Roma January 1985

Rome January 1985

Tanino Liberatore and I traveled in his Fiat from Paris over the Alps into Italy. Tanino was the famed cartoonist of RanXerox a powerful android robot the love slave of the underage Lubna. We had collaborated on a graphic comic and were bound to the Eternal City to pick up money from the publishers. We rolled into Rome at night. The city slept under siege from the Red Brigades. He sought out whose on the Via Veneto. They were scared of nothing, having Albanian pimps. He went off into the bushes, while a sat guard in the car. After we went to a bar to score coke then crashed at his friends' apartment watching EVIL DEAD high on blow. scared me straight.

The next day I wandered through Rome; the Vatican buying a stiletto, lunch at Mario's by the coliseum then through the Senate ruins. Sunset up the Spanish Steps to the Hotel Farber for drinks, then back to party with Tanino.

After we drove to Pescara on the Adriatic to see his parents. We went to a freezing theater to watch porno and afterwards sat on the shore of a foggy Adriatic. Bone cold.

He was a monster. RanXerox that is. We were merely wicked when we were young and when we weren't so young too

The Three Rules of Wealth Acquisition

In a revolution traditionally the first ones against the wall are the landlords.

In our cities the only construction are luxury condos with 30% occupancy destroying whole neighborhoods by raising real estate taxes thanks to over-inflated values of empty apartments, so the elite can launder their wealth.

If you want to point fingers at why the people of the world are without money, it's because the corporation for the sake of profits are too greedy to care about anything more than the wealth cloud and the rise of stock prices. No one on the streets has any money. No one carries money. Every transaction cost 2-3% in fees to the banks.

No one complains about the .00001%, because the hoi polloi share a deluded hope that one day they might be Cronus, however the only three sources of wealth are birth, marriage, or theft. Although sports players are changing that equation as well as drug dealers. They attained their wealth through hard work.

ps Joe Biden has done a good job, except for his hand in Israel's regifting the Holocaust on Palestine. You can never get to the future by only looking in the rearview mirror.

Viva International Write-Off Day.

ps I'm a poet living off the state created by LBJ, the Great Society.

Photo by Aaron Slim

DRUNK DRIVING HOUR 2014

During the early 1970s my college comrades and I drank at the Hi-hat Lounge in Brighton. The girls were young, the drinks were cheap, and we sold 'ludes and mescaline at the bar. Neither of them were the best available in Boston, but we were always in supply, so the bands playing on Commonwealth Avenue visited us before and after gigs. I even sold LSD to AeroSmith and they invited us to their show. They weren't big yet, but the band attracted co-eds from every university within 25 miles.

That night my friends and I crammed into my VW Bug.

"Can you drive?" Peter Gore asked from the passenger seat. We had hitchhiked across America in 1971. A carload of drunks had begged me to drive their Riviera from Reno to San Francisco. Peter had sat in the back. We drank warm whiskey through the Sierras. He hadn't trusted me behind the wheel since.

"Of course I can drive." I had only dropped a 'lude and guzzled several whiskey cokes. Something about his question bothered me and I said I was going to run every red light to Kenmore Square.

"Don't do that." Peter buckled up his seat belt. No one in 1971 wore one. We had all seen too many films where the passengers burn in their cars, thanks to a defective seat belt. The other passengers were more enthusiastic, then again they weren't in the suicide seat.

I blew the first light at the BU dorms and then another by the Boston Club, however we were approaching the Charles River Bridge. This was a much busier intersection with cars coming all directions.

"Don't."

Everyone cried out with good reason and I braked too late to avoid slamming into the back of a Mustang.

"Asshole." Peter was pissed.

"Anyone you hurt?" I pulled over to the curb..

"No."

Everyone was fine.

"Sorry, I was an asshole." I got out of the car to examine the damage to both vehicles.

My front fender was slightly bent.

My friend at a body shop in Dorcester might charge $200, but the Mustang bore a major dent to the rear.

Maybe $1000, which was a lot of money.

Cars swerved around the Mustang. The driver was puking out the open door. I walked up to him and he wiped his mouth, saying, "Sorry, for running that light. Are you okay?"

"I'm good."

"I'm really sorry."

The drunken fool thought the crash was his fault.

"Don't worry about it." I was lucky.

"How much you want to fix your car?" He pulled out a wad of cash.

"Nothing." Peter pushed me back toward my car.

"Nothing isn't going to fix my fender." Five $20 bills seemed fair.

"Thanks." The Mustang driver got back in his car and drove off toward Cambridge.

Later at the Aerosmith show we laughed, when, Peter calling me, "Boston's worst driver."

"But I met my match with Mr. Mustang."

Drunk driving hour was a weekend ritual in the last century, but several years ago the Palm County police had a world-class violator in their sights. The driver refused to stop for the officers in pursuit. He ran red lights, crashed into anothercar, a fence, fled the scene, and when they finally stopped him, the cops cited the offender for fifty violations.

One was not wearing a seat belt.

All sounds too familiar.

I wonder if Peter Gore wherever he is thought the same thing.

"Asshole."

I don't drive anymore.

I drink no less.

Best for everyone if I walk and I'm sure that Peter Gore feels the same way too.

2024. Not a drink for almost three years. I don't run red lights anymore. I wonder, if there is a connection

The Thai Anti-Midas Touch 2014

One of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen in Pattaya was Ann. Her beauty lasted longer than most, as she bathed in the fountain of youth created by her countless sponsors’ generous donation of cash and clothing. The veteran mistress managed these farangs with the skill of a circus juggler yet she was always broke, for beauty has its costs.

Several years ago one night at the Marine Disco a French marine asked Ann to go home. Her refusal evoked an expletive in his native language. Ann had had many frog beaus in her career and told the dejected garlic-eater, “Fuck ta mère.”

The Frenchman reacted to this insult to his mother by throwing a glass of beer in Ann’s face. The impact shattered the glass and a shard tore an inch scar behind her jaw. Blood splattered on the dance floor. Ann was taken to the hospital. Angry Thais wanted to kill the farang. The police arrested him. The chief inspector said that he was looking at 6 months in jail, but after coming out of the hospital Ann settled for 500,000 baht plus medical cost to drop charges. After the French marine paid the money, he was freed from the monkey house with a warning to be nicer to young girls.

Ann's scar was no threat to her beauty. Friends congratulated her good luck. The police took their cut on the action leaving Ann with about 400,000 baht.

The average annual income in Ann's Isaan village is about 60,000 baht. If she retired to Bannok, that money could last years, but Ann was too young to quit the game, so she sent home 50,000 and spent his punitive reward in less than a week.

10 baht of gold = 100K.

New motorcycle = 50K.

Partying for a week = 50K.

New clothes = 50K.

Lending money to friends = 50K.

Money goes quick when you’re having fun, but even Ann was surprised how fast 400K evaporated with the pedal pushed to the metal.

Jamie Parker, a man of little wisdom, heard this story of riches to rags and said, “The Midas Touch works in reverse for a Thai bargirl. Any gold they touch turns into lead, but it doesn’t matter because they think, “There’s plenty more where that went.”

Jamie was right, because a week later Ann was seeing the French marine.

They were in love.

Kwahm Lak 100%., because a girl has to live.

The roots of this need to spend is highlighted in an article from this 1928 article featured in 2bangkok.com

Bangkok, Siam… It has always been a moot question in all minds as to why people of Siam are never over-burdened with riches. Now the answer comes in the form of a series of pictures which demonstrates in graphic way how surplus riches of the people are disposed of. When a man of Siam thinks he’s too wealthy to go to heaven he promptly goes out and purchases as much food, clothing, fruit, etc. as will relieve him of his surplus money. He then mounts a high platform built for the express purpose and throws his gifts down to members of the poorer class below. Since all have a right to the food and clothing offered a merry battle goes on for possession of the offerings. Hooks are even made which might tend to give the seeker a better chance to make a good haul. However, before the foodstuffs and clothing are given away, prayers and praises to the king of the devil or “Phya Yomaraj” are sung. The prayers insure the donors of recognition when they dies and are led before the king of the devil for entrance to heaven. After the prayers are said and the food distributed, the huge image is burnt, and residents of Siam must wait until they pile up more coin of the realm before they can stage another similar celebration.

This article was published by a Thai newspaper in October 23, 1928.

Easy come, easy go.

Something things stay the same and the same is sometimes good.

Bathing at 256 East 10th Street

Back at 256 East 10th Street in the last century my bath tub was in the kitchen. I loved lazing in the warm bath. A good soak was a great remedy for a hangover. Friends buzzed to see me. I stayed in the bathtub. Even to this day I am not shy about nakedness. Daid Tidball

The Smell of the Old

One night I asked Alex "Do I smell old." Sniff. "No." She had a cold.

Seven Samurai Maine 1959

In the summer of 1959 my grandmother dragged me from a croquet game with my siblings on her lawn in Westbrrok Maine and sat me before the black and white Zenith TV.

"I want you to watch this movie. THE SEVEN SAMURAI. It's in Japanese with subtitles. They appear at the bottom of the TV, but you'll be able to understand them"

I had been reading since age five thanks to Superman comics I bought at the drug store down Main Street across from the SD Warren paper mill.

I sat on the velvet sofa and Edith explained, "I saw this movie at the theater in Portland with my sister. It is a story about impoverished rice farmers who enlist seven unemployed samurai warriors to save them from a gang of bandits. The movie changed my view on the Japanese." World War II was thirteen years ago. They were still considered the enemy and none of us kids wanted to play war as fanatics.

My grandmother instructed me how to read the subtitles. As soon as music began, I was hooked and by the scene where two samurai test their skills, I suddenly understood that the Japs were people. Not just Japs. I was memorized by every second and I thank my grandmother for this gift of Akira Kurosawa’s epic.

I have never found a record of this screening on the public station from Orano.

I called the station today.

Maybe I'll be liucky.

Kambei Shimada: This is the nature of war: By protecting others, you save yourselves. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself.