There is no flattening of the curve.
Not under this government.
Democratic or GOP.
Bill Gates wants us all dead, so he can be served by robots.
We are not slaves.
Kill the rich.
The Tsar and his family never came back to rule Russia.
ps the first people to go in a revolution are the landlords.
Universal Rent Strike.
No evictions worldwide.
Jubilee.
We own where we are.
I love drug commercials for their high-speed side effects warning at the ad's end.
Here is the list for Prevnar 19, which is a diphtheria toxoid–containing vaccine.
In adults, the most common side effects were pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, limitation of arm movement, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, decreased appetite, vomiting, fever, chills, and rash.
Diphtheria can be deadly.
According to Wikipedia in the 1920s, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 cases of diphtheria occurred in the United States, causing 13,000 to 15,000 deaths per year. Children represented a large majority of these cases and fatalities.
One of the most infamous outbreaks of diphtheria was in Nome, Alaska; the "Great Race of Mercy" and Seppala's heroic ninety-one mile relay with lead dog ,Togo, to deliver diphtheria antitoxin is now celebrated by the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race p>
Thankfully the cure isn't worse than the Old Bullneck.
After a quick box lunch we set out for Simba Hut. I proceeded before the Kili Initiative Team. We were trekking through a rain forest. The team chattered without cessation and I preferred quiet. Not complete silence, because the trees were alive with life.
Ma'we led the team. I drained the last of the Konyagi-Crest and headed out at a fast clip, despite the motto of the climb being 'Pole Pole' or 'Slow but Steady'.
Like a snail.
I had nothing to prove by my #1 position.
Ma'we understood my need for solitude.
JM too.
The porters passed at a rapid pace.
"Jambo."
"Sijambo." My lungs were scorched as a marathon runner, but I hadn't chucked my lunch.
When I touched my flesh I sensed how hot I was. Maybe 102F. Sick, but nothing anyone of Neanderthal blood couldn't handle on this mountain.
Clouds rose in the valley.
I was in the dry rain forest.
A few raindrops feel on my face.
More was to come.
A lot more.
Kilimanjaro's water fed two nations.
I threw on my rain poncho.
It was going to get wet.
The mist came first, then the rain.
I sheltered in a cave.
Thunder echoed across the slopes.
The guide David came up to me.
"Simba Hut only one hour from here. You ready."
"Never readier."
The guides could have hit the campsite in twenty minutes. They were all Chaaaga. They climbed the mountain all year long. As Shamus had said at our departure from Marangu Hotel, without them none of us would be here.
And about that he was very right.
Last night I read Poe's MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, despite having promised not to delve further into the literature of death. The opening paragraph portrayed a world lost to the plague.
"The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour."
Prince Prospero sealed his castle against the incursion of the poor. His wealthy and royal guests were entertained by nocturnal soirees of decadency. They felt safe within his walls, but the Red Death suffered no barriers and one evening a spectral creature appeared before the host. The nobleman waved for the musicians to cease their playing and confronted the unwanted intruder.
""Who dares" -- he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him -- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!"
Prince Prospero's attack on the masked figure failed with his flailing death throes.
His guests perished without exception.
"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
Death took them all, but not so Covid 19.
The virus' mortality rate is about 4%.
The 1918 Spanish Flu killed between 10%-25%.
My grandmother Edith might have been infected by the pandemic in Etaples, France, where her sister, Marion, and she were RCME nurses tending to the wounded soldiers of the Western Front.
AIDS killed scores of my friends as well as my baby brother, Michael Charles Smith.
Who will C19 take?
Not me.
I already had it.
I think, but nothing is certain in this world.
Stay safe and I promise not to read anymore plague books.
The next morning the snow gleamed atop Kilimanjaro. The Kili Intiative 2019 team packed non-essentials into bags for storage at the Marangu Hotel. My Kilimanjaro equipment lay on the bed. Ma'we ruthlessly eliminated my journal, SNOW OF KILIMANJARO, and any excess.
"The less you carry the better for you and your porter."
He checked off the must-have list; sunscreen, sunglasses, lip balm, thermals, sox, cold weather gear et al.
"How's your stomach?"
"Fine." I had only been sick ten times through the night.
"You should have never eaten that goat intestine soup."
"I know that now."
"Then let's go."
The guides, cooks, and porters waited in the courtyard.
There were over sixty of them and seventeen of us.
A small army.
I dropped my bag in storage under the supervision of Mama, an elderly Chaaga woman, who asked if I needed anything. I shook my head and returned to the courtyard.
The hotel owner, Shamus, described the function of the guides and porters and cooks.
"Each one is important to the success of your climb as well as your safety. If they say go down, go down. There is no shame in not reaching the top, but I hope most of you do. Remember. Pole pole."
Slow and steady.
The porters loaded the bags and equipment onto the trucks. I poured the remnants of my Konyagi into a water bottle with Crest. Charlie, the head guide, announced it was time to leave. The team sat throughout the big van; Ma'we, JM, Steve, Ubah, Jubbah, Vanessa, Jackman, Laikyn, Larry, Nathalia, Maureen, and the additions; Mark and his son, Rees and his son, Adam, and Winnie from Nairobi. I climbed into my seat opposite Tim, who asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," I lied, suspecting my temper was well above 100, but I hadn't felt nauseous all morning. The driver started the engine and grinded the stick through the gears. We lurched onto the road and everyone was in a good mood.
School kids waved from the sidewalk.
Marangu town was coming to life.
Tim took out a remote speaker. He DJed 1980s British Prog Rock. Simply Red, Rick Ashley, and the Smiths. He extolled each band's virtues to the African Youth and I said, "This bands suck, especially the Smiths. Everyone get three songs. I'm next."
"You think you can do better?"
"Of course I can." I had seen the Matalus or taxi vans painted with murals of Bob Marley.
I turned to the group and said, "In the winter of 1972 I had been walking through a snowstorm in Boston. My feet were cold, my hands were wet, and the wind froze my face. That is what Kili will be like that last day, but no fear, because I stopped at a cinema and looked at the poster. THE HARDER THEY COME about a Rasta gunman. I bought a ticket and was transported to the warmth of Jamaica. This song ain't from the movie, but it is from Bob Marley. CONCRETE JUNLGE. Ain't Much better."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07vgARrOUE
I sang along and we all grooved on the Messiah's love to be found.
I segued to JOHNNY TOO BAD and then THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. Preacher JM nodded in appreciation. He understood that even atheists care about the human soul.
"That's my three. Who's next?"
Larry Fishbourne hoseyed next.
We rocked up to Rongai Gate to Sly and the Family Stone, Biggie, and James Brown. Tim was searching his phone for offerings. Larry passed control to the ladies. They played songs from the 'now'. I knew none of them, but recognized the shared joy of young people united by a beat. I drank my Konyagi and Crest. MY head nodded to the beat. We turned off the main road and passed through crop fields. Kilimanjaro blessed the slopes with rich soil and water.
"This is the easiest of days," announced Tim. "We hike two hours and then camp for the night."
"We go," Ma'we pulled on his backpack. He was traveling like, as was JM. Steve was staying behind us. His knee was in bad shape and he touched my forehead, "Are you okay? If you aren't. Better to say it, because up there anything you have here gets worse."
"I'm not 100%, but I'm not risking my life for nothing."
"Then good luck Mzee."
From here on there was no electricity, no beer, no hotels.
We were on the mountain and the mountain, Kilimanjaro ruled all within its sight.
At Rongai Gate we signed the books and had a light lunch.
"I'm going ahead," I told Charlie. I like quiet and taking fotos."
"Do not go too fat ahead. being alone is dangerous."
"I will stay within earshot."
I left the team behind in the rain forest.
I finished off the Konyagi and set a good pace for 8000 feet above sea level.
It was a good path, but I understood this was easy.
Hard was coming our way.
We had left civilization.
I had no phone reception.
I touched the fallen trees.
The moss fell like it belonged to forever.
I heard the team behind me.
This was Africa.
This was Kilimanjaro.
This was now.
My late Uncle Carmine theorized that the longevity of women was due to the fact that men wait for women and every minute and hour stolen from a man was stored within a genetic code of a woman's body. In America that advantage of life over death amounted to more than five years and I swore that I have felt the tug of their vampiric vacuum on more than one occasion, but never more than when I made a date with a young model to see a movie in Lincoln Center.
The year was 1981. The girl's name was Julie. Neither of her eyes looked in the same direction. I had a thing for wall-eyed girls.
We had met at the filming of DOWNTOWN 81. The set had been at Danceteria on West 45th Street with Jean-Michel Basquiat as the star of the movie.
I was an extra as was Julie. She should have been more, because the lithe brunette could have passed as a double of Francoise Hardy, the 70s French pop singer and I had a thing for the Yeh-Yeh Girl too.
Between takes Julie said that she was a painter.
I found out that her good friend was Manny's daughter. Manny had a diamond store on Canal Street. I ate lunch there on occasion. His son, Richie Boy, was also an extra. He had a thing for most beautiful women and swooped on Julie like a vulture striking a baby lamb.
Julie wasn't impressed with his Crassanova tactics and sought refuge with me.
Jean-Michel came over to say hello. He had once painted my refrigerator. I told Julie that I forced my hillbilly girlfriend wipe it off. She laughed at my stupidty. Laughter was always a good sign with a woman and even better she agreed to see Werner Herzog's AGUIRRE WRATH OF GOD with me.
"It's a German movie about a conquistador seeking the cities of gold in the Amazon."
"I've heard about it." She was studying art at Parsons.
"There's a Five o'clock show at Lincoln Center."
"I'll meet you at 4:45 after my class." She scribbled a phone number on a napkin and left with Richie Boy's sister. They lived together underneath the Williamsburg Bridge.
"You going out with her?" Richie Boy ordered us beers. The bar was offering drinks at half-price.
"5 O'clock Show for AGUIRRE." I was pleased by her saying 'yes'. "Tomorrow."
"Good luck." We clinked glasses and I went home early. Julie didn't seem like the kind of girl who went for men with a hang-over.
The next afternoon I arrived at the theater 30 minutes early and bought two tickets.
Fifteen minutes passed without any sign of Julie. I searched the faces on the sidewalk. No Julie. She had stood me up and I sold my tickets to a couple holding hands.
The two were very grateful, since the show was a sellout.
A friend tended bar farther up Broadway. I had two drinks and told him about my non-date.
"Typical of women in this city. Always saying yes to a back-up plan."
Julie could have had 13 plan Bs. She was that beautiful.
I paid for my drinks and wandered back downtown, thinking I might watch a XXX film at ShowWorld on the Minnesota Strip. The girls on screen weren't real, but they were always punctual.
As I neared the theater in Lincoln Center, I spotted Julie running to the ticket booth.
"Am I late?" Her question swirl as a life-sucking fog around my body.
"Late?"
Her breathing was off pace and her out-of-synch eyes wavered in their gaze between mine, as if she were hypnotizing a cobra.
"Well, am I?"
I didn't know what to say.
Men waited hours for beauty like hers.
If I answered 'yes', those lost two hours would be banked in her longevity account. The first seconds of 5 O'Clock were fleeing my soul and I fought for my life by saying, "No, I just got here too."
"Really?" Her mesmeric stare was transformed by doubt. Disappointment broke her mirror of confidence and the stolen time of the past two hours snapped back into my eternity.
"Sorry, I'm late. You still want to see the movie?"
"Sure." I bought two tickets and we entered the theater. She kissed me during the closing credits. I thought that it was an apology, but later in my life I realized that it was a kiss of surrender and the start of a brief affair.
That summer she left for France to be a model. I drove her to the airport.
Several months later I fled New York for Paris. We saw each other there, though she could only love someone who would give her his time and I wanted to live forever. I guess that she thought me selfish.
As far as I know Julie is alive in Paris. I hope that she lives long. Most women do and it ain't no secret why.
Least not to me.
ps Men outlive women in Afghanistan.
Big surprise.
The director Blake Edwards passed away in late December 2011. His greatest hits were BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, 10, and VICTORIA VICTORIA. Fame fled him in the 80s, but his star rose on Broadway with the success of a musical version of VICTORIA VICTORIA. My cousin was Julie Andrews' understudy. Tara got to perform the leading role on several occasions. I caught her once with the rest of my family. After the performance my aunts and mother asked what Julie Andrews was like.
"She calls me 'darling'." Tara was enthralled by the superstar's allure.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that she probably called everyone 'darling', because she never remembered anyone's name, although Julie Andrews' must have had a pet name for Blake Edwards. They were married for 41 years.
Before they met, he explained her success to a gathering at a party by saying, "She has lilacs in her pubic hair."
And having seen them once, he never wandered again.
Faithful to the end.
This is the power of pussy.
Dr Jean-Francois Lemaître, from the University of Lyon, France has released a study of the lifespan in wild mammals showing that females live substantially longer than males. As much as 18.6% longer than males from the same species and 8% in humans and the difference is determined by climatic conditions as well as the male sex drive.
"Male bighorn sheep use lots of resources towards sexual competition, towards the growth of a large body mass, and they might be more sensitive to environmental conditions," said Dr Lemaître. "So clearly the magnitude of the difference in lifespan is due to the interaction of these sex-specific genetics, the fact that males devote more resources towards specific functions compared with females, and to the local environmental conditions."
Other studies theorized a fundamental cellular superiority of females possessing two X chromosomes while males have an X and a Y. The theory is that the extra X in women has a protective effect against harmful mutations and that this holds true in other species.
"They show that in XX or XY systems, the XX, or the female, lives longer, so clearly there is an effect of sex chromosomes," said Dr Lemaître. "What we show in our paper is that the difference is very variable across species, meaning there are other factors that need to be considered to explain this variability."
None of this takes into consideration that the old joke, "Why do Jewish men die before their wives?"
"Because they want to."
Sadly my father survived my mother by twenty-five years and my wives both say, "You will outlive us."
And I have decades on them.
This winter Doctor Nepole checked my vitals and pronounced, "I have good news and bad news."
"What?" I feared the worst.
"You completely healthy."
"That's the good news. What's the bad?"
"You probably live to 100."
"Fuck."
So much dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse.
Aside from Europeans singing from their balconies, one of the worst phenomenas of the Covid 19 pandemic has been the misinformation about how to treat the virus on the Internet.
Suddenly everyone thinks they went to Harvard Medical School.
Holding your breath for ten seconds.
It's just a hoax.
Malaria pills stop the virus.
And the classically cold-hearted GOP approach, "People die all the time, why kill the economy?
As previously stated I am in the process of recovering for a mild bout of C-19.
Three years ago my lungs were impaired with a serious infection.
One night I expelled about two liters of blood into a bathtub.
It was midnight.
I should gone gone to the hospital, but realized an infection would put me in the grave and I returned to bed, thinking, If I wake in the morning, so be it.
I rose with the dawn and said, "Fuck it."
Three months later I was 90%.
Of course if my mother had been alive, she would have slathered a mustard plaster on my chest and stuff Vicks-Vapo-Rub up my nose.
Her ministrations save all my brothers and sisters.
Until AIDS.
Reagan fucked that same as Trump is fucking this, but his approval rate has improved 3% in the last week with the promise of $1000 to every adult American. The rest of the money is going to the banks and corporations.
$4 trillion or $100,000 per citizens.
Open your eyes people.
Each day my health improves from my bout with Covid 19. My temperature is normal and throat is no longer parched by dehydration. My sense of taste has returned along with my appetite, although my sense of smell remains in shutdown mode.
Of course I have no proof that I had the virus. NYC health officials had advised anyone with mild sysmptoms to stay at home. There are no test kits for C19 or even thermal lasers to gauge if you have a fever. My friends have asked, "Have you gone to the hospital?" or "Did you get tested?" and I wonder if they really understand America's unpreparedness for a pandemic crisis.
The greed of GOP have raped the country's Healthy System, which had been sketchy at best, and the Trump Administration gutted the federal program dedicated to protecting the people in order to provide tax cuts for the very rich.
So, no, I didn't go to a hospital or get a test.
I sat at home alone.
And the worse that happened was that I ate non-dairy cheddar cheese and some veggie hot dogs.
I threw them in the trash and cooked a real grilled cheese sandwich.
My nose could almost smell it.
Maybe tomorrow I will.
All the best.
Your sense of smell is closely tied to your sense of taste. The human nose has 10cm squared, while dogs possess 170cm squared.
Back in the 20th Century Doctor Joyce Brothers theorized that human survival depended more on our smelling bad and tasting worse than intelligence, but not all of us smell the same.
I've traveled on the Mumbai Night Express without a whiff of olfactory discomfort and sat in French taxi wondering if the driver was a dead person.
The famed obituarist Adrian Dannett rarely bathed and never has a offended a soul, while my younger sister regularly whispered at a Christmas dinner, "When was the last time you showered?"
To quote David Lee Roth from Van Halen's HOT FOR TEACHER - "Funny, I don't smell dirty."
Three weeks ago I was at Kibo Hut on Kilimanjaro. None of the Kili Initiative Team had washed in a week. 16000 feet above sea level sweat evaporated from your skin like water on a hot frying pan, but my stench of an old man assailed my nose and I prayed to wear clean underwear and sox. As I descended the mountain, my cellphone came alive and I read of how Covid 19 was ravaging the globe and wondered what awaited us in the world below.
Three weeks later I know exactly how.
I contracted Covid 19.
My friends asked if I had gone to the hospital, but I read reports of Anosmia, the loss of sense of smell, and ageusia, an accompanying diminished sense of taste, have emerged as peculiar telltale signs of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and possible markers of infection.
"Go for what? There's no tests. There's no treatment. I had a low-grade temperature, a cough, exhaustion, dry throat, and no taste and no smell." As a Neanderthal I trust in my genes.
"No taste? No smell?"
"It's not certain, but 1/3 of the infect report this phenomena. I can't smell shit." I won't go into any details about how I know that, but I smelled a lemon today.
Faintly, but I dream of the Paris dawn visit to the Parc de Bagetelle in Bois Du Boulonge and huff the full force of rose attar melting into the mist with the rising sun.
I live for that day and all those that are to come.
"I aints dead yet. I only sleeping."
Celtics Green
