New Year's Eve 2007 Pattaya

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

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

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

Nothing?"

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

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

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

I heard the fireworks and tried to open my eyes.

Not a chance.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

What has happened to my wickedness?

Children.

They tend to rescue a bad man's soul.

Better them than the devil.

MOVEABLE XMAS by Peter Nolan Smith

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

"Damn, this is funny."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The knife pierced the chocolate.

I smelled it on the air.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I had relearned that lesson through 2014.

"So what is the problem?"

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

"Moving?"

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

"Christ was born on December 25."

"Says who?"

"Says the Bible."

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

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

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

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

"But___"

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

I turned my head.

He was right.

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

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

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

To hear John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) on YouTube, please go to the following URL www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Vfp48laS8

Christmas Truce

Peace on earth.

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

Enjoy.

The Xmas Drunk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Either that of very guilty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fenway's First Beermas

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

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

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

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

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

So am I an alcoholic or just a drinker?

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

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

I checked Google to make sure.

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

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

ps the beer in Fenway's stroller is empty.

Warfare In America

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

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

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

No.

Because our women wear short skirts?

No.

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

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

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

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

Hire some old Black Panthers too.

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

Georgia has no check-up of gun purchases.

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

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

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

All I want is power for the people.

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

And Mao knew what he was saying.

Kids On Bikes

I love riding with my kids.

I've only had one accident with Angie.

Nothing bad.

Only scrapped skin.

All accidents that don't kill you build character.

Viva

Viva wore band-aids over her nipples.

Andy Warhol was never sexy.

She was a goddess.

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

Wickedness Runs In Vain

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

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

A pig like Rudy.

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

But we will be back.

Both me and Clover.

Friday The 12th

From my irreverent brother, Patrick Anthony Smith.

Buddha's Enlightenment

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

Welcome To Ulster 2014

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

The Royals in Brooklyn.

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

The rich can do anything.

The poor pay with their lives.

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

I hope it never comes to this.

New Ulster 2014.

No justice.

No peace.

ps the Nets suck. Go Celtics.

Keep The Rose Reading Room Alive

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

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

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

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

It is like the Burning of the Library in Alexandria.

No commercial value, no sell out.

No wasteland and I like wastelands.

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

This is a plea to save the Library.

Fuck consumerism.

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

The 10 Unanswerables

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

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

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

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

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

4. What is the best diet?

5. Is there anybody out there?

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

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

10. How long will I live?

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

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

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

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

4. The best diet is excess in moderation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The God Of Beermas

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

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

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

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

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

I have no more 20-beer nights.

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

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

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

327 beers.

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

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

My next beer is to him.

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

To hear tales of his drinking please go to this URL

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

Andre The Giant Had A Posse

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

He smiled and ushered in his three guests.

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

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

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

We are Andre's Posse.

Making An Entrance

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

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

Admission wasn't a given.

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

"Ah, the magic of Studio."

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

"Give him my best."

And I meant it.

We are the nightlife.

You Bet I Would - Skimpy

I love skimpy clothing except on me.

Quelle vroom.

102 For Linford

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

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

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

"He drank over there."

"The bartender was cute."

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

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

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

"Saturday I think."

"You know Linford played 102 all his life."

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

"What number you think come up Sunday?"

"102?"

"Straight."

"Damn, those number boys know everything."

"You got that right, White Chocolate."

We drank rum for Linford.

One shot.

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

102.

RIP Linford

Another chink of Brooklyn gnu to the Here-After.

Linford, I knew him from Frank's Lounge.

A good man and a gentle Jamaican.

RIP.