Just one more thing Monsieur...

It's been a while and there's really no good excuse for not writing, so....

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Everybody has heard about Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn by now. You know, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who is an economist, lawyer, politician and member of the French Socialist Party and was accused of sexually assaulting a young hotel staff worker in New York City. Well apparently he's going to be let out on a million dollar cash bail. He will have to submit all his travel documents to the Court and be under house arrest in New York in an apartment that his wife will rent for him at whatever the costs in addition to the $200,000 per month that they will have to pay for security for the home detention dictated by the Court. He will also have to post a further bond of $5 million more just to insure that he doesn't flee the city.

Now my question would be, well apart from the "I wonder if he came from the blow job on the face or in her mouth," but that maybe just my own sordid little issue and I really do believe in being innocent until proven otherwise; but my question would be is, how much money do these bastards make for being socialists?

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky...

All I wanted to do was 2 things, put up the picture of Jared Lee Loughner's mugshot, the guy from the Arizona shootings, and say that if anyone had seen this guy walking down the street at night looking the way that he looked here, they would have been justified in shooting him on sight. No court in the land would convict the shooter because if this doesn't look like crazy and dangerous, then I don't know what does.

The other thing was ask why do famous killers in the U.S. all go by 3 names like Mark David Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacy, or John Wilkes Booth? I don't get that. In fact I believe that if someone should come up to you and say, "Hey, I'm John Jay Smith," that should give you the right to swing a bat or a two-by-four right across the left temple and save yourself and society.

Instead what I'm going to do is steal an idea from a blog written by Tom Freeland, a lawyer in Mississippi and say yes, Loughner does look like Uncle Festor, but without the charm.

I wonder if Lawyer Freeman in Mississippi can sue someone in New Jersey for stealing his stuff.

I wonder if this post too soon.

"Play la Marsellaise. Play it!"

Paris is one of Philadelphia’s sister cities. I’m not sure what that means other than it has the Rodin Museum which has the largest public collection of artwork produced by August Rodin outside of Paris and that it has an excuse to do quirky little things that represent that bond.

One of those things is to do a re-enactment of the storming of the Bastille which was a castle turned prison where they kept a few people behind bars. The prison was overrun by the people in Paris back at the start of the French Revolution, the prisoners were released and the building torn down. Philadelphia relives this event by having actors invade, the now defunct, Eastern State Penitentiary on the weekend before or after Bastille Day.

Eastern State, if you remember is the first state penitentiary in the United States and is the one during the 30’s that kept gangster Al Capone for a few months and bank robber "Slick" Willie Sutton for 11 years not including the time that he spent on the outside after he tunneled his way to escape. But he was gone for only about 30 or 40 minutes so it doesn’t really count. Willie is also the one incorrectly known as the man who said when asked why he robbed banks, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Anyway during this year’s re-enactment of the Bastille, they had an actress on top of the ramparts of the prison play the role of the Marie Antoinette. From there she tossed free Tastykakes to the crowd below apparently referencing the “Let them eat cake” quote that the queen is supposed to have made when told that the people didn’t have bread to eat.

I didn’t attend this year’s performance because it was raining all day and plus I think it’s kind or corny. What I should have done instead was to rent or maybe even have bought a copy of my favorite movie Casablanca to celebrate Bastille Day. There is nothing that makes you feel more alive and free and maybe even want to fight Nazi tyranny than when Rick allows a resounding rendition of the Marsellaise to be played in his club, unless of course you happen to be female, Arabic and have a certain religious penchant about clothing. But then again which country is it that you know that doesn’t have flaws somewhere?

Vive la France!

To Kill a Mocking Bird - Redux

How long has it been, 20 or 30 years since I read the little brown book that my grandmother’s cousin kept in a box in her closet? Actually a better question would be why was I in her closet?

She kept dozens of books there; ones by people like Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim. All of them about pimping or being a drug addict or being raped and becoming someone’s bitch in prison or all 3. Ah the classics, I don’t think they write ‘em like they used to. But she had one book that has stayed with me all of these years. It was about a little girl in the 1930’s whose family life had entered into a situation that was completely foreign to her. It was about how she discovered how truth can often be hidden behind form and ritual and convention and that win or lose, sometimes the fight is all we have; the only thing that can bring meaning to our lives.

Of course I’m referring to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird that was first published 50 years ago this weekend. I’m not going to review the book since I’m sure that’s been done by editors and professors and plenty of other people who are much more capable than me. Plus I have not read the book since I first opened it, But I remember it. I remember not realizing that Scout, the protagonist and narrator was a girl until I was about 2 thirds of the way through the book. I remember Jem her older brother who looked after her to his utmost ability, the way that most brothers do but only when they have to. I remember reading about her father Atticus the lawyer shooting a rabid dog and defending t Tom Robinson in court not because it the heroic thing to do, but because it was the right thing to do. I remember the fear created by the presence of Boo Radley until, as with all things once the reality is known, the truth is often different from the perception.

I haven’t been to Oakland since the mid 80’s so I don’t really know what the truth is about what happened on New Year’s Day 2009 when an unarmed Oscar Grant was shot in the back and killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer. I don’t know how different the bay area is from the south of the 1930’s or if there is or even was a racial element to what happened. I suspect that things are very different, but I don’t know. All I know is what I feel and that is that a young man was wrongly killed and that someone or a society should have to pay for his loss and the loss to those around him.

But whether others think of the incident as murder, man-slaughter or just deserts all I can say is that I’m reminded of a short passage in the book where Atticus said to Jem: 


“I'd rather you shoot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

The Flim Flam Man

An email that I received recently said:



“You have won (£3,500.00 Million) on the Irish Lottery Promo held on the

22nd of April,2010 in Dublin, Ireland.

Send us Your Full Name:...,Address:...,Tel:...,Country for claims

Mr. Jimmy Peterson: +447035914740.

E-mail: clmsveri_dept@upimail.be

Note that you will be liable for the Cost of remitting your winnings to

you.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Anna Brown.

Co-coordinator Irish Lottery”

Wow! Who would have believed that it could happen to me? I don’t even remember entering or registering for a lottery and now I’m a multi-millionaire. What incredible luck I must have….. Although, I thought the Irish Lottery was in Ireland where they used the Euro(€) and not the Pound(£); and why is the email address a Belgian one and not Irish? You know now that I think about it, if someone is going to scam me they should at least try and give a good story without holes in it so that I wouldn't feel so bad about throwing away my money. What kind of clown do they take me for?

When I was younger, sometimes I would be approached by men who would say that they were just off the plane from whatever country was in the news at the time, South Africa, Guyana or someplace. They would tell me that they had given their cab driver from airport hundreds of dollars to take them to a hotel, but he had instead left them in middle of Times Square in New York, or in later years, Center City in Philadelphia with bad directions. Suddenly another man would walk up and ask if he could assist. The second man would say that he knew of a place where the visitor could stay for very little money. The first man would say that money was no object and then pull out a roll  as thick as his fist that seemed to be full of one hundred dollar bills. The second man would him and tell him that it was unsafe to show that amount of cash in public and that it should be kept in a bank. One of them would tell me how honest I looked and asked if I had an ATM card so that they could deposit the cash in my bank and maybe withdraw it at a later date with, of course, a cut taken out for myself.

Now my name isn’t Peter Parker but my Spidey senses would tingle into overdrive whenever I heard this, well at least the first 2 times that I heard it. I didn’t understand what was going on but I remembered that Mother always said you never get something for nothing, there is always a price. It was time to bolt, and I always did.

It wasn’t until I was old enough to understand what the movie The Sting was about and had seen it about 3 or 4 times on TV that I realized that I had been the mark in some sort of “Pigeon Drop” scam. Someone had tried to make me think that I could make a little more money with no risk to myself. They had tried to work on my sense of greed to see how far they could get because I looked like an easy mark.

It probably doesn’t explain why I have very little sympathy for those people who fall for swindles like the email from a lawyer somewhere in Africa or Malaysia with a dead client, or even the rich friends who were ripped off by financier Bernie Madoff who supposedly gave a 20% return on their investments without bothering to explain how it was done. I mean it’s just a con man working on the gullibility and greed of people to believe that there is something  for free where nothing exists.

So if you should ever get in touch for any reason with Mr. Jimmy Peterson or Mrs. Anna Brown or even that lawyer, tell them that I send my best but the check will not be in the mail.

The Agony and the Ecstacy

You know the one good thing about being in Europe is that when it comes to beggars, it’s not going to be black people doing it, at least in general. That’s because most black people are immigrants who have left wherever they are from in search of a better life, so the desire to beg is not really on the agenda. In fact as in New York City, many unskilled immigrants will tend to sell merchandise on the streets, often without a license. I’ve noticed that was what they were doing in it Rome. Young boys who would sell faux designer hand bags and other things and were often kept on the move as they were chased by the police over their wares. The Carabinieri would drive up outside the Vatican walls where many of these sellers were and with sirens blaring, drive after the long legged boys at a terrific rate of speed scattering them in all directions. It was like a case of ”run Forrest run” but with some color.


I remember seeing a story about this on 60 minutes late last year but I didn’t take much notice at the time. Apparently the police really aren’t concerned in arresting them, but more interested in keeping them moving from one area to another. It is a sort of dance of fools.


The real beggars are the ones that you’ll find outside of the Vatican or the Rome’s Central Terminal where they got me a couple of times. These are usually gypsies that hang out at the train stations looking for handouts for food. The ones at the Vatican are the cripples and I don’t mean to be PC. I’m not talking about the disadvantaged that have a touch of carpal tunnel or irritable bowel syndrome. I’m talking about old school cripples, the ones with limbs that point in five different directions east of Sunday, the ones that make you think this must be a scene in a biblical epic just waiting for Charlton Heston to come and save the day as they lay on the sidewalks with outstretched arms crying with tears in some incomprehensible form of babble.

It’s funny though, you would think that if you were a cripple and you are at the same spot that St Peter was killed and buried, you would be able to get some sort blessing that would cure you of your ails. I mean, if you can’t get healed there by the Holy Father then you can’t get healed anywhere. Anyway, I would show pictures of those people but I thought it would have been too much of an intrusion to take pictures of people in a dire moments of their lives while I stepped over them feeling uncompelled to share a few cents with them, so here are some other pictures of the area.

Pieces of Eight

It’s funny how so many of the things that we believe in when we are children slowly disappear as we grow up.


When I was young, out of the many professions or occupations that I thought about doing when I got older, becoming a doctor or a lawyer were never listed as the ones that would interest me. Of course my only interaction with either one of these professions was limited to the occasional doctor’s visit and what I could see on TV. Neither vocations excited me. What did enthuse me from watching TV however, was the idea of become a pirate.

Even though I didn’t know then and still don’t know now what swash buckling was, I was thrilled by the thought of doing it for a living. I dreamed of ordering the canon to be shot broadside against the enemy ships, swinging from the ropes when boarding them, swordplay, screaming “arghh matey” and “shiver me timbers” and scaring the women folk. It was a job where all men were equal unless you were the captain, and you didn’t have to explain your skin color or your religion or why you hadn’t had sex with a girl even though every male you knew said that they had. Yet I knew deep down that those days were over and that it would be one more dream that would never be fulfilled. That is until recently.

It was only a few years ago while watching 60 Minutes or some other news show that I heard about the many small boats and yachts that were being robbed by bandits as they sailed the Caribbean. It was a kind of modern day act of piracy that got a few bucks for the perpetrators. The big money events, I would learn last year or the year before were going to the pirates out of Somalia where they would hijack the larger ships and tankers operating in the Gulf of Aden between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, leading to the Indian Ocean.

Apparently these brigands will come upside of the ships in little motorized boats, throw some grappling hooks and climb on board before anyone knows what’s happening and take over the boat. Then they’ll hold it hostage until payment has been made by the owners for whatever cargo the boat is carrying. The real big haul is when they can get a super tanker full of oil worth millions of dollars and take home some prize money of say 10% of the oil’s value.

Unless you having been living under a rock for the last few days, then you would probably know at least a little about the present situation where a US flagged ship, the Maersk Alabama was the first ship since I guess the days of the Barbary Pirates to be attacked by buccaneers. I’m not going to comment on the circumstances other than I hope that it doesn’t turn into an Obama version of the situation Clinton faced with the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas. But I will say it doesn’t seem to be as glamorous as when Errol Flynn and his like portrayed pirating on the silver screen. In fact, it seems like a dull thing to do and kind of silly position to be in once you’ve been surrounded by what looks like the US 7th fleet.

Oh well, another childhood belief dashed to pieces.

One of my Guilty Pleasures

Nothing here but a quick morning shout out.

I have a bunch of guilty pleasures, some of which have gotten me into trouble now and again. But one of them only keeps me up late late because I always have to watch it from start to end when ever it's on and that is Sweeney Todd. For some reason I just can't get enough of it on TV. Sure it's about crime, revenge, blood lust and cannibalism, and it's hokey and corny but I always get so much more out of it.

For me it's about unrequited love, longing for it but never really getting it. The love of a good life, a good partner, family or even a good business and or occupation that you can be proud of. It's about wanting something and coming so close to it but never being able to hold on to it.

Anyway as Rod Serling used to say, "Submitted for your approval..."

Here they go Again

I had a fair idea of what Sen. McCain meant during his campaign when he said, “I don’t need lessons about telling the truth to the American people… and were I ever to need any improvement in that regard I probably would not seek advice from a Chicago politician.” I thought it was a cheap and sleazy remark at the time and something not worth remembering. But as life often turns to irony, those are the kind of lines that will time and again return to us in some shape or form.

Apparently crime, corruption and politics seem to a go hand in hand like ham and eggs at breakfast and in Illinois, they seem to go way back. Presently former Governor George Ryan is serving time for steering state contracts the way of his friends. Former Governor Daniel Walker was convicted in the 80’s of taking and using funds from a Savings and Loans bank that left it insolvent. Former Governor Otto Kerner was convicted in 1974 of bribery, conspiracy, income-tax evasion, mail fraud and perjury in connection with money he earned from racetrack stock while governor. Governor Len Small was indicted for embezzling $600,000 and running a money-laundering scheme when he was state treasurer.

This morning Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on federal corruption charges, including that he conspired “to sell or trade” an appointment to the US Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Obama. Weird huh? They do things so differently in the Midwest from how they do it over here in the Northeast. Is New Jersey really in the Northeast? I've never really thought of it as such. Or is it more a Mid-Atlantic state?

Anyway, here they won’t arrest a Governor. They will just tell him to give the money back or whatever is missing, resign and go away. Give the reason as ill health or something equally ubiquitous like being gay or otherwise sexually depraved. It keeps things so very centered and so very short lived. It makes things so very civilized and with a nice speech with tears to round it all off so very personal. Kind of like our own Jim McGreevey.

I drive the Car

Officially when people ask me, my favorite movie is Casablanca. I will tell them that it’s full of drama, intrigue and unrequited love. There is humor, death, friendship and suspense. In fact it has anything that you are looking for in a movie and often more if you look for it. But in all actuality, my favorite move depends on the mood I’m in, the time of year or day or who I’m with or not with.

The clip listed below is one of the movies that I like immensely. It is Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels by Guy Ritchie before he married Madonna and when he showed talent and promise. The part that I'm really interested in is the middle of the clip, around the 3 minute mark.



"You go get the guns, I drive the car,"is the line I hope you caught. It's always been one of my favorite lines. It shows that even when you are on the qustionable side of things, the dodgy side of the law, there are always parts and roles that people must play in order to avoid chaos. Let's take Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

How about that for a segway?

Hamdan was caught in the early days of the invasion of Afghanistan trying to escape with his family by Afghani forces and sent to Guantanamo Bay. As a man known to be the former chauffer of Osama Bin Laden, he was tried recently as an unlawful enemy combatant on conspiracy charges and convicted as a person who provided mterial support for terrorism, presumably by driving Bin Laden’s car.


Now I am no lawyer and I know very little about law, but would I be wrong in assuming that by this logic, if he and Bin Laden had stopped by a local Kabul café and bought a cup of coffee and ma’s home made baklava, then the café owner could also be rounded up and also charged with providing aid, comfort and material support for terrorism? Kind of like how Dr Samuel Mudd was when he did his job and fixed John Wilkes Booth’s fractured leg after President Lincoln had been shot. But I don’t know.

Actually what I am really asking, what really frightens me is if the government can and will go after some fat boy who is just a car driver and sentence him to 30 years, how far down the chain will they stop? If the President can determine anyone can be an unlawful enemy combatant whether they are American or not, who then will be safe from prosecution and undetermined sentencing and I wonder.

Philly's Finest

I really have nothing to say, so I would just like to welcome Police Commissioner Ramsey to the city of Philadelphia, in case I haven't done so before.

I'm not sure if I should mention that for the past 5 months since you've been on the job, you've only lost 1 police officer while on active duty and had just 1 "wilding party" for the boys in blue to take their frustrations out on 3 of the city's not so innocent citizens. Unfortunately, the whole incident was shot by the Fox News while the suspects were unarmed. Oh well better luck next time.

Maybe I am not being generous enough or fair, so I will just say, boy do you have your work cut for you. I bet you didn't think Philly would be like this.

Keyon & Teyon

Pornucopia is one of those HBO programs shown late at night because of the subject matter. It’s not just about sex, but about the porn industry and the advantages of being involved in it. I haven’t seen all of the episodes but they seem to stress the good points of the business, lots of sex, lots of money and apparently no consequences. It’s late night so you have to suspend your sense of logic and disbelief.

The big money makers are white women, especially the stars, followed by white men who do gay porn. Gay for pay is what they call it. This is where men, gay or straight, will perform in a gay movie because the money is that much more than what they would get doing a straight movie. In fact, Jeff Stryker gay movie icon, said that he wouldn’t even take his shoes off for the money a straight movie would pay him.

The show doesn’t say this, but at the bottom of the porn hierarchal system are black men who do gay movies. These men are known to be the least paid performers and are usually found to be young, scarred and less educated than their peers. So I wasn’t really shocked when I met Keyon at Six Flags Great Adventure last September. After all, an amusement park isn’t known to be millionaire’s row.

Keyon, is the screen name of a brother who works with his twin Teyon. They are porn actors, models whose pictures and movies can be seen on the web. I had seen pictures of them before and recognized him. My friends introduced me to Keyon and I was surprised that he was taller than me by about half an inch. He was also skinny and I noticed his plastic pectoral implants sticking up through his chest and over the edge of his tank top. He was dressed in clothes that were inexpensive but clean and his skin seemed smooth but with some acne that young people are prone to. He had about him a sense of youth and false confidence that made him attractive and would appeal to people of his own age. I watched him go as he was surrounded by a group of three or four people who were dressed similarly to him and I got the impression that none of them had any money. Although, I guess that was about to change.

I saw on the local news this week that they had caught the rooftop burglars who had plagued towns in South Jersey, Delaware and the city of Philadelphia. It was believed that there were about 35 convenience stores broken into. The culprits had climbed on to the rooftops of these stores and cut holes in them. They had then lowered themselves in the stores. Stolen cigarettes and beer and broken into the stores’ ATMs. The TV showed the pictures of the people who were arrested, and there was Keyon and his brother.


Of course everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but the porn industry really must not pay its black performers if they have to turn to crime in order to make a living. It’s just like the scene out of Boogie Nights with Mark Wahlberg. I guess the positions in front of the camera must not be full time positions where you feed your family and build up your 401k for the days when you can no longer get up an erection.

Of course you don’t have to do porn to commit a crime, but if the boys should be sent to prison, will the good times really begin there and if they do, who will enjoy it more, the boys or their fellow inmates?

Killadelphia

“Killadelphia” is what they called it. That was the name Nightline, the show on ABC, had called Philadelphia, the 2nd largest city on the Eastern Seaboard and city of brotherly love the other night. Apparently they had gotten this moniker from an article written by the Philadelphia Daily News reporter, Dave Davies who had commented on the status the city had achieved by having the 5th highest murder rate per capita in the country.

In 2007, there were 392 people killed due to robberies, gang violence or other reasons. And this was down from the 406 killed the previous year. The show said that things had gotten so bad that lessons and skills doctors and surgeons had learned from trying to save lives in Philadelphia had been taken to Iraq so that lives could be saved there.

The city’s new mayor, Michael Nutter was inaugurated January 7th and one of the first things he did was to declare a “crime emergency” for the city. Well, I’m not sure what that is unless it means the city is going to go back to the good old days of when Frank Rizzo was mayor and Civil Rights and Human Rights were just buzz words that people tried to say as they were beaten over head by a policeman’s night stick. But with the incoming police Charles Ramsey from DC, a city with an even higher murder rate, we can only sit back and watch what measures they take to try and stem the tide.