David Bowie and Cher meet Sha Na Na

My friend Keith and I share mutual musical tastes and this week he posted a Youtube video of David Bowie singing with Cher. Keith had actually seen the Ziggy Stardust tour. I missed it for a stupid reason.

My girlfriend at the time was 26.

Linda was a junior exec in my father's office.

A sleek divorcee wearing french lingerie.

For my birthday she offered to take me to the Ziggy Stardust tour. I picked Sha-na-na instead. Linda left me at the end of the summer, saying the only reason she had slept with me was because my father would not and that Bowser of Sha-Na-Na was more my type than the Thin White Duke?

She knew me oh too well.

BEATEN BY BLONDIE by Peter Nolan Smith

Two boys bullied me the last year of grammar school on the South Shore. The daily beating were witnessed by friends and classmates. Joe Tully and Mark Scanlon were not in good shape. Exhausted after a few minutes they stopped and everyone wandered home to watch WHERE THE ACTION IS.

No one ever tried to stop them.

I carried those scars into my teenage years and beyond.

I fought countless times in Boston.

Nothing stopped me.

Not victories.

Not defeats.

I had a chip on my shoulder, but for the most part I protected the weak.

Fags, women, blacks, jews.

I was no superhero.

Just that if I fought that much, it looked better, if it was for a good cause.

This behavior scared women.

None more than my precious Alice from West Virginia.

In 1978 we lived together in the East Village.

Punks, artists, artists.

Alice's eyes were two colors.

Actually more than two, counting the sparks of gold, agate, and emerald.

Her skin was as smooth as Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton's moonshine.

I was more than in love, but my violent streak was an obstacle to peace in the valley of East 10th Street.

Never against her.

But she saw me at my worst.

Her gay friends considered me rough trade.

Her girlfriends thought of me as a Neanderthal.

They weren't 100% wrong.

I liked a fight for a good cause.

I liked them for bad ones too.

Against all odds.

In the end it was against a fight against my hometown bullies, Joe Tully and Mark Scallon.

In the winter of 1978 Alice and her friends organized THE NEW WAVE VAUDEVILLE SHOW at Irving Plaza.

Klaus Nomi was the headliner along with a horde of starry-eyed rockers and artists.

I was asked to be the securit with my friends.

None of us were paid, but we were guaranteed free drinks.

The night of the show started slow, but by midnight the auditorium on Irving Place was packed with new wave affectionados. Klaus killed the crowd. He was a star.

At the end of the stage lights came up, signaling time to go home.

I went from table to table telling the guests that they didn't have to go home, but they couldn't stay here.

The rest of the security was guzzling liquor at the back bar.

Alice and her friends were flush with achieving glory for an evening and tomorrow promised more with the B-52s headlining the show.

Only one table remained and I approached the four rockers, telling the same thing as I had to the lingerers.

They didn't like what they heard and a thin-haired guy in glasses asked, "Do you know who I am?"

I had seen him someplace, but had to say, "No."

"We're Blondie and we're not going anywhere."

"Blondie? I had seen them several times at CBGBs. I liked them and said, "It's been a long night. Just do me a favor and finish your drinks."

I turned to walk away, but he grabbed my shoulder. I shucked off his grip and slapped the beer out of his hand.

"Just leave, you cunts. You guys suck."

I was no music critic and they attacked me as if one of them had said, "One two three four."

I seized the forelock of the rocker in the glasses and whacked him in the face.

He backed away and I found myself with a hank of hair in my hand.

After that I was buried underneath them and their roadies.

Not a fair fight.

I was used to those.

Alice wasn't there when I got to my feet.

I had trouble breathing.

Two of my ribs were broken.

I returned to our apartment on East 10th Street and lay on the futon wheezing.

I coughed a little blood.

Nothing serious.

Alice show up at dawn.

She sat in the kitchen.

"A good night."

"Yes, but you had to ruin it all. Blondie wants to play, but both them and the B-52s won't perform if you're there."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, the show must go on."

That morning we slept in separate beds.

Alice left for the show before sunset without saying a word. I wandered north to Irving Plaza and drank in the Polish Bar beneath Irving Plaza.

The Poles toasted me.

I toasted them back.

"Na Zdrowie!" I coughed with pain

I spit up blood for the next two days.

HEART OF GLASS rode the charts to # 1.

I should have sued the band for a hundred-thousand.

Sadly I wasn't that type of guy.

Fighters never are.

We win.

We lose.

We never cry.

Never.

B52s Over The Gulf

Something about Iran has pissed off America since the Tehran Embassy takeout of 1979 and Trump's support group of CIA director Pompeo and NSC John 'the Walrus' Bolton have cheerled a confrontation of Persia to prove our resolve to Saudi Arabia's Genocidal War on Justice.

The mainstream media has been dedicated to selling the fear of the Shiite Nuclear threat based on Israeli intelligence.

Sounds like Iraq II all over again.

Here comes Shock and Awe.

Via B52s built between 1952 and 1962. 76 of these old carpet bombers remain in active service. They might be serviceable into 2040.

Their bombs killed thousands in Indochina.

Target North Vietnam.

If the weather was bad, the B52s dropped their loads on the jungles of Laos.

Death from above and today is no different. No bombs landed on it target. Bomb blasts are 150 meters wide. Bombardiers target a crossfire. They never think about who existed below them.

Death from above.

And for what?

To preserve death.

Free Goliath.

Doris Day RIP

Everyone's life is finally seized by the twilight and yesterday the movie actress Doris Day was promoted to the stars.

The Cincinnati native sought to be a dancer. A car accident curtailed that dream, however during the recovery the fifteen year-old discovered an unknown talent. "I used to while away a lot of time listening to the radio, sometimes singing along with the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller", she told A.E. Hotchner, one of her biographers. "But the one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words."

Her first professional gig was at Charlie Yee's Shanghai Inn, where her voice attracted the attention of orchestra leader Barney Rapp, who suggested the blonde songbird drop the name Kappelhoff in favor of Day. It was all up from there.

She was America's sweetheart.

Clean, blonde, and white.

She was no square no matter how her publicist painted her image.

Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH was one of the few movies the Sisters Of The Foothills played on special movie days.

Doris Day was pure.

She was friends with Rock Hudson.

Day stayed with Rock to the end.

She wasn't perfect.

Who is?

Doris Day in the 50s was a goddess of the American Dream.

Then again so was Marilyn Monroe.

Not to mention Lena Horne.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME

Walking Street was crowded with drunken marines, dok thongs, Englishmen on Ecstasy, tattooed go-go girls, shouting Arabs, Amazonian transvestites, and wide-eyed Chinese tourists. These diverse groups threaded through the gauntlet of dueling music from various beer bars and discos. The heat was driving everyone insane and alcohol was behind the wheel. The collective madness left me in the dust and I realized vengeance was better suited for the Bible. All I really wanted was a cold beer.

Sam Royalle was at Hot Tuna with his wife.

"How's it going?" Sam Royalle glowed with love.

"Everything is fine." I resisted asking, if they had seen Ae.

They would never have said yes or no, for a strange etiquette in Pattaya is that no one ever snitches, if someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend is with someone else.

I ordered a beer. It went fast. The next three disappeared even faster. Two tequilas and a whiskey broke my laughter dam. I played snooker against Pi-ek, the owner, and beat him three games to none. The most beautiful girl in the bar invited me to take her home. I was drunk enough to think it was for my looks.

Pi-ek nodded to warn of approaching danger and I turned to see Ae strut on high platform shoes into the bar. A hair stylist had affixed waist-long hair extensions. Her red satin short shorts left nothing to the imagination and a scarlet halter top covered her flat chest. Her nipples showed through the gauzy material. They were aroused by anger and she demanded, “Why you go with other lady?"

The free-lancer recognized her services for the evening were required elsewhere and fled the beer bar. I should have followed her, but this scene had been rehearsed too many times in my head to not let it play out with my body.

"She only friend."

I had heard someone tell me this before. I was too drunk to remember who.

"Why you not wait me?” Her eyes were on fire.

“Are you fucking mad?”

“Bah? I not crazy.” Ae spat with slurred hatred.

"Not crazy. I'll show you crazy."

A demon was demanding Ae’s sacrifice. The word murder strangely reversed into “Red rum.” Jack Nicholson had said something similar in THE SHINING and I remembered an editor of Heavy Metal magazine introducing me to the author as a fellow Mainiac.

Stephen King had sneered upon hearing I came from Falmouth Foresides, as if anything south of the Bath Iron Works wasn’t Maine. I never read his rip-offs of HP Lovecraft afterwards and wasn’t going to kill anyone with “Red rum” rummaging through my brain.

“You better go with your Italian.”

"You no love me no more?” She was surprised by my surrender.

If I kept my mouth shut, she might walk away, instead I said, “No, I don’t anymore.”

“Ko-hok.” She knew I was lying too and wheeled away onto onto Walking Street in triumph over another crushed heart.

"I'm not a liar."

"You lie me. You lie you too." She gave me the finger. People laughed at me. This scene was played out on Walking Street several times a night, if not more. My audience waited for the one of the two typical responses. The first was to beg her to forgive me, but I had done nothing wrong.

At least that's what I told myself, so I opted for reaction #2.

I grabbed my beer bottle from the bar.

Her Italian stood on the opposite sidewalk. His two friends were laughing at him and me and Ae. So were two transvestites. I didn't see the humor of the situation and drained my beer.

I was free of Ae. I bore no more responsibilities to her or her family. I was the God of my future.

"Good-bye."

"Fuck you, 'good-bye'. You not done me." She stuck out her tongue like a 12 year-old girl threatening to run away from home.

"Fuck you too." I chucked the beer bottle in her direction. The bottle shattered against the wall across the street. Ae ran to the Italian. He held her in his arms. It was the last thing I wanted in this world and it was all my fault.

Time hit fast-forward speed, when he charged the bar. His friends scrummed with Pi-Ek and Sam Royalle, plus several of the bar staff. The Italian threw an overhead punch. I partially blocked it with my forearm. His fist cracked on my cheek. He had a hard hand. Stars fluttered in my eyes. Ae stopped his second punch.

"Yet mung." Ae led him away from the bar. She had lose face, but if the police would show up if this altercation continued any longer and they would be looking for 'sin-bon' or tea money to squash any charges. That money was better in her pocket. She had a family to feed.

"I get you." The Italian was hot. I would have to watch my back until he left town. Once he and his friends accompanied Ae into the Marine Disco, I went over to Sam Royalle and Pi-ek.

"Why didn't you stop me from talking to her?"

"Mate, it's your problem." He ordered the bar a round of tequilas.

"Yes, never step between man and woman. Bad luck." Pi-ek was wise to the ways of Walking Street. “Good, you not hit her. You hit her and have big trouble with police. Expensive. Maybe go to hospital.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Ae’s brothers had killed fellow Thais for 5000 baht. My life was worth more than $125 and I kept telling myself that, as Ae staged several comebacks before finally leaving for Italy in late August. She appeared at my house for sex, while the Italian was at a disco. The hour was usually past midnight. She never stayed for more than an hour.

"Boyfriend smoke too much ganga. Sex not same you." Her body shone with sweat. A shadow against my white sheets. "I not finish with him. Finish with you every time."

"I know." It was a good lie and one I told myself was the truth listening to her pleas for more. Ae was a good actress and I was a better audience.

"I go soon." She didn't know the date.

"I'll miss you."

"Not yet. We do again."

She called two weeks later from the airport. Her plane was leaving in the afternoon.

"Please come get me. Take me back."

"Go outside and get a taxi."

"Can not do. He and friends watch me."

"Sorry." Three Italians versus me was bad odds. Ae actually coming back to me were even worst. I stayed where I was.

"Bonna fortuna."

Ae called me every day from Italy. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer. No one spoke Thai. The food was not spicy.

"Come get me, please."

I would hang up the phone before saying something I would regret, because while she might have left Pattaya, her soul was still in my heart. I went to a travel shop on Walking Street. The agent told me the cost of a ticket to Milan. I told him that I would think about it.

Coming out of the travel agency, I spotted Nu heading to work in her waitress outfit. I called her name. She didn't stop walking and I ran up to her.

"What's wrong?"

"I hear you and girlfriend fight." She shook her head.

“I’m an old fool."

"Big fool." Nu turned her head. Her eyes were filled with disappointment.

"I don't know why I did that. I wanted her to go. I did everything to make her go. It's almost like she did a magic spell on me."

"Magic?" This word stopped Nu from entering her restaurant.

"Yes, like love potion." The words to the Searcher's song LOVE POTION #9 rambled through my head.

"You drink something funny?" Nu was serious. Thais are big believers in magic. Ghosts too.

“I think so too.” The green liquid in the glass. “I drank this water once. It tasted bad. I saw a green stain on the glass."

"You drink aa-kom." She was horrified by this love potion. "Your girlfriend from Isaan. People from there have big magic. Not good magic. Bad magic."

"Do you know how to stop a love curse?”

“Have to have old lady make rice. She stand over rice and let sweat fall into rice. Then you eat. Love potion finished.”

“You’re joking?”

“No.”

Her next day off Nu brought an old lady at her apartment building to cook the rice and stand over the steaming pot. I thought they were joking, but both of them watched with interest as I drank the antidote. It tasted terrible. I didn’t sleep or eat two days, but afterwards I didn’t think about Ae.
In fact I didn't think about any of the women I had loved in my life.

This was good magic, except I still realized how much a fool I had been.

“Everyone can be a fool sometimes. Only all the time is bad.” Nu still refused any intimacy. “I have been a fool one time too. Maybe have big heart. Same you.”

We spoke about the potion, Ae, or us. Nu’s husband had left her for another woman and I wondered whether there were any happy endings in Thailand. She said, “Happy ending are good in movie. But only in cartoon.”

Nu accompanied me to Don Muang Airport, saying in Thai. “Thailand is very beautiful.”

“I’ll remember it that way.”

“Maybe you come back one day and you kiss me.”

It was sweet to hear after my year and a half with Ae. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll pray to Buddha you do.”

“Krup kuhn kap.” I wai-ed her, because she had smoothed over a rough spot in my soul. I couldn’t wait six month. Her lips were tender. The kiss was a short one.

My name was called for final boarding.

Nu smiled and I released her hand. I was going to America. Manny would hire me to sell diamonds for Christmas. Sherri would laugh about the love potion. Ms. Carolina would take me skiing. Maybe Bill could convince Monty to make a movie about the Italian Plan.

I would be back in Thailand for the New Year. All I wanted was a little love. It wasn’t too much to ask from life. Not in Pattaya or anywhere else in the world. Even for a fool, especially after being freed from a curse, then again everyone is a fool when it comes to love.

THAI GLOSSARY

AO, MAI AO - want, not want

A-RAI - what?

BAH - Mad

CHING CHING - True

CHOK DI - Good luck

DOK THONG - slut

FARANG - Westerner

FEN - Boyfriend

FIN - Opium

JEP-HOO- headache

JUM JAM Pawn shop

LAK KHUN love you

KHUN-GARH Old man<

KI shit

KO-HOK Liar

KOR-THOT sorry

KRUP KHUN KRAP Thank you

KWAII buffalo

Happy Mother's Day From Philly

I wish the bests to all the mother's in the world.

I love you all and nothing says I love my mother like the Intruders I'LL ALWAYS LOVE MY MOMMA.

Go to this URL to feel the love.

To hear the Intruders' I ALWAYS LOVED MY MOMMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GjxlguPYo0

May Day Thailand

Thailand has an amazing galaxy on public holidays, mostly religious or honoring the royal family history. Many farangs are befuddled by this unexplained cosmos, especially since the nation celebrates three different New Year's Days. Western, Chinese, and Thai. Today is a bank holiday in Thailand, but few Thais or westerners know the origin of this holiday. Originally May 1 was a pagan holiday for the first day of spring, although in a different month than the present Julian calendar. Peasants danced around the Maypole. The Catholic Church suppressed the pagan practice by naming May the month of Mary. As a child at parochial school the nuns would parade us around the church with the girls wearing white dresses and flowers in their hair. The boys had white jackets and slacks. Parents would take snapshots of their angelic children. Years later we abandoned this pious procession to march in the May Day protests against the Cambodian Bombings. 1969-1970. Washington, Kent State, Kissinger, Nixon talking to the protesters. May Day for the Left?honors?seven Haymarket anarchists executed for participation in Chicago's Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago.?? May?1?1886 was the start date for the 8-hour day. Big?business wasn't happy with this new law and workers staged a series of protests. Anarchists met in Haymarket?Square. The gathering was peaceful until someone threw a bomb into the police ranks, killing one officer. In the ensuing violence more died on both sides. Hence 'bombing-throwing anarchist' entered the American lexicon. The?subsequent trial of eight anarchists based the accusations on hearsay. Evidence revealing the involvement of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the bombing didn't prevent the death sentence for seven of the accused. Public pressure for leniency forced the?governor of Illinois to commute?the capital charges against two 'conspirators'. At court Louis Lingg, the accused bomber, protested that the bombs at the Haymarket were not his and even this prosecutor agreed with the anarchist. After sentencing the German-born revolutionary said, "I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words. When you shall have hanged us, then they Will do the bombthrowing! In this hope do I say to you, I despise you, I despise your order, your laws, your force propped authority. Hang me for it." On the eve of the execution Louis Lingg, an anarchist bomber, offed himself by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth. Mot likely the bomb was placed their by the Chicago The remaining four, Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were publicly hung, but not before they?sang the Marseillaise, the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. All eight were exonerated in 1893 and May 1 became a rally day for labor throughout the world, although in the USA it is called Loyalty Day. Thailand gives the day off to workers, 70% who have decent jobs say they are happy with their present situation. Others are less so. In?honor of the Haymarket martyrs I'm taking the day off too. Power to the people.

Cinco De Mayo

Ten years ago my brother-in-law and I left the cabin on Watchic Pond. My sister remained in the kitchen prepping for lunch. The bright spring sun had heated the morning and the thermometer nailed to a tall pine read 72F The morning put the dock in the lake in early May. The water temperature hovered around 62 and the sunny air was a warm 72 for Southern Maine, David and I waddled into the water with trepidation, but it wasn't so bad once we passed our waists.

Coming out both of us shook from the long immersion in the cold water. My sister ordered us to take hot showers and we obeyed her command. When we returned to the kitchen two margaritas were waiting on the table.

"Happy Cinco de Mayo." My sister was a big believer in national and international holidays.

"Viva Juarez." I raised my salt-rimmed glass to clink a toast.

"Why Juarez?" My brother-in-law smacked his lips. The rims of margaritas were tangy with lemon.

"Juarez led a revolt against the Catholic conservatives and in 1861 declared a moratorium on debt payments to Britain, Spain, and France, which had supposedly loaned the previous government over $52 million, but only had issued $1.2 million in actual money. Juarez protested that firstly the loan was made to a deposed government and secondly that the amount was wrong. The family of the French Emperor owned the paper on this debt and Napoleon III convinced England and Spain to defend its claims."

"How do you know this?" David was always suspect of my stories.

"I was a history minor in college." Those courses had been my only As.

"Sounds like that could happen to America now." My sister taught finance at a college in Boston. Sovereign debt was crushing countries across Europe and her students were buried under credit card bills and student loans.

"England tried to force Iceland to pay the debt of its banks and the Icelanders kicked out the government. The banks punished Iceland by closing all the McDonalds. In 1862 France showed up with an invading army, which pursued Juarez forces toward Mexico City. On May 5th the Mexicans stopped running at Puebla and fought French forces twice their force under the command of their 33-year-old Mexican Commander General, Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin. They achieved a great victory and thereafter have celebrated Cinco de Mayo."

"Let me guess." David was enjoying his margarita. "The French sought revenge for this defeat."

"How well you know the French. They installed a Habsburg emperor protected by an imperial army."

"Second guess. It ended badly."

"Maximilian I was executed by the Mexicans. End of the foreign intervention and Cinco de Mayo was important to the USA, since the Mexicans stopped the French from supplying the Confederates with arms."

"Cinco de Mayo." We clinked glasses again and my sister began to fix another batch of drinks.

I liked mine with salt.

We weren't going anywhere.

"E me gusto en ninguna parte."