Empire State Plaza

The 1825 completion of the Eire Canal opened the Wilderness to the World and Albany became the eastern gateway to an untouched continent. It was among the ten top cities in America up to 1840. A place to be.

Furs, lumber, grains, metals, and meat funneled through New York's capitol, thanks to steam-shipping on the Hudson, but the city declined over throughout the 19th Century, losing 20% of its population. By 1970 people claimed Albany was the asshole of New York and Troy was ten miles up that ass.

The Gut was still a vibrant neighborhood. Bars abounded throughout the South End. It was home to 10,000 people. Working class people suffered any advancement under the reign of Mayor Corning, who protected the poor from urban development.

The city was its people and the good percentage of the Gut's inhabitants were black, Italian, Irish, and derelict drunks.

The South End was doomed by a 1959 visit by Princess Juliana of the Netherlands.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller, later the Assassin of Attica, had been embarrassed by the squalor of lower classes and had said, "There's no question that the city did not look as I think the Princess thought it was going to."

98 acres of housing were razed to the ground.

The people were thrown into the streets without anywhere to go.

Nothing was left standing.

Nothing stood in the way of the Power of Progress.

Wallace Harrison overseered the destruction like Baron Haussmann's Paris boulevards.

In New York some of us spoke about the Plaza as the greatest example of Brutalist Architecture in the USA.

I had only driven by it on an Interstate.

It meant nothing to me.

As did many things.

But I've been up North to work.

My employers always asked the same, "Why are you late?"

None of them understand the light.

Or the frozen snow.

Winter was winter in the North in 2016.

Not in 2020.

December.

Emptiness.

Isolation.

Power.

And one man dead to the world sleeping in it all.

He owned everything.

Even a Princess.

2017 January

I spend the first day of the year with the Camp family in Duchess County.

It was cold, but not that cold.

There wasn't much snow.

The light made us all young.

Even me.

A snow storm came and the Christmas tree went out on the street in New York.

It snowed more in Fort Greene.

I visited the Intrepid.

MIG 21s were on the flight deck.

They were very sexy a la Russki.

My wife loved me.

I was working on a house in Greenwich.

Money helps us.

My son Wey Wey was a good boy in school.

My friend Deb wanted to sell a Keith haring.

She lived north.

In Albany.

State Plaza glowered in the storm.

Pool was shut for the season.

With good reason.

Winter was serious this far north.

I left with the Haring.

Deb never said how much she wanted.

I said I could get her $120,000.

Not enough to solve her problems.

Or mine.

It was a mean bus ride back to New York.

$8.

No one touched the Haring.

I went to the Jan Frank show.

His paintings sold for than Keith's drawing.

He's a star.

More snow.

I attended Victoria Selbach's show.

I loved her work.

Her husband and I had been friend since the 70s.

She was more beautiful than ever and her paintings showed a vision of nudity.

She loved life.

And her husband.

Michael.

I end up being no one.

I'm happy with that role.

No one poked the eye out of the Cyclops in THE ODYSSEY.

Watchic Pond in Maine was frozen.

I expect nothing less.

It was winter everywhere in the North.

How Far From Now

On November 8, 2016 I was sitting at the bar at the Barnacle in Marblehead. The TV was showing the election results. The initial reports looked good for Hillary Clinton, however CNN swiftly charted the collapse of democracy as old Democratic stronghold in the Midwest fell into Trump's electoral count. By dawn victory was declared by the reality TV star and America was firmly in the hands of the GOP, despite Bill Clinton's wife having spent over $700 million on her campaign, nearly $600 million on political hacks.

Trump's motto MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN had resonated with the voters from the religious right to the Hassidim community and white suburbs threatened by equality and fearful of the War on Terror.

I walked away from the Barnacle, thinking, "We are so fucked."

In the morning my beloved Aunt Sally and Uncle Russ admitted that they thought the same, although they were too polite to use bad language, but we walked up to Fort Sewell where the view only changed with the light.

In the following weeks I scoured the results in suspect congressional districts without finding a blaring example of fraud other than the traditional suppression of black voters throughout the USA.

Turkey day came and went without incident.

We knew nothing was right and nothing stayed right for the following four years.

Trump was evil.

My friends believed in their god/king. I stopped speaking to most of them.

Separation of children of illegal immigrants, travel bans against Muslims, pardons of white-collar criminals, praising Putin and the North Korean dictator, anti-marijuana policies, attempts to repeal health care, tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of environmental protection, the Trump Wall of Mexico, attacks on Yemen, condoning white supremacists and terror against African-Americans, threats against Iran, support for fundamentalist terror of Saudi Arabia, Covid rejection ad nauseum delighted the Trumpards.

But Trump wasn't really American.

To him BLM was evil.

Defund the police was evil.

Old motherfuckers like me remember history.

2017

Trump paid $750 in income tax.

He scared the Germans.

2019. He practiced pardons.

2020. He lost to Joe Biden by seven million votes, but declared the election results were changed by theft.

His followers believed his claims and his legal teams attack everyone without success.

He was a loser, yet called on his followers to reject the truth.

On January 6, 2021 they attacked the Capitol Building, where the Senate and Congress were completing the tally for the Electoral Congress.

Chaos.

Mayhem.

Death.

And still the GOP called for fraud investigation.

Fuck them and the pigs they rode.

Because Gettysburg proved one thing to these scum.

"Fredericksburg. Frederickburg."

One defeat does not mean victory.

ps Fuck 12.

Across From Burma

Throughout the 90s I biked up from Chiang Mai to Mai Sai on the Thai-Burma border. A small river separated the two countries. The people on both sides looked the same and the houses were built in a similar fashion. I stayed at the Mai Sai Guest House to the left of the Friendship Bridge. They offered clean A-frame bungalows for 100 baht a night or about $3.

Butterflies flirted with the flowers and a pleasant waitress served breakfast in the morning and beers at night. The guest house never hit full capacity during my visits. I traveled strictly in low season, but the owner said, "High season. Many farang. Smoke opium. Sleep too much."

Smoking Ma or Horse was a ritual of the Golden Triangle and I liked a pipe once in a while.

Young Burmese boys swam across the river at night.

A ball of O was cheap.

I slept late every day and rode a BSA through the hills.

It was a good place to be.

1994.

I was 42.