"...hello?"

Still breathing.

Try to have an undeadly Holiday season.

 

"...21st century America"

In my youth this republic had a 'War on Poverty'. It was an attempt to make this the first country to abolish want. The Vietnam War took all of the funding. It was never tried again. Such is unthinkable now. Want has been allowed to fester and grow. There is actual contempt for the poor.

We now make war not on poverty but on the poor themselves.

There are now Homeless Encampments the size of small towns all over this republic. There is no desire to do anything about it. Other than to periodically disperse them. Sometimes violently. Shades of 1930's 'Hoovervilles" Google them. 

Boston yesterday like many cities passed an ordinance allowing the police to destroy the tents of the homeless. It got applause. Dickens would recognize this. Folks interviewed said it will make the city look better. Businessmen said it clears the streets for customers. 

The poor were not asked. 

They were busy being removed as the police and Sheriffs immediately began the destruction of hundreds of tents and the dispersing of near 300 homeless. Boston authorities said they have temporary shelter for ...30. Problem solved.

Such are our times.

"...betrayed"

Halloween or more ancient Samhain.

This when the barriers between worlds are the thinnest.

A sweet notion. Magic wonders.

I used to be in Wicka. This before it went mainstream.

Cool kindly folks then. I remember they used to march in a protective ring around Queer demonstrators in the 70's. Being a Queer activist was once a life-threatening past time. It was a cultural revolt. 

A life-or-death struggle. 

Many of our best ideals, inclusion tolerance long since betrayed. 

I was there I saw...I remember. 

Today it's a members only commercial Mardi Gras. 

This is "progress" in its way I guess.

 

"...Technicolor"

Years ago, I got the 1960 Barbie marriage set.

It was the Holiday 2009 re-issue.

Took snaps lost da file.

Just found it and re-tweaked the tones. It had gone murky yellow.

Put her back to technicolor. She said "thanks" and is fine with it.

A doll maker's work is never done.

 

"...candy"

As history shows. Violence is deep within all human hearts.

Alongside a desire for Jelly doughnuts. ...with candy sprinkles.

Both are equal in value at their moment of use.

Which sez much about everything we've created in the last 20k years.

...mostly.

 

"...Katlic"

If I were 14 or 15, I would play Queer dress up.

I did a bit as a sissy 8 year old. I'd go full Monty if a youth in these murderous enlightened days. Oh, to be unstuck in time.

While being fucked over at Katlic school l wanted to be a Nun.

Clear case of Stockholm syndrome.

Btw there's no payoff for just being beaten and humiliated.

If the Nuns had sucked my dick I would'a  got bounty. 

This by ratting 'em out to da press.

No dough for mere beatings year after year after year.

Guess business is business.

 

"...blue"

My days and nights.

Woke 3am full of meds. Looked up...Blue Moon.

This followed by a blur of hours.

Routines walks and exhaustion. 

These days it don't take much to fuck me up. 

Lately on edge of passing out in da street. 

Such is my golden retirement nightmare. Beats da alternative. 

My skies are interesting too. 

I snap the skies da moon planets and clouds.

Used to walk around town recording da sights. 

These days I watch it from my window.

I've a range of about five or six blocks. More I pass out.

Ain't life peachy. So I amuse myself by altering reality.

A snap of dusk. Tweaked da colors flipped it upside down. 

Then bleeping backwards. With da Moon...blue.

A Star Trek sky.

 

"...fuck'em"

Above the most terrifying living being in America.

A Trans Kid. The Horror!

Other than that I'm peachy.

Still around and fuck'n alive more or less.

Close calls over the months but yeah still breathing.

As for the murderous world.

Fuck'em.

 

Not a pro not an artist just a guy that likes taking snaps. Fortunately, never took lessons. I think this might be outsider art stuff but I hope not. I just do this so I don't go to sleep on da subway tracks....and that wouldn't work because there's an indentation between the rails. There to make sure workers or dummies trying to off themselves won't get hurt. So since I'm struck here. I build models and take snaps of dolls trees the sky and shit outside my window. .... sorry, what was the question? ...things get away from me and I digress. Used to talk all night on da radio then gave store front sermons for a while. My digressions always went over good with the listeners and congregations. There's a reason churches are laid out like theatres. ...life is a show.

"...dreams"

 

"...corner"

Shot of a corner in my office about 2008.

I ain't changed much.

 

"...days"

My neighbors that had the fire downstairs are okay.

With relatives for now.

Like sudden storms or earth tremors such things pass.

It's an unlikely miracle to just be here.

Days go by life goes on.

Life and times. Fire in my building. Went down to get mail smelled smoke. At the same moment firemen were banging on the glass door. Let them in they did their thing. These guys are fast amazing pro-choreography. They're on the job. Snapshot of our firehouse last winter.

Went up got my 'Bug-Out' bag. Everyone should have these. Your important documents financial cards flash drives phones meds first aid recharger emergency cash batteries the works. You may never need it but when you do you really do.

Hour into it now. Seems under control.

No evacuation like several years back. Smoke much less.

Emergencies as I say brings folks together. Many become their best selves. City folks in apartment buildings rarely speak to each other...a sad urban tradition. Unless all hell brings loose then humanity kick back in. Happened when the skies burned at the beginning of the summer and during the last hurricane.

Firemen still here but we seem okay. Don't know but likely a kitchen thing. It's mostly that in older buildings. Our digs raised in 1898. If bleep yet goes nuts be posting from friends or family.

Till then loves ya.

"...dreams"

Despite being 100f+ in direct sun. Could cook hot dawgs on da windowsill and my saying no way I'm not going back out. I went back out. A sale on peaches...sue me. Sun majestic. The brightest of the season. Flaring before Autumn chill.

Along the way bike shop botanicas an Army recruiting office. These guys sent me sign up emails...Just to see what happens I may. Nice chatter at da fruit shop. In extreme times as when our skies burned orange. Our unspoken natures shine through.

Going home passed a store front church. Asked if I wanted to pray. I said who wouldn't, but I needed to go. The sun tho' radiating miracles was microwaving my internal organs. Was offered iced tea...I 'gladly' accepted. Given assorted prayer stuff we parted.

I always like talking with evangelists. I remember one hell fire guy in Times Square. Disagreed with everything he and his placard said. However, he taught me not to get my back up over details. He was just a guy like me looking for answers.

Got to my digs put my peaches away laid down...dreamed.

"...a walk in the sun"

It's 11am and already 91f/32c. Yesterday out for a walk with a dear friend it was so bright so astoundingly hot, I went in and out of focus. It was the hottest moments of the summer for me. Oddly I enjoyed it. I think. I mean it put me into an altered state. I could see myself seeing myself. Eternity is seriously weird. She helped me with shopping and helped me home. As I say family blood and chosen are forever.

Movement at da front.

Ukraine pushes through two Russian walls of mines and barriers.

Bob da Bunny War Correspondent at the front.

 

The next three days will be in the 90's in NYC.

96f tomorrow. This into Friday.

Hopefully this might be the last heatwave.

Remember...hydrate and stay out of direct sunlight.

Some days I awake at dawn.

Others at dusk.

For both it's the same kind of sky.

90f/32c at dusk in Brooklyn.

Posting this at midnight. It's still 80f/27c.

Not complaining. In other parts of the country this is blanket weather

I foolishly went out and did errands. 92f on the street. 96f/35c in direct sun by my kitchen thermometer. In the 90's and low 100's all over the country. Well except for where monsoon rains are washing everything away. Having another look at "Revelations".

"...full stop"

Every year in early Fall there are Caribbean Festival Parades in the Islands the States Canada and the U.K. The largest in Brooklyn for decades. About that parade which my family and I attended every year. For a few years, it included homophobic floats. The crowds applauded their calls to kill "Batty Boys'. Caribbean slang for Queers.

These were eventually banned.

Tho' I live near the route I've never been back. Despite friends still involved with the parade. To me personally it wasn't the hateful floats. It was the cheers they got that decided me. I no longer and maybe never belonged there.

Amnesty International once called Jamaica the most dangerous place on earth for Queers. Poland got the crown it next as it like Russia passed draconian laws. Then it was awarded to Chechnya. They for a time had internment facilities for us. Uganda has just passed anti-Queer criminal laws including the death penalty. So it and Saudi Arabia share the crown now. Jamaica officially did not and does not execute us, but the authorities look the other way as mobs hunt then killed us.

Happy Labor Day.

The freedoms in the West by the numbers are exceptions to world attitudes. Justice is not a straight road. It turns twists or in places stops. We've seen that it can stop here to. Millions literally millions want it to stop. These are our times.

"India's Moon"

Dawn September Moon.

From my Kitchen Observatory.

 

"Revelations"

"This just in"

To my dear friends concerned as to my health. Sorry to be out of touch. I sleep most of the day and night. The meds and intermittent doses of Xanex keeps me in the land of surreal dreams. I often do not know the day or date. I have my marbles, but computations are noticeably slower. As is my mobility. I lately have a range of one block round trip. Gets better. Needed help getting up the stairs to my digs. I seem somehow to have become an elderly gent.

More as the story develops.

"...you have mail."

This an email thread with an old WBAI Friend. It is confused interesting and snarky. So of course, I wish to preserve it here for all eternity or at least till the collapse of the internet. Eh you should read them from time of posting which here is from the bottom up. Tho' they make as much sense either way.

Begins Mr. Horvath.

This thread wends its way from one subject to another one that’s so many emails distant from the last that reply becomes somewhat pointless. Sort of like, upon discovering a civilization fifty light years away, a message is sent out requesting a reply which, even if sent, would arrive a century later. (The USPS no longer accepts, as far as I know, retail Special Delivery letters.)

> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2023, at 5:13 PM
> From: "Sidney Smith" 
> To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> Unlike Mr. Foner I still have interest and will as health allows attend to your missives.
> 'Fascinating', as a certain Vulcan would quip, about violent youths of color.
> Those made aware their great-grand parents' recollections of 1930's gangbangers.
> Interesting indeed. A Hulu TV series could be pitched from this.
> A science fantasy series on free floating elder memories affecting current history.

> As for Mr. Gibson. I think his obsessions for the blood of Christ sums up his world view.
> Also bigotry is deep within all human hearts. Alongside a desire for Jelly doughnuts.
> Both are equal in value which sez much about everything we've created in the last 20k years.
> I look forward to further communiques from your most thoughtful self.
> As stated, I shall attend to your earlier missives. I view these as treasures presents.
> The unwrapping of which gives as much joy as the reading of them.
>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2023, at 6:53 AM
> From: "Claude Horvath"
> To: "Sidney Smith" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner
> This is the completion of an unfinished email mistakenly sent out — lucky you!

> It follows... It takes such a one as you to include “my humorous bigotry” in your badinage. Reminiscent of Doug Stanhope’s “…I had said it in a happy, fun-loving, Jew-hating way”. This may be starting to cohere, because the only instance of snuff porn I inadvertently viewed was a scene from an Australian post-apocalyptic movie in which a distant image of a woman, having been raped, being dispatched with a blast from a powerful gun.

> The perpetrator may have been portrayed by Mel Gibson who ‘inspired’ the Stanhope tirade. Yup, Gibson serves here as a connecting thread. I have a vague recollection of having read that people strongly recall movie images from forty years past. You provoked that with your “African American youths from the 1970's onward emulating 1930's ethnic gangsters”. It’s as if they were responding to the memories, not of themselves, but of their great-grand parents movie habits.
>
> By the bye, I do not expect any reply to my previous emails, as you clearly have bigger things on which to apply your attention. P.S. Henry Hill, who informed on a lot of the Lucchese crime family was not done in by any of them, but by his own abused heart a day after his 69th birthday. Seemingly, they’d simply lost interest or predeceased him.
>
> > Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2023, at 10:43 AM
> > From: "Sidney Smith" 
> > To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > Considering the nature of the pre-digital porn industry. It was, before legalization and the internet the business of a certain southern European-American ethnic group. As were unregulated sex gambling booze and other desired pastimes. The artistic branch was solely northern European with certain exceptions. This if the financing marketing and pigmentation of the actors and actresses involved is any clue.

> > To your point.

>>I agree the evidence that White folks invented 'Snuff Porn" is circumstantial. My stating it as fact was just my humorous bigotry. However, their control of the entire industry could be a smoking cannon. Of course others seeing a good thing picked it up. This may be the cause of your confusion. Much as African American youths from the 1970's onward emulated tactics of 1930's ethnic gangsters. Some supposed they invented it on their own. ...they did not. As these young gentlemen of color got the idea from old movies. So the resurrection of the Prohibition era tradition of the 'Drive by' was derivative.

> > Did I digress?

> > In thinking on the matter Perhaps I shouldn't throw shade on the fine folks of pale decent. Like radio television and oral sex. There may be no particular inventor of the artistic tradition of the 'Snuff Film'. This like aforementioned developments were likely simultaneous efforts. The work of creative persons around the world over a period of time.

> > I thank you for raising this interesting topic and I hope this to a degree clears up the matter. A very good day to you, and good fortune in your many interesting endeavors.

> > (I note there are many missives from your good self-backed up. I endeavor to catch up with as many of your fascinating communications as my health allows. I beg your patience.)

> > Sent: Friday, April 28, 2023, at 8:34 AM
> > From: "Claude Horvath" 
> > To: "Sidney Smith" Subject: Re: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > Having no known contact with the Snuff Porn market, it’s thoroughly unknown to me which person or group came up with it. Is it a matter of unmitigated good fortune that your superior level of social connection affords you? Such a cheerful party guy!

> > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 1:17 PM
> > > From: "Sidney Smith" 
> > > To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > > Piles of death tends to look the same.
> > > Native Americans in piles frozen stiff full of Army bullets.
> > > Negroes in piles after mass burnings and lynchings. Piles of starved Irish would fit the bill as well.
> > > Just about everybody was in those piles excepted white people of northern European decent.
> > > Well, them too but you'd have to go back to Roman times and before.

> > > Is it racist of me to point out it was those same varieties of Europeans that invented 'Snuff Porn'?

> > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 2:32 AM
> > > From: "Claude Horvath" 
> > > To: "Sidney Smith" Subject: Re: Re: More Eric Foner

> > > I borrowed that book from the NYPL and brought it with me to WBAI’s 8th Avenue location. I couldn’t ‘share’ its contents with any of the personnel there — it just seemed too much like snuff porn.

> > > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 12:18 AM
> > > > From: "Sidney Smith" 
> > > > To: "Claude Horvath" Subject: Re: More Eric Foner

> > > > I have long had the book "Without Sanctuary".
> > > > An illustrated history of race murders specially lynchings and burnings.
> > > > Therein over a century of evidence that no one cares about. Ask any Armenian.

> > > > Human Beings are an interesting species are we not?

"Good Fucking Grief"

Greetings comrades been a while. Been down with Pneumonia for the whole of the summer. Still generally fucked up but not dead yet. I'm full of meds and starting to wander about. A bit weak and have to sleep a lot but still here. In fact, I'm going back to bed now...just wanted to say hi. Hi...loves ya.

For our nation and the world these are uncertain times. So be generous and kind. Keep your dignity. Because your courage and dignity is where kindness comes from.

Thunder and rain. Staying in my digs this July 4th. Got that McDonnel's cheeseburger. This between downpours. My interns had put it on the '...don't even think about them' list. Bleep it I earned a treat for getting this far. Eh...still has that plastic and fried paper taste. Should have gone to the Bar-B-Q place.

About McDonnel's tho'. People from all over the planet. A symphony of languages. I'm so proud of my City my Country. We're a Nation of Nations. That and we deserve better burgers.

 

Assembled within Independence Hall Philadelphia.

These at top are 21st century Descendants of the signers of our

1776 Declaration of Independence.

They are of every race religion and orientation.

We have come so far.

Yet must go further still.

 

It's mid-afternoon.

The sun bright humidity suffocating and I have chores.

To market post office clinic. These days such is an adventure.

If I make it back, I'll let ya know.

There and back again.

Common things are now done with effort. Ran into a childhood friend...I live in my old hood. Everything different yet all the same. Told me about another friend from our kidhood passed away. Days go by the earth abides. We spoke of our lives times beginnings and endings. We'll be in touch.

Did my chores then to clinic. I have assorted serious mayhem going but was told I'm generally improved. I'll take it. That the assorted nuclear-powered meds they handed to me.

I treated myself to take out on the way home. Steamed mixed veggies and dumplings. For the holiday perhaps a humble treat. I may go off medical-script and have a cheeseburger. Ain't had one of them things in years. I'll let ya know what happens. Above the Barbie sisters in the hot steamy dusk when I got back to my digs. Loves ya.