Jewish Guilt versus Goyim Guilt

Back in the 1990s I deserted New York to spend the Easter holiday with my family on the South Shore of Boston.

Despite my abandonment of God as a child my mother persisted in requesting my attendance at morning Mass. It was a small sacrifice to make for the woman who brought me into this world and I always said, "Sure.”

That morning I dressed in a dark-gray suit with a black cashmere polo shirt.

My mother came into the bedroom and asked, “Where’s your tie?

“Mom, this shirt is pure cashmere.”

“But you look better in a tie?” My mother was old school.

“You can’t wear a tie with a polo shirt.” I had worn a tie every day at Our Lady of the Foothills parochial school.

My mother frowned with disappointment at both my wardrobe and rejection of her God.

“I hope at my funeral you’ll wear a tie.” Her eyes were dewy with tears.

“I will.” Refusing my mother was impossible and I changed my shirt and put on a tie. It felt like a garrote.

"Better?" I asked in the kitchen. My father sat at the table in his best suit.

"Much better.” She smiled with triumph and kissed my cheek. “You’re a good boy.”

Upon my return to New York I related this story to the mother of my diamond employer. Hilda tsked and said, “That’s the difference between Jews and goyim.”

“What?” Her son and I were befuddled by Hilda’s statement.

“Your mother simply asked for you to wear a tie at her funeral, if it had been me I would have said, “Once you kill me, I want you to wear a tie to the funeral.”

“Aha.” I replied, for Hilda had explained the true depth of Jewish guilt in a single sentence.

Matricide.

We were all bad boys, except to our mothers.

To them we were saints.

Easter Sunday Humor Pattaya - 2008

It was a quiet night in Donovan's Sports Bar on Pattaya's 3rd Road. The owner sat alone. I decided to join Steve for an Easter cheeseburger. We discussed my upcoming trip to the USA and he said, "It's been three and half years since I was last in New York."

"Over two for me." And I had been putting off this trip for ten months at least.

"I don't think I could live there anymore." He sipped at his whiskey and soda, then added, "I know I couldn't live there anymore. I see the faces of people on TV and they don't look human, not to mention that you can't say anything about anything to anyone without them getting offended."

As if to prove a point Steve's brother walked into the restaurant with a friend from Texas. They agreed with Steve's assessment of America's losing its title as the Land of the Free.

"You can say what you want as long as you don't offend anyone." Steve's brother lives in Dallas. People are real churchy in that Texan metropolis. We joked about Texas and then terrorists. I thought we were free and asked, "What has 6000 feet and is two inches tall?"

Neither had the answer.
"The World Trade Tower."

"Not funny." Steve's brother frowned with patriotic disapproval.

"Okay." I knew a few more World Trade attack jokes, but decided to keep them under guard for another few years. Later Steve said, "Americans don't find that funny."

"I noticed."

"But what the hell, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

One day we're going to laugh again only it won't be this year.

The Difference of Three Days

According to the New Testament the Hebrew legal council surrendered Yeshua bar Yosef to the Roman Prefect of Judaea. The Sanhedrin accused the citizen of Galilee of the blasphemy of claiming to be the King of the Jews. Pontius Pilate concluded that the healer was innocent of these charges, however the Passover crowd before the Prefect's palace cried for blood and the Roman legate offered them a choice; their 'king' or Barrabas, a violent insurrectionist. The mob led by the Pharisees and Sadducees, the two most powerful political forces in Judea, clamored for Barrabas. Pontius Pilate washed his hands and ordered his garrison troops to crucify their Yeshua.

The date was supposedly the 14th of Nissan and the year ranged from 28AD to 36AD, although the Vatican determined Good Friday and Easter according to the ancient calculations of the Council of Nicaea, which declared Easter to be celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox as was the pagan holiday honoring Isthar, the Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex.

Her temples were reknown as sex cults.

The early church was adept at kidnapping the traditions of other religions, but not so good with arithmetic.

The priests and nuns taught the faithful that Jesus rose from the dead after three days. He died on a Friday. He stayed dead on Saturday. He rose on Sunday. Three different days, yet a time span of only forty-three hours or less than two days, then again the time between the Immaculate Conception and the Birth of Christ was only four months.

Maybe I'm too picky.

Clocks didn't exist in 33AD.

The hours were either sunrise, noon, sunset, or night.

Calendars were also hard to find in 787 AUC (Anno Urbis Conditae or the founding of Rome).

A long, long time ago.

Before I was born into this lifetime.

And I couldn't care less, because for me Easter is simply a day for chocolate and wearing a new suit and tie.

The former is for kids and the latter for my beloved departed Mother. She liked to dress up on Easter and even atheist shall honor the old traditions for their mother.

Happy Easter Eggs.

To The Nines 2011

Easter was a special holiday for our family. My mother was a devout Catholic. My father had converted from agnosticism to marry his Irish bride. The Bowdoin College grad was a good dresser and they attired their six children, as if we were the jewels of empire. Every Easter we wore new clothes from tie to shoes. Our family's fashion statement for the holiday was the high water mark for our parish south of Boston.

My mother and father have been promoted from this mortal coil. I never confessed my rejection of their faith. The truth would have only pained them both and my apostasy is a private matter, however this Easter as every Easter before it I dressed to the nines. Not a stitch of old on my limbs. Tan suit, white shirt, Celtic green tie. White shoes. My mother loved white shoes and this Easter Day was a day for white shoes.

A misty morning had surrendered to the will of a balmy afternoon. The long winter was gone and the youth of new season was blooming on the trees. My mouth broke into a smile at the sight of the white flower of the ornamental pear trees.

I walked over to Frank's Lounge in my finery. No people on Lafayette were dressed for the occasion. I spotted Raldo on Fulton. The old high-lifer was slick as an otter in his racing red sweater, flannel trousers, and panama hat. The rakish style icon rarely sports a jacket in warm weather, so the police know that he isn't carrying a gun. They can't believe the light-skinned Prince of the Strip has retired from the game for good. Most of his friend share the sentiment. Raldo and I have no history and 80 year-old greeted me with a nod.

"Hey, there, white boy." The salutation has no bite. Raldo doesn't know my name. "Looking good."

"Thanks."

"But I don't know about the rest of these folks." His eyes shuttled from left and right terminals. His vision took in the whole street. Disappointment scrunched his grin and he hitched up his 30" waist trousers. Raldo weighed as much as the wind. "Low-assed jeans, a sloppy tee-shirt, and fat. How did those young people get so fat. Damn, they so fat they put the Fat Man of the Carnival out of work."

"It's a plague." I didn't say more. It had been a long winter. Comfort food warmed the flesh. My estimate on my weight was 10 pounds off. I had to lose my girth and I sucked in my stomach. It almost hurt. "And catching."

"You better watch out, white boy." Raldo tipped his hat.

"Do too."

Raldo looked over his shoulder with a snap of his head.

"I'm good." He sauntered up the hill with women on his mind.

I headed down Fulton to the bar across from the statue of General Fowler. The Civil War general fought at dozens of engagement against the South. This winter an admirer covered his cold shoulder with a cape and wrapped a wreath of Xmas lights around his head. It was a good look.

I entered Frank's. The Celtics-Knicks game was on the TV. Tom the bartender whistled with appreciation. His two octogenarian friends applauded my effort. I bought the three immortals a round. We toasted my parents. The Celtics won the game and I returned home.

Happy.

I hadn't spilled a beer on my new suit. My white shoes were spotless. Messing them up is for a day other than Easter.

Easter Finery

My mother instilled in her children the desire to look good.

"It's one thing to be broke and quite another to look broke."

I got dressed up in her honor for Easter.

A suit and tie.

I'm sure that would make her happy in the Here-Before.

Now all I have to do is shave off the scruff.

Beermas Vs. Easter 2009

I'm no longer religious.

Very much so, but I am spiritual, so I celebrate Beermas.

Often.

And I drink not to make women more beautiful.

I drink to improve my looks.

Oh, you dog.

Beermas Vs. Easter

I'm no longer religious, but I am spiritual, so I celebrate Beermas.

Often.

And I don't drink to make women more beautiful.

I drink to improve my looks.

Oh, you dog.

Easter Cherry Blossoms

The Easter breeze
Jostling the cherry trees
Spring indeed In the air

Hide Easter Bunny Hide

IDF Easter Egg Hunt.

If they can't find eggs, then they go after the Bunny.

It's a bigger target.

BDS.

Free Palestine.

End the Genocide.

Rent-Free Hell 2016

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and on the C train between Hoyt-Schemmerhorn and Lafayette Street a young man was preaching about the wrath of his lord. "God loves his flock, but hates a sinner. All you sinners will have a special place of torment in Hell." He glared about the subway car like Josef Mengele, the SS Angel of Death at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I met his stare with cold blue eyes, but smiled as I asked, "Are those places rent-free?" Most of the passengers were immune from his rant. Their headphones and earplugs filled their head with song. A few were free of any device and they laughed at my quip. The preacher was not amused and pointed a finger in my direction. "The end is coming soon." "Not soon enough for me, if it means you'll be taken to your holy heaven and I don't have to listen to you anymore." The train stopped at Lafayette and I stepped onto the platform, half-expecting the preacher man to follow my exit. He stood at the door of the subway shaking the Bible at me. "You're lost." The preacher scowled without joy. There are no jokes in hell for the Christians. "Not lost, but found in the beauty of humanity and the glory of love." "Damnation." "And I couldn't be happier." The subway doors closed and the preacher was dragged deeper into Brooklyn. I exited from the train station to enjoy the cool evening air thinking about the Jesus-lover celebrating Bunny Day with an egg hunt. No humor was one thing, but no fun was another, then again stranger things have happened to the faithful. Even to those without a sense of humor. I'll be laughing my head off in Hell. Rent-free of course.

HELLBOUND by Peter Nolan Smith / Bet On Crazy -2011

TS Eliot wrote that April was the cruelest month of all in his epic poem THE WASTELAND, poetry's answer the Led Zeppelin STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.

Those words rang harsh and true in 2011, as the combined holidays of Passover and Easter devastated business in the Diamond District. On Good Friday I waited for two customers to come back as promised. I had three Burma sapphires for an English broker and a quartet of GIA certified 2-carat diamonds for a Korean girl. Richie Boy insisted that I call the both.

"We needed the sales."

"No one is coming out today to celebrate a crucifixtion and a pogram against the first born's of Egypt, unless we have a special on Chocolate diamonds."

The Hassidim were celebrating the last days of Passaich.

"Can you do what I ask for once?" Richie Boy was pissed at my attitude.

"A raise in salary and a bump in my commission rate would elevate my resolve."

"Your raise this year is your job."

Times were tough after ten years of the Endless War.

"I'll call, but both these sales are dead issues," I complained and picked up the phone.

Neither customer answered the phone and I slumped at my desk.

Scratchy music itched the air.

My co-worker at the diamond exchange on West 47th Street was a born-again Christian and Ava was listening to Brazilian Jesus music at a low-volume. I didn't understand the lyrics, but the word 'Jesus' was repeated throughout the choruses. Ava fervently believed in the Messiah's Second Coming and that the Judgment Day was a tangible date in the near-future. I tapped her shoulder and Ava turned around to face me.

"Do you think I'm heading to heaven?" I was joking with her. I hadn't worshiped a God since the early 60s.

"No." Ava shook her head vehemently without condemnation. "You're not going to heaven?"

"I'm not?" My concept of the afterlife consisted of coming back as a skinny blonde go-go dancer, so I can control the destiny of men. Ava's version of heaven was the more traditional kneeling in prayer to the Lord, a boring forever without pain and suffering. Hell was lots of both and I said, "What if I repent at the last moment?"

"Then you are sent to Limbo after you die?" Ava's congregation believed more in black and white than the gray. It was either heaven or hell without a middle road.

"That's better than hell." The fiery pit was legendary for its lack of cold beer, although the only beverage in eternity were was limo's flagon of regrets and heaven's fountains spraying the ambrosia of God sweat.

"Only if you truly repent." Ava was asking a lot from an old reprobate.

"And who decides that?" I had a feeling that the arbiter of eternal salvation would not be fooled by my last-minute re-conversion to my old faith.

"God."

My old nemesis.

"He has to have too much on his plate than to bother with me."

"That attitude will send you to hell. God is all-caring."

"What about the Palestinians? He doesn't seem to care for them and they're living on the Promised Land."

"The damnation of your soul is no laughing matter." Ava harbored no sense of humor on this subject.

"Well, could you tell me when the Day of Judgment is coming?" My sins had broached the majority of the Ten Commandments, although I honored my parent and have never killed a soul, save my own, and none of my neighbors' wives are desirable.

"What is so important about when?" The Brazilian was puzzled by this question.

"So I can drink cold beer for a month before I go burn in Hell."

"Damned. You're damned, but I'll still pray for your soul."

"Thanks."

Ava was a good girl and a man like me needed a good girl to pray for his soul, because in Hell there will only be bad girls.

Go-Go girls, whores, sluts, trannys et al.

It will be a Hell of an Eternity and I will be in bad company.

But how bad can it be?

April 11, 1985 Paris - Journal Entry

One Easter morning in Paris I'm playing backgammon for money with a Chilean coke dealer in a basement apartment across from Notre Dame. I have two Moulin Rouge dancers with me. Dressed in their show gear. Snorting coke, drinking whiskey coke and beating Jose every game.

Dawn comes and the cathedral bells are bonging out the call to masses. I call it a night and the two girls in their skimpy attire head into the April morning across the bridge to the courtyard of the grand church. I'm dressed in leather.

A magnificent procession led by a large cross carried by altar boys approached the doors and we cut right in front of the cardinal in his dog outfit. He stops seeing us. I salute him. His lips moved with his eyes seeking to scorch my reprobate soul. His followers; priests, brothers, nuns, and the faithful scowl us. I offer them an atheist's smile and continue to my Ile St. Louis apartment to fuck the bejesus out of Bernadette. She was a good girl and ready to be wicked and I was a bad man in the eyes of the Holy Roman Church. Ah, the life of a sinner.

Lawang Jesus

I'm thousands of miles away from Thailand. I wished I could click my heels and find myself in Sri Racha with my family, but instead I shut my eyes and visualize Easter morning on Pattaya's Beach Road.

Most Christian farangs are sleeping off celebratory drunks, hoping to rise from the dead for a recuperative beer in the late afternoon, however back in 2006 an American George Patrick Dubie who purported himself to be the 2nd Coming of Christ, was shot by his Canadian girlfriend in a Chiang Mai restaurant. The Thai authorities gave her 3.5 years for the killing self-proclaimed Messiah and carrying a pistol in public. Her confession of premeditated murder halved her sentence along with her claim to have been driven insane by her beloved partner's affair with a Thai woman.

"I was so pissed that I killed Jesus," the disciple swore before a Thai judge. "He was spending the money he owed me on another woman."

Not Jesus.

Just another fucked-up farang fucking a Thai lover.

And she wasn't Mary Magdalene either.