Chek Bin Carpe Diem - 2011

Three weeks ago Fabo and I sat at the garden bar of the Welkom Inn on Soi 3. I hadn't seen the Belgian oil explorer in a year. Both of us had suffered long exiles from Pattaya. His place of banishment was the North Sea for the last three months. I had been stuck in Luxembourg for six months. We were equally glad to be away from either.

He greeted me with a kiss on the lips. The girls on the patio regarded the gesture with disgust. They only liked straight men. Preferably newcomers to Thailand. Newbies spent money like bankers on a cocaine binge.

"Papa." Fabo thought that we resembled each other.

"My son."

I didn't see the likeness, but I drink San Miquel. It's made in the Philippines. Heineken is my pseudo-fils' preferred beverage. He was 31. I had been in Brussels at the age of 36 in 1988, a year before his birth. A Walloon girl had taken me back to her parents’ house in the working-class neighborhood of The Marolles. Her mother had made breakfast croissants and cafe creme in the morning. Her daughter wasn’t Fabo’s mom.

"Welcome back home." His skin was tanned from the sun's reflection off the China sea. Fabo looked healthy. He had gone a month without a drink. We ordered more beers. The time was noon. The popular Thai band Loso was playing on the radio. Fabo’s months on the oil rig boiled own to six words.

"No fun. No beer. No girls."

I also had six words to describe my months away from Pattaya.

"New York. Cold beer. No girls." Six syllables to his seven. The economy of age. I was faithful to my wife. Too lazy to not be.

"One plus. Two negatives." Fabo had once shown a photo of his mother. The skinny punk girl with wide eyes looked familiar. I still didn’t think I was his father.

"Now we're here." Too many accidents and fights had mashed his nose, but his eyes were arctic blue. Mine were high Nordic steel.

"Paradise." Saying that I felt like Adam waking on the day after his Maker created 'woman', except the almighty hadn't the heart to destroy his previous failures. The line-up at the Welkom Inn's entrance offered a woman for every man's desire.

"You can say that again." I was blind to their allure. Mam dominated my libido. She was too nah-lak or lovely for words. Fenway's mother knew that I was here. Trust. I had no choice, but to be true. I ordered another beer. The first bottle died after forty-seven seconds. The heat of May on the Gulf of Siam gave any human a thirst.

"Paradise, and I blame it on our position." He didn't speak about his wife or her German ex-. It was better to not say SS Tommy's name. "So close to equator?"

I had heard his hypothesis on more than many occasions. My one attempt to explain the menage-a-trois to Mam, my wife, had met with her contempt. She had little patience for 'tawh-lay' or bullshit. All women say the same about men.

"Only 1200 miles south of here."

"I know." I had crossed the equator in the jungles of Sumatra. The relative speed of the Earth's rotation is meant to send more blood to your head. "Speed."

"Not speed. The reformulation of the theory of gravity." These words were spoken in French. Fabo loved the idea, but recognized his conjecture was full-on mad or 'bah mak' as say the Thais.

We argued about acceleration measured in m/s2, air resistance, and the downward weight force. The 3rd beer cured the affliction of banality. We were happy to sit at a bar. Happy the phone wasn't ringing. Happy heading toward drunk. The afternoon sun stretched into the west.

We watched the men run the gauntlet of bar girls at the entrance of the Welkom Inn's bar. The interior was night. The mama-san played any song from any year. The male clientele liked 1977. No matter what the nationality everyone knew the words to Abba’s DANCING QUEEN.

Four Middle Eastern men entered the garden. Jeans. White shirts. No robes. Arabs normally frequented the smoking bars at the end of Walking Street and never ventured this far north, but they weren't Arabs.

"Egyptian." Fabo sniffed the air. Strong tobacco.

"Turkish." They weren't speaking Arabic. Neither did I, but I had heard enough Arabic in Paris to know the difference. I bet Fabo 500 baht on their country.

An hour later they exited from the bar. They had barfined eight of the hostesses. One produced a bottle of Sky Whiskey. Half-empty. Another man flourished a handful of banknotes. The colors were strange.

Not dollar green or the green, blue, red, and purple of Thai currency.

One girl looked over her shoulder. Prueng. A shortcake angel with soft hair and small breasts. The tomboy was almost twenty-four. Six years older than the first day she worked the Welkom.

Her kathoey or ladyboy girlfriend worked at a big hotel. Preung saved money to pay for her girlfriend's penis operation. 200,000 baht. She lifted a thick fist of money in the air. Her co-workers cheered her order for more whiskey.

Five minutes later she brought two glasses of whiskey-coke to the bar. Preung slapped a big pile of foreign money on the bar. Zaïre Francs. Value almost zero. Fabo sat frozen on his seat. Belgium had ruthlessly ruled the Congo now Zaire under their King Leopold II. A horror.

Someone had to pop her balloon. A bottle of Spy Whiskey was close to 500 baht at the Welkom. I was down to 300. Preung reached for the free drink bell. There were about over thirty people with the range of its peal.

Drinks for everyone.

"Don't."

I read the finance section of the Herald Tribune, studied currencies, and studied Karl Marx's Manifesto. An exchange rate came to my head.

“62 baht per million.”

Preung was holding ten million.

The imagined git of a buffalo herd for her father was kidnapped by disappointment. Her daughter remained banished in the hicks or ban-nok. Her girlfriend stayed a woman. 600 baht for a short-time trip to heaven was the asking price at the Welkom. Her math was good.

"I not win. I not lose." Preung dropped her hand from the rope hanging off the bell.Like most Thais they accepted things as they are. Especially for Isaan people, Thailand's poorest region.

"Where were they from?"

Preung answered. Neither of us were right.

"Nice rich one minute. You want go short-time?" Preung was asking me, but Fabo seized the gauntlet. He had been at sea three months. Six words. No fun, no beer, no women. I was one hour late for Mam.

"Another step closer to a million." His arm encircled Preung's waist. She was no longer an heiress. A common girl. One with a good heart and smooth skin. Fabo paid the bill. 300 baht was tomorrow's breakfast or five beers tonight.

Paradise.

I was heading home. Fabo and Preung strolled to room 101. It was the closest. He did look like me me from twenty years ago, if I had a broken nose. I had been only forty-four the year of his birth.

Not young, but younger and therefore rich, because youth was always worth billions in both dollars and baht. And never in Zaire Francs.

NO SWIMMING ALLOWED by Peter Nolan Smith

The weather forecast predicted a sultry summer day for September 7, 2001. My friend Alia had transported a Porsche Boxer from the UK and her high-octane convertible had been cleared by US Customs. The British diplomat ha asked me to accompany her to the Newark docks ro pick up the sports car and I agreed on the stipulation that we drove the two-seater convertible north along the Palisades Interstate Parkway on Hudson. The late morning traffic on Route 9 was light for a Friday.

"Where to?" The blonde mother of six had left the children with her ex-husband for the day. Alia was up for most anything.

"I know a place." I extolled Lake Minnewaska Park. The property had once belonged to the Mohonk Mountain House. THe loges of Lakes Awosting had fallen into disrepair and burned to the ground and the land been reverted to the state. "There are two glacial lakes there. Standing arop that cliff over Lake Awosting you casn seen teh scrappings of the Great Glaicier. I've been going up there since the 1980s. Once I jumped off the cliff into the lake."

"How high?"

"Sixty feet." It felt like a hundred.

"We won't be performing any death-defying feats today."

"No, those days are over."

I was nearing fifty. The gravity transformed the water to semi-hard mud and the soles of my feet were very tender.

"We're going to Lake Awosting. Its slanted stone beach bears the scars of the Ice Age Glaciers before disappearing to the lake's blue-emerald waters. It's famlusly called a sky lake."

"Fabulous, it will be my last swim before autumn." The slim blonde diplomat loved hot weather and we taxied over to the Port of Newark. Her last posting had been in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania and she conversed in Swahili with the Tanzanian taxi driver.

At the entrance to the docks the Customs officials treated the UK under-assistant to the UN with the utmost deference. Oxford had been her alma mater. Her family dated back to before the invention of sliced bread. The process of retrieving her car lasted about seven minutes. She beamed a smile of thanks to the officials and we sat in her Porsche Boxer. It bore green diplomatic plates.

"I bought this from my mother's inheritance. Sitting in it reminds me of her. Driving it even more so. She liked a good car." Alia pressed a button. The top folded into the rear. She gave the engine some gas. I had met her mother in London. A Tory, but a good woman dedicated to the education of the masses.

"The car sounds fast." I settled back into the leather seat and appreciated the growl of Teutonic power.

"The 2.7 liter engine has a top speed of 152 MPH."

"Speed limit in the USA is 55."

"I had it up to 100 in England. The speed limit there is 70."

"I once drove 220 KPH in Belgium, driving a VW GTI." It hadn't been the fastest car on the road. BMWs rolle by me, as if the VW was standing still.

Wait until we get on the road." Alia shifted into first and released the clutch, shedding her mother of six status for the role of a woman on the run. Her Thelma. Me Louise.

Even though the Porsche bore diplomatic plates, she ran the car below 90 on the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River, except for the uphill runs on the Northway. State troopers only station downhill speed traps. We made good time listening to her collection of 80s hits. Soft Cell TAINTED LOVE, Frankie Goes to Hollywood RELAX, Wham CARELESS WHISPERS. Our friendship dated back to London. Leicester Square. 1985. She had arrived in a black rubber dressto the entrance of at the Cafe de Paris. I let her in immediately, never guessing that this sliver of blonde was a diplomat for the shards of the English Empire. We had been friens ever since.

Conversation was impossible at this speed. We listened to loud 1980s English Pop on the stereo. When we hit a deserted stretch of the Northway, Alia floored the accelerator.

Seconds later we hit 130 on an empty road.

The wind ripped through our hair.

Exiting at New Paltz Alice switched to the radio. NPR was reporting on America's pulling out of the South African conference on racism. The delegation contested the vote on Israel's mistreatment of the occupied territories.

"That's not good." Our new president, George W Bush was born-again as was the British PM Tony Blair. Israel was always right in their eyes.

"Israel has a right to protest any accusation as does the countries opposing it." Alice was 100% on the side of compromise to achieve peace.

"Stolen lands." I felt the same way about the north counties of Ireland under English rule, but said nothing more. It was too beautiful a day.

The Shawangunk Mountains or 'Gunks' were crowded with rock climbers. People come from around the country to attack the cliffs' near vertical ascent routes. We drove by these cliffs to the Lake Awosting park. The lot was half-filled. Throwing towels over our shoulders with bathing suits in hand Alice and I set out for Lake Awosting. Few hikers were on the trail. Unusual for such a lovely day. The three mile path had been built for vacationers at the Lake Mohonk Resort. A carriage road designed to offer panoramic vistas of the Hudson Valley. Alice and I enjoyed our walk and soon Lake Awosting came into sight.

Boreal blue water surrounded by evergreen pines.

No one on the granite beach.

An ATV rolled up the trail driven by a hefty state ranger. “Where you heading?”

“Lake Awosting.”

“You’re not going swimming there?” Her voice adopted a tone of authority.

“Why not?” I was dumbfounded by her interrogation. This was America. The Land of the Free.

“Because it’s against the law to swim in the lakes after Labor Day.”

"My friend has been saying that Lake Awosting is the best swim in the Catskills. We thought that we might test his theory." Alice's accent was sheer Oxford. The language of command.

“There are no lifeguards.” The ranger stood, as if she had been instructed to enforce this mandate by GW Bush himself.

“I can swim three miles. What’s the problem?” I knew that the problem was that lawyers were waiting for some drunk fool to jump into the lake and break their back, so they could sue the state parks for several million dollars.

“It’s the law.”

Alia touched my arm. She had diplomatic immunity. Also tact. I had neither. Only a sense of outrage. Explanations were a waste of breath. Law was the law. We turned away from our destination.

"It's a stupid law."

She possessed a diplomat's gift of knowing when to say nothing.

"Thank you, officer."

The park ranger drove down the road to the lake.

"You still want to go swimming no matter what she said?"

I shrugged a 'yes'.

"The law is the law and as a guest of your country I am obliged to obey them."

"Drat."

We turned away from the forbidden pleasure of Lake Awosting's crystal-clear water.

"This America has become the Land of No."

"It's the times. Not the country."

"More like both. Let's go back to New York." The City was the last bastion of the Free.

On the trip home the radio announced that the USA bailing out of the Racism Conference in South Africa in protest of a nearly unanimous condemnation of Israel for their occupation of Palestine.

"Another thing I hate about America."

"What?"

"Nothing." Anti-Zionist talk was as legal in this America as swimming after Labor Day.

I needed a drink.

Alia and I stopped at a bar in New Paltz.

Three beers later I was ready to resume our return to New York. I didn't have to drive. Alia was sober. She never drank liquor and the Porsche hit 140 on the Freeway. I sat back and enjoyed the ride, because speed was a rare freedom in America and Alia loved driving fast. All I had to do was watch the wind and be free with the wind.

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Plastic Plastic Everywhere 2011

Over forty years ago Jomtien Beach was a hidden paradise. The drive from Bangkok took 4-6 hours depending on the tides. The Sukhumvit road was flooded twice daily by the coming and going of the sea. The Old Roué of the Orient tells on swimming at dawn with a lovely Thai girl.

"Fish leapt from the water. It was clear as gin."

Thirty years of tourist expansion have not been kind to the Gulf of Siam.

Two days ago I had arrived in Thailand and taxied south from Bangkok to Jomtien, where my wife lived with my son, Fenway. I sat with my friends on the narrow strand of beach. The beer was cold and the islands on the horizon hovered over the sea like UFOs from Eden. The wind was gentle and holiday makers from Ban Nok frolicked in the shallow water. For many it was their first time seeing the sea. None of them noticed the thousands of plastic bags floating on the surface like desiccated jellyfish. The shoreline was a solid bunker of plastic trash.

I spent five minutes picking up flotsam. Mostly plastics bags. Within ten minutes the beach was clean.

"I don't know why you bother. Everyday. Next high tide and the trash is back." An overweight British lager lout had witnessed my Sisyphean efforts on the beach before.

"I don't care about then. I care about now," I took off my glasses. My myopia Xed out the plastic in the water, but the Brit was right. The next high tide deposited another harvest of trash. 

Once more mostly plastic bags.

Thais blame the sea-borne garbage on fishermen. They are mostly Cambodian. No one likes to blame themselves, since the real source of the plastics are 7/11s and food stalls shops along the beach. The person leave their trash on the beach, as if they city of Pattaya is paying someone to haul it to a landfill on the Moon.

The city depended on the sea.

"Remember in THE GRADUATE," said my friend Richard, who was teaching in Saudi Arabia. No bars. No booze. No women. No porno. The South African's sole form of entertainment was watching old movies. "The man saying the future was plastics."

"He was a prophet." Mark an Aussie mate, detested my crusade against plastic as demeaning for a foreigner. He also hated the plastic. "Some Swede invented plastic bags in the early 60s. They didn't hit the UK until the 80s."

"Fish was wrapped in newspaper. Sometimes the skin would bear the headlines."

"Teenage packers at the supermarket check-out specialized in sorting the right shaped food into the bags." Mark was almost as old as me. The 60s were a different time from today.

"The Thais used banana leaves."

I recalled buying khao or steamed rice surrounded by a leaf. The cook had added spices. The rice was delicious unlike anything in the West.

"Now the stores give plastic bags for everything." Mark pointed to a passing Thai beach vendor carrying a plastic bag of fried bananas.

"A pack of gum or cigarettes." Richard loved his cigarettes.

"The Chinese pharmacist on Pattaya Tai says her customers think she is being kee-neo or cheap, if she doesn't give them a plastic bag. Food candy or chips. They want them no matter the size of the purchase."

"It's free." Mark traveled from free food bar to free for bar. His UK pension shrank with every crisis back home.

"Whenever I refuse them, the clerk regards me as if I were pian or weird."

The Thais are no different from farangs. They regard my trash discipline as that of a crazy man.

"Young people think that is choice or old-fashioned."

"Young people regard us as dinosaurs. "

"And they're not wrong." Fifty-nine years old, however my aversion to plastic bags was spreading across the globe. Bhutan was the first nation to ban the eyesores. Ireland and France placed a surcharge on the bags. 90% reduction of bags entering the garbage centers in those countries. The petro-chemical companies have lost 25% of their global reach due to bans and restrictions. The USA has been slow to buck the plastic mania as Big Oil rules the nation.

"Africa is covered in plastic bags filled with shit. It's called the poor man's toilet." Richard from Jomtien had recently visited his family in SA. He considers nowhere his home.

"Nice image. Shit and plastic. The future is plastic shit." Mark ordered three beers for the beach boy. "Mai oow tung plastic."

The Thai beach boy brought the beers in a plastic bag, saying he only had two hands.

They were ice cold.

Later that evening I mentioned the ban of plastic to Fenway's mom. She thought that I was crazy.

"Not have plastic bag. Have what? Banana? You choice."

Thais throw plastic out the window and expect the trash to blow away with the wind.

Breaking this addiction to ease will take years.

Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific. Remote and idyllic, yet millions of plastic bags wash up on the tropical beaches every day.

I don't mean to lecture.

I hated sermons.

And I don't mind picking up plastic bags.

Keeps me limber.

But one day I' hope to see none of the beach.

No, actually I'd like to see them never.

Cause that's the way of the new modern world to come, no matter what the wants of the Filthy Rich.

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Bah Fucking Xmas

I remain true to the old school despite my non-believer status.

Today we were hanging ornaments on the tree at the residence in Luxembourg. I came down in a Scrooge-like night garment. The young people regarded me strange and I explained that I was Scrooge. They had no idea what I was talking about.

"Don't you know Tiny Tim?" They had to be aware of the youngest Crackett's soul.

No was the expression of their face. They were ignorant of Christmas Past Present or Future.

"Fucking hell." I stormed upstairs in an atheistic huff. "Fucking Bah Humbug."

They could decorate their Giftmas tree by themselves.

There is no Christmas in the world of Skyrim and it's a good thing that I didn't ask them for the words to WHITE CHRISTMAS.

They wouldn't have even known how to hum it.

Dumb little bastards.

Dunkel Dunkel - 2011

Published December 20, 2011

The word for darkness in German is 'dunkel'. Darkness is 'dunkelheit' and today dawned very 'dunkel' in the Rhine city of Cologne. The farther north in Europe the shorter the days, as the northern hemisphere approaches the winter solstice. After the dunkel of night comes the gray dawn and this morning I will visit the Gothic cathedral of Koln. Somehow this massive structure avoided the destruction visited on Germany during the allied bombing campaigns of WWII, although that wasn't for lack of trying, Old photos reveal that the 8th Army Air Force had leveled the city surrounding the famed cathedral and the photos revealed it had been relentlessly targeted, even though the Air force swore they were avoiding the cathedral. Hardly.

The city was hit 262 times by saturation air raids and the population was reduced to 95% by the war's end.

Few if any of the older buildings survived the catastrophe intact, but the cobblestones remained untouched by the explosions and they are very slippery under foot in the night damp.

Koln rose like an eagle to become Germany's fourth largest city.

Not bad, but still very dunkel.

Koln is a long way from summer this time of year, but this evening I'll be flying from Dusseldorf to Thailand to see my kids, get some sun, and drink some beer.

Happy Holidays.

Burning Credit Cards

In 2011 Antonio Villaraigosa Mayor of LA has accused the Occupy LA protestors of damaging the grass in their campsite. Riots police have been deployed to protect the lawn from further harm.

"After 56 days of not enforcing three city laws that prohibit the use of that park, the time is now," announced Police Chief Beck, however the midnight deadline passed without the planned eviction, thus disrupting the security of the nation. Tear gas, billy clubs, and officers trained by Homeland Security to quell violent demonstrators remain at the ready.

Banks are worried that the protests will disrupt the holiday buying frenzy, but shoppers faithfully swarmed to the malls on Black Friday to outspend 2010's orgy of consumerism by 7%. ATMs were flooded by consumers eager to rescue the economy from the recession, each time getting hit by a charge of $1.50. The banks reap over $2 billion from ATMs along with another $36 billion in fees from the masses. All of this is profit and in this country profit is the bottom line for the corporation.

Carry cash, comrades.

Never buy what you can't afford, unless the aim is to never pay the credit card bills.

Don't worry you credit rating is shit.

Burn the cards to the limit.

You have nothing to lose but a good time.

Liege Lost 2011

Luxembourg bound
From Oxford
The Ambassador behind the wheel
A Porsche Boxer
140 kph
Arrive
Folkestone
Late
Well past Midnight___
Wait
In the car park
Board the car-train
Chunnel
To
Pas De Calais
Night
Northern France
On the Autoroute___
The Ambassador behind the wheel
The Porsche fast
180kph
Alice loves speed___
Moi
Un passenger
Le passage
Flat
Eyes shut
Sleep
Wake
Still
Safe on the Autoroute
The ambassador behind the wheel
175 KPM
France becomes Belgium
Jacques Brel's land
Le plat pays qui est a mienne___
Walloonia
Luxembourg three hours away___
Sleep
Wake
We are lost
On a bleak urban street
A dead end
Not a soul in sight
Nothing says where we are
But I know__
Liege
I've been here before
With the ambassador
Two months ago
Alice
Behind the wheel
Lost before Lost now__ The ambassador says one word "Liege."
Alice and I have been here before
With the ambassador
Behind the wheel
Of this car
Lost
Same street
I say
"Turn around."
I have a good sense of direction Even in the dark
We have been her before__
Back on the Autoroute
Luxembourg bound
Lost in Liege
Well behind us
Heading into the dawn___

The Unforgiving 2011

The pizza boy and babysitter are icons of pornography with good reason. A well-hung teenage boy with a pizza fits most American women's fantasy of a cheap fuck, while a sexual encounter with the neighbor's young daughter is the dream of most suburban men.

I had a thing for my babysitter. Addy Manzi was the prettiest girl in my hometown. She let my older brother and me stay up late. Kissing her was the opening act for a wet dream. I never got to bat in my teenage years. My Italian-American neighbor was 15 and I was 12.

I never stood a chance.

Over the years I driven home friends' babysitters. They arrived home intact and without having to listen to my old hippie music. The older I got the more these girls seemed to be children and I'm was happy to bask in the beam of the youth from the passenger seat.

Some men are not so circumspect and in July of 2011 an Oregon Democrat, David Wu, admitted to having 'consensual' sex with his eighteen year-old babysitter. The girl was a daughter of a friend/donor. His version of 'consensual' ran contrary to the message the girl left at his congressional office.

In my mind no always means no, unless it's a sadomasochistic relationship in which a safety word is substituted for no.

Faced with the growing outrage the congressman announced his resignation, although he waited for after the contentious budget vote to fulfill his promise.

What he did was wrong.

The man is a mess.

He was into oxycodin.

The people of Oregon will be better served by a new representative, however reading the comments from the National Review's online site once more revealed the severe schism between Americans.

The comments started off fairly innocuous. Attacks on democraps and calls for his immediate resignation, but it didn't take long for the vitriolic rancor to summon up deep-rooted prejudices against Asians.

"The Chinese don't have the same values as Christians."

Thank the stars for that.

I agree with them about this congressman being a scumbag, but he was Korean, then again every Asians looked slant-eyed to Americans. Somehow all of Asia is related to the dirty Japs. He resigned within the month.

Forget never.

Forgive never.

Not in this nation, despite of George Bush's wish to create a kinder gentler nation.

Now we know what he meant, but what can be expected from a family who laundered gold for the Nazis?

Adolf Hitler was very good to his dog.

His name was Blondi.

Arf Arf.

Photo of Dino's Pizza in Boston's Combat Zone

Collection #0244.001, City of Boston Archives,

No Future For SS

Back in 2011 Social Security send out a form listing my contributions to the retirement fund.

I had goose-egged many years and accordingly my expectations for a nest egg upon reaching sixty were next to zero, however most Baby Boomers will receive enough money from the Big Deal program to feed themselves, while going through their savings. Many Americans had planned on living off the interest of their savings or selling off their homes to pay for their golden years. The banks have denuded the interest earned on their pensions and savings account, so that Social Security haas become the sole method available to prevent seniors from living off cat food.

in 2011 GOP's Texas Tornado had declared in an op-ed piece in USA Today that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Rick Perry wanted to revolutionize SS without proposing any real option to replace the 80 year-old program.

Florida exists on SS.

Count on him to come in dead last in that state.

He has touched the 3rd rail of American politics and he now can touch the sky.

ps

one of the reasons SS worked was that the fund received interest on the deposits.

Interest rates in America are less than the inflation rate thanks to the banks wanting cheap rates from the Fed.

The Heritage of Alan Greenspan.

The Fed Guru.

They make money the old-fashioned way

They steal it.

And the GOP plans on stealing more too.

Bring on the Revolution - 2011

Last week I went out to eat with my nephews and their parents at a Mexican restaurant on Okochobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach. The conversation gravitated to sports; baseball for Trey, golf for Reese, and basketball for their father and me. Their mother was happy to be left in peace. After dinner we stepped into a warm Florida night. There was no one in the parking lot.

Looking at the colorful mural on the wall, I said, “Mexico 1968.”

“What about it?” AK’s slender and ever-beautiful wife responded with interest. We were more friends than before. I was good to her kids and nothing earns trust from a mother faster than treating their spawn well. My clan was far away in Thailand.

“Summer Olympics was held in Mexico City.”

“More like the Autumn Olympics. For some reason they were in October.”

“Summer or fall didn’t matter after Bob Beamon set a world record in the high jump at the altitude of 6000 feet. Rightfully never an asterisk for that jump." My individual best had been in my senior year. 1970. 19'6".

“He broke the previous record by a foot and a half.” AK joined in the telling. He was my age. 1968 was our youth.

“The world was on fire. Only the week before hundreds of students had been shot by the Mexican army and the streets of America were on fire after the assassination of Martin Luther King.”

“Could we talk about something else?” AK and I went back over thirty years to 1973. He was no born-again conservative, but the right-wing Storm Front had their headquarter meetings not far from here, White people in Florida tend to be whiter than most whites elsewhere in the USA and my talk was incendiary to white people, but the parking lot was empty.

“Let him talk.” AK’s blonde wife taught music at a private school. The curriculum was restrained by religion. She appreciated my loose tongue. ”

“Other places were in revolt too. Viet-Nam, Paris, Prague.”

I sang the first stanza of the Rolling Stones’ STREET FIGHTING MAN.

“Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy, cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy.”

AK rolled his eyes. He was more into R&B than rock, having played in the Authentics, a Boston funk band, to pay for his tuition at Berkeley School of Music. On our cross-country trip in 1974 AK had taught me how to play the kazoo.

"No one at the Olympics protested the death of hundreds of Mexican students. The army was in the streets. The olympic committee banned any protests by the athletes. The best runner in the world was Tommie Smith, 220 and 440 champion. A black man."

“From California.” AK was a sports nut too. Knicks versus my Celtics. We had played countless one-on-ones on the playgrounds of Boston and New York. He dominated the first twenty years. I outlasted his knees during the 90s, although now neither of us were in good shape.

“Tommie Smith set a world record in the 220.

“Time 19.83 seconds.” AK was showing off sports knowledge to his sons.

My best time in the 440 was 54.8 seconds. About thirty yrds behind Tommie Smit's best.

"At the medal ceremony Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the bronze winner, lifted their fists during THE STAR-SPANGLED banner to protest the mistreatment of blacks in America.”

My best friend in school is black.” Reese was named after the Dodgers' Pee Wee Reese.

“And what he say in class the other day.” AK was a Brooklyn boy at heart.

“That his father had been killed in Iraq. His father was a soldier.” Reese was eleven. Old enough to understand that death meant death. His younger brother believed in Santa Claus. I wished that I did too.

“Probably a good man as was the silver-medal winner from Australia.”

“Peter Norman wore an American “civil rights” badge as support to them on the podium.” AK remembered the incident better than me. “The Olympic Committee banned Smith and Carlos from the Village and Norman was dropped from the 1972 team.”

“The good are always good at the moment of their best.”

I explained the myth of the rights of man. My nephews were fast studies and loyal nephews. We were two miles from The Breakers Hotel. I told them a story that I had heard three years ago.

“The beachfront hotel had been a world-class destination for over a century. The railroad tycoon Henry Flagler completed construction on his resort for the rich in 1896. That night Flagler held a BBQ for the laborers on the golf course. While they feasted on ribs and chicken, Flagler ordered his goons to burn out the workers’ bungalows, thus insuring that no poor people will ever live on the barrier island.”

‘Is that a true story?” My oldest nephew asked his father. We had been friends for almost forty years. The West Palm Beach school teacher shrugged with suspicion.

“True as far as I know.” My source had lived in Palm Beach since her childhood, but was no historian. “But that wasn’t right either. That’s why we protest against the evil in man.”

“Your uncle tells a good story.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Interesting if true. That’s you.”

My nephews and I posed before the Mexican mural with raised fists. Their mother took the photo. We said good night. It had been great to see AK and his family. The last time had been in the summer of 2008. Things were better now.

Later that night I went online to find out the truth about the Breakers.

It wasn’t there.

Then again the truth is yet to be told.

Bring on the revolution.

The youth is with us and we are coming for your children.

Lost In Lille Again 2011

After the Chunnel
Night
Luxembourg bound
Porsche Boxer
The Ambassador behind the wheel
Moi
Un passenger
Through the North of France
Flat
Same as Belgium
Jacques Brel's
Le plat pays qui est a mienne.
Eyes shut
Still seeing the flatness
Safe on the Autoroute
The ambassador behind the wheel
Luxembourg three hours away
Sleep
Wake
Past midnight
On a bleak urban street
Not a soul in sight
Nothing says where we are
But I know.
Lille
I've been here before
With the ambassador
Behind the wheel
A wrong turn on the Autoroute.
Lost before
Lost now.
The ambassador says one word
"Lille."
I nod without a word.
We have been here before.
Luxembourg bound
Lost in Lille Again

Gone the Tundra

WINTER 2011

My early youth was spent along the coast of Maine. Winters were harsh. My father was native to Westbrook and every autumn would say, "There are two seasons in Maine. Winter and preparing for winter."

He had learned this adage from his father and his father from his father, for no matter how corny the comment sounds it is true in Maine.

My family headed south to Boston in the summer of 1960. The season lasted weeks longer in our South Shore suburb. Winter was shorter than in Falmouth Foresides across the harbor from Portland's Eastern Promenade. We lived in a land of four seasons and my mother loved the change in the weather.

"Just wait a few minutes in Boston and the weather will change." My mother was a proud Bostonian. Her mother came from the lands north of the Connemara and said of her Ireland, "It was either raining, just finished raining, or about the start raining."

The weather is a safe subject. A beautiful day owes little to religion. It is a gift from Nature and I moved farther south to New York in 1976 to fall in love with a painter from Pennsylvania. Ro left her Brooklyn Heights apartment several hours before my arrival. There was no letter of explanation. I could have returned back to Boston, except April was early spring in New York and the end of winter along the Charles River.

I've lived many places since that day; Paris, Hamburg, Key West, Perpignan, Isla Mujeres, Bali, Sumatra, Thailand, and Palm Beach. Weather differs in each location, but I'm used to the temperate climate of New York. It has been my home for over 30 years.

Winter was never much of a concern in New York. A scattering of snow here and there during the season. Global warming had transformed the five boroughs to a semi-tropical climate throughout the summer of 2010. The temperature rarely hit the high 90s. I threw the air-conditioner in the street. The harvest of tomatoes were glorious and I swam at Fort Tilton into October. The local meteorologists offered no predictions for the winter of 2010-2011. Their crystal ball of their science offered a mere ten days window into the future.

The first snowfall was on November 16. Light snowflakes swirling on the wind. December for the most part was normal. Average High: 44°F and Average Low: 32°F. Christmas in Boston was cold, but nothing arctic. I awoke on December 26 and my nephew was on the phone. His flight to Washington had been canceled due to an extreme weather alert. A major blizzard was aiming at the US capitol. 24-36 inches of snow. New York was next in line. I had been planning to leave Boston the following day, however the Weather Channel was predicting storm of the century status for the impending blizzard. My nephew and I evacuated Boston on the 11am Fung Wah bus.

The journey usually takes about 4 hours. The snow hit I-95 south of New Haven. We didn't reach Chinatown until 3pm. Good time, but I had spoken with Ms. Carolina down south and she had said that the snow was heavy. I offered my nephew a bed in Fort Greene. He had work the next day. We bid good-bye with a hug and I took a taxi across the river. The driver dropped me at Frank's Lounge for a drink. My landlord and his family had flown west to California for the holidays. They were out of harm's way.One beer turned into four and I finally exited from my local drinking hole into a full-blown blizzard.

I barely made it home and the next morning I woke to a winter wonderland. 24 inches of white stuff. Nature had shut down New York. The mayor was pissed at the city workers for their response to the emergency, but the trains weren't running and the mayor is a fuckhead. He fired the EMS chief to appease the right-wing press who were blaming the lack of services on the unions rather than the epic snow fall.

January had its share of ice and snow. Winter was seemingly endless. I landed at JFK from Thailand. The airport was only accepting international flights. The entire Northeast was shut down.

Cars remained buried until the beginning of February. The city was the frontier of the tundra. Some meteorologists spoke about the New Ice Age. The Far North was very close last week. I left the city on a freezing cold morning. Winter had a month more to go at least.

The flight to West Palm Beach lasted a little more than two hours. Palm Beach was cooler than normal. I swam off Chilean Avenue. The sea was warmer than the air. I got a tan. The sun sucked out my aches and pains. A lingering cough disappeared in the warmth. I swam several times. The Sunshine State was the fountain of youth. I returned to New York.

No feeling about the weather.

The air was cold, but there was no snow. The tundra had been vanquished by several rain storms and a short thaw. Tonight the weathermen have been calling for snow. A dusting. I'm walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan. Winter is over this year.

Brave words for the end of February.

Stags Shagging In Season

Written Oct 24, 2011

Putney was not exactly the center of London, but I chose to stay with Sara. We were the best of friends. Dawn came early at her house. Every morning the record executive walked her sweet little dog, Maysie, in Richmond Park. I was a stranger to the Royal Park, the largest in London, and was pleasantly surprised by its wild expanse of bracken meadows and even more so by the spectacle of rutting stags. Autumn was the time of the year, when the male red deer contest for hinds by a display of their antlers, bellowing, and plain old knock-down fighting.

The stags roared at each other, as we walked past the harems. We were no threat, but barking dogs bring out the protective instinct in the big males. They don't want anything fucking around with their mates and I stay well out of their way. Antlers have points and Sara told me that several walkers had been charged by the big bucks.

While I am covered by National Health in the EEU thanks to my Irish passport, I have little interest in getting gored by an irate stag. Sara guided me to safety. Maysie was not a barker. She knew her place on the feeding chain and I gave her a little treat as a reward for not irking the deer.

She was a good little dog.