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.

FIRST ENCOUNTER 1974

Written2/16/2012

America was in a deep recession during the summer of 1974 and I had returned to Boston after a two-month hitchhiking trip across the USA to discover that banks and corporations weren't hiring long-haired college graduates. I finally found work at the Shaba, an Israeli restaurant on Beacon Hill, as the cook.

I had never been to Israel and had never met any Israelis. My knowledge of Middle East cuisine was zero. The young manager, Ari, taught me how to cook falafel, spread hummus and bab-ganoush on a plate, and toast pita bed. At the end of my training Ali declared that I was head chef. My pay was the minimum wage. I worked sixty hours a week. My take-home pay with overtime was about $130. It was better than nothing.

The two waitresses at the Shaba were from Tel Aviv. Ari came from Jerusalem. The three of them ordered me around like a slave, but I didn't mind the bullying from the two girls. They were very cute and I thought I might have a chance with one. Sillva was a skinny redhead with freckles two months out of the army and I sometimes caught her looking at me. She always smiled, as our eyes met for a moment.

I was good-looking in a Neanderthal way.

"Are you doing anything after work?" I asked one night, washing up the dishes. My job included that chore.

"I am meeting with friends." Sillva made it sound like none of them were a boyfriend. "I'd invite you, but israelis like hanging out with themselves. It comes from not being able to trust anyone."

"Not trust anyone?" I had been a hippie. We believed in peace and love.

"Israel is surrounded by hostile nations. The Nazis killed Jews and everyone watched. Who should we trust?"

"I understand." I had dated a Jewish girl in high school. My best friend was a Jew from Long Island. They were nothing like Israelis. I put away the final pot. I was free to go.

"You do?" She took off her apron. Her hipbones jutted above her jeans. Her skin was darkened by the sun. I imagined her in an army uniform for a second.

"Yes, in grammar school I had been beaten by bullies. Everyone watched the show. No one did anything." The three boys were not the SS, but their punches left no marks. "After that I didn't trust too many people either."

"Maybe one night, but not tonight."

Outside Ari, the other waitress, and Sillva walked toward Charles Street. I was living at home. The last train to Ashmont was at 12. I made it with five minutes to spare. There was no way I would ever get together with Sillva and I resigned myself to being the cook. Life was easy without desire.

The next month I labored from 9 in the morning to 11 at night. I never complained about the hours. I needed the money. The three Israelis drank and laughed together in Hebrew. I was an outsider. Sillva and I never had time alone. Ari and the other girl made sure of that.

The night Nixon resigned from the White House I was frying falafel in the kitchen and upon hearing the news I ran into the street to join in the celebration. Massachusetts was the only state to vote against Nixon in 1972. Car horns blared throughout the city and I turned around to see the two waitresses standing in the doorway. The manager had the night off.

"What?"

"Nixon was a good friend to Israel." Sillva eyed me with suspicion.

"Every president has been a good friend to Israel." The USA supplied them with arms.

"Not Eisenhower. He backed Egypt in the seizure of the Sinai Canal." Sillva stepped aside for me to enter the restaurant.

"Eisenhower was pissed, because the French and English hadn't warned him about the war and this gave the Soviets a free hand in Hungary." I had read about this war in several books. Every author concluded it was a mistake.

"Who cares about Hungary? They were Nazis." Sillva spat out the accusation without any opening for a rebuttal.

"Zsa Zsa Gabor is Hungarian. She's no Nazi."

"I thought you were different, but you're like everyone else. No one cares about Israel." She was actually close to tears. My attempt to apologize was waved off by her friend.

"You are what you are. Sorry won't change that."

"If you say so." I couldn't see what I had really done wrong, but saying sorry is what you're supposed to say to a crying woman.

We didn't speak for the rest of the night. Orders were placed on the counter in silence. I left without a good-bye and the next morning Ari fired me as soon as I walked into the restaurant.

"We have a new cook coming from Jerusalem."

5 It was a lie, but I didn't need an explanation

Either you were with the Israelis or you were against them. I stopped by the restaurant several times for my last check. The next week the manager said it would be ready later in the day. He was lying, but Sillva said, "Make him his check. He worked for it."

As the manager went into the office, I asked Sillva, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You can not hurt an Israeli. We do not get hurt."

"Sorry."

"Don't ever say sorry to an Israeli. It's a sign of weakness."

"John Wayne said the same thing in THE SEARCHERS." It was my favorite John Ford Movie.

"Then he must be Israeli too." She turned away, as if she expected me to become a pillar of salt. Ari came back with the check. I cashed it at the bank. I spent the rest of the day at the Sevens on Charles Street. The bar was a dive. None of its patrons cared about Israel. They were there to drink beer and I was too.

Free Palestine,free Tibet, free the world___

THE ROOTS OF CONTACT 1976 - April 18, 1978 - BAD POETRY

THE ROOTS OF CONTACT 1976

By

Peter Nolan Smith

Downtown
A disco.
Flashing strobes
Deafening drum bass
A young weekend crowd
Dancing

Sexually fearless males on 'ludes
Disco waifs on blow
All of us 99% dead by dawn__

A thin wanton teenager sensually sways to Donna Summer's ' LOVE TO LOVE YOU, BABY'
She dances with me
Her body seducing my drugged libido
She's high <>
"Love to love you, baby."
She lipsynches the chorus
"Love to you you baby."

Sara
Her name.
Sara is in high school
Private school
I push Sara away hard
Girls like her are danger
To themselves
To everyone around them__
I thread my way to the bar
"A vodka-tonic."
The bartender wants me
Jhoury pours a double and slips me a 'lude

I lean against the bar
A voyeur__

White boys dance with black men
Girls with girls
No one is straight
Not even 10%

The DJ pushes the beat on and on and on
I drop the 714
My second

Across the dance floor a brunette
Beauty
Alone
Surrounded by admirers
Famous
A Vogue model
Everyone knows her name.
Gia___
I am a no one, but I am the most no one here

Gia sees that
Her eyes fall on me
Mine on her.
Mirror to mirror
I know her

Gia famous
A Vogue model
I am no one
But I am the most no one here__
LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY
Segue to silence
The dance floor stalled to a near-stop
The DJ smiles under a spotlight

More silence,
One second, two seconds fifteen seconds
Then Diana Ross' breathless voice
We all know this song
We sway
We all know what is coming
LOVE HANGOVER

Almost a ballad
Then Magic
The bass, the drums, the guitar and Diana on top of it all
Gia and I meet on the dance floor

She said her name
I tell her mine.
Names mean nothing in our world
Her body to mine
The 'lude hits
The madness of flesh

Gia and me
Immortalia
For now and eternity__

Cleveland's Finest - 2010

Cleveland reportedly was supposedly the site of the first rock and roll concert. March 21, 1952. A little more than two months before birth in late May. 20,000 youths crowded the 10,000 capacity Cleveland Arena. The police shut down the show before the opening act, Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams, finished his first song.

The civic leaders of the lakeside city have claimed this preseminal rock concert giving Cleveland the right to open the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame in 1993, despite its thin musical heritage of The James Gang, Dean Martin, and The O'Jays. Yoko and Little Richard hosted the opening, but no one ever mentioned Cleveland's greatest rock band. Not even in my trip to a wedding there in 2017.

The Dead Boys.

SONIC REDUCER is a punk rock classic.

Stiv Bators hanging himself by the microphone a showstopper.

The guitarist Cheetah Chrome once fell asleep in the underneath storage bin of the Damned's tour bus. He woke up in Pittsburgh. After the drummer was stabbed on 2nd Avenue, CBGB's held a benefit for Johnny Blitz. It was the Altamont of Punk. Blondie, Patti Smith, Suicide, the Ghosts, Jerry Nolan, Sic Fucks, Ramones, Senders, and a dozen other bands played at the Bowery bar May 2-6, 1978.

I saw every show.

Paid for them too. Johnny Bltiz survived the attack and the Dead Boys

I loved the Dead Boys. Cleveland's Finest, but they were really a New York band.

Dublin Barracks - The Ruins of Empire

Seagulls - Staten Island Ferry

Nothing like the Staten Island Ferry connecting St. George to Battery Park. Free still despite the billionaires__

Thai School Uniforms - 2011

Memory is in details and I can remember exactly what I was wearing the day JFK was murdered in Dallas. A white shirt, sky-blue tie, navy-blue trousers, a black belt, and black shoes. Every boy in my class wore the same outfit. In fact the uniform was mandatory for each male attending Our Lady of the Foothills. No deviations were allowed by the nuns and that edict was issued to the girls in their powder-blue pleated skirts, dazzling white shirt, and dull black shoes. Mother Superior had banned shoe polish for girls in fear that boys would gaze at the shoes' high gloss reflection to discover the hidden treasure up a girl's skirts. Our imaginations were stronger than her mandate and to this day the sight of a Catholic school girl uniform transports me across time to 1964, unfortunately in the 21st Century school uniforms are uncommon in the USA, however the tradition remains strong in Asia.

Every nation has their specialty, however most males would agree that Thailand dominates the schoolgirl uniform race and in 2011 the Japanese Press declared that the Thai university uniforms of a short-sleeve white blouse and short black skirt was the world's sexiest student uniform.

Thailand for all its brothels and sex tourism was a very puritian country and the local media and politicians expressed their outrage about this dubious honor with the deputy education minister going as far as announcing a pogrom against sexiness in school.

Chok dee, you fool, for the girls in Thai universities are a cultural treasure admired by men all across the world, especially anyone from the USA, where many coeds are so fat that they would look better in a chador.

Long live the Thai schoolgirl uniform.

Another Wonder of the Modern World under threat from the Thailiban.

Square S&M / The Castle - Pattaya 2007

Back in 2007 the Castle opened for business providing hardcore sex across from the Buffalo Bar on Pattaya's 3rd Road. The dress code was black. I was more interested in drinking beer and sat at the bar, but the Buffalo's bar girls watched young women exit from the S and M bar at the end of the night to mount new motor-scooters driven by their Thai boyfriends. None of them girls looked none the worse for an evening of hard work.

"2000 baht for 30 minutes." Tuk told me, then added. She was everyone's #1 girl at the Buffalo. "No sex. Only beat man. Good money."

Later that week Nick was sitting with Tuk and he asked me, "What you think happens in there?"

"The usual. Whips, chains, handcuffs, fetish stuff." I had read on Stickman.com that the Castle was quite a nice place. "Do you want to share them with mates?"

"I don't see why not?"

"Because you don't want to know what you like. Pattaya is where place where you indulged your innermost fantasies.

"If you went there, what would you do?" Nick pointed to a man leaving the Castle, as if he had a plug up his ass.

"I don't know."

"You must have some hidden desire?" The Tottenham Spurs fan wasn't letting me off easy.

"None that I can think of." It was the truth. My only fantasy was lying in bed with Mam, my wife.

"Whipping a nurse?"

"No."

"Getting whipped by a nurse?"

"No." I lifted my finger to stop him, then wracked my brain for an answer. "I'm stumped."

"No sadistic menage a trois fantasies or masochistic domination wishes?

"No." My mind was a sexual wasteland.

"That can't be possible."

"Sad, but true, I'm a square." I was shocked by this admission and drove home to Mam in Jomtien. We made love and I felt her belly. Our baby was growing inside her.

I fell asleep in her arms, but two hours I woke with a scream.

"What wrong?" Mam was used to my snores.

Not screams.

"Nothing." I couldn't tell her about a dream of S and M Thai girls chasing me around the Castle. Thai women are very jealous, even of ghosts in your dreams. There was only one way to exorcise this monster and a week later I departed the Jomtien apartment in a black shirt and black jeans.

"Who die?" Mam was suspicious.

"No one. I just want to wear black."

"You look like mafia."

"Thanks." I kissed her. "I'll be back early."

"I wait you." Mam knew once I had two beers, that I wasn't going to fool around and I had already finished two Leos.

I rode my Vespa over to 3rd Road and parked two hundred years from the Castle. I didn't want anyone from the Buffalo Bar seeing me enter the S and M establishment.

Stickman had warned that the Castle wasn't cheap.

Anything went there as long as there was no blood, so?1000 baht an hour?was a bargain, especially since back in the USA a good dominatrix could charge a $1000/HR.

Darkness was my friend and I touched my wallet. I had 5000 baht on me, however the security guards from the Buffalo spotted me. "Pai ngai?"

I pointed inside and they shouted out 'good luck'.

I opened the door. The bar was dimly lit with receding settees. The girls lounged at the bar. One set were vinyl dominatrixes, another slave girls in school uniforms, and lingerie-clad submissives. On stage a stocky dyke in black vinyl dripped hot wax onto her farang victim. His screams of pain sounded real. The matronly mama-san came to my table and explained the rates as well as the options.

"Drink with lady 250 baht. One hour with lady 3000 baht. Extra cost more. Up to you."

"If you want longer, girl can take it." The mama-san was proud of her girls. "Most farang come here English, German, Kohn Nippon. Khon Nippon like tie up girl and then whip her. German like sick thing and England man like spanking. What America like?"

I had the money and the time, yet no idea what I wanted from a woman who would do anything. "I don't know."

"You not know? Ask what you want."

I was about to repeat my previous answer, when a big-breasted dominatrix in black leather emerged from the back room leading a fat German by a chain. Her hair was cut like Betty Page and she was no stranger, for I had been admiring Cochise for the past three years. She had a vicious French boyfriend. Yves was a pimp from Marseilles. He had recently been recently deported from Thailand for selling phony credit cards.

"You like Cochise?"

"Maybe." I wasn't willing to admit yes.

I'll get her for you." The madam gestured to the hardened pro.

Cochise freed the German and then kneeled before the mama-san to kiss her boots. She looked up at me and I whispered my request to the mama-san.

"She never slave."

"I don't want her to be a taa-see.If she says no, then it's no, but ask her."

I gave her a purple bill.

500 baht got the mama-san to tell Cochise my request.

Cochise nodded yes and sat by my side.

Her skin smelled of unwanted sex.

"I see you before. At Welkom Inn." She leaned over to touch my thigh

"I saw you there too."

A lady drink arrived at the table and Cochise sighed five seconds, "I not slave."

"Me too." I wasn't so sure that Cochise was telling the truth, since I had seen her sporting black eyes from her Froggie boyfiend, then again that was love and this was commerce.

"So what you want to do?"

"Chain you and have sex." The couple on stage had moved onto a paddling. The smacks ringed in my ears. I didn't want to hurt anyone.

"No whips."

Cochise nodded her agreement.

"Only one hour. 3000 baht. Have customer come later. He slave. Easy work. You maybe not easy. Maybe you do before."

Cochise signaled to the mama-san she was heading out back.

"Maybe you want other girl."

"Want you only."

"Barg wan." She walked down a small corridor into a white room. Chains hung on the wall. The cuffs were leather.

"No sweet talking. The truth." I wanted her, but only really like this.

She stripped off her leather. Her breasts and small nipples. She was also not really a woman, but a ladyboy. She kept hiding the truth.

"You can be master now." Cochise kneeled on the floor. Her hair hung over her face. Her pose and the darkness of the room transported us back a hundred years when most Thais were slaves. Royalty could do with kee kao or slaves as they liked. For an hour or two I could do the same and that's the beauty of the Castle, except I wasn't into it.

"What wrong?"

"I can't do it." Mam was in my mind. I had never cheated on her.

"You love your lady." Her laugh was a whip.

"Chai." I gave Cochise her money. She waii-ed respectfully and said, "Maybe lucky can be your slave again or mistress."

She slapped my ass with a strength born of a rebel.

Two minutes later I left the castle and walked over to the Buffalo.

All the girls wanted to know. "Khun penh taat reu naii?"

Master or slave?

Tuk most of all.

"Kwam lap." No one needed to know my secret.

"Khun penh ajaan sadeet." A bargirl accused me of being a sadistic teacher.

"Not even close." I had realized her fantasy. Then again Tuk played a lot of roles for farangs.

I bought her a drink and a gin-tonic for me.

After three gin-tonics Cochise was out of my mind, but not 100% gone until I got back to Mam.

I was her slave and she was the mother of my baby, which meant I really was a square, but if you're looking for something a little different, visit the Castle. It ain't cheap, so bring cash since they don't accept Visa.

RATES

1-year membership for 15,000 baht

Non-members

900 baht entrance fee includes one drink.

Next drinks 300 baht

Bottle 7000 baht includes mixers

MEMBERS get 50% off

Lady Drinks - 250 baht

Dress code - black shirt required.

Hours 5:30 till closing.

Website http://www.the-castle-pattaya.com

THE CASTLE THIRD ROAD PATTAYA

visit their website

https://www.the-castle-pattaya.com/map-the-castle-pattaya

Marie Of Euston Station - Dublin

Last Monday I missed the 1:25pm United flight from Dublin to Newark. All my fault. I got lost between terminals 1 and 2. It happens, but United rebooked my flight for tomorrow without offering free accommodations other than the inner security open 24 hours after day. I had seen several travelers stretched out on the stone floor three moons before.

There was another option and I called Mollie Rainforest, a photographer for the Trans Gender Festival. she hadn't any room, but contacted Harry, the director of PUPPY GIRL LOVE. He happily agreed to share his 4 star hotel room. Great news, although I had to kill time, since he had a meeting with his producers.

Years ago a few hours in a pub was an easy solution, except I've been off my drink for over four years. Sober all of them.

The hotel the Ashling across the River Liffey had a warm lobby that afternoon. Sunny outside and I crossed the river to the Victorian train station. The sun bright on the tidal stream. Tea. Irish tea. My Nana made a wicked cup of tea. Milky and sweet.

I entered the station. The first time in almost thirty years. Last time with Ty Spaulding heading back to Galeay to catch a bus to Cliften and then a car down to Bally oneeley. The station wss unchanged save for the digital depature board and the modern cafes. A train was leaving for the West. I walked to a sandwich shop. A old woman sat with an empty tea cup on the table along with a cigarette butt smoked to the quick.

Our eyes met with recognition. She was younger than me. Almost the same age. We knew the last century. She played with a strand of brown gray matted hair. We were from the 20th Century.

"Would you care for a cup of tea?"

"You don't have to."

"It will be my pleasure."

"Milk with one sugar."

She smiled and I cleared off her cup and cigarrette butt. THe tip was wet to my fingers. Saliva from her lips. Almost a kiss. I ordered two teas. Both with milk and one sugar. Two young women, Maria and Helen, both emigrants from Eastern Europe, served me. I recited a haiku and returned to the table/ Maria served up another smile. Nether of us were invisible to each other. Trhhough the weekend I had strolled through Dublin. rarely seeing poeple my age. Mostly tourists wandered to streets, cellphones in their hands. Maria and I saw each other, as did Maria and Helen. She sold me about a pianist play music in an hour. She had come to the station for that. To be with people. We spoke about nothing. I figure she was in her 60s. I had been in Dublin thirthy years ago. Maria had been thirty. I had only been in Dublin twice. I asked, if she had ever seen me beofre.

She smiled and said, "No, and I would have remembered you, if we had."

I ordered a sandwich. My ATM lacked the funds. I sat back with Maria and bid farewell. As I was leaving one of the counter girls, Marie, handed me a sandwich. A gift of humanity and I left Euston Station. It felt good to be back in Ireland.

The Best Ordovician Horseshoe Crab in the World - Earth Day

Dating back in time to the Ordovician age 450 million years ago horseshoe crabs are considered living fossils. These ancient invertebrates' eyes are a million times more sensitive to light than humans, but they don't have wear sunglasses, while mating in mud or sand of shallow coastal waters of the East coasts of America and South East Asia. Sadly these extraordinary creatures are threatened by extinction in the Atlantic Ocean, due to pollution and over-harvesting to provide bait for eels.

In Asia their eggs are a delicacy for the Thais.

For ages I thought แมงดาจาน or maeng daa sounded the same as แมงดา to the farang ear, but แมงดา means pimp and it's difficult to tell the phonetic difference between แมงดาจาน and แมงดา when drinking beer at the beach of Ban Amphur.

Few Americans have ever tasted maeng daa roe, but it's delicious or ความอร่อย anywhere in the world, but never after they've made love.

The Timeliness of Horseshoe Crabs - All the Best Earth day

Fotos from beneath the Broad Channel Bridge June 2025

Now awaiting on Clinton Hill for the Summer homecoming of the Horeseshoe Crabs.

Rene Descartes author of The Age of Reason had argued that animals had no intelligence, because they had no sense of time. The rationalist lablled them 'automata'. or mndless creatures. To argue that accusation horseshoes crabs return to the same beach to lay eggs year after year according to the cosmic time of the moon and have for over 400 million years well before Man needed a clock to know the time.

Eternity now

Horseshoe crabs only exist on the East Coast of America and Southeast Asia. A species 440 millions old according to man's calculations. I know nothing thankfully. Happy Earth Day econsume.

SINDAY AFTERNOON AT THE BONEYARD

The only name I recall from the tombstones of the Howth cemetery was Quigley, a young man, they all are to me, was tending to the family plot. I respectably backed off the grave. Brian had lived in Howth all his life as had his antecedents underneath the soil. Tight with words he said succinctly, "Howth a country all on its own." I walked away with a nod leaving him to the prayers and the wind.

Ice Age Fini 2022

The last Ice Age ended somewhere around 11,700 years ago.

Since then glacier around the globe have shrunk from the North and South Poles.

In 2017 I resided in Juneau, Alaska. The Mendenhall glacier was fourteen miles from my house. I have yet to hike the Western Trail to the ice caves.

The couple running the salmon shack near my place of work said I had better go this year.

"Next year they won't be here."

I planned to hump the trail this coming Friday.

5-6 hours.

Alone.

In bear country.

But fuck it.

I am one of the last Neanderthals.

We loved the Ice Age.

Mostly because they were no humans.

Go Neanderthals Go 2016

The Neanderthals dominated Europe and Asia for almost a half-million years. This species vanished from the Earth 24,000 years ago. Anthropologists once blamed the fall of the Neanderthals on their stupidity, while recent studies have revealed that the ancient men had larger brains than their homo sapiens descendants and were stronger and taller than as well as better adapted to the colder climates of the Great Ice Age.

The mystery of their disappearance has troubled scientists, although a report in the BBC suggested that Neanderthals were already on the verge of extinction and the final shove came from drastic changes in the weather.

I beg to differ for I have theorized that Neanderthals did not vanish, but their DNA fused with homo sapiens at the end of the Ice Age.

I actually feel Neanderthalic after a couple of beers.

My brows are thickly padded by bone. My arms and legs are shorter than most men my size. My torso is long. Thankfully I'm not hairy. I detest hirsuteness in a man and avoid bearded women.

I guess that makes me a race traitor.

Go Neanderthals Go.

Neanderthal Future 2020

Why are we here on a suddenly threatening planet?

It is not because the Chinese ate bats in Wuhan.

>We are to blame, for having destroyed this loving blue ball in Space.

No humans can accept this truth, while devoted to driving fucked-up SUVs, eating poison potato chips, and drinking shitty rich motherfucker Budweiser in honor of a pedophile god-leader Donald Trump.

You are what you eat and Neanderthals were mostly vegetarian according to their poop pits.

Sadly we are fucked and fucked good.

World Population 2050 - 500 million.

In that year I shall be ninety years old surrounded by my tribe of Neanderthals in Ban-Nok Thailand, drinking lao-khao. We are comforted by the love of our people and knowing sloth is not a deadly sin.

Earth Day 2009

This evening I drank organic vodka in celebration of Earth Day. The mixer was organic ginger ale. Glass bottles. A glass glass. No plastic. It went well with my Happy Meal #3.

Supposedly civilization started when hunter-gatherers discovered fermented fruits. One of them drank it. He survived and explained his out-of-the-body experience. The primitives understood that to achieve this euphoria with regularity they had to grow crops.

Thus the birth of agriculture.

Unless you believe in alien abduction.

The Presence Of Neanderthals 2020

Modern human anthropologists estimate that Homo Neanderthalensis existed from 300,000 BN or Before Now until extinction by extermination by genocide by Homo Sapiens, climate change, or disease around 30,000 BN, however the Neanderthal gene remained intact across the present-day Northern Hemisphere with approximately 1–4% of genomes of Eurasians, Oceanians, Native Americans, and North Africans from my ancestors. from Neanderthals and about 20% of distinctly Neanderthal genes survive today according to Wikipedia.

Throughout the previous two centures Neanderthals were portrayed by human elitists as grunting apelike cave dwellers with little to offer the emerging homo sapiens, however more recent examination of the two species have suggested the Neanderthals and humans shared a common desire for sex and love based on the Neanderthals' greater hunting skills and sense of humor.

The racist portrayals of the 20th Century highlighted Man's need to feel superior to the Neanderthal.

Neanderthals supposedly cosnsidered men and women equals thanks to a predominantly meatless diet.

Humans were too lazy to harvest crops.

Neanderthals also bred with Denisovanians.

They were good lovers and faithful mates unlike the First Men constantly bloodied by battles for hunting grounds.

Especially the women, who wanted nothing from human males, who never have forgiven the betrayal of their women.

We are not gone.

We still roam the planet.

Lost to our people.

Long live the Neanderthal.

The Ghosts Of Neanderthals

I have wandered through the caves near our rice farm in Ban Nok, Thailand. I shut off my light to be immediately cast into utter darkness. Not even a Neanderthal could't see their hand in such complete blackness.

The creation legend from the Old Testament's Genesis claimed that on the first day of Creation Elohim boomed in a similar darkness, "Let there be light." and created the heaven and earth, although the sun was an afterthought for the fourth day.

To err is human. To err all the time and not care is the blessing only afforded the Divine. His divine alter ego Yahweh spent the next five days covering Earth with water, rising land from under the seas, dividing day and night without any uniformity, covered the planet with animals, and then on the sixth day formed man in his image.

The seventh day Yahweh fucked off for the eternal shabbath of rest kicking back with other Gods forgotten by Monotheists. Yahweh had been speaking to these nameless deities since before Light and decided that He needed new company, since the other Gods no longer laughed at his jokes.

Thus Adam who as a the only white man wasn't shamed by his small penis, although Yahweh wore a toga to hide his less than godly member, but as an atheist I reject all Creation myths as well as Evolution.

Scientists have searched for the 'missing link' for centuries without success, because there is no genetic bridge between homo sapiens and the apes.

Maybe some of us have Simian descendants, but when I go to Rockaway Beach I spot humans with lizard, ursine, and sloth DNA.

My Neanderthal blood has been adulterated by countless sexual unions with Cromagnons, Desnovians, and countless other human breeds and I know the truth.

And we are not scared of caves

Only the darkness.