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.

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.

Labor Day Weekend 2021

Written Sep 3, 2021

Labor Day Weekend traditionally marks the end of summer in the USA. Millions of Americans flocked to the shore, lakes, mountains, parks, and backyards for a last gasp of enjoyment before going back to work. Few realize that the holiday was established by President Grover Cleveland as a peace offering after his ordering in troops and federal marshals to break up the 1894 Pullman Strike outside Chicago.

The American Railway Union had struck and boycotted the Pullman Coach Company throughout the summer. Executives had cut workers' wages, but refused to lower prices at the company stores or rents in their company towns. Nearly 200,000 railroad workers walked out across the country effectively shutting down transportation from coast to coast.

President Cleveland called in 12,000 federal troops to protect corporate property and escort scabs or strike-breakers across the picket lines. In the ensuing violence thirty strikers were killed and many others wounded. Public opinion favored the action and ARU leader Eugene Debs was imprisoned for six months. Further investigation faulted George Pullman with inciting the unrest.

Immediately after the end of the strike Cleveland designated first weekend in September as Labor Day rather than International Workers Day in May due to its association communists, anarchists, and socialists.

Today I asked twenty people in Fort Greene, "Why do we have Labor Day?"

Most said to celebrate the end of summer, a few replied that they didn't know, and two answered to honor the working man without any mention of the struggle to win an 8-hour day, a minimum wage, health care, social security, and many other commonly accepted entitlements for the working classes.

The Republicans, the Proud Boys, the anti-vaxxers and Bible Tumpers are too ignorant to know exactly the benefits, which were won by those strikers and the GOP has refused to enact any legislation to overhaul the national infrastructure, preferring for the country to crumple into dust rather than hired hundreds of thousands of Americans for good-paying jobs.

An annual expenditure $100 billion will transform America into a nation of workers.

Do not give them up without a fight.

The police are workers working for the bosses.

They are not our friends when in uniform, except when they remember that they are union members too.

Workers of the world unite.

AUGUST 30, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY

Summer will be over soon, the equinox is only three weeks away. winds from the North signal the impending change in seasons. the rustle of leave underfoot foretell the approach of autumn. Last night a cold gust caught me unaware. Winter, the coldest season of all hates to be forgotten.

A delicate butterfly bobbles against the August sky. Its shoulder-high flight dodges cars and trucks on 1st Avenue I pray out a warning to the danger The butterfly soars above the traffic. Preserving its beauty And the hope for mine.

I want to write a short story combining my trips to Evans Notch, the Moose Bar and Grill, and Peter Gorr's spooky mountain retreat. Lately I have been inspired by reading HP Lovecraft and sense the mysteries of the Other Side.

Our Boy Scout troop camped atop Evans Mountain next to the ruins of a stagecoach inn, a two-story wreck with a gaol in the damp basement. That evening the troop leader told a campfire tale of three Dartmouth students vanishing the night before the Thanksgiving of 1943. We went to sleep scared to the marrow.

As a teenager I checked the records from the surrounding towns without finding any information affirming the incident that although the East Village isn't very conducive to traveling through dimensions other than with LSD.

Last night Alice was hurt by my staying out all night. Her decision to sleep alone drives me out of the apartment, despite loving me and wanting to share all her pleasures and woes. Once I woke, she said she had risen at dawn and watched me sleep for several more hours.

"Your chest rose and fell so gently, but your sleep seemed like too much a waste of the day."

No More Mirrors - Montauk - 2025

Still Running - Botanical Gardens - Brooklyn - 2024

Bains Douches - Paris - 1983

Navy Beach Weir - Montauk

JFK on the March to Washington

Written August 13, 2013

Two years ago the BBC News reported that JFK had attempted to block the 1963 March on Washington for fear of violence and painted a picture of a president apathetic to the plight of blacks in America, however the article ignored to mention the Justice Department descending on Birmingham after the police chief had sicced dogs on peaceful Civil Rights demonstrators and had focused on Martin Luther King's Statement that 'the events of the early summer had transformed the struggle for black equality from what he called a "Negro protest" into a "Negro revolution". America, he feared, had reached "explosion point".

For the most part the violence was one-sided with white supremacists bombing churches and firing at SNCC volunteers, however the specter of a slave uprising scared whites and JFK was concerned about losing the South to the GOP on the issue of equal rights.

Upon hearing on the March on Washington JFK called out the National Guard and the FBI spied on march organizers and radicals opposed to non-violence.

Snipers were placed along the parade route.

But on August 28 there was no violence.

JFK listened to King's I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH.

"He's good - he's damned good”

I thought the same thing in Boston.

I hoped for a better day.

And so did JFK.

After the speech the black leaders came to the White House.

It was hard to stop being a white man and see all men as men, but this country was founded on the tenet that all men are created equal.

JFK understood that and his brother even more.

We are all family.

March On DC Plus 60

Written 8/26/2013

August 28, 1963 hundreds of thousands of Americans assembled in Washington DC to march for Jobs and Freedom. They gathering had a good number of whites, but the marchers were predominantly black and very brave considering how the police treated any congregation of coloreds with violence.

The DC police had mobilized the entire force and its chief had called in the National Guard to maintain order and had gone so far as to forbid liquor sales in the capitol.

The sound system at the Lincoln Memorial had been vandalized and organizers had demanded Attorney General Robert F Kennedy for a replacement.

The US Army made the necessary connections and the next day the area around the Reflecting Pool was occupied by the largest gathering of African-Americans ever held in the USA. The mainstream media expected mayhem. None expected peace from blacks. They were wrong.

A moment of silence was observed for the passing of W. E. B. DuBois and according to Wikipedia Roy Wilkins told the crowd, "Regardless of the fact that in his later years Dr. Du Bois chose another path, it is incontrovertible that at the dawn of the twentieth century his was the voice that was calling you to gather here today in this cause."

Speakers from the SNCC, CORE, and SCLC extolled immediate action against racism.

With good reason.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s took to the podium.

I was twelve years old and watched his speech on a Zenith TV.

I knew no black people.

I lived in a suburb south of Boston.

His words struck my soul.

The preacher had a dream and I have shared that dream throughout my life.

One day we will enter the Promised Land.

To hear his words please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

The Weirs Of Wychmere

Weir fishing has existed since time immemorial.

In 1913 subway excavators in Boston discovered ancient wooden fishing weirs dating back 3500 years, although recent research suggests that the Back Bay site had existed almost 9,000 years ago and supported 30-50 families.

The melting glaciers on the Laurentian Granite Shield changed the influx of tides and the native people adapted their methods to suit the new climate.

On summer vacations to Cape Cod my brother and I sailed out to the abandoned Harwich weirs. The wooden stumps were connected by rickety walkways and covered with tattered shrouds of netting strewn with fish skeletons.

The gulls loved the weirs.

They scared my older brother.

Me too.

Recently I thought about them asked my cousins and family, if they remembered the weirs.

They all said no.

But once the weir fishermen provided hook fishermen with bait from the sea off Wychmere Harbor.

In days long gone.

Life was different.

Better?

Maybe.

Dolls Lookalike

Post David Johansen' death this summer my friend Dakota send an email was sifting through photos of Johansen and thought, he looks like Peter. Not surprised I’m not the only person who has made the comparison. 

Enjoy those beaches and little sights in life. Often while withdrawing, one of the worst moments was seeing a beautiful sight and being unable to fully appreciate it because of the condition I was in. Makes you understand why Buzz Aldrin became a total drunk after returning from Space.

I replied

I was once at Max's 1978 and the lanky singer from the Student Teachers approached our table and said, "We're covering Personality Crisis in our set." 

"Thanks. Key of G please."

A strange look. Then I realized he thought I was David Johanson.

The lead singer of the New York Dolls and I shared the same hair and big head and a savage face. Later in that decade in London at night on the King's Road someone asked, "Are you Gary Numan?"

My blonde girlfriend thereafter called me 'suedehead', since the pop star had a smooth coif. Lisa and I lasted to the end of 1979. I've never seen her after running into her in Paris at Albert de Paname's Nouvelle Eve in Pigalle. 1985.

The world will exist with or without us. I've had a good life. On the beach at Ditch Plains. Mist covering a gray sea. A light easterly wind . A waist high swell. A score of seal skinned surfers on the break. On the beach tourists. Talking. I wander down the beach. Not to silence, but the sound of the waves.

I plan on living forever for ever how long that is. At least longer than David Johansen. I doubt anyone ever accuse him of looking like me.

Never A Tilt

Pinball machines were viewed by the righteous, as if the souls of young people were threatened by helping a steel ball defy gravity, then again the Church had sentenced the humanist Galilleo to a long house arrest for his assailing the Vatican's belief that Earth was the center of the universe. or that's how I remember his sin. The Dark Ages were Dark, because the Vatican destroyed all sources of knowledge beyond the New and Old Testaments, except those out of their reach in the Moorish kingdoms, India, China, and the empires of the New World.

My family lived in a pink split-level ranchhouse built on an old army base in the BlueHills south of Boston. My mother insisted that we attend St. Mary's of the Foothills. The Sisters of St. Joseph were a teaching order. Their students learn that the Earth was round, Latin, Geography, Math and lessons of Catholcism from the Baltimore Catechism. Thankfully as an atheist in the early 1960s I had freed myself from their ignorance of the One and True Faith. I shared my devotion with no one and wandered the Blue Hills, played sports in our backyard and in 1964 after school walked to Mattapan Square across the Neponset. Pizza 25 cents and the Ashmont trolley was free connecting with the T to downtown Boston.

During my childhood my Irish nana had taken my older brother and me on trips to Washington Street. A prayer and confession at The Shrine of St. Anthony. A hot dog on a grilled bun at WT Grant's followed by a movie at the Orpheum. Always during the day, although myeyes were drawn to bright lights of the amusement centers. Pinball, skeet, and teenagers in leather. Nana loved Robert Mitchum as a bootlegger in THUNDER ROAD. She had brewed beer in the basement of her three-decker in Jamaica Plains, but her grip tightened passing those dens of inequity. They were off-limits for good boys, but not for long.

At the age of twelve I rode the Ashmont trolley first to Mattapan Square and then the T to Washington Street, heading straight to the amusement center with my pocket filled with quarters from my newspaper route. No one challenged my entry. Men and boys of all ages stood before a wide array of pinball machines. I watched to learn the game. Shooting the ball, flippers, bumping thr machine. The defiance of gravity. I like the name of Bally's ACES HIGH. I barely broke a thousand my first game, but my skill improved that day and every year until I moved to New York in 1976.

In Times Square I was one of the best. I spent hours at the amusement of Broadway. At night I hung out at bars. Always getting top score. After leaving Park Slope I ended up at CBGBs. The punk bar on the Bowery had rock, pinball, and loose women. The Ramones, rock musicians, and Hells Angels dominated the two machines. I was better than them, having honed my skills in Times Square, but respected tgat this was their turf, but as the nights in CBGBs got late, the pinball machines were q

Damn Les Habitants -1971

Written 2011

My introduction to French was via the heavy accent of Pepé Le Pew. The cartoon skunk appeared on TV every Saturday morning in Maine during the 1950s. Pepe never got the girl. Skunks smelled bad and supposedly the French also never bathed with soap. France was across the Atlantic Ocean, but another France was much closer to my home across the harbor from Portland.

Quebec.

The largest minority in Maine was the French Canadians. They worked in the mills and logging camps. A radio station from Montreal played songs for these workers and their families. I listened to them on a ROCKET RADIO, Miniman Model MG-302.

Somehow attaching its alligator clips to the metal frame of my bed powered the crystal. I listened to the French music. None of the words had any sense, but several evenings a week in the winter a hoarse voiced announced the hockey games from ‘le Forum’.

The Canucks in Maine supported the Canadians or ‘les Habitants’. The team dominated hockey in the NHL, winning six of the decades’ Stanley Cups. My father came from an old New England family. We rooted for the Boston Bruins. They always lost to the Habs just like Pepe le Pew never got the girl.

My father moved our family from Maine to the South Shore of Boston in 1960. My ROCKET RADIO was upgraded to a Japanese transistor and I caught the Montreal station when the atmosphere was clear of static. The music was changing from smooth to pop. A young singer was very popular with teens.

Francoise Hardy was the ‘Yeh-Yeh Girl’.

I bought 45s in Mattapan Square. The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills taught us French. I understood the lyrics and plotted to meet her one day.

Pop lost favor for rock.

I loved the Sultans' garage rock version of LE POUPEE QUI FAIT NON.

But some things never changed.

The Bruins continued to lose to the Canadians with regularity and the Montreal team captured four Stanley Cups in a row, until the Bruins’ Bobby Orr scored a Cup winning goal in 1970. The victory was against an expansion team, the St. Louis Blues, but this was their first Cup since 1940.

They had been lucky to avoid the Canadians during the playoffs.

They never lost to the Bruins.

April 1971 the Bruins were favored to beat the Canadians in the semi-finals. The goalie Gerry Cheever allowed one goal in the first meeting. It was Easter Week and my three friends and I were driving down to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break.

We had rented an apartment across from the Elbow Room, famed from the 60s movie WHERE THE BOYS ARE.

Below Washington we entered the Deep South. We were longhairs and rednecks hated hippies almost as much as we hated the Canadians.

Our only stops were for gas and food.

Throughout Georgia we listened to WBZ's broadcast of the second game between the Habs and Bs. The Boston-based radio station had a strong 50,000 watt signal. The Bruins went up 5-2 at the end of the 2nd period. The signal died at the Florida border.

In my mind the Bruins were returning to the Stanley Cup. We stopped for complimentary OJ at the state hospitality stop and drove the rest of the night to reach our destination at dawn.

I had never been to Florida before and I marveled at the palm trees, the Gulf Stream, and co-eds in bikinis.

Our apartment had a view of it all. I went down to the store for beer and picked up the local newspaper, opening the sports section. I blinked several times in disbelief before the printed tragedy hit me with full force.

The Habs had come back from the abyss and scored 5 goals in the 3rd period.

The series was tied at 1-1.

The Bruins pushed the Canadians to the limit and lose game 7.

That misfortune was repeated often over the next four decades, but two nights ago with history on the line the Bruins played the Habs in another game seven. I was watching from Mullanes across the street from Frank's Lounge, which does not do hockey.

The teams were tied into OT.

I was ready for the loss, but the Bruins of 2011 were not those of 2010 or 1971. We won the game and I toasted my team with another beer. I was the only Bruins fan in the bar. It felt good and I lifted my glass one more time. “To Pepe Le Pew.”

I hope that somewhere he got the girl in the end.

Sleeping In A Tent

I sleep in a tent
Alone
On a beach
The rain
Sounds different on canvas
Less muted than on a roof
Comforting
That I don't have to go outside
Wet and alone in the dark
I know those friends well
Always faithful
Throw in a little cold
Ah misery
The most faithful of friends
But not tonight
I am in a tent
Under a duvet
Warm and dry
More apart than alone
Knowing friends and family are out there
Safe from the storm___”

The Aroma of Paradise / Gaspe Quebec

The ride after the ferry landing on the south shore of the St Lawrence to Gaspe took longer than my father and I had anticipated, even counting for a Quebec trooper stopping my father for speeding. 160 KPH in a 100 KPH zone. My father received a warning and we were back on our way, wheeling along the rugged coast line. The peninsula ended at our destination. We didn't make it that far. My father argued with me about speeding and threw me out of the car. In the middle of a forest with a view of the St. Lawrence. The Mercedes vanished over a hill. He wasn't coming back.

I started walking. Gaspe wasn't that far. The trooper stopped, heard my story, and took me to the small fishing town famousized by the monolithic islands trailing into the Atlantic. It was almost sunset. I spotted my father's car before a restaurant with a spectacular view.

I thanked 'flic' and walked to the restaurant. A delightful fragrance traipsed with the breeze. The source was inside the restaurant without a name. I entered like a Lagotto Romagnolo hunting a motherlode of truffles. My father sat at the window. I knocked on the wall of the kitchen. The chef turned from his frying pan filled with seafood. A bouillabaisse from the wild North Atlantic.

"Deux plats comme ca." I lifted two fingers. He smiled back at us. Every cook likes someone appreciating their efforts. The hostess sat me with my father.

"Bonne Vue."

"Tres bien." My father had learned his French in college. 1940. Mine came from working at the Bains-Douches in the 80s. The clerk didn't understand either of us. Quebec's dialect dated back to the 1600s.

Two glasses of Syvval white wine from Nova Scotia on the table, as if my father had been expecting me. Our meal was a bouillabaisse of local fish, clams, and shrimp. Delicious was an understatement. We were transported to paradise. Canada was a foreign land. Tomorrow we would be heading back to America. We said nothing about our fight. We toasted my mother and his wife. We were together with her tonight.

Here in the distant Quebec and its food.

Nothing like it south of the border.

Why Just Two?

The other evening a rightist American male at a BBQ in Montauk said in public, "There are only men and women?"

My response.

"What about hermaphrodites?"

This statement stumped him, mostly because we had met in the late 1970s when the Sexual Revolution was at its height. Genders were just male and female, but these had been determined by religions and not biology of the species, such as unisexual species who procreate through parthenogenesis through which females hatch the next generation from unfertilized eggs, namely examples Amazonian species such as whiptail lizards, some species of salamanders, and certain aphids.

Various human cultures throughout our existence have accepted a multitude of genders. I shape-shift between them all without seeking a definition, although I prefer multi sexual. Then again I am the product of the Sexual Revolution.

At the Deuce - Miami Beach - 1975

“This place smells like New York to me. Sour beer, whiskey sweat, cheap perfume, and cigarettes. Back in the 50s I used to go up to Harlem and tune whorehouse pianos.” He inhaled the air, as if to pick out a faint trace of that memory on the breeze. “Lilacs and a woman’s glow after a trick.” A saccharine version of MISTY played on the jukebox. “Jackie Gleason. People loved his music. He composed and arranged the theme for his TV show, even though he couldn’t read music.” “I watched THE HONEYMOONERS with my parents.” His hilarious interpretation of a luckless Brooklyn bus driver won the big man fame and fortune. “How sweet it is.” “He was more than funny. You know he did his show down here?” “THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW.” “It was broadcast live direct from Miami Beach. I wish that I could have worked there, but Jackie worked with union guys. I had drinks with him once. The big man was really into UFOs. He thought they were going to kidnap him into Space. Fat chance of them fitting the Great One in a flying saucer.” “I loved him in the movie SOLDIER IN THE RAIN.” Jackie Gleason had played a conniving sergeant opposite Steve McQueen. “The ending made me cry.” “You were never in the military, Hippie boy, were you?” The words were almost an accusation. “No.” I tensed up in preparation for an attack. “Chill out, Hippie Boy. I wasn’t in the army either, but I did get called up for induction. The damned draft board thought I was faking my blindness. After a check-up they wrote up that I had perfect 0/0 vision and flat feet too. Never knew that. Good thing I have a long nose. I can smell everything around me like a bloodhound tracking a runaway slave.” Old Bill raised his head and howled off-key. He was no singer. I ordered us another round. The rough and ready bar had a warped pool table. Two rednecks were finishing an eight-ball game. I watched the winning cracker’s winning shot. “They any good?” “Nothing special.” “How about you and me taking them on?” “Are you serious?” “Serious as death.” He listened to the click of the balls and then handed me $5. “What’s this?” “Our bet. Can you play?” “Yes.” I had spent two teenage summers hanging out at a pool hall in Boston’s Combat Zone and said, “I can take them.” “We can.” Old Bill walked over to the pool table. He knew his way around the Deuce. The grits smiled and the winner asked, “What you want, old man?” “My friend and I are challenging you to game. Hippie Boy, show him the money.” I didn’t like the way the skinny Reb had called Old Bill ‘old man’ and slapped the fiver on the rail. “You break.” “Look at that, Bob Bob. A blind man and the hippie trying to hustle us like we were rubes from Ocala.” Several people gathered by the table. Everyone at the Deuce liked a free show. “I’ve seen the old man before, JJ. He’s a blind as a bat in sunlight. I don’t know about the faggot Hippie Boy.” “It’s $5. You chickenshits in or you out?” “We’re in, old man.” The Miami humidity had warped the remaining sticks and Old Bill asked, “You mind if I use my walking stick.” “You could use a beer bottle for all the good it will do ya. Like you said. Our break.” The skinny grit sank two solids on the break and deftly dropped two more in rapid succession. The two friends laughed in expectation of victory and Bob Bob asked, “What about upping the stake to $10?” “What’s the table look like?” whispered Old Bill. “He has one more open shot and then our balls block theirs.” Old Bill laid out another $5. “But only if the odds are 2 to 1.” “You got it.” JJ put up $20 and then sank the obvious shot, but missed a difficult bumper shot leaving me with an open table. I sank four balls and left the cue behind the eight ball. Bob Bob had no play. The two rednecks conferred and the big man unexpectedly airbombed the cue on the six. It fell in the side pocket. His next shot came nowhere near that brilliance. It was Old Bill’s turn and he asked, “Where’s the cue ball? And where am I shooting?” I explained the positions to Old Bill and he touched the green felt before the cue ball, then called out, “Eight ball ball in the corner.” Old Bill’s cane tapped the cue ball, which sank the black ball. The bar applauded his shot. I laughed with joy. Old Bill bowed to the crowd. We strolled home with the dawn stretching across the Gulf Stream in bands of blue. “A good night, Hippie Boy,” said Old Bill before the Sea Breeze. “And even better a good sleep ahead of us.” I started for the phone booth and Old Bill grabbed my arm. “It’s 5am in California. Your girl is asleep, plus there’s nothing you can do to a girl 3000 miles away.” “I’ve never been lucky in love.” “You’re lucky in ways you don’t see. Everyone loves you at the Sea Breeze.” “They do?’ “No one has died since you came here, so stop worrying about that girl. She’ll be there. She’s going to college and schools don’t end till Spring.” We rode the elevator up to our floors and I fell asleep to dreams of Diana. I had to get out of Miami soon

117 Redux

New York in the summer. Everyone complaining about the heat. 94 in the shade. 98 in the sun. The hot bouncing off the concrete. Loose clothing. Walk close. Seek shade. Noon. High noon. No shade. None. But I've been hotter. On the road 1974. Hitchhiking. 117 in Needles California. I was a hippie back then as was my traveling friend Andy. Both longhairs. Hair down to our shoulders. Getting off a bus. We seek shelter. Across the road a Dairy Queen. Inside. Two ice cream sodas. Vanilla for me. I always preferred those at Dairy Queen. Body temp back to normal. We get back up on the highway. Once Route 66. Now an interstate. No soul. No shade. Hot as Death Valley. Cars whiz by. 80 plus. The back draft a flash on hell. An Oldsmobile 88 stops. An old couple heading out of the hot. They have hippie grandchildren. It's 1974. We are children of Kerouac, Easy Rider, and the Summer of Love. The old lady offers lemonade. We thank her, grateful for the ride and refreshment. Our conversation over fifty years ago. I remember no words, but I recall the AC, the desert, me sitting on the right in the back seat, passing Lake Havasu, the old lady's smile, my smiling back, and the Olds climbing into Arizona. Prescott. The old man' pulls into a motel. On the original 66. The Interstate not here yet.We say goodbye. Cool up high. In the 7Os. Crash on the woods. With the galaxy overhead. Two hippies happy to be away from Needles, California, but not Called fornia_

ENTREZ NOUS

The scene at BSir's in Hamburg collapsed in December 1982. SS Tommy, a vicious St. Pauli pimp, presented a bill for sexual services from my girlfriend. 9500 Deustchmarks. Itemized by acts. At least he hadn't charged me for her pretend caresses. Astrid had never mentioned she was working for him, but the blonde musclebuilder said, "Everyone in Hamburg works for someone. Even me."

That evening I handed over the keys to my totaled BMW, which was still waiting to be towed from the Oberalsterniederung Woods. After midnight I caught a train to Paris. The NYPD's Internal Affairs wanting me for questioning about a murder of a Russian gangster and police corruption at the Continental Club on West 25th Street prevented a return to America. I had held my sand during their last interrogations, but they FBI were interested in the Russians, so I opted to stay in Paris.

I checked into my usual hotel in the Marias. Madame Levy gave me my old room on the top floor. That evening at le Privilege its manager Claude Aurenson mentioned that Farida was leaving her position as doorperson at Les Bains-Douches. The Algerian beauty was destined to be the muse for several fashion designers and a famed Parisian photographer. Claude offered to call the owner of Les Bains. Fabrice was delighted that I was available. I had a good reputation in Paris as a doorman. Twenty minutes later a taxi stopped on a small street close to the Musee Centre Pompidou.

BAINS-DOUCHES was carved into stone above the entrance of 7 Rue du Bourg l’Abbe. I tipped the driver 30 francs for good luck. He grunted out a 'merci' like a snake fart and drove around the corner. I climbed the stairs and pushed open the heavy glass and wood door.

The cleaning crew was preparing for the night. Tables set with forks, knives, spoons, and glasses atop paper sheets. In the kitchen a mustached cook chopped vegetables. The thin Italian's name was Tony. He lifted his head in greeting, as if he had been expecting me, then returned to his task.

The boyishly young owner counted money in the tiny office. Records were stacked on the floor and posters proclaimed upcoming concerts of punk, soul, funk, African, French, New Wave, and electronic bands. Fabrice noticed my admiration and smiled like he had found a long-lost toy boat.

"Ah, l'American." He hadn’t used the pejorative 'Amerlot'.

"C'est moi." The previous winter a counter-culture magazine had hired me to be the physionomiste of its eclectic boite de nuit on the Grand Boulevard. The publisher had introduced Fabrice and his rounder partner as VIP. I treated them like movie stars. I had been surprised and relieved by his telephone call. No one in Paris knew anything about the Continental.

"So we are in need of a physionomiste. Do you speak French?"

"Un peu." My French dated back to grammar school outside of Boston and my Boston accent since birth. My accent wasn't going anywhere. "I more learned from my girlfriend."

"Le dictionaire couchant. No place better to learn a language than in bed, but we will speak English," Fabrice swiftly explained the job. My schedule was Tuesday through Saturday. My shift started at 9. The doors closed at 4, but the bar shut when no one was buying a drink. The pay was 600 francs a night. A little better than $100. He mentioned nothing about my difficulty with the NYPD.

"Sounds good."

"You get a meal a night, plus your drinks for free."

"Even better." As happy as I was with new employ, I was honor bound to tell Fabrice my shortcomings. "I am a total stranger to French culture."

"Who are the best singers in France?" He asked without hesitation.

"Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy." I loved the former's concept LP BALLADE OF MELODIE NELSON and any man not in love with the original Yeh-Yeh Girl failed my cool test.

"Bien, very 60s. What about movies?"

"Gerard Depardieu." The stocky actor had been riveting in Bertrand Blier's GOING PLACES along with Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou, but stole the show in Barbet Schroder’s exploration of sadism MAITRESSE and that movie inspired my choice for an actress. "Catherine Denevue in BELLE DU JOUR."

"Bunuel's ode to humiliation. Cruelty is a good trait for a physionomiste," he tempered the term for someone who judges by appearance with mixture of wonder and derision. Friends considered us psychic. Our enemies i.e. those people refused entry used harsher expletives to describe our position. "It is not a problem that you don't know anyone."

"Is there a list?" Most clubs had regulars.

"Ouais." Fabrice held up a sheet of paper with names scribbled in ink. He tore the list into shreds. "Now non. My friends, le clientele, have been treated like les petites princes et princesses. Time for to go to le re-education camp. Le Bains-Douches is the best club in Paris. I don't count Le Palace. That is a disco. The people who come here want to come here. It is their home."

"So I should ask the bouncers for help?"

"Pas de tout." He shook his head, as he had a sudden fever. Owners had a low opinion of the muscle, until they were the only solution to a problem. “Les videurs let in their friends. Bums and clochards. Les voyos. This is a purge. You worked Studio 54, n’est pas?"

"Yes."

I had managed the faded glory of the velvet ropes for one month after it had been sold by the prison-bound founders. The reincarnation was dead from night one. The new owner had bought the legendary club, because he had been refused entry. Money was no guarantee of success in discos. I had nothing to gain by elaborating on the truth.

"How shall I treat everyone?"

"Like the shit they are." Fabrice gave a good laugh like he was watching Jerry Lewis movie, however no Americans understood the froggies’ appreciation of Dean Martin’s ex-partner. My old girlfriend from Aix-En-Provence said it was because the subtitles in French were funnier than the American dialogue. I had tested her theory. THE NUTTY PROFESSOR was kooky, but unfunny in either language.

"Comme le merde?" I wasn’t sure if I heard him right.

"Exactement."

“Are you sure?"

"The French appreciate the rapport de force. You treat them like shit and they will love you."

"Love or hate."

"Do you care?"

"Non." I was happy to be out of New York.

"Where are you staying?"

"There's a hotel in the Marais." The Hotel Des Ecouffes in the Jewish Quarter was a ten minute walk from the Bains-Douches. The top floor had a room with a view of Notre-Dame, which cost 500 francs a week with a petite dejeuner.

"Bien. Tout est regulee. Ce soir viens pour manger avec moi et mes amis."

"D'accord."

Later I dined with Fabrice, Claudine, his impossibly beautiful girlfriend, models, musicians, and artists at the best table at the club. Keith Richard sat two away from me. Midway through dinner Jack Nicholson dragged the Rolling Stone to the downstairs dance floor.

After dessert I excused myself from the table and went to the entrance to introduce myself to the two videurs. Neither bouncer was a giant, but the warped knuckles and broken noses testified to their toughness. They refused no one entrance, but I stopped three men in brad-new Adidas sneakers.

"Pas ce soir."

“Pour quoi?"

"Les tennis." I pointed to their trainers. "Les Bains-Douches is not a gym."

"We're friends of Fabrice."

"Pas de exception."

"Petit con," they snarled and the bouncers smiled with amusement. It hadn't taken me long to make enemies.

Fabrice stood at the top of the restaurant steps, nodding with an approval.

I spent the rest of the night saying 'quais' or 'non'.

Scores of these Paris clubgoers were befuddled by an American at the door of Les Bains-Douches and they asked for my predecessor.

"Elle est en retrait." The exotic Farida was already the top model for Azzedine Alaia.

"Pay at the cashier."

"Va te faire foutre."

"Vieux cochon!”

"Ras de Ped." which was Verlain for pederast.

The French swears rolled off my skin. I had heard worse in New York and Boston.

I treated some people with deference. Beautiful women were granted immediate entry. Interesting faces were given carte blanche. Musicians were given a drink. A little past 2am I call it a night and Fabrice slipped me 600 francs in red 100-franc notes.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"But one question."

"Yes."

"Why did you hire me?”

"You came recommended by the owner of that magazine. He said you had a good eye."

"I never thought that." I was as blind as a stump.

"Now you know, have a good night's sleep."

I walked back to the Marais through narrow streets. Clochards slept on heating vents. I stuck a hundred-franc note into the gnarled mitt of a wine-drunk bum. Hand-outs were good luck.

I reached my hotel and climbed the stairs to the top floor. The apartments across the street seemed within arm's reach.

Beyond the open windows Paris spread west to a vague horizon speared by the Eiffel Tower. I laid on the bed with the covers pulled up to my neck and fell into a dreamless sleep, as the dawn extinguished the night for the City of Light.

That first night had been a one-off. The bouncers turned against me after I refused their loutish friends entry. Later in the month I tossed a famous fashion designer out of the restaurant for insulting a waitress. His expulsion made the morning papers. The crowd of the refused grew before the door like they were Vietnamese waiting a helicopter lift from the US embassy in Saigon in 1975.

The security spent most of the night playing billiards and said nothing to me throughout the night. I was on my own every minute of the night, except for whenever a young black or Arab man tried to enter the club. The two of them formed a wall. Their friends from the billiard hall provided back up.

"Pas ce soir."

Les Bains-Douches had a color line as pronounced as the back of the bus in pre-1965 Mississippi. I came from Boston. Racism was that city’s second nature. Paris was not white. People of color were everywhere, but the videurs at the Bains-Douches enforced the line with insults.

"Kaffir."

"Noir."

"Negre."

The last word was used on a tall handsome young black man. I had noticed him and his friends hanging out. The bouncers said they were ghetto boys, preying on the foot traffic in Les Halles. They said that about all blacks and Arabs.

He stepped away from the door and the security laughed with racial pride.

I coughed out loud.

The bouncers turned their heads with a dismissive smirk on their faces and I said, "Fuck you, you frog peckerwoods."

They were too French to understand the insult and I walked out through the crowd in front of Les Bains-Douches. The young man was gone.

Several nights later I had a confrontation with a local Mafia gangster. We fought on the stairs, while the security watched in amusement. I tossed my attacker down the stairs. He leapt to his feet and whipped out a revolver.

I shut the heavy glass entrance door. The glass was supposedly bullet-proof. The gangster aimed his weapon and pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet impacted on the glass at my head level, the next was aimed at my heart. The crowd scattered away from les Bains.

This thug smiled at my paralysis. He was a killer and aimed carefully, but before he could pull off another shot, the young black man from before blindsided the shooter with a left and his friend, Philippe, dropped on the gangster to the street like a Sumo wrestler. My assailant's body sprawled flat against the pavement and the revolver clattered from his hand. Philippe snatched the gun and handed to me.

"Faire comme tu vu."

I held the weapon. It had a weight. I walked to the curb and dropped the pistol into the gutter.

When I turned around, the gunman was gone.

Jacques and Philippe leaned against the wall with several leather-jacketed friends. The bouncers hadn't moved from the billiard table. Fabrice had seen the whole incident and I entered the club. Two bullets were stuck in the thick glass. I pushed my way through the crowd at the cashier to Fabrice, who regarded the glass. It had saved my life along with the young black man.

"Ca va?"

"Yes."

"Tu a le chance."

"Yes, I've always been lucky, but our present security staff did nothing just now and they do nothing all the time, but play billiards.

"Eh alors?" The phrase had many uses.

"Les videurs won't let in any blacks and a dead useless. I want to hire one to work with me.”

"Eh, alors."

"I want some real security." I pointed to the young man, who had stopped the gangster from killing me. He noticed my indicating him. "Him."

"Pourquoi pas."

"Merci." The young man was as tall as an NFL linebacker and as handsome as Sidney Poiter.

I went outside and called to the young man.

"Toi."

"T-t-t-tu v-v-v-veux moi." His stutter was worse than mine.

"W-w-what’s your name?"

"J-a-a-a-Jacques." Thick calluses scarred his knuckles.

"Mine's Johnson?" I never gave my real name to strangers.

"You want a job?"

"J-j-job?" he spoke better English than most French.

"Le boulot." I doubted that he had ever been offered a job. "So?"

"Ouais." His smile was as broad as the Nile.

"Come with me."

From the steps I introduced Jacques to the owner.

"He's big and good-looking. The girls will love him and you want the place to change. He knows the street."

"How can you tell he isn't a problem? He comes from Bidonville." Fabrice’s accusation of slum origins was on the money. Every large city had their Brownsville

"I will train him and his friend Philippe."

"I can understand Jacques, but Philippe?" Fabrice was surprised by my suggesting, Jacques’ pote, Fats.

"What can he do other than eat like a horse."

"Jacques, stand behind Fats."

His sidekick's real name was Philippe. He was smarter than most everyone at the Bains-Douches and like Jacques he was as gentle as a sleeping bear.

Jacques crouched behind Fats, who munched on frites from the nearby merguez stand.

"Can you see Jacques?"

"No."

"So when anyone attacks us with a gun, we hide behind Fats. He'll block any bullets."

"Better we don’t open the door, but they are your responsibility. Give him a job.” Fabrice stared me in the eyes, but we were of the same mind. "I'll pay them 400 francs a night plus a meal. Not a sou more."

Fabrice entered the club. His rock and roll girlfriend waited upstairs at their table. Claudine never looked my way. It was better that way. I called over Fats and Jacques.

"You're hired."

"Hired?" Fats had never heard the word before and I explained, "Both of you have a job. I was just kidding about blocking the bullets."

"Really?"

"Fats, you're smart and funny."

"Same as you, Pete Johnson." Jacques slapped Fats's arm. "Mon, we have jobs."

"Un miracle." He didn't stop eating the frite, but smiled at the thought of having a real job.

It was his first.

Same as Jacques.

"Vraiment?"

Doubt mixed with apprehension, as he looked over my shoulder at my other bouncers.

"Ne quittez pas." I wasn't worried about the them. Another body meant more time to play billiards. "You go to school?"

"A little, but I can read."

"D'accord, but you've got a job. Some of your friends other than Fats might get jobs too. You want to work?” I was acting like the Great White Hope, but I was no Gerry Cooney.

"I want to get ahead and a job is the only way." He gave me a short life history. His family was been brought to Martinique, otherwise they were pure Africa.

"What happened to the stutter?”

"I only 'begaye' with white people."

"And I'm not white." I was more Neanderethal.

"No, you are very white, Mr. Johnson."

“Mr. Johnson?" Johnson was slang for penis, but I didn’t explain the meaning to Jacques. "Thanks, I like the name. One more thing, keep your friends in line."

“Les Buffaloes." He waved for his gang members to join him. We exchanged the French version of the black pride handshake.

It was obvious that the gang took each others' backs. I liked that kind of loyalty.

"W-w-w-why are you doing this?" Jacques knew no white people other than the police. Les Flics were the enemy for any young mec from the projects beyond the Champs-Elysees.

"B-b-ecause I can tell you will good at the job."

"And Philippe?"

"He'll be an experiment."

"I don't k-k-know white people." His voice snitched out his fear of my race.

"Don't worry about that. They're no different from me or you. We all have to piss in the morning."

It took him a long time to believe that lie, mostly because it wasn’t the truth.

"And what about mes potes?"

"They're okay to come in, until they're not okay."

"Fats and I will keep them cool."

We were a good team.

Poivre et Sel and Salsa.

Black and White and Hot Sauce.

The models loved Jacques, but he liked big girls. The models never understood this and I never explained his preference for a woman with a big butt, because les amis ne jamais cafter ie friends never snitch

Not now. Not then. Not never.

Just the way it is entrez-nous.

Jacques and Philippe and the Bafalos went onto creating one of the best security companies in the EEU.

We are still all friends, because that is another thing that is 'Between Us.'

Bafalos are all brothers to the end.

Fifi The Rasta - BOIS DE BOULOGNE - 1985

I love Paris in the summertime

Less people if you can avoid the tourists and the lack of traffic after le Grand Depart seemed to clear the sky of pollution.

Of course the city empties out even more after the Grand Depart.

Back on a warm morning OF the July 14, 1985 I had driven my friend's Vespa 150cc motor scooter west past the Arc de Triumphe to Porte Dauphine into the Bois de Boulonge, once the royal hunting grounds. The park is twice the size of New York's Central Park. I took off the Bell helmet. The wind fragrant with nature blew through my hair. Les Brazilian putes were setting up their tents for le traffic des dejeuner or the lunch trade. Most were trans and I rolled past without a sideward glance. These girls brooked no gruff.

A bois is more a woods than a forest, but the green was a welcome change from the close street of le Marais, the old Jewish quartier, where I resided in a small room in a small hotel. Pulling over to a bank of the Lac Inferior to lay in the shade of an oak tree, I open my bag and spread out the pears and cheeses purchased from the shops of the Rue du Rivoli. After a few bites and a sip of a strong Cote de Rhine, I lay back and gazed meaninglessly at the cloudless sky. All the gray of Paris ceased to exist today and I felt one with the park.

A Citroen pulled onto the grass fifty feet beyond me. A family was inside. All their bags were packed on top of the sedan. An older man in his forties got out and pulled a well-coiffed poodle from the car. His children were crying. He picked up a stick from the ground and threw it into the woods. The dog chased the stick. The man jumped in the Citroen and the family drove away headed for the Alps, le Sud de France, or further afield in France. The big poodle came back and searched for the car.

It was gone.

The poodle looked at me.

I already had a dog waiting for me in the Marais. Angus. A loyal Scottie.

The poodle was on his own.

Later that night I related this tale to my fellow doorman at les Bains-Douches and Grand Jacques shrugged saying that the poodle had been abandoned by the family for the summer vacation.

"C'est le tradition."

Throughout August on my travels to the Bois I spotted the poodle running with other dogs. A shaggy pack. They seemed happy to be tramps. Free at last.

A month later I drove through the same section of the park and spotted a Citroen slowly cruising the woods. The same one, which had deserted Fifi the previous month. It braked at the same spot as July 14. It was August 15. The day after le Grand Retour from le Grand Depart.

The tanned driver got out and called for his dog.

"Fifi, Fifi."

I shook my head thinking him cruel, but Fifi bounded from the underbrush.

His hair was matted like a Rasta and his body was considerably thinner from a diet of squirrels and trash.

The man greeted his dog with a smile, as if this rendezvous had been planned from the start adn that they had experienced this reunion more than once before.

"Oh, Fifi, time for you to see the beauty salon."

The owner opened the door to Citroen. Fifi jumped inside withiut a snarl and they drove off in the direction of Neuilly-Sur-Seine, proving once more Josh Fielding's old adage, "A dog is the only animal that loves you more than it loves itself."

Even if their owners are Parisienne.

ps Angus was just as happy to see me that day.

SKIN COLD AS ICE by Peter Nolan Smith

When Lou Reed had died seven years ago, a friend had called to ask, if I had known the singer.

I had said, “No."

El-Roy was a pussy hound and asked if I thought Nico was a good fuck.

“I don’t know,” I had replied and hung up thinking one thing.

The Velvet Underground’s singer was probably great in bed and I recalled a Nico lookalike I had fucked in Paris back during the 1980s.

Mirabelle was a blonde aristocratic junkie model, who had greater success ripping off rich men than getting on the covers of VOGUE or ELLE. Her classic move was to trawl the four-star hotels for prey, a man with a gold watch. Seduced by her beatuy the man unwittngly took her up to his room. She stripped off her shirt and had him lick her titless nipples. They never went any further. Her breasts were coated with a sedative. Once unconscious she lefted the gold watch and walked out of the hotel to fence her loot. She never went to the same hotel twice.

Those years I was working at the Bains Douche as a doorman. Only the Palace and Le Sept rivaled the old bathhouse for the supreme destination of the night. Les Bains was small. 500 people was the legal capacity. On the nights new wave and punk bands played in the basement over 700 people packed the club. Even more for THE GANG OF FOUR. Fabrice, the owner, complained about the crush and I explained everyone who was anyone wanted to be there.

"Did they all pay?"

"100%," I answered proud to have helped the club earned over 100,000 francs or $20,000US.

At that time over 200,000 Americans resided in the French capitol. Most of my countrymen worked at banks or attended university. My job offered better perks than pay or wisdom, especially since the patron of the Bains-Douches had granted me the power to treat the French 'comme le merde que ils sont'.

Personally I liked the natives, however Fabrice was the boss and my restrictive door policy earned the hatred of most of the Parisian demi-monde. I learned countless French insults from irate clients refused entry. None of the abuse mattered, because my friends and beautiful women received star treatment at Les Bains.

Mirabelle was a favorite thanks my preference for skinny women.

One winter night the blonde accompanied me back to my top-floor flat on the Ile St. Louis. 33 Rue des Deux Ponts.

We snorted some H and made love without satisfaction until the drug sang us to sleep.

Neither of us took off our clothes.

The next morning I woke to the bells of Notre Dame.

The windows were open and I shivered with the cold.

Mirabelle’s skin was ice to my touch.

I thought she was dead and grew hard as a rock realizing that realize the dead can't feel anything and shove my cock in her bony ass. My medical diagnosis was wrong. The first thrust woke her from the grave and Mirabelle said, "Plus profound.",then her lungs drew a shallow breath. I parted her legs. She liked it from behind

"I feel like I crawled from the grave."

Both of us."

We fucked.

She moaned at the end like a beautiful corpse regaining its breath.

"You think I look like Nico?"

"Different."

Every schoolboy in the 60s had fallen in love with the Velvet Underground's ice queen.

Pop stars too.

Jim Morrison, Alain Delon, Lou Reed to mention a few.

Mirablle was beautiful, naked, and next to me. Dangerous like a cold fire and I said, "You are my Nico."

"Show me."

I shut my eyes and Nico sang I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR in my skull

I didn't need a mirror with my eyes shut

Mirabelle was Nico was Mirablle was Nico and winter was warm under the sheets with Mirabelle.

Especially since she looked nothing like Nico.

Later I closed the window and fucked her with the dawn brightening the atelier.

It was like making love to a beautiful corpse

And she gave a death rattle as she reached her climax.

"Good?" I asked from on top.

She simply pleaded, "Encore."

I gave what she wanted. Another line of China White, Mirabelle was very good at being a bad girl

And I bet Nico was the same.

A goddess best undressed in the cold.

Hiding Behind Fats - Paris - 1983

Back in 1983 I worked the door at the Bains-Douches in Paris.

The owner suggested hiring new blood for security to deal with allowing people of color other than whites into the club, since the original bouncers barred all blacks and arabs, males, although not females.

My first choice for back-up was Big Jacques.

Jacques Negrit was a tall, handsome and good-natured Martiniquean twenty year-old from the projects of the peripherique.

His gang was called Les Bufalos.

I liked Jacques and didn't trust the French bouncers, who had been working since its inception and thought they ruled the door. They weren't wrong. Eveerything they said went, until I got there and they turned their backs on me. Once I had been shot at by a Sentier mafia who I had refused entry. They didn't even bother to stop playing billiards

My boss agreed to hire Jacques, although he was surprised by my suggesting, Jacques' pote, Fats.

"What can he do? He eats like a horse."

My patron was right, but I said, "Jacques, stand behind Fats."

The big man's real name was Philippe. He was smarter than most everyone at the Bains-Douches and like Jacques gentle as sleeping bears

Jacques crouched behind Fats, who was munching frites from the nearby merguez stand.

"Can you see Jacques?"

"No."

"So when anyone attacks us with a gun, we hide behind Fats. He'll block any bullets."

Better we don't open the door.

The glass was an inch thick. ."

"Give him a job." My boss green-lighted hiring Fats, who was upset by my demonstration of his worth, but I said, "Fats, you're one of us. You're smart and funny, but more importantly you're a Bafalo."

"Same as you, Pete Johnson." Jacques loved calling me that and I turned to Fats. "I got you a job. I was just kidding about blocking the bullets."

"Casse-toi." He didn't stop eating the frites and smiled at the thought of having a real job.

It was his first

Now he's a head of a security firm in France.

The Bafalos handle all the concerts and big shows.

And I get into them for free, because I'm a Bafalo too and we are all brothers to the end.

ps hiding behind Fats was a good strategy.

ONLY A FEW REGRETS by Peter Nolan Smith

"Regrets I have a few, but not too few to mention."Frank Sinatra sang in MY WAY.

I only regret about the things that I have not done for I can live with those I have done; the good, the bad, and the in-between, however other people are not so self-forgiving.

In August of 2010 I ran into female friend from the 80s at a restaurant in the Meat Packing District.

"Where have you been all these years?" Cece waved for me to join her table and told her young friends. "This man was the doorman at all the great clubs in Paris."

They repressed a yawn. The young hate hearing about the good times of the past. For them the present was my future and I had no part in it in their lives.

"I've been living in Thailand the last ten years." It might have been more, but ten was a nice round number.

'Thailand," Cece cooed with benign interest. "How cool."

Back in our Paris she had graced the front of French fashion magazine. The blonde's face and body had adorned bus kiosks throughout Europe. Men fought for her attention with fists and money. Few won the prize. Breaking into that scrum was hard work and I resigned our relationship to mere friendship.

It had been very frustrating, because Cece was beauty incarnate.

One evening at the Bains-Douches our paths met and joined thanks to two bottles of champagne from an unknown admirer. She curled her body around mine like a snake seeking warmth from a sunny rock. I buried my face in her neck. She was wearing Chanel # 5.

This affection had all been a show for the man buying champagne. He came to the table and introduced himself. I recognized him as a famous film producer. Cece jumped out of my arms and left the club without a parting glance. She hadn't changed much in the years, although New York in 2011 was nothing Paris in the 1980s.

"I have a family there." I recited the trajectory of my life since France in less than a hundred words.

"I've been traveling too." Cece was still in fashion. She made clothes for children. Her factories were in India and Africa. She was still beautiful in the way that beautiful women are when they refuse to surrender beauty to age.

We had a few wines and then a drink. I was feeling more of the wine than the drink. Her friends continued to a nightclub. Cece refused to join them.

"You want a night cap at my hotel?" Her hand touched my arm.

"I have to go to work tomorrow." I was surprised by the offer.

"Work can wait, can't it?" Her voice was soft as a summer breeze to my ears.

"I have to open the safe in the morning." It was a lame excuse.

"You could always sleep over." Her touch became a caress.

"I wish I could." I had wanted this woman so badly twenty years ago, that I would have set myself on fire to get her attention. Now I could only say, "But I can't."

"Can't?" Her face adopted hard lines. No one had told her no in a long time.

"I have a wife in Thailand. I'm faithful to her." My son's mom was the only women in my life.

"Really?" She was surprised to hear that a man could be faithful.

"Yes." So was I.

"You know I was talking about you and several of my friends. We asked why none of us slept with you."

"And what the answer?" I could see Cece at a table in Paris. With her friends from modeling. All these great beauties reviewing their love affairs. I had been with none of them.

"We always thought that you were with one of us."

"Oh." It was too late to relive the past and I pulled away my arm.

"Guess it is getting late." Cece signaled for the bill. She refused my help. "I'm a rich woman."

"Congratulations." I escorted her to the hotel, thinking that every man in New York dreams about going to bed with a beautiful rich woman. Everyone one, but me.

Cece was gracious enough to not repeat her request at the entrance to the hotel lobby and she kissed my cheek.

I caught a whiff of the same Chanel # 5 that I had breathed 20 years before. Its effect was wasted on me. I was a married man.

"I'll see you some day." She spun on her heels.

"You never know where." I walked over to the C train on 14th street.

There was no looking back and I will always have regrets, but only for the past and not the present and I'll avoid those to prevent getting run down by those naked fantasies. They are too many to count on any man's fingers.

Faster Than Light Beauty

I wish for a time machine to take me back to London.

1968.

Francoise Hardy on a motorbike.

I would have had a lot of competition and even though I would have only been sixteen, a good time would have been had by all.

Je l'adore.

In 1968 through eternity fast than speed itself.

To hear Francoise Hardy's version of the Kinks' WHO'LL BE THE NEXT IN LINE, please go to this URL;

Rue St. Denis Ancien

Back in the 1980s voluptuous Valkyries lined Rue St. Denis to sell their bodies for sex. None were young. Their wardrobe favored tight leather sheaths and plastic dominatrix outfits. Most of the veteran whores on the old Roman road were not young, few were beautiful, however their faithful clientele sought satisfaction in droves. After work at the Bains-Douches I walked the dark narrow street as a voyeur. The women under the streetlights recognized me from the nearby nightclub and called out, "Amerlot, let me make you happy."

I contemplated sex on the serpentine Passage Lemoine without ever succumbing to the temptation from these 'putes', yet those over-sized leather queens lingered in distant lanes within my memory and this week stylist Sascha Lilac's posting of the fashion doyenne's Zana Bayne's provocation pret-a-porter show in Paris reincarnated my old fantasies.

Easy to see why.

Ah, les putes des Rue St. Denis.

Gone but not forgotten.

painting by anne howeson

Joseph Kalar - poet

From https://www.mprnews.org/story/2007/02/13/kalar

Joseph Kalar was born on the Iron Range in 1906. His parents were Slovenian immigrants. His father worked in the iron mines and then at a paper mill in International Falls. Kalar went to Bemidji Teachers College, and taught in a one-room school. Then he bummed around the country for awhile.

When he was 23, his father died, and Joseph had to come home and support his younger brothers and sisters.

He worked at the papermill -- 10 hours a day, six days a week. He wrote poetry when he could, and it was published in magazines with names like "New Masses," "The Rebel Poet," and "The Anvil."

One of his poems, "Papermill," described the feelings of loss and anger when a papermill closed.

A few years ago poet Ted Genoways came across "Papermill" in an anthology, and he wanted to find out more about the man who wrote it. He learned that Joseph Kalar's son had kept the magazines where his dad's poems had appeared, and had gathered together his dad's many letters to publishers and other writers.

"It wouldn't capture the period if... they were sad poems of defeat."

It gave Genoways enough material to publish a collection of Kalar's poems, with an introduction that describes his life, and how his poetry fits in to the larger world.

Genoways says what he likes about Kalar is his defiance in the face of a very difficult life.

"He's foul-mouthed, he's occasionally rude, and to me all of this seems appropriate to his circumstances. This is his anger coming through," says Genoways. "And in some ways I think it wouldn't capture the period if the poems were merely elegiac poems, if they were sad poems of defeat."

That angry energy also speaks to Duluth's Poet Laureate, Bart Sutter. Sutter says he feels like he's discovered a long-lost grandfather. For one thing, Kalar experimented with prose poems. He called them "sketches."

"They had been invented in France in the previous century, but they hadn't really appeared in the United States," Sutter says. "And as far as I can tell, he was making them up for himself."

Kalar was also a pioneer in free verse, which was brand new at the time.

He wanted his poems to speak to a wide audience, and to make a difference. In fact, he wanted to change the world -- quite an expectation for a poet. Sutter says it wasn't so strange in those days.

"I think there was a long tradition of people putting on plays in small towns, of people coming through and reciting, of lyceums and chautauquas, politicians' speeches," Sutter says. "I think that his work comes out of that tradition, and he had high hopes for it, as many leftists did in that period."

But Kalar eventually became disillusioned and quit writing poetry. He also quit trying to organize unions. He became a labor relations expert, and tried to make better conditions for workers from the management side.

The last poem in the collection was written when Kalar was still young, but it's about his death. Bart Sutter says it's proof that in spite of a tough life, Kalar had no self-pity.

"Resignation"

Let there be no weeping, friends,
when I return to the ground,
just the sound of church bells calling
and the thud of hard clods falling
on my wooden box, scented and sound.
Let there be no weeping, friends. The book is called "Papermill, Poems by Joseph Kalar, 1927 to 1935." It's edited by Ted Genoways, published by University of Illinois Press.

SEASON OF THE WITCH / Julie Driscoll and Trinity

Young boys like older women.

In the 1960s old meant Brigitte Bardot, Peggy Lipton of the Mod Squad, and my favorite was Julie Driscoll who sang for Brian Auger and Trinity. She wore mod clothes. Her make-up was exotic. Her manner symbolized hip London. I dreamed about meeting her. I never came closer than buying their LP. I loved their version of Donovan's SEASON OF THE WITCH. Not enough to buy their CD, but I can watch the group play on Youtube and that is good enough for me.

I can relive the past only for short times.

3-4 minutes and then back to the modern world.

For a listen click on this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpizS9h-1Xk&feature=related

ps in the end I loved Francoise Hardy more and her I met in Paris.

extremement belle.

published 2009