HER OLD KENTUCKY HOME

Champagne from bottles explodes.

A festive crowd roars.

Eight Belles' ankles quietly pop

and the band plays on.

A trophy for an owner.

Silks to a wall.

A needle for Eight Belles

and the band plays on.

Tom Paine

BOHEMIA OF THE MIND

Here's an edited copy of an email I sent to an expat in a warm climate who had written a column recently that melded with thoughts on other recent reads. Will continue to edit. And edit.
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Thoughts converge on recent articles that have a common thread or two. Your column, "On Going Where Nothing Will Be the Same As It Used To Be" had me refer to these and I refer you to them.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21210: In "Finding a Lost Prince of Bohemia" Robert Danton writes of bohemian culture in Paris and other cities. The essay will be included in to be published "Les Bohemiens." Gypsies ( I think of your column here and elsewhere) are mentioned. A great piece of history this. It is online and the New York Review of Books to which I subscribe is a source of continuing enjoyment. NYRB maintains much of what it has currently published online. The essays and book views are enriching.

The thread I see here is that a bohemian culture, the arts fine and performing, have a place to be or to go to. Ergo the old Bohemias and the new ones. Bohemias are always with us whether they be of the mind or a place. It is the disappearing (though reborn elsewhere perhaps) of places that I find troubling. Some American cities did not survive urban renewal. Some places, some possible Bohemias are lost forever.


http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/hitchens200807: Well know as an atheist and criticized for being opinionated, I enjoy his perspective. In a recent Vanity Fair (I tip the postman at Christmas for his heavy bag) Hitchens wrote "Last Call, Bohemia: Entertainment and Culture." He writes of the West Village and places I know of and have been to or a least driven by many times. I was born and raised in Jersey City just outside the Holland Tunnel and worked and partied in New York. Just through the tunnel were pieces of a larger Bohemia: The Cafe Wha (my sister read poetry there, Dylan played there), the White Horse (a Behan haunt for short time) wound up a few blocks away hanging around the "No Name Bar"-it was on the way (kind of) to and from the Holland Tunnel). Shaft was filmed there and a scene shot in the "No Name" is in the movie. Had a run in there with a guy named Featherstone from 'The Westies', a gang from Hell's Kitchen. Scary-another story.

At the No Name, enjoyed a scotch with Jason Robards, Jr. It was after hours and he lived across the street. This was before the accident; he was still drinking. His bodyguard was former Secret Service and he said he was with Kennedy in Dallas. He wrote two books, The Detail and The Fourth Man. He moved to Canada. Both books were published in England. He died in Canada where he moved. Haven't read the Fourth Man yet. Wilson McCarthy his name. Intriguing. He was Secret Service but I cannot find reference to him; I looked all over the internet. He seems to have disappeared. A U.K. site had the book, The Fourth Man, available for 40 some odd dollars. This for what would seem to be an inexpensive potboiler. Intriguing. I digress.

I always thought The Village was just something else. Went to grad school at NYU and did not like seeing older buildings being torn down. I could go on here quite a bit but I won't. The point here is that Hitchens is bringing our attention to a nasty bit of business in NYC wherein 7th Avenue is being realigned. The O'Toole bullding he mentions is a wondrous looking building. Its windows resemble the portals on ships. It's hard by St. Vincent's Hospital where Jersey City girls went to work and study. Not far away the Waverly Theater would show movies that were not seen in many other theaters in the United States. One was "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" remains a favorite. The ending has a special meaning. We went our own ways and she is gone now.

Bohemians might seem to be running out of places to be in common. They will always have a certain commonality of mind, but perhaps not one of place. Cities should preserve their storefronts and walkups. New high rise construction should include storefront occupancies and every effort should be made to promote and integrate the arts into urban renewal, into new development.

I am thinking of the Jersey City waterfront where we went skinny dipping in the '50's. It was a coal pier and right across from the undreamed of World Trade Center. In fact when the WTC was built, many small shops and homes were demolished. I worked too in Manhattan (the Home Insurance Company) and remember taking lunch down at the East River. I'd doff my shirt, tee, and tie and lay out on a pier in the summer. I ate lobster outside, on an outside counter of a corner seafood store. Sloppy Louie's was nearby (gone now) and of course this was all happening during the daytime when the Fulton Street Fish Market was asleep; it was fully awake at 0' dark thirty though and the area was transformed. What a sight. We would go to watch the mongers after closing time in the pubs. It is gone now too. It is now in Hunts Point where by coincidence the old produce market (worked there one night-enough) went years ago. The old market was in......the village.

As I review what I write here, I need to not that I am not intending to speak of myself, per se; rather offerieng a reflection of experiences and observations of a Bohemian environment.

A recent story in the Jersey Journal (Jersey City) spoke of the high cost of living in Jersey City and the need for less expensive housing for municipal employees. I won't digress on the horrible crime rate in the city and wish proponents luck. Jersey City was never demolished by urban renewal. There are housing projects and they are coming down (some have) and other kinds of housing will be built. Friendly housing. No more twenty story cages. Places for a Bohemia still exist. I ponder, we might be too close to Bohemia to realize we are in it.

Downtown, the city is alive with new places to eat and venues for the fine and performing arts. There seems to be more of them since I left 25 years ago. New Yorkers coming over in droves. I remember the city very well. Many storefronts are in place, ripe for young businesses. We had garrets, I know where there are still a few. The city is always having a discussion with builders who want more building and less retention of historical place.

I memorized the streets in my district. I walk the city in my thoughts. It was a great place to grow up. I wished my daughters could have experienced it. It's a long, very long story.

Anyway, I recommend the two articles to you. Hitchens by the way has prompted me to write a bit and idle thoughts may be found at http://painesense.blogspot.com/. I use Tom Paine as a nom de plume. Paine's writing was not, to the best of my memory, referred to in the Catholic schools I went to. I understand why. Talk about living a provincial life.

You mentioned Baldwin and Stein. When Baldwin went to Paris, he left a city, New York, that was always a bit of Paris. And Stein too could have had her salon in New York, still and always an attraction for artists and writers. Doubtless she had a leg up acquiring new art and meeting avant garde artists. Bohemia is important as a place, yet it is the bohemians who make it that place. Like gypsies, they will wander. Especially if their garrets are bulldozed or the rents go up. Make experiences a place to be. Cull the good from the bad; ditch the baggage; keep the suitcase. Have we not, some of us, a Bohemia of the mind?

Pictured above is Kiki by Mann Ray. She was know as the 'Queen of Montparnasse.' She was an artist, model, and cabaret singer who was the symbol of bohemian Paris. The Man Ray photo will be remembered in advertisements for the broadway play 'Oh Calcutta.'

Tom Paine

PICTURE OF MITT "DORIAN" ROMNEY

A Portrait of Mitt "Dorian" Romney (Also known as Portrait of a Flip Flopper)

The portrait in the attic is true to Mitt's bare soul,
and it's really quite dramatic to see this hidden toll.
Some blues have turned to red,
and his head's a bit awry.

An eye has gone to bed,
and an ear is on his tie.
As oils run in that dark place,
on a portrait kept at bay.
Romney runs a heated race,
a race to lose on a clear bright day.

(Regards to Oscar Wilde, author of "The Picture of Dorian Grey")

McCain could use a Vice President with financial smarts who might help him fix the economy that the Bush administration has trashed. Romney is one of those guys who doesn't care much for the working man or woman. He is totally focused on business. There seems to be a a certain meanness about him. Something about this guy. Last time he rang my bell was a crack he made about unions.

It's easy to think of Romney as the official in charge of the execution of Eddie Slovik in WWII. I see him stopping the order to shoot because he hears Slovik praying. He runs up to Slovik and rips the beads from his hands and he is so agitated that he right then gives the order to shoot.

Tom Paine

THE TALL AND SHORT OF IT

On July 26th, the Commission on Presidential Debates proposed that two of three scheduled debates have the candidates seated. At 6'1" a standing Obama would seem to have some advantage over McCain who is 5'9" (some say less). It is thought that such a format would soften the differences in height and offset what might be an advantage to Obama.

Differences in appearances juxtaposed could lead to unfair assumptions. Think of Rostand's Cyrano. With no willful insult to McCain, rather a tongue in cheek comment, may I suggest that Christopher Smith, in "The Author Apologizes to a Lady [read electorate here] for His Being a Little Man," writes in part:

Yes, contumelious fair, you scorn The amorous [little man]* that courts you to his arms,

But ere, you leave him quite forlorn,

And to some youth gigantic yield your charms [your vote],

Hear him-oh hear him, if you will not try,

And let your judgement check th' ambition of your eye.

*A substitution here for a word that might be offensive

Tom Paine

MY MEDALS ARE SHINIER THAN YOURS

ABOUT COMMAND APPOINTMENTS

Thursday last, retired General Wesley Clark commented on Senator McCain's military background seeming to say that McCain's military experience did not qualify him as a leader, as a president.

From a review (New York Review of Books, April 3, 2008) by Max Hastings of a book written by Rick Atkinson,"The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy. 1943-1944:"The performance of Clark's [American Mark Clark] and Leese's [British Oliver Leese] subordinates ranged from adequacy to bungling, Lieutenant General Bernard C. "Spadger" Freyberg who led the New Zealand corps, had won a Victoria Cross in World War I. He exemplified a key principle about command appointments: any man possessed of the suicidal courage required to win a VC or Medal of Honor is unlikely to possess the judgement or imagination to make much of a general." Of course there are brilliant exceptions to this key principle as Atkinson calls it.

Once I sat across from a man vying for a promotion who, unasked, pointed to a lapel button denoting a military organizaton he was or had been a member of. He offered that he had been an officer and in charge of a number of men. He commented on the sway of what he thought was his impressive authority. He couldn't have been more disgusting if he spoke of what his morning's evacuation still bubbling in the toilet revealed to him of his prospects for the day.

There are opinions. Of course most medals such as the Victoria Cross or the Medal of Honor are awarded to people who will never aspire to high office. A few might. The real issue here, the heart of this miserable contentiousness, is not the assertion that valorous military duty is a precursor of greater things or that valorous duty is not such a predictor, it is that this discussion is happening at all.

In "The Day of Battle" Atkinson offers opinion. Wesley too offers opinion. Wesley overreaches. He is offensive and should have left it alone. His hunger for the Vice Presidency has fogged his common sense. Yesterday, Wesley essentially stayed the course with his message. This has no place in a campaign and Obama again needs to avoid association with Wesley's opinion.

Thomas Paine

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Quest for a Full Cup

Come ride with me!
Carry me!
Take us there!
You are the only one I need.
Let’s travel together for a short time and longer.
And we will come to an end and a beginning.
Will you take me to where we both want to go?

Too we have our history and instincts.
We will both find the way
around hazards left and right.
Let us go there together
and run there together.
Ah! The good we will do
from our House on a Hill!

On a long cool dark night
your warm white mane brightens our way
and we endure; our thoughts bask.
Not to stop, not to sleep.
Succor to come.

On a hot sunny day we are cooled by your speed
and the sweat you share from your wet black coat.
And we endure; our thoughts bask.
Not to stop, not to sleep.
Succor to come.

Your brown, and yellow coats too;
oh, the many coats you have
define us as one when we ride together.
Our thoughts bask.
Not to stop, not to sleep.
Succor to come.

We are challenged not contained,
by our wide flat desserts and high mountain ranges,
and in this Great Home hosting us,
surrounded and one with our pastures, forests, and Statues of Liberty,
all of us embraced at once,
we finally will gambol together and rest a while.

And after, we will ride together a longer time
in pursuit of that full cup of happiness,
equity its wellspring.
Come ride with me!
Carry me!
Take us there!

Tom Paine
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January 21, 2009:

Note-President Obama's Inauguration speech yesterday included the following:

"We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

THE DECIDER

Decider

Decider, Decider, the facts, the facts, what shall we do?
Why bury them, hide them they get in the way!

Decider, Decider, the emails, the emails, what shall we do?
Why bury them, hide them from the light of day!

Decider, Decider, those laws, those laws, what shall we do?
Why bury them, hide them for my law prevails!

Decider, Decider, the report, the report, what shall we do?
I’m thinking, I’m thinking………..details, details...

Decider, Decider, the fallen, the fallen! What shall we do?

Why this you should know; you're becoming a pest!

No pictures in Dover and you know the rest.

Decider, Decider, which do we kiss,

the ring on your finger or your royal ass?

What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?

Why can't you decide anything for yourself?

Damn, now I've lost all sense of the beat here.

Anyway, forget it. Someone might document it.

I'll take a pass........

Hey, that rhymes with ass!

Bring it on!

Tom Paine

SS CONDOLEZZA RICE

If there's a god in heaven I pray she grant McCain the wisdom to pick Condolezza Rice as his running mate. Why, a supertanker, the

SS Condolezza Rice, was named after her by Chevron Oil. Later the name was changed to SS Altair Voyager. She never spoke up when she should have on national security issues and she remains a loyal Chimpy sycophant. Oh what a poster might look like! The good ship Lollypop! Go team, go!

THE GODDESS CELLULA

Unknown to almost all, cellulite was a hallmark of great beauty admired by the ancient Romans and other antiquarian cultures. Cellula was a goddess worshipped by many. Michelangelo soon realized that depicting cellulite in his sculptures and paintings was just impossible; he could not capture the beauty of (I don"t remember the Latin words) "little mounds and craters on the moon" and soon followed the examples of other artists who all seemed to agree that awesomely beautiful cellulite was too difficult to capture by brush or chisel. They settled on the convention we know of today: smooth skin means beautiful skin. The next time you visit London, try to arrange for a special tour of the lower basement of the British Museum. on display is art from ancient Rome and Greece which attempted to capture the beauty of cellulite-but failed. All hail Cellula!

Tom Paine

HILLARY SPEAKS OF AN ASSASINATION

Recently, Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was staying in the Presidential primary because anything can happen and, as an example, she referred to Robert Kennedy's assasination before the 1968 presidential primary was over. She has said something like this before.

ATTA GIRL HILLARY!

YOU HAVE MERELY MISSPOKEN AND YOU'RE FORGIVEN.

GO GIRL, GO!

A SLAP IN THE FACE

In 1959 or perhaps 1960 a bunch of us from the USS Valley Forge were at a road house someplace in Virginia. We went there with barmaids from our homeport hangout, the Tidewater Café, East Main St, Norfolk.

This was a bottle club with a band; if you were old enough, you could bring spirits. I drank beer. East Main St. didn’t have bands or whiskey; it had juke boxes and beer. A conversation among us touched on race. I said that I really didn’t see any problems with blacks. One of the Tidewater Café girls asked me how I would feel if my sister wanted to marry a black. I thought about it briefly before I said I would rather she marry a white guy but if she were in love with a black well then that would be ok with me. It was her life and she should be able to do as she wanted.

A barmaid from the Tidewater stood up, reached across the table and slapped me hard. Everyone hushed. I was embarrassed. We were all young and the conversation moved on. We were not worldly people, and as much as some of us might have been aware of a cultural divide, I and some others perhaps were unaware of the depths of a chasm that lay in our midst.

Today, I regret that brief demurral. The Tidewater Café, The White Hat, The Brig, and other bars on East Main St. are long gone. We have some memories. Rest in peace Mildred Loving.

(On May 2, Mildred Loving died. She was a Virginian about our ages at the time I write of who was banished from Virginia for marrying a white man. Ultimately the Supreme Court struck down the law(s) that made her marriage a crime. The New York Times obituary, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/06loving.html/ tells us about her and her husbands's bad experience. I didn't know of this sad story until I read the obituary. This article will take you to Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther, and Gunnar Myrdal who wrote American Dilemma. Over the years, I read a bit of each of Myrdal's two volumes. Written by a Swede, it gives you an objective look at American race relations. Over one hundred years earlier Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, wrote of race in Democracy in America and he too saw what some in America wouldn't. Read the Times obituary and think how close we still are to racism today. If not in law, then in fact-in culture. Sometimes we are too close to a thing to know that we are near it or that it even exists. Perhaps a chasm that lies near. Read.)

Tom Paine

Chief As White As Me

Onerous and offensive as it is we are commonly asked to identify ourselves by race to government agencies and other organizations to meet various statutory reqirements. Church and state laws also chronicle (not necessarily sanction) our births. Absent church and state law, many of us would still be happy bastards and others still rotten. The state, the law, can only document race and birth; it cannot create. That was tried infamously in Germany, South Africa, and the United States.

In the Navy from August, 1958 to December, 1961 I slowly learned of another world. The USS Valley Forge, CVS 45, was an aircraft carrier home ported in Norfolk, VA. and it wasn't until years later that I realized I never saw any blacks on liberty in the places I and the other guys I hung around with went to.

We were at sea. I worked in after engine room. The Chief Petty Officer (CPO) in charge of forward engine room had ordered a sailor to work in the bilges. Hey, we all took our turn there. The sailor demurred saying that he didn't do that kind of work (or words to that effect). The Chief told him to get his BA to the bilges or he would be written up. The sailor told the Chief that he was as white as he. Now the sailor was a black man. No mistake about that. He told the Chief to check his records in the Personnel Office; they would show that he was a caucasian.

The sailor went to the bilges and the Chief went to the Personnel Office. The records indicated the sailor’s race was caucasian. He was from the United States Virgin Islands. I seem to remember the Chief shaking his head in wonderment which was the best part of all this. I remember their names but the Chief will always be rememembered too as Chief As White As Me. Shaking his head.

The ship's nickname was The Happy Valley.The picture here shows the ship as we entered Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1959. I was aboard then. Eighteen years old. A happy bastard for the most part I would think.

Tom Paine

An Upload Experiment (guitar video)

This is a simple lesson sayeth the player. I've just uploaded this as an experiment. Took a while but it worked.

Tom Paine

Scratch Your Brain

THE ANAL TRAVELER WITH THE ITCHY BRAIN
You just left the Larry Craig restroom at the airport. Now don't dwell on this too much but think of what you certainly have picked up on the bottoms of your shoes (in addition to whatever else might have been there already). This might include small amounts of fecal matter, urine, spit, etc. Why, when walking the dog this morning you might have -never mind. You can take it to the bank-that horrible stuff is there. But it's on the bottom of your shoes so you don't half mind. Nothing you can do about it anyway. And you do have some control over this. Whoops! You're going to lose control. Going through TSA airport security, you put your shoes in a grey basket used by thousands before you. Your shoes along with other things you use. You may now consider them contaminated by an ocean of microscopic (some chunks maybe) vileness. Comfortably boxed in on the aircraft you start thinking about your exposure to God knows what. What might these other people have stepped in? You think of the possibilities. You feel itchy. You scratch here and you scratch there. Why, even your brain feels itchy. You try hard not to think of the horrible filth that has now become part of you. Think instead of a running stream...whoops again. Never mind. Relax, treat yourself to that sandwich. Arrrgh! Your hands, your hands! Oh have at it; scratch your brain

Tom Paine

BLOODED AND READY TO TAKE CHARGE

While campaigning in the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary spoke of her duck hunting experience and she drank whiskey with locals.

God what a wonderful feeling shooting a sweet free bird from a blue sky. She grabbed another still bird from the dog and quickly broke its neck and gutted it throwing warm slop into brackish water. Love the kick of the gun, love the blood and guts. God it's good!After, some whiskey with the rest of the locals from the local DOR (Daughters of Rest), that wonderful group of registered retired older women who too challenged the status quo and realized killing sweet free birds some of whom might be mothers too wasn't a wanton act-it was a meaningful empowering one. So they killed free sweet birds, drank whiskey, and celebrated knowing that one of them might some day be the big gun in a big city.

The next morning she went to KFC and ate chicken meat with her hands and wiped her mouth on her shoulder and didn't care if the dopey bird might have been undercooked. Bosnia, the ducks; yes she was tested and ready. "Bring it on."
(Bring It On copyright by Dubya)

Tom Paine

On Misspeaking

YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON: ""Father I cannot tell a lie. It was I who chopped down the cherry tree. I misspoke."
FATHER: "Son, you have spoken presidentially and some day you will be our first; for to lie is human but to misspeak is presidential."

Tom Paine

Of Blood, Of Red

Debacle of governance upon us now.
Phantom bullets in Bosnia portend the same.
Prologue now mimes prologue past.
The lie on the hustings less arrogant than desperate, still a lie.
Beware the deceit: a reddened bill of goods for bullets not fired.

Tom Paine

Bosnia Mon Amour

We are developing a line of clothes and accessories called HILLARY. Our first collection, "BOSNIA 1996," will include pant suits available in four camouflage designs -one for each season. Camou fabric helmets wlll have several faux bullet holes -a reminder of Bosnia 1996. The excitement continues with beachwear consisting of camou robes and towels and risque camou swimwear. It gets better. They said it couldn't be done but we've designed HILLARY footwear to complement that special HILLARY evening gown -an open toed combat boot with a modest lift. Oh ecstasy! And yes, we have a new perfume designed to capure the attention of that special man; the secret -a scent of burnt gunpowder incorporated into our "Evening in Bosnia." The perfume bottle will be evocative of a bullet. One accessory certain to be much in demand is the camou plastic bracelet intended as a reminder of Hillary's exposure to sniper fire in Bosnia. Watch for news of our upcoming runway presentation. Think of our models running and zig zagging down the runway with the sound of bullets whizzing through the air. Our audience will have the opportunity to throw little packs of faux blood at our models as they pass by. And finally, a pinup poster (wallet size will probably be better) depicitng Hillary in one of our "Bosnia 1996" outfits which our troops can gaze at as a reminder of she who shared their deadly experiences taking sniper fire. They'll love it! Just love it

Tom Paine