I've flown over the Great Wall of China on numerous occasions without ever seeing it from the air.
I've never stopped in Beijing to travel north to view the lengthy fortifications at Jinshanling.
Friends of mine say they have walked the steep walls.
Photos exist of the Great Wall, so I guess it really is there.
In name.
萬里長城 or Wanli Changcheng
And in Spirit.
Two days ago an early morning tornado stuck Revere Beach.
Thankfully tree were no serious injuries from the EF-2 outburst, but winds gusted to 120 mph in a 3/8ths of a mile swarth, leaving residents without power for several hours. While tornadoes are extremely rare along the Massachusetts coast, Revere Beach was once home to the Cyclone Roller Coaster, which was the highest ride in the world until 1964.
A fire burned it to stumps in 1969.
It was a wicked ride.
The other afternoon at a 8th Street bar I was drinking with several friends discussing the reasons for my movie script not having found a home.
"BET ON CRAZY has it all, a diamond heist, love, violence."
"Yes, but that doesn't says anything." Jason came from Malibu. He had movie star friends. He had helped me with BET ON CRAZY. "When you pitch a script, you have to think on one line."
"The tag line." I knew the process.
"Yes, producers are besieged by countless ideas every minute of the day. You have to think of a better tagline."
"Diamonds are forever and a crime takes a minute."
"A little cliche."
"A diamond belongs to one man until someone else takes it."
"But it's not telling the story." Jason typed out something on his cellphone and showed me the poster for a black exploitation film from the 70s.
HANG UP
His job was busting junkies. His mistake was loving one.
"That's what I'm talking about."
Jason was right. Those two lines told it all.
"His job was selling diamonds. Stealing one was much easier. Getting away with it was the hard part."
"Better, but that has nothing to do with your story."
"And I'm sure that neither does the tagline for HANG UP.
"Work on it." Jason ordered another vodka. I had a gin tonic. They brought out my mean streak. I left at the end of happy hour and kept my mouth shut on the train. No one wanted to hear mean.
Here's a great tune by Six Degrees West out of Kansas City.
My old friend Ray Santos is on drums.
To hear SHE GOT ME THERE by Six Degrees West, please go to the following URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DqO3py9lTQ
This weekend I petitioned passers-by at the General Fowler Triangle in Fort Greene. Blacks were eager to sign. White people shook their head, when asked to sign a petition asking Congress and President Obama to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas' resumption of its missile attacks reminds too many New Yorkers of 9/11 and the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. Their statements about Hamas using human shields and accusations of anti-Semitism came straight from the Western Media without any consideration for the injustice caused by the foundation of Israel.
Hamas is evil.
Israel is defending itself.
A Russian Jewish friend walked by the triangle.
"I can't believe you're supporting terrorists."
"No, I'm supporting an end to the fighting." I quoted Michael Jackson's line from BEAT IT. "I don't care who's wrong or right. All I want is peace."
"Meir Kahane said we can never be at peace with the Arabs." Mike was a young man. We knew each other from 47th Street. He bought gold. I sold diamonds.
"Meir Kahane?" I hadn't heard the name of the JDL's assassinated leader in ages.
"Yes, Kahane argued against the two-state solution, since the Arabs could outbreed the Jews."
"I recollect his saying that the Arabs should be forcibly deported from Biblical Israel."
"It's the only solution."
"You mean like a Final Solution?" This adoption of the Nazi policy against the Palestinians was too ironic for my tastes.
"It's us or them."
"But not the two."
"Never two."
"I don't think the USA will support that measure."
"That's naive. The Arabs don't care what happens to the Palestinians and neither does the USA. Only Israelis care about them and the only way to end the war is to end Palestine."
"A pogram?"
"They threw us out of North Africa by the hundreds of thousands."
"After letting the Jew live amongst them for centuries."
"Everything comes to an end. Good and bad." Mike walked away toward Atlantic Terminal.
"Sie gesund."
"Ed, the head of Brooklyn Peace Intiative came over to me and asked, "What was that about?"
"Meir Kahane."
"Meir Kahane. He was a friend of Bob Dylan and he instructed Arlo Guthrie on the Torah."
"He did?"
"Yes, but he's dead since the 90s. He was shot at a hotel. Supposedly the first al-Qaada attack, but the killer wasn't convicted of murder."
"Why not?"
"CIA?" Ed shrugged and we returned to petitioning the pedestrians.
None of them were Meir Kahane. He was dead.
Only people on their way home or Frank's Lounge or Mullane's or Mo's or la Habana.
Life was good in Brooklyn.
It wasn't Gaza.
In a time of unending war there is only one path to freedom.
Get Together.
To hear this song by the Youngbloods, please go to the following URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbrn9eXEKWk
And while we're at it
PEACE TRAIN by Cat Stevens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_X9eqYa6CQ
And not to mention IMAGINE by John Lennon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhq-yO1KN8
Wholesome.
Unwholesome use.
Screw it.
Who needs a breast when you have a spoon.
In 2011 gold soared to record levels and every day a steady flow of customers entered our diamond exchange on West 47th Street to sell their precious jewelry and family heirlooms. They were of all ages, nationalities, and races. Most of them were honest, but buying stolen merchandise or swag was a crime. Richie Boy, his father Manny, and I didn't care who they are as long as they possess a valid ID for our police records. None of us were young men and we had too little to gain from doing the wrong thing, when we could churn out a 5% profit on a steady flow of buys.
Our first question to these sellers was, “Who much do you want?” Most of them said that they don’t know, but they all had a final price. "Let me check it out." I ignored their feigned ignorance and tested the gold for karat and weight.
We calculated everything in pennyweights or 1/20th of an ounce. The Middle Age measurement confused the buyer, but we always handed them a slip of paper from a adding machine. Everything was in black and white. The final price was determined by the market value of an ounce of gold, which fluctuated day to day.
In 2011 the price fluctuated up.
Those weight and market value determined the scrap worth of gold.
We paid nothing for sentimental value.
Our firm had a good reputation for paying the most on the street. "We only make 5% on this."
It was the truth, but some pieces could be flipped for more, especially diamond rings.
Late in the summer a young man of Semitic descent approached my counter. He had a few diamond ring in a bag. They were relics of a ruined romance.
After settling on a price of $1500, I advised the young man to buy something for himself.
“Paying off bills does not soothe a broken heart.”
“Yes, but for $1500 you can buy a good used motorcycle. Let me see your ID.” I took his driver’s license.
His name was Arab. I entered it in the police book.
“Are you from Iraq?”
“No, Palestine.” Mohammed spoke flawless English. His father had grocery stores in Queens. He was running three of them.
“Palestine is a forbidden name on this street.” 47th Street was predominantly Jewish.
They backed Israel right or wrong and Israel could do no wrong in their eyes. I was a goy. I had my own beliefs.
"It's my country"
"I'm half-Irish. My people lived under the British for four hundred years. “I can only say one thing.”
“Which is?” He was used to America’s prejudice against Palestine.
The movie EXODUS had blue-eyed Paul Newman as a member of the Zionist terrorist gang and a young blonde Jill Haworth as a kibbutz farmer. There were no Hassidim in the film.
Only tough white-skinned fighters.
“Free Palestine.” I had a tee-shirt in my closet stating the same slogan.
I raised my fist, the accepted sign of world revolution.
“Good, but it is better to free the world.” Mohammed smiled and accepted his money.
“I’ll think about that bike and you think about the world.”
“I’ll do that.” I leaned away from the counter slightly stunned.
I had been taught an important lesson by this young man.
A simple lesson.
All politics that are local are also global.
They effect everyone.
Everywhere.
Free Palestine.
Free the World.
Several years ago I was getting gold chains on 47th Street to show a customer at the Plaza Hotel store opened by Richie Boy. Business was slow at the exchange and the older gold dealer asked with a Levantine accent, "Where are you from?"
"Boston." No one in the Diamond District had ever asked my origins. I am a goy. Gentiles don't really count except on the Shabbath, when the Hassidim need us to turn on the lights.
"Are you Jewish?" He picked out several heavy necklaces.
"No, I'm the Shabbath Goy."
"I'm not Jewish either. I'm an Armenian born in Israel." Armenians are scattered through the jewelry business. "I left in 1957."
"That's a while ago." I had been five when he arrived in the USA
"I've spent my entire working life on this street."
"And have you ever seen times like this?" I signed the memo.
"Never."
"Not even in Palestine." I put the gold necklaces into a packet and slipped it into my jacket.
"That's the first time I've ever heard anyone on this street call it that." He smiled with a lost sadness. "Palestine. It wasn't like they said. It was beautiful. More natural. Like Utah. And the fruit. It wasn't fake like now. But what can you do?"
"Just remember I guess." Like I remember so many good things in New York like the Second Avenue Deli, the St. Mark's Movie Theater, and CBGBs.
"Well, have a good day."
I thanked him for his best wishes and headed back to the Plaza Hotel. It was a little after 10.
My cellphone rang. It was Richie Boy.
"Why aren't you at the Plaza?"
"I had to pick up some pieces to show a customer." The Plaza store had nothing like them in our inventory
"Hurry up."
"Yeah, sure." I hung up and slowed my pace.
In the past no one was in such a hurry as the 21st Century.
Certainly not in Boston and not Palestine.
I was going to open late.
It happened every day when business was slow.
In 1995 I ended up in Goa after a long trip through Tibet.
I rented a cheap bungalow on Anjuna Beach and hired a Royal Enfield 500 to ride.
The coast abounded with ravers, but maintained my distance.
The bungalow's owner had warned me that they were many thefts.
"They are not good people. Not same hippies. Baba cool very good."
"I like hippies too."
I handed Tony my passport for safekeeping and hid my travelers' checks in my manuscript.
I also kept the motorcycle at his house every night,
I met an English girl: young, blonde, tattooed.
Mancy took my photo naked on the beach.
She was naked too.
I felt young.
She was only 21.
Mancy was into trance music.
She offered me a pill.
I refused.
Old school punk rockers weren't into ecstasy.
One night I was at a bar and we smoked some weed with two Kenyans.
I dropped Mancy at the rave and returned to the bungalow, where I fell asleep.
Heavily.
The next morning I awoke to too much light.
There was a hole in the tiled roof. I had been drugged by the Africans. The two had robbed me in the night. Gone were about $50 in rupees, my cheap camera and a broken watch. My checks were still in the manuscript. No one wanted to steal it or my typewriter.
I couldn't find the keys to the motorcycle.
They cost $2000.
I exited the bungalow into the hot sun. The keys glinted on the sand. The bike was still at the house of the bungalow owner.
"Acha, you are a very lucky man." Tony shook his head from side to side.
"That I am. Should I call the police?"
"The police work with thieves. Buy what they steal."
That night I spotted the Kenyans with Mancy.
They were sitting with a cop.
I pointed to them.
The four of them pointed back.
Mancy didn't smile.
The next morning I left Goa on a fast ferry to Bombay.
I drank beer from a bottle. I stayed in a good hotel. I didn't speak with any Africans or ravers.
Like Tony said, "They are not good people."
But most people are, especially hippies.
Jocko Weyland moved to Tuscon. He works as the curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The veteran skateboarder loves the West. It is his home.
And he loves trains.
My son Fenway does too.
The other day I spotted an Evergreen container on a truck in Greenpoint.
They get around.
Earlier in the morning five people climbed the tower of the Brooklyn Bridge and hauled up a dyed white American flag.
The NYPD have no suspects and called the act a 'stunt' rather than an act of terrorism.
The Freaked Fearful expressed their consternation to the Daily News with one construction worker stating, "This is where you land the plane. X marks the spot. It was really scary."
The flags were identified as stolen.
Outrage was another reaction.
The flag hanger of the bridge said, “I’m so angry I can’t tell you what I want to say. It’s senseless. Whoever did this should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
Police found no bombs or messages, however Daly News readers responded with attacks on the NYPD's lackadaisical security for the major bridge, claiming that the cops are more interested in writing tickets against the citizens of New York that they haven't the time to insure the public safety.
I agree with this consensus having been fined for riding my bike down a subway platform at 12am.
$75.
To pay for the taxes of the rich.
Fuck ex-mayor Bloomberg who had the PIGS arrest over 400,000 low-level pot offenders.
Over 80% were black or Latino.
All of those arrests should be expunged from the court records.
ps a white flag means surrender, which is what the police should do about the enforcement of the marijuana laws.
Hunter S Thompson.
Forever a man lived life to the fullest, because oblivion is easier to achieve than enlightenment.
On March 6, 1836 thousands of Mexican troops under General Santa Ana stormed the Texas stronghold of the Alamo. None of the defenders were shown mercy and to this day Texans rally to the cry 'Remember the Alamo'.
On Monday Governor Rick Perry announced the mobilization of the National Guard to conduct air and ground operations to help the police and border guards stem the tens of thousands of illegal aliens swarming over the border.
“Drug cartels, human traffickers and individual criminals are exploiting this tragedy for their own criminal opportunities,” Mr. Perry said, adding, “I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault, and little children from Central America are detained in squalor.”
I work construction in New York. The large percentage of workers are Mexican or Irish or European. There are few Americans, because once the labor unions were smashed by the GOP, jobs were given to anyone other than Americans to prevent the re-establishment of organized labor.
My friend Oscar crossed the Mojave Desert for three days.
He had two bottles of water.
They were gone the first day.
"I thought I was going to die."
Oscar is not a criminal, simply a man looking for work, but I'm not living on the Rio Grande, so I understand the Texas governor's need to control the border, however the Texas border is 1200 miles long. He is deploying 1000 National Guardsmen. If they work 8 hour shifts, that means 1 National Guardsman for three miles of border, where the temperature runs in the high 90s, but the Guard is used to deserts, having spent almost ten years in Iraq. At least there won't be any IEDs.
But wait a second.
100,000 US troops tried to stem the insurgents from crossing the Iraqi border, which has a length of 1500 miles. Result = failure, because idiots like Rick Perry and George W Bush don't understand math.
My friend Al Harlow took acceptance to my comment, "Perry is an idiot...because he wants to defend our border?? At least he's attempting to do something..
No, he's an idiot to pretend that 1000 national guard troops who spent 10 years going back and forth to Iraq will fix this situation. The numbers do not add up to anything other than a window dressing. Most effective would be changing the name of Dallas to Tijuana and Houston to Guatemala City.
Plus the ratio of frontline troops to support i.e. tooth to tail is 1 to 3 or 1 soldier for every ten miles of border.
So Rick Rerry is still dumber than a stump in those glasses.
Al Harlow argued, "I'm sure he doesn't mean the guardsmen will be holding hands to span the border....they will use more troops to beef up patrols in between outposts...Mr. Obummer needs to send a Division of troops, (10 to 30,000) and take the border security seriously."
The Mexicans take the border seriously.
I know, because Oscar almost died there.
Y Oscar es me amigo.
Steely Dan recorded AJA from January to July in 1976.
THE MAKING OF AJA is a 1999 film of the studio sessions in LA and New York.
The interviews with Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, and the score of studio musicians are priceless insights into one of the best produced LPs of all time.
This evening I passed my landlord AP's office and my good friend was watching THE MAKING OF AJA. I was hooked within a few minutes and sat through the entire film, enthralled by the magic of creation as well as the multi-tracked texture of music.
To see THE MAKING OF AJA, please go to the following URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QA9ydTb_bM
There are no more Ramones on Earth.
Tommy Ramones joined his three brothers.
I was lucky enough to catch them in 1976.
On a winter night I was walking up the Bowery. I heard CALIFORNIA SUN from a bar. I walked inside. My life was changed forever.
They were our band.
Here is an excerpt from my punk novel THE END OF MAYBE about that evening.
Gabba Gabba Hey.
Johnny nodded across the avenue to the leather-jacketed crowd underneath a white awning emblazoned with the letters CBGBs. The Palace Hotel next door was a close relative to the Terminal Hotel and Sean glared at his new acquaintance with a twinge of disappointment.
“This is it?”
“What’s outside had nothing to do with what’s inside. This is punk’s opera house.”
The hippie’s disapproval intensified Johnny’s impatience to rip him off and he leapt off the curb to dart through a surge of speeding cars and taxis.
“Last one across the street buys the first round.”
A rattling Checker bore down on Johnny and Sean braced for the soft crunch of steel into a body, except the thin blonde gracefully vaulted across the hood onto the traffic island and dodged two newspaper trucks to safely reach the opposite sidewalk, where he shouted, “I’ll take a Wild Turkey.”
Johnny had challenged death twice in two seconds, but Sean’s mother had cautioned him to walk the other way from any menace to life and limb. He would still be living in the suburbs, if he had followed her instructions, so crossed the Bowery to find Johnny arguing with two men carrying guitars.
“You use the drugs, you have to pay.”
“I owe you nuttin’,” sniveled a crow-haired guitarist, resembling Keith Richard, if the lead guitarist had died instead of Brian Jones.
His pointy rat boots, straight-legged black Levi’s, a stained tuxedo jacket, and a skinny tie knotted loosely on the collar of a rumpled shirt were the fashionable antithesis to Sean’s Frye boots and plaid shirt. The loiterers on the sidewalk were similarly attired in leather jackets or narrow lapel jackets. Sean felt out of place and even more so after Johnny seized the zombie’s guitar.
“Where’s my $50.”
“Hey, I gotta be at Max’s in thirty minutes.” The rocker feebly wrestled for the guitar and Johnny shoved him into a pile of garbage.
“Give me the money and I’ll give you the guitar.”
The onlookers hooted, as if this was a long-running sit-com, and the rocker offered shrilly, “I’ll give you the fifty at Max’s.”
“Wait in line with the other twenty junkies you stiffed today? Fifty or no guitar.”
“Okay, okay.” The skeletal musician forfeited a crumble of bills. “Now gimme my guitar.”
“Been a pleasure doing business.” Johnny released the guitar and the junkie rocker rambled up the Bowery. The thin blonde pocketed the cash and turned to Sean. “This ain’t Kansas or the Emerald City. Trusting no one’s the first rule of this city and the second is always obey the first.”
A taxi halted at the curb and the back door opened for a bleached blonde in a miniskirt, ripped fishnet stockings, and gleaming black high heels straight out of fetish stroke book.
Glowering on the sidewalk the milk-white dominatrix sneered with crooked teeth, “You have a problem with your eyes, caveman?”
Sean stammered, “I haven’t seen anyone dress like you before.” ”You sayin’ I’m a whore?” She flashed sharp fingernails at Sean’s face.
“Sheila, this is my country bumpkin cousin, so cut him some slack.” Johnny stepped between them.
“This is related to you?” The blonde’s laugh sounded like her first of the night.
“Can’t you see the resemblance, Sheila?” Johnny leaned over to Sean’s face.
“I get it. You’re country cousins.” The blonde dominatrix blew the bewildered hippie a kiss and entered the club with a sadistic swagger. When the door shut, Sean asked, “Why she dress so slutty, if she isn’t asking me to look?”
“The girls at CBGBs wear trampy clothing, because they are whores or strippers, who might break your teeth or ask you home for a fuck. I’ll let find out for yourself which is worse.” Johnny opened the thick door and Sean’s eardrums buckled under a subsonic boom. The last band he had heard this loud was Blue Cheer and his guide shouted, “Now hold onto your wig. No more Abba. No more Bread. No more Boz Scaggs. This is the world of tomorrow today.”
The pure power on the stage drew Sean forward and a stringy-haired giant in a yellow construction helmet halted his progress with a meaty hand. “Five dollars.”
Sean dropped $5 before the bearded man at a desk and beelined for the front of the club, where four men in black leather jackets, torn blue jeans, sneakers, and scraggly hair performed a blindingly fast version of CALIFORNIA SUN.
The singer resembling a wigged mantis yelled indecipherable lyrics to the frenzied audience. Each song raced to its end in less than two minutes and Sean unconditionally joined the crowd’s bopping worship of the hard-driving quartet. When the band had exhausted the audience’s energy, the longhaired gnome announced their encore, “PT boat on the way to Havana.”
The heaving mob surged forward and he asked a mulatto teenager with a safety pin stuck in his cheek,
“What’s the name of this band?”
“The Ramones.” The pimply kid rolled his eyes at Sean’s ignorance.
He had never heard of them, but judging from the number of people emulating the band’s get-up, this band had existed for several years.
A minute later the Ramones finished their encore and the jukebox blared a song about Chinese Rocks. Most of the audience surged to a narrow hallway behind the stage and Sean fought his way to the bar, where Johnny handed him a long-necked Bud. He drained the bottle in three gulps and ordered a Wild Turkey from a redheaded bartender wearing a skimpy tube top. After downing the shot he called for another round.
“So how great is this place?” Johnny was pleased by the wad of bills in the hippie’s hand.
Once more GABBA GABBA HEY
A movie actor friend once explained the pecking order on an actress' wish list.
"In the first hour of a party she works the producers, the next thirty minutes are dedicated to the directors, and finally she'll flirt with leading men, but under no circumstances will be ever go home with a writer. They are bad luck to beauty."
My friend was right and never more so than during a fashion photo trip to Jamaica in January of 1984.
I was the assistant to a famous photographer.
The blonde actress was breaking into the bright lights.
The money shot was the swimming suit cover of LIFE.
The actress played me like a fool, but in the end I got a good tan, which is never a bad thing for a failed writer in the dead of winter and AN ISLAND BEAUTY is a photo-roman telling my sad tale with words to accompany the images.
To purchase AN ISLAND BEAUTY, please go to this URL
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LSXPMYW
Fotos by Peter Nolan Smith and Dustin Pittman.
ps The blonde actress was in BLADERUNNER.
My son Fenway isn't French, but he does like a good fried frog.
Or gohp thawwt.
Me, I only like the legs.
Yesterday at a dinner on the Upper East Side an American art collector mentioned that he had called a hotel in France to rent a room and the desk clerk informed Devlin that the only available room was on the ground floor.
Where is the entrance?"
"Next to the desk."
"So your guests will see my comings and goings and I will hear all of theirs."
"Ouais, is that a problem?"
"I like my privacy."
“Then shut the shades.”
He complained about the treatment and his friends commiserated by excoriating the French with typical non-Gallic misunderstanding.
"Typical French attitude. They hate American tourists," commented one of Devlin's dinner guests, pouring himself a chilled Cote de Ventoux.
Another chuckled about the French love of Jerry Lewis without realizing that the French subtitlists have ameliorated the stale Hollywood dialogue, while Devlin's wife wished that she was in Paris.
"I love the city in the summer. There's no one there."
I agreed, but said nothing about les Amerlots nil, because they are ignorant of the fact that 90% of the French take 'le grand vacannes' after Bastille Day and remain away until the Grand Retour in mid-August.
The bartenders, waiters, cooks, and desk clerks manning the bars, cafes, restaurants, and hotels are the lowest people of the totem pole, being punished for their undistinguished behavior to the clientele throughout the year.
Bus boys are upgraded to waiters, chambermaids become desk clerks, and bottle washers are tested as chefs.
Bien sur, Les Miserables love nothing more than miserablizing tourists with a muttered moue.
Moi en tout cas j'adore le France.
Vive les frites.
During the 80s I was lucky enough to live in Paris. I worked as a doorman at Les Bains-Douches, la Balajo, and Nouvelle Eve. The French treated me right and my many friends of then are les bones amis of now.
I was also lucky enough to make love to several French women.
I am still friends with them.
Viva La France, especially Francoise Hardy, la plus belle chanteuse des 60s.
A bas l'ancien regime.
Shortly after the July revolution of 1830 Eugene Delacroix painted LA LIBERTE GUIDANT LE PEUPLE commemorating the overthrow of the Bourbon king Charles X. The new king Louis Philippe bought the painting, but never hung it in the Palais de Luxembourg, as its subject matter was too revolutionary even for the 'Citizen King'.
According to Wikipedia he wrote his brother a letter saying, "My bad mood is vanishing thanks to hard work. I’ve embarked on a modern subject—a barricade. And if I haven’t fought for my country at least I’ll paint for her."
The painting remained under wraps, until its purchase by the Louvre in 1874.
To this day the masterpiece remains a symbol of Liberte for France and the World.
Viva la Mariana.
2 July 1789
The Bastille - Paris
A prisoner cried from his window.
"Ils tuent les prisonniers."
The guards subdued the inmate and the incarcerated Marquis de Sade was transferred to the insane asylum at Charenton.
His words were a spark for change.
14 July 1789.
A wine wagon overturned on the Rue de La Roquette.
The wine flooded the gutter. The people drank their full. The Bastille loomed in the near distance. The prison symbolized the power of the ancien regime. Fortified by alcohol the mob stormed the Bastille.
Nearly 100 attackers were slain in the assault before the deluge of the mob flooded through the gates to massacre nine soldiers and free seven prisoners; four counterfeiters, two madmen and a perverse nobleman, the Comte de Solages, on charges of incest.
The Comte, 32 years a prisoner, returned to his homeland a stranger. He died in poverty and sleeps in anonymity, while the Marquis de Sade lives in our memory.
A bas la Bastille.
A bas l'ancien regime.
The World Cup superseded all news over the weekend.
The Civil War in Iraq continued without cessation during the last weeks of Ramadan, the holy fasting month of Islam.
ISIS the Islamic militant force from Syria is looking for a knockout blow against the US-supported Malaki regime. The Kurds to the north have seized two important oilfields and the Sunnis are seeking to ethnically cleanse the Shiites from the center of the country.
In all likelihood the nation of Iraq will splinter into several sections come the autumn.
President Obama has sent in 300 troops. No one in America wants more, although Sen. John McCain has been crowing about losing Iraq with the same intensity of the hawks blaming Eisenhower for the Fall of Chiang Kai-Shek's China.
Iraq has been gone since well before GW Bush appeared on the aircraft carrier to declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
US and Western interests are not for peace, but the manipulation of oil prices with a threat to Iraq's three million bbl a day production.
Gas at $5.
Why not?
No one walks anywhere in the suburbs. The trains in the USA are falling apart. An SUV makes fat people look thin.
$6 by Christmas.
With fracking from coast to coast.
It's a beautiful world.
On December 13, 1939 Argentina officials ordered the German heavy cruiser Graf Spee to sea. The ensuing battle between the British Navy resulted in the later scuttling of the Graf Spee. A week later Captain Langsdorff shot himself dressed in full dress uniform and lying on the ship's battle ensign.
Today those two nations meet in the 2014 World Cup.
Germany has lost to Argentina in 1986 and won in 1990.
I've watched most of the World Cup fixtures over the past weeks.
I haven't had a job.
Thankfully I had the World Cup.
It remains the beautiful game.
In the winter of 1991 a British friend and I drove north from a snowless New York to find winter. Our trip took us through New England to the end of US 1 at Fort Kent, Maine. The river was frozen solid and the snow was chest deep. I wanted to forge on to Canada, but my friend had overstayed his visa. Disappointed by this setback we spent the night in Fort Kent, where we discovered that the prettiest girls in Maine are not all female.
It was a long way from New York.
And ever farther than from Miami Beach.
THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE is a photo-roman of that trip north.
Photos by Peter Nolan Smith
To purchase THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE by Peter Nolan Smith on Kindle for $1.99, please go to the following URL
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LCC0L40
THANK YOU
"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius"
These words were sung by the cast of HAIR in 1969 and millions of hippies dropped acid to touch the sky of Aquarius.
I wanted to be one of them and the Fourth of July 1970 my friends John Gilmour, Tommy Jordan, Mark McLaughin and I scoring a couple of hundred hits of LSD from a French-Canadian hash dealer in Montreal. We dropped the Orange Sunshine after entering the USA at Canaan, New Hampshire. The backroads were lightly traveled and my VW Beetle meandered down Route 3 toward the White Mountains. The acid came on strong at the T-intersection of 110 and 3 at Groveton.
We didn't have a map and Mark asked an old farmer sitting on a lawn chair, which was the best way to Mount Washington.
"Are you in a hurry?" His accent was non-rhotic Granite State.
"We have all the time in the world." I was 18.
"That's what all young men say." He took off his straw hat and looked at the intersection. "Most travelers take 3 down to Lancaster and east on 2, but a few head over to Berlin."
Berlin was a logging town.
"Which one you take?" My voice shimmered with color, mostly green.
"Depends on where I'm going, but I like driving along the Upper Ammonoosuc River. It's very twisted."
"Thanks for the information."
Mark and I looked at each other.
"Go left," said John in the back. "Always take the road less traveled."
It was the hippie way and I beeped the horn before heading down 110.
An AM radio station from Burlington played War's SPILL THE WINE, Free's ALL RIGHT NOW, Mungo Jerry's IN THE SUMMERTIME before fading into static behind the airwave shadow of Mt. Cabot.
Berlin blurred under the blue sky and the pines wavered with the breeze. This was the North Country. The wind riffled across our ears. I drove slowly up 16 with snow gleaming atop Mount Washington.
A river ran to our right.
"Quiet." I shut off the engine and coasted down a dirt road to the bank of the Peabody River.
We were on the same plane.
The four of us got out of the bug.
The mountain stream rushing over glacial rocks to create a primordial language. Our teenage ears listened to its teachings and we obeyed the command to submerge our bodies in the torrent's lecture. Our communion with LSD immuned our flesh from the frigid winter melt. Time melted faster than butter in the sun. "Speak, river, speak." John was all ears. Our skin was turning blue.
I strained to understand the river's message.
A young boy in shorts appeared from the trees. He was wearing an Andre the Giant tee-shirt.
John Gilmour elbowed me. "It's him."
"Him who?"
"Him."
“I don't who him is, but we don't need him to bring us down. What you want, kid?” Tommie was a stickler for keeping crowds small while on LSD. "Why are you were sitting in the water? "To hear it speak," Tommie answered without hesitation. He was a high school hockey star. On ice his skating was almost holy and Tommie was the was the most spiritual of us. The eleven year-old stuck a finger in the river. "I don't near nothing, but the water." We cocked our ears to the current. The boy in the shorts was right.
"We hear the water too."
We were on an ancient quest. "And it's cold." "Yes, it is cold." We stood up with goose-bumped skin. The release from the river was a rush. “Come out of the river.” The young boy ordered with biblical authority. "Whatever you say.” Tommie Jordan chattered through this teeth. Mark’s skin was death white and I shivered like I had been pulled from the Atlantic after the sinking of the Titanic. This boy had saved us from hypothermia. His coming here was no accident. "Who are you?" I asked, blowing into my hands.
"Bobby."
"No, you're not."
"Am too."
"You're someone else." Someone famous and John's retinas opened to the max, as he whispered, "It's Jesus."
"Jesus." I might have been a non-believer, but I flashed on the 12 year-old Messiah in the Temple. Bobby was about his age. "What are you talking about?" I was a firm non-believer.
"He's the Second Coming." John was on a vision.
"I've been here before." The boy picked up a rock and threw it into the river.
"Here before?" I asked with time repeating over and over again like a reshuffled deck of cards.
Yes." Bobby liked simple answers and before we could pose the right questions, a teenage girl in a tube top hurried from the underbrush. Red hot pants hung off her skinny ass. "Bobby, you get over here." The redhead was about 15. Her skin was milk white. "I wasn't doing nothing." Bobby was a member of her family. "What I tell you about speaking to strangers." She grabbed her brother. Her tube top was no protection from our eyes.
“I wanted to know why they were sitting in the river.” Our prophet attempted to escape her clutches. “Why? Because they’re stupid hippies.” She was teenage trouble to men and boys. "We're not stupid hippies." I was enlightened by LSD. Bobby was Jesus. His sister was blind. "I know stupid when I see it. You're fucked up on LSD too." The sister seized Bobby by the ear and our ‘Jesus’ squealed in defeat, as she dragged her brother away from the river. "Don't take him away." John scrambled over the glacial rocks. "Let him go." Mark slipped on a mossy rock into the river. "But he's____" "Look." John pointed through the trees.
Bobby's family was setting up a barbecue. His father regarded us with a command to keep our distance. This was their holiday destination.
Bobby had been here before, but only in this lifetime.
"So he's no Jesus."
"He was a for a minute." John laughed with the LSD.
"He's just a kid we thought was Jesus. Listen." Mark was lying in the water. The river had resumed its music. Its song were never played on the radio. We lay in the river and sang its lyrics until our throats were parched dry as the summer grass. Drinking the river was a sacrament. We clambered from the water and sat on the rocks. Bobby's family left in the direction of North Conway. We came down under the pine trees. The night rose from the east.
"You know they're lighting off fireworks on the Charles." John loved watching the Boston Pops playing the 1812 OVERTURE. The fireworks were a wonder of pyrotechnics.
"We missed it this year."
"But not our trip." John smiled in the darkness.
The moon floated across a universe of nova stars.
"It was something else."
We spread our sleeping bags and lit a fire.
"You know there is no God." I had to say it.
"And there is no Jesus." Mark had been quiet for hours.
"But there is a Bobby." Tommie lit a joint. It was good Acapulco Gold.
"And he has a hot sister."
Our heads bobbed in agreement, because even an atheist on LSD can believe a small boy with a sister in a tube top can be Jesus.
After all acid is only a drug and this everyday is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.
The rich of today do create something.
They buy space in the air for architects to formulate luxury living spaces to be decorated by interior designer to house their 'things' and protect them from the masses beneath their aeries.
One of the filty rich is investing in a $119 million Manhattan penthouse.
Oh, the luxury.
Oh, ubermensch.
You fly so high.
You will fall so far.
Today the Dow Jones broke 17,000.
My friend Gayle was in a bad mood.
The investment banker was playing the market short to tank.
Under Obama the rich have gotten obscenely rich and this news is an appalling reflection on Wall Street's continued exploitation of the US economy in order to diminish the circulation of capital. The present income inequality mirrors the chasm between the rich and working class during the robber baron period of the 19th Century, however the robber barons actually created an infrastructure for the creation of capital i.e. railroads, shipping, factories, jobs et al. The master of this universe only know how to separate capital from the economy without any benefit to the nation or world. 17,000, 18,000, 19,000. Trillions of dollars rising from the masses into a rapturous cloud of wealth.
The sky knows no limit.
Wow?
More money into the stock market.
Less money in the pockets of the people.
Higher prices at the pump and supermarket.
And everyone says nothing, because they all want to be a millionaire and criticizing Wall Street will blackball them from the country clubs and yacht shows.
Who wants to be be middle class?
No one.
It is the dream America forgot.
I remember it well.
My mother and father put six children through college.
I graduated sine laude from BC in 1974.
My mother was proud.
Her mother had come off a boat from Ireland in the year of the crow with one shoe.
I'm proud of my mother and father too.
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
An toileánach.
Up the rebels.
When I lost my Davy Crockett cap in the late 50s, my Irish Nana told me in a stern voice, "If you lose something, then it wasn't yours to begin with."
Over my lifetime I've lost money, cameras, glasses, wallets, keys, apartment, girlfriends, cars, houses, clothing, friends, family et al.
Possession is not permanent.
Tempus fugit.
Seconds can't be regained except by memory, but French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book What is Property? declared, "If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? And I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!"
Or more simply put "Property is theft."
So my losing things is an act of revolution against the strictures of property, although the Bangkok Post reported today that a Texas man has recovered a treasured convertible stolen in Philadelphia nearly 42 years ago, which he found on Ebay.
"I hate to sound indelicate," The owner told the dealer, "but you're selling a stolen car."
The LA dealer offered to sell it back to him for $24,000.
The owner called Los Angeles police, but they did nothing. The owner called Philadelphia Police, who found a record of the theft. The owner drove to California, paid $600 in impoundment fees, and took possession of the Austin.
Fucking A, Philly cops, I thought possession was 90% of the law.
Right now I'm sitting in a hotel room with my computer, a small bag of clothing, a camera, a telephone, and several cans of beer. The beer will no longer belong to me once I drink it, it will be me by my possession in my stomach.
I'm sure that Proudhon didn't include wine or beer in his thesis, although the Marquis de Sade's recounted in L'Histoire de Juliette: "Tracing the right of property back to its source, one infallibly arrives at usurpation. However, theft is only punished because it violates the right of property; but this right is itself nothing in origin but theft."
My son's and daughter's first lessons were those of possession. Toys were theirs. They shared them with no one and I asked myself, "Did they learn that from my beer-drinking?"
Impossible.
They were still in their diapers. They got everything they wanted without working for it. They were treated like royalty.
They shared nothing.
Property is not theft. It is obsession.
"Now where the fuck is my Davy Crockett cap."
