19 Ways of Keeping Your Insanity Intact

1. At Lunch Time, Sit in Your Parked Car with Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer at Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You to Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.

4. Put Your Garbage Can on Your Desk and Label it “In”.

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once everyone has gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write “For Smuggling Drugs”.

7. Finish All Your sentences with “In Accordance With The Prophecy”.

8. Don’t use any punctuation.

9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is “To Go”.

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13. Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don’t Rhyme?

14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area, Play tropical Sounds All Day.

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party, Because You’re Not In The Mood.

16. Have Your Co-workers Address You by Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream “I Won! I Won!”

18. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling “Run For Your Lives! They’re Loose!”

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, “Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.”

Mad Dogs And Englishmen

Mad Dogs and Englishmen
(Noel Coward)

In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire,
to tear their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules that the biggest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry and one must avoid
its ultry-violet ray --
Papalaka-papalaka-papalaka-boo. (Repeat)
Digariga-digariga-digariga-doo. (Repeat)
The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously, absolutely nuts --

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen detest a siesta,
In the Philippines there are lovely screens,
to protect you from the glare,
In the Malay states there are hats like plates,
which the Britishers won't wear,
At twelve noon the natives swoon, and
no further work is done -
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

It's such a surprise for the Eastern eyes to see,
That though the British are effete,
they're quite impervious to heat,
When the white man rides, every native hides in glee,
Because the simple creatures hope he will
impale his solar topee on a tree.
Bolyboly-bolyboly-bolyboly-baa. (Repeat)
Habaninny-habaninny-habaninny-haa. (Repeat)
It seems such a shame that when the English claim the earth
That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth -

Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it.
In Rangoon the heat of noon is just what the natives shun.
They put their scotch or rye down, and lie down.
In the jungle town where the sun beats down,
to the rage of man or beast,
The English garb of the English sahib merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this stupid habit.
In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun.
To reprimand each inmate, who's in late.
In the mangrove swamps where the python romps
there is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous lie down and snooze, for there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal, to move at all, is seldom if ever done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

To listen to MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN

Please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPnJM3zWfUo

McQueen – How Cool?

Steve McQueen was the coolest movie star ever.

Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood are living icons, but Steve was the real thing.

Dead or alive.

My Catholic school outside of Boston showed THE GREAT ESCAPE. The nuns hated anything that didn't have to with God. They showed that movie for one reason and wasn't to celebrate the freedom of the human spirit. According to the nuns our purposes on earth were to know, love, and serve God. The reason for screening the GREAT ESCAPE had nothing to do with the story.

The nuns loved Steve McQueen

He was that cool.

See ON ANY SUNDAY.

I always wanted a hair cut like his.

How cool.

See PAPILLION. His acting steamrollered over Dustin Hoffman.

In THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN he was told by the producers that he couldn’t stand before Yul Brenner. McQueen accepted that edict, but in every scene he’s the only one moving while Yul Brenner talks.

Several years back his Persol sunglasses sold at auction for $70,000.

The glasses came from THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.

Super Cool.

McQueen was always cool enough to admit his friend Bud Ekins did that stunt over the barbed wire in THE GREAT ESCAPE.

Cool people are cool enough to share in their coolness.

Gaan- Lor or Temptation

Three years ago my ex-wife came back from the country. Her entire family was with her. She checked my phone. No calls from strange girls. I had deleted any messages from Mint. She were ‘friends’ and wouldn’t call until my ex-wife returned to the country. I didn’t go out to the bars, because during low season the clientele tends to be as old as extinct creatures and I’m scared shitless of catching olditis if these wizened geezers farted dust in my direction.

I played good man or poo-chai di and stayed with my daughter. My ex-wife was on the phone with a man. The same one from before. I was glad she had someone, so she didn't have to have me.

I drank 3-4 Leo beers a day instead the usual onslaught of 10-12 Changs at the Buffalo. Sleep came early. Not like in the country, but 10ish with a book lulling in the direction of Nodville.

My little compound near 3rd Road had two houses separated by an open-air garage. The larger had two bedrooms, kitchen, and TV room, in which my ex-wife, mother, nephew, sister, my daughter and niece watch a never-ending supply of Thai Soaps.

I wrote and listened to punk music in my office.

The twains met when the mobile food carts beeped their horn. My daughter runs to my desk with an outstretched hand. “Twenty baht please.”

My ex-wife asked for a hundred. Her family ate like they had been warned of famine, so I keep lots of small bills in my ATM dispenser ie wallet.

Last night the Jam were playing on the stereo Nick gave me before his dreaded return to the UK. The family was mesmerized by the bootleg version of HARRY POTTER in Thai. The phone rang in my pocket. I answered without hesitation.

“Hello tee-lat.” It was Ort.

“Where are you? Singapore?” I cupped my hand over my mouth. My ex-wife has big ears.

“No, can’t get a flight. I’m in Pattaya. you have time for me.”

Ever since my good friend from New York, Jamie Parker had stopped seeing Ort for health reasons, I had been expecting a phone call at the least opportune moment possible. A week went by and then two. It appeared I was off the hook.

Several of the dancers at the Paris A Go-Go said Ort was traveling to Singapore to work with Chinese businessmen. I offered a silent prayer for her good luck and thanked the stars she was gone. The go-go vixen liked sex, especially if she was on Ice.

Ice and sex was a 21st Century formula for disaster.

Here there and everywhere.

Ort was nothing, but trouble. Temptation was appealing, if only for revenge. MY ex-wife had left me for another man. A Thai. She thought that I didn't know about it. I was not as big a fool as I looked in her eyes, but Ort was more than temptation. She was the devil's own handmaiden.

My mother had warned that if I saw trouble that I should walk the other way.

For once I was heeding her advice.

“No, I’m with my ex-wife.”

“Can’t you come see me. I have Ice and want you to play my master.” Ort was also a masochist. She didn’t know why other than to say that she liked it rough.

“Sorry, I don’t have any money.” Feeding my ex-wife’s relatives had sapped by ‘fun’ funds.

“Not problem. I have money. Have Ice. I want you. Not have to have sex. Can only talk.”

“Talk?” The devil was trying to buy my soul for a free night of sex with a tramp. I leaned back in my chair. I could see my daughter’s head. She was bouncing on the sofa. Nobody would miss me for an hour or two. Least of all my ex-wife.

“I talk to you and you talk to me.” Ort’s 3rd language was 69.

The DVD of her plans played within my brain at 32 times the speed of light. She would smoke her pipe and then mount me cowboy-reverse, telling me not to move until she finished with brown eyes rolling into her skull. I was getting hard as a 40 year-old on Viagra.

‘C’mon, you know you want it.”

I’m fairly sure my final destination is down rather than up and I’m sure that on my death bed I would be ruing refusing Ort this favor, but I said, “Sorry, I can’t, my ex-wife is coming. Bye.”

I shut off my phone and went over to the TV room.

My ex-wife looked at me with a smile. She knew that her presence was unwanted, but also that she had the power to refuse me the right to see my daughter. My ex-wife was cruel.

“Good movie.” If it weren't for my daughter, I'd have left my ex-wife 5 years ago.

“Okay. You watch with us.”

“Why not?

It wasn’t like I had a choice. Trouble was where you found it. I sat on the couch and my daughter joined me to watch SID AND NANCY. My ex-wife hated the movie. She hated all things farang. Not my daughter. She was happy to lay her head on my shoulder.

And so was I.

PUNK GO COP

The Thai police are a law unto themselves. The 'Tam-Luak' plunder the Thais with a pirate's greed. If they find no infraction, then the boys in brown will manufacture a crime to reap 'tea money' for their superiors. In their eyes no one is truly innocent. Most farangs know well enough to avoid the Thai police. After nearly 20 years in Thailand I know none. I have Thai friends who know police. I've never asked for their assistance. They are experts at turning a small situation into a costly one.

At my old local on Pattaya's Soi Concrete one of the lads from England had been dating a female cop from Bangkok's District 8. Richard said that Lee's squad investigated corruption. I maintained my distance, since my popular online clothing site featured non-authorized copyright goods. No one at the bar knew what I did, but Lee regarded all of us as potential suspects. The farangs of Pattaya had a sullied reputation. We were who were were.

No apologies, but everyone flew under the radar.

Lee was not undercover. We were too small-time for her bosses in Bangkok.

None of us saw what the mid-20s long-legged beauty saw in Richard. He was on the wrong side of 50. The ex-punk rocker hailed from Plymouth. His pub featured live bands. The 50 year-old died his hair black like the lead singer of The Damned. His friends called her ‘Angie Dickinson’. Her friends named him ‘Sid’.

"She’s a good girl," Richard had been dating Lee several months and she hasn’t asked him for a dime. "There are no sick buffaloes in her family."

We nodded out heads with smiles. Lee came for a hi-so or high society roots. People like that had never toiled in a rice paddy. Their 'sick buffaloes' were a failing businesses. Sick buffaloes were cheap by comparison.

None of us attempted to warn the punk rocker about her family. Love was blind, especially when your eyes need glasses to read the small print. We wished him 'chok dee' or good luck and hoped for the best. Stranger things had occurred in Thailand.

Richard professed to never having cheated on Lee. I believed him, since we had bar-hopped through the Last Babylon without his ever paying a bargirl a fine. No geeks. No short-times. He was no butterfly.

Richard had bought a CRV pick-up and a small apartment on Soi Concrete. He trusted Lee to take care of the car while he’s back in the EEU playing retro-punk to dissatisfied university students.

"If I can't trust her, who can I trust?"

None of us ventured an answer.

After a two month stint touring UK pubs with his punk quartet, Richard planned a 20-day stay in Thailand. He phoned Lee. She was up-country attending a police academy a good 8 hours. She said she would meet him on Tuesday. He arrived and took the bus down to Pattaya. After one night of staring at go-go girls, he settled into listening to old punk rock classics at the local and drinking beer. It was a pleasant way to pass the time in Pattaya. Both of us were experts about doing nothing and we spoke about The Clash, Sex Pistols, and Sham 69.

Tuesday came without any sign of Lee. Her phone service is off. No signals. Richard calls Lee’s friend. No signal. Phone service up-country was notoriously bad. It was also Buddhist Lent and the bartender at our local suggested that Richard's tee-lat may have gone home to offer prayers at the village temples. Richard got worried, thinking that Lee has had an accident. She had the truck. No one at the bar mentioned the possibility of her having a Thai boyfriend. Richard was too in love to hear the opposite.

The next morning I ran into Richard. His face was edged by worry. I doubted if he had slept the previous night. I knew better than to ask him if everything was alright. His face said the opposite.

"I'm thinking about going up to Bangkok this afternoon." Richard was gaunt. He wasn't eating anything.

"What for?" I had a bad feeling about this.

"To her station to see if they know where she is?"

“Bad idea.” I shook my head. Thais are very careful about letting other Thais know about their relationships with farangs and even more so if they are the police. While it would have been best to send Richard on his way without warning, I felt compelled to tell him, “She’s a cop. Her life at the precinct is being a cop, not some chick dating a westerner. You show up and the other officers will think she’s a whore.”

“So what am i supposed to do.” THe boys at the local are constantly rehashing tales of cheating Thai girlfriends. These stories were echoing in his ears. This time the name was Lee." jealousy.

I wanted to tell him, “Go to Soi 6 and get a BJ.” The short-time street of easy women and cheap beer night not cure a broken-heart, but it was certainly a good start, instead I said, “Do nothing. Lee’s a good girl. She isn’t fucking some Thai boyfriend. She’s probably at the temple on his knees, praying to Buddha for your luck.”

Those words were what he wanted to hear and I said, “Wait a day. Call her office tomorrow. Don’t go up there. The coppers will think you’re a crazy farang stalking their co-worker and throw you in jail. She’ll show up when she shows up. This is Thailand. Have a jai-yen."

"Jai-yen?" His Thai was non-existent.

"A cold heart. Thais don't like hot-blooded reactions. Makes them lose face."

"Really?" Most farangs couldn't accept that Thais lived by a different set of rules. They thought everyone in the world had been taught how to act by Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. They were wrong and so wrong that they would never be right.

"Really." I patted him on his back. "BUt if you want to go up there and make a fool of yourself and have her lose face, knock yourself out."

"So it's a bad idea?"

"As bad as Sid Vicious going out with Nancy Spungen." Those two were made for each other.

"Okay, I'll play it cool."

"You're a punk. Punks don't care about the future. I know your mind is racing about what Lee is doing, but there is probably a very good explanation and you'll get it when you see Lee. You want a beer?"

"No." It was only 11 and Richard wasn't much of a drinker. "Thanks for the talk."

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine."

I waved good-bye and headed to the post office to ship shirts to Germany and Italy. My ex-wife was up-country too. I didn't call her and never asked about the company she kept. It was better that way, because I had been a punk too.

1976.

Gabba-Gabba-Hey.

Anything can happen, but it’s better if you think it doesn’t

ADDENDUM

Lee showed up that evening. Her purse and telephone had been stolen at the police academy. She hadn't memorized Richard’s number and had to drive to Bangkok to get it. The traffic was horrible. Richard couldn’t be happier and never questioned one part of the story.

It was the right thing to do

Peter Nolan Smith Reading Tonight

34 years ago lightning struck the power lines feeding NYC. The city was thrust into a black-out. Burning and looting in the Outer Boroughs. I tried to emulate the anarchy in Midtown Manhattan.

Tonight I will be reading TRASH FIORUCCI for Mr. Beller's Neighborhood Reading Series at Happy Ending!

Located at 302 Broome St. in the Lower East Side.

This Friday - July 22, 8 PM - 10 PM
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Atlantic Ocean Temp 94F

My Palm Beach reporter AR emailed this epistle from the richest beach community in America.

"This is a summer for the record books! Can't even cool off in the pool. Water temp 94º and rising. Ocean a bit cooler (not much) but sea lice and jellyfish are keeping me at bay, not to mention crossing the Sahara sand to get there."

Having stayed on Palm Beach throughout the summer of 2008, I have a small sense of how hot is hot.

Hot as Blazes and even hotter inland.