Back in 2007, I did some IT work at a warehouse in a still rural area. To the east, there was a cow pasture. On the other side of the road to the north there were a number of small houses. One of the residents kept a flock of bantam chickens. The birds had the free run of the neighborhood. Here one indeed could wonder why the chicken crossed the road.

It struck me that farm animals in close proximity to human habitation and commerce, though unusual now, almost certainly was the norm for most of human history. Then I realized why the damning comment about Ulysses Aldrovandi’s natural history — “a cock and bull story” — concerned common animals, not the dragons, mermaids and who only knows what that Aldrovandi diligently described. One could always maintain that just over the horizon, or across the sea, or in the jungle, or desert, . . ., everything and anything was lurking. But for the beasts in barns that people walked past every day, anybody at a glance was able to determine that Aldrovandi’s musings were ridiculous.

Max’s Kansas City was the salon of the psychedelic era, a living theater part Animal Farm, part Animal House. Outside was Vietnam’, inside a haven, at least for the devotees who called it home. If the ’60s “in crowd” had a clubhouse, you could say it was Max’s – a three-ring circus which opened in December 1965 and lost its spark when it changed owners in the fall of 1974. The impresario was Mickey Ruskin; born in New Jersey in 1933, died in New York fifty years later. Mickey had plans for a book about Max’s before his death, and Yvonne Sewall, the mother of two of his children and for four months a waitress at Max’s, is now completing it.

Max’s Kansas City was the salon of the psychedelic era, a living theater part Animal Farm, part Animal House. Outside was Vietnam’, inside a haven, at least for the devotees who called it home. If the ’60s “in crowd” had a clubhouse, you could say it was Max’s – a three-ring circus which opened in December 1965 and lost its spark when it changed owners in the fall of 1974. The impresario was Mickey Ruskin; born in New Jersey in 1933, died in New York fifty years later. Mickey had plans for a book about Max’s before his death, and Yvonne Sewall, the mother of two of his children and for four months a waitress at Max’s, is now completing it.

“Want to mingle with the underground jet set — movie-makers, avant-garde actors, chic society girls? Head for Max’s Kansas City, 213 Park Avenue South (near 18th Street) where, between 5 and 6 pm, magnificent free hors d’oeuvres (fried chicken, meatballs, cheese) are served (sometimes) along with the drinks ($1 to $1.25). Open daily.” So says an old $5-a-day guide to New York. What it doesn’t say is that, if you are a tourist, or an unsuspecting casual visitor, you will probably be seated upstairs, in “Siberia,” and miss out on the strange, unending party below.

As Andy Warhol said in his book POPIsm, “Max’s Kansas City was the exact place where Pop Art and pop life came together in New York in the ’60s . . . Everybody went to Max’s and everything got homogenized there.”

Up front were the heavies, the painters and sculptors who initially colonized Max’s, including John Chamberlain, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Carl Andre, and Larry Rivers, as well as the heady crowd that sparred with Earthworks artist Robert Smithson. Works of art punctuated the walls, and Forrest Meyers’s laser beam sculpture, shot through the front window from blocks away, skewered the interior of the restaurant.

In the back room Warhol presided at the famous Round Table, vastly different from the one Dorothy Parker’s crowd had traded jibes over at the Algonquin, while superstars, speed freaks, and transvestites vied for attention, drenched in the blood red of Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light sculpture. “Showtime” – Andrea Whips (Andrea Feldman) singing on the tabletops – was a regular, yet spontaneous, exhibition. The gossip circulated violently, but sometimes words failed. “I met Iggy Pop at Max’s Kansas City in 1970 or 1971,” recalled David Bowie. “Me, Iggy, and Lou Reed at one table with absolutely nothing to say to each other, just looking at each others eye makeup.”

Other than the waitresses, who are now among Max’s greatest chroniclers, the women were dicey; some were real and some were fake, and sometimes it made no difference. As Zsa Zsa Gabor said of transvestite Candy Darling, “She was one of the world’s most beautiful women.” Yet Max’s really was a macho scene. Here, in the back room, the producers of Midnight Cowboy recruited the extras for the film. And here Andy Warhol met his match in the butch Valerie Solanis, who later shot him.

Sandwiched between front and back was the pack-the regular celebrities, including Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Bob Dylan, Peter O’Toole, Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim, Dennis Hopper, Berry Berenson, Bertolluci, and Warren Beatty; models such as Verouschka, Twiggy, A poll onia, and Andrea Portago; photographers like Toscani, Chris von Wangenheim, and Claude Picasso; politicos such as future mayor Ed Koch and Bobby Kennedy; the fashion crowd, including Maxime de la Falaise, Fernando Sanchez, Halston, Giorgio di Sant’Angelo, and Betsey johnson; writers Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs; and a host of hangers-on. Here, Germaine Greer introduced Jackie Curtis, the transvestite performer and playwright, to Sargent Shriver, and the likes of Mel Brooks, Loulou de la Falaise, and jean-Paul Belmondo schmoozed with Michelangelo Antonioni, Penelope Tree, Marisa Berenson, and Marjoe Gortner. James Rosenquist talked art with future senator Jacob Javits, who was led into the joint by his wife, Man-an. The art dealer Leo Castelli was also taken on occasion. “Max’s Kansas City?” he quipped. “‘No, I went to Max’s in New York. The steak was terrible. ”

Even those exiled -upstairs got a taste of the scene sooner or later, thanks to performances by the Velvet Underground with Nico, the New York Dolls (featuring David Johansen), and unknown performers like Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.

Max’s was Mickey Ruskin’s fourth venue. In 1957, while working up to junior partner status at his father’s law firm, Ruskin saw a newspaper ad: “Rent or Own a Coffee Shop.” Rent was $300 a month, and the Tenth Street Coffeehouse was born. It was followed by Deux Maggots, named after the St. Germain cafe. In quick succession followed the Ninth Circle and Max’s Kansas City. Although Mickey would have other venues, Max’s was his finest hour, his masterpiece.

At Max’s, pop art slowly mutated into punk, which was pop in a foul mood. From his position at the front of the restaurant, night by night, Mickey Ruskin witnessed the transformation. The patrons did too. “In the ’60s, ” as Marian Javits recalls, “the art world was looser and more expressive. Max’s was the place where artists could be themselves and exchange ideas. Everyone was infected by something, but it wasn’t drink. They were infected by what was going on in society. Then it began to decay.”

Ruskin summed up the change as the 70s progressed. “My job is to sort out the worst of the hangers-on from the best. That becomes a very hard job, and no matter what you do,, it’s still a hanger-on and not a star. The stars are gone. ”

In 1983, Mickey Ruskin died of a drug overdose. So many of Max’s patrons are gone-Diane Arbus, Tom Baker, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, Divine, Eric Emerson, Brian Epstein, Andrea Feldman, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, Al Grossman, Jimi Hendrix, Freddy Herko, Eva Hesse, Peter HuJar, Jacob Javits, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Bill King, John Lennon, Charles Ludlam, Bob Marley, Jim Morrison, Tiger Morse, Barnett Newman, Nico, Lillion Roxon, Robert Scull, Edie Sedgwick, Robert Smithson, Tinkerbelle, Andy Warhol, Nell Williams, Tennessee Williams, and
others-and with their deaths an era passed away.

Paul Taylor

They say its some terrorist, some
barbaric
A Rab, in
Afghanistan
It wasn’t our American terrorists
It wasn’t the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn’t Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring

It wasn’t
the gonorrhea in costume
the white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases

They say (who say? Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks

Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation

Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa

Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who had the match, who set the fires
Who killed and hired
Who say they God & still be the Devil

Who the biggest only
Who the most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble

Who created everything
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest

Who define art
Who define science

Who made the bombs
Who made the guns

Who bought the slaves, who sold them

Who called you them names
Who say Dahmer wasn’t insane

Who/ Who / Who/

Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philipines, Manhattan
Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese

Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who think you funny
Who locked you up
Who own the papers

Who owned the slave ship
Who run the army

Who the fake president
Who the ruler
Who the banker

Who/ Who/ Who/

Who own the mine
Who twist your mind
Who got bread
Who need peace
Who you think need war

Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ain’t nobody bigger

Who own this city

Who own the air
Who own the water

Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth

Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime

Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos

Who/Who/Who

Who own the ocean

Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own television
Who own radio

Who own what ain’t even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ain’t the real owners

Who own the suburbs
Who suck the cities
Who make the laws

Who made Bush president
Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying
Who talk about democracy and be lying
WHO/ WHO/ WHOWHO/

Who the Beast in Revelations
Who 666
Who decide
Jesus get crucified

Who the Devil on the real side
Who got rich from Armenian genocide

Who the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who don’t worry about survival

Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who the biggest executioner

Who/Who/Who ^^^

Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie
Who/ Who/ ???

Who fount Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
And cracking they sides at the notion

Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain’t goin’ nowhere

Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut
Who walked out of the Conference
Against Racism
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing?
Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?

Who invaded Grenada
Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later

Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,

Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane , Betty Shabazz, Princess Margaret, Ralph Featherstone, Little Bobby

Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia,Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
MedgarEvers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin’s head

Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said “America First”
and ok’d the yellow stars
WHO/WHO/ ^^

Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured , assassinated, vanished

Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,
Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,

Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who invented Aids Who put the germs
In the Indians’ blankets
Who thought up “The Trail of Tears”

Who blew up the Maine
& started the Spanish American War
Who got Sharon back in Power
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
Chiang kai Chek who WHO W H O/

Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
Reconstruction, The New Deal, The New
Frontier, The Great Society,

Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon’s mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus
Subsidere

Who overthrew Nkrumah, Bishop,
Who poison Robeson,
who try to put DuBois in Jail
Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs, Garvey,
The Scottsboro Boys, The Hollywood Ten

Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away ?
/
Who,Who, Who/
explosion of Owl the newspaper say
the devil face cd be seen Who WHO Who WHO

Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national oppression and terror
violence, and hunger and poverty.

Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful

Who you know ever
Seen God?

But everybody seen
The Devil

Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog

Like the acid of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO (+) who who ^
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!

AMIRI B 10/01

In reports coming out of Chentsa county in Malho eastern Tibet, the Lhamo Dechen monastery, the largest monastery in the region is currently reeling under a severe military lockdown.

At least 50 monks had gathered in front of the monastery on March 10 to commemorate the 53rd anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day. The monks had burned incense and raised slogans calling for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from exile and freedom in Tibet.

Sources in exile said that a planned march by the monks to Chentsa county town, some 25 kms away, was averted after local Tibetans appealed, fearing for the safety of the monks. Later, more than five military truckloads of Chinese armed personnel reportedly arrived at the monastery.

The monastery was on the security radar after the monks on March 8, during a religious ceremony, had created butter sculptures of the Dalai Lama and the ‘banned in Tibet’ Tibetan national flag as a traditional form of offering.

The intricately carved butter sculptures, clearly depicting an image of the Dalai Lama were kept on public display at the monastery.

In other reports, around a thousand Tibetans carried out a mass protest in Gepasumdo (Ch: Tongde) county on March 16 demanding the release of about 50 monks who were detained a day earlier for raising the Tibetan national flag and demanding freedom in Tibet.

“Over a thousand Tibetans converged at the county building and demanded that all the monks detained should be released,” US based Radio service RFA reported citing sources in the region.

“They persisted in the peaceful protests and the county government building was surrounded by police and paramilitary forces,” the report added.

A day earlier, about 200 monks from the Ba Shangtre monastery had raised the Tibetan flag at the Gepasumdo county in Tsolho, after marching on the streets carrying banners calling for freedom in Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama.

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