Halloween Falmouth Foresides Maine 1959

Falmouth Foresides, Maine 1959 I was seven. My older brother Frank My sister Regina as a scarecrow and me. During dinner my mother served us beets from a can. We had never seen a beet before, but my mother said that we weren't going trick or treating unless we finished them. I put a small bite in my mouth and immediately spit it out. I tried to wash it down with milk and upchucked the backwash onto my plate. My mother was disappointed, but my brother and sister even tried. We put our plates in the sink and went out into the night. Hunting Halloween treats. With demon friends.

Halloween in Pattaya 2007

In 2007 Pattaya celebrated the old Celtic festival of Samhain with a singularly Thai flavor. Bar girls dressed in skimpy dresses and go-go girls painted fake blood on their faces. Farangs drank more than normal nights. It's a pagan holiday and nothing says pagan better than sex go-go girls, beer, and a devilish hang-over the morning-after.

That Halloween I got no farther than the Buffalo Bar.

I wore my Ramones outfit.

Torn jeans, Keds sneakers, a Ramones t-shirt, and Ramones baseball cap.

None of the girls made any comment, since I had worn the same outfit to the bar on innumerable occasions.

I drank five Chang beers. 6.9 % alcohol.

I asked three lesbians to short-time with me.

They laughed at my lewd suggestions

The scary thing about Halloween 2007 was my two-minute motorcycle ride home.

Which on five Chang beers was mighty scary trip.

October 31, 1979 - Journal Entry -East Village

Halloween, the pagan holy night after a warm autumn day with the sun streaming through the alley windows to mock my darkness.

New York City.

Rural devil-worshipping cults celebrate Satan and covens must exist on the island of Manhatten, but once the juvenile trick-or-treaters have scored their candy, the night belongs to the young punks, gaus, queens,and addicts. I'll be working the night at Hurrah and dropped two dexedrine pills to elevated my mood, which had me verging to the edge of homicide. A thin stiletto was in my leather coat, although I feel more like hurting myself than someone else.

Ro showed up at Hurrah to see the Revlons. When she entered we talked for a long time at the entrance. The band wasn't going on stage until midnight. Half the crowd was in costume. The rest of us wore our punk attire.

"I'm glad to see you. I had hoped you would be here."

"The feeling is mutual." I hadn't seen her since Bix starved himself to death in a cave under the Cloisters.

"I still can't believe Bix is gone. I'm really..." her voice drifted off in a daze, then again she always had trouble finishing sentences. "Bix's death made me feel so strange. Did you feel that way when James died?"

"His death made me realize how precious life is. His last night I had sat with him at the hospital for hours. The only two people in a ward. Tye nurses and doctors were scared of him. He was dying from something they had never seen. Lots a gays were dying of the same thin.. His parents showed up from Florida at dawn. He hadn't spoken for a long time. I went dow to the cafeteria and ate a bagel chased down by chocolate milk. I thought nothing could ever taste so good. When I got back to the ward James was dead."

She spoke about commitments to her series on fish paintings.

"The color of my paintings are getting better, but I look at them and there's no spark. I need something to make them come alive." Ro complimented my not trying to being anything than what I was and predicted, "You're not going to be trapped at this job or even this city. You only are doing what you do to make money, but one day you'll understand your desire to be nothing is something everyone wishes they could achieve."

"A fateful decision, if I remember correctly you have a long life line."

"I just feel so guilty about Bix."

"He loved you."

And I couldn't love him back. I didn't even let him kiss me, when we were making love. I'm to blame for his starving to death."

"I tried to help Bix. He was lost in numbers and he chose his death.." A cold cave on a rainy night. I needed another dexxie. Your show is about to begin. Enjoy." I dropped another pill and drank a vodka-tonic, then three more.

Ro left with Nells, the Revlon's bass player. I slouched against the wall. Our affair had been weekend flings. I'd steal a car in Boston on Friday and drive here in four hours, meeting at the end of her shift at David's Pot Belly.

I thought someone who said, "You look like an angel under candlelight." had to be in love.

I was wrong then now and forever and especially on Halloween.

NO UP OR DOWN By Peter Nolan Smith

The 1960s Space Race between the USSR and USA exterminated young boys' worship of westerns and we retired cowboy hats, vests, guns, and holsters to the closet next to toy boats and teddy bears.

During the autumn of 1962 I pleaded with my parents to buy me an astronaut costume for Halloween and my father answered my request with a gleaming John Glenn space suit complete with a visored helmet. My older brother dressed as a green-skinned Martian and Frunk had fabricated a ray gun from a broken egg-beater. After dinner we were eager to trick or treat, but before leaving the house I purloined sunglasses from my father's desk.

"Aren't you going to ask Dad for permission?" My brother was better at following rules than me.

Our father was escorting my younger siblings around the neighborhood.

"He won't know a thing."

"Why do you need sunglasses."

"They're extra protection from your death ray." I pointed to his weapon. I had seen INVASION FROM MARS ten times. The Martians' main weapon vaporized soldiers into carbon.

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"We'll be back before you know it. What can happen?"

We lived in the suburbs, a land of two-car garages, good schools, and beautiful babysitters.

"I guess nothing."

"Other than getting a lot of candy."

"Chocolate."

"We left our split-level ranch house. My best friend, Chuckie Manzi, joined us on the lawn. He was a young Frankenstein.

"First things first." He pointed across the street. Mr. Martini's house drove truck for Arnold's Bakery. His wife put out cake instead of candy.

It was a moonless night. I could barely see. We climbed the Martinis' brick stairs. There was no metal railing. My brother rang the doorbell.

Mrs. Martini acted scared and offered a selection of cakes. I chose orange spice. Chuckie and my older brother picked chocolate cake. We thanked her with filled mouths and I slipped on my glasses and shut the visor. I then turned around and walked off the stairs.

Free fall.

My helmet smashed into the wall and mutilating my little finger scrapped down te rough brick. I thumped into the flower bed face first..

I sat up with blood all over my astronaut suit. I was more concerned with my father's sunglasses. They had fallen off, but luck was with me. They were intact.

My brother led me back to our house, careful not to let any blood drip on his costume.

My mother admonished my dangerous behavior. She had six kids. We were always in jeopardy. A band-aid stemmed the blood and my mother refused to let me leave the house again."
"What about my candy?"

Here." My mother dumped a load a licorice, Mars bar and other treats in my bag. "One accident is more than enough for tonight."

And she was right and I replaced my father's sunglasses on his desk.

I still bear a jagged scar on my little finger from that fall and since that Halloween I have only worn sunglasses at night when I can't find my regular glasses, but I learned that on Earth we fall in one direction.

Down and no one ever fell in Space.

There was no up or down off this planet.

Especially for boys from the South Shore of Boston in the fall of 1962.

Cowboy Versus Batman

My friend Haoui Montauk bequeathed me a Paul Smith suit in his will. We had worked at a punk nightclub together in the late-70s. He had collected the cash and I had worked the door as a bouncer. Haoui liked to call me ‘rough trade’.

He wasn’t wrong. I liked a good fight now and then. He said it ran in my blood.

I was taller and stockier than the poet, but the suit fit my body albeit a little tight. It was not a suit for all occasions, since the material was a bright blue plaid. I wore it pride and considered any venture so attired was like taking Haoui out for a walk through the city he loved the most.

I received many compliments from women for having the courage to sport such an extravagant outfit and my bravery was rewarded with further admiration upon their hearing about my deceased friend having left it to me in his last will and testament, but New York wasn’t the same city as before.

The rich had replaced the poor and the bankers had crowded out the artists. They were very uncool and on one occasion a banker in his 20s muttered under his breath passing me in front of a Prince Street deli, “What a fucking ugly suit.”

“Same as your face,” I wasn’t taking any guff from a Wall Street stooge.

“What you say?” He wheeled around with a gym-strengthened aggression.

“My suit is ugly, but so is your face.” Haoui was gay. People like this man had bullied him as a boy. I wasn’t backing down. My friend Billy O was waiting in the middle of the block.

The young man approached me, as if he wanted to fight, but Billie O was already taking my back. Two against one wasn’t good odds and the Wall Street stooge stormed away with a parting ‘fuck you’.

“And not only are you ugly, but you only have one eyebrow.” I was good at getting in the last word.

The banker looked over his shoulder with eyes blazing with hatred. He picked up an avocado from the fruit stand and threw it at my head. I ducked to the left and it whistled past my ear. A good throw, but a miss and the Korean grocer came screaming out of the store, yelling, “You pay for avocado. You pay for avocado.”

The banker ponyed up the money. Billie O and I had a good laugh, but he said, as we entered the Mekong restaurant, “That suit draws the wrong type of attention.”

“It’s Haoui.” I explained how I got it.

“Maybe it’s haunted.” Billy was Irish. We were both superstitious and I retired the suit for a long time.

Ten Halloweens ago I was stuck for a costume and remembered Haoui’s suit. It fit a little tighter than before, but I could pass for a carnival barker in it. My left knee was sore from buckling on the basketball court and I picked a cane out of my closet. I had one with an 8-ball for a knob. One look in the mirror said ‘carney’ and I limped through the East Village to Nolita, where my friends were waiting at two tables in front of the Mekong.

It was a warm night and we watched the parade of costumes. Most people were heading over to the parade in the West Village. I sat next to our lady friend, Jane was dressed as a go-go girl from the 60s. The English model had the Swinging London look down pat. We were having a good time, until a Batman dropped into an empty chair next to her. Our friends laughed at the intrusion, but then the muscular Caped Crusader kissed Jane and then he stole my beer.

A Stella.

The cheapskate owner charged $6 for it and never bought back a round.

“Jane, you know this guy?” Women were sacred, but beer was holy.

“No.” Jane was horrified by his macho behavior.

“That’s enough.” I grabbed my beer. It was going to be in the way.

“Old man, don’t tell Batman when he’s had enough.” He was in his 20s and sounded Wall Street. His muscles came from exercising and his bravado was bolstered by a few boxing lessons.

“Old man?” I was only 49. It was the youth of old age.

“Yeah, take a look in the mirror. You’re farting dust like a mummy.” He resumed smooching Jane.

“Leave it off.” My friends’ kids were at the table. I didn’t want them to witness a fight. Still it was only Batman without Robin, so I said, “This isn’t your table. Move on.”

“Fuck off, you old git.” Batman grinned like the Joker, if the villain had perfect teeth.

The word ‘git’ ended the discussion. Git was my word. I seized Batman’s cape and threw him into street. He snatched the cane from my hands and swung it at my head. I blocked it with a forearm and caught him with a right to the jaw. I wrestled the cane from him, but he ripped off my glasses and ran away, chanting, “Nah-na-na-nah-na.”

It sounded mockingly like Stream’s hit TELL HIM GOODBYE.

My left knee was in no condition to chase him.

Shannon came out of the bar. The tall New Yorker was dressed as a cowboy. I thought he looked like Robert Duvall in TRUE GRIT. Shannon was a good decade younger and several inches taller than me. We had been friends since the Milk Bar and played basketball together in Tompkins Square Park.

“What’s wrong?” He could see scratches on my face.

“Batman stole my glasses.” I squinted and pointed to retreating Batman. He was having a good laugh.

“I’ll go get him.” Shannon loped down the street at a run.

Batman was resting at the gate to St. Patricks.

“Gimme back the glasses.” Shannon spread his stance. His fighting skills came from the street and not a gym. My money was on the Cowboy Versus Batman.

“Go fuck yourself, dude.” Batman threw a punch. Shannon blocked it with ease and KOed Batman with one punch. Batman slunk to the sidewalk like he was sleeping in Bruce Wayne’s bed. Shannon returned to Mekong and said, “Here’s your glasses.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be going.” Shannon didn’t need to speak with the police.

“I owe you a beer.” It was good to see again.

“You owe me nothing. That guy was a creep.” He downed his beer with an ear cocked for sirens. He knew Billie O and said, “One more thing. Don’t wear that suit anymore. It’s trouble.”

“You got that right.”

Later that night I returned Haoui’s suit to the closet. It stays there most of the time, but every once in a while I take it out for a walk. It’s getting small for me in my old age, but I can always suck in my gut.

Haoui wouldn’t expect anything else from me and neither would his ghost.

Zombie Alert

The word Zombie is derived from the melange of the words zonbi Haitian Creole and nzumbe from the African dialect North Mbundu. Zombies are the walking dead. They have been featured horror movies since their black-and-white introduction in George Romero's 1968 epic film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Scientists and anthropologists have searched Haiti for zombies since the 1930s without having substantiated the rumors of voodoo priests seizing the astral or soul of their victims.

According to Wikipedia Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), a powerful and frequently fatal neurotoxin found in the flesh of the pufferfish (order Tetraodontidae). The second powder consists of dissociative drugs such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state.

The Living Dead are creatures of legend, but several years ago year the Washington area had been pestered by zombie flies who have been infected by an unknown fungus taking control of their brain. Scientists have conjectured that humans might be susceptible to such an affliction and Homeland Security has studied various strategies to handle a zombie outbreak.

As far-fetched as this plague of zombies might seem there are actually five ways of humans contracting zombieitis according to cracked.com

Brain Parasites such as toxoplasmosa are weak, but in the hands of the Pentagon the fungus could be strengthened to affect humans very fast and there's nothing scarier than fast zombies a la RESIDENT EVIL. Voodoo poisons are another vector danger, but in a trance zombies are slow-moving i.e. not as dangerous as fast zombies. Viruses such as Mad Cow's Disease are a potential threat to humanity, but the living dead would be spastic and easy to avoid, unless they had numbers and in every zombie movie zombies seem to be everywhere. GM stem cell research could produce suspended dead to await a cure for their disease, but zombies are not sleeping beauties to be awaken by a kiss. Lastly nanobots seeping into your brain to take over your 'free will' and some madman hits the kill button.

Zombies Zombies Zombies Red Alert.

Tonight is Halloween.

Zombies are a favorite costume for young and old alike

Beware of the real thing.

One bite and you're a zombie and no zombie is a friend of mine.

May 26, 1978 East Village - Journal Entry

Tonight is the big Gemini party. Ghe four of us invited everyone we knew in New York. not everyone likes everyone and Kim is scared there will be fights. I tell her not to worry. I'll be the birthday bouncer. I think she was worried about me fighting. My guests are Bruce, Lewis, who coukdn'tget into CBGBs last night, Ro, Alice, William Lively, RR, Pud, Klaus Sperber, Anthony with Cookie, Willem, Clare Hartnett, Michael Stumm, Fred and George from thr SRO, I invited more men than women, but thenjote eryone is 100% straight. Should be fun,

LATER

I was momentarily saved from temporary destituition by Mark's timely letter saying that I have a check in the mail from my unemployment from the Boston School Committee. James Spicer had lied to me and Mark Amitin said, "He stole several checks, so it looks like you don'tow himany back rent for that place on Park Slope, but he asked if you still have his typewriter."

"Fuck him. He stole over $250 and lied every inch of the way. Plus I repaired the typewriter.

Mark took my side, at least to my face and said, "Then it's yours."

"We both got what we wanted."

"Not really, James wanted to sleep with you.

"Not a chance." James was still attractive but even thiugh he fucked James Dean, all he got from me was to drunkily oil my feet like Mary Magdalene did To Jesus according the the New Testament."

James has gone from moderately heavy drinking to serious drinking and Mark said, "He's headed to drunk's grave. He's looking like shit. The curse of the Irish."

We Irish do drink to excess although I don't know if it's a genetic curse or how we dealt with the British oppression. My drinking worries me, but I'll stop worrying, when I stop drinking.

My first drink was withPaul Keenan. Dry Vermouth samplers from his father's liquor stash in their basement. In sixth grade he and I raised ourdesks to take a slug underhe njoses of the nuns. I neverreally got drunk until freshman year at Xaverian. Dave Quann drove his family station wagon down to Horseneck Beach. It was packed with us two, y brother, my next door neighbor Carl, Phil Milan, Kenny Doyle, and Charlie Carr. At the beach we mixed Bourbon with pepto-bismol. I got so drunk that they had to secrertly carry me up my stairs to my bedroom like I was a wounded soldier fleeing the victors. Inateasd of bleeding I puked pink for three days. My father knew what ailed me and patted my stomach. More puke.

After that adventure I drank in moderation until I left high school. Those last three years were so pure. CYO and Surf Nantasket dances, school, never any homework, track, no friends, Janet Stetson as my girlfriend, the Smith-Menconi feud over Ava Gardener, church every Sunday to hide my atheism, dry humping Janet, we never went all the way, I lost my scholarship failing German and religion, but my mother wanted me to go to a Catholic school. I hated it.

But I didn't drink.

Recently I wrote my mother a letter. When I went up to Boston we satatthe kitchen table and she said, "I read your letter. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realie hojw unhappy you were. I feel like I was a bad mother to not have seen it."

"You weren't a bad mothernd I hide my plain from everyone. I never told anyone about it. The one place I felt safe from here. With my family. Outside was very diferrent. I was never safe there except for with SisterMary Osmond, Brother Karl, and Janet. Everything else dangerous."

Very little, but I had books as my refuge.

With them I could go anywhere other than here.

LATER

Today is the first summery day; high cloudless blue skies and a warm wind from the south carrying the scent of the sea deep into Manhattan. I am tempted to hitchhike up to Cape Cod and crash in the dunes south of Provincetown. Take the subway to Pelham Park in the Bronx and stick ouit my thumb on I95. I could be in Truro before sundown. I haven't been there in two years. I ask Alice if she wants to go. Her reply, "You must be crazy."

No, I'm not crazy nor beserk nor mentally challenged. Most of the Cape is very white. Very unfunky. I doubt if there are any punks there. BC students off-seasoning a summer cops. BU coeds serving fish to old tourists. Mashpee Indians, the Silent Majority glowing in the sun like martini drunk lobsters, Points of interest tourists on holiday for two-week holidays away from the rut of th3 work cycle, hackneyed scenery artists selling seagull paintings, homos and dykes in P-town, hippies and the really rich on Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket.. Miles and miles of beaches covered by teenage sunworshippers happy tobe where they were at this stage of their life as long as it wasn't raining,

Cape Cod was not Times Square. No hustlers, whores, runaways, pimps, narco pigs, and thieves, or junkies. I feel comfortable in either place. I can't go anywhere. The Gemini party is tomorrow. I am a new me in New York, still a New Englander, my accent is unmistakable and my thirst for violence comes from teenage battles with everyone from Southie and beyond. My friends here regard me as an anomaly. Rough trade James Spicer once said.

Who cares? .

TONIGHT IS NOT HALLOWEEN

Halloween has been celebrated on Oct. 31 for most of my entire life, but three year ago a Connecticut State representative floated an ill-conceived idea to re-schedule the holiday to fall on a weekend.

"Halloween is fun night for the whole family, but not so much when you have to race home from work, get the kids ready for trick or treating, welcome the neighborhood children, and then try to get everyone to bed for an early school and work morning."

Both Democrats and Republicans lambasted his suggestion, which included trick or treating in daylight for safety's sake.

I also disagreed, but this year New Yorkers have been sporting Halloween costumes for over a week.

Call me old-fashioned, but celebrating Halloween on any day other than October 31st is a sacrilege and yesterday a friend phoned that he was having a Frankenstein party a three nights early. We argued about the date, until Shannon explained Halloween's Celtic origin as Samhain, which marked the division of the year into halves of light and dark when the otherworld was nearest reality.

“It was a night of fire to cleanse the world.” I knew my Irish heritage. My mother’s family came from the West of Ireland.

"And they carved turnips, not pumpkins," Shannon stated with authority. His fiancee Charlotta was smart and he had mined Google's vast abyss of useless knowledge to impress the German artist.

"So the band should have been Smashing Turnips." The Chicago alternative band had been big in the 90s.

"No, once us Micks came here, we opted for pumpkins instead of turnips. They were bigger."

"Plus it's hard to carve the Jack 'O Lanterns with eyes and mouth on a turnip.”

"I also sliced off my thumb splitting a turnip two years ago."

"And hollow pumpkins smash easier."

"Not if you carve smaller eyes and mouths on a pumpkin."

"Why?"

"Because the pumpkin will rot within a day, if the holes are too big." I had been researching 'pumpkin soup' on the Internet. Getting smart didn't take much of an effort these days. "What are you going as this year?"

"Some kind of monster." Charlotta was hosting a Halloween party on the right night at Chez Oskar on Malcolm X Boulevard. Old Yellah believed in tradition and so did Shannon. "The first Halloween in America was supposedly in 1911. Someplace in hockey-puck land."

"Canada?"

"Yep."

"Then Happy Hallowmas." My Halloweens dated back to 1958 to Falmouth Foresides, Maine, when my mother warned that I couldn't go out 'trick or treating' unless I finished my beets.

Canned beets paved the path to chocolate paradise and I poured a glass of milk to wash down the purple vegetables. My older brother in his pirate outfit watched my struggle. I wore a skeleton costume. My younger sister was dressed as a ghoul. Gina and Frunk finished their beets. They actually liked them.

"What are you waiting for?" asked my brother. "We're missing out on all the good chocolate."

"Nothing."

I put the first sliced beet in my mouth. My tongue skated around the jellied vegetable. The bittersweet chunk tasted twenty years old and I swallowed it whole. My throat constricted on the unchewed beet's passage, but I got it down.

Only two more to go.

"No more milk." My older brother pulled away the half-filled glass. He had a date with Sandy the girl next door. The five year-old was dressed in white up as a good witch.

My best friend Chaney was going as a clown. His sweetheart's costume was that of a ballerina. I had asked Kathy Burns to walk the rounds with me. She had decided to go with Jimmy Fox. They were dressing as Tarzan and Jane. I didn’t have a date, but I would have chocolate, if I ate the beets.

I stuck the fork in the second beet slice and stuffed it deep into my mouth. Maybe too deep, because I gagged on it. My father's clapped my back and the beet slice back onto my plate.

My mother was not amused by my upchuck.

"Stop playing with your food."

"I'm not playing."

"You better not be. There are starving people in China."

Her family had gone through the Depression. Food on the plate was meant for your stomach. This was 1958. Eisenhower was President. America was a Land of Plenty. The beets belonged in the trash, but not in our house. Two slices took two minutes to stuff down my throat.

"That wasn't so bad." My mother grabbed my plate from the table and dumped it in the sink.

"No." They came from a can and I vowed to never to eat beets again.

After kissing my mother I ran around to the back of our house and threw up the beets.

Only one thing would get rid of the taste.

I hit every house in our evening our neighborhood for candy and chocolate. My bag bulged with treats. My friends and older brother had done no tricks. Chaney had kissed Sandy on the cheek.

Reaching my house I climbed upstairs to my shared bedroom and stuffed four Baby Ruths in my mouth. I chewed them into mush and they sluiced down my esophagus into my stomach. The combination of chocolate and beets played havoc with a six year-old's constitution and I ran into the bathroom to empty my belly into the toilet.

The color of my upchuck was purple.

I drank a glass of water and returned to my bedroom. My brother was separating his candy into groups. I picked up a Baby Ruth and chewed it a little more slowly than the first four. It was not a beet or a turnip or a pumpkin or a kiss from Kathy Burns.

It was sweet chocolate.

And there was plenty of it.

As there will be forever as long as Halloween is celebrated on October 31.

Sanmhar Samhain

Halloween has nothing to do with Christianity. The Harvest Holiday originated way back in BCs. The Romans dedicated the feast to Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, and the Celts celebrated the summer's end with huge bonfires to evoke the blessing of the spirit world for the dark half of the year. Walking between the fires cleansed the soul for the winter. The practice probably dated back to the Picts and further into prehistory.

The following day was the feast of the dead.

For the dead are never dead in our hearts and minds, except for the Living Dead.

In Gaelic the walking dead are called marbhán siúil.

The modern usage is zombai.

Thankfully they are creatures of myth and not reality like banshees and leprechauns.

Nothing was scarier than THE LIVING DEAD.

Séanmhar Samhain.

Premature E-Jack-O-Lantern

What do you call celebrating Halloween before October 31st?

Premature E-Jack-O-Lantern.

my younger brother Patrick Anthony Smith told me that joke last week.

It works.

Top 5 Halloween Songs

My top 5 Halloween songs;

THE MONSTER MASH by Bobby "Boris" Pickett

HAUNTED CASTLE by the Kingsmen

THRILLER by Michael Jackson

I PUT A SPELL ON YOU - Screaming Jay Hawkins

PEOPLE ARE STRANGE - the Doors

And the winner FIRE by Arthur Brown

To hear this monster hit please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOErZuzZpS8

I bring you fire.

October 26, 1978 East Village Journal Entry

On Alice; she is very frustrated progress on Moliere's GENTLEMEN OF VERONA at the Kurt Dempster's Ensemble Theater, since the young actors all hate each other. She is the director of this production and I asked, "Can't you channel the hatred?"

"What do you know about theater?"

We were on the Bowery and I stopped walking to ask myself, "What am i doing here with her?"

Alice hadn'tnoticed that I wasn't with her. She had been lost in this maelstrum of anxiety and anger forthe past month, as if her this play was on Broadway.

Last night in my SRO I went to the dresser to take out my contacts. Alice thought I was leaving to drink at CBGBs and turned off the light, saying, "Fuck you."

I turned and she said, "Don't hit me."

"You fucking stupid bitch. What do you think I am? I love you and you say you love me. What are those words? Something you memorized like a script. That's all you can give. Words. You can't wait to be with someone new to use as a dumb actor for your scenes."

She shriveled into the pillows.

"Please don't hit me, please."

She wasn't frigthened, but sounded like she really wanted me to hurt her. "Yesterday was my birthday and all I got from you was your freaking out about nonthing. This play, I know it is important to you. But I matter not all to you. I'm nothing to you."

"I'm sorry." The words sounded sincere, but she's a better than good actress. I loved her, even now.

"Sorry. Another word. It means nothing. Words on more words meaning nothing. If I didn't live in this shithole, I would leave you. What can you do to make me not throw you out."

It was late and I wanted her in my life. I had no one else. I never did. I breathed deeply to cool down and asked, "Have I ever threatened you?"

"No, but you fight people all the time."

She was right and I had no answer for why. I have always fought. I have never hit a woman, although I had taken off a Fyre boot and thrown it at my younger sister, who had said she hated me after I picked her up late at a bowling alley when she was 12. women are normally terrorized by men. All their lives. I stripped off my clothes and slipped under the covers.

"I'm sorry I scared you."

We went to sleep without a kiss or a carress and I remembered a line from Wim Wenders KINGS OF THE ROAD.

"I don’t know how one can live with a woman,” says Robert. “I’ve always felt lonely inside a woman."

I had a horrible dream about being trapped on an interstate. I woke and saw Alice sleeping. She looked at peace. I returned the nightmare. It wouldn't go away.

In the morning she parted without a word. like we would never see each other again. after the play she's going back to Ohio to finish her last college semester. Even her keaving this morning is hard on me. She'll be gone maybe for good. We've been together since March. Nothing lasts in eternity except eternity.

foto from KINGS OF THE ROAD

The Ghosts Of Neanderthals

I have wandered through the caves near our rice farm in Ban Nok, Thailand. I shut off my light to be immediately cast into utter darkness. Not even a Neanderthal could't see their hand in such complete blackness.

The creation legend from the Old Testament's Genesis claimed that on the first day of Creation Elohim boomed in a similar darkness, "Let there be light." and created the heaven and earth on the first day. although the sun was an afterthought for the fourth day.

To err is human. To err all the time and not care is the blessing only afforded the Divine.

His divine alter ego Yahweh spent the next five days covering Earth with water, rising land from under the seas, dividing day and night without any uniformity, covered the planet with animals, and then on the sixth day formed man in his image.

The seventh day Yahweh fucked off for the eternal shabbath of rest kicking back with other Gods forgotten by Monotheists. Yahweh had been speaking to these nameless deities since before Light and decided that He needed new company, since the other Gods didn't laugh at his jokes.

Thus Adam who as a the only white man wasn't shamed by his small penis, although Yahweh wore a toga to hide his less than godly member, but as an atheist I reject all Creation myths as well as Evolution.

Scientists have searched for the 'missing link' for centuries without success, because there is no genetic bridge between homo sapiens and the apes.

Maybe some of us have Simian descendants, but when I go to Rockaway Beach I spot humans with lizard, ursine, and sloth DNA.

My Neanderthal blood has been adulterated by countless sexual unions with Cromagnons, Desnovians, and countless other human breeds and I know the truth.

And we are not scared of caves

Only the darkness.

October 25, 1978 East Village Journal Entry

The dalliances of October are coming to a close. Alice remains my favorite. She is hurt by my sexual adventures. I wish I could be faithful, but I feel so free and she is frequently not in the mood for sex. Maybe it’s just with me. I think she is having an affair with her friend Susan, but I doubt that. Alice is my safe house, a harbor from the storms, a friend, a lover, someone who cares for my soul as I care for hers.

We shared phrases from our speech after these months of living together at 256 East 10th Street. She has a better understanding of the English language while I know more slang. My cousin Cindy is married to the managing editor of the National Geographic. Oliver Payne was born in Rhodesia and educated at proper English school and said during a visit, “You speech is difficult to decipher.”

Understandable with my Boston accent crippled by speech issues.

I purport myself to be a modernist, believing the world has reached a watershed in history. During the Ice Age man was an omnivorous hunter, Neanderthals were on the menu. Cro-Magnon and Homo sapiens sheltered in caves. Food was scarce. These people gnawed meat and snow. Human flesh before they discovered pigs, which tasted as good as man. Classical Anthropologists liked to portray our antecedents to assume the genetic acme of Man, but we were, are, and will be savages driven by climate and hunger for flesh. Human flesh. Supposedly we taste like pig.

The last known man to be eaten in this century was Michael Rockefeller by the Asmat tribesmen in Papua New Guinea

After the melting of the glaciers the sea level rose inundating Atlantis. The lands covered by ice grew green. Man raised animals and crops to east along with Man. Man went from a savage to a savage with cattle. Previously our sense of ownership pertained to caves, women, men and a shank of meat. Herds of cattle became property. Man fought over these possessions, then with the discovery of beer Man settled down to reap the harvest. Tribes divided the land. Their territories had names. None that we remember. We remained savages as we do now,

Letter To Jocko - A Wedding

Two weekends ago I had a great trip up to a wedding south of Boston. Brigette and I thought about renting a car, but resisted the corporate brainwashing instructing the masses that they can't live without a car. We took the 8am bus to South Station, wandered about the Fort Channel, and headed down to the South Shore, the land of my youth after my family left Maine. 

1960

My sister-in-law got us a hotel near the wedding site at a golf course atop a hill under which were buried the Quincy quarries. We napped and missed the shuttle bus, I thought we could walk, but it was too far. I suggested we hitchhike. Brigette put out her thumb and the first car stopped in the middle of the road.

The driver was a shy Chinese man who barely spoke English and had been worried that something bad might happen to us. Kwang Cho had migrated from his homeland and worked for a biotech firm. He spoke

We joined my  with great shyness and I as well as Brigette thought he had very little contact with people as does everyone in the world as you can attest in exile from humanity in Incline, Nevada.

He drove all the way to Granite Links GC and we thanked Kwang Cho profusely. Both of us were shocked that we had gotten a ride so swiftly. Fuck Uber.

The setting was a surprise for I had tramped across the Blue Hills throughout my life. The elevation was higher than some of the nearest hills. While the view to the north was the city of Boston, its harbor, and beyond the Hull Peninsula the boreal blue Atlantic, the vista to the left was unfamiliar in height and angle. 

The Blue Hills stretched off to the west six miles to Big Blue at six hundred plus feet, the highest elevation on the Eastern Seaboard from Key West northward until Mount Megunticook in Maine. The scenery had been inedibly tattooed in my memories. 

Not for skiing down the short slope back in the last of the Ice Age or a fight with Hyde Park punks who threw a pineapple can from the top of weather observatory tower, striking my older brother's head. His scar faded within weeks, but not mine from my mother having sitting me in the family station wagon and saying that my best friend in Maine had drowned in Sebago Lake.

 It was June 1960. I had four siblings. I sat in the Ford alone. My mother walked away. The sun was over the whale humped hill. I prayed to God to resurrect Chaney. I failed and realized I had only failed, because I believed in God. There was no God. Chaney was no more. Forever in the past eternity.

My atheism has never been shaken. I stood on the edge of the putting green, admiring the beauty of the day. My old house on Harborview Road was invisible under the sylvan slopes. Big Blue wasn't the same as the Big Blue of 1960. I wasn't the same either nor my memories of Chaney. They were few. His kissing Kathy, our throwing darts at seagulls, sledding down the gully, swimming in Sebago Lake. I have one photo. I look. At it once and a while.

Brigette touches my shoulder. They ask if I am alright. I nod and tell her why I stood alone. They nodded and their fingers pressed into my skin. Brigette could have said anything, but simply said, "Let's go dance."

I turned my back on Big Blue and joined the soon to be newlyweds, their families, and friends. As always I brought Chaney with me. He and I danced and dined without introductions to others. It was a day of celebration and we both were happy to be together.

It was a good day.

 

OCTOBER 24, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

The phone rang this morning and Alice answered, then groaned, "It's Mark."

It was 10.

She handed the phone and I asked gruffly, "What do you want?"

"Can you come into work?"

"Why? You need someone to blame when you lose money?" Mark was always plundering the petty cash for ALBEE DIRECTS ALBEE.

"Edward came in and asked where you were. He wasn't happy to hear you had quit."

"Did you tell him why?" I was sure he had made up something that blame me.

"I said I thought you were stealing."

"And he said you were wrong."

"Yes."

I put my hand over the mouthpiece and asked Alice, "Would I be an asshole to go back to work for Mark?"

"Ask for a raise." She rolled over to sleep. The hillbilly directress had come back around dawn. She smelled of another woman's perfume at least not belonging to her witch partner, Susan. Revlon Charlie.

I had been getting paid $150 a week and said, "Pay me 180 a week."

Mark said 'yes'.

"I'll be in there shortly."

Shortly meant getting out of bed and feeling the window overlooking the alley. The pane of glass was cold and the cypress tree was shedding the final leaves. I pulled over autumn clothing for the first time this year; a sweater, heavy boots, a thick leather jacket, and new gloves from Bloomingdales. On the walk over to Veselka I shivered in the wind. The sun was weakly shining through the clouds. I loved the cold, because it drove most of the junkies inside. There was no sign of Hakkim, the scourge of the neighborhood. After breakfast at Veselka I walked up to Mark's apartment building. Mark answered the door. I glared at him and he wisely said, "Let's forget the past and look forward to the future. Edward really likes your work."

"I'm sure."

We made phone calls to various theaters across the USA. The Albee retrospective was immensely popular featuring; THE AMERICAN DREAM, THE ZOO STORY, COUNTING THE WAYS, FAM AND YAM, Counting the Ways" and assorted other plays and my favorite QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAO, which I had seen in rehearsal. The day passed without incident, but this calm was all a facade. Mark was an asshole screamer, when things went bad and some people never change.

GRANT STITT general counselor NRP

The New Zealander emigrated to the USA to study modern dancer. He is 28, homosexual, a good gossip, and a vegetarian. He has nom lover just dalliance without count. His dancing is modern which suits his lanky body. Grant is a devote NRP member in charge of the Surrender Army, which will be the military gay arm of the Party dedicated to giving up before a shot is fired on the front line to corrupt the Soviet troops. Hopefully he won't become the Eric Roehm of the NRP, the homosexual Nazi leader of the SA troops, which was crushed by Hitler in the Night of the Long Knives.

Keith Richards had his day in Canadian court for heroin possession. His sentence of a year's probation and a gig before blind children surprised the Silent Majority press calling for his blood. The Stones haven't thrilled me since their hit BROWN SUGAR and that was because a fan named Paul O'Malley had shouted out the title 'BROWN SUGAR' during the recording of a live LP. Every at my graduation from Boston College seniors yelled BROWN SUGAR throughout the ceremony upsetting the Jesuits.

In the punk world Sid Vicious of THE SEX PISTOLS' bass player attempted suicide with a lightbulb.

He should have used a razor blade. They are very effective slicing lengthwise. I would never killed myself that way or jumping or with a gun or hanging or pills or a unlit stove like the poet Sylvia Plath. How I don't know, but if necessary I'll fix it out. Still it's funny to see how sturdy is the human body.

Back when I was driving taxi for Boston Cab I ran a stop sign before the Roxbury projects at Lamartine and Heath Streets and t-boned a Mustang at full speed. Time collapsed to a blur, then resumed normal speed. The force of the collision threw me across the Checker Cab with a snapped-off steering wheel in my hands. The other driver Mitch Lipcomb was unhurt as well and the soul singer confessed outside court that he had fallen sleep at the wheel. We laughed and then realized no one had shown up for the hearing.

"Let's get a drink."

Sid Vicious was probably avoiding a court date for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel. Rumors had it that Sid had taken thirty Tuinals and had been in a drug coma during the killing on Columbus Day. His shows exposed his total lack of musical talent, but punks crowded CBGBs and Max's to see the disaster sing Frank Sinatra's hit MY WAY. Record producers ignored his heroin addiction and bizarre behavior in favor of filthy loot, but Sid's performances echoed the coming untalented assault of New Wave led by the Lounge Lizards and Teenage Jesus. each dreaming of gold-plated sneakers, suit jackets from near-extinct seals from Italian designers and China White #4.

White heroin was nuch better than Mexican Brown.

Woof woof woof dogs at the door. Don't you go outside Rabid hounds snare for revenge Fangs snap at the glass. The mongrels wish they were Poodles Or Pekinese. Dogs are scared of water Dogs are scaring me I drop my trousers and piss on them all. Arf Arf arf

Alice and I met over a year ago through the designer, Timothy Dunleavey. They were friends from North Carolina. I was going to a birthday party for Jancy Stephenson from Texas. After a few drinks I asked Alice and her friend to go someplace more private. They were staying at a West Side townhouse with a pool in the cellar. The water was unheated, yet the two of us stripped naked. Her friend puked after a few minutes of sex. Alice came from Coal County. The good side of the tracks had her kind tough and she called for God, as I finished in her. I was not God, but her orgasm was divine.

Tonight I lie in bed and she sits at the kitchen table speaking to her consort, Susan. Her voice was low. I could only pick out a few words. The conversation could have been between two lovers. I fear the worst. I came into the kitchen with a towel around my waist. She turns away from me. I open a bottle of Chateau Bourdieux from France liberated from Mark's wine chest. It's better than the usual crap I drink. I ask Alice if she wants some. She made a face. She only drinks with the cast of NEW WAVE VAUDEVILLE.

"You want to make love?"

She shook her head and returned to speaking on the phone. Women try to seduce me at CBGBs. I refuse them and wonder in Alice's celibacy is contagious. I hope not. I like fucking, but I also want tobe monogamous. I wander the streets alone. A libertine in love instead of in lust.

It was late in Butte, Montana When I arrived at the cowboy bar. I order a whiskey and beer And search the place for my wife. Rumor had it she was living here now. Not with anyone Playing the tramp Mona wasn't here I drowned my drinks and ordered another round Last call in Butte Montana. I can't forget Mona Her face fills empty mirrors Two weeks ago she left the state line Tired of living in a tent. She started breakfast While I was in the shower I came back to burning eggs. She took my money and caught a ride With a trucker heading east. She knew how to leave fast Any other woman from Reno could do the same I ate the burned eggs. She always burnt them I dressed for work building shitters For the new highway rest stop West of Missoula I earned enough working overtime in the snow I borrowed my boss' truck I bought a pistol in Drummond. Planning to shot here dead Last call in Butte Montana The gun is in the truck I ain't gonna kill no one Only myself and soft I order two more. The bar is empty The bartender wants me gone I tell him about Mona. "Her. She was here a couple of Days ago. Said she was heading to Laramie with a rodeo bum But a girl like that don't ever have a destination Only someplace she had done." I thanked him for the info He gave me the drinks to go in a paper cup It's only Friday night And she gotta be out there I'll drink my way across the west till Sunday Then come on back to work Still hurting from work and Mona and sleazy bars Always last call in Montana.

Copps Hill Cemetery

On an October afternoon I wandered through the Copps Hill Cemetery.
One of the oldest in Boston.
HP Lovecraft wrote a story About tunnels running underneath the graves.
To a hellish world.
Pickman's Model
"There were witches and what their spells summoned; pirates and what they brought in from the sea; smugglers; privateers—and I tell you, people knew how to live, and how to enlarge the bounds of life, in the old times!"
The horror.
None of a sunny autumn afternoon.
I looked for my family Brewsters Howells and Hamblins.

On the black flat tombstone
I knew none of the buried
But recognized the names

Of the dead from three hundred years ago.

Dead for centuries

But still alive in eternity.
As we get old

We forget
As we get older
We are forgotten
Except by the gravestones
Until the wind erases away the names.

OCTOBER 23, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

QUITING MARK AMITIN

Tore up your phone number Written on a scrap of paper I never memorized it And I'm glad I hadn't I'm so happy to walk away from your shit The screaming The tantrum The lechery I tell you, "Fuck you." "You'll be back." "Fuck you in case I do." I walk out the door I don't turn around No second thoughts Glad to be gone I'd say it had been fun None of it was.

Today I quit ALBEE DIRECTS ALBEE. Edward is a good man, But Martin Amitin questioned my accounting. I did it once again and came up with the same numbers.

"I guess you're good at cooking numbers," said the acne-scarred producer.

"I was a math major in university. If I wanted to cheat, you'd never know and the only reason you're busting my chops is that you want me to have sex with you. I might, but you're dick is too small."

"What?"

"Small. It isn't ever two plus two." I burned him in effigy and wished he caught an incurable tropical disease, as he yelled at me.

"I quit."

If you quit, I'm not paying you."

"Then I'll pay myself." I took my wages from the petty cash. "$120. Can you count it?" I had not been brought up by my Yankee father to quit jobs Some how I would find another.

"That's theft."

"Call the cops." I left the office, as Edward entered with a press release.

"Going someplace?"

"Yeah, I quit. Good luck. It's been an honor working for you."

Outside I felt free, but then Mark screamed in a high whining voice from the 17th floor.

"Stop that man. He's a thief."

Not a single pedestrian paid attention.

I love a city where people know enough not to get involved in other people's bullshit.

I called Alice from 27th Street.

I quit."

About time. That old queen hated me."

"He hates all women."

"You want to meet me for breakfast at the Kiev."

"Sure, you feel bad?"

"No, I have enough for rent."

November's rent?"

"Sadly only October's rent, but don't worry, Mrs Golding love me."

"Everyone loves you." She was a little jealous of how I got into clubs and venues and ate for free.

"And I love you." I hadn't been seeing Alice at all as she devotes all her time to NEW WAVE VAUDEVILLE. I have gone to sleep alone veery night for the last month

"It's strange, but I feel married. and I don't know how to react to that. I've never lived with a man before." She was 22.

"I've never lived with a woman before." I was 26.

Are you crazy about me?"

Yes, you are my love, but lately you've been distant, because of the show, so I understand. You feel your freedom, so you can be creative. I haven't been seeing anyone.

"Yoy, the sexual adventurer?"

"Yes, the libertine has retired." I'm not concerned with my cheating. Alice??? I pray that she isn't sleeping with that horrible shrew, her co-conspirator in the show. Susan Hanneford. At least I'm happy to see that the witch hates me more than I hate her.

After Alice went to rehearsal at Irving Plaza I spoke with Michael Selbach. We drank Rhein wine and the sculptor bemoaned his wife's desertion. "She's gone and I don't know where. At least you know where Alice is.

With that stupid bitch.

We finished two bottles in record time.

And then decided to hit CBGB's for beers.

It was still daylight, but nothing said fuck your boss better than hitting a Bowery Bar early.

Seconds tick to seocnds A ragged man's death rattle on the Bowery. Not death, but something far from life. The bum had been hit by a car. Drunks live hard and die harder. Blood flows from his head. Seoncds tick to death A siren approaches fast. The man opens his eyes. Laughs Cries An asks "I never thought I would die here." He groaned and breathed again. "Maybe I ain't dead, but I can't call this living." Seconds tick back to his heart. The ambulance workers load him inside Life goes on.

OCTOBER 22, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

Last night at CBGBs there were plenty of fights. Several women tried to lure me into bathroom sex. Stupidly I only wanted Alice, who was at Irving Plaze with her long-nosed girlfriend, Susan. I almost walked over the Polish meeting hall to confirm my fears, but drank beer instead and did a few lines with Guadalcanal, who is leaving fora tour with Johnny Thunders. I have never spoken to Alice about my suspicions of their pussy-bumping, but Kim Davis has intoned that she thought Alice and Susan were a thing. I don't think so, but I'm a man in love and we always believe the best.

Wet Autumn Rain

A soft Autumn rain Then harder Raindrops bouncing off the sidewalk Of Myrtle Avenue Shutting my eyes I listen To the rain on the street The sizzle of car tires on the wet Engines acceleration on a Friday afternoon Listen harder To passersby. "Her bottom is bigger than my umbrella." Laughter I open my eyes. Smell the damp. Feel the wet Drifting on the air As raindrops splash On the street. Mexican workers off early All smiles It's cerveza time A young rapper nods to the beat. Of his words. Water dripping from his hoodie. School children Hand in hand With a father Or a mother Happy to be going home Out of the rain On an autumn afternoon. I stay outside Serenaded by the rain. It's its own music

OCTOBER 20, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

NEW WAVE VAUDEVILLE has Alice and the other participants in a panic. I've seen a few rehearsals. Klaus is fantastic, David McDermott is the quintessential fey emcee. Stanley the Polish manager of Irving Place, tells everyone that the show will be a big success. Alice is giving it her all. We haven't been together in weeks. I wish I possessed her drive. I'm only capable of writing in this journal and scribbling bad poetry on blank paper. I throw most of it away without reciting the verses to friends or strangers or reading it myself.

Failure.

A twenty-six year-old failure at school, work, and love.

"I think I'm getting too fat," Alice said this morning before the mirror above the kitchen bathtub. "I can't make love to you until I'm skinny."

"You don't look fat to me. You look as beautiful as the first day I met you."

"That's because you're blind to anything other than your own narcissism."

"What?" I was prone to regarding my reflection in mirrors and windows, so there was truth to what the West Viriginan had said, but her to me revealed a cold side of her. Cold to me.

"You're always glancing at your reflection in mirrors and shop windows."

"True." I sat at the table, as she pulled on her jacket. "I also look in people's eyes, because people really see you for who you are."

"You're not Adonis." She slammed the door shut and I was alone.

No sex.

I've been celibate before.

When Alice directed OUT TO BRUNCH, the hillbilly beauty rejected my advances to the point where I slept on the living room couch. Some nights she would steal under the covers and huddle close, saying, "I'm cold."

The sex during the no-sex period was all for her. She came and went right back to the bedroom without a good-night kiss. After that I went on strike.

I'm working for Mark Amitin. I need the money more than I don't need the grief. His cat, Camus, sits on this journal. Mark wants to fuck me. He wants to fuck everyone. I leave after lunch, saying, "I have to go to the doctor for a clap test."

I walked south down Second Avenue. Women stare at me. Most I wouldn't touch. They exude no sexuality, which I prefer to beauty. Last year this time I was whoring my way through Brooklyn with Betty, a married bimbo with augmented breasts, Roz, a lesbian, who liked my cock sometimes more than licking pussy, Fran, a skinny Jewish pinball player, who begs me to cum on her baby-powdered breasts, and young Ellen, a scrawny teen runaway, who gets off one my fucking her ass in between subway cars the night Elvis died. Last year I told her about Alice and that we couldn't fuck anymore.

"What about blow-jobs on the D-Train?"

"Fellatio isn't really sex."

I said good-bye to her last Spring when Alice Graduated from her Midwestern liberal arts college. I can never remember its name. I arrive to East 10th Street without seeing a single women exuding sex.

I'm cursed with desire for one woman, who fears me, but not my cock.

OCTOBER 20, 2021 - BROOKLYN

I can do nothing right for Old Yellah.

Today I hadn't replaced the heater to the bathroom. I should have. She heats up the bathroom for yoga. Hot sauna's one of her great pleasures. Sh tells me that my apologies are fake. I don't respond to the valid accusation, since she is so absorbed in her efforts to save outdoor dining and a million other projects that my cancer hasn't registered with her.

I haven't mentioned the fatality rate of liver cancer to her or anyone else. 2-5 years. No one at NYU hospital have discussed my future other than to say that I'm a perfect candidate for a liver transplant. I thought about telling Alice about my ailment, but opted to spare everyone, since they are wrapped up in their cellphone existences

This afternoon the NYU team checked my heart condition. Everything was normal. It looks as if I'll live to the end of the year.

ps I am the world's # 1 failurologist.

Stags Shagging In Season

Written Oct 24, 2011

Putney was not exactly the center of London, but I chose to stay with Sara. We were the best of friends. Dawn came early at her house. Every morning the record executive walked her sweet little dog, Maysie, in Richmond Park. I was a stranger to the Royal Park, the largest in London, and was pleasantly surprised by its wild expanse of bracken meadows and even more so by the spectacle of rutting stags. Autumn was the time of the year, when the male red deer contest for hinds by a display of their antlers, bellowing, and plain old knock-down fighting.

The stags roared at each other, as we walked past the harems. We were no threat, but barking dogs bring out the protective instinct in the big males. They don't want anything fucking around with their mates and I stay well out of their way. Antlers have points and Sara told me that several walkers had been charged by the big bucks.

While I am covered by National Health in the EEU thanks to my Irish passport, I have little interest in getting gored by an irate stag. Sara guided me to safety. Maysie was not a barker. She knew her place on the feeding chain and I gave her a little treat as a reward for not irking the deer.

She was a good little dog.