Walking Around Marangu, Tanzania - 2019 Kili Initiative Team # 23

The Bark MAGGIE MOORE

I found this photo of the bark MAGGIE MOORE dating back to approximately 1877.

My great-grandfather Charles S. Smith was the captain and owner.

I recall the photo from my grandmother Edith's house in Westbrook, Maine, but not the written page attached to the back of the frame, which had been penned by my grandfather Frank A. Smith.

It is a sad tale of the sea.

BARK MAGGIE MOORE, CAPT. CHARLES S. SMITH

Fastest ship ever commanded by Capt. Smith.

Made world record between Liverpool and Rio de Janeiro.

Last burning at sea 600 miles off the coast of South America, while homeward bound with oil. Capt. and crew only saved their clothes they had on and on white poodle dog owned by Captain. Wreckage of the Maggie Moore was first picked up and I will remember the terrible anxiety of my mother before news arrived in the middle of the night that Captain and crew had been picked up by another shop. The minister of the Baptist Church in St. Stephen N.B. brought us the good news and Mother in her joy roused her two children (Sister about 3 years old and myself 5 years old. while we kneeled by the bed and offered prayers of thanks for the safety of father and husband. A wonderful day when Father arrived home from this voyage, although (financially it had been a severe blow.

Charles S. Smith died at sea of 36 years from Malaria and dysentery, originally contracted on a voyage to South America, The little poodle barked all day and into the night when the Capt's remains were brought to Mascarene, St. George N.B. and afterwards the poodle's bark was only a little croak.

Frank A. Smith M.D.

There is no record of the Maggie Moore, except for this foto from one hundred and thirty years ago.

RED HOT RED / Bet On Crazy by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago I was sitting with a mystical friend at Frank's Lounge, watching the end of the Jets-Colts playoff game. Rooting for the New York team surprised Wilson. He knew my life-long ties to Boston and I told him. "If the Jets win, we get to beat them again and other than winning the SuperBowl nothing is better than beating the Jets."

I hate Jets fans, except for Bob Wolfkowitz. This family friend is a season ticket-holder in the Meadowlands. Their last championship was in SuperBowl III. I hope that another hundred years go by before the Jets win the championship.

"Never the gold for the Jets." I said this loud enough for the benefit of Tyrone. He too is a die-hard fan. I wish that I could wish him good-luck, but when the Jets upset my team, the Patriots, in the first match-up between the AFC East rivals, Tyrone was crowing about how the Jets were going all the way.

My phone was ringing. I looked at the number and put it back in my jacket. It was Richie Boy, my boss.

It was Richie Boy, my boss. We were old friends, but this was a business call and he wasn’t paying me enough to answer the phone this time of night.

"We'll see next week." Wilson was a Giants fanatic. He was praying for both our teams to crash head-on in their buses, so the Jints could sneak into the playoffs. Football fans are devoted fools. "Two strong teams. Evenly matched."

"Dirty Sanchez is no Tom Brady." I imagined the Jets' QB to be a modern-day Paris of Troy looking to steal Helen from New England. There was only one Giselle and she had a big nose. My phone started ringing again. Richie Boy must have finished skiing in Vermont.

"Who's calling you?" Wilson was curious since the only person that ever called me this time of night was Fenway's mom from Thailand and I always answered her. Mam was 26 and as beautiful as the first day I met her four years ago.

"My boss from the diamond exchange."

"Doesn't he know that it's a Saturday?" Wilson worked as a building inspector for the city. 38 years on the job. "Ain't no one working at my job on Saturday unless it's double overtime."

"My bosses don't understand the concept of overtime." I was 58. Finding a new job was impossible for men my age. I was the only one on the subway in the morning. The phone started ringing again.

"Your boss?"

"No, a friend."

Isaac had a store in the Plaza Hotel. We had met two years earlier when Richie Boy opened a shop in the new Retail Collection. The experiment in the basement had been a disaster. One partner was a thief and Richie Boy's Persian backer was broke. I saved the sinking ship by selling a million-dollar ruby. Isaac admired my effort and my cool demeanor after our Persian backer stiffed half my commission.

I answered the phone.

"Man, you've got to tell Richie Boy to chill." Isaac and I were trying to sell a 2-carat red diamond to a sheik. So was everyone else in town, but Isaac had sold the client before, giving him the inside track. "He's calling me every 30 minutes."

"Me too."

Richie Boy had a bad habit of thinking that every sale was a done deal as long as you showed the stone.

I walked out of the bar onto the sidewalk. The night air was cold. Across the street General Fowler's statue was covered in blinking lights. Some sport had draped him in a cape. The wind gave the Civil War hero life.

"Isaac, did you speak with the Arab today?"

"No, I told you and told Richie Boy that I wouldn't be speaking to him until Wednesday. He has to relax."

"Did you call anyone else for a stone?" I hoped that he hadn't.

"Someone showed me a pinkish red." I knew that Isaac couldn't stay off the phone. Richie Boy wasn't the only crazy person.

"Pinkish red is a garbage stone. You show that to someone looking for a red diamond and they'll think you're an idiot. How much they asking for the pinkish red?"

"A bargain. $1 million a carat."

"A piece of shit more like it."

The colored diamond and gem trade are controlled by Afghani Jews. I know most of them. They are good people, but no one has an idea how much they pay for their stones. I figured that they doubled up on the purchase price. It could have been three times that.

"If someone says 'red', show them red." My phone buzzed with another call. I knew who it was. "Do yourself a favor. Stop calling around. Every time you call for a stone, the price will jump. Tell the Arab that too. It's the truth."

"How much can we make on this stone?"

"Enough for me to stop working for two years." I could live on 50K a year. "Let me answer this call."

"Okay, but tell Richie Boy to leave me alone."

"I wish I could tell him the same for me." I switched calls.

"Why didn't you answer my call?" Richie Boy was rightfully agitated by my ignoring him.

"I was on the line with Isaac." I explained how Isaac needed space.

"Space? This isn't a marriage. This is a diamond deal. I have people holding a red diamond for him."

Richie Boy ranted for several more seconds about how he didn't need people to be a prima donna. I didn't need to hear this on the weekend, since nothing and nothing was supposed to happen on the weekend.

"It's shabbath. The broker is at temple. Where are you?"

"Just getting home." Richie Boy and his wife had driven north to spend the weekend at their trailer on a river in Vermont. I had seen the photos. If he threw in a fire and glass of wine with a view of a snowy river, some called it paradise.

"Then have a good night. I'm watching the end of the football game." I hung up and shut off my phone. I returned inside the bar and sat next to Wilson. The Jets had scored a TD.

"What your boss want?"

Wilson was unimpressed about the red diamond sale. He was looking at a good pension in two years.

"What makes a red diamond red?" It was a good question.

I had a good answer. The truth.

"No one knows." It could have been elemental. Maybe a weird radiation from the earth's core or the the vastness of the cosmos. All I knew was that I wasn't selling it this weekend and I bought Wilson a beer, happy to be where I was, for Frank's was good for drinking beer and not worrying about work. It was paradise for some and almost home for me.

And General Fowler too.

This statue wasn't going anywhere soon.

1970s Versus Now

Where be my Time machine, Mister Wizard.

Fuck now.

1970s always.

VOYEURS, EXHIBITIONISTS, CRIMINALS, AND MISANTHROPES - Jan 25 Reading at Howl Gallery

January 25 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Howl Gallery

6 East 1st Street

Writers Remember Times Square

Noah Prince, Peter Nolan Smith, and Claudia Summers

Confetti lingers in lonely gutters and the crevasses of the sidewalks. It spins upward through spiraling gusts of wind eventually landing again. Aside from your best intentions, nothing escapes the gravity of the neighborhood. —Noah Prince

Times Square as a center of gritty life is long gone, but among this group of writers, it’s not forgotten. Join us for an evening of provocative readings by Noah Prince, Peter Nolan Smith, and Claudia Summers. The Disneyfication of the area is complete, and for many what remains is a memory of a time in the life of New York City prior to commercialization, gentrification, and the gutting of neighborhoods and the colorful characters who inhabited them. Just as Jane Dickson’s paintings describe her experiences of living in Times Square—once a mecca for voyeurs, exhibitionists, criminals, and misanthropes—these writers describe a bygone era of this infamous locale.

Jane Dickson’s exhibition, HOT, HOT, HOT: Paintings of Times Square Peep Shows, continues through February 23.

PARTICIPATING READERS

Claudia Summers is a writer living in New York, a recent MFA graduate of City College. She was the vocalist on the dance club hit “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight”. She is currently working on a collection of linked short stories set in the 80s downtown art and music scene of New York. She can be followed on Facebook, and her Instagram username is @_claudia_summers_.

Noah Prince moved to Hell’s Kitchen in early ’86 and lived so many events he could never un…live… Times Square was his coming of age. He accidentally began a career in the New York film industry. The idea of writing was nowhere in his path. In 2011 he worked on a television show set in the theatre district. It brought back his memories of the 80s. The thoughts quickly formed a book, Failures at Summer Camp, as well as several short stories from the time. He lives in Brooklyn.

Peter Nolan Smith moved from his native New England to New York in 1976. The city was ablaze like the Goths had just burned Rome, but the East Village was a refuge for young malcontents. A doorman at illegal nightclubs in the late 70s, Smith moved to Paris to pursue writing detective poetry. Nothing came of it other than a few short stories and a failed screenplay. Back in New York he compiled more stories and published in various literary magazines before heading out to Asia for a decade-long excursion throughout the Far East. In recent years he resumed writing novels and collections of short stories without bothering to have them published other than on his website mangozeen.com, living by his old motto: “No commercial value. No sellout.” The author now lives between Fort Greene and Thailand and is currently writing a novel about teenage devil worship in the 1960s.

Details Date: January 25 Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

22 Rich Men In Africa

Twenty-two people have more wealth than 325 million women in Africa.

Their names are:

Phil Knight of Nike

Sheldon Adelson's fortune comes from gambling.

Charles Koch, right wing racist

Ma Huateng of Ten Cent

Jack Ma of Alibaba

S. Robson Walton of Walmart

Alice Walton of same shitty company

Jim Walton related to the above two billionaires

Michael Bloomberg, who during his three terms as Mayor of New York had almost a million young men of color searched for marijuana.

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the witch heiress of L'Oreal

Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft.

Mukesh Ambani, thief of the poor of India

Sergey Brin, Google czar

Larry Page, the co-founder of Google with a horrible haircut

Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican drug launderer

Larry Ellison, Oracle

Mark Zuckerberg, total scumbag of FaceBook, another bad haircut everyday of the week

Amancio Ortega, Zara Designs

Warren Buffett

Bill Gates, superstar scumbag dedicated to the depopulation of the world

Bernard Arnault, luxury brands

Jeff Bezos, the worst person on Earth besides Ole Orange Man

None of them are worth a poor woman's sandals in Africa.

A Well-Maintained Militia In Richmond 2020

Yesterday January 11, 2020 thousands of gun-right supporters gathered in Richmond to protest the Governor's plans require background checks on weapon buyers and only allowing the purchase of one handgun per month. Donald Trump tweeted the protestors, writing at 10:42 AM, "The Democrat Party in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia are working hard to take away your 2nd Amendment rights. This is just the beginning. Don’t let it happen, VOTE REPUBLICAN in 2020!"

The marchers carrying hard-core ARs shouted, “Northam out."

No counter-demonstrators were seen within blocks and the police allowed thousands of gun-toting people to march around the city thankfully without any acts of violence marring Martin Luther King Day.

I liked shooting, but have seen the need to walk around New York City armed to the teeth.

Unlike these men who fear the government might take away their guns.

I don't trust the government either.

The police only protects the rich and regard the poor as a source of income, but do I need an AR-15?

No.

Last year a gunman killed twelve people in Virginia Beach. A special lawmaking session on gun control ended in ninety minutes without any action to protect innocent people against a senseless attack of a madman, but the fear of crime fuels the need for guns.

In 2018 .2% of American household suffered an armed intrusion either by gun, knife, or physical threat and in the same year 815 bank robberies occurred in California, but the real reason for millions of Americans owning guns is not crime or the government.

They fear blacks.

A Nat Turner uprising.

Getting killed in their beds for the sin of slavery.

The crime of oppression.

The evil of hatred.

And they know they are guilty, which is why they have the guns.

No other reason other than to maintain racism.

This is their fear.

Freedom.

ps Trump was voted out of office. He didn't stay out. THe Madman came back with a list of vengeance. Resist, motherfuckas.