Soul On Ice {Inuit Girls Gone Wild!}

In 1987 President Reagan arranged for the remains of Black Explorer Matthew Henson and his wife to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery right along side the grave of his fellow explorer:Robert Peary. This honor may have given a sense of over-due justice and closure to many present but Robert Peary would not have been one of them . Despite his new neighbor's decades as a faithful travel companion through more thick than thin, following their ultimate triumph :arriving at the North Pole,Peary snubbed Henson and did all in his power to minimize his share of the laurels, even denying him membership in the Explorers Club of which he was president. Henson was heart sick but there was historic precedence . Lewis and Clark brought Clark's slave York with them on their trek to the Pacific. Upon returning to the East all in the party received generous land grants and official positions, except York. His only aide de memoire of the trip was his frostbitten penis{a malady that occurred while traversing the aptly named Bitteroot Mts.}Returned to slave status York became so"restive and sulky" that Clark found it necessary to "trounce " him. En route to their rendezvous with destiny both Henson and Peary sired Eskimo sons . It's fascinating to speculate about the genesis of this imbroglio. Peter Fruechen would doubtless dismiss this as an awkward propitiating act of sexual diplomacy by the boys, a doffing of their fur hats to Eskimo etiquette. I, agreeing with Zorba that "God hates half a devil ten times more than an archdevil" suspect our two itinerant Onans were wantonly answering the call of the wild ,drinking copious amounts of whatever eskimos have found to be fermentable {* Peary did eventually die from Cirrhosis} and enjoying the liberating effects of being off the map. Oddly , the relative egalitarianism enjoyed by both York and Henson while in the wilds ended at the gates of the city. Somehow against the backdrop of a different habitat Chameleon-like their aspect was perceived to change.

Castro, Trujillo and the amoral Lilliputian

Choosing Fidel Castro as a subject is not meant to confer admiration on him or his regime. In Politics everything militates against longevity; an unmovable object like Fidel can be held in place only by a cunning, ruthless, cynical tyranny. Trujillo over in the Dominican Republic is usually celebrated as the Arch-Demon in the Caudillo Hierarchy. His "Security" force was led by the infamous Johnny Abbes who purportedly had as an assistant a dwarf named Snowball whose skill-set consisted of chewing off the testicles of politically obtuse citizens. After Trujillo was gunned down Abbes and his stunted acolyte escaped into Haiti where they hoped Papa Doc would have jobs for 1 and 1/2 out-of-work Zombies. Even with the enthusiastic support from the far right of the Lilliputian community{Los Lilliputianos}Trujillo lasted a mere 31 years. Castro came to power in 1959. Do the Math! For some inexplicable reason monsters from the political Left are warmly regarded by many people in our society who should know better. Castro's enforcer, the much mythologized Che Guevara was every bit as much the psychopath as Snowball. Given the same favorable press the wardrobes of college students and many of their professors would include tee- shirts with romanticized images of Snowball's visage emblazoned on them. For almost as long as I can remember Castro has been a part of the background on the stage upon which I have lived my life. He may be a demon but he's a familiar demon and figures into many of my memories. These Baseball pictures that feature him depict games between The Rochester Red Wings and The Havana Sugar Kings. Following the success of the revolution it was very fashionable for young Cubans to dress in fatigues and carry weapons, unfortunately even when crowding into the stands at a ball game. In one of these games Red Wing 3rd base coach, Frank Verde and Sugar King shortstop, Leo Cardenas received superficial gunshot wounds while on the field and play was curtailed.

Nostalgia for the Mau Mau

My introductory Post might lead some to believe that I co-authored the King James version of the Bible. While I admit to occasional eruptions of Calvinist sensibilities most people who know me would say that I was rather too loosely as opposed to too tightly wrapped. In all future posts I will attempt a more conversational and measured tone. Seeing the word "Kikuyu" on the front of the NY Times again has caused a wave of nostalgia to wash over me.As a child I was enchanted with all things African. I enjoyed imagining my eventual arrival in some jungle village deep in the interior,sometimes as a beloved Maryknoll priest and sometimes as a fearsome Mercenary {and sometimes as Tarzan}. The proscription on sex for Catholic priests was a hurdle I knew I couldn't jump and no intellectual dodges around it came readily to mind. Mercenaries in the Congo were too frequently photographed surrounded by human skulls and body parts raising doubts about their suitability as wholesome chums. Other role options came to mind. Kennedy was starting that Peace Corps but I was a city kid and couldn't plant a goddamn thing. That fantasy always ended with me becoming a pathetic burden on my adoptive village and needing to be wrapped in mosquito netting and carried by litter to the coast where I would narrowly survive the malaria and Dengue by being flushed several times with quinine. But back to the Kikuyu. One of the authors irresponsibly fueling "dark continent" fantasies at the time was Robert Ruark.He too exhibited elements of a split personality.{*note to psychiatric community-you fuckers claim that Split- personality is a rare disorder. My own interpersonal relationships suggest that you cant swing a dead cat without hitting a genuine "Multiple"}. Mr. Ruark divided {split} his writing time between stories about dirty little wars and saccharine tales about a boy and his grandpa that evoked a world-view shared by no-one except his doppelganger in the visual arts: Norman Rockwell. Ruark had started spending time in Kenya after WW2 and wrote a mesmerizing account of The Mau Mau uprising entitled Something of Value. I was a barely passing student at Immaculate Conception Grade School at the time but it wasn't so much that I was stupid as I preferred to write my own Syllabus,{less math, more Mau Mau} and Something of Value dominated my own required reading list. I was extremely tickled to discover that as of just a couple of years ago Kenya's official website featured a scathing indictment of Ruark's book claiming it gave the "British" perspective of their "Independence " struggle. They're still pissed off 50 years after publication of a now forgotten book. Even stranger is the fact that it was deeply sympathetic to the Kikuyu, the tribe from which the Mau Mau membership arose. The British were so pissed off at it's publication that they barred Ruark from British East Africa {Kenya,Tanganyika} all together. Since Kenyan independence in 64 the Kikuyu have politically and economically kept their boot on the necks of their Luo minority. Thanks to Mwai Kibaki whose latest antics triggered this trip down memory lane. It also hints at the genesis of the Mau Mau painting seen on my site.