Jane Dickson - Reading Book Signing Met Museum 7/24

I thought this was today.

It's next week.

Time flies when you aren't looking and then in stalls full halt.

I read for her over ten years ago.

The Last Days of Babylon July 12, 2013

Throughout 70s and 80s NYPD Police and city authorities had designated Times Square to be DMZ for crime and sex and the neighborhood swiftly became a haven for XXX theaters, go-go girls, pimps, whore houses, rent boys, hustlers, thieves, dealers, and lowlifes on the make. The 1977 debut of Show World across 42nd Street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal was the high-water mark for Times Square's Era of Errors. It was bereft of class.

Successive mayors attempted to purify Times Square without success, for the Mafia-owned establishments were protected by the First Amendment or the Freedom of Speech. Finally in 1995 Rudy Giuliani enacted adult zoning laws to end the magnificent wickedness and the following year every XXX theaters and porno shops closed on a rainy afternoon with the moving crews loading salacious merchandise into trucks, as the tearful aficionados of sleaze chanted on the sidewalk, "Fuck Rudy G."

All along the Minnesota Strip pimps in fur coats hijacked teenage runaways straight off a bus from the Midwest and slick hustlers struck cowboy poses on the street corners, while dope-hungry muggers trailed unsuspecting hicks down dark streets. The action should have tapered off Christmas Eve, except the players on the Strip were dedicated to acting naughty and not the least bit nice. Tonight was no exception.

The glowing marquees and flashing neon billboards camouflaged the lurking danger of Times Square. On the sidewalk two young boys were rummaged through a fallen man's pockets. No one interfered with the robbery and few people made eye contact, unless they loved trouble.

A brutish bouncer stopped a young blonde girl before the go-go lounge, then she produced an ID and danced a seductive Watusi as an audition. The doorman waved the teenager inside the Dollhouse, as Times Square swallowed another runaway faster than a starving shark.

The Dollhouse's DJ segued from RING MY BELL to BROWN SUGAR and on stage the naked redhead cupped her breasts before a middle-aged man. The plaid-suited businessman was bald and overweight, but the $20 in his hand transformed him to Robert Redford, as he slipped the crisp bill beneath teenager's G-string.

Times Square's best pinball wizards gathered around the 'KISS' machine, as the champ bumped the machine with his groin and they nodded each time the scoreboard tocked another free game. The champ was on a roll, then the arcade's front door opened for a frigid draft and a deathly thin player commented, "Damn, one of them Minnesota girls has come in from the cold."

The go-go girl hooked her arm inside the punk's elbow. He wasn't her type, but a woman on her own was a walking target on the Strip and even after 2am Times Square wasn't ready to call it a night.

Men crowded into a theater featuring the hit XXX film BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR and a pimp strutted across Broadway with two teens in skimpy silks. After midnight on 42nd Street everyone was working overtime.

Artwork by Jane Dickson Text by Peter Nolan Smith, from THE LAST DAYS OF BABYLON

see

https://missrosen.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/the-last-days-of-babylon/

Pray to the Man God

Many people throughout written history have claimed to be the Messiah or the Second Coming of whatever was the First Coming. Evangelicals across the USA have banned together to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, despite their numerous attempts failures to gain victory they still seek the Hand of God after the overturn of a half-century pro Roe-Wade abolition law.

17% of America dictating the rights of the vast majority.

Fuck their evil churches and the nailed God and the TV God. Viva Marie-France.

She was not created by any God.

Only a woman.

THE FUTURE IS NOT OURS TO SEE

A crack hotel underneath the Broadway El in Brooklyn sported a TRUMP 2020 banner throughout last year's electoral process. No one sprayed grafitti over the walls and no one protested about the Orange-man's attempt to get votes in Bushwick. I was never able to find the Trump HQ in that neighborhood, but thankfully Trump lost, despite of the spectacular vote of the religious right of all colors and nationalities.

Now the poster is gone.

Trump has been investigated for treason about the January 6 seizure of the US Capitol Building by his followers. The Justice Department have most recently discovered that the cell phones of all the Secret Service have erased all data from the day in question.

ie - destruction of evidence.

Trump once said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it.

I never doubted that, since the rich are never guilty of anything.

Still it would be nice to see Trump wrestled to the ground in a chokehold.

We can only dream.

Imbiss On Cambodian River

Back in 1971 I hitchhiked through the Northwest with Cliff Tyson Gorr. We were hippies. Loggers and cops didn't like longhairs and rides were hard to get, especially since Interstate 90 was under construction from the Idaho Stateline to Butte Montana.

The same was true for the road winding through the Cardamom Mountains between Koh Kong and Sihanoukville in 2007. Earthmovers cut a savage scar into the jungle. The government had big plans for this route.

Bangkok.

Koh Kong.

Sihanoukville.

Phnom Penh

Saigon.

No one was working on this grand project, because of the New Year holiday.

Our driver sped on the dirt road. He had family waiting for him on the coast. It was the Cambodian New Year too.

I had been on this road before.

Over seven years ago.

The first river at Trepeang Rung remained unspanned, requiring a stop for a ramshackle ferry.

The driver parked the van and said, "Twenty minutes."

The river was perhaps 200 meters across. The new bridge was about two years from completion. The forests swarmed over the mountains like the Earth had never heard of Man.

Nick had served in the Royal Navy and asked, "Fancy a beer?"

"Sure." It was well past noon.

The ferry crossing had several shacks. One had a sign nailed to a post offering 'meatballs'. A German sat on the porch. His pregnant wife brought us beers. A pot on the table held not meatballs, but 'frickadella' a German delïcacy. I had two.

"You really think that's wise." Nick was more particular about where he ate.

"The worst thing that can happen is that I get sick and lose five kilos from the shits." Actually I was hoping for that result, since I've gained a little too much weight over the past three months. I blame it on Scoby's Pizza.

"Wohin Kommst du?" I asked the German.

The sixty year-old looked like he could have been in the Panzer Korps. He had been on this river for three years. His house was five kilometers up a dirt road. No electricity. No TV. Only a radio for WeltRadio Deutschland. This was his Montana. We spoke about a pimp I knew in Hamburg.

We laughed about the Reeperbahn. Nick's father had brought his son to a Frankfurt brothel. He had been 15. The woman 20. Ït was sehr gut."

The driver beeped the horn.

It was time to go.

Another group of travelers took our place.

If you get there, have a meatball.

"Es ist sehr gut."

Last Call In Butte, Montana # 2

1974

I arrived late in Butte Montana. After driving most of the day 11:45 the bartender shouted ‘Last Call’. as Gram Parsons played on the jukebox.

A week ago I walked into the kitchen. A towel wrapped around my waist. No sign of Mona. Only a burning egg. A note said don’t follow her to Bozeman. But she never liked that town

12:55 last call in Butte, Montana I got a whiskey and one beer No sign on Mona But I kept on seeing her everywhere.

Lakeside, Malta, Shelby, and Great Falls I saw her I saw her I saw a mirage In Helena, Garrison, but not no one in Deer Lodge And there was only one place she was bound to be.

Not to Big Timber, Livingston, or Bozeman Only one place she was going to go.

Last call in Butte, Montana One whiskey, one beer 1:45 and no sign on Mona But my eyes keep expecting her here.

My wife liked the lights at the M&M. Mona liked the cowboys too. I showed the bartender her photo He said, “Two night ago he came through.” And then she was gone.” I nodded my head and finished my drinks

Last call in Butte, Montana One whiskey, one beer

1:55 no sign on Mona But my eyes keep expecting her here. Last call in Butte, Montana One whiskey, one beer No sign on Mona Even if my eyes keep seeing her here. “She might have gone to Missoula. Women like her like it there just fine.” I drop $5 on the bar and left the M&M Bar. Still hurting from her leaving And wanting to know why But no one gets all the answers.

2:05 after last call in Butte, Montana No more whiskey. No more beer. No sign of Mona. But only a fool would have thought she was here.

And I am a big one.

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

Fire Island Summer

Billions of humans have died over the course of our existence on Earth. The vast majority of mankind have been contracted for a single appearance on this mortal coil. Reincarnation has been reserved for Tibetan lamas, spiritualists, and the Son of God, for whom Christians have been waiting since his disappearance in 33AD. The religious prayed for his Second Coming. Prophets predicted the 2nd Advent on many occasions. The faithful had been disappointed each time.

In 1972 my friends John Gilmour, Tommy Jordan, and Mark McLaughlin, and I celebrated a psychedelic 4th of July in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

We were 18 and the Rolling Stones’ BROWN SUGAR was #1 on the AM radio. Our tabs of Orange Sunshine peaked on the banks of Saco River. The mountain stream rushing over glacial rocks speaking a primordial language. Our teenage ears listened to its teachings and we submerged our naked bodies in the rushing water. Tuckerman’s Ravine was still covered with snow. We were immune to the frigid winter melt.

A young boy emerged from the forest and asked why we were sitting in the water.

“To hear it speak.” Tommie answered without hesitation. The high school hockey star was the most spiritual of us. On ice his skating was almost holy.

“I don’t hear nothing but the water.” The 11 year-old stuck a finger in the river.

We cocked our ears to the current. He was right and we stood up shivering with goose-bumped skin.

“It’s Jesus.” John whispered with his retina opened wide. The South Shore native was devoted the Zeppelin’s House of the Holies. He thought playing it loud made him religious.

“Jesus.”

I might have been a non-believer, but I flashed on the youthful Messiah in the Temple. The boy was about his age. He had to have all the answer, but before we could pose the right questions, a teenage girl in a tube top hurried from the underbrush. She was skinny in her hot pants. Our prophet attempted to escape her clutches, but she seized him by the ear. Our ‘Jesus’ squealed in defeat.

“Don’t be talking to weirdos.”

She was about 17. Her eyes saw us for what we were and our trip flattened out for a half-hour. We stumbled over the rocks. The sun was hot. The river resumed its music. Its song were never played on the radio. We sang along with its lyrics until our throats were parched dry as the summer grass. Drinking the river was a sacrament and we crashed out under the pine trees. The moon was our star. It had been a good trip.

I didn’t witness any more visitations by a god, prophet, or reincarnation until visiting Fire Island in the early 90s. My cousin, Sherri, had flown in from LA to perform at ShowWorld in Times Square. She had been invited to weekend at a beachhouse owned by Robyn Byrd, Cable TV’s famed XXX cable TV spokesperson. Both of us could use a break from a stultifying heat wave and we rode an ACed train from Penn Central to Patchogue. A taxi brought us to the ferry. The ride across the bay to the sandy barrier island was a pleasant excursion.

Fire island is unlike any other beach community on Long Island and Cherry Grove was synonymous with the decadent gay lifestyle of the 70s and 80s. Anonymous sex in the pine groves. Fisting in the hotels. Orgies in the beach houses. The seaside Sodom was crushed by the AIDS epidemic and dying homosexuals sold their beloved shacks to friends, family, and strangers. The dynamics of the summer community changed considerably, however the beach life remained free and open. There are no cars. Wooden walkways connect the various communities. For longer trips residents hire a water taxi. The island is devoid of 7/11s and fast food. Most people cooked at home.

Robin’s cottage was on the beach. She had bought the house from a gay dying of AIDS. It had an ocean view. I figured it for $1.5 million. The retired stripper owed Sherri money from her TV ads. Her husband was cooking the books. Sherri told me to play nice, as we walked to the house.

"I'll get the money one way or the other."

The front door was open and we entered the house, which had been designed in the 70s for the now-extinct gay party-goers of Cherry Grove. Weathered wood and gleaming mirrors were a memorial to that Era of Errors. Robyn greeted us naked with two yapping dogs nipping at her heels.

“I never wear clothes at the beach.” The squat 40 year-old was 30 pounds over her prime. She bearhugged Sharon, who had several S&M promos running on her cable station. She hadn’t been paid for any. "I'm so glad you could come."

"The city is hell." Sharon dropped her bag on the floor and stripped off her tee-shirt and shorts. Her trim body was a result of endless hours at the gym. She posed for Robyn. "I still got it."

"I'll say," Robin ogled my cousin with desire and then eyed me suspiciously. “So this is your cousin?”

“Yeah, on her father’s side.” Sharon and I have been calling ourselves family for years into order to save time about how we met playing pinball at an East Village after-hour bar. Even we get bored of our old stories, mostly because we were trying to outrun our pasts.

“I can see family resemblance.” Robin squinted to examine my face more closely.

“Almost twins.” Sharon was straight out of Napoli and my face resembled either an Irish cop or Yankee sailor depending on the light.

Robin led us through the beach bungalow to our separate bedrooms. She showed us our rooms and asked, "Of course you could sleep in one bed, if you're kissing cousins, only I get to watch."

"Two bedrooms will be fine." I couldn't sleep with Sherri. Her snoring was world-class. I took the smaller room. I was the guest of a guest.

“Make yourselves a home.”

“When on Fire Island, do as the Fire Islanders do.” I thew my bag in the home and stripped off my clothes. I had been playing basketball 2-3 hours a day. The games at Tompkins Square Park fought off the toll of my evening beer-drinking. Neither woman surveyed my nakedness, as we went out to the beach. I swam in the ocean. The air was hot, but the Atlantic was cold. My body temperature dropped with every minute in the water.

Two hours in the sun torched my pale skin. I retreated for the shelter of the house. Sharon and Robyn followed a half-hour later. I was lying on the couch reading TRUE GRIT, a towel around my waist.

"Did you shower?" Robyn demanded with a harsh sharpness.

"Yes, with soap too."

"Just checking." The ex-stripper was making a concerted effort to hector me.

Her version of ‘mi casa es su casa’ was a mirage.

I could do no right. The sand on the floor came from me. Not her dogs. When I nearly shattered my kneecap on a glass table, she screamed that I was clumsy. Anytime I spoke with Sharon, she sat down with her arms folded across her flapjack breasts with her bulbous belly gracelessly shielding my eyes from seeing her loose-lipped virtues.

That night Sherri and I whispered in her bedroom. The thin walls of beach bungalows were not conducive to privacy.

"Robyn's not very nice."

“She's like a sleeping rattler. She doesn’t like men.”

“I got that from the little inquisition. I’ll tread lightly.”

I hid from her on the beach and exposed my naked body to the sun, thinking maybe Robyn hated people with tan lines. Sharon came looking for me. She danced along the shore without a stitch of clothing. Her body glowed LA golden. Mine had been baked a lobster red. We built a tent from driftwood and torn sails.

“So I think Robyn really likes me.”

"More love than like.” We had a good laugh. “Don’t worry about Bird. I’ll deal with
her.”

Sherri never received her royalties and for the three days of our stay Sherri miserablized Robyn’s life. My cousin was a top dominatrix and Robin a well-known bottom. Her husband was a cocaine fiend. I found his stash and cut it with crushed vitamins to hide my theft. Sherri and I hung out at the tent during the day.

Every noon a naked man in his 50s roamed the high tide mark. The bearded beachcomber carried a staff of driftwood. The tattoed bearded man’s body was covered with grey hair and his penis was enormous. Sherri named the tramp.

“It’s Schmoses.”

“And the staff of Schmoses.” I pointed at his unearthly shank of flesh. We later joked about Schmoses at the dinner table. Robyn saw no humor in our humor. “The man has a name.”

“You live here. What is it?” Sherri wasn’t taking any crap from the fatter woman.

“I don’t know.”

“Then his name stays.” She raised her wineglass. “Here’s to Schmoses.”

This joke became funnier the next afternoon, for Robin befriended Schmoses and we discovered the two of them in coitus by the pool. It was like watching a Neanderthal have sex with a walrus. I drank a bottle of Robyn’s best wine to obliterate the image.

We left the next day for New York. I never spoke to Robyn again. No great loss and I almost forgot about Schmoses until reading a BBC article how the Biblical Moses had received the 10 Commandments from Yahweh while high on psychedelic drugs, since the concoctions from bark of the acacia tree were an essential ingredient for religious rites in biblical times. Having spoken to Jesus in the White Mountains on LSD, I now understood the mysteries of Schmoses lay entirely on his staff.

His cock was really long and not only does Schmoses live, but his schlong grows longer with each telling of the tale.

Such is the miracle of reincarnation.