Prophecy of Preecha Por Intarapalit

Every year the Bangkok Post features the yearly horoscope predictions in its Outlook section. Their 2007 forecast for Geminis was spot on the money or lack of money. Today's paper predicted good news Jan.-March, Obstacles solved April-June. Money flies into my pocket July but out for the next two months and then it's smooth sailing to the end of the year.

Thais are big believers in palm reading and stars.

My wife smiled upon hearing the good news. My mia noi less so.

"Not say you leave your wife."

Everyone interprets the predictions according to their needs no matter where you are on the feeding chain.

Recently 2bangkok.com published the forecasts of Preecha "Por" Intarapalit, the author of thousands of books.

Not much use to present day Thais who read two books a year, but his vision for Thailand in Pai Su Anakhot (Toward the Future) portrayed a nation where cars flew at rather low levels. "There were propellers on their roofs. Sports or private monoplanes flew in scatters here and there not unlike birds. All of a sudden, everybody sighted a huge train, with two tram-like carriages joined together, running at no less than 60-kilometres-per-hour on tracks about ten metres above Sukhumvit Road."

"One could see skyscrapers with at least 20 to 80 stories, the top floors rising into the thick clouds. Fluttering from the top of each building was the tri-coloured national flag. The crowds on Sukhumvit bustled by in a hurry, men in their suits and women in their one-piece outfits. The people of Bangkok looked not so different from the Europeans or Americans."

The narrator asked his son in a hoarse, shaky voice ...

"Tell me, Nop, is this Bangkok or Paris? How come all these cars and planes are flying like dragon-flies?"

"This is Bangkok, Father. This is Bangkok of 2007."

Por described rice fields, orchards and canals giving way to massive buildings and spacious roads; tap water was in abundance and Bangkok was lit up day and night by a pair of "man-made moons". The affluent would spend all day trading stocks and shoppers in supermarkets could shop "'til they drop" - just dumping stuff from the shelves in their trolleys and paying at the exits. The citizens of Bangkok would be dressed in Western clothes and speak English instead of Thai. Transport would come in a variety of forms - from taxis to flying cars, helicopters, elevated trains and personal jets. The sick would receive swift and polite treatment from nurses and doctors ("no more scolding, threatening, and back-slapping!"). Those over 65 would be put in beautiful nursing homes under the constant care of medical staff with four meals a day, and last but not least, everything would be free.

"To say we don't have money [for the welfare programmes] ... no, our government has long stopped saying such things," a taxi driver of the future tells the Samgler crew. "What we earn from selling oil is more than enough for the government to put into developing the country. We recently lent 30 billion to the United States. During my father's time, we borrowed money from the World Bank to restore our country. Now, it is the World Bank that has to send people to borrow money from us."

In Por's book, Bangkok - and Thailand - in the year 2007 has become a heaven on Earth, Asia's number one nation (with Japan in second place) and a land of everlasting joy and peace.

And this is probably where hilarity sets in. The more exuberant Por's depictions of Bangkok are, the more ludicrous and laughable the story becomes. There might not actually be much difference between how readers of 1967 and 2007 could gain amusement from Pai Su Anakhot. It is funny because we know, and have learned to accept, that most of what's described in the book could never be true. The gap between reality and fantasy remains, so why not enjoy the escape?

General Direk said suddenly:

"All right, have no doubts, Korn. We have indeed arrived in Bangkok of 2007. All these things have not yet happened, but we now have an opportunity to see them beforehand. And they will certainly take place [in the future] the way we are seeing them now. Aren't you excited, Kim-nguan?"

The Chinese man gulped down his throat.

"I'm going insane. How could we get to see what has not yet happened?"

Nikorn and Kim-nguan have good reasons to feel initially overwhelmed. The future Bangkok confronting them was beyond their wildest imaginings. By the end of the novella, though, every crew member grew to like their new capital so much so that they wished to return to it again soon.

What were the attractions?

- Places, language, food, dress code, commercial billboards, greeting by handshakes and even boxing had literally become Americanised - "except for the presence of national flags, everything looks like New York ... which meant Thailand must have progressed rapidly, to become the world's superpower, on the same par as America."

- Every cabinet minister, "even the one overseeing the ministry of defense", was a civilian. "They served the country diligently, and there was absolutely no corruption."

- Every Thai citizen was well-educated - the two taxi drivers hired by the Samgler gang had university degrees in architecture and engineering; Bangkok boasted about 200 universities and no fewer than 5,000 primary and secondary schools did not charge for tuition, stationery or uniforms (a precise prediction of today's politicians' election gimmicks).

- Traffic problems in Bangkok were nonexistent.

- The Thai currency had the same value as the US dollar!

- The Thai economy was rock-solid: Rich oil fields had been discovered and Thailand suddenly became industrialised, producing and exporting everything from clothes to cars, planes and battleships. Heavy machinery was exported to China while China sent agricultural products and hordes of tourists in return. Also, Bangkok no longer had small-scale businesses or street peddlers that would allow developed nations to look down on it.

- Thai athletes had swept almost all the gold medals in the recent Olympics, which Thailand had hosted in 2002, and our national soccer team had won the World Cup three times.

- Every Thai farmer was a millionaire; each owned an average of 1,000 acres of land as well as tractors and private jets or flying cars.

- There were around-the-clock entertainment venues, some where all the staff, from chefs to waitresses and cashiers, wore practically nothing and had "attractive body with clean smell".

- The country had been free of war for more than 50 years: "The soldiers and policemen are brothers ... our country could advance this quickly because we Thais all share in our love and unity."

- The prowess of our defense was second-to-none: "In 2004, following a skirmish along the Thai-Cambodian borders, the three armed forces from Thailand placed Cambodia under siege within two days, but the United Nations as mediator asked us to pull out."

Of course Preecha "Por" Intarapalit wrote most of this book tongue in cheek. Kon yai didn't lthis ridicule and said the future will be the future just like he said and in some ways they weren't wrong either.

Fi Suay

Several years ago I nailed Xmas lights to the roof of my house in Pattaya. Ours was the only one on Moo 9 celebrating the winter holiday on Pearl Harbor Day. The rest of the farangs were too mean-hearted to pursue any happiness other than the emptiness of sex, drugs, and golf. I spoke to none of them.

Two days later I bought a blue plastic pine tree and explained to my 3 year-old daughter that Xmas was a Christian holiday lifted from the pagan celebration of the winter solstice.

Angie only spoke Thai. Her understanding of religion was limited to Buddhism and she said, “Fi suay.”

"Yes, the lights are beautiful."

"Phom lak Christmas."

I tried to explain the wickedness on the Church in my Boston-accented Thai. My wife frowned with disapproval, although my daughter misunderstood my garbled irade and I accepted my failure to enlighten her to evil of the Christian faith, for while I have rejected the deeds and words of the Catholic Church, I still appreciate the beauty of Santa Claus. Mostly since the image of a fat white-bearded man in a red suit flying a reindeer-hauled sleigh around the world a sleigh remains twice as believable as the Immaculate Conception, especially considering that the Virgin Mary gave birth four months after her impregnation.

If I were a god-worshipper Santa Claus would be my man. The ho-ho gift-giver was based on St Nicolas of Smyrna, the original St. Nick, who is also the patron saint of beer, which is why my friends and I celebrated Beermas rather than Xmas, however I don’t play Scrooge during any holiday and neither do the Thais.

Christmas lights decorated Pattaya’s shopping mall to lure western consumers and curious Thais. Buy Buy Buy. Tis the season to spend your money.

On Walking Street go-go bars were splashed out in red. Dancers wore cute caps and nothing else. Jingle Bells played everywhere. Whiskey bottles were cracked open by my friends and gifts were exchanged amongst our Thai neighbors on Moo 9.

All this despite there being no chance of a White Christmas.

Neither were people fighting over nativity scenes, because the War on Christmas doesn’t exist anywhere, but the UK and the USA and as much as I avoid Bible-thumpers I feel that everyone should be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ as much as ‘Happy Holidays’ or nothing at all.

Santa will sort out who’s good or bad.

The Bible-thumper's God in the mumu gave up that job a long time ago.

My daughter wanted to see the lights and we got on my scooter, happy to be a family, because Christmas in Pattaya is lights, fireworks, red caps, and a good time.

Friends, family, and a good laugh.

It even got cold at night.

15 Celsius.

And atop Doi InThanon, Thailand’s highest peak, there were reports of frost. Maybe one year there will be a White Christmas in the Land of Smiles.

So Happy Beermas one and all.

Peace on earth and good will to men. Women too.

Happy XXXMas

Bordelle, the high-end lingerie line, came out with Christmas delights. One 18K-plated girdle dress will cost over $7000 in London's Selfridges department store.

There are less expensive options for a rich man to offer his mistress.

Fashion stylist Sasha Lilic asked, "Would you spend $7000 on lingerie?"

My answer was simple.

"I'd spent it to take off lingerie."

But I only have $200 in the bank, so for now I have to be happy with looking at $7000 on the flesh.

I have a good enough imagination to furnish the pleasure of giving and taking.

Plus I've been nice than naughty this year, although more out of laziness than choice.

IN ABSENCE OF AMNESIA by Peter Nolan Smith on Kindle

Most relationship end at the same point and throughout the 1980s my romances t-boned with fate in New York and Paris. I fell in love time and time again with the right women in the wrong places, but also never realized what I had until it was gone.

My long novella IN ABSENCE OF AMNESIA recounts my inability to see past skin-deep beauty into the souls, although I was no angel.

Nightclub owners, crooked cops, porno actresses, and runaways were my friends.

No one had two feet on the ground, unless they were in the grave, but I learned nothing from it all and that's because anyone who has all the answers has not heard all the questions.

Here are the women in question.

New York.

Paris.

New York.

We were all so much younger then and we are still younger than now.

To purchase my novella IN ABSENCE OF AMNESIA, please go to the following URL

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JQSIZZ4

EXCERPT from IN ABSENCE OF AMNESIA

Chapter 1

New York in the summer of 1981 was everything it hadn’t been in the winter. The 90+ temperature boiled the asphalt. New Wave had replaced punk and somehow the city had escaped bankruptcy. Money flowed on the streets and even the East Village exhibited signs of regeneration, since abandoned tenements can only be burned so many times before their ashes won’t catch fire.

People had work. Mine was menial construction on an after-hours club along the Hudson River. After paying rent I had enough money for Chinese take-out and beers at CBGBs. I lost weight and thought about robbing a bank. Whenever I entered one, guards placed their hands on the guns like they were armed with ESP.

I was no Jesse James.

Daytime employment was the logical solution to my desperate situation. I had a college degree. My permanent record was clean. I had worked nine-to-fives before and real jobs didn’t kill you, however Arthur, the nightclub owner, had promised the construction crew various jobs once the International opened its doors.

At our previous gig I had coined $500-700 a night. We hoped to open before Labor Day. On August 13th the club was $20,000 short of our goal and construction lurched to a halt, however the International was saved by a cash infusion from a criminal refugee from Odessa. His money was rumored to come from smuggling Tsarist icons. The source was unimportant. The club was a dead issue without his help.

Arthur said that Vadim had a beautiful blonde girlfriend.

“Almost cover girl pretty, but too short to succeed on the runways.”

“Sounds like your old girlfriend.” Danny Gordon, the DJ, had heard that the gangster’s girl came from Buffalo.

“No, that would be too much of a coincidence.”

Last November Lisa had left for a modeling job in Milan.

I hadn’t heard from her since.

No calls.

No letters.

When I spotted her in a French lingerie magazine, I almost flew to Paris, except she could have been in London, Milan, or Munich, so I remained in New York to be haunted by her imagined footsteps on cobble-stoned European streets.

“Coincidence is destiny crossing paths.”

“No chance of that. Lisa’s gone for good.”

“No one leaves the City forever.” Native New Yorkers like Danny considered anywhere other than Manhattan to be purgatory. “She’ll be back.”

“I’ve been dreaming of that day,” I said, but in truth I had been forgetting her piece by piece.

The smell of her skin after sex.

Her mocking laugh after I told a bad joke.

Buying leather jackets together. Hers white, mine black, yet some memories had lives of their own.

No matter how many drinks.

No matter how many days.

“Still it would be funny if it was her.” Danny wasn’t letting go either. He had a thing for her. Any man would if she looked his way.

“Funny, but not ha-ha funny.”

“Not for you, but me. I can’t wait to see your face when she walks through the doors.”

I chucked a hammer at his head. It missed by a foot and put a dent in an op-art sculpture from the 60s. Arthur noticed the damage a week later.

We denied any knowledge of how it got there.

The Russian’s money accelerated the final stages of the construction. The walls were painted lilac purple and the sound system was wired through the club. A Labor Day opening appeared realistic and on the hottest day of summer Danny and I were tearing down a last section of the ceiling. It was a dirty job and rat dust caked my sweating flesh.

The door opened for three shadows.

We lowered our tools.

“Guys, I want you to meet Vadim.” Arthur shouted from the entrance.

A muscular man in his late-20s entered the club wearing a pastel linen suit. We muttered hellos. Mine was silenced by the sight of a slender blonde in snug Versace. Lisa’s b-grade beauty was as haughty as a dethroned princess checking into a Holiday Inn.

“So much for the lack of coincidences.” Danny nudged my ribs.

“It’s a small world.” My throat tightened to a knot. “And a long life.”

“Think she recognizes you?” Danny wiped a layer of grime from his face.

“Not unless she looks my way.” My body was black with soot

Her head turned to our perch.

She recognized me and the dice roll of jade green eyes indicated my lack of social progress had not disappointed her low expectations for a punk poet.

“No, she hasn’t forgotten.” Danny laughed at my pained expression, as Vadim, Lisa and Arthur disappeared into the office.
Right before our lunch break, Lisa and Vadim exited from the office.

She covered her mouth with a scarf.

Vadim shielded his a thick hand and they left the site without a glance in our direction.

By 4pm the ceiling had been replaced and Arthur called it a day.

As the rest of the crew filed from the club, Arthur pulled me aside.

“This isn’t going to be a problem?”

“What?” I played dumb.

“You and Vadim’s girlfriend.” He was serious. Émigré Russians from Odessa were notoriously violent.

“Lisa?”

Over the past year her name had floated in my mind a million times.

This was the first time I had said it.

“No, she’s nothing to me.”

“Good, then stay away from her.” He lifted a finger. “Vadim is a piece of work.”

Obeying his advice wasn’t hard.

On every visit Lisa ignored me and I couldn’t blame her.

I was a failed poet at 28.

The International might change my status. Three months as the doorman would earn $5000 in tips and salary. That amount could finance a winter in Maine to write my first novel about a free love community in the 1840s.

WATCHIC POND was destined to garner the best-sellers lists. The world would worship my words and Lisa would return to my arms. Self-delusion rarely offers the true options.

Two weeks after Labor Day the Continental opened its door without a liquor license. Limos lined West 25th Street well past dawn, as models, actresses, and strippers dancing with abandon to the city’s best DJs. Movie stars snorted coke with two-bit dealers and national politicians seduced Amazonian TVs on pop-art sofas. The club was an immediate success.

Few revelers cared about the illegality of an after-hours club. Everyone knew that the police were on the take. Some people were always on the list. Sanitation inspectors glommed drinks with big-hair wives, plainclothes cops strong-armed bribes, and Jimmie Fats siphoned the cash cow for the firemen.

Greed blinded the bagmen to Arthur’s wearing a wire for Internal Affairs and the FBI investigating our Russian investor for counterfeit twenties. A myopia from $50 tips blotted out my better judgment.
By Halloween I had my $5000. $5000 became $6000 by mid-November. Vadim sold his share to three men in cheap suits. He still hung around the club, because no one wanted to go anywhere else after hours.

“I thought you were leaving town,” asked Arthur, as the month near its end.

“I don’t know where to go.” Wintering in Maine had lost its appeal. So had leaving.

“Anyplace, but here.” Arthur nodded at our new partners. They looked like cops.

“I’ll leave after Christmas.” Another month was worth $3000.

“Don’t wait too long.” He was trying to tell me something only I wasn’t listening as long as Lisa’s Nordic profile, blonde hair and sculptured shoulders dogged my peripheral vision.

She was a siren and to other men as well.

Vadim’s bodyguards exhibited violent Slavic etiquette to these suitors in the alley. The previous week one of them had punched Danny and broken his nose. My obsession rejected fear and I cornered Lisa once, when Vadim was out of town.

“All I want is explanation.” It was Thanksgiving.

The anniversary of her departure.

“Of what?” She had embraced the comfort of amnesia.

“Why you left and never came back.” I had told myself a thousand excuses. None of them added up to one plus one equaling two.

“If I explained that, then I would have to tell you everything.”

She looked through me, as if I were clear glass and said wearily walking away, “Sometimes you don’t get answers.”

I stood there for several seconds.

I hadn’t foreseen that answer.

Arthur came up to me.

“I told you to stay away. It was for your own good.”

“No one listens to anyone’s advice after hearing their own lies.”

I went to the door.

Snow was falling on the street. I let everyone into the club. Many of them tipped me $20. A few gave me C-notes. I didn’t bother to count it.

Money meant nothing, especially since Lisa’s neglect was a game and she chose to exploit a pawn in December.

To continue reading IN ABSENCE OF AMNESIA by Peter Nolan Smith: to purchase this tale of love for $2.99, please go to the following URL

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JQSIZZ4/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

Full moon over the Greenwich Hills

Full moon over the Greenwich Hills. The mansions’ windows shine with TV blue I arrive at the estate’s small house with a pint of vodka $8 and a bottle of lemonade. I check the fires. Tonight the moon is Full and silver. I stand on the long lawn and drop my trousers No one is at the mansion I squat low I don’t need to grunt Shitting on a rich man’s lawn comes so easy A dog barks from the kennel His friends bark too They smell my shit It’s real shit They bark like mad I stand I pull up my jeans I haven’t changed clothes in three days To me I don’t smell dirty The dogs howl at me and I howl at the moon I walk back to the small house Next summer this grass will be tall From my drop But tomorrow the shit will freeze with the morning And the hills of Greenwich will be quieter, Because The dogs will not bark at cold shit.

Route 66 - Charles Brown

Full moon. A gulfstream slipping into the sky. Clipping a cloud. The silence of Round Hill Road. The mutter of a highway in the distance. Cars going nowhere, but nowhere is our destination. From one day to the next and none of the passengers listen to Charles Brown.

ROUTE 66 by Charles Brown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_U5FJQkgH8

Is Rick Perry A Sword Swallower

One way to attack a corn dog is like you were in a backroom of a Dallas men's bar.

Deep throating.

Only.

Proof Michelle Bachman is a tranny.

Does Rick Perry Really Need Glasses?

President-Elect Donald Trump declared that Rick Perry of Texas was his # 1 choice for Energy Czar. The former governor worked on his family's cotton farm after a seven-year stint flying US Air Force flying C-130.

His degree from Texas A&M was in Animal Science and when the Supreme Court voided Texas's anti-sodomy law, Perry said: "I'm not taking the bar exam ... I don't know what a lot of legal cases involve ... My position on traditional marriage is clear.... I don't need a federal law case to explain it to me."

Perry is a Christian.

I don't have much respect for Bible Thumpers and Rick Perry understood that people regarded Snake-Eaters with scorn and started wearing glasses to appear a little more intellectual. Being myopic I am outraged by his usurping our ailment for political purposes, then again previously he might have been wearing contact lenses and I hate them.

They totally fuck up your eyes, which are the mirrors to our souls.

And so said Audrey Hepburn.

Audrey knew how to wear glasses.

Russian Supermodel Copycats Pattaya Farangs

Pattaya probably leads the world for most suicides by tourists. Every week the city's newspapers report another fatal plunge from a condo balcony. No one ever calls for the landlords to place a sticker on the railing saying, "Falls from this height could be dangerous." because the suicides are usually considered to be losers, however in 2008 this theory was disproved by a super-model's death leap from a Manhattan apartment building.

Ruslana Korshunova had been discovered as a 16 year-old by an insightful photographer. Vogue had called her the next big thing. The twenty year-old had earned big money.

Fame and fortune aren't everything.

One night she watched the movie GHOST with an ex-boyfriend. He left her at 5am. No one spoke to her again and the NYPD reported his death by jumping from her terrace.

Family and friends are astounded by her death.

"She was on top of the world."

New York Post and Daily News paint the blonde as desperate for love, but her emails were normal epistles from a girl wanting what all girls want.

"Love is the sun, desire - only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life."

This doesn't sound like someone who wanted to kill herself and I questioned this suicide as I do all those in Pattaya, because most suicides leave a note.

My Pattaya girlfriend, Jai, tried to kill herself when I ordered her to leave after she pawned the refrigerator to give money to her 'brother'. She slashed her arms with broken glass. It was an act. Her wrists bore the scars of previous dramas. I let her stay because I had a soft heart. She wrote no suicide note and neither did Ruslana.

If only I had been there for her.

I would have saved her.

If I could.

Thai Impotency hit 40% - Europe 50% - USA 80%

"Fear is the first time you can get an erection for the second time. Terror is the second time you can't get it up for the first time."

New Year's Eve 1980. NYC. 6am-5pm Jan.2. I played domino with three girls in fur bikinis and a PR ye-ho dealer. Mario of 'Mario can you get me into Studio' fame. The windows were glazed with aluminum foil against the progression of time. I left with the prettiest of the girls.

Nina.

I wanted to make love with her for months. We shared the same last name. It was almost incest.

Except I couldn't get it up.

Cock-blocked by coke.

Several years later I stopped in LA.

On the way to Asia.

Nina was living there. High-power stylist. In with the in crowd.

We went out. We drank. We didn't make it to a hotel.

Just a car.

Once more I suffered softitis as extreme was Michelangelo's David.

"She told me it happens to men."

"Not to me. Not with you."

"Don't worry. It's normal."

But it wasn't. Nina snitched about my no-show to her girlfriends, who told the tale till every woman in America had heard, "He don't got game."

Cursed.

But I'm not alone.

Every day millions of men over 40 are stricken by penile dysfunction.

Thailand 30%. Europe 50%. The USA 80%.

No one is having children in Europe and American men are too fat to have sex with even fatter women. Thai men are only impotent because they drink too much.

Impotency tends to get blamed on such diseases as diabetes and heart conditions along with stress and anxiety, however perfectly healthy men finds themselves short of testerone at the moment of truth and have to fake a headache or worst a hangover to avoid the shame of not getting it up.

Of course in America this failure rarely gets faulted to the obesity of the female or in Thailand that the women are shrews. This talk is banned by doctors and women alike, because for every beautiful woman there's a man down the street tired of having sex with her. Think about the men stuck with fat hags and skinny bitches. Almost enough to turn them gay, except thanks to the advances in DSL connections men around the world can find relief through XXX porno sites.

Viagra (real and fake), sperm load enhancers, and size enlargers are offered along with hair growth pills and online pornography.

From the spam ads sprouting on my email address I would almostbe afraid to unzip my fly at a Yankee stadium men's room, unless my penis was longer than John Holmes' schlong. I have personally tested over 200 different penis enlargement products and gained about 1mm of extra length. Strangely the only part of a man's body that doesn't gain size as he gets fatter is the penis. So I've resigned myself to never ever dropping my trousers and hearing a woman or man say, "Not with that you don't."

'Small penis syndrome' is another effect of watching too much porno, although those more polite people might refer to it as "genital body almost be".

Size size size and if it's not size then it's hardness and I've tried chemical libido aids. Cialis is much more preferable to Viagra, since blue boys' side effects produce pounding headaches and hot flashes like you're entering terminal stages of male menopause.

The drug companies have been raking in billions with blue boys and the like. No one is talking about the dangers. It's rumored that scores of westerners are brought to the Pattaya hospitals monthly with heart attacks due to over-doing their exercises.

Mostly push-ups on Soi 6.

Worst than Blue boys are the Indian gels.

A friend of mine swore by the gels and he now complains about his eyesight failing and the doctor said it was from the capillaries being expanded by these gels. Most doctors in Thailand are specialists so if it wasn't an eye doctors then there is a good chance the MD didn't know what he was talking about, still it's a concern.

Personally I don't fancy touring the fleshpots of the world with a Seeing Eye dog.

Not being bald I've focused my last effort of increasing my money shot, because some of these XXX studs can dump buckets of sperm into the eager mouths of wanton western world.

There seems to be millions of these harlots on the internet, yet none in America. Accordingly a recent study reported that 60% of US males spend 2-3 hours a night before a computer screen downloading porno. The sicker the better for flogging the dolphin, yet this year for the first time the industry experienced a drop in sales.

Impotency has hit masturbation too.

Will they resort to the Chinese cuisine of virility?

Chinese will eat anything to achieve potency. Monkey brains, crocodiles penises, tiger balls, and bear spleens without ever taking into consideration that there are 100 million more men in China than women.

Once more it's to the computer screen.

Except in Pattaya where someone is always willing to take you on for a price.

Whatever you do be careful with these marital aids.

Blindness or impotency.

That's the gamble

But most men think so much about sex that when they get the chance to have sex they freeze up unless the circumstances mirror their fantasies. Comes from watching too much porno. Adonia. The inability to experience pleasure. And this is in Thailand where everything is available. What hope is there for the UK? Or America? It's surprising they even have children.

Amazing that men have so much trouble performing what comes so natural to other animals if the female is in the mood. I was back in the States recently and asked my friends when the last time they had sex and none of them said within a month. Few hadn't for six months. And this had nothing to do with dysfunction.

They had lost interest.

Except for when they are on the internet surfing porn

But they wouldn't admit to that malaise.

I only suffer no wood when I'm with someone I don't really desire, especially if sex is an after-thought to drinking. All night you drink beer and the blood goes to your stomach. You go home. Your wife takes one look at you and says, "You have to be kidding."

Not exactly motivation for an erection. Then you look in the mirror. You drunk idiot. More negativity. And you sit in front of the TV rather than face your wife or girlfriend.

End of story.

AT FIRST SIGHT by Peter Nolan Smith

1979 was a great year to live in New York. I wrote poems about the Bowery and worked at the city’s #1 punk disco. My girlfriend was a beautiful blonde model from Buffalo. Lisa preferred to hang out at Studio 54 than my club Hurrah, saying, "Being seen there is good for my career.” She visited the star-studded disco with the 10th ranked tennis player in the world and came home at 4am, exhausted from dancing to Richie Kaczor’s I WILL SURVIVE. Models needed exposure. Lisa got that from the tennis player, but her hair smelled of another man’s cologne. I said nothing, for love can blind a man and sex can render him blinder.

Discos, nightclubs, fashion models, punk rock, drugs, and New York City were an intoxicating cocktail for a man in his early 20s. Girls came onto a punk poet everywhere, yet I remained faithful to Lisa, despite my friends hints at her infidelity and they had proof. The New York Post repeatedly published photos of Lisa with the tennis player.

"They’re just good friends."

No one bought that line, except for me.

During the day Lisa hunted jobs with photographers. I worked night. Our paths met on my bed. It was easy to believe she loved me.

At 4AM there was no TV. I read her poems of runaways, 42nd Street, and lost souls in the desert. She changed the channel with a welcoming caress and her talk of love after sex were too breathless to be lies for a fool.

Six months into our relationship Lisa was invited to an exclusive club opening.

Our punk disco’s owner wanted me to scout out the competition. Lisa was surprised when I asked to accompany her, but said, “It will be fun. We never go out at night.”

The club was opposite the Holland Tunnel. An unruly crowd clustered before the entrance. The doorman recognized me and waved us inside. Ten minutes later she was met by the tennis player. The Czech shook my hand and then kissed Lisa on the cheek. His lips slipped down to her neck. My fists clenched white, when he asked, “May I dance with Lisa?”

They danced to Blondie’s HEART OF GLASS and Amii Stewart’s LIGHT MY FIRE. They were a good couple on the dance floor. Everyone watched their every moves, except for a slender brunette surrounded by men. The woman possessed a beauty for the ages. Her admirers noticed her stare and jealously glared in my direction.

I put down my glass and walked across the dance floor, obeying her eyes silent command. I pushed through the men. My mouth went dry, but I didn’t need to speak.

The vision introduced herself, as if I should know her name, “I’m Gia.”

“Gia?” It sounded Italian.

"And you don't know me?"

"No."

She smiled at my ignorance and asked, “Good, do you want to dance?”

Without awaiting my answer she signaled the DJ to change the music and he segued to Chic’s GOOD TIMES.

No one else existed in the club and she whispered, “I like you.”

“Why?” Somehow she had reversed my age to 15, “Because your girlfriend is fucking someone else and you don’t care.”

Gia shattered into a kaleidoscopic blur and I craned my neck to find Lisa.

My dance companion stopped me with a finger to my lips

“I’m sure she will come back to you. Her fucking Vlad is only business.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m a model too.” She tilted her head to strike a Vogue pose.

Even without make-up she was a cover girl, which was everything Lisa wanted to be; paid $1000/hour to pose for top photographers and spread across glossy ads with her name on everyone’s lips.

Fame and fortune belong Gia for being beautiful and she knew it too. “You want to kiss me?”

The answer was yes, but Gia smiled with half-parted lips. She had good teeth.

“Your girlfriend is here.”

I turned around to face Lisa. Her anger wasn’t pretty and I said to Gia, “I’ll see you around.”
 Back at my place Lisa wanted to know everything Gia had said to me. I related the brief encounter numerous times like a prisoner in an interrogation cell. My story never changed in the telling, except I omitted the comment about her fucking the tennis player. Her secret not being a secret was my secret.

Lisa wasn’t satisfied with my version and neither was I, because given a few more minutes there was no telling what the two of us might have done.

“You know she’s a lesbian?” Women are experts at delivering a coup de grace to a fantasy.

“No, I didn’t know that.” I had no prejudices against women with women

“She was playing with you.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” I was guilty in thought rather than deed and Lisa began to stay out later with the tennis player.

My trust wavered each time she came back to my apartment with her clothing in a state of disarray. Her skin was marked with bruises, Her lips were swollen. She always had a good excuse for a missing button or torn seam and said, “Studio was crazy.”

Studio 54 was crazy, but not that crazy.

We were over, except for the sex twice a day always after a poem in bed.

Friends at the punk disco said to get rid of Lisa. I stopped reciting poetry and she moved back to her apartment on the Upper East Side. Our phone calls were short.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I couldn’t tell the truth.

“I’ll come over tonight.”

“Okay.”

After closing the club I walked to the East Village. I had a beer at the Nursery and breakfast at the Kiev. The sun rose slowly in the East. Only bums and addicts were on the streets.

Crossing 1st Avenue a red Fiat Spider ran the light.

I jumped back fast and felt the tug of the slipstream.

Another millimeter and its bumper would have broken my knees.

The convertible braked twenty yards away. The driver turned around in the seat. 
It was Gia.

Her smile mixed surprise with amusement. She waved for me to join her. I sat in the front seat.

“That was close.” Both hands were on the wheel. “You should watch where you’re going.”

“Wasn’t that a red light?”

“Yes, but I didn’t see it or you.” She shifted into first gear. “You have any place to go right now?”

“No.” My bed would have been a good destination, if no one was in it.

“Want to come over my place?” It was a silly question from the most beautiful woman in New York and

I said, “Yes.”

Gia drove like an F1 racer to her 4th Avenue apartment. She parked on the street without putting up the top on the Fiat.

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing to steal.”

We entered the apartment, passing one of her neighbors. He nodded as if I were the 12th man to come upstairs that night, but something about her told me that Gia had been with no one. The past months with Lisa had honed my perception about a man’s touch on a woman’s body.

She put on a Steely Dan song.

AJA.

The room smelled of expensive incense. The sofa caressed my body. She smelled even better than the incense. I wondered what her body looked like naked and then imagined even more.

“What were you doing out so late?”

“Work.” The club has closed 4 hours ago.

“More like wandering the streets like the lost.” Gia pulled out a packet of cocaine. “You want some?”

I nodded in submission to the dual allure, for she had read my soul as clearly as I had read her apathy to the touch of a man.

“I don’t do this usually, but it’s been a long week. My agent has me working every day. She says that I have to make as much money as I can, because my beauty will one day be gone.” She huffed a line. “My agent is also my lover. I don’t really like men”

“Oh.” My lurid fantasy disappeared with those words. We were only made to share drugs and rock and roll. Sex was reserved for someone else. She did most of the talking. I did most of the drugs. In the end she said, “You know I saw you’re girlfriend this evening.”

“At Studio 54?”

“Where else?” Gia shook her hair free and looked at her watch. She had a 9AM shooting. In another hour she would be late, but I had to ask, “You talk with her?”

“Only a little. I was wondering where you were. She said at an East Village apartment waiting for her. She really is beautiful.”

“But not like you.”

“Maybe just like me, only I have a name.”

“Gia.” Many models have made-up names like porno stars. Hers was hers. No one else could have her name.

“It’s my real one.” Gia was good at reading my mind and said, “You have to go. I have to work real soon.” She unbuttoned her shirt. It dropped to the floor. This was a dare.

“Sorry.” I could tell she wasn’t into this.

“Don’t be, but you think I’m beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“Everyone thinks that, but I wasn’t’ beautiful as a kid and I won’t be one day.”

“That day isn’t today.”

“I know, but do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Write me a poem one day. You’re girlfriend said you were good.”

“She did?” I couldn’t even type a straight line with five typos.

“Yes.”

“You got it. One poem. Maybe two.”

“One would be fine.”

I walked out of the apartment and then headed over to East 10th Street. Lisa was in my bed. She asked where I had been. I told her the truth.

“Did you have sex?”

Once more I told her the truth. She didn’t believe me and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t believe me either.

Lisa left for Europe in the Spring. I gave up on her return at summer’s end. She was gone for good.

I saw Gia at nightclubs.

Her entourage was three deep. They were sucking the life out of her, but she still graced the covers of magazines like Vogue, Elle, and Cosmos. None of her friends wanted to hear my poem about her. Gia waved from a distance. I kept mine.

Over the years telling people about my evening with Gia seemed like bragging, although I still look both ways crossing 1st Avenue and rewrite the same poem in my head

“After these many years with her beauty in a grave, Gia still looks across a crowded dance floor and her Sophia Loren eyes locked on mine. Her gaze stole my breath and I live on knowing Gia will never die, because I can hold my breath forever for beauty.”

One day I will finish this poem.

But not today.

HEADING SOUTH

Several years ago I watched Charlotte Rampling on the BBC. The actress had been a fantasy of mine after seeing THE NIGHT PORTER and the 60-year-old was promoting her new film by Laurent Cantent's HEADING SOUTH.

This movie featured a rare examination of sex, lust, and lust set in Haiti of the 1970s and Charlotte Rampling played a well-educated tourist frequenting a Caribbean resort for liaisons with young Haitian men.

Having lived in Pattaya I had grown accustomed to the sight of older men with younger women, but older western women have also taken up the trend of December-May relations as a fountain of youth, as long as you don’t look too closely at the reflection in the mirror, then you can get away with believing your lies.

While the West might frown on this difference of age between the sexes.

My sister-in-law called it obscene. My brother said it was a sin. Their daughter rightly protested their stances by saying neither of them turn their heads for someone their own age. They had once tried to fix me up with their friend. She was 40. I was 50. She was a great woman without the usual hang-ups. We had laughs but it never went anywhere. Later she met a man in her 60s and she said, “But he’s so old.”

Youth so wasted on the young, which is why someone older can offer a helping hand to a younger protege so both parties are get what they want and sometimes more, however the subject has seldom been explored from the viewpoint of a female other than a brief glimpse of tropical parity in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA when Ava Gardner vamps with her Mexican pendejos, although John Huston the director depicted her character as an aging nympho. I had thought of her as an early Mrs. Robinson and went to Puerto Vallarta to see that beach. The actual beach boys bragged about their exploits. Ava had done her research.

Sex for older women in America was mostly a memory and Ms. Rambling’s character, Ellen, stated, “If you’re over 40 and not as dumb as a fashion model, the only guys who are interested are natural born losers or husbands whose wives are cheating on them.’’

This movie sold a glimpse of paradise.

Which supposedly long longer existed in Haiti due to the country’s complete collapse. Wrong. I’ve heard of older women going there, Mozambique, Brazil, Angola, and Cuba. I have also seen these women in Bali and Lombok.

Slender men with large women.

Both happy in the trade off without asking too many question since languages get in the way of true understanding. During a long session of raki drinking I asked the Lombok boys how they could satisfy women twice or three times their size. To a man the beach boys raised their fists and pummeled the air like a jack hammer. They obviously had learned the technique from the same master.

Puritan people in the west will excoriate HEADING SOUTH as an anathema to Christian life and call the women with the Balinese beach boys names under their breath, however I think they have found the courage to achieve equality with men their own age who refuse to accept a life of utter loneliness in which no one ever touches anyone.

It’s an illusion, but better than the reality. And the motto is like Vegas 'Whatever happens here, stays here'. Older women aren’t going to get pregnant. They don’t have to fall in love. Except like the men coming to Pattaya, these women in HEADING SOUTH confuse lust for love.

It’s an easy thing to do in an age of no-love.

A Les Etoiles Fidel Castro

The son of a wealthy landowner, Fidel Castro betrayed Cuba's ruling class to overthrow President Bastista and on January 1, 1959 the MR-26-7 entered Havana to oust the last vestiges of a corrupt regime allied the the USA. Angered by the expulsion of United Fruits, ITT, and various American interests Washington placed an embargo on the island, yet despite this onerous penalty the Communists built houses for the poor, distributed land the the landless, educate the masses, and offered free health to every Cuban. Castro squashed any threat to his rule and the prisons filled with dissenters.

"¡Patria o Muerte!" was his battle cry.

The USSR gained a foothold in the Western Hemisphere leading to the Missile Crisis of 1962 and the export of revolution to Latin America and Africa. Castro tightened his grip on all facets of life and the Cuban people suffered from his excesses until the 90s when Fidel relaxed state control on the economy.

Last week Fidel died at the age of 90.

Millions of Cubans mourned his passing.

Millions more rejoiced his departure.

Fidel banned any streets, bridges, or public buildings from bearing his name.

The man was long-winded. His speeches lasted hours. He loved the sound of the revolution.

The roar of his people.

"A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past." Viva Fidel.

Mira Tibblin RIP

Paris is a magical city. Parisians boast about the French capitol as 'La Ville-Lumière' or City of Lights as much for its illumination as its well-deserved reputation for thought. I was lucky enough to have lived in Paris during the 80s. I learned the language, I ate the food, and I slept with the women. Some of my friends have opined that I was following the footsteps of Hemingway's Lost Generation, but the writer of THE MOVEABLE FEAST was not a city boy and I was not the writer of THE MOVEABLE FEAST. I worked at a nightclub as a physionomiste. I was part of the scenery. I knew the names of many women.

Mira Tibblin was a Swedish model. The tall brunette worked for Paris Planning. She had small breasts and a wicked laugh. We were intimate on more than one occasion. Her top-floor apartment in the Latin Quarter was a renovated maid's quarter with a view from the tiny window of other tiny windows.

Mira and I were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we share a mutual attraction to the good in life, even if some of them were bad. Neither of us asked too many questions. She traveled most of the week and I worked most of the weekends. Her friend, the model from South Africa, said that we made a good couple.

"How can we be good, if both of us are bad?"

"Simple math. Two negatives make a positive." The model from South Africa had more going for her than beauty as did Mira.

One winter night we returned to her apartment late. It was cold and she turned on the electrical heater before we buried our naked bodies underneath a thick duvet. Mira wanted me bad and I wanted her the same. Our foreplay lasted less than a minute and the heat of our passion made me throw off the duvet. I repeated my thrusts with the speed of a 78 rpm record skipping a beat. She cried out for more. I gave it to her, then she started screaming. I tried harder to please her, except she pushed me off her, for the duvet was on fire. I put it out and she held the charred remains in her hands.

"That was an 8000 francs duvet."

"Oh." Something told me that she expected me to pay for it.

I never did, but she said nothing bad about me and today I was saddened to hear that Mira was remaining behind in the Here-Before, as her friends and family forge through the Here-Now into the Here-After.

"Hyvää onnea!"

She was a true princess of beauty.

The photo of Mira, Lagerfeld, and me is by Dustin Pittman

Cleaver Penis Pants

The 1960s revolutionary Eldridge Cleaver had a troubled youth in LA, but a rape spree earned the 18 year-old a long sentence to San Quentin and Folsom prisons. His book SOUL ON ICE was published by Ramparts Magazine. Controversy followed his stating that he initially raped black women in the ghetto “for practice” and then embarked on the rape spree of white women, describing these crimes as politically inspired, motivated by a genuine conviction that the rape of white women was “an insurrectionary act”

Cleaver never expressed any contrition for these crimes and upon his 1968 release from prison he joined the Black Panthers as Minister of Information. A failed ambush of police officers in Oakland forced him to flee the country to Cuba and then Algeria. Cleaver returned the States in 1975 after his conversion to born-again evangelism and many within the radical movement questioned whether Cleaver had been police plant within the Black Panthers.

While in exile in France Cleaver tried his hand at fashion, inventing the penis pants, which had a codpiece for a man’s cock to hang out of his trousers in a sox.

“I want to solve the problem of the fig-leaf mentality. Clothing is an extension of the fig leaf — it put our sex inside our bodies. My pants put sex back where it should be.”

I can’t recall anyone wearing one.

Certainly the police have never mentioned them when looking for rapists, although a few years ago Bas Kosters Studio are selling penis leggings for women costing $151. The print has thousands of penises on them and are a little square in comparison to Clever’s penis pants.

Their website noted that they are “also available for men.”

I'm not into leggings and wish I had a pair of the Cleaver Classics, but none were for sale on Ebay, meaning either that no one bought them or anyone who has them isn’t through with them yet.

Classic.

ON THE SOUTH SHORE: From Neponset to Nantasket - Kindle Edition

I was lucky enough to live through the 1960s as a teenager on the South Shore of Boston.

Home was still home to us.

My friends and I led charmed lives at the Quincy Quarries, Surf Nantasket, and Wollaston Beach

ON THE SOUTH SHORE recounts those lives.

The time was short, but retelling these tales brings back those years, if only for a moment.

They were good ones on the South Shore.

EXCERPT from GAY BOY

That next fall my parents were happy and my mother gained weight like she was storing fat for a harsh winter. As her belly grew beyond belief I wondered if she was ever going to stop eating, since Frank and I usually received any leftover cake.

The leaves changed color in October and in November JFK beat Richard Nixon to become the first Catholic president. The cold weather arrived in December and Pearl Harbor Day 1960 dawned with a hoary frost topping the fields south of the Neponset River.

During lunch my 3rd Grade class stared out the windows at sullen northern clouds. We ate our sandwiches in silence. The nuns believed that Jesus barely spoke during his Agony on the Cross and their students were expected to follow his example in thought and deed.

A shrill bell signaled recess and the classes boiled from the school into the sub-freezing temperature. Standing still on the icy asphalt meant frozen feet, so the girls skipped tattered ropes, while the boys kicked misshapen balls around the rear parking lot.

Right before the end of the play period our station wagon rolled down the school’s driveway and Chuckie joked, “Here comes the jail truck from Billerica Reform School.”

Having endured endless ribbing about the metal bars across the windows of the station wagon from family and friends, neither my brother nor I laughed with our classmates. Funny was for other people, but my father got out of the car with a broad smile.

Mother Superior demanded with a sense of command backed by the Church, “What are you doing here?”

In her mind a man’s place at this hour was at his job, because at this hour we belonged to her.

“I want to speak to my boys.” He waved for us to come closer.

“Impossible” Mother Superior expected obedience from adults as well as children. “No.” My father had been brought up in Maine and he confirmed that his authority superseded the Church by telling us, “You mother had a baby boy.”

“We have a baby brother?” Frunk was confused and so was I.

“You didn’t know your mother was having a baby?”

“I thought Mom was getting fat.” Any woman would have gained weight from her recent feeding frenzy.

“She was fat with your baby brother. We’re going to see him.”

“You can’t disrupt the school day like this.” Steam fumed from Mother Superior’s dragon beak.

“They’ll make it up at Church this Sunday.”

As a convert to the faith he was immune to the nun’s wrath, but my brother asked timidly, “What about our books?”

“No one does homework on Baby Day.” My father waved to my sisters and they ran over to us.

“They’re going to the hospital to see their mother.”

“Is Mom okay?” I asked with concern.

“She’s fine. Let’s go.”

We piled in the car and he drove to Beth Israel Hospital, humming IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK ALOT LIKE CHRISTMAS.

“This is not a playground,” my father said entering the hospital. The lobby smelled cleaner than our house.

“Yes, sir.”

“I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

“Yes, sir.” Our submission to our elders was complete.

We filed one by one into the private room in Richardson House.

My mother lay on a bed with a small baby on her chest. My Nana held our now second youngest brother, Padraic. A white uniformed nurse sat on a chair reading the Record-American. We stood around the bed. Our new brother was very pink.

“He weighs seven pounds.” My father touched the small body and his little fingers squirmed like spring worms rising from the earth. We were a bigger family by one and each of us smiled with a shared happiness.

My parents named their sixth child after my grandmother’s uncle. The young priest had met the fourteen year-old girl off the boat from Ireland and placed Nana in a Salem household staff. My grandmother had danced with our grandfather at a church outing in Marblehead.

In my mother’s mind our next two generations owed their existence to Uncle Mike and she prayed that at least one of us might take up the Cloth to return the favor. I didn’t have the heart to confess my atheism.

Those first months Michael was a miracle and I rushed home from school to feed, bathe, and rock the tiny creature in a cradle from my grandmother’s house in Maine. After having six kids in eight years my mother was grateful for my assistance, however this peaceful period ended with his first bout of infantile teething.

My mother and I sang him GOLDMINE IN THE SKY a thousand times. His bawling destroyed our attempts at harmony. One day Michael fell asleep and we sat on the bed in relief. The support struts creaked under our weight and his unearthly howl filled the bedroom. He seemed shocked for a second, then smiled before drifting into a blessed slumber.

That was as bad as it got.

Michael was very special.

To read more of ON THE SOUTH SHORE, please go to Kindle Direct at this URL

www.amazon.com/dp/B00CA51TA8

A time machine to the past.

Trump To Taiwan

The Communist army under Mao defeated the Nationalists and on 7 December 1949 Chiang Kai-shek ordered the evacuation of his government, the gold reserves, priceless art, and his KMT army to the southern island of Taiwan. The USA and its allies recognized Taiwan as the Republic of China, however Nixon's trips to Peking normalized diplomatic relationship between the two superpowers and The KMT republic became an outlaw state ousted from the UN in 1971.

Since then communications between theTaiwan and the USA have been conducted through back channels such as the Vatican, however this week President-Elect Donald Trump accepted a phone call from the Taiwanese leader and the Republic of China complained about this breach of policy aimed at confronting China as a economic and military enemy of America. Trump poopoo-ed the criticisms despite his hotel interests on the island.

His vice presidential choice Mike Pence exclaimed on MEET THE PRESS, “I think most Americans and frankly most leaders around the world know this for what it was. And it’s all part and parcel. I think you’re going to see in a President Donald Trump a willingness to engage the world but engage the world on America’s terms.”

Of course this phone call could be a card to play in his upcoming negotiations with China.

He wants to show he ain't playing by the same rules of One China as yesterday.

He's the new Maddog on the loose.

And he knows his pu pu platters.

General Tso RIP

As a young child in the 1950s the most exotic food in portland, Maine was Italian food. Every Sunday night my father drove into the city and brought home a pizza and antipasto salad. Otherwise the port city offered a wide range of fish. It wasn't until our family moved to the South Shore of Boston that my brothers and sisters first ate Chinese food.

Not IN Chinatown near South Station, but a restaurant in Randolph, Mass.

The name escapes my memory, but I loved the Oriental decor and the Polynesian poo-poo platter of spare ribs, fried chicken, egg rolls, and pork slices surrounding a decorative volcano with a sterno can providing the flames. My father introduced us to chow mein, fried rice, and other savory dishes. WE ate at the Pu Pu Palace for years, never realizing the cuisine had been tamed for white people.

Over the years I've dined on Chinese food in Boston, New York, LA, Miami, London, Paris, Hamburg, Chengdu, Kumming, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Some good.

Some average.

Always edible.

My favorite dish has been General Tso's chicken named after Zuo Zongtang, a military leader from Hunan Province, although no one from that province has ever heard of the spicy chicken dish, since chef Peng invented General Tso's chicken at his a New York restaurant in 1977.

Delicious.

Sadly chef Peng passed away this weekend in unnan.

Unknown to many, but loved by all who love General Tso's chicken.

He was 99.

Donald Trump's Grreat

Donald Trump touched his followers with his promise of leading America to greatness and his election to the White House shocked his Democratic opponents. The actual vote gave the plurality to the former Secretary of State, despite the suspect results from the electronic voting machines. Hillary Clinton accepted the results and her supporters cried at the defeat. Emboldened by Trump's success the far right wing of the USA has risen from the ashes and the president-elect has been rewarding the loyalty of team players with prospective cabinet positions.

The list is scary.

But I'm not scared, because I have seceded from these next four years to cast my support from the opposition left of the Democrats.

They are no better than Trump.

And with few exceptions never will be.

Down with Trump.

The sooner the better.

And what about his plans for the White House decor.

After all Donald stole his campaign motto from Tony the Tiger.

Making America grrreat.

A Walk On A Bridge

On a grey November afternoon I was not in the best of moods. I hid my sadness with smiles and buried my sorrow with alcohol.

Life was hardly worth living.

I hadn't seen my children for over a year. I missed them more and more with each passing day.

Especially little Fenway.

And Angie.

They were growing up without me.

The hurt wouldn't go away. An inner voice spoke a dangerous language. It only had one word.

I looked out my window. Condos along Fulton Avenue blocked my view to the west. Thailand and my family lay on the other side of the world. I hadn't left my room in three days.

My phone rang.

I answered hoping it was a job lead.

Instead it was Shannon, my old basketball friend. We hadn't played in a long time.

My legs were gone.

"You wan to join me for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We can have lunch in Chinatown."

"I don't know."

"My treat."

Shannon knew my weakness for a free meal and agreed to meet at the Masonic Temple in Fort Greene.

"Ten minutes." We lived close to each other. Shannon with his wife. Me all alone.

Seeing a friendly face was a good thing.

"So we were walking across the bridge?" I pointed up. The sky was darker than before.

"You scared of a little rain?"

"No." We were both dressed for the weather, although I was wearing sandals instead of boots.

"Then let's go."

"How's work?"

"I don't have any work." I had been laid off from the Plaza store. "No one's buying jewelry."

"Any idea why?"

Millions of dollars of diamonds and gems sat in the window.

"My old profession is dying in the new century, but enough talk of business, let's walk."

The Brooklyn Bridge was thirty minutes from Fort Greene. Shannon and I spoke of the past.

Basketball games, fights, and long-gone loves, then he broached a forbidden subject.

"When are you going to Thailand?"

"No time soon." I was living on food stamps and all my money went to my family. I was lucky to spend $40 a day. "I don't know when I'll get there."

"One day you will."

He knew how much I loved my kids.

Shannon had suggested the name 'Fenway' for my son. I had checked online for Fenway Smith. Surprisingly I found none.

"You know I was walking down Lafayette the other day and ran into a guy with a dog wearing a Red Sox hat. I asked him his dog's name. He said, "Fenway." Now I realized why people don't call their kids 'Fenway'. They call their dogs 'Fenway'.

"Sorry." Shannon was a Yankee fan, but a good friend and I said, "I still like the name."

We had reached the pedestrian pathway and climbed onto the bridge.

Few tourists braved the damp mist. Shannon was a faster walker. I lingered at the railing. The height of the wooden walkway was 132 over the water. A thick obscured the city's inner harbor. Its thick grey matched the color of my heart. The dangerous language repeated the only word in its vocabulary, as the wind strummed the steel cables and the grated roadway hummed with traffic.

I thought of Hart Crane's poem about the wind and struggled to recall The Bridge.

One line stuck in my head.

"Under thy shadow by the piers I waited Only in darkness is thy shadow clear."

Darkness was my only friend.

Hart Crane had jumped or drunken sailors had thrown the gay poet off the bow of Orizaba. He drowned in the Caribbean, confirming his prediction.

"The bottom of the sea is cruel."

The height of the bridge was ruthless and the tide said the word.

"Jump."

Shannon looked at me. He read my eyes and said, "The fog leans one last moment on the sill. Under the mistletoe of dreams, a star — As though to join us at some distant hill — Turns in the waking west and goes to sleep.

Shannon had read Crane too.

The poetry mirrored my soul, but Shannon was too far away to stop me other to say, "Fenway."

I didn't budge.

He said another name.

"Angie."

My mother was an Angie.

She was in after-life, but my daughter was here now.

Thousands of miles away, but there same as Fenway.

Shannon shrugged.

He was not playing fair.

Not with my life on the line.

We were standing underneath City Hall.

Are you okay?"

"Better."

"Just remember you have something to live for?"

"I know."

"Bringing Fenway to Fenway Park".

"I'm sure he'd like that."

"Tough getting swept by the Indians in the playoffs." Shannon really was a Yankee fan, but they hadn't been to the World Series since 2009.

"I really touched by your concern."

"Shall we have a drink at your bar."

"The 169."

I was friends with the afternoon bartender.

"We deserve a beer after that walk."

"It'll be good to be off the bridge."

Because I still had places to go.

We had more than one beer.

The 169 had pretty lights.

And pretty lights kept away the darkness.

For sleep and dreams of jumping off a low bridge into the Charles River.

The Charles