the muse of the sex pistols

Lesson 2. Establish the name Sex Pistols.

Who was this girl?

Not a natural blonde. British. Now about 50. Then 18.

This goddess of punk was in THE GREAT ROCK AND ROLL SWINDLE.

Where is she now?

Shut The Fuck Up Carville

James Carville has been a racist tout for neo-Liberalism for over thirty years.

This week he attacked the call 'Defund the Police."

He has no idea what this means.

Neither do my liberal white racist friends agreeing with this bald POS.

In 2017, state and local governments spent $115 billion on police, $79 billion on corrections, and $48 billion on courts. Now police funding is over 10% for most cities. This money is spent on creating militarized anti-neighborhood policing techniques. I've seen tanks on the streets of Brooklyn, police armed with lethal force, and black neighborhood treated like terrorist havens.

Defund the police means disarming the 12.

Also drug testing all of the Filth.

Non-payment for police assassin such as Derek Chauvin.

Fuck James Carville.

He helped Clinton pass the 1995 Crime Bill aimed at minorities.

They are both war criminals deserving of imprisonment.

The sooner the better.

Kate Teale - David Henderson Opening - May 1

I love both their works.

I'll be there at 1 PM.

If permitted I might blather about Art.

"Art is a good name for a man." Andy Warhol.

Living Long Is The Best Revenge

My great-grandaunt Bert lived to 103. Aunt Marge made it to 95. My father hit 89. My family suffers longevity well and at 68 I can still beat some teenagers at basketball, so I suspect that I'm headed for a ripe old years in full control of my diminishing facilities and if so I hope to age much like Rita Levi-Montalcini.

Nine Aprils ago the Italian Senator for Life and Nobel Prize winner celebrated her 100th birthday. She arrived at the event honoring her decades of achievements in an stunning navy-blue dress. The ageless beauty had been banned from academia by Mussolini. T

After the Nazi invasion of 1943 her family fled Rome to Florence, while she discovered the truth about nerve fibers in a bedroom lab hiding from the SS.

Years later Senora Montalcini told her admirers. "Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them."

True words,because you never know where the road will lead as long as you stay forever young no matter what your age.

I Can't Believe it's Not Butter

Corporations tried to replaced butter with margarine in the 1960s. Ads extolled its taste and the supermarkets priced the corn-based spread cheaper than butter. I refused to eat the shit. My mother and father had six kids and switched to margarine to save money, but I refused to consume the crap and bought butter from my paper route tips. I wouldn't give any to my sisters or brothers unless they joined the boycott against margarine. My father rebelled against margarine after I had him eat mashed potatoes with butter.

"It tastes better."

"Because it's real."

Wisconsin was the only state in the Union to back my fight. Margarine was declared illegal by its legislature. Marlon Brando furthered the cause by spreading butter on his female co-star's buttocks for the infamous anal entry scene in LAST TANGO IN PARIS.

Butter was all-purpose.

It spreads better.

My brother-in-law feels the same way and three years ago sent this email missive.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the corporation financing the margarine crusade brought in their best and brightest food scientists. to figure out what to do with this product to retrieve the millions of research investment.

Margerine was a white substance without any nutritional value or appeal, so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. Both have the same amount of calories, although butter was slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% versus eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study. Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.

Butter has many benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added! Butter tastes much better than margarine and enhances the flavors of other foods. Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

Margarine on the other hand is very High in Trans fatty acids and triples risk of coronary heart disease, increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol), increases the risk of cancers up to five times, lowers quality of breast milk, decreases immune response, decreases insulin response, and here's the most disturbing fact.

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC and shared twenty-seven ingredients with PAINT.

The last test.

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it.

It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value.

Nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

And we are what we eat.

Margarine sucks.

My wife is Thailand bought margarine. I encircled a plate of bananas wit an inch-wide spread. Not one crossed that line. Not one, but it is FDA-approved, because Big Food knows the price of the truth.

JAI YEN MAI by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago on Boxing Day my daughter was playing on our soi in Pattaya. A pick-up roared down the street like the driver had murdered his wife and was bell-bent for the border. From my perspective the bumper came too close to my little precious daughter. I jumped on my scooter and chased the speeding pick-up down the street.

At the corner I slapped his door with my open palm. A clumsy move and I swerved off my bike to avoid entering the car mayhem of Soi Bongkot. The bike dropped to the ground and I struggled to right the Yamaha. My neighbor, appeared to have such a small head through the windshield, got out of the car in a football hooligan fury. The small noggin was attached to a King Kong body tattooed with Chelsea slogan. I spotted 'Strive for victory shun defeat!' a nanosecond before his first punch.

Lefts and rights gashed my eyebrow and cheek. Grappling his arms, I realized, “Shit this guy is strong and knows what he’s doing.”

Finally he was out of breath and asked, “Had enough?”

“Yeah, but you’re still a cunt for nearly hitting my daughter.”

We left it like that.

My daughter's mother regarded at my black eyes and bruised face. “What you want to do?”

“Nothing right now.” Taking a baseball bat to his windshield or slashing his tires would escalate the conflict to the point where someone would get hospitalized since Pattaya is packed with lager louts and hooligans avoiding travel in Europe now that Spain has an extradition treaty with the UK. Fascists to a man.

“Good. Better to have jai-yen.” She kissed my cheek and gave me a beer. Fights led to blood and blood led to death.

My Thai friends from the Buffalo Bar said we have to get him.

Gae-kaen or revenge.

“But not today.” They advised with a grim smile. “Wait, we get him later.”

Their list of suggestions were dominated by a beating or vandalizing his truck.
“We do. You not worry. You not call the police?”

“No.” Calling the police meant paying sin-bon or bribes without any guarantee of satisfaction.

“Good.” The Thais liked keeping the police in the dark. “Lam-Luat no know. Good.”

My farang friends asked, “What happened to you?”

I explained the situation, but changed the story to say that my assailant was an 80 year-old man.

“Really?”

“Some of these geezers are wiry and fast.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing as long as he drives slower in the neighborhood.”

Doing nothing felt funny. George W Bush wouldn’t do nothing, but the Pentagon wasn’t in my back pocket. Nothing seemed wrong, especially when the skinhead lout drove by my house every day with a pit bull in the back. At least he was going slower.

I spent a week doing push-ups. It was a waste of time.

I was no longer a fighter, but I am vicious and spotted a cluster of red ants in my mango tree. Normally I would have sprayed the swarming tentacles with a pesticide since mot-daeng are wicked biters. This time I went into the kitchen and brought out a pot of honey.

“Winnie the Pooh.” My daughter called out as I coated the leaves with the sweet sticky honey.

My wife took one look and said, “Gae-kaen.”

I nodded my head and waited for the ants to gather their clan.

Red ants swarmed over the leaves to get at the honey. Within an hour the branch bent under their weight. By dark they numbered in the thousands, thanks to my attentive resupply of honey. My daughter's mother was watching a Thai soap opera. She only had eyes for the TV. I drove around the block. The pick-up truck was parked on the street.

I returned to the mango tree and coaxed the red ants into a paper bag. It actually felt heavy and then I dressed in black. Camouflage for the night. I crossed through the backyards of several abandoned house to the adjacent street. No dogs barked out a warning.

The skinhead’s truck was sheltered under a tree. I snuck up to the driver’s door. A dollop of honey on the door handle. Another under the door. I checked the street and uplifted the bag . A little too fast, because more ants fell on me than the door.

Thousands of them sought my flesh.

Hundreds of them found it.

I threw down the bag and ran into the darkness, with the ants biting bite everywhere.

My daughter's mother spotted the welts. “Gae-kaen.”

"Yeah, gae-kaen."

The next day I heard from neighbors how the football hooligan had come out his house and gotten into to his car to be attacked by thousands of fire ants.

They regarded me with approval.

I smile a 'yim-mai-loo', saying I didn't know what they were talking about, but they smiled back to say they knew, because like the Irish the Thais believe that revenge was always best served cold.

Especially with red ants on hand.

Bad Apples 100% - Fuck 12

On May 25, 2020 Minneapolis police officers attempted to arrest George Floyd for passing a fugazi $20 at a local beer store. The 12 forced the African-American man to the pavement and Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck over nine minutes, as the father of five pleaded for his life.

"I can't breathe."

Onlookers yelled that he was killing the man.

Chauvin remained unmoved by their cries and George Floyd was dead at the scene.

Several people videoed the murder and four days later Derek Chauvin, who had a history of shooting and abusing black citizens, was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

Last week he was found guilty on all counts.

Police stood on every corner in the Brooklyn 'hoods.

Ready to spread mayhem, but the people for the moment were content with the guilty verdicts.

Sentencing will come next month and then we shall see what justice lies in the heart of America.

"He's just a bad apple," said one of my white friends.

"Whether you like it or not, the 12 are all bad apples. Corrupt and racist to the rotten core."

White people hate hearing the truth and few have reacted to the fact that six black people have been shot in the five days following Derek Chauvin's conviction, as if they wanted to show people they are still the scum.

One verdict will not end their reign of terror.

Only real change.

Fuck the 12.

Gas, Fast Food, Cars

Today the Boston Celtics kicked off the NBA Sunday games against the Charlotte Hornets. They played like a team who had survived a BBQ dinner followed by a clandestine soiree at a crack den whorehouse and a dawn limo ride to their hotel. This team has no soul and have no chance of going anywhere in the playoffs. Brad Stevens sucks as a coach and the all-stars are exhausted by the schedule. I waited through a time-out to be subjected to ads from the three worst products in America; Gas, Fast Food, and Cars.

Gas is culled from coal, tar pits, and deep veins of oil beneath the surface of Earth.

If all the carbon in the air were to drop to the surface, mankind would be buried under three feet of toxic ash extinguishing all life on the planet.

Fast food genetically modifies its consumers into obese non-human stricken with a multitude of life-threatening diseases. I have warned my friends in love with Mickie Ds and Burger King about their eating doom, but how can an old drunk argue against the pretty photos of Fast Food empires?

By saying nothing.

What's the use?

I figure the world population in 2050 to number 500 million.

And cars will not help anyone escape the the end of the world.

I will be 98 in 2050.

The last old man on Earth.

Despite my team losing today, I will be wearing my green.

I will drive a motorcycle fueld by the last gas in this world.

And dining on fried clams at Tony's at Wollaston Beach.

98 and more alive than ever.

THE INHALE OF WEED by Peter Nolan Smith

Marijuana was demonized throughout my youth. The Boston police treated reefer smokers as harshly as junkies. John Sinclair, the MC5's radical spokesperson, was sentenced to ten years of prison for the crime of ‘giving’ an undercover agent two joints. The severity of his punishment did not deter the millions of marijuana smokers of the 60s from burnign the weed and the herb found more and more disciples after the Summer of Love.

Cute girls hit the bong. John Lennon was arrested for possession. Football players got high.

I remained straight.

Drugs were for someone else.

I liked beer.

My friends were converts. They smoked in my VW Beetle. In the summer of 1969 John Gilmour lit up a joint of Columbian Red on the way back from Nantasket Beach. I opened the sunroof to avoid a contact high.

"You're missing out on a good thing." He sat in the front seat.

"It's against the law."

"So is speeding, but you're ten miles over the speed limit."

"That's different." I slowed down, because the town cops on Route 3A loved busting teenagers.

"Your loss." John passed the joint to Frank Ames. He had just returned from Vietnam. Only John had long hair.

NO TIME LEFT FOR YOU by the Guess Who was playing on WMEX.

They were having a good time. I felt left out. We pulled up to a red light in Hingham and I said, “Let me have some.”

“No.”

The three of them argued briefly that one of us had to be straight.

“Why?”

They didn’t have a good answer and I grabbed the joint from John.

I had smoked a cigarette in 1964 and coughed like I was losing a lung then.

I feared the same result from the joint, but inhaled deeply on the joint.

I was a long-distance runner. I didn’t exhale for 30 seconds. The plume of smoke from my mouth clouded up the VW.

"I don't feel anything."

“That’s normal,” John said in a dream.

"Wait. This pot creeps up on you," Frank warned from the back seat.

The light turned green.

"That color is so beautiful."

"Yeah." John agreed with me.

"Someone got high." Frank closed his eyes.

The radio played The Misunderstood' CHILDREN OF THE SUN. We didn’t move for the entire song.

A horn broke the trance. We were holding up traffic. I shifted into first and we drove to John’s house in Wollaston to smoke another joint.

I was no longer straight.

“I’m hungry,” Frank announced after listening to FREAK OUT. He had another week of furlough before returning to Vietnam. “What about fried clams?”

“Tony’s or the Clambox?” I could go either way.

“The girls in bikinis hang out at the Clambox.” Frank rolled another joint.

“Tony’s has better clams.” John was a picky eater.

“Let’s eat at both,” I suggested, since they were only a short distance apart.

It was a good choice.

And so was turning on to marijuana.

Ohio Getaway

Pot costs about $800 a pound in California and several years ago two boys from Duchess County New York decided to drive cross-country, score ten pounds, and drive back with the weed to sell OZs at $80. Neither Mike not Earl could remember a big bust in their hometown for ages. The cops were old and over-worked. Everyone wanted cheap weed and they could use the money.

The two twenty year-olds cut their hair, dressed in their Sunday suits, packed up their BMW SUV with empty bags, and headed west from the Poughkeepsie at dawn. The strain of the long haul was eased by good tunes and a few joints for the road. By the time they crossed into Ohio, the duo were high and the stash was down to a single joint. None would have been better, since the 1st Commandment of an outlaw was to only break one law at a time.

West of Cleveland a state trooper stopped them on I-90. He had a dog with him. It wasn't a poodle, but a Alsatian drug sniffer, which had probably been raised on hash cookies and was jonesing for a bag of weed.

"It's factory regulation." The trooper was almost as young as them. His hair was cut to the bone. HIs body fat zero. A gun was on his hip. He was everything they were not.

"What's the problem, officer?"

"Those windows are too dark for this state."

The trooper's dog barking meant one thing and he ordered the two boys out of their car. The dog found the last joint in three seconds. The $8000 was next to it. Things looked bad, until the trooper offered them a deal.

"Boys, you're probably heading to California to get some weed. $8000 worth. Come back to New York and make a little fortune. You tell me the truth and I'll let you go."

The two had never trusted a Duchess County cop, but decided to place their fate in this mirror image of law and order.

They admitted their guilt.

"Good, now I want you to turn around and drive back to New York. Don't come through this way again. You're getting off easy, just remember that. Cops farther west would have you in cuffs and you'd lose the car and the $8000."

"Yes, officer."

Mike and Earl were grateful for this gift. They threw out the joint and turned around on the next interchange. Both tried to figure out why they had gotten off so easy.

"Maybe Ohio is soft of weed." Mike had a cousin in Cleveland. He said that the police were only after crystal meth.

"Naw, it's because the state is broke and they don't have the money to try small-timers like us."

Their debate was cut short by the whoop of a siren. Another state trooper pulled them over for tinted windows. He had a dog. The dog found the marijuana scented cash in 5 seconds. Mike and Earl explained the story to the state trooper, who called his fellow officer on a cellphone.

"Just keep heading east."

"Yes, officer."

None of the headers in Duchess County believed Mike and Earl's story, but after a few homegrown joints they called the incident the "Ohio Getaway'.

A true miracle of the Drug Wars.

REEFER MADNESS was a 1936 film financed by a church group intent on informing American youth about the reputed dangers of marijuana. A ten-minute Google search failed to reveal the name of the church group, however the film's focus was hijacked by the addition of salacious scenes by an exploitation producer, Dwain Esper, supposedly a horrible director.

NORML, a pro-marijuana group rediscovered REEFER MADNESS in 1972 and bought the rights from the Library of Congress for $272 to distribute the movie across the USA. It was an instant hit and its popularity has spawned books and a Broadway show, for the only dangers of marijuana are the criminalization of grass, getting beat by a dealer, and eating the contents of your refrigerator.

It does not cause madness or death.

LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH USA IN 2015 WERE AS FOLLOWS

http://drugwarfacts.org

Tobacco 435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,000
Alcohol 85,000
Microbial Agents 75,000
Toxic Agents 55,000
Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,347
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000
Suicide 30,622
Incidents Involving Firearms 29,000
Homicide 20,308
Sexual Behaviors 20,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,000
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,600
Marijuana 0

Zero.

Free the weed.

VALLEY OF POT by Peter Nolan Smith

August 1972 was five years past San Francisco's Summer of Love. A college friend from Crane's Beach and I had hitchhiked from Boston to the West Coast in 45 hours. A mutual girlfriend, Marilyn, was working as a topless hostess on the Barbary Coast.

Three months' tips paid a year's tuition.

After a few hugs and kisses, the 19 year-old nursing student gave Cliff the address of a crash pad. She had little time for us. Her boyfriend was the VP of the Skulls. It was obvious that Marilyn wasn't fucking either of us this trip and the biker warned us to fuck off.

Rico was actually nice about it.

Marilyn said that she would see us in September.

Cliff and I aimlessly wandered around the city; the defunct Haight-Ashbury, idyllic Golden Gate Park, and the fleshpots of the Barbary Coast. The hippies had been replaced by junkies and queers. Cliff was a botany major and wanted to see the redwoods.

I called Marilyn to say 'goodbye'.

The biker answered and said, "Like she said see you in September, but if you see me, it will be in hell."

"Not me, but I'll be fucking Marilyn in September. Fuck you."

It was a brave challenge over a phone, but I didn't feel safe until a pick-up drove us across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. We traveled up Route 101 through the wine counties to the redwood forest. We slept surrounded by arboreal giants more ancient than Rome. The next day we reached Arcata in the early morning. A hippie coming south warned us against hitchhiking further north on 101.

"Rednecks and no rides. It could take you a week to reach Oregon."

His adverse advice was accompanied by the paranoia aftermath of the shared joint. Cliff and I headed inland through the Trinity Alps. 299 wound through steep-sloped valleys by wilderness evergreens.

Willow Creek to Burnt Ranch to Big Bar to Junction City and finally Weaverville.

The town was miles from anywhere. An unspoken prosperity had enlivened the previously moribund Gold Rush town. The cars were new and the diners filled with hungry customers, mostly long-haired men in buckskins and tea shades. The waitress was a moonchild. Her smile promised a good time.

"Pot growers," Cliff whispered with admiration. We had financed this trip by the sale of two pounds of Jamaica Red. The town smelled of weed, sinsemilla to be exact.

"This is the ideal place to grow pot." He looked at the steep hills surrounding the town.

Several heads turned our direction.

The townies were used to being discreet.

"You know I really like Marilyn."

"You do? I thought you were just into free love."

"No. I like her like like."

"Sorry, I didn't know." I shrugged an apology.

"Rico's more of a problem, but I know how to get rid of him.I'm going to become a pot grower."

"Me too."

Outside of the street Peter and I discussed pooling our money to set up a marijuana plantation. $500 could grow into $1000. Next year's crop might be worth $100,000. I almost walked back inside the diner to ask the dealers for a job, but a roar of motorcycles shattered the town's serenity.

A pack of Harleys rolled up to the diner. The hippie bon vivants greeted the leathered bikers as long-lost brothers. They belonged to the Sulls and looked like heavier versions of Rico. Only five years ago the Hell's Angels had killed off the Age of Aquarius with the murder at Altamont Speedway during the Rolling Stones' SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL. Weed growers and bikers glared at Cliff and me with hostility.

I lifted my hand to indicate that we were leaving.

No one bothered to watch us go.

"Still want to grow pot?"

"More than ever."

Cliff and I tried dealing back in Boston. I was no good at it. Cliff paid for his tuition and the following summer went out to San Francisco with Marilyn to work as a bartender in the strip club. Neither of them returned to college in the fall. I heard about them from other friends. They were living north of the Bay Area.

His one year of botany made him the Einstein of the marijuana growers. Several of his future strains were mentioned in HIGH TIMES magazine.

And I couldn't have been prouder.

At least one of us had gotten to live the dream.

Free The Weed

The war on drugs has been lost by the governments of the world. Reefer dealers make house calls in New York City and I've done cocaine in Thailand. Both act are criminal under the present laws, however the time has come to legalize drugs.

Not decriminalize.

Legalize as suggested in Ben Elton's HIGH SOCIETY a brilliantly funny novel about an obscure MP rocketing to fame on the back of a drug legalization campaign.

Free the weed.

In 2010 a correspondent in TIME magazine suggested the same thing this week.

"A deal: give us drugs, after a certain age — say, 80 — all drugs, any drugs we want. In return, we will give you our driver's licenses."

This offer is only chipping away at laws such as New York's Rockefeller drug laws, which have packed the state's prisons and across America 1% of our population is a guest of the state. This number translates into 25% of the world's inmates. At $30,000 per prisoner the penal budget for the USA comes to $800,000,000,000. Not all those 3 million convicts are pot smokers, but enough of them are to consider cutting them loose to hang around their houses smoking bongs.

American politicians subjected to a barrage from online questioners about legalization of marijuana. Pot is the #1 cash crop in California. $14 billion last year. 20% tax = $2.8 billion. Carlos Santana, guitar god, suggested, "Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education. You will see a transformation in America."

Right on.

Not that I smoke pot.

A lot.

But it definitely is cooler than popping Oxycontin.

The drug of choice for teenagers in America.

The controversial painkiller has killed hundreds over the years versus zero for marijuana, but no one has been kicking down the door of the manufacturer Purdue Pharma or incarcerating the executives of Phillip Morris for killing hundreds of thousands.

I'm not for Hydro-weed, but natural grass.

It's the real thing.

4:20 2021

Today is 4/20, when people celebrate smoking marijuana worldwide, despite the draconian laws against the weed.

In total fifteen states have legalized recreational marijuana use.

The hold-outs come as no surprise.

God and pot do not mix.

Idaho and Nebreska still consider any contact with the weed as a felony crime.

We only have one thing to say to them.

Leave us alone.

Happy 4/20.

Enjoy Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Hands Off Ramadan

Evil lurked everywhere in 1965 and our 7th Grade Catholic school teacher, Sister Mary Josef, warned her male students in a special assembly that masturbation not only condemned boys to hell, but repeated self-abuse led to hair sprouting from our palms and in the worst case scenario, blindness.

“Idle hands are the tools of the devil. Even the slightest touch can damn your soul. You can never let down your guard.”

“What about when we’re asleep?” a voice asked behind me. Mark Tully was a poor student. He had a problem concentrating on numbers and letters. He was good at getting into trouble and bullied me mercilessly every day.

“Say your prayers before bed and the guardian angels will protect you.” Sister Mary Josef was playing the straight man for Mark's joker.

“Then why do I get nocturnal emissions?” Mark's tone of innocence earned a few snickers.

“Nocturnal emissions?” Sister Mary Josef’s blank expression betrayed her ignorance of this male phenomena.

“Wet dreams.” Mark feared no nun. The monsignor was his uncle. He could do no wrong and said to our teacher, “It’s not like we can stop them, can we, sister?”

"You will go blind and then to hell." Sister Mary Josef ended our impromptu sex education and Mark was ordered to write “Pray at night. Pray in your dreams Pray during the day.” 1000 times.

Sex was a mystery. We thought girls couldn’t masturbate. but we knew from playing with our sisters' Barbie Dolls that girls had no penis, but something was up there, because the nuns had forbade the girls to polish their shoes to prevent us from seeing the reflection off their shoes. We tried anyway, answering the siren's lure to our pubescent lust.

Satan was everywhere and nowhere, however none of us mentioned sex in the confessional, since the priests swore Christ had come from a virgin birth. Our parents breached the wall of silence about sex with a brief and sketchy talk about the mysteries of the birds and bees without ever touching on masturbation other than to say that it was evil.

Islam has similar approach and five years ago the grand leader Khameini unforgivingly scolded the faithful how they should not masturbate during Ramadan, otherwise the fast would be considered invalid and Iran’s most influential religious personage was asked on his website, “If somebody masturbates during the month of Ramadan but without any discharge, is his fasting invalidated?”

“If he do not intend masturbation and discharging semen and nothing is discharged, his fasting is correct even though he has done a h’ar’m (forbidden) act. But, if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is a h’aram intentional breaking fasting.” This was the posted reply.

This basically means that masturbation other than during Ramadan, which is certainly more advanced thought than the Catholic Church who consider any sex outside of marriage to be the gateway to Hell.

I checked the Mullah’s English website and discovered the holy men spend a lot of time discerning that which is okay and not okay. Check it out for any Sharia dilemmas.

http://www.leader.ir/langs/EN/index.php

The soul you save might be your own.

As for Ramadan 2015

Enjoy and be in good health.

DEMO DERBY Paintings by Jane Dickson / Writing by Peter Nolan Smith

On a summer night in 1969 a high school friend Dave Quaan drove my older brother, next-door neighbor and me to Norwood Arena in his family’s station wagon. The Ford Country Squire hit its top speed of 115 on Route 128. We got off the highway at US 1 and drove south to a ball of light glowing under the stars.

Our destination was Norwood Arena, which featured weekly drag racing and demo derbies. Dave parked the Ford and we hurried into the stands. The first heat started at 7 pm. We bought four beers with a fake IDs and drank them fast. My brother spotted a boy from our hometown. Joe Tully had bullied me in 7th Grade. I couldn't remember why he had stopped the beatings.

Three months ago he had been arrested for joy-riding and his father, a town cop figured a short stretch at Billerica Reformatory would teach his son a lesson, only Joe was not the learning kind.

"You want to start something?" asked my brother. Frunk always had my back.

"No, not now."

The six-footer was hanging with six leather-jacketed thugs. My revenge could wait for better odds.

At 7pm the announcer called the first demo derby with a hoarse throat. Detroit clunkers rooster-tailed across the dirt. Fenders flew in the air and bumpers battered doors. The coup de grace was a rear-end smash into the radiator. After the third heat Joe came over and poked my chest.

"Long time no see."

"Not long enough."I swatted away his hand. "Do me a favor and leave me alone. I'm here for the races."

"Sure, tough guy, but I bet I could win one of these.”

“In whose car?”

“My car.” He pointed past the fence to a 1969 Chevy Station Wagon. “It's faster than any of those wrecks on the track.”

Joe was drunk and I said, “Then go for it, unless you’re a pussy.”

“Who you calling ‘pussy’?” His clenched fists turned white. “I’m no pussy.”

“Prove it.”

“I show you right now.”

"I'll be watching."

Joe staggered underneath the stands shouting to his greaser friends.

“Are you okay?" asked my brother.

“Yes, Joe said he was going to enter his car in the next heat."

"Bullshit, more like he had to puke in the urinal. Maybe he'll drowned in there."

"I should only be so lucky."

Right before the start of the next heat a late entry roared into the arena.

It was Joe’s station wagon.

“No way.” His friends hooted their support, as Joe circled the arena in the immaculate Chevy.

Everyone descended to the chicken wire fence separating the audience from the dirt track.

“This is wicked," Frunk said, admiring my 7th Grade tormentor, and even I shouted for Joe.

"Wicked."

Several seconds later the station wagon was t-boned on its first pass through the Figure 8 and the Chevy 360ed through a puddle of mud.

Norwood Arena liked a wet track.

Joe avoided another collision, but a 64 Ford Fairlane rammed the station wagon against the wall. The cracked radiator spewed steam and Joe crawled out of the wreck with a huge grin. It didn't last long.

“I’m fucked.” Joe climbed into the stands.

“That you are.” I forgave him everything, as a tow truck hauled the totaled Chevy out of the arena.

“But it isn’t the first time I fucked up, so gimme a beer.”

The night Joe didn't have to buy a single beer, but his glorious evening ended upon getting home. The station wagon belonged to his aunt and she was pressing charges.

His father paid for the damages and exiled his son to a military school in thick forests of northern Maine. Winter in Aroostock County was as cold as Siberia. There was no escape, although Joe tried seven times.

After graduation in June he enlisted in the army. His fare-well party was held at Norwood Arena on a warm night.

“I’m sorry,” Joe told me at the end of the night. His hair was crew cut short. He was ready for war.

"For what?"

“Bullying you was fucked up, but no worse than you tricking me into the arena with my aunt's car.”

“Did you really think you could win?”

“Yeah, so I guess we're even.”

“You be safe over there.” Forgiving was easy once you had your revenge.

The following week Joe was airlifted to Viet-Nam. After his second tour he married our hometown’s prettiest girl. Joe became a cop like his old man and they had four kids.

I see them on Christmas Eve and Joe tells the story about the demo derby. We all laugh too, except for his father, because some things are never funny to people who weren’t there.

PAPER BOY by Peter Nolan Smith

Boston published three morning newspapers in 1960; the Boston Globe, the Record American, and the Herald Traveler. My family moved from Falmouth Foresides, Maine to a a suburb south of Boston. The Neponset River separated the city from the town. Our neighborhood had been constructed on an abandoned army base. Several hundred newly-constructed split-level houses crowded half-are plots along of seven streets. Our ranch house was on Harborview Road. If I climbed the tallest tree in the woods behind our backyard, I could see Boston Harbor. No ships were visible from this distance.

The nearest store was two miles away and my father saw an opportunity to teach the work ethic to his oldest sons. The Maine native called the local news distributor to set up a newspaper route for us. The three papers arrived at 6am. My brother and I folded the newspapers to stuff into the canvas carry bags.

Each morning of the week my father cooked us breakfast. Fried eggs and toast. I had the closest route. My brother had the farthest. We rode around the quiet neighborhood on our Raleigh 3-speeds.

Rain, sleet or snow.

We were more dependable than the Post Office.

The newspapers arrived at the front door for the man of the house to read about Vietnam, the Red Sox, and JFK. My brother and I were the best informed students at Our Lady of the Foothills.

We supported the Globe.

The Record American was not a broadsheet.

The Herald-Traveler supported Goldwater.

Their politics sold papers and I earned about $10 a week. A movie ticket cost a half a dollar. Albums were around $3. Levis at Walker’s Western Gear in Boston sold at $6. Delivering papers was easy money.

The older women in the neighborhood sometimes answered the door in their lingerie. A few of the men naked. Their exhibitionism led to big tips and I learned to keep my mouth shut about their cheap thrills.

My desire was to hold hands with Kyla Rolla. The brunette was the prettiest girl on the route. She was my age.

12.

Her mother was a divorcee.

Kyla was the smartest girl at Our Lady of the Foothills. I was her rival and she traced figure-8s on my back during spelling bees. The letters stuck in my mouth. She knew that I had a stutter, but I accepted her cheating with expectation and dreamed about becoming a news reporter.

Just like Clark Kent for the Daily Planet.

He loved Lois Lane more than Superman.

Same as my love for Kyla.

In 1964 the news distributor changed the pay-out per paper. My salary dropped down a little, but worst was that two new boys were throwing the bundles of papers out of the truck.

Mark Tully and his friend Joe Scanlon were the town bullies. Each had been kept back a year for a combination of bad grades and worst behavior.

After school they waited for me in the Town Field.

Crossing it was the shortest way home.

"Hey, paper boy."

At least once a week they beat me up in front of my schoolmates and best friend. At least Kyla never saw my disgrace. She had afternoon dancing lessons in Mattapan Square. Everyone else watched my humiliation as if it were a TV show. No one ever interfered to stop the two bullies.

Better me than them was the thinking.

My days started out with Mark chucking my newspapers in puddles and the garbage. My older brother complained to the distributor, who fired Mark from his job. The beatings worsened with his dismissal.

In the Spring of 1965 I grew a few inches. Mark and Joe had the odds of two against one. My fighting skills were basic. I suffered in silence. Finks or snitches were hated by the young.

One day Mark and Joe shanghaied me to row a boat under a bridge over the Neponset River. Right next to the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory. It was spring. The river was running high. The air was drenched in sweetness. Mark and Joe had kidnapped Kyla and her friend. The two bullies told the girls to take off their shirts. We were all 13.

No longer kids.

Cars rolled overhead on the steel bridge. The girls’ fingers fumbled with the buttons. I told them to stop. Mark and Joe ordered me to shut up. I hit Mark in the head with an oar. He went overboard. Joe got it in the stomach. The water wasn’t deep, but they couldn’t swim. I didn’t care if they lived or died, as I rowed to safety.

Kyla and her friend were grateful. She kissed me on the cheek. We became boyfriend and girlfriend later that year. Mark and Joe were arrested for stealing a car. They entered it in a demolition derby. The police arrested them after they totaled the station wagon. A judge sentenced them to two years at Billerica Reform School. I delivered newspapers until I was 14. Kyla and I broke up in senior year of high school. To this day I don’t know why.

I never became a reporter.

Mostly because I realized that no one can be Superman.

Not even Clark Kent.

Then again he was never a paper boy.

Rolling Rocks Into The Grand Canyon

Back in August 1972 I attempted to reach the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

My friend and I left the south rim at 7am. We had two full canteen. Nick and I ran out of water around Skeleton Point.

The Colorado looked so inviting, but we were parched by the summer sun and quit our quest.

Near the top I ran into someone from my hometown. Moon Marco, who had bullied me incessantly with Joe Tully.

I said hello and introduced myself.

The long haired twenty year-old remarked how strange it was that we had run into each in the West.

"We come from the same town," He said to his two friends. "Didn't you convince Joe to enter a demo derby in his aunt's station wagon."

"At Norwood Arena. It didn't take much convincing. Joe was drunk."

"I wouldn't have been so forgiving as Joe. He ended up in the Marines.

"And survived Vietnam. I saw him last Christmas. He's changed."

"Me too. I'm a hippie now."

"Yeah

His punches had hurt, but I wasn't twelve anymore and he said, "Maybe we'll see you around."

"Not if I see you first."

After he departed carrying two gallon bottles of water, I related the connection to Nick, who pointed to Moon and asked, "I didn't hear him say sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"I don't know. Punches, kicks, and slaps. Daily humiliation. Never knowing why."

Nick was Italian. They had a code. Fuck someone before they can fuck you."

"You're right. He didn't apologize." I looked down the slope. Moon was a small figure on a dusty trail.

Throwing or rolling rocks or other items down hillsides or mountainsides, into valleys or canyons, or inside caves was prohibited by the National Park Service.

Moon was still within striking range.

"Me, neither." so I rolled a rock down the slope at Moon.

The bully ran for cover. His friends too., I rained more boulders at him.

After I stopped, Nick asked, "Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, and about a lot of things." We got in Nick's BMW and continued west to California.

It wasn't very far way from Arizona.

ROADS OF THE FLYOVER by Peter Nolan Smith CHAPTER 4

Heading north we passed rivers on the verge of bursting their banks and I explained to Brock, "Last year an epic flood submerged Cedar Rapids, but it hasn't rained in days."

The radio weatherman had forecasted a pleasant day for Northern Iowa and Minnesota. I stepped on the gas. Everyone on I-380 was traveling ten miles over the speed limit. I kept pace at 85.

North of Cedar Rapids we got off the highway and twenty minutes later on a back road Brock spotted buffalo grazing on long prairie grass.

"Stop."

I braked the rented Ford in a parking lot of a small state park.

We approached the fence.

A state ranger was inspecting the wooly bison and told us, "They once roamed the Great Plains in the millions, but were reduced to 750 by 1890."

The small herd was fenced into a park and the ranger said, "This isn't a petting zoo, so I have to make sure no one thinks it is."

A good-sized buffalo weighed more than a ton. One came up to the fence and Brock touched its head. He passed me the film camera and said, "Keep me in focus. Barry's going to love this."

Brock and I ate a late breakfast of left-over ribs from Des Moines. They hadn't gone bad in the back seat and Brock put on a KC Royals baseball cap, which he had bought in that city two days ago.

"How many miles you think we've driven so far.

"Almost two thousand." Most of it had been on dirt roads cutting straight through the farmlands. Brock lived in London with his wife and two kids.

"If we drove two thousand miles from London, we'd be in Istanbul."

"Which probably doesn't look much like this."

"This is a big continent, especially from south to north." I dumped my gnawed ribs into the trash.

"Which is why I'm heading north with the Chicken Messiah." Brock wiped his hands on the back of his jeans. He was getting to be a real American.

"It's almost 5000 miles from London to Kabul." Brock couldn't get Afghanistan out of his head. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers felt the same. "Back in the 70s hippies drove to Kabul in school buses and vans. Next stop was Kathmandu and then Kuta in Bali."

"A long time ago and Iowa was never Kabul."

"Except with Rockford."

"And Barry's in Ibiza."

"My kids are in Thailand."

Like the Hare sculptures we were scattered across the globe far from home.

Corn was everywhere.

Brock shot everything.

"This will be Barry's last trip to America."

“You know I haven’t really looked at his sculptures.”

My daydreams were dominated by premonitions of seeing my son and daughter in the coming month. This driving job for Brock would pay for a ticket to Thailand.

“You shouldn’t look at anything.” Brock put down his camera. “You have to see or hear or feel Art. Open your mind to another dimension.”

“I’ll try.” We had one more Hare statue ahead and I gripped the wheel with both hands.