Pin Ball At the Nursery - 1977

how Sharon Mitchell and I became friends pinball at the Nursery 1977.

Pinball CBGBs 1978

Throughout the late 1970s I stood at the front of CBGBs for the Contortions, Damned, and the Voidoids. Afterwards I drank beer and play pinball at the back of the club. I was never friends with the big names. The bartenders were my friends, the doorman with the yellow construction helmet let me in for free, college co-eds thought I looked like David Johansson from the New York Dolls and by the time they discovered I was simply a poet, it was too late to try for someone else. I was lucky and CBGBs became my home away from home.

Foto by Bob Gruen

GASLIGHT PINBALL by Peter Nolan Smith

Pinball was banned as a game of chance in New York City throughout most of the 20th Century.

In 1976 a pinball wizard proved the contrary to a courtroom by calling out his shots to the amazed judges.

The ace later acknowledged that his called shot was pure luck, however pinball machines once more populated amusement arcades and bars. Coming from Boston I had spent hundreds of dollars in the amusement arcades along Washington Street, honing my skills on the slanted playing field.

In 1976 I quit my job as a substitute teacher in Boston and moved to New York in a stolen car. I lived in Park Slope and ran the lunch at a gay restaurant near the UN. For being the waiter, cook, busboy, barman, and cashier from 10am-3:30pm, I earned about $50 a day.

After work I wandered over New York's premier entertainment area. Times Square was packed with porno store, go-go bars, massage parlors, XXX movie houses, bars, and amusement centers, which were filled with good players. The best was a Frenchman. We competed head to head once a week. Michel had soft hands. His flipper work was extraordinary. He won most of the time, but not always.

Michel worked as a bartender in Park Slope. The Gaslight Pub on 7th Avenue had cheap drinks, a good jukebox, a few beautiful girls from the neighborhood, and a great pinball machine. It was also two blocks from the apartment that I shared with a gay jazz impresario.

The straight crowd at the bar didn't like queers. James didn't care whether they liked him or not. He was a drinker and bought drinks for the old regulars, who never questioned his largess, especially since I was friends with Davie Corr, an insane bank robber, who once robbed three banks in Flatbush back to back to back.

Whenever a stranger challenged me to a pinball game, Davie backed my play. A dollar for 1000 points. I sometimes won by 100,000. A c-note was a good money for a game of skill.

Michel and I battled regularly on SLASH. I maintained an advantage since he couldn't leave the bar long enough to get into his rhythm.

One night I entered the Gaslight and ordered a Jack and coke. The men at the bar kept turning their head to the corner, where a dark-haired skinny girl with big breasts was bumping the pinball machine with her pelvis like she was on a burlesque stage. The brunette was wearing a band-aid of a mini-skirt and a skimpier tube-top showing skin was as white as a zombie. Stiletto heels made her my height.

Michel lifted his eyebrow and leaned over the bar.

"She had been playing like that for an hour."

"Non-stop?"

"Non-stop." He motioned with his head to go play with her. She wasn't his type. He liked black girls.

"Anyone play with her?"

"No one here good enough to beat her."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence."

At that time I had a theory that the way someone danced was the way they made love. Extending this hypothesis to pinball was a leap of faith and I asked the pinball player, if I could play a game.

"Pinball?" Her voice was pure Flatbush. She was a hometown girl.

"It's the only game in here." I slotted a dollar's worth of quarters into SLASH. We played for a half-hour. I beat her by only thousands, since I was mesmerized by how savagely her hips thumped the machine. After the tenth tilt I risked a slap in the face and asked, "Do you make love the same way you play?"

"Only one way to find out."

She drained her drink and took my hand. I waved goodnight to Michel. James was walking down the block with two tough boys. He was into rough trade. Seeing me with Fran he smirked at the both of us without saying a word. He knew better than to cockblock a friend.

Fran lived a few blocks away from the bar. She taught kindergarten. I told her about teaching in South Boston during the busing riots. Her school was in Bed-Stuy. Her pupils were good kids. None of them ever saw her this way.

"Enough talk about school." She pulled me inside her ground-floor apartment and secured a series of locks. The windows were covered by heavy curtains. She didn't bother to switch on the lights.

"I have a crazy ex-boyfriend. He won't leave me alone." Fran stripped off my clothes, then kneeled on the floor and shucked off my jeans. "You don't mind if we do it on the floor. I like it that way."

"Not at all."

It took Fran three seconds to naked. She left on the high heels. They scraped over the wooden floor like spurs on a horse's back. Her white skin was covered with baby powder and she left a trail across the room. Her pelvis was breaking my bones, but she wouldn't let me go, not even when someone knocked on the door.

It was her ex-boyfriend.

"Fran, I know you're in there." He called out her name and pounded on the door.

"Don't stop. He'll go away." She humped upward with the same power as when she had been playing pinball. I was her SLASH and there was only one way for her to tilt me.

The ex-boyfriend left the front door only to bang on the window. The good kindergarten teacher whispered dirty talk in my ear and whimpered out a moan of release.

"That was good."

"For me too." It was more wicked and I had no intention of leaving her apartment, until I was certain that her ex-boyfriend was gone. We did it again.

Back at the Gaslight Pub Michel set me up with a beer. I was exhausted from the first, second, and third times. James was in the back with his boys. He pretended not to see me. The rest of the bar was drunk. I had been gone two hours.

"So how was it?"

Normally I never discussed the secrets of the bedroom with another man, however Fran and I hadn't used her bedroom and Michel was a fellow pinball player.

"She did it just like she played pinball."

"I thought so." Michel winked at me.

Fran was back at the machine.

I went over to the pinball machine. My pelvis was bruised and my hands were weak. I tilted SLASH on the first go and that lack of skill had nothing to do with luck. Fran won with ease.

She was good at pinball, but better at another game and that was winning.

After all pinball was good a game of chance."

Lost Letter 1981

My archives are filled with thousands of photos, hundreds of letters, and about forty journals of which I find only thirty-three. All from the 1970s into 1990s. One was from Teresa.

"You're the only one. All the rest are nothing."

I have no idea who she might be, but I have my suspicions.

This might be her.

On the way to Jones Beach summer of 1989.

Piles of Leaves - Fort Greene Park

The leaves fall from the trees The colding wind stripping Red yellow orange. Colors browning on the ground Gathered into piles Deeper and deeper By the walls Of Fort Greene Park___ As a boy I found joy Kicking leaves Into the air__ Today Kicking them same I feel Eleven years old Especially since No one else kicks leaves On Clinton Hill In autumn___

The Criminal Paradise

Donald Trump shocked the Democratic Party, as his followers ignored his thirty-four felony convictions for fraud and a criminal guilty sentence for rape to elect him to the White House for a third time. Democratic voters stayed away from the polls. Eight million less than 2020. There were plenty of reasons; horrible Kumbaya for Harris, Tim Walz, her VP candidate, looked too much like the comedien Tim Conway and confused elder voters as to why they were voting for the star of MCHALE'S NAVY, Gaza, also no message, Biden's withdrawal ad nauseum. I voted for Harris and on Election Day I sat outside on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn knowing Harris wasn't going to win, because I heard so many Democrats say they coulnd't vote for a cat woman. But a felon?

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" Trump remarked at a campaign stop at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa in January 2016. "It's, like, incredible."

Obviously he still has that right having survived an assassination attempt during this latest campaign, although what about the lone gunman's right to stand and defend?

It is not against federal law for an convicted felon to run or serve as president, although does a convicted sex offender have to register to live in a neighborhood? Does this rapist have to register in the White House?

I personally don’t consider these things when I vote for any public position, but the times and the norms are changing. You can be so proud. You voted for a sex offender.

And felons should be allowed to run for political office, even President. Having suffered through Nixon, Reagan, and Trump Ith, I reckon we can survive Trump III. Even the Germans and barely the Jews survived Hitler. And even they voted for Trump, then again they do buy BMWs and Mercedes Benzs. Go figure.

In this democracy ten million convicts are denied the right to vote, mostly due to unpaid legal fees. A country founded on extermination, enslavement, and exploitation. The Land of the Freaked. I’d say revolt, but why bother since most liberals agree with the Beatles singing, “And if you want destruction, then count me out.”

Complete sell-outs. Like us all. Get a bag of potato chips or else resteel yourselves for a real fight. Get ready for 2026. Damn first time I’ve typed that year. Enjoy the criminal paradise. Anything goes for them. So shall it be for us.

PS Trump stole the election.NO explanations necessary.

30,000 Feet over Burma - May 5, 1990 - Journal Entry

Previously published May 24, 2023

I have a flight to Kathmandu. I wish I could stay in Bangkok, but my money is getting low. I called New York from the Malaysia Hotel lobby. A collect call to Rickie Boy, who complained, “I haven’t had anyone to drink with since you left. The city sucks. The clubs suck. The drug sucks.”

“At least here in the Orient there are life”

“Where are you now?”

“Bangkok, the City of the Angels. A paradise for the wicked,” I recounted visits to Patpong the notorious red-light district. Go-go bars and more go-go bars. “I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world.”

I didn’t mention my head-on crash with a pick-up north of Chiang Mai. I had been killed instantly and just as instantly reincarnated back with this body. Only difference. A broken wrist.

“It does sound like paradise.”

“Yes, but it’s very poor. And they have lepers in the streets. Hiding from the sunlight. Stumps of hands and feet. Gnarled faces.” I tapped my cast. My wrist itched. The plaster cast prevented any scratching.

“Not a pretty picture.”

“No, it is not.” But New York had over 50,000 beggars and madman freed from the closed upstate mental hospitals. The refuse of a nation after decades of wars, poverty, greed, and neglect. There was no saving them nor will Buddha save the desperate souls of Bangkok nor me.

“When are you coming back?”

“I’ll spend time in Paris and London.”

I had no reason to be in America yet. The Knicks had knocked out the Celtics. I had friends in Paris and London. I had worked in both. I could get a job at a nightclub on my fake carte de sejour.

“But I seriously thinking about moving out here. If you want to join me next year, then start saving your pennies. Departure date. Jan. 2, 1991. Although I don’t know, if I can last that long in the USA. I’d love to leave forever.”

Not that America was heaven on earth, however I knew its evils too well.

“Good luck in the Himalayas.” Richie laughed, “I’m stuck with my father and so are you. Your job will waiting here.”

“Thanks.” I kept it short having covered the reason for the call. Back in New York I still had a motorcycle, an apartment, and a job waiting in New York.

I hung up and joined Dawn on a lobby couch. The diminutive go-go girl had been a good companion over the last week. She actually looked sad to see me go. She caressed my cast. I couldn’t feel her touch. I slipped her another 1000 baht. She wai-ed me and said, “You come back. See me. Love you long time.”

I wai-ed her back, wishing she was coming with me. I am a fool.

The ride to the airport through the traffic took an hour. I had another hour and a half until my flight’s departure. I grabbed a Bangkok Post and a Singha beer in the lounge area. The itch was worsening. I couldn’t reach it and downed another Dilaudid. Men were saying good-bye to girlfriends. Some are sad. Other men are greeting their friends. They are happy. This must be the Hello-Goodby Lounge.

The terminal loudspeaker called for all Kathmandu passengers. I finished my beer and proceeded through customs and passport control. None of the officials paid me any mind. I was just another farang or foreigner leaving the Land of Smiles. The Thai Air flight plane took off on time and I left Thailand for the first time. I would be coming back soon.

LATER

Ten klicks below are the arid rice fields of Burma, burnt brown and begged for the monsoons. The rumors of the military’s corruption, forced migrations, massacres, and starvation are not rumors. I had been on the northern Thai-Burma border. Drug lords and Karin rebels fight the junta. No one wins these wars, but there is too much is at stake to surrender. Neither Thailand nor the USA have cut off ties with Myammar. Heroin was why the French and America fought long wars to control the drug trade. They never stood a chance. These countries are not France or America.

I saw one temple in Bangkok.

Wat Patpong. No Buddhas. Only near naked girls dancing above a bar.

Why did I leave?

An hour later I sight the Himalayas to the north. Snow capped peaks stretching for hundreds of miles. I had seen them in National Geographic. Never this close. I had enough money to trek into them and I was dying to see the Himalayas closer than at eight miles high.

LATER

A golf course is next to Kathmandu airport. Soldiers are everywhere. The pro-democracy wave has washed over Asia. Students are calling for the abolishment of the monarchy.

This evening I met Lance. A New York architect. We have hired a trekking team through the hotel. Te most popular trek is the Annapurna circuit. I don’t have enough money for that sixteen hike. We chose Langtang Glacier. Only ten days. I purchase two Kingfisher beers and sit on the roof, watching the sun light up the Himalayas.

Dorge the guide, has arranged trekking permits in less than an hour. He points out the peaks. We have a Nepali cook and Sherpa porters for an early morning departure in two days, which is a good thing, because I hear gunfire. The army is shooting students.

“We were stupid, “says Todd, another trekker from Hawaii. I had told him about Bangkok.

“How so?”

“You should have brought go-go dancers from Pat-Pong.”

“So they can ask, “Where Tee-vee?” No thanks.”

I am here for the mountains.

The highest in the world.