Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
The pharmacies in Brooklyn would sell you anything during the 1950's.
I first obtained the ingredients for gunpowder in 1955, when I was ten
years old, by looking up any pharmaceutical value the ingredients of
gunpowder (sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrite) possessed. Then I
forged a note that read, "I give my son Alan Weberman permission to
buy charcoal because he has a stomach ache and it helps him. Sara
Weberman." I bought each ingredient at a different pharmacy. Some
of the pharmacists were skeptical and did not believe I suffered from
the condition described in the notes. But they all sold the chemicals to
me. What did I do with the gunpowder after I made it? I put it on a
round metal tray, placed the tray on the toilet seat in my family's
LES FLEUR DE MAL bathroom and ignited it. The tray was so thin that the god dam toilet
seat caught on fire!!! My parents could not believe their eyes when they tried to use it!! This
episode makes me recall the anti-war slogan - "Nixon, liar, we gonna set your ass on fire!"
I had some other rackets going before I adopted a socialist morality. When I was 9 I obtained
stock certificates from bankrupt companies (my dad was an attorney), and sold them to the kids
on my block, assuring them a high rate of return on their allowances. When my father received
complaints from the kid’s parents he said, "You are nine years old and you committed a Federal
crime!! This is a violation of the Securities and Exchange Act!!" I reluctantly returned all the kids
stinking allowances and apologized to their parents telephonically. When I was 10 I invited a
rather slow think kid named Eddy Greenspan over to my parent’s apartment when they were not
there to witness my crime. Then I slipped a pair of leg irons I had purchased at an Army surplus
store on Cortland Street on Eddy and refused to release him until he signed a Last Will and
Testament leaving everything he owned to me. This was a great Army surplus store – they
would sell a kid like me, who looked like his mother dressed him, ANYTHING. I purchased all
sorts of knives there along with DDT bombs that looked like little CO2 capsules. I took several of
these bombs to summer camp and when a counselor fucked with me I set one off in his face.
He beat the shit out of me but is now probably dead of cancer. Later Eddy told me that since his
Last Will and Testament was written under duress it was invalid. I guess he had sought legal
advice. While attending Lefferts Junior High School I obtained information that one David Held’s
mother had been committed to a mental institution. The information was passed on to me in this
fashion: “Held’s mother’s a nut.” Back in the 1950’s there was a tremendous stigma attached to
mental illness, especially in the Jewish Community. Instead of having sympathy for this boy who
had to grow up bereft of a mother, I fucking blackmailed him. I told him that if he didn’t give me
his lunch money every day I would tell everyone his mother was a nut. David made the tragic
error of giving into blackmail and for several months turned over his money to me. One day
when I was making my collection Held went nuts. He said he could not take it anymore. But
before he could attack me Stevie Kurshner and Bruce Mann beat the crap out of him. David
Held lived in a building on Flatbush Avenue and Lincoln Road that became the center of
controversy after a Judge sentenced its Jewish landlord to live under the conditions he allegedly
created for his tenants. The problem here is that before the Jamaicans took over the hood there
was no problem with this building. They destroyed it but the liberals could not handle this so
they blamed it on the owner. By the time I got to Erasmus Hall High School I was already a
beatnik but retained some Brooklynese characteristics such as an interest in racing sheets. A
boy sitting in back of me, Jeffrey Knapp, offered to take my bets. It was then I coined this adage
“It is better to take bets than to place them” based on “it is better to give then to receive.” When I
got to college, Michigan State University, I received information that a student named Steven
Lupoff had lied about his grades to other students. Lupoff’s father owned a pharmacy in Detroit.
I tore out the index to a book entitled Drugs And The Mind and checked off various drugs I was
interested in such as Mescaline. I told Stevie that if he didn’t steal the drugs I had checked off
from his father everyone would be informed of his real grade point average. He agreed to the
deal with the Devil. When he returned after Winter break he pleaded with me, “I tried but there is
no disease that is cured by Mescaline or LSD. My father had none but I did bring you these.” I
looked at the label, it said “Antorax Children’s tranquillizer.” Another said “Chlorpromazine.” I
said, “I guess these will have to do” and I popped a few. Not only did they not get me high but
they got me straight.
REEFER
In the 1960s and early '70s, the first generation of hackers emerged in university computer-
science departments. They transformed mainframes into virtual personal computers, using a
technique called time sharing that provided widespread access to computers. Then in the late
'70s, the second generation invented and manufactured the personal computer. These
nonacademic hackers were hard-core counterculture types - like Steve Jobs, a Beatle-haired
hippie who had dropped out of Reed College, and Steve Wozniak, a Hewlett-Packard engineer.
Before their success with Apple, both Steve’s developed and sold "blue boxes," outlaw devices
for making free telephone calls. Their contemporary and early collaborator, Lee Felsenstein,
who designed the first portable computer, known as the Osborne 1, was a New Left radical who
wrote for the renowned underground paper the Berkeley Barb.
As they followed the mantra "Turn on, tune in and drop out," college students of the '60s also
dropped academia's traditional disdain for business. "Do your own thing" easily translated into
"Start your own business." Reviled by the broader social establishment, hippies found ready
acceptance in the world of small business. They brought honesty and a dedication to service
that was attractive to vendors and customers alike. Success in business made them disinclined
to "grow out of" their countercultural values, and it made a number of them wealthy and
powerful at a young age.
The third generation of revolutionaries, the software hackers of the early '80s, created the
application, education and entertainment programs for personal computers. Typical was Mitch
Kapor, a former transcendental-meditation teacher, who gave us the spreadsheet program
Lotus 1-2-3, which ensured the success of IBM's Apple-imitating PC. Like most computer
pioneers, Kapor is still active. His Electronic Frontier Foundation, which he co-founded with a
lyricist for the Grateful Dead, lobbies successfully in Washington for civil rights in cyberspace.
In the years since Levy's book, a fourth generation of revolutionaries has come to power. Still
abiding by the Hacker Ethic, these tens of thousands of netheads have created myriad
computer bulletin boards and a nonhierarchical linking system called Usenet. At the same time,
they have transformed the Defense Department-sponsored ARPAnet into what has become the
global digital epidemic known as the Internet. The average age of today's Internet users, who
number in the tens of millions, is about 30 years. Just as personal computers transformed the
'80s, this latest generation knows that the Net is going to transform the '90s. With the same
ethic that has guided previous generations, today's users are leading the way with tools created
initially as "freeware" or "shareware," available to anyone who wants them.
Of course, not everyone on the electronic frontier identifies with the countercultural roots of the
'60s. One would hardly call Nicholas Negroponte, the patrician head of M.I.T.'s Media Lab, or
Microsoft magnate Bill Gates "hippies." Yet creative forces continue to emanate from that
period. Virtual reality - computerized sensory immersion - was named, largely inspired and
partly equipped by Jaron Lanier, who grew up under a geodesic dome in New Mexico, once
played clarinet in the New York City subway and still sports dreadlocks halfway down his back.
The latest generation of supercomputers, utilizing massive parallel processing, was invented,
developed and manufactured by Danny Hillis, a genial longhair who set out to build "a machine
that could be proud of us." Public-key encryption, which can ensure unbreakable privacy for
anyone, is the brainchild of Whitfield Diffie, a lifelong peacenik and privacy advocate who
declared in a recent interview, "I have always believed the thesis that one's politics and the
character of one's intellectual work are inseparable."
Our generation proved in cyberspace that where self-reliance leads, resilience follows, and
where generosity leads, prosperity follows. If that dynamic continues, and everything so far
suggests that it will, then the information age will bear the distinctive mark of the countercultural
'60s well into the new millennium.
Does the underground ever get credit for this? Does pot ever get credit?
All we get is Newt Gingrich blaming the counterculture for Afro-American
crime by accusing us of breaking down moral standards in the 1960's.
Newt was once in the underground, in fact he was the editor of an
underground newspaper. Newt Gingrich smoked pot, and introduced a
bill to ease federal restrictions on medical marijuana in 1981. On March 19, 1982 he wrote in the
Journal of the American Medical Association,
We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to
obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. Federal policies
do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana's use as a medicant.
Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie Bennett, who came down on pot smoker's as drug czar in 1990's, had
an addiction problem that he fed in Lost Wages. These men should be put on trial along with
Usama Bin Laden for September 11th, as they had the Feds so focused on the drug thing, with
THE PARTNERSHIP FOR DRUG FREE AMERICA, that the Islamist scum were overlooked.
Another guilty party is Bill Clinton, the happy-time party cat who let the Feds go off in the
direction they chose because he was having his asshole reamed by a high-level groupie!
President Clinton smoked pot. But he did not inhale. What a liar. Who would have ever thought
to say this?
I WANT TO FILE ASSAULT CHARGES AGAINST THE RABBI WHO CIRCUMCISED ME!!
Hey, I never had my dogs' balls cut off and I never will. They call it
"neutering." What the fuck does that mean? That the dog is "neutral" like
Switzerland allegedly was during World War II? I call it castration! These
bitches at the dog run tell me, "Oh he has a much less chance of getting
testicular cancer if you have him neutered." No shit! By that same
reasoning I should have my heart removed then I would have a much less
chance of getting a heart attack. Pugs motto is "Jump 'em Hump 'em and Dump 'em" and he
already knocked up a bitch at the dog run. Now he prefers males...he tries to cornhole them
unceasingly. I would have hated to have him as a cellmate....so what if my pug is a homo thug?
What am I supposed to do? Return him to Christopher Street Pets?
Like 99% of the people in America believed in Christianity but the Jews didn't. This sowed the
seeds of dissention in the Jewish psyche, since the majority was not always right. If we put it up
for a vote Jesus would win hands down, at least in America. If we put it up for a vote worldwide
Mohammad would have a landslide. Nonetheless, I dont go for any of that shit. I had this
fantasy of going to Ireland while the IRA was active there and like going on the radio and giving
a speech: "What the fuck are you killing each other for assholes? Both Catholicism and
Protestantism are both equally absurd delusions. Get your acts together and give up the
bullshit." I would have gotten my ass kicked by both sides.
Having been born just as the war ended it was bound to have
had an effect on my brain. I don’t remember when it was I
found out I was Jewish, it was just always something I knew.
What Jewish meant to me then was people waiting in line to
get gassed. Why wait in an orderly line? What the fuck was
wrong with the European Jews, why didn’t they fight back more
than they did? This thought bugged many intelligent kidz at the
time. In Hebrew School we talked of possible extermination in
America. The answer was "They will get the Negroes first." We
figured the Nazis hated the blacks more than the Jews
because the blacks committed a lot of violent crime. When I studied the Nazis later in life I found
exactly the opposite was true. The Nazis didn’t want to gas all the blacks - they just wanted to
send them back to Africa. It was the Jews that the gas chambers were reserved for. I also did
not know that the Jews were ignorant as to the real intentions of the Nazis but they should have
known something was up when they were separated from their children. The only good nazi is a
dead nazi. So I modeled myself to be the exact opposite of the Nazis. Why worry about being
clean when the nazis bathed regularly? Why listen to classical music when the "civilized" nazis
listened to classical music? Why not be a fucking communist, like those who defeated the Nazi
scum? Who knew what was going on inside the USSR at the time. I became a short wave
listener and tuned into Radio Moscow, which had very powerful transmitters at the time. In my
public school yearbook it stated that I listened to Radio Moscow, which my parents felt would
follow me through life. Shit, the first time I wrote to a socialist organization the Feds contacted
my father. They had a mail cover on the group and since this was my first contact with the left,
they told my father I could have another chance if I never contacted a leftist group again. During
the anti-war period the Feds contacted everyone who subscribed to the Yipster Times. I had to
go to John Shattuck of the American Civil Liberties Union to get them to stop. America is a free
country as long as you dont try and exercise your freedom. You are free to obey, free to
conform. Shit, you can dress anyway you like, mutilate yourself to your hearts content, but dont
cross over certain bounds.
I never believed in religion from the word go but was forced to observe the tenants of orthodox
Judaism by my father, who dug the lick. I was forced to go to the Prospect Park Synagogue,
which had moved from a walk up above a supermarket on Flatbush Avenue. My first memories
are of this walk up house of prayer and a dude named Joe Barth, whose wife couldn't have kids,
praying like a motherfucker with his tallis over his head. I never prayed, I only pretended to,
rocking back and forth and mumbling. What difference did it make. I couldn't understand what I
was saying in Hebrew. I was taught to read and write Hebrew but not to speak it. Modern
Hebrew is as difficult as Chinese to learn, there are no vowels, so a lot of immigrants to Israel
can speak it but not read it. But a Jewish education, as absurd as it is focusing on superstition
like don’t turn on lights on the Sabbath, is a good way to teach you to think. If you can memorize
all these commandments your brain would have had some good exercise. Yeah, I have to admit
that I believe Jews are smarter than the rest. Many are professionals, scholars, Noble prize
winners or like really rich. But what Jews really excel at is figuring out ways to destroy
themselves. Both the Jews and the Muslims voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry - the Jews to
destroy themselves, the Muslims to destroy America! Kerry would have tried to gut the Patriot
Act - hey the Patriot Act is aimed at Muslims, not at the general population. And guess what -
the feds did black bag jobs, obtained confidential records and a whole lot of other things long
before the Patriot Act was passed. Maybe they couldn't use the info in court but it didn't really
matter since there is no justice - just ice - if you go to trial. The Feds have a 90% conviction rate
- tantamount to a court martial. If you have the temerity to question their investigative ability you
gonna sit for ten years my man! And guess what, while you be waiting to go to trial - if you can't
make bail or are denied bail - you be living under worse conditions than after you are convicted.
Hey, I been there sports fans.
I have never read the Bible. I figure I might as well wait until I get thrown in jail to do so. (First
thing I did when they tossed me into The Union County Jail in Jersey was beg for a bible. The
dude I was locked up with went to Erasmus, the same High School I attended, so I asked him to
sing "On Erasmus, On Erasmus Fight on to your Fame" with me. He was a big black dude who
tossed some drugs while the cops were chasing him. He had the top bunk and his feet dangled
down. I felt like Huck Finn on that raft in the river, locked up but free. I had Aron Morton Kay call
the dudes wife and tell her he was clinkified at the crossbar inn because the brother couldn't do
it himself for some reason.
Who the fuck knows why but from the word go I never
fit in the mold. Yeah, I went to PS 241, where I peed in
my pants and left a big wet circle on the floor. The
teacher tried to figure out who did by reconstructing
who sat where. That fucking building was a fucking
maze to me and I had to leave little bits of paper in the
hallways when I went to the bathroom on the first floor
to find my way back. Fear. Fear. Fear permeated the
Jewish community that survived in America, fear they
didn't know even existed. Death. Gas chambers. Roundups. American Jews came real close to
mass death and this left an imprint on their psyches. Then there was the fear that Jews would
be labeled as Communists due to the Rosenbergs and so many others. The Rosenbergs were
guilty of either trying to steal America's atomic secrets or stealing America's atomic secrets -
there is no doubt about that. I went through the entire Rosenberg file at the FBI reading room
and the sketch that they transmitted to the Russians resembled a diagram of an atomic device
that some of my associates in the Underground Press published in a Wisconsin newspaper.
What they were also guilty of was gratitude to the Soviet Union for defeating Hitler and saving
their lives. America would never have entered World War Two but for the attack on Pearl
Harbor. Sixty-five percent of Americans were isolationists. The Germans were the largest ethnic
group that immigrated here. This image we have of a little old American lady sitting in front of
her radio in the 1940's listening to war reports and saying: "Sonny we got to go over there and
fight Hitler" is a load of shit. It was more likely "Let’s not get involved in a war for the Jews."
Hitler dug Amerika. He wrote in Mein Kampf that unlike the conquerors of Latin America, the
Americans did not intermix with the indigenous population. Like the rest of Mein Kampf this
statement is historically inaccurate. American slave owners could not stay out of the slave
quarters and although blacks were considered only a fraction human they were human enough
to fuck the shit out them. This created the race of blacks we see here in America. The first time I
saw an African, on a beach in Tel Aviv in 1959, I could not believe it. They looked so much
different than American blacks. Well, shit those were Victorian times and everyone was horny.
But my take on this is that the Constitution said that Blacks were only two thirds human beings.
By implication this means that the other third was animal. So any slave owner that fucked three
of his slaves was fucking someone who the founding fathers considered an animal and should
have been busted under the laws against beastiality.
Hitler dug America for other reasons. The Americans exterminated the natives or sent them to
concentration camps (not death camps) known as reservations. They gave the Indians blankets
contaminated with smallpox, germ warfare that even Hitler temporarily shunned. The
Rosenbergs had a false picture of life in the Soviet Union, they never visited there but were
taken in by CPUSA propaganda. I do not believe they were evil people, just deluded and victims
of the Second World War.
FIRECRACKERS
This little piece of knowledge came in handy later on in life. It was 1980 and Aron Kay and I
were hitchhiking back from a Yippie Conference in Columbus, Ohio. It was a strange night: First
we got picked up by a military policeman whose ambition was to join United States Customs so
that one day he could take a bribe and become rich. He knew there was no other way this was
going to happen. Then a dude in an antique car picked us up. A skinny dark haired Italian junkie
from Brooklyn, the kind of guy even the Mafia wouldn't touch. The evil that Brooklyn could
produce often gave me cause to wonder. This dude was all scarred up and began to reminisce
about the various accidents he had been in. Aron, who had a big scar on his neck from an old
auto accident began to chime in about his mishap. I didn’t dig the conversation in the least.
When he stopped off to get gas the dude bought us some food and asked us where we lived
and if he could come upstairs and make a telephone call. I told him we lived on McDougal
Street in the village. When we got to the Holland tunnel and stopped for the toll I opened the
door and Aron and I got out quickly. The dude drove off. The cops saw us and told us if we were
still there when they returned we were busted. Luckily we were pretty well known in New York
City at the time and someone who recognized us gave us a lift home. I went over to my buddy
Lenny's pad on Sixth Avenue. Lenny was a professional poker player who collected antique
cars. I picked up a newspaper Lenny had lying about and there was an article about a dude who
had placed an a classified ad in a newspaper stating that he wished to sell his antique car, the
same make and model car that we had just driven in with the psychopath. The dude lived in
Pennsylvania. When the guy arrived to look at the short, he pulled a gun, tied up the owner and
stole the car. That was the last time I hitchhiked...
One problem that Jewish people have is that they are too civilized. Non-Jews dont have this
problem, they have another one: civilization is merely a veneer that can be stripped off at any
moment. Koshering meat means civilizing meat, as if meat could be civilized? But the Bible
implies that you are what you eat. What this boils down to is draining the blood and salting it to
get rid of the blood. Like I think the first commandment is not eat the flesh of an animal while it is
still alive. Like it is hard for me to picture a bunch of Hebrews getting together and each taking
turns taking bites out of a live cow. They must have eaten smaller animals while they were still
alive. It also means only eating animals with a split hoof that chew their cud, only eating fish with
scales. Now as a garbologist I was at first offended by the fact that Jews were not allowed to eat
creatures that were scavengers like lobsters. I was a scavenger. What in the fuck was wrong
with scavengers? Then I realized that these creatures were high in cholesterol and especially
unhealthy. It was also kewl to kill animals in a humane fashion, humane for the times at least.
Animals are eventually going to die, why not slaughter them before this happens and recycle
them as food? That's why eating veal is uncool. Veal is baby cow so the animal is not given a
chance to live and reproduce. Chickens that are locked in small cages all their lives are also
uncool. But if an animal lives out its life and is going to croak anyway recycle the fucker. But
dont pig out on the stuff. One needs about half the size of a normal American portion to thrive.
MY MOTHER
My mom, Sara Weberman, was no dummy. She was the personal secretary of Rita Sands, a
member of the Board of Education who was paid $1. a year by the city for her services. This,
however, turned me into what is now known as....
My father was Orthodox, my mother was secular. This made for strange
karma. When my father suspected my mother was buying non-kosher food, he
went through our garbage and read the labels. This inspired me to go through
Dylan's garbage and become the first garbologist. I went to P.S. 241 in
Brooklyn, instead of to Yeshiva; however, during the summertime I attended Camp Maple Lake,
an Orthodox Jewish summer camp. Suddenly, I was forced to pray three times a day, wear a
Kippur, and observe the laws of the Sabbath. I took out my frustrations on my bunkmate, Salo
Belkin, the son of the President of Yeshiva University. Salo was in an automobile accident, and
was retarded. This, I felt, was a major factor in his being a true believer in Judaism, and I gave
him many a chance to demonstrate his loyalty to the Jewish faith.
I brought Salo to a remote part of Camp Maple Lake. I grabbed his yarmulke then ran. I
reminded Salo that the Torah forbade him to walk without his head covered in the presence of
God for more than four feet. Later I learned that there was no such commandment. It was
merely custom that caused Jews to cover their heads, not the word of God. Salo was
PARALYZED. I left the yarmulke on the ground just out of his reach. If he stretched his body
enough he could get his yarmulke back and be on his way. Salo lay down on the ground on his
stomach, extended his arm, and reached for it with all his might ---- but he couldn't get it,
proving, God did not exist.
Salo never finished his evening prayers on time. I finished on time, since I
never really prayed, but merely pretended to do so, rocking back and forth
and moving my lips as if I was reading the Hebrew words that I could not
understand. Belkin finished his prayers in the back room of the bunkhouse,
after everyone was asleep. I came in there one night, while Belkin was in
the middle of the Shamona Esrick, a prayer where you are forbidden to walk
or talk, and I shut the light off, making it impossible for him to finish. I
reminded Salo "No walking or talking during the Shemona Esrick!!!" Since
he was in the middle of the prayer, Salo was forced to stay in the backroom,
unable to call for help and unable to move. He was paralyzed by his religion.
At approximately 4:00 a.m. one of my fellow campers had to use the john. He discovered Salo
and released him. He described Salo as having been "foaming at the mouth or frothing at the
mouth."
The esteemed Rabbi Belkin visited Camp Maple Lake. My camp counselors, Alan Dershowitz
and Daniel Chill, made me return everything I had stolen from Belkin, so he would have some
stuff in his cubby when his father arrived. I gave him back his stuff, knowing I could steal it again
after Rabbi Belkin left. While stealing Salo's stuff for a second time around, I found a Kodak
flash camera loaded with film. Rabbi Belkin also left a mailing envelope with his home address
on it, so Salo could mail him the film and he could have it developed. I called my friend Tanny
Berman. Tanny and I entered the bunkhouse when it was empty, and got the camera from
Salo's cubby. I pulled down my pants. Now most kids would have mooned the Rabbi, but I had
Tanny take close up shots of my pecker. (I had one public hair at the time). I mailed the film to
the Rabbi. Salo got to keep the camera because it would be evidence against him when his
father tried to determine whose hairless pecker was in the pictures. Salo had been Oswalded!
I never could figure out what happened to those pictures, no one complained, or mentioned
anything about them, ever. Alan Deshowitz did the O.J. Simpson case. Danny Chill was an
attorney for Bernard Bergman, who ran a series of old age homes where old Jewish people
were neglected.
Salo only lived for 43 years. I was extremely sad to discover this and realized that I loved Salo
Belkin. I attributed my actions to the human condition.
We were all super-horney in those days. One of my fellow campers, Norbert Ecstein, heard that
there was a prostitute by the name of Mary Vega in Manhattan. When we returned from camp,
Norbert got the Manhattan white pages and called up every Mary Vega in it, to inquire if she
was the Mary Vega who was a prostitute.
I was always into running operations only back in the 1950’s I had no one in particular to run
them against so anyone within my proximity was destined to have big problems. I was like into
photography and turned my parent’s bathroom into a dark room. I also bought a tripod in Times
Square thinking this would automatically give me access to photographing naked chicks. I stole
a stereo camera from Lafayette Radio on 6th Avenue along with a 35 mm camera. I really didn’t
have too many subjects so I took pictures of the people in my building including photos of a
“Mr.Furst” whose apartment faced my room via a courtyard. When Mr. Furst died I figured out a
great plan to basically drive the widow Mrs. Furst fucking nuts. Now what I did was to project,
not a positive image, but a negative image of Mr. Furst into Mrs. Furst’s apartment real late at
night so she would think her husband had come back to haunt her. What did Mrs. Furst do to
deserve this sort of thing? Absolutely nothing. Her only crime was living next to a maniac. Then
there was another couple across the courtyard that would get into screaming arguments very
late at night, usually on Sundays. The fight would begin shortly after Jean Shepard signed off
the air on WOR radio. I had built a carbon arc lamp out of two carbon electrodes found in D cell
batteries to which I soldered 115 volt zip cord to their metal tips and mounted them in a box.
When I plugged the zip cord into the wall gave off a blinding light from the arc. I pointed it at the
window in question and the entire apartment lit up. “It’s that crazy kid in 4-N again” then the
argument stopped. They realize they had worse enemies than each other. Perhaps my most
destructive operation was when I purchased long hollow glass tubes on Canal Street just the
diameter of a self igniting wooden kitchen match stick. I put the match in the tube and propelled
it forward with my breath. Basically I turned it into a blow gun. When the
when the match hit the brick in the other side of the courtyard it would
ignite. The next time the couple across the way had a fight I took my blow
gun and aimed just above the top of their window so lit matches came
falling down one after another. “Now he’s trying to set our apartment on fire”
I heard the lady yell. They reported me to the super who told my parents I
would be arrested for arson if anything caught fire. Later I observed that the
couple had the Wall Street Journal delivered to them every day so I
attributed my operation to class warfare. I had a crush on the girl who lived in the apartment
directly below me but she was like older than me so I did the only thing a red-blooded American
13 year old boy would have done absent the existence of pinhole cameras. I built a periscope
so I could watch her get undressed however she didn’t get undressed that often so there was a
of dead time involved.
There were relatively harmless pranks compared to what my associate Robert Schoonmaker
cooked up for some noisy neighbors who lived above him.