AUGUST 17, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY

I've lost track of time. Alice keeps nagging me about money. I have none. I'm living on a bagel and pizza a day whenever I'm not a lunch waiter at EBASCO CORP. downtown on Vestry Street. Guadalcanal asked, "How bad can it be? Are you still sleeping together?"

"No, I'm on the couch in the living room without a fan."

"Damn, you can always tell how good is your relationship by how close you sleep with your lover. You're in Siberia. You better get a real job."

This morning I woke up and started masturbating. Alice entered the room and sat on a chair to watch. She was wearing a thin cotton robe and her nipples were hard underneath the cotton. Once I finished, she asked, "Was it good?"

"I took off a little pressure and I had some pleasure."

I have never cum inside Alice. She is scared of getting pregnant. We practice coitus interruptus birth control and I spurt on mostly her belly or ass with my hand pumping my cock.

The first time I masturbated was 1964. My family was vacationing off Ocean Road in Harwich on Cape Cod. I was 12 and woke to a nocturnal emission at dawn. Ten minutes later I reached under my mattress for THE ITCH by Stephen Hammer and strangely CATCH-22. My older brother was asleep on the other bed. I had found the dirty paperback in the Blue Hills near the queer hill. I turned to pages 67-68, got hard over a gangbang scene, and finished in less than a minute mentally fucking the novel's blonde heroine in the belly button. A warm flow gushed a stick white spurt onto my groin. I must have jerked off a hundred times on that two-week vacation.

Now I use it as a substitute for sex whenever Alice isn't in the mood.

I could have other women in the East Village, except Alice is my woman and means more than any one-night stand or succubus from the fathoms of my libido.

I've become monogamous after three years of fucking anyone in New York or Boston.

Alice rises from the chair and picks up a towel. She kneels by my side and gently wipes the semen from my skin.

I do love this girl.

This afternoon I thought about traveling south to Rockaway Beach. This summer my beach excursions numbered three to that broad strip of sand on the Atlantic. None of us went to the beach in 1979, despite The Ramones' success with ROCKAWAY BEACH on the New York jukeboxes and college radio stations. Few punks on the Lower East Side even saw the rivers. We were happily marooned on a concrete island. We wanted nothing to do with the rest of the city or the USA.

Guadalcanal knows about my illness. He has gone through the same thing albeit over ten years ago. I haven't told Alice about my ailments. Her life and cats and LA are her life. I was just 1979 in a shitty East Village apartment, but I still do masturbate to website porno insteasd of THE ITCH and I have considered the desire for sex a good thing. I don't see lust in the eyes of many people in New York. Not want for another person or the urge to fuck namelessly without connecting on Instantgram after the act of sex. The streets are filled by young people reading the phones in their right hand and I wonder whether these featureless males have learned how to jerk off left-handed.

THE ITCH is for sale online. $25.

This is the accompanying pitchline for THE ITCH.

The second title by Hammer (John Coleman, Olympia's leading inspiration and top blurb-writer). The Itch, a tale that predates Indecent Proposal by decades, presents Viney, the husband, Martha, his wife, their many desires, and a millionaire who wanders along and offers them seven figures if they act out those desires in interesting ways. But their benefactor is hardly pleased when erotic pursuits occasioned by the pair (like running off to Japan), seem less than novel. So additional steps are taken to spice things up.

Classic stroke book come-on.

His first book INDECENT PROPOSAL has no footprint on the internet, but it must be hiding somewhere to hit the light of day again as well as the Glory that was Olympia Press.

Rocking Rock

Back in the late last century my English friend lived in a first floor duplex on 4th Avenue and 12th Street. The main door was on the avenue, however the side door exited onto the street. It was kind of an alcove and homeless slept there and used it as a urinal. To stop this practice he hauled a huge rock down from the country. About the same size as the rocking rock and placed it in such a position to successfully stop the squatting. Happy story. Yes, but not for long. A week later he opened the back door and discovered that the rock was gone. Vanished. No trace of it. End of story. No. Two weeks later the rock returned to the alcove. I. The same same position, as if it had rematerialized from another dimension. We often speculated on the possibilities without arriving at a satisfying answer. A rock. A rock isn't. A rock is.

A HERO OF OUR TIME by Mikhail Lermontov

Written 2016

Mikhail Lermontov wrote A HERO OF OUR TIME in 1839. The short novel romanticized the life on the frontier of the Caucasian kingdoms. Lermontov was a troubled soul and spent two exiles with the Army of the Don fighting the rebel mountaineers.

Lermontov painted and drew scenes from his service.

A world lost to time.

The kidnapping of Bela

'Many fair maids in this village of mine, Their eyes are dark pools where the stars seem to shine. Sweet flits the time making love to a maid, Sweeter's the freedom of any young blade. Wives by the dozen are purchased with gold, But a spirited steed is worth riches untold; Swift o'er the plains like a whirlwind he flies, Never betrays you, and never tells lies.'

Cities of fables.

"Gentlemen, I beg of you not to move!" said Vulic, pressing the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead. We were all petrified.

The duel of Pechorin and Grushnitsky acts as a harbinger of Lermontov's demise from later match with Nikolai Martynov, who had described his fellow officer and friend as "the young man who was so far ahead of everybody else, as to be beyond comparison."

Thousands came to his funeral.

He was a man of his times.

How Dem Old People Do It

 

Great Pyramid of Giza's latitude of 29.9792458°N is the same as the speed of light in meters per second in a vacuum, 299,792,458 m/s. Some say that the pyramid's builders intentionally encoded the speed of light in its latitude, but others say it's a coincidence because the Ancient Egyptians didn't measure the speed of light or use global lines of longitude and latitude. 

Everyone knows nothing.

Zero was unknown to Greeks and Romans which is how the ideology of heaven was developed by the Christians

Modern scholars have denigrated ancient civilizations due to a tragic inferiority ideology refusing to accept the obvious. No one discovered the speed of light. It exists.

No

More perplexing is the construction of the granite base.

The Great Pyramid of Giza used 8,000 tons of granite in its construction, including granite beams that roofed the king's chamber and the chambers above it. The granite was transported from Aswan, which is over 560 miles south of Giza, and some of the granite beams are estimated to weigh over 70 tons.

The ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids may have been able to move massive stone blocks across the desert by wetting the sand in front of a contraption built to pull the heavy objects, according to a new study.May 1, 2014.

The Liebherr LTM 1070 4.2 is a versatile mobile crane with a maximum lifting capacity of 70 tonnes. With a lateral reach of 2.50 metres, it can lift heavy loads safely and precisely. The telescopic boom ranges from 11.00 metres up to 50.00 metres, which provides a good reach for various applications.

The truck is so huge that it blocks the entire road when it moves. Its each axle has 32 tyres. The average distance it travels a day is a paltry 5 km; until now the most it travelled in a day was 11 km. It has a set of 32 assistants to remove power lines and other hurdles on the road to ensure smooth movement of the massive vehicle.

The Ancient Egyptians transported the megalithic pyramid stones over wet sand. They used sleds and water to level the sand while the sled was being pulled

All conjecture

Archaeologists believe that the pyramids were built by paid laborers, not slaves, as is commonly believed. In fact, they have found no evidence of slavery or foreign workers, and have even discovered the remains of a village built for the workers who built the Giza pyramids. The village included dormitories, and the workers were likely recruited from farms, possibly near Luxor, and may have been enticed by the opportunity to work on a prestigious project and receive high-quality food.

The Exodus is so fundamental to us and our Jewish sources that it is embarrassing that there is no evidence outside of the Bible to support it.” Apparently, archaeologists dislike questions about the Exodus because, Rosenberg says, “there is nothing in the Egyptian records to support it."

Back to zero...I remember the scene in The Ten Commandments when a woman is trying to lubricate with water under the giant stone and her garment gets stuck under and Edward G Robinson tells the haulers to continue on and she gets crushed. I just googled that scene In it the slaves were Jews, E G Robinson was a Jew and in that scene 54 men were hauling the stone towards the pyramid.

So now A Hollywood movie THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is your scientific proof.

Oi ist mir

No...thought it was funny but I remembered wrong. Charlton Heston, playing Moses, rescues the old woman. But the point is that moving those stones with pulleys and rollers was what I always thought but when u consider the logistics, very doubtful...then how?

The granite blocks were supposedly quarried in Swam 750 miles up the Nile.

Worked well with the storyline

ps Egypt is a Greek name. Original Kemet.

The pyramids were built 4-5000 years ago. About the same time as Stonehenge

I think it was Cecil b DeMille's idea that they built them.

There are also postulations that the Pyramids are even older.

In Exodus the Hebrews are brick makers.

Suspicious minds rejecting the ideology of Western imperialism

A Bacchanalian Mirage

Associated Press - Paris Olympics organizers apologized to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s 'The Last Supper' during the glamorous opening ceremony, but defended the concept behind it Sunday.

Da Vinci’s painting depicts the moment when Jesus Christ declared that an apostle would betray him. The scene during Friday’s ceremony featured the DJ flanked by drag artists and dancers.

I thought the same, but then realized the line-up on the bridge serving as a runway for the preceding fashion show had closed ranks around Barbara Butch, an LGBTQ+ icon, whose was wearing a halo crown. I clocked the Last Supper and rejoiced the blasphemy, until I thought that Da Vinci's The Last Supper was in Milan and had nothing to do with Paris or France, although Da Vinci spent his last three years in The Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, Loire Valley under the patronage of King Francis I.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death." Leonardo da Vinci.

The illusion shattered with the lifting on a huge lid to reveal French singer and actor Philippe Katerine as a blue Dionysus surrounded by fruit on a dinner plate. THe ancient god – known to the Romans as Bacchus – has a close tie to France: In Greek mythology, he is the father of Sequana, the Goddess of the River Seine according to USA Today.

This last slice of mythology was unknown to me, but I thought, "Genius."

Then again I am a non-believer.

ps no video of this event is available due to a ban on Youtube.

Que scandalle

A bas a le troiseme estate.

All life is illusion.

Jesus Everywhere Even Paris

According to the Baltimore Cathecism of my youth, God is omnipotent, all-knowing, and omnipresent, so that Christians seek to see their God everywhere, as happened in the Dionysius tableau on the Paris bridge for the Olympics Spectacle. They saw blasphemy, instead of recognize the Last Supper as miracle, although they see Jesus everywhere. Believers in my hometown, Milton Mass. once espied an image of Jesus on a condensed window at the local hospital. Another miracle with the faithful praying to the Nailed God. But Jesus is everywhere, meme sur les fesses de un chien.

Their Lord moves in mysterious ways.

Off With Their Heads - Marie Antoinette - Olympic Opening Spectacular

One more from the opening ceremony of the Olympics 2024 in France

From Robert Carrithers. The author and translator Bérengère Viennot had the final word. “This ceremony married classical and popular culture, atrocious taste and High History, wokeism and unchecked humour, technical prowess and the genius of Piaf – and has succeeded in provoking a terrific argument,” she said. “It’s a perfect allegory of the French spirit.”

Singing queen … Marie Antoinette performs from a window in the Conciergerie. Photograph: BBC

Posted by Robert Carrithers from Prague.

One comment - It was a scandal.

Ma riposte -the transgender travesty of the last supper was sublimely divine

M-A with the metal band Gojira singing Ça ira, the theme song of the Revolution. Loved it. And the romp through the old Bibliothèque Nationale! So many quirky, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous moments. You don’t have to love it all, there was something for everyone.

But the best part is that the ultra-right almost choked on their rage. It was an in-your-face of un-rivaled proportions.

nothing, absolutely nothing of this satanic circus reflects the French people, thank you for keeping that in mind.

Just a rumination of mine: I always felt that the 2 countries that murdered their own Royal Family, France and Russia, in a sense, cursed themselves. I felt that by killing their own Royal families the vibration of the country itself, their inherit nobility was lessened. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of pushback on this but it is what I feel. The soul of the country lost a little bit of it's shine.

Ma riposte - there is only one way to rid the people of the ruling class. A la guillotine.

Once more bravo la France.

Bravo Le France - Paris Olympics Opening Spectacular - 2024

Quelle Scandale

The spectacular Coming Out extravaganza of the Paris Olympics caught me entirely off guard. I had been expecting the traditional tramp of national teams into a stadium. I was watching the coverage at the Explorers Club. As first I thought it was 'eh', but as the show progresses, I was amazed to see how much license the organizers had allowed the art director. A decapitated Marie Antoinette, the flotilla of boasts carrying the teams. Fireworks, light show, heavy metal, Lady Gaga and the piece de resistance the living tableau of the Last Supper.

Aghast I thought of the poor Baptists and Fundamentalists.

My thoughts and prayers went out to them.

As an atheist I said, "Bravo."

But the Wrath of God rose in True Believers having had blasphemy shoved down the throats. Organizers of the Paris Olympics apologized on Sunday for a performance during Friday’s Opening Ceremonies that featured a reenactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” amid mixed messages about the piece’s intent.

The tableau included a woman with a halo-like crown in the role of Jesus as well as drag queens and gay icons as disciples; it was crashed by a scantily clad blue man wearing a headdress of fruit — Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility, wine and revelry.

Church leaders and some conservative politicians condemned the performance as a perversion of the scene, recounted in the Bible, on the eve of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Saturday called the performance a “mockery [that] was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world.” A U.S. telecommunications firm, C Spire, said it was pulling its advertising from the Summer Games. The French Conference of Catholic Bishops also objected.

Boo hoo.

At last the Olympics burst out of the Closet

Bien fait la France.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=458953257043813

Youtube has banned the video of the Opening Ceremony.

So much for the Land of the Free

More the Land of the Freaked.

Too Few Guns

Gun freedom stems from the need to repress the freedom of the others. - James Steele - unpentient counterfeiter

Foto - Joey from New Hampshire - Pattaya 2007

Rolling Stones - Shea - October 1989

October 1989

Joey from Bay Ridge, a client at Manny's diamond store in West 47th Street, repaired elevators.He was as filthy as a coal miner and as greasy as an oil rigger.

"Every job was an emergency." He pulled out a wad of bills with a filthy hand. "I like getting paid in cash."

A steady customer. He came into the store. Richie Boy and I were glad to see the grimy Brooklynite, but he was not buying. He was selling.

"I found two tickets to the Stones at Shea in an elevator shaft. I can't go, but I was in the neighborhood and thought you might buy 'em. $30 each." Joey found lots of stuff in the bottom of the shafts. Once $5000. Other times jewelry. At first we thught he was a thief, but no one got that dirtier doig dishonest work I looked at the tickets. They were legit Steel Wheels tix. They were for tonight. I was familiar with Shea. A friend and I had the third base seats racketed by duking the ushers $10.

"Where are they?" Richie Boy asked.

"They're on the field to the right of the stage "

"I'll give you $30 for the two." Richie Boy never paid retail.

Joey shrugged at the offer for half and nodded 'deal'

Neither of us had money after a long night on the town.

"Get the money from petty cash "

"Your father is not going to like that," whispered, Manny hated both of us. Richie Boy drank like a goy and his father blamed me, the Shabbats Goy.

"Get the money. He's not here. So I'm the boss." His name wasn't all the wall, but I got the money for Joey. We loved the Stones and the seats were great.

Ditch Out in Berkeley - 1973

May 30, 2024 Scan Production was screening our movie OCTOBER CROW. More than fifty people, mostly young fans or Brigette Lundy-Paine aka Jack Haven were spawl across the large third floor apartment, I told the crowd we were waiting for a friend and related my tale of abandoning him in Berkeley for a ride in a Pinto with Marilyn and her daughter. Making hippie love on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Waking with the dawn. Covered by the brine of a dead sea. Dropping me off in Cheyenne. Her coming to Boston and Ann Marie cockblocking me. I spoke of over a half-century of friendship.

Several minutes later I introduced Neil the audience, who responded to his entrance with a rousing applause as my medical saviour and legendary traveler.

Playing With Fire

January 1, 2014 My young friends sometimes complain that these times are no fun.

Gwen O'Neils' comrades aren't like that.

To quote the band ART, "Our fun begins where other peoples' fun ends.

And they know how to play it safe too.

Notice the plastic cup filled with something.

Opps, I guess it was gasoline.

Burn baby burn.

Of course the best song for this is PLAY WITH FIRE.

Pyromania never goes out of fashion.

Fotos by Gwen O'Neill

To hear The Rolling Stones' Play With Fire, please go to the following URL

In Heaven Above

SWritten 2012

Sir Richard Branson's spaceship THE VIRGIN ENTERPRISE will bring humans to the edge of Space. Its apogee will created a window of weightlessness. The small craft is built for two crew and six passengers, however there must be provisions for those space lovers who want a little privacy in order to become the first people to have sex in Space.

Supposedly US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programs on how human beings might survive years in orbit. The greatest challenge to intercourse is the weightlessness. Astronauts and Cosmonauts alike have failed to achieve erections because the blood pools in their extremities. Pressurization is the key.

IN HEAVEN ABOVE is my tale of a bankrupt ex-Soviet republic threatened by a multi-national conglomerate with extinction. The triumvirate in charge of this nation turn to their mad economist to save the country and he proposed that they repair their decrepit space shuttle and hold a global lottery with the first prize to be a ticket into space to be the first man or woman to have sex. None of the studios clicked on this comedy. Maybe it wasn't funny enough, however a respected French scientific writer claims that sex in space has already been achieved by NASA and Moscow, although in deep secrecy.

NASA's Sex in Freefall program was codenamed STS-XXX and astronauts supposedly computer-tested about 23 sexual positions to divine the most viable in a conditions of no-gravity. They then used guinea pigs and reputedly videotaped the results. Censored except for those White House officials with agricultural training. NASA scientists discovered only 4 positions were possible without help from robots and high-tech equipment.

The missionary position is impossible in space.

You can push up and down when there is none in space.

IN HEAVEN ABOVE coitus galactica was a long languid session of foreplay followed by a drift to heaven among the stars.

NASA never contacted me, but I'm still waiting for the phone to ring.

Not NASA but Virgin.

"Hello, VIRGIN. We have contact."

Nyet Gay In Russia

Written 2012

The Russian criminal code in 1832 "muzhelozhstvo" or men lying with men a criminal act punishable by exile to Siberia for up to 5 years according the Wikipedia. The police rarely arrested men for this crime against nature, since the hunger that dare not speak its name was reserved for the upper classes of Tsarist Russia, however homophobia has been deeply engrained into the national psyche and a third of the population think that homosexuals should be executed and another third call for their exclusion from society. That draconian attitude has improved since the collapse of the USSR, but a gay men or boy are regularly persecuted by their countrymen.

According to www.pinknews.co.uk a Moscow teenager recently escaped from a rehab clinic after his traditionalist father locked him up after he came out to him aged 16.

“I’d rather have you disabled or a vegetable than gay,” the father told the son according to local Ekho Moskvy radio.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Back in 2009 I was in Moscow during the gay protests. Thousands of cops encircled the Kremlin to prevent any demonstrations before the palace. I retreated from the chaos and sought refuge in the baroque confines of Sandunovskye Bani. In this famed banya naked straight men were beating each other with oak branches for their health. None of them were ashamed by this act of S/M, then again there are few more profound blindnesses than hypocrisy, then again nothing more relaxing that a good whipping.

Flirting With Death

2013 In 1988 I exerienced a series of dreams about nuclear annihilation. The first one was situated in New York. The sirens sounded the alarm and thousands of East Villagers headed to the subway for shelter. There wasn't room for all of us. Someone pointed to the sky and I spotted a black missile falling earthward.

White flash.

The next dream was situated in Moscow. The populace filed into trains with calm order and got off at the next station to allow other passengers to repeat our hopeless exodus to safety.

White flash.

The third dream occurred at a Siberian airfield. I was making love with a Red Air Force female pilot. The sirens sounded once more. The Comrade Pilot excused herself from my embrace and ran to the bomber parked outside the dacha. I watched her take off moments before mushrooms clouds rose over the tundra.

White flash.

I liked the last dream best, but I always thought that you weren't supposed to die in your dreams.

Guess I was wrong.

But I woke up to survive on all three occasions, because luck asleep or awake runs in my family.

We're half-Irish.

Moscow Taxi Touts

Written 2013

New York newspapers frequently report about naive visitors paying excessive taxifares into Manhattan. The record was set by a Japanese tourist. The cab driver extorted $2500 from the hapless visitor and ropped him Harlem when he wouldn't cough up another $500.

Things have improved at JFK, however the age-old practice of soaking the uninformed voyager has a global reach.

Back in 2009 I deplaned in Moscow's Terminal 2. My connecting flight to St. Petersburg was in Terminal 1. No signs suggested how to reach that destination, although a taxi tout was willing to drive me the 5 kilometers for $60.

"Sorry. I don't have to be there that bad."

"Special deal. $40." He showed a price card. $60 for Terminal 1

"Why so cheap?" I figured that rate was from Moscow.

"Because I liked George Bush."

"Fuck George Bush."

He wasn't my president and I walked away from the taxi tout.

An old bababuska cleaning lady was heading home. I followed her outside and we boarded the free transit bus. Free, which got me to the other terminal in plenty of time. I even was able to drink a beer.

$5 for a large stein of Stella.

It was a good place to drink beer.

Back In The USSR

Written 2012

Back in the glory years of Soviet Russia express lanes were reserved on Moscow's major roads for top officials and leaders of the Communist Party in the ZIL limousines. Those privileges came to a sudden end with the collapse of the USSR, but the London Olympics instituted the special lanes throughout the city for the swift transport of athletes and world politicians attending the Games. Anyone else will be hit with a 500 Pounds fine and that includes bicyclists and pedestrians.

Watch out for the ZIL lanes.

They are not for you.

Na zda-ró-vye Nyet

Written August 2013

Soviet Russia attempted three times to curtail alcohol consumption.

The last temperance movement was in 1985-1987 under Mikhail Gorbachev. Vodka and other spirits were rationed throughout the USSR and public drunkenness was punished by prison time. The loss of tax revenue was in the hundreds of billions of rubles and this economic shortfall led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Even Josef Stalin never dared to ban vodka and ex- KGB Boris Putin has followed the Red Tsar's lead.

There is only one ruler in Russia and that is the man with the bottle of vodka.

Russian don't toast each other with Na Zdorov'ye!

They prefer a lengthy personal toast, but I will drink no more Russian vodka.

Not since Putin's government has declared homosexuality a sin.

I will toast Russia with other vodka, raising my glass and shouting, "Poshel na khuy."

Simply translated as 'fuck you'.

And I say the same to the New York Times, for last week in the Op-Ed pages the happily married with three kids Mark Lawrence Schrad, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, declared that the gay boycott on Russian vodka would have no effect on the treament of gays and lesbians in Russia.

Asst. Professor Schrad has a website;

http://www.vodkapolitics.com/Welcome.html

He does not look like a drinker, but his NY Times article argued that a vodka boycott will not help gays in Russia, since 'polls estimate that two-thirds of Russians consider homosexuality unacceptable under any circumstance'.

Asst. Professor Schrad avoided this issue to launch into a lengthy treatise of his expertise; the politics of vodka before defending the continued drinking of Stolichnaya by writing 'most political scientists agree that sanctions rarely bring about desired results and can undermine the effectiveness and credibility of domestic opposition groups' and that the impact of an international boycott wouldn't effect the Russian economy.

Firstly vodka sales to the West amount to hundreds of billions and Asst. Professor Schrad rightly stated that the vodka conglomerates were unhappy with Putin's decision to repress gays and lesbians, but the tax revenue from vodka helped support the Putin regime ( in Soviet times it was 25% of the tax revenue ).

Secondly boycotts work.

Maybe slowly, but doing nothing accomplishes nothing.

So once more the New York Times gets a nice 'fuck you' from me.

They only care about the rich.

And the people who pay their ads like Putin.

It's all the fucking same.

'Poshel na khuy' or 'fuck you'.

Newspapers Versus TVs and Cellphones

TV and cellphones will never replace a newspaper. You can’t swat a fly with a newspaper. - Pascha Ray - traveler

Gun Freedom - James Steele

Gun freedom stems from the need to repress the freedom of the others. - James Steele - unrepentant counterfeiter

Childcity, Aprilcity - Gregory Corso

Baby City, April City, angel spirits hiding in the gates, poets, parasites in their hair, beautiful Baudelaire, Artaud, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, contemplate the night city - Whistleblowers and goalkeepers, Penalty of Montparnasse, mortal Notre Dame, contemplate the night circle, the inherited dome, Hugo and Zola buried together, harleccino's death trap, the Seine breeds filthy sludge, The Eiffel looks from above - it sees the Apocalyptic scorching with ants. nyc city , Town of dead and buried Germans. Mamma Guerra's doll house.

Gregory Corso with Jocelyn Rothschild - Chez Rothschild sur Ile St. Louis

A poet ugly as sin with a dark view of the City of Light, although anyone who has lived there long enough to identify a friend at the morgue by the Seine is no longer fooled by the lights.

Le Quai de Le Rapee. The black hearses of the State driving the departed from the Bastille to the cemetery de Pere Lachaise.

ps. the opening line of another version is recorded as ‘Childcity, Aprilcity’.

pps My search for Jocelyn Rothschild came up goose-eggs.

ppps The only found meaning for Harlecinno as the Itlaian word arlecinno, an amusing servant in theater

I found this poem thanks to Eric Mitchell, Pittsfield Capitalist and B-Movie legend.

It's Da Shoes

Jacques Negrit et Moi avant le porte de le Royal Lieu - 1985 Foto by Anon -

As a doorman in New York, London, Paris, Hamburg, le Sud de France, and Beverly Hills from the 1970s to the 1990s the bosses always asked about my criteria for admission. Many other doormen said, "Shoes."

Me, it was a look.

A look like you wanted a good time without any trouble, although I never gave entry to undercover cops. Their shoes were dead giveaways. Cop shoes. Of course if they were off-duty, then they were fine, but I always warned them, "Don't pull any cop shit inside or else I'll never let you in."

And they didn't, although a few clients scootered out the back door reconizing arresting officers. They knew trouble when they saw it and I always checked on the off-duty 12 to see if they weren't trouble.

An undercover cop from the 76th Precinct in Red Hook, Rob Cea, explained, "People get nervous when they see us "

"It's the shoes. Change 'em next time. And next time come alone."

Damned, next timeRob Cea changed his shoes and came alone, and no one left the club, when he came in after that.

Ari my cobbler. I'm his Shabbas Goy.

OCTOBER CROW Trailer

OCTOBER CROW Trailer The 2024 film by Scab Production marks the directorial debut of Jack Haven aka Brigette Lundy-Paine creating the tale of Bella ( Alex McVickers ) fleeing Kentucky to the Last Babylon to be befriended by James (Peter Nolan Smith) a dying benevolent fiend introducing her to the other side of life as a dominatrix in. religious brothel run by La Bruja (Laura Lundy). As always no good deed goes unpunished. OCTOBER CROW breaks the rules. No script. No money. No car chases. No gun ballets. No commercial value. No sell-out. A tale dedicated to opening our eyes led by a cast of unknowns with the common goal of rejecting the 'What Is' in favor of the 'Is' as a homage to Amos Poe and John Cassavetes. Music by Mina Walker and Avshaa. Coming to Drive-Ins at cities and towns near you soon. We are coming for your children.

January 7, 1987 - Everglades City - Journal

Tomorrow a winter storm will be hitting the Gulf Coast and late afternoon I left Sarasota Miami bound. Storm clouds westrising over the western horizen and I thought about stopping for the night.

Pam Vaughan, my hostess on Siesta Key, had holidayed at the Rod and Reel Club and suggested staying the night at a famous fishing lodge that had been a popular fishing resort for presidents, corporate leaders, and the famous since the turn of the century and I turned off Alligator Alley connecting the Gulf with Miami.

Everglades City showed serious damage from a recent hurricane. Nothing was open not even a bar. Further into the swamp windows down mosquitoes splattering over the windshield. Listening to salsa from a Miami radio radio. The air smelled with the primordial reeking of rot vegetation. I imagined alligators feeding on me, if I drove off the road and devoured body before I could get to the causeway. I recalled the book The Foundling and Peter Mathieson's about the Thousand Miles. Pirates, Indians, murder, gators, snakes, smugglers at al. Once the Seminoles existed on these swamps for centuries and centuries and centuries before the white man and they still ran here alligator wrestling shows on the Miami to Tampa Highway. I drove up to the hotel. A classic hunting club from the 1920s maybe even before. I shut up the car, got my bags, and checked into a single room. $25 a night. Happy to have some place to sleep in the Everglades. Even happier with a gin-tonic on the veranda, listening to the 'gators roar in the night.

Horseshoe Crabs And Us 2050

I have visions
Not dreams
But visions
Of the Future
2050
Sitting on the B38 bus
Traveling down Myrtle Avenue__
Summertime
No cars
None
More trees
More flowers
Vegetable gardens too.
Everyone walking
Riding bikes
Less people than 2024
A lot less
The rich escaped to the Moon
To Mars
We hear nothing from them
Nothing
Good riddance___
After 2024
The tipping point
Things went bad
Very bad
And fast
Wars, fires, famines, floods
No place to run
No place to hide
Many prayed
Many more screamed
Bad to Worst
Wrath of God worst
Worst for the good
Worst for the bad
Thoughts and prayers
No help___
Then one day___
Worst went to bad
And then not to good
But not bad___
Not everyone survived
Not everything survived,
But the horseshoe crabs
They multiplied by the billions
And the fed the world
As horseshoe crabs had other speices
Through other extinctions___
Now 2050
Me
98 years old
With my wives
My children
My grandchildren
My great grandchildren
And friends____
A miracle But like horseshoe crabs
My blood don't die easy____
Deconsune, children, deconsume.

Foto by Doug Wechsler

Pawh Den Always

Monsoons late.
Months after Songkran.
Buffalo wander the rice paddies.
Looking for their old friend.
Den Khongbua
Grandfather gone.
Kwai remember him.
Den the only one
Who knew their names.
Den Gone
But not from memory Kwai.
Not gone forever.
Not from our memories too.
I see you soon, grandfather Den But not today.

May 30 1992 - Bangkok - Journal

Two mornings ago I making a call at the overseas phone booth in the Malaysia Hotel. A young bearded man entered the lobby. We had last seen each other in Kathmandu 1990 after a trek to Lantang Glacier. Upon departure westward to Europe I had told Dice, if he was in Bangkok, then you should stay at the Malaysia Hotel and there was a good chance if the Hawaiian did I might be there in May. Dice was a no show in 1991, but here he was now and upon seeing me he called out, "Pascha."

My Oriental pseudonym.

Dice was just in from Nepal and a long night at the go-go bars. He needed brakfast in the hotel's restaurant, which offered a restorative American breakfast.

"Then sleep. I'm sending these girls home. They have probably had enough of me. I'll see you later."

We rendezvoused that afternoon at Kenny's Bar on Soi Si Bamphen. We drank on Singhas that day and on the next which was my 40th birthday.

After a few beers at Kenny's we told some girls we would be back after dinner and wandered over to the Chandrphen Restaurant, a top-notched Chinese chicken restaurant across from the Lumpini Muay Thai boxing stadium, where we finished off a bottle of small bottle of Mekong whiskey. The waiters invited us to a comedy club. I was drunk enough to allow myself to be dragged on stage by a troop of improvisers. They mocked me, but I grabbed the mike. I have no idea what I said, but I thought it was funny the Thai audience laughed at the farang fool.

Finally I was thrown off the stage gently. Todd said, "You're natural ham."

We were late for the rendezvous at Kenny's and rode a tuktuk over to Patpong. Despite being my birthday birthday I wasn't in the mood for whoring. Maybe Bangkok's wild fun doesn't glitter as wickedly coming from Indonesia, instead of New York. Maybe it's all part my monastic onanism. I had passed through Bangkok three times this trip without bar-fining a single GoGo girl. The old age truck has hit me so hard.

40 and overweight. I don't know how many more years I've got to go. Decades I hope.

No pension plan. No retirement cabin. All I have two written books, a script, 30 or so journals, an East Village apartment, and a crapped out Yamaha 650 on the sidewalk outside on the sidewalk, unless someone had stolen it in my absence.

Of course I also had my fading good looks and by the time I reach California I'm going to be in tip top shape ready for the conquest of the modern world of the West.

As I packed to check out of the Malaysia Hotel, I listened to Velvet Underground on a cassette player. I won't be coming back here until next year working and the Diamond District from September to January. Any possibility of my earning any cash from writing was probably decades away. My typing sucks and my spelling is worse.

Two days ago I had gone down the victory Square, where hundreds of thousands of young people had been protesting against the military rule for weeks without any violence. The hometown troops would not use violence on their neighbors friends and family. The generals brought in troops from the country. They called the demonstrators communists and gave the order to shoot to kill and the soldiers from Isaan did just that, killing hundreds of their countrymen to prevent democracy. But nightlife in Bangkok stayed the same bastard under the harsh rule of High Society over Low Society.

Today Bangkok remains under martial law.

I'm catching a bus to the South island of Koh Phi Phi. 14 hours overnight.

I wonder when I'll into into Dice again.

Marx's vision of Communism - Professor Bertell Ollman 1977

Herbert Marcuse August in the middle of the 20th century you remains an Impossible Dream to those theorists except of utopia certain socio historical possibilities. Chicken advance and wealth technology and science extends the boundaries not only of the real the ways we found potential can be realized. Today's production goods and knowledge Heather with accompanying skills have transformed the Utopias of an early time and to practical alternatives to our everyday existence. Recognition of these trends the meanings to renewed interest Marx's vision of a communist Society.

Seeing Past the Hudson - Poetry 1978

Soft, the West Wind
Blowing with visions
Of the continent
Beyond the Hudson River
Jersey to the Delaware Water Gap
The Midwest corn fields
360 flat horizens
The Mississippi
Corn giving way to cattle
The Missouri
High prarie rising from the Midwest
Sighting of the Rockies
Desert
Nevada
More desert
The Sierras
Oh California
The Pacific.
Stretching west to Asia.
I can see it all
All America
Standing on the Hudson River
The tide slipping to the sea
Holding you in my arms
Your boyish body
Your woman's mind
Tender
Our embrace
I crave us naked
I don't want California
All I want is you.

No One Is Above The Lone Guman

People are questioning how. Lone gunman could get that close to Trump. It’s easy. In 1991 I went to meet a friend after work in the Diamond District at the Statler Hilton in Manhattan. Thousands of protestors surrounded the building. Hundreds of NYPD blocked the entrances. I didn't know why. Dressed on a pinstriped English suit, I strolled up to the barricade and said, “I’m meeting a hotel guest at the bar for drinks.” The police was me through the security and I passed through the Blue to meet my friend at the bar. Inside the hotel there were more police, FBI, and Secret Service all looking very professional and alert for any opportunity to prove their worth. Philip, a Australian journalist, explained President George Bush was scheduled to speak that evening in the main ballroom. $10,000 a plate. Businessmen and capitalists. Not my crowd and we killed our drinks. No way to leave by the front, so I led Phil to the garage exit. None of the police or Secret Service bother us and we hit the parking lot, as the presidential limo pulls up to the curb. My sister-in-law had worked for the president when he was director of the CIA. Another band of fools. The limo doors open and out pops Bush. I call his name, walk up, and introduce myself as his ex-secretary’s brother- In-law. We shake hands. He goes his way and we goes ours. Anyone can get to anyone. Assassinations have ruled the politics of this and many countries. Lone gunmen have killed Lincoln and Kennedy as well as the latter's younger brother RFK after he won the California presidential primary in 1968. Ronald Reagun was bullet-gutted by a psychotic fan of the actress Jody Foster of TAXI DRIVER fame. Guns run blood on the streets of America and rlsewhere too. In 1983 I worked at les Bains-Douchrd. one evening I had a confrontation with a local Mafia gangster. We fought at the entrance, while the security watched in amusement. I tossed my attacker down the stairs. He leapt to his feet and struggled to whip out a revolver. Before he freed the weapon, we scurried inside the clubnan I slammed shut the heavy glass entrance door. The glass was supposedly bullet-proof. The gangster aimed his weapon and pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet impacted on the glass at my head level, The next was aimed at my heart. The crowd scattered away from les Bains. The gangster ran away. I thankfully never saw him again. Jacques the owner came down to the entrance and heard the story, then walked over to the door, surveying the bullet impacts "Are we going to replace the glass?" a bouncer asked in French. "Pas de tout. I have been shot and

THE STAFF OF SCHMOSES by Peter Nolan Smith

In July of 1995 my cousin flew from LA to dance at ShowWorld in Times Square. The boyish brunette's loyal following packed the legendary porno parlor to worship Sherri's stage acrobatics. Thankfully pleasing her audience required little more than stripping off her clothes.

The XXX actress augmented her take by selling underwear and signing posters. Her gloves cost $10. The filmy lingerie was $20 for the top and $30 from the bottom. Full nudity was never less than $50.

By week's end my cousin had cleared almost $8000, but the small fortune came at a cost.

"I wish I could dance in bare feet," Sherri complained in the shabby dressing room shared with the girls working the $1 peep shows. "These stilettos feel like two spikes are driven through my bones."

"They make your legs look great." I had attended two shows and each time had been amazed by Sherri's grace on four-inch stilettos.

"So I'm stuck with the heels."

"Just for one more night."

"Are you coming for the finale?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Or ShowWorld." Sherri kissed me. Her lips were wet. Her skin smelled of exhaustion. She had never looked prettier. Her hand reached into her bra and came up with a damp twenty. "Go get yourself something to drink. I expect you here on time."

"Yes, mistress." I bowed my head in submission.

Sherri was a well-know dominatrix and ads played on the late-night sex shows promoting S & M.

I killed two hours at Bobby's Corner drinking cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and arrived at ShowWorld at 11:30. The Triple Threat Theater was packed to the rafters and Sherri performed a new dance routine. The crowd gave her a standing ovation and she returned for a black leather encore to Iggy's I WANNA BE YOUR DOG.

I escorted her into the dressing room.

"Fucking hell, I'm done with that." Sherri packed her costumes and changed into jeans and hurried from the theater through a crush of fans hoping to get lucky with their favorite actress. She blew them kisses and we jumped into a taxi.

"Where to?"

Normally Sherri liked to chill after a show at a bar.

This evening she leaned forward and gave the driver the address to my apartment on East 10th Street.

"You don't mind, if we call it a night." She yanked off her heels and pulled on sneakers, sighing with relief. "I have a few days off before my shows in Philly. We"ve been invited to Fire Island. You want to go??"

"Of course." The diamond exchange was closed for two weeks and I hadn't been to the barrier island for more than ten years. The weatherman was predicting temperatures in the high 90s for the next three days and I could use a break from the city.

"Where we staying?"

"We're guests of Rachelle Fly." Sherri rolled down the window. The night air was hot and the people on the sidewalks walked like melted ice statues, but after the long years in LA Sherri still loved the smell of Nw York in the summer. It reminded her of being young.

"I know her." The overweight stripper was Cable TV's famed XXX spokesperson. "Not really know her, but I watched her show. Your promos are on all the time."

"That's not what she says." Sherri turned to me with an angry glare.

"At least a couple of times a night."

"Rachelle says that she doesn't owe me any residuals. Her husband does the books and Shelley went to jail for fraud."

"So this is a business trip?"

"Always good to have a little muscle, but this will be pleasure too." Sherri lived in LA. She loved the sea and sun. "Her husband's a schmuck, but also very connected to the Mafia. I'll deal with them in my own way. You're just insurance. Against Shelley, not anyone else."

"Good. My fighting days are over." I had retired from working the nightclubs the previous year.

"So we have an early night and get going in the morning, because tomorrow is going to be a hot one."

"Sounds like a plan."

Back at my place Sherri undressed and lay in bed.

I kissed her good-night and went to the door.

"Aren't you going to sleep with me?" She turned the big fan onto top power.

"No, it's too hot." There was another reason and she knew it.

"I'll sleep on the couch. See you in the morning."

I lay on the sofa with a small fan blowing hot air over my body. Sherri started snoring almost immediately and I stuck wads of wet paper in my ears. They blocked out most of the noise, although at 3am I heard a neighbor shout to get the truck out of gear.

"Fuck off," I yelled over Sherri's rumbling and went back to sleep.

I woke with the dawn and showered off the night's sweat.

My cousin came out of the bedroom and stood by the tub with a towel wrapped around her still lithe body.

"Move over. I feel like an overcooked pizza."

"Just a second." I ducked under the lukewarm water and dreamed of swimming in the Atlantic.

"You ever think about getting AC?" Sherri dropped the towel. Her skin sheened with perspiration.

"You're from LA. You can't live there without AC, but it never gets as hot here as the Valley." Heat waves in New York lasted a few days instead of the entire summer in North Hollywood. I moved against the rear of the tub.

"A tight fit. Have you been gaining weight?" Sherri settled into the tub with her back to me.

"Mostly beer. It will melt off by the end of the summer."

"A constant battle. You want to soap my back."

"Okay." I reached for the spray nozzle and Sherri murmured, "I love Splish-Splash."

We cut our bath short and caught a taxi on 1st Avenue to Penn Station to board an ACed train to the farthest reaches of Long Island and points in between.

Two men eyed Sherri.

They had probably seen her Robin Fly's promos.

After deboarding the ancient train at Sayville a shuttle bus brought us to the ferry.

The ride across the tranquil bay lasted a half-hour.

A thin line of green skimmed the horizon.

It was our destination.

"Fire Island doesn't belong to New York or America." Sherri stood at the prow.

"This boat trip is a magic spell."

"Leaving the rest of the world behind."

"I hope that's still true."

We stepped off the ferry at The Pines. Vacationeers on Harbor Walk greeted their guests. Water taxies took on passengers for Cherry Grove. There was no sign of Rachelle.

"I know the way to her house." Sherri slung a small bag over her shoulder. For once she was traveling light.

We strolled through the cluster of cottages to Ocean Walk.

A deer raised its head from the shrubbery and bolted into a ticket on beach pines.

"It looks the same, but it isn't the same. 30,000 years ago a mile-high glacier towered over here. Long Island and the Cape were formed by the melt off."

"Must have been cold, but it isn't cold today."

"I can't ever remember Fire Island as cold."

Back in the 70s The Pines was the summer home for a decadent gay lifestyle; anonymous sex at the Meatrack, short-time stands in the hotels, and orgies at the beach houses.

"The Pines is still Sodom by the sea."

"What about on Sunday mornings?"

"Well, Sundays are the day of rest for the wicked, but now it's quiet."

There was a reason.

A sad one.

Robyn, Sherri and I had lost scores of friends to devastating epidemic of AIDS. The departed's names had never perished in my mind, especially since one had been my youngest brother.

We topped the dune beyond which spread a cool green Atlantic. Waves thundered on the shore. The few people lay on beach blankets protected from the blazing sun by umbrellas. I was glad to have a hat.

"The beach is empty."

"Same as the West Village. Dying homosexuals sold their beloved beach shacks to friends, family, and strangers."

"Different people now," Sherri said, as we stepped aside for a straight couple pushing a baby carriage onto Nautilus Walk.

"Not the same."

"None of us are the same now, but we're here,"announced Sherri, as we approached the two-story bungalow surrounded by a high wooden wall.

"Still alive."

"I meant at Rachelle's."

"Oh."

The bungalow was second to the last on Ocean Walk.

"Just one thing. Rachelle's husband is very jealous of men. If she sleeps with one, he'll leave her."

"But she's a porno actress?" Promiscuity was a virtue in the trade.

"That was back then and now she's married to him, so she can only have affairs with women, because he likes to watch. If he caught her with a man, then she'd be out on the street. Everything she has belongs to him."

"No worries. She not my type. Not then. Not now. Not like you."

"Just play nice then."

"I'll be a good boy."

We entered the pool area and Sherri called out, "Anyone home?"

"Only us naked people."

Rachelle descended the sun-warped stairs from the top floor.

Stark naked.

The squat forty year-old was thirty pounds over her prime and flabs of flesh overlapped her extended belly.

Two small dogs scurried onto the deck.

"Excuse my state of undress, but I never wear anything on the island." Rachelle bear-hugged my cousin.

"I might go naked myself." I nodded to our hostess. She made me feel thin.

"When on Fire Island, do as the Fire Islanders do, but be careful of the sun. It's brutal this time of year." Rachelle was tanned the color of a worn football.

"Sherri, I'm so glad you could come out."

"The city is hell, but I had a good run at ShowWorld." Sharon dropped her bag on the deck and stripped off her tee-shirt and shorts.

"What do you think?" The brunette provocatively posed for Rachelle.

"Those hours in the gym," sighed the older woman, as she caressed Sherri and then eyed me suspiciously. "So this is your cousin?"

"Yeah, on her father's side." Sherri and I have been calling ourselves family for years to save time explaining how we met playing pinball at an East Village after-hour bar. Even we got tired of our old stories, mostly because we were tired of trying to outrun our pasts.

"I can't see family resemblance." Robin squinted to examine my face.

Depending on the light my face resembled either an Irish cop or Yankee sailor.

"That's because Sherri was adopted into the family.

"But we're almost twins." Sherri moved beside me.

"Almost identical, right, Sherri?"

"100%."

Rachelle wasn't pleased by our reply, but she could only say, "Come on inside."

The gleaming mirrors on the white walls paid homage to that era of 70s narcissism.

"Lovely place," complimented Sherri.

"I bought the house from a man who found it too sad." Rachelle led us through the living room. "Too many ghosts."

"But not for you."

Rachelle's support for the gay/lesbian community was legendary.

"I can live with them, if they can live with me. Same as my puppies."

The dogs nipped at my legs, as if by command.

"They're my little babies. Come on. I'll show you your rooms."

We climbed the stairs and Rachelle said, "If you're kissing cousins, then you can share one bed."

"Two bedrooms will be fine." Sleep was impossible with Sherri's epic snoring three inches from my ears.

"Then make yourselves a home," Rachelle said to Sherri, opening the door to a large room with a beach view.

Mine was a tiny converted closet, but as the guest of a guest I had no complaints.

It was good being out of the East Village.

"How's the beach?"

"Same as ever."

"Some things never change."

I stripped off my clothes and accompanied the two women to the edge of the ocean. I wasn't ready to go into the cold Atlantic and joined them on folding chairs under umbrellas.

A naked man with a beaded necklaces, a long beard and a even longer penis waved to Rachelle with a gnarled wooden staff.

"That's Moishe. He lives in a pine grove and scours the tide lines for treasure. In the winter he takes care of the houses. Some people says that he hasn't been to the mainland for years."

"Nice crank for an old guy," commented Sherri.

"I've never seen one bigger." It hung close to his knees.

"I probably can't get it erect without passing out from loss of blood."

"Oh, he can get them alright." Rachelle caressed Sherri's arm and turned her back on me.

They talked business. I didn't need to hear this conversation and I swam in the ocean. Every minute in the cold Atlantic surf dropped my body temperature. I should have been paying more attention to the sun, but I loved the waves.

Emerging from the sea I picked up my towel.

Sherri and Rachelle had retreated to the beach house.

Moishe was returning from his beach-combing expedition. I nodded to him.

He pointed his erect staff at my ass and said, "Ouch."

"Too much sun?"

He grunted yes and I hurried off the beach.

At the entrance to the deck I washed off the sand with a hose. Sherri and Rachelle were in the pool with a video camera recording their conversation. I toweled dry in the shade.

"Oh, my," laughed Sherri.

"What?"

"Your ass is lobster red."

"Moishe said the same thing."

"He spoke? He never speaks." Rachelle seemed upset by my interaction with Moishe,

"Not so much spoke a grumbled a few syllable."

I touched my bum. It hurt to the touch.

"Did you shower before coming into the house?" Rachelle demanded with a harsh sharpness.

"Yes, with soap too."

"Just checking." The ex-stripper succeeded in conveying her disdain for me and she continued her ungraciousness throughout the day.

I could do no right.

The sand on the floor came from me, not her dogs.

When I nearly shattered my kneecap on a low glass table sitting down for dinner, she screamed at my clumsiness.

"Sorry."

"Be more careful."

She served me a small potion of salad, as if I should be on a diet.

During dinner I told them how Fire Island had been formed by the Ice Age glaciers, Rachelle sat down with her arms folded across her flapjack breasts and her bulbous belly gracelessly hanging over her crotch.

Her eyes simmered with disdain.

I was her public enemy # 1.

That evening Sherri and I whispered in her bedroom.

The beach bungalow's thin walls were not conducive to privacy.

"Rachelle's not very nice."

"She doesn't like men."

"I'll stay out of her way."

"Not a bad idea."

The next morning I looked in the fridge for food.

There was none.

Rachelle had hidden it somewhere.

Swearing under my breath I left the house and laid out my towel underneath the pines without taking off my clothes. The beach was empty. I remembered it with more people.

Men.

Gays.

My friends.

All gone.

I didn't want to think about it and read my book.

RUNNING by Maxie Laing.

When Moishe passed, he shook his head.

I defended myself by saying, "Clothing is optional. So is nakedness. Asshole."

He muttered under his breath. It couldn't have been anything good and I realized I hated the locals.

Sherri came looking for me.

"You shouldn't be out here." Her body glowed with a LA golden tan.

"The pines should be protecting me."

"The sun is bouncing off the sand." She scooped up a handful of sand, "The remains of your glacier."

"They were a mile high here. Only 30,000 years ago."

"You have breakfast?"

"How? Rachelle hid the food."

"The bitch."

"I can't go back to the house."

"I know. When's her husband coming?"

"Not until the weekend."

"So 'she' can't write a check until he comes?" I refrained from calling Rachelle a name.

"I'm getting my money one way or the other."

Sherri picked up a branch. "Let's built us a hut.

"It will be my home away from chez Rachelle."

We erected a shelter from driftwood and torn sails.

The sea breeze lulled us to sleep. Sherri didn't snore. It was pleasant to lie with a naked woman.

As the sun descend over the dunes, Moishe roamed the high tide mark.

Seeing Sherri his penis grew into an obscene erection accompanied by a satyr's leer. He walked up to us and said to my cousin, "I liked your films."

Sherri thanked the hermit, who licked his lips before wandering down the beach.

"Did you see that?" Sherri exclaimed with horror.

"Not easy to miss it?" A stallion would have been jealous of his manhood.

"He shouldn't be called Moishe, but Schmoses of the Greying Bush," Sherri renamed the tramp.

"Carrying the staff of Schmoses." I raised my forearm.

"How about a drink at the Blue Whale?" Sherri liked a good bar.

"Vodka and Curacao liquor." The drink gave everyone 'blue tongue'. "Why not?"

The bartender recognized Sharon from her films.

"Before I came out, I pretended I was you."

Sherri autographed a napkin and the bartender comped us drinks.

"We'll see you at the Monster one night.

"Count on it." My cousin's feet had recovered from the ShowWorld stint.

That evening we joked about Schmoses at the dinner table. Rachelle saw no humor in our humor.

"The man has a name. It's Moishe."

"I gave him a new one." Sherri wasn't taking any crap from the fat woman. She owed her money and raised her glass. "It fits his unearthly shank of flesh. Here's to the Staff of Schmoses."

Rachelle deserted the table for her bedroom.

Sherri and I drank another bottle of wine.

We swam in the pool.

There was no light from Rachelle's bedroom.

"She must be dreaming of Schmoses."

"And his staff."

We laughed quietly and Sherri said, "The Monster."

Well past midnight we returned to the beach house and went to our separate rooms.

"You sure?" asked Sherri at her door.

"We're cousins."

"Not really."

"I'm tempted, but my skin is too tender."

Sherri slid into the bedroom with a seductress' grace.

"I won't be rough with you."

And she wasn't, although I made her leave later.

"My snoring?"

"Like a truck stuck on ice."

"Sorry."

I rose before the dawn and threw on a long sleeved white shirt and shorts.

It was low tide and the ocean was calm.

I beachcombed for jetsam.

Schmoses appeared in the distance and I abandoned the shells and whelps.

The beach debris belonged to him.

We nodded to each other in passing, but we cursed each other under our breath.

I opted for a peaceful breakfast and walked over to the beach landing to have bacon and eggs next to the Blue Whale.

As I neared the beach shack Rachelle emerged from her house and shouted, "Moishe."

The aging loner appeared from the pines. The TV hostess walked over to him and the two vanished into the pines.

For a long time.

I sat in the shade of the beach hut.

Sherri came out of the house.

"Bitch."

"No money?"

"She said she never showed the ads."

"Lying cunt."

"I told her my friends saw them."

"Friends meaning me?"

"Yes."

"Well, guess I should pack my bags."

"Have you seen the bitch?"

"Yes, she went into the woods with Schmoses."

"Like to have sex?"

"Looked that way to me. Schmoses was in full bloom."

"Got her."

"How?"

"The magic of video."

Sherri grabbed my hand and ran to the house. She didn't bother to brush the sand off her feet.

My cousin emerged with a small video camera and said, "Follow me."

We tracked Rachelle's and Schmoses' footprint to a piney grove.

The two were coupling before Schmoses' lean-to. The arcane structure seemed to predate the last Ice Age. The breeze whispered through the boughs, The only other sound was the slapping of flesh and Sherri whispered, "It's like watching a horse mate with a walrus."

She ducked behind a bush from where Sherri shot them in coitus.

After a few minutes cousin nudged me and whispered, "I think I have enough."

"Me too." It had been like witnessing the copulation of two extinct dinosaurs.

Back at the house I drank a bottle of Rachelle's best wine to obliterate the image of Schmoses and Rachelle's in coitus.

An hour later Rachelle arrived out of breath and the two had a fight about money.

My cousin held up a camera.

"I got it all on film."

"What?" asked Rachelle, but she knew what.

"You and Schmoses. Your old man doesn't mind you going with girls, but I know how he feels about you going with men. Your choice. Pay me or pay the price."

"That's blackmail." Rachelle took out a checkbook.

"I like to think of it more as an early trick or treat. Plus I'll take cash."

"Here." Rachelle reached into her purse and came up with a wad of c-notes.

"And here's your video."

She glared at me.

"I want you out of here."

"Our pleasure, fatso."

Sherri packed fast and we left the house. Schmoses stood at the edge of the pines. He waved good-bye with his long prong.

My cousin blew him a kiss.

"I love my fans."

"And they love you."

We caught the last boat to the mainland. The ferry ride was a relief from the hot dunes.

"Did you really give her the video of Rachelle and Schmoses?"

"Not until the check clears." Sherri smiled with feline pleasure.

It had been a good trip to Fire Island.

Gay men still ran the beach.

And that was a good thing.

Back in the city we ate steaks at Old Homestead on Rachelle.

Sherri left the next day for Philly.

At the Chinatown bus she gave me $500.

"For your troubles."

"There were no troubles."

"What about the Staff of Schmoses?"

"It was big."

"And it could get bigger."

Sherri was a good cousin and we remained friend through the years.

I never saw Rachelle again, but I recounted the Schmoses story to people from time to time. His cock was really long and his schlong grows longer with each telling of the tale, but he was nothing. Not in comparison to the power of Sherri. She was a goddess.

Even if she snored.

Swimming in the Seine

Painting Alfred Sisley.

FAGIN - Chapter 3 - Novella

The Q train emerged from the tunnel from Manhattan to cross the Manhattan Bridge. The subway car was crowded with 4 O'Click commuters. Standing room only. A young black poet ranted an indecipherable rap, weaving through the passengers, as his scrowcrow body snapped arms, legs, and shoulders to the 4/4 staccato timbali beat in his head. People gave Jass' moves room. Somee had seen his show before and held out dollars. He snatched the bills and nodded his thanks. Mid-bridge Jass hit the extro, as the train entered the Brooklyn tunnel.

"I'm bad, I'm bad, but I ain't no good."

Thirty seconds from the next stop Jass thanked the other passengers and threaded through the cars waving his left to distract attention from his cobra swift slip into two targeted backpacks belonging to oblivious phone texters.

Getting off the train his eyes met with an older white man in a black suit at the opening doors. His gaze was not that of casual interest. He man had clocked something. The old man's eyes were faster than Jass' hands. This was not good and the young man strofe onto the platform without turning around to check, if the old man was following him. He stripped off his shirt and slipped into a non-descript hoodie, then dropped on a Yankees lid, rendering him anonymous to most whites.

A Manhattan-bound A train was pulling into the station Jass ditched his previous shirt i to the trash. He struck the two ipads into his bag. The Q train's doors opened and his eyes left-righted the platform. No sign of the old man. He sat in the subway car and breathed easy.

(to be continued)