Journal Entry - January 2, 1978

Star-crossed day.

A drunk retching into the snow on 2nd Avenue, obviously in the throes of alcoholic poisoning.

Happy New Years.

Enough on him.

January 3, 1979 - Journal - East Village

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

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

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

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

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

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

Later.

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

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

LATER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This poem sucks. Why do I write such crap.

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

New Years Eve 1978 - Journal

We saw in New Year's Eve at Hurrah and then took a taxi downtown. Traffic congested before Madison Square Garden. A skinny blonde man with orange-blonde hair stood bare-chested the the traffic. Cheetah Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys and we shouted the lead guitarist's name in passing.

Alice, Anthony, Alexa, and I got out of the cab on the 3rd Avenue. The driver didn't want to go any farther into the Lower East Side. Alice and I stood on the sidewalk. Chest-high Suburban disco drones muttered about our punk attire. I stepped fowards and asked, "What are you looking at creeps."

"Why do you have to always be so violent?" Alice came from a city where the tarred roads led to dirt tracks into the Hollows. She know all about violence.

"I wish I knew."

Ship's fog horns from the southern harbor searched the night. I was familiar with the docks. Only a few ships moored on the Westside and none on the swift-moving East River.

A gang of teenage Puerto Ricans whooped drunken shouts. They weren't looking for trouble. They were poor, the neighborhood school were bad, and their only futures were as janitors, city workers, and manual labor other than dealing drugs. All of them dreamed not so much as escaping the East Village as making the neighborhoood a better place for 'la familia'.

We wandered over to Eve's Lounge. We ordered drinks. They were weak. I was still straight and hoped to be sober the first morning of 1979.

"I want to go." I said to Alice.

"Then let's go."

Yesterday I had met Alice at La Guardia. She wore a white pleather coat, black striped skirt, a purple sweater and knee-high white boot. She was the prettiest girl in the air terminal and every man and woman watched her walk to me. I was a lucky man and tried to kiss her. She turned her face to offer her cheek.

We hadn't slept together in more than a month. New Wave Vaudeville at her soul and Susan the scrawny closet lesbian co-producer was a shrew poisoning my love.

"You're a loser," she said to my face.

I felt like a loser too. Same way, but needed even this small money from the waiter job at an executive dining room, plus anything I could glom from Hurrah.

"I feel like a loser too," Alice replied and confessed to having trouble sleeping at home in Charleston. "How was your holidays?"

"Good." One visit to family in Boston and a few drunken fetes at the East Village bar. She suspected me of fooling around, except once I've had two drinks I'm only interested in the third, fourth and fifth.

All I could see was a dark black future, but I restrained from revealing that vision to Alice. She has the whole world in front of her.

MAN OF THE YEAR

My teachers at Xaverian Brothers High School told their students, "Never vote for yourself."

I'm only one vote, so I can be Man of the Year in my own mind.

Carter's out for his adherence to Rockefller's Capitalism and not admonishing Taiwan about their treatment of the people of that Island Nation. Anita Bryant's anti-gay stance ended her Sunkist Orange Juice reign as spokeswitch, despite her backing from the Silent Majority and the Shah of Iran is in danger of being ousted by the Persian populace, because of SAVAK, his torture squad, and their destruction of moderate dissidents. Reza Mohhameed Pahlavi's murderous attempts to modernise his country had been met with outcryies from liberals and western TV journalists, but dragging pesasants into the future has failed for hundreds of rulers. The people understand their narrow-minded lives and are threatened by any change, especially when any threat to religion and the mullahs depise him for supposedly distribute their ancient holdings to the farmers, although the lands go to the friends of the Shah in payment for their support.

Long live the Shah.

I bet the house on his not seeing out the 70s.

Times appointed Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese Mainland Premier as Man of the Year.

All hail the Revolution and the end to the Gang of Four.

DISASTER OF THE YEAR

Floods and earthquakes devatated the earth over the twelve months of 1978.

The Jonestown Massacre In Guyana set the massive suicide pact in the jungle apart from every other catastrophe and hopefully the bloated bodies will not be seen in the future.

CHOKE OF THE YEAR

The AL MVP Jim Rice and the Red Sox' team Captain Yaz popped out for outs in the ninth inning with two men on base to lose to the dreaded Yankees in Fenway in the 163rd game of 1978 and the Yanks won the World Series.

JANUARY 1, 2021 - BROOKLYN

I went nowhere last night. I drank nothing. I did no lines of cocaine. I called my families in Thailand. They had enjoyed their evening eating their favorite foods. I can't even remember what I ate.

2021 was not a nothing year.

But I'm lucky to be alive and that's not a small thing.

AULD LANG SYNE Die Toten Hosen

New Year’s Resolutions 2015

Every January 1st millions of Americans vow to better their lives and the world. The Top Ten New Year's resolutions rarely differ from year to year, since few people ever realize these impossible resolutions. Last year I made no resolutions.

Not one.

At my age I've failed enough times to accept my unsuccessful resolution rut with resigned aplomb, but here are the perennial Top Ten;

1. Spend More Time with Family and friends
2. Exercise more
3. Lose weight
4. Stop Smoking
5. Enjoy Life
6. Quit Drinking
7. Get Out of Debt
8. Learn Something New
9. Help Others
10. Get Organized

After reading this list I figure I'm not so bad off.

There's some of them I do without the help of a resolution.

Hell, I must have quit drinking a hundred times in 2012 and I got out of debt by cutting up my credit cards in 2008. Two months of stress knocked off 15 pounds and I don't really smoke cigarettes, except when I drink at a bar.

I do feel good about life, especially when I'm with my kids.

Somehow I got to get over to Thailand more often.

The end of January is the next trip.

So don't worry too much about resolutions.

Most of them are unattainable, otherwise you wouldn't have to make them, so life is for today.

It's the best resolution of all.

Like the Grassroots sang in LIVE FOR TODAY.

To view this classic 60s hit, please go to the following URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lRWXHomzF0

Journal Entry - January 1, 1978

Death to 1977

Onto a year of 78 RPM.

It's snowing and I'm watching the Broncos beat the Raiders. 20-17.

Last night at 27th Street was weird. I hit on Alta. We made up and dry-humped in a dark corner. THe stripper begged off fucking. I accepted her no, got drunk, puked outside, and sobered up enough to last the rest of the night. Death to disco.

I've always said, "All I need is food and shelter."

Here in New York I eat foreign foods, mostly pizza and falafel sandwiches and live at a SRO hotel on West 11th Street off 5th Avenue. My 10' by 10' by 8' room has linoleum floors, a small bed, a sink, and white walls. $40/week. An imperfect cube located in a good neighborhood. What else can I do, except work as a busboy and rock out at CBGBs, where youth is eternal, the nights run long, and "Do anything you want to do."

My job at Serendipity sucks, but I love my fellow queer waiters and busboys. It also provide constant cash for a punk lifestyle in a blown-out city. The 60s were a time of no limits, while the 70s have borders on people like us, who fled the rest of America, and I foresee the 80s as a time of increasing corporate fascism with fear stealing people of their identity as humans. Most Americans think, "Who cares as long as I can eat potato chips?"

"But there are two more years left in the 70s. Romantically I deal with illusions and hope for fantasies to become real, but Ro left to Paris the day I came here in May, although I recently overheard Andy Reese say to Frank Holiday, "Ro is in Greensboro. I really like her."

"Are she and Kirk going to get married," Frank asked, while I shivered silently with shock.

"They are pretty heavy." Andy answered, looking for my reaction. He is such a nasty queen.

I showed none, but earlier I called Andy Kornfeld, who had read my unmailed letters to her and laughed, "You can throw away those letters. She probably has thousands from other failed lovers. You just have to understand she hates men, because of an ex-lover, who wasn't you. She was like that when I met her long ago."

Our affair meant nothing to her and left me with scar tissue on my heart. I was nothing to her other than a body in a bed, and my hopes were an exaggeration of my desires.

On other fronts Fran Malin remains in Brooklyn. I haven't been avoiding her, but she lives across the East River and she is a little insane. She might have feelings for me, but can't leave her boyfriend for good. Once when we were having sex, he knocked on the door.

"Fran, I know you're in there."

"Say nothing and don't stop fucking me," she whispered locking her legs around my knees.

I stayed hard as she moaned breathlessly, humping in synch with her boyfriend's knocking.

Libby has disappeared into New York. I wonder where she is.

Two days ago Tim Dunleavy told me, "Alice gave me a present for you. and it looks like a good one."

What could it be?

Will Alice come to New York again?

We met at a birthday party for Janet Stephenson, who I was seeing at the time. I left with Alice and her friend and had sex with both of them in a Upper East Side townhouse's unheated pool. I think of her more as a companion than a consort and when she left to go back to college, "I always feel physically responsibly to anyone who spends money on me."

I had only paid the taxi.

Was that the sole reason for fucking me?

A LITTLE LATER

Today I went to Jimmy Day's, Blimpie's, Solo's on 52nd Street, Cowwboy's on 53rd, The Plaza Cafe, Dazzel on the West Side, back to Jimmy Days, to a closed Max's Kansas City, over to Broadway Charlies, CBGBs, and One-Fifth and finally to crash at my SRO room

A wasted evening.

No women or friends.

I called Alice long distance from a phone booth.

No answer.

Ann's gift was a sarcastic note and William Goldman's MAGIC, which has too much dialogue to be a novel, but not a movie script.

1977 is over for good.

It's 1978 minus one.

1-1-2007 - PATTAYA

Having gone to sleep slightly after the stroke of 12am on New Year's Eve, I woke with the dawn the next morning. Champoo, my little dog, was dying for a walk and I tiptoed through the sprawled bodies of my wife's guests. They had had too much food and drink unlike me. I was nearly stone-sober.

My fingers were cold and so were my toes.

It wasn't a heart attack.

Only winter in Pattaya.

72 Farenheit.

I went back inside for a leather jacket and escorted Champoo through her AM routine of sniffing every urine stain on the soi. She is an epicurean of eau de chien pee-pee. The larger dogs on the soi kept their distance. The large stick in my hand was an old friend. Ten minutes later I returned to the hosue.

No one was awake.

I watched three episodes of Star Trek ENTERPRISE.

Champoo growled for food, as the Vulcans betrayed Star Fleet. We had bacon and eggs. My wife's sister came into the kitchen to cook rice, spare ribs and vegetables. She's a peasant rice farmer with two front teeth. One look at the farang concoction had her muttering something disrespectful about western cuisine. I've learned to deadened my hearing to Thais, otherwise my jai yen would be burning like an overloaded reactor 99% of the time.

New Year's Day.

Bright and sunny with a chill in the air.

My wife and daughter asleep in the bed.

Everyone in Pattaya nursing whiskey hang-overs.

And I'm feeling fine.

A friend of mine once said that your year will be determined by wahtever you do on the first day of the year.

Sober, full, and loving my daughter.

I will love my daughter for the rest of the year, but the sober will not last long.

Not in Pattaya or Bangkok or anywhere else in the world.

Happy 2008. enjoy it well, because supposedly the world ends Jan. 19, 2008.

JUST ANOTHER NIGHT by Peter Nolan Smith

From 2014

Last night was New Year's Eve.

My redheaded poetess friend Irene phoned to invite me to a 20-something party in Bushwick.

"You'll be the oldest man there." Irene was going solo.

"Almost three times older." We were just friends.

"I think of you as 16." She had witnessed my silliness on more than one occasion.

"I like to think of myself as 15." I was really immature when it came to watching sports in a New York City. I hated Jets fans and Ranger fans were no bargain.

"You're much older than that, plus most of the 'boys' at this party act like ten year-olds." Irene liked older men. She was 26, but still more than two times younger than me in actual years.

"I know." Even thirty year-old men were more like teenagers. Nothing had ever happened in their lives. It wasn't their fault, however the lack of life experience angered them upon hearing my monologues of 'back then'. "I'll think about coming."

"It's just another night and you've had plenty of those." Irene was wiser than her years. She was only foolish in love.

Same as me.

I hung up and returned to watching ZATOICHI THE BLIND SWORDSMAN. I was episode 23 of the TV series. The blind masseur gambled with cheats. He scammed them one by one. They paid with their honor. The sun was setting over Brooklyn. Two bottles of wine were in my fridge. I could take one to the party. It didn't start until 9.

After the end of episode 26 TRAVELING ALONE I decided to go out. I hadn't left the house on South Oxford for over a day. The night wasn't as cold and I walked down to Mullanes. Will was behind the bar. The bearded bartender had gone out on a date with Irene. They had had a good time.

"What will you drink?" asked the Islander fan.

"A Six Point Lager." It was made in Red Hook. "And put on the Bruins-Fishmen hockey game."

"Sure thing."

Will left at 7. The face-off was at 7:05. The Bruins had a 1-0 lead by the end of the 1st period. I know no one in the bar. Most everyone was stuffing their faces. The two young men beside me spoke with Valley Girl accents. They drank Chablis. I texted Irene that I was staying home.

"Love."

She liked an economy of words.

I went home and cooked a pasta of bacon, mushrooms, and gruyere with a butter-garlic-olive oil sauce.

At 8 I called Thailand.

My daughter was having her 10th birthday. Her mother sounded happy. Angie never speaks with me on the phone.

"Tell her I love her."

"She knows that."

Next I phoned Fenway's mom. Our kids were having a good time with fireworks in Ban Nok. None of them wanted to speak with Pa-Pa. I was on the other side of the world.

"Love you," I told Mam.

"I love you too." We haven't seen each in a year.

2013 was a tough one.

I hung up and poured myself a glass of wine.

ZATOICHI drank sake. He killed yakuza by the hundreds. 9-8-3 made up the word 'yakuza'. It added up to a losing hand in hana-fuda. 2013 was 6. Six or Li? meant wealth in Chinese. Its Cantonese annunciation 'lok' signifies a drop.

2013 was certainly a drop in wealth in my life.

I had another glass of wine, then Wikipedia solicited a donation.

I use that website everyday. It saves me a trip to the Main Library on 5th Avenue. I wasn't hitting the bars tonight. Frank's Lounge was asking $20. I gave Wikipedia a little more.

At midnight I heard the fireworks from the East River.

I ate a chocolate and finished my wine.

It was the end of my second glass.

ZATOICHI killed some more yakuza. They were bad men.

I felt good about giving money.

2014 added up to 7.

7 was good luck in every language.

ZATOICHI knows that math.

ps Good night Irene.

I've always wanted to say that.

ops The Islanders beat the Bruins 5-3.

Go figure.

To see Zatoichi, Flashing Sword Cut, please got to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m09S48JSK4

Back From The Dead 2011

From 2011

My New Year's Eve for 2011 plans were simple and local. Watch the Celtics-New Orleans game at Mullane's followed up by an early beer at Frank's then home to my Fort Greene Penthouse to watch the final sunset of 2011 before getting attire in my evening suit. Nothing says New Year's Eve better than a tux. I polished off a bottle of Cote du Rhone and bid farewell to AP and his wife. They were expecting neighbors to see in 2011.

"Frank's?" AP asked knowing my answer.

"Until 11:30. I'll join you for the countdown. "Is Dick Clark still around?"

"They'll have to flash-defrost him to make it to Times Square." AP will be 50 this coming this month. Most of our new year's countdowns were with the eternal teenager, but not this year. "He's in retirement."

"Damn." Nothing stays the same. It was 10:15. "I'll see you in an hour."

Frank's is a five-minute walk from South Oxford. The bar is a Fort Greene fixture dating back to 1972. The owner was sitting at the first table. I greeted him with warmth.

"Thanks for having me this year." One of the regulars had recently named me 'the White Shaft' after I entered the bar in a long black-green leather coat. To misquote Frank Zappa, "I wasn't black, but sometimes at Frank's, I didn't feel white."

"Glad to have you."

I ordered a beer from Sandy, the bartender, and had a few more. My phone was silent. No one calling from Thailand, the Continent, or America. I was off the radar and commanded another beer. I tipped the bartender the change and drank the beer in the glow of another year of the new century sinking into the past. More than a half-century of last-minute preparation for the new year.

Larry and I toasted the Celtics and Lakers.

"Here's to another championship."

Both of us were predicting a rematch of 2009. My phone buzzed with a text message. Shannon was at his girlfriend's restaurant on DeKalb. I wrote that I'd see him after the countdown and bid good night to everyone at Franks'.

AP buzzed me into his house. We drank two bottles of champagne with his wife and two guests. My phone rang 10 minutes into 2011. My nephew was waiting at Oskars. Same rendezvous as Shannon. I tipped my hat to my landlord.

"See you in the afternoon."

"If not later." AP knew that I was hellbound for drink this evening.

Wine, whiskey, and song until 5am.

Yesterday was a blur in my bed. A burger at Mullane's for breakfast at 3pm and Chinese leftovers at home for dinner. No more booze. No drugs. Only water and it wasn't a cure for my ills. Sleep would help a little and I called Fenway's mother in Sriracha before crashing into my pillows.

"Mao?"

"Not mao." I had recovered from the staggering drunk. "Hang."

"Bad?"

"Bad enough. Love you and call you in the morning."

It was barely 9pm and I had had enough of 2010 to last a lifetime unless the clocks reverse their spin and I'll be ready to relive this New Year's Eve backwards. It's the only way to repair the holes in your soul.

Happy 2011

OLD POEM FROM THE UNKNOWN

From 2022

In the end
I saw myself
As others saw me.
A middle-aged man to turn older
An older man to become ancient
Since age eight
Refusing to obey the vow of Faith
Demanded by the Sisters of St. Mary__
Now
I never kneel before the altar
I never ask for forgiveness for my sins
Only saying to the Bible's God
I am a mere mortal.
Mo More
No less
Just a mere mortal____
Never a God___

New Year's Traffic Death Festival 2019

From 2019

The Thai Festival for the end of 2018 has come to an end. The police are are overwhelmed by the traffic, as milliions of Thais travel to the distant provinces to see their families. The holiday death toll reached over 400 with countless thousands injured in car and motorcycle accidents.

Driving drunk is a norm.

Everyone is in a hurry.

And there is no telling what's on the road ahead.

Only Libya has a worst fatality record.

Only space invaders are worse.

No Music Day 11/21 Pattaya

From 2007

Last week on during my holiday stay in Thailand Jamie Parker said that he had never seen a group of people more allergic to silence than the Thais. The TV never gets a rest. Rice farmers wake to loudspeakers blaring crop prices. Dogs howl without an owner's restraining smack and karaoke bars punish neighbors with painful renditions of Isaan love songs way past dawn.

And I've never heard a Thai complain about this ceaseless din.

Quiet on the other hand scares the pisac or devil out of Thais, as if ghosts or phi are slinking through the night to eat their flesh.

This aversion to silence is not to say that they don't appreciate san-dti? so?ok or tranquility, which was yesterday's goal of No Music Day in the UK.

No music. None at all.

The website www.nomusicday.com belongs to KLF founder Bill Drummond, whose infamous counter-reaction to fame and fortune was to delete KLF's musical backlog and then burn a million pounds on the deserted Scottish island of Jura. The fiery destruction of 50-pound notes took less than an hour and gained the band members near-legend status for their disregard for money.

Now Bill Drummond has organized No Music Day on November 21.

"All music is shite." He said after a visit to HMV Oxford Street and he doesn't consider this attitude due to his age. "There was nothing So I went home and searched every corner of the web for something new, fresh, exciting. Something that would make me hear music in a different way. Something that would open a door to a room in my head which I had never been in before. But even in those furthest corners I could find nothing that did this. I decided I needed a day I could set aside to listen to no music whatsoever. Instead, I would be thinking about what I wanted and what I didn't want from music. Not to blindly - or should that be deafly - consume what was on offer. A day where I could develop ideas. This day I would call No Music Day. St Cecilia is the patron saint of music. I have no idea why and I am not interested in finding out. But her Saint's Day is on 22 November. This is the day we are supposed to celebrate music, thank God for its existence. I decided that No Music Day should be on the day before St Cecilia's Day, using the same principles as having Halloween the day before All Saints' Day or Mardi Gras on the day before Lent kicks in."

Nietzsche countered Bill Drummond by writing, "Life without music would be a mistake."

Maybe so, but I joined No Music Day and didn't play a single CD or watch TV.  

My house was a temple to No Music.

No Stones, no Beethoven, no Jam, no Ramones, no Loso.

But I must have been the only person observing the holiday in Pattaya, because as soon as I left my soi, music was coming from every direction. The 7/11, passing car stereos, a girl answering her telephone. Most of it meaningless background noise.

I did mention No Music day to Nick Rieter recently back from the UK. "KLF. That wanker. Says he burned a million pounds. Probably said it to keep from paying back his friends and I couldn't remember a single song of theirs anyway. Fucking sod off. You don't want to hear any music, then stick chopsticks into your ears."

I stopped mentioning No Music Day after that and broke my fast with Jeff Beck's Truth CD.

SHAPES OF THINGS

Nothing says old like pre-1969 music.  

New Year's Day - the East Village - 2024

St. Mark's Church
New Year's Day
Late afternoon
Outside
The sky a darkening gray.

Poetry inside
Hundreds in attendance
Scores of poets
Words twisting into more words
Tangling syllables
Words wrought by the breath of life
Skipping o'er the tongues
Of Poets amongst poets
Within the church.

Outside
Afternoon surrendering to evening
Walk down Second Avenue
This East Village once my home
1977-2005
256 East 10th Street
On the 3rd floor
Three rooms, a bath in the kitchen, a water closet off the bedroom
Next door the Russian Baths
Steaming still
Across the street
Sapphoro East
Sushi still
So many other things gone.

Not the Church
Not Velselkas
Not the library
But the Gem Spa is gone.
As am I
From a place more than thirty years my home.

I don't feel a stranger
Nor estranged
I see those from before
Fighting to be faces
From memories
So many memories
Constructing faces and places
Klaus Haoui Sharon Willem Alice dear Alice
The hundreds the thousands
Dog man
Johnny Thunders
The known and the unknown
Just like today
As the evening swings into night
Not a star in the sky
Only Venus the evening star
O'er the East Village.

Back at th Church
Poems intertwined like snakes
Poets chanti their verses
A magic older than time

I'm outside
Wind, buses, young people laughing
On Second Avenue
Feeling home
In this East Village of mine
Ours and everyone.

New Year’s Eve 2007 Pattaya

On the afternoon of December 31, 2007 heavy lorries, pick-up trucks and 125cc motorcycles with sidecars exited from the distributor at the end of my soi with thousands of beers every minute. Thousands of Thai and farang tourists were flocking into the city for the year's final drunk in the beach resort's countless bars, go-gos, hotels, and brothels from Jomtien to Naklua.

"What are you doing tonight?" Sam Royalle asked on my porch in the shade of a Norfolk pine. He had been out the previous night with our friends and couldn't remember coming home. His skin exuded a sheen of excess alcohol.

"Nothing." I had avoided the debauch and fallen asleep before the TV during a Star Trek ENTERPRISE marathon. The mozzies had partied with my feet during my unconscious state and I was scrubbing the red splotches with salt.

"Nothing?"

"I worked in nightclubs through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. My fellow workers referred to 12/31 as 'amateur's night' and the same stupid behavior of fights, accidents, and stupid conversations held as true for Pattaya as it had in New York, London, Paris, or LA.

"I'm giving it a miss. My wife is going out with her friends though, so I get to care back of my daughter. We're going to watch the fireworks from my garden."

"Have a party." Sam was a family man and understood kids came first. He drove off on his scooter in the direction of home.

My wife left the house at 8:30 without any good-byes. Angie didn't care. She and I had KFC and played rodeo on the bed. We had a glass of Pepsi and watched some more Star Trek. It put both of us to sleep before 10. I was dead sober.

I heard the fireworks and tried to open my eyes.

Not a chance.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

What has happened to my wickedness?

Children.

They tend to rescue a bad man's soul.

Better them than the devil.