Monthly Archives: February 2020

Atomic Bloom

Back in 2014 I bicycled from Fort Greene to Bushwick Avenue. Jane Dickson was displaying a sparse mirrored mural of mythical rock bands at the Silent Barn Gallery. The neighborhood was hard-core without any signs of encroachment from the art phenomena farther to the north. I locked my bike to a gate and hoped for […]

Life Is Illusion in the Combat Zone

Back in 1969 Jerry Brendt took this photo of two brothers messing around with white girls. This was not Selma, but Boston’s Combat Zone where people could be people. The Caddy is a convertible and the girls love the horseplay. Everything seems perfect. Everything depends on your point of view or disposition. “it’s just a […]

Guns Are USA

In 1980 my firend Carmine slid a .38 across the table of John’s Italian Restaurant. I looked at it for a few seconds, the asked, “What’s this?” “A gun,” said the Sicilian plumber. “For what?” “For protection. This is the East Village.” Junkies ruled the streets, thieves plagued the unknowing, and project thugs roamed the […]

Trump Unleashed

After his exoneration by a GOP majority Donald Trump has regaled his victory by pushing out the boundaries of his party’s extreme convictions. He has ousted his critics within the government and pursued the rejection of Stone’s sentence for selling out the country to the Russians and lying to the Congress. Trump even showed his […]

GUNS GUNS GUNS by Peter Nolan Smith

American boys loved guns in the 50s. Plastic weapons lay gift-wrapped under the Christmas tree. Our movie heroes slaughtered the country’s enemies on the silver screen and tough cops performed gun ballets on prime time TV. Guns were good for the country and America was good to guns. Armed with air rifles my older brother, […]