Ghost MacDonalds West 3rd Street

On January 5, 2021 the franchise owner of the infamous McDonalds across from the West 4th Street sold the building to an entrepeneur seeking to open a nightclub. Covid was in full force and the investors did nothing. Three years later the site remains a ghost, but it will never again be the 3am hotspot for drunken mania and that might be a good thing.

I have eaten in Mickey Ds since January 2008.

On the way to Bangkok the Cyber-Crime Unit stopped at a highway rest stop. The arresting officer asked if I wanted something to eat. I said a cheeseburger and fries. The fries were okay, but the burger paddy was a hockey puck. Never again.

Willow Weep Weather

The weeping willow withered with winter

While waiting warm weather

Wishing for the green leaves of Spring.

Lobstah on Patpong - 1990s

Back in the 1990s I was in Bangkok s Patpong gogo zone. I was standing at the bar and heard a younger man order a beer.

"Are you from Maine?"

"Lewiston."

"Falmouth Foresides. We must be the largest gathering of Maine people in Asia."

We clinked beers and he shook his head, saying, "Those two ovah theah are coming Bangur."

We joined them and everything was Chowdah and Wicked Lobstah.

ps I speak all languages,; French, German, Thai, Malay, and English with a Maine Accent.

A Bigger Broom - Tioman Island 1993

In 1993 I went to Tioman island in Malaysia. beautiful beach. remote. jungle. A Western woman came into the restaurant crying that a lizard was in her bathroom. I laughed thinking it was a gecko and grabbed a broom. I went to her bungalow and opened the bathroom to discover a giant monitor lizard over a meter long. I slammed shut the door and said, "I need a bigger broom."

Drifters Wanted

Last year I was driving down Dekalb Avenue and read an open-call sign for workers.

Drifters Wanted.

Huh?

I blinked and the offer of paradise vanished as reality jarred my eyes back into focus.

DRIVERS WANTED.

What a difference a single letter, then again I've always sought something more than the world has to offer and sometimes less.

Johnny Cash - Hobo Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg_uMvQ9Ji4

Photo - Deeath Valley - Barbara Mosely

January 26, 2023 Clinton Hill

Looking clean chez Jacob Eye. Reading poetry with Brigette Lundy Paine. A month after a liver transplant. I tidied up my I'm my Lazurus look after Charlotta Janssen said, "You're not in the waiting room anymore. You're alive. Get a hair cut " When she is right she is very right. The next day

January 3, 1979 - Journal - East Village

Alice and I get drunk at CBGBs with Bill Yusk. At CBGBs. Where else? Alice was mad at me, because she had to wait at the door. Lisa Krystal wouldn't let her in for free without me. Kim wasn't waitressing either.

"I don't understand why they treat you like they do." Alice thinks I'm nothing. "It's not like you're a star. You just drink for free."

"It's a talent. If I drink for free, then you drink for free. I never ask why." I don't understand either. It's not like I do anything special other than play pinball.

I woke this morning feeling, as if I had sliced my right eye. The eye itself. Alice was asleep on the mattress, trembling in a nightmare, speaking in tongues. Comforting a terrified sleeper seemed dangerous and I muttered, "Shut up." I left the bedroom for the futon in the living room. Bright sunlight. The light burns my eye. I need to get curtains. I touch my eyeball and discover that I had left in my contact. I take it out. Relief. I rejoin Alice and hush her terror, then slip into dreamland.

In this building 256 East 10th Street, six floors of well-lived-in tenement apartments with the bathtub in the kitchen children's' voices are rarely heard. Ms. Adorno next door cackles madly at all hours and speaks to spirits. I figure her for a witch. Upstairs someone every morning turns on the bath and then occasionally makes love, loud love, for a half an hour with different women. I think it's the actor on the fourth floor. Outside hispanic kids from the pre-school scream every morning in the alley, freed from parental discipline. This neighborhood, the Lower East Side was depopulated during the early 70s by arson and crime and drugs. 160,000 inhabitants to 90,000. Several years ago Paul Ehrlich predicted the world population will be six billion in the year 2000.

That might be turn in the rest of the world, but in the East Village no one wants to live here, except for the punks, junkies, hippies, hispanics, and the old. Demographics shifted with white flight. The Jews and Italians fled to Brooklyn or Long Island. No one wanted to go to New Jersey. Maybe the numbers of whites are growing outside the city. My high school and college friends are fathers. Not me. Alice and I aren't using contraception and I haven't impregnated her at all. The Smith family are without a twelfth generation in this country. None of us siblings are married. This neighborhood is packed with white refugees from America. No children.

Later.

The Shah of Iran must be thinking of taking a vacation from Tehran. HIs White Revolution has failed. The students and mullahs are calling for his blood and his SS, SAVAK, are overwhelmed by the popular rising. What is the Shah to do with the decline of the white people in America.

The Oil Crisis of 1973 thanks to Israel hiked the oil prices to render families more and more expensive; no more twenty cent gallons of gas, races across the states at 110 mph, the end of American decadence, but not really. People are driving just as much as before. They live in the suburbs. No one walks there. There's nowhere to go and they drive cars there

LATER

Alice is worried about her destiny. She wants to be an actress. She is very talented, but New York is not a city in which actors can become famous. She needs to move to LA. I don't need to move to LA. I have bought into Mad Magazine's Alfred E Newman's quote, "What me worry?"

I'm broke, but have Alice, an apartment, and write shitty poetry and get free drinks at CBGBs, play pinball in Times Square, and basketball at West 4th Street. Not a success at any, but a damned good failure. I really don't understand how to proceed to success while content with not so much failure. I am very good at pinball, play outstanding defense at the Cage, and drink for free at CBGBs.

My Aunt Mary had a boyfriend. Peter Willin. He was a communist, smoke cigarettes, and was invited to our holiday dinners. After his departure from out home in the suburbs, my mother always said, "You don't want to end up like him."

He loved my Aunt Mary, but I feel cursed my my mother's words to be broke all my life, rotting teeth, rundown heels, and shiny trousers. I'm only 26 and just the other day, Alice said, "Great things are coming to us both. Somehow I see myself on a golf course, hitting the ball straight to the green, and sinking a hole-in-one. Perfect. Somehow I shall seize destiny.

One does not pursue fame, fame pursue one," I told Ralphie from Come On. He's from Deutschland and driven like Alice to be famous, but who wants fame like Peter Frampton, Cheryll Tiegs or John Travolta. I know no one famous. Only those that want to be. In a hundred years no one will remember them or me just as no one now remembers the toilet paper they used in the morning.

So you want to be famous So you want to be known Signing autographs Posing for photos Awaiting the flash.

The president knows who you are So does the Pope You know other famous people By their first name They kiss you on the cheeks Twice.

Everyone know who you are A VIP No longer a regular person Someone famous Famous to the famous Forever famous until you are forgotten But always famous now.

This poem sucks. Why do I write such crap. An abhorence of words. I wish my stutter prevented my fingers from writing and typing...I am no longer devoted to writing, but life. To experience life, the good, the bad, and the in-betweens. The pleasure of cumming on a young woman's leg, watching the semen melt on the warmth of her flesh, handing her a towel to wipe away my DNA semen, her not caring if the towel is clean, its use is all she needs from me.

Old Man of the Mountain 2009

The Old Man of the Mountain was the symbol of New Hampshire. The profile of the granite cliffs on Cannon Mountain were emblazoned on the state's license along with the motto 'Live Free or Die'. Daniel Webster immortalized the stone face with the words. "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men." The sign was not meant for eternity and in 2003 the Old Man of the Mountain succumbed to the forces of Nature and tumbled down the slope in a massive rockslide. 2003. Franconia Notch has been lonely with its demise. Mourning citizens leave flowers at the base of the cliff and now some legislators have suggested that the State build a plastic statue to re-mask the rock formation.

This new Man of the Mountain would offer admirers a scenic skywalk within the monument and lights would blaze within the structure.

Sounds great, but as a New Englander this project seems like trying to fix something that's perfectly broken and there's no fixing something like that. Probably won't stop from people from trying, but there's plenty enough fools in New Hampshire to pursue an impossible dream.

After all it is part of the Red Sox Nation.

KLAUS NOMI SNOW LIGHTNING

A blizzard struck Manhattan on February 4, 1978. The snowstorm closed the city within the first hours. The streets became impassable for cars soon afterwards, as 80 mph winds buried the sidewalks under five-foot drifts. My hillbilly girlfriend and I were trapped in our East Village apartment for days. The gas stove's four burners prevented our freezing to death and we lived on bagels from the corner bodega and Chinese take-out. Those deliverymen saved our lives. After a week the sanitation department cleared the avenues, then the streets, and finally Manhattan approached normalcy.

Our cabin fever ran in the 100s and I suggested to my girlfriend that a drink at Max's Kansas City might cure our too-much-homesickness. Alice agreed with this plan. The Heartbreakers were the headliners that night. and the West Virginian had moved to the city after seeing the covers of the New York Dolls LP.

I could't blame her.

Johnny Thunders was punk's Jimi Hendrix.

Our only winter clothing were ski jackets, but Max's was the antithesis of après slope, so we dressed in black leather. I was lucky enough to own engineer boots. Alice had no option other than high heels. She was thin. Her skin was polar white. Many of our friends said that she looked like Shirley MacLaine. Alice hated hearing that comparison, but I had been obsessed with Warren Beatty's sister after seeing THE APARTMENT.

We arrived Max's minutes before the opening song. The door person let us in for free. I had saved him from a beating at Disco Donut. The upstairs was packed with punks and Heartbreakers fans. The stars of the scene sat up front.

The band took the stage and Johnny Thunders shouted into the mike, "One two three."

The Heartbreakers performed an extraordinary set.

MILK ME, CHINESE ROCKS, GET OFF THE PHONE, LONDON, TAKE A CHANCE, ONE TRACK MIND, ALL BY MYSELF, LET GO, I LOVE YOU, CAN'T KEEP MY EYES OFF YOU, I WANNA BE LOVED and DO YOU LOVE. The encore was BORN TO LOSE.

The two hundred of us wanted more and they gave us TOO MUCH JUNKIE BUSINESS. Our applause was the appreciation of a thousand, but I understood how a single record company didn't wanted to risk their reputation on the Heartbreakers.

They personified trouble.

After the show the crowd divided like an amoeba in two directions. Groupies and Heartbreakers fans headed for the dressing room. Alice regarded the stage with an unnatural yearning. I nodded my release. She was 21. We had all come to New York to be free. Alice wanted bright lights and fame. Same as any actress straight out of Appalachia.

My happiness was a little easier to achieve and I descended to the downstairs bar for a drink. The bartender put a vodka-tonic in front of me. We were frieunds from shooting pool at Julian's on 14th Street. I pushed $5 across the bar. The tip covered my drinking for the rest of the night. The staff at Max's and CBGBs knew how treat the regulars.

I nodded to several other drinkers. Some were musicians. Others were artists. We liked liquoring on our own.

Across the bar a raven-haired punkette was staring at me. A vintage leather catsuit covered her zombie-lime skin. Her eyelids were smeared with raccoon mascara. Chains hung from her neck. She was a working girl slumming for trash. A hotel room was too good for her. She had seen plenty of those with her johns. She blew a kiss and glanced back to the bathrooms. This was going to be a short romance.

I looked over to the stairs. They were empty. Everyone upstairs was upstairs. Alice too. I checked the bar. A thin man in black leather watched the girl and me. He could have passed for Josef Goebbels' nephew. I didn't like the way he was looking at me and I walked over to him.

"You have a problem?"

"Me a problem?" His accent was German.

I had struggled with the language in high school and college. My best grade was a C+. My worst was a couple of Fs, but I retained more than a rudimentary grasp on the language and spoke to the young man in German.

After a first exchange it was obvious that he was gay, but he laughed at my apprehension.

"Don't worry. You are not my type. Ich mochte nicht Neanderthal menschen."

It wasn't the first time that someone had mentioned my resemblance to homo sapiens' predecessor. My family hailed from the Picts. We were an ancient race. Alice called me a caveman. She said that I grunted when we made love.

"Viele danke. Ich nicht bin ein Schwanzlutscher."

The German punk threw back his head and laughed like Goethe on amyl nitrate.

"That is very good. Where did you learn such language?"

I explained that my Bavarian teacher in high school chain-smoked during class and swore at us in two languages. He failed me twice. My Boston accent ran roughshod over umlauted German. "Bad as I was as a student. Bruder Karl still sends me a Christmas card."

"You are probably the only one of his students still speaking Deutsche."

"Verleicht." Perhaps was a good word to learn in every language.

We discovered that the both of us had worked at Serendipity 3, the famed gay ice cream shop on East 60th Street. The waiters gave everyone a woman's name. His had been Marlene. My monicker was Bam-Bam.

"Like the Flintstones."

"Yes, they thought I was Missing Link."

"An animal." The German looked over to the girl by the bathroom door. "Perhaps you like this Strichmadchen. The whore looks like she is into Sado."

"More Maso than Sado." I had read THE STORY OF O dozens of times.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught the approach of Alice. The warmth of her smile smacked of guilt. I introduced her to the German. His name was Klaus. He told us his life story.

"My father disappeared in Stalingrad. I was raised an only child in Essen."

"A steel town." I had read about the bombing of the Saar Valley in numerous WWII books. The factory town had been reduced to ashes.

"And not a very fun town for someone like me. I had two choices at age eighteen. Berlin or New York."

"New York won?"

"No place better to sing opera. High alto."

"Like the castradi." The emasculated opera singers were capable of a wider range than normal males.

"Exactly."

"They were the craze in 18th Century Italy." Alice knew her theater. I had seen her in a play. THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN. Most directors thought of her as an ingenue. They were dead wrong. She played the Las Vegas chorus girl Fran Walker to the hilt. Alice turned on her charm. "I would have loved to see the Divine Farinelli."

"At one time there were over 100,000 castradi in Europe." The German introduced himself as Klaus. His native country had rejected his efforts to sing the first eunuch soprano since the middle of the 19th Century. Spurned he chose New York over Berlin and professed to be practicing to break into the punk scene by singing Lou Christie's LIGHTNING STRIKES ME AGAIN.

"I love Lou Christie." Alice was Klaus' newest convert to castradism. Their conversation swirled into the demise of the genre. Klaus cursed the Italians after banning castration for musical purposes in 1861. His discourse about the actual method of gelding a man was a little too graphic for even my prurient tastes and my eyes strayed to the green-skinned punkette. Two members of a relatively known band bracketed her at the bar. She toyed with the heavy chain around her neck. I ordered another drink and contemplated my chances of getting her phone number without Alice noticing my philandering.

The answer was zero.

It was almost 2 AM when Alice yawned for the second time. She possessed the amazing ability to fall asleep a half-minute after the third yawn. I motioned that it was time to go and she slid from her stool. I was surprised by her saying, "If you want to stay with Klaus, I understand."

"Understand?"

"Ja." Klaus rattled off several sentences in his native tongue. My German was about as good as Colonel Klink from HOGAN'S HEROES, but I caught the drift of his guttural suggestion to lose Alice and pick up the punkette across the bar. He said her name was Nina and she liked it rough. "Same as me."

"Not tonight."

Alice came from the sticks. The East Village was dangerous. Our street was one of the worst. The snow was waist-high. She could disappear into some of the deeper drifts. "I have to take you home."

"Really it's all right. I can a taxi myself. You stay with Klaus." Alice was a little too eager and I turned my head. A good-looking rocker waited in the cold. Alice wasn't the type to fool around with another man, but she liked her fun, so I said, "Be careful."

"It's only a taxi ride." She pecked my cheek and ran outside with a skip in her walk.

Klaus said nothing and signaled for Nina to join us. He told her that I was from Berlin . I spoke with a German accent. She took me back to her place. Klaus waved good-bye and said to come over his house to tell me everything.

"I'll make you a strudel."

"It's a deal."

And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Klaus passed away of AIDS in 1983. I was living in Paris. Every time someone mentions his name I think of that night.

There was a lot of snow.

BAG OF NAILS by Peter Nolan Smith

Throughout the 70s Nickie Barnes ran a Harlem heroin empire under the protection of the Lucchese crime syndicate. His godfather 'Crazy Joe' Gallo helped Barnes create 'the Council' to run the trade north of 125th Street and Barnes earned the nickname 'Mr. Untouchable' for his skill at beating charges and evading arrests. Neither the DEA nor rival gangs could touch him and President Carter ordered his AG to bring down the drug kingpin.

The Feds were too square to catch Mr. Untouchable in a compromising situation, however a blonde-haired NYPD officer with a dirty reputation ensnared the gangster in a dope deal. Johnny Z.

Facing multi-life sentences Nicky Barnes served his time like a man, until he discovered that a council member was seeing his old lady and his investments were being sapped by his friends. He dimed overone-hundred-fifty of his associates as well as his girlfriend and Rudy Giuliani rewarded his snitching with a reduced stretch of thirty-five years.

The NYPD cop instrumental to the bust was given his gold shield and Johnny Z seemed destined for great things.

In the autumn of 1979 a sniper on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street had shot two pedestrians. One of them dead. A cop had been wounded attempting to batter down the door of the barricaded apartment. The 9th precinct cordoned off two blocks and the precinct captain called for back-up.

I watched the confrontation from the back of the St. Mark's Church. It was a warm day for October and none of us had anything better to do than provide a target to a crazed sniper.

Help came in a black unmarked Chevy.

A tall blonde man in a dark suit got out of the passenger side and he was the mirror image of Clint Eastwood, if the movie star had rattlesnake blood running in his veins.

The nearby officers greeted him with firm handshakes. The captain put his arm around the newcomer's shoulder and then pointed to the sniper's perch.

The tall man pulled out a .38. He checked the cylinder and nodded to the captain.

As he walked away, I asked an officer whom I knew from the restaurant next to the precinct on 5th Street, "Who was that?"

"Johnny Z." The uniformed cop spoke the name with fearful reverence.

I had heard the rumors and followed Bobby Z from a distance. He didn't have to show a badge to get through the police line. All the cops knew who he was.

Standing at the 2nd Avenue Deli the renegade pushed back his blonde hair like he was going on a date.

Twice he looked at his reflection in the deli's windows and then Johnny Z walked to the rear of the building and climbed the fire escape with the agility of an escaped ape

Within seconds he was in the building.

A minute later two shots rang out from the sniper's apartment. A rifle flew from the window. It shattered on the street and Bobby Z waved his hand from the building. His audience applauded his swift work.

Back on the street several officers patted his back, as he headed his car. His glare toward the civilians warned them that they had never seen him. The newspapers never reported the incident.

Someone that cold has enemies and a year later Johnny Z raided a Harlem apartment and shot dead several innocent people. One of them was a grandmother.

The detective protested to his superiors that his informant had given the wrong address.

The media suggested that the killings were an execution.

No one believed a rogue cop and only his previous heroics and numerous line of duty injuries saved him from prison.

Johnny Z's pension couldn't cover his debts, but the NYPD took care of their own and Johnny Z was unofficially employed by various precincts to enforce payments from dealers, gambling halls, brothels, and after-hours clubs. The killer also convinced wrong-thinking cops to maintain the blue wall of silence and his name was spoken by the cops of the 9th Precinct with a hush, as if he were a ghost, but he was no phantom.

In the autumn of 1981 the International on West 25th Street was an after-hours club in the city. I worked the door with Benji, a massive Jamaican street fighter, whose arms were scarred from Trenchtown machete wars.

I thought I was a hard guy just standing close to him. At worst I could take a punch.

The International opened three hours before the legit clubs' closing time. Scottie from the Ritz operated the bar. The registers sucked money like crooked slot machines. By 4am the converted garage was packed with those people not willing to release their hold on the night. Entry cost $10 and drinks in a plastic cup were $5. We paid no taxes. Customers bribed me with cocaine and money. I was rich every night and broke by the next afternoon.

Everyone wanted a piece of the action and the local precinct insisted on a bigger cut from the door.

Arthur the owner thought that $500/night too was generous a donation and stiffed the bagman.

Crooked cops have their own value system and I was nervous about how they would right this situation in their favor.

The next night an unmarked car rolled down the deserted block. I nudged Benji. He recognized the ride.

"Police." The only time on-duty cops cruised this street was to get their pay.

"What we going to do?" A velvet rope offered little protection against the Filth.

We were running an illegal club.

"Are we fucked?"

"This isn't official." Benji read the scene with criminal vision. This Chevy had only one man behind the wheel. "It's worst."

"Worst how?"

"It's Johnny Z. This white boy tougher than a bag of nails." Benji muttered under his breath, as if the ex-cop could read lips. Benji's three-hundred pounds on a 6-2 frame intimidated most white people into crossing the street, especially since he strapped a 45.

Johnny Z got out of the car with the engine running.
"Watch the car," he told Benji. "I don't want no one stealing it."

“Where’s the owner?” Johnny Z asked me, surveying the street without seeing any threat.

"He's inside." I was in no position to lie.

"Show me."

I opened the ropes and went inside the crowded club.

"Let me guess." Johnny Z scanned the room and then said, "The guy in the black suit at the end of the bar."

"That's him." I lifted my hand to warn Arthur.

"Don't be smart." It was the only warning I would get from him.

"Yes, sir. I showed him the way.

"I won't be long." Johnny Z went to the bar and slapped Arthur once. My streetwise boss fell to the floor in a slump.

“500 a night.” Johnny Z helped Arthur to his feet. "You got that? I'll be here every night to make sure I get it too"

"Yes." It was the only right answer.

The extra $500 came from allowing less desirable customers into the club for $20 each. Twenty-five people might not seem many, but these entries proved to be trouble time and time again. Benji and I handled each intruders with force.

Every night Johnny Z watched from the bar with amusement. All he had to do was tell the trouble-makers to leave. None of them ever questioned his command.

Johnny Z was bad news. He had a past, present, and future which he couldn't outrun. He was above the law, but Johnny Z misread the shitstorm coming our way.

The International was hot. The FBI were investigating police corruption. Arthur wore the wire for Internal Affairs. Our partners were Russian counterfeiters. The leader lived with my ex-girlfriend. I was still in love with her. Benji thought I was a fool and so did Johnny Z.

"You." Johnny Z motioned for me to come over to him.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Are you blind?"

"No." I knew what he was talking about.

"You should get out of here before it's too late to leave."

"What about you?"

"Tonight's my last night. It should be yours too. One more thing. That girl is never coming back to you.

"Thanks."

The truth didn't sound any better coming from a bag of nails.

I gave my notice.

Arthur shrugged like I should have gone long before that.

I left for Paris within the week. I had a job at a nightclub in Les Halles. It was called Les Bains-Douches.

Over the next few months I heard about the International from Scottie. Viktor Malenski's corpse was found outside the club and the FBI raided the premises a day after New Year's Eve. The Special Investigations Unit arrested two bagman for the cops. Johnny Z wasn't one of them. Thirty precinct cops were dismissed without charges. No one was saying who killed Viktor.

I stayed in France for five years.

By 1990 I was out of nightclubs.

A friend, Richie Boy, hired me to work at his diamond exchange.

Part security, part schlepper.

Sleeping regular hours was a treat, although the money wasn't close to what I coined at the International, so in 1995 when Scottie offered a job at his club in Beverly Hills, I accepted without reservation.

A free place to stay, good money, drugs, beautiful women, palm trees, the Pacific Ocean, and a chance to meet a film producer for my stories sounded like a dream come true.

The Milk Bar opened in January of 1995. Its New Yorkishness guaranteed an overnight success.

I met Prince, the husband of the Pakistani president, Mickey Rourke, and a good number of plenty drug dealers. My cocaine use was minute to minute. Our bouncer, Big Bernard, was a skyscraper of a Haitian. His big smile was a calling card to get into films. Everyone in LA was after the same thing.

Fame and fortune.

Bernard was a pussy hound and he had a tendency to disappear inside the club.

Scottie would come out to watch my back.

Beverly Hills was rich and soft, but gangbangers cruised the night looking for ripe targets and we were flush with cash.

Scottie was no gunman.

Neither was I.

One night we were talking about old time at the door, when Scotty's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Damn." Scottie's mild expletive echoed Benji's 'damn' from over a decade ago.

"Let me guess."I didn't have to turn my head. Scottie's voice said everything. "It's Johnny Z."

"In the flesh."

"Damn." I turned around hoping Johnny Z was a mirage, although tipping three hundred plus pounds pounds the ex-cop was more a fleecy cloud. He walked with a limp, which could mean many things, but most of all that I could outrun him if necessary.

"What you looking at?"

While his blonde hair had retreated from his forehead, his voice had not lost the menace

"Nothing." I wasn't saying anything until I had to say something.

"I know both of you." The ragged face came from drinking for more than his health. The pummeled knuickles were the souvenirs of forgotten beatings. He was no pussy cat.

"That might be right." I kept my disatance.

"From where?" he asked with nervous apprehension looking over his shoulder. He suit shined from too many ironings.

Two well-dressed men neared the entrance. They looked like move producers with extraordinarily young skin from a thousand rejuvenation procedures.

"You busted Nicky Barnes," I said the legend.

"I was only small part of the operation." Johnny Z was obviously uncomfortable that his past might track him down. Drug dealers had long memories. "Did you know Nicky?"

"No." Nicky Barnes was before my time.

"Think 1981 we had the International in New York." Scottie had never liked how Johnny Z had sucker-punched his best friend.

"That was a long time ago." The name of that infamous club jolted his memory.

"Not that long ago."

"A lifetime ago," the heavy ex-cop licked his lips, as he said, "I'm looking for work in films as a cop expert. No one out here knows about that shit. They think I'm a decorated cop. I am too, but if they were to find out other things, I'd be screwed."

"So you're asking a favor?" Scottie fished for an edge. Johnny Z might be over the hill, but he had friends here and in New York.

"Yes," he hissed in agreement to whatever we asked of him later.

"Then come on in. Your friends too. Free of charge."

"I'll make good for you." Johnny Z ushered in his friends. They tipped the bartenders with largesse. When he left alone, Johnny Z duked me a c-note.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Depends."

"You told me to leave before the Feds raided the International. That saved me a lot of trouble. Why you do that?"

"I did that?"

"Sorry, I don't remember you at all."

"I suppose that's a good thing."

"yeah, I guess it is." It wasn't easy being as hard as Johnny Z. Even nails get rusty and I wished him good luck. Scottie and I never saw him again.

Over the years I've read that he's got a good career as a consultant out in Hollywood, but I never collected his favor and I was better off for that, because no matter how out of shape Johnny Z gets, it's always best not to owe anything to a bag of nails.

They have sharp ends.

The Legacy Of Europa 2013

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The Comeback of the Rourke - 2008

Working at a nightclubs I met a lot of people. The good, the bad, and in-between. Famous, infamous, and nobodies. Sometimes I had no idea who was who. I tried to stop Mick Jagger from entering Hurrah. He was wearing a beard. His bodyguard Tony steered me right. I refused Meryl Strep entry to the Mudd Club on orders from the owner, Steve Maas. It wasn't hard. I didn't like her in THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN. In Paris at Le Reve I came to the door to find an old boxer arguing with the cashier about free admission to the dance club. I asked him why he and his two lady friends should enter without paying and he responded by insulting the land of my birth.

"Putain Amerlot."

"Fucking Americans." I told him to leave, "And take those two old doormats with you."

My boss and friend approached me several seconds after the trio's departure.

"Explain to me why you threw out Brigitte Bardot."

"Brigitte Bardot." I loved her in AND GOD CREATED WOMEN. I dreamed about her as a boy. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I recognized the film goddess from behind. She was older, less blonde, and wearing a frumpy down coat.

"I had no idea who she was."

"Quais, putain Amerlot." Serge didn't fire me. We were friends, however a week later Mickey Rourke showed up at the club with ten friends. Mostly young junkies from the Bains-Douches. We never let them in for free. I made an exception this time. Serge came up to me.

"No Brigittie Bardot, but hello Mssr. Rourke." He never let me forget this error in judgment and it remains a joke between us till this day. Serge laughed all the harder as the American actor slipped down the ranks from his heyday, although we both agreed on his best line.

"Drinks for my friends." Mickey Rourke called out in Barbet Schroeder's BARFLY.

It seemed to be a line he must have said in real life too. Bad movies, a worse choice for a plastic surgeon. He was banned from Hollywood, except under a mask like for SIN CITY, however Mickey Rourke appears to have resurrected his career by starring in the Golden Lion winner of the Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler".

"A guy like me changes hard, I didn't want to change, but I had to change."

Same as the rest of us.

The Eternal Ugliness Of Serge

I've succeeded at everything except my life. I know my limits. That's why I'm beyond. I like the night, I have clearer ideas in the dark. I prefer ugliness to beauty, because ugliness endures. I am incapable of mediocrity. Ugliness is superior to beauty because it lasts longer.

Serge Gainsbourg

And let's not forget the immortal Pacadis.

Moi et Pacadis 1985

Ah Paris.

The City of Light.

Jane Birkin on Proust

My mother was right. When you've got nothing left, all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading Proust. - Jane Birkin

Personally I wasn't able to read past the opening line of A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU.

"For a long time I used to go to bed early."

I never went to sleep early in my youth, but if I did then it was to dream of Jane Birkin in a silk underwear.

Even better was to dream of her with nothing at all and that included Serge Gainsbourg, because something tells me that the Grand Pif was no voyeur.

January 1, 1979 - East Village - Journal

Alice, Anthony, and I saw in the New Year on 3rd Avenue. A gang member of Puerto Ricans from the Lower East Side muttered at Alice, "What are you looking at, ugly?"

Ship horns from the harbor signaled the end of 1978 and the gang member wished us, "Feliz año nuevo."

We returned the wish.

The Puerto Ricans turned eastward into the barrio. A good year. I hoped none of them got shot or ODed and got jobs and got out of the Lower East Side, although none of us knew where else to go. Except tonight we head to Paul's Lounge. Dull drinking. I was not enthused about getting faced for 1979, but I never needed an excuse to drink, certainly not on New Year's Eve.

We retired early to 256. Straight to bed. Naked and tired from her flight, Alice fell asleep fast. Sometimes I think she fakes sleep to avoid sex, the same way I fake orgasms to caught short sex.

Things between us have been strange. since her arrival. I met her at La Guardia. Different waves of arrivals and departees preceded her appearance. Their faces self-satisfied at traveling by air. Gloating, "It's the only way to go." A walk in the East Village will wipe away that smug attitude.

I spot Alice. White plastic leather coat, a black and white striped dress, a purple sweater. She was the prettiest girl in the airport, although several stewardesses were a close second and third.

She resisted kissing me, as if I might have a cold. People walk around us. Staring. Me in black like a defrocked priest and thrift store Alice.

"I heard about you?

"Heard about what? There were no secrets at CBGBs.

"I didn't t have anything to drink in West Virginia. I didnt feel like it."

"And I'm a bad influence." I couldn't remember the last time I had stopped drinking. I take her bag and refrain from saying how much I missed her. Our time apart was spent with her skiing and visiting family. I drank at CBGBs and worried about how I was going to get money. I lost control with drugs and one sexual trysts. I am sure Alice knows. Everyone around me is incapable of of keeping a secret.

"Fuck everything,"A co-worker at Ebasco, clutching his arm. "There is grief everywhere, but I'm not going to shoot myself. There is always more of the same in the future."

MAN OF THE YEAR

President Carter is out due to his close relationship with Rockefeller and Kissinger. Chairman Teng of Red China was selected by Time Magazine. Non white selection. Anita Bryant's anti-gay platform challenged our freedom and was banned from the lucrative OJ commercials. Running out of contestants I pick the ousted Shah of Iran. A evil man trying to keep control after years of trying to haul Persia from the control of the mullahs and religious majority resisting any modernization. Prosperity and new rights are forced on the resistant people. The mullahs also hated him for seizing their lands. Greed and the violence from SAVAK are b]negatives, so I'll vote for no one.

DISASTER OF THE YEAR.

Despite the wars, and floods, and earthquakes were trumped by the Jonestown Massacre. Mass suicide to achieve salvation. Bloated bodies in the jungle. Children too.

CHOKE OF THE YEAR

The Red Sox playoff game against the Yankees. Bucky Dent hitting his third HR of the season. Yaz popping up up in the ninth with two men on base. We will never win a World Series. The Yankees went on to win the World Series with Bucky Fuckin' Dent as the MVP.

December 29, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Dallas over Atlanta and the steelers over Denver, the post season nears the yearly climax to the NFL, Super Bowl XIII, the league using Roman numerals to pretend this blood sport has a link the the gladiator games of the Roman Empire.

Alice returns tomorrow via a flight from Charleston WVA. In times for the New Year, although I have made no plans for the celebration. It's amateur night with millions across the country and billions around the globe cancel their inhibition and drink themselves into a frenzy to welcome in 1979. The last year of this decade.

We started with Vietnam and Nixon and LSD and rock and roll and revolution. We now have Carter and cocaine and disco and complacency. Morte Morte morte.

-10 Centigrade

-10 Centigrade On Myrtle Avenue Me Warm within winter wear Old Sol 93 million miles away Solar waves on my face It's real wintah I might not be ready For the North Pole But I'm ready For Wintah on Clinton Hill.

Free As The Breeze - 2016

The Soviet Premier Khrushchev famously declared in 1956 that the USSR would bury American Imperialism.

Actually he said, "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.", but the Western press liked 'we will bury you' better.

After his election in 1960 President Kennedy was upset by the USSR thinking America was soft and JFK called the American people to improve their health and fitness. His primary challenge was the 50-mile hike. The Marines could accomplish the feat in 20 hours. In February 1963 JFK and his brother walked the distance in the winter.

That following summer at Boy Scout camp in New Hampshire my older brother and I joined a troop of hikers on a 100 mile hike through the forests of the White Mountains. Our scout leaders drove the phalanx of 12-13 year-olds to finish the daily twenty-mile stages. We ran out of food on the second day and pillaged a cornfield for dinner. The 3rd day was a tortuous trudge on a path surrounded by miles of chopped tress. The sun was relentless and the leaders promised us a good swim at the end of the trail.

"Big Man Pond."

"Food and water."

We tramped with the food as first word for the right foot and water for our left.

Food and water built a mirage of Big Man Pond. The crystal clear lake was 30 miles across from shore to shore. Hot dogs and hamburgers were cooking on a BBQ with ice cream sodas to chase them down and a girls' camp was next to our camp site.

The reality came as a shock.

Big Man Pond was barely two hundred feet in length. One of the boys from South Boston threw a rock across it. The troop leader yelled at us.

"Stop your complaining, This pond is spring-fed. That's our water. The food will be here later. We've marched sixty miles in three days. It's time for a swim. You've earned it. Everyone strip off your clothes."

He led the way and was buck-naked with seconds. We joined him without protest.

"Everyone in formation. Now one quick jog around the pond and then in the water."

We followed the troop leader. Our penises bounced up and down. At the starting point he stopped and pointed to the pond.

"Into the water."

We were robots to his command.

It was the first time that I went skinny-dipping, but not the last.

Since that day I have swam naked on Cape Cod, at Watchic Pond, Riis Park in New York, and Black Beach in San Diego.

Nudity was frowned upon by most Americans.

Our Puritan roots deny the freedom of prurient behavior, because to my ancestors a body without clothing was too vulnerable to attack, however the Germans and Scandinavians have a long history of sun-worshipping due to their pagan history.

In 1982 I visited Sylt north of Hamburg. The beach was a center for FKK or Freikoerperkultur 'free body culture'. I stripped off my clothes and to allow the four elements of wind, earth, sun, and water to embrace my flesh. The other bathers bronzed their bodies like gods and goddesses. My friends and I were young. That day we felt immortal.

30 years later sunbathing au natural has fallen out of vogue according to the German FKK association. There are less Germans and more foreigners, who disapprove of the old tradition, plus the Germans of the 80s are in their 50s and 60s.

Our divinity has been devastated by our age. I no longer look at my reflection in the mirror. I prefer looking at my shadow, but last year I quit my job on 47th Street to regain my girlish figure. For the past three days I've been out on the basketball court shooting hoops. I walked around my apartment in the nude. One day and one day soon I'm going to check the mirror and see the shadow of that young man basking in the dying light of a North Sea sunset and say, "Naked as a jaybird."

The same way I came into this life.

Sylt, I'm coming your way.

Achtung, achtung.

The naked man cometh.

Nobody is burying me other than in the sand.

MC5 Baseball 2019

As much as I loved Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitching a no-hitter on LSD and beaning every player on the Cincinnati Reds in one game, my favorite ballplayer of the 1970s has to be Fred Sonic Smith from the MC5.

Strangely I can find any mention of Fred Smith in the records of the Major Leagues other than that from 1914. Fred Smith played ball for Buffalo. The man on there right looked nothing like Fred Sonic Smith.

Well, maybe a little.

Because all white people look the same.

At least a little.

HISTOIRE DE MELODIE NELSON 2007

Music sucks in Pattaya. Old farangs sing to HOTEL CALIFORNIA and bar girls dance to boy band love ballads, while Thai bands play dinosaur rock for drunken tourists.

Nothing wrong with a bad reprise of SMOKE ON THE WATER, except I once lived in nightclubs and bars in which music meant more than a tune you can sing while drinking beer with your mates, hoping the Viagra will work with your new missus. Pattaya certainly doesn’t have a bar close to Max's Kansas City, where you could see the Jam, MC5, or Iggy. Not even close.

None of the geezers here care, because most Pattaya farangs are too low-class only listened to what was playing on their car radio. Muzak for their 9-to-5 existences and none of them ever heard Serge Gainsbourg's HISTOIRE DE MELODIE NELSEN.

And that's too bad, because this 26-minute masterpiece set a highwater mark in 1971. Don't ignore the French lyrics, even if there are no subtitles. They are sexy, especially with Jane Birkin's breathy interpretation. Her daughter might have been sexier on LEMON INCEST. Dig the guitar and bass. The two musicians weld a groove unattainable in this modern world on pre-packaged CDs. Serge told his tale of Lolita sans the fear of moral outrage. This concept album wiped the floor with the Beatles' SARGENT PEPPER.

They were no longer a band, but they must have spun Serge's LP and said, "We fucked up."

Horrible to know you will never write anything as good as LE BALLADE OF MELODIE NELSEN.

Worse is to copy the LP like Beck.

No talent plagiarist.

Because he’s no Jean-Claude Vannier, who arranged the 33 rpm disc For Serge, who was the ugliest man in Christendom, yet ended up with Jane Birkin as his love. The two of them might have Jimmie Page to play lead guitar. That's the rumor, but the riff sound nothing like his solos with Led Zeppelin or the Yardbirds. Understated and raw.

Leaves you asking for more.

And you only get 26 minutes of fifteen year-old girls on bicycles, Rolls-Royce, defloweration and a dirge about Melodie dying in a plane crash.

Not 9/11.

Genius and I advise anyone with any musical taste to pick up this chef d'ouvres.

'Une poupee qui perd l'equilibre, la jupe retroussee sur ses pantalons blancs'. (A doll who lost her balance, her skirt pushed up over her white leggings) wasn't getting any radio play in Biblebelt America.

Not that year or any year.

But I got it on right then and there.

Midnight. Gin-tonic. Dark outside.

Melodie Nelson.

The LP should have been a big hit, except Gallic superstars have continually failed to dent the US charts with the exception of the Singing Nun with her 1963 hit DOMINIQUE. The language is a problem. No teenager wants to dance to music whose lyrics need subtitles.

Tant pis or too bad, because French music has produced hundreds of great songs by Alain Bashung, Jane Birkin, Manu Chao, Julien Clerc, Etienne Daho, Jacno, Jacques Dutronc, France Gall, Françoise Hardy, Indochine, Marc Lavoine, Vanessa Paradis, Les Rita Mitsouko, Alain Souchon, Les têtes raides, Tahiti 80, Téléphone, Sylvie Vartan ad infinitum.

And of course the legendary genius of Serge Gainsbourg, whose 27-minute LP THE BALLADE OF MELODIE NELSON ranks as one of the greatest rock albums of 1971, if not all time. The concept of Gainsbourg colliding with a nymphette's bicycle was a homage to LOLITA. The music on this album contained a consistent stream of atmospheric guitar complimented by a solid bass. The album notes never gave credit to the musicians and I searched for years to find their names. Their identities remained a mystery for decades.

>Finally someone added them to Wikpedia.
# Alan Parker - guitar
# Herbie Flowers - bass
# Douglas Wright - drums
# Alan Hawkshaw - piano
# Jean-Claude Vannier - arrangements, Orchestra Director
# Jane Birkin - vocal parts (and posed for front cover art)

A belated thanks for the hours of listening to a gem.

To hear the prelude of Melodie Nelson go to the following URL

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nrru8MTKPQ

Man In The White Hat - MC5 - 2017

The MC5 appeared at Wayne State University for an afternoon concert on July 19, 1970. A black and white film captured the quintet's rebellious musical talents, but Dakota from Weird Womb and I have always wondered about a tall bearded man standing against the Marshall amps to the right. He was wearing a white hat and tee-shirt.

"Maybe he was a roadie," offered Dakota.

"No, he's just standing around and he isn't holding a camera."

"Maybe he was a narc or FBI informer." Dakota pulled up the video and at the end of LOOKING AT YOU, the man in question raised his fist. "No, he's not a narc."

"Then who was he?"

The mystery continues to this day.

Who is the man in the white hat?

To see who I mean, please go to the following URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfDoUIh23Wg

KICK OUT THE JAMS by Peter Nolan Smith

In the fall of 1969 my all-boys parochial school entered a chocolate-selling competition with the other Catholic educational institutions in Boston. The top prize for most sales was a concert by a band from Elektra Records. Rumors abounded that the band on offer was The Doors.

Everyone wished it was true, because in 1967 the LA band had a # 1 hit with LIGHT MY FIRE. Catholic girls loved leather jeaned Jim Morrison and so our thousand-plus strong enrollment scoured the suburbs of the South Shore with boxes of outdated chocolate bars, dreaming of teenage girls dancing to THE END and we beat our nearest rival by over $5000.

On the cold morning December 1st our principal ended the morning messages by saying, "I congratulate the student body for selling the most chocolate bars. The cardinal also sends his thanks for the papal recruiting fund. I suppose you're wondering who the band is."

I sat in English class with thirty-five other seniors. Brother Bede leaned against the blackboard. We chanted, "Doors, Doors, Doors."

The ex-boxer raised a heavy-knuckled hand to still us. My father had seen him fight as a heavyweight at Boston Arena. No one challenged the broken-nosed brother's commands.

"I'm pleased to announce that Elektra band has chosen the MC5 to be backed up by a local group, the Odyssey."

The majority of the class muttered out their disappointment.

The Doors meant making out with girls.

"MC5?" The school's quarterback pounded on his desk. "Who the fuck are they?"

Most teenagers only listened to the AM stations and the football player's question stumped everyone in the room, but I knew of the Detroit band from the FM station WBCN-FM.

"The Motor City 5 opened for Led Zeppelin at the Garden two months ago." Narragansett Beer had hosted its first Tribal Rock Festival to a sell-out crowd of 17,000. "In 1968 they appeared three nights at the Boston Tea Party with the Velvet Underground."

"I w-w-wish you w-w-were as good w-w-with English as you are w-w-with rock and roll." Brother Bede had not won all his bouts and his stutter was a result of many beatings.

"Yes, b-b-brother." I shared his perchance for a stammer.

"Who cares about history?" The quarterback glared in my direction, as if I had personally decided which band played at our school. He was from Brockton. It was a tough town.

"Are the MC5 any good?"

"I know the Doors are what people want you to hear, but the MC5 are the best live band in America." I was into rock and roll. My record collection was second to none. I had seen the Turtles, Animals, Shocking Blue, the Remains, and Rocking Ramrods at the Surf Nantasket, the Modern Lovers at Cambridge Commons, the Ultimate Spinach and Beacon Street Union on Boston Commons. My hair ran over the back of my shirt and my father called me a hippie.

"Have you ever seen them?" The quarterback had won our school a state championship. He was a god in the eyes of my classmates. His favorite band was the Beatles.

"No, but I have their live LP. KICK OUT THE JAMS. I'll bring it to school tomorrow. We can listen to it in the audio lab during study."

"At least they have a record.” The quarterback wore his hair long like Paul McCartney and his girlfriend was the head cheerleader at our sister school, Our Blessed Virgin High School.

"And it's better than THE WHITE ALBUM." My girlfriend was a cheerleader at my town school. Kyla loved the Beatles and I never told her about my deep dislike for the pop sell-outs. She was really into Paul, but I said to the class, "The Beatles suck, especially HEY JUDE."

The quarterback rose from his desk.

Brother Bede stepped between us.

"Sit down. There'll be no fighting in my class or anywhere else." Brother Bede liked my poetry, but as asst. coach on the football team the quarterback was his boy.

"Yes, brother."

We squeezed hands hard, rubbing our knuckles on the way back to our desks. Brother Bede had the class read from A SEPARATE PEACE.

During lunch everyone discussed the MC5.

Three other boys had heard of them; my best friend Chuckie Manzi and my two younger cousins.

"Hippie girls love the MC5. They symbolize revolution. The record opens with the lead singer yelling ‘motherfucker'." Chuckie had listened to the album in my basement. His mother would kill him, if she heard that word in her house. My mother hadn't, because she worked during the day.

"They have the balls to sing 'motherfucker'?" The quarterback's opinion elevated the MC5 to that of the Kingsmen, who mythically shouted 'fuck' during LOUIE LOUIE.

"They were also the only band to appear in Chicago during the Days of Rage in 1968 and they played eight hours straight." I learned about the band from the WBCN DJs, who worshipped the band's non-commerciality.

"So they're against the war." The quarterback had a brother stationed in Da Nang.

"Yes."

None of us were traitors, but at the end of the school year the draft doomed most of the high school seniors to thw war.

"Then that’s good enough for me." The only way outs for Brockton boys were the army or prison and the quarterback was lucky enough to have colleges interested in his throwing arm.

The next day I brought in the MC5 LP. Our study period was right before lunch. The quarterback and I entered the audio lab. The librarian lent us headphones. I cued up the first track and turned the volume to 10. John Sinclair introduced the band.

"Brothers and sisters."

The Michigan radical shouted to the audience at the Grande Ballroom,

"Are you ready to testify? I give you a testimonial. The MC5."

The feedback guitars and falsetto lead voice caught the quarterback off guard like a safety blitz, but within seconds his head rocked on his neck and he smiled his approval.

Hearing ‘motherfucker’ on KICK OUT THE JAMS turned his smile into a grin. He pulled off the headphones and said, "They're great, but we have a problem. The brothers will never let them say 'motherfucker' at the concert."

"How they going to know about that? They only listen to Georgian chants."

“Some of them are young. They have contacts with the anti-war movement. We have snitches at school. They're going to find out." The quarterback believed in a good defense and lifted the stylus off the LP. "You never brought this to school."

"You want to borrow it?" I rarely lent out records. No one ever gave them back in good condition.

"You would do that?" The quarterback slipped the record into the cover sleeve with care.

"We are not the problem," I answered by quoting John Sinclair. "We are the solution."

It was 1969. This was our world.

The quarterback instructed his team to squelch any mention of the MC5 and the word motherfucker.

His offensive line were the biggest boys in the school. We reached the Christmas vacation without any breach in our silence. The quarterback gave back the record on the last day before break. It was in good condition.

"Sorry, but everyone in my town wanted to hear it."

"I understand." I resisted checking for scratches and wished him a happy new year. "You too."

As soon as he was out of sight, I pulled out the LP. It was untouched.

We were the high society.

Tickets went on sale the first day back at school. They cost $2.50 each. I walked into school in January and headed to the school store. Over a hundred students were lined up for tickets. The Dean of Discipline was asking a trio of freshman about the band. They were just his type.

"Do they have a hit?" The Dean was fast with his hands on the boys' shoulders. They was no stopping him.

"No, brother," answered a nervous sophomore.

"Then why are you going?"

In his US history class he preached that J. Edgar Hoover deserved our respect for fighting godless communism and the reactionary cleric suspected something was amiss with the MC5.

"They have a new album coming out BACK IN THE USA." My words broke his attention to the young boys.

Charles Laquidara had mentioned its release on his 10pm shift on WBCN-FM.

"So they're 'hip'?" The Dean of Discipline kept up with teenage slang to pretend that he wasn’t so different from us. The act didn't fool any of us. He was after one thing and the upper classes protected young boys from him.

"Yes, brother." Conversations with the Dean was best kept to five words or less. He was a dedicated witch-hunter and worse.

"I look forward to seeing them." The Dean of Discipline walked away from the queue with his hands in his pockets, but this first round of interrogation was not the last. The Dean was very thorough in his investigation into subversion as long as they didn't interfere with his sins.

"Keep your mouths shut."

I wagged a warning finger at the sophomore.

"About what?" I bought two tickets for Kyla and me.

"Good answer. Number 2 avoid the Dean. He's up to no good."

The MC5 show sold out the first day to the amazement of the school principal.

The quarterback told him that the student body was charged up about the first concert at the school. His hero status convinced the principal that a rock band was no threat to our souls and said that he was looking forward to seeing the group.

"They're loud."

"As long as they don't break glass, I'll be fine with loud."

The quarterback and I felt confident that our deception had skated under the radar, then two nights before the show a disc jockey on WBZ reported on a secret concert by the MC5 at our high school.

The second I heard his report I knew this was trouble and the next morning the principal ended the morning messages by announcing, "It had come to the school's attention that the group scheduled to appear this Saturday night has been involved in an obscenity controversy. School policy strictly bans any curse words by teachers, students, and visitors."

"Obviously the principal has never been to football practice." the quarterback quipped from his desk. His championship coach was renown for his vitriolic outbursts of four-lettered words.

"Q-q-quiet," Brother Bede’s commands were stuttered once and only once.

"Any mention of the bad words by the band before or during the show will result in my immediate termination of the concert. I have contacted the record company and warned them that any incident will incur the full wrath of the arch-diocese of Boston. That is all for today."

This heavy-handed suppression of free speech instilled rebellion into our hearts. The days of us being seen and not heard had ended at our school after last year's strike to abolish the dress code. White shirts and tie were now optional and we regarded anyone wearing them as stooges for the old regime.

"S-s-slow down, class." Brother Bede sat on the edge of his desk with ON THE ROAD in his hands. We had read CATCHER IN THE RYE, 1984, and BRAVE NEW WORLD under his tutelage. He believed in an open mind. "A-a-at least the concert was not cancelled and from w-w-w-what the principal explained to the other brothers, the b-b-band only said one bad word on its record. He said nothing about their b-b-being revolutionaries."

Brother Bede's common sense calmed our young minds and we spread his good news throughout the school. The omission of one word wasn't the end of the world, even though the truth of the matter was that none of us would be here if our fathers weren't motherfuckers. Even Jesus had a motherfucker and the word was bantered around the school like a badminton cock at a summer barbecue.

The night of the show Chuckie drove us to school in his family Plymouth.

I wore a fringed suede jacket and bell-bottom jeans. Kyla was a little Tibetan goddess in her lambskin coat and miniskirt.

Snowflakes darted across 128. Chuckie put on WBCN. JJ Jackson was playing PINBALL WIZARD.

At Woodstock Abbie Hoffman declared that the concert was bullshit, while John Sinclair was in prison for marijuana. Pete Townsend had driven the Yippie leader off stage with his guitar. Woodstock was about love and peace, not the injustice of the MC5's spokesman languishing in prison for a few joints and tonight was no different.

The four of us drank a six-pack of beer in the parking lot. Kyla and I made out in the back seat. Her lips tasted of bubble gum. My hands wiggled under her sweater to glide on baby-powdered skin. The heat of our young bodies fogged the windows.

Time was lost to passion, but at 8pm Kyla broke our embrace. I wiped away the condensation on the rear window.

The doors to the gym were open.

"Let's go."

As we approached the gym, two hippie girls asked if I had an extra tickets. They were college age. Two more co-eds posed the same question at the door. A pair of freshmen offered to be their dates. The girls did not refuse the request. This was a big show for outside the 128 belt.

Inside the deejay played popular hits and the gathering crowd danced to Marvin Gaye and Sly. Brother Bede greeted us with a smile. He had cotton stuffed in his ears.

My classmates were costumed in fake Haight-Ashbury. The pungent aroma of marijuana emanated from the bathroom.

Three long-haired men in colorful robes exited a minute later. None of them attended Xaverian and they smiled at Kyla with reddened eyes. She clutched my hand. Strange men scared the buxom brunette. I held her close. Her beauty was safe with me.

The stage was set up under the basketball net. I recognized the Odyssey from their gigs at the Surf Nantasket. The quartet looked nervous about performing tonight. They were a cover band. This was a big gig for them.

I didn’t see any sign of the MC5.

"Where are they?" the quarterback demanded at the table serving cokes. His girlfriend introduced herself to Kyla. She was as blonde as Peggy Lipton of THE MOD SQUAD.

"I heard on WBCN that they were playing an afternoon show in Detroit."

"This afternoon?"

"Driving in a GTO at top speed from Detroit was a ten-hour trip with police lights in the rearview. They'll never make it."

"The DJ said they're taking a flight to Logan."

I leaned over to the quarterback. He smelled of Brut. It was Joe Namath's cologne.

"Then they'll be here. Just don't tell anyone else. We don't want a riot here."

The Odyssey opened their set with a cover of HEY JOE. I checked at my Timex watch. It was 8:30. The younger students danced to the hits.

None of the hippies in the audience paid attention to the group. Some of them looked older than twenty and the Dean of Discipline kept a close eye on them. The students avoided him like a hungry vampire. He hated long-hairs. After Odyssey finished their show, Chuckie and I went outside to finish our beers.

The night sky was clear of clouds and the stars showed their power from distant space.

A car engine grinded up the road to the school. A white van slid on black ice into the parking lot. The vehicle accelerated between the rear-ends of our cars and braked before the gym. Five men jumped from the van. It was the MC5. I recognized the lead singer from his Afro. He waved for me to come closer.

"You go to school here?" His name was Wayne Kramer.

"Yes, sir." I had never spoken to a famous person.

"I'm not a sir, brother. This is Xaverian, right?" The guitarist checked out Kyla and eyed me with admiration.

The smell of bubble gum on her lips was a beautiful thing you couldn't see with your eyes.

"Yes." I couldn’t bring myself to call him brother. I had three.

"Damn, we didn't get lost. Good driving." He slapped the driver on the shoulder. He was Fred Sonic Smith, the guitarist. "Let's get set up. Brother, you want to carry an amp into the gym. The faster we set up, the faster we play for you."

"Yes, sir." The sir thing was a hard habit to lose in less than a minute.

"Cool." He handed Chuckie and me each a large Marshall amp.

Chuckie and I hauled the amps to the stage like altar boys carrying Sunday communion to the faithful.

The MC5 shook hands with the audience. The hippie girls abandoned the freshmen for the stars of the night. The MC5 were a live band. They performed more than twenty shows a month. The roadies assembled the equipment array within a half hour.

The band climbed onto the stage, only to have the principal and Dean of Discipline to confront them. The topic of discussion was no secret to the student body and the murmur of dissent rippled through the audience.

The Dean of Discipline shone with sated disapproval, but Wayne Kramer raised his hand and strode over to the microphone.

"Brothers and sisters, we're the MC5. You know who we are. You know what we stand for."

He turned to the two black-robed brothers.

"Your principal has requested that we not use a word during the show. If we don't agree to this condition, we won't be allowed to play and we flew a thousand miles to be with you tonight."

Boos rocked the gym.

"It's just one word. You know the word."

"We only say it one time. We didn't come here to walk out the door." The lead singer waved for the band to take their places. "We are the MC5 and you are you. One two three."

They rocked the building with the MOTOR CITY IS BURNING. Rob Tyner drove the girls crazy with his strut during DOING ALL RIGHT. Mike Davis led the band with a thumping bass and the drummer drove a basic beat into our bones. The basketball floor bounced with our dancing and Kyla sang along to BABY PLEASE DON'T GO. The quarterback and I hugged each other with joy after HIGH SCHOOL. We were seventeen and free.

The MC5 left us ragged after two hours of solid rock and they ended with a homage to Chuck Berry and the title track of their new LP, BACK IN THE USA.

"Thank you, Xaverian." Wayne Kramer shouted into the mike. "Peace, brothers and sisters."

The MC5 jumped off the low stage and we chanted out more. We stomped the floor to the chant of 'more'. The band emerged from the underneath the bleachers and Wayne Kramer grabbed the mike.

"We have saved the best for last and we have also kept our promise to the good brothers, but you didn’t make any promise," I pointed the microphone into the audience. "Brothers and sisters, it's now time to KICK OUT THE JAMS____"

Our voices shouted the word as one.

"Motherfucker."

There was no quieting us. The world was on fire and the MC5 drew us into the flames that evening. The dean of Discipline danced like a dervish. Brother Bede led him out of the gym. Someone had slipped him LSD.

It was January 24, 1970

On January 25 today became yesterday and tomorrow was a long way away from yesterday.

Motor City Burning - 2009

The MC5 covered Joe Lee Hooker's MOTOR CITY BURNING in 1969.

"Motor City burning and nothing you can do."

In 2009 GM had planned to announce its bankruptcy to its debtors, rendering the old adage "Whatever is good for GM is good for the USA." into a destiny of ruin. The massive company had arrived at this juncture despite an infusion of billions of dollars by the Federal government. This is bad news for the global economy and today could be a bloodbath on the NYSE, however stockbrokers have a funny way of painting bad news with silver linings. I've traveled through the Midwest recently and sadly have to admit that there's no reason to save these companies. Detroit, St. Louis, Peoria, Rockford and countless other heartland cities are shells. Nothing can save them from abandonment. That world is gone and gone forever. Such is the cost of global militarism. Burnt-out cities and fat people.

I don't see any good news in this bankruptcy other than GM won't be able to make any more Hummers.

A little too late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9fba0L398

General Tso's Blizzard

Prior to Christmas of 2010 my younger sister insisted on my spending the holiday with her in Boston. She was worried about my head, since our beloved father had passed away in November and my wife and kids were on the other side of the world in Thailand.

"I don't want you to be alone."

"I won't be." I planned to pass the holiday solo.

"Not if you come up here." The lawyer erased any further reservations on my part by booking a ticket on the Chinatown bus. "Think of it as an early 60th birthday present. Get on that bus at noon and we'll have a nice time."

I surrendered to her better wishes and headed north to Boston. Our old next-door neighbors held a large party on the South Shore. Everyone was talking about the big snow storm. My father told about a great storm in Maine

"Nothing was worse than the one in 1978," predicted Franny, my old car mechanic.

"That was a bad one."

"29 people died in Buffalo," said Chuckie, my best friend throughout grammar school

We traded tales of that blizzard, which was topped by Frannie's recounting of a famous myth.

Supposedly a father had left his house to buy milk for his children. He never returned that night or the next week or the ensuing month. His neighbors suggested that the husband had taken advantage of the snow emergency to flee his wife. The Spring thaw proved them wrong. The man was found frozen to death only feet away from his house with a carton of milk in his arm."

The classic urban legend had enough truth to it that the gathering shivered in remembrance of 178.

"No one should go out in that kind of weather." My father believed in safety first. He and my later mother had spawned six children.

"I know. None of us ever went out of the house without a snow outfit."

Back in the 50s they were thick and colored red, so a child could be found in the snow.

"Not all the time," my younger sister volunteered and then added, "Mom used to chain you on a harness to the clothing line."

"Chained?" Frannie guffawed almost spewing his whiskey.

"Yes, that way she could do household work, but you and your brother were too smart for your own good." She glanced over to Frunk. He was a year older than me and a lawyer like her. "You stripped off our parka and snow pants and then went down to the pier at the end of the street.

Our youth had begun on a bluff over looking Portland Harbor.

"Mom found you naked on the pier."

"I guess it wasn't that cold."

"You had a 103 temperature for a week." My father remembered everything I had done. Most of my sins had been forgiven. "People die in the cold."

"But not tonight."

I refilled a glass of white wine checked the weather online. The meteorologists were warning of hazardous conditions for late Christmas Day. My older sister said, "Looks like you'll be stuck here."

"There are worse places than Boston in the snow."

"Like Logan," her son countered with a frown. "They just cancelled all flights out of Boston and I have to be to work on the 26th."

"That's why I think Christmas should be a moveable feast, so it can be a long weekend."

"Jesus was born on Christmas Day." Our host was a loyal believer. Christmas was Christmas only on the 25th. We toasted the manger in Bethlehem and I muttered 'Free Palestine' under my breath. Politics and religion were banned subjects on Christmas Eve.

The next day I woke at my father's apartment. I checked the low gray sky.

"Looks snow."

"That it does."

New Englanders read the signs of winter with a learned eye for the weather.

We exchanged gifts. I gave him two bottles of Merlot and my father handed me a check.

"Go see your kids."

I hugged him. He was a good father and my best friend, but the old Maniac had become a treacherous driver in his 80s. The ride over to my older sister's house off 128 was scary for the other cars and terrifying for me.

"How was the ride," asked my older sister's husband.

"Don't ask."

"How about a vodka-tonic?" David had retired this past summer and was enjoying his new position of local leisurologist.

His son was on the phone.

"Find a way back to DC?"

Matt gave me the thumbs down.

"There's as always the Chinatown bus."

Everyone groaned about that option. Fung Wah had the most dangerous drivers in New England this side of my father.

"I don't think we have a choice."

And we didn't.

After a sumptuous turkey dinner Matt and I packed within minutes and my older sister drove us to South Station. We caught the 11AM bus. The snow was light, but the traffic was heavy. People were trying to get home before the storm worsened to trap them far from home. No one in their right mind was traveling. Both of us slept on the trip. I had drunk a few vodkas too many. Matt had done the same with wine. Upon our arrival in Chinatown I offered Matt to stay at my place.

"I got to be in work tomorrow."

"No one is going to work tomorrow."

"I will be."

Matt worked for an internet company, which was not affiliated with the CIA. At least that was his cover and I had been brought up to not ask questions about jobs in DC. I put him on a DC-bound bus and took the F train over to Brooklyn. It was only 4PM, so I stopped in Frank's Lounge for a beer.

Several of the regulars were in their Sunday seats. We talked of our Christmases and drank several rounds before looking out the window onto a terrifying scenario. The snow storm had upgraded to the wintery tornado. The accumulation was already 10 inches and there was no sign of let-up. The TV announced the trains were being taken out of service.

"We where we are and nowhere else." Homer was happy to be in Frank's. It was our favorite bar, but we were hungry. He made several phone calls for take-out.

"Ain't no one going out in this weather?" Rosa the Mexican bartender said with a laugh. "Hell, I'm thinking of sleeping here."

"I'm going out later."

"That's because you only live two blocks away from that stool." She had a sharp tongue for such a beautiful face.

"You wrong about that?"

"Wrong about what?"

"About no one going out in this weather. The Chinaman always comes. Heck, back in 1978 I called a Chinaman and they delivered through two feet of snow."

"Better than the US Mail."

"Through snow or sleet."

"And it comes late."

"Then I'm making the last call." Homer dialed the Chinese restaurant up the block.

"What you want?"

"They answered?"

"Sure, they did." I ordered the General Tso's Chicken extra chili. Homer followed suit.

"You know General Tso's Chicken doesn't exist in China." It supposedly was invented by the Hunnan chef T. T. Wang in 1972.

"How the hell am I supposed to know that. I ain't ever been to no damned China." Homer traveled mostly on a straight line. Brooklyn to Mississippi.

"Well, I have." Only one time to Yunnan, Sichuan, and Tibet in 1996. "And there was no General Tso's Chicken."

"I don't care about no China. I'm here in Brooklyn."

The traffic on Fulton had been exinctized by the snow. We started to fear that our food wasn't going to come and we would have to survive on the packets of chips from behind the bar, but the door banged open for a small man covered by snow. He held two bags of food. We cheered his arrival and Homer gave him a $5 tip.

"That's because Tipping ain't no city in China and a Chinaman will deliver your food even when the US Mail can't get through. Here's to the Chinaman."

We raised our glasses and ate like this was the last meal on Earth.

Looking out the window that's just the way it felt on the night before Snow Day.