Sunday, November 30, 2025
Mudd Club August 1979
Saturday, November 29, 2025
Mission Delta 88
People drove big cars in the early 70s. My father bought a four-door Delta 88 Royale in 1973. Only 7000 were made that year. The overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine owed its existence to muscle cars such as the GTO. The Delta 88 was no family car. A heavy foot on the pedal rocketed the ton of steel to 100 mph with ease. The tundraesque back seat was designed for teenage submarine races. I had been arrested once for a high-speed chase. The Delta 88 begged for gas. My father rarely let me drive this Detroit monster. It was a bad story waiting for a beginning.
Late summer of 1975. My cousin Cindy had fell in love with a student from Oxford. His family hailed for Rhodesia. His uncle founded National Geographic. A step up from her previous beau, Joe, who had given her a V-8 engine the previous Christmas.
Cindy was flying to London to meet Oliver. She was 22. No parental supervision. Our goodbyes ran long at her house in Wollaston, Massachusetts. Her mother cried a salty Neponset River. My mother joined the current of tears. The two sisters were very close, but the clock ticked overtime on their theatrics. Her father didn't want to say good-bye. Uncle Dave looked at his watch.
12:10.
Cindy's flight was at 12:45. The distance to Logan Airport was 14 miles. Cindy ran to the front door. Someone had to drive here to the airport fast. Uncle Dave looked around the room. His son was too young. My older brother was in law school. His eyes fell on me. He held up his car keys.
A Ford Pinto. Another American car unsafe at any speed.
"They'll never make it in that." My mother stuck the Delta 88's key in my hand. My father opened his mouth. My mother's regard shut it. "Get her there on time."
"I'll do my best." I had driven taxi three years during college. My diploma read 'sin laude'. No one booked more money on the weekend than me. Boston was my city. I took the keys.
"In one piece." Uncle Dave said what my father couldn't.
"I'll call from the airport."
12:11 I started the car. The V-8 was in shape. Our mechanic loved big engines. 303 cubic inches. I goosed the gas and turned on WBCN. BALLROOM BLITZ by Sweet. My two sisters wanted to come along for the ride. My mother stopped them.
"Better only two." She tapped her watch. Cindy's boyfriend was several social stratae higher than ours. We were family.
"No red lights." Cindy fastened her seat belt. She was in love. Women are funny in that state. They have no fear.
"No red lights." My mental map counted four. The Quincy cops changed shifts at noon. Their schedule worked in our favor. The Delta 88 peeled rubber from Anderson Street. Cindy said one word, "Faster."
The Delta 88 fishtailed onto Newport Avenue. A straight line to North Quincy. Traffic was light. Cindy and I had protested against the war in Vietnam. She pulled out a joint.
"I got to get rid of this before I get on the plane."
"Light it up." The light at Beale Street was green. We were going 70. The road dipped past the intersection. The Delta 88 traveled a hundred feet in the air. The suspension prevented our panning out on the asphalt. I pushed the engine. 80. 90. 95. I passed two cars like they were running on lead glue. The lights at West Squantum Street went yellow.
I obeyed the old adage.
"Yellow means faster."
Horns blared in our passage. We were in another time zone. Nothing was in my rearview mirror but empty road. We smoked the joint in peace for several seconds.
"Keep your eyes open." We whipped into Neponset Circle like Bonnie and Clyde. No one was prepared for outlaws. I stomped on the gas. The V-8 honored Detroit with power. I was back up to 100 up the onramp of the Expressway.
"12:17." Cindy had a Cartier watch. Her beau had given it to her as a token of his love. The watch kept good time. WBCN's DJ segued to Slade's "Mama Weer All Crazee Now". Cindy was more into Cat Stevens, but TEA TO THE TILLERMAN was not writing for this ride.
More luck.
No traffic on Route 3. No cops either. I hit 110 at the Mass Ave exit.
"12:20." I was ahead of schedule. The odometer had gained 8 miles. Only 6 more to go.
"You see any cops?"
Cindy had better eyes than me.
"No."
The Delta 88 reached 110 entering the tunnels of Central Artery. I dropped down to 60 in the Sumner Tunnel and we arrived at British Airways' terminal at 12:26. Cindy jumped out of the car. She was carrying one bag. A wave and my cousin was inside the terminal. A state trooper appeared from the right. My trembling hands tensed on the steering wheel. The plastic melted into my flesh.
"Move the car, sport."
"Yes, officer."
I drove away according to the traffic laws of the Massachusetts Commonwealth. I stopped at a bar on Mass Avenue. Kelly's. They had 50 cents beer. Three of them brought me back to earth.
I didn't get back to Wollaston until 1:30.
"Did she get away okay?" My aunt wanted to know.
"Fine."
I told them about the trip intown.
None of them believe me.
"What about the red lights?"
"They were none."
None of them after that statement believed me.
None of them except Uncle Dave.
He thanked me with a beer and I was grateful.
Still am.
Just the way I am.
Friday, November 28, 2025
9th Street Station - Gowanus
Burning Credit Cards
In 2011 Antonio Villaraigosa Mayor of LA has accused the Occupy LA protestors of damaging the grass in their campsite. Riots police have been deployed to protect the lawn from further harm.
"After 56 days of not enforcing three city laws that prohibit the use of that park, the time is now," announced Police Chief Beck, however the midnight deadline passed without the planned eviction, thus disrupting the security of the nation. Tear gas, billy clubs, and officers trained by Homeland Security to quell violent demonstrators remain at the ready.
Banks are worried that the protests will disrupt the holiday buying frenzy, but shoppers faithfully swarmed to the malls on Black Friday to outspend 2010's orgy of consumerism by 7%. ATMs were flooded by consumers eager to rescue the economy from the recession, each time getting hit by a charge of $1.50. The banks reap over $2 billion from ATMs along with another $36 billion in fees from the masses. All of this is profit and in this country profit is the bottom line for the corporation.
Carry cash, comrades.
Never buy what you can't afford, unless the aim is to never pay the credit card bills.
Don't worry you credit rating is shit.
Burn the cards to the limit.
You have nothing to lose but a good time.
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Black Friday Beer
Today on Black Friday millions of Americans hit the shopping malls to purchase marked-down electronics and toys. This frenzied spending spree kicked off the Christmas shopping season. This year's Black Friday was an all ugly affair and the event has getting uglier by the year.
The term 'black Friday originated from Philadelphia retailers' description of the four-week holiday season as one that turned the red on their books into black.
The BBC estimated that nearly half America participated in the madness.
Yesterday I restrained from assaulting the XXXL Mall on Fulton Street and purchased two cans of beer from Ralph's Meats on Lafayette Street in Fort Greene. He wasn't opened, but Ralph had some beer for me. We are old school.
They went down so good that I'm thinking of drinking some more today.
Happy Boozy Saturday.
ps the bronze Ballantine beer cans are from Jasper Johns.
No Black Friday For Ken
WRITTEN 11/27/20
Every Black Friday American consumerism outgrossed the previous year's gluttonous excesses, as shoppers descended on the XXXL malls to buy corporate crap at discounted prices. The hoi polloi in the millions fight over wide screen TVs, iPhones, and Barbie dolls. Having never participated in the capitalist frenzy, I left the Fort Greene Observatory on Friday and headed down to the nearest 99 Cent store on Myrtle Avenue only to discover that the management had opted out of the post-Thanksgiving Day tradition.
"Nothing is on sale." The clerk waved me away from the counter.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
I accepted my defeat and exited from the store with a 99 Cent roll of toilet paper.
No one on Myrtle carried a shopping bag, except for a frazzled white suburban mother in exile. Her daughter had an iPhone. She was happy, but I had to ask myself, "Why doesn't anyone fight over Ken dolls?
The answer was that it's a Barbie World.
She rocks.
Naked or not.
Fugly Americans
Written 11/27/2020
When I was young, I shopped at different stores for different gifts.
The prices were good and the quality guaranteed the products might last six months or more.
Throughout the 21st Century Sam Walmart and his family has eliminated the corner stores, the main streets of America, and the curio stores by a scorched-earth cutthroat policy against middle-class businesses. Their success has been lauded by Democrats and the GOP free marketeers and this Black Friday Walmart proudly oredicted record sales for the day after Thanksgiving.
According to Al-Jazeera a spokesman for the chain predicted that in a span of four hours Thursday evening, Walmart stores across the nation processed 10 million register transactions. On Thanksgiving, Walmart.com received 400 million page views, and on Friday, by noon, customers had purchased 2.8 million towels, 2 million televisions and 1.4 million computer tablets.
"We had record-breaking Black Friday results in our stores."
Videos showed the hordes of shoppers hurtling through the doors to fight over TVs, laptops, tablets, dolls, and anything on sale.
"Buy, buy, buy."
Most of it in my mind was crap and all of it was produced outside of the USA.
Protests against Walmart's starvation wages were met by police.
Courts attempted to block demonstrators with injunctions.
Walmart pays $8/hour in the slave states. That come to about $320/week before taxes. No one can live on that wage and an organizer told Al Jazeera, "We are not slaves. We are people just as well. At the end of the day, we want the things that the people who run Walmart have ... We shouldn't have to pick and choose what bills we are going to pay."
In her four months at Walmart, McKinley says, she has made little over $2,400.
Truthfully Americans should boycott Black Friday, Walmart, and shopping malls, however their minds have been warped by millions of TV ads and I have to say that revolution in America will not depend on those consumers thronging to Walmart.
Before they were the lumpen proletariat.
Now they are simply victims of the global free market.
They produce nothing, they buy crap, and they believe the lies on TV.
These victims of zombie economics number about 200 million Americans with another 100 million of their income-challenged countrymen yearning to join their ranks.
The filthy rich are only .0001% of the population.
They wouldn't be caught dead at Walmart or anywhere where their class wasn't dominant.
That leaves 30 million Americans possibly struggling for good or bad or the in-between.
People get ready.
Our time will come.
Death to Flat-Screen TVs.
Long live the GTO.
And Kim Novak.
Oh Merida 2026
I would love to come down. Get a little motorcycle. Back in the late-80s I hitchhiked around the Yucatan. Mostly between Cancun and Tulum. The Mayans were always friendly, although on Sundays they always wanted me to drive. Too drunk on cheap Agua Caliente to stay on the road.
I have a novel I want to write about a series of bank robberies by a gang on Easter morning in Cancun. They escape on an airplane, whose engine falters and the plane crashes into a remote cenote in the "tu'ux tu" or the middle of nowhere. I'm sure that was where your property was, when you first moved there. The loot from the robbery goes to the bottom of the cave. Robbers, Mayan mystics, an archaeologist seeking the cure for baldness, and a religious sect seeking to convert the Mayans, who think they are ETs, because they don't sweat like most gringos. I have it complete in my head.
It's a gray day here.
I'm going nowhere for Thanksgiving, yet I have much to be thankful for.
I'm here from Monday to Wednesday and then free post-Xmas when I will move from 387 Myrtle to the NYU professor dorms while I await city elderly housing.
Off to Montauk on the 8:18 on Friday morning.
Oh Merida.
SHAWALLAGAH PA. BET ON CRAZY
First published 2008
Thanksgiving Day plus One started the Holiday season on West 47th Street. Accordingly the majority of the ground floor exchanges extend their operating hours and stay open every ding-dong day until Christmas. Throughout the week regular customers and natives to New York flock here, but on the weekends they are replaced by busloads of tourists from Shawallagah, PA or Dover Delaware. Armed with a box of chicken and a bag of quarters, they gawk at the jewelry and demand incredulously, "Those aren't real diamonds, are they?"
"All of our diamonds are real and set in 14K and 18K gold or platinum jewelry," I answer cordially, for the most part.
We might enjoy poking fun at these out-of-towners, yet their purchases can add to our profit line, so once they're in the store we treat them as we would any valued customer, even if they're only looking for a Big Apple charm or want to tell us about an opal ring their great-grandaunt possessed back in Schwallagah, PA. As Manny, my boss says, "Be nice. It can't hurt."
While my company prided itself in dealing relatively fairly with members of the trade and our customers, there are a few diamond dealers who prey on these unsuspecting tourists like wolves tailing a cripple calves and every year ABC NEWS1 20/20 puts out a report to warn about unscrupulous diamond dealings on 47th Street.
Typically during holiday season the show's producers send out a young man to purchase a diamond engagement ring and inevitably ends up getting nailed by the same dealer on the corner of Sixth Avenue. The entire process of the sale is recorded by a hidden video camera to reveal the dealer's misrepresentation of the diamond's quality.
Weeks later Diane Sawyer, the network news commentator, will confront the dealer with the proof of his lies and close with a warning for the public to beware. One would expect that the dishonest merchant would be punished by such negative publicity, however the dealer points to a photo of Diane Sawyer hanging on his wall and proudly states, "Diane shops here every year. One of my best customers."
To avoid getting fleeced, we suggest anyone looking for a diamond to head up to Tiffany's or Cartier first and get one of their diamond buying guides, which are free and offer a great thumbnail source of information to the novice.
Otherwise caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware and remember if it sounds to good to be true than it is too good to be true.
For any questions on jewelry or the diamond trade stop Manny Winick at 34 West 47th Street.
The first piece of advice is always free.
Everything thereafter cost. How much? Depends on the hour.
First sale of the day always gets the best price.
Sie gesund.
The Harder They Come
Boston weather can be miserable in the winter, especially in the last century.
January 1973. I was walking up Mass Avenue in Cambridge on the way to Harvard Square. Underfoot a gray cold wet ankle high slush. In the air frozen rain. My sneakers and coast were drenched to the bone. I neared the Orson Welles Theater and spotted a poster promoting THE HARDER THEY COME. Charlie, a white college friend, a wasta from Jamaica, had introduced his classmates to reggae. We smoked huge spliffs and listened to Toots and Maytals, Bob Marley, and scores of other Jamaican artists singing in their dread dialect, a foreign langauge to our suburban ears, but we got it. The struggle against the oppressors existed everywhere.
I had seen the film Burn about a 19th Century slave rebellion in a mythical Portugese colony. Marlon Brando played the agent provocateur, who betrays the uprising for his sugar barons in London. It wasn't Jamaica, but I had read about the many revolts on that island. None had succeeded, except for the Maroons who lived free of the western world in the mountains. The first James Bond movie, Doctor No, was filmed on the island in 1969. None of us could forget Sean Connery sucked the urchin needle out of Ursala Andress' foot. This movie was not that one.
The poster was dominated by Jimmy Cliff playing a rude boy gunman brandishing two six-guns dressed in dance hall fashion ready for fast cars, motorcycles, and life. The hero looked warm. Jamaica was in the Caribbean. It had never snowed there. The next show started in ten minutes. I had nowhere to go, except here and paid $2 and entered the counter-culture theater happy to be out of the weather.
I sat in the middle with pop corn and a coke. The audience was small, mostly hippies as was I. THe lights went down. On screen the rough film caught an up-country bus heading into a city. Kingston. The capitol. Subtitles translated the Jamaican patois. Jimmy Cliff singing The Harder They Come. I wasn't warm, but I was getting there and almost two hours of gun fights with the police and criminal and church people I was dry and exited from the cinema a convert to the rasta criminal life by the Slickers' Johnny Too Bad and Cliff You Can get It If You Want It, ever knowing I was only a fan for life to the Rasta cause.
Reggae spread across globe from the island of Jamaica. Rastas lived in exile in New York, London, and Ethiopia. Other islanders adopted the lifestyle and the music. I never saw any on my circumnavigations of the planet, but paintings of Bob Marley along with Serpico adorned the trucks, buses, and taxis throughout South Easst Asia. The outlaw life appealed everywhere as freedom against the ruling classes.
In 1990 I jumped on bus in a Sumatran coastal market town bound for the Batak Highlands. The seats and aisles were packed with Sunday shoppers and I stood at the back door smoking a kretek cigarette. The clove and tobacco smoke mixed well with the diesel fumes from the bus' laboring engine. I studied the chattering passengers. Their smiling faces were ethnically different from the dour lowlanders and halfway up the mountain they sang a song which I recognized as BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. I loved the Melodians’ reggae version.
When I joined the impromptu choir, the closest passengers stared at me with amusement. At the end of the song an old man rose from his seat and shook my hand.
“Chretian?” He had several front teeth. They looked sharp.
“Christian,” I replied without hesitation. My atheism was a secret better kept from the devout. They didn't know Johnny Too Bad, but they played Bob Marley on the tape decks on the lake. The ganga was weak. Forbidden by the Jakarta government. Lake Toba belonged to the Bataks. Not the Javanese. Just like jamaica belongs to all the people of Jamaica. My good friend says that there is no white or black in Jamaica. Just Jamaicans and I'm good with that. Always and a day
RIP Jimmy Cliff - he started it all for me.
The movie was based on a real man according to Wikipedia Vincent "Ivanhoe" Martin (1924–9 September 1948), known as "Rhyging", was a Jamaican criminal who became a legendary outlaw and folk hero, often regarded as the "original rude boy".He became notorious in 1948 after escaping from prison, going on the run and committing a string of robberies, murders and attempted murders before he was gunned down by police. In subsequent decades his life became mythologised in Jamaican popular culture, culminating in the 1972 cult film The Harder They Come, in which he is portrayed by Jimmy Cliff. His nickname comes from the term rhyging, also spelled rhygin, a variant of "raging".[3] In Jamaican Patois it is used to mean wild, hot, or bad.
Provincetown Lore - niizh manitoag
In the summer of 1620 my antecedent, John Howland, crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower. Mid-voyage a storm washed passenger the indentured servant was overboard. He sank about twelve feet (4 m), but a crew member threw a rope, which Howland managed to grab, and he was safely hauled back onboard. The pilgrims landed after the prevailing winds prevented their sailing south to Virginia. The settlers left the peninsula, which the Nauset people called Meeshaun or 'going by boat'. Seemed the Puritans were upset by native gays or niizh manitoag” (two spirits) the Algonquin term for transgender or homosexual genders. No one was said to see the back of the grim saganash or white men. We queers like our freedom offered by such dead end communities such as P-Town, Fire Island or Key West.
According to https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/ Tennessee Williams later described the four groups who made up Provincetown’s residents. He belonged to the first two: The flamboyant gay summer visitors and the elite artists and writers who came to write, paint, dance or act. Third, gay wash-ashores who came as visitors and stayed year-round to work or run businesses. Finally, the Yankee, Portuguese and mixed-race native gays.
The playwright Tennessee Williams, then 29, arrived in the summer of 1940. He joined a group “dominated by a platinum blonde Hollywood belle named Doug and a bull-dike named Wanda who [was] a well-known writer under a male pen name.” P-town, he wrote, was “screaming with creatures not all of whom are seagulls.”
It remains a safe haven for sailors and other wanderers to this day.
My first trip there was in 1971 with Bruce and Paul. Friends from the 1270 Club in Boston. Bruce and I drank at the Shipwreck and fucked complete strangers from the Meat Rack. Paul was in love with me and watched from the shadows.
Please read Cape Queer? A Case Study of Provincetown, Massachusetts and Provincetown: From Pilgrim Landing to Gay Resort by Karen Christel Krahulik,for a better grasp of P-town's his/her/themtory.
ps John Howland fathered eleven children in a long life in the Bay Colony.
Happy Thanks Wampanoags
My family’s ancestors crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620. The Howland clan spent that first autumn on the Cape and then sailed to what became the Plymouth Colony. Their spring pkantings failed and autumn found their food supplies were dangerously low. Only the intervention by Wampanoags, the native tribe, spared the settlers from starvation. Americans have celebrated the largess of the Indians with an annual feast of turkey and all the fixings.
Little if any mention is made of the Wampanoag Indians, who were nearly wiped out by European diseases and the Puritans in the King Philip's War in order to steal their lands, then again talk of extermination has no place at the holiday dinner table in America.
Prayers of thanks are saved for family friends and God.
Turkey is the main meal.
I’ve had the bird most every Thanksgiving in my life.
Mothers around the USA spent hours preparing the feast.
My family was no different from the rest of America. The early part of the day was filled by the chore of peeling apples, potatoes, turnips, carrots for our eight family members and another 5-10 guests. My older brother called it ‘KP Day’. My mother would cool the bird in the garage. Why was never explained to us. She would just take the big bird out of the oven and say, “Put it in the garage to cool.”
One Thanksgiving I obeyed her command. The garage door was open. The air was cold. I had spent the morning at the football game between my hometown and their arch-rivals. My next-door neighbor came over to the driveway with a football. We went into the backyard to emulate the day’s heroes. After bobbling a long pass Chuckie pointed to the front lawn.
"What's with DJ?"
DJ was a neighborhood dog. I was in love with his owner, Kyla. The German Shepard had his entire head was stuck inside a turkey. My mother's stuffing was delicious. I had not shut the door to the garage. I ran from the backyard and heard my mother scream.
“The turkey.”
I picked up a stick from the ground and charged to save our holiday meal. The big black dog fled from our yard with a slobbering snarl, leaving behind a mauled meal. My mother cried, “Where are we going to find a turkey now?”
My father looked at me. This was my fault. I didn’t even bother to explain my side of the story. When you’re wrong as a child, proving you’re right is a waste of breath.
My older brother and younger siblings thanked me for ruining Thanksgiving, although it didn’t turn out so bad, since DJ’s owners paid for our meal at a nearby hotel. Kyla kissed me on the cheek. The food was good and my mother didn’t have to wash any dishes.
We didn’t have a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal for the next five years.
We still thanked family, friends, and God, but my older brother and I also thanked DJ. Even bad deeds can turn out good as long as no one brings up the extermination of the New England tribes on the Fourth Thursday of November. The People of the First Light survive to this day on the Cape and Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket and are free to say Âs Nutayuneân or we still live here. ps there is no word for thanksgiving in Algonquin, but I do thank them. Always.
169 Turkey
in 2019 I celebrated Thanksgiving at my home away from home.
Everything was delicious.
The 169 Bar.
Thanks to the gracious Charles Hanson and my many friends.
The same goes for 2025.
Peace and love and a big gin-tonic too.
No Thanks Day 2021
My family can claim that we arrived in the Americas on the Mayflower. The Howland and Hamlin clans owed its survival that second autumn to the Wampanoags or People of the Dawn. The Saints and Strangers of the Old World showed their gratitude by forcing the disease-weakened natives from their ancestral home, much as the Moses' ancestors had evicted the Philistines from the Land of Milk and Honey. The Pilgrims thought that they owned the land, while the Indians believed the land belonged to the people born on it.
Native animism versus the Old Testament. The Bible offered many lessons for those of the past and present and probably the future. The Wampanoag Tribe luckily survived the mass extermination of the coastal Indians and every Thanksgiving gather on Nantucket to mourn the failed alliance between the Old and New Worlds.
No Thanksgiving.
At least the wild have come back to their native land.
Give the Wampanoag Tribe a few slot machines and who knows where they'll celebrate No Thanksgiving on the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing.
Me, I wish I was in Thailand eating crab curry with my children.
Mea Culpa Wampanoags.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
COLD TURKEY john lennon
I like nothing better than left-over turkey for a post-thanksgiving jolt of big bird coma, then John Lennon says it best in COLD TURKEY
Today's Thanks
Published on 11/23/23 2:30 AM
Today America commemorates Pilgrims’ gratitude to the local Indians lessons in food-gathering, especially those tribesmen of Squanto. who helped the religious refugees survive that first year in Plymouth. In response to this unexpected aid the settlers held a 3-day feast for their neighbors. The holiday was made official in 1789 by George Washington, although Squanto’s tribe had nearly vanished from Massachusetts and Indians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.
Neither do I.
Even though I am a Mayflower descendant.
There was a Thanksgiving parade in New York this morning. I saw none of it. High school footballs between bitter rivals will be played this morning. I haven't seen the results between my high school and their North Shore rival. I've yet to leave my house, but I do have things to be thankful for this year.
I survived a liver transplant.
I am alive.
I make some money.
My children are healthy.
Sirinthip loves me sometimes.
So does Aphinya.
Every fourth Thursday of November Americans travel by train, plane, and car to feast with friends and family on turkey and all the fixings. Once their bellies expand to a girth of near-explosion, the men watch a meaningless football game in a stupor mimicking a boa who has swallowed a goat, while women repair to the kitchen.
Being male I have no idea what they do other than clean dishes and pots and recount old familar tales of youth, families and friends. Younger children are happy to gorge themselves on pies, while their older siblings sullenly vow to not end up like their parents.
Like all holiday the situation is prime for a good argument.
Eight years ago my father cautioned my lovely twenty year-old niece that she wouldn’t lose weight, if she ate any more pie. Sensitive about her size she broke into tears. My older brother demanded an apology. My father adamantly said he was only telling the truth.
My brother ordered him to leave the house.
My father grabbed a turkey leg and exited from the house, plowing his car across the lawn rather than wait for anyone to move their vehicles out of the driveway.
I would have really like to have seen his tires plowing furrows in the grass, except I was in New York. No turkey that year either.
I celebrated the holiday alone.
Google Goggle Hey Goggle Hey to paraphrase the Ramones.
Max’s Kansas City had turkey dinner for the punk orphans during the 1970s.
Free too.
Beer half-price.
Today I'm dining with Professor Ollamn, the famed Marxist, and his son Raoul.
Praise be the Turkey.
And those sexy Pilgrims.
The Elegance of the Wampanoags
The Wampanoags were not the savages. The people of the dawn were near extinction from a bacterial infection carried the settlers and wars with the Micmacs and Pequots. Despite these calamities the natives living near the Plymouth supposedly invited the starving Pilgrims celebrated their good harvest in the autumn of 1621. The event is poorly documented by the colonists, but the legend lives in the minds of Americans as a cherished moment of peace between the Old America and the New.
Within forty years the thousands Wampanoags would suffer through the King Philip War. Only 400 survived the fighting. They sought refuge on Martha's Vinyard. Today the Wampanoags number almost 2000.
I know one. Big Ralph. 6-8. A big man in Fort Greene. Wampanoag and proud of it.
Happy to be alive.
And me too, because I'm half-Irish.
Happy Turkey Day.
One and all.
Free the Turkey
Benjamin Franklin never proposed the turkey for the national bird. It is a myth, however the turkey of his era were nothing like the present domesticated bird slaughtered for Thanksgiving. The wild turkey was a cunning wood creature living in large communes of fellow avians. Huge flocks of brightly plumed turkeys clouded the skies. Still Benjamin Franklin was vehemently against the choice of the eagle as the national bird.
"I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him.... Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest. . . of America.. . . For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on."
Nice talk for the national bird.
Wonder what Eagle would taste like for Thanksgiving.
Vulture???
Nice talk for the national bird.
As for eagle as a meal, I googled cooked eagle and only came up with the following query on answers.com
I was driving the other day and hit a bald eagle that was flying across the street. It was a country road that usually isn't very busy, but I figured I would cook it, since I've never had eagle before. Are there any recipes I should know about? Or any spices specifically? I live in Eastern Iowa so you know what may or may not be available to me. I didn't mean to hit it, it was like if a deer ran across the street.
Two years ago
This posting attracted outrage and weirdos.
KILLER: I kill eagles all the time, for fun. Especially since bald eagles don't even exist where I live.
maie: okay i believe you didn't mean to kill it, well you cant help things like that all the time, but they are an endangered species and it is illegal to kill it (on purpose I'm sure they will forgive an accident) and it is also illegal to have possession of it. i would call the local animal control center and see what they would tell you to do cuz if someone says that you have one, or sees it in your trash then you can get arrested. at that point you haven't made a report and you cant prove what happened.
OUTRAGE: It is a Federal Offense to Kill a Bald Eagle or even possess a single feather.
MOR: WITH HOT SAUCE AND POSSUMS! NOM NOM NOM!
just cook it like chicken
Otherwise nothing else on the internet.
So I guess eagles don't taste like turkey.
Bad Behavior Thanksgiving
After Bad Bob's description of the insane weekend with my former husband and in laws, I can only refer to the quote in your last email. It's something my mother would have loved, even though she always betrayed her own advice. She once said to me, after the first time she met the whole lot of them at Thanksgiving,
"How can people that poor be that fucked up?" She was shit faced at the time and certainly not a snob given her predilection for stable hands, plumbers and drug dealers but it was absolutely dead on accurate because that family, every last one of them, is completely whacked and not in a ha ha, amusing way.
We invite people like that to tea, but we don't marry them.
Lady Chetwode on her future son-in-law, John Betjeman.
Slough
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add The profits of the stinking cad; It's not their fault that they are mad, They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
Lady Penelope Chetwode, the poet's wife and grand Indian explorer of Himal Pradesh
New Haven Turkey Day
Seven years ago I traveled north to have turkey with my younger sister's in-laws outside of New Haven. They were good people.
Back in the 1940s New Haven had been a prime destination for commuters from the surrounding towns, however in the 1950s the Federal Courts had ordered the New Haven railroad to divest itself of the trolleys running from the various stations along the Connecticut shore and the rail line plummeted into insolvency, as the car replaced rail as the primary form of transportation in the suburbs. While the city's population declined in those years, its inhabitants still number 130,000 making New Haven the Nutmeg State's second more populous urban area behind Hartford, although exiting from the train station I wasn't able to verify that 2012 census claim.
Once the other passengers were picked up by family, I noticed the projects across State Street were devoid of humanity. Even the minimart was closed for the holiday.
I called my sister. She was running thirty minutes late. I decided to take a walk. It was a sunny day and New Haven possessed some striking brutalist architecture.
Some trees still showed the colors of autumn.
Some more than most. Winter was far away from New England and I strolled down the deserted streets to the Knights of Columbus Tower.
The 23-storey modern style reinforced concrete building was designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and finished in 1969. According to Wikipedia 321 feet (98 meters) tall is the third-tallest building in the city's skyline. No one was there too.
Flowers adorned the sidewalks. They didn't know it was almost winter.
Another low building exhibited all the signs of 1960s urban service.
It took me a little time to discover its function. Knights of Columbus Museum. Protectors of the Catholic Church. As an atheist both the tower and the museum threatened by my godlessness and I hurried away toward the train station. It was almost time to meet my sister.
I walked past the New Haven Police Station. It was having a quiet day. So was I.
After all I was a Mayflower descendant and Thanksgiving was all about celebrating New England's conquest of the Indians.
We should have treated them better. New Haven too. There was no aroma of turkey in the air.
Only loneliness. And it felt familiar. But not for long, because I would be with family and friends. And that was a good reason to come to New Haven.
Thank you Squantum.
Big Dogs Love Turkey
On December 25, 1964 morning millions of mothers across America gathered their older children to peel apples, potatoes, turnips, and carrots for our eight family members and another five-ten guests. My older brother called it 'KP Day'. Our chore as the two oldest included setting the plates and silverware. My mom's apple pie came from my grandmother Edith's recipe. I had hidden one in the living room for my brother and me, but the feast wasn't until the afternoon.
After the turkey was cooked to almost perfection in the morning, my mother hefted the crispy-skinned carcass out of the oven and descended to the garage to allow the big bird to cook in its own skin, then returned inside to set the dining room table was my sisters.
Around noon my next-door neighbor came over to the driveway with a football. Chuckie and I had spent the yesterday at the football game between my hometown and their arch-rivals. The two of us went into the backyard to emulate yesterday's heroes. One of us forgot to shut the door. Ten minutes later after bobbling a long pass Chuckie pointed to the front lawn.
"What's with DJ?"
DJ was a neighborhood dog. I was in love with his owner, Kyla, a fellow schoolmate at St. Mary's of the Foothills. The twelve year-old didn't know I was alive. Her German Shepard had his entire head masked by our turkey and I heard my mother scream, "The turkey."
I picked up a stick from the ground and charged to save our holiday meal. The big white dog fled with a slobbering snarl, leaving behind a mauled meal. My mother cried, "Where are we going to find a turkey now?"
My father looked at me.
"Who left the door open?"
"I did, sir." I didn't even bother to explain my side of the story, because when you're wrong as a child, proving you're right was a waste of breath.
My older brother and younger siblings sarcastically thanked me for ruining Christmas. DJ's owners paid for our Christmas meal at a nearby hotel. The food was good and my mother didn't have to wash any dishes.
The next day Kyla kissed me on the cheek for not beating her dog.
So even bad Thanksgivings can turn out okay, when love depends on a bad dog.
Memory 2018
As a Mayflower descendant I celebrated Turkey Day in Thailand with my childern at a deserted beach. The high tide was lapping at the beach road. Higher than I've ever seen in the Gulf of Siam. Scary high. My kids played in the calm water, blissfully young enough to see this world as a happy place.
No turkey in Thailand. They are native only to North America.
So it was only rock lobsters and shrimp fresh from the sea. Chai yo.
Thanksgiving 1978 From My Journal
Thanksgiving 1978 was spent at our Easts Village apartment; Alice, Kim, Bobbie, Andy Reese, and Grant. I ended up dropping LSD with Bill Yusk. The first hit was weak and I dropped another tab. Still nothing coming on and I drank wine with Alice and Kim.
Two hours later I was drunk and the LSD hit hard. Cooking the turkey was very spacey and the bird spoke to me several times. Bill laughed and Ann asked, "What's so funny?"
"A talking turkey."
"A talking turkey, a talking turkey, a talking turkey."
I saw everything in triplicate. Ann wasn't even high and ordered Bill and me to get more wine. We left laughing and wandered to the Bowery with the street reflecting a shimmering glow.
We passed two women sitting on the curb. Dykes. Both were dressed in black and both were gnawing on turkey legs. Bill and I laughed at them, then the short one called my name. I didn't know the big one, but the small dyke was Gilly, a waitress at Dojos. Their wild eyes emanated yellow.
It was an LSD Thanksgiving for them too.
"You want turkey?"
"Talking turkey."
Bill lost it and I tried to get him away, but he wanted to feast on turkey bones and I returned to 256 East Street. Everyone was gone, except for Kim and Alice, who asked, "Are you okay?"
"I have wine and I have you two."
Kim shook her head and asked, "Where's Bill?"
"He's chomping on a turkey bone on the Bowery with two hippie dykes." I didn't want to rat out Gilly. Alice was very jealous and Kim said, "I hate hippies."
"You hate me?" I asked Alice.
"Not you. Only hippies."
"Well, Happy Thanksgiving to them all."
"And us too."
The trip last into the evening and I came down on the couch, as Alice and Kim watched a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers movie.
It was very funny.
Especially how Ginger danced backwards.
"Talking turkey."
Acid came onto the scene in the 1960s. I was too young for it then, plus I was only into pharmaceuticals, dexies and 'ludes.
In 1971 I hitchhiked up to Montreal to visit friends from New Zealand. I bought a horse choker capsule from a midget dealer.
"Is it any good?"
Tres bonne."
I split it with Brian Alwinkle and his girlfriend, Chris Bilkensapp.
It was very strong and the universe vanished into a webbed mystery.
Forever indeed.
November 23, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry - VDO
Thanksgiving 1978.
Rainy.
High 45.
Low 31.
LSD.
I cook the turkey without a gauge on the stove.
It came out perfect.
Glatt Thanksgiving
The Brownist English Dissenters fled their homeland in the 16th and 17th Century to escape religious persecution by the Church of England, which worsened with the return of the Catholic Stuarts' return to the throne. Leyden in Holland welcomed the refugees, but the Puritans led a precarious economic existence in the Netherlands, whose people were deemed to be libertines by the strict Separatist adherents. The leaders furthered endangered the exiled community with Scottish intrigue and the English ambassador demanded the arrest of the Church elders.
The dilemma was resolved by contracts establishing of a Puritan colony in the New World. It was a good deal for both parties. The Crown was happy to be rid of the malcontents in Holland and the Pilgrims were glad to be free of the immorality of the Old World.
In July of 1620 two ships attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean. My relative John Howland was washed overboard, but grabbed a topsail halyard and was hauled back aboard. Upon landing on the new shores the Pilgrim set up the puritanical Plymouth Colony, which dominated the Massachusetts Bay for decades to come.
They were never known for their good times and the other day I was walking through Brooklyn's Hassidistan with a New England friend, who commented, "You know the Hassidic men dress like your Pilgrim ancestors. Weird black hats, beards, and short trousers."
"I hadn't thought of that, but you're right."
The Hassidim's attire dated back to noble fashion of 16th Century Poland.
"Maybe the Pilgrims were a lost tribe of Israel."
"I don't think so. The Puritans' prejudice against the Jews had been criticized by John Adams, the second president of the United States."
"Maybe, but the Pilgrims and Hassidim do look alike."
"In dress only."
"The Pilgrims were fundamentalist too."
"Okay, we're Jews. The secret is out. Plymouth was the first Jewish Colony in the New World."
"No reason to get all hot about it."
"You're right. That was a long time ago."
I didn't mention that one of our people had been hang by the English for his religious beliefs, mostly because I have none and it's Thanksgiving, when all the Pilgrims thanked the Native Tribes for saving them that next winter of 1621.
And Turkey is always Glatt Kosher, but rabbits never, because they don't have split hooves.
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