I'M GOOD IF YOU'RE GOOD by Peter Nolan Smith

Written March 25, 2014

Opening a jewelry store in the Plaza Hotel seemed like a good idea in the Spring of 2009. I was dead broke after my arrest in Thailand for copyright infringement and my wife Mam was pregnant with our son. The Plaza was one of New York's premier destinations. Wealth was in my cards.

Richie Boy launched the store in the Retail Collection in October. I was his store manager. His two partners were supposed to supply customers and merchandise and money. We saw little of three. Mario was stealing goods to pay for his sickly son's treatments and the Iranian had been soaked by a six-figure bar mitzvah. My check was late every week and one rainy Tuesday I went over to Chase to cash my wages. A smiling bank officer was at the door.

"Can I help you?" She was wearing a trim bank suit.

"I just need to cash a check." It was for $800.

"Do you bank here?"

"No." All my bank accounts were wiped out in April. The balances were zero.

"Would you care to open an account?"

"Why not?" Normal people had bank accounts and I wanted to live a normal life.

The bank officer led me to her office. Nancy was about half my age. She treated me with respect. I filled out the forms and she entered my social security number into the computer.

"Oh."

"Something wrong." Her 'oh' had an edge to it.

"You had an account here before."

"I did." I knew what she was talking about.

"A credit card debt of over $60,000."

"Yes." I was ready to run and my hand reached to snatch my check before the doors to her office slid shut and the police arrived to drag me to debtor prison.

"Did you go bankrupt?" A frown drifted across her lips.

"Something like that." I told the bank's debt collection service that I was going to prison in Thailand and asked for an extended line of credit. They said that they weren't bail bondsmen. The phone stopped ringing after that call.

"Well, because they wrote off your debt."

"They did?" $60,000 had gone poof.

"Yes." Nancy was smiling again. "You still want to open that account?"

"Am I good?"

"Yes." She was eager to score a new customer.

"Are you good?"

"Yes." Her bosses had greenlighted my banking with Chase.

"Then I guess I'll open an account." I signed the necessary paperwork and ten minutes later walked out of Chase a new man thanks to the bank's forward-thinking policy.

International Write-Off Day is coming for us all.

It's better than Burning and Looting Day by a long shot.

Welcome To Zimbabwe

WrittenJan 30, 2013

In 1979 the white Rhodesian minority lost its stranglehold on the landlocked African nation and the UNAC won the April elections. Power-sharing arrangements shifted in the coming years and Zimbabwe began a black nation on June 12, 1979. Since that time the country has been ruled by President Mugabe, who has driven the economy of the resource-rich land to ruin.

Today the country's finance minister announced to the press, "Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 left in government coffers."

$217?

I have more in my bank, but tomorrow there might be nothing, so I understand Zimbabwe's pain, although I am ruled by the feckless foibles of Wall Street and not a demented dictator.

I don't know what is worse, but I am only one and Zimbabwe has twelve million people.

I don't even want to calculate how much $217 is when divided by that many.

Not much.

Welcome to International Write-Off Year.

GOP HYPOCRITES

Last week the Justice Department rescinded the plea bargain deal with Hunter Biden. his crime was lying about drug use while purchasing a 9mm. His girlfriend had thrown out the weapon supposedly fearing that he might harm himself. Someone traced it back to The President's son.

I am guilty of drug use, but only in the eyes of the police and various state and federal agencies pursuing the policies of a failed intervention policies. They are unwilling to admit losing the War on Drugs. Mostly because they support the trafficking of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl et al to repress the unelite classes.

The Justice Department was seeking for Hunter Biden to roll on his father's dealings while he eas vuce president. Hunter may have been a coke addict, but he's no snitch and the media is reporting that he could be sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Fat chance.

Far right Killers have walked without any penal time and are hailed as heroes for shooting protesters.

Do I think Hunter is guilty?

Everyone is guilty of something.

Even me.

But I was just lucky.

I'm no president's son.

Welcome Back to New York

Written Apr 21, 2008

My export business in Pattaya failed after the cyber-crime police raided my house. I was without funds for the three months prior to trial for copyright infringement and my finances soon mimicked Zimbabwe. I could have toughed it out, except the economic climate in Pattaya was also dire. The westerners in this town pride themselves on not lending a helping hand to farangs in need mostly because it's the one commodity Pattaya creates in surplus.

The only viable option was re-inventing my life in America and I bid farewell to my wife, daughter, and pregnant mistress. "I'll be back."

My flight from Bangkok to Taipei to Anchorage to JFK lasted the longest Sunday of my life. Gone were palm trees, elephants, mangoes, and the faces of the ones I love. Hello to Manhattan, my home of 27 years. My friends had promised a soft landing. I drank wine. They laughed at my stories. I went out at night. I thought this isn't too bad. At a gallery opening Vlad, the young Russian warned, "You shouldn't leave your bag unattended."

"Not to worry." I had placed it in the corner.

"This is New York. I can trust the people here. As far as my eyesight."

Baby-faced Vlad was not so sure and his mistrust was well-founded, for in the blink of an eye someone had dipped their hand into my bag to purloin my camera along with my address book.

I cursed myself for being a fool. An old fool, then remembered what my Irish grandmother said, "Whatever you lose wasn't yours to begin with."

Welcome to New York indeed.

No White After Labor Day

Written Sep 9, 2020

Fashion has long dictated that no one should wear white after Labor Day.

The tradition began in the Gilded Age and many modernists of mode deem that the ban was instituted to separate the elite from the hoi polloi or lower classes, however the real reason was probably that at the end of summer people returned to the city and the smog of coal smoke, an enemy to white.

That be said, the author Tom Wolfe has worn white throughout the year. His first suit was to emulate southern gentlemen i.e. plantation slave owners, but the material was too heavy to wear during the summer, so the novelist waited till winter, completely freaking out the gentry class. According to Wikipedia Wolfe has said that the outfit disarms the people he observes, making him, in their eyes, "a man from Mars, the man who didn't know anything and was eager to know."

Not everyone agreed and Norman Mailer said, "There is something silly about a man who wears a white suit all the time, especially in New York."

Of course Norman Mailer was never known as a man of sartorial splendor and his bias was rejected by Coco Chanel, the czarina of style.

"Women think of all colors, except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony."

She was right and few people sported white better than the 'droogs' of CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

No matter what the age.

Got Milk.

Pat Ivers Dream 2017

I dreamt

I was in a court house, some trial was going to happen, and you were there but had become a body builder with enormous arms. I was nervous about testifying so I called you over and let people look at your arms. It made me feel safer that they saw me with you. The end!

Pat Ivers Dream

Foto from the Balajo 1985 Paris

The Future of Now

In the Age of Species Reassignment
We seem to stand alone
Detached from the us
Embraced by the Me.ness of the Constant Now.

We breathe poisoned air
We eat poisoned food
Plastic covers the Earth
The oceans die
The stars disappear from view.

The world population in 2050
500 million I will be 98 Will you be one of us?

How do I know all this?
I know nothing.
But

I was born with the Caul
The placenta wrapped around my head
Giving the gift of vision
I see it all.
And I see
Nothing