R.J. Smith's Blog: THE MADHOUSE

CriminalMindComing January 1st, 2023.A Criminal Mind’s Pe...

CriminalMindComing January 1st, 2023.

A Criminal Mind’s Perspective on Targeted Legislation, Crime, Cops and Corrections Officers! Here, I’ll Outline the roles of Judges, Prosecutors, Defense Attorneys, and Public Pretenders. There is a HUGE difference between them!

Master the Art of Plea Agreements, Sentencing, and Ultimately, avoid lengthy stints in torturous Jails & Prisons.

Welcome to HELL!

Once your ass is in The Penitentiary ya gotta learn two sets of rules, theirs and ours.

We’ll also talk about America’s Deadliest and most haunted Penitentiaries built by the blood of the poor, disenfranchised, and Marginalized.

Most inmates live in these atrocious concrete jungles, where survival is an art form and death waits around every corner!

LATEST NEWS The South Beach KillerMay 15, 2021 – 12:01 PM A DANGEROUS TIMEJuly 2, 2020 – 10:32 AM Village Voice columnist, R.J. SmithApril 17, 2020 – 2:50 AM Waxing PoeticMarch 8, 2020 – 12:56 PM The Day After RoswellJune 23, 2019 – 4:09 PM ARCHIVES

Select MonthMay 2021July 2020April 2020March 2020June 2019May 2019April 2019January 2019July 2018June 2018May 2018February 2018January 2018December 2017November 2017October 2017May 2017December 2016November 2016October 2016May 2016April 2016March 2016February 2016January 2016September 2015August 2015June 2015March 2015February 2015January 2015November 2014October 2014September 2014July 2014February 2014September 2013August 2013June 2013March 2013February 2013January 2013December 2012October 2012

CriminalMind

The South Beach Killer

Big News for Fans!

Fans, Friends, Collegues and Family…

Gosh, what a year it’s been, huh? Between the 2020-2021 protests, deadly riots and absolute turmoil in the streets, our political differences have never been greater. The people we put in power are robbing the country blind. Now, before I get a thousand emails taking a stance for or against that statement, I invite you to look at the representatives you put in power and ask, do they represent what I expect of them? That’s a big question with all sorts of personal, financial and life implications. For some, there are the psychological ramifications. Amazing how they all leave office filthy rich. I once thought our process fair and just. But its far from that.

For me, personally, it’s been a long and winding road getting here. As most of you already know, I’ve had a tough time finding a good state of being. I am not going to talk about what I’ve went through over the last eight years. What happened has been rehashed over and again legally, personally and emotionally. It’s been said on TV, in print and digital media. Besides, in spirit, (no deal yet) I’ve made a tentative gentleman’s agreement with my attorneys not to reveal our case status. I have no outcome to report anyway.

Bottom line? Sometimes in life, we are tested by God and circumstance. If knocked down, belittled, embarassed or tormented by the hate of others, we have but one option – climb back to our feet with focus and determination,. Leave the past where it belongs. IN THE PAST. Recently I’ve thought alot about life and death. I’ve been told this happens when receivung a traumatic brain injury.

Some good new. Soon, Ingram will officially announce a pre-order for my long await follow-up to The Santa Claus Killer.

Coming soon: My 2021 crime novel, The South Beach Killer – Book #2 FBI Serial Killer Task Force.

A DANGEROUS TIME

It’s been months since I’ve posted anything here. The reasons are many. In February, I lost my beloved pointer terrier, Destiny, whom I saved from death row at the shelter more than eight years ago.

Then, in March, mom passed away from lung cancer.

This post was supposed to outline my retirement from the entertainment industry, no more screenplays, and the end of hundreds of hours of social media updating and posting. I’ll get to that later.

I’d say 2020 has started out to be a crappy year all around. The devastation to our economy due to COVID-19, the digital filming of police shootings, the subsequent racial unrest and we have a perfect recipe for something our country hasn’t faced in half a century.

 

Who’s to blame? Is anyone?
Is there a civil war coming down the pike?
I haven’t a clue. 

People just seem meaner than ever, willing to hurt one-another at the drop of a hat. Recently I was shocked by the news of an elderly man at a Christian prayer rally being attacked by African American men. I can only imagine the headlines had it been a group of white men beating an elderly black man.

Our moral compass is way off. 

I’ll admit, it’s not just one-sided, white guys are also attacking black people. The so-called peaceful protests are anything but. At this point, I’d suggest our future as a people is quite uncertain.

Vladimir Putin must be happier than a pig in shit.  The powers in Beijing are laughing at us. 

I get it. I feel the pain, it’s palpable. People sense they’re being left behind. Perchance some of that is true, I don’t pretend to know the answers. But attacking innocent people is a crime. It’s called Assault and Battery. PERIOD! Mob rule has never been tolerated in The United States of America.

Other countries are also seeing riots, looting, attacks and I wonder, is America the leader of the free world? Really?

We have to heal this gaping wound.

Reading social media every day sure feels like we’re living in a dangerous time, one in which our citizens are physically facing off over politics, police abuse and yes, there are opportunists using the crisis for sweeping global radical change. Robbing stores, breaking into private communities, and destroying property won’t bring change.

So, there is that. But then there is my ongoing failing health, I won’t revamp the entire incident as most of you remember the severe bicycle accident I had in June 2013.  After eleven surgeries, the traumatic brain injury, and the subsequent worsening of it all, I feel myself slowing down.

I appreciate all the love, attention, and interaction I’ve had over the last ten years, but circumstances out of my control have altered the entire course of life and limb.

So, I bid you all good luck and love. Without the latter, we’ll never have peace.

IN A DANGEROUS TIME

In My Study – June 2020

Destiny – 2012

It’s been months since I’ve posted anything here. The reasons are many. Part mental health, part physical, part, part, and part. In February, I lost my beloved pointer terrier, Destiny, whom I saved from death row at the shelter more than eight years ago. Then, in March, mom passed away from lung cancer.

This post was supposed to outline my retirement from the entertainment industry, no more books, no more screenplays, and the end of hundreds of hours of social media updating and posting. I’ll get to that later.

On topic, I’d say 2020 has started out to be a crappy year all around. The devastation to our economy due to COVID-19, the digital filming of police shootings, the subsequent racial unrest and we have a perfect recipe for something our country hasn’t faced in half a century.

Who’s to blame? Is anyone? Is there a civil war coming down the pike? I haven’t a clue. 

© 2020 – The New York Times

© 2020 – Business Insider

People just seem meaner than ever, willing to hurt one-another at the drop of a hat. Recently I was shocked by the news of an elderly man at a Christian prayer rally being attacked by African American men. I can only imagine the headlines had it been a group of white men beating an elderly black man.

Our moral compass is way off. 

I’ll admit, it’s not just one-sided, we’ve also seen white guys attacking black people. The so-called peaceful protests are anything but. At this point, I’d suggest our future as a people is quite uncertain.

Vladimir Putin must be happier than a pig in shit. The powers in Beijing are laughing at us. 

I get it. I feel the pain, it’s palpable. People sense they’re being left behind. Perchance some of that is true, I don’t pretend to know the answers. But attacking innocent people is a crime. It’s called Assault and Battery. PERIOD! Mob rule has never been tolerated in The United States of America.

Other countries are also seeing riots, looting, attacks and I wonder, is America the leader of the free world? Really?

© 2020 London Times

We have to heal this gaping wound.

© Paris – Lib New

Reading social media every day sure feels like we’re living in a dangerous time, one in which our citizens are physically facing off over politics, police abuse and yes, there are opportunists using the crisis for sweeping global radical change. Robbing stores, breaking into private communities, and destroying property won’t bring change.

So, there is that. But then there is my ongoing failing health, I won’t revamp the entire incident as most of you remember the severe bicycle accident I had in June 2013.  After ten surgeries, the traumatic brain injury, and the subsequent worsening of it all, I’ve decided to hang it up.

In fact, this will be my last post. The website will remain available but as is the case with the internet, it won’t trend or show in google search results after a year or so. Thus, this is goodbye. I appreciate all the love, attention, and interaction I’ve had over the last ten years, but circumstances out of my control have altered the entire course of whatever career I might have had.

So, I bid you all good luck and love. Without the latter, we’ll never have peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Village Voice columnist, R.J. Smith

Politically Incorrect: Guns N’ Roses & Public Enemy Sound Off!
“Forty-eight hours in the feeding cycle of New York City. There were Uzis, Public Enemy re­grouping, and a clique of blond babes orbiting Axl Rose at the Cat Club. All of this connects. How was your week?”
by R.J. SMITH






Swing Shift by R.J. Smith

Busted Axl

Forty-eight hours in the feeding-cycle of New York City. There were Uzis, Public Enemy re­grouping, and a clique of blond babes orbiting Axl Rose at the Cat Club. All of this connects. How was your week?

Start the clock August 8, last Tuesday, when Public Enemy’s vox pop Chuck D faxed all over town the word that PE was back together. The rap group disbanded late June in the wake of an anti-Semitic interview Min­ister of Information Professor Griff gave to The Wash­ington Times (portions of which were reprinted here, fanning the fire). That’s when Chuck D began saying Griff had “sabotaged” the group’s values, and kicked Griff out. The next day, he said Public Enemy was folding up. Last week Chuck announced that Griff apologized to him, if not to the rest of the world. PE is now ready for a comeback album, and, according to the press release, a new title for Griff: “Supreme Allied Chief of Community Relations,” who “will not be available for interviews.” Griff will work in the black community, says Chuck, particularly with youth programs. This is like a white­-collar criminal evading a hard time. Who would you rather have teaching the kids, Ollie “1200-hours-of-community service” North or Professor “Why do you think they call it Jewelry” Griff?

Some will now think PE never planned on cutting Griff out for good, that the breakup was a fake (they were performing even after they “split”), that everything was a face-saving half-step. I don’t think so. Chuck D’s running around in circles, saying things his actions contradict a day later, then saying something the next day that nobody expected. Contrary to D’s say-so, Griff has been answering questions at least as recently as August 3. (“What I said was 100 per cent pure,” he told the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. No impurities for Griff.) And fellow group members Flavor-Flav and DJ Terminator X are working on the convenient escape route, the solo project. Steady Public Enemy are not. Griff can always phone Armond White at The City Sun if he wants to talk.

At the end of Chuck D’s statement, he says, “Please direct any further questions to Axl Rose.” That’s be­cause by any standard, the Guns n’ Roses singer and stereo-destroyer gave an interview to Rolling Stone (Au­gust 10) that should have set off something like the Griff aftershock. GNR’s minister of information has a way with words, like those on the song “One in a Million”: “Police and niggers, that’s right/Get outta my way/ Don’t need to buy none/Of your gold chains today,” and “Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/They come to our country/And think they’ll do as they please/Like start some mini-Iran or spread some fuckin’ disease.”

He uses nigger, he told Stone interviewer Del James, because blacks have been known to use the word, so why can’t he? “I don’t like boundaries of any kind.” (Wonder what GNR guitarist Slash, the child of interracial marriage, thinks about that.) Axl justifies the immigrant line because people from “Iran, Pakistan, China, and Japan” give him bad service at store counters. I’m not kidding. He says he was once chased out of a 7 -Eleven by an Iranian, and so he’s got a right to sing the National Front blues.

As for faggots, Rose says, he’s not antigay. “I’m pro­heterosexual. I can’t get enough of women, and I don’t see the same thing that other men can see in men. I’m not into gay or bisexual experiences. But that’s hypo­critical of me, because I’d rather see two women together than just about anything else. That happens to be my personal, favorite thing.”

“I don’t understand it,” he says about homosexuality. “Antihomosexual? I’m not against them doing what they want to do as long as it’s not hurting anybody else and they’re not forcing it upon me. I don’t need them in my face or, pardon the pun, up my ass about it.”

This platinum punster’s remarks, one should think, would have ignited some response from a press (includ­ing Rolling Stone) willing to cover Professor Griff’s outburst. Rose’s status as a star and Rolling Stone’s status as a well-circulated starfucker mean the interview reached scads more people than Griff ever did. There have been no outbursts, no statements of explanation, and very little coverage.

Edgy observers from Public Enemy’s label, CBS, and MCA, with whom Chuck’s negotiating, attended the June 21 press conference where Chuck kicked Griff out. A CBS spokesman said PE “made the right decision” in ousting Griff, and Newsday had MCA muckamucks troubled by Griff’s remarks and PE’s connections to Louis Farrakhan. But Guns n’ Roses’ label, Geffen Records, still loves its white supremacist. I called the company hoping to talk with Axl, saying I wanted to ask him about the Stone interview. “We’ve gotten a whole bunch of requests about this, and management is saying no to all interviews,” said Geffen’s Bryn Bridenthal. She said Geffen felt no need to issue a statement about Rose’s rap. “I wouldn’t have anything else to add in addition to it. I don’t think there’s anything left unspoken,” she explained. Axl stupid question, get an Axl answer.

August 10, two days after Chuck D said that, Dave Herndon, the Voice’s former managing editor (currently an editor at Newsday), bumped into Axl at the Cat Club. Identifying himself as a journalist, Herndon asked if there’d been any fallout from the interview. Naw, Rose said. But it had been, he divulged, quite a struggle getting the interview in the magazine. Rose said he’d bargained for months with Rolling Stone, refusing interviews unless he got the cover, unless his “best friend” and RIP Magazineeditor Del James got to do the interview, and unless another pal, Robert John, got to take the photos. While it appears that Rolling Stone fellated Rose on all counts, a spokesperson denied cav­ing into his demands, saying access determined their decision. Here’s a magazine, which reported Public Ene­my’s comments as news, running an interview packed with racism/homophobia/immigrant-bashing. Nope, no news story here, just wisdom from a superstar.

Stone’s silence illustrates what kinds of hate are widely acceptable right now — racism and homophobia and immigrant-bashing, though not anti-Semitism. More­over, if you’re white and sell enough records, they’ll overlook anything. Long as they get a slice. Geffen’s Bridenthal wanted me to know “how hard [Rose] worked on that interview.” Maybe Rolling Stone should have given him a byline.

In the time between Rose’s scene at the Cat Club and Chuck D’s press release, Mordechai Levy got hyped. He’s the head of the Jewish Defense Organization, a group for whom maybe one follower put it, in Newsday, for all the rest: “This is Judaism, not that humanitarian crap.” Levy was arrested after firing wildly onto a Greenwich Village street. The man who said of Public Enemy, “We’re gonna bring these people to their knees,” managed only to bring 69-year-old, air conditioner re­pairman, Dominick Spinelli, to his knees, by firing bullets into Spinelli’s van, one lodging in his left leg. Levy was shooting wildly from the rooftop of his building on Bleecker Street, firing at two visitors who had come, he has said, to kill him. He missed, hitting Spinelli, parked nearby. When police arrested Levy last Thursday after­noon, they found a Ruger mini-14, and in his apartment and car, an impressive cache (an Uzi, AR-15 assault rifle, .22 rifles, and pump-action riot shotguns, tear gas, etc.).

Levy has mounted a war against Public Enemy since June. He claims to have organized record store boycotts, has leafletted against the group, put scary-sounding anti-PE messages on his phone machine, and paid at least one visit to their management offices.

There’s a Biblical injunction to the effect that you need not worry about staying close to your friends, but better cling to your enemies — they are your enemies, after all. Levy stayed close to his. An underhand grenade toss from his home is the office of Rush Productions, Public Enemy’s management. The rap group’s private publicist, Layla Turkkan, said, “Maybe I’m listening to too much PE, but it’s the most extraordinary coinci­dence that he should live there, like, three doors down.”

Levy, it turns out, has resided there longer than PE has been around. But go tell that to anybody from Rush and see if they look any more relaxed. Maybe Levy’ll run into Public Enemy next time they play a free concert at Rikers. Rolling Stone can send Axl Rose to cover it.

RJ Smith -MY NAMESAKE- is  an author, columnist and editor for the Los Angeles Times.

“Politically Incorrect” by Village Voice columnist, R.J. Smith

Politically Incorrect: Guns N’ Roses & Public Enemy Sound Off!
“Forty-eight hours in the feeding cycle of New York City. There were Uzis, Public Enemy re­grouping, and a clique of blond babes orbiting Axl Rose at the Cat Club. All of this connects. How was your week?”
by R.J. SMITH






Swing Shift by R.J. Smith

Busted Axl

Forty-eight hours in the feeding-cycle of New York City. There were Uzis, Public Enemy re­grouping, and a clique of blond babes orbiting Axl Rose at the Cat Club. All of this connects. How was your week?

Start the clock August 8, last Tuesday, when Public Enemy’s vox pop Chuck D faxed all over town the word that PE was back together. The rap group disbanded late June in the wake of an anti-Semitic interview Min­ister of Information Professor Griff gave to The Wash­ington Times (portions of which were reprinted here, fanning the fire). That’s when Chuck D began saying Griff had “sabotaged” the group’s values, and kicked Griff out. The next day, he said Public Enemy was folding up. Last week Chuck announced that Griff apologized to him, if not to the rest of the world. PE is now ready for a comeback album, and, according to the press release, a new title for Griff: “Supreme Allied Chief of Community Relations,” who “will not be available for interviews.” Griff will work in the black community, says Chuck, particularly with youth programs. This is like a white­-collar criminal evading a hard time. Who would you rather have teaching the kids, Ollie “1200-hours-of-community service” North or Professor “Why do you think they call it Jewelry” Griff?

Some will now think PE never planned on cutting Griff out for good, that the breakup was a fake (they were performing even after they “split”), that everything was a face-saving half-step. I don’t think so. Chuck D’s running around in circles, saying things his actions contradict a day later, then saying something the next day that nobody expected. Contrary to D’s say-so, Griff has been answering questions at least as recently as August 3. (“What I said was 100 per cent pure,” he told the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. No impurities for Griff.) And fellow group members Flavor-Flav and DJ Terminator X are working on the convenient escape route, the solo project. Steady Public Enemy are not. Griff can always phone Armond White at The City Sun if he wants to talk.

At the end of Chuck D’s statement, he says, “Please direct any further questions to Axl Rose.” That’s be­cause by any standard, the Guns n’ Roses singer and stereo-destroyer gave an interview to Rolling Stone (Au­gust 10) that should have set off something like the Griff aftershock. GNR’s minister of information has a way with words, like those on the song “One in a Million”: “Police and niggers, that’s right/Get outta my way/ Don’t need to buy none/Of your gold chains today,” and “Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/They come to our country/And think they’ll do as they please/Like start some mini-Iran or spread some fuckin’ disease.”

He uses nigger, he told Stone interviewer Del James, because blacks have been known to use the word, so why can’t he? “I don’t like boundaries of any kind.” (Wonder what GNR guitarist Slash, the child of interracial marriage, thinks about that.) Axl justifies the immigrant line because people from “Iran, Pakistan, China, and Japan” give him bad service at store counters. I’m not kidding. He says he was once chased out of a 7 -Eleven by an Iranian, and so he’s got a right to sing the National Front blues.

As for faggots, Rose says, he’s not antigay. “I’m pro­heterosexual. I can’t get enough of women, and I don’t see the same thing that other men can see in men. I’m not into gay or bisexual experiences. But that’s hypo­critical of me, because I’d rather see two women together than just about anything else. That happens to be my personal, favorite thing.”

“I don’t understand it,” he says about homosexuality. “Antihomosexual? I’m not against them doing what they want to do as long as it’s not hurting anybody else and they’re not forcing it upon me. I don’t need them in my face or, pardon the pun, up my ass about it.”

This platinum punster’s remarks, one should think, would have ignited some response from a press (includ­ing Rolling Stone) willing to cover Professor Griff’s outburst. Rose’s status as a star and Rolling Stone’s status as a well-circulated starfucker mean the interview reached scads more people than Griff ever did. There have been no outbursts, no statements of explanation, and very little coverage.

Edgy observers from Public Enemy’s label, CBS, and MCA, with whom Chuck’s negotiating, attended the June 21 press conference where Chuck kicked Griff out. A CBS spokesman said PE “made the right decision” in ousting Griff, and Newsday had MCA muckamucks troubled by Griff’s remarks and PE’s connections to Louis Farrakhan. But Guns n’ Roses’ label, Geffen Records, still loves its white supremacist. I called the company hoping to talk with Axl, saying I wanted to ask him about the Stone interview. “We’ve gotten a whole bunch of requests about this, and management is saying no to all interviews,” said Geffen’s Bryn Bridenthal. She said Geffen felt no need to issue a statement about Rose’s rap. “I wouldn’t have anything else to add in addition to it. I don’t think there’s anything left unspoken,” she explained. Axl stupid question, get an Axl answer.

August 10, two days after Chuck D said that, Dave Herndon, the Voice’s former managing editor (currently an editor at Newsday), bumped into Axl at the Cat Club. Identifying himself as a journalist, Herndon asked if there’d been any fallout from the interview. Naw, Rose said. But it had been, he divulged, quite a struggle getting the interview in the magazine. Rose said he’d bargained for months with Rolling Stone, refusing interviews unless he got the cover, unless his “best friend” and RIP Magazineeditor Del James got to do the interview, and unless another pal, Robert John, got to take the photos. While it appears that Rolling Stone fellated Rose on all counts, a spokesperson denied cav­ing into his demands, saying access determined their decision. Here’s a magazine, which reported Public Ene­my’s comments as news, running an interview packed with racism/homophobia/immigrant-bashing. Nope, no news story here, just wisdom from a superstar.

Stone’s silence illustrates what kinds of hate are widely acceptable right now — racism and homophobia and immigrant-bashing, though not anti-Semitism. More­over, if you’re white and sell enough records, they’ll overlook anything. Long as they get a slice. Geffen’s Bridenthal wanted me to know “how hard [Rose] worked on that interview.” Maybe Rolling Stone should have given him a byline.

In the time between Rose’s scene at the Cat Club and Chuck D’s press release, Mordechai Levy got hyped. He’s the head of the Jewish Defense Organization, a group for whom maybe one follower put it, in Newsday, for all the rest: “This is Judaism, not that humanitarian crap.” Levy was arrested after firing wildly onto a Greenwich Village street. The man who said of Public Enemy, “We’re gonna bring these people to their knees,” managed only to bring 69-year-old, air conditioner re­pairman, Dominick Spinelli, to his knees, by firing bullets into Spinelli’s van, one lodging in his left leg. Levy was shooting wildly from the rooftop of his building on Bleecker Street, firing at two visitors who had come, he has said, to kill him. He missed, hitting Spinelli, parked nearby. When police arrested Levy last Thursday after­noon, they found a Ruger mini-14, and in his apartment and car, an impressive cache (an Uzi, AR-15 assault rifle, .22 rifles, and pump-action riot shotguns, tear gas, etc.).

Levy has mounted a war against Public Enemy since June. He claims to have organized record store boycotts, has leafletted against the group, put scary-sounding anti-PE messages on his phone machine, and paid at least one visit to their management offices.

There’s a Biblical injunction to the effect that you need not worry about staying close to your friends, but better cling to your enemies — they are your enemies, after all. Levy stayed close to his. An underhand grenade toss from his home is the office of Rush Productions, Public Enemy’s management. The rap group’s private publicist, Layla Turkkan, said, “Maybe I’m listening to too much PE, but it’s the most extraordinary coinci­dence that he should live there, like, three doors down.”

Levy, it turns out, has resided there longer than PE has been around. But go tell that to anybody from Rush and see if they look any more relaxed. Maybe Levy’ll run into Public Enemy next time they play a free concert at Rikers. Rolling Stone can send Axl Rose to cover it.

Waxing Poetic

 

South Beach – Miami – Ocean Drive

My birth-mother Harriet “Tish” Smith is dead. She died on March 1st, 2020, at Aventura Hospital & Medical Center, and much like in her life, she was alone, unhappy and afraid. It was terribly sad, yet completely predictable. For whatever reason, she abandoned just about everyone who ever loved her. A member of the Silent Generation, she lived through World War II against Nazi Germany and witnessed the devastating atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

MOM – Age 29 – 1970

Baby RJ 1966

I, however, am a product of Generation X. Born just after Christmas 1965 in the small village of Ossining, New York, I grew up in the 1970s, when black was black and white was white. It was a good time to be a kid, but I don’t remember much of the first four years. Does anybody? Virtually ALL my remembrances begin around the age of five. I do recall, however, that almost every year, mother moved us to a different run-down one-bedroom apartment because she wanted to get away from the men in her life.’

A lonely place, Ossining had one stoplight and three-stop signs. Suburban life in America back then resembled the fictitious town of Mayberry depicted in the then-popular television show, Andy Griffin Show. Our village even had our own oddball police officer like Barney Fife, played by the great comedian and actor, Don Knotts. Mister Rogers was another hot kid show, but there were only three television channels, ABC, CBS, and NBC plus Color Television was a new technology. Everyone seemed friendlier in the ’70s, and neighbors were more connected. In fact, I’d propose when peering through the foggy lens of history, one could argue American life was better than when compared to current times. Neighbors interacted and organized neighborhood parties, barbeques and sometimes even summered together. Here is my hometown in Florida,  only two neighbors are friendly. The remainder are either extremely standoffish or dismissive.

Andy Griffin Show

View from Hill

One of my fondest reveries from my boyhood with mom was that of Ossining Police Officer Mikey Flynn whom she dated for about a year. I’d hang out with him at the Police Station, and was even allowed to ride in his patrol car. That was an experience that would stay with me throughout my life. I thought cops were the coolest guys I’d ever met. Once, my friends and I actually saw a burglary in progress and ran to the station to tell them. After apprehending the suspect, the chief gave us tin police badges. I wish I had a picture of that. Ossining was and remains a prison town where almost everyone worked inside the infamous Sing-Sing state penitentiary. America’s first serial killer, Albert Fish, was executed here in January 1936 and even the Son of Sam walked the maximum-security yard protected by gun towers and thirty-foot brick walls. 

The place is legendary. Of course, to us kids, it was a place of horror we thankfully only glimpsed from a hill overlooking the exercise yard. Down below, we’d watch enormous men working out with weights, running the perimeter and playing football or baseball depending on the season. There was even an old black man who’d glance up at the hill and wave to us. We always wondered, what was an old guy like that doing in prison? He had to be in his seventies.

Age 3 – 1968, Me and Rusty

Age 4 – 1969

In my writings, I often use the phrase Dead End Friends. It is an important term from my childhood, describing blood brothers – when two best friends decided they were more like real brothers they’d slice open their palms and grip hands allowing the blood to mingle. Nowadays such an act would be akin to suicide with all the deadly diseases our society faces. It was a happy time in my young life. Children of my generation actually had to go outside to play with friends. We had to use our imaginations, muscles and brains. I remember playing long ago forgotten games with my buddies. Stickball, Hide and Seek, Marbles and  Tag were the big ones. Girls played Kick the Can, Hop Scotch, Red Rover, and Mother, May I? We rode bicycles, went spent a lot of time Tree Climbing, and mastering Jump Rope. They were our ONLY means of entertainment. It kept us in shape and helped develop a musculature. Childhood Obesity was practically non-existent despite the fact we consumed mountains of sugar and fatty foods just like modern kids. The difference is social interactions now comes by way of virtual STATUS updates, a Tweet, Instagram, Google, Facebook or YouTube posts. We didn’t have the Internet, Computers, Cellphones, Xbox or Playstation. They were not invented yet In fact, the technologies of today were nothing more than Science Fiction stories considered laughable fantasies. When seeing such future tech in sci-fi magazines, one automatically defaulted to thoughts of comic books, aliens, bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster.  It’s simply amazing what we’ve accomplished since 1950. Think about that. American life was a splinter of what it is now. There wasn’t much to do so we’d hang out at Roller Rinks, Drive-in Theaters, and I even joined the Young Marines. It was a wholesome life full of wonder and excitement.  

Summer Camp

Age 5, 1970

One of the highlights of my boyhood was summer camp that mom sent me off to every year. I excelled at baseball and played a lot as a kid. Modern kids no longer attend summer camp in the numbers they once did and certainly don’t engage now as we did at the same age. Around the age of 6, I began paying attention to music. The first song I remember hearing was Bennie and the Jets by Sir. Elton John while seated in a  beauty salon waiting for mom to get her hair teased out (a weekly event). The song erupting from an old wooden terrestrial radio introducing me to who’d become one of my favorite singers. This was way back when Elton dressed up in outrageous outfits.

I’d come to love music, especially during the holidays when they’d play Christmas music. My half-siblings, Larry and Laura would always visit on Christmas. Unknown to me at the time, mom had abandoned them a few years previously. Luckily, they went to live with their dad who took ’em’ in, raised ’em, loved them and provided a safe and comfortable life.

Raised normally, my siblings had a sheltered existence and enjoyed a typical American childhood. Both excelled at school and eventually went on to college before raising their own beautiful families. To this very day, I am proud to call them family. This is especially true for my amazing brother Larry who managed to sectionalize the abhorrent pain and lonely anguish of his birth mother leaving him.

In fall, 1973, shit started hitting the fan. Mother had sent me off with one of her male friends to stay at a cabin in the Bear Mountains while she vacationed in Florida with her Beau de Jour. For weeks, this guy named Robert molested me every day before returning me home. Somehow, like many abused kids, I knew something wasn’t right about it so I told mother what had happened. Shockingly, she laughed and didn’t believe me. That took something away from our otherwise close relationship. In retrospect, I suppose I lost trust for her. Yet the worst was still to come.

Age 7, 1972 – First Communion

Age 8 – December 1973

Hell on Earth began for me in the dead of winter on Christmas Eve, 1973. Then boyfriend Freddie, a sewer plant manager, had moved in months prior and on this night again returned from work and began beating mom. Running from his grasp, she grabbed a carving knife and plunged it into his chest. Staring in shock at his gushing blood from the corner of the room, I began to weep and mom rapidly approached, gathered me into her arms and hurried from the apartment and into the passenger seat of her Camaro with just the clothes on my back.

We must have driven for hours, my mom behind the steering wheel and chain-smoking one Salem after another. Sometime later, I noticed she had driven into New York City. I had a sick feeling in my gut and stared at her as tears trailed down her cheeks. Pulling to the curb, she pointed to a bodega, handed me a bunch of cash and told me to run inside and grab her a few packs of cigarettes (nobody cared if kids bought smokes back then). I didn’t think anything of it, as I had done this a hundred times previously without consequence. Surprisingly, though, this time … as soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, the car pulled away from the curb and she abandoned me right there on the corner. I was confused, frightened and didn’t know what was happening. Dashing into the street, I chased the disappearing taillights to no avail. However, by the time I realized what had happened, she was long gone! That night, I felt like I died inside and was almost run over by a box truck. But, from out of nowhere, a teenaged Puerto Rican boy pushed me to safety.

There I slouched, crying on the corner of 42nd Street & 8th Avenue smack in the center of the then derelict,  Times Square.  Rain was tumbling from dark ominous clouds and large drops pounded the pavement. Somewhere in the distance sirens shrieked, horns blared and Hookers were working their trade beside what I now know were Pimps. One of the girls was screaming at a Trick horrified behind the wheel of an old run-down car.

Times Square 1974

Pimp with Hookers 1974

This was a scandalous place in the 1970s. Hookers, Drug Dealers, the Homeless and Crime ruled The Square. It was nothing like the Disneyesque of Times Square of current times. Back then, it was a dangerous place for adults, let alone a seventy-pound eight-year-old white boy with big blue eyes and fair skin.

As I have written extensively in The Santa Claus Killer, and my emotionally charged True Crime Novel, Destiny, the Puerto Rican kid became known to me as Marco, one of the dozens of discarded kids living in abandoned apartment buildings in the slums of Washington Heights. They scrounged for food in restaurant garbage cans and sometimes restaurant managers would give us their unsold food when closing at the end of their day. This was the beginning of a five-year ordeal where I’d grow into my teens as a street-savvy kid. It changed me, just as it does for every abandoned child. I became a shadow of the boy I once was and for whatever reason no longer had my mom to comfort me when scared. I was literally all alone.

I suppose, like any kid, I was attached at the hip with my mother. Not having her as I grew up was a gut-wrenching experience. I became insecure and emotionally detached. Sometimes I’d be forced to fight and learned boys were more likely to turn their feelings inward. Showing fear or weakness was like offering red meat to a lion. It is now known that physically, mentally and sexually abused kids are more likely to become little hoodlums. Studies have even found that abject poverty also leads to aggressive behavior. At the time, all I knew was that I had to survive at any cost and I became someone I didn’t recognize.

After five long years growing up on the streets of manhatan, at the age of thirteen, I was plucked from Times Square by police and eventually evaluated by New York City Department of Children and Families. Placing me at The McQuade Foundation for Boys in the town of  New Windsor, I finally felt normal again, made lots of new friends, went to school and began to trust all over again. But just three years later, for whatever reasomn, Mom demand she get me back. Within two weeks, I was escorted aboard a Pan Am Jetliner and flown to Miami International Airport. I hadn’t seen mom in eight years.

1980 – The McQuade Foundation

1973 McQuade, my Friends

This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I had done well in school and recently signed up to enter the United States after I received my high school diploma six-months later. Thinking back to yesteryear, I now realize how much I wanted to become a soldier. Missing that opportunity is one of my biggest regrets… a sore memory that often bothers me time and again. But, it wasnt my fault and I have to remember that.

Walking off that airplane in Miami I didn’t know what to expect. One step led to the next and when exiting the jetway I immediately recognized my mother. Emotionally overwhelmed, I practically collapsed into her arms. This was the moment I had dreamt about for years! To say my emotions were a mess would be an understatement. She still maintained her good looks, even then at the age of forty.

“How’ve ya been?” she asked, her arm loosely slung around my shoulders.

It was almost like the last eight years didn’t happen and I had merely returned from a Twilight Zone field trip. Strange is a lacksadaisical word to describe the entirety of that experience. My emotions were pulling me in two separate directions. The next day, she registered me at North Miami Senior High School, where I entered the 12th grade and settled in for what was expected to be a fabulous reunification with mom.

1981 – My High School

Meeting cool teens my age, the ensuing months were wonderful. I had a tightknit group of friends and a sexy girlfriend by the name of Kristen. Excelling at sports, I’d make the baseball tryouts and would practice as a right fielder. Life was good until one day, the other foot dropped. When returning home after school I discovered all my clothes and property had been thrown off a second-story walkway onto the sidewalk below.

What the hell? I thought. I don’t get it! 

Running upstairs, I discovered the deadbolt key mother had given me no longer fit the lock. Banging on the door and window, I was sure this was some kind of sick joke or mistake. Yet, the years had taught me much and educated me on the worst of humanity. Thus, it didn’t take long to figure out the situation. Mother had abandoned me again! Yet, the question was, why? I had been doing everything right, we got along great, and I didn’t push her on explaining why she’d abandoned me all those years previously. Despite what I’d been through, I was a well-mannered teenager, was very attractive and a straight-A-student. Thinking I had a bright future ahead of me in sunny South Florida.

But, the hell of my youth would multiple infinitely here in the Sunshine State.

Aventura, Miami 2010

The Santa Claus Killer pre-launch

So, on February 28th, 2020, when I got a phone call from my brother in Utah, I wasn’t expecting him to ask me to handle an emerging issue with my eldery mother I hadnt seen in years. Apparently, she had Stage 4 Lung Cancer and had just received a second dose of chemotherapy. I knew nothing about it, we were estranged despite my continued attempts in 2010-to-2014 to reconnect and get to know her.

So, there I was, four-hundred miles from Miami and Larry wanted find out about the situation. He gave me mom’s neighbor’s phone number and I promised I’d call. Apparently, Tish had been found two days in a row on the floor. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, and had a 103-degree temperature.

So, I did what any good son might and called North Miami Fire Rescue from West-Central Florida where I now live.

Christmas 2012

Relating to Larry what I’d been told and the actions I took, he asked me to drive down to Miami and “see what’s up?” I never in a million years ever believed I’d be the sibling who’d get in a car, rush 400 miles to a hospital I knew nothing about and hold my birth-mother’s hand as she lay in Aventura Hospital and Medical Center.

That night, the doctor told me she was dying and that I should contact the rest of our family. Although my brother cared, that was the extent of anyone who gave a shit. It made me sad, but sometimes we make our own bed.

The first night I saw her, something happened in me. Deep down where the past nags in the gut, all the anger, disappointment, frustration and hatred I had for her, the person responsible for Hell on Earth for that young boy who grew up an orphan. It just evaporated, like everything I went through ended on her death bed. A sense of relief came over me.

February 28, 2020

March 1st, 2020

One of the last things she mumbled to me was: “my kids aren’t here but I guess after what I did to them they wouldn’t be.”  That was the closest thing to “I’m sorry” she would allow herself.  And, I accepted that. The bottom line for me was that I got to say goodbye, called a priest and watched as he gave mom last rights.

That night, I whispered in her ear that I forgave and assured her I’d be alright.  At 7:3o a.m. on March 1st, 2020, she slipped away to the darkness which awiats us all.

It took a long time for me to realize, but sometimes in our lives, we allow things to follow us around like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. Pain, regret, and difficult memories are hard to resolve. Yet in the end, I discovered that those we think we despise the most seem to be pretty easy to forgive. I was blessed to have closure.

UPDATED: 17 March 2020

The Long Goodbye

RJ Smith – 2020

My mother Harriet “Tish” Smith is dead. She died, much like in her life, alone, unhappy and afraid. It was sad, yet predictable. She abandoned everyone who ever loved her. Until the age of five through eight we lived in Ossining, New York, just a hop and skip from the famed Sing-SingPenitentiary where Albert Fish, America’s first serial killer was electrocuted in January 1936. Even the Son of Sam once sat behind those cold iron bars. The place is legendary.

Before the age of eight, I had a lot of friends and my brother and sister would come over to see us at Christmas (they had a different father). Mom had abandoned them a few years previously.

My brother Larry and sister Laura lived with their dad who thankfully took ’em’ in, raised ’em, loved them and made a safe comfortable life for both. They were raised normally, had a sheltered existence and grew up with friends, school, and a typical American childhood in the seventies. Both excelled at school and eventually went on to college. They later raised families and I’m so happy things went well for them.

I took on ALL the fear, fright, abuse and sorrow for all of us. My path would be much different. I didn’t have a daddy, or at least that’s what Tish told me. It was a convenient time to say he died in the war.

It all began in the dead of winter on Christmas Eve. That’s when mom stabbed a boyfriend named Freddie, (Read: Santa Claus Killer) carried me out of the house and put me in the Camaro. Arriving in New York City, she pointed to a bodega, shoved a bunch of bills into my small hands and sent me to buy her a few packs of Salem cigarettes (nobody cared back then). As soon as my feet dug into the dirty snow, the Camaro pulled away from the curb abandoning me right there and then.

I was her youngest child and yet, there I was crying on 42nd Street & 8th Avenue.  Snow tumbled from dark ominous clouds, sirens shrieked in the distance and someone was screaming for their life.

Aventura, Miami 2017

Now, close your eyes and imagine this: An eight-year-old abandoned in 1974 times Square, surrounded by peep shows, porn theaters, drug dealers, It was a place littered with snares, nightmares, and agony. That’s where I’d grow into my teens… on the streets, learning that life and surviving at any cost.

So, on February 28th, 2020, when I got a phone call from my older brother who lives in Utah, I wasn’t expecting him to ask me to get down there. Apparently Tish had cancer and had just received her second dose of chemotherapy. I knew nothing about it, we were estranged despite my attempts in 2017 to reconnect and get to know her.

So, now, here I was, four-hundred miles from Miami and my brother wanted me down there. He gave me the neighbor’s phone number and I promised I’d call. Apparently, Tish had been found two days in a row on the floor. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, and had a 103-degree temperature. So, I did what any good son might and called North Miami Fire Rescue.

Calling Larry and relating what I’d been told and what actions I took, he asked me to drive down to “see what’s up?” I can assure you, I never in a million years ever believed I’d be the adult sibling who’d get in a car, rush 400 miles to the hospital and hold her hand as she lay in Aventura Hospital and Medical Center. That first night, the doctor told me she was dying and that I should contact the family. Although my brother cared, that was the extent of anyone who gave a shit. Laura was there for a few hours too.

When I first saw her, something happened in me. Deep down where the past nags in the gut, all the anger, disappointment, frustration and hatred I had for her, the person responsible for Hell on Earth for that young boy who grew up on the streets of Manhattan. It evaporated, it was almost like everything that I went through ended on her death bed. A sense of relief came over me.

One of the last things she mumbled to me was this: “my kids aren’t here but I guess after what I did to them they wouldn’t be.”  That would be the closest thing to “I’m sorry” she would allow herself to say.  I got to say goodbye, called a priest who gave her last rights and the very next morning at 7:30 a.m. she let go of this thing called life.

Sometimes in our lives, we allow things to follow us around like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. Pain, regret, and anger are hard to resolve. Yet in the end, those we hate most seem to be pretty easy to forgive.

UPDATED: 17 March 2020

Buy Monsters in the Woods

The Super Thriller, Monsters in the Woods by @TheRealRJSmith. Get your Hardcover, Paperback or E-book copy of the adventure of your life. #kindlebook #ibooks #barnesandnoble pic.twitter.com/tjvfY7bz6I

— RJ Smith (@TheRealRJSmith) July 11, 2019