Dove HappyHappy

May 14, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Actors are all full of shit.

Expecting attention for an unending of neuroses. Pretending to be someone they are not. Unless they're funny they bore me. Artists are much better. I prefer workers like Patrick the cook and Kim's friend Amos.

Amos's a Southerner always quiet. I didn't know why Kim explained he was dyslexic. "He never finished high school. He can't read and he can't read it write "

Back in Boston I taught at a Special Ed school. The kids were very challenged. Most couldn't read. Most couldn't write. Some couldn't speak. I sang to them. Write. As a child I had trouble speaking. Stutters stammers mumbles lisps eating my words. My schoolmates were not kind. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to join the Marines and come back to my hometown as a killer. Amos must feel the same way and that's why he's in New York. Because people like us belong here.

Home must have been torture for Amos to stay in school.

He's a good man and he likes me, because I dislike Marky from the Ghosts. But I no longer dislike Marky. He once tore up a picture of mine. It reminded me being bullied. I didn't hit him. Wanted to, but didn't, since my father used to say, "You have to compromise."

I never saw why, but maybe one day I might.

Four fat lesbians

I like the idea of Subway suicide Laying on the tracks The steel wheels running over me Not stopping Not screeching The A train 40 miles an hour heading to Times Square

At that Kim's apartment Amos Cyrena, Kim and I drink party shots. It's afternoon. Sean leans against the plastic wall. He falls through it. No fun. we leave for a dracula film.

ER Waiting Room

Last weekend I headed out to Montauk for my weekend gig at Winick Diamonds on 771 Montauk Highway. The usual 8:18 departure from Jamaica Station. I sat on the left side to avoid the glare of the morning sun. The old disel train hauled the newer yet still old passenger cars down the line. Everything was so familar. This routine was in its third year. Weekends in Montauk from May to December 24. Weekend days in the city. Familiar, although a few changes. I had moved from Clinton Hill to the NYU professor housing at the end of April. Back into the curt after twenty-four years in Thailand, Palm Beach, Fort Greene, Luxembourg, and Clinton Hill. Different, but the same.

The train ride was uneventful. Spring was spreading east throughout suburban Long Island. Slowly. It had been a long cold winter. I fell asleep at one point and woke several hours last past Amagansett with the train passing through the beetle-ravaged Pine Barren. Not a single pine had survied the infestation. the transplant team suggested an ambulance to S'hampton Doctor called and advised my going to the ER. Heading there now. Feeling better than before. Im going to the ER to check on abdominal swelling. I feel no pain. Best to pkay safe This morning i spoke with the transplant team and they said go in right away. I went in, the ER did blood work and a CAT scan. A doctor came in and said it night ve something serious. I process that and told myself youve been here before. It was nothing. But i had to check I thought i might have to spend a couple of days. Nothing better than walking out of the ER with a clean bill of health. This morning i spoke with the transplant team and they said go in right away. I went in, the ER did blood work and a CAT scan. A doctor came in and said it night ve something serious. I process that and told myself youve been here before. It was nothing. But i had to check Regina updated me on your hospital stay. I'm sorry you're having trouble. It looks like we're both having issues right now. I had 3 L of fluid removed yesterday from my abdomen. We are talking with my doctor in an hour to figure out what options there are good luck, Peter. Nothing better than walking out of an ER as health So am i. 7 hours in thr hospital All clear. A doctor came in earlier and suggested something serious. All clear. I wish Pam was the same. Spent ten hours doing tests. No explanation for the swelling. Release me at midnight. At first they thought it was something very serious. The tests and scans showed is was okay. The transplant team tea has said to into the ER. I still feel beat up, but they gave me a go home tix. I wish they could do the same for you. Ive een in the hospital at least twice a week for tge last month. Im coming up for the Grays anniversary Maybe Jack too She is at cannes I'm so sorry, Peter. I hate seeing my brother having such a hard time. I love you very much.

Shi Pei Pu RIP 2009

FROM JOYCE WADLER 2009

NY Times

I could probably be tossed out of the business for telling you this — it violates every journalistic principle in the book — but once, long ago, in the course of my work as a reporter, an international man of mystery pressed upon me a gift of rare jewels, and to my shame, I accepted.

Foto ASSOCIATED PRESS MONSIEUR BUTTERFLY Shi Pei Pu, circa 1965.

Related

Shi Pei Pu, Singer, Spy and ‘M. Butterfly,’ Dies at 70 (July 2, 2009) The man’s name was Shi Pei Pu, the Beijing opera singer and spy who died in Paris last week. True, he was not out of the James Bond mold of international men of mystery or even the Austin Powers mold: He was a delicate, theatrical, otherworldly little man who beguiled an employee of the French Embassy in Beijing into espionage during the Cultural Revolution by claiming to be a woman. In the course of their affair, he even produced a child.

I was working as a reporter at People magazine, back in 1988, when I saw the Broadway show the case inspired, David Henry Hwang’s wonderful “M. Butterfly,” and it raised many questions: How could a guy make love to another guy for months and not know? Where had the kid come from? How could I get to Paris, where the two men were now living after spending time in prison, on somebody else’s dime?

There were also Shi Pei Pu’s own singular demands: He wished to promote himself as a Beijing opera star (though there was no evidence he had ever been one in China). He would do an interview only if the magazine arranged for him to perform on television. As luck would have it, People was about to launch a television show, so this was not a problem.

Also, this story happened long, long ago, at a time when there was money to be made in journalism. Especially at People magazine. Arriving at work, one had to wade through it in specially made money boots, so as not to stain the feet. In keeping with that spirit, the photographer and I checked into the Lancaster Hotel, on the Right Bank, where Richard Burton and Liz Taylor once shacked up. We were soon joined by a TV producer, TV reporter, interpreter and video crew. Even by People magazine standards this was getting to be a pricey enterprise. It got pricier as the days passed and we waited for Mr. Shi (pronounced Shuh) and his retinue to show up.

One hates to speak badly of the dead, but it has been now five, maybe six days, and I think I may be forgiven for saying Shi Pei Pu was one of the more maddening subjects I have ever met. It took him days to admit he had a physical affair with Bernard Boursicot, the embassy worker, and although police records showed otherwise, he denied that he had pretended to be a woman. He could, however, have taught a course on charming manipulation. Despite his ordinary masculine dress, the baggy turtleneck and blue trousers, he managed to convey the impression of a tragic, exiled and fragile porcelain princess who, pushed too hard, might shatter.

Also, he told great stories; flowery, Chinese-French bodice rippers. He and Bernard in the days of the Cultural Revolution, when it was forbidden for Chinese and foreigners to meet, sitting across Changan Avenue and staring at one another; or Bernard so in love with Pei Pu that he ran waving and yelling after his bus. Later, Bernard would tell the same story with Pei Pu running after him, but no matter.

Shi Pei Pu’s televised Beijing opera recital turned out to be a major production: The hotel rooms the magazine had arranged were deemed too small, new space had to be found and paid for, fittingly in the town of Versailles. Pei Pu’s musicians had to be paid. Finally, it was over. Pei Pu, in the manner of wanna-be divas to whom attention has finally been paid, was giddy with delight and appreciation.

Finding me in my room at the Lancaster later that day, Pei Pu told me, through the translator, that he wished to give me a gift; then, with a delicate but mesmerizing flourish, he presented me with a long string of pearls. They were his grandmother’s, Pei Pu said. He wished me to have them.

Reporters are forbidden to accept gifts; in extremis the general rule is that one can accept something if the worth is under $25. A 20-inch string of antique pearls was definitely out. I tried explaining this to the translator. There was a great deal of flowery back and forth which, with subtext, went something like this.

Me: “No, no, no, no, I could not possibly. Especially because you have not yet told me how you hid the fact you are man, you devious little snake.”

Shi: “Yes, yes, yes, you must. After all, it was you, cher Madame, who got me on American television. I guess it would be too much to hope you know an agent.”

Finally, the translator, in a private aside to me, said: “You must accept. If you do not, it will be a great insult.”

I saw no way around it. If this kept up much longer, the Lancaster would hit us up for another night. I accepted the pearls, thinking I would figure out a face-saving way to return them — maybe turn them into a bracelet and send it to Pei Pu’s son when he married. When I got home I put them in a drawer where they languished for years. I wrote a book about the case, but Shi Pei Pu wouldn’t speak to me for it because he hadn’t liked the People magazine story. Too much sex.

Then one day, heading up to the Diamond District to have a bracelet repaired, I remembered the pearls in the drawer.

“Tell me these are under $25,” I told the man in the repair booth.

His examination barely required a glance.

“They’re not only fakes, they’re very bad fakes,” he said.

“Perfect,” I said.

I had them made into a three-strand bracelet: the Pei Pu pearls. I wear them sometimes to the theater. They’re very bad fakes, but for sure, one of a kind. Rest in peace, Shi Pei Pu. You told a helluva story.

Nussy Andrew Show

Nussy Andrews, Ev Christensen and Comet Thursday, May 21 2026 at 6:30 PM Doors: 6:30 PM Nussy Andrews: 7 PM Ev Christensen: 7:45 PM Comet: 8:30 PM Join us for an incredible night at Drom featuring 3 talented artists. Nussy Andrews is a singer and songwriter based in NYC. All of her work is self-produced and self-recorded. Her love of music stems from a childhood fixation with classic American standards such as the compositions of Cy Coleman and George Gershwin. Originally from North Dakota, Ev Christensen is a rising NYC artist that creates a unique folk sounds in tracks such as “Loose” and “Spectacular”. Comet is is a nu-grunge force tearing through New York City’s underground that you won’t want to miss. i'll be reciting HE MAKES ME HAPPY for Nussy__

MAY 13, 1978 TIMES SQUARE JOURNAL ENTRY

Clover, Anthony, and I are creating a photo-roman based on my story and featuring his photos. Our cast includes Rhonda, Cookie, Klaus as well as Andy Reese playing a hustler gunman. Everyone else from previous test shots; Mark Mitchell, Wendy have been exed from the future shootings. Anthony wants to finish this fast, so he can show the results to a Bridgehampton Gallery. Clover loves the first prints and asks, “Where is Bridgehampton anyway?”

May 13, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Walking through Soho's deserted streets Ro asked what my intentions were.

"What you want me to do?"

I wanted to say nothing, because nothing is what I normally want to do other than to have sex with her in an alley, but she is not that kind of woman. My wanting to not doing anything is not apathty, just sloth. Sensing my silence she asked, "Name me five things you want me to do."

I couldn't answer that question right then. I wasn't going to bamboozled her with insane misinformation. She's too emotional be involved with the revolution.

Later

Political goals

First: A moneyless society. Money controls the slavery of man, except with the Eskimo or South Sea Society where money doesn't exist. There is no money on Star Trek.

Number Two: Going to the Stars. Too many people here are devoted to the collective human suicide. We will only live with the hope of going to the Stars. As the biker Eddie Mickee said, "When the shit gets a foot high, step a foot higher."

Three: Equality. For all races, ages, and sexes. The Founders of this nation declared, "All men are created equal." although a large percentage of the thirteen colonies' population were enslaved and the tribes had no rights at all otehr than extermination. No sense in freeing whites of theirtheir racism, unless we go for their children.

Four: The ennobling of Homo Sapiens To render us neanderthal and loving.

Speaking to Ro in the evening, she asked, "Are you going to wait for a revolution?"

"The revolution is now."

The Revolution will arise from obscurity without anyone ever know it's coming until it's there or else the government will squash the secret known only to those who believe. It's not a disco party or punk and we will promote life unlike the capitalists."

"You are not a dreamer. You are mad."

I pull her into a doorway.

I am not trapped by bankers enslaving people with mindless economic debt. I will never pay my college loans geared to back the war of the Pentagon. I will not vote for politicians who love racist societies to control the people. The people want the death of the human race a Nuclear Holocaust. The culling of billions zero population growth complimenting the Death Cult of Capitalism.

Later

I entered Alice's apartment quietly. She had said she wanted to be with me before she left for her grandmother's funeral. I spooked her and she shuddered with fear. She started crying and I held her in my arms. Tomorrow she will fly out of LaGuardia Airport. I have never flown out of New York. My trips home to Boston have been either by the bus, train, or hitchhiking.

Tomorrow should be gone I will miss her.

She's gained a little weight and has no appetite for sex. I hope she isn't be coming asexual or lesbian. Lately both practices of such an abnormal practice as asexuality bring up fearful memories of the Russian castration sects or Coptic monks two groups again be popular or even the Shakers

I asked her you want to marry me.

"I don't want to get married, do you?"

"Not really but it seems to be something was supposed to till death other than life."

I can't shake death's grip. I'm not looking forward to death. I want to live forever.

Television strangely is on the radio. I drink a watery bourbon hoping for more words get off of this pen. I should be grateful with what I'm writing, but it all seems so tedious.

Alice says she should go on the $20,000 Pyramid, then added, "My grandmother might have left me some money. I was her favorite. I never saw her in the her nursing home. My father said that was for the best"

Yesterday on 42nd Street my right thumb in my finger went numb. No feeling, then a throbbing pulse almost as if I was brought back to life.

Later

I'm concerned with time the passing of time. I don't want to get old. I don't want to be an adult. I want to be 15 again like Xcessive. The punk Peter Pan. I get to sleep just to be always awake. I want to fuck Alice, but not now

Liar.

I want to fuck her too now

Later

The Stanley Cup Bruins versus Canadiens

I'm only 26. I can still enlist in the Navy. I have no job. I have no future. My older brother Frank warned, "Don't be crazy."

At 16 I wanted to join the Marines to leave my hometown. Not to kill anyone. The only people I wanted to kill were the teens in my town. Not the Viet Cong. Back then I met someone at the Quincy Quarries just returned from Vietnam. He said it was all a lie.

May 13, 1990 - Langtang Trek, Nepal - Journal Entry

Previously published May 20, 2023

I wish my camera was functional. It had been smashed after a porter chucked my bag from the bus at the trailhead.

The scenery and people are amazing. I speak with two German trekkers. Dieter is in his 40s. Thin and fit. His hiking partner is Miriam. She has decided to not wear boots and go barefoot like some of our Sherpas. She attacks me for hiring them as slaves. Lance says, "We pay them so they can put food on their families' tables."

"I've seen where they live. They don't have tables."

Lance shook his heads.

Our first stop was a little tea shop with a Coca-Cola flag flying on a pole. Lance and I bought Cokes for everyone. The porters happily thanked us, then lit up cigarettes, inhaling deeply. Lance and I were still huffing from the lack of oxygen. The trail climbed along a savage torrent of glacier melt.

This morning Lance and I were passing through a forest of tall plants. The porters were way ahead of us. I stared closer at some flowers. They looked familiar, because they were marijuana. Lance asked if we should take some and I shook my head. The families of this valley lived on less than a $1 a day. When we emerged from the reefer forest, a young boy ran down the slope, shouting, "Hash, hash, hash."

I was glad to have brought small bills and bought an ounce for $20.

His eyes were crusted due to an infection.

I pulled out my medicine kit. He seemed wary until seeing the Red Cross. I washed away the crud with antiseptic eyedrops. He smiled with gratitude and I filled a small vial for his future use.

"I'm impressed," said Lance.

My grandfather was a surgeon for the Royal Canadian Medical expedition in World War I." I doubted any of his knowledge had been passed through two generations, but I was a severe hypochondriac. My paranoia had killed me many time. Never with success. So I possessed a good sense of preservation for myself and others.

At the next stop I showed the other two trekkers the hashish. Ty Spaulding and I smoke some at lunch. Lance refused, saying he needed his lungs for the next stage.He wasn't a smoker and neither was Ty's partner.

The hashish was fresh off the bud and strong, but probably not the best idea, since Dorge warned us that we were crossing a landslide after this.

I'm sure he's right.

He always is so far and I wonder how many times he has trekked this trail.

May 13, 1990 - Langtang Trek, Nepal - 1990 - Journal Entry

Published May 29, 2023The passing clouds obscure the 6000-meter snow-tipped peaks towering over the Langtang Valley, but the 5000-meter ragged summits cut through the mist. The tea house serves a good cup of yak butter tea. I'm not liking the salty brew, but it does provide warmth and nourishment. Dorzee our guide is inside the teahouse speaking with a female Sherpa guide and an Austrian woman fluent in Tuchin and Tibetan. I can only speak English, French, and German. I learned a little Bahasa Indonesian in Biak, Bali, and Sumatra. No Thai, Sherpa or Nepali.

Dorzee has been kind enough to translate for us.

He emerges from the tea house and bids good-bye, "Chag-po nang."

We proceed up the steep trail passing head-high prayer walls.

Garz-bo is steep in Tibetan.

I'm sure like the Eskimos they have other words for steep.

I have three.

Steep, very steep, and very fucking steep.

May 11, 1978 III - East Village - Journal

Last night Alice and I smoked opium in my SRO on East 11th an 5th. I had scored the O from Fred, my neighbor, a queen who collects Nazi memorabilia. He even has a human skin lamp and a SS female uniform whihc fits his girth. Fat she was no ELSA SHEWOLF OF THE SS. A total slave in the Toilet by the Hudson.

In my room with a wndow on the airshaft ee got undressed into our underwear. Alice taking off her bra and slipping into a small wife beater teeshirt. We chase the dragon on tinfoil. She was wasted after a single huff. It was strong. This was my third time. It wasn't hashish,

"I love the smell. Like we were lost in Hong Kong. Smoke some more."

I played a match under the foil. the brown tar bubbled spewing white smoke. I exhaled in Alice's face. She moaned and said, "Fuck me."

I didn't think she knew where she was or who I was. Lost in a narcotic dream. She passed out a minute later, my hard cock inside her. I masturbated without cumming and joined her in lotus land naked, our limbs intertwined.

Dreams melted through the stupor. Naked with John Holmes trying to push his cock in my ass. And Alice trying to help him. I woke and pushed Alice away from me, her finger in my anus. I liked it. She sniffed her finger without making a face.

"What is it?"

I had a bad dream. I told her about getting fucke up the ass.

"You poor darling."

She fingered my ass.

We lay together the thigh between mine her stomach pressed him on we went back to sleep

Right before noon I woke and we fucked. I came. Alice did not.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. When I was young, one of my boyfriends left me, because all I wanted was sex. Sorry, now I'm not even interested. I don't mind you fucking me. I don't know why I don't want to come. Sometimes I just want you to fuck me."

When she does, she lies like a dead person or a starfish and I fake cumming. I want to say it's because she's so worried about her school about graduation her play her weight these worries prevent her from enjoying herself, uncomfortable with who she is and sometimes she asks for advice with her play, but when I try and say something she shuts me down, saying that's stupid or I can't work with you just huffing.

Later she left for the theater. That evening we were on the phone about how spending too much time together it spoils our appetite for each other

"I have to finish my school work. I like waking up with you at your place. It leaves me feeling that I have abandone everything. I'm so disorganized this time of year and I have to finish so much."

I agreed, but suggesting we spend less time together. Usually the sign breaking up.

Later that night in an elevator in my building after I push the fifth floor button she asked, "This is a hypothetical question but how would you feel if I left you."

"I wouldn't do anything drastic."

So it seems as if the wait for her departure has been paved. Alice only needs me as a friend and protector and fucker, until she leaves for Appalachia, but I thought, "You'll be back."

However I'm beginning to doubt that one must be prepared to soften the shock of an amputation of a romance. A nice affair, but nothing's really occurred besides my falling in Love. Funny how life slips between highs and lows without any advanced notice, but then we would be no better than a pet dog knowing what time we're going to be fed or petted or killed. The unexpectancy of life has meant leaving so many people.

The high school quarterback, the cheerleaders, the student presidents, College big men on campus, all of them mean nothing now in New York City. I was nothing to them, when I was young. Think to them now too. I doubt any of them remember me. I was always alone. I feel strong. No threats no fears being scared will never come back. Never having to worry about how people see me or when Alice ask me, "Why don't you smile?"

True, I grin, instead of laugh. Smiling? I wish I could, but smiling feels too much like accepting them world around me. Satisfied as I leave childhood and become an adult unlike Peter Pan

I will never grow up.

I have no innocence . I will not regain virginity. To have no creative skills. Writing in this journal delaying realization that an artist cannot be swayed desires to be somebody.

Later

I was in Cornelius Street Cafe with Alice, Kim, Amos, and Serena, Sean's wannabe girlfriend. We are planning the four Gemini party. Amos, Kim, Serena, and me. Atkins Bleecker Street apartment. We have given out over 100 invitations at CBGB's and Easats Village bars and restaurants.

My back was to the door, which I never like. Always worried that someone with whom I had a fight they hit me in the back of the head like Jack McCall shooting Wild Bill Hitchcock in Deadwood, while he was holding the dead man's hand.

Two fingers poke me in the back in the mystery voice said, "What are you doing here?"

It was Ro and I wanted to protect myself look and she looked very vulnerable since coming back from Paris. Our past barely crossed with chance meetings rarely lasting more than a minute.

Alice scolded me, "You never introduced me to anyone."

"Ro, this is Alice."

I said without explaining who was who. Basically wanted to shield her from knowing that I had been in love with Ro. Maybe even not now but maybe yes.

"We're planning a birthday Party."

"Am I invited?"

"Of course/ I'll call you later. You have the same telephone number right. 255-3035.

An old man pulled on her jacket. The two of them left. They didn't look like lovers. I said nothing and then Alice leaned over and asked, "Are you thinking of fucking her?"

"No, I have you."

Kim ever mischievous asked, "Who was that? The next fuck of yours."

"Who isn't?"

Chemistry more than a few alliances set a word to Alice. I've never said a word about hers. In many ways they only exist for sex to be shared fucking someone else.

Marooned in the city Seeking exits Once disguised As walls To stand on the shore of an Eastern ocean Seeing Atlantis Beneath the waves He deserts the city To wade in the tide.

Later

Raphaela, the owner's wife blows me in the bathroom.

Peter Nolan Smith by Nussy Andrew

Peter is far from a saint But he knows just what he ain’t He read my palms down on Avenue A And all the lines in my hand Read by this seventy something or other man He claims, revealed more than the stars He had the balls to ever say We got a couples massage A cigarette down by the park He tells me smoking always Makes him feel young He read a poem to the wind As we discussed our Former sins And we forgave each other for every single one He told me if I were 10 years younger how good we Would be And I neglected to inform him That would make me 13 He said “Agree to disagree” Peter is far from a saint He makes a lovely teammate And all my wiseacre ways Never rub him wrong He told me “Being apart is fine As long as you find the art” So I gave him my heart With this song

SO HAPPY SO HAPPY

I wake in the morning It's raining outside I want to stay in bed Covered by sheets of sighs 5o sad so sad Noon comes and goes Two PM comes and goes Sadness stay Sadness staying on so close So sad so sad__ But Sean wants Me happy Sean makes me happy So happy so happy__ Never asks what I'm thinking Always there When I need him most So me can make me happy So alone I can be happy Knowing Sean makes me happy__ Six O'clock I hear his steps Climbing the stairs to our flat Key in the door Footsteps on the floor Now at the door I smile Sean does make me happy I do make him happy We make us happy We in bed alone We in bed together Happy together alone Not sad So happy So happy

May 10, 1990 - Syabru Besi - the Himalayas - Nepal - Journal Entry

Published previously May 17, 2023

Before leaving Kathmandu on the bus to Langtang Glacier, Lance and I each dropped two valium. The road was reputed to be extremely treacherous and neither of us wanted to experience the fears upon seeing shattered buses in the chasm.

At Thamel Market the driver loaded about sixty Nepalese onto the bus along with our guide, Dorge. Our Sherpa porters were on top with the packs. People were leaving the city.

Last night the army had cleared the streets with gunshots. The pre-democracy forces were calling for an end to the monarchy. The generals understood change meant them losing money. A strict curfew was enforced by the military. Protestors are arrested and shot at without warning. Lance and I also are glad to be leaving the city and sat on the bus' left side.

The bus headed north on a paved two-laner and climbed out of the verdant valley into a narrow steep-sloped chasm. The road was one vehicle wide without any guard rails. Lance was out cold, but I kept looking over the edge. The drop was a cliff and I searched the gorge bottom for any bus or car or truck wreckage. I spotted several far below the road. The Nepalese didn't seem to care about the danger. The Sherpas even less so. Lance remained in a blissful unconsciousness. After two hours I joined him.

We finally arrived in Syabru Besi at mid-morning surroune by the Himalayas.

Everyone got off the bus.

The porters were tossing down our gear. Dorge directed the effort. One grabbed mine backpack. He threw it to the ground. I heard a clink. I knew it was my A2 Olympus striking the ground hard. I opened the bag and checked the camera.

Broken.

I stuffed it back in the pack, hoping the damage might mend itself during the trek. The valium made delusion easy, as did the altitude. Lance stumbled from the bus. Drool on his chest. I pointed to the stain.

"Look at your shirt."

We were twins.

The Valiums had done their work. The New York architect blinked in the high sunlight. Sky scrapping mountains surrounded the small village. Dorge pointed to a restaurant. We were all hungry and the plan was to set out away after lunch. We walked up to a cafe. I couldn't see inside. Hordes of flies crawled on the glass.

"This place is filthy," I complained.

"Before filthy. Now only dirty," answered Dorge.

"Order food. We eat outside." I shrugged, because from here on in we would be eating our own food. If we didn't get sick from this, we never would.

Another bus pulled into the village. Mostly Nepalese, but two more westerners. They were younger than Lance and I and looked in good shape and their equipment seemed to be their own, instead of rented like ours. We were far away from our homes and I ordered a beer. Lance shook his head. He was Jewish and the Tribe don't have a reputation for drinking like the Irish. We are always home as long as there is beer.

Altitude - 1400 meters

Happy Mother's Day From Philly

I wish the bests to all the mother's in the world.

I love you all and nothing says I love my mother like the Intruders I'LL ALWAYS LOVE MY MOMMA.

Go to this URL to feel the love.

To hear the Intruders' I ALWAYS LOVED MY MOMMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GjxlguPYo0

May 9 1990 - Kathmandu - Nepal - Journal Entry

Published on May 25, 2023

Kathmandu is a magical city filled with pilgrims traveling to the city's holy shrines and temples of the pantheon of Asian religions. I haven't seen a single church and with good reason. Jesus might have traveled to Kashmir after his crucifixion, but no one here worships him here. Certainly not this atheist, but I am in wonderment, when I stumbled on a procession for the Kumari, the living goddess, in Thamel. These young girls are chosen from the Newari tribe to serve as living vessel for the Hindu goddess Durga until menstruation. The word Kumari means 'virgin' in Nepali. They are revered for their purity, but soldiers disrupted the holy ritual as the government has outlawed the gathering of people, as the citizens clamor for democracy. The TV announcers are accusing the demonstrators of communism and godlessness. So far there is no bloodshed.

I walked to the Thai Air office on the main boulevard shaded by trees harboring thousands of sleeping bat. The ground is splattered with bat dung. I'm glad to be wearing my sneakers.

Last night after drinks at the Yeti Hotel Lance and I walked through dark streets. He was wearing flip-flops and stepped waist deep into an open-air sewer. Up to his waist. I pull him out. Cursing. I help him back to the hotel at a distance. He smells strongly of shit. I hope he doesn't get a disease from this dip in the city's waste waters.

This afternoon Thai Air wasn't able to confirm my flight from Delhi to Paris.

I might have to fly to Munich. It's been over eight years since I was in Germany. I left in December 1982 on an overnight train to Gare du Nord, having ended my working with the pimps at the BSirs nightclub. I wonder what would have happened, if I had stayed in Hamburg.

I would have continued my affair with Stephanie De Leng.

That year I decided after Christmas in America to return to Paris and work at the Bains-Douches. Stephanie wanted me to meet her in Amsterdam. I was too broke to buy a ticket. I crashed at Julie Cole's apartment with the photographer Arthur Gordon and his Doberman. A shabby apartment behind the Gare De L'Est. Stephanie and I later met in New York. The lingerie model had gained weight due to a chronic illness. I thought she was faking the sickness and brutally said so one night. She wrote me a scathing letter and my friend Andy read it.

"What did you do to this woman?"

"I guess I said the wrong thing." I had no sympathy for her and I remember my older lover Linda Imhoff in 1970, as we were laying naked in bed in my Shannon Street apartment, "You're dangerous, because you don't know what you are doing."

I was eighteen at the time.

I'm now thirty-eight. Stephanie could have been the one, but the only way I could get it up was to pretend she was a nun. I had no trouble with the one Patpong go-go girl I took to the Malaysia Hotel a couple of times. I haven't talked to any females in Kathmandu.

And certainly not the Living Goddess or a nun.

NORTH END MIRACLE by Peter Nolan Smith

Throughout our childhood my mother cooked dinner for six kids, but most Friday evenings she drove us in our Ford station wagon into Boston. We picked up my father at 50 Milk Street, where he worked for Ma Bell as an electrical engineer. He took the wheel and headed to a restaurant as a family on the town

My father loved my mother and they loved dining out even with us in tow.

One evening my father strode from the NET&T headquarters like a man in a mission.

"Where to tonight?" asked my mother.

She always dressed for the occasion and dressed us accordingly.

"A little restaurant in the North End." He pulled out into the street. "A co-worker said George's was cheap and cheerful.

Feeding six hungry kids was a struggle even on a white-collar salary.

"Parking's horrible there," complained my mother.

"I always find a parking spot." My father crossed Atlantic Avenue and weaved through the traffic on Hanover Street to turn onto a crooked lane.

See there's a parking spot." My father pulled into the space strangely right in front of the restaurant.

The two burly men outside the eatery frowned at my father, but said nothing, as our tribe trooped into George's.

The restaurant had no customers. The men at the bar glanced over their shoulders and then returned to muttered conversations. The tuxedoed waiter approached our family, as if we were lost.

"You really wanna eat here?" He waved his hand at the empty tables.

"I have six hungry kids and you have food. Where else you want me to go?" My father came from Maine. There was only one Italian restaurant in Portland. Every Sunday night of my early years he had traveled across the Martin Point Bridge from Falmouth Foresides to pick up pizza and antipasto, which we ate while watching THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW on our Zenith TV. We were no strangers to Italian cuisine.

"Nowhere, but here. I give you da best table." He led us to a big booth underneath a painting of Naples. My father ordered meatball and spaghetti for us. My mother had a plate of pasta reeking of garlic and they shared a small carafe of red wine. A few more men entered the bar. Their gaze narrowed upon seeing us.

One of them pointed at my father and I ate with my head down to avoid his black eyes. My brother did the same, but my mother and father ordered another carafe of wine. The waiter put a coin into the jukebox and played YELLOW BIRD. The men in the bar spoke louder, until my mother sang along with Harry Belafonte.

I had seen her quiet a cathedral choir with her voice and my father beamed with pride as she wrenched every emotion from the Jamaican song. I was embarrassed by her singing so loud. In many ways I never understood her gift, however when she finished the men at the bar applauded my mother. The toughest man crossed the floor to our table. A scar bisected his forehead. He bowed to my mother.

"Lady, you have the voice of an angel. My name is George. This is my place. Anytime you want to come, you call and we'll have a table ready for you and yours." He gave my father his card and waved for the waiter that the carafe of wine and ice cream.

"The wine and ice cream for your kids are on me, but do you mind, if you song some more."

"I'll be my pleasure."

My mother sang Dean Martin's THAT'S AMORE. Her rendition of Dean Martin's hit bought the eternal gratitude of the gruff clientele and her version of I'LL TAKE YOU HOME AGAIN, KATHLEEN brought tears to every man's eyes.

After that evening we returned to George's at least once a month. My father parked in front of the restaurant and his kids marveled at this driving feat. We never strayed from the meatballs and spaghetti and my mother always sang a few songs for the bar, as my father beamed with love. She was the one woman in his life and his kids were his pride and joy, even as I rebelled against his way of life.

One night in the Spring of 1971 I decided to take my hippie friends from college down to George's.

Hank Watson, two co-eds from BU, and I took the T to Haymarket. We walked under the Artery into the North End. The parking space in front of the restaurant was filled by a big Cadillac. The two men on the sidewalk blocked our entrance. Hank had hair down to the back of his ass. Mine was shoulder-length. Hippies weren't welcome in the North End.

"Youse ain't coming inside." One of them placed a hand in my chest.

I looked over his shoulder. George sat at the bar. His eyes glared at me with a puzzled recognition and then he snapped his fingers.

"Hey, Louie, let them in, the good-looking one's the son of the songbird," George shouted from the bar.

"Thanks," I politely said at the bar.

"How's your mother and father?"

"Good." The bartender served us wine.

"Come here. I wanna talk to you a second." George led me into the back and spoke with his arm around my shoulder, "Listen, I don't got no problem with longhairs, but my people they don't like hippies. You coming here is no problem, but you bring other hippies and people will start talking, you understand?"

"You want us to leave?"

"No, I can't do that to you, but next time dress a little better and only come with a girl. No friends. Out of respect for your mother."

"Whatever you want." I was a good boy when it came to family. "Can I ask you one question?"

"Maybe."

"That first time we came to your restaurant and my father parked in front. He wasn't supposed to do that, was he?" THE GODFATHER had come out the previous year. Any questions about George's business were answered in that film. He was one of those guys about whom no one talked, if they knew what was good for them.

"That's my spot. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that, but after your mother sang it became her spot. Still is. Enjoy your meal and give your best to your mother." He started to walk to the bar, then stopped, "One more thing, don't ever tell your father that. He's a good man. Name's Frank, right?"

"I call him 'Dad' and my lips are sealed."

"Good boy, one more thing."

"What?"

"Cut your hair. You look like your mother with that thatched roof."

"My mother?" Like most teenagers in the 60s I had told myself that I would never grow up to be my father. Nobody had warned me about my mother. The hair had to go.

"Yes, your mother."

I never mentioned this incident to my father or mother, but every time they went to the North End I called George and the parking spot would be waiting for them. It was a miracle, but then again so was my mother's voice.

Peace on Mother's Day

According to Wikipedia the First Mother's Day was established as a 'Mother's Day for Peace' by Anna Jarvis from Virginia in honor of her mother, Ann, who had been a pacifist during the Civil War and to re-unite families separated by the War to Free the Slaves.

According to the Anna Jarvis Museum in Webster the daughter had received her inspiration after a Sunday service when her mother shut the New Testament and said, "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it."

After her mother's demise in 1905 Anna Jarvis had petitioned the government to grant a holiday to all mothers and President Woodrow Wilson had signed the law enacting Mother's Day in 1914 just before the advent of the Great War.

Anna Jarvis had been appalled by the instant commercialization of the holiday.

"A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment."

Jarvis had fought to honor her mother by protesting at 1925 Confectioners Convention in Philadelphia, where the police arrested her for disturbing the peace.

Anna Jarvis gave her all to protect her mother's ideals.

She was rewarded with ridicule, destitution,and incarceration for the final four years of her life at the Marshall Square Sanitarium in Chester PA. Her medical bills were shared by the cardmakers and candy purveyors of America, who now earn $22 billion from the holiday

Personally I believe Jarvis' version of undying love for one's mother.

Love to all mothers.

Love is all.

Mothers, grandmothers, and daughters too. Everything on this planet comes from the stars. Every living creature comes from the ocean. All of us come a mother 's womb, save for amoebae and their like who are birthed from themselve.

Bless Anna Jarvis.

Beloved of Ann Reeves Jarvis.

Staten Island Fog - May 9, 1978 Journal

From May 9, 1978 Journal

On the Staten Island Ferry
The first time
I've left Manhattan
Since going to Boston
On Christmas___
11 AM
I can't see anything of Manhattan
The fog furls over the ferry's wake
Across the Inner Harbor
The rank smell of the sea
Beyond the Verrazano Bridge.
The gray water darker than the gray air
The world a maze of opaque sameness
Gray gray gray___
The ferry approaches St. George
Passengers disembark
Return to Manhattan on the same ferry
A fog horn sounds the departure
11:30
The wooden dock enveloped by gray
Fifteen seconds later we are lost in the gray___

When Humor Had Class - 2011

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."

"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." “ Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.“ Winston Churchill

A modest little person, with much to be modest about.“ Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."“ William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?“ Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.“ Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.“ Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.“ Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.“ Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend. if you have one.“ George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second¦ if there is one.“ Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.“ Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator.“ John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.“ Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."“ Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.“ Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.“ Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."“ Thomas Brackett Reed

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.“ Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.“ Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?“ Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.“ Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.“ Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts¦ for support rather than illumination.“ Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music.“ Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.“ Groucho Marx

Why Famous - East Village - 1981 Journal

I've pulled out my old journals. Thirty remaining from a forgotten number. Reading through the pages changed my memory of the past. Then I ask was the past really this way. Yes no maybe. Everything is what it is was or will be in eternity___

Blackout – Montauk # 37 - 202

Late November
Two hours past sunset
Ditch Plains
Montauk
Walking from a Joel’s house party
A black out
Power down
All lights out
Cold
No man light at all___
The stars above illuminate the Shagmoor bluff
30 degrees cold
A slight wind through the trees
THe rustle of bare branches
To the south below the bluff
Waves crash on the beach___
Overhead the Orion Nebula
1344 light years distance
From Earth___
My boots crunch on the path
Eyes adjust to starlight
Deers sneak through the undergrowth
Silent
Orion rising over the eastern horizon
Once I knew the names of the stars
I’ve been lost in too many cities
I've spent too many years in cities of bright lights

Blinded by the lights at night
I have lost my way
Through the stars
I am not a spaceman
But once I came close___
Summer 1962
A suburb south of Boston
A ten year-old boy
Behind a split-level ranch house
Painted pink
Past midnight
My family deep asleep
Every house in the neighborhood asleep
Dead quiet___
Out onto the back lawn
Naked
I lay on cut grass
Eyes straight up to the eternal night sky
Staring Bbeyond the bats
Hunting not orbiting Soviet satellites
But UFOs
Waiting for Aliens to abduct a naked boy
Ready
Willing
Able
To escape Earth and roam to the stars
With aliens from Space
To leave behind my shitty suburb
Forever
To wander the galaxy
With Aliens
As an Alien to all of them__
They never came that night or any night
And I cursed the stars and the suburbs and ET
Why didn’t you take me?
I want leave home____
To voyage to Orion and Betelgeuse and Rigel
The Brightest stars amongst countless stars overhead
Ah, the Cosmos___
Tonight in Montauk andlike then
I am alone
No UFOs
Only jets from JFK Europe Bound
West of Montauk
No extraterrestrials in the sky
Only millions of stars in a blackout
Boots crunch on the dirt
Waves crash on the beach
And___
Orion rules the stars
Partnered with Gemini and Taurus
In the winter sky
I’m happy to be here
Ditch Plains
On a path lit by starlight
Stuck on Earth
Ablue bright orb
In the quiet of Space
And south of me
The waves crash on the beach___

Troll Wall, Norway

Trolls originated from Norse mythology as solitary awesome creatures with a foul disposition to Christian and narrow-minded humans venturing into the mountains beyond civilization to avoid and be seen avoiding. Modern day internet trolls such as those fascists and racists spewing their hatred of the Jews with a generational foundation. Nothing will change their minds, but I appreciate your earnest kochleffeling. A solitary self mischling infuriating 'thems' unitrack thinking. That's you, but be careful. Florida has plenty of them as does Montauk. They have guns. You will never convert them to love. The hatred is real. I recall in 1982 seeing old Nazis on the streets of Hamburg. Their pride revolting.

Foto - Troll Wall, Norway - a gneiss vertical cliff 1000 meters tall.

Cinco De Mayo

Sixteen years ago my brother-in-law and I left the cabin on Watchic Pond. My sister remained in the kitchen prepping for lunch. The bright spring sun had heated the morning and the thermometer nailed to a tall pine read 72F. Our task putting in the dock in the lake in early May. The water temperature hovered around 62 and the sunny air was warm for Southern Maine. David and I waddled into the water with trepidation, but it wasn't so bad once we passed our waists.

Coming out both of us shook from the long immersion in the cold water. My sister ordered us to take hot showers and we obeyed her command. When we returned to the kitchen two margaritas waited on the table.

"Happy Cinco de Mayo." My sister was a big believer in national and international holidays.

"Viva Juarez." I raised my salt-rimmed glass to clink a toast.

"Why Juarez?" My brother-in-law smacked his lips. The rims of margaritas were tangy with lemon.

"Juarez led a revolt against the Catholic conservatives and after their victory in 1861 he declared a moratorium on debt payments to Britain, Spain, and France, which had supposedly loaned the previous government over $52 million, but actually only had issued $1.2 million in actual money. Juarez protested that firstly the loan was made to a deposed government and secondly that the amount had been inflated by usurious interest. The family of the French Emperor owned the paper on this debt and Napoleon III convinced England and Spain to defend its claims."

"How do you know this?" David was always suspect of my stories.

"I was a history minor in college." Those courses had been my only As and after a trip to Mexico in 1975 I read volumes on the travails of our southern neighbor.

"Sounds like that could happen to America now." My sister taught finance at a college in Boston. Sovereign debt was crushing countries across Europe and her students were buried under credit card bills and college loans.

"England tried to force Iceland to pay the debt of its banks and the Icelanders kicked out the government. The banks punished Iceland by closing all the McDonalds. In 1862 France sent over an invading army, which pursued Juarez forces toward Mexico City. On May 5th the Mexicans stopped running at Puebla and fought French forces twice their force under the command of their thirty-three year-old Mexican Commander General, Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin. They achieved a great victory and thereafter have celebrated Cinco de Mayo."

"Let me guess." David was enjoying his margarita. "The French sought revenge for this defeat."

"How well you know the French. They had installed a Habsburg emperor protected by an imperial army."

"Second guess. It ended badly."

"After the battle, the French troops departed from Mexico. Maximilian I was offered exile, but he wanted to be emperor and loved Meixoc. He executed by the Mexicans. End of the foreign intervention and Cinco de Mayo was important to the USA, since the Mexicans stopped the French from supplying the Confederates with arms."

"Cinco de Mayo." We clinked glasses again and my sister began to fix another batch of drinks.

I liked mine with salt.

We weren't going anywhere.

"E me gusto en ninguna parte."

Seagulls Adrift - Staten Island Ferry

Sea gulls drafting behind the Staten Island Out of St. George Manhattan bound The Samuel L Newhouse An old ferry from 1982 Big enough for over 5000 passengers Paint flaking from overhead Top speed 16 knots Churning up the harbor Sea gulls Diving into the wake To feast on the propellers' chum Not the Atlantic Ah, the harbor The inner harbor of the great city of New York___ >Nothing like the Staten Island Ferry connecting St. George to Battery Park. Free still despite the billionaires__

The Cliffs of Moher - 2012

Last Tuesday I boarded a plane at JFK for Orlando, Florida. My two travel companions, AP and his financier Jerry Mumbels, were attending a builders' convention. I was just along for the ride. My seat had been reserved as an after-thought and I was seated by the window in the rear of the plane. The man next to me was about my age. We nodded a weary hello. This flight had been held for a half-hour for late UK arrivals.

"Where you coming from?"

"Ireland," he explained how it was cheaper to fly from Dublin to London to JFK than Shannon-JFK direct. "If my wife had been with me, then I would have taken the Shannon flight. Women don't like connections."

"I flew from Luxembourg via Paris to JFK. The Heathrow-JFK leg of the flight was $300 more than my roundtrip ticket." I had been planning on flying one-way from Dusseldorf, until Jerry Mumbels offered to purchase my ticket. Sometimes the wealthy have good hearts.

"Are you retired in Ireland?" I'm one of the few men my age and class needing to work.

"No, I'm working at a help center in Cork." He shook his head. "I thought it was going to be an easy job, but we've been dealing with a nasty spate of suicides."

"I read the same in the Guardian." The collapse of the Irish economy had driven a nail of despair into the heart of the nation. "Mostly young men."

"Between 16 and 40. We get about twenty calls a day and at least ten suicides a week in Cork and the government refuses to publish the real figures. They are predicting a thousand for this year. A 50% increase over the previous year, but the figures from my office and those around the country paint a much more dire picture."

"Because they have no hope." Ireland had been on a credit binge. The national debt had led the government to cut aid to all sectors of society, except the banks.

"None at all. Many of the boys I speak with haven't ever had a job and there is no light on the horizon. Russia, Greece, and Spain are suffering similar spikes in suicide and all I hear from the government is more cuts and more cuts."

"Damn." I had been living in the West of Ireland. The oldest son inherits the farm and the rest of the boys hit the road to Galway or other cities in Ireland or beyond. That safety valve is gone. "I wish you luck over there."

"We need luck and not the luck of the Irish."

We bade good-bye at the airport in Orlando. The fat Americans seemed untouched by the economic crisis strangling the world economy. Maybe they were better at putting on a brave face. I didn't mention my conversation to AP and Jerry Mumbels. They had their own problems, but once I got to the hotel I went on line to check on the facts as presented by the Irish press.

irishcentral.com reported that a suicide prevention group had 'received over 33,000 pleas for help in the past 12 months as the suicide rate rises dramatically.' and that 'police are watching known suicide spots like the quays in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford.'

'Corkman Pat Buckley, founder of the charity Let’s Get Together, told the Independent, "The problem with the suicide statistics is that they take about two years to compile and even then they are relatively inaccurate and under-report the true scale of the problem. The problem is now so serious it is terrifying. We’ve battled to raise $7,000 in funds and it was spent on counselling in just a few weeks over November and December.”

Minister of State for Health Kathleen Lynch revealed in the Dáil, “The increase is mainly in men in the middle-age group, however, we are also seeing a rise in the number of women dying by suicide, although the numbers are still significantly lower than in men."

The State recognizes the seriousness of the problem.

The IMF and banks do not care about these people.

They think that they are weak links in the mesh of society.

Until they too find themselves on the Cliffs of Mohar.

The drop tells the truth.

May 2, 1978 - Excerpt From Journal

From Mar 6, 2020 reedited today

Am I a poet?
Some people think so
Not many
But most consider poets wastrels without money
Today, tomorrow, yesterday
Throughout time
Poets have suffered
Scorn, hatred, ridicule, apathy, love, and poverty___
Hart Crane wrote THE BRIDGE
A brilliant poem

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty—

Sailors threw him off a ship In the middle of the Caribbean___

Edgar Allen Poe
A msytery death
Last words
"Lord, help my poor soul"__

Lord Byron struck down by fever
Fighting the Ottoman Empire
To Free Greece

Friendship is Love without his wings!
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
men love in haste but they detest at leisure.
The great art of life is sensation,
to feel that we exist, even in pain__

And Joyce Kilmer was slaughtered
Along with millions of his generation
In the trenches of France__

None of them sought death
Death just happened
Despite the magic of cadenced words and syllables
Languages molded far from the public__
Now few people recite poetry
And even fewer hear it spoken
I recite my poems to the walls
Of my small room
In a seedy SRO hotel
My drunken neighbor bangs on the wall
"Shut up already."

These three words cast their spell
I go silent___
The only poets making money are singers
I can't sing
So I work as a waiter
As the Rolling Stones sang
"It's the singer, not the song."__

LATER

I played softball with the crew from EST. My position was right field. No one hit in my direction. Ann took over pitching in the fourth frame. I hit a triple in the fifth and our side had a one run lead. She kept them off the bases. In the last inning a young actor from Kansas hit a ball sharply. Ann raised her glove too late. The ball struck her face.

She spun around, as if she had been shot, holding her head. I ran from right field. Her theater friends clustered around Ann. They stood shocked by her pain. I kneeled and held her right hand. Her left hand covered that side of her face, which was red from the impact.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," stammered the young actor."

"It's not your fault," answered Ann and the studio director, Kurt Dempster, asked, "Do you want to go to a hospital. Maybe your nose is broken."

That was the last thing any actress wants to hear and I said, "It looks fine to me, Ann. Breathe deeply."

After a minute Ann stood up. "I'm okay."

She sat out the final outs and I sat by her side.

After the game we went downtown to my place. My drunk neighbor was playing on his sax. I asked Ann if it bothered her.

"No, I like Coltrane. Will I have a black eye?"

"No, but if you do, it will be cute."

LATER

Why am I content with poverty?

I haven't had a ten-spot in my pocket for days. My Irish grandfather and namesake would leave the house with less than $500 and that was in the 40s. I wish I was the same, instead I'm a pseudo-intellectual beggar.

After our fight about Anthony accusing me of stealing money, she said to him, "Peter wouldn't steal. If he wanted money, he'd get it from me."

I do love her.

In the meanwhile I'm waiting for my tax return check. I'm getting thinner and thinner. Marc Stevens asked if I wanted to deal cocaine. I said no. I tried dealing in Boston and only ended up deeper in debt. Right now I owe everyone money. I see no solution other than work. I tried to get a taxi job. I needed $75 to get the licenses. Nothing is free.

Ann is in love me with, but fears dependency on me. She'll probably leave for her own good. I wish I could do the same. Sadly I'm stuck with me.

Summer is getting closer.

Last year in Brooklyn was a disaster.

This summer is looking to be a repeat.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

That's the best poem I've written this year.

Connemara Whispers

My mother's last wish on a bed at Mass General was to go to Ireland.

"You've roamed the workd and never gone to your native land. I want you to go out there after im done and meet a woman like your sisters, cousins, or aunts."

And like that I was obliged to heed my mother's wish, even though its incestuous nature scared the bejus from my marrow. After her passing in 1997 an English arranged an autumn rental of a cottage west of Galway from Lord Robert Guinness. A night in Dublin with my landlord at the Shelburne. In the morning a train ride to Galway. A night of drink. Next dawn a bus the Cliften and a taxi to a cow town between the Seven Pins of tge the Atlantic Ocean. A small town. Not a woman in Ballyconeeley. Just cows and sheep roaming the boglands, so I drank Guinness at Keough's with a handful of sad cow farmers and my good friend Ty Spaulding. In the haunted schoolhouse wandering the bogs accompanied by the whispers of Europe washed into the Atlantic by a westerly wind. Aah, true Ireland, that.

May Day Freedom From Chains 2011

May Day 2011 and I was sitting in a Tokyo Airport bound for Bangkok. A two week unpaid holiday, since Manny decided to stiff my vacation pay. The eighty- three year-old diamond dealer said, “I gave one week off in January.”

“You gave me butkis then.” I had been a math major in college and still had a very good head for numbers.

“I remember one week.”

“Because you want to remember one week. You’re wrong, but then bosses are never wrong these days.” Manny was an old curmudgeon, but I had counted on him for a job since 1989.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you fire two employees and had me work harder without giving me a raise.”

"You're lucky you have a job."

He was right in some ways, only because everyone around the world was a wage slave grinding out a subsistent living.

Years ago unions protected the workers. The bosses fought the forty-hour week, the end to child labor, and other workers’s rights as was to expected from the filthy rich, since they represent the haves, who don’t want to spit to the have-nots. I hung up saying to Manny, "See you when you get back." then muttered,

"Fuck the rich."

I have belonged to three unions; IBEW for the telephone company, IBT driving taxi in Boston, and the union of drifters. I believe in the power of labor and every May 1 workers of the world march in many countries.

Originally the day was a pagan holiday for the first day of spring, although in a different month than the present Julian calendar. Peasants adherents to the old religions danced around the Maypole. The Catholic Church suppressed the practice by naming May the month of Mary, the Blessed Virgin.

As a child at parochial school the nuns paraded us around the church with the girls wearing white dresses and flowers in their hair. The boys had white jackets and slacks. Parents would take snapshots of their angelic children.

Years later we abandoned this pious procession to march in the May Day protests against the Cambodian Bombings.

1969-1970.

Washington, Kent State, Kissinger, Nixon talking to the protesters.

May Day for the Left honors seven Haymarket anarchists executed for participation in Chicago’s Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago.

May 1 1886 was the start date for the 8-hour day. Big business wasn’t happy with this new law and workers staged a series of protests. Anarchists met in Haymarket Square. The gathering was peaceful until someone threw a bomb into the police ranks, killing one officer. In the ensuing violence more died on both sides.

Hence ‘bombing-throwing anarchist’ entered the American lexicon.

The subsequent trial of eight anarchists based the accusations on hearsay. Evidence revealing the involvement of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the bombing didn’t prevent the death sentence for seven of the accused.

Public pressure for leniency forced the governor of Illinois to commute the capital charges against two ‘conspirators’.

On the eve of the execution Louis Lingg offed himself by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth.

The remaining four, Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were publicly hung, but not before they sang the Marseillaise, the anthem of the international revolutionary movement.

All eight were exonerated in 1893 and May 1 became a rally day for labor throughout the world, although in the USA it is called Loyalty Day.

Thailand gives the day off to workers, 70% who have decent jobs say they are happy with their present situation. Others are less so.

In honor of the Haymarket martyrs I’m taking the day off too.

Power to the people.

One more thing.

Fuck the rich.

May Day - 2014

May Day 2014 I was sitting at my desk in the Fort Greene observatory. I knew today was an important labor holiday, but I wish that I was working and traveled up to Manhattan's Diamond District to visit my longtime boss from the Diamond District.

"I wish I could give you a job, but there's no business." said the eighty-two year-old diamond dealer and he was right. No one was walking into the exchange.

"The rich have taken all the money and don't want to spend it. All they know is how to gather it." I had graduated sine laude as an economic major in college forty years ago.

"I guess you have to blame it on someone." Manny was an old curmudgeon, but I had counted on him for a job since 1989.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you worked all your life and never prepared for a moment like this." He had lived through the tailend of the Greater Recession. People my age back then had been out of work in the millions. Same as today.

"I was lucky to have a job with you these last years." I had worked for Manny as a salesman on and off since 1990. There had been some good years. None of those were recent.

"And you can't find another job."

"I only know diamonds and writing."

"And you have never made any money on your books."

"You have that right and now everyone around the world are wage slaves grinding out a subsistent living. Workers have no rights."

"And neither do I."

"It wasn't always that way. Once there was a marriage between labor and capital. Years ago unions protected the workers. Union instituted the forty-hour week, the end to child labor, and other workers’s rights, but since Reagan broke up the Air Controllers Union the GOP has been destroying every aspect of workers' rights."

"The Democrats aren't much better."

"We're on our own." I shrugged and made to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"To the 169 Bar in Chinatown. They have $2 beers."

"Have a good May Day."

I showed him the clenched fist and headed to the subway, thinking that over the years I had belonged to three unions; IBEW for the telephone company, IBT driving taxi in Boston, and the union of drifters, yet I believed in the power of labor and every May 1 the workers of the world march to show their solidarity.

Originally the day was a pagan holiday for the first day of spring, although in a different month than the present Julian calendar. Peasants adherents to the old religions danced around the Maypole. The Catholic Church suppressed the practice by naming May the month of Mary. As a child at parochial school outside Boston the nuns paraded us around the church with the girls wearing white dresses and flowers in their hair. The boys in white jackets and slacks. Parents snapped photos of their angelic children with Kodak Brownie cameras.

Years later we abandoned this pious procession to march in the May Day protests against the Cambodian Bombings.

1969-1970.

Washington, Nixon talking to the protesters, four dead at Kent State.

May Day for the Left traditionally honored the seven Haymarket anarchists executed for participation in Chicago’s Haymarket Riot of 1886.

May ,1 1886 had been the start date for the eight-hour day. Big business wasn’t happy with this new law and workers staged a series of protests. Anarchists met in Haymarket Square. The gathering had been peaceful until someone threw a bomb into the police ranks, killing one officer. In the ensuing violence more died on both sides.

Hence ‘bombing-throwing anarchist’ entered the American lexicon.

The subsequent trial of eight anarchists had been prosecuted on hearsay accusations. Evidence revealing the involvement of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the bombing hadn't prevent the death sentence for seven of the accused. Public pressure for leniency forced the governor of Illinois to commute the capital charges against two ‘conspirators’. On the eve of the execution Louis Lingg offed himself by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth.

The remaining four, Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were publicly hung, but not before they sang the Marseillaise, the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. All eight were exonerated in 1893 and May 1 became a rally day for labor throughout the world, although in the USA it is called Loyalty Day.

Thailand gives the day off to workers, 70% who have decent jobs say they are happy with their present situation. Others are less so.

In honor of the Haymarket martyrs I’m taking the day off too.

Sadly it's not by choice.

Power to the people.

May Day 2017 Green Acres Tavern

Eight springs ago I traveled north with Kilmer on the weekend in a U-haul filled with antiques. The beautiful blonde had triple-digited on the speedometer on the Interstate. As a lifelong criminal I was uncomfortable with exceeding the speed limit and when we reached Greenwich, New York, I asked to be let out of the Ford SUV.

"I want to walk back to Middle Falls?

"Call me when you are close to home."

I got out at the Batten Kill River and she drove away burning rubber. My friend liked driving fast. I stood the curb, happy to not be moving at all. Small flowers sprouted from the grass. I walked to a railroad bridge rusted by the season of disuse and the river flowed over the old mill dam. I proceeded into the quiet town past the post office and closed stores. Main Street was in ruins and I searched for a bar. There were none.

I stopped to snap a photo of a Civil War statue. The soldier faced south. Ever vigilant against the Forces of Slavery. I strolled on the sidewalk. This side of town was better off than the mill side. Several houses had been refuges for escaped slaves fleeing to Canada. There were no blacks in Greenwich now. No Mexicans too. But the few other pedestrians looked like junkies or meth freaks. Everyone else was in a SUV or pick-up truck. At least none sported a Confederate flag.

The town's commercial section had expanded since my last visit. Tech firms were opening in nearby Saratoga. Property prices soared for old milk farms. Gleaming tractors crowded the parking lot of the farm equipment dealer and brand new trucks shone in the car lot. A lot had changed, but the Green Acres Tavern remained a faithful destination for early afternoon drinkers. I texted Malinda to meet me there and entered the bar. One man sat at the bar. The TV was on a sports channel. I ordered a Labatt Blue from the bartender. Canada was only 110 miles from Greenwich.

The other drinker at the bar was slightly younger than me. His head was razor-cut and skin tanned by outdoor work. A bearded friend entered the bar. He was younger than both of us. No hello from neither. I was the old man on a stool. Afternoon drinkers never sat at a table. They greeted each other and spoke about the Giants. Big Blue fandom reached far north from the Meadowlands. Malinda hated this bar. To her the Green Acres was filled with racists. She wasn't wrong, especially after I heard buzz-cut ask, "Why do people celebrate May Day?"

"I don't know."

"Probably commies dance around a maypole."

I could only tolerate so much ignorance and I said, "No, May Day commemorates the Haymarket Riots in Chicago. The workers struck for an eight-hour work day. The police charged the rally. A bomb exploded in the ranks. The violence as always was initiated by the police."

"Well, if the cops shot in Ferguson, there wouldn't be any marches." White people up here viewed the police as a good job.

"Don't get me wrong. I believe in the right to carry. And the right to protect yourself. Machine guns too. Especially to kill the bankers who are the real criminals supported by crooked politicians, but than then a police instigator threw the bomb at the anarchists. It blew up in their ranks. As for deporting people. I say let's get rid of the Russians. They're all ex-commies. At least the Mexicans are Americans. What will you have to drink?"

They ordered Bud Lite. It was fat fascists' beer of choice.

We changed the subject. They spoke about a seven-stooled bar on a lake.

"Sounds like paradise."

"It was."

"Was?"

"Bank bought it. Shut it down."

I raised my glass.

"Death to all bankers."

We glugged our bottles dry.

A horn beeped outside.

"It's my wife or as I call her my 'designated driver'."

We high-fived and I stepped outside into Spring.

Malinda gave me a dirty look.

Like I said Malinda hated this tavern, but I can drink with anyone as long as they're willing to listen to my bullshit. Down with the Capitalist State.

May 1, 1978 - Journal Entry

None of us at CBGBs were hippies, but some of us liked ice hockey.

Last night the New York Islanders were knocked out of the Stanley playoffs by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Tomorrow the semi-finals of the Stanley Cup begin with the Bruins versus the Flyers and the fucking Habs against the Maple Leafs.

And I'm a Red Sox fan.

The Bosox are in second place.

Enough for the sporting news.

LATER

This morning Alice lays against my body in symbiotic symmetry. I don't dare move to break the link of flesh to flesh. We are one and I want no one else.

Monogamy?

Is that what my friend Andy found in Theresse?

When Alice woke, I hid my feelings, but had to say, "I don't want you to leave."

It sounds soapy, but my alienation has cast me far from humanity. Alice comforts my madnesses, although it's impossible to dispel them for more than a few hours. Alice looks at me and says, "I don't have to leave yet. It's Daylight Savings Time. We still have an hour."

"So winter is over?"

"Yes, and the days will get longer."

"Shit." I liked long night as much as I hated long days.

"Shit, yes, but I'm a zombie too."

"But you have aspirations for a better life."

"And so do you." Her hand touched my chest and waited for me to say something, but words stuck in my throat and she said, "Everyone is capable of greatness."

"Even me?"

"Yes, even you."

And by saying that Alice joined my mother, Sister Mary Osmond, my 5th Grade teacher, who awarded me honors, and my high school German instructor, Bruder Karl, who fairly failed me, "Schmidt, you have not prepared for your lesson und du sprechst Deustche wie ein aschloch."

Asshole.

Bruder Karl chain-smoked in class. His Bavarian-accented voice sounded like a train dragged across rocks, but I heard the kindness in his words, despite my classic under-achievement in Hoch Schule.

Others saw my worth.

Chris Jansen, an MIT genius, had hired me to work at a chemical plant in Salem. The fat woman had wanted to sleep with me. Her husband had given the green light.

But I preferred to risk it all with Therese's sixteen year-old sister, Hilde. The kids I taught at South Boston High School loved me. I hated the racism of the Selma of the North.

Diana Graham saw something in me.

I think they are all blind.

I used all of them to subsist without working.

Survival.

But not as an enemy. I only want to do good one day, even if that day is like Andy says, "You'll make it after you're dead, like Van Gogh."

More a curse than a blessing.

How I lead my life doesn't permit any retreat.

Anti-star.

Failure is easier to achieve than fame, but Alice said, "You should become a movie star."

"How?"

"By being you. Your friend Willem will be one. Is he better looking than you?"

"Maybe."

"Don't you want to be famous?"

"No, I don't want life sucked from me to become a big person on a silver screen."

"I had a dream about you on the Johnny Carson Show, but he was washed up."

"Johnny washed up?" I love the Tonight Show host. He represented the true vein of America.

"It happens to everyone."

"I don't want fame. I want immortality."

"Everyone dies."

"Not me."

LATER

Alice left for work. I went to the movies.

At the St. Mark's Theater I watched a movie about Caryl Chessman, the accused Red Light Bandit of LA. He sat on Old Sparky in 1960. I was eight, but I realized that his life had come to a point of departure governed by certainty of death.

And death always scares an immortal.

LATER

Most young people say that they are not concerned with age.

I know different.

Death is more welcome to anyone seeking eternal life over the aging of our flesh, especially as the life distances from our birth ever closer to death. I am frightened by new people. I can feel life slipping from them. Second by second. Grain of sand by sand. I avoid them. I avoid their death. I avoid their loss of youth. I never think of mine.

Art has no power over the speed of light tearing apart our flesh like vultures of time.

A couple of night I asked a Rockefeller heir at CBGBs, "Where does power lie?"

"Power is money."

His family controlled coal mines, oil fields, banks, countries, but they are merely exploiters of power. Marx wrote that an economy was based on the balance between labor and capital. Now the rich only think about money, whose value is not real, but implied by the belief in money. It means nothing to nature other than Man rapes the world to get wealth. Pockets are not part of the human body, unless we count them as an extra asshole to store our riches.

Shit.

A place to live.

Food.

Education.

Matter

Shit does not, unless it's to grow food, although dogs sometimes eat shit by mistake and sometimes, because shit tastes better than nothing. Money is slavery, chaining everyone to surrender.

I know nothing.

We humans have not abandoned prejudice, hatred, greed, or any of the Deadly Sins, despite America's forefathers writing in the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal..."

Cultures, classes, castes, languages, religions separate our destiny to go to the stars.

LATER

South of Mazatlan
A traveler stands on a highway.
He stands on the hot asphalt.
His bag at his feet.
Parched by the sun-burnt Sonoran desert with Mexico

A drug soothing his Gringo soul
But he wants more

Culiacan heroin

If he was a child he would be lost, but the road only goes north or south.
Mazatlan was north.
San Blas was south.
Black glass cars speed by
Buses roll by.
Faces stare out the windows.
In the desert only fools stand in the sun

The sun rose higher.
Still winter in El Norte.
Here hot.
Where he is is where he is.
Two college girls from Arizona stop.
A Ford Torino.
Going to San Blas for the surf.
The AC cold.
Being out of the sun felt better
San Blas only three hours away and America more distant with every passing every second.