Happy Celtic New Year 5571

The New Year has been celebrated on countless dates throughout history. The Celtic Sahmain in November marked the end of the light half of the year. The Chinese New Year begins with the first lunar month coinciding Tet, the Vietnamese New Year and Losar for Tibet. Most of the other New Years are determined by either solstices or a lunar events, while the Thai Songkran signals the coming of the rain with the new moon in April.

The modern-day New Year originated with the old Roman calendar and the Early Christian pinpointed January 1 as the date of their dead messiah's Bris or circumcision, although many western European nation maintained separate holidays such as Lady Day in the United Kingdom up until 1751.

to spend My foreskin was schlocked off at birth. I mourn the desecration of my body. I want this new year in Bannok, Thailand, a rice village fifty years off the Asia Highway. None of the other males were gelded by a doctor or midwife. It is nothing to celebrate.

So happy Celtic New Year 5572.

I really mean it.

The Paganism Of The Christmas

Better Late Than Never

Merry Christmas Comrades

I'm even capitalizing the C to maintain the spiritual peace of the winter holidays even though the Christians stole the Yulemas from the ancient Druids of Stonehenge.

Meán Geimhridh commemorating the shortest day of the year predates the Bronze Age. The original rituals from over five thousand years ago have been lost for ages, however every December the sun signals the winter solstice at the Newgrange burial tomb. For seventeen minutes the rays of the dawn pierce a hole in the roof to light the interior of the Neolithic monument. Farmers slaughtered their livestock in preparation for a long winter and more importantly wine, beer, mead, and other spirits reached maturity in late-December.

The pagans had a very happy Meán Geimhridh.

Julius Caesar adapted his Julian calendar to mark December 25 as the winter solstice and later the Christians adopted this heathen feast for their own religion.

Meán Geimhridh was all about the sun and earth and beer and the eternity of the cosmos.

So milla failte to my loving son Fenway in Thailand.

An ancient tribe loves you always.

mas.

He is a good boy.

The Longest Night

Stonehenge has endured time. This morning the sun rose in the east. Light passed through the massive portals to cast a path marking the winter solstice. Beer and mead were ready for drinking after the season of fermentation. Both were served as food through the winter. I have always called the Winter Solstice the holy day Beermas.

I celebrated it often during the cold months.

Modern historians paint a bleak portrait of the Bronze Age.

The time after Meán Geimhridh was known as the famine months.

Neanderthals and Cro-magnons survived the annual starvations, but thanks to the fermentation of beer.

This morning I woke this morning to the sun rising over Brooklyn.

The light was gold on the tall buildings to the west.

The flash of dawn honored the time and the day.

Four years ago I drank beer and Irish Whiskey with friends.

I drank Irish whiskey.

It was a good beermas, but now there is no beer for Sean Coll and I will read through the longest night.

Brionglóid milis or sweet dreams.

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 1 - A novel by Peter Nolan Smith

Six women crowded the honeymoon suite of the Coastal Motel. The buxom 'groom' patiently waited on the bed for her 'bride', while the brutish camerawoman glanced at the director and tapped her watch.

"Lena, are you ready yet?" A bead of sweat trickled down the wiry director's spine, as she knocked on the bathroom door.

"One more minute," the female lead shouted from inside the tiled room.

“That’s fine as long as it’s sixty seconds.” Sherri Conti signaled the camerawoman to prepare for the money shot, acutely aware that the different segments of a movie set operated at contradicting speeds within the same time frames.

The technicians were habitually fast, except they were had nothing to do, and the talent was traditionally slow, especially when they were being rushed by the producer.

A director's job was to ensure the contrasting sides of the camera meshed during the actual shooting and Sherri checked the equipment for any potential miscue. Everything was in place, except for the girl in the bathroom.

There was no way that Lena was suffering stage fright. The young starlet had performed sex before a camera over fifty times and had not once gone up or blown her scene. Lena was simply dropping into her persona. Sherri had undergone the identical transformation in hundreds of hotels, condos, and ranch houses over her twenty-year career in XXX films.

The extra time had been worth the wait, because once Sherri had heard the word ‘action’, her body had exhibited a tangible hunger for sex and the camera never lied in an industry with no special effects.

Sherri’s name had once blazed on marquee lights in Times Square and her body had filled a millions of TV screens for audiences of one. A devoted fan had amassed a list of her on-screen lovers. The number ran into the thousands. The handful of stand-outs had vanished from the Valley like animals scourged into extinction. Sherri could have easily joined them, but her near-miraculous survival granted the forty-five year-old director the status of living legend.

The accolades, setbacks, or sins were meaningless to Sherri, for porno was still a business and time was money and she turned to the black woman on the queen-sized bed.

"Josie, give us a sound check."

"You got it, boss lady."

Big Josie Cane had worked for Sherri ten times.

The ex-actress’ production company paid better than the standard daily of $500 and the director had never blindsided the actresses with bizarre requests, so Josie gladly saved her best performances for Sherri. These girl-on-girl scenes were especially easy with Lena, for the Spanish girl shone in a business where most actresses were lightbulbs.

Rising off the mattress Josie spoke into the overhead boom.

"Testing, one, two, three." Josie cinched the belt of the strap-on dildo, which she didn't want to slip out of place during the shoot. This was going to be one long take and she meant to make the most of it.

"How clean is it?” Sherri asked the soundwoman.

Even with the taped windows and heavily blanketed door the microphone picked up the wet sizzle of 18-wheelers on the rain-drenched Ventura Freeway.

"Nothing I can't fix in the sound studio." The soundwoman had heard worst background noise.

The battery of Soft Ks, 10Ks, and Mighty Mole lights around the room pushed the temperature into the 90s. Sherri surveyed the sheen of sweat on Josie and figured that the male audience would appreciate the glistening ebony skin.

"It’s a go, once the 'jig inky' is in focus." The stocky gaffer in jeans studied the bed. Not a single shadow was visible on the sheets.

"Okay, we'll deal with that when Lena is in place." This scene needed to be shot and Sherri nervously pushed back her brown shag-cut hair. “Lena, that minute is up.”

“Ready or not here I come.” The raven-haired actress emerged from the bathroom and struck a provocative pose before the crew. The muscles of her girlish body were taut from dance classes without any deformation by gym training. A neutral-toned blush heightened the smoothness of her olive skin. Mascara accented the Oriental cant of her green eyes and her coal-black hair was cut to mimic Cleopatra.

She was more exotic than beautiful and this attribute converted into star quality. Her DVDs sold out every first run and the critics had nominated her ‘best new starlet’ for the upcoming XXX awards in Las Vegas.

“Finally.” Sharon clapped her hands and the crew snapped to attention.

Lena crossed the room to her off-screen lover.

The actress was an inch shorter than Sherri and her pouting pelvis grazed the director's thigh. The older woman stiffened, wishing that she was on the bed, instead of Josie, however the director had retired from that side of the camera five years ago.

"Nervous?"

"Nervous? I was made for this." The younger woman glided out of reach and every woman in the room studied her nakedness. Lena wouldn't have it any other way, for she was as much an exhibitionist as a voyeur.

Lena lay on the bed with her legs apart.

Her character in the film was called Desiree.

A runaway who had never been with a woman before.

Lena had run away from her home at the age of 14 and knew every aspect of this role inside out.

The gaffer adjusted the 'jig inky', as the make-up artist feathered the final touches on Lena's metamorphosis into a white trash virgin's first meeting with a bull dyke.

The market for most adult entertainment was predominantly male. Lena’s audience was evenly split between men and women, despite purely lesbian content of her films. Part of her appeal had to do with Lena's youth. She was new meat.

Sherri's first film had been a 8mm loop filmed in a Times Square studio. She had played a pizza girl delivering an order of pepperoni pies to a stag party. The invulnerability of her youth hadn’t lasted long in the meat grinder of adult film industry and Sherri was determined to protect Lena from such damage, but no one could survive forever without losing their soul.

Lena deserved to be in real films and Sherri had a plan to get the young girl on the silver screen, but now was not the time.

“Everyone set?” Sherri asked the crew.

“Ready, when you are, boss lady.” The gaffer retreated from the lights and Lena's hand dropped to her shaved vagina. Soon it would be replaced by that of another woman. The old Jefferson Airplane song SALLY GOES ROUND THE ROSES popped into Sherri’s head and the chorus repeated in her mind.

“Saddest thing in the whole wide world is to see your baby with another girl.”

“Josie, take your position.” Filming Lena with another woman was becoming increasingly difficult, but Sherri waved the make-up woman from the bed. In the end she was a professional.

“Places.”

Big Josie Cane assumed the 'top' position for the classic 'cowgirl reverse' shot and the Super 8mm video camera transmitted a pixilated image of Lena speaking her lines onto the video monitor. The picture was a little fuzzy.

“Sharpen it a little,” Sherri ordered the crouching camerawoman.

“Got it.” The camerawoman crystallized the focus with the deftness of a safecracker.

The image on the screen looked real and Sherri prayed a technical failure would halt the filming, except the words, "Lights, camera, action" transported the crew and actresses into the magic world of movie-making.

While the camera wasn’t 35mm and the budget was less than $20,000, every woman in the room prayed today’s filming guiding was a magic carpet them to Hollywood, that most promised of Californian lands, and no one was refusing a shot at the silver screen matter how big or small the stage.

Any god or goddess would have known the truth.

Not everyone gets a shot at fame and fortune.

Only the very lucky and the very good and sometimes the very bad reached the promised land and one look through the viewfinder was proof that Lena de Gama was destined for that heaven, for the camera never lies about the truth.

The Glitter Of Gold

From 2011 In the summer of 1993 Tall Meg and I drove from LA to New York in her 1966 Studebaker Lark. Tall Meg was in love with a man in New York and I was returning to no one. She was in a hurry, but had never made the cross-country trip, so we detoured from the Interstate and headed into the desert. The first night I erred thinking that there were plenty of motel rooms in Monument Valley in Arizona. We arrived at dusk to discover the two motels were sold out. That evening Tall Meg and I crashed in the car parked off the road leading to Colorado. Both of us were too tired to travel any farther.

"At least the seats fold down." The night was lit by the cosmos. Kerouac and Cassidy might have traveled down this road.

"Don't say anything." Tall Meg was pissed at me. It was cold in the high plains. Cars passed every few minutes. I stepped outside and stared at the billions of stars clustered in the sky. I couldn't recollect ever having seen so many. Tall Meg joined me.

"A lot of stars." She was still angry at me, but her eyes shined with the heaven.

In the morning we continued on our way. People were happy to see her car.

"What is it?" Most asked at the car stations. Tall Meg told them everything about her car. They waved good-bye and we entered the Rockies, stopping the night at a small hotel in Leadville, the highest city in the USA. We struggled to sleep in the high altitude. My lungs struggled to get my breath. Both of us woke at dawn. The road was downhill from Leadville. By the end of the day we would be in the plains. I stopped at a mountain stream that would become the Arkansas River and thought about swimming until Tall Meg pointing out that the crystal water which would was laden with the poisonous aftermath of gold mine owned by the Newmont Corporation.

"It's dead."

"And been dead for a long time."

Tall Meg and I left the river and I have thought about that sign on the Arkansas since then.

There were few clear streams left in America and the mining entity known as Newmont has moved much of its operations overseas. Last week the Peru government yielded to demands of local residents to stop the development of a massive gold pit in the Cajamarca region some 3700 meters above sea level. Residents had set up roadblocks to prevent any attempt by Newmont to drain glacier-fed lakes to support their mining operation. Newmont had proposed another set of negotiations, dangling the prospect of jobs before the locals. Such promises have been before to the people in Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana and Peru with success, for Newmont produced 5.4 million ounces of gold last year. With gold at an all-time high Newmont is the most successful gold mining operation in the world, however the locals living in the shadow of their mines have complained about deadly pollution and the failure to provide well-paid jobs to the community.

Newmont has been ignored these protests with the help of the government who are in the pocket of the mining giant. They have escaped audits for taxes and royalty payment thanks to a legion of lawyers. Managers are adept at short-changing workers overtime in foreign countries and contributed to the danger of mining by avoiding adherence to safety regulations. The CIA has repeatedly acted in f avor of Newmont to the detriment of the workers and local communities. All that glitters might be gold, but that gold is not for everyone. Not in America and not in Peru.

Montauk Train # 20

Montauk Train # 10

8:18 out of Jamaica EMD diesel hauling passengers East All the way east To the last stop Montauk___ Last day of autumn December 20 Gray morning Almost winter 34 degrees outside Comfortable on the train Another two hours to Montauk Passing through the Long Island suburbs Small houses From the 50s and 60s For the parents of baby boomers Fleeing the city The small apartments The dirty streets The others___ Safe clean and space to breathe Beaches only minutes away Living the American dream__ Still looks that way From the 8:18 to Montauk No one on the streets Only cars One deer by a pond No other sign of life___ I know this life Suburbs of the South Shore In the Blue Hills South of Boston These houses So familiar Even after leaving the suburbs in 1976__ The East Village, London, Paris, Hamburg, Yucatan, LA, Bali, Thailand so many remote places Far from the suburbs But not today Just outside the window Family house, Christmas decorations, empty Street, bare trees, more marshes now Soon out of the suburbs On the 8:18 to Montauk Eastward bound__

Dunkel Dunkel

Published December 20, 2011

The word for darkness in German is 'dunkel'. Darkness is 'dunkelheit' and today dawned very 'dunkel' in the Rhine city of Cologne. The farther north in Europe the shorter the days, as the northern hemisphere approaches the winter solstice. After dunkel comes the grey sky of morning and I will visit the great cathedral of Koln. Somehow this massive structure avoided the destruction visited on Germany during the allied bombing campaigns of WWII.

The city was hit 262 times by raids and the population was reduced to 95% at war's end.

Few if any of the older buildings survived the catastrophe intact, but the cobblestones remained untouched by the explosions and they are very slippery under foot in the night damp.

Koln rose like an eagle to become Germany's fourth largest city.

Not bad, but still very dunkel.

Koln is a long way from summer this time of year, but this evening I'll be flying from Dusseldorf to Thailand to see my kids, get some sun, and drink some beer.

Happy Holidays.

December 19, 2024

Almost two years since my liver transplant. I'm on the Q train crossing the East River. Over the years I've probably crossed he Manhattan Bridge thousands of times . Today it's to Weill-Cornell hospital on the Upper East Side. Yesterday while taking care of Professor Berthell Ollman I noticed my abdomen swelling and the sensation of pressure. Back at 387 I stepped on the scale. Up two pounds in a day. If I've learned anything over the last years it's if something doesnt feeling good, check on it. Last night and this morning I called the transplant doctor on call. This morning she suggested my heading up to the ER to get blood work. The express train is passing 23rd Street. I'll be there by 8. Coffee and a bagel. Unfortunately I will be missing a day's work. Tant pis. Such is life. Happy Holidays. Later Almost noon. A MRI. A long one, as the nurse checks all my vents for bleeding. The screen shows the blue blood in the veins and the red oxygenated. Almost an hour on the bed, as she presses the scanner to my belly. There is no pain. Good thing I came in early. Even better that I didnt go out to Montauk. Blood work. No eating. No drinking. Waiting for a Cat Scan. Cold back here. A young couple come into the ER. The woman is in pain. The nurse examines her. She has numbness in her side. Lots of nurses in the ER. Not that many patients. It's early in the day. Four minutes short of noon. No telling when I'll get the Cat Scan. Later ER's Cat Scan is an old one, a GE scanner from this century. The tech said he had performed fifteen scans since morning. Fifteen minutes each

Central Park Boat Pond 2024

October 7th 19

Autumn settles on the boat pond Central Park trees Green to Orange to Yellow On the pond To radio controlled sloops Race Through fallen leafs__ An imitation America Cup Both sailing south Driven on a crisp northwesterly___ Central Park Not the East Village Rosy red cheeked children Race around the pond At Arm's Reach From four nannies Three young mothers___ I remember my youth The change of seasons Summer to autumn I remember the wind Through the trees Of the Blue Hills All the colors So special The blue of the sky The white of the clouds Silver and gray too And the trees___ The leaves Green yellow red Under The strong sunlight Hearing the children's laughter Remember mine And my mother's laughter So long ago in our backyard In the Blue Hills. Laughter Same as Central Park Forever young___

Friday The 13th

From 2012

The USA has been fighting a decades-old war against Al-Quada.

At one time its founder, Osama Bin Ladin had been our ally in the insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan. His family had ties to power brokers in Washington. Bin Laden's schism with the West began in 1990 with the stationing of foreign troops on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia after Gulf War I. At odds with the royal family OBL sought refuge in Sudan and allied himself with several Arab militant groups aiming to overthrown the no-secular dictatorships of the Middle East as well as any kingdoms backed by the West.

With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the USA re-assessed the threats to its power and identified Al-Quada as a lynchpin of the widening cabal. The Luxor massacre in 1997, his soldiers aid to the Taliban, and the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings proved the seriousness of his fatwa against the West and the FBI placed the Yemeni-born terrorist on the Top Ten Most Wanted list along with Whitey Bulger, the infamous Southie gangster.

The CIA reported throughout the summer of 2001 that OBL was funding a scheme to launch hijacked airliners at targets in the United States. George W Bush ignored the danger and his staff didn't even bother to read an August 6, 2001 report entailing the plot. America paid heavily for that blase attitude on 9/11.

The FBI upgraded his status to Most Wanted # 1.

The Bush regime never came close to capturing or killing the fugitive. His ghost haunted America. He was reputedly living under the aegis of the ISI, Pakistan's secret service operation. The full weight of US power could neither bring him to justice dead nor alive.

On May 2, 2012 several teams of Navy SEALS infiltrated Pakistan to attack a guarded compound several kilometers from that country's military academy. In the ensuing firefight Osama Bin Laden was executed by a double tap. He was unarmed at the time. His corpse was evacuated to a US aircraft carrier and after a swift religious rite his body was dumped into the sea. President Obama watched the entire operation via satellite after a night of entertaining reporters with a satirical riposte against the GOP at the White House Correspondents dinner.

"The order was to kill him."

The USA and its allies rejoiced at the news of his death. The Taliban and many in the Arab world doubt the USA could bring down the superstar of terror. Revenge has been promised against the West. The GOP has yet to congratulate the president on this successful mission and 16% of fat white men still believe that Barrack was born outside the USA.

Can't a brother get a break?

Food Superstitions in Thailand

From 2008

Thais have more superstitions than the Irish and some of them are devoted to food, since it's their third greatest love behind having fun and sleep.

Here's a short list of don't.

Eating a double banana will give a woman twins, which must be tough for those showgirls doing the banana tricks at go-gos.

Eating before your elders will reincarnate you as a dog. This rule is waved for disasters and fast food restaurants.

Eating food without rice will give you rickets.

Eating salt under a tree will kill the tree.

Eating other people's food without permission will swell your throat, so schnorrers beware. Schnorrer is a Yiddish term for people who eat of another person's plate without permission. I'm sure there's lots of Yiddish superstitions too.

Eating a kids' left-overs will make them naughty.

Eating before monk during the day will turn you into a ghost.

Eating corn with the flu will raise your temperature.

Never eat all the rice on your evening plate. Leave a little for the ghosts.

Eating chicken feet will give you bad handwriting. My wife loves chicken feet. Yech.

Eating chili sauce from a mortar bowl will give your kid big lips.

Eating turtles will make you walk slow. Eating chicken feet make me sick.

The last is about eating dog. I've feasted on dog in Indonesia. It doesn't taste like chicken. feet. It's actually delicious, but Thais think if you eat it, then you will be possess by the dog's spirit. Arf Arf.
<>Is that such a bad thing?

For a related article click on this URL

http://www.mangozeen.com/friday-the-13th-7-13-2007.htm

Friday the 13th Umphang

Ten years ago my ex-wife, daughter, and I set out from Chai-nat for Umphang, which is one of Thailand's most remote regions. I had calculated seven hours for the 500 kilometer trip. It took almost eleven hours of white-knuckle driving through the jungled mountains. The road in Umphang had been known as Death Highway back in the last century and a pick-up truck nearly smashed into us on a blind curve. We were lucky to arrive at our destination in one piece, since I hadn't realized that that day was Friday the 13th.

While the number 12 symbolizes completeness for numerologists, 13 has a reputation of a prime number steeped with irregularity, further tarnished by Jesus and the Twelve Apostles numbering 13 at the Last Supper and now in the Christian world 13 people at a table is feared to doom one of the guests to death .

Other cultures also consider 13 bad luck. The Turks effectively banned the number from their language. Vikings feared that if 13 guests sat to dinner, all of them would die within a year under the curse of Loki, their god of mischief. Some humans reject this belief and Manhattan has both East and West 13th Streets, however many high-rises on that fabled borough are missing the 13th floor.

Many superstitions have their base in gambling and gamblers exhibit an extraordinary fear of the #13 aka triskaidekaphobia.

Unlike the West Thais regard the number 4 as unlucky, although you'll notice on Thai Air flights there is no row 13.

Personally I think 13's reputation comes from the age at which Jewish boys used to be circumcised and nothing is more unlucky for a man than losing a piece of your penis, unless you’re a ka-toey.

Black Sabbath also released their first album on Feb. 13, 1970.

The date had nothing to do with ladyboys.

Although with Ozzie you can never be sure.

Other well-known numerical phobias

Never sit at seat #10 at a poker table.

Always wear red underwear when gambling.

In craps, always blow on the dice before you roll them. That apparently seals in the luck. However, should the dice leave the table, the next throw will be a loser.

Poker players should switch card protectors if luck is running bad.

For some dropping a card during a game is considered very bad luck. Others, however contend you should raise your next bet in that circumstance suggesting that it’s good luck.

Always enter and leave a casino through the same door.

Singing can be either good luck or bad luck while you gamble.

Don’t count your money during a poker session.

Stay away from sex the night before you play. (Not the most popular superstition).

Never let dogs near a gambling table. (Apparently they’re bad luck and no good at poker).

Never accept being paid with a $50 bill. They’re called “Frogs” and are said to be unlucky.

Never touch someone’s shoulder while he is gambling.

Don’t enter a casino through its main entrance; it’s cursed.

Switch on all the lights at home before leaving to gamble.

Nothing really bad happened this Friday the 13th.

At least not yet.

48D Long Freedom

From 2022

I loved the old Times Square.

Now it's a tourist trap waiting the rebirth of a generation of vicious Fagins, the criminal kingpin of Charles Dickens' OLIVER TWIST.

I have more respect more respect for the ruthless thieves of the 70s than the XXXXL tourists stuffing their faces with fast food on the ruins of Forty-Deuce.

Now the Times Square Association complains about the near-nude buskers such as Ms. 48D Long as eyesores.

I love her.

And I hate squares.

And so does the past.

BET ON CRAZY / Naked Women

Published 2007

Rough diamonds are predominantly mined from volcanic vents in Africa, Australia, Russia, and Canada. After that process separated into parcels for the London sight-holders, who have the stones cut in Antwerp, Israel, or India. The finished products are divvied out to various diamond brokers and then brought over to various diamond markets across the world. Over 80% of the diamonds sold in the USA pass through Manhattan's West 47th Street, making the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues a crossroads of the world for jewelry. kmv c Sapphires and rubies from the Orient are transported here from Hong Kong and Thailand, while Israelis brave the dangers of Columbia for precious emeralds. Having handled jewelry for over ten years, I sometimes act as if I were dealing with chopped liver at a deli counter. We are, however, occasionally blessed with something to get excited about, an opportunity to deal with truly valuable gems.

Several years back my boss and good friend, Richie Boy, was introduced to a big player from the West Coast. A CEO of several companies, this man had expressed interest in purchasing a Christmas gift for his mistress, a blonde from Palm Beach who was married to another millionaire. Botox preserved her beauty, although her eyes told her age.

The call was for a very rare ruby. It had to be over five carats, a natural from Burma, internal perfect, and the color of the blood seeping from a pigeon's nose. The vein, not the artery. In his own way he was a bit of a poet.

Richie Boy phoned several dealers and within a day came up with a stone. It wasn't cheap. The dealer flatly told us, "875,000 dollars and I don't want to hear any bitching about the price."

The dealer bought the stone down. It was not big, but the color was a sublime blood red hue, and clean. Not a single flaw. Richie Boy asked me, "What do you think?"

"It doesn't look like a house in Montauk with a beach view, but what do I know?"

Richie Boy agreed and decided to get two diamond necklaces for back-up. He then called the client, who said he was interested, but wanted us to meet him at his tenth floor suite at the St. Regis Hotel.

Richie Boy's father was from Brownsville, very old school, and he immediately announced that we were being set up. Neither of us disagreed, since we would be carrying over a million dollars in jewelry into a hotel room to meet people we didn't really know.

His father wanted to kabosh the entire deal. Richie Boy, however, loaded his 9mm. I told him to put it away. Richie hadn't shot the weapon in years.

"You pull a gun and you have to use it. You don't, then the robbers will." "You carry it." Richie offered me the 9mm.

"No weapons." I put the gun back in the safe.

"The goy is right. The merchandise is insured. If we get robbed it counts as a sale." Manny was right, then again he was 100% right about 7% of the time

I rolled a newspaper.

"You're bringing reading material." Manny shook his head.

"No, it's a weapon."

"Yes." Richie had seen me break someone's nose at the Underground disco with a magazine. "He knows how to use it."

"My heroes. Try and sell something."

Richie stuck the jewelry inside his suit coat. "How do I look?"

"Like one boobs is bigger than the other."

His father swore we were crazy. He was right, but said, "Sie gesund."

With his blessing we set off for the St. Regis Hotel. We arrived at the hotel without incident. Two guests tried to get on the elevator with us, but both Richie Boy and I glared a warning for them to take the next car up. He pressed the button for the seventeenth floor.

There Richie and I walked down the corridor like we were being set up. All senses on 10. reaching the customer's room, Richie rang the bell. A woman laughed inside and several seconds later the door opened. Both of us stared, because the blonde wasn't wearing any clothes. Her boyfriend was on the couch, in a bathrobe.

"Lady, could you move away from the door," I asked in a low voice, gesturing with the NY Times.

The tanned middle-aged man frowned, "Who are you?"

People like him weren't used to taking orders.

"No offense." Richie took the two diamond necklaces from his jacket. "He's the protection for these."

He draped the diamonds on the woman's bare neck and she went over to the man's side. Even though they weren't dressed I still didn't trust them, but by the end of an hour Richie had sold one of the necklaces. We took a cashier's check for more money than either of us could earn in several years, but Richie wasn't happy, because he hadn't sold the ruby.

"There was no way you were going to sell that stone," I said.

"And why not?"

"Because no man, and I don't care how rich he is, will buy a million-dollar gift for another man's wife," I said.

"Don't be so negative," he said. "You never know."

And that is the truth.  

Justifiable Homicide

Last weekend early in the morning a lone gunman in a hoodie walked up to Brian Johnson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, America's largest health proxy, outside a Manhattan Marriott hotel and shot the chief executive three times with a pistol. All chest shots. The assailant jumped on an Ebike and fled into Central Park. Mr. Johnson was declared DOA at Mount Sinai Hospital. Elon Musk was outraged by this attack on a corporate leader and according to Wikipeida public officials, which included Minnesota governor and former Democratic vice president nominee Tim Walz and Senator Amy Klobuchar, expressed dismay and offered condolences to Thompson's family.

In contrast, many social media users shared their contempt for Thompson, UnitedHealthcare, and the American health insurance system. The Washington Post said that many people mocked Thompson's death and others felt satisfaction Luigi Mangione came from a well-connected family and graduated from U Penn in 2020. A member of the upper class unlike his victim, however according to the BBC he spent time in a co-living surfing community in Hawaii called Surfbreak. Sarah Nehemiah, who knew him then, told CBS he left due to his back injury which had worsened from surfing and hiking pointing to a possible denial of treatment by his health insurer.

Denials by the 'health care' companies resulted in 68,000 deaths last year. Not murder, but a culling of the working class. Of course Universal Health Care threatens the USA with godless socialism as opposed to the capitalist brutalism of UnitedHealthcare. Thankfully I have Medicare and Medicaid thanks to LBJ, who we will never forgive for buying into the Brightest and Best's Domino Theory that convinced him that we needed to fight the Commies in Vietnam, so the CIA and Mafia could control the heroin trade.

Brina Thompson was not a member of the upper-class.

Luigi Mangione shot a capitalist lackey rather than a member of the generational wealth class. His father was a grain elevator worker. His family lives in an upper class town in Minnesota. NOt the Hamptons or Palm Beach. Brian Thompson was strictly following orders for his overlords, pushing up denials from 9% in 2019 to almost 22% in 2023 leading to a good portion of the deaths of 68,000 Americans denied health care by the insurance companies. Yekaterinburg is the only course of redressing inequality. Of course everyone succumbs to the lure of 'Who wants to be a billionaire?'

Many of my liberal freinds are critical of this young man striking at the hear t of the health care. The same people who istened to the Beatles sing in revolution # 9, "If you are talking about destruction, then leave me out."

And these same people wonder why the working class has deserted the Democratic Party.

William Hazlitt "Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground."

Personally I see Yekaterinburg 1917 as the only solution to the Ultra Rich, unless they opt to redress their sins by spending all their wealth.

This shooting is not the revolution, just a long gunman striking their target.

ps Luigi Mangione is not related to the trumpeter Chuck Mangione.

The Beauty of Doing Nothing

Today from a European time zone a friend Serge Kruger, famed Paris bon vivant, mused on Facebook, "Luckily I like to do nothing."

Je suis avec lui 100%.

According to Wikipedia the English borrowed ennui from French in the 1660s. Ennui came from an Old French word meaning “displeasure.” Ennui was also related to the word annoy, but it really is just a wistful listlessness. Ennui was adopted as the esprit total of the ancien regime whose lives as oppressors over the people of France had become meaningless after Louis XIV

Moi, j'adore de faire rien. Une vrai plaisir

Walter Richard Sicker - Ennui c.1914

To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself. - Henry Miller

Of course we are all a bundle of contradictions and Miller wrote in Tropic of Canceer, "“In Europe one gets used to doing nothing. You sit on your ass and whine all day. You get contaminated. You rot.”

Definitions of ennui - pathetic, careless, dull, inattentive, indifferent, lackadaisical, lethargic, passive, sleepy, tired, and weary.

I would addd Slothful, except I consider Sloth a blessing and no longer one of the Seven Deadly Sin.

LOVELY SLEEP by Peter Nolan Smith

Published 2013

The Thai people pride themselves in the purity of their language. Few English words have infiltrated the common lexicon. Dtam-ruaat is the word for police. The diphonic annunciation can confuse most farangs. I thought for years that Dtam-ruaat meant 'make blood', however make blood is spelled Dtam-leuuat with a falling accent on the last syllable.

Thai culture remains strong, however beer is beer in Thai as is pizza pizza, so foreigners don't starve to death in the hinterlands. 1150 is telephone number for Pizza. Pay the gas and the motorcycle delivery boy will drive to the most distant reaches of ban-nok ie the sticks.

Other commonly shared words are whiskey, taxi, sex, and WC for 'water closet', which along with pizza cover most human needs.

Two years ago I returned to New York from Bangkok via Narita Airport.

Twenty-seven hours from Soi 12 in Jomtien to Fort Greene in Brooklyn.

Most people would have taken several days to recover from such a trip. I needed money and showed up at work 10 hours after passing through customs at JFK.

I was exhausted from the trip, yet couldn't sleep and tried to explain to my son's mother why I couldn't sleep. My Thai was rudimentary and Mam was getting increasingly frustrated by my ignorance of her native language.

"You stay here many years. Why you not speak Thai good?"

"Because I'm a farang."

"I know that." She sounded like she was saying 'farang kee-nok'. I know we aren't as good as them, because I have lived in France and the Thais are the French of the Orient.

Their chauvinistic love for their country's traditions, food, and culture border on fanaticism and after residing in Thailand I have to admit that they aren't half-wrong. The only problem was that I had to move back to America.

New York to be exact.

It was where my job was.

The other side of the world and this week my body clock was off by twelve hours.

Day is night and night is day.

"I can't sleep," I explained to Mam over Skype.

"Go sleep."

"Khan Lak Ter. Last night I had a dream about staying in a house with no walls. It was in the middle of a rice paddy. Very beautiful. Made out of wood. You slept in bed and I held Fenway."

Fenway was our son. He was two years old. Every night his body spun on the bed like a clock. I slept like a stone with him.

"Good dream?" Mam was a firm believer in beauty sleep, however children steal sleep from their parents like a CIA rendition torturer. The theft gave them control. Fenway was no different from the rest of the young in their preparation to usurp the strength of their mothers and fathers.

"Not a good dream. I see men in the dark. They attack us. I wake up screaming." I live alone in the top floor apartment of a Fort Greene brownstone. The walls were thick. No one heard my terror. "A nightmare."

"Fan raai." A nightmare was scary in every language.

"Yes."

"Are you thuuk-phee-am?" Mam was horrified at the possibility that I had been possessed by an evil spirit or 'phee'.

"Not at all." I never scoffed the Thai belief in ghosts. I had been to the house of a 'maih moht'. Magic existed in the heart and soul of her country, however my dream was the harvest of several sleepless nights. My next attempt to clarify the reason for my insomnia pierce the language barrier.

"You mean 'jet lag'?"

"Yes, jet lag." The word was the same for Mam as it was for me.

"Can not sleep?"

"No."

"I understand now." She had never traveled outside of Thailand, so the effects of jet lag were a mystery.

"I can't sleep. Four nights now." The CIA used sleep deprivation to persuade secret prisoners to tell the truth. I had slept maybe ten hours since Tuesday.

"'Oht nawn' not good for old man." Mam was twenty-six. I was more than twice her age. Youth had a mission to take over the world. No one lived forever or not sleep forever.

"I'll fall asleep soon." I couldn't say when, but Mam cared about my health.

"Nom dee." She wanted me to reach a hundred years old. Thais hated being alone.

And at the tender age of close to sixty, so do I.

We have a couple of words for loneliness in English.

"Never want to say good-bye." Barry White sang those words.

And I feel the same way too.

Like a man without a soul.

TORA TORA TORA 2011

published 2011 Like JFK's assassination everyone of a certain age remembered where they were during the announcement of the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Many had to ask, "Where's Pearl Harbor?"

This morning to commemorate their ignorance I posed the same question to younger people on the streets of Manhattan. Few of them had a clue other than two Japanese punks who said it was a group from the 1970s.

"As we get old, we forget. As we get older, we are forgotten."

TORA TORA TORA

ps Pearl Harbor and The Explosions released 'Drivin' in November of 1979. I saw them perform their debut single somewhere. I think it was at CBGBs.

Collect Call to the After-Life

Published 2016

This summer my brother visited me in a dream. My deceased mother and I were sitting in a ramshackle cottage on Cape Cod. My brother said he was going to meet friends. He looked happy, as he ran out the door. It was a little too short, but I was happy to see him and so was my mother.

I hope he's having a good time.

ps In the photo from Dennisport Beach 1964 Michael Charles Smith is the smallest and I am the tallest of the boys.

Hawaii's Missile Threat

Published 2009

North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 rocket in the general direction on Hawaii. No sirens sounded in Pearl Harbor. The missile failed to achieve orbit, although the hardline worker state crowed about their propaganda "victory" on state TV and the state organ newspaper declared the test as a "historic event that sounded the cannon's roar of victory in building a great, prosperous, powerful nation."

President Obama was quick to threaten North Korea with a scathing rebuke from the UN Security Council, except African guest member Burkina Faso balked at criticizing the hermit state at the behest of its patrons, China and Russia.

GW Bush at the opening day of the Texas Rangers baseball game wasn't available for comment, for after his eight years as leader American school children no longer have hide under their desks in the event of a missile attack.

At 56 I can recall the nuns of St. Mary of the Foothill telling us to pray for our eternal souls during nuclear bomb attack tests.

"God will welcome you."

The Sisters of St. Joseph never indicated whether that welcome was to heaven or hell.

12/07/1960

Eighty-three years ago Japanese aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet. Nearly every capital ship in Pearl Harbor was sunk or severely damaged by bombs or torpedoes and the Pacific Ocean became a Japanese lake until the BattleMidway.

The next day President Roosevelt declared before Congress, "December 7th shall live forever as a day of infamy."

This morning I asked a score of NY teenagers what was special about December 7th.

"Today?"

"Yes."

"It's a Monday."

"No." I shook my head.

"It's the start of winter."

"No, that's December 21st."

I decided to give them a hint.

"It has something to do with Pearl Harbor."

"Where's that?"

"Hawaii, so you don't know that December 7th is Pearl Harbor Day or what happened that day?"

The group of high school students shrugged with disinterest.

"It's the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor."

"Are the Japanese Muslim terrorists?"

"No, the Japanese come from Japan?" I gave up on my attempt to comfirm that FDR's Day Of Infamy has receded into the mists of history, proving that America's blissful ignorance is a long-cherished national asset, but I know what December 7th means most to me. It was the birth date of my youngest brother, Michael. A day I remember better than most, because fifty-four years ago I was standing in the parking lot of Our Lady of the Foothills. It was recess time. The weather was cold for December. My classmates were kicking a big red ball for fun and warmth. Our family station wagon pulled up before the school’s front door. My father stepped out of the car. He waved for my older brother and I to join him. My younger sisters too. We were all in uniform.

"You have a baby brother," he proudly told us. The nuns appeared annoyed by his unapproved appearance, being fiercely protective of their authority. My father was a late convert to Catholicism. His faith was newborn and he ignored their glare.

"We have a brother?" Our mother had exhibited no sign of pregnancy over the past months and I was mystified by this potential immaculate conception.

"Yes. Michael. Your mother named him after your uncle." My father hugged my two sisters close. They were a little more than a year apart.

"The priest?" Uncle Michael was a monsignor for Cardinal Cushing. He had met my grandmother Nana at the Boston docks after her passage from Ireland at the tender age of 14.

Six years older than me in 1960.

"Yes, and he's going to baptized your brother at the church. Go get your things. Your mother wants you to see Michael."

The nuns protested his request to take us out of school, but my father's greatest love was for his children and we piled into the station wagon. The drive to Boston Lying-In Hospital took less than fifteen minutes. My father liked to drive fast.

Our small tribe entered our mother's hospital room. She was holding Michael in her arms. Nana was holding Padraic, the fifth of our brood. He was all of two. Our family was now six. A family of eight counting my mother and father.

"There goes my pony." My older brother whispered in my ear.

Year in and year out Frunk had requested a pony from Santa Claus. I never thought that he had a chance of getting one since my mother hated animals.

I stepped closer to the bed. The red-faced baby in my mother's arms looked more like a furless monkey than a human.

I touched his small hand. It was warm.

"Say hello to your brother." My mother beamed with a Madonna's love.

"Hi, Michael."

He was my baby brother that day and has been every day since.

Sadly Michael passed from this world in summer of 1995. I think of him often and my father's telling me that I had a baby brother. I still do have one, because December 7th is a day that will live forever in my memory as Baby Brother Day.

Michael Charles Smith RIP.

My baby brother is sorely missed by family and friends.

He would have been 54 today.

Forever young.

I'll raise a glass for Michael later.

He was my Pearl Harbor Boy and I'll never say to him or his ghost, "Sayonara."

Only.

Up the rebels, boyo.

THE MEANING OF PURE by Peter Nolan Smith

This is a video of my story THE MEANING OF PURE.

In 1995 I crosse the Himalayas and traveled to Benares.

Swimming in the Ganges washed away your sins.

My bath in the Mother of India was dedicated to my baby brother who had passed from AIDS earlier in the summer.

Michael Charles Smith comes to me in dreams.

He seems happy in the Here-After.

Eric Marciano made this video and I thank the Springfield native for his insight.

To see THE MEANING OF PURITY, please go to the following URL

https://vimeo.com/83326329

Torah Torah Torah

TORA TORA TORA was one of my mother's favorite films. She loved history and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor burned bright in her memory. Her friends from Jamaica Plain enlisted in the Marines, Army, and Navy by the scores. Many of the them failed to return to Boston. Their bodies rest on islands across the Pacific. The 1970 film flopped at the box office. Hippies didn't want to see a war movie, but I went with my mother and father. She cried at the sinking of the Arizona. My father had joined the Army Air Force that next January in 1942 much like many young Americans volunteered for the armed forces after the 9/11 attacks.

"The title TORA TORA TORA was manipulated into TORAH TORAH TORAH for episodes of NYPD BLUE and MAGNUM P.I. This last week the power of the Torah was exalted by a very religious friend from Eastern Parkway. Rondell said proudly, "The Torah is one of the most important school books in Korea. Its truth is taught to many of the young."

"The Torah?" The five books of Moses form the backbone of Hassidic tradition. Christian accept the Pentateuch into their Old Testament and the Muslims regarded the ancient text to be the words of Allah. Korea was on the other side of the world. "What's the Torah have to do with Korea?"

"The Korean ambassador told Israeli TV that Talmud study is a mandatory part of the country’s school curriculum and almost every home in South Korea boasts a Korean version of the Talmud, and mothers commonly teach it to their children, who call it the "Light of Knowledge." He appreciates the value of Jewish knowledge. Koreans love education.

"I know many Koreans are Christian. I had several baptized in my youth." Three to be exact. I had paid the nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills $45 to name the three orphans under missionary care. "They are also prone to Evangelism."

"Evengelism?" Rondell was unfamiliar with Christian subsects.

"Born-Again Christians."

At the mention of these words my co-worker turned her head. Ava is from Brazil. She believes in the God of the Only Faith. Ava prays for my soul, for I am a devout non-believer.

"Yes, they are the ones who back Israel 100%, for without Israel there can be no Apocalypse, which will bring back the Messiah to battle the forces of Satan. Ava, do you have a Torah in your house?"

"Yes, it's called the Book of Light." Ava is a good mother. We are friends. She went back to work on her baby's photos. She has a church event coming this Easter weekend.

"Thanks." I respect her faith. In this country the Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and from religion. "The Talmud gets around and so does the Koran."

"Not according to the Korean Ambassador. He says no Koreans read it, because it's a book of Islam."

"That may be true." I have traveled through Korea's main airport on my many trips to Thailand. I have seen few Muslims in Inchoen Airport. No Jews either, but then you don't have to like pastrami to be Jewish. Rondell was ecstatic to have stumped me on this issue and I told him, "I'll have to get back to you."

"You do that."

"In the meanwhile have a good sedar."

We hugged as men equal in love of the world and I shouted TORAH TORAH TORAH after him. He pumped his fist in the air. I love Passover. It's a Jewish holiday and I don'tahve to go to work at the diamond exchange tomorrow.

Sometimes even a cruel god gets to be kind.

Nearly ten years ago, the Korea Times reported: “Interestingly, there are at least two different books currently sitting on Korean best-seller shelves that purport to explain the Jewish Talmud. The popularity of these books initially came as a surprise. But Koreans aren’t converting to Judaism. They read those books because Jews have gained a reputation for hard work and success, two things Koreans relate to well.”

Reports of Korean schoolchildren reading the Talmud – or at least stories thereof – have also been known for several years. One American teacher in South Korea related that in 2005, his elementary school students told him that as children, they had all read the Talmud, which they called the "Light of Knowledge."

When asked if they had also read the Koran, they burst into laughter, saying, "Of course not, that’s the Muslim book.”

TORAH TORAH TORAH, but I prefer a good pastrami sandwich from Katz’ Deli.

Throw in a cream soda and I’m in heaven on earth.

Day Of Infamy A La Thailand

"December 7th will live forever as a day of infamy." President Roosevelt predicted before Congress in his declaration of war on Japan.

Infamy in Thai is cheu sia and several years ago year I asked several Thais about Pearl Harbor. My question stumped them all and I repeated the question to several British friends, "What does December 7th mean to you?"

"Is it your birthday?"

Roosevelt's Day of Infamy has been losing its power to the more modern 9/11.

Even 9/11 meant little to Thais.

"9/11 New 7/11?" The corporation had announced a price increase on over 500 products.

"No. Not new 9/11." I didn't bother to explain about kreung-bins crashing into the World

Trade Towers or Japanese planes sinking the US Fleet. It was all so long ago and so much has happened in the meanwhile like the Red Shirt rebellion and Britney Spears getting divorced from K-Fed.

Pearl Harbor Day was not my birthday, but it was for my younger brother Michael and it always felt funny celebrating December 7th with a cake and candles.

My baby brother Michael didn't care.

"Makes it easy for people to remember my birthday."

12/7 will always be Michael Charlie Day for me.

Tora-Tora-Tora.

My mother loved that movie too.

ps few young Americans know its meaning either.

The Weight Of Books

Supposedly Karl Lagefeld's library at 7Rue de Lille in Paris contains 33,000 books. Regarding this photo many of them must be art books. The only publication heavier than an art books are fashion magazines due to heavier paper weights, such as 120–170 gsm (80–110 lb text) at least 2 pounds, but can range up to ten pounds. The March 2006 issue with Kate Moss on the cover weighed 1.140 kg, but then the heaviest object is the body of someone you have ceased to love.

Back in 1980 I had left a lovely female publisher from Maryland for a young nightclub waitress from the Upper West side. An acquaintance started dating my ex- and I was happy the two were happy together. One night at Underground on Union Square Doom apologized for stealing my girlfriend.

"It wasn't that way. I was glad you are with Elizaeth. She's too nice for me. Thank you for being with her." And I meant it. Elizabeth and I had met each other's parents. "You're an asshole."

"Maybe you are right, but congratulations anyway." I was in a good mood. The evening was for GQ. Drinks were free and I had received a weighty double-issue as a complimentary gift.

"Like you mean it, you asshole."

Doom was more an acquaintance than a friend, but I warned him, "Do yourself a favor, don't call me an asshole again."

I rolled the magazine in my hand. It was heavy.

"Why not?" Doom was high on blow. He had already tried to kill himself this year by burning himself. I had no interest in helping over the edge and began to walk away. He grabbed my left arm.

"You ass___"

I spun on my heels and swung the rolled magazine connecting with his nose. I hadn't been aiming my blow. I heard a crack and Doom collapssed to his knees, blood streaming from his nostrils. A bouncer helped him up and said, "I saw the whole thing. Go. I know Doom. He might call the police."

"I'm not a rat." Doom was still pissed at me. "You asshole."

I left the club and threw the GQ in the trash. Everyone who heard the story said I had overreacted knowing how fucked up Doom was on blow. They were right. I should have walked away, but I wasn't that kind of guy then.

Doom later successfuly hung himself. Elisabeth blamed my breaking his nose for his suicide. Maybe it was. People still talk about that confrontation, as do I. I don't read GQ anymore. My wardrobe is determined by hand-me-downs from the deceased. I have outlived all the dead.

"Cellphones will never replace a newspaper. You can’t swat a fly with a newspaper. – Pascha Ray – Traveler

ps I still go to anger management courses. or three elephants. I don't have a library anymore, but i do have an elephant's foot. Stumpy, lefto me by Andy Reese, a male hustler, who once accused me of theft to cover his guilt.

pps Lagerfeld's library has to weigh about 50,000 pounds.

Flock of Haircuts - The Orange Messiah

Almost a month has passsed since Donald Trump ousted the Democrats from the White House. His coalition of despicables, disguntled blue collar workers, devout evangelicals, Dixiecrats, neo-nazis, Hispanic fundamentalists, fat and bald men and their wives also won control of the House and Senate. His MAGA followers adored the seventy-eight year old, but while 99% of men globally comb their hair from right to left. I don't comb my hair at all. I occasionally rake my fingers through my mop. Not the President to be. Throughout the day Donald Trump sculps his sweep-over to cover thin spots post scalp reduction. Normally under control windy days are dangerous for his coif.

During the campaign Trump's hair seemed shorter. For all the devotion to the MAGA cause, no one mimicks his hair style.

Recently I listened to the Flock of Seagulls I RAN on Youtube. Seeeing Mike Score, the lead singer, I suddenly underssood the orignins of Trump's hair. I was surprised I hadn't realized it earlier, but this photo of Flock Of Seagulls at their peak says it all.

BY the way Friedrich Engels co-writer of DAS KAPITAL wrote, "Money is the only cure for baldness to a beautiful woman."

Here's an excerpt from LOSING RELIGION about my feelings on baldness.

The diocesan shrink had an office on the second floor. A chubby man in a black robe met me at the door.

“I’m Brother Bob. Please sit down.” He pointed to a pair of leather chairs and shut the door.

I sat and said nothing.

His head was covered by a thick mat of hair, whose color didn’t match his sideburns.

“We both know why you’re here.” Bob sat next to me. “I’ve read your file. I see this problem all the time, but it concerns the Cardinal when a gifted boy loses his faith. You were an altar boy and attended a few retreats for boys with a calling.”

I looked at the huge crucifix hanging on the wall and then out the window. The room was warm and the chair was too comfortable for a meeting about a young man’s soul.

“Do you believe the Bible?”

I remained silent. Any words could be used against me.

“Are you going to tell me why you don’t believe in God?” He leaned forward and his swollen hands rested on my knees.

“I have nothing to say.” I pushed his hands off my lap.

“The truth will set you.” His right hand righted his toupee on his head.

“Why should I tell the truth to a man who lies to himself about being bald.”

“Bald?” he gasped.

“Yes, and you’re wearing a rug.” I stood up and ripped the toupee off his skull.

“You’re damned.”

“You only believe in Jesus and pray that He will cure your baldness.” I threw the wig in his face and exited from the office.

I walked back to the Olds defiant in my lack of belief, until spotting my mother in the car. She was praying for my soul and my father stared into the snow distance, but I rejected the Holy Trinity, heaven, purgatory, hell, The Holy Eucharist, the infallibility of the Pope, the Blessed Virgin, and all the teaching of the Holy Roman Church.

At leasat Trump doesn't wear a rug, but it is a wonder.

Baby Powder Naked - Buster de Milo

5:15 am
June 23
Awake
After a dream of Buster Keaton
As Venus de Milo
In my bed
I look out the window
At the June sky
Cloudy
With patches of blue
Forecast of thunderstorms
I don’t want my feet to touch the floor
I don’t want to be awake
I Listen
The windows shut
Against the city
Yet
I hear the hum of millions of people.
I lie in bed
5:23am
Alone
To go back
To sleep
To dream
To be
Buster Keaton
As Buster de Milo
Knowing
Unlike life
We can’t repeat dreams
Except for nightmares.
For like life
We have no control over dreams.

According to Wikipedia The Venus de Milo is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, whose Roman counterpart was Venus. A fragment of an arm, a hand holding an apple, and two herms were also found alongside the original statue as well as other sculptural fragments found around the same time include a third herm, two further arms, and a foot with sandal.

Foto – Buster de Milo. Buster Keaton posing as the Venus de Milo in a promotional portrait, c. 1932.

Never MIA My Friends

Barney Johnson, David Russell, Philippe Brook et moi.

1990s.

The years were rough on this band. Barney I knew from Hurrah nightclub in the 1970s and and Philippe from Paris in the 1980s gone. Two years ago I came close to joining them and leaving David Russell, the youngest of us all, the only one of this quartet, but I died and came back to this both ways of this life. Everytime I walk down Canal Street to the 169 I look up at Barney's old apartment. He is always there. Whenever someone mentions Australia I visit Philippe. We are all such good friends and friends we remain until the end of eternity. And David. He is always still out there.

ps We are not the Flock of Seagulls or Flock of Haircuts although lead singer Mike Score was the only one with a Donald Trump coif.

ps he's now bald.

People slagged off the band. I saw them at the Ritz in NYC. They were great and I RAN still rocks even with that insipid drummer.

Blackout - Montauk # 37

Two hours past sunset
Ditch Plains
Montauk
Black out
Power down
Lights out
All lights out
No man light at all___
The above stars
Light the path through the Shagmoor
Cold 30 degrees cold
No wind
Through the trees
To the south
Below the bluff
Waves crashing on the beach___
No lights on the bluffs
Overhead
The Orion Nebula
1344 light years distance
From Earth___
Tonight
Boots crunch on the dark path
Eyes adjust to starlight
Deers sneak through the undergrowth
Silent
Orion rising over the eastern horizon
Once I knew the names of the stars
I've been lost in too many cities
Too many bright lights
Too many years of bright lights
I have lost my way
Through the stars I am not a spaceman
But I once came close___
Summer 1962
A suburb
South of Boston
I a ten year-old boy
Leave our split-level ranchhouse
Past midnight
My family deep asleep
Every house dark
Dead quiet
Out onto the back lawn
I lay on cut grass
Eyes straight up
Into the deep night sky
Beyond the bats
I
Hunting not for Soviet satellites
But a UFO
Waiting for the Aliens
To abduct me
I was ready
Willing
Able
To go to the stars
With strangers from Space
Leave behind this shitty suburb
Forever
To wander the galaxy
With Aliens
As an Alien to all of them__
They never came for me
And I cursed the stars
And the suburbs
And ET
Why didnt you take me?
I wanted to leave home____
To go to Orion
With Betelguese and Rigel
The Brightest stars
Amongst
Thousands of other stars
Ah, the Cosmos___
Tonight in Montauk like then
I am alone
No UFOs
Only jets bound to JFK
West of Montauk
No extraterrestrials in the sky
Only millions of stars in a blackout
My boots crunch on the dirt
Waves crash on the beach
And___
Orion rules the stars
Partnered with Gemini and Taurus
In the winter sky
I'm happy to be here
Ditch Plains
On a path lit by starlight
My fingers getting cold
Me stuck on Earth
The blue bright orb
In the quiet of Space
And south of me
The waves crashing on the beach___

Thai Cat Scratch Fever

Several villages in Thailand's Ang Thong province have reported a plague striking household cats dead. The cats basically starved to death and locals are now scared that this 'cat fever' or 'kai-wat me-ow' could spread to the human population. Medical authorities have found no threat, but cannot explain the fatal phenomena affecting over three hundred cats.

Birds, snakes, and rodents are enjoying a respite from the feline hunters, although dogs are despondent over the loss of their favorite animal to chase other than bicyclists.

In 1989 Barcelona cats suffered a similar decimation of their ranks.

The cause was not a disease, but a radio report erroneously stating that cats caused AIDS. The next morning thousands of cats or gatos were floating in the Catalan capitol's harbor. The Spanish government reassured the city that no one was in danger and within a week dead cats were no longer flotsam on the Costa de Brava, although another radio station responded to the hysteria by playing Ted Nugent's 1977 hit CAT SCRATCH FEVER every hour.

Ted Nugent, ex-Amboy Dukes guitarist and friend to Donald Trump, has never seen an animal he didn't think was worth shooting, except for the human kind, since he avoided the Draft during the Viet-Nam War.

"I got 30 days' notice of the physical. I ceased cleansing my body. Two weeks before the test I stopped eating food with nutritional value. A week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. My pants got crusted up."

Not throwing any stones at the Madman of Motor City, since I dodged the Draft by going to university. Soiling myself would have been cheaper.

By the way I've never heard of anyone eating cats on purpose, but the chicken in Chinatown is not chicken. I did find an article about cat-eating.

http://www.messybeast.com/eat-cats.htm

Cantonese Chinese and Koreans eat felines. So did Europeans during the 19th Century. Meow-meow says yummy.

Foto - Paulette from Barcelona 1988

Remember Our Gone

December 1 is AIDS Awareness Day.

We remember those gone and more importantly recommit our souls to the continued fight against the deadly disease which thinned our ranks since 1978. Gone are our family and friends like my younger brother Michael Charles Smith and my cousin Sandy Smith. The world is a much smaller planet without them and my friends.

Philip Brook, Tasmanian reporter and filmmaker.

Haoui Montauk, poet/doorman/impressario

Marc Stevens Mr. 10 1/2/porn star. Photo by Robert Mapplethorpe

Steve Brown filmmaker

William Lively ballet dancer/theater designer

Klaus Nomi castradi singer

Rock Hudson movie star

And so many others.

36 million so far.

Last year over a million people died from the lethal virus.

The first person who I knew to die of it was James Spicer.

The winter of 1978.

Almost forty years ago.

Corinne in Paris 1984.

Bad blood transfusion.

And how can I forget Andy Reese dancer/actor.

He left me his elephant foot.

Or Philippe Krootchey Paris singer

We were all such good friends.

And still are.

The fight is not over.