"A Night to Remember"

I spent Christmas Eve with my dear friends Sharon, and Paul. Dear pals from my radio days. We sat in the parlor around their tree told stories. Remembered adventures.

They're both still in the biz so they caught me up on the latest news, and dirt. Nothing changes same old mayhem.

We popped Christmas crackers had Chinese take out later ice cream. Being all Catholic survivors told tales of indoctrinations horrors at the hands of the Nuns, and the insanity of that ancient cult. We had great laughs at the Lawd's expense.

Btw he's a cool guy so didn't mind.

We spoke of our lives so far, and death of friends, and those that 'should' be passed on. We pondered the fate of our frayed Republic. The Women's revolution that is ongoing. From the great Women's March on January last.

To now having it's multi leveled effect. It was Black women the numbers show that defeated the rapist Nazi in Alabama. That, and how this profound primal humanist movement may yet overthrow both Houses in 2018.

We spoke of Hope.

We laughed remembered, and had ice cream in honor of Isaac Newton's birthday which by chance is shared with that other guy.

It was a good night.

"...a dream"

I was Homeless again.

The Midwest.

Cold wind snow.

I wandered the wide frozen flatlands.

There were people. Farm families that had lost their homes.

I joined their column as they walked beside a highway.

They were kind to me. I was wrapped in a blanket against the terrible winds. A blizzard though the sun was above, and a silver moon on the horizon.

Tents.

They took us in.

Outside winter inside spring. It was warm with grass on the ground. A dream I slept, and dreamed within the dream. 

I sat on a beach. Watching the waves come in. I sat, and watched till I awoke.

"...hot plate"

Tonight I'm waiting up for Jesus to come out of my radiator. He'll fix my leaky bathtub. Then cook me a nice meal of lamb curry while singing swell Blondie oldies. Eh,...that's what happens right?

"...just this once"

A thought about our recent snow. Actually I wish the City would leave it alone so it could be beautiful for days. Not just a few hours till the trucks, and cars turn it brown, and the dogs crap all over it, and the thoughtless pepper it with their garbage.I'd like it to be beautiful for a whole week,...just for once.

"Speaking of Signs, and Wonders"

I once made a rain cloud in a room I was painting.  I was painting up a cousin's bedroom for her some summers back, and accidentally made rain. 

Seriously weird.

(Above some big shot artist guy somewhere made $zillions by using hi-tech crap to do the same thing. Btw his cloud didn't have no rain in it...bleep'em.)

Anyway how I made my cloud was way simpler. I was at my cousin's house painting her bedroom.
It was a super hot humid day like only New York has. So I turned the a.c. up high, but I didn't close the door to the balcony...oops.

Well as 5th grade science will tell you if ya go mixing hot steamy air with cold dry air...plus paint fumes bleep happens.

I'm painting away, and I feel drops on the back of my neck...I looks up, and there's misty clouds drifting around the ceiling, and drops of rain coming out of it!

It was a true to life "Mr. Wizard" event...eh google the guy. 

Ain't that something. 

"My Life as a Dog" ...a 2014 re-run.

 Chapter One.

I met "Charlie Brown" in a booze dive one cold slushy night in East Orange New Jersey. It was Christmas Eve 1950. He was face down in a bowl of clam chowder, and bleeding from where an unhappy patron had smashed a chair over his head.

Hey shit happens.

I sat down, and ordered a Cognac Boutelleau,...vintage 1919. That, and a can of steamed Alpo. I had every intention of minding my own business however the guy in the soup began going into some sort of seizure.

I found out later that his name was "Charlie", and a profound manic depressive schizophrenic a-sexual alcoholic repressed cross dresser with suicidal tendencies eating disorders an expensive heroin, and speed addiction with a barley controlled case of tourette syndrome.

He wet his bed too.

Anyhow my experience as a "Marine Medical Dog" kicked in. I saw a lot of this sort of thing in the Pacific. After a couple of weeks on the line the guys would freak out, and have to be withdrawn.

That was my job. Going in, and dragging the shell shocked marines from harms way. I got three "K-9 Fido Gold Stars" for my troubles. That, and a roll of toilet paper will wipe your butt.

I leapt off my stool spilling vintage Cognac. I grabbed him with my teeth by the scruff of his neck, and dragged this lunatic across the street to the "Booze Alley" infirmary.

The male nurses pumped him out, and stitched him up.

As it turned out they was medic vets too. Cool. I waited around to make sure our patient would live. After that I was gonna beat it the hell out'a there.

However fate, and that psychotic junkie bed wetter Charlie Brown had other ideas.
He asked...pleaded really for me front him a bottle of "Jack Daniels", and drive him home.

You pay for every good bleeping deed...when the hell will I learn.

Right so I pours this human wreck into the back seat of my '49 Buick with 20 payments to go on it, and drives the guy home. So began a far too interesting relationship of over 50 years

(...More chapters as they occur to me.)

(...Okay a vignette occurred to me.)

The Saga Continues.

Chapter Two,...kinda.

A month or two into Snoopy, and Charlie Brown's relationship there was that "FBI entanglement". Remember this was the early 1950's. Seems Charlie Brown stupidly was a member of the "Young Communists", and was holding "Cell" meetings in his basement. 

 The heat got wind of this, and raided his house. 

Poor Charlie got the shit beat out of him,...again, and was thrown into the slammer. He was  surprised when he made new, and very sudden friends in the Rikers Island shower that didn't take 'no' for an answer. Later with his only phone call he contacted Snoopy who was giving a lecture at City College. This on his theory that Human Beings are in fact "...Talking Dogs that pay taxes, and wear socks". 

Well Snoopy had to use his honorarium to bail Charlie out, and then drive him to a  commie safe house on Goat Island. This so a Soviet sub could pick Charlie up. That, and sail him out to international waters where he was debriefed. This is to say he got the crap kicked out of him again. 

 Snoopy went along for the ride, and the fresh perogies.

"Yule"

Dear Santa,

I'm writing to you to let you know I've been very naughty. Especially when I was young. At the time I used massive amounts of drugs jerked off constantly. Conspired to overthrow the government sucked more cocks than I can remember. Bought tons of porn voted for communists published Queer 'zines full of insane poetry, and all sorts of naked people. That, and I ate, and drank heavily every chance I got.

My only regret is that I'm now too fucking old, and sick to still be doing this shit,...although I still try from time to time. I gleefully did all this mayhem, and tons more that I'm now too gaga to remember.

You fucking evil judgmental Nazi shit eating elf buggering republican racist sexist bucket of pigs vomit. I wouldn't take a present from you even if you promised me a roast ham covered in cocaine, and sprinkled with diamonds.

Eat Shit, and fucking Die you evil tool of oblivious consumerism!

*...and a "Merry Christmas I don't think".

*(...famous line from "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians".)

"...a walk"

This evening I went out for a rather cold constitutional about my 'Hood. It was about 10pm which is still somewhat early here in the Emerald City. However the streets were empty. It being 24f with a light snow may have had something to do with it.

Most avoid this season as much as they can. I for reasons unknown love, and enjoy it. This was the equivalent of a walk on a sunny June day for me. Go figure.

I wandered along Eastern Parkway. Once a 17th century deer trail, up to Brooklyn Museum/Prospect Park. This the older sister of Central Park. "Prospect" being the feasibility study. I stumbled there, and back. This a mile round trip. Btw my walking is a bit better. A month ago I could never have done this.

Snow. I wasn't expecting this. I've since checked. Nothing big coming our way. Though the Mid-West, and much of our North-East regions are getting hit rather hard. Our turn will come soon enough. This winter is of two minds as to if it will be another very warm one or a "normal" one,...we'll see.

I stopped at the deli on the way back, and treated myself to a few luxuries. Some tangerines, and nuts. Cashews! Loves them. Though sadly unsalted. No choice for me there. Still cashews are cashews. Which btw I'm enjoying as I post.

As I said earlier it's the small pleasant things that keep us in the game. I remember something my late brother John said to me about living a life. "No matter how your circumstance may change. Even if you can only get one small jar of jam for dinner. Make it the finest jam you can get because your dignity deserves it".

This is how I try to live my life then, and now.

A safe, and warm winter to you all. 

"The Day"

One day it just stopped. We all just stopped doing it. The cruel selfish mean things stopped. No sparkling lights no Angels around. It just finally stopped. Wars selfish meanness the big uglies petered out. They just did.

It's interesting as you remember most didn't notice for a little while. 
You know how we used to step over the homeless, and hungry all that. The bad stuff everybody always said they were against yet allowed to keep going. Well it stopped.


I didn't notice,...exactly. Till I went to a Chinese take out joint, and they fed me,...for free.

Police began taking homeless persons home to stay with them. That, and releasing them whom they knew were wrongly busted. Firemen took folks into their stations. Regular folks were doing this as well. Treating others like family. The News became very funny. Fox News MSNBC, and the rest of them jokers was all coming clean about lying to us.

Big fancy stores, and regular shops began giving stuff to folks. I mean not just the poor, but all of us. Like at the Chinese place. Where they told me, "...everybody has to eat". Just so the folks at the shops felt that people needed their stuff to live well so just helped folks out.

Btw I went back to the take-out place, and gave then an "Astro Boy" action figure in thanks. This has caught on as ya know. People exchanging things. Not barter exactly. Just a nice sharing.

Anyway about the big shops. I got a very nice winter coat, and a neat electric train set at Macy's. Aw gee they were really a nice bunch there. Btw none of that "Black Friday" greed festival stuff ever happened.

All this, and somehow as we saw the economy still worked,...better than ever. It wasn't just us. This was happening all over the world. I mean I was watching that BBC special about how our biggest aircraft carriers are being converted into grain ships.

The government, and president, and all had nothing to do with this. The sailors, and farmers just got together figured it out, and did it. A lot of this going on. Like them big Israeli Iranian water purification projects in Africa, and other places.

That, and the techs, and science guys everywhere getting rid of all the nukes. I mean who needs them things.

Mind you as you knows too well. Folks is still folks. We have all sorts of assholes still running around loose. Just not as many, and they're not in change anymore. However I'm thinking of voting for some just to watch them go nuts as they're ignored.

As for "The Day", and what the hell it means.

Well the surprise was that we've been in a post scarcity world economy for over a hundred years. Some of them wonks think longer. We'd been in a hand to mouth tradition for so long we just didn't know how to share. Predatorily capital, and Soviet style communism were signs as to how wrong we were getting it, but were too stupid to see.

So one day it just changed.

We saw.

That, and "saw" basically all at the same moment. Some religious types think it's some deity or other. However the smarty pants online, and TV call it an Evolutionary Awakening. Sort of like when the ability for language suddenly spread all over the place.

They think we've had this cooking up for a long time. Sort of explains them peasant revolts through history. Them, and the Hippies. One day like a genetic dam burst it just happened. Works for me.
Though I'm still holding out for some Angel stuff somewhere.

All I know is I finally got to open a free book store, and doll Hospital.

"In Other News"

Things have got so demented, and evil. I think those of us that are still on line should chill with all the #45 madness. He is vile insane etc., we all know this.Also his people are evil, and great damage is being done to our country. We know this too.

That said I'm posting a couple of deliberately sweet things I wrote many years back. The "Beulah" window story is from a years old  unfinished children's book. The next item is just some noise I cranked out 12 years or more ago.

"Beulah's Window"

The window was a symphony of dreams. it was composed of shards. Cast off bits of stained glass which Beulah assembled into magic.

As the afternoon sun played across it.

Here was illuminated a hand. Fragments of clouds. Here a lily.

There a smile,...and there a yellow crescent moon.

Throughout were floating embers of deep blues bright reds shades of green fogs of gold. In it's upper portions were bits of alabaster doves, and a spray of stars in rose purple twilight.

Such was Beulah's window.

"Steps"

I was thinking what would it be like to fall into the sky. You're just living your life going to this place, and that. All the while above you is the sea of Eternity.

Sometimes I look up.

There above the trees above the towers beyond the clouds. The sky blue or gold red or orange. Then the night. The deep black night. Forever, and forever tomorrow, and tomorrow.

One foot in front of the other. One step then another.

Then falling.

Falling into Heaven.

"...exact change"

I had a dream I was on the No. 4 train. Slowly the car around me began to fade away. The walls the adverts the roof. All drifting away like mist revealing the blue sky. The floor gone then only the bench I sat on. I sat in a meadow.

After a time I stood,...the bench faded. I felt a breeze ,...so full of the scents of life. I heard the wind singing in the trees.

The MTA by magic or string theory had delivered me to Paradise.

"...dropped a dime"

All the world prays.

Whenever wherever for whatever.

The prayers ascend through clouds past worlds even stars.

Till they fall. They fall onto an abandoned side street.

There's an old 1960's phone booth there.

Slightly bent over from when a truck backed into it.

The phone is ringing.

These are prayers.

The rings.

Millions Billions.

Ringing.

They're all recorded, but not directly answered.

Never in the way we expect.

Amen.

~@~

Oh if only by clicking my Ruby slippers three times I could make a big Happy Cat appear in my digs. Umm...with 'all' her shots catnip toys, and no serious desire to eat me.

Yeah this 'could' be trouble down the line, but I'm sure me, and Kitty can work it out

"Howl"

I remembered what I wanted to tell you. Years ago. I'd do the midnight to six am on air shift. This happened because many hosts sometimes just wouldn't show up or the recorded programs just weren't around. So as the on duty engineer I'd read stories, and play music.

This to keep company with whoever was out there.

Sometimes my radio pals were about. Max Anne Sharon R. Paul. We'd hold forth by telling stories of our collective century of on air radio adventures. Sometimes spontaneously I'd howl like a wolf. I'd howl, and howl. My dear friends would howl with me. I invited all listening to join. We'd howl into the deep deep night. We in the studio, and those alone with their radios howling.

We all of us would howl into the dawn.

"...my posts are as you see Bi-Polar",...as am I.

I remember "Ice Fog". It never happens in the City. However I remember being with friends long ago driving around upper Vermont. We drove into something we'd none of us had ever seen before. A shimmering fog.

We stopped got out, and walked in it.

It was an actual fog of ice crystals. A fog of diamonds. So amazing. A routine miracle of nature.

I say routine because nature just does this,...if we would just stop, and look.

"Heroin"

"Heroin" by the Velvet Underground is a song from the pit of my soul. 'Never a Heroin Addict, but was married to just about everything else in my time. At my memorial I want this played.

Ha! Deal with that as you go into the guests hall to eat them little dried out ham sandwiches, and stale cokes that are always the fare at these things.

Thank g-d, and the CIA for all the drugs I used back in the day...couldn't have made it here without them. They took me to the very edge of Death, and brought me back to tell the tale.

What Buddhist monk wouldn't give his prayer beads for a taste of that! I had the shit delivered. Middle Class style self immolation if you please.  In my Cocaine daze I was in the upper circles.

Diplomatic pouch grade shit straight from fucking Fidel's Cuba!. Being a broadcaster had it perks. I'm talking 90 to 100 percent pure. Yeah I hear you say 100% is 'not' possible.

Oh pardon me dear friend,...it most certainly was is, and always will be if you know who what, and where, and especially how.

Best shit this side of junkie Hell. It made all the wounds heal all the demons melt away. Just like in this song.

As for Heroin except for snorting some a few times not my cup of meat. For one the "Vomit Barrier", and the other my dislike of needles put me off. Especially since at the time we were just finding out AIDS came as a free extra sometimes.

I do Not! renounce my Drug era. Those Insane days, and nights, and months, and years! No more that a soldier would ever renounce their War. It made both of us what we are. Take that away, and we're incomplete. Shadows wisps nothing.

That time was a passage a mad hellish tonic for our blood, and guts.

It made us the Saints we are today.

"Art of the Deal"

Last Friday evening as I was about to post the call to Sabbath air raid siren went off. I live near an high Orthodox Jewish Temple. They're in, and have been for decades. In a Messianic Fever. Like Evangelicals they expect the Big Guy to show up any minute.

Unlike as in my former Catholic faith where we figure he'll leave us alone for a few thousand more years.

They decided to use the siren to make the point of the urgency.

There were complaints. However we settled it in the usual Brooklyn way. We had a meeting agreed we couldn't stand each other, and they turned the volume down a bit.

Same happened with the Haitians when their religious stuff went nuts for a while. We came together confirmed that we can't stand each other, and reached a compromise.

Would that the whole world would be so reasonable.

"...he was serious"

I don't remember if I posted the following on this particular page. I suspect dementia,...I should be so lucky.  Anyway I just came across it in my files so here it is for the first or second time. I've been musing about my broadcast years, and this came back to me.

"My latest smarty pants adventure is reading the first book, "Swann's Way", of Marcel Proust's epic triad of words, and dreams. "Remembrance of Things Past". All three books should slowly take me through the winter. I've had an off, and on relationship, like many I imagine, with these books.

It was shoved into my life in high school, and again later in my short, but world opening university life. It has hovered just out of sight with me ever since. My last involvement was during my radio career when "Watson" of "Listening with Watson" fame did a serialized reading of it."

Bill Watson was a dear friend to me. Some I hope will recall him from his classical music programs from long back in the day. A vignette. During a period of racist incidents...more than normal back in the early 1980's here in Manhattan. He offered to give me shelter at his country home if things became too dangerous in the city.

...he was serious.

He actually gave me a copy of the keys, and detailed directions if I had to leave suddenly. That was Bill. So Marcel Proust "Remembrance of Things Past" "Listening with Watson" classical music my radio life violent Jim Crow are all jelled together in "Swann's Way". Interesting how events persons works of art, and the ways of history come together in our perhaps ordinary yet still unique lives.

Btw I'm reading "Swann's Way" on "Project Gutenberg".
A wonder house of online work free to all. Google it or go here...

http://www.gutenberg.org/

"Salvation"

Praise Barbie for only she can save us

from the evil that lives within all!

Praise Her" Praise Her! Praise Her!

Her little sister Pepper too.

"...screwy war"

I have this notion that #45 one late night soon will bolt out of the WH eyes bugging screaming  something about "giant snakes in the walls" with a bunch of Secret Service guys chasing him with nets.

Hopped up on Meth he outruns the heat carjacks a 1956 Desoto then drives to a 7-11 which he robs at gun point taking 20 pounds of Viagra packs of Slim Jims a keg of Diet Pepsi, and the latest issue of "Juggs".

Still wired he jumps the fence to the railroad tracks hops a freight train headed to Manitoba, and is never seen again. Though like Elvis there are constant sightings.
Especially in Trumpland where he's now worshiped. The "First Church of Trump" becomes the fastest growing cult since Jim Jones shook Teddy Kennedy's hand. 7-11's are ritually robbed all over the pink slip states.

I mean more the usual.

His followers re-enact their gawd's last act as a sign of loyalty, and in hope of going to Jesusland  to be with #45. This when the cops blow their brains out for armed robbery. Later President Pence signs an executive order for the mass extermination of Queers Negros etc etc....there's a long list. This of course starts a nuclear civil war.

Above the Red States Army of Peoples Vengeance.

They're raising their Queer Commie flag over former Washington D.C.

Meanwhile  Otto Smink,...aka the former #45 plays piano in the Redeye. A legal meth, and ganja whorehouse in Bleeding Badger Manitoba. Otto  is content in his new life. The only problem the radiation from the screwy war down south...what the hell they give him all the speedballs he can shoot. Life is good.

(...first draft. Been up for a few days. Let me sleep on it.)

"My latter Life, and Times"

About getting stuff forever, and ever. The Xmas tide washes over our frayed republic. So everybody is buying all the Korean, and or Chinese crap they can. At a 300% mark-up when it gets unloaded at our docks.

Well I'm no longer a consumer so I guess I can now be objective. We really don't need hardly anything. 90% of "Stuff' is optional. as my pal Geneva Hagen sez. We can instead use the same stuff for years on end, and don't need much new stuff.

I mean other than new shoes each winter. Maybe a new coat or jacket two every few years. That's about it. My computer, and phone are fine. They have been for years, and will be for another 10 years. They still look good too because I takes care of them. Other than food meds shelter books a few toys, and a movie now, and then we're fine.

I treat myself to some little nice thing at least once a month. This as opposed to damned near every day as is going on all around me. It actually means more when you have to save for it plan for it all that. Like our parents, and grand parents had to do.

I watch as folks buy the same thing over, and over because it has new apps or this special bing-bang or they'll die. Nuts. Mind you being poor is a drag. I used to like buying junk it was fun...but who needs it.

Also from Geneva, "...My own measure of poor (emergencies aside) is whether I can afford to eat what I want to!"

"...are there no work houses are there no prisons?"

Being seriously poor is a super drag. An extinction level event. Never been there hope not to. Still being just somewhat poor is manageable.

A calm peaceful home is good for the soul. Sure I get nuts. Though not so demented as I would if the digs were chaotic. Tidy...tidy makes all the difference. Rich or poor. Nice tidy digs keeps you sane, and creative.

See,...creative.

As for eating. For a while not as nice as I used to. This was mostly my poor organizing of what my small income could do. Learning to be poor is I imagine like learning to be rich. You have to plan things. I still had many middle class habits. This caused any number of disasters. Now it's calmer. I buy food rationally, and plan nice events at least twice a month.

By world standards I'm rich as sin.

By oblivious upper middle class American standards I'm eating out of a dumpster. Fuck'em I'm fine.

I now know what I always supposed. One does not need very much to have a pleasant or at least calm life.

"...weepy"

'Having an extreme sense of anxiety confusion, and assorted delusions lately. I'm grumpy annoyed, and weepy too. Yeah I know we all are. Still,...well. You know how it is. I guess that's why I takes those long walks . That, and building model kits to pass the time. This while listening to that Christmas music channel.

I tune in the Show music channel as well. Btw that reminds me what a friend said. She was head of the arts dept. at the broadcast station I wasted my life at. This in reference to how things change. There's a gay program at that station, and the current generation of perverts is just not the fun previous folks used to be.

She said, "...what kind of faggots are these? They don't even like Show Music!"

Being an old school Queer from back in the day this just made me laugh!

What a time we had.

"...old times"

Just read in the "Times" that loneliness among those over 60 is epidemic.

...ya think.

I go for days sometimes weeks without speaking to anyone. My circle of comrades are too many long gone. The ones still breathing are far away. That, and I've become a part time shut-in.

All this evolved so slowly over time that I didn't really notice...well I knew, but didn't. Ya know how that can be.

They say the fire inspectors now look for signs of elder isolation as well as fire hazards during inspections. Well we have inspections here, but it's not door to door...yet.

They just check the building's electrical, and gas systems then split.

Signs of isolation are shabbiness unwashed dishes, and the like. I guess general untidiness. A depressive lack of caring. My digs have always been neat. I try to keep it tidy. Actually I enjoy doing that. One feels better in cute digs.

However with many elders their place may need a paint job. Some plaster work that sort of thing.  Most no longer keep their digs up. For some there just doesn't any longer seem to be a point.

Which btw are exactly the signs they look for.

When I was very ill over these last years I knew the only way anyone would know I'd kicked the bucket would be the smell...especially in summer.

I actually left my door a-jar when I thought my time was up so they wouldn't have to kick the door in. I later found that this is somewhat common for the isolated elderly very ill to do...and I thought I had invented it.

Aw well.

Look I'm fine. Just complaining is all. That, and I'm really tired of fighting the damned system. I just want to be left alone for heavens sakes.

On the other hand battling social services is a way to get me out of the house, and speaking with folks so...

"...I didn't ask for this"

"Who am I that Angels would speak to?"

That's the question I ask. Dreams. Again, and again. Holy dreams. I don't seek them, and even don't want them, but they keep invading my cynical angry self. Some presence is trying to make a point. This happens all the time to many...no matter if they want it or not.

Beware inking down of your dreams. They'll either end up in some future holy scripture, and or as evidence at your trial. This runs through my mind as I try to make a kind of coherent sense of my dreams of late.

If I was still seeing a shrink I think she or he would quickly explain these phantoms away. They always did, but I never bought their crap. No idea where what or who. All I know is it's happening. The details are personal. Each gets a unique message or messages.

Time is not linear, and space warps. The damned thing stretches contracts , and twists. Like origami on crack whiskey, and pastries.

I mean just ask Niels Bohr...he'll give you an earful.

I don't know which is worse. The stupid , and disjointed terrors, and boredom of my regular nightmares. That or this holy crap that won't go away.

Then when it does split I'm empty confused pissed, and want it either back or at least an explanation of the damned intrusions.

Who am I who are we that Angels would speak to.