November 4, 1978 East Village - Journal Entry

At Club 57 on St. Mark's Lang and I heckled the performers. Several people in the audience took offense. Miss Nancy, the emcee, shrilled, "Get the fuck out of here."

The crowd laughed and I responded saying, "Join the real world or at least the 1930s."

We didn't leave, but when David Dirtbomb, a comic, appeared on stage. He was stunned to see us stunned by out spotlighteed as the offendersHe knew us as ruffian protecting gays, queers, and dykes on the scene. The next act came onto the stage to rescue us from embarrassment. Over thirty people were pissed at us, including my girl friend, Alice, who had earlier extolled the turmoil of the bositerous claque in 19th Century French theater.

Adele Bertel from the Contortions confronted me and I grabbed the mike to recite a country western poem.

Lucky's Ten Strike
Woke up this morning
Broke and deserted
Mona left me long ago
She probably should have left
Longer ago___
Mona was there
The night
I rolled 300
Ten straight strikes
At Star Lanes Bowling Center
In Butte, Montana___
I should have never celebrated
By leaving with the cocktail waitress
Leaving Mona to take a taxi
Home___
Woke up this morning
Broke and deserted
Same as always
And even my belly belly
Is broke too.
This silenced the crowd. Adele said it was great. Alice glared I left her silence for another bar. Alice was not pleased. Fuck them all.

All Souls Day

My older brother and I were altar boys in the early 1960s Pre-Vatican II. We were taught to say the Mass in Latin by the diocesan priest assigned to the local church on the edge of the Blue Hills south of Boston. We understood nothing other mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa or 'forgive me forgive really forgive me'. Initially the church had bee a Quonset hut left over from an Army processing base along State Route 28. We wore black cassocks and white surplices. My mother was so proud of us at the Sunday Children's Mass celebrated by the pastor, an old, but gentle Father Curry from County Mayo. Gentle except for one time when two dogs ran up the aisle to start humping before the altar. The congregation horrified, the pastor put down the chalice and strode to the howling dogs and booted them in coitus over the altar railing. Everyone was shocked, as they fled the church together.

Father raised his hands and said, "Just dirty dogs. Not Satan."

The adults nodded their heads and the children all exchanged mystified glances, questioning whether they had witnessed a miracle. I knew it wasn't a miracle as an atheist, but hid my disbelief in my altar boy ego. For two reasons, later three. First, we were paid for weddings. Sometimes $5, sometimes $10, sometimes stiffed by the father of the bride. Secondly we were called out of school for funerals and holy days. We received noting for the dead, even on All Soul's Day. The Holy day after All Saint's Day was to honor the dead. At ten years old I didn't know many dead people other than people who had been dead before I was born like my namesake grandfather Peter Nolan from the Aran Isles and my father's father and my best friend, Chaney, who had drowned in Sebago Lake in the summer of 1960.

I prayed for him every Mass. Not to God nor Jesus, but just prayed hoping his soul was in eternity waiting for me. As I got older, Father Curry explained how All Souls' Day has been observed on November 2 since the 11th century. I later learned from Wikipedia that this holiday had been established by Abbot Odilo, who had been the Benedictine Abbot of Cluny from the first millenium to his death in 1048 AD.

I don't recall serving at All Soul's Day, because the Mass is usually offered at the cemetery. According to Wikipedia in the Middle Ages, superstitious belief, probably influenced from Celtic paganism, held that the souls in Purgatory appeared on All Souls Day as witches, toads, goblins, etc. to persons who committed wrongs against them during their lives on earth. I've never seen them, although I do have the 'sight' thanks to the Cauld ie the placenta wrapped around my head at birth. I see the dead many places, but never on All Soul's Day.

ps I stayed an altar boy, for reason # # was we supped the altar wine, as we neared our teenage years. always careful to not spill a drop on our blemishless surplices.

Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa.

Numquam vere paenitet ie never really sorry.

November 3, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

Last night at THE NEW WAVE VAUDEVILLE SHOW at Irving Plaza was a great success, but a debacle for me. Klaus Nomi was the headliner along with a horde of starry-eyed rockers and artists. I was asked to be the security with my friends. None of us were paid, but we guaranteed free drinks .

The night of the show started slow, but by midnight the auditorium on Irving Place was packed with new wave affecionados. Klaus killed the crowd. He was a star. At the end of his performance the stage lights came up, signaling time to go home. I went from table to table telling the guests that they didn't have to go home, but they couldn't stay here. The rest of the security was guzzling liquor at the back bar.

Alice and her friends were flush with of achieving glory for an evening and tomorrow promised more with the B-52s headlining the show. Only one table remained and I approached the four rockers, telling the same thing as everyone else. They didn't like what they heard and a thin-haired guy in glasses asked, "Do you know who I am?"

I had seen him someplace, but said, "No."

"We're Blondie and we're not going anywhere."

"Blondie? I had seen them several times at CBGBs. I liked them and said, "It's been a long night. Just do me a favor and finish your drinks."

I turned to walk away, but he grabbed my shoulder. I shucked off his grip and slapped the beer out of his hand.

"Just leave, you cunts. You guys suck."

I was no music critic and they attacked me as if one of them had said, "One two three four."

I seized the forelock of the rocker in the glasses and whacked him in the face. He backed away and I found myself with a shank of hair in my hand. After that I was buried underneath them and their roadies. Not a fair fight. I was used to those.

Alice wasn't there when I got to my feet. I had trouble breathing. Two of my ribs were broken. I returned to our apartment on East 10th Street and lay on the futon wheezing. I coughed a little blood. Nothing serious.

Alice show up at dawn.

She sat in the kitchen.

"A good night."

"Yes, but you had to ruin it all. Blondie wants to play, but both them and the B-52s won't perform if you're there."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, the show must go on."

That morning we slept in separate beds.

Alice left for the show before sunset without saying a word. I wandered north to Irving Plaza and drank in the Polish Bar beneath Irving Plaza. The Poles toasted me. I toasted them back.

"Na Zdrowie!" I coughed with pain

I spit up blood for the next two days. I should have sued the band for a hundred-thousand. Sadly I wasn't that type of guy.

Fighters never are. We win. We lose. We never cry.

Never.

Times of Nothing - BET ON CRAZY

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time sunset will come an hour earlier this evening.

I hate the winter shift of an hour.

Back in the early 21st century I was working at a diamond store off 5th Avenue. A good address.

Not West 47th Street. The Diamond District. A squalid block which processes 89% of the diamonds in America. Dusk was always a little scary from November to March and one afternoon I received a phone call from a friend in Bruxelles.

"Are you all right?"

"Sure, why not?" I hadn't drank anything the previous evening. That's a lie, but one martini in the Oak Bar couldn't hurt my system.

"There was an armed robbery in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel." Alan was an art dealer. Criminals in that field never use guns. "A guard was shot by the robber."

"It doesn't surprise me." My police friends have been warning about the rise in crimes of opportunity. Times are tough. Budget cuts deplete patrols. Criminals are freed from prison. "The city feels a little like 1976."

"Rome seven days after the Huns burn it down." He was quoting my line from my book about punks. "You be careful."

"I will." With two kids in Thailand I have no interest in getting shot.

At least not over money.

Damn Daylight Savings Time

"Time is part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects. Time has been a major subject of religion, philosophy, and science, but defining it in a non-controversial manner applicable to all fields of study has consistently eluded the greatest scholars." According to Wikipedia.

For countless millennia time had been judged strictly by the simple binary system of day or night.

Shamans for the neanderthals kenned out the passage of the sun throughout the year. The autumn equinox signaled the time for retreat to warmer refuges for winter. The religious hierarchy were the only ones who could tell the time. The rest of humanity day or night worked just fine and for the most part still does for modern man.

Dark - sleep.

Light - work.

That process wasn't good enough for everyone.

Today all that changed with the annual adoption of Daylight Savings and I cursed William Willett, the British busybody, who convinced His Majesty's government to shift the hours of sunrise and sunset, so he didn't have to play golf in the cold autumn darkness of dawn, but also because he was angered by the lower classes sleeping away useful daylight hours.

The desire to standardize time across the globe was the dream of western men such as Benjamin Franklin who proposed to the Paris police that they fire cannons at sunrise to wake the hoi polloi to take advantage of his adage, "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

Germany adopted Willett's suggestion during WWI and the rest of the world followed suit to attack the slumber of the working man.

So the only two reasons for this 'innovation' were war and golf.

I don't do either.

Today the sun set around 4:23pm in the New York area. An hour earlier than yesterday.

I am not happy."

Damn DST and I'll vote for any politician who campaigns for its repeal.

Except for Donald 'Damned' Trump.

I Love My Sleep

As much as I hate Daylight Savings Time, I was happy to sleep another hour this morning.

After waking with the dawn I pulled the covers over my head for shelter from the light and arranged the pillows for renewed comfortability.

The next forty-five minutes belonged to a blissful slumber.

Sleep is the drug.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Paradise according to Ernest Hemingway, who said, "I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

The Ghosts Of Neanderthals

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

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

To err is human. To err all the time and not care is the blessing only afforded the Divine. His divine alter ego Yahweh spent the next five days covering Earth with water, rising land from under the seas, dividing day and night without any uniformity, covered the planet with animals, and then on the sixth day formed man in his image.

The seventh day Yahweh fucked off for the eternal shabbath of rest kicking back with other Gods forgotten by Monotheists. Yahweh had been speaking to these nameless deities since before Light and decided that He needed new company, since the other Gods no longer laughed at his jokes.

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

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

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

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

And we are not scared of caves

Only the darkness.

Cleveland Ho 2011

In April of 2011 I drove south from New York to the Northern Fork in Virginia. Ms. Carolina was recovering from yet-another battle with cancer. Her husband thought my visit might cheer up the blonde beauty. The Potomac River was cold, but I jumped from their dock into the frigid water.

Ms. Carolina laughed at my shivering and handed me a towel. Her husband called me a crazy Northerner with a smile.

"You're right about that." My affair with Ms. Carolina had ended in 1995 after meeting her husband. We remained friends, but only friends. Charles was a complete gentleman, but had a .38 under the seat of his car and I said, "I'm just a crazy Yankee."

"And I'm a crazy Reb."

"That you are."

Later that afternoon we toasted the Great State of Maine and the Army of Northern Virginia. Both our people had fought at the Fredericksburg massacre. General Ambrose Burnside had been insane to assault the rebel fortifications on Marye's Hill and the 20th Maine passed the night behind barricades of dead comrades.

After dinner we watched the rise of the moon and drank whiskey on the dock. The winter night air was giving way to spring. The bourbon freed out tongues and we spoke about our pasts. Our lives went back many years. We held different beliefs. They didn't really matter tonight.

"Do you believe in God?" asked Charles.

"My best friend drowned in a lake in Maine. Chaney was only eight years old. My parents said God moved in strange ways and I realized one truth."

"Which was?"

Ms. Carolina shook her head. My belief was better kept a secret, except I was never good at lying.

"There is no God."

Charles frowned at this assault on his God and Ms. Carolina wasn't happy with my rejection of the Bible, so I added, "But I respect your belief in God."

"I never understood how you people, atheists, lost your faith."

"One of those things that just happened."

"That I understand. Care for some more bourbon."

"Let MY unconsciousness be my guide."

Throughout the evening I drank enough to feel like a drunk Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

Ms. Carolina laughed at my jokes.

A little after 1 we watched the passage of an orbiting satellite.

"We are not alone." I pointed in the sky.

"And I'm never alone with my lovely wife."

Ten minutes later Ms. Carolina shook me awake and said, "Precious, time for bed."

Charles helped me up the stairs.

"Sweet dreams," wished Ms. Carolina from her bedroom door.

Guided by bourbon I dreamed of old times and a better future.

Some time after midnight someone entered the bedroom and I opened my eyes to a .38.

Charles' hand was steady.

I said nothing.

"I'm going to miss her."

I nodded in agreement.

"You're not a good man, but you're not a bad man either. Go back to sleep."

I knew better than to argue with an armed man and crashed back into a bourbon coma.

At dawn my wife called from Thailand and asked about Ms. Carolina. She had visited us twice in the Last Babylon.

"Maii dii," I explained Ms. Carolina's condition.

"Kor thot," Nu apologized and said to tell Ms. Carolina that everyone in Ban-Nok was praying for her.

Me too, only not to God.

Later that morning I groggily accompanied Ms. Carolina and Charles to their church, a temple to that Old Time religion, where her husband preached the Word of God.

"Never too late to repent."

"Sinners exist to show the good which path not to take."

"That we do."

I didn't step inside the small white church and bid them fare-well. Charles shook my hand.

"Say a prayer for her."

"I will."

Ms. Carolina kissed me on the cheek. She smelled of Chanel # 5.

I didn't know it then, but I would not see her again.

I drove the back roads to Washington and stopped to survey the Potomac from Lee's plantation.

It was a broad river and I called Ms. Carolina from atop the high bluff.

Charles answered and said she was resting.

"Thanks for coming to visit."

"My pleasure. I'll be down in the fall."

"You drive safe, Yankee."

"That I will, Reb."

I got in the car and continued north, listening to country-western music on the radio.

I arrived the Capitol slightly before noon.

I conducted a fifteen drive-by of the White House, Washington Monument, and Capitol before calling my nephew Matt. The capitol of America was empty.

Tourists didn't travel in the winter.

My nephew Matt and his girlfriend met me at the National Gallery. She came from Cleveland. Something about them said they were in love and only one thing happens to people like that.

They get married.

That summer I went out to Thailand to see my kids.

My daughter Angie was getting tall.

So were Fenway and Noy.

I hated myself for not living with them and their mothers, but there was no money in Thailand for me.

Certainly not in rural Ban-nok and I returned to New York, scheduling on my next trip for the New Year.

Nearing October Ms. Carolina called from a Richmond Hospital. Her voice was weak and I asked if she wanted me to come down.

"No, I want you to remember how I was. I know you don't believe in heaven, but we'll meet each other again."

"I know we will."

In September my father joined my mother in the Here-After.

My best friend in the world was gone, but he didn't go alone.

Right around Thanksgiving Charles called with bad news.

"Barbara's gone. She was a fighter, but had no more fight in her."

"You want me to come down for the funeral?"

"She's already in the ground."

"Sorry about that."

"Me too."

We wished each other good luck and life went on without my father and Barbara.

I went through some bad times.

They lasted longer than necessary.

Not for everyone.

During the summer my nephew Matt called to say that he had moved with Kristen to Cleveland.

"Cleveland?" No one on any side of our family had ever lived in Ohio. We were New Englanders.

"It's coming back."

"From the dead." The city on Lake Eire had lost half its population since the 1950s.

"Like Dracula and what about you?" Matt had heard of my troubles from my sister.

"Not bad. I'm working in a metal shop six days a week."

"That must be hard at your age."

"Yeah, but it won't kill me." It was tough work for a man of 61, but my kids were getting older. "Good luck in Cleveland."

"Thanks."

Matt and I spoke regularly.

I knew him all his life.

He liked Cleveland and loved Kristen.

I was happy for them.

Right before winter I received the phone call from Matt. What he had to say came as no surprise.

"We're getting married and I need to get a diamond engagement ring. Something over one-carat in a platinum halo setting."

"Your wish is my command and congratulations."

I had worked in the diamond industry and arranged the purchase of a diamond to be set in the platinum mounting of Kristin's desire. She was happy and the only thing better than making a woman happy was making her happier.

I figured that the ring would buy him two years.

I was wrong and Matt called in the Spring to say, "Kristin and I are getting married on Halloween."

"This Halloween? What's the theme?"

"Tuxedos. No costumes. Only masks."

"Only masks? No way."

At the age of five I had fallen off my next-door neighbor's stairs wearing a Halloween skull and had avoided masks since then.

"I'll wear my tuxedo. Only one problem. It's in Luxembourg at the British Residence."

"I'm sure you'll find a way to get it."

"Me too. By the way congratulations."

I really meant it.

I had worn the monkey suit to the RAF ball and danced with the French ambassador. We had a good night.

The next day I phoned the ambassador to have her send my tux over to New York.

"No way." Alice was a longtime friend. "You come over and get it. I'm leaving the embassy for Africa in the New Year."

"Okay." October was six months away from April.

Like Matt said I would find a way.

April turned to May. I visited my big family in Thailand. I wished I could have stayed. I loved being with my children and wives, but I needed money to support them and there was none to be had in the Land of Smiles.

Summer came fast. I went to the beach.

Matt called in late July to ask another favor.

"I need you to become an online minister to sign the marriage documents for the state of Ohio."

"Aren't you getting married by a priest?" His fiancee was Catholic by baptism.

"No." Matt had been raised by my sister. She was a devote Old Religionist, but there was more than one atheist in our family.

"As long as I can give a sermon."

"No sermon."

My mother always wanted me to be a priest. My rejection of her God had hurt her and this was my chance to make her happy in heaven. Not that I believed in the place and I asked, "You want me to mention the sanctity of marriage."

"Weren't you involved with a married woman?"

"Yes."

He was talking about Ms. Carolina.

"He who commits adultery lacks sense."

"Proverbs 6:32-35." I hadn't been an atheist all my life.

"No sermon."

"Okay." I accepted his condition and wondered how I was going to get my tuxedo at the British Residency in Luxembourg.

I had no money for a flight and checked the online prices for a rented tux.

Powdered blue polyester cost $49.99 and it could second as a Halloween costume.

Sadly I wasn't able to exercise that option.

My bad luck ran worse.

My boss closed her jewelry store in mid-September. I was hoping to last until Xmas. She didn't pay my salary or commissions, which was a really uncool thing to do to a father of five kids, however the rich are well-known for their shabby treatment of the poor and almost everyone in New York was poor now, except for the rich.

Thankfully a wealthy business associate needed to meet an art dealer in London. I knew Kenny well. My price for arranging a secondary-market purchase was 1% of the sale, plus an all-expenses paid trip to the Continent.

The ambassador was happy to see me.

I was too.

Luxembourg was a comfortable city, but very boring.

Thankfully my tux fit.

London was fun.

I saw my friends.

They asked about Ms. Carolina.

"She's gone."

"Sorry to hear that. She was a good lady."

"That she was."

I told Kenny about my well-heeled friend wanting a painting.

He wasn't willing to sell his paintings and my business associate was disappointed by this refusal. He left London without saying good-bye. Rich people are like that. Right before I left for Heathrow, Kenny gave me a small drawing by David Tidball.

"Don't sell it. It might be worth a lot one day."

I wanted to stay in Europe, but I had to get back to the States.

My nephew expected me in Cleveland within two weeks.

Back in New York Matt called about rings.

I ordered them from the Diamond District the next day.

They cost $300. I had no money. Not having a job was becoming a drag.

I showed Tidball's drawing to my business associate.

He knew my situation and lowballed an offer.

"Sold."

The sale gave me enough enough to pay for the rings and booked a hotel in Cleveland through my business associate for $50 a night.

That week my nephew called from the West.

"I need you there Friday night."

"I'll be there."

"How you getting here?"

"Not sure yet."

"The Sotnicks are driving from New Jersey."

"Alan and Barbara?" I had not seen the couple in years. They were best friends with my sister and her husband.

"Yes, give them a call. I'll text you the number."

He did so and I called them a few minutes later expecting them not to remember me. Barbara answered the phone. She was happy to hear from me and said, "Alan will do all the driving."

"Great." My sister had one time said Alan drove fast. I drove the speed limit plus ten.

We made plans to meet in Northern New Jersey. I would sleep at their house and we'd leave early Friday morning. It was a seven-hour drive. I was going to the Sixth City.

I had been there once in 1972. A friend's family had owned a junkyard by the Cuyahoga River, which had infamously burned in 1969. We had drank at the Harbor Inn. I recalled someone pulling out a shotgun. He had shot at someone. We left the bar the following second and I departed from Cleveland in the morning.

I wracked my brain for memorable events in Cleveland.

The great Jim Brown played nine record-breaking seasons for the Browns from 1957 to 1965. The bruising fullback had told a college football coach, "Make sure when anyone tackles you he remembers how much it hurts."

Cleveland loved him, because Cleveland was that kind of town.

On June 4, 1974 the Cleveland Indians staged a dime beer night to get fans into the stadium for a game versus the Texas Rangers. The crowd drank to their hearts' delight and then spurred on by an eighth inning brawl and a fan's attempt top steal the first baseman's hat the attendees stormed onto the field in the ninth inning in the thousands.

NBC newscaster Tim Russert, then a student at the Cleveland–Marshall College of Law, had attended the game. "I went with $2 in my pocket. You do the math."

Lastly the Dead Boys were from Cleveland. They were regulars at CBGBs. I loved them, because like Devo and Pere Ubu they would never be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I considered that omission a badge of honor for the Young, Loud and Snotty.

Otherwise I drew a blank on the city, which didn't matter.

I was going to Cleveland no matter what.

An actor friend phoned that week. He was making a film in Cleveland. Bill and I went back to the East Village. We arranged to meet in Cleveland. A Halloween wedding and a dinner with Old Bill made Cleveland sound like fun.

Thursday I packed my tux into a bag and caught a 4:16 train to Ridgewood NJ from Penn Station. It was a glorious Indian Summer afternoon to travel through the Meadowlands, even knowing that by 2050 most of marshlands would be underwater.

Except for Snake Hill.

The igneous rock intrusion had been the home the Hudson County's infamous Lunatic Asylum from 1873 - 1939. I hated institutions like that, having grown up across the inlet from Portland's notorious School for the Deaf. Bad things happened in these places and I was glad to be away from it, until the train pulled into Newark.

I had missed the train connection at Secaucus Junction.

Newark was filled with commuters heading home.

I wanted to get out of there fast.

The next train to Secaucus came ten minutes later.