December 19, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Alice and I left our third floor one-bedroom early to catch to La Guardia for an early morning flight to West Virginia. We have lived in the third floor one-bedroom since August. I carried her heavy blue bag down to the corner of 10th and 1st. No sinse dealers on the corner. It's not too cold and she wore a long green Mormon dress, a distressed purple sweater and her favorite high-heeled boots. I want her to stay with me for the holidays, but said nothing. We barely speak and both of us succumbed to the pull of our old homes. She to Appalachia and me to the South Shore of Boston for the holidays.

She hailed a Checker. I threw her bag in the back. Neither of us said good-bye, as if there was nothing in this city was holding her. Not me. Not her career. The taxi disappeared into the traffic. We hadn't had sex since before she announced she was pregnant after the New Wave Vaudeville Show last month. These last weeks I had watched her gain weight. Some, but she had been eating like she had been rescued from starving on a deserted island.

After an hour I get a phone call from Jim Bottomly. He's driving up to Maine and can drop me at the Sturbridge entrance to the Mass Pike. A good place from which to hitchhike to Boston. Last night the temperature had been below freezing. The New York Times forecasts it will be bitter cold tomorrow, but it's only fifty five miles from Sturbridge to Boston. There is no mention of snow.

Later.

The Patriots announced that Chuck Fairbanks will be leaving the Patriots after the playoffs to coach at Colorado U. This move must have really charged the team for the playoffs. Why couldn't he have waited till after the New Year? Probably because the Press had the news and couldn't hold their sand.

Lately ruminating watching television, playing solitaire, and listening to the radio has a greater appeal than writing at the kitchen table. Claptrap no one wants to read.

Other than unwashed clothing, a stand-up piano and books on drama Alice left little trace. I smelled her pillow. She is too clean to leave a scent. I wonder if she is coming back. She might just go west to hit it big in Hollywood. Another young ingenue to the whorehouse of theater. No chance of being the sex symbol Hollywood wants in their grips, but I could go with her. I'll be just as broke there as here.

Standing at the rear window overlooking the alley, I reflect on the past year. I fell in love for the first time in my life, not counting Janet Stetson, Linda Imhoff, Hilde Hartnett and Ro Lohin. All of them ended up in disaster. Not Alice. Our one night stand, a menage a trois in a chilly swimming pool graduated to a weekend fling to a summertime affair to living together. I rescued Alice from her hometown. Chemical City. She would have come here anyway. The bright lights of the big city dazzled her hillbilly heritage. She is gone, but I live with her and she lives with me with no end in sight.

Second achievement also tied to Alice. I moved from the SRO on West 11th Street to 256 10th Street. My grandmother once said, "Better a bad apartment with a good address than a good apartment with a bad address. My SRO was a single room with linoleum floor and a sagging bed. Off a 5th Avenue. But a dump. 256 is a cockroach-ridden tenement apartment in a neighborhood beset by a drug epidemic, but I didn't have a phone on 11th Street and now I can reach out to people, not that I have been able to find a good job.

I have worked at Serendipity 3 as a busboy, a waiter at an executive dining room on Wall Street, as a production assistant for an Edward Albee tour, and painted Alice's father's house in West Virginia. I haven't done much since summer and the new year promises more nothing.

Bad things.

Too few to mention.

Maybe a baby.

What is Christmas
Snow falling between the drifts,
The glow on holiday lights in the windows
Falling on the winter wonderland.
Presents, giving and receiving.
Friends, old and new,
Families
Together
Telling old stories and future dreams
We celebrate the birth of Jesus
The legend celebrated by Christians. I'm an atheist.

I believe more in Santa Claus.
The New Testament claims the Son of God
Was
Born in Bethelhem
The Son of God to be crucified
On a cross for our sins.
None of my sins required a death sentence.
Christians see Jesus as a God
Muslims regard him a a messiah.
Nothing like a religious war
For Jesus and Christmas Day to bring Peace on Earth.

Later

Grant and I discussed the fact that Americans are poorly read, rarely roaming from the curriculum prescribed by a Christian government and the churches ruling over our souls. We watch too much TV and eat too much potato chips. Where are the Renaissance men? Damn, I can't spell that word and I'm too lazy to look it up the the dictionary.

2023 Renaissance.

Got it right on the second try.

December 18, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

Alice left the East Village to catch a flight to West Virginia. We have lived at 256 East 10th since August. I carry her heavy blue bag down to the street corner. It's not too cold and she wore a long green Mormon dress, a distressed purple sweater, and her favorite high-heeled boots. I want her to stay with me, but said nothing. We barely speak and both of us succumbed to the pull of our old homes. She to Appalachia and me to the South Shore of Boston for the holidays.

She hailed a cab and a Checker stopped on the corner of Fitst Avenue. I threw her bag in the back. Neither of us said good-bye, as if there was nothing in this city was holding her. Not me. Not her career. The taxi disappeared into the traffic. We hadn't had sex since before she announced she was pregnant after the New Wave Vaudeville Show. These last weeks I had watched her weight gain. Some, but she had been eating like she had been rescued from starving on a deserted island.

After an hour I get a phone call from Jim Bottomly. He's driving up to Maine and can drop me at the Sturbridge entrance to the Mass Pike. A good place from which to hitchhike to Boston. Last night the temperature had been below freezing. The New York Times forecasts it will be bitter cold tomorrow, but it's only fifty five miles from Sturbridge to Boston. There is no mention of snow.

Later.

The Patriots announce that Chuck Fairbanks will be leaving the Patriots after the playoffs to coach at Colorado U. This move must have really charged the team for the playoffs. Why couldn't he have waited till after the New Year? Probably because the Press had the news and couldn't hold their sand.

Lately ruminating watching television, playing solitaire, and listening to the radio has a greater appeal than writing at the kitchen table. Claptrap no one wants to read.

Other than a stand-up piano and books on drama Alice left little trace. I smelled the pillow. She is too clean to leave a scent. I wonder if she is coming back. She might just go west to hit it big in Hollywood. Another young ingenue to the slaughterwhorehouse. No chance of being the sex symbol Hollywood wants in their grips, but I could go with her. I'll be just as broke there as here.

Standing at the rear window overlooking the alley, I reflect on the past year. I fell in love for the first time in my life, not counting Janet Stetson, Linda Imhoff, Hilde Hartnett and Ro Lohin. All of them ended up in disaster. Not Alice. Our one night stand, a menage a trois in a chilly swimming pool graduated to a weekend fling to a summertime affair ot living together. I rescued Alice from her hometown. Chemical City. She would have come here anyway. The bright lights of the big city dazzled her hillbilly heritage. She is gone, but I live with her and she lives with me with no end in sight.

Second achievement also tied to Alice. I moved from the SRO on West 11th Street to 256 10th Street. My grandmother once said, "Better a bad apartment with a good address than a good apartment with a bad address. My SRO was a single room with linoleum floor and a sagging bed. Off a 5th Avenue. But a dump. 256 is a cockroach-ridden tenement apartment in a neighborhood beset by a drug epidemic, but I didn't have a phone on 11th Street and now I can reach out to people, not that I have been able to find a good job.

I have worked at Serendipity 3 as a busboy, a waiter at an executive dining room on Wall Street, as a production assistant for an Edward Albee tour, and painted Alice's father's house in West Virginia. I haven't done much since summer and the new year promises more nothing.

Bad things.

Too few to mention.

Maybe a baby.

What is Christmas
Snow falling between the drifts,
The glow on holiday lights in the windows
Falling on the winter wonderland.
Presents, giving and receiving.
Friends, old and new,
Families
Together
Telling old stories and future dreams
We celebrate the birth of Jesus
The legend celebrated by Christians. I'm an aethist.

I beleive more in Santa Claus.
The New Testament claims the Son of God
Was
Born in Bethelhem
The Son of God to be crucified
On a cross for our sins.
None of my sins required a death sentence.
Christians see Jesus as a God
Muslims regard him a a messiah.
Nothing like a religious war
For Jesus and Christmas Day

Later

Grant and I discussed the fact that Americans are poorly read, rarely roaming from the curriculum prescribed by a Christian government and the churches ruling over our souls. We watch too much TV and eat too much potato chips. Where are the Renaissance men? Damn, I can't spell that word and I'm too lay to look it up the the dictionary.

2023 Renaissance.

Got it right on the second try.

The Touch of Hands

A hand Five fingers The veined back and fleshy palm. Two hands Ten fingers A woman's hand

Mine are scarred Accidents and fights Only on my right hand.

A woman's hands Palms On my cheeks Soft and warm.

It's been years. Since a woman's touched Me. Eyes shut Soul open Bewitched by the palms Of a woman's two hands And the magic of a new memory. They last the longest.

Drawing by Egon Schiele

Imagine Peace

/div>

No silent night No peace on Earth Like Lennon sang Imagine Imagine Imagine

Imagine no more them Imagine no more us Imagine only we are the world We are us. We are us.

From the mountains And the valleys To the Oceans All around the world.

No more prayers No more thoughts Only the silence of guns And Peace on Earth

From the Jordan River To the Ukraine To the wars Everywhere Nothing but peace

For the children of now For the children of the future For we who were once children Peace around the world.

Imagine It's easy if you try Lennon sang that then Let's sing it together now.

All together now All tomorrows All together now We are us All of us Like it or not.

Moe-Ho Road Rage ala Thai - 2005

This Thai expression is rarely used while behind the wheel.

On Boxing Day 2005 a neighbor roared down my soi in his pick-up. He nearly hit my daughter. My wife later said he didn’t come close, but I took off after him on my motorcycle to give him a piece of my mind. At the end of the soi I slapped his door, but had to arkwardly brake to avoid entering the busier main street. The bike fell over and as I was picking it up, my neighbor, whose head appeared small behind the tinted windows emerged as a 6-3 football hooligan and he walloped my head several times. Bloodying my head, breaking my nose slightly, and blackening both eyes.

“Had enough?”

“Yeah, but your still an asshole for driving like one.”

Of course this was hardly an isolated incident.

Everyone’s temper worsens in their vehicle.

Sourette’s syndrome is pandemic.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU.”

Up in Chiang Mai back in the 90s a German flipped a motorcyclist the finger.

A year later the Kraut was shot dead by the same motorcyclist.

Last week a Thai driver was angered by three kids on bike. They were driving in between the cars without any concern for life or limb. The driver beeped his horn and one of the bikers slowed down to shoot the driver. He was lucky.

Only wounded.

His girlfriend said, “I told him to be cool.”

And that’s what everyone should be

Cool.

Me too.

Like where we going in such a hurry?

7/11?

To get some shitty food.

Jai yen.

I’ve learned my lesson, but if anyone sees a blue Isuzu pick-up with 6522 plates, I give you the green light to slash their tires.

Beers will be on me at the Buffalo Bar in August.

Paul Klee - Self Portrait.

Inspired by the break from the known by the painters of the 19th century the artists of the 20th Century explored the unknown to discover a new known.

This self-portrait reveals how we see ourselves in the eyes of the unknown us.

Serge Gainsbourg and Whitney Houston 1986 (2011)

Serge Gainsbourg was the coolest French musician of the last century. His hip stature reverberates to the present. THE BALLAD OF MELODY NELSON is a twenty-seven minutes-long gem of a concept LP. His conquests of women were legion. His loves were few. Jane Birkin was his muse for thirteen years. After their break-up the drink exacted a heavy toll. His decay was public. An infamous meeting with the American chanteuse of the MICHEL DRUCKER SHOW was marked by his slurring through a leer that he wanted to 'fuck' the singer.

Later in 1986 on another talk show Gainsbourg slammed a famous female singer for appearing in XXX films.

"You're nothing but a filthy whore, a filthy, fucking whore."

Tres uncool.

"Look at you, you're just a bitter old alcoholic. I used to admire you but these days you've become a disgusting old parasite." The actress was taking his abuse laying down.

Like Chris Rock said, "You don't want to be the old man in the club."

I know better than making a fool of myself in public.

I save that pleasure for special moments.

Otherwise the best action for an older man is inaction.

We ended up looking like we are thinking.

Me too est Moi uassi aussi.

Redfish Awash Underfoot

The ACADIA BAY 2 trawls the Gulf of Maine Above the Cashes Bank A hundred miles east of Portsmouth. This time of year Close to winter The weather is tricky. Calm seas Then Deadly storms. Today okay. Sunny A slight swell from the deep

Quentin slogs through the knee deep catch. Ninty-three minutees into his shift. Four hours on four hours off. The aft awash Red fish chewing bait Aft ankle deep. The hold half-full.

Quentin never dry, always wet. His fingers and toes Icy old. Christmas a week away. Land way over the western ocean.

Quentin not counting days Nor the minutes. His eyes on the height of fish in the hold. Half full The net reaps more riches from the Cashes Bank.

On the Horizon Another trawler The Paper Sun. Heavy with a tub of hake.

The sea never looks a lot like Christmas This far offshore Quinton noses the air Diesei fumes The stink of fish The sea Always the sea But not he Quinton hasn't bathe in days He doesn't smell dirty Only of diesel and fish. Soon Back ashore

Soon New Bedford A few beers in Knuckleheads A burger and fries too. A night in a cheap hotel Then the drive to Maine. Three hours To Arundel His mother Sister His dog Penny, A bath More beer A home cooked meal and then Christmas But not today Not Tomorrow Just hard labor Just four hours on Four horus off Cold and wet Aft awash with redfish Gulls gliding over the wake. The sea always the sea. The Atlantic always the Atlantic Till the ACADIA BAY II Berths in New Bedford And Quinton's boots on the pier Waiting for that first bazz on Merry Yulemas on and none.

Foto by Quinton Sprague

December 2, 1978 - Journal Entry Later

In the morning Alice says, "I want to see the country. All of it."

She is going home to West Virginia for the holidays. Split between her divorced parents. A daunting experience and she asks, "Can you come skiing with me at Snowshoe?"

An Appalachian ski resort.

"I'd love to, but I'm going north to Boston."

Family and friends. Snowshoe would be better, but my poverty stops me from doing what I like when I like.

"I'd love to come with you, but you know, family and friends."

The times I've gone to Boston alone, Alice has pleaded for me to stay and I think about asking her to stay here. Neither of us go anywhere. I don't want to be with anyone, but her, not not her associates from the theater and the Vaudeville show. I'm done being a sucker for them after last night. My ribs are aching. And a whole bottle of aspirin has done nothing to alleviate the pain. Skiing in my condition could be risky. One fall and my ribs could pop.

"I'll be here waiting for you to come back."

We kiss and almost make love, except in in too much pain from last night's beating. Alice hasn't said a word about the bruises that weren't there yesterday. She must have heard about the bout with Blondie's band. I've said nothing.

Silence is my only true friend.

December 5, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

Early this morning I woke to an empty bed. Alice had opted to stay at her girlfriend's Chinatown loft to work on the Vaudeville Show. Its importance outweighed mine and I suspect our romance has come to an end. Sean Hausman called to work for clearing an East 11th Street lot. The pay $40 with the promise of three more days work for his father's film. I have no idea of the name. It's raining hard, but hard work in a hard rain never stopped me from working and I need the money.

Later.

Work was easy, but cold and wet. The early wake-up call after a late night exhausted my body and I returned to 256 and ran a hot bath. I shut off the hot water and then turned on the TV, then laid on the kitchen floor wrapped in two towels. Good thing I hadn't gotten into the bath, otherwise I might have drowned, since I woke with a shudder and hour later. AS I reheated the bath, I thought about if my death might have made the NY Post.

PUNK DROWNS IN EAST VILLAGE APARTMENT.

The Patriots lose to Dallas after leading 10-3. Their record guarantees them a place in the playoffs, but their kicking sucks

Human Contact Inbound to West 4th Street

Thursday morning I leave 387 @ 11:21 bound for the Village. It was a sunny and unseasonably warm autumn day. I encountered no one on the street. The B54 was five stops away and I set off afoot towards Jay Street - Metro Tech, kicking fallen leaves covering in the gutter. At North Portland a crew of city workers were constructing new corners in the aftermath of a fatal accident last month. I commented classically, "Great work, but I wouldn't have doe it that way."

I had heard that criticism from many workers surveying my labors.

The concrete trimmer looked up with a smile and replied, "Neither would I."

Two of his group were loading debris onto a canvas cover and I said, "Don't one man that, unless you're looking to go on disability."

The trimmer raised his head and prayed, "Oh, for such luck. Then I can move to a red state away from all these liberals."

"And eat shitty pizza."

"Anything to live away from here."

Sie gesund in limbo." I had lived in Juneau for two summer months in 2016. No pizza and only meth bars to drink in, but great salmon. The 54 came by and said hello to the bus driver. A woman passenger loudly played some harsh to my ears and I politely asked if she would lower the noise. She did so with a sneer. Getting off at Jay Street I thanked her for the courtesy and we walked to the subway talking about poetry. She as a poet too. I gave her a copy of DRIFTERS. I recited her a poem about life and motorcycles. We embraced and I descended onto the platform. The A train rolled into the station and I rode it to West 4th Street.

Several players were in the Cage; George the Beard, Tom and James. George challenged me to a game to three. I gave the Beard the ball and immediately stunned him by stealing it from him and sinking a lay-up. I was also surprised. I stopped him two more times.

"Now I see why they called you the Brick."

I missed two more shot after D-ing him tight.

"That's the other reason I was called Brick."

George dropped three in a row. A victory. I thanked everyone and walked down West 4th Street to Professor Bertell Ollman's 9th floor NYU faculty apartment. The ancient Marxist greeted me with the smile. His son with a hug. I was good to live in the womb of humanity.

Two Fingers of Blame

Previously published September 22, 2010

The legend of the Titanic gained two new insights into the maritime disaster with the disclosure from an ancestor of ocean liner's second officer that the ship had been doomed by a steering error by the helmsman. The panicked mistake was overruled by the first officer according to his fellow officer too late to avoid the fatal collision, however even more damning was the chairman of the White Star Line arguing for the ship to remain under steam, causing the Titanic to sink faster.

My grandfather, Frank Arthur Smith, had a schoolmate died in the tragedy. Richard Frazer White was returning to America after a tour of Europe with his family. They traveled first-class from Southampton. My grandfather recovered the body in New Brunswick and transported the body to Massachusetts for burial. His father and brother were surrendered to the sea on that fateful April evening.

Richard Frazer White was mourned the students and teachers of Bowdoin College.

1912.

Almost 100 years ago.

Gone but never forgotten.

Down to The Sea RIP

Last July my fellow Explorers Club members Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet along with Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, were lost, when the Titan, a five-man pressurized submersible imploded on a dive to the RMS Titanic at the bottom of he North Atlantic. On the surface the support ship lost contact, a massive multi-national mission streamed to the rescue. All in vain, although the wreck was found without any of the crew. Death had to be instantaneous.

Yesterday evening the Explorers Club held a memorial for Hamish Harding, a deep sea and polar explorer. I was too sick from fish poisoning to attend. A bad piece of Hake, although it tasted good at the time of eating and I supposed going down the Titanic seemed a good idea in the height of summer. Seats for the three passengers cost $250,000. Stockon Rush had sworn the dive was safe without mentioning previous issues mainly that the carbon-titanium hull had been constructed from secondhand material from Boeing.

All that aside the sea is a cruel mistress.

The three passengers had sign waivers against any lawsuit in case of death.

They understood the risks, as anyone does who goes down the sea in ships.

Sadly a week earlier in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Pylos, Messenia, Greece, a fishing boat sank while carrying an estimated 400 to 750 migrants off the coast of Pylos, Greece. Hundreds drowned as the Hellenic Coast Guard watched under orders to not interfere. The world press ignored the story, as they might have a almost sinking of a ferry off Sulawesi. I was so glad we didn't go under the waves,

I have also endangered my life diving off the Quincy Quarry cliffs, free-diving through underwater caves off Isla des Mujeres, surfing Bingin Beach In Bali, playing softball against the Hells Angels for CBGBs, and motorcycling through the mountains north of Chiang Mai. I have died several times without the time to think I'm going to die and hopefully the same went for the crew of the Titan and the drowned migrants. Rest eternally under the sea.

'

The Last View Of The Titanic

Previously published Apr 17, 2012

HMS Titanic departed from Southampton on April 10, 1912.

The massive ship stopped at Cherbourg to pick up 274 more passengers and drop 24.

The next day the Titanic reached Cork, Ireland, where over a hundred passengers boarded the liner and seven departed.

One was Father Francis Browne, a Jesuit trainee, who snapped the known photo of the Titanic.

It departed at 1.50pm.

Never to be seen again. for the White Star ocean liner struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912.

The impact crushed the unsinkable ship's steel plating.

It was 'women and children first'.

"Sauve qui peux' came too late for over 1500 passengers and crew members.

At 2:20am the Titanic split in two to plunge to the bottom of the ocean.

The Captain went down with his ship.

RIP.

The Near Winter Sun

The almost winter sun Falls on the 9th floor balcony Overlooking Bleecker Street. The air is cold Not winter cold End of autumn cold. 93 million miles away Warm on my skin And Unlike Prairie dogs Asleep in their burrows I shall see through winter Awake Alive.

December 4, 1978 - East Village - Journal

4:10am I lie on the living room floor. My ribs hurt less that way.

Vincent Price was killing zombies on the TV and the NY Sunday Times is scattered besides me. I'm reading the back pages of the travel section, wishing I had enough money to buy a round-the-world ticket. $1100. I only have $78 in my wallet. I'm stuck in America.

It's quiet here. Alice slept in the bedroom. We haven't touched each other since yesterday. I haven't offered any solace. This is all her. Even though I want it to be all us.

Last week the girl renting the apartment below us had her throat slashed by a boyfriend. Luckily she lived. Alice is asleep in the loft bed. It's the dead of night.

Alice said later last night that she had to apologize for my behavior at Irving Plaza. Apologize for getting beaten up by Blondie's band. For having my ribs broken. For doing my job. I wish I hadn't done anything. I just wanted to go home in peace.

In the summer of 1967 I had driven a borrowed Vespa accompanied by Steve Talutis (a bullied neighbor who pumps gas at Jenny's gas station across St. Elizabeth's on Route 28. A year older he drives a yellow Mustang) to Tony's Fried Clams in Wollaston. I arrived first. Hippies hung out on the sea wall. I was dressed in straight legged jeans and a black tee-shirt. Bikers were harassing them for fun.

My mother hated this spot.

"I'd let you go to New York, before allow you to go to Wollaston."

A hippie boy with long blonde hair came up to me and said, "I don't like the way you look."

"Don't be an idiot," the pretty girl with him walked away and he followed. I would have too and started to take off the helmet. Something hit me. A fist. I was surrounded by the hippies. The blonde guy yelled, "Take off the helmet." I looked for help. There was none.

Just like last night.

Alice wasn't there.

"She was the only one who might have stopped it.

But there was no one.

Just like at Wollaston Beach.

Some things don't change.

Dec 2, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry - Poem

Disenfranchised By a dead society
Detested by cult cliques
Dedicated to false idols
Death to their dishonor
Not noble by birth.
Not common by the desire
They are not the avant garde
Few speak of revolution.
I want to fight alone.
A wasted fight.
I don't know what to fight for.
Equality, justice, family, friends.
I know I will fail.
Fail forever
Until I don't fail.
Even if I am only me.
I accept my nothingness.
One day
I can't say when
Car will rust,
Towers wil fall
And diamonds will be dust on the wind.
This destiny will conquer the greed, but what will rule destiny.

Dec 2, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

I had been serious sick from food poisoning this week. Puking and shitting non-stop.Two days of retching in the WC toilet. I slept in the living room to keep it close. Pus getting out of the loft bed was dangerous in my condition. I felt like Doc Holiday in Tombstone. Always ready to die.

Alice was a great nurse.

I do love her.

What's an evening without a fight?

After the Klaus Nomi closed the show for the Vaudeville Show, I had a few drinks and then cleared the crowd from Irving Plaza. A table of rockers ignored my several polite requests. They looked familiar and I let them slide. Finally I said, "It's time to go. Please finish your drinks. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

I had heard Merv from CBGB's say that many times without any trouble, then again he was 6-4.

A musician with glasses stood up.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Not a clue. I just want to go home."

"I'm not stopping you. Fuck off."

I turned my head. Debbie Harry from Blondie glared at me and I recognized the big mouth as their guitarist.

"I'm just doing my job."

"Then why don't you fuck off."

He bumped into my chest. I did not move.

"You're no one to me." I shoved him away hard and he fell into the table. This band rose to their feet as a gang. Five on one. I looked for help. Anthony and Anthony were drinking at the bar. Completely useless as they had been all night. I was on my own. The band flanked me and one of them Japped me. Not a hard punch, but then hands grabbed my arms. I snatched the pianist by the hair. The rest of the band pigpiled atop me and we went to the ground together with the pianist was under me and got a stomping. Boots struck my ribs. One practically hard, knocking out my breath. Staying under the assault was a death wish. Somehow I rose to my feet. Pianist in hand. I punch him hard and was stunned to see his hair in my hand. The beating continued unabated. I saw an opening and clocked the guitarist, breaking his glasses, but there wasn't much fight in me. Them neither. We stood apart. Anthony and Andy came to my sides.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Debbie spat with venom.

As I regained my breath. Not easy. At least two of my ribs were broken. It hurt to breathe. I got a drink at the bar. Alex. the manager of Irving Plaza, served me a double whiskey.

"On the house."

Polish drinkers from the downstairs bar came up to the concert hall.

"I heard the band say you started it." Chris the publicist said, as if believed them over me. "And they said they beat the shit out of you."

There was no blood, but my body had been thrashed and I looked at my friend Anthony. "It was five on one. Pussies. I had no help."

"At least you can tell your grandchildren what wimps Blondie were. You're lucky it wasn't the Ramones."

"Yeah." It was small solace.

I had been in plenty of fights this year. This was my first loss. I blame drink and the odds. I wasn't looking for revenge. Not five against one. Alice was busy counting the take with her skinny stick pussy. She obviously hadn't heard about the fight and I went back to 256 East 10th Street adn watched TV until the National Anthem.

Alice came into the apartment. The TV was a snow storm.

"Where are the stamps."

"I forgot to get them."

"I need those stamps."

"At four in the morning."

We hadn't had sex in weeks. We did tonight. She felt so good. Being with her was good.

Later

Politically I have tested the ranks of the NRP. Some believe. Some don't, but there are loyalists even after last night. The enemy grow in strength. Alice always has my back. But I am a coward to be hiding behind a women's skirts. We are us.

The Flat Fields Of Belgium

In my youth I would sleep at the end of her bed on a velvet settee listening to murder mysteries on the radio as the headlights from Main Street heading to the midnight shift at the SD Warren paper mill played over the mural of trees on a flat French field painted by my grandfather's patient.

They had both served as doctor and nurse in WWI.

January 1982

I was hired as doorman at a Paris nightclub and drove the owner's car north to pick up the DJ in Bruxelles.

220 Kph

Autoroute

VW GTI

Fast but not the fastest car on the highway.

Passing through as Jacques Brel sang LE PLAT PAYS QUI EST A MIENNE.

Unchanged from 1917.

Now at peace.

The flat fields north of Lille.

No Perfume No Soap

Eight days across the Masaii plains w/o a wash other than stripping near naked during a thunderstorm neither scared of lions nor lightning. Poor Mawee and John. I didn't smell dirty. Doctor Joyce Brothers once said on TV, maybe the Mike Douglas Show, "The only reason that humans survived was that we smelled bad and we tasted worst."

Sexy Mary

Published Feb 20, 2015.

The Four Books of the New Testament accredit Mary, plain Virgin Mary, as the mother of Jesus, the Messiah worshipped by the Christians. Old Believers highly venerate Mary for the miracle of Immaculate Conception. She professes to have no contact with a male other than the divine intercession of God.

She is the Mother to the Holy Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years.

No one says bad for her other than the Protestants and no one cares about the Baptist doctrine, except the sixteen million adherents to that sect in the USA.

5% of the population denying homage to Mary of Carmen.

That was one her last name.

Another was Mary daughter of Joachim.

Her father was married to St. Anne David. The rich man was unable to conceive a child with his barren wife and fasted in the desert for forty days and forty nights.

The same amount of time the rains fell to fold the world for Noah's Ark.

Angels appeared to announce the blessed birth of Mary.

Another miracle.

Forty days and forty nights.

I have forty days and nights left on my Lental abstinence of beer.

Gratis vino i superstes erit.

Virgin Birth Aftermath

Published Mar 27, 2013.

The New Testament has honored the mystery of the virginity of Jesus' mother and the Catholic Church has designated August 8 on the ecclesiastical calendar as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, however that date only allowed for four months until the Messiah's birth in December. I personally long favored late-March as the night on which God visited Mary of Nazareth and I was a math major at university.

Once I lost my faith in the Virgin Mary, I theorized that she had been knocked up by a passing Roman soldier and Mary declared a virgin pregnancy to prevent the village of Bethlehem from stoning her to death. Joseph was an old man happy to have an heir. The lie saved her life and that of the baby.

Supposedly in banned New Testaments Jesus had two brothers.

Izzy and Moise.

No one ever heard of them.

Immaculate Conception was a good myth for the faithful, but back in 2006 Nguyen Thi Oanh, a death-row inmate, held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year was declared pregnant by prison authorities. Officials were at a loss to explain the mystery. None of the evidence pointed to the guards and her husband was in another prison awaiting the firing squad.

By Vietnamese law no pregnant woman can be put to death and the heroin traffickess was pardoned to give birth.

Someone isn't telling the whole story, but in 2007 authorities arrested a prison guard for having facilitated a chance rendezvous with a male convict.

Nguyen Thi Oanh has disappeared into the past. Her child would be almost fourteen. It's almost as if it never happened and that is the best thing about legends.

There are never the truth until someone starts believing them.

Cross country w Waif

Q Waif 3 left New York In a car To cross America Seeking waifs Lost to be found. Cross under the Hudson Jack at the wheel Of a one-way rented car. Foot heavy on the gas. Only stop Gas fast food The fly-over of America. Seven hours west on I-80. In Pittsburgh waifs Zach feels safe In Detroit waifs Jack feels safe De Ja keeps spinning tracks past cities and towns and truck stops Waifs aroam To begat more waifs. Across the Mississippi Minneapolis waifs Smiling friendly loving together South through the corn Miles and miles of corn The heaviness of America Nothing on the radio. AM or FM De ja freestreaming Radio WAIF To Iowa City To Kansas City On the ghost of Route 66 Heading To the Pacific and points in between. Da 3 of dem gathering the mosh of Waif Out of the praries to the high plains Spreading waifism. Waif so positive Together alone any way. Over the mountains into the desert. Albuquerque Scottsdale Top speed 110 Zach Slow down Jack full speed ahead. Waif has places to be. Viva Las Vegas 7 come 11 Rolling dice Waif wins $150 back in the car On I-10 Desert desert desert And then the road ran out in LA The country Waifized by the trio. Zach, Jack, Deja too. Kerouac's spawn With time always slipping into the Now Of Waif

Pregnant Man Kidnapped on Internet

Published Dec 16, 2020

Maybe I'm crazy, but several years ago I read an article on www.bbcnews.com about a pregnant man in the UK. The photo looked very much like that of a Hawaiian stripper who underwent a sex change operation and had a baby in 2008 as a man. I was going to write about his second miracle of medicine, but today my search for said article on BBC came up with nothing. Not even any ghost URLs on Google. The BBC had erased the entire story from its website and the internet or they were hacked by mischief makers.

There will never be a pregnant man.

For the simple reason that life begins with the seed of man.

The woman is merely the chicken warming the egg.

We were only built for beer bellies, unless we're talking about Immaculate Conception and for that mircale all bets are off.

November 28, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

Alice is busy with the play again. Two dates at Irving Plaza scheduled for December and I have been employed as the bouncer. That's all I am good for thanks to my wicked smile and speedy fists. Alice's only reason to be with me is as her protector, but never her pimp, although she denies it.

We haven't fucked since the night her brother left for the mountains. Two minutes after his departure she said atop the loft, "Come up here."

"Only if you suck me off."

"Get up here them."

Once up on the lift she wanted to do it missionary style which was difficult , because of the low ceiling. As she got close to climax, we switched to female dominant, her pelvis grinding into my bone to reach orgasm. Her body sags over my chest, shuddering from satisfaction. My penis loses hardness and she slithers off to get it erect with her mouth. Thirty seconds. I fuck here mercenary style from behind.

"You only get off when you hurt me."

It's the truth. Her pleas for mercy turn me on.

But back to tonight.

I told Alice I was staying here. I hate th loft and want to tear it down.

"If you want to fuck, come down and you can ride me on the chair. It will be good and you'll be in control."

"Only if you take off your clothes."

I did and she climbed down from the loft. My hands grabbed her ass. It was fleshier than when we first met. She must be eating at rehearsals for the show, because she never eats here. We fuck. She gets off. I go limb. For the second time. I wish she was a promiscuous cocksucker, but she's square with me.

I try to get aroused eating her pussy, but it has a tangy taste and I stop.

"Do you mind if I just masturbate?" You don't have to do anything."

Go ahead."

Her hand got her off for the second time that evening.

I love Alice, but we've been together for a long time and I'm bored with her body. I'm sure she's bored with mine. In the last month I've had several one-night stands in alleys and CBGBs bathroom. Zipless fucks. One with a redheaded chubby nympho who wanted it up the ass and then cum in her mouth For that I was hard. She wa a star in Divine's WOMEN BEHIND BARS. A great dirty fuck.

No More Peace For Christmas

On Friday the truce between Hamas and the IDF ended with an intense aerial bombardment by Israeli F-16 with little regard for civilians in the Gaza ghetto. The IDF ordered Palestinians to vacate the North to the Strip to South increasing the population density to 13,000 per square kilometers. Leaflets accompanied the attacks telling the refugees to flee further south only there is no more Gaza to go. The IDF command strategy seems to have adopted the Ottoman Empire's Final Solution for the Armenians of marching them into the dessert to die. Netanyahu's supporters only see two solutions to settle the question of what to do with Palestine.

The desert or the sea.

There is another option.

The human shield.

In 1906 the Balinese royalty decided to combat the Dutch invaders preferring to commit Puputan or mass ritual suicide rather than submit to slavery under William II of Orange. Over a thousand Baliense nobles died that day. The Palestinians are left with a similar. To live to die or to die to live rather than accept the two choices offered by the Zionists.

Holocaust or Death.

There is no safety.

And the world has once more turned its back on Gaza and the West Bank.

The Arab rulers have once more remained silent rather than risk an internal threat to their kingdoms. Greed has always been a good card to play in the Gulf when it comes to Palestine.

Yesterday dozens of Israelis from both the hostage families and anti-war protestors gathered before the IDF headquarters in Jaffa, showing no matter what some people still hope for peace, but always at the expense of the Palestinians and Israeli citizens and not the powerful Hassidim voters who don't serve in the military.

Yesterday in the New York Times op-ed page Thomas Friedman wrote that it would be best for the IDF to learn America's unlearnt lessons of 9/11 and fight two wars against intractable foes to defeat. His first suggestion involved the release of hostages for ceasefire without releasing any of the 6000 plus Palestinians in Israeli prisons and supporting the Palestine Authority to resume governance over Gaza. There is no reason for Hammas to trust Netanyahu or the Palestine Authority. Gazans faced with death or death want a fight to the end ie Free Palestine.

Friedman's second option is to create a more secure barrier a mile within Gaza and continue to hit Gaza in retaliation for missile attacks. He also blames Iran and Hezbollah as the masterminds of October 7 revealing the limit of his intelligence due to anti-semitic prejudices.

The Gazans don't want any talk of Christmas. They want peace. Free Palestine. Free Israel. Free the world from the capitalists.

With My Bare Hands - Anthony Bourdain

I have always admired Anthony Bourdain, but never more than when he wrote in A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines, “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.

I felt the same way after my trips to S-21, the school/execution center in Phnom Penh and the haunting ghost hotel in Sihanoukville. The haunting ghosts of millions still roam the Killing Fields.

Our problems with Iran began when Kissinger convinced President Carter to admit the Shah of Iran into the USA for cancer treatment. The next week protestors storm the American Embassy in Tehran setting off forty years of animosity between the two nations.

Chile, Timor, the emigration of the Soviet Jews to Palestine, Nicaragua, his hand was deep in the mix of hundreds of unseen evils around the world. It's an outrage that no one in politics has the courage to call Kissinger out for what he was. A war criminal.

Not so Anthony Bourdain.

You we miss.

And I know nothing about him other than he had a good life.

Bien fait, chef.

As for Kissinger.

Non restem in pacem.

Hunting Pine Trees 1958

Fir trees lined the sidewalk
On Vanderbilt Avenue
Clinton Hill
Brooklyn.

Spruce pines
Chopped
Up north from New England forests.
My homeland.
Trees
For families and friends
To celebrate Christmas

Breathing the fragrance of evergreens,
As
The tree elves
Elysaah, Ruth, and Bobby
Hock trees and wreaths
Working hard
Whilst I laze
On
My yuletide throne
Surrounded by
The trees
Eyes closed
Dreaming
Of 1958
My father walking
With ax in hand.
Into the woods outside Gorham Maine.
Snow on the ground. My brother and me
The two of us
In tow
In search of the perfect tree.
My mothers and the younger other us
Back in the Ford Station Wagon
Heat running
Full blast
Windows closed
On a cold afternoon.

Our breaths hang on the air
Paralysed by the chill.
Us wearing red hats
Red mittens too.
It is deer hunting season
With my father hunting for a tree

The land belongs to someone.
Not us.
My father is very honest
Except for tree hunting season.
He was born in Maine
As was his father
And his father before him.
They know the rules.
One tree a family.

I remember
My older brother
Before
A tree taller than my father.
Our tree.
Spit in his hands
We stand back.
Thwock
Thwock
Thwock.
The tree falls down
To the snowy ground.
Sap bleeding from the stump.
Leaking the scent of pine
Into the near winter air.

Same as today on Vanderbilt Avenue.
Hundreds of miles away from the Maine woods
Decades distant from my youth.
Clouds overhead
Colder by the minute.
My breath on the air.
The scent of a hundred pine trees
The same
As The Maine Woods
1958
An Evergreen memory
From long
Ago

Now
Winter
Coming
Soon.
As always
Wintah
On Clinton Hill
And up in Maine.
Especially Fort Kent.
Merry Yulemas.
One and all.

War Criminal # 1

Written Sep 28, 2016

When I first visited Cambodia in 1998, I arrived at Phnom Penh airport on a comfortable Bangkok Air flight from Bangkok. The previous year the Khmer Rouge ceased their guerilla war against the government forces and the country was deemed safe for tourism. up After landing the plane rolled across the tarmac to halt before the ancient terminal. My sunglasses offered little protection against the glaring sun, as I descended the stairs and stumbled toward the terminal seeking relief from the heat, then stopped as a small bus deboarded its troop of young passengers. All of them missing limbs. Some several, but everyone of the children were dressed in their best clothes. A flight attendant informed me that they were flying to Thailand to be fitted with prosthetic limbs. Hopeful smiles disguised their the agony of missing arms and legs as well as the nervous anticipation of a long journey away from family and friends.

Throughout my weeks long stay in Cambodia, I saw amputees were everywhere, for the landmines laid during that long conflict reaped new victims without a vacation. I never heard Cambodians expressing anger about Pol Pot, the mines, or the long war, almost as if it had happened to someone else or that talking about the horror might revive those years.

Not me, I’d be out for revenge and my #1 target would be Henry Kissinger, who was portrayed in William Shawcross’ book, SIDESHOW as the principal architect of Cambodia’s descent from a neutral monarchy to the Pentagon’s secret front of the Viet-Nam War.

Prince Sihanouk had kept his country out of the neighboring conflict by skillfully waltzing between the USA and Vietnamese combatants to maintain his dynasty's reign over Cambodia. By 1970 this non-combatant status was unacceptable to the Nixon regime and Kissinger condoned the secret bombing of suspected NVA bases in what was known as the Parrot’s Beak.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people." Kissinger.

Armed incursions followed in 1970 as well as an invasion. Sihanouk was deposed and supported the Khmer Rouge against the Lon Nol dictatorship. This country of fertile rice paddies and vast flood plains joined Laos and Vietnam in the holocaust. As usual civilians paid the heaviest toll and the Nobel Institute disgraced itself forever by awarding Kissinger with the Peace Prize.

A little know fact is that Senator McCain’s father was the admiral directing the unauthorized bombing of Cambodia. He was offered his son’s release if the bombing stopped. It never did, because the USA doesn’t speak with terrorists, but worst than the bombs was what the Cambodian suffered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and as of yet none of them have gone on trial.

The Khmer Rouge numbered in the thousands. They lived amongst the people like fish in water as suggested by Mao. Calls for justice are muted by the quiet resignation that righting a wrong was for big people and not poor peasants. No one was asking Kissinger to appear before a judge or the Chinese or the Vietnamese. The frontiers of guilt died at a country’s borders.

Back in 1982 I was working in Hamburg, Germany. A reporter friend took me to the trial of a Nazi. The accused must have been eighty and my friend said, “The Polizei found him hiding in a nursing home.”

Despite the horrors portrayed in SIDESHOW, the Cambodians are a much more forgiving people than others who have suffered through a holocaust, mostly because they have to live with the perpetrators. They love Americans and only a few older people have any idea about what Kissinger or Nixon did to them. The rest live life as best they can without any help from the bombers of 1970.

Along the path to Angkot Wat’s Bayon Temple a quintet of amputees plays traditional music. A tourist stopped to take a photo and the leader of the troupe asked the visitor’s nationality. When the middle-aged voyager replied Texas, the band struck up YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS.

The tourist left a dollar and I left two.

Small reward for such forgiveness.

Forgetting is another matter saved for another time.

Thankfully Kissinger died yesterday, mourned by the Washington establishment and media as a great diplomat.

A war criminal finally brought to a long overdue death.

A pox on his grave.

Jill St. John

Written Sep 28, 2016

Jill St. John went out with Henry Kissinger.

A short Jewish man with a paunch.

A war criminal responsible for the deaths of millions in South East Asia.

She must have seen something else in Kissinger, who once said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

And someone as evil as Kissinger would know all about power.

Yesterday he died according the the newspapers.

For crime against humanity Henry Kissinger is # 1 on my guillotine list.

It's an impossibility, but I can dream.

Can't I?

Even for a dead man.

Re-Alive Again

In early October I headed north to attend my nephew's wedding on the South Shore. First time in a year leaving New York. With Jack Haven. I noticed a hospital tag on my bag. Dated 12-27-2022. The day of my liver transplant. Lazurus II wanders the world.

The Cage Haiku Plus Two

The Cage West 4th Street Ball in hand Shooting Left Right A semi hot hand Hoops

World Wide Destruction

As the world skids out of control with the Endless War penetrating every corner of the globe, a Jewish friend texted that he expected an imminent nuclear exchange, because of The Gaza War.

I had been born with the Caul, the placenta, wrapped around my head. Celts believe it gives you the vision.

Despite the frenzied havoc in Palestine my inner sight doesn't see such maddog destruction. Genocide maybe, but a world-wide holocaust no, but back in the 1970s I had several vivid dreams about nuclear bombs. Once in the East Village sirens sounded and everyone scrambled to the Astor Place Subway. A frenzied terrified scrum. I looked up. Saw the missile. White flash. Vaporized.

Second dream Moscow. Red Square. Sirens. Everyone filing orderly into the Metro. I look up. A missile. White flash.

The last was in the Nebraskan flatland. I was fucking this blonde. A schitzah. Sirens. She leapt up and dressed in a SAC blue uniform. Wished me luck, as she got into a B52 bound for the USSR. Mushroom clouds marched in my direction. A missile. White light.

I realized I had woken before the nuclear blast killed me.

I still see the bombs dropped on Manhattan crossing the East River Bridges, however never on my return to Brooklyn.

Lucky and I feel lucky now. As would someone who has survived the worst. The best is yet to come

November 27, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

for us all.

Two weeks ago Bill Yusk fronted me an ounce of hashish. I've yet to sell any of it. I can't even be a drug dealer adn worse I've smoke a quarter ounce. Ann brought home Sherry. I have slowly acquire a taste for the British liquor, although sherry tastes too much like altar wine for me to like it. Too many memories.

As an altar boy the priests required our wearing cassocks and surplices, so we looked like devotees to Jesus headed for the black cloth. Latin was the language on the altar, until Vatican II changed the Mass' litany to the worshippers' language. The magic of mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa lost its magic in English. I still remember 'forgive me, forgive me, really forgive me' as one of the Latin phrases I didn't have to mumble.

I stayed an altar boy into my teens, because my services were required at funerals during the week, which meant my older brother and I went to St. Elizabeth's at 8 instead of St. Mary of the Foothills. We could go through the motions. The mourners weepy before the close coffin. They were never open in the church.. That was only for the funeral homes. The priest rambled through the liturgy with a short testamonial for the departed. Mostly old people. The exit procession is very solemn. Priest leading the way with us carrying urns of burning incense. Sometimes rich families had the parish organist play a dirge for their loved one. We stood aside for the casket and the priest sprinkled a blessing of holy water of the casket. We never saw anyone arise from the dead. THe dead stayed dead. Even as a proto-atheists I respected the solemnity of the service.

I was a virgin then.

Somehow I abandoned holiness for libertinism.

Maybe when I first touched Ann McCellan's tits. She was one of a set of identical triplets. Her sisters Beth and Cathy were also fondled freely in their basement. Having impure thoughts was an easy sin to confess, until the thoughts became deeds and lust a goal for the ages.

CBGBs Pinball 1978 VDO

Throughout the late 1970s I stood at the front of CBGBs for the Contortions, Damned, and the Voidoids. Afterwards I drank beer and play pinball at the back of the club. I was never friends with the big names. The bartenders were my friends, the doorman with the yellow construction helmet let me in for me, college co-eds thought I looked like David Johansson from the New York Dolls and by the time they discovered I was simply a poet, it was too late to try for someone else. I was lucky and CBGBs became my home away from home.

November 26, 1978 East Village - Journal Entry

I'm completely broke once more after two week's without work. I suppose this depression about money will be my guiding light for the futre, but I can't worry about the trivialities about which I can't do anything. Somehow I have to find a job.

THE HUDSON DOCKS NOVEMBER 1978

November night>

Derelict docks stretch along the Hudson
Empty berths for miles
Once home to
Clipper ships, ferries, upriver ships
The Halve Moon
Robert Fulton's Clermont
The Cutty Stark
All
Gone into a forgotten history
No more ocean liners going to Europe.
Yet the Hudson flows back and forth
Twice a day

The piers home to rats, tramps and sex adventurers
I walk with Libby
A blonde model
All in black panther leather
Long legs, haughty hips, a breastless chest, an aquiline nose.
In the deep dark
She could be a he.

We enter a collapsing wharf.
Under the protection of darkness
Men huddle in silent orgies.
We deeper into the ruins
We stop in a room
Two shadows
A foot apart
Now.
My leather coat on the floor
Libby's clothes on a battered crate.
She
Near-naked
Except for expensive lingerie.
My Levis drop down my legs.
The November wind baffles through the open bays
On the Hudson
The thump of powerful engines

Something big on the river
Very big
An ocean liner
Its diesel engines
Powering the ship
On the tide
Sea bound
Into the Atlantic

Libby pulls me down
Between her thighs
Her legs hooked around my knees
Her
Naked
Yearning
A cool hand guiding me
A thrust
A gasp
Two animals humping
Men watch gather to watch.
A warning glance
Retreat into the shadows
I groan the potential of life
Into Libby
The ships long gone
The ocean liner too.
Into the night.
Now
Done
Libby back in black leather
A dim silouhette
We leave.
Behind
The men in the shadows
By the Hudson
In the November night

PAINTING BY REGINALD MARSH

David Henderson's Vortex 2021

David Henderson's Vortex.

THe mixture of mathematics and magic welded together by a lost mind.

Dives of Pattaya - Entry Date - Aug 3, 2007

Aug 3, 2007

Wikpedia defines a 'dive' as a rundown drinking establishment offering the cheap drinks of a high alcohol content to a questionable clientele frequenting the bar for the sole purpose of drinking and not petty drinking either.

New York City had been loaded with such dubious haunts on the Bowery ot the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. 50 cents a beer and $1 a shot and no red-faced stockbrokers lusting after big-haired secretariesb on a Friday night. Only busted-down drunks with a couple of front teeth like Pattaya during low season.

Wendy Mitchell who wrote NYC's BEST DIVE BARS considered a good jukebox, a seat at the bar, an affable bartender, and not-too-bright lighting as essentials for accreditation as a dive. Gotham Books' staff prided itself on having drank in most of them. My favorite was the beach bar in the Rockaways. Drunken Indians and transients at a end of a subway line. Everyone knew this was nowhere.

Pattaya is reputed to have 1400 bars

No one can claim to have drank at all of them, although some Englishmen have sacrificed their livers in the attempt.

For Queen and Country.

None really qualify as a dive, but a few come close.

I've never seen a juke box in my 20 years in Thailand. Not a pin ball machine either, although many have condom dispensers in the bathroom. The music tends to be HOTEL CALIFORNIA or pop music for the girls. Lights too bright with bar stool stressed by overweight drinkers and bartenders with moods rivaling the Wicked Witch of the West. Drinks might be cheap but the measures are more a whisper for hard-drinkers.

There are few exceptions.

The Welkom Inn on Soi 3 with its dim lighting comes close. You can usually get a seat and the old ladies behind the bar are good-tempered despite having to listen to the drivel of drunken farangs day after day after day.

Soi 6 bars are sleazy and dark, however no one goes to a short-time bar to drink. 90 baht for a thimble of vodka and tonic. The Bus Stop isn't bad because the music is almost punk. Viking Bar is awful, but Mint used to work there. maybe she will again once her boyfriend's money runs out.

The only actual dive is Maggie May's on Soi Chaiyapoon.

It only features drinking.

No girls.

Stale peanuts.

Sports on the TV.

The dregs of society on the bar stools.

"Drinks for me and my drink," Mickey Rourke called out in the movie BAR FLY about the poet Charles Bukowski's drinking life. People are shouting out the same in Maggie May's. The music sometimes sucks, but the beer is cold and during happy hours as cheap as it gets in Pattaya.

The other day I saw Dave from the old Dang Bar. We had fought on Soi 6 last winter. He had called me a spineless cunt too many times. Something about not liking that I didn't drink in his bar. 50 year-old men fighting on Soi 6. My mother should be crying in heaven over that sad spectacle.

At least I won, Ma.

I hadn't seen Dave since the fight and said, "Hello."

The bald Aussie nodded and drank his beer.

Maggie May's.

You wear it well.

#1 Dive of Pattaya

Still open in 2023

Maggie Mays, 383, 21 Soi Chalermphrakiat 25, Pattaya City, Bang Lamung District, Chon Buri 20150, Thailand