A Bump In The Road

A bump in the road the last weekend of August

Saturday morning I woke early in Montauk with abdominal pain. Not bad and I thought it mihgt have been from last night's dinner. Chicken and rice. White rice. Not likely. I walked to Ditch Plains beach for a swim. The southernly wind was cool off the Atlantic. I laid on the sand. Low clouds cloaked the sun. Summer was comIng to an end. Another three weeks. The pain was not ending.

I returned to my tent and dressed for work. Shirts, a polo, summer jacket, Sperry Rand boat shoes. Looking a true New Englander on teh East En of Log Island. A taxi ride to 771 p5 Highway. Winick Fine Jewelry. A coffee. My young co-worker opened the door. Izsa regarded me with concern.

"Are you okay?"

"Maybe."

"More like maybe not."

"I'm calling my doctors." I pulled out my cell. It was a Saturday. None of my calls were answered other than by answering services.

The pain increased with spikes into my gut. This wasn’t food poisoning. Something more serious. I laid on the floor hoping for it to subside. No. I googled the symptons. Possibility of a blood clot to my stomach. Very dangerous. 80% fatality within twenty-hours. No more toughing it.

My co-worker, Izsa, was so alarmed by my state that she called the owner and said she was driving me to the hospital. Richard asked if she could wait till he got there.

"No."

She ordered me to do nothing. I obeyed every letter of nothing. Five minutes later she closed the safe.

"You have everything?"

Wallet, phone, glasses ,house keys. Ready to go.

Izsa drove over Hither Hills across the Stretch through the blighted Pine Barrens and Amagansett. Fast. She was the type to panic.

The pain blankled out my five physical senses. A boa constrictor was devouring my guts. I breathed slowly and deeply. No help. My hands grew cold. Not a good sign. We reached the hospital. Very much a Easthampton boutique. No lines. I informed the triage desk that I was in very excruciating pain and also a liver transplant patient. The pain 12 going onto 13. I aske if my Medicaid covered this visit. They said yes. All systems go.

After registration I was wheeled to a spacious private room andd put onto a bed for tests. The nurse injected a strong painkiller in my vein. I thanked Izsa for the ride and her TLC. She smiled knowing I was in good hands.

"Go back to work." I was used to being alone in hospitals.

"Okay, but I need you back at the store next week"

"Thank you." She left me to the care of a hospital. We both knew the routine. Wait.

After a half-hour a young attending doctor confirmed my suspicion with his suspicion that I might have a blood clot and the nurse fixed a blood thinner IV into my vein. More worryng was his mention of surgery. He admitted that Easthampton wasn't set up to handle this emergency. At sunset an ambulance transferred me to Stony Brook Hospital. Everyone in Montauk sai it was a good hospital. Sirens and flashing lights. I was in no pain on the two-hour trip down Long Island. I had received another shot.

Stone Brook Hospital was bigger. The ER staff IVed blood thinner and more painkiller, but the hospital also coouldn't help me. My status as a liver transplant recipient demanded specialized care.

Another two hour ambulance ride to my old hospital Weill Cornell in the Upper East Side. No lights. No sirens. Arrive near 9pm. I finally felt safe in the Liver transplant recovery ward. Two nurses remembered me. THree years ago I had recovered from the transplant here. I had been hospitalized more than once in this war. I received of scans and blood tests. One last painkiller shot. Morphine. My toes looked so faraway.

Constant blood work scans and tests. No food. No water. Only ice chips. I called my family in Thailand. I said nothing. I felt like I had passed the worst.

The next day the pain gone. I eat bad hospital food. Three friends visited in the morning . Raoul, Nussy, Jack. I hadn't called anyone else, but Izsa and Richie in Montauk.

"I'm good."

And Sunday afternoon I was released to go home. Out to the street. No one waiting. Down on the Q train to Bleecker Street. Alive as always. Another escape from death. Alive. Lazarus II Resting__I am okay__

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Much more to come.

Lazarus II -2022

LAZARUS II

Two summers ago
In the black night of Brooklyn
I
A sixty-nine year old man spewed blood
Into the bathroom tub, a lot of blood__
After wiping the retch
From my face
More spew, more blood, liters of blood red red red
Something not right
Something very wrong
And I went back to sleep
Planning to go to a hospital
If I make the morn__
At dawn
I crossed the East River
Not in an amubulance
In a taxi
To a 1st Avenue hospital
Inside the emergency room
The staff take one look
A scrum of nurses, orderlies, and doctors speed my body from ER to OR
Hands strip my old body naked
“Sir, can you hear me?
A young intern
Nod
“You are bleeding to death from the varices.”
“Varices?”
“Small stomach fissures."
A nod
"Do you have family in New York?”
Head shake from side to side
“Do you want to be revived?”
“From the dead?”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”___
An oxygen mask
Over my mouth and nose
“If you have any prayers, say them.”
“Síoraíocht.”
The Celtic word for eternity
No meaning to Christians
Their only afterlifes
Heaven hell or purgatory__
None of that now
The hiss of oxygen, anesthesia
Propofol
Me
Into a Limbo
White light
Nothing, only white
There was something else___
Eternal nothingness
Síoraíocht times zero equals zero
Death
Eternity
I was cool with nothing__
And then I was back
Life
The waking eternity
Here
Pain
The Here not my own bed__
Their hospital
The pain mine.
None of this a dream
Sucked air
The other patient in the room
Not breathing
Never again
Lost to eternity___
Me
Hospital
Nurses
Doctors
An earnest doctor reading a chart
“You were very lucky. We stopped the bleeding.”
“I like luck.”
Ahd in Gaelic
“I have bad news.”
Plenty of bad news__
Cancer
Cirrhosis
The looming threat of death
My forever death's eternity__
I 69
Alone in a hospital bed
In a city of millions
Bad news
It was all right
I had had a grand life__
And I was not dead yet
Still alive
Straddling eternity and nothing
No fear for the past, present or future or nothing__
I had died before
Car crashes
Beatings
Broken hearts
Whatever didn’t kill me
Made me wish I was__
In the following weeks my friends thought this was the end
Some saw death in my eyes
My children in Thailand prayed to Buddha My wives too
That I will live forever
People believed in life eternal
In Heaven, Limbo,or Hell
I had believed the same
As a child
Not now
But I had had a good life___
New England, New York, California, England, France, Germany, Hawaii, Quebec, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Nepal, Tibet, Kenya, Tanzania, and Belize, Guatamala, Honduras, Peru, Jamaica
How can I forget India, the Ganges at dawn?
The burning bodies with a sitarb raga drifting on the smoke from a ghat temple
Friends by the thousands
Two family in Thailand
Five children
Two grandchildren
A good life__
But I was not dead
Still alive
Straddling eternity
Why fight for life?
Why not accept this fate?
Acceptance
Surrender
Freedom__ Morphine made surrender easy
Free
Never to drink again__
And there was still more to come___
Months passed
A year and more
Pain, jaundice, weight loss
Down to 142 pounds
People thought
I looked like a Rolling Stone
Keith Richards___
Ahead my last days
Fly to Thailand
Watch the sun set
Over the emerald green rice fields
My family by my side
Loaded on morphine__
Then a miracle__
Yulemas
An available transplant.
That night back in the OR
The room cuts to black
Clear light
I know this Limbo well
No gods, no heaven, no hell
Nowhere
Nothing
No one
The embrace of eternity Escape from the white light
A detour
To London
The Smithfield Market Slaughterhouse
My body on a chopping block
Entrails scattered across the wood
Then snap back to life This life__
Sniff the air
Antiseptic smell
The gore of the abattoir gone
Clean sheets
The machines beep
A nurse gave me water
Tasting of life
My fingers touch
A black scar
Marking the execution of the old me.
A new me alive
Alive with another soul within me
Paula My donor
Forty years old
300 pounds
A suicide
I love her and she me
Old School Lazarus II
Where’s the morphine?__

From the white propofol extinction
Back from the Smithfield Market Slaughterhouse Back to the eternity__

The new me
In a hospital bed
High over the East River
Not alone
Just Paula and Lazarus II
Wicked scars
Never dead before my time
Only dead to the time before now
Now a gray winter sky o’er Brooklyn
Time eternal
Because there is no time in nothingness
Only Nothing Paula and Lazarus II__
We are not lonely together
Living forever again
Remember from whence thee came and where we’re going
Ashes to Ashes not___

poetry lives with me. this poem has gone through many metamorphosis. Every time I read or recite it, the poem spawns newness with the previously unseen. Always alive like me and Paula and eternity and Síoraíocht__

Lazurus II Dancing - January 25, 2023

January 25, 2023. One month post transplant. Looking clean in Jacob Eye Home. Reciting poetry with Jack Haven. Weighing 160. Skin and bones and looking like I played with the Rolling Stones.

That morning Charlotta Janssen said, "You're not in the waiting room anymore. You're alive. Get a hair cut and start dressing good. "

When she is right she is very right.

Aran Isles sweater hanging off a scarecrow. Dancing dancing dancing, "I'm a dancing machine."

Forever Young

I live in the now The now was is will be It's all the same The Now of Forever

A teen in the 60s The 70s A hippie, then a punk Paris the 80s Such a life Such a life And more

The young wish Then was now To be free To travel To be free

But it's all the same The Now of Forever

Wherever we go it's there Forever there

Bali, oh yeah Africa oh yeah Tibet oh yeah Paris hell yeah

The now of then The Now of Now Always here Hell yeah Always here Hell yeah

For us all In peace Hell yeah Forever Now We're only young forever

Dedicated to Colonial Rockford

Foto Had Rayong Thailand 1999

ESSENCE

Essence

Last year I died three times.
Once on an airplane
Coming from Bangkok
Twice on an Operating table.

Passing from this life
To white oblivion
Not heaven
Not hell
Merely a white oblivion

Coming back
Not as a reincarnation
But
To this life
To this body
To the meaninglessness
Of the Now.

My body healed
Skin and bones
Looking like Willem Dafoe
My soul
Joyless
Still in limbo
Of a world Not of my making

Months pass
Healing
Winter to Spring
Healing
Alone
Spring to summer
Alive
No longer barely

Alive
Not looking like the before me
Not looking like Willem Dafoe either.
Halfway between the old me
And the new me

In June
Stronger and I went to the Rockaways
My friend FX
My lifeguard
A better than good swimmer.

The Atlantic shore break was dangerous
I stripped off my clothes
Naked to the elements
A long scar across my abdomen

FX looks at me
I at him.

I am not alone
I am with him
The wind
jThe earth
Water
Sky

The ocean calls

I race through the waves
Dive into the sea
Surface
The sun to the west

The glow of life
Surges
Through my veins
Duck under a wave
Surface
Alive
Filled with the memory
Of hundreds of beaches
Around the world

Higgins Beach Maine
My mother reaching down to pull me up
Nantasket Beach
A drowned man
Wollaston
Swimming around the sewer
The water warm
Moonlight Beach
California
LSD with seals
Mazatlan
Waikiki
Bingin Beach Bali
Nice, Cannes, Biarritz
Koh Phi Phi
I lose count

FX shouts
I shout back
The waves washing away the tears of joy

I am alive
And I no longer look like Willem Dafoe
Just another version of me.
Lazurus II

Everything Versus Nothing - Lazurus II

Everything I thought about life disappeared with my first death.
On a hospital operating table
I was Michael Jackson on profopol.
Feeling
Nothing but nothing
And the promise of more nothing throughout eternity.

The hereafter was exactly as I had expected.
A wasteland.
White.
Formless.
Nothing.
No God.
No gods.
No Satan.
No heaven or hell.
No purgatory.
No fear.
No pleasure.
No pain.

Then
I sensed something else.
More nothing.
My math education taught
That nothing times something equal nothing.
Nothing was more powerful than everything
And I was okay with eternity with nothing.

Year ago in Thailand
My father had once appeared in a dream.
In his fifties. Strong. Not old. Not young.
I complained about my problems.
He stopped me.
He knew something I didn’t know and said clearly, “Don’t worry. When you’re dead none of those problems will mean nothing.”
I believed him without question.
He had never lied to me.
I wish I could have claimed the same.

I had lied to me all the time.
In this white nothingness that didn’t matter.
The nothingness absolved me of everything.
I searched for something in the nothingness and found nothing.
My humanness argued there had to be something.
Not true.
I had no eyes, nose nose, no ears, no skin, no tongue,
Yet I could feel the nothingness,
Even though it was nothing.
I couldn’t shut off the nothingness.
It felt like forever, then I segued to a dream.
I was on a cutting block. In London
The Smithfield Market.
Butcher's chopping my body.
My guts scattered across the wood table.
No pain.
No terror.
Simply a vacation from the nothingness,
Except it was something worse.

I emerged from death.

Snap.

My eyes opened.
My body on an operating table.
Profopol fading.
My abdomen opened to transplant a liver.
There were no guts to be seen.
No butchers either.
Nurses surrounded the OR table..
“Are you okay?”
The voice from behind me.
I croaked out yes.

Life.
Not death.
Not nothing.
Breathe.
Feel drugs.
Morphine.
Maybe Dilaudid.
I recall saying no Oxys.

This was not a new life.
I had not died.
I had lied to myself.
The nothing was not real.

A doctor
“Everything went well.”
Everything?
But what about the nothing?
Both were simple answers on morphine

The Declaration of Independence 1776

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the 13 United States of America:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such….

…. is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of….

…large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Independence Hall before photography

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
Declaration of Independence

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,

That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Signed by White Men of Property

Darryle Postcard - Never Send - March 1984

In January 1984 I accompanied a fashion photographer to Jamaica to shot a new blonde Star, Darryl Hannah.

She was good people.

After the trip I returned to Europa and traveled across the Alpes with a Italian cartoonist.

We spent a night in Milano.

I sent a letter and not this postcard from Roma.

Maybe I didn't have a stamp.

I'm glad it didn't make the journey.

Miss Hannah It's easy to jump the Forum Fence Even easier to avoid the guards The hard part is to decide what to do once your are inside. I stand beside a young romanette She speaks no English I speak no Italian That works for both of use. Nothing open in Rome after dark Which is why he jumped the fence. No idea why she's here; No bars, no drugs, no hotels. She lays on broken stone and pulls up her skirt Latin letters impressed into her flesh... Ancient dust powders thighs.... The girl is open for me tonight Such is life overseas on the trail.

Heading north to hike around Zermatt, then back to Paris.

I wish you luck.

The Children Of Dead Friends

Sad to say I have outlived my most dangerous friends. They challenged Life. Faces turned to destiny and death seized them for eternity.

Junkies, bank robbers, normal people and psychos lifted from life.

We cannot surrender out souls.

We must live.

Forever or until the sun don't shine.

What Will Be Tomorrow - Kilimanjaro

The 2020 Kili Initiative team left Kibo Hut at midnight. I wished them well on the final stage of the climb. The falling snow turned to sleet. My brother Ma'we said, "You should come, my brother."

"I know." I had failed to summit in 2019. My right ankle was weak and my thin gloves guaranteed little protection from the cold. "Maybe next year. See you tomorrow."

I returned to my bunk bed and snaked into my sleeping bag.

Warmth.

Darkness.

Quiet.

Dawn arrived early and I tramped across the ice-encrusted dirt to the WC.

The sun nimbused the eastern horizon and I turned my head to Kilimanjaro. The team had to close to the summit. I squinted, but failed to spot them on the trail. I blew on my bare hands and returned to bed. My old body took its time getting warm. I reached over to my cell phone and called my family in Thailand. Despite the weak connection I was able to say I love you and hear my son Fenway shouted, "Lak Pah."

My phone still showed bars and I tapped in www.theguardian.com

Joe Biden had beaten Bernie Sanders in Iowa, Britain was leaving the EEU, China's pollution levels had dropped during the spread of Coruna Virus, and the headline was UK FEARS OF UNDETECTED CASES GROW AS 13 MORE TEST POSITIVE.

The park ranger approached with a glance at the rim. We knew each other for two years. He was a LA Lakers fan. He pointed to my phone and then the Maasai Plains.

"What do you think will happen?"

"I don't know, but it will not be good."

The guard pointed to a line of climbers.

"Your friends are at the top."

"I'll be in Marangu this evening."

"We'll drink beer together at the Big Tree."

The two of us exchanged a knowing smile, for whatever awaited on the plains coming today or tomorrow was the future and we were happy enough to know a cold beer might save not so much our lives, especially if tomorrow was not today.

Bahati njema.

YOU BET I WOULD by Peter Nolan Smith

During our 2009 trip through the American Midlands filming Barry Flanagan statues Brock Dundee and I detoured from our route to meet Colonel Rockford Ret. in Iowa City. The three of us began the evening at a sports bar. The bartender had just returned from his third tour in Iraq. We toasted his return with tequila shots. After the third Cuevo Gold Brock Dundee, Rockford, and I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette.

A trio of Bud Lite drinkers were disparaging the President in the alley.

"I don't know how we elected a nigger."

The fattest was leading the hate parade. He looked like he had played second-string linebacker in high school, but this fat boy hadn't touched his toes in years. I clenched my fists. I hadn't seen my family in months. Thailand was on the other side of the world. I was not in a good mood.

"Don't start anything." Rockford grabbed my arm. He was still a hippie. "It's not the place."

"Assholes." I glared at the trio. I was more a punk and repeated the word louder.

This time they had heard me and turned to face us.

"What your problem?" asked the fat boy's friend. His head was shaven to the bone and his body had been morphed into a smaller steroid version of a WWF wrestling wannabe.

"That's no way to talk about the president."

"And why not?"

"John Wayne said it best about JFK," interjected Rockford, whose favorite westerns were EASY RIDER and OLE YELLER.

"And what was that?"

"I didn't vote for him, but he is my president." Brock beat Rockford to the quote, then added, "I might not be American, but I do like John Wayne."

The three of us traded opinions about our favorite John Wayne films. I picked TRUE GRIT and as a director Brock classically voted for John Ford's THE SEARCHERS, while Brock surprised us with his choice.

"WE WERE EXPENDABLE. It's set in the Philippines. A PT boat crew trying to escape the Japs." The old appellations lived long in Iowa.

I watched the three conservatives bunch together like they were discussing a stratagem, then the fat one ranted about having a black Muslim communist illegal alien as president. I clenched my fists, but remembered that I was passing through Iowa City. Tomorrow I would be hundreds of miles away.

I stubbed out my cigarette and walked toward the entrance to the bar. The skinniest of the three was feeling his oats and loudly told to his friends, "This country was founded on Conservative values; church, family, and flag."

"That's it." I stormed over and pointed my finger in his face.

"This country was founded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so shut the fuck up about 'Conservative values'."

"I can say anything____" The butch muscle boy started to say.

"Do yourself a favor and shut your piehole and I don't want to hear any muttering behind my back either."

I strode inside the bar and ordered a Stella. Brock and Rockford joined me two seconds later. I looked out the door. The three locals were gone from the alley.

"Fuck them."

>"What happened to the Freedom of Speech?" Colonel Rockford was a firm believer in speaking his mind.

"Fuck the Freedom of Speech. It's an amendment to the Constitution." I was more than angry after eight years of hearing Conservatives bullshit about family values. "I'll say what I want and I'll tell anyone to shut up when I want too. That's my Freedom of Speech."

"I don't think that phrasing was guaranteed by the Constitution." Brock politely said and then continued, "And to be truthful this country is very conservative. Look at what happened to your Senator Gary Hart in 1988."

"Gary Hart?" I hadn't thought about the Colorado senator in years.

"Yes, he was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 election." My British friend's erudite tones had nearby drinkers listening to his every word. "Right up to the moment when the Miami Herald published photos of Donna Rice sitting on his lap."

"On the yacht MONKEY BUSINESS." Colonel Rockford had a good memory for a man in his early-60s.

"Aptly named. The Senator denied there was an 'hanky-panky'. Even his wife said the relationship was innocent."

"The wife is always the last to know." Colonel Rockford signaled the bartender for three more tequilas.

"His poll rankings sunk to the point where he only received 4000 votes in the New Hampshire primary, but if he had said, "Sure I screwed Donna and so would you all, Gary Hart would have received every male and free love vote in America, because people here and in the rest of the world are sinners. Not Conservative, but fun-loving happiness seekers. But no one likes a liar other than those people who don't want to look at themselves in a mirror."

We picked up our shots and Brock said, "America may be Conservative, but most Americans thought that Gary Hart's indiscretion had little to do with his ability to be president."

"And they got Dukakis to run against Bush." I remembered the photo of Dukakis' head sticking out of a tank like a turtle, then again he would have looked just as silly with Donna Rice on his lap.

"Now that was one unsexy guy." Colonel Rockford shivered with the memory of that election. "I voted Communist that year. Gus Hall I think. And he was even more unsexy. You're right, Brock. All Gary Hart had to have done was say, "I fucked her and so would you." and he would have been president."

"Who was Donna Rice," the bartender asked with interest.

"She was a hot blonde."

Unlike John Wayne movies the three of us were in complete agreement on that subject.

And agreeing with your friends was the beauty of Free Speech.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE by A. L. Harlow

My good friend AL Harlow aka Big Al has published his memoir online. Here's the opening; WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE by A. L. Harlow When I began writing this I was at a loss for the reasons why. Why would I open myself up again to all those feelings from years of being lost, broken, imprisoned and nearly killed? I felt I needed to get my story out in hopes that it could help people who have problem children and are ready to throw in the towel. If you have a child, or children —regardless of their age—who are incorrigible, hyperkinetic and argumentative, or have teenage drug users I say, do not give up on them.

Don’t leave them for society to deal with because its institutions will only extract their pound of flesh and fill their hearts with hate. Your job is to provide the family safety-net they need while growing up to catch them when they fall. Your job is to give them the tools they will need to succeed in life and to love them unconditionally.

Many people who will read my story may miss this point and instead believe they are to judge me, but judgment day for me has come and gone; it no longer matters what people think of me. I believe I’m a good person who has done some bad things and for those of you whom I have hurt in the past please accept my apologies because they are sincere. For those of you who have lied and used the courts to punish me based on your lies, I’m only sorry to have met you.

So as I go through a mental checklist of what I should write about, I realize that if I’m to use my past as a guide for what not to do, then I need to tell the whole story, no matter how painful.

In the beginning I was a willful, hyperactive child and was dealt a bad hand in life, but as I grew up to be a young man and stood at the crossroads of life on my own feet, I could see only one way to go. This direction always brought me to the same destination, but somehow I felt a perverse sense of pride for living my life as I wanted, no matter how twisted. My role models were gangsters, thugs, outlaws and drug dealers. As time went on I became respected and even feared by these same people.

Near-death experiences were common with my lifestyle, but one day something happened that changed my whole life. I had an accident that would have killed most people. According to Buddhist philosophy I had seen the face of death and this changed me.

This time when I returned to my crossroads I could see there were so many more directions, but by now I was the president of a well-known, notorious outlaw motorcycle organization. People just don’t walk away from this life. I did. The men who I once called brothers tried to kill me. They put a contract on my life. Things got really dirty when a hang-around club girl made accusations against me to the cops. The plan was to get me busted so they could kill me in prison.

The feds took this opportunity to tell me they could make it all go away. If I helped them, they would help me. I was trying to change my life, but being an informant was not the direction I was looking to go. I took a two-year deal and stayed on the main yard with only a couple of attempts on me when I arrived. At just under six feet tall, 300 (solid) pounds and no stranger to prison life they quickly learned to leave me alone. I hit a guy so hard he lost his four front teeth. I shattered his nose and cheekbone with one punch. The message was simple: “leave me alone”.

I had dug myself a hole so deep that changing my life was nearly impossible, but I kept on. Life’s many disappointments (and there are many when you start with nothing but a long list of failures) at times weakened my resolve and I found comfort in consuming whatever narcotics I could get my hands on. My addiction welcomed me back like an old lover.

When I was unemployed and needed to get high I would look for dealers I didn’t know or like and just take what I wanted. But inside I knew this had to change and I began to dig myself out of my labyrinth of holes and tunnels. I've known Big Al for a number of years. Mostly from Pattaya. I love his writing. He knows the truth and doesn't flinch from its reflection. Lives like his offer a maze of traps. Few can escape. To buy WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE by A.L. Harlow please go to the following URL /www.amazon.com/dp/B007JB1P9I/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_pD3Eqb16QDTHH/183-7233622-7206400

The Jewels Of Life

Several years ago my younger sister expressed her anger for my fathering a child at 55. "You should get a vasectomy." She thought I was a fool for bringing another child onto the planet without a steady job. She was more right than wrong, but then women always are more right than men. "I don't need one." I was back in the States and there was no danger of my having sex with the Rubenesque women of America. Back in Thailand with my new wife was another story. "It's not just to stop having babies. A vasectomy helps cut down on the risk of testicular cancer." My sister researched everything she wanted to say following the old legal adage 'never ask a question to which you don't know the answer'. "That may be so, but I can't have a vasectomy, because I'm thinking of the human race." While vasectomy is not castration, it sounds the same to men, although through the miracle of modern medicine there are procedures for vasectomy reversal. "How so?" My sister was a lawyer. She wanter to hear my rationale. "Say every man in the world is exterminated by a space virus and I'm the last man on Earth. I would be the only source of sperm on the planet and as such be required to seed every woman possible no matter what my age. The fate of humanity rests below my waist, so I have to safeguard against this seemingly distant possibility." I had written a screenplay about the last man on Earth in the 90s. It ends with the character impregnating the last women. He was no Adam. "You're crazy." "That may be so, but I will protect mankind from extinction to my grave." France considered vasectomy as a crime of self-mutilation until 2001. "So no vasectomy?" I was being requestioned by an expert. "Not a chance." Some things are best left the way they are, because the way they are is the way they;'re supposed to be.

YOU BET I WOULD by Peter Nolan Smith

During my 2009 trip through the American Midlands filming Barry Flanagan statues for my British friend's film the two of us detoured from our route to meet Colonel Rockford Ret. in Iowa City. We began the evening drinking at a sports bar. The bartender was just back from his third tour in Iraq. We toasted his return with tequila shots. After the third Brock Dundee, Rockford, and I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. A trio of Bud Lite drinkers were disparaging the President in the alley. "I don't know how we elected a nigger." The fattest was leading the hate parade. He looked like he had played second-string linebacker in high school. I clenched my fists. Brock was alarmed by this. My fuse was short these days. I hadn't seen my family in months. Thailand was on the other side of the world. "Don't start anything." Rockford grabbed my arm. "It's not the place." "Assholes." I glared at the trio. They had heard me. I turned to my friends. "John Wayne said it best about JFK." "I didn't vote for him, but he is my president." Brock beat me to the punchline. "I might not be American, but I do like John Wayne." The three of us traded opinions about our favorite John Wayne films. I picked TRUE GRIT and Brock classically voted for John Ford's THE SEARCHERS, while Brock surprised us with his choice. "WE WERE EXPENDABLE. It's set in the Philippines. A PT boat crew trying to escape the Japs." The old appellations lived long in Iowa. I let the three locals vent their frustration at having a black Muslim communist illegal alien as president. I stubbed out my cigarette and walked toward the entrance to the bar. The skinniest of the three was feeling his oats and boasted to his friends, "This country was founded on Conservative values; church, family, and flag." "That's it." I stormed over and pointed my finger in his face. "This country was founded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so shut the fuck up about 'Conservative values'."

"I can say anything____" The oldest started to say, then thought better of challenging my edict. "Good idea to shut your hole and I don't want to hear any muttering either." I walked inside the bar and ordered a Stella. I hated Bud Lite. Brock and Rockford joined me two seconds later. I looked out the door. The three locals were gone from the alley. >"What about the Freedom of Speech?" Colonel Rockford was a firm believer in speaking your mind.

"Fuck the Freedom of Speech. It's an amendment to the Constitution." I was more than angry after eight years of hearing Conservatives bullshit about family values. "I'll say what I want and I'll tell anyone to shut up when I want too. That's my Freedom of Speech."

"I don't think that phrasing was guaranteed by the Constitution." My Brock politely interjected and then added, "And to be truthful this country is very conservative. Look at what happened to your Senator Gary Hart in 1988."

"Gary Hart?" I hadn't thought about the Colorado senator in years.

"Yes, he was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 election." My British friend's erudite tones had nearby drinkers listening to his every word. "Right up to the moment when the Miami Herald published photos of Donna Rice sitting on his lap."

"On the yacht MONKEY BUSINESS." Colonel Rockford had a good memory for a man in his early-60s.

"Aptly named. The Senator denied there was an 'hanky-panky'. Even his wife said the relationship was innocent."

"The wife is always the last to know." Colonel Rockford signaled the bartender for tequila.

"His poll rankings sunk to the point where he only received 4000 votes in the New Hampshire primary, but if he had said, "Sure I screwed Donna and so would you all, Gary Hart would have received every male vote and free love vote in America, because people here and in the rest of the world are sinners. Not Conservative, but fun-loving happiness seekers. But no one likes a liar other than those people who don't want to look at themselves in a mirror."

We returned to our drinks and Brock said, "America may be Conservative, but most Americans thought that Gary Hart's indiscretion had little to do with his ability to be president."

"And they got Dukakis to run against Bush." I remembered the photo of Dukakis' head sticking out of a tank. He would have looked just as silly with Donna Rice on his lap.

"Now that was one unsexy guy." Colonel Rockford shivered with the memory of that election. "I voted Communist that year. Gus Hall I think. And he was even more unsexy. You're right, Brock. All Gary Hart had to have done was say, "I fucked her and so would you." and he would have been president." "Who was Donna Rice." "She was a hot blonde." Unlike John Wayne movies the three of us were in complete agreement on that subject. And that's the beauty of Free Speech. Agreeing with your friends.

Drinking Yourself To Death

Every week the Pattaya Media highlights another farang leaving this mortal coil from suicide. Favorite methods of self-demise tend to be jumping from a condo, poison, or hanging yourself with a plastic bag around your head, but few people ever comment on the most popular technique ie drinking yourself to the grave, since the process takes too long to be considered suicide. Still you do hear friends saying about the decreased, "He drank himself to death."

While drinking yourself to death might not be pretty, it's certainly not as ugly as hitting the pavement from a 7th floor balcony plus you're in good company. Oliver Reed for one and the church can't ban you from a churchyard burial at which your friends will say, "At leat he went doing what he did best."

So for those desperate souls seeking solace in a final solution. Get yourself a beer. Maybe twelve. A bottle of vodka and one of gin too. At worst the near-death experience will scare you back from the edge as long as you don't get on a motorcycle during this binge, then you'll have people saying, "What was he thinking trying to dirve in that condition?"

And we can't have people speaking of the dead like that.