The Source Of The Gowanus Canal

The native Lenape Indian tribe had fished and hunted the Gowanus Creek since the Ice Age. Gowanus Creek was first explored by Henry Hudson and Giovanni da Verrazzano. The Dutch bought the land to raise tobacco and later built a grist mill to process wheat and corn.

The Dutch also harvested oysters by the billions.

The city of Brooklyn grew up around the creek.

Factories and mills lined the shores.

The run-off from these industries killed off the oysters.

The creek now a canal was dead.

The factories are gone.

The creek remains a major Superfund site for the EPA.

Dams at the mouth of the creek prevent the urging of the Gowanus, which is probably for the better, since the pollutants would endanger the rejuvenation of New York Harbor.

Such is the progress of Man.

ps the source of the Gowanus Canal is buried just north of Union Street and while a dolphin died in the narrow channel in 2013, that herons, egrets, bats, Canada geese, small fish and crabs are returning to the Gowanus.

Such is the forgiveness of Nature.

The God Of Beermas

Several years back one of the guards at the diamond exchange was drinking on the job. Joe had a Bud for breakfast. He drank another two on his coffee break. His lunch consisted of six beers. According to his calculation Joe consumed 15-16 beers during the course of a day. Finally his doctor advised Joe to cut down of his beers.

"I'm not stopping nothing." Joe was stubborn and ignored the warning, as his belly bloated to an enormous size.

On his next check-up the doctor informed him that his distended stomach was from the beer carbonation seeping through his stomach lining into his body. The only remedy was a complete cessation of beer and soda and Joe bemoaned his fall from grace.

“Even after the four week abstinence I won’t be able to drink beer. Not like a man is supposed to drink beer.”

I commiserated with my friend, because I’m a lightweight in my old age.

I have no more 20-beer nights.

These days five beers are too many, although I can put down ten when the thirst is on me.

Neither Joe nor I were world-class drinkers like Andre the Giant who drank enough for 30 men according to this piece from Wikpedia.

“He has been unofficially crowned “The Greatest Drunk on Earth” for once consuming 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours. On an episode of WWE’s Legends of Wrestling, Mike Graham claimed that André once drank 197 16-ounce beers in one sitting, which was confirmed by Dusty Rhodes. In her autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah alleges that André drank 327 beers and passed out in a hotel bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, and because the staff could not move him, they had to leave him there until he regained consciousness.”

327 beers.

I’d died after drinking a 10th of his epic feat.

Andre the Giant would rise from the ashes of his hangover and drink as if there had been no yesterday.

My next beer is to him.

The God of Beermas and his ghost wants his beers during this Oktoberfest, so lift your beers to the Giant.

To hear tales of his drinking please go to this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kwyb65J_d4

Jersey Oktoberfest

Last week the owner of the Old Danceteria extended an invitation to celebrate the Oktoberfest at the Zeppelin Hall in Jersey City.

"Bring a friend. All the beer you can drink and bratwurst you can eat."

John had always been a gracious host and I decided to bring along Dirty Dave and Wasta Steve.

"New Jersey?" Dirty Dave traveled the world and the Garden State was not on his must-see list of destinations. "That's Bridge and Tunnel land."

I know." Jersey was two rivers away from the Fort Greene Observatory in Brooklyn and filled with Jerseyites. Few people from Brooklyn ever went to Jersey, but I was from Boston and John was offering us a fabulous Oktober fest.

"Free beer. Free sausages. An oom-pah band and your old boss will be happy to see you." Dirty Dave had worked for John as a doorman. They hadn't seen each other in years and I said, "It will be a good surprise for the both of you. Plus Wasta Steve will be with us."

"Okay, I'll go."

Wasta Steve needed little convincing. I had arranged seats at the opening night of this season's Saturday Night Live for his girlfriend and he was free for a Saturday night of drinking in Jersey.

That evening we met in Fort Greene and took the F train to join Dirty Dave in the West Village to complete the last leg of the journey on the PATH train from the West 9th Street.

The tunnel was warm with the last of summer. The passengers were no different than Manhattanites or the denizens of Brooklyn. We arrived at the Zeppelin Hall at 8. The bouncer waved in Dirty Dave and me, but checked Wasta Stave's ID. He was under 30. I texted John, who replied to meet him at the bar. The place was packed with clean-cut beer-drinkers. The three of us fit right in.

John joined us at the bar.

He greeted me with a hug.

Dirty Dave received a broad smile.

"What you want?" he asked Wasta Steve. John was the consummate host.

"Beer and brat." Wasta Steve was from Indian. His family was Polish. They loved the combo.

"Your wish is my command."

John served us himself.

We ate and drank to our hearts' delight.

John and Dirty Dave spoke of old times.

We left together and sped through the Holland Tunnel.

I crossed the East River on the Manhattan Bridge.

It had been a great Oktoberfest.

Even with all the bridges and tunnels.

Trinken, essen, und denn schlafen.

Ain't nothing better.

Senseless In the West Bank

Not a single Palestinian was involved with the Nazi Death Camps or the wholesale extermination of the Jews under the Third Reich, yet three years after the Fall of the Hitlerites the newly-established UN organized a partition referendum in Palestine for the refugees seeking asylum in Biblical Judah. Despite having existing as a minority in the legendary Land of Milk and Honey since the Fall of Jerusalem, to 1948, the Jews succeeded in winning for than half the land and their terrorist gangs began attacks on Arab villages with the express purpose of driving them from their homes.

Almost seventy years after the Nakba or Day of Sorrow the Palestinians are treated as 'animals' by the Occupation Forces of the IDF or the Israeli Defense Force. The two peoples have fought many wars, while the IDF has suppressed numerous insurrections by the Palestinians to address the injustice of having to sacrifice their territory to appease the German purge of Europe.

The present far-right wing government of Netanyahu had declared that they have ordered the troops to shoot to kill rock-throwers resisting deadly incursions of IDF and over the last few days hundreds of young Palestinians have been killed and wounded by their PM's deadly edict after a late night attack of Jewish settlers outside Hebron.

The dead on both sides have names. The western media never says those of the Palestians.

Abed al-Rahman Abdallah - 13

Shot by an Israeli sniper under orders of Netanyahu.

This soldiers have to stop killing children and women, such as 18 year-old Hadil Hashlamoun shot ten tines and left on the street to die.

See rt.com

https://www.rt.com/news/316252-idf-kills-palestinian-woman-hebron/

The border guards dragged her off the curb like she was meat.

Not all Israelis back this ghettoed genocide, but not enough.

They have the atomic bomb.

They are not scared of anyone as seen during Netanyahu's staring at the UN general assembly last week.

Very Adolf Hitler.

They only see one solution.

Because they are blind to the truth.

Freedom for all.

Peace for all.

There is one world and one people.

And only one moment of life and that is now.

International Write-Off Day

Last month I was dining at Bar Pitti with Richie Boy, our art dealer friend Starvie, and my landlord Pollock. The restaurant on 6th Avenue was packed with stockbrokers thankful to have survived the day's mayhem. Ferraris, Land-Rovers, and Mercs weaved through the traffic, each one is more of a hurry to be somewhere else. After appetizers Richie Boy told a story about his diamond exchange being robbed for a million dollars. Seveteen years later he still thinks I did it, which is why he always hires me back to work for him selling diamonds. He thinks I'll come up with the box someday.

Our friends laughed at his loss, as I disproved his allegations. The neighboring table was rehashing the meltdown after Sunday's announcement that two of the largest banks in the world had vanished without a trace. They had opinions.

Collapse. Buy. Sell. The economy is sound. Invest in beer.

Pollock leaned over to me and acknowledged his indiscretion.

"No one knows shit."

"Certainly not me." I'd been broke since my arrest in Thailand seven ago. "But I'm willing to make a prediction."

"Which is?"

"The Dow Jones will hit 9500 by the end of the month." September had only 15 more days left. The stockbrokers on the other table had stopped speaking to hear my reasoning. "And on what do i base this forecast. A hunch. Nothing more and nothing less."

Everyone resumed their conversation, except for Richie Boy, who said, "Anyone that knows isn't saying and anyone that says doesn't know."

We all agreed to that.

Bad Debt Good - 2015

My first credit card was backed by the endorsement of Mrs. Carolina in 1995.

"An American Express for emergencies."

The southerner loved the way I kissed and visited me once a month in New York. Ms. Carolina told her husband that I was gay. His believing her mapped out a faultline in my masculinity. Ms. Caroline was blonde and beautiful. In bed there was never a need for words.

When I moved to LA in 1995 to help Scottie Taylor open the Beverly Hills' Milk Bar, I used this card to purchase pastrami sandwiches from Jerry's Deli and groceries from Trader Joe's. Three months of this ran the bill up to $1000. The week before the opening of the Milk Bar, Mrs. Carolina flew out for a road trip to Death Valley.

"I don't think I can pay that debt right now," I told her at a steak house in Lone Pine.

"Don't worry about it. You can pay me once you sell a book." Ms. Carolina liked my writing. No one in Hollywood felt the same way.

Ms. Carolina might not have cared about my insolvency and seemingly neither did the credit card companies, who issued me a playing deck of plastic from Visa and MasterCard. I was credit rich with no standing debt.

I thought I was smart juggling various new offers of 0% interest between competing companies. My limit rose with my payments. I soon was given a ceiling on $70,000 despite no visible source of income or assets other than an elephant foot in my East Village apartment. By 2001 my debt was a mere $3000.

Manageable minimal monthly payments, while I traveled back and forth to the Orient.

After moving to Thailadn in 2002y arrest by the Thai cyber police for Copyright infringement changed all that routine. I had no work for several months and lived on the cards, transferring debts back and forth like an off-shore banker, until I resumed employ at the diamond exchange.

My debt had grown to $150000.

The winter of 2002 I sold a Burma sapphire for big money and informed Richie Boy that I was heading for Thailand. I had a book to write. I was only 48. The future still ran in my favor and my English friend Sam Royalle had promised to set me up with an internet website selling F-1 copy merchandise. Leaving America seemed like a good idea, especially since my Thai girlfriend and I were expecting a baby and GW Bush was in the White House.

The credit cards paid for the birth of Angie.

MY debt rose to $25000.

I faithfully paid the increasing monthlies with the money from my sublet of East 10th Street. Apartment 3E, while my business was generating enough income to support a family of three. The problem arose when I lost my ATM card with which I withdrew funds from f1-shopping.net

Sam Royalle advised burning my credit cards to the limit.

"Never pay them back."The other other option was to take cash advances from the cards, although I didn't notice the small print of the contract stating that this move would bump my interest rate to 29%. And my debt started to balloon, so that by 2008 when the Thai police shut down my website for copyright infringement, I owed something like $120,000.

More money than I could pay back and I did the numbers. I called the credit card companies to ask for an abatement in the interest levels even though I had no income. They refused my request. I told them without this help that I would be forced into bankruptcy.

"New laws have been written to prevent that."

"Laws?" I was living in Thailand beyond the reach of America. "Could I speak with your manager?"

"He won't change a thing."

"Then I guess this is the last time we speak." I had no credit line. "Good-bye."

And like that I was free from their debts. Different creditors phone from time to time. They have purchased my note at probably 5%. Maybe less. I'm not scared of speaking to these faceless voices from the Midwest. I ask them if they are willing to reduce my principal. They refuse and demand the full balance plus interest. I explained that I'm not in a position to pay them this sum. It is 100% the truth.

I have written off this debt in my mind on my own personal write-off day.

And I have survived without a credit card thanks to throwing out my TV. No strangers tell me what to buy. My purchases are generated by necessity; food and Shelter and transportation. A few beers too. I like the buzz of being an anti-consumer of any offering of globalization.

Broke, but free.

It was a good feeling and still is.

SUKKOT / BET ON CRAZY

Two years ago the Diamond District on 47th Street was dead on the high holiday of Sukkot.

All throughout the shetls of Williamsburg families were commemorating the Hebrews' wandering in the desert after the Exodus in Egypt by setting up sukkahs or outside dwelling to symbolize the tents on that decades-long journey to find someplace to call their own.

The Hasidic diamond dealers abandoned the Diamond District for the week. The day before Chol HaMoed Gabriel our broker left our store ten big diamonds in hopes that a goy might buy one. Richie Boy and his father weren't so religious and saw the holiday as a time to operate with less competition.

On the first day of Sukkot I opened the safe and arranged Gabriel's rocks in the window. Gem quality in individual diamond boxes glittering in the morning sunlight. None were under five carats and the total value of the goods was slightly over 500K. They made a big impression.

A half-hour later an over-weight gypsy in a Versace suit entered the store.

, "How much for the big stone?"

"It ain't for sale." I had never sold to a gypsy.

"Everything is for sale on 47th Street."

"Not this stone." I had nothing against Gippos, but they hadn't earned their rep for guile by being saints.

"Show him the stone." Manny was sitting at his desk. He had dealt with hundreds of gypsies during his years on the Bowery.

"Okay, but everything has a price," I grumbled, for the Roma were a WOT or a waste of time. Worse was the possibility that they might rob you.

"Which is?" I had seen Tony around the block.

"40K."

"Can I see it?"

"Sure." I went to the front window and plucked the stone from the tray. A zaftig, but attractive woman in a matching Versace dress smiled at me. She was Tony's wife. They worked as a team. She came inside.

I show her the diamond without letting her touch it.

"I love this ring, Tony." Her fragrance was Versace Bright Crystal.

"I love it too, but I don't love $40K for a 6-carat F SI3?" He was top of the line Roma. "Would you take 20K for it?"

"Thanks but no thanks." Gabriel had memoed the diamond for $35,000. Manny said that it was a lot of flash for the cash. My boss came from Brownsville. He had never lost its touch on his soul.

"I have the money." Tony brandished a roll of hundreds thick enough to be 20K, unless the center was all $1 bills.

"Sorry, the price remains 40K. No haggling either."

"I thought maybe you would want to do some business." What Tony meant was that if I gave him the stone, I could stick the 20K and walked out of the store.

"Sorry, no deal."

I sat at my desk and the gypsy exited from the exchange. Tony had other marks on his list. Maybe he would get lucky. My boss Richie Boy showed up a few minutes later.

"Anything happening?"

"A gypsy offered me 20K for Gab's stone." Manny stood up with a groan. His hip was killing the 80 year-old.

"You didn't let him touch it?"

"Not at all." Gypsies were skilled at switching stones.

"Let me check."

I got the stone for Richie Boy.

"You're lucky," he said after weighing out the diamond on the scale.

"Lucky was, if he sold it." Manny sat back down with a grunt. He wasn't getting old, but some parts of his body were on strike.

"We were lucky." Richie Boy nodded to me and I put the diamond back in the window.

Across the street Tony and his wife were standing outside a store. They were looking to get lucky.

Anything was possible on Sukkot.

Around noon the girls working for Manny's partner wanted to order lobster rolls from the new take-out.

Coming from Maine I was eager to try the lunch special.

Richie Boy signaled that he was in too.

Lobster might be tref or unclean and unfit for consumption according to Jewish tradition, however only one member of our staff was religious. The rest were bacon Jews.

Lunch came, we ate, and then discussed the lobster rolls.

Cindy thought it was good. She had gone to UMass.

Richie Boy was unimpressed. He was nursing a hangover.

I had eaten better in Maine, but Lincolnville was an eight-hour drive from 47th Street.

A chubby hand slapped the window.

Lenny.

The Hassidic bum.

His yamakah was sliding off what remained of his greasy hair and his fingers were twitching for money.

"Fuck him." Richie Boy had little patience for Lenny.

"He's harmless." Lenny was no Don Rickles, but he made me laugh.

"Tell him to go away. He's bad for business."

"Business? On Sukkot keep on dreaming."

"Do me a favor and send him away. Lenny's ruining my appetite."

I put down my lobster roll and went outside.

Lenny seemed to have gained more weight and he smelled like he hadn't been to a schvitz since before Moses freed the slaves.

"Lenny, you're messing up the window." His hand imprints were scattered on the glass like prehistoric paintings. "I'm the one who has to clean it."

"Sorry, Damian." Lenny was a slob in his filthy tee-shirt and ripped flannel trousers with sodden sneakers shaped like melted cheese. He has been living on the street for more than 20 years, but I had seen the fat bum deposit over $200 at the bank more than once. Some people say that his lunacy is an act, except his rhummy eyes told the truth.

"No worries." I liked that he called me 'Damian'. The name smacked of THE OMEN and the Son of Satan.

"Why Richie doesn't ever give?" Lenny begged everyone on the street for money. He even took small change.

"Maybe it has something to do with you calling him a Nazi."

"He is a Nazi. A country club Nazi who hates Jews like me." Lenny was fondling an etrog lemon, which someone must have given him for Sukkot. I could smell it over his stench.

"Lenny, I hear you say that to a lot a people on the street. It's not nice."

"I'll tell you what's not nice." Lenny pointed to Tony and his wife. "Over a million gypsies were killed by the Nazis, but no one ever builds a museum for them"

"The Roma are 'travelers'." That was the Irish word for them and it didn't have a nice meaning.

"And the Hebrews wandered forty years in the desert and what about the Wandering Jew?"

"That's a myth." The Goyim had created the legend of a Jew cursed with immortality for taunting Jesus on his way to the Crucifixion.

"Ahasver might not exist, but the Jews have traveled the world for centuries same as the Roma and people talk about them the same way as they talk about us."

Aren't you celebrating Sukkot?"

"I sleep outside every night." Lenny lived in the rough. He had no possession other than the clothing on his back. "Every day is Sukkot for me. Same as you, Damian. You wander the world."

"My wanderings are more like Dion's THE WANDERER than the Jews and Roma." I loved the line from that hit, 'I'm the type of guy'.

"I love Dion." Lenny knew every homeless shelter in New York. They were his world and the sidewalks were paths for his travels.

"Me too, but I wish I didn't."

"Your kids in Thailand." Lenny was crazy, but he wasn't stupid. He knew my life."

"Yeah, my kids." The four of them were halfway around the world. There was something not right about that arrangement and I felt more sympathy for the Roma than was normal for someone born on the Coast of Maine.

Richie Boy rapped on the window.

"Lenny, I got to go back to work." I had to make a little money.

"You got a dollar for the holiday?"

I handed him two bills.

He wished me luck and called for a blessing on my kids in Thailand.

"May you get home soon."

"Thanks." Seeing my kids was my greatest wish. Another month and I would have plane fare to Bangkok. I would count every day.

"Baxt hai sastimos tiri patragi." Lenny shambled into the street. His eyes were on Tony and his wife. He saw them as a soft touch.

"What's that?" I had never heard those words before.

"It's Romani for 'good luck.'"

"Sie gesund." I wished him well in Yiddish and returned inside the diamond exchange hoping to close a deal in the final hours of Sukkot, because all wanderers are lucky as long as they were heading home.