Pre-Yom Kippur 2024

I am not Jewish, despite having been circumcised at birth at Boston Lying-In. The doctors were Yankees. My birth certificate even denotes my having been mutilated in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon upper class believing that boys masturbated less without a foreskin. Idiots. We were told that this barbaric custom was for hygiene. Poof! Religious fanatics ruined our heaven on earth, but this coming weekend is Yom Kippur, the high Jewish holiday borrowed from the Babylonians in the 5th Century BCE.

Presently I'm working as a diamantaire in Montauk with Cousin Richie. Jews have their schlongs schnitted post-birth, since The Torah states that God made a covenant with Abraham, and that every male among the Jewish people should be circumcised as an outward sign of this covenant. Of course circummcision has nothing to do with Yom Kippur, but anthropologists state that for the Masaai, Polynesians, and First People around the globe circumcision was a rite of passage for young men as a test of bravery and endurance, a ritual mutilation, a sacrificial spilling of blood.

In 2019 a Masaai warrior had told me that at thirteen or the coming of puberty the tribal doctor had cut his manhood before the entire clan with friends taunting him, as he received the 'button-hole' technique pulls the glans of the penis through an incision in the foreskin, leaving a portion of foreskin hanging as a permanent appendage

Thankfully I don't remember my circumcision at Boston Lying-In Hopiatal for Women in 1952, but just imagine the horror of emerging from your mother's womb to be greetef into this cruel world by a man with a knife. No wonder we're all fucked up.

This weekend is the Jewish High Holiday is Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement, when Jews around the world seek forgiveness from their God after which their fate will be prescribed by the Holy One and in accordance with rites passed on throughout time worshippers off the following poem.

"A great shofar will be blown, and a small still voice will be heard. The angels will make haste, and be seized with fear and trembling, and will say: "Behold, the day of judgment!"... On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on the Yom Kippur fast it is sealed, how many will pass and how many will be created, who will live and who will die, who in his time and who not in his time... But repentance, prayer, and charity remove the evil of the decree... For You do not desire a person's death, but rather that he repent and live. Until the day of his death You wait for him; if he repents, You accept him immediately."

That horrible Day of Judgment is feared to be coming soon with the Israelis spreading war throughout the Levant in a merciless revenge for Hammas' October 7 Attack on the Negev settlements. Gaza destroyed, the West bank attacked, leaders of the resistance huunted to ground, Missiles and artillery attacks on Lebanon. No one is spared the the wrath of the destroying IDF. The old, the young, children, women, everyone is a target. The fundamentalists of America are on their knees this Sunday, praying that Yawweh will bring Armageddon and Christ will come again. Oh, what joy, the world end. At least all the Christians will be gone.

And if not I ain't atoning for anything.

Atheists have no avenging Gods.

The Masaai warrior also said that at 19 he went out into the savannah armed with a spear and slew a lion.

"A single throw at fifty yards. Killed him instantly."

John had the lion skin at home. He showed it to me. It had been on living flesh only five years earlier. Today Israel struck Gaza killing more children. The Zionists are massing tanks to raze Gaza City to the ground like the Romans wiped all trace of the Cathargenians from the Mediterranean. Azrael has gone mad as they seek revenge for October 7 and the Holocaust and the Chosen People are hellbent on war and revenge. No atonement. Madness. Sheer madness. Free Palestine.

Man’s Best Friend

Eight days days Charlie Kirk,an extreme rightwing advocate, spoke before a mostly male crowd of three thousand as part of his American Comeback tour at Utah Valley College, a secular institution with an undergraduate population of over 40,000. Twenty minutes into his talk a single shot struck his neck and he bled out the scene, although he was pronounced DOA at the nearest hospital. The shooter evaded the police for several days. The Trump administration immediately condemned the opposition for violence, even though the 61 political killings in the U.S. from 2022 through 2024 were committed by right-wing extremists. Trump himself ratcheted up the rhetoric and vowed to attack left-wing radicals. Free speech is not allowed by anyone. Arrests are made for voicing a negative opinion of Kirk. Soldiers and educators are losing jobs over comments of joy. It is a scary time in the USA, but I was glad to see the flag of a Bushwick church flying at the top of the pole. We are not alone.

Lady Snowblood (1973) 修羅雪姫 - Movie Trailer - Far East Films

From ALMOST A DEAD MAN

The casino at Hamburg's Hotel-Intercontinental was quiet on weekday afternoons. The only action was a solo woman at the roulette table and a Japanese businessman playing baccarat. The head executive in a Savile Row suits displayed no emotion, as his fingers slashed down like samurai sword to take a hit. Win or loss was not as important as his wager’s fearlessness. The money was all black money unspendable in Japan.

After another losing hand the Joshi or boss nodded to his three underlings. The youngest separated from the table and went to the polished roulette table. The low-echelon salaryman did not understood the rules. His boss glared at him and he placed a chip on black, while observing the play of the towering brunette in four-inch stiletto heels.

Her short hair stuck out in punk spikes. Her right eye moved independently of the left. Forces had ravaged her visage. The woman in her mid-twenties resembled Meiko Kaji, if the Japanese movie actress had crashed a Porsche into a wall. There was no beauty in the gaijin gyaru.

The Japanese company man considered Occidental women ugly. This woman was more scarred as a battle-word samurai warrior. irginity was a requirement for a naked sushi body back in Japan. His boss was not so fussy in Germany. His boss was not so fussy in Germany. All the women in Hamburg were whores to them, yet she emanated a defiance rarely displayed by Japanese women other than Meiko Kaji. The pink film star was a goddess. The nameless company man loved the 1973 classic revenge movie THE LADY IN SNOWBLOOD, WHICH TARANTINO LIFTED FOR KILL BILL.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN's gaijin gyaru or western woman is Lotte Wessel, once the leader of the women of the Reeperbahn working women seeking to form a union to overthrow the pimps or Zuhalterai. They almost kill her and now she is seeking revenge.

I wrote this novel in the west of Ireland 1997.

All the cow farmers in the pub beneath the Connemara Mountains asked, "Why yer writing a book about Germany in Ireland?"

"My mother's death wish was that I go to Ireland and marry someone like my sisters or aunts."

"Now that's a death wish. How ye faring with that task?" Mikey came up to my chest and lived in a stone hut on the ocean.

"I'm here drinking with youse." None of the first born farmers had married. Women fled the West of Galway before they could get knocked up by family or friends.

I wrote THE END in December. I returned to New York. Shannon Greer, photographer read it back then in an evening. p>I rewrote it several times without submitting it to publishers or agents.

It's now on page 289 of the 2025 rewrite.

Good then, better now.

JAI YEN MAI by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago on Boxing Day my daughter was playing on our soi in Pattaya. A pick-up roared down the street like the driver had murdered his wife and was bell-bent for the border. From my perspective the bumper came too close to my little precious daughter. I jumped on my scooter and chased the speeding pick-up down the street.

At the corner I slapped his door with my open palm. A clumsy move and I swerved off my bike to avoid entering the car mayhem of Soi Bongkot. The bike dropped to the ground and I struggled to right the Yamaha. My neighbor, appeared to have such a small head through the windshield, got out of the car in a football hooligan fury. The small noggin was attached to a King Kong body tattooed with Chelsea slogan. I spotted 'Strive for victory shun defeat!' a nanosecond before his first punch.

Lefts and rights gashed my eyebrow and cheek. Grappling his arms, I realized, “Shit this guy is strong and knows what he’s doing.”

Finally he was out of breath and asked, “Had enough?”

“Yeah, but you’re still a cunt for nearly hitting my daughter.”

We left it like that.

My daughter's mother regarded at my black eyes and bruised face. “What you want to do?”

“Nothing right now.” Taking a baseball bat to his windshield or slashing his tires would escalate the conflict to the point where someone would get hospitalized since Pattaya is packed with lager louts and hooligans avoiding travel in Europe now that Spain has an extradition treaty with the UK. Fascists to a man.

“Good. Better to have jai-yen.” She kissed my cheek and gave me a beer. Fights led to blood and blood led to death.

My Thai friends from the Buffalo Bar said we have to get him.

Gae-kaen or revenge.

“But not today.” They advised with a grim smile. “Wait, we get him later.”

Their list of suggestions were dominated by a beating or vandalizing his truck.
“We do. You not worry. You not call the police?”

“No.” Calling the police meant paying sin-bon or bribes without any guarantee of satisfaction.

“Good.” The Thais liked keeping the police in the dark. “Lam-Luat no know. Good.”

My farang friends asked, “What happened to you?”

I explained the situation, but changed the story to say that my assailant was an 80 year-old man.

“Really?”

“Some of these geezers are wiry and fast.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing as long as he drives slower in the neighborhood.”

Doing nothing felt funny. George W Bush wouldn’t do nothing, but the Pentagon wasn’t in my back pocket. Nothing seemed wrong, especially when the skinhead lout drove by my house every day with a pit bull in the back. At least he was going slower.

I spent a week doing push-ups. It was a waste of time.

I was no longer a fighter, but I am vicious and spotted a cluster of red ants in my mango tree. Normally I would have sprayed the swarming tentacles with a pesticide since mot-daeng are wicked biters. This time I went into the kitchen and brought out a pot of honey.

“Winnie the Pooh.” My daughter called out as I coated the leaves with the sweet sticky honey.

My wife took one look and said, “Gae-kaen.”

I nodded my head and waited for the ants to gather their clan.

Red ants swarmed over the leaves to get at the honey. Within an hour the branch bent under their weight. By dark they numbered in the thousands, thanks to my attentive resupply of honey. My daughter's mother was watching a Thai soap opera. She only had eyes for the TV. I drove around the block. The pick-up truck was parked on the street.

I returned to the mango tree and coaxed the red ants into a paper bag. It actually felt heavy and then I dressed in black. Camouflage for the night. I crossed through the backyards of several abandoned house to the adjacent street. No dogs barked out a warning.

The skinhead’s truck was sheltered under a tree. I snuck up to the driver’s door. A dollop of honey on the door handle. Another under the door. I checked the street and uplifted the bag . A little too fast, because more ants fell on me than the door.

Thousands of them sought my flesh.

Hundreds of them found it.

I threw down the bag and ran into the darkness, with the ants biting bite everywhere.

My daughter's mother spotted the welts. “Gae-kaen.”

"Yeah, gae-kaen."

The next day I heard from neighbors how the football hooligan had come out his house and gotten into to his car to be attacked by thousands of fire ants.

They regarded me with approval.

I smile a 'yim-mai-loo', saying I didn't know what they were talking about, but they smiled back to say they knew, because like the Irish the Thais believe that revenge was always best served cold.

Especially with red ants on hand.

Good Girl Trixie Treat Bad Girl

Boys and girls in trouble gravitated to CBGBs in the 1970s. No one had to be good and bad was a virtue. Few were more trouble than Trixie Treat. Like most of us she was her own worst enemy. I didn't know her, but she handled personal mayhem with great dispatch. Sadly not much has been written about this vixen of vice.

She accompanied the Plunger Girls from LA to New York.

I think she worked at Revenge on St. Marks Place.

Wherever she is was or will be I wish her well.