Labor Day Travel

Written Sep 1, 2022

In 2008 my good friend Alan Vaughan called from Gary, Indiana. He was driving to Florida. I told him I was leaving Palm Beach for New England. We hadn’t seen each other in a good 6 or 7 years.

“How you getting north?”

“I’m hitchhiking on I-95. I figure it will take 3-4 days.” I had a airline ticket from West Palm Beach to Boston, but preferred to mythize a northbound voyage. “I’m broke so that’s the only way I can get there.”
“You’re kidding?” He was incredulous. “I haven’t seen a hitchhiker the entire trip from the Upper Peninsula.”

“Not one?"

“Not one.”

“Well, I’ll be a blast from the past.”

I hung up and then called Alan the next day from the airport saying I was in Jacksonville.

The next day I told him I was in Dillon South Carolina. On Labor Day I said Roanoke Virginia.

"I’m making real good time."

By the way I was already drinking coffee on Watchic Pond in Standish, Maine.

The trip from West Palm Beach to Boston wasn't fun, but it was fast.

And there's nothing like Maine at the end of summer.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

Flowers are exploding all across the East Village community gardens. The temperature is in the 90s. The air in our apartment has no oxygen. The streets only have a little more. Alice and I have lived together for the last month. I haven't worked a day. Alice is heading home to West Virginia for Labor Day, the traditional end of America's summer, although astrologically the equinox is three weeks away.

I wander downtown. The Jones Diner is packed with blue-collar workers. The staff is third world. Two secretaries shriek in New york accents. Their boyfriends remain silent and eat their lunch. I order a bagel and coffee. At 1 the diner clears out. Everyone has gone back to work. Two Greek children draw in books at a corner table. Strangely they speak Spanish together.

Has anyone ever changed their sex to become a hermaphrodite?

A BEACH DREAM
I was at a seaside resort with Alice
Our cottage was a wreck.
My Uncle Jack visits with kids, all of them six years-old
He complains, "This place is a mess."

I recall his first beach house on the Cape
It was so big
Sand was deep on the wood floors
My Aunt never cleaned anyplace
later we are at the beach
I rescue a child from drowning
I drag him onto the pier
I lose my balance and fall into the water Ropes entangle my limbs

I wake up before dying.

<

September 1, 2021 - Brooklyn

A hard rain all day. I haven't left 387. I wrote from the 1979 journal, napped, and ate several small meals. I only spoke with Jake and Brigette and then only briefly. I have really talked with anyone on the phone or texted someone about nothing.

Brigette painted me as a hermaphrodite. They had heard my tale of the Hermaphrodite statue at the Louvre. Their friend Soap had a tattoo of l'Heramphrodite on her arm. I would love to see it one more time, except it's raining buckets in Brooklyn and I'm not going anywhere, until after my procedure at NYU. Trapped like a laboratory rat seeking reincarnation as a marble statue.

Labor Day 2023

It's Labor Day Weekend.

Labor Day is not Workers Day.

That Holiday is May 1st.

Workers of the World unite.

No such slogan exists for Labor Day. That holiday was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, to oppose May Day, which commemorated the 1885 convention of the American Federation of Labor, which passed a resolution calling for adoption of the eight-hour day effective May 1, 1886. Four days later the Chicago Police and Pinkerton agents attempted to clear a workers' protest from Haymarket Square. Someone threw a bomb, killing a policeman. Eight others died. No one claimed responsibility. The blame fell on anarchists. Four anarchists were executed by hanging. one died of suicide by a smuggled blasting cap. They have been hailed as martyrs every May Day since.

Conservative Democratic President Grover Cleveland had seen May 1 might strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe. According to Wikipedia in 1887 he publicly supported the September Labor Day holiday as a less inflammatory alternative, formally adopting the date as a United States federal holiday through a law that he signed in 1894.

Falling on the first Monday of September the three-day weekend became a popular end of summer holiday. Scholl began tgat next week and even at the age of 71 My body and soul instinctively feels the urge to attend the next grade. BBQs, beaches, drinking beer before the summer is over, but in the heated seasons of the mass species extinction summer might never end. at least that is what it feels like in Brooklyn with a breeze blowing through Metro Tech Plaza.

Tomorrow Hotdogs and the Rockaways.

Riis Park and naked.

ps Only the USA, Canada, and Australia do not celebrate May 1 as well as the Vatican, because May 1 is also a pagan holiday.

The 10 Unanswerables

Augyst 25, 2016 According to the Old Testament Moses descended from Mount Sinai with two stone tablets inscribed with seventeen Commandments and although the adopted son of the pharoah was the only man in the crowd who could read, Yahweh deigned not to write in Egyptian, so there could have been a thousand commandments for all Moses or Charlton Heston knew in the DeMille's version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

The re-interpretation in the ensuing millenia have whittled the 17 to 10, although the late comedian George Carlin shrank the list to One Commandment 'THOU SHALT KEEP THY RELIGION TO THYSELF!!!'

I have religiously obeyed his non-divine edict, as have an increasing number of non-believers, however American education has ignored Judeo-Christian thought for the last half-century along with geography, history, math, art, PE, and any science with an -ology at the end of the word.

People know less and less. Few can complete all the Ten Commandment, however anyone can resurrect the list by going to ask.jeeves.com and the interactive website had come up with its own list called the Ten Unanswerables, which are the following.

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

4. What is the best diet?

5. Is there anybody out there?

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

10. How long will I live?

Having recovered from my Friday night occupation of a bar stool at Solas on East 10th Street, I will try to provide Ten Answers for the Ten Unaswerables.

1. The meaning of life is simple. Live today for tomorrow you die.

2. There certainly isn't a bearded God wearing a muumuu in the clouds.

3. Blondes have more fun, if you like blondes.

4. The best diet is excess in moderation.

5. There are plenty of anybodies out there. They just don't know where we are.

6. The famous person in the world is Andre the Giant. To me at least.

7. Love is like pornography, I know it when I feel it.

8. The secret to happiness is loving yourself and the world around you. Even in North Philadelphia, which can be a very bad place.

9. Death on TV is cancellation. Even Tony Soprano can't escape swimming with the fish on TV.

10. Everyone lives until they die. See answer one.

Not trying to be smart, for anyone who thinks that he has heard all the answers has not heard all the questions.

Holy White Moses

January 19, 2015

While Charlie Bebdo portrayed Hassidim and Arabs as hook-nosed monsters, Hollywood cast a white man, Christian Bale, as Moses, which is almost as good as Paul Newman starring in the original EXODUS about the Zionists occupying Palestine for the White Race.

But nobody did Moses better than the Yahweh of Charleton Heston in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

"Am I white enough for you, Yahweh?"

No one ever pulled the Ten Commandments out of Charleton Heston's dead hands.

Personally I prefer Isaac Hayes, then again I'm a race traitor and proud of it too.

NAPS OF THAILAND by Peter Nolan Smith

When a Chinese general was asked about how the People's Army were defeated by the Vietnamese in 1979, he replied, "We get up at 5am and they get up at 4."

The draconian work ethic of NVA seemed to have been sapped by the torrid climes closer to the equator, because Thais and Laotians are epic sleepers with an uncanny ability to find comfort in conditions better suited to a CIA rendition camp.

Some farangs attributed this hyper-sleeping habit to oriental lassitude, however their Eurocentric observations are way off mark.

Most Thais wake before dawn to work in the rice fields until the heat hits treacherous body-sapping temperatures and then 'Khon tam khao' retreat from the sun for a good meal followed by a better nap or nge'ep before returning to the fields for the long afternoon.

This rice farming tradition has been transported to the cities where workers labor from dawn to dusk six days a week.

Having lived in the South of France, where siestas are a valued cultural treasure, I often defended the Thais and other Asians' sleeping habits.

"Naps are good for you," I once said at the Buffalo Bar.

"So explain to me why bar girls sleep twenty hours at a clip," an English bar-goers asked in Pattaya. Jim had been here for years. His vocabulary in Thai was limited to orders for more beer and sexual propositions.

"Only can be several reasons." I'd been in the Orient since 1990.

I didn't have all the answers.

Just some of the right ones.

"Like what?" Jim was eying his date. The plump bargirl seemed alert for the moment. The fifty year-old mustn't have paid her yet.

"First is that she's exhausted from having sex with you." Many farangs in Thailand exist on a diet of Viagra and alcohol.

"Could be." The bar-goer smiled with pride.

"Second, she could be on ja-bah and crashes after sex." His girl's fatness excluded her huffing meth. She was a healthy eater.

"No way. The cops piss-tested her at Marine Disco the other night. She came up clean."

"Well, that leaves only one other explanation and this comes from a very knowledgeable Mama-san of a go-go bar. She said the reason most of these girls sleep so much is that they're trying to escape the reality of having to have sex with a fat farang and would rather live inside a sleep world until they have enough money to rejoin other Thai people. Of course this couldn't pertain to you since you're such a sex hero."

Jim tipped the scales over 280 and his age was a 20th of Methuselah. No one had called him 'sexy' since he was in his teens and that person had probably been the parish priest. For an Englishman Jim had good smile considering he had half his front teeth.

"I'm not so sure about that." Even Jim recognized that he was no Apollo.

Me neither, but I like hearing girls tell me I'm the best I ever had.

It's a lie which improved with age and I sleep in peace content to accept a well-intentioned lie.

Sleeping well is a talent an old man admires with age.

Those damn Thais.

There is nothing like a good nap and as Carrie Snow once said, “No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.”

Ching ching.

August 1 1987 - East Village - Journal

Good old Bridget has gotten himself into a dicey situation on the Cote d'Azur. Guy, her ex- legionnaire husband has impregnated a secretary working for his clothing company. Bridget and Guy at first married in 1982 to get her French papers in order, since her South African passport was banned for most countries, which is uncool for a top fashion model. Somehow this union of accomdation has continued for five years and her husband has finance her fashion line Yorke and Cole with Julie Cole. I can't count the times that the two of them were on the rocks and I've witnessed it close up, since I live with Bridget on Ile St. Louis.

Bridget convinced her husband that I wasn't a threat by saying I was gay.

She and I have never even flirted, because if I was to have sex with her, she would throw me out within a month and I need some place to stay and she needs someone to take care of her dear dog the Scottie, Angus.

Bridget's being angry with Guy is the height of hypocrisy, since she's been having an affair with Fabrice Langlade, a young painter with a Steaming Muslims, a popular artist collective. They fuck all the time. Bridget is cruel to him, to her husband, to our partner julie call, but never to Angus. Her nickname is Cruella, but I like her.

Guy and I get along. as a teenager he had served in Algeria with a Legion and once told me how his troop had forced all the inhabitants of the village into a mosque and then threw grenades inside. He was telling the truth. Drinking with him here in Paris and down on Cap d'Antibes.

Bridget is in love with Fabrice. Guy wanted her to be the perfect wife. No one is perfect, but he is satisfied with her, because he submits to her anally.

About the girlfriend down south, Bridget said, "I couldn't stand seeing her face in the office everyday smiling like she had won.

Her Wildcat temper got the better of her and she caused the grand scandal at the Biot office by beating up her rival and having her hair pulled out. He's fine the secretary would have been the next move, but the Lord opted against that maybe he likes having sex with a secretary better. Both Julie and Bridget want me to act like a dangerous terrorist, when I go down to the South later this month, not that I could scare a legionnaire.

I have my ticket booked for London as a courier and told my friends David tidball barry and Albert expect me August 20th. London in my old comrades even after 7 months in the United States. I don't know how I can deal with these Americans in their present mood under Ronald Reagan. Europe seems so idyllic now, easily forgotten that there are hard times there when there are no jobs not at all, being broke at the harsh mercy of Candida, no memory is too short

April 22 1987 - East Village - Journal

Still no lights in my apartment

ConEd shut off.

Alan Vaughn showed up from Florida on route to London. At lunch today ," he said, " i love to travel." then proceeded to tell me all about the demise of his fair with his winter living, natalia, aKA seven rooms of Gloom

"You know I'd come back from trips planes Trains. And feeling beat. I'd open the door, and that should be. Sitting watching some terrible French television show she look up and Mumble something like hello and go back to her dreariness. In the end I had to tell her to go and she took it really easy. Came the next day got her things, " what do you think was I wasting my time

Alan looked at me for truth

"I don't think there's anything wrong with her in the winter or rather being with her in the winter but let's face it enough was enough. That girl suffers from some form of pseudo-catatonia. It was time for her to go___ anyway you had to recover after the Thomas Cole disaster. That she lost that sale didn't help."

Alan's face scrunched up at the mere mention of Chee's name. After all the rumors that they were an item had been heard even this far from the schemes that she. He had seen her brothers this morning midtown. Never Can Say Goodbye.

After all it was spring and April is in the coolest month of all in Miami but London. Winter takes its time dying there.

"How is it with Chee anyway," i know I asked damn well the answer would be forthcoming and wouldn't you know it before he could say a word the waitress place at bacon and eggs right on cue. Yes the old man Magic still comes through.

Hudson spring almost The last lash of winter when black waffle river Shark fins cutting through the Hudson The Sun Swollen with doubt Shine or not shine The street lights dim For the dawn and the cold wet wind swirls off the river As empty taxis swish away On the West Side Highway Where the lights Inot New York's dying night.

The SS Showboat Mayflower Nantasket

From 2012

A fleet of side wheel steamers plied the waters of Boston harbor in the early part of the 20th Century. The flotilla was reduced to one by a fire in 1919. The Mayflower remained in service until 1948. After its decommission its new owner had the white-hulled ship hauled close to shore several yards from Paragon Park and opened the Showboat for business as a nightclub. Sighting the old paddle-wheeler announced our family's arrival at Nantasket Beach for a day of surf, sun, and fun. My father gave a quarter to the first person to spot the grounded ship.

My father was a Mayflower descendant and we joked that the Pilgrims came over in the Showboat.

We never stopped there.

Nightclubs were for adults.

As a teenager the Surf Nantasket superseded the attractions of Paragon Park and we drove down in out VW every Saturday night to dance at the Surf Nantasket to assorted cover bands like the Techniques, Mods, Chosen Few, and the house band the Rockin' Ramrods, who had a regional hits with BRIGHT LIGHTS BLUE SKIES and SHE LIED. Sometimes bigger groups like Steppenwolf and the Doors played special concerts for teenagers on the South Shore.

In the fall of 1969 I drove to the ballroom in a VW Beetle that I shared with my brother. He was in college and got first shot at the car. He chose Friday nights, which worked out for both of us.

One evening I loaded the car with my sister, her friend, Chuckie Manzi, and a friend of us just back from Marine boot camp. We drank beers on the way down, since the Surf only served soft drinks. We danced to the top hits spun by the DJ from WBZ and then watched the band. After the Surf closed, the five of us got back in the car for the ride home.

It was 11:30 and traffic was light on Route 228. I sped up to 50 around the curve by Paragon Park. The Mayflower was on the right. The parking lot was empty. Passing the darkened ship I spotted oncoming headlights. Without any turn signal the big Olds crossed the four-lane state highway. I stamped on the brakes and then time was accelerated by the force of the head-on collision whipping our car into a spin.

Glass shattered in my face. The impact buckled my door and flung me onto the pavement. Car wheels rolled by my head and then the speed of the present returned to normal.

I sat up.

The steering wheel was in my hand.

The front of the VW had been crumpled by the accident. I ran to the door and peered inside. My sister, her friend, Chuckie, and the marine were cut by glass, but no one was injured badly. I turned to the Olds. A woman sat behind the wheel. She was trying to start the engine. I walked over to the car and rapped on her window. She shouted at me to go away. Her voice sounded drunk in a manly way.

Several cars stopped and their drivers helped us.

A young man pulled open the door of the Olds and took away the woman's keys. Rubberneckers stared out the window. Sirens neared the scene of the crash.

"You're going nowhere."

"But I'm late."

"There's no one in the Showboat. It's closed."

"Oh."

"So you almost killed us to meet someone who wasn't there." I had a temper.

"You're all alive." The young man pushed me away from the Olds. "That's the important thing."

"You're right." I looked back at my sister. She gave me a smile. We were alive. The ambulance took my sister and her friend to the hospital. The police drove us to the station. They wanted our statement.

"The woman drove into us head-on. No lights or nothing."

"She said that you drove into her." The officer was a veteran to teenage crashes on 228. Not a year passed without a fatality on the road.

"She's lying."

"That's what another man said."

The police escorted the woman to a cruiser. She was taller than either officer and had stubble.

"Can we go to hospital now?" I wasn't saying anything more without a lawyer.

Everyone was okay, but later I told my father that there had been something strange about the woman.

“Strange how?”

“Like she was strange.”

“How?”

“Like she could have been a man.”

“A woman that could have been a man.” My older brother laughed. “She must have been some kind of ugly.”

“I guess she was.”

Without a car the Surf was too far away from my hometown. That spring I graduated from high school and in the fall attended Boston College. THe following May my long-haired college friends and I visited Paragon Park for the seasonal opening. We rode the rides and saw the Techniques at the Surf. Both were fun on reefer. None of us went inside the SS Showboat and it burned down in 1979.

This year I searched for any information about the club on Google. There was just a few photos like the rest of my past, but I later learned that the Showboat had been a tranny bar, which explained the Olds driver’s strangeness, but she might have just been a mannish woman. Boston was a Navy town back in those days and those Marine nurses were very masculine.

I have searched for more information about the Mayflower on Google.

The Mayflower had provided passenger service between Boston and Nantasket Beach from the 1890s through the 1930s. In the 1940s she was taken out of service, grounded at Nantasket Beach, and converted into a nightclub called the the Showboat. The Showboat operated for many years, but by the 1970s, it had become a derelict and abandoned structure. In the autumn of 1979, it caught fire under unknown circumstances and burned to the ground.

There was just a few photos like the rest of my past.

“Strange, but the truth is always strange, when we revived the old memories of things gone by."

BRIGHT LIGHTS BLUE SKIES by the ROCKIN' RAMRODS

Too Much Smiling

FAMOUS FOR NEVER on Sale

FAMOUS FOR NEVER

A STORY OF FAME AND MISFORTUNE

BY

PETER NOLAN SMITH

Rome wasn’t burnt in a day. – James Steele

MANGOZEEN BOOKS 2024

In the 1970s city politicians launched countless projects to stem the tide of ‘white flight’. None of the doomed programs achieved their goals and the population of the Lower East Side shriveled from 120,000 to 60,000, never hitting zero, because cheap rents, proximity to the subways, and minimal police presence proved irresistible to malcontents disenchanted with the morality of the Silent Majority War and a diverse smattering of gays, drifters, artists, musicians, and addicts reversed the flow from the smoldering desolation.

Soon stutterers read poetry without ridicule to NYU coeds. Bums squatted derelict buildings without fear of landlords. Teenager girls denied cheerleader destinies were offered opiated ballerina gigs at sordid go-go bars. Graffiti artists painted heaven on toppled walls with spray cans. Hell portrayed itself without any artistic endeavors.

Jean-Michel Basquiat appeared out of nowhere. Andy Warhol recognized the young Haitian’s genius. His paintings sampled the history of black as if the icons were sampled by a hip-hop DJ, however his mania was cursed by fame and he said he wish he was nobody like me. Heroin was his pay day. Junkies normally only care about heroin, but Jean-Michel was blessed by an eternal desire to paint through his ever-tragic fame.

I knew Jean-Michel.

He once painted my refrigerator.

FAMOUS FOR NEVER recounts the opposite poles of fame and failure.

I saw him a week before his death.

The summer of 1988 at my apartment.

He left me a gift.

I wished he was still alive, but he emulated Nick Tosches’ first line of THE DEVIL AND SONNY LISTON.

“Sonny Liston was a man born to die.”

And that is the awful truth

FAMOUS FOR NEVER costs $16 plus $5 shipping

Order via Venmo – Peter Smith @ Peter-Smith-18

Order via Paypal – pascharay@hotmail.com

Masturbating Ban By Wasps - Conversation with Sharon Mitchell

Pete!

Text Conversation between Sharon Mitchell in Santa Cruz and me in Clinton Hill

Sharon - I think I'm losing my mind or something. I just keep having really weird dreams and usually every night when I take a shower, I use a little bit of body wash and then some oil for moisture but tonight it was like I couldn't get clean ENOUGH! I scrubbed myself with the hard end of the loofah sponge all over my body like four times. It was like I couldn't get cleaning enough!

I always masturbate every night in the shower, and I usually bring myself to a clitoral orgasm, ut tonight I couldn't come enough! I must've brought myself to orgasm nine times and it still wasn't enough, so I got my Lucite dildo out and fucked myself in the pussy, while jacking off with my Clit and it's still wasn't enough! So I got out my other dildo and fucked myself in the ass the pussy, while letting the water from the shower hit my clit and I finally had a huge orgasm. After ut I washed my hair again for the third time and scrubbed myself again with the loofah shaved my legs. It was the weirdest thing it's like I couldn't get enough of anything. I just felt I don't know what I felt like. I had an Itch from the inside out everywhere.

And no, I am not on meth.

Moi - Have you thought about issuing a restraining order against your hands?

Ha ha ha. Funny you should say that. Now I have one. I was watering last evening and I got bit by a flurry of yellow jackets. Look at my hand. (see above photo)

Moi - As a child a produce stand threw their fruit crates into a small gully. Wasps set up a colony and my friends, brother, and I decided to exterminate them with shovels. The neighborhood kids gathered to watch the show. We set to smashing the wooden boxes. The wasps rose from the gully in a swarm to attack their tormenters and our audience. Screaming kids swatting at the waps. My sister got it the worse

My father asked whose bright idea was it to disturb the wasps.

Everyone looked at me.

"I hope you learned your lesson."

Hell, yeah.

Foto Sharon 1980

Marais Rendezvous - November 23, 1983 - Journal

Rendezvous
Sasha at 7:00
Ma Bourgogne
Place Des Vosges
Her husband out of town___
Someplace to go
Someone to meet.
6:45
Leave the apartment___
Out on Rue de Deux Ponts
Le nuit
Light floats as bulbs
Atop the street lamps
The sidewalk
Swept by a cold northern rain
A good raincoat, gloves, a beret
Okay___
Crossing the Pont Marie
Heading to the Marais
The trees along the Seine
Bare branches
No leaves underfoot
The city workers rake the gutters daily
Jacques Chirac
The mayor imagines this act
Will win the presidency of France
Maybe
But the romance of Paris
Less without November's fallen leaves___
Arrive late
Ma Bourgogne___
Wet
Un peu
Shake off the rain
Sit at the table
A smile from Sasha
Sit
Kiss
Another ma's wife
In Paris
On a rainy November night___

Fotos by Brassai

February 23 1983 - Paris - Journal

Another night of sex with Mary Cheape, an Irish waitress at the studio Mexican restaurant. Having the night off from my new doorman job at the Bains-Douches, I had gone to the restaurant at midnight. I waited for her to finish her shift, getting a few drinks from Tony Bowers, a Lower Alabama guitarist. Mary had a glass of wine, then we walked over to the rousette's apartment on Rue du Temple. "My clothes smell of food I hate it. I hate working in restaurants." "All I smell is Paris." Traffic this late at night was non-existant in the Marais. I pulled up her hair from the nape of her neck. I smelled only flesh. "And I smell you." Inside her apartment she strips, embarrassed not by being naked but by the soiled underwear on the floor. "I always feel so dirty. My skin smells of food." I lean over and sniff at her skin cupping her breast. The only light comes from the street lamps below. I can't figure out whether she's attractive. My first impression that she's beautiful, but she's always changing different angles different lights her mood the Shadows your long red hair Crossing her face with green eyes underneath that Veil. An hibernian chameleon shape-shifting like a witch. I've always liked women who never look the same, a set piece for desire. She does my zipper and pull down my jeans. I strip naked as well and we f*** on her bed. We f*** each other senseless i enter her she takes me in a flesh pounding together pelvis bones. Pushing our bodies to the limit. She orgasms twice and I finally feel the urge to come . "Don't come in me." She doesn't use birth control and doesn't like condoms. She said, "I like to feel of bare cock in me." I trust hard and withdraw unable to restrain the urge to finish. my my sperm splatters over her belly like melted pearls. Her long red pubic hair wet with her own juices. I don't mind coitus interruptus with her. Coming on her breasts her ass her face. She likes it too. A wicked Irish girl. Lying a Topper i can feel i can f*** her again in a few minutes , but if I do i'll probably be unable to use my cock for a week. Mary draws me close to her and turns on her side i feeling very small of her back. Her her ass grinds into my pelvis . There's no mistaking what she wants. Until I met her i hadn't had any sex since i left Hamburg and I think of the time before with Stephanie. Thinking later that that was the last sex I'll ever have. I was wrong and I enter Mary Funny many of us have experienced sexual hibernation during the last months; julie condition call , philippe and Rafael to stones and heroin to f***. So many others high on heroin in Paris. I had no one and no one had me . Then last week married France took me home she's a beautiful Marilyn Monroe transsexual. She hit her penis skillfully and we had sex three times in the night. I hope to get her another time but she never even looks my way. So I just exercised this lighter hand until I met Mary . Rough times but now I seem to have found my libido . Tomorrow go to Notre Dame and light it to Frank candle , after it's praying to Sweet Mary please marry please don't send my cock away "

The Revised 10 Commandments

From november 22, 2011

Number 1 - There is no god, so you don't have to worry about having other gods

Number 2 - Feel imaginative about images of spirituality.

Number 3 - Refrain from saying the name of a god that doesn't exist ie OMG. He will not help you in floods, disaster, bankruptcy, or police stops. You are on your own.

Number 4 - Sunday is a day of rest. Make the most of it by doing absolutely nothing other than kicking back with friends and family. Skip church.

Number 5 - Treat your parents with respect. No one is perfect.

Number 6 - Spare the life of everyone that deserves a break, but remember that the world would be better off without some people, so never think that by killing a monster that you are no better than them. That's just Hollywood bullshit.

Number 7 - Love your neighbor's wife or husband or bith with all the love you can, just be careful not to be caught, because it's not the love that is wrong. it's the getting caught that is the sin.

Number 8 - If you lose something then it wasn't yours to begin with in the first place. All possessions are transitory. Share and share alike or else.

Number 9 - If you have nothing good to say about someone then say nothing, but if the nothing good is true, then tell everyone the truth. It will set you free.

Number 10 - The difference between adultery and loving your neighbor's life is strictly semantics. Free yourself. Two people happy is better than four people unhappy.

Train Travel By Night - July 27, 1983 - Paris - Journal

Night time
Someplace in America
Friday night
Travel by night
o fun
Nothing to see, but Darkness
Sometimes passing through small town.
The semi-blue TV glow
In the living room window
Marking the passing houses
Upstairs
All the children asleep___
Mom and Dad have gone out
For dinner, for drinks, with their friends
In the suburbs
Leaving Young Janie to babysit
Mom and Dad's Little Johnny___
Does Jenny make phone calls?
Or text??
Does Jenny have plans to have boys come over
To have no panty sex heavy breathing no panting___
Even Little Johnny's dad wants her
Janie on Mom's bed
Naked
Safe for the panties on her ankles___
But Janie's not giving it up.
Not tonight
But one night soon.
Yes, that is what the night hides from the train traveler
Suburban sins of a Friday night.
And the train keeps a-rolling
Across America.

I always on the south window heading back from Boston to New York on a Amtrak train.

Once passing through the pine barrens beyond Providence, I spotted a young teen girl standing alone on a dirt road crossing naked. She danced to something and was gone. I've never forgotten her. In the barrens. The pines are never bare.

Smile On, Kamala, Smile On

Less than a month ago president joe Biden debated donald Trump on National Television. It did not go good for Joe. He looked lost in the stage and didn't seem to be able to see as he dazed out past the audience into seemingly the Oblivion of old age. Donald Trump was probably in the same condition except he recognized that Joe was looking older even though only 3 years separated them. Trump kept repeating the same old mantra of fear-mongering. Joe couldn't respond in the weeks that followed support for the president to be the Democratic candidate for the 2024 election slip both with the populace and the politicians. He tried on several occasions to look presidential, but the damage was done.

Last night vice president Kamala Harris accepted the presidential nomination at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Joe Biden gave a speech at midnight the day before. The DNC figuring to hide him from the public. They are the worst. Hopefully Kamala Harris resist their control, although all she seems to do is smile all the time. She has come out and said that the War in Gaza must stop, although the DNC refuse to allow anybody to speak out on the IDF's genocide. At least harris did not name Joe Shapiro as vice president and picked governor Tim Walz as a running mate.

President Biden has served the country proudly and well since his election in the 1970s the Senate representing the state of Delaware and as president for the last 4 years. I wish he had run in 2016 instead of Hillary but once more the DNC got their way.

Smile on, Kamala, smile on.

At least she has good musical tastes.

Riis Park - August 17, 2024

At the beach
Yesterday
Sea
Waves
Wind
Warm
Sand
Shifts
Beneath my feet

August 23, 1983 - Paris - Journal

Raoul from New York is Paris' leading baby bum for the last 6 months. Baby bum is my term for all the young transients hanging at the Pere Tranquille from this city, France, Europe and everywhere around the world, who come to the City of Light without any plan other than cast their fate to the wind. With everything considered I like the Dear Boy, who hasn't worked a single day since arriving in Paris at the request of no one.

I let him sleep over here on Rue des Deux Ponts on Ile St. Louis. Bridget is away on a fashion shoot for Vogue or Elle, maybe the cover. Here on the top floor duplex garret, just me, Raoul and Angus, her dear scotty. Raul was worried about sleeping in the rough, having heard death threats from the clochards under the bridges. He speaks perfect French, but they can tell he's an Amerlot or American. Sometimes he sleeps in the parks hiding under cardboard boxes. New Yorkers think Paris isn't tough, but the thugs carry knives and they use them. Raoul carries a knife too. I keep on telling him not to, but he's from New York, Few of the other baby bums survive this way. This is not his City. It's not my city, but as a doorman of the Bains-Douches I ruled a small part of the city from 9:00 to 4:00 in the morning.

Heading back to New York to live with his Marx's parents and NYU. Raul is a good mooch. I shall miss his light as a feather touch. Free entry at Les Bains-Douches, free drinks from the German bartender, and he never asks for a dime. None of the other baby bums come close.

The Hanging Elm VDO

RIP ROSE BUTLER

The Hanging Elm

The Hanging Elm Northeast corner of Washington Square Park, the Village. The tree dates back to the 1600s and stands over 140 feet tall. On. July 13, 1819 thousands of spectators crowded around the gallows to witness the execution of a nineteen year-old slave girl. Her crime. Arson. Rose Butler had set fire to her master's house. No one had been hurt, but arson was a capital offense under New York State laws along with murder and treason. Her last words: “I am satisfied as to the justness of my fate—it is all right.” The trap was pulled. She died and was buried on the spot. Every time I pass the Hanging Elm, I say a prayer for Rose Butler. She still lives

On A Boat Pond - October 17, 1981 - Journal

Autumn settles on the boat pond
Central Park trees
Green to Orange to Yellow
On the pond
Two radio-controlled sloops
Race
Driven South
By a crisp Northwesterly
An imitation
America Cup___

Here
Central Park
Not the East Village
Rosy red cheek children
Run around the pond
An arm's reach
From foreign nannies and young mothers___

I remember being young
Change of autumn
Of an October wind
Through the trees
Of the Blue Hills.
Like then
All the colors
So special
The blue of the sky
The white of the clouds, silver and gray too__

Now
Autumn
Transforming the trees' color spectrum
From Green to yellow to orange to red
Under
The strong sunlight of October
Hearing the children's laughter
Remember mine
And my mother's laughter
So long ago in our backyard
In the Blue Hills.
Laughter...

Gnawing Wolves

I can't drowned, because Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake in 1960. I'm more a jumper, but have always feared surviving the failure of any attempt at suicide. During my descent to death Maz was enlisted to help me end it all, but driving past the boreal pines of Quebec to the tundra. Someplace where the trees are small.

I planned on getting out of the car and walking into the wizened wasteland wearing warm clothing with an eight-ball of smack and a couple of grams of coke. Find a tree under which to sit comfortably and hit up a double OD speedball. Trying back from 100, not even getting back to 97 from 100.

My fear.

I'm stronger than death.

The hot shot was not hot enough and I wake to the sound of a timber wolve gnawing on my feet.

Crunch crunch crunch.

I shout and limp from the tudra to the road.

Maz is snorting blow behind the wheel of the car. He gets out and opens the passenger door.

"Wolf?"

"Yes."

"Cool."

I wrap my gnarled foot with duct tape.

Maz turns around and we drive back to Quebec. It was a dream, but I fought off death and live today, for nothing is written other than by the wind. I ain't going nowhere yet.

Ryōkan Taigu DEWDROPS ON A LOTUS BLOSSOM

Returning to my native village after many years’ absence: Ill, I put up at a country inn and listen to the rain. One robe, one bowl is all I have. I light incense and strain to sit in meditation; All night a steady drizzle outside the dark window— Inside, poignant memories of these long years of pilgrimage.

Ryōkan Taigu was a quiet and unconventional Sōtō Zen Buddhist monk who lived much of his life as a hermit. Ryōkan is remembered for his poetry and calligraphy, which present the essence of Zen life. - wikipedia

This spring I found his book DEWDROPS ON A LOTUS BLOSSOM on a brownstone's steps in Clinton Hill and read

Who says my poems are poems? My poems are not poems. When you know that my poems are not poems, Then we can speak of poetry!

The Zen of Chance

See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%8Dkan

The Sin of Banality

"There is nothing more awful, depressing, and depressing than banality.”— Anton Chekhov

This quote was posted on Instagram by Eric Mitchell, famed B-Movie actor and self proclaimed Pittsfield slumlord. Contemporary counter

"Banality is an unappreciated virtue along with hypocrisy." - James Steele - fugitive

Banality statue by the king of banality, Jeff Koons

Provincetown Lore - niizh manitoag

In the autumn of 1620 my antecedent, John Howland, crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower. Mid-voyage a storm washed passenger the indentured servant was overboard. He sank about 12 feet (4 m), but a crew member threw a rope, which Howland managed to grab, and he was safely hauled back onboard. The pilgrims landed after the prevailing winds prevented their sailing south to Virginia. The settlers left the peninsula, which the Nauset people called Meeshaun or 'going by boat'. Seemed the Puritans were upset by native gays or niizh manitoag” (two spirits) the Algonquin term for transgender or homosexual genders. No one was said to see the back of the grim saganash or white men. We queers like our freedom offered by such dead end communities such as P-Town, Fire Island or Key West.

According to https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/ Tennessee Williams later described the four groups who made up Provincetown’s residents. He belonged to the first two: The flamboyant gay summer visitors and the elite artists and writers who came to write, paint, dance or act. Third, gay wash-ashores who came as visitors and stayed year-round to work or run businesses. Finally, the Yankee, Portuguese and mixed-race native gays.

The playwright Tennessee Williams, then 29, arrived in the summer of 1940. He joined a group “dominated by a platinum blonde Hollywood belle named Doug and a bull-dike named Wanda who [was] a well-known writer under a male pen name.” Ptown, he wrote, was “screaming with creatures not all of whom are seagulls.”

It remains a safe haven for sailors and other wanderers to this day.

My first trip there was in 1971 with Bruce and Paul. Friends frm from the 1270 Club in Boston. Bruce and I drank at the Shipwreck and fucked with complete strangers from the Meat Rack. Paul was in love with me and watched from the shadows.

Please read Cape Queer? A Case Study of Provincetown, Massachusetts and Provincetown: From Pilgrim Landing to Gay Resort by Karen Christel Krahulik,for a better grasp of P-town's his/her/themtory.

ps John Howland fathered eleven children in a long life in the Bay Colony.

Blaze and Basketball

From 3/5/14 2:58 PM

Several years ago I saw this photo on a neighbor's wall during a party.

My sports love is basketball, both watching the games and playing street ball, but I was enthralled by the four young boys ignoring the burning building in favor of a game of two-on-two.

Billy was busy with his guests, so I couldn't ask him about the black-and-white photo.

I searched the internet for the photo without success.

I figured it was from the Bronx in 1975.

I had no idea of knowing whether I was right.

Yesterday I caught Billy leaving his apartment and asked him about the photo.

"C'mon inside." He had someplace to go, but wasn't in a hurry.

The photo hung in the entrance as a statement of Billy's belief in chaos. He showed the back of the print. Paul Hosefrus had taken the shot in the Bronx. The year had been 1975. He called it BLAZE AND BASKETBALL.

"I was twenty-two back then. New York was really this New York."

"I know."

I thanked Billy.

My guess had been on the money, but without his help I would have never found BLAZE AND BASKETBALL.

Two-on-two on fire.

Chimp Crazy

Tuesday night I attended the HBO premiere of CHIMP CRAZY directed by Eric Goode.

I was struck in this film by how these chimp lovers desire the love of the chimps to satisfy an emptiness in their lives, while oblivious to the pain of their loved ones. Strangely their providers are also trapped in life, living in the same prison as correctional guards, all of them eating the same food they feed their charges. Fast food, as if this consumption might evolve to a more homo sapiens state, as has mankind thanks to the genetic modification of our world.

Back in the 1970s a college schoolmate had a chimp catptive in his basement. My good friend Neil and I went over to see Stevie's pet. Both of us were shocked to see a grown chimp chained to the basement wall. Lunging at Stevie in vain attempts to kill his captor. Stevie finally freed the chimp to the Franklin Park Zoo. I still see his eyes wide-open in rage.

But as wicked as is the incarceration the film still showed the blindness of the love and there hurt after PETA rescues the last seven primates from Missouri Primate Foundation, an ape mill in Festus, Missouri. All other apes have been moved from the facility after its losing its permit. Acting pursuant to a court order, PETA this week removed all six of the remaining chimpanzees held at the former Missouri Primate Foundation (MPF) breeding compound in Festus, and they are now living at a Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries–accredited sanctuary.

The film touches on humor, outrage, and the realization that thousands of apes are prisoners all over the world. I remember Pattycake, the caged gorilla in the Central Park Zoo, who had been the zoo's major attraction since her birth in 1972. Trapped without a twig of green in their enclosure. Nothing sadder than their eyes meeting yours.

CHIMP CRAZY doesn't beat up on the owner or the care-giver. As stated in the film chimps are 94% human according to modern science. This episode suggests that chimps are more human than homo sapiens and people love them for our loss of humanity. If only they could be free, but they are trapped as are we by Man's belief of superiority over other species and even our own.

Eric Goode has been involved in saving threatened animals around the world and I applaud this film for once more filming the shadowy world of wildlife trafficking.

Bravo.

ps Patty Cake was freed from Central Park to the Bronx Zoo's Congo Gorilla Forest in 1982, where she gave birth to ten babies. Not free ever.

B & H Dairy

Last evening my friend from the Yucatan and I had pirogis at the B&H, which opened in 1938. Feh. Velselkas is better. Afterwards as we walked down 2nd Avenue, I was struck by the many vacant retail spaces. Looked to be more than half. Tweren't that way in the 70s. There was the Stage Deli, Gem Spa, Kiev, the Orchida, and the St. Mark's Theater. Plenty of other establishments enlivened the avenue. Covid killed many, but nothing like the greed of the realtors. The first people to go in a revolution are landlords.

Although not those like Jerome Golding who owned 256 E 10th and the Fun Gallery. His loving wife invited me over for dinner, even when I was months behind in rent.

When Jerome rightfully harangued me for the late rent, sometimes as much as six months, his wife said, "Leave the boycek alone. He's always good for it."

He sighed and shrugged defeat. What a couple.

His wife outlived Jerome and was blessed to pass after eating blueberry blintzes at the end of Kaffee klatch with her friends. At Ratner's Dairy on Delancey. Good people.

ps. The East Village will survived the curse of capitalism. There have to be other Jerome Goldings out there.

POK A POK

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POK A POK

The Mayans have always inhabited Meso-America. Western archaeologists dated their presence back 10,000 years ago and their agrarian communities flourished im spurts governed climate swings, as the land was capable of maintaining a gonite population. The culture reached its apex from 250 AD to 900 after which the civilizations of Copan and Tikal retreated from greatness and the Mayans depopulated the Yucatan. They remained the dominant tribe, resisting the other kingdoms, the Spanish, and Mexicans into the 20th Century.

Their physical features haunted the generations. Faces were related across Central America, even as they suffered thr fury of their mestizo overlords in Guatemala and Mexico. Forced to flee their rural homelands by violent drug wars and climate collapse, the Mayans have flooded across the US borders with their families in tow. They are hard-working and honest, but their offspring's DNA has been subjected to modification from GMO foods and Gringo Culturelos.There is no escaping Barbie or Fast Food.

I recently saw a tall Mayan. At least six feet tall. They didn't exist that tall in the last century.

In 1988 I spent a summer on the Yucatan in Isla des Mujeres. The Posada del Mar. $20 a night with a Pina Colada by the swimming pool inclusive. The Mayan staff were super friendly and we played Basketball in the town square. At 5-10 I was the center, but we bested the taller gringos with speed and my fouling. Deep into summer a team of Italian women showed up at the court. A fishing boat washed ashore by the previous year's hurricane provided shade. The Italian were tall. Our squad's height was 5-6 at best. The Italian women were all over sex feet. We played for fun. They were an organized team. We accepted the challenge.

This was our home court and it was a hot day.

AJ Koo our captain said, "No substitution."

We were only five.

They were eight.

Most gringos faded after fifteen minutes. The heat was our advantage. Both teams took the court and players matched up against our opponents. Townspeople and tourists stopped to watch. Ki'in our point guard with wicked range said, "These are women. We will play like caballeros." Gentlemen.

"Game to fifteen. Win by two."

"7-0 shutout wins." The blonde center grabbed the ball. "Visitors take out."

"Losers buy the beers." The center sneered at me. They had uniforms. Good trainers too. Our sneakers had seen better times. The center introduced herself, "Cara."

"Pedro."

The first time down the court, their center posted upback to the hoop. The guard passed a bullet and she spun around to clock my head with an elbow. I saw stars and my knees buckled. The center bumped me on her way up court.

Aj Koon came to my side and asked, "Caballeros???"

"Pok-ta-Tok."

The Mayans nodded their head in unison and said as one, "Pok-A-Pok."

The ball game had been played by the Mayans for over a thousand years. Considered by anthropologists as the first team sport Pok-a-Pok helped to resolve bitter disputes between rival cities or as a proxy for war. The Maya also saw the game as a battle between the gods of death and the gods of life or between good and evil, micmicking the Hero Twins, who overcame death and became demi-gods themselves according to historyonthenet.com.

This was their court, their town, their Yucatan.

"KO'ONE'EX."

"Lets go," shouted Ki'in and he took the ball town court through the flatfooted Italians and scored an east lay-up.

1-1.

The battle was on. I mercilessly fouled the center, who was sweating bullets. She tried to dunk on me several times. I pushed her off stride with less than gentle hand checks. She called them fouls and I called her a hypocrite. She understood my meaning. Hypocrite was ipocrita in Italian. I sang the word to her like Romeo under Julitte's balcony.

They led 8-5.

The center blocked my shot twice.

Luckily Aj Koo rebounded both for easy shots.

According to Archaeologists Pok-a-Pok had been played between two and four players a team using arms, legs, and hips to place a ball through a stone hoop. The game could last two weeks. According to Archaeologists the losers were ritually sacrificed upon defeat. This game was merely win or lose. Neither side was playing for a draw.

The sun took its toll on the Ts’ulo’ob or strangers. They slowed down and got sloppy. Cara couldn’t score her hooks. Imhad yet to shoot a shot. The crowd had grown to a hundred plus. Tourists cheering on the Italians. Townspeople Los Mayans despite their traditional prejudice against Los Indios.

10-9 Italians.

I blocked Cara’s upfake and chucked the ball down the line to Ki’in’s brother, who hit from the corner. The Italians were dying of thirst. We got bottles of water from friends. We battled every point, but the Italians were better than us.

13-11.

“I can’t wait to drink my cold beer. On you.” Cara had just bested me on a spin move.

14-11.

“Non finito.” Ap Koo grinned like the blood from a split lip wasn’t his and scored two easy buckets.

14-13.

The Italians only needed one score to win.

They were running on empty. I was the only one breaking a sweat on our five and I had yet to score a point.

I passed to Ki’in.

Whish. Tie score.

My lungs were burning, but I stole their point guard’s lazy pass to Cara. A down court pass to Ap Koo.

16-15.

“Victory,” cried Ki’in and the other three congratulated ourselves.

“Game was to win by two,” protested Cara.

“Rules changed after you elbowed me. Beer time.”

We walked off the court to the cheers of the town. The Italians stormed off without buying beer. I took care of that. I was the Mayans’ gringo and not a Ts’ulo’ob. Fifteen beers came to $20. Big beers. After two I limbed back to the Posado Del Mar. My left knee was wobbly. I fell into the pool without my sneakers. My body thanked me. I drank two Pina Colados. My soles were growing blisters. All for a good cause. Cara and her teammates showed up and bought beers. They were good losers. We were all good losers, because no one wins all the time.

The next day I brought Cara to snorkel through the coral caves under the temple bluff. She was fearless with the barracudas. The team left that evening in Cancun. I wasn’t invited. My lips were sealed about their loss. It was just a game of pick-up. Just one of thousands and no one wins them all. Still it was better to win at Pok-a-Pok than lose and the same went for hoops.

A Long Conversation Part II Later August 14

l you can't circumnavigate you go up that Cove to the east of Harpswell towards then you're going up towards your Adult point and also what's this one up here got it straight okay so you see you send you this way see Indian Point Forest Point that's the top of hartswell public Access camping like jewels yeah there's one down here that Malaga Island Preserve i mean it's just so much there and I mean i mean there's so many of the thousands of violence if I mean Yamato what about maybe that's about a mile long with it great to be little to be yeah I mean that's hot I mean I mean the boss what you have to in order to go up a river you have to pay for access so wait a second so if you're going up does that cover all rivers or for your boat registration to be able to go launch it at Sebago if you want even if you bugging use it out here so if you're using it in the on the ocean on Casco Bay estuaries as well so like if you if you're if you're going around Harwell that mean that's basically the ocean really means yeah because like a new Kennebunk river is just goes right to the the bay but the thing is that a lot of these you know it's like fingers coming down there's no crossage points like if you went up a river for three four miles is no there's no Portage at all pretty that's that's as heavy as going 10-15 miles offshore it's it's not me have you ever been up near Deer Island all that i had a couple guys but you're not thinking about going are you thinking about going all the way up right you're basically at that point you're going to go down and then from anything from Beyond that you're once you get beyond what do you call it once you get behind once you reach small point if it's so it's open ocean then you got a hole it opens up a whole others some of those that's one of the places I really wanted to I want to find this this they break it up until like sections of the coast what they and then that it goes here and there's a couple islands that one of them is like a 250 acre or little blacks i mean it's hundreds of ions out there but once once he gets back mohegan's about the last one there no this mechanicus as well i had a friend from Columbia Falls and she said it was the last place God created it was so far you've got the Gold Coast and like it's like mini Oregon and then you got and then you got another f****** power until you get to Eastport s*** so it's like when so at that point you're in Canada but well either in Canada or she go up to four Kent blown out it's like it's like New England Montana stops in his people f****** so rude and there's a little bit of that here but like I told her I'm like honestly like 14k right now it's what but I mean if you do to go I mean I've driven up to up into the the North Shore of the st Lawrence you know up to Bay Bay car mall I didn't go any further cuz the mosquitoes were so bad yeah one one over to gaspay i've done driven out from New York at the upstate to the Upper Peninsula Upper Michigan and then back across Sault Ste Marie and then down through the Georgian Bay across to Niagara Falls and back and I've done I've done from Boston to Quebec all the way up to Bay Cormier and man that's as far as you can f****** go really we can get a store obsessed with getting the better yeah

my father and I wanted to drive all the way up to kagosha but there's just the mosquitoes are just like on it's like it's like 200 like 300 miles beyond the bay Como so we just crossed the the River St Lawrence and went over to gas Bay I mean it was like a like it was a lot of f****** driving it was it was like 3,000 miles okay I always they don't show him off someone to f*** where the f*** it go there's a lake that was was made by a glacier hit i mean a meteor hit you know north north of there probably be 150 miles anyway what do you call cuz you can do it drive up to i know you can do this I'm looking I'm just looking seeing the map i thought you could drive up to hudson Bay I thought you could drive up to i'm looking I don't see any roads up to you participle the last one the last road is canopia Pascal way up North but I thought you could drive up to there's a place up there at 10:00 i think it's vanished i thought you could drive it to Fort Albany for you to put me as your plus one actually pretty people pretty cool no no they love you because you've been out in the city you know they like that s*** i mean I like how you found a whale skull but I mean goes up there I mean it's i mean Google I mean I go on Google Maps and I just look at s*** and say like i'd love to have taken that I mean I would I wanted to drive all the way from the St Lawrence to Newfoundland i mean there's nothing on that road it's I think it's just my father went up to Newfoundland has she been and then when they played the teams from the Newfoundland colleges he's like they were f****** Vikings like newfies melissa I'm going to go do some things for my wife as always somehow I'm managing my money but you know August so but and everybody is you know don't don't get married don't have kids you know the longer you stay away from fishing the better the longer you stay from out of fishing but maybe in September you and I can do a small road trip up I will come up and you know we'll do we'll just go camp because it's staying in hotels too expensive i mean you used it wouldn't have used real estate hotel for 50 bucks it was fine there's no $50 hotels anymore yeah I mean I was I was coming down from the cape and I figured I'll get a s***** hotel and this is a while ago this is like pre-cover yeah hotels with 139 each and every one of them for crap like the internet so that the hotel the hotel probably makes $89 or $59 and they just charge everything the same it's f****** brutal and but I think we'll camp out I don't have any it's a good weather I don't mind just you know sleeping underneath the Stars and you know I wouldn't mind even going to like in September do you think the weather is too good is to switchy then to take a little boat trip okay okay you know and I might bring my my wet gear is not so good but you know okay I'm looking forward to it okay i'll talk to them bye hello this is Mitch or Dr Sharon Mitchell recently the message and I'll get back to you shortly thank you I'm going to work on separating our conversation tomorrow

A Long Conversation ( QUINTON ET MOI ) AUGUST 14

CONVERSATION about Quinton's impending coastal voyage in his newly acquired Whaler. Me - One second one give me a second hold on just putting up Casco Bay on Goggle. Here we go okay, Casco Bay big time okay."

Quinton - "My boat is all ready. My gear is packed. This time of year the time is from East-Southeast, so I'm going to stay to the leeway side on the islands. Head inside to Bailey's Island."

Moi - "I've been to that bridge. Plenty of depth under it at high tide."

Quinton - "After that I'm heading up to the Goslings and then Harpswell to Gurnet Strait past Indian Point. I've always wanted to come up there from the sea, although I had to pay an extra $15 to enter any river and damned if those water police aren''t out to make a buck for the State."

Moi - "One day David, my brother-in-law, and I were fishing off the dock on Watchic Pond. My sister and her hsuband get into the canoe. They said what for? We didn't say aything. THey're lawyers and know everything. I've been on that pond, wghich would be a lake in any other lake and I see a boat inspector motoring for them in a aluminum dinghy. Sure enough, the inspector givs them a ticket for no life preservers and motors away with a wave. David and I wave back and take a sip of our drinks. My sister docks and is having a hissy fit, saying she's never seen a boat inspector on the pond and her life. I hadn't either, but restrained from saying, "We saw one today."

Quinton - "Damned boat inspectors. Only thing worse at the fish inspectors. All of them all so high and mighty. All my papers are good. I'm up for this now. Stopped drinking and the rest. I'm past the okay. I'm going up I got to go up there to clear my head. At least two weeks, if not more."

Moi - "What about fishing?"

Quinton - "I had it. Last week I drove down to New BEdford. Had a few drinks at Knucklehead's. Got in my truck and thought about how we're being screwed by the industry telling us they only wants certain sizes, so we have to shovel short fish into the sea. Most of dead, so the other fish crowd the boat for a free meal. Too much work. Too much bullshit."

Moi - "But you still like it asea?"

Quinton - "Of course, but its the coming ashore that sucks. I've put in a good number of years. Enough. I have to get my head clear and it will never happen, if I have to go to NEew Bedford. That city has more meth heads than citizens."

Moi - "Let's change to subkect to the trip. I wish I was coming. I only seen most of those island from the land. Look here on Google I see you coming down that eastern channel to Small Point and Popham Beach. How far is that?"

Quinton - "I figure it for fifty-eight nautical miles. Might tke me two days or a week. I'm in no hurry to be with people."

Moi - "I wish I could come, but I know you have to clear your head. You gonna tent on the beach?"

Quinton - "Too many flies and 'squitos. I intend on sleeping on the boat. I have cut some wood from that old sail boat laying in the backyard. I can put it across the seats and I have a bed for Penny."

Moi - "You're bring your dog?"

"Quinton - "I have to have someone to talk to other than my head. I have a pretty tackle box adn rod and reel for sea fishing. A License too. Cocksucking, fish inspectors. I made an Essentials list. Food-wise got 20 gallons of drinking water for leaving the dock and then maybe just a little portion of rice that I got to cook, but otherwise I'm going to get a bunch of canned beans. I've been eating like can you run any electricity in the boat yeah I got it right now just going to try and minimize cooking. I got a container of Penny's wet food,otherwise I got the little i got tuna and smoking I want to bring some lemon oil salt pepper olive oil ramen some spam my cast iron Little cast iron skillet. I can't run any electricty on the boat and having a fire on boat's is too dangerous."

Moi - "My great-grandfather's ship burnt to the scuppers off Brazil. Every man got off and so did his poodle."

Quinton - "Tomorrow I'm going up to REI. Pick up a few more essentials"

Moi - "Such as what?"

Quinton - "Don't know. I'll know when I see it."

Moi - I don't know nothing, but get your anchorage early and plan your crossing reaches with care. I haven't been to sea like you, but I always hiled in the foreests by myself. Always spooky to see bear pringts."

Quinton - "I have a good weather eye and a nav radio."

"Moi - "A good hat?"

Quinton - "Yeah, just got one."

Quinton - "I took a day trip. Boat a pissah and the engine is strong. It's not new, but I had my eye on that FOR SALE sign for a while. Once I decided to quit fishing for the rest of the season, I told myself I needed to take off that FOR SALE sign. That day trip to Jewel Island taught me one thing. Like I know a lot but I'm was dangerously under-prepared and did a couple of stupid things that I hope I wont' do again. My phone is useless, because I was listening to music, which sapped the batteryand I brought way too much shit."

Moi- "If you bring it, you won't need it. If you don't bring it, you will need it. Music??? Yes, but not Instagram."

Quinton - "No, I want to be apart. Juat me and penny and the sea. I'm never alone on the fishing boat. Never time to hear the silence of the sea. I'll listen to the VHF weather station. And I neeed real charts. I have a depth finder. Also I've read that not all the islands are transient friendly. I have my camping permit in order. But the point of my going is that I just don't really want to see a bunch of people either. Have them asking questions. I just want to touch land to walk Penny. She handles the flat sea okay, but she does have to shit on dry land.

Moi - "When you got to go you got to go. Even dogs. Evven you."

Quinton - "She tends to like dry ground. I have more mental Clarity than for weeks ago. Yesterday I told my landlady about my trip. She said people where I'm going think on you as 100% away from there. There's a lot of basically uninhabited islands out there. yeah Anyway I mean like it is on me to chart my course to find nothing."

"Moi - "Looking at Casco Bay I see these islands out in the fucking middle of nowhere between Pemaquid point in Port Clyde. I read you that the poem about going to Thailand and finding myself atop of a mountain with a motorcycle in Northern Thailand. I was going to drive across Burma, which is totally illegal, but I just wanted to go to Tibet and then Nepal. I sat on the bike there. I hadn't gotten to the point of no return, but the point where I couldn't go any further.the point where you've hit the point of return not the point of no return but the point of return. Still haunts me."

Quinton - "I seen photos of these islands. The water looks like Caribbean Blue and there's plenty harbor seals."

"Too bad you can't portage your boat. Cruise up to Bath adn all those rivers all those estruaries to the Casco Bay."

Quinton - "I'm in no hurry."

Moi - "Yeah wintah's a few months off. I'll speak to you later. I got to sleep."

July 20, 1994 - Penang - Journal

Knocking the door by the Chinese desk clerk of the Swiss Hotel. Danny tells me that I have a phone call. It's 8:21 a.m. I had difficulty getting to sleep last night. For some reason garlic keeps me awake. I got out of bed wrapped the towel around my waist and walk down the corridor to the front desk. I picked up the phone. My father's voice came from watch it pond and distant Maine. The signal bouncing off a satellite to low outer space to reach the other side of the world in Malaysia. I'm happy to hear him call.

later afternoon

Howard and I were speaking in the breakfast room. Howard is a Canadian Jew who I've nicknamed study Kravitz. Walter, a Guyana Hindu, and his hallway. Howard and I both know about how it's increasingly difficult romantic relationship. Say hello and ask about his last night where he met his girlfriend's wealthy Eurasian father. Walter is a dark-skinned Dalit from the untouchable caste.

"Not good."

His response was so soft as to be almost inaudible . Having no friends in Penang he had no choice but to tell us what had happened the previous evening. Two strangers . Older strangers were like confession to ghosts. His story was as sad as Romeo and Juliet.

Walter had gone to University in Toronto where he met and fell in love with Bridget, a Malay national of Sino/Hindu descent. White skin. Walter is very black. They were very much in love and had been living together for five years in Canada.

Family pressure force Bridget to return to Penang where her father had arranged a marriage to a man of the Brahman caste. Walter had followed and have been trying to see Bridget without any success last night he said he was going to go to their house, a compound on Leith Street. Howard and I had both advised against it. But the decision was Walter's and last night he walked away with stupid shoulders with very little hope of success.

"Bridget had told me to wait a year before coming over i waited and then the phone calls and letters stopped. A month ago her father told me to never call again. My parents said to forget about her. I couldn't. I came despite everyone. Last night her father wouldn't even let me in the house. I couldn't even see Bridget. He said until she was married she was locked in her room she's 27 years old. How can she let this be done to her. I know she loves me she fluted New York where we spent a week together. Her father thought she was in Mumbai."

Walter and I exchanged a glance. Canada in the USA have basically left marrying out of your race color or creed behind, although Jews pretty much marry amongst themselves. My mother wanted me to marry a good Irish Catholic girl. I only found one and Hilde was too young. We are still friends.

"To come here I sold off all my things. I stopped my PhD studies. My mother cried and my father said I was no son of his. I gave up everything. Bridget has accepted the marriage offer of A 42-year-old man with two kids. Her father arranged a meeting and she flew to Geneva to meet him . They were getting married next month, but I contacted her suitor and told him that she was in love with me and that we had lived together for 5 years so now Bridget has no one her only choice is me. Why can't her father see that?"

Walter and I remain silent.

We understood her father feared her daughter getting sullied by a forbidden caste. Walter can't see his girlfriend's duplicity in this racist outcome. Living with Walter was fine in Canada, but she could never love him here.

"What can I do?"

"You go to see the Buddhist monks and ask them to intercede but I don't see any success in that. Talking to the Hindu priests they believe in caste society." The separation of cast has been going on for thousands of years. "The monks can ask her does she really love you."

"I no she loves me. . She said so so many times. I want to free her from her father."

"This isn't Romeo and Juliet. You will be killed if you trying to escape with her.," said Howard.

"Well, I am only left with killing him or killing me." His unhappiness was overwhelming," and I said, "Killing yourself is giving a victory to the father and you must think of yourself you're young. Your girlfriend doesn't want you to be Romeo and she doesn't want to be Juliet , You will meet somebody. Trust me I've had many girlfriends. And each time I thought it was over and I would never love again. I have loved again. No matter what happens, you have loved, and no one can take that love away from you."

Tears swelled in his eyes, as he realized his defeat and I felt the scars of all the failed loves in my heart, and I still love all those that I have loved. Their names are many. And I remember them all His voice