mangozeen: covid

Showing posts with label covid. Show all posts

Monday, July 6, 2026

Couvre-feu A Paris

The environs of Paris have been inhabited since 10000 BN ie Before Now.

The banks of the Seine have provided life to the last of the Neanderthals, the Cro-magnons, the Celts, the Romans, the Franks, and then for the French.

After conquering northern France Adolph Hitler's army declared a curfew and the City Of Light was dark from 9PM in the evening until 5AM.

No curfew was declared during the 1968 Uprising.

The Mitterand government hadn't needed to enforce a couvre-feu in the early-1980s.

No one had money.

Les Citoyen stayed at home after dark, but not us.

At night the city belonged to my friends and me.

Paris was our playground.

Fuck the CRS.

We owned the 1980s and then heroin and AIDS stole it all back for the rich and their heirs, until COVID hit Europe.

Two days ago the PM appeared on TV to announce a curfew with an end date.

A city without the sound of humanity like 10500 BN, but I had been there in 1982.

I have been in an empty Paris.

One person.

And they we were two.

Candida et moi in 1984

With her I knew the world was destined to dance again.

Not like Orwell's world, because love will always ignite the light.

Not not today.

But close.

Close is good enough for me.

A bas les premiere Estate.

And long live the light.

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Much more to come.

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Our City - Maz et Moi - PJ Clarkes

After COVID struck, the city closed everything. Mazin and I wandered the shorelines of Manhattan and Brooklyn drinking wine in the desolation of uncertainty. Counting the stars. It was our city. One night we sat at a Williamsburg park on the East River. Across lived his sister and he called her to illuminate the Christmas lights on her top floor terrace. She did and we knew the city was destined to live

Tonight I met Mazin at PJ Clarkes

Chicken Pot pie

Hmmmm!

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

The # Of Us

Last week I ended my family holiday in Sri racha and flew east from Bangkok through Inchon to JFK on a mixed crew from several nations. The Airbus A 380 was the biggest passenger aircraft in the commercial fleets, but we were on a Boeing 777. When I asked the stewardess about the seating, she replied with a French accent, "546 passengers and a crew of 34, but we're traveling light tonight" "Merci." I thanked her in French. Our sixteen hour trip to America coasted over the Bering Sea to make landfall in Alaska. I had already exhausted the movie offering on the outward trip to Thailand. More than 200 million people speak that language out of a global population of 7 billion and I took out my cellphone to calculate the percentage people were on this massive plane. The figure came out to be .000000081428571%. 580 was the same number of townspeople living in Isleboro, Maine, but this number is only .0000000058% of the total number of people who have lived since 50,000BC. This demographic number comes from a study by the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, which I read on BBCNEWS. Arthur C Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey wrote back in 1968, "Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living." We are numerous. By the way the total number of people who have lived has been calculated to 107,602,707,791. Thankfully only 420 of them were on that Boeing 777. Another 200 and the behemoth would have never left the Earth.

Sunday, February 6, 2022

Banned From The World

When I was a young boy, my greatest desire was to travel the world.

In the early 1970s I hitchhiked across the USA east to west and north to south.

1978 I arrived in London during the punk era

After Viktor Malenski was murdered on West 24th Street, I escaped Reagan's America to live in Paris, the City of Light.

The Yucatan in 1988.

France 1989

The 1990s and 2000s belonged to Asia.

Biak.

Bali.

And most importantly Thailand.

I have family in most countries.

Of blood and soul.

On every continent.

But now thanks to Covid I am stranded in the USA.

The EU has banned all entries from the States, as the Coruna Virus runs out of control, and I can't blame Europe.

Only two states have decreasing infection rates.

I am trapped here.

Thankfully I had the 169 Bar Covid Strand. I have antibodies. I will donate them to the right blood center as ,long as they don't give it to the rich.

One day I will be free and I will be happy again.

Boston.

Tony's on Wollaston Beach.

The Barnacle on Marblehead Harbor.

Paris.

And most importantly Thailand with the clan.

Love to the world.

We are one.

E pluribus unum.

Especially in New York Ciity.

Saturday, January 15, 2022

JOURNAL ENTRY DECEMBER 27, 1978 - EAST VILLAGE

This morning I drove Ande's father's car from Brookline to Route 3 onto 128 past the snowfields of the Blue Hills and then headed south to the great metropolis of New York City. Big Blue has a radio station atop its granite bald summit. The view from the tower encompassed Boston from Cape Ann to Nantasket.

As a teen I had skied Big Blue's short trails, but always revel in the dark blue of the Atlantic stretching east into the Atlantic. Boston had once been my hometown. My mother had bid me good-bye this morning and told me to take care of myself.

My one goal was to make enough money to send them to Hawaii. Getting a regular job was the only way to achieve that wish, but 9 to 5s bored me shitless and I stepped on the Cutlass' gas.

Visiting my parents had been comforting as had seeing my brothers, sisters, and aunts and uncles and our next door neighbors, the Menconis for Christmas dinner. I loved my parents. My older brother was with Pattie, whoworked for the CIA. My sisters Pam and Regina seemed happy, and Regina's beau was a good man from Hartford, if there is such a thing. My younger brother Patrick played guitar in the basement, while Michael, obviously wanted to tell everyone his secret. I had warned him that confessing you're gay was one sure way to ruin Christmas and he said, "Maybe this summer."

I felt bad about not having any gifts and even worse getting some. Andy was my only friend at the gathering. Every other friend from grammar and high school and college have vanished into the past, except for Neil, who's now a doctor in Staten Island. My old girlfriends are ghosts; Linda Imhoff, Hilde Hartnett, Janet Stetson, and Jackie Collins. I'm not sure if I abandoned them or they deserted me. Most likely the latter.

The Cutlass sped on I-95 through the marshlands of the Neponset River. The highway rose at Sharon onto a plateau all the way to Providence. The Interstate had destroyed miles of neighborhoods through the capitol of Rhode Island, but at least the engineers had banked the pavement and south of the city I hit 80 past the empty harbor.

Farther along the State Prison rose atop a high berm. Hundreds of convicts locked to serve sentence for their crimes or someone else's wrong. Snow topped the field of the pine barrens, until I reached New London and the nuclear sub bases of Groton. Within a half hour I crossed the Connecticut River, which I considered the southern boundary of New England.

At Christmas dinner my family had asked, "Will you ever return to Boston?"

"I don't think so."

I love New England; Maine and the White Mountains, but I had taught English at South Boston High during the bussing riots. The city of my birth was filled with racists. My old friends called me a 'race traitor. I could fight them all. The day before Christmas I rode the trolley into Park Street. None of the women appealed to me.

I left the city in 1976. I adopted the slums of the East Village as home, even though my first friends had yet to come to New York. My good friend, Andy, was remained in Boston playing funk in an all-black band. Libby had flown to Paris to seek fame and fortune as a fashion model. I had new friends now, but I felt I would desert them too at one point.

LATER 2021

I'm trapped in Brooklyn. Covid has surged out of control, yet plenty of unmasked people wander the streets of Clinton Hill, as if they are immune to the virus, but many of my friends have been struck up by this variant despite having been vacced twice.

A road trip would be perfect except there's nowhere I can go, as I will have a series of tests at NYU Hospital to assess the health of my liver.

I've been invited to ski in Tahoe, sun in florida, and fly over to London to reside at Goodenough University. Mostly I want to see my families in Thailand, however Nu says that everything in shut down in Pattaya and Mem is concerned about leaving the house.

Oh, for the world to be free again.

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Social Distancing a la Covid

Phase 2 of the Covid re-opening was announced by Mayor DeBlasio on Monday June 22, 2020

Outdoor dining was to be allowed, although it didn't happen till July with Governor Cuomo assessing that wth less than 1% infection test levels, New York State had exited from the death grip of April and May. New Yorkers wore masks. The hospitals offered free testing. People respected distance, except for Trumpards, who regarded Covid as a hoax. I lost three friends in the Spring. They have not risen from the graave. They died alone. Covid is not a hoax, but we have entered Phase 4 and allowed to gather in groups of ten and restaurants are permitted open at 25% of their table capacity.

In April and May ambulances raced across Brooklyn. Sirens were never-ending and I stayed home to avoid getting sick, but I succumbed to Covid in April.

A mild case thanks to I don't know what. I have the antiboies and test every two weeks, but I play it relatively safe. I wear a mask and keep to myself, but meet with more people as long as they have recently taken a Covid test.

The other day I celebrated a young friend's birthday in Fort Greene. We numbered ten. I posted a photo on Facebook and my family members criticized for our gathering in a clump. I explained NYC was in Phase 4. They haven't been with anyone else in months and I don't blame them for the isolation.

One day we will all dance again.

I can't say when, but one day we will dance and I practice my steps, because fuck Chris Rock.

There's nothing wrong with beng the oldest man in the club.

Together or alone.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

The Search for Meaninglessness

I miss you allvery much and almost everyone else in the world.

Today I physically spoke with three people. The most important was my liquor store owner, Mr. Lee, but not to worry since most of my solitary existence has been devoted to the study of meaninglessness.

In vino veritas - Pliny the Elder

In magna vino oblivio - Peter Nolan Smith

Of course oblivion has always been easier to achieve than enlightenment.

The only man in the bar.

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Goodby June 2020

Today is the First day of July.

2020 has been a year dominated by the Covid Crisis, but video of George Floyd's brutal May 25 murder by the Minneapolis PD has altered the USA. His death sentence was in response to his having passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenient store. President Andrew Jackson's face is on the 'double-saw buck'

Millions of outraged people have taken to the streets demanding justice and the defunding of the police.

June 1 - Minneapolis burned n response to the city government's lax response to the Police killing a black man for nothing

Two nights ago I was with the young occupiers of New York's City Hall. Their encampment on Centre Street effectively blocked the Brooklyn Bridge and they are dedicated to forcing the city to cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget to be redistributed to the general welfare fund. I walked among them, an old man. Their furor is well placed to disturb the 'same old same old'.