My Father, My Best Friend

My father, Frank A Smith II came from Maine. His mother and father met during WWI.

Edith Hamlin had been a nurse with Royal Canadian Medical Expedition.

My grandmother had been trying to make a troopship to France. The gangway was being pulled and a man extended his hand to haul her aboard. That man was my grandfather, Frank A Smith I, who had been serving with the RCMEF since 1915.

Both of them witnessed the horrors of trench warfare.

Their pacifism hadn't prevented my father from joining the US Army Air Force in 1942.

His war was testing B25s over Kentucky. The casualty rate was 25%, but he survived those odds to marry my mother, who he had met in Boston. The Irish girl said he wasn't his type, until she saw his convertible.

They married and started having kids.

Four was not enough.

Neither was five.

They stopped at six.

We were a happy family living on the South Shore of Boston. My father worked as an electrical engineer for the phone company. His two loves were his family and my mother.

'Angie' liked to wear her hair in a bouffant.

Me too.

Sadly in 1996 my mother passed a year after my younger brother Michael.

My father and I took trips. He loved traveling.

To Ballyconeeley in Ireland.

France.

Northern Quebec.

Thailand.

The West.

In 2008 he was diagnosed with Alzheimers.

He forgot us one by one.

I was the last, even though I only saw twice a month.

"Why can you remember me?"

"Because you still like you, whoever you are."

All his friends were gone.

As much as he loved his grandchildren, he was ready to go.

'Angie' and Michael were waiting for him.

I wasn't ready to join them.

My family is in Thailand.

And anytime I go there, so does Poo Frank.

He will live in my heart forever.

For one simply reason.

Poo Frank is my best friend.

More Than 500,000

Over 500,000 Americans have died from Covid.

My friends, Ro and Doctor Bertoni, were two of them.

As was Dakota Pittman and many others.

Last year this time I was atop Kilimanjaro. The 2021 team of Kili Initiative descended from the summit. I got an internet connection on the Saddle. Reports from the Guardian and BBCNews informed us of a deadly situation in Italy. Thousands were dying across that country and my Kenyan friends asked, "What do you think will happen?"

"I have no idea."

I certainly hadn't thought 500,000 dead.

That is more than the population of Kansas City, Cleveland, or New Orleans and the next year promises more of the same for a nation half-dedicated to the Trump story line on Covid fraud. Rest in Peace all of you.

Pig Snout a la Thai

Several years ago my Thai cousin and I stopped by the Jomtien tha-lat. My sister-in-law ran a food stall inside the open-air market. On my last visit Yai had been selling chickens. Now it was pig and Khim said, "We eat from tail to nose. Everything, but the oink."

On display were heads, tails, feet, innards et al.

"I have never eaten the jamook-moo. Ears and feet yes."

"Feet are good, but hoo are chewy. Nose more chewy than ear. Soup from snout a-loi."

My sister-in-law waved for us to sit down behind the counter. We obeyed Yai and the two of us planted at a table. Plates of feet, crispy ear, and a snout were placed on the table. I ordered three bottles of Lao beer.

Several other food merchants stood by to observe a 'farang' reaction to the food.

I had once been fooled into eating pig ear to cure my stuttering once.

I knew how to make a good show.

Khim's and my teeth wrestled with the tough ears. Better if we were hyenas or goat whose chompers can gnaw through beer cans. The feet offered easier prey and tasty, after the hair had been braised off the trotters cooked in a soy sauce. Our lips smacked with every rice.

Yai chopped up the snout and dropped the morsels in a wok adding scallions, soy sauce, and garlics.

We finished the beer and I ordered three more bottles. We were soon ten at a small table, chewing on the nostrils where there is only skin and gelatinously textured tissue. These are the chewy, crispy bits that taste like candy to some meat lovers. It definitely didn't taste of chicken. My wife and daughter showed up and I ordered another plate. Everyone was happy, because the Thais only love food more than having fun.

Dtik Ang - Stuttering in Thai

My speech problems were many in my youth across the harbor from Portland, Maine.

A stutter coupled with a lisp and stammer forced the school authorities of Falmouth Foresides to test my mental competence. The teachers were surprised to discover through a battery of intelligence exams that I was the smartest child within the school system, especially since I sounded 'retarded' to them.

Thankfully I had hidden my dyslexia otherwise the school ppolice

would have imprisoned me at Mackworth Island and nothing good ever happened on Mackworth Island.

My fellow classmates passed through these stages , but I still spoke with difficulty. Bullies had recognized a weak member of society and my teachers wrote in my report cards, "Great student, but can not say S."

My uncle Russ thought my saying, "I lub youd." was cute, however my father saw a hard road ahead and we went to see specialists at the Maine Medical Center in Portland. My grandfather had been a doctor there and I was treated like a damaged godling. After intensive examinations the doctors reported to my father that my tongue was too big for my mouth instilling laziness into my speech patterns.

"Best, we slice your son's palate to force his tongue to work harder."

Slice it how?"

"With razor blades."

My father was an electrical engineer, not a doctor, but realized these experts know nothing and said, "I'd rather him have a lisp than be tortured by doctors."

I spent years in therapy.

I learned how to black out time.

I allowed my tongue to wait for syllables.

Consonants were more problematic, but I passed more or less, although smarter sorts heard my weakness in other language as I lived around the world.

I learned the word for stutter in foreign languages.

Bégayer.

Sssstottern in German.

Gagap in Bahasa Indonesian.

Phūd tidx̀āng in Thai.

Even in my 50s I stuttered. My Thai cousin in Ban Nok suggested an easy fool-safe remedy.

"Eat the hee of a pig."

"Pig vagina?" I played along, because there's nothing better that upcountry-Thai rice farmers like better than making a fool of a farang.

"Mai CCCCCHua."

It can't hurt," my wife said, but she hadn't loved me in years.

"OOOOOKKKKay."

I dug into my wallet and said, "B-B-B-uy a pig and beer."

Atomic Bloom

Back in the summer of 2014 I bicycled from Fort Greene to Bushwick Avenue. Jane Dickson was displaying a sparse mirrored mural of mythical rock bands at the Silent Barn Gallery. The neighborhood was hard-core without any signs of encroachment from the art phenomena farther to the north. I locked my bike to a gate and hoped for the best. Jane's work hung on a brick wall. My favorite faux-band was THE DUH. Jane greeted friends and admirers. Her work on Times Square, Las Vegas, carnivals and commercial strip malls are well-loved by a large segment of New York and the world. Jane introduced me to people as a great writer. She is planning on using text from my unpublished punk novel MAYBE TOMORROW to add flavor to an upcoming show about Times Square. I had drank heavily the previous night and on Monday hard work was scheduled for the metal shop in Greenpoint. As I said my good-bye, Kenny Scharf showed up at the gallery. I introduced myself and he reacted as if I had been revived from the dead. I said nothing. Some people think I've died, while others are surprised by my appearance. I'm not the man I used to be. Kenny was railing against the radiation plume spreading from the damaged Fukushima reactor in Japan. "The radiation is entering the food chain of the West Coast. My daughter was told to eat sea kelp for iodine, but the seaweed comes from the Pacific. They're doomed out there." "I went through Japan after the quake. No one was traveling there." Narita had been empty. "The Japanese are safer than us, because the wind is blowing the radiation across the ocean." He was right and I thought about the gigantic plastic trash ball floating in the Northern Pacific. It was the perfect breeding ground for a Godzilla-type monster. Kenny invited Jane and me to a disco near his studio. "It starts at 12 and goes till 4." "Sounds like fun." Ten years ago I might have gone, but those hours are deep in my bedtime. I departed from the gallery and unlocked my bike. There was no sign of tampering. My ride back to Fort Greene took thirty minutes. The sky glowed with a pale blue. The color had nothing to do with radiation. At least not yet.

Journal Entry - June 22, 1977 - Gaslight Pub - Park Slope

Last night the improv class at Hunter College was crazy, as Chuck, Carla, and I created another version of STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE about trannys. Carla went home with her ex-husband. I headed back to Brooklyn. No one from Manhattan wants to bridge or tunnel to that borough.

At the Gaslight Pub the crowd was in full swing. Robert, a lanky blood, and his Italian cohort, Rabbit, were fighting over the split of a stolen IBM typewriter. They were fighting over the money split.

"60/40." Rabbit offered without a smile

"70 for me and 30 for you. Truthfully I don't know why I'm giving you a cent. I stole it."

"Because I carried it here."

"How much you want?" I asked knowing they cost about $500 brand new.

"$100," Robert said quickly. "They cost more than that."

"This one is used. $55 is my one and only offer."

"Fuck that, I'll smash it the street before I let you rob me."

I plugged in the typewriter. It worked like a dream.

James slumped against the bar. It was 2 AM. He had drunk like it was 6. I told him the story. He gave me $100. "Get it. Try and get it for less. Those two are junkies. It's late. They need a fix."

I approached with money in hand.

"Rob you. Go fuck yourself. I'll give you $60. Are we down?"

"Yes," they said as a team. I cuffed them $60.

Can you make it $80."

"Not a chance."

They gave me the typewriter.

We drank till closing and every moment Rabbit was jealous of James hitting on Robert.

They might have been junkies, but they were still in love adn love will conquer all for a junkie except for desire.

And a desire not for love.

Journal Entry - June 21, 1977 - Park Slope - Brooklyn

Throughout the night David the super of Berkeley Place played Got to Give It Up (Part 1) by Marvin Gaye over and over again very loud. James rolled into the apartment at 8 and pounded on Hazel's wall and the ceiling above his room.

"Shut that shit off."

He put on a tape of the World Saxophone Quartet - Point of No Return. I preferred Marvin to Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray, but wasn't anything better to fuck with the neighbors, especially David, who turned off his stereo.

Around noon I spoke with Ro to arrange an afternoon rendezvous. She promised chaos. We met at the Riviera Cafe in the West Village. I ordered a vodka-tonic. She had water.

"I'm leaving for Paris to study painting at Beaux Arts."

"When?"

"Soon."

"Then I'll have to get a passport."

"You're coming to Paris?"

"Why not? Flights are cheap. Don't worry I won't bother you there."

She looked at me as if she wasn't so sure about that, but Libby was in Paris. She couldn't be that hard to find."

This evening I had tried to seduce Libby's friend Karen at the Rainbow Room. We danced in a very erotic way. my though between hers. We were both turned on, but she finally shoved me away, saying, "I can't. I have a boyfriend. I'd feel miserable if I did anything with you."

"I understand. I'm very used to being alone."

"It's not that I don't want to, but my roommate is at home, otherwise I couldn't trust myself."

"There's always the bathroom here."

She shut her eyes and said, "Okay, it's not like I'm going to be with my boyfriend forever."

Palm Beach Ne'er-Do-Well

Many of my female friends laughed upon hearing about my summer job on Palm Beach. "What's so funny?" "we know what's going to happen." Each women was possessed by a singular vision. "You're going to fleece some heiress." "Fleece?" Both my wife and mistress had green-lighted any multi-zero gigoloing with turtle-fleshed heiresses on the fabled island of the filthy right. "If I'm lucky I'll marry a 89 year-old woman with six weeks to live and give her the best month-and-a-half of their lives." Two months have passed since my arrival. Number of conquered hearts. Zero. In truth I was more happy in my mansion of solitude than haunting the Leopard Room for a horny dowager, which Adrian Dannatt recommended for a hunting ground. I went there once. The women were happy to flirt with their regulars. I was a rookie rogue. None of my clothes were Gucci. Their beaus dismissed me as no competition. My wife and mistress sounded disappointed by my failure. "Aren't you happy that I'm faithful to you?" I posed the question to them both. "Yes." Their answer was half-hearted. "I have two more weeks. Maybe I'll be lucky." Telling them the same thing makes it easy to recall my words. "Chok dii." "Thanks." And I need good luck too. 56, broke, and fading good looks. The ne'er-do-wells of Palm Beach. Ever faithful to my wives.

12:09PM Prosecco High Noon

My high school offered Typing 101. The class was taught by a woman. Every students were male. Xaverian-Westwood was all-boy. I was a math major. My foreign language was German. Tying 101 was for football players. Our team was State Champs. 9-0 in the Catholic Conference. I took Creative Writing instead of Typing 101. I never fathomed the effect of this teacher on this championship team, until I moved to New York in 1976. I showed up at 55 Remsen Street in Brooklyn expecting a greeting from Ro. The soft-skinned artist from the coalfields was the reason that I left Boston. "You look like an angel under candlelight." Lyrical. Love. Sex. New York. A magic formula. Her ex-boyfriend answered my knock on the door. "Ro's not here." Sorbonne. Painting. PETRIFIED FOREST. Going back to Boston was not in the cards. I moved into an apartment with a gay impresario from the Riviera Cafe. James Spicer had an extra bedroom in Park Slope. He had a typewriter. I wrote a screenplay about a hang glider thief. D....Descending. My typing was shit. My grammar even worse. I should have paid attention in English 101. My fingers sought letters on the keyboard like a blind pianist trying to play Chopin. Blind I typed with beauty instead of precision. My instrument was an Olivetti A series. I wrote the Detective Poems on this machine. In 1982 I deserted Reagan America for France. My job - physionomiste at the Rex Club. The boite du nuit was financed by Actuel. A counter-culture magazine backed by an aristocrat ne'er-do-well. His New York writer Bernard Zekri liked my poetry. None of the lines rhymed in my broken meter. It was very very punk three years after the fact. Violent Femmes, Toure Kunda, the Slits, the Bush Tetras and numerous other bands performed at the Rex. I met the underbelly of Paris. Models, drug dealers, artists, undercover flics, writers, poets, dancers et al. They came from everywhere. Paris was the center of the world outside of the USA. A German from Hamburg asked if I could transcribe his girlfriend's interview of Bryan Ferry for Vogue. Vivaca was a top model from Georgia. A girl that beautiful never had to take Typing 101. Jurgen offered 1000 French Francs for the job. Almost $200US. I said yes and took the Metro from the Marais to 16th Arrondisement. I arrived at noon. Jurgen lived in a small house on Rue de la Tour. Stark decor. He sat me in the white-walled living room with my typewriter. A tape recorder was on the table. "Do you need anything?" Jurgen was a playboy. Three years older than me. No one knew what he did for money, but he drove a 67 T-Bird. Same as Dennis Hopper in Wim Wenders' AMERICAN FRIEND. "Some champagne and a glass. Crystal, if possible." I meant the glass, however Jurgen smiled and left the room. He returned with a bottle of Cristal- Louis Roederer and a single crystal flute. He thought that I was cool. I thought the same and we became friends to the end, despite my shitty typing and today I opened a bottle of Prosecco with my landlord, Andy Pollack. It was before noon. I finished my fill before 2pm. Here's to you, Jurgen and all the bad typers in the world.

Over And Out - Senor Trump

Over the previous two months following the 2020 Election Trump, GOP politicians, and right-wing news stations had been very vocal about accusing the Democrats of having manipulated the counting of votes. Scores of lawsuits were filed by Republican lawyers against the results in Arizona, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. None of them were accepted by the courts and the defeated leader of the 'Despicables' launched a hate-campaign against the victors, culminating on January 6, 2021 with Donald Trump hosting a 'STOP THE STEAL' rally for his far-right supporters on Pennsylvania Avenue to coincide with the Electoral College vote to confirm Joe Biden as President.

Trump spoke at length.

He catalogued the many perceived errors in the election process to his crowd, ending with this encouragement.

"And again, most people would stand there at 9 o'clock in the evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other life. But I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children, and for our beloved country.

And I say this despite all that's happened. The best is yet to come.

So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give.

The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I want to thank you all. God bless you and God Bless America.

Thank you all for being here. This is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you."

Tens of thousands heeded his command.

There were no armed National Guard troops to stop the mob's progress. The Capitol Police were overwhelmed by the Trump fanatics. The Senate and Congress were under siege and the Proud Boys et al sought blood.

Some police backed the rioters.

THe American flag became a rallying point

Security was breached by the Zealots.

Guns were drawn to protect the lawmakers

People started to die.

Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence headed the list of the mob.

Chaos reigned America.

Trump said nothing to prevent the disorder.

He moved out of the White House and drifted south to Florida, a loyal bastion of Trumpards.

Democrats sought to impeach him.

Their efforts were thwarted by the GOP's refusal to break ranks with a madman.

Now it is up to state AG's to prosecute this criminal and traitor.

And then we fly him to Gitmo, but waterboarding with dog piss.

He deserves nothing less.