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About the Author:
I have been in almost every magazine
or newspaper in the world.
Not always because of my writing.
Mostly because of my boxing. Some of the papers that have
written about me are--People Magazine, New York Times, Newsday
(twice), Post (four times),Sports Illustrated, American Health
(cover), C.F.O., Crain’s (twice), New York Magazine, Signature,
Ring Magazine, The Sun, Men’s Journal, Source Magazine,
Pursuits, London Mirror, Brutus (Japan),Time Out (New York and
England) Coupe (France), Quick (Germany), Sport (Germany), Stern
(Germany), Globe and Mirror(Canada), You (London), Star
(London), The Brooklyn Eagle, and The Adirondack Review.
Some of the books I have written are-- Living on Madison
Avenue(Future Cycle Press) ,
Lane Changes (Four Way Books), Dementia Pugilistica
(Mudfish), Steel Toe Boots (Fithian Press), Blame It On The
Scientists (Pudding
House Publications), King of White Collar Boxing (Rain Mountain
Press), Broken Paragraphs (Black Spring Pub.. UK).
Also Cyberwit published, This Book About Nothing,
Coronavirus Breaks the Back of New York, The Interrupted
Sky, A Cup of Crazy, and Beaten Up by Poetry.
Invading God’s Possible Universe (Wipf and Strompf.)
Accepted for new publication by Cyberwit—God is Me.
Whoopee.
TELEVISION: The Phil Donahue Show,
George Michael’s Sports Machine, NBC, BBC Good Sport, CBS 48
Hours, ABC Business World, CNN, MSNBC, Eyewitness News, MSG,
MSNBC, CNN, ESPN, USA Network Fights, CTV (Canadian television);
German, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Italian television.
I was a rapper and had three charted albums, “The Renegade Jew,”
“Da Masta Plan” and “Lifestyles.” I wrote the lyrics for Sam
Wayman’s “Magic Man” on Polygram Records. I was a professional
boxer and started the current rage in white collar boxing.
I wrote, produced and starred in “Boxer Rebellion” which was a
feature film that played at the Sundance Film Festival. Also, I
have a Ph.D. in literature and published a thousand poems and
articles that appeared in periodicals.
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Excerpt from Book:
Chapter 1: Introduction
I don’t know when I became bipolar. I think it
was when I got out of jail
(for tax evasion, nothing violent, shame on
you). I am no slug. I was a
generous, kind, friendly boss in an insurance
agency. If my smile dropped,
my flunky workers bent down to pick it up.
Oh, they were not flunkies. Sometimes I speak or
write before I think.
They loved me. I assume.
I was not a potential jailbird. Tweet, tweet.
But the feds nailed me. This
has nothing to do with my Christ complex. For
that, check out my book,
“Invading God’s Possible Universe.” My vision
nailed me. I volunteered
for the cross of humanities sins. I identified
with Christ. I was a sucker.
I’ve written a lot of books that were published.
Does that mean I am a
genius or just a verbose scribbler? I’ll take
the former.
In case you haven’t noticed, this is the
introduction. It took a lot of
thought to decide if I would make this one of
the twenty-one days in my
title. Little things confuse me. Organization
and coherence irritate me.
The more manic I become the more I become
confused. It doesn’t really
bother me. I am all accepting when it comes to
myself. My self-criticism
is often self-praise. I know I am better than
you. You don’t. Well, let’s
flip a coin.
I am often agitated and jumpy. I get lumpy when
I punch myself in the
face. Not that I do. Yes, I do. Ask my
disapproving wife. I am nuts. So
I am nuts. I don’t really care. Your opinion
doesn’t matter. Neither does
mine.
Yeah, I am a writer. I get published all over
the place but I don’t make
much. I think my library of printed books will
one day be worth its weight
in gold. Pipe down, conceited. You’re scaring
the hacks. I don’t mean to. If
I do, they won’t buy my books. If they don’t buy
my books, I will be broke.
Then I will have to kill myself. That’s the only
proper thing to do. I think
about suicide, a lot. I don’t do it. Obviously.
This is the end my friend. The open Door. Jim
Morison went through it to
his end. I hammer my thumbnail. It gets black
and blue. Mighty breath
blows into its own star-straddled disappearance.
I follow the ghost of my
meteor into far flung universes.
****
A few months into my sentence (at the end of
1993) I called my wife
from jail. She wasn’t allowed to call me. She
told me that she spoke to a
psychiatrist who said that I was bipolar and
that he would call the prison
psychiatrist and ask him to speak to me about my
condition.
I was angry that my wife was interfering with my
prison vacation. How
dare she speak to the psychiatrist? Not that I
really minded that. I had
been seeing psychiatrists off and on my whole
life. I had probably been
in analysis more than Woody Allen. But he wasn’t
as grand as me. He
was only a genius, a director and a movie star
who was at the top of his
success. I was a measly insurance broker who
wrote poetry. But that was
because I wasn’t recognized for the literary
genius that I was. Shame on
the benighted public. They’d rather laugh at
some commercial flick than
be in touch with the heavens through my poetry.
When I look up at the starry night, I see
myself. What magnificence. It is
so good to be me.
Do I really mean that? What the hell do I know.
I am the mentally ill one.
No, no, no. You can’t understand me. Neither can
I. But I just don’t care.
Tra,la,la,la,la…
Some people say I look like Woody Allen. Boy is
he ugly. Others say I
look like Warren Beatty. Now that’s better. But
you know, Woody, he was
a genius. Like me. Only he was a major success
and I am a failure. But
when he fell from grace, he fell. Incestual
pedophilia is far worse than tax
evasion. Woody couldn’t keep his woody in his
pants. When I fell, no one
noticed but the chipmunks on the canyon floor.
My wife’s interference at jail was a no, no. She
only came to visit once.
I was a hard-core prisoner in a soft-core prison
and I didn’t think she
should intercede. I was actually at Schuylkill
Federal Prison Camp. A
prison camp? How embarrassing! Put me in a
penitentiary. Execute me. I
like punishment.
I used to laugh at the other prisoners when
guests came to see them on
Saturdays. I didn’t want any visitors. I was
tuff. I was ruff. I could handle
this all on my own. Handle what? It was summer
camp. I didn’t understand
why the other prisoners complained. I had given
up dinners at Le
Cirque. They had forfeited hamburgers at
McDonald’s. I hate weakness.
Even though I am emotionally fractured and am
always on the verge of
falling apart.
I took the prison bid for what two of my
employees mostly did. I wanted
to go to jail. I didn’t care that I had nothing
to do with the quasi-money
laundering. I thought jail would be cool. When I
was a teenager, my
psychiatrist, Dr. Balaban, warned me that I was
trying to be cool rather
than productive. I realized that he was right
and stopped hanging out
with hoods, stopped cutting school, and stopped
doing drugs. I started to
study. I got A’s all the way up to my doctorate.
Years later I was back with the old cool
obsession. I was James Dean. I’d
die young and leave a pretty corpse. Actually, I
was fairly young, forty-six,
when I went to jail. Not exactly young but
athletic and youngish looking.
Wow. I’d be a jailbird. I’d fly so high there
would be ice on my wings. I’d
be something, something. Not a nerdy insurance
man.
And what if a prisoner tried to hit on me. I was
a professional fighter. I’d
punch his face in until it came out the other
side. I’d bite off his fucken
nose. I’d kill him to let the other prisoners
know not to mess with me.
Death to intruders. Blood in their faces.
I didn’t know that I was bipolar when I was
buying a Rolls Royce, spending
tens of thousands on clothes, blowing three
hundred and fifty thousand
dollars on my movie, Boxer Rebellion, two
hundred thousand dollars on
my rap albums, The Renegade Jew, Da Masta Plan,
Lifestyles. I also did
three or four or five videos (who’s counting) at
ten grand each.
The rap stuff was mostly after I had already
lost my business and was out
of jail. I was in a panic. My only way back to
prosperity was to become
a major rap star. The fact that I had no rhythm
didn’t bother me at all. I
was a novelty. Maybe the major novelty was that
I couldn’t rap. I realized
it and didn’t realize it. I was just marching
forward like a soldier into the
enemy troops. What a jerk I was. Maybe. But I
always forgive myself.
Despite the fact that I had no rhythm, we did a
lot of work in the studio
and my beats came out pretty good. In fact I
ended up getting charted
number one in the IRS Record Pool in the
Midwest. I was a lot like Milli
Vanilli except that I wrote all my own lyrics
and actually rapped them
with a little help from the engineer. I was
real. It was just that I was on
crutches.
How’d I think I’d get my money back for doing a
feature film about my
boxing career. My business was gone. The movie
was vanity. Yet not so
much so. It actually made it to the Sundance
Festival Film. I didn’t see it.
I paid for it before I went to jail. Then I was
in jail and they wouldn’t give
me a furlough to fly out to Utah. Did that
surprise me? Not really. I was
bipolar but not naïve. I didn’t really care. I
was not a crybaby. I was not
like the Bulldog, a breaking-and-entering
jailbird who did dishes with me
in the jail kitchen, who claimed he missed his
Chevrolet. I once bought
a Chevrolet for a client as a semi-bribe. I was
chauffeured fifteen hours
a day in a Rolls Royce. My feeling was—let it
go, let it all go. The punks
around me had nothing and cried when they lost
their nothing. Their
complaints were something. They were sickening.
This century the world has become
self-justifying. The lowlifes believe
they deserve what they don’t deserve. They hate
the rich because they
aren’t able to become rich. I was rich. But I
hate the rich because they
waste their time earning money instead of
developing their souls. I am a
poet. I am soulful. I share my spirit with my
wife when I am not angry at
her for whatever is whatever.
Everyone wants justice. I don’t give a shit
about justice, mine or anyone
else’s. It exists only as a selfish concept.
Your justice is injustice to me.
And vice versa. Don’t make me angry. I’ll hit
you. I’ll hit myself. I didn’t
go to jail. Jail came to me. It was inside me.
And I went there for companionship.
As for BLM. And this is not a criticism of them
but my encouragement
that they be better. Quit looking for
destruction and concentrate on
being constructive. Let me be your leader. Do
what I did in high school.
Quit being cool. Study. Burning down buildings
doesn’t make you cool. It
turns your fake values to ashes. It burns
others.
Am I crazy? Do I think BLM would let a white Jew
be their leader? They
should. I am not an angry crybaby. I am a
bipolar angel. I am a self-convinced
genius. I’m tough. I’ve had thousands of fights.
These guys get
into a fight about once a year. The look tough
but they ain’t.
Three cheers for the warden for not letting me
go to the Sundance Film
Festival. I asked him if I could go see the
premier of my film, “Boxer Rebellion.”
I don’t believe in softness on felons even when
it is me. I always
liked punishment. In the ring I used to drop my
hands so that I could get
hit in the face. Punch me. I don’t give a fuck.
If the warden had let me
go I would have had no respect for him. When the
penal system fails to
execute a man who raped and killed a little
girl, I vomit. Empathy for criminals
is hatred of innocence.
Way back when, when life was rich, there were
the vacations, the Ritz in
Paris, the Savoy in London and the Breakers in
Palm Beach. There was flying
the Concorde to save a couple of hours for
thousands of dollars extra.
Not to brag. There was my summer home in
Westhampton and the one I
inherited from my grandfather in Montauk.
These expenses were not bipolar. They were
reasonable. I had the money.
It was only when I had lost my business and was
going broke that my
behavior made no sense. I should have been
worrying about paying for
my next tuna sandwich rather than paying the
engineering costs at Power
Play Studios for my rap albums. Or whichever
studio? I spent money at a
lot of them.
I was a big success in business. I don’t know
why. Probably because I
didn’t care. I never pressed my clients or
pushed them for business. I let
them come to me. Instead of being desiring I
became desirable.
The jewelry—matching Cartier Panther watches for
my wife and me—and
the seven-carat diamond ring I had bought her from a diamond dealer. I
had it mounted and surrounded by diamond chips
at Van Clef and Arpels.
I bought her a diamond necklace for fifty
thousand dollars. The money
was meaningless.
Now I am worrying that I am running short on
money and will have to
borrow from her. If she won’t give it to me
gladly I don’t think I can resist
hating her gladly. Women take more than they
give and give further destruction
to a broken bipolar personality. How can I love
when received
love is a broken prod? Tickle me. Don’t spear
me. I will have to hurt you
if you don’t give me some of my money back. I
couldn’t. I love you. But
the insanity of insanity is that it goes against
its own grain and does things
to further injure itself.
I get angry at Lauren before she turns me down
for financial help. Well,
it’s just that I want to downscale our apartment
and move to some place
we can afford. We’d get millions for our
apartment and buy a more modest
one. We’d still have a ton of money left over.
Then I change coats to the love coat and want to
hug Lauren. Consistency
does not get along with genius. I don’t know how
I feel. Then I feel this.
Then I feel that. It is difficult being me.
But I love her such much (that’s an expression
she likes to say). Part
of me wants to hurt her. But that’s just an
abstruse thought that has
nothing to do with my real feelings. I don’t
mean it. It means me. It is an
intention from outer space.
Sometimes I get angry at Lauren and feel that
she is trying to kill me. Not
death but you know, I think that she wants to
squeeze me like a Spalding
ball. Then other times I look at her like a
pretty swan floating on a lake in
Hyde Park. We were there together in 1970, 1971,
1972, and 1989. Come
to think of it I was the swan who Zeus-like
appeared before Leda. I am this
and that. Identity is a fabrication by the
desire to formulate a personality.
I love that girl so much when I am not angry at
her.
I don’t memorize my wife’s face but I write love
poems each time I see
her fresh, anew, lovely as she can be.
15
Lauren is she and she is she which is different
from me. Can’t you see the
similarity in the separation?
Love is not love. It is a bubble that rises on
your tongue. The taste is in
the licking. I come to you. I came in you. Vini,
vini, vici. While I succumb,
you dry me out.
I was a rich slob who sold his soul to his
companies. Well, in truth, I would
rather have a few bucks back now. Where has all
my money gone? Long
time passing. Shit, I quote Peter, Paul and Mary
a lot. I have been beaten
into mediocrity. Not that they are mediocre. I
must clarify that. They
are OK. In fact, they a good group. They are
bloody Marys without the
vodka.
My expenses were draining me in the eighties and
early nineties. By
today’s numbers they were nothing but I was
always a little tight on
cash and spending ahead of myself. I was behind
the eight ball. I would
scratch and then rack the balls up again. Switch
games. Cheat on another
table. But not really cheat. No one got hurt
except the tax collector and
he is a humorless sadist.
I know my wealth was small shit compared to the
billionaires of today.
There were no yachts or planes in my portfolio.
But I had anything I wanted
and lived high even though I wasn’t mega rich. I
would rather be the
biggest cheat in the world.
Joe Biden has nothing to do with this book. Joe
Biden has nothing to do
with reality except screwing it up for the rest
of us. Why do I mention
him? I don’t know. Ask my depressive side.
Punish him with my energized
mania. And you who voted for him are responsible
for the deaths
in Afghanistan, the Ukraine and the shopping
malls in Brooklyn. Not to
mention the public-school shootings throughout
the country. And your
vote caused inflation and the recidivism. And
the embarrassing image we
present in the world. And other countries that
growl at us like dogs looking
for slim red meat. And the bark from the
neighbor’s yard of nuclear
war. Who wouldn’t want to attack a woke country
that is led by Sleepy
Joe Biden?
Biden is the least popular president. I was the
most liked prisoner at
Schuylkill Federal Prison Camp. I’d rather be
me. Schmuck.
Biden has dementia. So do I. But at least I have
an excuse. I took thousands
of punches to the head.
There were the art works in my apartment by,
Dufy, Bombois, David Salle,
Ossip Zadkin, Calder, Fernando Botero and
sculptures by his wife, Sofi
Vari. There was the early Legere that
surprisingly looked like Cezanne.
I remember when my wife and Diandra Douglas
(Michael Douglas’s wife)
offered $750,000 to share a Legere tryptic at
Perl’s gallery. It wasn’t
enough. It is probably worth ten million dollars
today. And we had a
Calder, a Paskin and a Louis Comfort Tiffany.
There were probably others.
I could ask my wife but I don’t like being
accurate or precise. Nothing
matters.
My first book published in India was “This Book
about Nothing.” Actually,
that was not my first book. My first book was
“Lane Changes” published
by Four Way Books in New York. But that was
published in New York by
“Four Way Books.”
“This Book about Nothing” was about one of my
favorite subjects, indifference.
My wife always complains when she makes some
virtue signaling
comment about politics and I say, “I just don’t
care.” The poem was
printed in “This Book about Nothing.”
I Don’t Care
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