You Bet I Would # 2

ornella muti, italian actress

where is that time machine to take me back to the moment of this photo?

only in my head.

Beware of Girl Scouts

And I thought altar boys were bad.

SAY NO EVIL by Peter Nolan Smith

Most men brag about their sexual exploits. Both real and imagined. My boss Manny has no patience for macho bravado. He is a ladies man even at the age of 80, but he’s also very quick to cut anyone’s claim to Casanova status by pointing a finger in my direction. “No one in this diamond exchange has had more pussy than this man here.”

“That’s not true anymore.” I’m faithful to my wives in Thailand. One figuratively and the other in reality. “I haven’t touched another woman other than Mem for more than 3 years.”

“You could never fuck again and you’d still have the title of most pieces of shit on 47th street.”

For some reason Manny is very proud of my exploits. He heard about them from his older brother with whom I worked at Hurrah, a punk disco on West 62nd Street. Models, singers, artists, high school girls, stewardesses, hair stylists et al. Some of these women are still my friends, so I don’t talk about my sexual adventures. Best to keep your mouth shut, because there is no statute of limitation to a woman's wrath.

Some thirty years after the fact I occasionally dream about these women chasing me to ground. A rake runs fast from the profligate past, especially considering the stance of that the Catholic Church and other derivatives of the Judeo-Christian faith on the mater of infidelity.

Priests, rabbis, mullahs, and reverends consider monogamy as the true state of man and woman. The birds and bees worshiped God in holy union of two. Sex was only for procreation and my parents explained the arrival of each new brother or sister as the gift of a stork. Every time we passed a hospital I would stare at the sky for these big birds. None ever hovered over the chimneys of the maternity wards. Not once and I sat outside Maine Medical for hours before the birth of my second youngest brother. No storks and no sign of sex between my parents, then again a boy's bed time was early in the 1950s.

My mother preached the sanctity of marriage during my teen years. I was supposed to save myself for a golden wedding night with my virgin bride. Masturbation shelved that bliss. I couldn't keep my hands off myself and later off girls on the cusp of being women.

My older brother married in 1976. My sister in 1978. I was a wanderer.

I can’t count the number of my paramours on one hand or all my digits either. I’ve never made a list. Somehow that seemed a little too gauche. While I don’t remember all their names I do recollect their faces, smiles, and smell. Strangely very little of the sex. Woman pride themselves on their memories. They can quote you twenty years after the utterance left your lips. I thought that females would be the same about the act of love.

Not all of them.

Several years back I ran into Valda at a studio opening in Manhattan. I had been out of town for a half-year in Asia. We sat on a window sill and spoke of our lives. Past and present. Two younger people came up to us and asked if we were a couple.

“You seemed so comfortable together.” The male beamed with the promise of two hearts beating as one. He held his girlfriend’s hand with tenderness. They had a lot to learn, but I wasn’t giving them any harsh lessons, so I said, “No, we’re not a couple, but we once were lovers.”

“No, we weren’t.” Valda’s answer was quick and harsh.

“We weren’t? I was certain we had slept together on my futon. Sweat slickening our bodies on a hot August night.

“Not at all.” She was adamant.

“Are you sure?” Her kiss had been long.

“100%.”

Those encounters couldn’t have been a phantasm of my fantasies. She had scratched my back to shreds. A fury dwelt in her eyes. The young couple were aghast. I admitted surrender. “Sorry, guess I was thinking about someone else.”

I had slept with one of her best friends; Lucille.

Skinny, blonde, and from Texas.

She would know if I was right, but Lucille had vanished from New York at least a decade earlier. Valda stormed away angry on high heels. She glared at me the rest of the night. My memory affirmed our liaison. Hers had erased the episodes for good. I must have done something to earn her wrath.

I couldn't come up with a thing and finally decided that I must have been a sexual disappointment for her. I shook my head and drank another plastic cup of white wine. It was bitter to my tongue. The realization of my failure tasted worse. I hadn’t thought I was so bad in bed, but you never are when reality no longer matches up with your memory,then again I will always have my fantasies and Valda lives in one of them.

Maybe two.

It could even be three.

I have no way of telling, because I don't talk about that kind of stuff.

I only think about it.

The Unfreedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech is protected by the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This right has been besieged by politicians, church leaders, big business, and the military without respite. Anti-war activists were jailed during World War I under the Alien and Sedition Act and the Supreme Court has ruled that there are special exceptions to Free Speech such as 'fighting words', obscenity, imminent lawless action, and several other infringements on the public safety, however the off-limit for any American is any questions on the sovereignty of Israel.

This past summer White House reporter Helen Thomas was ostracized by the media and White House for her comments on RabbiLive.com

Here is a transcript of that interview;

Nesenoff: Any comments on Israel? We're asking everybody today, any comments on Israel?

Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.

Nesenoff: Oooh. Any better comments on Israel?

Thomas: Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German, it's not Poland ...

Nesenoff: So where should they go, what should they do?

Thomas: They go home.

Nesenoff: Where's the home?

Thomas: Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else[55]

Nesenoff: So you're saying the Jews go back to Poland and Germany?

Thomas: And America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See?

Helen Thomas was exiled from the White House press corp for her speaking her mind, proving that free speech does not apply to the State of Israel. She issued an apology to quell the firestorm, but later confessed, "I paid a price, but it's worth it to speak the truth"

And in December Helen Thomas had the audacity to reiterate her earlier comments by saying at a conference centered on Arab Perception, "Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by Zionists. No question, in my opinion."

These words earned the old lady more outrage and an accusation of anti-Semiticism, even though her bloodline is Arab ie Semitic.

Here's to Free Speech and Helen Thomas.

She says what she says and damn those who don't want her to say it.

Free Palestine.

A Head Rolling in the Snow

The most vicious movie ever filmed in the winter had to be FARGO by Coen Brothers. Critics portrayed the flick as a dark comedy about a kidnapping gone bad in the frozen wasteland of North Dakota. A place few Americans have ever visited. Murder, betrayal, horrifying body disposal and dialogues marked by huffs of icy breath earned the movie seven Academy nominations in 1996. Punishment was cruel in the snow, however this week New York's mayor found revenge for his humiliation during the Xmas weekend blizzard by firing the director of NYC's EMS force.

This man had worked his way through the ranks and spent most of the blizzard digging out ambulances and helping his people respond to the deluge of 911 calls from snowbound New Yorkers. 49,478 emergencies filtered through the system resulting in a backlog of 1,300 calls on Dec. 27. A failure ratio of about 4% during the most savage snowstorm to hit the five boroughs in decades. The NY Post and Wall Street Journal excoriated the labor unions for a rumored slowdown on the weekend.

Everyone else was at home eating Xmas left-overs and EMS, Sanitation, NYPD, and FDNY were at their posts. Wall Street was on on their fat asses Monday. Me too and I didn't go anywhere on that Snowday, since I had wine and weed on hand in my apartment.

Wait a sec.

I went to a party underneath the Williamsburg Bridge with my nephew. We got fucked up. A taxi drove us to Fort Greene. A girl kissed me good-night. It was a beautiful night. Only not for the workers. They always lose in America today.

Good work Commissioner Peruggio.

You're my kind of man.

And one more thing

Fuck Mayor Bloomberg.

Silent as a Bullet

Two days ago gunman in Iraq assassinated a police colonel,army colonel, two police commissioners, a traffic police colonel, and a municipal official within a two hour span. The weapon of choice - a pistol with a silencer. No one saw or heard anything. The Western media was quick to report that these killings were the work of Al Qaada, although the scenario plays out more like the classic ending to THE GODFATHER when the Corleone family cleans house.

Al-Jazeera News made no comment about the synchronized murders.

"Those that say don't know and those that don't say know." Anon.

Of course no one who said those words would own up to them.

Unless they were the Western media.

Liars one and all.

The Power of the Mountains

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place.”

Josef Goebbels