Tramps are cool too.
Workers of the Universe unite.
Resistance is not futile.
Foto came from Eric Bedos of Paris
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Workless Bum
TERMINATOR 5 has wrapped the filming in New Orleans. Arnold Schwartzernegger has returned to California and the director flew back to New York and Fort Greene. We planned to meet for wine next week in the neighborhood.
"I'll be unemployed like you." He had nothing on his schedule.
"It's been a long slow summer." I was glad to see the coming of September.
That month signals the start of money and I haven't worked since the end of June.
"Arnold must be unemployed too."
"He might be."
"Maybe he wants to hang out with us."
"Three bums."
"Arnold doesn't think of himself as a bum."
"Neither would I, if I was the star of T5 or its director."
"And what about you?"
"I'm a bum."
We seemed more numerous during the dog days of August.
I hope we're one less next month.
My fingers are crossed for good luck.
THE BEST FORM OF FLATTERY by Peter Nolan Smith
Several years ago midtown traffic was snarled by the security measures protecting foreign dignitaries from any harm during the annual UN General Assembly. Crosstown streets were closed east of 5th Avenue and a beeping tentacle of the congestion packed Madison Avenue. My bus took 20 minutes to cover ten blocks. I was late for a gallery opening on 78th Street and abandoned public transportation. My walking pace was accelerated by two panicked calls from my landlord AP and Billy O.
Our dinner guest, an Irish hedge fund banker, was on a 'craic'.
"This is polite society up here." Billy O was looking for clients. He was a real estate broker in the East End. Most people living above 72nd Street had money, especially in between Park and 5th Avenues. "I'm afraid that he's going to shag an old heiress."
"Would be the worst thing to happen to her? When I was living down in Palm Beach, I dreamed about seducing a wealthy octogenarian with three weeks to live."
"You would have given her the best two weeks of her life." Billy O and I went back to the 80s.
"At least." I was never stingy with love or lust given the right circumstances, however my time on Palm Beach had been off-season. Secondly those crones with money knew the game. Men fought over them at the Leopard Lounge. I was too much of an outsider to brake inside the circle.
Except for once.
"Hurry up." Billy O sounded desperate. "He's offering the owner a line of blow."
"Ten minutes."
I made it in 15.
The police had blockaded 72nd Street for the passage of POTUS. Obama was in town to speak at the UN. High-level conversations were scheduled between the Israelis, Palestinians, and our leader. Peace initiative # 257. The presidential cavalcade passed at 65 mph. A fast-moving target. I waved to what I guess was his car. My support for change remained strong.
I crossed 72nd Street and hurried the final six blocks to the gallery, which was located in a small townhouse. The crowd was gentile. The artist hailed from the Hamptons. Some of his paintings had crows in them.
Two women were complaining about the crows on their property.
"They're bad eating and worse as pets." A tall man in a Versace suit slurred from his slouch. It was Irish Johnny. His accent was pure Hollyfield drenched by the slobber of art wine.
The two middle-aged women in matching Chanel summer drag glanced over their sloped shoulders at the intruders. Their noses wrinkled with disdain. They had the expression down pat and clattered away from Irish Johnny in spiky stilettos.
Irish Johnny staggered to the bar and grabbed two glasses of Chablis. The first one lasted a second. The second balanced his careen through the gallery. His trousers were rolled to mid-calf and his sneakers were unlaced.
Thankfully he was drunk enough not to recognize me from drinking at an Eastdhampton bar a year ago. I didn't say hello, but nodded to Billy O and my landlord. They signaled to keep an eye on Irish Johnny. The banker was difficult work after closing time on the NYSE. I engaged him in a long conversation on John Kelly, Ireland's premier DJ, and drinking at the Shelbourne Hotel Bar. Irish Johnny couldn't have been happy and neither could the gallery owner.
The dead drunk was a member of the living drunk.
Billie O and AP schmoozzed the rich. They were a hard crowd to work, but the two had been laboring in the Hamptons for years.
AP spoke to a prospective new client. He owned a football team. His girlfriend was an old friend of mine. The connections were snaking together. It was time to leave. Irish Johnny was hitting on a painting.
"How much you want for one night?"
Billy O took charge. Irish Johnny was his boy. They proposed dinner at Danielle's. A posey place. I begged off that future. Billy O and AP said, "Come."
"Veni, vidi, ibam."
"I came, I saw, I went." Johnny Irish was a Latin scholar too.
I waved my goodbyes and walked to the 77th Street Subway. Lex Line to Bleecker Street. D train to Atlantic Avenue. Key in the front door at 8:23. I climbed the stairs to my apartment and wrote about Hoegaarten Beer. My wine-weakened fingers were slow on the keyboard.
A knock on my door.
AP.
He wanted to smoke some pot.
"Dinner was fantastic, but you were so right to go. He never broke open the bag of cocaine."
"Better to have a $20 bag with a friend than an 8-ball with a fiend."
AP and I smoke some weed. We drank some wine. We listened to garage rock, our favorite genre of music, although he loved the Beatles and I hated them as pop poseurs. At least we agreed that WORKING CLASS HERO by John Lennon was brilliant.
"You know I really love having you live here." AP considered me a NY legend as long as I paid my rent on time.
"Thanks." I loved living here too.
"No one in New York is like you now and no one writes like you, but I have to say one thing and that's you have been plundering old writing and putting it on your website as if it was new."
"So you noticed?"
"I'm one of your most faithful readers."
I had been adding stories to gain girth on treads of interest." It wasn't much of a defense for AP.
"You should be writing all the time."
"Agreed." I love writing on the 4th floor of his brownstone. My view of the Brooklyn skyline. The changes of the sunset. His kids sleeping on the lower floor. Their falling asleep to the MC5. "I'll try to be more original."
"No one is more original than you in these days." AP truly was a fan. "All I want to see is more new."
"Oof." More work.
A sign of the times.
"I promise to not rob the grave, unless it makes a nice flow."
We smoked more weed and drank the rest of his Hoegaartens.
They were good.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
THEY ARE ANIMALS By Peter Nolan Smith
The other day I was on 47th Street selling a diamond. I ran into a young friend. Shimon spotted my NY Times opened to an article about Hamas.
"Animals."
"Excuse me." I liked Shimon. We shared the same taste in clothing.
"Hamas are animals. They hide behind civilians and hide weapons in schools." His chest puffed with righteous indignation.
"That's what the Nazis said about the Jews." I didn't mention that the KKK and John Birch Society shared the same thought.
"What would you do if someone was firing missiles at you?"
"You mean missiles that don't hit anything?"
"People die from the missiles."
"Out of the twelve thousand missiles fired in the last ten years twenty-eight Israelis have been killed versus over 500 Palestinian children killed during the recent Gaza operations by the IDF."
"Because Hamas is hiding behind the civilians."
"No, because the IDF was angered by the number of soldiers killed during their attacks and went blood red for revenge. The blast radius of an artillery shell is 64 meters, which means if there was a missile launcher at St. Patrick's Cathedral we would get blasted to dust."
"But what would you do if they were shooting missiles at you?"
"I'd kill everyone of them."
"And push them into the sea."
"Exactly, but I'm not a Nazi or a Zionist or a member of Hamas. I'm Irish and I know that at one time you have to sit down with the other side and talk about peace or else you'll lose the war and Israel, because people will not back murder or talk about people being animals. Neve again a Shoah. Not for anyone, unless you believe that the Holocaust was a good thing, because it create Israel."
I walked away without hearing his answer.
Shimon texted me later that I was an asshole.
I replied, "לעולם לא עוד."
Like I said I'm Irish and my people lived through the Famine.
"Go deo arís."
It is the way to live.
Anything else is strictly about death and death is not an option for those who have lived through Shoah, the Famine, or the Nakba.
I texted back to Shimon, if he had a two-carat diamond for a certain price.
"Of course."
"Good man."
After all the first law on 47th Street was 'nimmt geld' or take money.
And with my many mouths to feed I am a true believer in taking money.
As well as peace.
Free Palestine.
Free the world
We are not animals.
Friday, August 29, 2014
How To Make A Woman Happy
It's not difficult to make a woman happy..
A man only needs to be
1. a friend
2. a companion
3. a lover
4. a brother
5. a father
6. a master
7. a chef
8. an electrician
9. a carpenter
10. a plumber
11. a mechanic
12. a decorator
13. a stylist
14. a sexologist
15. a gynaecologist
16. a psychologist
17. a pest exterminator
18. a psychiatrist
19. a healer
20. a good listener
21. an organizer
22. a good father
23. very clean
24. sympathetic
25. athletic
26. warm
27. attentive
28. gallant
29. intelligent
30. funny
31. creative
32. tender
33. strong
34. understanding
35. tolerant
36. prudent
37. ambitious
38. capable
39. courageous
40. determined
41. true
42. dependable
43. passionate
44. compassionate
WITHOUT FORGETTING TO:
45. give her compliments regularly
46. love shopping
47. be honest
48. be very rich
49. not stress her out
50. not look at other girls
AND AT THE SAME TIME, YOU MUST ALSO:
51. give her lots of attention, but expect little yourself
52. give her lots of time, especially time for herself
53. give her lots of space, never worrying about where she goes
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT:
54. Never to forget:
* birthdays
* anniversaries
* arrangements she makes
HOW TO MAKE A MAN HAPPY
1. Show up naked
2. Bring alcohol
Does that tell you something?
Sleeplessness 101
Five year ago my sister and I were sitting at her kitchen table. She handed me a newspaper clipping and pointed out an requesting volunteers for a medical survey on sleeplessness.
"Beth Israel is paying $1500 to those candidates completing the 10-day experiment."
"$1500. That's a good wage for two weeks."
I was broke and called the clinic. The receptionist scheduled an interview at noon. My sister taught at a college down the street from Beth Israel and drove me into the Fenway. I walked over to the hospital. I had been born in its Richardson House. This was my first visit since that day.
On the fifth floor I was met by the doctor directing the test.
"Basically you have to stay up 60 hours straight. Someone will be with you. This experiment is to see how far a human can go without sleep."
I agreed to the test, however I failed the physical. My liver readings were redlining from a session of drinking vodka with my brother-in-law. We had been celebrating a Celtics victory.
My younger sister later informed me that 60-hours sleep deprivation could cause lasting mental problems.
"And possibly death."
"I could have used the $1500."
"Enforced sleep keep deprivation can lead to Diabetes, Stroke, high blood pressure, amnesia, skin damage, and number of cardiac problems."
"Okay, so I didn't need the $1500 that bad."
My younger sister gave me a c-note.
Two days later I bussed back to New York with $80 in my pocket.
I read the newspaper on the Fung Wah bus.
The CIA was under investigation for 'enhanced techniques' used by the CIA on the thousands of suspects passing through the off-shore torture camps.
One of them was sleep deprivation.
Vice President Cheney had always insisted that losing a little sleep didn't hurt anyone and neither did standing on their feet for eight hours at a time.
I beg to differ, because later that month I traveled to Russia.
JFK-Moscow-Kiev-Moscow-St. Petersburg-Moscow-JFK in eight days.
Too many flights in to few days.
Normally I crashed for a good 8-10 hours a night.
I barely caught three in Rodina.
My vim was shot, but this was nothing.
The CIA had kept detainees up for weeks on end.
Without any cocaine either.
Give me a little blow and I'll stay up for a week, but my nerves would be very frayed, despite previous Vice President Cheney's protestation that a little torture was a good thing.
I love my sleep.
Plus I'm old-fashioned about my dreams.
Cue up Cindy Crawford, please.
I am Old School.
The Old Man and the Pee
The IRS decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the IRS office. The auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney. The auditor said, "Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable."
"I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it," says Grandpa. 'How about a demonstration?'
The auditor thinks for a moment and said, "Okay. Go ahead."
Grandpa says , "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye."
The auditor thinks a moment and says, "It's a bet."
Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it.
The auditor's jaw drops.
Grandpa says, "Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye."
Now the auditor can tell Grandpa isn't blind, so he takes the bet.
Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.
The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand with Grandpa's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
"Want to go double or nothing?"Grandpa asks "I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between."
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.
Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor's desk.
The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.
But Grandpa's attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.
"Are you okay?" the auditor asks.
"Not really," says the attorney. "This morning, when Grandpa told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and that you'd be happy about it."
OLD SCHOOL HUMOR
Monday, August 25, 2014
The Sun Has Set Somewhere
"El imperio en el que nunca se pone el sol." or 'the sun never set on your empire' was a remark attributed to a loyal courtier of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V. His possessions spanned the globe. Philip II gambled its power on the Spanish Armada. Filthy weather in the Channel thwarted his desire to conquer Britain and by the18th Century the English crowed the same sentiment as the hildagos.
"On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges."
Throughout the 19th Century one point the tiffs and teabags dominated a quarter of the world's population. Maintenance of this empire sapped the Home Countries of capital and manpower. Sea to Sea to sea drained the vitality of the nation. Victorianism led to the noble massacres of Flanders and the Somme. WWII wiped out another generation and the Empire collapsed with the surrender of its Crown Jewels to the niggers, wogs, micks, and chinks.
Winston Churchill was furious. He was English 100%. His mother was an American. Her beauty was international. As an historian Churchill understood the weight of time on power.
"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." 1943.
Britain's remaining oversea possessions consists of Gibralter, the Falklands, Bermuda, St. Helena, Ascension, British Antarctica, the South Georgia Islands, Tristan de Cunha, the South Sandwich Islands, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, the Pitcairn Islands, British Indian Ocean Territory, The British Virgin Islands, The Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, and The Cayman Islands. Margaret Thatcher fought a long distance war against Argentina to reconquer the South Atlantic islands. The last ten years the UK has waged a war in the Middle East against Islamist extremists. The cost of that campaign became clear this last week.
Last week after the beheading of an American journalist by ISIS militants, a British friend was calling for the re-invasion of Iraq to wipe the Muslims off the map.
I reminded him that the British Empire was forged by Celts of Ireland and Scotland.
These people were its foot soldiers.
They are no more.
The days of empire are over for England.
If only America could see that truth.
ps Free Northern Ireland.
The Love Of Dogs For Man
1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.
2. Dogs don't notice if you call them by another dog's name.
3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.
4. A dog's parents never visit.
5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.
6. You never have to wait for a dog; they're ready to go 24 hours a day.
7. Dogs find you amusing when you're drunk.
8. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.
9. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, "If I died, would you get another dog?"
10. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.
11. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.
12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don't get mad. They just think it's interesting.
13. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pickup truck.
14. If a dog leaves, it won't take half of your stuff.
And finally lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car for an hour. Then open the trunk and see who's happy to see you!!
Just Whistle
Sadly Lauren Bacall passed away last week
She was a siren of serene beauty and a true New Yorker.
The actress hit stride in the movie TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT with the famous line to Humphrey Bogart.
"Just whistle."
Any man in his right mind would have obey her command.
To view that scene, please go to the following URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MheNUWyROv8
Lotte In London
My young friend Lotte was running a fiendishly wicked evening in London.
Chez Maxilla.
I don't know where she is now, but I'll find out.
Love is Never Having to Say You're Sorry
Love is Never Having to Say You're Sorry is a famous line from the 1970 film LOVE STORY. Farangs are amazed by the infrequency of times that Thais saying they're sorry. The word does exist as Khor-Todt, whose etymology stems from two Thai words; Khor or throat and Todt or fart.
Throat-fart.
Sorry, but maybe that's why Thais don't apologize.
Saying sorry sometimes smells.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Skinny Marilyn
Marilyn Monroe was a goddess.
I loved her in SOME LIKE IT HOT and worshipped her in THE RIVER OF NO RETURN.
Zaftig beauties across the USA have pointed to Marilyn Monroe as the ideal female form rather than the bone thin models gracing the covers of fashion magazines. Her size has been debated by weight pundits with some claiming the blonde movie star was a size 16, however Marilyn started as a size 8 and sometimes was a size 12.
Speed helped her slim down for films.
She was not an anorexic, but a normal woman in normal times.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER by the Hollies
That 1960s Hollies hit gets plenty of play in Pattaya, only bargirls have changed to words to suit their need for subterfuge.
"He not boyfriend. He my brother."
The tenacles of an extended Thai family are more tangled than a cluster of fornicating rattlesnakes. The second cousin of a third aunt from your sister's second marriage is family as is almost anyone from your village. Farangs have a hard time getting their head around this galaxy of uncles, aunts, sisters, and cousins, even when the 'cousin' or brother' seems awfully tight with their wife.
"He not boyfriend. He my brother."
And not wanting to call your wife a liar cause many farangs to turn a blind eye to the obvious.
"He ain't her brother, he's her boyfriend."
The words fit the tune this way too.
100%.
In 1983 I was living with Brigitte Yorke in Paris. She had a husband in the South of France. Her explanation of our living situation was that I was gay. Guy accepted my pederastism, because I would show up with a gay friend whenever he came to town plus Brigittie was using me as a beard for her many affairs.
I'm not gay.
Really, so when my mia noi explain that her 'cousin' was gay, I rewrote the words to the Hollies' hit.
"He ain't gay, he's your boyfriend."
Did I end it with her?
What for?
Her cousin was good fun.
After all we are both gay.
To hear the Hollies hit, please go to this URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si7gu9yGz64
THE BIGGEST BEAR by Lynd Ward
To see a video reading of THE BIGGEST BEAR, please go to the following URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NGreOnPNok
BEAR SEASON by Peter Nolan Smith
Hunting season along the Hudson River opened in mid-October.
Bow and arrows only.
Guns weren't allowed until November, so I felt relatively safe walking in the woods wearing a neon-orange hooded sweatshirt. No animal in that color existed north or south of Troy, New York and during the shooting season non-hunters drape their bodies in brilliant orange to prevent any hunter from mistaking them for a deer.
d“No one has ever been refused a hunting license because they’re color blind,” Floyd told me at the Green Acres Tavern. The drinking establishment on Rte. 29 was brightly lit at all hours of the day, since the owner thought people looked more honest under 100-watt light.
“So someone might shoot me even if I’m wearing this.” The orange was hurtful to the eye.
“If drink was involved, everyone is fair game.” Belvin shrugged his shoulders.
The fifty-six year-old farmer was a crack marksman. The previous weekend he had scored 99 out of 100 with a bolt-action .308 Winchester. “People shoot at whatever they see come hunting season. One time I’m sitting here and this down-stater enters the tavern, telling everyone about the spike-horn deer he killed. None of us had ever heard about this species of deer and asked to see his kill. It was a billy goat.”
“That’s nothing. Them folks will shoot anything that moves.” A scrawny UPS driver diverted his attention from the NFL replays. People up here like talking about hunting season. “My uncle’s game warden down in Duchess County. One time he stops a truck on Route 44 and asks the driver what he has on the roof. The driver tells him a spotted deer. It was a St. Bernhard.”
“I lost a cow to a hunter three years ago.” A lady mournfully remembered with a Bud in her hand. “She was a good milker.”
“I’ve never hunted in my life.” My father was vehemently anti-gun, so the majority of my experience with weapons came from shooting with my Dutch uncle Howie Hermann at the 20th Street Shooting Range in Manhattan. Every Monday night we would meet at the 2nd Avenue Deli and then drive over to shoot pistols; Lugers, Colts, S&W ad infinitum. Howie was real gun-nut.
Sweet as pie, but he liked his guns.
“Nothing wrong with not hunting," another drinker commented from the end of the bar. His voice betrayed his real feeling on the subject. Guns were sacred this far north of New York City.
“I know that.” My youth had been spent in Maine. Deer and bear had been strapped to cars during hunting season. Their blood dripping over the windows was a badge of manhood in the North. “I never really wanted to kill anything, but I’m not saying it’s not a good thing as long as it’s for eating.”
“Deer meat’s good.” Belvin had a side of deer in his freezer. “Bear not so good.”
“If you get them in the fall, you can grill them up as steaks.” A bearded beer-drinker added from his stool. Everyone here knew everyone. “But they cook up dry real quick.”
“But if you undercook it, you get trichinellosis.” I was the outsider, but was familiar with this problem thanks to reading about the disastrous Franklin polar expedition. The crew ate bear and died of trichinellosis.
“That’s deadly, ain’t it?” The beer-drinker was scratching his head, as if his fingers might jog lose the brain cells holding that information.
“Same as if you ate uncooked pig.” Belvin was a subsistence farmer. He could eat everything on his land, excepting the tree bark and his wife knew how to make teas from them. “You get nausea, heartburn, dyspepsia, and diarrhea. That’s why the Jews and Muslims don’t eat pork.”
“I’m not so sure that’s the reason. I have a lot of Jewish friends who are bacon Jews. They love pork. I think the real reason that their religions prohibit pork is that it tastes so good.” At least to my palate. “I was in Sumatra once. A big island in Indonesia. Full of Muslims. Anyway I go up to the highlands and the people are Christians. Everyone of them. They even sing Christian prayer songs like BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. We were out in the forests and I asked them as we were cooking wild pig, why they didn’t become Muslims like everyone else. The elder explained that they loved the taste of pork too much to give it up for any god.”
“Not much tastes better than bacon.” The UPS driver smacked his lips.
“What about apple pie?” The woman eyed the dessert tray by the kitchen window. The food at the tavern was home-made.
“Apple pie is pretty damn good, but it ain’t meat.” The bearded farmer’s statement granted him a bar of nodding heads.
“The pig that night on Sumatra was good. The hill people ate everything, but the oink. Afterwards the headman asked, “You know why we like pig so much?” I shook my head and he answered by saying, “Because it tastes like man.”
“Cannibals.” Belvin’s hand reached for a gun at his waist. The .357 was in the truck.
“Supposedly not anymore, but I didn’t like the way they were looking at me. Sort of like a fat person after eating a salad.”
“What you do?” The UPS driver was on the edge of his seat.
“I thanked them for the dinner and headed home. I thought they were going to bushwhack me on the trail. I locked the door of the hotel and left the next day. Believe I was happy to be back with the Muslims, although they were a little grim about my beer-drinking, but I’ve never heard of any Muslim cannibals.”
“Me neither.” The bartender put a shot of whiskey in front of me.
“What’s that for?”
“You won the biggest bullshit story of the night award.” Belvin scanned the rest of the clientele. They were locals. “No one here can come up with better.”
“But it wasn’t bullshit.” My bone marrow trembled with the remembrance of the ex-cannibals’ faces.
“You should make it a double.” The UPS driver had returned his gaze to the Jets’ highlights. “He even believes his own bullshit.”
“Here’s to bullshit.” I drained the shot and ordered a round for the bar. It wasn’t painful. Buds in the Green Acres are only $2.50 and that’s everyone’s favorite beer. Mine was Labatt’s Blue. It cost $3. Belvin drove me home before midnight. We had long tomorrows ahead of us. He left me off at the end of my friend’s drive.
“That was sure some good story.” Belvin was smiling with the belief that I was the best bullshitter he had heard in some time.
“Thanks.” Sometimes it’s best not to disappoint the masses. I waved goodnight and Belvin disappeared over the crest of the hill. In the light of the moon my sweatshirt glowed orange. I made it home without a single shot coming in my direction.
Next month would be another story.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Final Warning by Anonymous
Anonymous declared war on the Ferguson Police Force after the murder of an innocent civilian by one of their officers. Riot squads attacked protesters with raised arms with tear gas and rubber bullets.
The Ferguson PD were out of control.
They are on the streets for blood.
SWAT assassination squads ready to take down the enemy.
Anonymous hacked their site.
They had given them a final warning.
These pigs didn't deserve that.
To hear Anonymous' warning, please go to the following URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOSRQ-c1XW0
WHAT MUST BE SAID by Gunther Grass
Poetry by eighty-four year-old Germans is rarely read by anyone, however in 2012 Gunther Grass's WHAT MUST BE SAID has reaped the Nobel Prize winner a firestorm of condemnation from Israel and Germany. The Israeli interior minister went so far as to declare the writer of THE TIN DRUM 'persona non grata' and demand that Norway stripped the novelist of his award for literature.
The poem criticized both the Fatherland and the Mideast nation for endangering world peace through an arms race designed to attack Iran.
Few people have read the poem, so here it is.
Make your own judgment.
WHAT MUST BE SAID
What is obvious and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.
It is the alleged right to the first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people—
Subjugated by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation—
Because in their sphere of power,
It is suspected, a nuclear bomb is being built.
Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because not accessible to inspections?
The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as an incriminating lie
And coercion--the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of “anti-Semitism” is familiar.
Now, though, because in my country
Which time and again has sought and confronted
Its very own crimes
That is without comparison
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But fear wishes to be of conclusive evidence,
I say what must be said.
But why have I stayed silent until now?
Because I thought my origin,
Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged
Forbade this fact as pronounced truth
To be told to the nation of Israel, to which I am bound
And wish to stay bound.
Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
The nuclear power Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
Could become suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.
And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the West’s hypocrisy;
In addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
Appeal to the perpetrator of the recognizable danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
By the governments of both countries.
Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
And also us, to be helped.
THE END
It certainly doesn't sound like Robert Frost's A ROAD NOT TAKEN, but I don't write poetry any more and I don't have any plans to visit Israel in the future.
And I'm sure that neither does Gunther Grass.
Nu?
ES TUT MIR LIED by Peter Nolan Smith
My high school German professor smoked cigarettes in the classroom. Ashes from his dying butts dropped onto his black cassock, as we read Kafta's DAS URTEIL from a blue book.
"Du sprechet wie Arschloch."
Bruder Karl's cigarette ravaged voice grated the cinderblock wall.
"Jawohl, Bruder."
Boston accents have no R and our class defiled the Teutonic language.
My 1st semester grade was an D-.
I was on academic scholarship.
The Principal and Vice-Principal suggested a change of language to Spanish.
I refused their offer.
My 2nd semester earned an F in German troubled by another F in religion.
The school withdrew my scholarship. My uncle was a lawyer. He persuaded them to reinstate half the scholarship and I remained at Xaverian to learn German.
My accent barely improved despite Bruder Karl's tutorship and I graduated without any honors other than the annual delivery of Bruder Karl's Christmas card.
"You were my star student."
"Wahrheitsgemäß." I doubted him.
"You were the only one who could speak Deutsch."
"But you failed me."
"Because you couldn't read it." He stubbed out his cigarette and clapped a hand on my shoulder. "One day you will speak German in Deutschland and maybe other countries too, for once you can speak one language you can speak them all, especially one as hard as German"
His prediction came true, when I took a job in Hamburg at the door of a pimp's nightclub, BSIR.
"Es tut mir lied."
I said that whenever I didn't let in a nightclubber.
I said it in French more than once in Paris, but there I said, "Je m'excuse." or 'I excuse myself'. I learned this phrase in Italian, Indonesian, Indian, and Chinese, because I have sinned around the world and I have been sorry for my transgressions, however I have never heard a Thai person say that they were sorry.
"Kor thod."
The words do exist in Thai.
Your girlfriend can burn your house down with a burn-the-house-down smile.
No sorry.
Leave you for another man.
No sorry.
Say you don't love them enough.
No sorry.
Their lack of contrition was a parody of the famous adage from the movie LOVE STORY.
"Being in love is never having to say sorry."
Thais love everyone and we all know that Beauty never says sorry to the Beast.
An Anti-Semite
A Chicago-based writer commented on my entry entitled JEW CANOE.
Cancer Bitch said... Thanks a lot for contributing to the anti-Semitic stereotype of the cheap Jew.
I responded, "No worries, glad to be of service, but you're sloshing the paint in the wrong direction. Some of my best friends are Semites."
I wondered how she found this story and Googled 'jew canoe'.
Damn, I was # 2 after Urban Dictionary: jew canoe
My opening line was "In the 50s crackers from the South christened a Cadillac with New York plates passing through Dixie as the 'Jew Canoe'."
Having spent years as the Shabbas Goy in New York, cancer bitch # 1s me with an anti-semite appellation.
Maybe a schnorrer or a sheygutz, but anti-Semite never.
But then the Semite race includes Akkadians, Arabs, Aramaics, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.
ps The word for anti-semite in Yiddish is antis emit or אַנטיסעמיט.
Sie gesund.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Fuck Knowledge
The New York Public Library Rose Reading Room expands across two city blocks as a reminder of an elegant era before computers and iPads and cellphones. The lofty ceilings evoke a heaven of knowledge, while the quietude along the long oak tables fosters thought at a galactic pace contrary to the modern day's 24/7 frenzied pursuit of 15 seconds of fame. A minute spend within these exquisite chambers calms the soul, while a day lingering over a lost tome can resonate like a tuning fork in the past, present, and future.
The old pneumatic tubes at the main desk once brought requests to the stacks underneath the library, however those shelves are now empty. Over three million books had been evacuated from the stacks to make room for a proposed renovation i.e. commercial takeover. Thankfully wiser heads overruled the library's trustees and Mayor deBlasio cancelled the project.
The books are in New Jersey. The trustees are stalling in hopes of the people forget their anger and the restructuring of the library can proceed without a hitch.
Books ordered today take up to three days to arrive at the library.
Access to knowledge is key to research and not every book in the world is on the internet.
Become a member of the save the NYPL movement at www.savenypl.org
We might not read anymore, but some of us do.
OVEREXPOSED
LOVE IT
Swat Signs Of Paranoia
My good friend from Palm Beach woke this morning to a military police invasion.
"A convoy of fire trucks, police and EMTs came racing by my house and stopped by the beach access. A dozen or more heavily suited and oxygen equipped men trudged down the jungle path to a sweltering and empty beach. Thinking it might be a shark attack, I had followed behind on my bike. Upon reaching the beach I saw the men carrying a simple white plastic fishing bucket away from the water's edge. When I asked what all the fuss was about they said someone had called in a suspicious looking object, possibly explosives, seen on the beach. Good grief!!!"
What can we expect from a police force trained to consider every citizens as a potential terrorist.
Repeal The Homeland Security Act.
Stop the police on citizens violence.
It's nature versus them and I know my side of the fight.
SQUARE S & M A LA THAI
Several years back the Castle opened across the soi from the Buffalo Bar on 3rd Road. The dress code was black. I sat at the bar and watched young women exited at the end of the night. They laughed saying good-bye to co-workers before getting on motor-scooters driven by their Thai boyfriends. The girls looked none the worse for an evening of hard work.
One night Nick was sitting with Tuk. She was a tough girl and asked me, "What you think happens in there?"
"The usual. Whips, chains, handcuffs, fetish stuff." I had read on Stickman.com that the Castle is quite a nice place, but not really suited to visiting with a gang of your friends. After all this is a place where you indulge your innermost fantasies. Do you want to share those with your mates?"
"If you went there, what would you do?" Nick pointed to a man leaving the Castle. He was walking like he had a plug up his ass.
"I don't know."
"You must have some hidden desire?" The Tottenham Spurs fan wasn't letting me off easy.
"None that I can think of." It was the truth. My only fantasy was lying in bed with Mam. Sometimes I thought that she had slipped me a love potion.
"Whipping a nurse?"
"No."
"Getting whipped by a nurse?"
"No." I lifted my finger to stop him, then wracked my brain for an answer. "I'm stumped."
"No sadistic menage a trois fantasies or masochistic domination wishes?
"No." My mind was a sexual wasteland?"
"That can't be possible."
"Sad, but true, I'm a square." I was shocked by this admission and drove home to Mam in Jomtien. We made love and I felt her belly. We had a baby growing inside her.
I fell asleep.
Two hours I woke with a scream.
"What wrong?" Mam was used to snores.
"Nothing." I couldn't tell her about S & M Thai girls chasing me around the Castle and I didn't mention this dream to Nick, but it festered in my head.
There was only one way to exorcise this monster and a week later I departed the beachview apartment in a black shirt and black jeans.
"Who die?" Mam was suspicious.
"No one. I just want to wear black."
"You look like mafia."
"Thanks." I kissed her. "I'll be back early."
"I wait you." Mam knew once I had two beers, I wasn't going to fool around.
I rode my Vespa over to 3rd Road, parking two hundred years from the Castle. I didn't want anyone from the Buffalo Bar seeing me.
Darkness was my friend and I touched my wallet. I had 5000 baht.
Stickman warned the Castle wasn't cheap. Anything goes as long as there was no rough stuff, so 1000 baht an hour for the rough stuff was a bargain, especially since back in the USA a good dominatrix could charge a $1000/HR.
Stickman's night had cost 7000 baht. After all their website promises 'where your fantasies come true'.
The security guards from the Buffalo spotted me. "Pai ngai?"
I pointed inside and they shouted out 'good luck'.
As expected the bar was dimly lit with receding settees. The girls lounging at the bar seemed to be divided into vinyl dominatrixes, slave girls in school uniforms, and lingerie-clad submissives. A stocky dyke in black vinyl was dripping hot wax onto her victim for a group of fat farangs. The screams of pain sounded real.
The matronly mama-san came to my table and explained the rates as well as the options.
At 250 baht/lady drink her offer of an hour of anything goes in a fully equipped back room sounded more economical than 30 minutes of getting drunk with two teasers.
"If you want longer, girl can take it." The black-botted mama-san was proud of her girls. "Most farang come here English, German, Kohn Nippon. Khon Nippon like tie up girl and then whip her. German like sick thing and England man like spanking. What America like?"
I had the money and the time, yet no idea what I wanted from a woman who would do anything. "I don't know."
At least that's what I thought until a big-breasted dominatrix in black leather emerged from the back room leading a fat German by a chain. The slender mistress' hair was cut like Betty Page and she was no stranger, for I had been admiring Cochise for the past three years. Her boyfriend was a vicious French pimp who was recently deported for phony credit cards.
Cochise freed the German and then kneeled before the mama-san to kiss her boots. She looked up at me and I whispered my request to the mama-san.
"She never slave."
"I don't want her to be a taa-see." Unless being a woman slave in chains was a little exciting. "If she says no, then it's no, but ask her."
500 baht got the mama-san off the sofa and she asked Cochise.
"I see you before. At Welkom Inn." She sat down and a lady drink arrived within five seconds. The meter was running at 300 baht a lady drink. "I not slave."
"Me too." I wasn't so sure that Cochise was telling the truth, since I had seen her sporting black eyes from her Froggie boyfiend, then again that was love and this was commerce.
"So what you want to do?"
"Chain you and have sex." The couple on stage had moved onto a paddling. The smacks ringed in my ears. I didn't want to hurt anyone.
"No whips."
I nodded my agreement.
"Only one hour. 1500 baht. Have customer come later. He slave. Easy work. You maybe not easy. Maybe you do before." Cochise signaled to the mama-san she was heading out back. Her boss raised a single finger to signal she had an hour before her next rendezvous.
"You want other girl."
"Want you only."
"Barg wan." She walked down a small corridor into a white room. Chains hung on the wall. The cuffs were leather.
"No sweet talking. The truth." I wanted her but only really like this.
She stripped off her leather. Her breasts and small nipples. She was also not really a woman, but a ladyboy. She kept hiding the truth.
"You can be master now." Cochise kneeled on the floor. Her hair hung over her face. Her pose and the darkness of the room transported us back 100 years when most Thais were slaves. Royalty could do with kee kao or slaves as they liked. For an hour or two I could do the same and that's the beauty of the Castle, except I wasn't into it.
"What wrong?"
"I can't do it." Mam was in my mind.
"You love your lady." Her laugh was a whip.
"Chai." I gave Cochise her money. She waii-ed respectfully and said, "Maybe lucky can be your slave again or mistress."
She slapped my ass with a strength born of a rebel.
I left the castle and walked over to the Buffalo.
All the girls wanted to know. "Khun penh taat reu naii?"
Master or slave?
"Kwam lap." No one needed to know my secret.
"Khun penh ajaan sadeet." A bargirl accused me of being a sadistic teacher.
"Not even close." I realized her fantasy. Then again Tuk played a lot of roles for farangs.
I bought her a drink and a gin-tonic for me.
After three Cochise was out of my mind, but not 100% gone until I got back to Mam.
I was her slave and she was the mother of my baby.
I really was a square, but if you're looking for something a little different, visit the Castle. It ain't cheap, so bring cash since they don't accept Visa.
RATES
1-year membership for 15,000 baht
Non-members
900 baht entrance fee includes one drink.
Next drinks 300 baht
Bottle 7000 baht includes mixers
MEMBERS get 50% off
Lady Drinks - 250 baht
Dress code - black shirt required.
Hours 5:30 till closing.
Website http://www.the-castle-pattaya.com
THE CASTLE THIRD ROAD PATTAYA
visit their website
http://www.the-castle-pattaya.com/site.html
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