ERIN GO BALI 1990

My first trip to Bali was in 1990. Kuta Beach was the island's most popular tourist destination for sea, sun, and fun. Being a pseudo-intellectual I opted for Ubud, an idyllic village reknown for Legong dancers, ornate temples, and non-disco evenings in bamboo cafes playing Balinese trance music.

I rented a small house off the Monkey Forest Road surrounded by verdant rice paddies. My bedroom overlooked a ravine whose fragile stream served the village's bathing needs. Ketut the house boy served breakfast and instant coffee in the morning. I wrote on a Brother Electric Typewriter. At night croaking frogs accompanied the gamelan music from the Pura Dalem temple. There was no international phone service other than at the post office. Traveler’s checks and cash were the sole forms of monetary transactions.

At night I listened to the BBC World News on a Sony World Radio and read tattered used books. Dragonflies buzzed through the room and the stars tolerated no earthly rival. I loved Ubud and stayed in the town for months.

Nearing March 17th I suggested to several westerners or ‘mistahs’ that we should staged a St. Patrick’s Day parade. None of them had Hibernian roots. My Balinese friends were enthused at the idea of celebrating Ireland's patron saint by drinking beer.

"And we wear green."

My house servant Ketut shook his head.

“Can not wear green. This unlucky color.”

“Unlucky.” He had used the Bahasa word ‘blog’. I had never heard it before.

"Yes, my uncle he have green car have many accidents.”

"Green is good luck in Ireland and Ireland is the European Bali."

"Ireland tidak Bali. No green and you not wear green too." Tuut was adamant about this edict, but said, "We drink beer and make music."

"That is good luck?"

"Drink beer always good luck."

Especially if a 'mistah' paid for it. I didn't argue with tradition and adjusted St. Patrick's Day in accordance with local customs.

On March 17th Ketut, his friend, and I drank Bintang beer at the Cafe Bali. They brought drums. I sang Irish ballads of British oppression and at sunset we marched down Monkey Forest Road with me singing BY THE RISING OF THE MOON. I adlibed the words.

Ketut said it was a sweet song.

“By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon, the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon."

Other Balinese joined the march. No one wore green. We trooped back to the Cafe Bali and switched from beer to 'arak', a strong palm wine. It wasn't as strong as Jamison's Whiskey, but it was a good drink for the first St. Patrick's Day in Ubud and I told Tuut, "Maybe one day you will wear green."

"Maybe a long time away from today."

"But not as far as never. Semoga Beruntung."

I thought that meant good luck and replied, "Go n-éirí an bóthar leat!"

At least I thought I said that.

Everyone clinked beer glasses.

I hadn't worn green either. It was bad luck in Bali and Indonesia in general since the color signified exorcism and infidelity. Satan was not in my soul and I was faithful to the world. The Wearing of the Green had to wait to someplace else.

It's a color close to my heart. Erin go bagh.

ps this was originally written in 2013

Ulysees By James Joyce

View from my bungalow 1990 Ubud Bali overlooking the bathing creek.

At the age of 24 I was asked by a young women what was philosophy of life. I had taken Philosophy 101 at university. I faintly recalled the professors' teaching, but I was stumped to find an answer. Nothing? Then I said, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The woman shook her head and said, "So you have none."

"No, I also believe in Live for Today," quoting the the 1968 title of the Grassroots hit. Was I troubled by my shallow replies. Yes, but throughout the years I strove for more understanding through Rilke, Taigu Ryokan, but not Joyce's Ulysses, although I carried a hardback edition during my numerous travels through Asia.

I finally abandoned it in Bali. At my favorite homestay with a western view of the volcano Gunung Batukaru. When I returned the following year, it was serving as a door stop and I realized that even the greatest meaning is irrelevant in the right circumstances. I took it to my room, planning to read the first page. It sat on my desk overlooking the Ubud River and the emerald rice fields stretching to a volcano. I laid my hands on the book. Osmosis failed to penetrate Joyce and I realized that I was traveling the world to open my senses.

To see, not look. To listen and not just hear. To feel to taste to breathe every fragrance and smells and nothing.

Always back to nothing, because it is everything.

As for Ulysees hrere's the first paragraph__

STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: -- Introibo ad altare Dei.

I translated this Latin phrase as 'introduce to the Altar of God' thanks to my studyoing Latin with the Sisters of St. Joseph and serving as an altar boy. Latin was my first second language in grammar and high school. Google translator correct my meaning to 'I will enter the altar of God.' The vowel at the ending of the first word 'Introibo' should have been a giveaway or indicium. I considered Joyce's writing this phrase as high-flouting intellectualism.

Samuel Butler in Canto I Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664) attacked the knowledge of Latin with the following quote.

“Beside, 't is known he could speak Greek, As naturally as pigs squeak; That Latin was no more difficile Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.”

ie Speaking latin well is a sign that no one has to now everything.

Adn to misquote a later Samuel Butler, "Ita, bene Latine loqui signum est neminem omnia scire debere."

Montauk # 29

Autumn morning
Again
Ditch Plains
Off-shore easterly
Surfers riding a chest-high swell
Seagulls skating the crest
A bright sun
No sunglasses
Squint
Richie Boy thinking
Work or surf___
A fishing boat chugging to harbor
At least twenty aged surf bums
On the break___
We
On the beach
Richie Boy
A friend for almost fifty years
On a bench
Rubbing his knee
Surveying the ocean___
1993
Bingin Beach
Bali
A forever left
Forever overhead
Too big for me
No matter
I go out
On a borrowed board
A potato chip___
A big set coming in
Paddle
Over the first wave
Paddle
Over the second wave
Richie and me over
My arms al dente noddles
The third wave
Richie makes to the lip
Look back
His face horror
Then the wave buries me in a washing machine
There is no up or down
No richie
No Bali
Only the head over heels tumble
Over the coral reef___
Under a long time
Thirty seconds
Forty
Pop to the surface
Grab a breath buried again
Longer
At the mercy
Of Lord Baruna
The Balinese God of the Sea
I don't pray
I'm an atheist
Also
I'm too busy drowning
Gulp Glug Glup___
Spit up on the sand
Blowing out ocean
My beach boy
Relieved
I back from the dead
Reincarnated once more
Into this body
It wasn't the first time
Nor the last
No more surfing that day
Time to spit out ocean
And drink beers into the night
With Richie
The massage girls
On the Bingin Cliff
Sampai Jumpa___
Time elastic
Snap forward to October 2024
Ditch Plains
Montauk
Richie
Rubs his knees
Yesterday morning
A good hour in the line-up
Pushing it hard__
Now rubbing his knees
No surf today
We look at each other
We work-bound
But
Just not yet
Thank you for life Lord Baruna
Terima kasih banyak___

Bingin Bali Always Overhead

Bingin Beach The Indian Ocean

1994
Me from Sumatra
Richie Boy from Manhattan
To surf Bali
Bingin Beach
Eternal overhead left
Bigger than big
The water ankle deep o'er the reef.
RW next to me
A big wave coming
I
Pearl sliding down the face
Into the turmoil of a close-out.
Surface
The swell thickened and monsterifized
Double over head.
I paddle for life
Make two shoulders
I almost reach the third's lip
Then
Backward o'er the falls
Buried by under a bone crusher.
Ten seconds in the washer
Twenty sensing up
Or down.
Thirty seconds more and no more struggle.
I pull on my lease
Miraculously haul myself to the surface
Richie looks worried
With good reason.
Buried again

In the tumbler again
Breathing ocean.
Near death again.
Spit to the surface
Close to shore
Sand under my feet.
Collapse on dry beach
Dripping sea from my nose
Puking water from my lungs.

I turn to the waves.

RW shouts my name
Maddog
I had been more dead than alive
I ain't no more
I'm at Bingin Beach
With Richie Boy Always left overhead
Always

Legong Dancers Ubud Bali 1990

In 1990 I summered on Bali. Five years before the Internet. I traveled north from the surfers' mecca of Kuta Beach to the mystical village of Ubud.

My grandaunt Marion had traveled to the Orient and brought back a small carved mahogany bust of a delicate Balinese dancer. My aunt passed in 1959. The bust became mine. I dreamed on Bali ever since.

Here I was. Almost forty years later. My simple windowless bungalow overlooked a deep ravine at which families bathed afore sunset with verdant rice paddies stretching miles to a horizon of dormant volcanoes. My days were simple. Toast and coffee from the landlord's second son, Made. Writing on a manual typewriter. Countless typos. An inexpensive Lunch of nasi goreng or fried rice with chicken at the Jalan Raya Ubud market. Dirt underfoot. Shade from the hot sun. A cold Bintang beer. $3 plus tip. Saya Suka Bali. After lunch a short stroll to watch the guru tari or teacher instruct young dancers practice the exquisitely elegant Legong ballet accompanied by a lilting gamelan tape.

I sat in the shades of the temple observing the centuries old choreographed ritual steps and gestures. Despite the increasing numbers of tourists Ubud retained its hold on eternity and I was blessed to hear the wondrous gamelan music floating over the rice. I thought of Aunt Marion, wishing she were with me. I guess she was.

Somewhere in my storage awaits the Balinese statute.

No More Peace For Christmas

On Friday the truce between Hamas and the IDF ended with an intense aerial bombardment by Israeli F-16 with little regard for civilians in the Gaza ghetto. The IDF ordered Palestinians to vacate the North to the Strip to South increasing the population density to 13,000 per square kilometers. Leaflets accompanied the attacks telling the refugees to flee further south only there is no more Gaza to go. The IDF command strategy seems to have adopted the Ottoman Empire's Final Solution for the Armenians of marching them into the dessert to die. Netanyahu's supporters only see two solutions to settle the question of what to do with Palestine.

The desert or the sea.

There is another option.

The human shield.

In 1906 the Balinese royalty decided to combat the Dutch invaders preferring to commit Puputan or mass ritual suicide rather than submit to slavery under William II of Orange. Over a thousand Baliense nobles died that day. The Palestinians are left with a similar. To live to die or to die to live rather than accept the two choices offered by the Zionists.

Holocaust or Death.

There is no safety.

And the world has once more turned its back on Gaza and the West Bank.

The Arab rulers have once more remained silent rather than risk an internal threat to their kingdoms. Greed has always been a good card to play in the Gulf when it comes to Palestine.

Yesterday dozens of Israelis from both the hostage families and anti-war protestors gathered before the IDF headquarters in Jaffa, showing no matter what some people still hope for peace, but always at the expense of the Palestinians and Israeli citizens and not the powerful Hassidim voters who don't serve in the military.

Yesterday in the New York Times op-ed page Thomas Friedman wrote that it would be best for the IDF to learn America's unlearnt lessons of 9/11 and fight two wars against intractable foes to defeat. His first suggestion involved the release of hostages for ceasefire without releasing any of the 6000 plus Palestinians in Israeli prisons and supporting the Palestine Authority to resume governance over Gaza. There is no reason for Hammas to trust Netanyahu or the Palestine Authority. Gazans faced with death or death want a fight to the end ie Free Palestine.

Friedman's second option is to create a more secure barrier a mile within Gaza and continue to hit Gaza in retaliation for missile attacks. He also blames Iran and Hezbollah as the masterminds of October 7 revealing the limit of his intelligence due to anti-semitic prejudices.

The Gazans don't want any talk of Christmas. They want peace. Free Palestine. Free Israel. Free the world from the capitalists.

You Bet I Would # 1932

A photo from the collection of Belgian/Indonesian painter Adrien Jean le Mayeur. The artist arrived in Bali by ship in 1932. According to Wikipedia he then stayed in Denpasar Le Mayeur and was fascinated by what remained then of Balinese culture, including the Balinese people's traditional way of life, the temple rituals and local dances. He was also impressed by the light, color and beauty of the surroundings in the then still quite unspoilt island. Le Mayeur rented a house in banjar Kelandis, Denpasar, where he got acquainted with 15-year-old legong dancer, Ni, known by her nickname Ni Pollok , who later on became Le Mayeur's model for his paintings. I spent several winters in Ubud in the early 1990s. Even sixty years later it was a magical island.

Monster Wipe-Out

In 1996 Richie Boy flew out to Bali. I met him at the airport. His baggage consisted of a knapsack and three surfboards.

"Why so many boards?"

"Because one of them is for you." Richie Boy had come halfway around the world to surf Kuta, Ulu Watu, and G-Land.

"Me." My surfing skills were taxed by the Atlantic rollers of Lido Beach.

"Yes, you and I'm not accepting any punk-outs."

I accepted the challenge and that afternoon we hired a car for the drive to Bingin. It was the closest break to Kuta. The beachrats at the parking lot promised that Bingin was a perfect left.

"100% tube." They chorused on the path down the cliff and one look from the bluff affirmed their claim. A glassy double-head wave broke on a shallow coral reef.

"I don't know about this." This was far beyond my comfort zone.

""It'll be fine." Richie Boy promised and pointed to the sea. "We'll paddle out to the left. The shoulder is easy there. Even you can make it over those."

From the beach it looked simple, but lying on the board in the shore break I recognized these were the biggest waves I had ever seen in my life. I was 38.

I scrambled over the first wave. The second was steeper, but my hands scooped at the surface and I glided into the trough only to be faced with another giant wave."

"Paddle!" Richie Boy shouted from his board. He was a good 30 feet ahead of me and cleared the wave without any problem. My arms burned from the exertion and the wave lifted off the reef to become an insurmountable cliff of the ocean.

50 degree.

75 degree.

90 degree and then I was launched into a planetary washing machine.

Three times I surfaced to gasp for breath. Three times I was buried by another watery mammoth. The fourth spit me up on the beach. A beach rat ran up to the shore.

"You have enough?'

"Yeah."

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting a massage from a midget.

Richie Boy came finished the day at sunset and said, "I thought we lost you there."

"It was close thing, but I have good lungs."

I ordered him a beer.

"You want to go out tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is another day."

I had survived the ocean.

"Good man."

"If it gets bad, then there's always beer-drinking."

"Yes, there is always that."

Richie Boy ordered another two beers.

It was a nice way to celebrate life.

It's better than drowning.

Always.

CHICKEN MESSIAHS by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago the media covered a story about a rat-infested Greenwich Village KFC. The stock for Yum Corp, which owns the fast food chain along with Taco Bell, dropped fifty cents on the NYSE with the negative news and I felt bad, because for the last several years I had been a quality control inspector for KFC in the New York area.

Colonel Jim Rockford had hired me for the job in 1999, although the Iowan was not related to the James Gardner's TV character in the Rockford Files and our friendship dated back to an acid trip on Black’s Beach in August 1974 during which I swam with seals speaking in tongues. Jim laughed at their jokes. Coming down from the LSD we forgot the sleek sea mammals' punchlines, although one of them had to do with seaman.

Jim Rockford had served in Vietnam. He had rejected a military career to become a hippie guru with a girlfriend who looked like Patty Hearst.

That summer in Encinitas the cops stopped us everywhere with guns drawn, thinking Pam was America's # 1 fugitive. Jim hated the attention and felt the urge for going.

"Come join us in Frisco. You can wear flowers in your hair."

The Summer of Love had ended in 1968.

"I have a teaching job starting in a few weeks."

"The road is not a job. It's an adventure."

"I know.

We said good-bye on the highway. They headed north of the PCH and I hitchhiked east to Boston, where I taught at South Boston High School. Jim showed up at my Brighton apartment in the late autumn. His hair was longer and Pam, the blonde SLA clone for Patty Hearst had been traded for a young Eurasian twenty year-old named Nona.

Everyone in Boston fell in love with her that season.

Me too.

I taught school and at night we danced at gay clubs in Boston. They left for Woodstock with the first frost.

We stayed in touch, but in 1976 I moved to New York to pursue a career as a poet and the connection snapped like an old rubber band. I thought about Nona a lot. Her beauty was an exception to the rule in America. Dusky instead of blonde. I never expected to see her again.

In the winter of 1995 I was in Bali at the Blue Moon, a seaside bar where everyone who disappeared from your life reappears cooler than before and one night a woman called my name.

It was Nona.

She hugged me in the early evening tropical light and we drank with mutual friend and later went to her kon-tiki house in a bamboo grove. Her jealous Balinese boyfriend threatened me with a ceremonial kris. Nona showed him the door. “Pagi. Anda tidak bagus.”

“Not you. Stay here. He scares me.” I slept in the spare bedroom listening to the bamboo trunks rub against each other like lovers seduced by the wind. Nona was upstairs. She was lying in bed. I thought about Rockford and remained in my room.

After midnight her lover climbed the wall into Nona's bedroom and whispered words of love in Balinese.

In the morning he was gone and Nona said she was leaving for Singapore.

No packed bags lay by the door and I read the situation for what it was, but before I left the house, I asked about Jim.

"Why did you leave him?"

"Because he hit me."

"Hit you? Why?"

"It's a long story, anyway he's married and living in Iowa. I think he's growing marijuana. Here's his number. If you ever see him, tell him thanks for everything."

A month later I was back in New York and called the number in Iowa. The woman answering the phone said Jim wasn't home. I later found out he was doing a five-year bid for cocaine possession, while I spent the rest of the 90s working six months at my diamond gig on West 47th Street and the other half of the year traveling on the other side of the world. Six months on. Six months off.

It was a small world.

I ran into Nona in Bali, Paris, and London. She was designing silver jewelry for a German boyfriend. There was no talk about the Bali beach boy or Jim.

Women don't discuss guys who hit them, unless they've had a lot to drink and Nona only sipped wine.

My 1998 trip to Thailand was highlighted by my falling in love with a one-eyed go-go dancer. It ended badly and I returned to New York, exiled from my redux of the film THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG.

My friends tired of my tales about betrayal and they avoided my calls, because broken hearts are always bad luck.

Most evenings I drank at the 10th Street Lounge without anyone bothering me, but one night spotted someone familiar staring at me. He was older and had short hair. I couldn’t ID him until Jim Rockford smiled.

“What you doing here?"

"A friend from Boston had said you were living on East 10th Street and this seemed like the bar you would drink in."

"How so?"

"Pretty girls. Good music. Come with me."

"What are you really doing in New York?”

“I spent the last five years as a guest of the Iowa penal system. The cops invaded my house for suspicion of pot growing. Couldn’t find anything but an ounce of coke. Said it was for dealing.”

“Was it?” I’m very pro-anti-drugs.

"What you think?"

"Personal use."

"Yeah, but they never found the reefer since I had buried the farm underground and we were using solar panel to heat the room, so they couldn’t see the heat signature. Dopes. I’m still dealing pot but needed a clean source of income, so when I got out of prison, my PO got me a job inspecting KFCs."

"Kentucky Fried Chicken?" The Colonel had been a vegetarian since a near-fatal bout of cancer in his teens.

“Yeah, Frankenstein chickens with no legs and no eyes. Only a mouth, bones, meat, and an asshole."

It wasn't a pretty picture and I ordered a vodka at the bar from the waitress I'd been trying to seduce for ages. My speech was visually impaired at the end of the night. Rockford wasn't in much better condition and I invited him to sleep at my place.

"Thanks, I couldn't have made it to New Jersey."

"What are you really doing out there?"

"Well, I told you about that KFC gig. Every day I go to about 30-40 of them. Maybe you can help me."

“Me work for KFC?" My coke-spastic hands were having trouble with the front door. The key kept getting bigger.

"You can drive while I fill out my reports. I'll give you $200 for the day and all the chicken you can eat."

"I have my diamond job." It was September, but no one was buying jewelry.

"Call in sick. Will your boss understand?"

"I think so." My boss Richie Boy was my drinking buddy. The next morning I phoned at 9 and said, "Head cold."

"Have a bacon and egg sandwich and drink plenty of water." Richie Boy had never graduated from medical school, but I followed his advice to the letter.

Jim had a cup of coffee and a donut.

"Breakfast of cops."

"I needed more."

We picked up his rented Ford Taurus from the parking lot on East 9th street.

I put Arthur Lee’s LOVE on the CD player and we left the parking lot.

“Damn, I love SIGNED DC. Head over to queens. I have a battle plans.” Jim threw a metropolitan map on my lap. The locations of the KFCs were marked with a red marker.

“Today’s Brooklyn and Queens. Tomorrow the Bronx and Manhattan.”

I glanced at the map.

There were over a hundred KFCs.

None of them were on 5th Avenue or Soho or the Upper East Side.

I mentioned this to Jim and he laughed, “Wherever KFC is, then you can count it as a scary neighborhood after dark. So step on it.”

We drove over the Queensboro Bridge and hit 10 KFCs before noon. The back seat was jammed with specials and super-sized drinks. “The stores get a bonus if they ask us to supersize.”

I made good time through Queens, because most of the shops were on the same boulevards, however Brooklyn had 30 KFCs scattered over the 5th biggest city in the USA and the neighborhoods got rougher as the night darkened over the city.

East New York was an apocalypse.

Especially Pitcairn Avenue.

No bars. No restaurants. No stores.

Only KFCs and bums hanging around the corners.

No one bothered us, since two white guys cruising a black neighborhood looked like cops, except we weren't the filth. The $300 worth of chicken in the back seat reeked of the Colonel. I had eaten about $20 worth and was ready to lose $19 of it.

"We gotta to get rid of this shit."

"Stop at Courtlandt. There are few homeless people there."

“A few was about fifteen and most readied to run when we pulled up to the curb. Jim lowered the window and said, "Don't anyone break a move."

They froze like it was a KOJAK episode and the Colonel got out of the car. "Anyone here like chicken?"

"Does the pope shit in the woods?" A toothless wino joked, as Jim opened the back door and distributed fifty meals to the shopping cart brigade. The toothless wino cackled holding up a drumstick."First I thought you wuz the cops. Now I know who you are. You the chicken messiahs."

Like that the chicken messiahs became an urban legend to the needy in Phillie, Newark, Yonkers, and New York.

Only the homeless would accept our charity on the streets. Anyone else was too proud or suspicious to take a hand-out, although not the Jamaican posse working security at the 10th Street Lounge. Those bouncers loved the special deliveries.

Jim and I hurried into the bathroom to wash off the grease. We huffed two large rails of Bolivian pink flake. Dinner was vodkas at the bar. Our dessert was a line of blow. Nothing too extreme and the Colonel said, “I got another busy day tomorrow.”

Jim woke early. "I'll be back next month."

And every month the Colonel would come into town with a kilo of pot and a bag of blow. KFCs franchise owners recognized us as secret shoppers and cleaned their stores for our review. Some were good. Some were horrible. Jim never ate the chicken. Only the potatoes and corn bread. I loved the skin.

"Most people working this job get really fat." Jim warned, as I had a bite of an extra spicy chicken. “So watch out.”

I concentrated on driving and after five trips knew the streets of the Bronx and Brooklyn better than a gypsy cabdriver.

Phillie was worst than anything New York had to offer.

Especially North Phillie, where addicts shot dope on the streets. They never wanted charity chicken.

About a year into the gig Jim asked at the bar, "You know I been wanting to ask you a question."

He had gotten the manager, Cornell, to play IMAGINE. Jim was a Beatles fan. I liked the Damned.

"What kind of question?"

"How you get my number?"

"Nona gave it to me."

"Nona? Where you see her?"

"In Bali," I explained about our meeting at the Blue Ocean without mentioning the boyfriends.

"How she look?"

"Beautiful as ever."

"She say anything about me."

"She said you hit her."

"It was a mistake."

"Yeah," I never hit women. At least that's wwhatI told myself, but had done so three times. They were also all mistakes.

"She was telling me I was a loser. Every day. It got to me and I slapped her once. She left me after that. I don"t know why her telling me that would have such an effect. I'm a peaceful guy."

Nona had recently returned to New Jersey and I said, "I saw her last week."

"She’s back?"

“Yes.”

“You have her number?”

Nona had told me never to give her number to Jim, but he was my friend and she was a hundred miles away. I wrote down the number and he went outside to call her. He came back after a few minutes and said, "Now I remember why I hit her."

"The voice."

Nona came from Trenton.

Her voice sounded like it came from a high-pitched helium inhaler.

"She still didn't deserve to get hit."

"You're right." Jim was contrite. "She was a good girl. Said she wants to meet me."

"You tell her about KFC?"

"She had a good laugh about that. Made me feel good to make her laugh."

Me too and later that week they got together.

Although only as friends.

I left the states after 2001.

Jim and I still speak.

He visits Nona on his trips to Jersey. She eats chicken. He drinks wine in her house on the Delaware. No chicken messiah could hope for more in this age of little magic, because like the ad says, “The Colonel knows best.”

And Colonel Rockford knew the best even better the the KFC Colonel.

The Downside of Heaven

A holy man from Bali died from old age. He arrived at the Pearly Gates to be greeted by St. Peter.

“Welcome to Heaven.” St. Peter led the Balinese holy man inside the holy rest home of eternity.

“I thought heaven was only for Christians.”

“No, no, heaven is for everyone. Over there are the Balinese. To the right the French. Back there the Muslims. Up front the Christians. Over there the Irish.” St. Peter pointed out every segment of heaven, then as they walked through a forest of euphoria, St. Peter whispered. “And over there are the Fundamentalists.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because they think they’re the only ones up here.”

Read Stanley Elkins THE LIVING END.

In that novel the protagonist is sentenced to Hell for thinking Heaven looks like a Hollywood set from the 1930s.

Now that's cold, even for god.

FROM BIAK TO MEDAN on Kindle Amazon

FROM BIAK TO MEDAN covers my travels from Indonesia's Irian Jaya to Sumatra in 1991. A time was before cellphones and ATM. My modes of transport were liners, jets, prop planes, horses, motorbikes, trains and buses. I was a 'mistah', but soon learned enough Bahasa Indonesian to know that 'angin' was dog and 'babi bear' or big pig meant man to cannibals. These are the first of a series of stories from the Ring of Fire, when I was still younger than yesterday.

Selamat Datang

Here's a sample OF FROM BIAK TO MEDAN

BERENTI MISTAH

In 1991 I bought a round-the-world ticket for $1399 from Pan Express. The owner set up a magical itinerary.

"New York - LA - Hawaii - Biak - Bali - overland to Jakarta." John was reciting the trip from memory. He sold hundreds of these tickets every year.

"What do you mean 'overland to Jakarta'?" Their advertisement in the NY Times offered a flight between Bali and Jakarta. My foreign ventures had been limited to Europe and Central America up to this point.

"Oh, sir." His Hindi gentility was measured to assuage the traditional occidental temper and John produced an Indonesia brochure extolling the volcanic beauty of Mount Bromo, ruined temple of Borobudur, and ancient palaces of Yogakarta. "Many people prefer to travel overland to see the sights of Java of which there are many. I give you a flight from Jakarta to Padang."

"Padang?"

"Yes, sir, in Sumatra." Another brochure praised the cultural heritage of the Batak, the awe of Lake Toba, and the jungle paradise of the orangutang reserve. "You fly out of Medan to Penang and Malaysia and overland to Bangkok."

"Let me guess." I was falling into step with the program. "Many people do this overland."

"Yes, sir, you see the picture better than most. What are you going to do on the trip?" Hindi are a curious people. John was no exception.

"I'm writing a novel." NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD was a story about a hustler forced into a contract murder of a porno producer by dirty NYPD cops and who avoids violating the 5th Commandment by escaping into the desert with two lesbians filming a movie about the last man on Earth. John didn't need to know the plot. Hindi men were in some ways very curious about sex.

"Oh, sir, I must warn you that many countries in Asia do not like writers. Especially journalists."

"I'm not a journalist." My typing was atrocious and my grammar was even worse.

"Whatever you do, do not tell anyone you are a writer." His head bobbed side to side like a broken bobbing dolls. "Big people and police do not like journalists in Asia."

"I'll keep that in mind."

John was 100% correct about overlanding across Java. I saw the dawn from the rim of a volcano, met the sultan of Yogakarta, drove up to the vertiginous heights of the Dieng Plateau, endured the scorching equatorial sun riding a motorcycle around Lake Toba and watched male orangutang masturbate without shame. The females shunned the jerk-offs. I arrived at the Medan airport with my trip and book at the halfway state.

I queued for the flight to Penang. The police spotted my typewriter. I

"Berenti, mistah.

"Saya." I had learned a little Bahasa in three months.

"Yes, you." A short pineapple-skinned officer pointed my way. The three of them pulled me from the line. The other passengers smiled with relief. I was their sacrificial lamb. The police sat me in their very official office and asked, "Journalis?"

The trio wore grim faces. Torture was their specialty. A single overhead fan wobbled in its socket.

"Tidak journalis. Penulis buca." I claimed the higher status than journalist.

"You write books? About what?" The lead interrogator leaned forward with a metal sap in his hand.

"About the mafia. Porno. Hollywood." I was one smack away from squealing the truth about any crime from Adam upward.

"Hollywood?" The three cops intoned the word with sanctity normally reserved for Allah. Indonesia was 90% Muslim.

"Yes, Hollywood." I followed the lead and told them about how JFK was killed by the CIA. They spoke about the betrayal of Sukarno by the present dictator. A bottle of Johnny Walker Black hit the desk. Red is beneath them. We drank toasts to freedom.

"Beraka." I spoke every language with a Boston accent.

Whiskey in hot weather was a hard slog. It was getting late and I asked the chief officer, "So I missed my flight, how do I get to Penang?"

"You didn't miss your flight. We held the plane. One more drink and tua jalan."

"To whiskey." Without it the Irish would have ruled the world.

The police drove me to the waiting plane. The other passengers were gobsmacked by re-appearance from the belly of the beast and even more so by the power fist salute of the police.

"Beraka."

It was a small world after all.

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Terima Kasih Bayat

The Downside of Heaven

A holy man from Bali died from old age. He arrived at the Pearly Gates to be greeted by St. Peter.

“Welcome to Heaven.” St. Peter led the Balinese holy man inside the holy rest home of eternity.

“I thought heaven was only for Christians.”

“No, no, heaven is for everyone. Over there are the Balinese. To the right the French. Back there the Muslims. Up front the Christians. Over there the Irish.” St. Peter pointed out every segment of heaven, then as they walked through a forest of euphoria, St. Peter whispered. “And over there are the Fundamentalists.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because they think they’re the only ones up here.”

Read Stanley Elkins THE LIVING END.

In that novel the protagonist is sentenced to Hell for thinking Heaven looks like a Hollywood set from the 1930s.

Now that's cold, even for god.

Tubes in Bali

Bali 1993. Richie boy and I hired a guide to take us to this spot. The aussie swore it was surfable. We looked at the break. The waves were double-overhead, but we saw coral heads above the water. Richie Boy and I said 'no go'. The aussie said we were wimps. he took off on the first wave and stoved in his ribs on a gnarly coral head. He came out of the water holding his side. "Mates, I was wrong." Richie Boy and I agreed with him and took him to the hospital. He was a good Aussie and shared the painkillers with us. The bar at Tubes was much better that way.