AUGUST 6, 1978 JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

4 am in Times Square. Bums, crazies, and the poor camp on the sidewalk. I step over them, as if they were the dead. One wino rises his head and burbles from a flaky rotting mouth, "Gimme some change."

I drop some quarters in his hand.

Enough for two cruellers at Disco Donut on East 14th Street.

I resist asking for the coins back and pick up my pace. I still have $7 in my pocket. Enough for breakfast at Leskos for Alice and me. No sign of Hakkim.

Eric Mitchell, A B-movie star, said at Max's with this strange Apache-French accent, "The bums are colorful."

"And he was right.

BAck on the South Shore Red Tate lived in a aluminum septic tank at the town dump.

Every afternoon he traipsed through the woods to the corner store across from the church. His life was simple. He bought beer for underage kids and drank Thunderbird wine. Three bottles got him drunk. My Uncle Jack, once a Marine officer at Chosin Reservoir said Red Tate had been a hero in Korea and always gave him a buck.

Some people said bad for him.

Never us. He bought us beer.

Red Tate lies on the pavement
Helpless, flat on his back
If his mother saw him
Tears and asking, "Why?"
Red Tate drink Ripple
Sometimes he has Thunderbird
The fortified wine drowns out Korea
Soothes the shattered nerves.
Not a bum
Just someone trying to forget
A forgotten war___

AUGUST 6, 2021 NYU HOSPITAL

Joseph Cotton steals CITIZEN KANE with his performance on the New York hospital's solarium. Jed Leland is an elegant ne'er-do-well living out his last days basking in the winter sun. Even at death's door he wants a little something.

The Ultra-sound and MRI have revealed the seriousness of my condition; Hep C, Cirrohsis, growths in my liver. The attending physician entered the room with two younger doctors, who I figured for interns. The main MD explained that my body was still functioning, albeit not at top form. He put his hand on my knee and said, "Everything should be okay."

The other two said nothing and I suspeceted that the attending physician had brought them along to teach how to break bad news to a patient. I almost wanted to ask one, "What do you think?"

Not that I cared.

At least I wasn't going to die tomorrow, but I never again have a drink. Sixty years of alcohol has wasted my body and soul. I admitted depression to another doctor. "No, go right ahead. I have nothing to hide."

My first drink was in 1960. I was eight. My uncle-in-law, the head of the Boston Homicide Squad, offered a cold beer. We were at his beach cottage on Marshfield's Rexhame Beach. After a sip I put the can on the table. "I don't like it."

All the detectives laughed and one shouted, "You will, boyo, you will."

He was right.

I liked beer, wine, vodka, and gin-ginger throughout the Covid binge.

I was not wearing a silk dressing coat and foulard like Joseph Cotton in CITIZEN KANE. My ass was hanging out of a 'johnny'. I hadn't seen the sun in days and asked the nurse, if I could walk to to the solarium. It was on the same floor. She asked, "Sure, but I'll come with you to make sure you don't fall."

There was no arguing with the nurses. They were relentlessly right. I took my time and turned left before the elevators. A helicopter lifted into sight from the riverside landing pads. I sat down and pulled out Cookie Mueller's WALKING THROUGH CLEAR WATER IN A POOL PAINTED BLACK. She was three years older than me, but started the life in the early 60s with the books's first line, "I had two lovers and I wasn't ashamed."

I never saw Cookie ashamed.

They grew them tough in Baltimore.

Foto by Anthony Scibelli.

May 31, 1978 - East Village - Journal

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

Later

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

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

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

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

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

"I got Cookie."

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

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

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

"Agreed.

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

Later

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

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

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

The Red Sox in first___

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

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

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

THE RULES OF KLAUS photos by Anthony Scibelli / Story by Peter Nolan Smith

In 1978 Anthony Scibelli and I created a foto-roman of his photos and my story

The story was one of my detective poems and the cast featured the Eighth Wonder of the world, Klaus Nomi, Jon Waters Starlette, Cookie Mueller, Club 57 Impresario Andy Reese, A texas runaway, Clover Nolan, and me along with several other people whose names are locked in the past.

Scibelli's eternal black-and-white photos appeared at MoMA's CLUB 57 show 2017-2018.

MoMA's photo experts had digitally improved each image, which are classic reminders of a time when New York belonged to us and not them. We all know who them are.

18"X14" prints are available as are larger and smaller versions

To purchase the 18"X14" prints, please go to this URL

https://www.ebay.com/itm/THE-RULES-OF-KLAUS-featuring-fotos-of-Klaus-Nomi-and-Cookie-Mueller/164117217701

Thank You

Peter Nolan Smith

Modern American Illiteracy # 2

After a four-day stay at NYU Hospital in August I was signed out for release. I dressed in my street clothing, thanked the staff for their care, and descended by elevator to the ground-floor to hit the streets. I spotted a gift store in the main lobby and stopped to get a newspaper or a book having read Cookie Mueller's collection of short stories WALKING THROUGH CLEAR WATER IN A POOL PAINTED BLACK as well as Tim Mohr's amazing history of punk under communism in the DDR.

I was shocked to discover the store offered no newspapers or novels other than coffee table books.

I caught the subway south to Chinatown and stopped in the 169 Bar.

Dakota was behind the bar and greeted me with a smile.

"How you feeling, old man?"

"A little tired, but otherwise not bad," I recounted everything in 100 words or less and ordered a cranberry juice and soda.

"So no more drinking?"

"Nothing if I want to live. It's been four days. The longest I've been sober since my climbing Kilimanjaro before the pandemic. Actually this was the first time I stayed in the hospital since my birth." I said nothing about my condition or future. I had a ways to go before I knew anything, but I mentioned about the gift store's lack of reading material, since Dakota is an avid reader."

"No books?"

"None."

We spoke about our favorite writers and poets; Hart Crane, James Elroy, George Orwell's DOWN AND OUT IN LONDON AND PARIS. The other drinkers at the bar failed to join in the conversation and I said aloud, "America is technically illiterate."

Two out-of-state slummers glared at me. They were in their 40s and one with glasses said with a Midwestern accent, "Everyone who isn't a foreigner knows how to read English and if not English most can read their own language."

"Actually the literacy rate in America is 79% according to Wikipedia." I had checked that site on the subway ride.

"Can't be!," his friend exclaimed and Dakota countered, "I'm a substitute teacher and most students in New York City are struggling with reading, although probably because of the curriculum of Shakespeare and English poetry."

The four of groaned remembering reading the Bard's plays.

"Worse was having to discuss the meaning of it all," said the first speaker, who introduced himself as Blair from Iowa.

"Enough to put you other drama for the rest of your life."

"On the train only a few people read books," said Dakota.

"But they all read and write on their phones."

"Badly." Text messaging has proved that not everyone can write, but they do understand the hieroglyphics of emojis.

"He's right. I can't remember the last time I read a book," admitted Blair's friend, "All the libraries near my town have been closed due to budget cuts and the book selection at Walmart is horrible, plus I don't have the time."

Dakota and I suggested books and I said, "New York's libraries are open, but there are much fewer books almost as if millions had been burned to make space with empty shelves. Even the main library at 42nd Street isn't what it was, because the trustees wanted to open a retail space in the stacks and removed most of the volumes to New Jersey or just shitcanned them."

"Like the crumbling books in the library in HG Wells' THE TIME MACHINE. The Eloi didn't read, because they didn't have to," said Blair about man's future. "We might be like them, but in the movie they were all beautiful blondes raised to feed the subterranean Morlock overlords."

"Ignorance is easier to achieve than enlightenment and oblivion even more so. Dakota let me buy these guys a drink. I can't anymore, so you're my designated drinkers."

They toasted HG Wells with well whiskey and the prurient value of old stroke books with beer.

I told them all about THE ITCH, Steven Hammer's masterful voyage through perversity on Olympia Press.

"I must have read it a thousand times."

"To THE ITCH."

"I just ordered it from Amazon. Thanks for the recommendation."

"My pleasure," I offered leaving the 169. I was heading back to Clinton Hill. I was looking forward to my own bed and a book between my hands leading me to sleep. Nothing too serious. Maybe Ian Fleming's THUNDERBALL. It's always good to read an old friend.

Chapter 1 - TAKE IT EASY, MR. BOND.

Happy Birthday Cookie Mueller

Today Marcus Leatherdale wished the late Cookie Mueller happy birthday.

The Baltimore-born starlette of many John Water's films passed from this life back in 1989.

Cookie exalted in her childhood home stuck between the woods, a state mental hospital, and the railroad tracks.

"There was no way I could turn good against those odds."

The bleached blonde held a high opinion of her badness and deserted her hometown for San Francisco in the late 60s after which she returned to Baltimore to star in Water's FEMALE TROUBLE and PINK FLAMINGO.

I met Cookie through the photographer Anthony Scibelli. He shot a photo-roman of me, her, and Klaus Nomi. We had a good time together. She was more importantly an artisic muse for Nan Goldin.

We partied together on more than one occasion.

The actress-turned-writer liked playing it tough, but I always thought she was sweet, especially after hearing her tale of writing a book about the Johnston Flood, which he stuck in the history section of her local library.

"Someone must have checked it out and never returned it." She was proud of that accomplishment.

Sadly she succumbed to AIDS and her ashes were spread on the dunes of he beloved Provincetown.

She left us with this thought.

"Fortunately I am not the first person to tell you that you will never die. You simply lose your body. You will be the same except you won't have to worry about rent or mortgages or fashionable clothes. You will be released from sexual obsessions. You will not have drug addictions. You will not need alcohol. You will not have to worry about cellulite or cigarettes or cancer or AIDS or venereal disease. You will be free."