Thursday, April 07, 2005

POTUS 20: Pres. James Garfield


click to enlarge


President James A. Garfield, (POTUS 20) is another short-timer, whose Presidency ran from March 1881 - September 1881. His term in office ran about 200 days. He was shot by a deranged lawyer, but survived; he was finally killed, 80 days later, by his team of doctors.

We mainly remember him today as one of the assasinated Presidents. His assassin, attorney Charles Guiteau believed that God had ordered him to kill the President. Guiteau stalked the President for weeks, and passed up one opportunity to shoot Garfield because his wife was present.

He was the first left-handed President. He sometimes entertained friends by writing Latin with one hand and Greek with the other (woah!). He was the last president born in a log cabin.
---o0o---

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

A Keith Haring Mural Shortly Before Its Destruction


click to enlarge

This is a Polaroid of a Keith Haring mural shortly before it was painted over (!!). You can see that taggers had already been making inroads on the painting. . .
---o0o---

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Hillbilly Cred


Click to enlarge - Jack and Dell Galvin, 1953

To prove that I do have Hillbilly cred, I submit this photo. It's 1953 and I am teething on my step-grandfather Dell's hook arm. He lost his hand at a sawmill or on the railroad (there was another missing limb in the family and I can't remember which was which).
---o0o---

POTUS 37: Pres. Richard Milhous Nixon - Tricky Dick And The Comedy Of Errors


Click to enlarge

When I lived in NYC, we used to visit The Ex-President's house (All This Is That, December 8, 2004).

President Nixon was actually the last of the liberal Republican presidents--social spending was at an all-time high under The Nixon Administration. The country, however, seemed to visibly crumble under the domestic spying, break-ins, misinformation campaigns, Kent State, prosecution of the Chicago 7, massive anti-war demonstrations, the bombing of Cambodia, hardhats and Hell's Angels attacking peace marchers. . .and all the other outrages committed and encouraged by Nixon's henchmen, a band of misanthropic thugs. President Nixon's long smoldering resentments, doubts about his own self-worth, and his paranoia about The Kennedys would eventually sink his presidendcy.

The war against North Vietnam raged on with increased troop levels, saturation bombing, napalm napalm napalm, and massive body counts. The body count became a feature of every nightly news broadcast. On the plus side of the ledger, President Nixon reached out to both Russia and China, and set the stage for the later upheavals in Russia, up to and including the fall of communism. He opened China up to diplomacy and trade and sat with Mao Zedong.

After resigning in disgrace in August, 1974, Nixon hid out in California a couple of years, and then moved to NYC. He went on to write numerous books on foreign policy, and unofficially (with no public fanfare) advise every President until the day he died. If you want a fascinating read on Richard Nixon, check out Chris Matthew's book Kennedy And Nixon. I've read many books about Richard Nixon, and I probably enjoyed this one the most.
---o0o---

Monday, April 04, 2005

The Month They Tried To Kill Me


click to enlarge

It wasn't they so much as circumstance, my inexperience, the public hospital system, MedicAid, the New York Blackout and my poverty all colluding to nearly snuff me.

Son of Sam was on the loose in Brooklyn and Queens. The temperatures were in the upper 90s. I was on the job trail. On July 13, when I got back to our loft in Brooklyn, my back was killing me. I sat down and noticed it wasn't my back at all; it was my chest. My arm and back felt numb and I could barely breathe.

Was I having a heart attack? I called Keelin at the deli where she worked. "What should I do?" "Call 911!"

I called 911. I said I was having a heart attack. An hour later, no ambulance had arrived. I called again. Fifteen minutes later, a beat cop rang our buzzer. I let him in. I wasn't having a coronary, but something was really wrong. The friendly cop was able to raise an ambulance.

The ambulance brought me to the E.R. at Long Island College Hospital. It took the attending physician about five seconds to diagnose a spontaneous pneumothorax, or, a collapsed lung. People have collapsed lungs every day--usually athletes or people who've been jostled in an accident, or have been stabbed or shot.

A resident put a chest tube in, after giving me Novacaine to numb the scalpel's bite.

That night, the lights went out. From my window in the hospital I could see the World Trade Center. It was dark. The New York blackout of 1977 was on. Looting and fires broke out all over the city. Over 4,000 people were arrested. They re-opened The Tombs in downtown Manhattan, to warehouse all the arrestees.

At Long Island College Hospital, the backup generators fired up immediately. Alas, the air conditioning did not. It was around 104 degrees that day. It was at least 100 in the hospital by ten o'clock. The kitchen was closed, and they served us sandwiches and juice and fruit. It was the best food I would eat for three weeks.

It's not difficult to install a chest tube. I later learned how to do it advanced first aid. Yet, somehow, the hapless resident--Dr. Bucobo--f***ed it up. Normally, it takes a day or two for a collapsed lung to heal. It had been a week. Someone finally realized that the tube was in The Wrong Place. They chopped another hole in my chest and re-installed the tube. The resident and his intern came in once a day. If I survived these F-troop MDs, it would be a miracle.

Two days later, my new friend Jan Newberry, came to see me. I couldn't speak. I was in incredible pain. My fever was 104 and climbing. My breathing was shallow because it hurt to breathe. My blood gas was not promising. Jan called Keelin, who raced down and somehow convinced them they were killing me.

Things looked marginal for my continued existence. The pneumothorax was now complicated by double pneumonia. They hooked up a lung suctioning machine, put me on large doses of morphine, and pumped me full of vitamins, major antibiotics, stool softeners, sleeping pills every night, and other potions and elixirs. The morphine helped. When I was finally on antibiotics, the fever broke. After two grim days, I slowly began to recover. I was going to live. The only thing I cared about was the next dose of morphine.

After twenty days in LICH, the chest tube was removed. It felt great not to have to lug that box around (the chest tube ran into a box with water in it, which kept the lung pressurized as it repaired itself). The next day, they kicked me out. I was back on the streets of New York.

They caught Son of Sam the next month. He was our neighbor for a long time after that--we lived across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention.
---o0o---


Sunday, April 03, 2005

The World Trade Center From The Promenade


Click to enlarge - Jack in Brooklyn Heights, ca. '78

When we first lived in NYC, we lived in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, just on the edge of downtown Brooklyn. One of our favorite walks was to Brooklyn Heights and the Promenade, with its fantastic views of the lower Manhattan skyline. We often walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to downtown.

The World Trade Center had just been finished. I liked going to the observation deck for the views of, I think, four states.

We went to the Avant-Garde fair there (in '78 or '79). Andy Warhol and Alen Ginsberg were wandering among the crowd. The Talking Heads were there. John Lennon and Yoko Ono hired a skywriter to write messages over the WTC plaza. I can't remember the message, but it was something like "Get Peace If You Want It."

I also liked to view the huge Joan Miro Tapestry (click to see the mural) in the lobby of one of the towers. I was a Miro fan, and loved to sit and stare at the gigantic tapestry. I do not believe it survived the attacks. /jack
---o0o---

Treachery

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Senator Orrin Hatch Speaks

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of
human life
[1].

[1] Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican, is the Senior Senator from Utah

POTUS 10: Pres. John Tyler - The First Accidental President


Click to enlarge.

John Tyler's detractors called him "His Accidency" because he was the first President to take office due to the death of his predecessor. When President Wm. Henry Harrison konked out, after one month in office, Tyler was sworn in. He finished the nearly four year term and did not run for re-election.

"Tyler Too" had troubles with the Whig party. When Tyler vetoed a banking bill, the Whigs retaliated by kicking him out of the party. All the Cabinet resigned except for Secretary of State Webster. A year later when Tyler vetoed a tariff bill, the first impeachment resolution against a President was introduced in the House of Representatives.

Years after leaving office, Tyler led a compromise movement when the first southern states seceded from The Union in 1861. The compromise failed. Former President Tyler then worked to create the Southern Confederacy. He died in 1862, a member of the Confederate House of Representatives.
---o0o---

POTUS 12: Pres. Zachary Taylor - The President Who Mostly Closely Resembled Mel Brooks


click to enlarge

Zachary Taylor was another war hero President, who came to the oval office after serving forty years in the military in various capacities, including fighting numerous battles with Native Americans. He lasted about 16 months in office before he died. He was suceeded by his VPOTUS, Millard Fillmore.
---o0o---

Friday, April 01, 2005

POTUS 3: Pres. Thomas Jefferson


Click to enlarge

Thomas Jefferson stars on the five cent piece, commonly called the nickel. He is also the star of the notoriously unloved and unused $2 bill.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. As President, he bought Louisiana from France for $15 million. He apparently fathered a child with his slave Sally Hemmings. Despite that, he's one of the good guys.
---o0o---

Harry S. Truman and Betty Bacall


click to enlarge

David McCullough writes in his biography "Truman" that Bess hit the roof when she saw the photos of Harry entertaining the troops with Lauren Bacall as his hood ornament.
---o0o---