July 20, 1994 - Penang - Journal

Knocking the door by the Chinese desk clerk of the Swiss Hotel. Danny tells me that I have a phone call. It's 8:21 a.m. I had difficulty getting to sleep last night. For some reason garlic keeps me awake. I got out of bed wrapped the towel around my waist and walk down the corridor to the front desk. I picked up the phone. My father's voice came from watch it pond and distant Maine. The signal bouncing off a satellite to low outer space to reach the other side of the world in Malaysia. I'm happy to hear him call.

later afternoon

Howard and I were speaking in the breakfast room. Howard is a Canadian Jew, researching The Tribe's history in Malaysia. the first recorded presence dated back to the 17th Century and the population peaked at the tutn of the century. Jalan Zainal Abidin was once known as Jehudi Jalan or Jew Street. Never many, post-war the Jewish community shurnk to under the minyan for the now-definct temple. I've nicknamed him Study Kravitz. Walter, a Guyana Hindu, lives down the hotel's first-floor hallway. Howard and I both know about Walter's increasingly difficult romantic relationship with a high-caste. He and his beloved met at university in Toronto. Love in Canada. Last night he met his girlfriend's wealthy Eurasian father. Walter is a dark-skinned Dalit from the untouchable caste.

"Not good."

His response was so soft as to be almost inaudible . Having no friends in Penang he had no choice but to tell us what had happened the previous evening. Two strangers. Older strangers were like confession to ghosts. His story was as sad as Romeo and Juliet.

Walter had gone to University in Toronto where he met and fell in love with Bridget, a Malay national of Sino/Hindu descent. White skin. Walter is very black. They were very much in love and had been living together for five years in Canada.

Family pressure forced Bridget to return to Penang, where her father had arranged a marriage to a man of the Brahman caste. Walter had followed her and have been attempted to see Bridget without any success he had gone to their family compound on Leith Street. Howard and I had both advised against it. But the decision was Walter's and last night he walked away with stooped shoulders with very little hope of success.

"Bridget had told me to wait a year before coming over. I waited and then the phone calls and letters stopped. A month ago her father told me to never call again. My parents said to forget about her. I couldn't. I came despite everyone. Last night her father wouldn't even let me in the house. I couldn't even see Bridget. He said until she was married she was locked in her room. She is 27. How can she let this be done to her? I know she loves me. Last year in New York we spent a week together. Her father thought she was in Mumbai."

Walter and I exchanged a glance. Canada and the USA have basically left marrying out of your race color or creed behind, although Jews pretty much marry amongst themselves. My mother wanted me to marry a good Irish Catholic girl. I only found one and Hilde was too young. We are still friends.

"To come here I sold off all my things. I stopped my PhD studies. My mother cried and my father said I was no son of his. I gave up everything. Bridget has accepted the marriage offer of A 42-year-old man with two kids. Her father arranged a meeting and she flew to Geneva to meet him . They are getting married next month, but I contacted her suitor and told him that she was in love with me and that we had lived together for 5 years, so now Bridget has no one her only choice is me. Why can't her father see that?"

Walter and I remain silent.

We understood her father feared her daughter getting sullied by a forbidden caste. Not agreeing with that reality. Walter can't see his girlfriend's duplicity in this racist outcome. Living with Walter was fine in Canada, but she could never love him here.

"What can I do?"

"You go to see the Buddhist monks and ask them to intercede but I don't see any success in that. Talking to the Hindu priests is no good, as they believe in caste society." The separation of caste has been going on for thousands of years. "The monks can ask her does she really love you."

"I no she loves me. She said so so many times. I want to free her from her father."

"This isn't Romeo and Juliet. You will be killed, if you trying to escape with her," said Howard.

"Well, I am only left with killing him or killing me." His unhappiness was overwhelming," and I said, "Killing yourself is giving a victory to the father and you must think of yourself you're young. Your girlfriend doesn't want you to be Romeo and she doesn't want to be Juliet, You will meet somebody. Trust me I've had many girlfriends. And each time I thought it was over and I would never love again. I have loved again. No matter what happens, you have loved, and no one can take that love away from you."

Tears swelled in his eyes, as he recognized his defeat and I felt the scars of all the failed loves in my heart, and I still love all those that I have loved. Their names are many. And I remember them all as will Walter the name Bridget.

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July 17, 1994 - Penang - Journal

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July 17, 1994 - Penang - Journal

Still stranded in Penang. I wrote more of the screenplay for Maripol. Room 77. Afterwards I stroll over to Cornwallis Park to play basketball with the Filipino sailors. We beat some Americans, but I got brutally sunburned.

It's hotter here than in New York in the summer. To be expected for five degrees in latitude north of the equator.

Despite being trapped in Penang, I'm actually happy to be here. The halal and Chinese foods are delicious abd cheap. Fruirs are plentiful. Iced sugar cane juice a refreshing source of energy. I don't really know how I'm going to get out of here. Rob's ticket has yet to show. Maybe I'll ask one of the sailors, if I can hitch a ride on their ship as a dishwasher. I've never gone to sea. At least pot-walloping shouldn't be too dangerous and I'm sure there's some ships traveling to Europe from Penang.

I figured out why Gulia is really angry at me. Ladt week when I came to a resort on Langewai, she was speaking the Giancarlo. And he had informed her, that I had rented my apartment to Cassandra his mistress as their love nest. And it was the truth. A sense of betrayal.

Back in 1991. Qatar a00 I didn't say anything then, because I was trying to make money for myself and I didn't think she needed to know about his affair. No Lies ever stays buried forever.

After that I rarely spoke to Giancarlo. I was wrong. I should have told her that I shouldn't even never done it, but you looked at as another betrayal by the people she loved. He was because of not staying with her when she was sick on the island. I was wrong. I guess my name is s*** to them. Hopefully their daughter Alice well forgive me. After all you have to ¹forgive yourself. To forgive his human. To forget is divine.

Why don't lesbians lisp?

The End Is Neigh

Yesterday the city suffered the curse of under an extremely hazardous and heated atmosphere. The northern Ontario forests were ablaze. Out of control. The air quality index in NYC was 220. A thick soup of undefined pollutants, carbon, and ozone endangering everyone throughout the Northeast and Midwest with an AQI or Air Qualtity Index venture over 200. Worse than New Delhi, India.

In the afternoon I traveled to 68th Street and Broadway. The previous evening I had lost my Persol sunglasses at the AMC IMax theater at which I had seen Odysseus with Jack Haven. My last cinemas vist had been the last summer in the Village. PINK FLAMINGOS, John Waters' 1972 classic trans comedy starring Divine also with Jack.

That evening I had worn the Persols on the ride up from West 4th Street. Jack met me outside the theater. We were both excited to see Christopher Nolan's interpretation of Homer's epic poem. The theater was packed and we found two seats in the front. Jack pointed to empty seat to the left. I shook my head. Total immersion. Popcorn, Junior Mints, and a movie. I changed glasses and put the Persols in my murse.

The theater reached capacity. Two young friends asked us to move one place to the left to sit together. Someone had claimed the sets with their bags. This meant moving someone's possessions wihtout their permission. Never a good idea. Jack didn't understand my obstinacy.

I don't touch other people's things. Always leads to trouble. In the end I acquiesced to their requests. The two young people sat in their new seats and two women squeezed past us and looked at the bags. I apologized and explained the reason for the move. They were cool with that. They also had popcorn and soda. We sat. Ready for ODYESSEUS.

The lights dimmed. Movie time. IMax. Sound bathed us in the movie. We were on the shore of Troy. I realized I had left my bag under my previous seat. The young lady handed it to me. Zipper open.

The IMax experience was amazing as Matt Damon's performance. We left the theater stunned.

The next morning I couldn't find my singlasses.

Nowhere.

I suspected that while moving places the sunglasses might have dropped beneath my original seat.

Let no good dee go unpunished.

That afternoon B train to West 72th Street. A swampy toxic heat wave blanketing the city. Orange sky. Air burning in my nostrils. Smoke from the distant Ontario. North of the US border.

I wasn't worried about the smog. My Persols. A two block walk from the subway to the AMC Theater.

The sunglasses weren't at the AMC Lincoln Center. I find a lost report. I had no particular place to go and opted for a wander across Central Park. I kept to the shade on 68th Street.

A well-dressed old man with a cane crossed Par the street. He in the 90s like the temperature. We exchanged a glance. He seemed to recognize me. I'm 74 attired him in linen. We examined each other, as if we might discern a familiar face beneath our ancient masks. No recognition from either of us. We were strangers other than having been born deep in the 20th Century and having survived into the 21st Century. Over 800,000 of us left in New York City. Z city of eight million. He and I had weathered our years. Still standing.

The smog came from the Canada. Trump was threatening our northern neighbor with 50% tarrifs for this assault on America. 47 is eighty-two years old and hasn't been sane one day in his life.

He didn't matter.

Central Park.

I hadn't been here since the winter.

Bette Davis, the famed actress, had once referred to Central Park as the 'Lung of Manhattan'. Trees rustled in the warm breeze. Every green leaf faint with the heat. I strolled in the shade to a cafe with a view of the Sheep Meadow, originally designated as a military parade ground. Central Park's designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux had kibboshed than idea and the fifteen acres had been reserved for sheep until 1934.

A chain link fence surrounded the pasture. No ball playing is allowed and a few people sunned on the grass. Fearless sun worshippers. The Sheep Meadow was a verdant frying pan.

To the south the billionaire aeries rose into an almost impenetrable dystopian haze. France and Spain were plagued by temperatures in the 100s. Maybe hotter in Portugal. Across the prairies of the Flyover the same. Droughts fostering the massive wildfires.

I sought shade, however The American Elms or Ulmus Americana in the park are under threat from the virulant Dutch Elm Disease. THe fingi had devastated America's elm population in the last century. The graceful shade trees had perished by the millions. Main Street in Westbrook, Maine lost them all. The ground beneath the elms is off bounds, except for one grove. I wish them well.

As I strolled at a very languid pace, due to the pollution. I picked up plastic trash. Tourists, vendors, and New Yorkers passed the fallen wrappers, as if they are invisible. Only partially true. They step out of the way, even with their eyes glued to the cell phone.

Eddie Meicke my old biker friend from the Far Rockaways said, "When the shit get a foot high, then step a foot higher."

I rested under the shade on a bench. The ice cream vendors were loading their carts. There were no buyers or not enough to profit from peddling cold drinks and ice in the torrid heat. I also quit the park and rode the N train south. A functioning AC in the cars. I got off two stops short of Bleecker Street, where I am temporarily housing with Raoul, awaiting senior Section 8 housing from the city.

David Goldberg and Dakota Pollock are opening Bernie and Herb's, a bar on West 16th Street. The names come from both their fathers. Dave was happy to see me and complained about the smog.

"Maybe it's safe in here."

An air-conditioning worker, obviously MAGA, remarked, "Yeah, all the libtards will blame this air on Trump."one will be safe in 2050."

"Not me. I blame it on us all. All bad is invisible, until it affect us."

People love to blame everyone else for everything or even better to someone not within earshot.

Me?

I know what I do and pick up the trash.

Maybe a waste of time, but bending over keeps my old bones limber and if I turn around at from where I came that actor's statement to DUSTIN HOFFMAN from the party scene in 1967 THE GRADUATE, "The future is plastic." rings false. unless the future is doom.

A dream of paradise even on a day as lost as July 17, 2026.

ps I still haven't retrieved my Persols.

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July 16, 1978 - Providence - Journal Entry

Centuries are divided into decades. Ten Year stretches. This 20th Century began with European global domination, except for Tibet, Thailand, Ethiopia, and the Ottoman Empire. The flags of Russia, England, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Vatican flew over conquered peoples, but the status quo was slipping from the grasp of monarchs. The 1905 Russian Revolution signaled the end to the Romanov Dynasty. Te Slavs fought for their freedom from the Turks and Austrians. The Irish seethed under British rule. This has been the American Century, but Vietnam taught us that we ain't all that.

On a train to Boston with Alice.

Amtrak is the third worst way to travel. The bus and hitching are #2 and #1. The Greyhound bus seats are designed for corpses and the dead never complain, only smell. Hitching is almost impossible with the cops harassing travelers and drivers are fearful of murderous hippies.

Providence.

Amtrak stop.

A black boy, Maurice, fakes retching. His older brother plays possum and starts snoring. Their older sister tells him to be quiet. He remains in the snoring state. Alice wants off the train. The hillbilly hasn't had her period. She is motion sick and needs fresh air.

Another forty minutes and the train will arrive at Back Bay. These past two months I have spent little time in New York. Weeks spread across the East Coast. This is Alice's third trip north. I too will be glad to get off the train.

Ann says, "I think my breasts are getting larger."

I check them. "They are the same size as always."

"I wish I had bigger."

"Not me, I like them small."

"Because then you think you're fucking a boy."

"Maybe."

My sexual urges have shut down for homos. I get my most satisfaction from females. Actually gay men were only a substitute for women. Some some reason picking up females was difficult for me. Now I am ease. At least whenever Alice is not around, but I don't need to be promiscuous in my life. Last night I dream of Alice assaulted by my past girlfriends turned fiends and I fucked them all in the dream. Faceless women licking my balls and asshole, as I fuck Alice.

The dream is a product of last night's too many beers at CBGBs.

I even forgot that I need to fuck.

Foto Old Union Station - Providence

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Momma Tried - Poetry - July 15 1978 - Journal

Momma warned Bobby Bebadd
'Bout married women
To save him the trouble
Of learning what prison can do__
But like Merle Haggard sang
He was 18, the cars fast, and the women faster
Sheila was 32, blonde, and long wanting__
Her husband the mayor of East Bum Fuck, Texas
His love the incumbent
Bobby Bebad the opposition
He a loser
Losers only win one way
Strictly in it for sex__
People say
You can't fight City Hall
All Bobby did
Sleep in its bed
Fuck there too
More than once a night several times each week for two months__
Discovered in the act
At the foot of the bed
The mayor
Gun in hand
52 old
Fat
The mayor of East Bumfuck Texas__
The 38
Loaded
Steady in hand
The mayor of East Bumfuck Texas
Trying to figure out
Who to shoot first
His wife or Bobby
The wife's 22 in the drawer
"Don't even think about it young man."
And he didn't__
Now Bobby Bebadd in the slammer
Of East Bumfuck Texas
Not too bad
With Sheila in the next cell
No one else in the jail
Just the two
And no steel bars stopping them
And Sheila saying more more more
Bobby Bebadd be bad
Momma tried
Momma tried
Momma tried to make him better
But to the bad he kept on turning__

Homage to Merle Haggard

Great cover from The Grateful Dead

This poem sucks. A warm up exercise, but too confusing, not to me but maybe others who don't think like this. Unsexed. Why do I think about it so much?

Later

At the Figaro Cafe on Bleeker Street Kim AKA Pudd, my CBGBs sister and fellow Gemini, says, "Immigrants are stealing all our jobs."

I work at an executive dining room as a way to for lunch serving executives. Everyone else on the floor is Latino. I am the only Yankee Irish in the place. None of my friends would stoop this low to make money, but it is my only job. No one else wants to hire me. Why? I don't know. Maybe because I think of sex too much. I had recently watched BREAD AND CHOCOLATE about an guest worker from Italy in Switzerland, who loses his work permit caught urinating in public. He counter the prejudice, he leads a clandestine life in Switzerland as a blonde Swiss.

It has never been an easy life for illegals and I answer Kim, "No, they aren't stealing jobs. They are our slaves. They took over the jobs from blacks and the Irish. Jobs none of us would do those jobs. Dishwashing, picking crops, all the non-union jobs. They are exile in a strange land and so am I."

Juan left Mexico in New York City
He kissed Rosita goodbye
Maybe their last kiss__
Train to the Border
Two days walking in the desert
A bus to New York
A job as a busboy in an exective dining room
For evil executives
No one speak English
The bosses like that
No one hears their secrets
Day after day one is treated like an animal
He screams inside
Rosita
I am an animal
Dogs eat better
I am an American Just not their American
Better I never came here
Better I never leave you,
Now I have to get ready
For mañana
Maybe one day I come back
Maybe one day I will be a waiter
Pero non Manana___

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Bastille Day 1789

2 July 1789

Paris.

Le Bastille

In the afternoon the infamous Marquis De Sade, who had been incarcerated in the stone fortress on charges of perversion, shouted from a barred cell window through an improvised megaphone, "Ils tuent les prisonniers."

The guards subdued the inmate, but his words sparked a smoldering rumor and the rumor spread through le Bastille, the poor neighborhood, long awaiting a match to fan the fires of revolution against the corrupt and venal aristocracy. For his safety the Marquis de Sade was transferred to the insane asylum at Charenton.

Cut to:

14 July 1789.

A wine wagon overturned on the Rue de La Roquette.

The wine flooded the gutter. The people drank their full. In vino revolutio.

The Bastille loomed in the near distance. The medieval prison symbolized the oppressive Ancien Regime and the Bourbon Dynasty. Fortified by cheap wine the mob stormed the prison. Nearly a hundred attackers were slain by the Swiss Guards in the assault versus one defender before the deluge flooded through the gates to massacre nine soldiers and free seven prisoners; four counterfeiters, two madmen and another perverse nobleman, the Comte de Solages, jailed on charges of incest.

The Comte de Sade later liberated by the revolution and the libertine survived the Terror of the guillotine by espousing a radical destruction of society, going as far as to seek the abolition of religion, earning the wrath of the Church. His fortune disappeared and the Napoleonic courts condemned his novels Justine and Juliette. Imprisoned without trial in 1802 he passed fourteen years of incerceration to later be buried in prison. An unknown grave holds his body in anonymity, while the Marquis de Sade lives in our memory. His head was later disinterred to be studied by those seeking to discover the roots of perversion.

Wicked, but it was he, a wicked imprisoned aristocrat, who began La Revolution to topple the Bourbon dynasty.

A bas la Bastille.

A bas le Ancien Regime.

ps “The equality prescribed by the Revolution is simply the weak man's revenge upon the strong; it's just what we saw in the past, but in reverse; that everyone should have his turn is only fair. And it shall be turnabout again tomorrow, for nothing in Nature is stable and the governments men direct are bound to prove as changeable and ephemeral as they.”

Marquis de Sade, Juliette__

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