when bars were bars
thick
with
smoke
one rough man stood with scuffed work shoes
resting on the brass rail
picking whole raw onions
from a soup bowl on the bar
white
beneath peeled
thin skin
eating onions like apples
with salt and pepper
smeared with thick yellow butter
fat with flavor
biting into his second onion
before taking another bite
grinning before swallowing
he says
gimme a kiss
Did a Secret Service sniper hold Thomas Matthew Crooks in his rifle sights but not pull the trigger until after Crooks opened fire on former President Donald Trump and people around him at a Butler, Pennsylvania, political rally?
Did that Secret Service sniper wait for authorization to shoot that came only after Crooks wounded Trump, killed a man sitting in the stands with his family and shot two other men?
Did the Secret Service sniper enable Crooks to keep firing over and over again before finally killing the would-be presidential assassin?
These unconfirmed suspicions top the list of questions that remain unanswered as several investigations continue into the July 13th presidential assassination attempt.
Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris recently testified before a congressional hearing about the timeline of the shooting, providing his understanding of the number of shots Crooks fired.
“I believe that the number is eight,” Paris told the House Committee on Homeland Security. “Eight casings have been recovered.”
Did the Secret Service sniper who eventually killed Crooks watch him squeeze the trigger on his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle eight separate times before finally squeezing the trigger on his own rifle? Why didn’t the Secret Service sniper kill Crooks sooner? Do Secret Service snipers require supervisory approval before firing on a human target? Did the sniper who killed Crooks have the sole power to decide when to fire?
National news outlets have confirmed that seconds before the shooting began local police responded to reports of a suspicious man on the roof. When one officer hoisted another so he could see onto the roof, Crooks turned and pointed his rifle at him, news reports said. When that officer lost his grip and fell about eight feet to the ground he and the officer who hoisted him quickly notified colleagues about the man on the roof with a weapon, news reports said.
Police have not confirmed whom the two local officers alerted or how many seconds passed before Crooks opened fire. But did a Secret Service sniper already have Crooks in the crosshairs when the local officer ducked to keep from getting shot? If so, why didn’t the sniper shoot earlier?
National news reports speculate the Secret Service sniper teams, of which at least two were assigned to the rally, might have simply missed seeing Crooks until it was too late. Secret Service snipers do not need permission to shoot, those reports say.
Yet official skepticism surfaced recently when I spoke with a friend who said he had talked with a law enforcement officer who said he had spoken to other officers who had been assigned to the deadly Trump political rally in western Pennsylvania. News reports estimated about 100 federal, state and local law enforcement officers worked the Butler rally.
Despite quadruple hearsay my source is credible. So is the law enforcement officer to whom he said he spoke. Whether Pennsylvania police are spreading untrue rumors or shocking undisclosed facts, experienced cops are talking. When seasoned cops are talking people need to listen.
I’m a local news columnist seeking truth.
High-ranking government officials are responsible for delivering truth.
Experts must persist in investigating and presenting detailed answers that will hopefully better prepare law enforcement officials sworn to protect and serve the people and uphold the public trust. Full disclosure of all relevant facts in this tragedy might one day prevent another American presidential assassination. Shoddy inquiry only sets the stage for future carnage.
In this case, the public right to know is a matter of life and death.
A few years ago I paid Leo D’Angelo a couple hundred dollars for a suit. When I checked my closet this morning, I found a Mass card in one of the pockets of that black pinstripe suit I last wore to a first cousin’s funeral. That discovery alone illustrates the true value of the garment. I once bought a suit for $1,000 but rejected that outfit for the funeral. Instead I wore the suit I bought from Leo at LaSalle the Image Maker in Scranton’s South Side.
What Leo taught me over the years about style weaves a blessed design he sewed with golden thread into the fabric of his work as a master tailor and haberdasher who served his city, family and friends with unique style.
A handsome shock of thick white hair complemented his daily outfit. His suit matched his shirt that matched his tie that matched the puff sprouting from his breast pocket like a bright young flower in bloom. Dapper gentleman Leo D’Angelo carried himself with more old-world panache than any local moneybags lawyer, businessman, judge or elected official no matter how impressed any of them are with themselves.
Now, at 96, Scranton’s best-dressed man is gone.
Leo understood how a new “affordable” suit for a special occasion meant as much if not more than the $1,000 garb in which some men waltzed around town. The suits in which Leo outfitted me and countless others for a couple hundred bucks apiece made us more a part of the fiber of our city than any expensive suit from any pricy store. Let the pompous types scoff at an affordable suit. We know a snob when we see one — usually by his costume.
No better men’s store ever existed in Scranton than Leo’s. No place embroidered a better pattern of tradition onto the hearts of people who depended on Leo to meet the needs of proms, funerals, weddings or whatever other occasion that gives a man reason to get all dolled up. Leo might have turned me around a few times to fit me in front of the mirror, but he never turned his back on a customer.
Leo D’Angelo made every patron know he mattered as soon as he opened the door and entered the LaSalle fashion den cluttered with full clothing racks, antiques, display cases, nostalgic bric-a-brac and gadgets that filled the room. Downstairs, though, was where Leo worked his magic. Leaning over a sewing machine he could take an empty coal bag and turn it into a tuxedo, a master molding a garment like an Italian Renaissance sculptor in Florence molding a piece of clay.
Knowing his customers inside and out, inseam length and waist, sometimes from the time they were children, Leo offered his precious gift to anyone who bought a suit and felt the glow as soon as he tried on the jacket. Boys and men alike, people who didn’t usually wear a suit, left the store knowing Leo helped them dress for success, providing them with a bit more confidence walking out than they might have had walking into his men’s clothing emporium.
Leo knew I was partial to wide pinstripes. Clothes don’t make the man, Leo said, but they help. Telling me I was built for a particular size suit and making me feel like a dashing heavyweight champion, Leo understood the importance of presence. More importantly, he bestowed a fashionable street chic on those of us for whom he cared.
Other suits in my closet might have cost more money, but they lack the personal touch Leo gifted me and other customers that included members of the local New York Yankees farm team, a couple of real Yankees and the late famous actor and playwright Jason Miller who frantically flew home from California needing a suit when his mother died. Leo took care of Jason, providing swaddling comfort to Scranton’s sad savant.
My dad taught me to always fight one more round. Leo never quit, never retired, gave up or gave into the pressures of the toughest Scranton day.
Tonight, in Leo’s honor, I’ll put on my favorite black pinstripes for dinner at home. I’ll play Dean Martin music and cook macaroni in olive oil and garlic. And I’ll toast a man with flair who stood with me in my corner when others didn’t and who helped me get ready for whatever was coming my way.
“Nobody in Scranton ever had more class than Leo D’Angelo,” I’ll say when I raise my glass of red wine to my friend’s memory. “Nobody ever will.”
“Stop yelling at me, Shelly,” Hairball said to his old lady.
“Miss Richards called and said Morgan had beer on his breath at the Pre-K-graduation rehearsal,” Shelly said. “In case you forgot, Morgan is five years old.”
“I’m not the one who named a newborn baby boy after her favorite spiced rum,” said Hairball, whose Crushers Motorcycle Club brothers gave him his club name after watching him hacking so hard smoking dope one night he reminded them of a feral cat coughing up a hairball.
“If Miss Richards calls my parole agent he might send me back to finish my shoplifting sentence,” Shelly said.
“So we accuse the kid of breaking into my gun slash liquor cabinet,” Hairball said.
“That you keep unlocked and loaded around the clock,” said Shelly
“I told Morgan he can shoot my favorite deer rifle whenever he feels strong enough to lift that 30-30 cannon to his shoulder,” Hairball said. “You never know when the weightlifting I make him do every morning before he goes to school will pay off.”
“Maybe pumping iron with you in the cellar already did pay off,” Shelly said. “Miss Richards said Morgan told her she needed to get herself a real man like him.”
Hairball laughed so hard he choked like an alley cat gagging on fish bones.
“We’re he-men, me and Morgan,” he said when he caught his breath. “We got predator instincts you’ll never understand. Cavemen just like us killed all them dinosaurs extinct.”
“I’m serious, goddammit,” Shelly said. “I don’t want Morgan hunting sabre-tooth tigers at recess or drinking after shave lotion like you did last New Year’s Eve when we ran out of booze.”
“At least he’ll smell good at his funeral,” Hairball said. “And if he can’t drink what’s he going to do at our wedding reception when he gets tired chasing flower girls? Mommy’s going to deprive a thirsty little hillbilly a couple of cold ones?”
“I swear to God you better never let me catch you giving him alcohol here at home.”
“So why’d Santa bring him his own German beer stein last Christmas with his name and the Third Reich eagle engraved on the front?”
“For his juice!!!!”
“You’re the one told him his sippy cup made him look gay.”
“I mean it, Hairball.”
“Relax, Shelly, I only gave him one 16 ounce can of Reading beer last week when he needed a drink.”
“Why did he need a drink, Hairball?”
“Because he was crying.”
“Why was he crying????”
“Morgan said the needle ‘hurted’ his arm when I was finishing up coloring the hula girl he wanted for his first tattoo.”
Rising from the pile of frantic Secret Service agents shielding Donald Trump from further attack, the former president raised his fist in defiance. Screaming “Fight, fight, fight!” he electrified the world with his triumphant courage under fire.
The already chaotic 2024 presidential campaign exploded in a Butler, Pennsylvania, bloodbath Saturday afternoon with a homegrown assassin’s bullet tearing through Trump’s ear as he stood before a podium addressing a cheering crowd. A Trump supporter in the bleachers died from a head shot while two others suffered serious wounds. A police sniper terminated the 20-year-old white male suburban shooter.
Divine intervention, Trump told a reporter the following day.
Trump’s holier-than-thou hosanna set the stage for this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, still a traditional blue-collar American city where 40 percent of the people claim German ancestry. Bratwursts, pretzels and oompah music provide a beery backdrop to a heartland of patriotism heralding hard work, conservative family values and stubborn nationalist pride.
Throughout the week the faithful will unfurl a sea of American eagle embossed banners. Brass trumpets will pay tribute to America’s boldest military commander. Flag-wavers will rally behind America’s future tyrannical ruler whom tens of millions of loyal supporters nationwide (perhaps tens of millions more since Saturday) praise for unwavering leadership and guidance only rivaled by God.
Maybe it’s simply providence that Trump’s very own running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, once called Trump “America’s Hitler.”
With bucolic western Pennsylvania as a butchered backdrop, we who live and vote in the Commonwealth no longer serve as one of three crucial swing states. Pennsylvania voters will now lead the nation and send Trump back to the White House. For the record, we are home to the most residents of German American descent in the United States. Add Irish American voters prone to prejudice and the November election is a clean sweep for the GOP. The majority of an angry red United States will follow our lead.
Hail Trump.
I see no way for Democrats to avoid a Trump landslide victory. These elite pampered fools set the stage for their own defeat and the unbridled revenge to come in our twisted America. Democratic arrogance and mockery of working-class pain positioned these jackasses for defeat. Make no mistake about the possibility of imminent reactionary public policies. Despite all the recent talk from both mainstream political parties of dialing back the hate, Trump has already promised retribution.
People who inhabit Trump’s fatherland expect more payback than ever. Who knows how many men, women and children who attended the killer Butler rally hunger to get even with countless traitors to the cause? The assassination attempt only increased Trump’s authoritarian commitment to fight Democrats and liberals of any stripe, people Trump and his army target as true enemies of the people.
Good old-fashioned Second Amendment gunfire sealed the deal.
The deal?
What’s the deal, as President Joe Biden likes to say?
Here’s the deal: Responding to the assassination attempt, Biden gave up his re-election fight Sunday night as he sat pale and staring at a single camera during his bare Oval Office address, nebulizing a more human vision of tomorrow, shredding clarity into uncertainty. America’s president sacrificed his leadership on bended knee to marauding political barbarians at the White House gate who know the way in because they’ve been there before.
Biden quit.
In a nation awash in the blood of past assassinated presidents, Biden even forgot some of the most horrific American history that he of all people should keep at the forefront of his mind.
“But the idea — the idea that there’s political violence or violence in America like this is just unheard of,” Biden said Saturday night.
Unheard of?
The weeping ghosts of Lincoln and Kennedy alone should have been screaming in Biden’s head when he garbled history and lost track of his own assassinated presidential ancestors. Yet, he continued to whimper against the backdrop of an invisible white flag of surrender, frozen like a pale boxer sitting on his stool in the corner of the lonely ring, unable to answer the bell for the final round.
Democrats quickly backed off trying to push Biden off the ticket. Corporate media elites backed off making even legitimate criticism of Trump and his minions who will nonetheless continue portraying Democrats as vicious haters all the while ramping up their own symbolic assaults on Biden and his servile supporters.
No Democratic nominee, including Vice President Kamala Harris, can beat Trump. Prove me wrong, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton. Prove me wrong U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, my timid Scranton neighbor who for years has refused to sit with me for an interview. Prove me wrong opportunistic defense contractor puppet and Congressman Matt Cartwright who also refuses to talk with me as a constituent and veteran journalist.
Come November all these political aristocrats, along with crude slob U.S. Sen John Fetterman and Pennsylvania warmonger Zionist Gov. Josh Shapiro, will have helped their Democratic colleagues lose control of the U.S. House and Senate.
When the gun smoke cleared Trump rose like the mythic phoenix rising from the ashes. Even facing the deadliest obstacles Trump stands ready to issue orders and deal with those who disobey his commandments. When Trump ascended in triumph that fateful day in Pennsylvania with blood streaming down his face, countless voters behind him ascended as well. When Trump raised his fist, they raised their fists. When Trump resurrected, their hopes soared.
Trump’s gutsy crimson drama captured on countless videos will play across America until Election Day and beyond. Trump and his legions who love him will watch the replay again and again. Frenzied by the attack, their faith in Trump and his vision will surge.
When Trump emerges as victor expect a powerful new breed ready, willing and able to punish any betrayer who opposes their master’s mission to make America great again. Expect our sacred republic’s reawakened vengeful horde to watch us more closely than ever.
They’ll watch me.
They’ll watch you.
For us, it’s mourning in America.
For them, the future offers a brave new world.
JUNKIE
only slumping occasionally
hugging Quaaludes
on the Brewery barroom floor
short and sweet
skin dark as a florida winter suntan
pretty
shy
nobody should have called her
Debbie the Junkie
but we did
telling her she was driving everybody nuts
showing off
her dead boyfriend’s black onyx ring
she wore on a middle finger
promising to meet him soon
after killing herself like he did
on purpose with drugs
give it rest, Debbie, we said
so she did what she promised
and rest she did
eternal rest
buried by a stunned family
in an anthracite cradled grave
where I couldn’t visit
even if I wanted to
because I never knew her last name
doubtful her mother inscribed
Debbie the junkie
on the gray headstone
I couldn’t visit if I wanted
after more than 50 years
I wonder
if
that black onyx ring remains
buried in her coffin
like licorice Nibs left outside to stiffen
in countless hard coal country winters
where a sad young woman’s
cold bones
and that black onyx ring
lay forever silent
and alone
FIRE
devil flames awakened me
dancing on my bedroom window
in the rented red brick ranch house
where we lived
parallel to Routes 11 and 15
parallel to railroad tracks polished silver
parallel to the wide Susquehanna River
where Sonny and I fished for pregnant carp
and redneck catfish
we hammered with a nail
through the head
to a wooden board
to skin with needle-nose plyers
but
by the time I got to the trailer
in bare feet and pajama bottoms
to stare at
the inferno
red and orange fire
incinerating the man inside
to a blackened barbecued crisp
nothing I could do
at 14
but watch the trailer tomb burn
in billowing smoke plumes
near river water
unable to save him
in the trailer where he fried
nothing I could do
but learn
life and death lessons
that teach
me
how a man I couldn’t see
a man I didn’t know
could disappear
and
just go up in smoke.
As of now either Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Donald Trump will be elected America’s next commander-in-chief. Despite the deep dismal failings of the Democratic Party, I’d rather they win.
But I won’t help. I won’t vote for Biden. I might vote for Vice President Kamala Harris if she replaces her boss on the November ticket.
Biden will lose if he runs.
Harris will win if she runs only if Democrats unleash a massive support campaign by assembling everybody Trump Republicans hate to put her over the top and into the White House. Trump might still pull out the win, maybe even by a landslide. Strategically, Kamala is the Democrats’ best weapon.
I quit the Democratic Party this year because Biden-led Democrats are complicit in the American-financed Israeli genocide in Gaza. I vowed never to vote for any Democrat who endorsed Biden’s support for Israeli zealots. If Kamala promises to help Palestinians rather than stand blindly with the exterminator Jewish state, I’ll think about voting for her.
When I voted for Biden in 2020 I actually voted for Harris. The ticket needed me to help beat Trump, whom I consider a madman capable of anything. The Democrats needed me even though not one Democrat among that pampered party extended me the courtesy of asking for my help.
America needed me. Now America needs Biden. We need the decrepit, self-absorbed 81-year-old to leave the ticket and make way for a fresh resurgence of leadership and the future of democracy.
Biden can step aside gracefully.
At least now he can step aside gracefully.
I won’t be surprised if Biden succumbs to physical and mental stress before the November election and collapses from a stroke or heart attack and even dies. The man has already suffered two brain aneurysms. Surgeries for those severe medical conditions occurred in 1988, 36 years ago when Biden was 45 years old and far more lucid than he is today.
Harris turns 60 one month before Election Day, a decade younger than Oprah who might make a good running mate. Just kidding. Whoever does run with Kamala, and I don’t mean Hillary, Michelle Obama or Beyoncé, will only add to her Black power.
White and Black women will vote for Kamala. Latinas will vote for Kamala. Uncommitted women will vote for Kamala. LGBTQ+ people will vote for Kamala. Potheads will vote for Kamala. Some traitor Republicans will vote for Kamala. Countless independent men across America will vote for Kamala too. If the Lord Almighty comes down, he’ll probably vote for Kamala as well.
Add more votes for Democrats depending on whom party puppeteers and donors choose to run with her. Pennsylvania rookie Gov. Josh Shapiro is a possibility. The wannabe Israeli prime minister and unbridled political opportunist can bring the swing from Commonwealth voters.
“Bring the swing!” even sounds like a sappy PR script for a flashy TV commercial geared to entice woke suburban Philadelphia women who will sucker for a nice interracial couple on the ticket. Like Kamala’s husband, Josh is a Jew too!
Except for obedient soldiers following orders and standing with Israel, most other voters from demographic groups I named will not vote for Biden if he remains on the ticket.
Democrats will lose.
America will lose.
Rednecks will win. Some particularly narrow-minded men will get so excited about Trump they’ll donate their already late child support checks to this gold-plated good old boy who brought us Jan. 6. Half of America is comprised of rednecks and tens of millions of them, more than the last time, including their women, will vote for Trump. Never forget that every Trump voter is a redneck at heart and proud of it.
This time Trump might really hang Mike Pence.
I have to admit I do like a good fight.
So if Trump does win, blame Biden, not me. Blame dirty, double-dealing Democrats, not me. Blame the Lord Almighty, not me.
Even without my vote Kamala Harris can win the White House. We need her public service experience. We need her prosecutorial savvy. We need her laugh. If Kamala flashes that big smile that’s even better than Biden’s and gets the nation laughing at Trump during a televised debate, Trump won’t know how to act.
For Kamala to win, Biden has to publicly withdraw from the re-election race and tell his delegates to support Kamala before the Aug. 9th Democratic National Convention begins. I’d prefer if Biden resigns from office immediately and Kamala takes over as soon as possible. Biden needs to accept reality while he’s still able to discern reality.
Time marches on, man.
No more malarkey.
BROTHERS
Helo’s quick to tell you
the road recognizes its own
riding his heavy metal Harley
fierce Viking beard in the wind
tattooed fists clutching black grips
retired Marine instincts firing on all cylinders
on a solo run through the country
when Helo spots a 400-pound bruiser bear on all fours
on the same stretch of open road
Appalachian American cousins
Perry County flesh and blood
animals against the world
Helo says the bear was one
of the most
righteous wild beasts
he ever saw
if only he could fit
Brother bear
into a cut-off denim vest
with one-percenter
club colors
patched
across the back
like a ferocious fire god
guarding the gates of paradise
When you see the photograph of me toasting life with a cold can of Tecate Mexican beer you know you came to the right place. Like a favorite bar where you can turn over a table without the owner calling the cops, my “Beat Poems” welcomes vagabonds, drifters and the unhinged.
This new website feature drives us down a rare road on my writing journey.
For the most part I don’t like poetry.
I don’t like most poets, either.
Smug, safe and non-controversial, they pose like soft pets congratulating themselves and patting each other on the backside of timid experience. Give me the call of the wild over domestic spa animals any day, even in my golden years.
The best poetry threatens to start a riot. The best poetry isn’t about walking through fog or frosty fallen snow on little pussycats’ feet. The best poetry twists the system and the mind. The best poetry turns over the table.
Few people know I started writing by writing poems. When I was 15 a high school English teacher, Mr. Maguire, loaned me his 1960 Grove Press copy of The New American Poetry. Just beginning to teach myself how to fight the Establishment, I plagued Mr. Maguire in and out of class. Many years later we spoke on the phone when he found himself fighting the educational system and it dawned on me we were on the same side. The late Mr. Maguire deserves credit and blame for helping awaken this Frankenstein word monster that walks among us.
I still have that yellowed paperback poetry anthology on a sacred shelf in my office library. I wonder if it’s the same copy Mr. Maguire loaned me. If so, he never asked me to return the book. Passing the torch might be cliché but like most clichés holds the essence of truth. Beat poet ghosts run amok in the collection, showing deserving readers that rhyme and reason don’t have to go hand in hand.
Beat poetry lives. America even boasts its own “lifetime” Beat Poet Laureate. Kentucky Gonzo holy man Ron Whitehead once asked me if I wrote poetry, a puzzling question that left me feeling a little empty. Tempting and taunting, Whitehead stealthily recruited me the way a shaman poet must.
So I filled my tank and continue the ride, entering the molten center of a white-hot sunset where beat poets make rain, hurl lightning bolts at polite society and thunder our message through the ages.
Watch out for the Tecate can. Read my raw, unedited, free beer party poems. Learn the lessons of the sages as we drink in the mountains. Do not, though, I repeat, do not walk through fog or frosty fallen snow on little pussycats’ feet.
You might get lost and freeze to death.