Headhunting Beanballers

On August 18, 1967 the Red Sox's Tony Conigliaro was batting against Angels spitballer Jack Hamilton at Fenway Park.

The first pitch came in high and struck All-Star outfielder in the cheek. He was rushed to the hospital with a linear fracture of the left cheekbone and a dislocated jaw with severe damage to his left retina. HIs batting helmet didn't have an ear flap.

Brushing batters off the plate with inside pitchers has been a long tradition in baseball, however intentionally attempting to hit a batter with a 90 MPH fastball borders on criminal.

According to Wikipedia no major league pitcher for 90 years has hit more opposing batters than 6'10" left hander Randy Johnson, who has clunked 188 batters surpassing other dangerous MLB bean-ballers; Drysdale (154), Nolan Ryan (158) or Roger Clemens (159)

Many times the manager orders a pitcher to take revenge on an opposing batter.

Put him in his place.

According to Wikipedia "On May 1, 1974, Pittsburgh pitcher Dock Ellis, believing that his team needed motivation, decided to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup. Ellis hit Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Dan Driessen, and tried to hit Tony Perez, but ended up walking him, and threw two pitches at Johnny Bench's head before he was removed from the game

Dock Ellis also pitched a no-hitter on LSD in 1970.

Tony Conigliaro made a comeback after his injury, however his career was shortened by this bean balling and it may have even caused his death at an early age.

To read Red Sox shortstop Rico Petrocelli's account of that evening, please go to the following URL

http://www.bostonspastime.com/tonycbeaning.html

Everyone great gets hit in baseball.

It's long overdue to stop it.

Elephants on Acid

What happens if you give an elephant LSD?

On Friday August 3, 1962, a group of Oklahoma City researchers decided to find out the what.

Warren Thomas, Director of the City Zoo, fired a cartridge-syringe containing 297 milligrams of LSD into Tusko the Elephant's rump. With Thomas were two scientific colleagues from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, Louis Jolyon West and Chester M. Pierce.

297 milligrams is a lot of LSD about 3000 times the level of a typical human dose. In fact, it remains the largest dose of LSD ever given to a living creature. The researchers figured that, if they were going to give an elephant LSD, they better not give him too little.

Thomas, West, and Pierce later explained that the experiment was designed to find out if LSD would induce musth in an elephant musk being a kind of temporary madness male elephants sometimes experience during which they become highly aggressive and secrete a sticky fluid from their temporal glands. But one suspects a small element of ghoulish curiosity might also have been involved.

Whatever the reason for the experiment, it almost immediately went awry. Tusko reacted to the shot as if a bee had stung him. He trumpeted around his pen for a few minutes, and then keeled over on his side. Horrified, the researchers tried to revive him, but about an hour later he was dead. The three scientists sheepishly concluded that, "It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD."

In the years that followed controversy lingered over whether it was the LSD that killed Tusko, or the drugs used to revive him. So twenty years later, Ronald Siegel of UCLA decided to settle the debate by giving two elephants a dose similar to what Tusko received. Reportedly he had to sign an agreement promising to replace the animals in the event of their deaths.

Instead of injecting the elephants with LSD, Siegel mixed the drug into their water, and when it was administered in this way, the elephants not only survived but didn't seem too upset at all. They acted sluggish, rocked back and forth, and made some strange vocalizations such as chirping and squeaking, but within a few hours they were back to normal. However, Siegel noted that the dosage Tusko received may have exceeded some threshold of toxicity, so he couldn't rule out that LSD was the cause of his death. The controversy continues.

CIRCUS LIFE by Peter Nolan Smith

Whenever a married couple or single mother and kid visited me in Pattaya, I took them on a tour of the various tourist points of interest; the Khao Keo outdoor zoo, the Temple of Truth, the biggest wooden structure in the world, and Nong Nooch Gardens. while steering well clear of my usual haunts i.e. the Buffalo Bar, the Welkom Inn, and Heaven Above a Go-Go.

None of these family fare attractions were far away from my house on Moo 9 and they hide your true reason to partake life in the Last Babylon.

Sin sin sin.

I showed my friends flowers, temples, and elephants.

Back in the early part of the 21st Century my young nephew, Fast Eddie, and I went to see the Nong Nooch elephant show. We bought 50 baht of bananas from a vendor before the pachyderms entered the arena, The two of us sat in the front row under the shade. The music announced the first elephant. A giant tusker chained at his back feet. The beast took one look at our bananas and charged the stands. The minders had no chance of controlling him. I chucked the bananas at him and grabbed my godson?s hand before we were trampled by the rampaging behemoth. The crowd both Thai and farang laughed at our timidity, but even a 400-pound gorilla. The ape will get out of the seat to let the elephant sit down if it knows what is good for the ape.

Angie's mom was angry at me.

"Khang kill you. Who take care Angie?" We weren't on the best of terms, but I was staying with her for my daughter.

Angie started crying. She was scared stiff of elephants. Especially the ones from the tourist safaris who would strip our mango tree of fruit. Even the mahouts couldn't stop them from sating their appetite.

When I mentioned this story at my local, my French friend Bruno said, "You are lucky. Two years ago an English woman tried to hide the bananas and was stomped by the elephant. She was killed and the elephant fled the scene to Isaan."

"That's nothing." An old-timer said putting down a glass of Mekong whiskey. "Back in the last century a circus dwarf was swallowed by a hippopotamus in a freak accident. He was a trapeze artist and dismounted onto the trampoline. The angle was bad and his disappeared into the mouth of a hippo. Hippos will eat anything and the beast swallowed the dwarf. Fucking audience applauded thinking it was part of the act. The handlers were unable to free the dwarf, but said the hippo was a vegetarian."

No one laughed at the punchline, but Bruno muttered under his breath. "I heard that story before only the dwarf landed headfirst in the hippo's asshole."

"No." This joke was starting to sound like an urban legend.

"Quais, and the dwarf survived, but quit because the circus owner wanted him to repeat the act every night."

Which goes to show there?s no business like show business.

Especially in the circus.

Pandaphants

Pandas are notoriously slow breeders; indifferent to sex, however Thai zoo authorities have succeeded where native Chinese zoos have failed by breeding pandas with elephants. Tens of pandaphants are tromping around Thailand. Come and see the amazement. They are a sight to see.

Chang Noi 40% USA

In Thailand zaftig or ample women are called 'Chang Noi' or little elephants. They are considered gentle beauties and many men seek pleasure in their comfort. The Land of Smiles is not known for overweight people, although over the past twenty years the plague of fast food and 7/11s has increased obesity to previously unknown levels. My first wife has succumbed to the desire to eat more than can be burnt off my her body. I would also be overweight, except I adopted an African parasite, which melted the thirty pounds off my Neanderthal frame, bring my weight down from 210 to 182.

People in America are not so lucky. Their diet consists of potato chips and burgers. The obese population of a multitude of states are over 40%. They live in food deserts fueled by propaganda ads from Big Food. Alabama as always leads the way with 50% of its citizens trapped within coffins of fat.

ps. It is not from the genes.

It's from corporate greed.

Elephant versus humans - World Cup Soccer 2006

In 2006 the Thai authorities have carted out the tired image of elephants playing football against humans in order to make some irrelevant point against gambling on the World Cup.

This game was organized in Ayuthayya by some craven eggheads from a nearby institute of higher learning how to be like everyone else in the world. The proctor said, "We want to show the world that you can have fun without gambling."

Hasn't anyone told him that people don't gamble for fun.

The human players weren't having fun, since the elephants took the game seriously and nearly trampled several players. No fouls were called on the leviathans, because the referees were scared of the khang noi's long memory.

The game ended in a draw and the crowd for the event numbered 23 people.

Across the street over a hundred people sat before a radio listening to the play by play of Iran versus some other country no one had ever heard of. They were enthralled and wagering 10 baht each. The police and had the elephants threaten them with their trunks. Not one football enthusiast bothered to turn their head.

OLD 60s JOKE

What's stuck between the toes of elephants?

Slow-running natives.

4Q Heart-warming Bullshit Stories

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Louisiana State University .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same fucking elephant.

This is for everyone who sends me those heart-warming bullshit stories.

This story came from my friend Dougall.

He is much nicer than a charging elephant most of the days.

Yai Chang In Pattaya

Back in the day elephants nightly wandered the streets of Pattaya to cool off and cadge sugar cane donations to enrich their under-paid mahouts from Isaan. Yai walked down Moo 9 a few nights a week. The scrawny mahout said Yai's age was about 40.

A little younger than me.

I always had something for Yai, sometimes a quart of Chang beer, but he only had eyes for my two mango trees, especially as they flowered and bore fruit. When the mangoes reached harvest, I pointed to the top of the tree. "Those are yours."

The top of the trees were covered with red ants supping on the running sap and red ants are no one's friends.

Yai regarded Nok the mahout holding the ear hook and then me. We nodded 'go for it'.

Yai and I became closer friends year after year.

At the Buffalo Bar I bought Yai Chang.

Once a drunken Brit gave him a whiskey coke. Yai spit it out along with a snout of snort, covering the lager lout in pachyderm phlegm. Yai, the mahout and I laughed along with the girls of the Buffalo Bar.

In 2008 I moved away from Pattaya to the rice fields of Bannok, but occasionally visited the city of the Gulf of Siam to see old friends and speak my native tongues.

One night in 2011 I strolled down 2nd Road and everyone coming in the opposite direction looked over my head and I turned around to face Yai and Nok.

Elephants walk with a quiet unbeknownst to humans.

They both smiled at me and Yai slipped his trunk around my chest. I got scared, but Yai hugged me with the gentleness of a friend. We drank three beers at a near-by beer bar and he trumpeted his good-bye with an echoing bleat.

I'm 67 now. Yai is probably still around the Last Babylon. One day I'll go back and find out. It's what old friends do. See each other.

Osama's Brother

Back in 1984 I traveled from Paris to visit friends in London. Vonelli lived behind Harrods in a small studio where Eric Burdon of the Animals' wrote SAN FRANCISCO NIGHTS. His kindly landlady hailed from America.

Her daughter was a beauty.

Caroline Carey's boyfriend was a Saudi pilot. He bought us champagne. Crystal not Moet. His girlfriend introduced him as Salem bin Laden. He entertained us with stories about the Arab peninsula. The two were very much in love and later married in the UK.

In 1988 the heir to the Bin Laden fortune died in a freak flying accident in Texas not far from George W Bush's house in Crawford.

The crash of the Sprint ultralight aircraft occurred on my birthday. I was in New York. My alibi is strong. I can not say the same for George Bush, who sought to succeed Reagan as president. No matter what people said, his father was no wimp.

I couldn't find any photos of Salem, but the above picture shows Osama Bin Laden at Oxford. He's the one on the right and visited the university several years after Clinton studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

See the connection.

George Bush Senior was seated with members of the Bin Laden family on 9/11.

A breakfast in Washington for the ultra-right Carlyle Group.

See the connection.

It's a small world after all.

Especially when you belong to a big family.

Castro's Cigars

The CIA were fairly stupid.

Not that they were smart. Most of them were Ivy League graduates. White collegiate philosophy sought the truth of deception like Jesuits chasing the Mysteries of the Holy Eucharist and the beauty of the Nailed God. The Agency overthrew the governments of Persia, Guatemala, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

They failed many times, but someone once told me that their success were veiled by clouds.

NEW ROSE - The Damned 1979

The Damned played Hurrah in September 1979. New York's Misfits opened the show. The 62nd Street club was packed with punks. I was working security and my job was to lead the band up to the stage. Several minutes before the show I asked them if they needed anything and one of them said, "4 Bottles of Vodka."

I went to the bar and returned with the requested 4 bottles. They twisted off the caps and poured the vodka straight into their mouths like hungry baby birds feeding on their mother's spew. Most of it ended up on the floor.

The show was classic. Fast and Loud.

Punk rock at its best and I love NEW ROSE

Go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaOraUh1AyM&feature=PlayList&p=81EF7096C0EE514C&index=1

Bridges On The Hudson

The Kaaterskil Creek flows east out of the Catskill Mountains into the Hudson.

The creek has existed since the Ice Age.

The primordial Glacial Shield destroyed the mountains.

Granite tops their ruined peaks.

A land of wonder.

In the 1840s Thomas Cole immortalized the view of the mountain ridges from his veranda in Catskill.

The view is unchanged in 2018.

The other day I was speaking with my friend Shannon.

He and his wife have been coming up river for years.

We spoke of the Hudson.

None of us had swam in the Muhheakantuck or the river that flow both ways.

The river was home to the Lenape tribe.

They ate oysters on Manhattan by the billions.

Peter Stuyvesant stole this treasure for the Dutch.

White men were the devil, but the river surged in and out without prejudice.

Tides ruled its flow.

Not man.

At least until the Union Bridge connected Waterford and Lansingburgh in 1804.

I mentioned this crossing to Shannon.

Neither of us knew of its location.

We crossed the Hudson on the Rip Van Winkle.

The span had been constructed in the 30s.

I've walked across it in the winter squall.

I told Shannon, "I love that bridge. It's probably the prettiest of them all.

"What about Bear Mountain? Isn't that where Jack Kerouac start hitchhiking across America in ON THE ROAD?"

"You're right." I stopped talking about the bridges across the Hudson.

Tomorrow I would be traveling south.

Whatever I knew about the bridges was nothing without seeing them.

The next day I caught Amtrak's 3:47 to Penn Station from the Hudson NY station.

The train arrived on time.

We left on time too.

I was alone.

The bay was calm.

I was returning to the city to work.

I had five children.

They hated me not working.

I was looking for the Rip Van Winkle.

I only saw the river and the mountains.

They were eternal.

The Rip Van Winkle was set in the tidal marshes.

1934.

The train hurried south through woods.

In 1835 Alexis De Torqueville had called America a jungle in DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.

He was more right now than then.

The Catskills seemed small from the eastern shore of the Hudson.

The train was running close to sea level.

The river flowed 315 miles from its headwaters in the Adirondacks.

Straight into the Atlantic.

A cold northern ocean.

The train picked up speed.

Another bridge crossed the river.

Rhinebeck to Kingston.

It had been built in 1957.

And still worked today.

At least I did see it fall into the water.

Other than in my day dream.

What else can you expect from a country at constant war?

Perfection?

A few passenger boarded at Rhinebeck.

The sun was dropping low.

Even for this last in the solstice cycle.

The river was calm enough to please the early explorers Jean Cabot and Henry Hudson.

It is called a drowned river and the dead always speak with quiet in their hearts.

I looked out the window.

The river bore only birds.

None of them were quacking.

Another bridge.

Poughkepsie.

A train bridge converted to a pedestrian tourist attraction.

145 feet over the river.

I nodded off to nowhere and woke under the works of the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

The replacement bridge will cost $4 billion dollars.

Or two billions beers at the 169.

There are no more ferries.

Now there are bridges and the mightiest span of all is the GW Bridge.

A monster.

The train tucked into the shore and delivered us to Penn Station.

Right on time.

New York wouldn't be New York without the Hudson.

Because all cities are defined by their surroundings and man can never defied Nature.

Never.