll get used to it. My kids did."

"They did?" Uncle Jack had three sons about my age. We were to attend the same school. They were the same as me.

"Yeah, you can get used to most everything." Jack said like he was telling a lie. "Well,not everything. I ever tell you about the time I was in the Chosin Reservoir."

"No." Uncle Jack had been a Marine lieutenant during that war. Comic books glorified these battles. He had won several medals for bravery. Everyone in my family called him a hero.

"I marched through that frozen hell with my troops. We started out two-hundred strong, but day by day we lost friends. I can remember their names. Their faces. The Chinese blowing their bugles. You want to talk about noise. Those bugles were loud and then we'd kill the men blowing them before anyone with a weapon. We mowed them down with machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, and rocks. Then it was over. The commies were either dead or so exhausted that they couldn't even breathe. Quiet. Just like now. Then there was a gasp. Not one, but by all the living, wounded, and dying. Some crying too, but none of it loud like that."

Uncle Jack pointed to the approaching roar of a jet. His eyes were wet and he wiped at them with his sleeve.

"Silent like no one was sure what they were, because we were scared. The chinks and us. No one wanted to die anymore. I went to sleep right after that. The only officer left in a command of ten men. I slept like a king surrounded by the dead and wounded. They knew how to cry, but in the end it got quiet. Now you go to sleep too." His voice had authority. Men of that era were knew how to speak like their fathers. He patted my head and then said, "Not an order. Dream if you got them."

It was a strange bed story, which probably should have kept me awake for hours, instead I slept until dawn and Uncle Jack was right. I grew accustomed to the jets that I didn't hear them anymore.

Years later I ran a cross-country track meet in East Boston. My high school against Don Bosco. The course skirted the beach across a channel from Logan. Neptune Road was so loud that the noise rattled loose your fillings.

A few of the opposing track team lived on that dead end street. None of them said that they had ever grown accustomed to the noise.

Not then and not now.

And neither will Uncle Jack to sobs at night.

For him they belonged to the dead.

APOCALYPSE NOW AND THEN by Peter Nolan Smith

I tried to enlist in the Marines soon after my 16th birthday. My mother wouldn’t sign the papers. The 1968 Tet offensive had dented her belief in the final outcome of the Vietnam Conflict. The dead were airlifted home in coffins. The wounded filled the VA hospitals. Discharged soldiers were portrayed as drug addicted monsters. A neighborhood boy came back from the Far East with nothing more than a thirst for beer.

Dennis Halley had seen action near the DMZ. The Boston Globe had mentioned his heroics during the Tet offensive. My hometown’s John Wayne was dating my next door neighbor. Addy Manzi was the prettiest girl on the South Shore. The three of us had vandalized an abandoned missile base of top of Chickatawbut Hill. The police had arrested me and I never gave up Dennis' or Addy’s name. I considered him a god and told him about my plans to join the Marines, while we were sitting by the Manzi’s swimming pool.

"Why you want to go?" He stared at the stars.

"I want to get out of here." My suburban hometown had three red lights, fifteen churches, and no bars.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Dennis had served with the Army Rangers. He had been decorated with medals and a puckered hole in his arm from shrapnel.

"Why not?" The Marines were proud.

“Marines are taking a lot of casualties. Officers are gung-ho for promotion. One West Point fuck ordered my friend to get some beer. A mine blew up his truck. My man died for warm beer. Viet-Nam is fucked and if you don’t have to go, then don’t go. The only people there are dumb fucks like me and poor white trash and blacks who can’t afford to go to college.”

“What about serving my country?” I believed in the American Way; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“I'm done served this country enough for the both of us. I spent two tours humping around rice fields, burning villages, and shooting at an enemy I couldn’t see. But one of them saw me good enough to shoot me. If I hear you signing up for the jarheads, I’ll kick your ass.” Dennis Halley was 20. He had killed VC. His eyes squinted like he was a stand-in for Clint Eastwood in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. His harsh words ran against the Pentagon’s optimism.

"What if I join the Army?"

"If you want to leave this town, then join a carnival or circus."

“Okay.” I wasn’t arguing with my hero.

“Good, now give me some room.” He nodded to Addy. They wanted to be alone. I didn’t have to be told why and wandered across the lawn to my split-level house. It was painted pink.

The strength of his advice changed my life. I became a hippie instead of a Marine. I protested the war. My father considered me a ‘commie’, but he didn’t want me to go to Viet-Nam. Like Dennis said the war was someone else’s fight and I avoided the last years of the war by attending college.

By the time I graduated in 1974 our troop levels were down to 1950 numbers, but more than 50,000 Americans had died in SE Asia and hundreds of thousands more had suffered grievous wounds to body and soul. Few of soldiers spoke about their experiences and those that had not gone wondered whether they missed the glory of war.

Dennis broke up with Addy and moved to California. She and I kissed after my older brother’s wedding. I was too drunk to attempt anything more in my family’s Oldsmobile. I quit my teaching job at South Boston High School in 1976 and relocated to New York. Manhattan was heaven for a young man in his 20s. I had friends. My girlfriend from West Virginia loved me and I worked at Hurrah, a rock disco on West 62nd Street. My days were free and I spent them going to the movies.

Double bills at the St. Mark’s movie house.

STAR WARS at the Whitestone Drive-in.

ALIEN on May 25, 1979 at a Times Square theater.

None was more important than the release of APOCALYPSE NOW on 15 August 1979 at the Ziegfeld Theater, where the sound was state-of-the-art.

Several of my co-workers from Hurrah showed up an hour before noon. I arrived thirty minutes later.

The line stretched around the block. The Ziegfeld was the only theater in New York showing the film, which had won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. This was the first day, first screening. None of us had to be anywhere else in the world but here. Whenever someone asked why Anthony, Reese, and I were waiting, they disconnected from their day and bought a ticket. We had orchestra seats.

By 11:45 the show was a sell-out and disappointed film buffs were begging for tickets at any price. No one was selling. The thousand-strong audience filed into the West 54th Street theater with pride and we bullied our way to the center seats.

At noon the lights dimmed to a semi-darkness.

None of us were ready for what came next.

A jungle filled the screen and the repeating whoop of helicopters passing overhead strobed over the sound system.

Dust and fire.

The young boy next to me ducked, as if the rotor blade might slice off his head and then a byzantine strum of a guitar followed by chimes. The predominantly male audience gasped with recognition.

THE END by the Doors.

A man’s face upside down overlapped with carnage.

A hundred matches ignited throughout the theater. Marijuana smoke clouded the air. APOCALYPSE NOW was a time machine back ten years into the past.

153 minutes later I exited into the steamy afternoon with a better understanding about why Dennis Halley was so vehement about my not enlisting.

“Do you think it was really like that?” Reese asked after fending off the next sitting’s questions about the film.

“I really didn’t know, but I wish I had gone."

"To kill people?"

"No, and not to serve my country." I wanted to bear witness to the spectacle of power and glory humbled by determination and I would gladly have risked my life to have the distinction of being a Viet-Nam veteran. Many men of my age felt the same way. We had missed out on the Big Show.

I fired no M-16. I never danced with hookers at a Saigon Bar, but my hair had been shoulder-length in April 1975 and I danced in the streets of Boston with hippie girls. Our side had forced the peace on LBJ, Nixon, the silent majority, and the military. The country turned its back on the War and the aftermath.

Several years ago I flew over Viet-Nam on a flight to the States from Thailand.

The country had looked at peace from eight miles high and I stared down at the mountains thinking about grunts humping 100 pounds backpacks up and down the slopes. It was a long way from America.

Back at work in the diamond exchange I told the security guards about my trip. Andy had served one tour in 1968. Army out of the motor pool. He had had no wish to end up a dead hero.

“I’ve been writing the Pentagon for a pension.”

“For what?” Andy knew my stance of the war. He felt it was a waste too, but also that we had to stop the reds from taking over the world.

“For all the years I protested against the war. Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, NVA is gonna win.” The chant had served as a slogan at demonstrations throughout the USA.

“Fuck that. You traitors will get nothing.” Andy spat out these words. The Brooklyn native was right-wing. His 2012 choice for president was the feisty Alaskan Sarah Palin. "We did our part." I was joking with him.

“And you deserve nothing. I landed in Saigon at the beginning of the Tet Offensive. Bullets were smacking into the charter jet and the sergeants yelled at us to take shelter. I spent the first three days in a trench praying for a truce. Mortar rounds landed ten feet from our shelter. I stayed one tour and got the fuck out. I don’t get a pension for it, so why should some long hair peace-nik.”

“Hey, the Feds give money to everyone. Why not me?”

“But you were never in Vietnam?”

“No, but I was in Cambodia.”

“You served in Cambodia?” Andy didn’t figure me for Army and he was right.

“No, I visited Phnom Penh and Laos too.” Both countries were next to Thailand. Thousands of farangs travel to the borders for a visa renewal. I thought about Dennis Halley’s dead friend. He was one of thousands that didn’t come back to the States.

“Did you have cold beer?”

“A luxury. We drank it warm with it 95 in the shade and sweat pouring from every pore."

“Something worth fighting for?” I saluted the retired cop as a fellow veteran. "Not democracy.".

“Hippie scumbag.” He gave the finger.

“Baby-killer.” I didn’t mean nothing by it and neither did Andy.

My fingers split into a vee.

The gesture had many meanings.

Fuck the French to the English archers at Agincourt, since the frogs lopped off prisoners fingers to prevent their return to the killing ranks.

Churchill had transformed the vee into a sign for victory.

I remained true to the 60s.

“Peace.”

“And love.” Andy returned the gesture, for war was a young man’s game made dead serious by the decisions of distant old men and like everyone else who lived through those times we were glad to be sucking air into our lungs.

Here there and everywhere.

Top Ten US States For Corruption

No surprise at # 1

1. Mississippi 2. Louisiana 3. Tennessee 4. Illinois 5. Pennsylvania 6. Alabama 7. Alaska 8. South Dakota 9. Kentucky 10. Florida

But where was New Jersey?

THE MAGUS Summer Reading

Everyone is planning summer holidays. People ask me where to go, since I have been many places. Camille from the diamond exchange was wavering between Morocco and Turkey.

I had been to neither, but heard Morocco was a hassle and Istanbul was a gem on the Bosphorus.

"Thanks for the info." Camilli was the queen of the plain joes in Bushwick. Most of them had beards. She would feel comfortable on the beaches off the plains of Troy.

On my way home to Fort Green I had a glass of wine at the Oyster Bar, several beers and margaritas at Solas on East 9th Street, then more beer at Frank's Lounge before arriving at my apartment around midnight to crash onto my bed almost a dead man.

The next morning I woke from my slumber with the rise of the dawn. My bedroom has no shades and day comes early these days.

I rewarded my survival with a daylong lay down during which I read John Fowles' THE MAGU, the story of an selfish Oxford graduate escaping a complicated relationship by accepting a teaching post on a remote Greek island, where he enters into a series of metaphysical games with a rich tycoon mimicking the lives of the gods and heroic humans. I fast-flittered through the pages since I had read the novel in the 70s, but immensely enjoyed visiting THE MAGUS.

After finishing the novel I remembered that it had been made into a movie with Michael Caine cast as the hero and Anthony Quinn as Maurice Conchis with Anna Karina and Candice Bergen as the love interests.

The 1968 film adaptation had been a critical box office disaster and I killed the afternoon watching it on Youtubes.

It was so bad, that Michael Caine had once said that it was one of the worst film in which he had been involved.

Woody Allen topped this critique by saying, "If I had to live my life again, I'd do everything the same, except that I wouldn't see The Magus."

THE MAGUS as a film really did suck, but the book was a nice escape on a hang-over day, especially if you didn't have to read every word, and I planned to give Camille my copy.

She'll enjoy it sunning on the beach.

I won't tell her anything about the movie.

Some things are better left in the dark.

Dreams of Fast Cars

I am planning a trip to Thailand. My English friends have called with a request to break the JFK-Bangkok flight with a JFK-Heathrow landing. I love them all, but unfortunately for the Limeys I missed my children too much to deviate from my flight plans, although last night a dream transported my unconsciousness wish to visit my London friends.

We meet in a pub on Westbourne Grove. Drinks were on me. The crowd was enormous. Every one of my English friends was at the bar and several ex-girlfriends vied for my attention. No one had aged a day from the last century. The room overreached capacity and I escaped before the bartender could present the bill. The total had to be in the thousands, for the British can really drink when it's on someone else's cuff, then again so can most drinkers.

I wandered through a nearby park to a car dealer selling souped-up 70s Toyota for a half-million pounds each. The dealer said no car was faster and a single lap around the racing track cost over $500. I thanked him from the offer and stepped into the ether of my alter-ego.

England was certainly expensive these days.

Even in my dreams

Dreams of Sex

Death and Sex are the two prime drives of life according to Freudians.

At my age death seemed closer than sex, although later next month I'll be flying west to the East . My wife will meet me at Bangkok airport with my son Fenway. I'll give him a big kiss and her a hug. Nothing more since my one year-old boy was very jealous son.

Same as his father.

"Do you dream of me?" Mem asked over the phone last night.

"Sometimes." It was a lie. She had never appeared to me in a dream, although I wished she would, since she was the only woman in my life for almost a decade.

"Do you dream about other women?" This was a trick question.

Like Fenway Mem was a jealous woman. "You can tell me."

"No, I don't dream about other women. I only dream about you."

"Ko-Hok." She knew men well enough to hear a lie for what it was. "You make love to naked lady on computer. I know you."

"That not same as a dream."

"Not dream. Not not dream too. You butterfly same all men."

I wanted to tell her that I was true, but my computer history would show that I'd been with thousands of women in her absence. Some of them even had names.

"I'm true to you. I haven't touched another woman."

"You touch yourself thinking your hand belong to someone else."

"No, only think my hand is your hand." And this was true. "I only wish I had films of you, then I not have to look at another lady."

"Never. I not do this." She was a good girl now. I was Doctor Doolittle. She was Eliza. Our story was MY FAIR LADY in Thai. I couldn't remember if the movie had a happy ending and hung up the phone, then went to my favorite porno site. www.lolastube.com.

I clicked on skinny Asians. None of them looked like Mem. Not even close.

It didn't matter, because Mem was right.

I am a butterfly.

PAUL IST TOT by Feldfarben

Today is Paul McCartney's birthday.

PAUL IST TOT by Feldfarben has nothing to do with the Beatles' bass player.

But I love the post-punk apocalyptical tune.

It's certainly better than HEY JUDE.

Fehlfarben - Paul Ist Tot lyrics (English translation)

Ich schau mich um und seh' nur Ruinen, EN: I look around me and see only ruins,

vielleicht liegt es daran, daß mir irgendetwas fehlt. EN: Perhaps it is because something is missing me.

Ich warte darauf, daß du auf mich zukommst, EN: I'm waiting for you to come to me,

vielleicht merk' ich dann, daß es auch anders geht. EN: Perhaps, then, I notice that there is another way.

Dann stehst du neben mir und wir flippern zusammen, EN: Then you're standing next to me and we play together, Pinball

Paul ist tot, kein Freispiel drin. EN: Paul is dead, no free play in it.

Der Fernseher läuft, tot und stumm, EN: The TV runs, dead and dumb,.

und ich warte auf die Frage, die Frage Wohin, wohin? EN: and I'm waiting on the question the question where, where?

Was ich haben will das krieg' ich nicht, EN: What I want to have I not got that

und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht. EN: and what I can get, I don't like it.

Was ich haben will das krieg' ich nicht, EN: What I want to have I not got that

und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht. EN: and what I can get, I don't like it.

Ich traue mich nicht laut zu denken, EN: I trust not loud to me think

ich zögere nur und dreh' mich schnell um. EN: I just hesitate and turn ' me quickly to.

Es ist zu spät, das Glas ist leer. EN: It is too late, the glass is empty.

Du gehst mit dem Kellner, und ich weiß genau warum. EN: You go with the waiters, and I know exactly why.

Was ich haben will das krieg' ich nicht, EN: What I want to have I not got that

und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht. EN: and what I can get, I don't like it.

Was ich haben will das krieg' ich nicht, EN: What I want to have I not got that

und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht. EN: and what I can get, I don't like it.

Ich will nicht was ich seh', EN: I do not want what I can see,.

ich will was ich erträume, EN: I want what I dream

ich bin mir nicht sicher, EN: I'm not sure

ob ich mit dir nicht etwas versäume. EN: If I miss something with you.

Was ich haben will das krieg' ich nicht, EN: What I want to have I not got that

und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht. EN: and what I can get, I don't like it.

Was ich haben will das krieg' ich nicht, EN: What I want to have I not got that

und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht. EN: and what I can get, I don't like it.

TO HEAR PAUL IST TOT by Feldfarben PLEASE GO TO THIS URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeGu62RnuU0

Slow Tongue

I have a stutter. I have it since childhood. My teacher at Pine Grove Elementary School feared that I might be retarded and strongly suggested to my parents that I visit a speech expert in Portland, which was the biggest city in Maine.

My father and mother drove me to Maine Medical. A doctor gave me a series of test to divine my IQ. I scored above average and he determined that my tongue was too big for my mouth.

"You son can't say what he wants to say fast enough."

"What can we do?" asked my mother. She was a firm believer in the Spoken Word.

"We can cut his palate to speed up his tongue.

"Cut his palate." My father thought this was barbaric.

"With a razor. It's worked on 17% of our patients."

And the rest?" My father glared at the doctor.

"They have lisps with a stutter."

"Thanks for the advice." My father signaled it was time to leave.

"What about the operation?"

"I think we'll give it a miss." My father was the son of a country doctor. He refused to submit his second son to this treatment and to this day I have retained my stutter.

It works wonders with impatient police officers.

The pigs have no patience for stutterers.

Chicken or the Egg

The question 'which came first the chicken or the egg' has befuddled mankind for centuries.

Philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato have pondered this mystery of circular cause and consequence without satisfaction. Darwin had argued that the chicken came first and lately Stephen Hawking has backed the egg. DNA testing on ancient fossils have failed to enlightened modern science and Christianity supports the 'Big Bang' creation miracle of the Old Testament, while Buddhism contends that the wheel of time leads to nowhere and in nowhere the chicken and egg are meaningless.

I am a simple man.

My education was extensive. My de-education even more so, because I have come to realize that anyone knowing all the answers hasn't heard all the questions and I frequently reset the blankness of my mind through a binge of hard drinking.

This morning I awoke from a near-death stupor gifted more by oblivion than enlightenment.

It is Father's Day.

My children are far away in Thailand. They are my reason for living along with beer, my wife Mem, the Boston sports teams, western movies, and pizza, but in truth they were always the most important part of me even before their conception, for a man's semen is the river of life.

Without it women are merely women, so laying in my bed I came to the momentous conclusion that as a man I am the egg and the woman is the chicken, for all a woman does is sit on my egg to hatch the chick.

Of course I would never say that within hearing distance of a woman, because chickens have big ears and notoriously short tempers.

Father's Day Gift

My father came around the world to see me and Angie in Thailand. Most of the time he had no idea where he was. It was the start of his decline. Frank A Smith II passed in 2010, but my father will always be in the here-now with the love I carry for him into the here-to-come.

A Cure For Babylon

The Texas GOP adopted a resolution vowing to cure homosexuality. "Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. Additionally, we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. We recognize the legitimacy and value of counseling which offers reparative therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy." They are really out of it, if they think there's a cure for nature's sway. MAD FOR IT by Texas Faggot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnyaMBBFc_0

Michelle Phillips YOU BET I WOULD

According to Wikipedia In 1986 she wrote an autobiography, California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas, released just weeks after her former husband John Phillips' autobiography Papa John. In it, Phillips describes such events as the first meeting between her and fellow Mama, Cass Elliot, winning 17 straight shoots at a crap table in the Bahamas when the band was broke and could not afford the air fare back to the United States, and how her writing credit on "California Dreamin'", which still nets her royalties, was "the best wake-up call" she ever had (she was asleep in a New York hotel room when her then husband John Phillips woke her up in order to help him finish a new song he was writing).

ps she was married to Dennis Hopper for eight days.

To hear the Mamas and Papas GO WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joPUjfx1JRg

The Wrath Of The GOP

This week the GOP's congressional majority leader Eric Cantor was defeated by a Tea Party candidate by 7000 votes in a Republican tune-out of 65,000. Cantor had blown millions on his campaign; more money on steakhouses than his opponent spend on his victory. Pollsters had the incumbent ahead by 34%. They were dead wrong and now newcomer David Brat will contest the Democrat Jack Trammell for Virginia's 7th Congressional District seat in the House of Representative. Both men teach at Randolph-Macon College. Both men are white and both men are men in the traditional sense of the word, however Economics Professor Brat firmly believes that the Hand of God is necessary in the free market to prevent the apocalypse.

"Capitalism is here to stay, and we need a church model that corresponds to that reality. Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on. Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong? We appear to be a bit passive. Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance. I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily. The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong. We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it. If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take."

I have been to Virginia's 7th Congressional District. Its 74% white population has elected a Republican since 1971. The voters hate the status quo in DC, but love their way of life. Democrats have been beaten like rented mules in every election. Brat's opponent will have opposition on a local and national level, as the GOP musters its money, media, and muscle to maintain their hold on the Tidewater.

Jack Trammell's first foray into the media had him telling MSNBC, "Professor Brat is a casual friend, meaning we know each other, and talk on occasion. We might have even played a game or two of basketball together! Although we do know each other, my beliefs drastically differ from those of Professor Brat."

According to Wikipedia Trammell's platform focuses on the need for educational reform, including special education and greater access to college, student loan relief, job creation, accountability in massive public private projects like the expansion of US Route 460, and basic healthcare for every American.

Oh,oh, basic healthcare means socialism and socialism is a little right of communism, which doesn't believe in God.

It sounds like time for Jack Trammell to dust off his Sunday suit, because the Lord is calling him and there is only one wrath greater than that of God and that's the wrath of the GOP.

Go Jack go.

Columbia Wrightsville Bridge

This week I drove west from New York to pick up a sheet of laminated glass from York PA.

The clouds opened up several times, as I drove Studio 40's pickup on I78. The interstate skirted Easton, Bethlehem, and Allentown. I dropped south at Hamburg and followed the Schuykill River to Route 222. A patch of overcast opened for the sun.

I was unfamiliar with this part of Pennsylvania and caught off guard by the width of the Susquehanna River. Rocks protruded by the broad river lined by new forests. To the south an arched bridge traversed the river. I wanted to stop, but this trip was taking longer than expected, so I motored another 16 miles to York.

The city looked like it was auditioning for a remake of HBO's THE WIRE. Young men hung on the doorsteps of two-story row houses on East Philadelphia Street. Their business was obvious. There were no cops in sight. Scarface had won the War on Drugs and York wasn't his only conquest.

The glass factory was down to five employees from twenty in 2008.

No matter what the newspapers and TV were saying about a recovery, the Greater Recession was running strong in York.

John and V helped set up a pallet for the glass with an impact nail gun, power drills, and 2 by 4s.

We secured the glass with straps and covered it with a blanket.

I hate broken glass.

"Thanks, guys"

"When you come back, bring us some Blimpie Subs. We have nothing like that around here."

"Will do."

I bought a Philly cheesesteak sub at the beer store on North George Street and ate the delicious combination of steak, cheese, onions, and bread next to the old York Jail.

Nothing much was open in this city and I drove east on 462, which was the old Lincoln Highway.

I stopped twice to check on the glass.

It was secure in the pallet.

Route 222 was faster, but I wanted to see the arched bridge.

The western end was in Wrightsville.

It was a wide bridge and very long.

The river to the north was broad.

Over a mile.

It was even broader to the south.

I wanted to stop on the span, but continued across to Columbia. I later read that that this was the longest concrete arch bridge in the world. I was happy for the detour of a couple of miles, but got onto 222. I had to make time. It was raining again.

New York was over three hours away.