Drunker than Mud

Humans like their drink.

They like it a lot.

But not as much as polar bears.

They love a cold beer or forty in the summer time.

Public Knowledge

Several years ago the beach resort of Pattaya announced plans to place public urinals along the Beach Road to better serve the nearly five million tourists expected that high season. Most sunbathers piss in the sea and beer drinkers relieved themselves in the bars along the busy road. Everyone else has to hold their water until the city actually follows through the the Mayor's plans.

I bet the chances of hong-nams being financed very good, but the money will disappear before a single WC can be built.

Paris was famous for its green pissoirs. Over 1200 were in service during the 30s. These vespasiennes were replaced by more profitable pay toilets. Only one pissoir on Boulevard Arago survived the 20th Century. I haven't ever used the new ones.

Not everyone is in favor of public toilets.

Gabriel Chevallier's 1934 book CLOCHEMERLE satirized the attempts of a small village to erect a urinal next to the Catholic Church.

In the end no one is happy with the new arrangement and those in need resorted to the nocturnal tradition of pissing against the church. The novel made the town of Vaux-en-Beaujolais famous.

In 1984 New York closed its subway toilets. The bathroom were homosexual dens of iniquity known throughout the gay community as tea rooms. The city has been discussing designs for a street toilet ever since without any installations on the sidewalks. Public urination remains a crime on the police books and I have avoided citation by holding my telephone to my ears as I violated the city statute.

The most famous urinal in history in Marcel Duchamp's 1917 Fountain signed R. Mutt.

My favorite urinals are those in PJ Clarke's bar.

Big and comfortable.

Works of functional art.

For as long as the bars remain open.

So good luck Pattaya.

Until then I will pee in the sea.

20 million Europeans do the same in the Mediterranean every July morning in the South of France.

It's only natural.

God's WC

A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down, but says nothing. The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention, but the drunk continues to sit there. Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall. The drunk mumbles, "Ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either.

Staying In The Cage

Back in the 1970s East 10th Street between 1st and 2nd Streets was what the locals called a 'hot' street. Drugs of every kind were sold at the Blue Door. The Green Door was a brothel servicing old Puerto Ricans. Street dealers conducted their business on the sidewalk with impunity. The police were on the take. I avoided walking down that block. Shootings and rip-offs were common and threatening junkies provided an annoying gauntlet for pedestrians seeking a short-cut rather than skirt the danger zone.

My old neighborhood of Fort Greene had been equally dangerous back in 'the day', but a wholesale exodus of white professionals had transformed the area into a desirable quartier for exiles from Manhattan. Muggings and robberies were rare, but I detoureds from the block between Lafayette and Fulton same as I had East 10th Street, although this time because of a cigar store on the southside of the street.

I hate the smell of the cigars and there was something not right about the middle-aged Wasta cigarsmoker running the den of nicotine. He nodded to me on several occasions and finally I told him, "You don't know me and I don't know you. Let's act like that's the case and life will be good."

He was surprised by my aggressive rejection, however my 6th sense about good and bad remain remained keen despite my age.

One morning around 9:30 my landlord AP received a phone call about his double-parked car. His Audi station wagon was blocking the Wasta's motorcycle access to the street. AP said that he'd move the car and like a good neighbor walked down to pull out, so the Wasta could hit the street, only when he arrived at the spot, the wasta was nowhere in sight. AP beeped his horn and the wasta strutted from his house to confront AP.

"What are you doing blocking my bike?" The Wasta is a wiry 6-1 and imagined himself a tough guy.

"I'm here to do you a favor." A line of cars were double-parked awaiting the passage of the alternate side of the street enforcement at noon. "I'll move out and then go back into my space."

"You don't have any consideration for this neighborhood." The Wasta worked late at the cigar shop. Rumor has it that his work had nothing to do with cigars.

"I have plenty of consideration, otherwise I wouldn't have put my number inside the car." AP was a good family man, but he's also a New Yorker. Backing down wasn't in his make-up.

The two of them jawed without escalation and he reported the confrontation to our mutual friend, Mumbles.

"Where was your upstairs tenant?" Mumbles meant me.

"I thought it was better to leave James Steele in his cage." AP was a good friend and knew how easily my blood got hot.

Of course when AP later recounted this altercation to me, I seethed with anger, but was also glad that he had the presence of mind to keep me out of it.

"No sense in making a big deal out of it."

"Yeah."

"Better to keep me calm."

Better for all parties concerned, because at my age I can't play tough.

Playing is for kids and I liked playing with my son Fenway too much as it is.

Peace and love.

That's the new me.

ps I have nothing against cigars.

As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Other times it's phallic nuisance.

The End of NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD by Peter Nolan Smith (unpublished)

PAGE 291

Their lovemaking lasted until midnight. They showered together and packed their bags. They didn't have much. Vanessa locked the door to her friend's bungalow. She sat in the passenger seat and Sean got behind the wheel on the Lemans. They bought coffee at a 7/11 on Ventura Boulevard. Sean restarted the engine.

"You ready to go?"

Vanessa nodded with a shrug.

There wasn't anything left for them in North North Hollywood.

After leaving LA at Pomona they headed east on I-10. Sean pulled onto I-15 at Ontario and crossed the California stateline into Arizona at dawn.

Happy World Poetry Day

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted, She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century.

"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!"

Millay died at her home on October 19, 1950. She had fallen down stairs and was found approximately eight hours after her death. Her physician reported that she had suffered a heart attack following a coronary occlusion. She was 58 years old. She is buried alongside her husband at Steepletop, Austerlitz, New York.

From Wilipedia