THE ONLY YEH YEH GIRL

The teenagers of the 1950s worshipped Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Buddy Holly as gods albeit dead gods instead of risen god like Him of the Old Religion. The new generation of baby boomers preferred the living and the stars of the 1960s were transported by TV and radio to my family house under the Blue Hills south of Boston. Bob Dylan’s BLOWING IN THE WIND toppled Elvis off his throne and the Beatles stole girls from Bobby Rydell with I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND. Young boys worshipped movie actresses as wingless angels, whose beauty blazed eternal on the silver screens.

In 1965 Julie Christie won our hearts in DARLING and my older brother chose fur-bikinied Raquel Welch as his muse after her debut in 1,000,000 BC. The seductive virtues of various starlets were debated by the boys in my high school outside 128 in Boston. I held my sand ie said nothing, because I was searching for a goddess to call my own.

One cold January night I lay in bed in a split-level ranch house on the South Shore Snow clotted against the window. My older brother slept soundly under the covers. I was wide awake. My fingers turned the dial on the transistor radio. A wire running to a tiny ear plug transporting me across the Eastern Seaboard and beyond. Static, then the antenna caught a signal from Quebec transmitting a wavering female singing ‘La maison ou j’ai grandi’.

I cursed myself for not having paid more attention in my grammar school French classes and looked over to my brother’s bed. Dead asleep. I turned up the volume and rode the magic radio waves to the last fading notes of the guitar. The Montreal DJ announced with breathless admiration, “C’etait une autre tube par Francoise Hardy.” I hadn’t understand a word, but realized that Francoise Hardy couldn’t be anything other than an angel. My angel. I remained glued to the station on the St. Lawrence River and the DJ rewarded my devotion with other tubes like LE PREMIER BONHEUR DU JOUR, QUI PEUT DIRE, and L’AMITIE, after which he said, “Bonne anniversaire, Francoise.”

Somehow my brain translated those words into ‘happy birthday, Francoise’.

I was a fifteen year-old high school student living on the South Shore. The DJ announced that Francoise Hardy had just turned twenty-three and lived in Paris. Three thousand miles due east across the Atlantic. The chances of our meeting were nil and she was a woman and I was only a boy.

“Turn off that Frog crap.” my older brother mumbled from his pillows.

“Okay.”

I shut the radio and went to sleep confused by conflicting images of Francoise Hardy. I envisioned her as a blonde. I fantasized about her as a redhead. I woke early to a dream of her as a brunette. Dawn was barely up. Snow buried our suburban neighborhood. I dressed for the cold and descended to the kitchen.

“You’re awfully quiet,” my father said at the stove, as he cooked pancakes for my younger sisters and brothers.

“I’m thinking about changing my language from German to French.” In my freshman year the brothers had offered four languages; French, Spanish, German, and Latin. Students only take one. Most either Spanish or French. I chose German and Latin. I had never been able to explain why to anyone. Not even myself.

“I thought you liked German.” My father had studied French at college.

“I do.” I spoke it with a Boston accent much to the chagrin of Bruder Karl. My best grade had been a D+ and I had no feeling for Marlene Dietrich.

“Any reason for the change?”

“Maybe I’ll have more use for French.”

“Like for when you’re ordering French Fries from Simco’s at the bridge.” My older brother joked, as he sat at the table. My younger brothers and sisters laughed along with my father. Simco’s on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan had the greasy fries in Boston.

“Tres droll.”

I didn’t mention my restless night to my car pool friends, as we drove to high school on 128. My daydreams of Francoise Hardy consumed the morning math and biology classes. I barely listened to Bruder Karl. He was a good old Bavarian. After leaving his class, I had a study hall and went the library to search through the record collection. Brother Jerome, the librarian, was in his office. A freshman sat on his lap. One of his favorites.

I wandered over to the record trays and flipped through the LPs without finding a single French record. A few music stores in downtown Boston sold foreign music and I planned on heading to Washington Street after school.

“I’m not going home today?” I told my car pool.

“Where you going?” My best friend, Chuckie Manzi, wanted to join me.

“To see the dentist.” It was a good deterrent. No teenager liked the sound of the drill.

“You’re on your own.”

My friends dropped me at the Forest Hills T station and I got off at Washington Street. None of the big department stores had any French 45s or LPs. On the way to the Park Street Station I chanced upon a record store on Boylston across from Commons. The bearded owner looked like a beatnik. I was dressed as a mod.

“Can I help you?” Thousands of records according to genres were stacked against the wall.

“Do you have any Francoise Hardy?”

“How do you know about Francoise Hardy?” The older man seemed amused by my request.

“I heard her on a Canadian station.”

“Must have been a strong signal.” He went to the French section and pulled out a sealed LP.

“Francoise Hardy dropped out of the Sorbonne to record OH OH CHERI with Johnny Halliday. He’s the French Elvis. She became one of the biggest stars of Ye-Ye music and her hit TOUS LES GARCONS ET LES FILLES made the charts in the UK. I think it was 1964. This LP came out in 1962.”

He gave me the album. Up to this all I knew about the singer was that she was French. I held the cover in both hands. The name had a face. A cinnamon strands of hair streamed across feline eyes. An ivory hand held an umbrella with a detached interest. Francoise was a woman made for a rainy afternoon.

“Can I hear a little?”

“Sure.” The old man slipped the LP onto a Garrard 401 turntable and cued up LE TEMPS D’AMOUR.

A patter of drums opened the song. A twangy guitar and solid bass joined on the next bar. The singer wasted no time getting to the lyrics. They must have been about love. 2:27 passed in a second.

“What you think?”

“I’ll take it.” Her pose sold youthful innocence. I gave him $5. “Is this the only one you have?”

“Of that LP, yes, but I can get some of her other records, if you’d like.”

I nodded my answer and promised to return on the weekend.

“My name’s Osberg.” He handed me a business card. “Call to find out when to come in.”

“Thanks.” I left his shop and caught the T to Ashmont.

That evening after finishing dinner and my homework, I went down to the basement and put the LP on my father’s record player. My brother had a better one in our bedroom, but I wasn’t sharing Francoise Hardy with someone in love with a woman in a fake fur bikini, even if Frunk was my older brother. He had Raquel Welch to himself 100%. One play of her record and I became her biggest fan south of the frozen USA-Canada border.

Every night I listened to the Quebec stations in secrecy. Her songs soothed my soul lost in the empty suburbs south of Boston and I felt as long as she was out there, there was someplace other than here.

At school I hid my secret. THE only French we knew were the Canucks from Quebec. Good for playing hockey for the Boston Bruins. I didn’t want to risk their attacking Francoise. I bought several LPs from Mr. Osberg and as winter melted from New England, he introduced me to the other Ye-Ye girls; Frances Gall, Sylvie Vartan, and Jacqueline Ta’eb as well as the Sultans from Quebec and Serge Gainsbourg.

None of them were Francoise Hardy. I dreamed about flying to Paris. An airline ticket cost hundreds of dollars. I settled for listening to her music with my eyers closed.

In 1968 Francoise Hardy released COMMENT TE DIRE ADIEU written by Serge Gainsbourg. Mr. Osburg said that he was the wicked man in France and played his hit with Jane Birkin JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS.

Love dripped off the record. Mr. Osburg was right about this Gainsbourg man. He was as ugly as sin. I had to save Francoise and as soon as I arrived home, I asked my father, if we could vacation in France.

“They’re having riots there.” My father was very conservative. He tolerated the length of my hair, even if he thought I looked like a girl. “Students in the streets. Worse than the hippies. We’re going to the Cape.”

Our family rented three motel rooms in Harwichport. The pool overlooked the small harbor. The beach boasted the warmest water on Cape Cod and the sea registered 65 Fahrenheit by the 4th of July.

Every morning I read the Boston Globe. The newspaper covered the War in Vietnam with little mention of the Paris student unrest. I was certain that Francoise Hardy wasn’t the type of girl to get mixed up in trouble on the Left Bank. Not unless she fell into the hands of the evil Serge Gainsbourg and I plotted a trip to France. A rumor was whispered across Boston about a jet plane leaving Boston every morning for Paris. Its cargo of Maine lobsters was traded for eclairs, creme brulees, and pomme tartes. $100 round trip.

Two weeks before the start of school I emptied my bank account and took the T to Logan Airport early one morning. None of the terminals listed the ‘lobster’ flight and I spent the greater part of Saturday hunting for the mythic plane to Paris.

“Ha.” A Boston cop laughed upon hearing my query. “Once a week some kid comes up looking for that plane. There ain’t none. Some bullshit story someone invented for who knows why, but the weird thing is that all these kids want to meet the same girl. Francoise Hardy. You ever heard of her?”

“No.” These other boys’ feelings for Francoise Hardy could never rival my love.

“Me too. Must be some kind of film star. Like Brigitte Bardot.”

I fought back an explanation, not needing any more converts to the faith, and returned home in defeat. That summer America was deep mourning after the murder of RFK in LA. MRS. ROBINSON replaced Archie Bell and the Drells’ TIGHTEN UP as # 1, while Simon and Garfinkel sang about an older woman from the movie THE GRADUATE. Francoise Hardy was eight years older than me. I changed the words from Mrs. Robinson to Francoise Hardy. I never sang it in front of my girlfriend. Kyla was the same age as me.

COMMENT TE DIRE ADIEU was not a hit and the radio station in Quebec played less and less of her songs. Kyla and I went steady. I liked to think that Francoise would have approved of my selection, but I was stupid and left Kyla for no good reason in 1969. That year Francoise released Francoise Hardy en Anglais. Like the Catholic Mass in English her songs lost their magic in the translation.

My travels in the late-60s and 70s were confined to hitchhiking across America. None of the drivers played TOUS LES GARCONS ET LES FILLES, but I defended French music to hundreds of hippies, rednecks, and disco fanatics by saying, “You’ve never heard Francoise Hardy.”

In 1973 she appeared in the film SAVE THE TIGER. The American director failed to break the twenty-nine year-old singer to America. She remained a creature of France.

The Atlantic Ocean separated America from the Old World. My opportunity to cross the waters came in 1982, when I was hired to work as a doorman first to work at the Rex for the counter-culture magazine Actuel and then after a stay in Hamburg, the Bains-Douches, a popular Paris nightclub. At first I was unfamiliar with the French pop stars. Over the course of the next year I met Johnny Halliday, Yves Montand, Catherine Denevue, Yves St. Laurent, Coluche, countless Vogue models, arms dealers, and other lightbulbs of the night, but never Francoise Hardy and I asked the owner about her absence.

“She doesn’t go out at night. Her husband, Jacques Dutronc, is very jealous.”

“Of what?” Dutronc was a rock star for the French. Nobody in the USA knew his name, but ET MOI ET MOI ET MOI was a great song. I had it on tape. “Other men?”

My boss warned that her husband was capable of almost anything against any man seeking intimacy with his wife. “He is very much in love with her.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

My boss shrugged with mutual understanding, He was a Francoise Hardy fan too.

The nightlife was a small world in Paris and I didn’t mention Francoise’s name again. People had big mouths. Jacques Dutronc visited the club on several occasions. He was a star. I was no one. A thick cigar hung out of his mouth. I hated the smell. He never came with Francoise. The rumor was that she was terribly shy after having been the Ye-Ye Girl for so many years. I made her husband wait to get in more than once.

Jacques Dutronc complained to my boss, who laughed behind the singer’s back.

My job was to make French stars feel like getting into the Bains-Douches was a privilege. My friends were granted an easy entry, especially Suzi Wyss, the Swiss mistress of a Getty Oil heir. On my days off I smoked opium at her oriental pad in the 13th arrondisement. The Swiss courtesan was superb cook and traveled through many cliques. She called me poor poor Peter, but never turned her back on me. We were lovers. One night she invited me to a dinner, but said, “Don’t tell anyone, but Francoise Hardy will be coming.”

“I thought she didn’t go out.” This was a miracle.

“She doesn’t, but she loves my cooking and I am always discreet. So not a word.”

“Silence will be my vow” I wanted Francoise to myself. “Will her husband be there?”

“Not for dinner, but he might come for dessert. He has a thing for my Swiss chocolate torte.”

Suzi’s piece de resistance was a culinary delight and I prepared like a nameless suitor for this rendezvous with Francoise Hardy.

I bought a chalk white shirt from Agnes B and a gray suit from my tailor in the Sentier. No tie was better than pretending to be a business man and I purchased Cuban heels from the Marches Aux Puches flea market. They dated back to the time of her greatest success. I cut my hair short and didn’t bathe for two days to emulate French men, who avoided bathing in fear of losing their masculinity.

That evening I showed up on time with a bouquet of roses. Suzi loved flowers. We smoked hash. Opium was for after the dinner. The door bell rang at 9. Francoise arrived at the apartment with a young gay man. Yves knew me from les Bains. We opened a bottle of wine. She wasn’t a drinker, but was amused by my stories of New York nightclubs awash with beautiful women and crooked cops.

“It would make a good movie.”

“Only if you played the lead.” I envisioned us on the podium of the Academy Awards receiving Oscars.

“I’m too old to play that role.”

“You’re never too old to be a star.” I wanted to tell her I had loved her forever. Now was not thee time. Maybe never was the time. She was only thirty-nine. I was thirty. I told her the story of hearing her on the Montreal radio and the plane with the pastries. She laughed at my love from afar. She had had a lot of lovers like that in her life.

“Didn’t I tell he was sweet?” Suzi lit another joint.

“Sweet as your torte.”

I was falling in love again.

In fact I had never stopped loving Francoise. She spoke about her music and picked up a guitar from the corner. The Ye-Ye girl sang two new tunes. I was in paradise and was about to tell her about hearing her music on a little radio twenty years ago.

A knock on the door trashed my moment. The newcomer was Jacques Dutronc. Francoise’s face said that she loved him and no one else. Any man would have been a fool to not love her the same.

“I know you.” He pointed his cigar. “Bains-Douches. Doorman.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“A writer too.” Suzi was on my side.

“Pouoff” Dutronc had witnessed thousands of writers attempt to seduce his wife. “Women only love directors and producers. They prefer chauffeurs before a writer.”

Francoise laughed at her husband’s joke. Suzi thought it funny too. I might have joined them, if the riposte hadn’t struck so deep. After Suzi’s famous Swiss Chocolate cake rejoined to the living room, where Jacques Dutronc picked up the guitar.

“Francoise and I recorded a song in 1978. BROULLIARD DANS LA RUE CORVISART.”

He put down his cigar and sang the song’s opening lines. Francoise accompanied him on the chorus. I applauded their duet as well as their shared love.The odds of my getting anywhere with Francoise were stacked higher than the records in Mr. Osburg’s music store. An hour later the famed couple left with the gay friend. Francoise didn’t even said good-bye. Jacques winked to me. I wouldn’t make him wait at the door any more.

“Poor Boy.” Suzi patted my cheek. “Everyone loves her.”

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

“And I know how to make you forget, if only for a few minutes.” Suzi handed me a pipe. Opium was a good doctor for an unrequited love. Suzzi was even better. A good friend in the slumber of her bed.

The three of us met several more times at Suzi’s apartment. The same routine as always, dinner, wine, and a joint or two. Jacques came late and they departed ensemble. Faithful forever. Suzi and I not faithful. Just lovers.

I imagined myself being him, but I didn’t like cigars and my French was even worse than my German. Francoise loved Jacques and that was good enough for me, because all men at one time in their lives need a goddess to teach them about love.

Even if they were another man’s woman.

To Hear Francoise Hardy's

please go to the following URL

Les Bains Douches - Paris August 17, 1994 - Journal

Les Bains Douches Paris August dedicated to my dear friend, Suzi Wyss__

Here's a poem from a 1994 journal Les Bains Douches Paris August 17, 1994

The clock over the stairs
Les Bains-Douches
Always Three to Midnight
The music from the dance floor
From DJ Albert de Paname
EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY by Solomon Burke___
Upstairs in the dining room
A trio of St. Tropez blondes at a table
Blonde bronzed seeking rich men
Or young boys
I'm neither__
I sit at the bar
Alone
An old junkie friend sits
Whines a tale of need
In broken English
In my good ear
Thanks me for the 100 francs
And goes to see Ali
A friend to all those in need___
Me
Wondering what I'm doing here
An easy answer
Candida left me
For an Italian agent
Why am I here?
I think
Maybe she'll come here
Fin me__
Idiot___
I wait and wait and wait___
The blonde bartender from Toulouse
Corinne
Tres mignon, gives me drinks
Free drinks
Normally 120 new francs
$22 US
Two ice cubes
Corinne makes mine
Doubles
Plein des glacons
Her smile
So sweet
I can read her mind
I wish I could grant her wish
All I have to say is yes___
Better not
No one wants to cure a broken heart
I get up to go
My hotel in le Marais
Rue des Ecouffes
Not far away___
In walks Suzi
More than a friend
Last year
>The happiest girl in town
Swiss
Ex-model
Courtesan a les tres riches
Greyhound thin
Gran Tetons
Lips sweetest cherries__
Unseen
A mole high on her upper thigh
We have been lovers
Laid in bed
Smoking opium
Her smile
An allure of lust
To any man willing to be a victim___
She sees me
I see her
Suzi kisses my cheeks
Not my lips
I tell her, "You haven't changed."
Her laugh
Mocking
"I hear that all the time. Even from the mirror."
About to ask
Come back to my hotel
In the Marais
Reading my mind
She says, "Je suis lesbian maintenant."
"Mais only for tonight."
Suzi joins the blonde St. Tropez trio___
It's late
It was late 2 hours ago
Corrine sad to see me go
I leave the Bains-Douches
Under the clock
Always three to midnight
My feet weak from drink
Walking into the night
Singing the old Jaynettes song
"Saddest thing in the whole wide world to see your baby with another girl."
But Suzi was never my girl
Neither was Candida.
Alone
Walking
To a hotel in Le Marais
To sleep alone___
Sleep
No dreams
Thankfully in the morning
A knock in the door
"Entrez."
Not Suzi
Mdme. Gruntuch
The owner of le Hotel Des Ecouffes
Who spent the entire Nazi occupation
As a child
In the sous-sol
Safe from the Nazis
Deep underground
Four years
Deep underground__
This morning
Le petit-dejuener
Baguette and cafe
Mdme. Gruntuch
A smile
I am not alone
Pas de tout seule
Je suis
Avec Madame Gruntuch
Ah, Paris___

Anne-France Dautheville - Motorcycle Muse

In the 1990s I drove motorcycles across Bali, Java, Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.  

In 1990 I straddled a 250 ATX Honda on a dirt road north of Chiang Mai. A dirt road led west into the maze of dragon-backed ridges to Mae Dai Salong, the capitol of the opium trade in Lanna Thai. Somewhere to the west lay Tibet. The gas tank was full. I fantasized about a week of travel there through BUrma to India to China and Tibet. It was a complete fantasy. Entering the outlaw lands of Golden Triangle was dangerous for anyone not attached to the druglords, especially sole male farangs, who the locals consider either drug addicts or the DEA. After a night in Mae Dai Salong I turned around disappointed I had failed to accept the challenge.    

To this day I remain haunted by that vista.  

 

Back in New York Dmitri Turin of the East Sixth Street Bikers and I sat outside his English bike shop and drank beer in New York, fantasizing a circumnavigation of the globe on Triumph dirt bikes. The talk never got further than talk or past midnight high speed rides on the FDR Drive.      

At 70 I'm going nowhere, until I recover from my transplant surgery.        

Back in 1972 I was an economic student at Boston College. I had seen EASY RIDER. I had only ridden a Vespa. Once. I hitchhiked from coast-to-coast. I stayed with bikers in Pomona, Ca. They lent me a Harley Tricycle. They took it back after three days with the leader saying, "We're scared of you getting killed."          

         

The road belonged to them and a French adventuresse of the last century, Anne-France Dautheville.    

In 1972 the journalist quit her copyrighting job in Paris and set off to Afghanistan on a Kawasaki 125cc. The following year Mlle. Dautheville soloed around the world in 1973.      

     

Three continents; Europe, Asia, America.        

   

Articles and novels about her epic journeys created a mythic status as a style icon.        From a 2016 article from NY Times writer Alexander Fury.      

“Even on a trip for 12,000 miles, I remain a Parisienne.” Her staples on the open road included leather trousers or dungarees paired with a printed scoop-neck t-shirts, and she always wore a scarf and biker boots, unless she went out to dinner.  "My life started at 27. It was as if the thousands of kilometres around the world were concentrated in a few perfect seconds." My idée… was to see the world. It was to see when it is different, and fascinating. “From now on, life would be mine, my way. I would feel the wind on my skin, the world as my home.”        

       

Most recently, she was the inspiration behind fashion brand's Chloe's Autumn-winter 2016 collection.           

And still gives inspiration to a generation trapped in the metaverse by cellphones.

"Be brave and do the impossible. No one from France really went to that part of the world then; they might go as far as Turkey or Morocco, but not Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran.” In many of the countries she traveled, “They didn’t see too many girls alone on a motorcycle. I was colour TV for them.” Her parents were mortified by her trip – she could have been a copywriter and had a nice life but she chose to go on an adventure.

"Being an artist is about sharing. The story of my life is sharing. When I write, I give the best and the deepest of me to people I wouldn’t have dinner with. This is the artistic dimension. When I traveled, it was, ‘What can we share?’ Maybe it’s a bit utopic. I don’t care. It’s what I felt, and what I did.”

Fame is overrated. She never chased fame and still doesn’t.   

“I’m not fascinated by myself,” she says. “By my life, maybe, but not by me. My bellybutton is not the center of my world.”

"Tailor your career to your life, not the other way around. A freelance journalist, Dautheville both documented and paid for her travels by writing articles, which were subsequently spun into books. Many revolved around the novelty of her gender, such as “Girl on a Motorcycle” (1973) and “And I Followed the Wind” (1975).

When “deadly broke”, she would house-sit for friends in return for a place to stay.

 

Anne-France Dautheville was twenty-eight in 1972, astride a Moto Guzzi 750 motorcycle on the way to Tehran, traveling alone cross-continent. She’s flagged down by a car, and three children get out to ask Dautheville about herself, her life and her eye makeup. (“I always made up my eyes,” she recalls.) “Then they start driving faster than me. Ten kilometers later, they stop on the side of the road, and they stop me again. I ask, ‘Is there something you forgot?’ And they say, ‘Well, we were wondering, are you a girl or are you a boy?’ ” Dautheville throws back her head and roars with laughter.    

I was twenty in 1972 and hitchhiked cross-country with my college friend, Peter Gorr. No motorcycles. They lay years away in the 1980s until now, but I still worship the road.    

Where Is Tank Man? -2014

Thirty-seven years ago a lone Chinese protester blocked a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. June 5, 1989 in front of the Beijing Hotel one day after the Tiananmen massacre. Cameras and videos captured the young man's defiance of governmental power.

Steel versus flesh.

After a conversation with the lead tank's driver of the first tank, security forces hustled him into the crowd. He has never been seen since and his identity remains a mystery, although some journalists have reported that his name was Wang Weilin, a nineteen-year-old student, who was later charged by the authorities with "political hooliganism" and "attempting to subvert members of the People's Liberation Army". This claim has been refuted by many sources as have reports that Tank Man had been executed by a firing squad several months after the incident.

"I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not," a CCP secretary had said, leading to rumors that the young man has been in hiding on the mainland.

Whatever the truth the world owes this man the greatest honor for his courage in standing for truth along with the thousands of students in Tiananmen Square. Their memory has been obscured by the Communist Party's campaign for wealth and the two months of protests ignored by the young of China.

They don't want a revolution.

They only desire iPhones.

Same as the rest of the world. All their choicecs have been subordinated by technology. The phone in thier hands offers utopia. Potato chips and phones. The manana of this civilization. We can't have everything.

So I honor the man on the tank. Today and everyday.

Watch this video;

One man against the power of the state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nXT8lSnPQ&

Tankman is my hero.

May 31, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Everybody was watching Clover at the party. Her youth. Her beauty. Her reputation. She had told Anthony that an older man pays her rent. The Texan oilman visits twice a month. He pays for sex. Andy Reese of the Serendipity 3 crowd said that she was a prostitute. The ballet dancer tricked out of Cowboys on 53rd Street. I had figured the North Carolinan for just being catty. Her fucking for money doesn't matter to me. I wish someone would pay me for having sex. I guess Alice does, since I pay no money for the rent

Later

Alice's play is soon. She'll be leaving to gtraduate from an Ohio college and then her father will drive her to West Virginia with no plans to come back to New York other than she can't stay in Appalachia and she does have desire to be here, not necessarily with me, but in the East Village.

At Dojos I spoke to Anthony about his upcoming exhibition of our photo roman with Klaus and Cookie in Bridgehampton. He said, "The prints were all mine it's my show. I'm calling it Clover and Nolan."

Sounds good to me. If you sell any photos, do I get a cut?"

"I'll split it with you, although I don't know why"

"Because I came up with a story and casted Clover and Klaus and everybody else in it."

"I got Cookie."

They were lovers and dope fiends, although Anthony was a day to day junkie. It suits his laconic demeanor.

"I'll give you that." I loved Cookie. The Baltimore native was real unlike most poeple on the punk scene, having starred in John Waters films with Divine.

"Okay we'll split it once I pay for the expenses The prints and everything else and we should give 10% each the Clover, Cookie, and Klaus

"Agreed.

This was Anthony's first show and he was planning a beach party. Punks at the Hamptons.

Later

I got paid for only 2 days this week had Ebasco. I'm barely working at the executive dining room. The executives are starting summer holidays early. The Boston School Committee is sending my last unemployment. $100 check should be in the mail.

Why can't I find a job? Thankfully entertainment and drink are basically free. Kyle, Kim's sister works at Yogurt Delight. Kim at CBGBs. Cyrena at Cornelia Street. To DeMastri at McBell's. Like Henry Miller I don't need money. Just friends. Right now I'm on 6th Avenue dodging the rain at Dazzle on Columbus Avenue, watching the young ballerinas with their tight buns and dance tights coming from a dance class. I don't stare at them or follow them. They have enough of that from every man in New York.

At the Cornelia Street Cafe Kyle doesn't invite me to a champagne party to meet Sean Hausman. "You people are always free loading."

The Red Sox in first___

Post Vietnam America has retreated from the world stage under Carter. China tried to invade Vietnam to save Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Eritrea and Ethiopia are battling over a desert. Russia and China have exported revolution to Africa, latin America, and Asia. Leftist revolutionaries battle the States of the Free World in Europe. The while word hates the USA and out threats of nuclear war to defeat the workers' paradise.

As for Cuba the USA should normalize relations with the island by offering Havana a major league baseball franchise; the Havana Bananas or Reds. Cincinnati Reds would have to surrender that name for purpose of international peace.

I love food, but have been starving myself. My body is thin. My muscles are taut. I want to eat, but I have no money. More I want sex. Masturbation is not sex. Just release.

Journal Entry - April 4, 1981

This week the journliat staff from the magazine Actuel arrived at New York's JFK aeroport. The publisher Jean Francoise Bizot led the quintet of Bernard Zekri, Elizabeth D, music promoter Jacques Kourakas and another writer unkown to me across the tarmac.. Later this week Actuel will celebrate the tenth anniversery of French publication's existence. I met them through their New York Corespondent, Bernard Zekri, who is thriving for the first time in this city. He has discovered Rap and Break Dancing, traveling up to the Bronx and Harlem and Brooklyn. I've never accompanied him to the distant boroughs of the city, since I'm working at the Jefferson after-hours. My old girlfriend Karine had introduced us. While she has gone back to France, Bernard has become a good friend. I would love to go to Paris and France, although Bernard has said that the City of Light has become more bourgeois losing the edge described in Orwell's DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON. The vicious cops corralled the street whores and addicts obey the orders of the haute-class.

"The clubs suck."

Bernard has proposed that I come to Paris in June.

Jean Francois, the publisher, will be opening a club on the Grand Boulevard.

If the offer comes, I would leave here tomorrow.

Only ghosts keep me here.

Go VW GTI Go 1982

In 1982 I drove a VW Golf GTI from Paris to Bruxelles Aeroport. My mission was to pick up Valdmar, a New York DJ. He was going to spin records at the Rex Club for the magazine Actuel. On the way I noticed Benzs and BMWs cruising at 180 KPH or 100 mph and decided to see how much go the GTI had in its 1.8 Liter engine.

180 was no test.

200 was faster than any other car on the autoroute.

I top-ended at 220 KPH or 150 mph.

That speed has remained my personal best for almost 30 years.

Few people in the USA believe this story. They think 100mph is crazy fast. Most Americans cruise in their big V8s at 75. The speed limit on the highways varies from state to state. 75 for the western states. 65 for the East Coast. Highway patrols cover the interstates like white on rice. They love giving tickets. Fines can run in the thousands. We call them revenue pirates.

Several years back NY State Troopers caught 1993 Honda Civic going 137 mph on I-84.

The driver was ticketed for speeding, reckless driving and having vehicle windows with illegal tint.

But permitted him to continue on his drive.

137 is fast, but 320 KPH or 210 mph was highest speed radared on the Autoroute by the French Police.

A stretch between Strasbourg and Metz. The car was a turbo-charged fuel-injected BMW M1 with a 3453 cc straight-6 engine. The flics never even bothered to chase him, but roadblocked his escape at the tollbooth. He paid his fine on the spot and drove of to his destination.

It was not a fire or

I have one question for the driver in New York.

“Where the hell were you going that you needed to go that fast? “MacDonalds?”

Leather Coat Paris

London 1978

In 1978 I had left NYC to join my model/girlfriend, Lisa. We lived in West London Studio, A two-story post modern complex on Fulham Road. Right at the entrance to the Chelsea football pitch. Game days we didn't leave the apartment. As the opposing crews waged war outside the pubs.

I had nothing to wear that declared I was from the South Shore of Boston and not Strafford Bridge or Westham. I bought a leather coat from a second-hand store on Kensington High Street. A little roughed up yet elegant

Lisa and I returned to America. She left again for Europe in the summer of 1979. She came back in 1981 with a Russian gangster. I liked Vadim. I worked for him at the Continental on West 25th Street. I left when I clocked FBI agents at the after-hours club. I’m wasn’t Vadim.

In 1982 I fled a joint police-FBI investigation to work as a physionomiste or doorman at Le Rex Club for the magazine Actuel on the Grand Boulevard in Paris. Opening night was with Toure Kinda. The basement was packed for the African superstar. A froggie longhair kept bugging me to come in. I told the babacool to wait his turn. Hectoring me with indecipherable French swears resulted in a nightlong ban.

"Twa oncule!" He strode to a dented double-parked Citroen Deux-Cheveaux. I thought nothing more of him, until he ran through the crowd and threw a bag at me. Yellow sprayed from it and I thought it was les frites or French Fries from the pseudo Mickey Ds next door.

Wrong It was yellow paint. Splat!

I stood stunned.

The hippie ran back to his voiture des peasants. The two cylinder engine would not start. Le choc of the attack triggered a rage. I ran the sidewalk, jumped atop a car hood and launched a kick through the hippie's driver side window. I leapt on the roof. Jumping up and down and up and down. Black steel toed combat boots smashed front windscreen. Shattered the passenger door window. The hippie cringed at the steering wheel. The boulevard sidewalks was crowded with club goers. I saw no one.

The car still refused to start. My boots took their toll.

The car coughed to life. The hippie shoved the shift into First and steered into the oncoming traffic. I tumbled to the street. He drove straight into a passing taxi. Crash. I wanted more and scrambled my feet. My security held me back.

Corinne my squeeze gave me a towel. I wiped off the paint. The ghost of it haunted the coat forever. Jean-Francois the publisher gave me 3000 francs. “Go out of town for a week."

I acted on his advice and took a train to London. With the coat. I stood in front of the West London Studio a few times. No sign of Lisa. Only the trace of yellow on the leather coat.

ps Upon my return my bouncers said that I had totaled the hippie’s car. They weren’t impressed. After all it was just a Deux Cheveaux.

Bridges and Typewriters 2014

In Jan. 1982 a french magazine ACTUEL hired me to work the work at their Paris nightclub, Le Rex. I bid good-bye to New York and flew from JFK to Heathrow with one bag of my best clothing and an Olivetti typewriter.

After a brief visit with friends in London, I boarded a train at Waterloo Station for Dover and caught a night ferry to Calais. The immigration officials stamped my passport with a six-month visa and I passed through customs without any of the smoking officials casting an eye in my direction. It was cold outside and I walked to the Calais train station.

My Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter weighed a little over four kilograms. Nine pounds isn't much, but as I walked to the the Calais train station on a June evening, the weight grew heavier in my hand and crossing a bridge over the Calais canal I contemplated ditching it. The tide was out and the river bottom was thick with mud. The world didn't need another writer or another doorman at a nightclub, then again this world doesn't need much, so I trudged into the terminal with the Olivetti and bought a one-way ticket to Paris.

Gare Du Nord.

For me and my typewriter.

I have no idea where it is now, but me I'm in New York and my typing is as bad as ever.

New Canal Street 2026

ederal agents carry out joint ICE crackdown on Canal Street in Chinatown 10/25 kills counterfeit business in China Town

Walter Robinson Show @ Jeffery Deitch

Yesterday I wandered into the Walter Robinson Show at Jeffery Deitch on Wooster Street. His paintings had been up for some time. I rarely attended openings. Too many people struggling to be noticed in a crowd of attention seekers. I have never made any money or gotten laid at an art opening. At least not that I can recall. Drunk on cheao white art wine. Hell yeah.

I had some familiarity of the artist's work. His sharp flourish with the brush envikvening the studied banality of his subject; cheeseburgers and TV beauties. Garish without vulgarity. I like the more erotic, but remembered Duncan Hannah's homages to Balthus. The risk of eroticism and sin. Younger not women but girls. Unsettling. Viewing his I felt like a criminal. Not even a naughty voyeur awoke at Deitch. So happy to have seen his work without anyone in the gallery.

Walter Robinson: Let the Music Play May 2–June 6, 2026 18 Wooster Street, New York We may be known for what we do in life, or even for what we do not do, but to measure those things we do, even when we know better not to, is how we truly understand ourselves. That understanding, almost an empathy in Walter Robinson’s (1950-2025) art, is a rare wisdom. Call them guilty pleasures, simple joys or cheap thrills, their superfluous folly is not so much a lapse of judgement but a suspension of it. Perhaps all the indulgences and excesses that constitute our pleasure-economy are bad for us, dulling our wits, slackening our resolve and polluting our body, but to willfully enter this field of numbing distraction, and to stay there vigilantly alert as if before a grander sublimity, is a kind of deviant medicine. Wickedly smart yet struck with a trickster’s lunacy, Robinson channels so much of what is besetting the human condition into a contemplative sensory reverie, harnessing all that clutters our mind into a radically subversive instrument to probe our desires.

To read more please go to https://deitch.com/new-york/exhibitions/walter-robinson-let-the-music-play

White House White Trash

White trash is a derogatory term used by the middle class to describe whites from the other side of the tracks. No one protests this appelation, as if this group of poor whites are spared any consideration of humanity. They jiz poor like everyone else and their ignorance is no worst than anyone else devoted to cat memes on the internet. Hillary called them deplorable for their belief is racism and fascism and support of Donald Trump. Hillary learned in 2016 they thought nothing of her too.

They still kinda despicables, but even them are losing patience with theOrange Messia with his War of Iran. Telling his follwers that We have to stop Iran, as Zion has decided to seize over 70% of Gaza, occupy Lebanon to the Litani River, and allow the Isreali settlers to kick all Palestinians from the West Bank.

There is no stopping his madness or depravity. This morbidly gross dictator has partially destroyed the White House and the ground with plans for a luxury ballroom and a MMA fighting pit. A disgrace, yet people I know buy his bullshit. The inhumanity and I predict there will be no midterm election. He will declared Emergency Powers to rule from his cocaine bedroom.

Everyone upon hearing this say he won't do that.

Obviousle they haven,'t been paying attention. <>

May 30 1992 - Bangkok - Journal

Two mornings ago I was making an overseas call at the phone booth in the Malaysia Hotel. A young bearded man entered the lobby with two young ladies. I had last seen Dice in Kathmandu 1990 after a ten-day trek to Lantang Glacier. Upon departure westward to Europe I had told Dice, if he was ever in Bangkok, then he should stay at the Malaysia Hotel and there was a good chance, if the Hawaiian passed through Bangkok next year I might be at the Malaysia Hotel. Room 203 overlooking the swimming pool. Dice was a no show in 1991.

One late night in May 1992 I was in the hotel lobby making an overseas call to my parents and spotted Dice. Two go-go  girls in tow. Upon seeing me the thirtyish Hawaiian called out, "Pascha."

My Oriental pseudonym.

Dice was just in from Nepal and a long night at the go-go bars. He was having breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, which offered a restorative American breakfast. The girls were very happy. Thais are always hungry.  

"Then sleep. I'm sending these girls home. They have probably had enough of me. I'll see you later."

We rendezvoused that afternoon at Kenny's Bar on Soi Si Bamphen. We drank Singhas that day, which was my 40th birthday.

After a few beers at Kenny's we told some girls we would be back after dinner and wandered over to the Chandrphen Restaurant, a top-notched Chinese chicken restaurant across from the Lumpini Muay Thai boxing stadium, where we finished off a bottle of small bottle of Mekong whiskey. The waiters invited us to a comedy club. I was drunk enough to allow myself to be dragged on stage by a troop of improvisers. They mocked me, but I grabbed the mike. I have no idea what I said, but I thought it was funny the Thai audience laughed at the farang fool.

Finally I was thrown off the stage gently. Todd said, "You're natural ham."

We were late for the rendezvous at Kenny's and rode a tuktuk over to Patpong. Despite being my birthday I wasn't in the mood for whoring. Maybe Bangkok's wild fun doesn't glitter as wickedly coming from Indonesia, instead of New York. Maybe it's all part my monastic onanism. I had passed through Bangkok three times this trip without bar-fining a single Go-go girl. The old age truck has hit me so hard. 

40 and overweight. I don't know how many more years I've got to go. Decades I hope.

No pension plan. No retirement cabin. All I have two written books, a script, thirty or so journals, an East Village apartment, and a crapped-out Yamaha 650 on the sidewalk outside on the East 20th Street sidewalk, unless someone had stolen it in my absence.

Of course I also had my fading good looks and by the time I reach California I'm going to be in tip top shape ready for the conquest of the modern world of the West.

As I packed to check out of the Malaysia Hotel, I listened to Velvet Underground on a cassette player. NOTHING AT ALL. I won't be coming back here until next year after working at the Diamond District from September to January. Any possibility of my earning any cash from writing was probably decades away. My typing sucks and my spelling is worse.

Two days ago I had gone down the Victory Square. Hundreds of thousands of young people had been protesting for weeks against the military rule for weeks without any violence. The hometown troops would not shoot their neighbors friends and family. The generals ordered troops from the country. The fascists called the demonstrators communists and gave the order to shoot to kill. The rural Isaan soldiers killed hundreds of their countrymen to prevent democracy. But nightlife in Bangkok remained open under the harsh rule of High Society over Low Society. The murderous crackdown stilled the revolution. The King and his family were once more saved by the Army.

Today Bangkok remains under martial law. 

I'm catching a bus to the South island of Koh Phi Phi. 14 hours overnight.  

I wonder when I'll into into Dice again.

Happy Birthday JFK

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29.

We shared the same birthday.

Along with the comedian Bob Hope.

And Sherpa Tenzing, the Nepali Sherpa mountaineer, who climbed Everest with illary.

In 1453 the Ottoman Turks stormed the walls of Constantinople.

I had nothing to do with that blow to Christendom.

Peace and Love.

Reno Nevada Blackjack May 29, 1974

In 1974 my 21st birthday was spent driving across Nevada with Andy, a pot-smoking pianist, and Carole, a blonde co-ed heading to the West Coast. We had made good time in the rent-away station wagon up to this point and I decided to celebrate my coming of age by gambling at every desert town along I-80. Elko, Winnemucca, Lovelock, and Sparks were generous to my cause. I was up about $1000 from playing blackjack or 21. It was a simple game and I had a good head for numbers as would anyone who had been a math major in college.

Sunset fell over Reno, the Biggest Little City in the World. The first bright lights since Denver. I picked out Harrah’s as my next victim. Before entering the casino I handed Andy my traveling money and $500.

“Don’t give me this no matter what.” I had seen gambling movies. No one came out on top. Carole shook her head. “What’s wrong?”

“If you’re going to play, then play. Never fix a limit.” Carole was a junior at a girl’s college outside Boston. She was studying business. Her advice sounded dangerous.

“I’ll leave the money with Andy.”

I sat at a blackjack table. The dealer was kind. I was up another $500 and felt like I could kill the bank for another $1000. Andy asked me to call it a night.

“We can crash in the Sierras.”

“Another ten minutes and I’ll buy us hotel rooms.” I couldn’t lose and tapped a passing cocktail waitress. She was tall and wearing a very short dress. I ordered a Jack and Coke. My favorite drink. I had several more. I recall something about threatening Andy for money and then nothing until I woke up along the Truckee River. The ground was no soft hotel bed and my hang-over not a crown of victory. Carole and Andy were standing over my resting place.

“Did I lose everything?”

“Everything but the car.” Carole wore an expression of pity. It wasn’t until we reached Sacramento that Andy returned my traveling stake. All my birthday winnings had reverted to the casino. There are no winners and I’ve avoided casinos ever since that day, having learned that blackjack doesn’t mix with Jack and Coke.

It’s a lesson that stays with me. I might not have scored good grades, but I was a good student and Reno was an even better teacher. It was a lesson I only needed to learn once.

May 29, 1992 - Bangkok - Journal

Journal Entry - May 29, 1983 - Paris

A journal entry from 1983

My 31st birthday party at Jurgen's house on Rue de la Tour with Bridget, Tony, Tracy, Alfredo, Karine, Diana, Olivier, T, Rufus,David, Philip Brook, everyone absolutely smacked out on Persian brown. Julie Cole was the only straight person. The less about this evening the better.

Tony later said, "Anyone who can survive a birthday like yours deserves to be at the next one."

The next entry is about hanging with Willie DeVille and Countess Gudmilla von Bismarck morning Jurgen, Willie, and I retreated to Willie's room on the Grand Boulevard. Willie shot up in the bathroom not wanting to show the damage to his arms. I had seen them the previous night. Bad. Real bad.

Jurgen nodded out and we spoke about East Village junkies, his feud with the Rolling Stones, the betting odds on Johnny Thunders OD, vomiting on stage, my battles in the night, and his many attempts to stop heroin. We crashed without a care for nothing but more.

Thankfully Jurgen had more.

Jurgen, a German telex criminal, was a good friend with Kalle Swensen. The Black King ruling the biggest brothel in Hamburg. The Eros Center.

I worked for them at BSir's.

Good money until in December SS Tommy presented a bill of 20K Deustchmarks for sleeping with a blonde lingerie American model.

Stephanie.

"I didn't know she was working. She had been Jurgen's girlfriend.

"Everyone in Hamburg is working for someone."

SS Tommy was a murderer and I gave the keys to my orange VW which two weeks before I had driven into the forest with Philippe Kroechey, a Paris DJ screaming we were being chased by zombies.

The car was still in the forest. Prisoner of a tree trunk. I handed over the keys to the VW, promising to settle the rest of the debt in the morning. I went to my apartment in Mittelweg, and called Stephanie.

No answer.

I packed a single bag with books, clothes, a world band radio and taxied to the Hamburg Bahnhof to flee on the midnight train to Paris like an anarchist escaping from the Nazis.

I didn't breathe easy until we crossed the Belgian border at dawn.

A month later I met with Stephanie for a weekend at the Hotel Lutece in Paris. Neither of us mentioned Hamburg.

It was better that way.

Clean sheets, soft skin, a woman's breath on my skin and dreaming this could last forever.

Nothing like rewriting.

Chai-yo

May 29, 1995 - LA - the Milk Bar - Journal

1995

Los Angeles

Beverly Hills to be exact.

May 29.

My birthday. No cake. No candles.

My life was not BEVERLY HILLS 90210, but the stars from the popular TV show came every night along with many others. The Milk Bar was something no one had seen in Los Angleles for a long time.

Yesterday Grace Jones performed in LA. Post-concert she stopped by the club in Beverly Hills. Dean Martin had once frequented the prior establishment. I worked as the doorman. Our mutual friend, Scottie, was co-owner.

She greeted each of us with a kiss. We knew her from New York. 1980. The Jefferson and Continental, two notorious after-hours clubs famed for flaunting wickedness till dawn. A fellow denizen of the night. We shared mutual friends. Arthur Weinstein, the Prince of the Night. Scottie told her it was my birthday. He didn't say which one. She didn't ask and gave me a hug, saying, "You put on a little weight. California suits you."

We had drinks at the bar. More than three. JZ, another New Yorker, a friend despite his coming from Wall Street. He came with two wealth management clients. He was in trouble, but only for banking irregularities. I introduced him to Grace. His clients were enthralled by the charcoal black disco queen. She was famous for the wilderness. At night's end JZ suggested that we accompany them to the Beverly Hills Hotel to party. I had nothing else to do and joined the bankers, two blonde starlets, and Grace for a short ride to the famed hotel.

We were seven in a limo. A gassed banker had a bag of blow for twenty. Inside the hotel suite Grace grabbed the stash and we locked ourselves in the bathroom rather than listened to three zooted investors brag about their millions to the coke-glazed starlets in a bad remake of Tony Montana from the last scene of SCARFACE.

Grace and I spoke about our friends from New York in the toilet.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll

In Hollywood was only the drugs.

The two bankers banged on the door. JZ knew better. I opened it and told them to fuck off.

"Unless you want to deal with Grace."

They had all seen Grace in CONAN THE DESTROYER. She had been scary and not movie scary. The two bankers backed off. I slammed the door and then jammed my heel to prevent any entrance.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Grace and I spent a few more minutes in the bathroom, then rejoined the party. Everyone was happy to be reunited with the cocaine. Not so much us, although the starlets conspiratorial winked at Grace. We were all on the same team. At dawn we shared a taxi home. Her to the Marmont Hotel.

A Happy Birthday wish and a kiss on the cheek.

Next me to a small bungalow I shared with Scottie over the Hills in North Hollywood. The driver had driven me there before. The sun rose a harsh desert morning. Both of us had sunglasses. Back in North Hollywood in bed I shivered to sleep until noon.

That was May 30, 1995.

Grace seemed to be my age.

44. It was my birthday. May 29.

Maybe my math is bad. About Grace's age.

Everyone lies about their age and weight after thirty.

Stars save the queen of Disco.

Fierce indeed.

Hakkim Is Dead

Guns On Avenue C - 1986

In the 1970s I always said that the East Village looked like Rome three days after the sack of the Visigoths 410 CE. Buildings burned day and night. The overstretched 9th precinct triaged the streets beyond 1st Avenue. No patrols ventured farther than Tompkins Square Park. Shooting galleries outnumbered bodegas and hordes of thieves fearlessly prowled their newly-won turf for victims. Nobody honest could survive in a neighborhood more burnt-out than a junkie’s vein and families of all races, colors, and creeds fled the outlaw DMZ for the suburbs.

256 East 10th Street was my home. Sinse dealers ruled the 1st Avenue corner. We got all well. They showed respect for how my friends and I had scammed the 9th Precinct at our after-hour club on 14th Street. East of Avenue A life was tricky. Gunfire was heard day and night. My neighborhood was rough. His was dangerous. Very dangerous.

My friend Uncle Carmine lived on East 11th Street between Avenues B and C. The first time I visited the Sicilian plumber at his ground-floor office. We discussed military history, while Carmine sucked on an unlit cigar. He ate them more than smoke them. We had a good laugh. Our conversations were between two men with convictions about truth and justice. We discussed some schemes only involving us. We were sworn to secrecy. Not Omerta. Carmine was connected, just not that way.

As I got up to leave, he said, "Wait a second."

He reached into his desk and pulled out a 38. He slid it over to me.

"For your protection, this neighborhood is fucked."

I laughed and asked, "Where are all the bullets? I'd emptied this before I reached B. I don't need a gun. I need money."

"Don't we all." He stashed away the piece. "I'll see what I can do for us."

"Thanks." I walked onto East 11th Street. Hakkim was across the street, scoring dope. The junkie thief glared at me. He had a death wish. I was glad not to have a gun. At heart I was a hippie sometimes. Thou shalt not kill.

JOURNAL ENTRY - AUGUST 5, 1978 - EAST VILLAGE

AUGUST 5, 1979 - EAST VILLAGE

No sign of Hakkim on East 10th Street, but the two young boys, Flacco and Manny, warned, "He ain't done with you. Hakkim a stone cold junkie, but he's stone cold baddd too."

"Fuck him. I fucked him up once. Next time will be worst," I boasted,but walked around the ower East Side looking over my shoulder, especailly in the morning taking Alice to work at the yogurt shop.

Last night Rick Guadacanal, the Heartbreakers' roadie, turned me onto cocaine. We snorted blow in CBGBs toilet. Cocaine is everywhere in New York City and the USA. Last month I dealt a little. It's easy money, if you keep your nose out of stash, a feat for men stronger than me.

Living on East 10th Street means cooking at home instead of eating at Greek diners, although there's nothing like bacon, eggs, and toast at the Kiev after a night of punk music.

This morning I woke up in a hospital. The only time I stayed overnight was at birth.

May 29, 1952.

Sixty-nine years ago.

It's forty-two yeasrs upstream from my first days at that apartment at 256 East 10th Street. Alice is living in LA with her husband. I haven't told her that I'm ailing; my blood count in low after expelling the bloodfrom my stomach, my blood sugar count was 450, and the doctors have scheduled an ultra-sound for tomorrow.

With all the tubes in me, I can't move around too much. Just to the toilet. I called Guadacanal to keep him the loop. I had visited the punk guitarist in Jersey City during his COVID quarantine. He was now home with his wife in Kansas City. Rick listened to the news and said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine. I got what you probably have ten years ago. Medicine has advanced since then."

"Yeah, right," I said with the enthusiasm of a hypochondriac. My belief in eternal life had been challenged by the fact that I was wore a shameful 'johnny'.

"You'll be out soon enough, but no more drinking."

"No more, unless the doctors tell me to get my affairs in orefr, then it's back to the 169 to Dylan Thomas body and soul. THe poet had drunk himself to death at the Whitehorse tavern.

Oh, the glory.I researched on the internet for John Thunders.

The Curse Of Gentrification

Building by building a city dies for the sake of greed.

People care.

But not enough.

And when it's gone.

It will be gone forever.

Or at least until Hakkim the Junkie comes back from the dead.

MAY 27, 1978 THE VILLAGE JOURNAL ENTRY

An incredible quadruple Gemini birthday party at Kim and Kyle Davis' apartment on Bleecker Street. Sean Hausman, Eric Goode, and Kim had hung blue and white balloons overhead. They had plastered xeroxed fotos of the four natal celebrants on the wall and illuminated the living room with a modulating blue lights. Punk and funk music. Beer and bourbon. Tons of people.

A ballerina said, "I saw you on 42nd Street. You entered a peep show. Do you like porno? Would you like to see me naked?"

"Yes."

By the bathroom door Alice entertained lithe lesbian actresses about the poetry police. It was a funny spiel, but I had heard it a couple of times. Normally as she started to get drunk. The ballerina led me out of the apartment in a slow motion pas de deux into the stair well. Her name is Dove. She tells me to keep my distance. I nodded, although my hands wanted to rip off her dress. She smiled at my distress and peeled the dress off her shoulders, as if under George Balanchine's direction. It fell to her feet. Her body was emaciated by dance, revealing every sinew, muscle, and bone.

"My name is Dove. One day if we're lucky, we will fuck." Her hand drifted elegantly to her crotch and rubbed her labia, then licked her fingertips. She didn't offer them to me and I realized she was baiting me to take her against her will. It wasn't the first time a woman to misinterpret my innate propensity for violence as sexual.

"Like you said. Not tonight."

I returned to the party.

ANARCHY IN THE UK blasted on the stereo. Kyle chatted with Billy Flicker from Television. She is so in love with him and couldn't be happier with his attention solely hers.

Excessive enters and shouts, "Now the party begins."

I love him. He starts an argument with a bassist from the Testors. I step in.

"It's a party and if anyone is going to start a brawl, it's me. I'm one of the birthday people."

We spoke for a few minutes and somehow I diverted the two of us into a ballad of loneliness.

"Oh, wow. Not easy to be alone with this many people here for your birthday."

"Easier than you think."

I went over to Alice.

"Ignore me."

She drank a slug for 101 proof Bourbon, then silked away to hillbilly dance with Barbara, returning to the bathroom to extoll the virtues of hard drinking to those waiting for a piss. She was very funny. even the partygoers inside the toilet laughed at her humor.

Kim gets drunk with Marc Stevens, Mr 10 1/2 of porno fame. He whispers he wants to talk with me.

"Later." I glanced at his crotch and he smiled like to say it's all there.

Patrick shows up with a bottle of bourbon. I don't know how it became the drink of the party. He hands me a manifesto for the National Resurgence Party, which I promptly lose.

Ro shows up. I'm too drunk to form sentences. We score some speed, but Steve Forber steals half. Cyrena get her photo taken by Sean and his father. Roz shows as does William Lively and Andy Reese, then Clover. Alone, Blonde, Young. We spoke in the hallway, "I haven't been avoiding you. My Texan sponsor is in town. He leaves tomorrow."

Amos, Kim's love, is drunk and leans against the wall supported by wobbly knees.

Ann makes out with Excessive, who pukes and I have to sober him up in the kitchen with a bump of speed. Bruce and Lewis enter with gifts of a tie and hankercheif. Klaus comes with Claudia. Dark and mysterious in leather. I say nothing to her. Little John is drunk.

Kim's Greenwich friends become invisible. The bourbon has blurred everyone's vision and stripped away their inhibitions to the bone. It is the height of the Sexual Revolution and we are all rebels with a cause of flesh to flesh. Rhonda makes move on Alice. Anthony stands close as a voyeur, wishing he had been camera back from the repair shop. I speak to Sean about film and anarchy. Markey from the Ghosts has not stop dancing. Sweat flies off his body to UP BONDAGE UP YOURS. Rick Danger loses his leather jacket. Someone stole it. Marc invites me over to his apartment for some blow. He takes out his cock. Long and thick and not hard at all.

"Touch it, " he says, as if it was a pet snake.

His girlfriend, Jill Monro, enters the apartment.

We do some more lines and she hefts his limp cock.

"He does blow and he's useless in bed. Sweet, but useless."

I go back to the party. Eric is making out with a girl whose name I can't recall. It is not Alice.

"How big was it?" Klaus asks licking his lips.

"Go over and ask. I'm sure he'll show it to you."

He brings Andy Reese with him.

Clover and I kiss in the stairwell.

"One day you and me."

"What about now?" I know she wants me to have my way with her.

"One day."

Not tonight.

Alice hasn't spoke a word to me in hours. She's kissing one of the Greenwich girls.

The lights go out. A blown fuse. We light candles The beer runs out, so does the ice. We find R&B music on a transistor radio. We have plenty of bourbon. Creeps from CBGBs arrived at the door. I tell them to fuck off. William Lively cries when I refuse him. People puke over the railing in groups of two and three. Cyrena leaves with someone other than Sean. Alice is out cold on the couch. Kim and Amos are on the floor. There is no sign of Kyle or Billy. I bring back Alice to her sublet. I put her to bed and she slurs, "I wish you were David Bowie."

I did too and walk back to my SRO room on West 11th Street.

All and all it was a great party. .

Journal Entry August 2, 1978 - East Village

Today Alice and I moved out of my West 11th Street SRO room. The temperature was rising into the 90s and I sweated bullets, loading a taxi with our possessions. Jumping in the back seat, I shut the door and we crossed 10th Street to 1st Avenue, where the driver stopped at the curb and said, "I don't go any farther than this. Alphabet City is too dangerous and this corner ain't no bargain." He pointed out the sinse dealers on the corner and spat out the window. "They're hippies in comparison to the junkies. You're not really going to live here?" "Yes, but we found a cheap one-bedroom apartment for $180 a month." I unpacked the taxi, putting our boxes on the corner." "Let me guess. Bathtub in kitchen. Water closet in back. Very 19th Century." He was visibly nervous about having stayed on the corner this long. "Very quaint. Good luck." The Checker burned rubber up 1st Avenue. My twenty-two year old girlfriend shrugged, "We're home one way or the other." 256 was only three stoeps from the avenue. Two scrawny kids ran up to us and asked excitedly, "Mister, you need help?" "$1 each to carry a box to our new apartment." I pointed to the third stoop on the south side of the street. "Can we trust them?" whispered Alice. Her eyes were two different colors; green with tints of red. The latter was the color of fire.

"It's not like we have anything to steal. We let them help and no one will think we're stuck-up white people trying to take over their neighborhood?"

Carrying the boxes the kids joked about us being Mr. And Mrs. Opie, then fell silent at our new address.

A pockmarked junkie sprawled before the door and the taller kid said, "That's George."

"Is he dead?" asked Alice.

"No, he ain't dead, just fucked up," said the shorter of the two boys.

"Let me see, if I can wake him."

I called his name several times and then climbed the stairs to lightly nudge the comatose junkie with my foot. As he slumped from the doorway, an enraged voice shouted from behind me, "Who the fuck are you to kick George?"

"Oh shit."

The two kids dropped the boxes and sped toward Avenue A. The kids in the spray of the fire hydrant scurried to their parents. A bare-chested black man wearing jean too tight for his muscular build approached us with yellowed eyes bellowing with fury.

My girlfriend stepped behind me.

"I'm not goin' to ask you again. You kick George?"

"I didn't kick him. I touched him with my foot."

"You callin’ me a liar, you white piece of shit?" the junkie snarled from the sidewalk.

"I’m sorry." I couldn’t look him the eyes.

"Too late for sorrys. You're fucked." The veins on his neck pulsed with thick throbs of blood and put a foot on the steps. "I’m gonna to kick your ass."

Countless scraps with Southie gangs had taught me the value of not fighting fair and I threw the boxes at his chest. Their weight knocked him off balance and his body slammed onto the sidewalk. The crack of his skull on the pavement echoed off the opposite building. A trickle of blood seeped from under his head.

The street was very quiet. Everyone had been surprised by effect of my attack.

George rose from his slumber and stared at his friend and then me.

"What you done to Hakkim? You fucked yourself good. My man gonna come for you and your little girlfriend. Take your clothes, TV, jewelry and fuck her."

Anyone stupid enough to threaten you deserved a beating and I kicked him in the head. My girlfriend stopped me and said, “We better leave before the police come.”

”Ain’t no police coming here.” I opened the door and carried the boxes to our third-floor flat. We tore the previous tenant's artwork from the walls, twice washed the floors, toilet and tub. The air in the tenement flat was breathlessly still. We soaked naked in the lukewarm bath and my cock began to get hard. I asked the ingenue actress from West Virginia, "You want to make love?"

"Not in this heat," she laughed in this heat. She was right. My body was sapped on all libido, but I was at Alice mercy coming to money and she liked my acting as a hustler. Luckily we had one fan and after drying off laid in the futon naked, awaiting for Hakkim's revenge.

A little past 11AM Alice said, "Nothing is going to happen tonight."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing bad," the lithe brunette said, as if she had been born on the Lower East Side instead of the good end of an Appalachian hollow. She slipped across the futon into the arms.

We were home, far from our suburban roots. The first time I walked these streets was in 1970. Wayne Shepherd and I hitchhiked from Boston to New York City. His sister lived on St. Mark's, two blocks west from 256 East 10th Street. Alice was asleep and I thought about everywhere I had lived in my twenty-seven; first breath - Boston Lying -in, Hingham until 1954, Falmouth Foresides before moving to the South Shore of Boston in 1960, I left that suburb in 1971 and rented an unheated apartment in Brighton's Bug Village, a Brookline basement with a sixteen year-old lude dealer, Park Slope with the jazz impresario James Spicer and now here.

With Alice.

From here into forever.

AUGUST 2, 2021 - CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN

Yesterday afternoon I rose from bed at the Myrtle Avenue Punishment Cells and walked into the kitchen. A wet belch burbled from my lips and I wiped away the bright red wet with the back of my hand and a second later blood spewed from my mouth into a metal bucket. Another four heaves covered the pots' bottom and the color darkened to near-black. I repeated this several times.

There was no pain, but I instinctively understood that my stomach was fucked.

The retching stopped throughout the night and this morning I packed a night bag with a 1979 journal, Cookie Mueller's book, A Bernie Gunther novel, two changes of clothes, chargers et al and crossed the East River on the Manhattan Bridge heading for NYU hospital. I wasn't feeling too good, but felt no urge to vomit.

At the Emergency Ward check-in the nurses immediately led me to the holding pen and I laid in bed.

"We need you to stay overnight. This blood thing is dangerous," said a young doctor and two hours later I was brought upstairs to Room 2205 hooked up to three feeders. a number of failing vital signs threatened my existence.

I wasn't scared.

I've died before.

I picked up my journal and saw the first page was from August 2, 1979.

Forty-years ago.

I vividly remember the heat.

Alice.

Hakkim.

The one fan.

The crackling of thunder raising the ghost of Rip Van Winkle.

I'm 69.

A man my age don't remember everything.

No one can.