Five Countries-5 of 5
DATE BOOK FOR FRIDAY, MAY 30: Walk Bond Street and Burlington Arcade to changing horse guard at 11, to National Gallery again, see Svein off at 2 and shower and check out of hotel and John and Al over and talk to 10 and bed "early."
DIARY: Jottings from London: Orgy weekend: outline: Friday: John comes in 6 pm with Alex, and Leslie cooks three pork chops for us and omelet for himself. Alex blotto and won't eat, drinks straight Scotch by the glassful. John describes his face as used "as the model for the leprechaun for some peanut butter or jam." Large upturned nose, face compressed longitudinally under a wide forehead under a huge batch of black curly hair, a nicely shaped red-lipped mouth and a huge brilliant set of blue eyes under nicely shaped brows. Irish-Italian. Al reminds me of Mario, laughs with wrinkles around his mouth and premature bags under his 29-year-old eyes. John leaves to get back to Rinaldo and Al doesn't eat. We finish evening and I walk over to Al's chair and stand directly beside him, looking down. He smiles up out of bloodshot eyes, says "Hello, there," and takes a fumbling swipe at my crotch with "What you got down here?" When he looks back up at me, I bend over and kiss him, and he returns it firmly and affectionately, and the next time he feels the front of my trousers he can feel the hardness forming underneath. "Um," he says, smiling dumbly up at me. I decide to get back to Leslie in the kitchen, and there's Alex over the back of my neck, saying "Why don't the three of us go to bed together?" Leslie freezes a look at him and glances "compassionately" at me. "No, Al, you'll sleep in John's bed and we'll sleep in mine." When Al leaves, Leslie again regards me with mournful face. "Sorry." I am, too.
Then we're in bed and Leslie and I are firmly enwrapped, me not really up, feigning extreme fatigue, and it's only 10 pm and Leslie says he just MUST get some sleep before his class tomorrow at 9:30 from all these 3 am evenings. "I'm selfish, too," he admits, "this is the first time I've had TIME to spend with you, and I want it to be ONLY you." We have sex, rather grimly and determinedly, and we're lying entwined when there's a fumble at the door. "Can I come in?" "No, Alex, get back to bed." "Can't I come in?" "No, Alex." There's a long silence and he stumbles back to bed. I roll over and AGAIN Alex's in the room. "No, Alex." I hear this, and then there's a different weight distribution on the bed, a smack of a kiss, a whispered entreaty, "NO, Alex." Fumbles and quick actions. "Bob's sleeping." Pause, then the weight on the bed is equalized. Quiet again. "Sorry." I feel SO sorry for ALEX.
DIARY PAGE: Leslie's late for work, so he grabs a cab and leaves me at Bond Street with detailed instructions of how to proceed from there. It's like walking on a combination of Fifth and Madison Avenues, with the elegant jewelry shops, clothing stores, and the placards outside saying that they have outlets in Paris, Rome and New York, or even better, Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue. Down to the Burlington Arcade, and it's well-lit and airy, for being completely enclosed, and there's a nice unity about the shops that the diversity of what they sell seems to fit in nicely. Small antique shops, mod boutiques, staid handbag and shoe sellers, perfumeries, and almost anything, and since it's beginning to shower, the arcade idea is much respected. There's another arcade which I look into, but it's getting late and I'm supposed to meet Svein at the changing of the horse guards. It seems to take forever, and I tell him what little I know about changing guard, namely, that most of it takes place at the actual guard's positions, that I learned in the army. The robes are red and blue, and the brass is polished and the horses burnished to shiny blackness, and the capes are full so that it's impossible to get any idea of their supposedly uniform size. The bobbies are terribly nice, and you WANT to listen to what they say, and it's such a pleasant change from the hated US cops, since they use smiles and polite requests without impugning their masculinity, they don't wear guns and carry clubs, nor do they have walkie-talkies, so you just tend to listen to them: oh, and what they ask IS reasonable, too. He wants to see a bit more of the National Gallery before his plane leaves, so we walk down and glance through the Reserve collection, he looks again at the Goya and the French, we're back to the Rembrandt, and it's time for him to go, I saying goodbye to him as he gets out at Victoria Station with about ten minutes to catch his plane, asking me to get up to Copenhagen if I can. I'm back to the hotel and check out just then, since they're asking when I'm leaving, and that persuades me to leave. Grab a cab so I don't have to lug the suitcase, and get up to Leslie's and get settled, and in a while John and Al are in, which is described in TD 41-42. We talk quite a bit through the evening, but Leslie's after me, and I'm after Al, and Al's too drunk to be much use for anything, and I don't have the nerve to turn Leslie off.
DATE BOOK FOR SATURDAY, MAY 31: Sex with Al, to Madame Tussaud's and Love's Labor's lost at Old Vic and Roger Rousell drives to Edward's for Clive and David and Bernie and Alan and Bill and Lloyd, to 4 am, orgy, orgy, orgy.
DIARY: Then Leslie and I have sex AGAIN in the morning, and Al and I mix it up, I saying I came twice, he admitting he whacked off twice thinking about us in the next room, and we jerk each other off. Fatigue, fatigue. Out to wait for Leslie to 12:30, then leave keys with Don, who calls me "Dishy."
To Madame Tussaud's, and to "Love's Labor's Lost," having a frank before the one and a turkey sandwich and one-quarter egg and tomato sandwich before the other. Talk on corner and Roger comes up with his fair-blond face and lower eyelids reddened as if plucked. Face wrinkled and attitude taciturn, he doesn't immediately attract. Crowd there is nice, Edward and Bill I know from last weekend, David I know from the Players evening, and Bernie the Bostonian is square-faced and soft-haired and brown-eyed and stocky. Lloyd is older and faggoty, and Clive later is soft and British. I figure we're complete for 8 for dinner at 9, but there's a flurry at the door and beautiful Alan comes in, Swiss and huge-eyed and immensely coiffed, slender body outlined in black clothing, nice smile. Not a BAD crew. To pub for darts and drinks (singles start at 301, doubles at 501, must have double to start, scores are double and triple and 25 and 50 for centers, and go down to last even number and must FINISH on a double) and instruction from denizens, and dinner is again skimpy but good, and the wine flows and flows. "Hair" played and we're to the basement, Bill starts by doing Bernie, and I find myself sucking Bill, then Bill moves off and to prevent matters from getting worse (since Alan is cornered on the beds by Bernie and Lloyd) I dive for David, who kisses badly, and someone handles us between as we're stripped and there's something wet flopping around my backside without penetration. I leave David rather unceremoniously at a pause in the films and crawl onto the pile on the bed. No lights. Lights and I sit behind Alan, but he and Bernie seem cemented together, Alan's cock wet with come.
Then there's Roger, and he kisses nicely and as people leave we're together alone. Continue to kiss and neither he nor I are erect, but I in my wine-feverish mind feel that he has the most perfect skin in the world. Absolutely smooth, but soft only on the surface, with a firm underlayer of ill-defined muscle, but muscles nevertheless. His neck was perfection: taut cords and sinews standing out, muffled by the soft embrace of the skin. Hairless, my fingertips rubbed his skin in delight, turning to fingernails to run up and down his sides. He moved and moaned and writhed and kissed more deeply, face smooth, blond hair incredibly fine and soft under my clutching fingers. Hands rubbed past cocks every so often, he too was uncut like Al, but it was the kiss and the touch that ruled. "Christ, what skin!" I said after he said he had been told BEFORE that he had a nice neck. We talked in passing about his lover of one day, and I talked of my exhausting morning. Kisses got lighter and finally we were content to lie silently enwrapped, he inside, I outside, back to the room. Then the door opened and someone came in and lay on the bed. A pillow was fluffed, and laid almost on my back. I opened my eyes unseeing in the darkness, and the pillow was put literally on me, and the head brushed my arm. A hand reached out and groped me, then when I didn't respond moved over to Roger. I lay, silent, as he began breathing hard, then the body stretched over and began doing him, and his breathing got louder. In a frenzy of disgust I fought out of my body prison and sat up. When it seemed the action would continue I went to the toilet and came back to find two bodies in one bed. I stared dumbly, then figuratively shrugged and dropped onto the other bed, pulling the covers toward me, lying facing the wall. Again the door opened and it seemed to be Bill who poised above me on the bed, played with me, but I remained limp and he lay down next to me. Yet another person entered, pushed onto the bed, pushing Bill into me, and I lay crushed between Bill and the wall, wide-eyed with wonderment. What NEXT? Next was a hand reaching across Bill to find my hand, retreated, returned with what I took to be a flashlight, but from the warmth and the slightly shitty smell, I translated the phallic shape into something somewhat else. [7 pm, train starts, into Amsterdam at 8] Felt it, let it go, retreated further into myself against the wall, and Bill, or whoever, lay still as someone, maybe number 5, maybe number 3, maybe Roger, paired up for a duet of increasing tempo of breathing and dry-throated groans, followed by "No, please," and "Don't" followed by a gasp that tended to egg one on rather than put one off. This ceased, Bill left, and I was aware of the birds singing outside.
DIARY PAGE: Much of the day is outlined in TD 42-43, but it doesn't go into what I felt for and with Al. Maybe it was just in contrast to the fact that the only two people I'd been in bed with during the trip were Charles and Leslie, who were rather similar: older than I (Charles isn't, but it just SEEMS that way), bodies well-kept but a bit too hairy, a bit too soft, not terribly handsome around the face, but exciting enough in bed with their big cocks and appreciative kissing and complimenting. But Al was a sort of a kid, and quite straight appearing, and affectionate because HE wanted to be affectionate, not because that's how it ended up. He was kind of a puppy-dog kind of person who would just hang onto you with a grin - well, that's what Charles and Leslie were, but AL was a CUTE puppy-dog, and a very sexy one, too, when he got his clothes off and there was that lovely hairless skin, and smellless, since he'd lived in San Francisco for five years and had gotten into the American habits of cleanliness. So we kissed and kissed and kissed, and we tried to have sex and he was very oral, and liked me to be oral, but then he wanted to fuck me, so I let him try, but he'd come too much already and he pumped and pumped, and I just felt that he was hurting me after awhile, that there was a fold of flesh inside me that he was ramming up against, and that warmth I felt back there wasn't only shit and his ooze, but it was blood, and I'd be sore as hell and peeling piles into the john for the next week. Finally I made him stop and I used my hand until he had to come, and then he did me until I came and we ended up limp and exhausted, but then kissed and could have come up again, except that I had to be out and doing. Finally there was someone who wanted to see Madame Tussaud's, and it was GOOD because most of the likenesses were striking, except for the Americans', and maybe I'm glad I didn't KNOW what the English look like, and does Prince Phillip REALLY have such a scarred face? Then to sexy Beroune in "Love's Labor's Lost," but a stupid play, and to Edward's as described.
DATE BOOK FOR SUNDAY, JUNE 1: Up at 9:30 and sun in nude and leave with Lloyd at 12. To John's and Rinaldo's for dance and sicky and eat at Italian place and to Sombrero (great) and to Leslie's with Al to toss to 2 am.
DIARY: Under the bed to retrieve my watch, and I found it was 4, a light was coming in the windows. Put out a chair to smell the fresh air and listen to the voluble swallows and in at 5:30 after sunrise below the hills, whitening clouds, and increasingly dewy cold. Slept to 9:30, showered and shaved, took toast and tea, and stretched out nude for the sun from 10-12. Home with Lloyd, inviting him up, and LESLIE has a guest, ugly, and we have breakfast. Time passes and at 3 we're over to Rinaldo's, to meet him and John, to see his pictures, one not bad, and he leaves. John serves sherry from Jerez de la Fronteria, more liquor than wine, and big glasses at that. Wagner changes to the Supremes and we begin dancing, and when John draws the drapes it gets warmer and warmer, and Al sweats with nervousness and I unbutton my shirt, take it off, and the FANTASTIC fun begins.
DIARY PAGE: TD 45 takes it up to where I take my shirt off. Then Leslie gets my idea and he takes his pants off, which I think is a bit too quick, and then I'm not turned on by his body. My white bells are perfect because I have no underwear on, so I start zipping down the zipper and Al gets excited and begins undressing, because I want him to, and he's drunk enough to do anything I want him to. John is uptight about the whole thing, refusing to take anything off, and as I gravitate to Al, he gets Leslie, which isn't very nice, either. Al and I begin holding each other, and he's down to his shorts and Leslie, with no sense of tease, plays with his shorts and then they come off. John in desperation unbuttons his shirt, and Leslie tries to strip him, but that just annoys him, and Al starts cautioning us: If you do anything he doesn't like, he'll just leave, watch him, I know him. I'm still getting sexy with my trousers, and Al slips his shorts lower and lower, sweating and shining in the heat, and John finally takes his shirt off because it IS hot. I figure it's gone long enough and take my trousers off, and immediately Al strips bare, and John goes down to his shorts, but refuses to go further. Leslie tries to yank them down, but he gets angry, and I put Leslie onto Al, and go to John, who's been fuming about Rinaldo seeing someone else, but John loves Rinaldo. I command him to kiss me, and he doesn't want to, but when I force it, it goes very nicely, and I begin to get semi-hard, just to show John that he's exciting, and when I've gotten him reasonably excited, too, ask him a favor, "Would you, for me, take your shorts down?" There's a pause, and I reinforce, "Because I want you to," and he says OK, and strips, which is really quite sexy. Then he says that Al's been sitting on the sofa, mooning, and I'd better see to him. So I get him up and dancing again, and Leslie gets more frenzied, throwing his head around, but finally he adjourns to the bathroom. We continue for a bit, and John sees my point about Rinaldo: John can absolutely ENJOY kissing me, but still love Rinaldo, and Rinaldo can do the same. I'm starving, and Al is getting totally blotto, and Leslie's out of it in the bathroom hanging his head over a tub filled with sweaters. We go to the Italian place and Al, as usual, won't eat, but we do, and back. Leslie still sick, and Al wants to see the Sombrero, so John says leave, he'll take care of Leslie. So we get a cab with great trouble and get to a crowded Sombrero, finally get a table, and dance quite a few times, very pleasant, with lights and nice people and good groovy music, and we conk out and want to go home, sex, and die at 3 AM.
DATE BOOK FOR MONDAY, JUNE 2: Up at 6 and sex sex sex and to cab at 9:30 to Liverpool Station to Harwich at 12, boat to Hook at 6 and doze and write to Comeback at 8:30 (now). Unpack and walk town and have snack bar dinner and to dancing DOK and next door to bed at 1.
DIARY: (Action on ship: old cruiser winds up talking to fear-eyed boy who looked at me with longing. Mother guarding children looking with jealousy at hippies passing in sandals. Kid who could be hardly older than 16, fat cheeked, smoking a horrid cigar. Girls in clusters looking at me. Sleek-haired fellow in light green wide stripe suit with blue shirt and yellow tie strolling past the baggage locker to see if anything is left. Train leaves late at 10:30, arrives in Harwich at 12 and the boat leaves quickly at 12:15. Scenes at the docks at Hook, which could be Antwerp or Calais, but not Dover, with its outer works of moldering piers, eddies of mud in the water from tidal estuaries, oil storage tanks and brightly flashing beacon lights. Boats moving and being moved by tugs and parked at docks bristling with cranes. Typically flat area, as if it were built out of the sea only as far as necessary, then covered with warehouses and factory outlets for the shipping. Huge tanker "World Knowledge" from Monrovia lying 41 feet deep in the water, three football field areas level on the green deck under snake turnings of piping and conduits. At 6:30 people began staggering out with luggage, but I sit and wait. Why stop and start if I can just go, since the train has to wait for us all anyway?)
DIARY PAGE: Wake at 6 and find Leslie still isn't home, and kiss and cuddle and again fend off Al from fucking me, but it's still pleasant tussling and tumbling in the small bed. Leslie finally gets in and John says that he puked into the bathtub filled with Rinaldo's soaking cashmere sweaters, and I tell Leslie about it, just so he'll know how much of a friend to him JOHN was, and naturally he's appalled to hear what he'd done, but I feel partly to blame, since I felt he wanted to get away from me not wanting him through drink. Al and I dress and I pack quickly (I think leaving a pair of chinos there in the fuss of leaving) and I don't want to walk to the underground station, and someone told me it was a long walk from the station to the terminal, and I just don't feel like lugging the book-stacked suitcase around, so we're out to look for a cab, except unfortunately there doesn't happen to BE one until we walk almost up to the station. Then we're into the back and through all the back streets in the world, and the meter ticks slowly up to 25 shillings, about 32 with tip, and that's over a pound and a half, and Al said he'd pay for it, and all I had left in English currency was a 10 shilling note, and I gave that to him and blessed him. Finally get there just before 10 AM, but the train isn't really ready to pull out, and I find that the subway entrance is RIGHT THERE, so I really should have taken the tubes, it would have been faster than the 40 minutes of rattling through the side streets, trying to avoid the impossible London main thoroughfare traffic. Into the section with the Canadian couple and the American Black couple, and we talk all the way to Harwich, so I don't have to read, and there's not much to see outside, anyway. Get to the boat at noon, and talk with the colored couple, then read and relax and take a few notes for TD 44-45 on leaving the boat, and into the train and through all the town I'll see later and to the terminal and lug the infernal suitcase to a cab and get to the Comeback at 8:30, unpack, walk down and can't find anyplace open for dinner but a strange snack counter and terrible food, register in the DOK, but don't like the people there, but it's handy when I want to go back to the hotel, it's just one flight up, one door over, one flight up, and I'm in bed at 11.
DATE BOOK FOR TUESDAY, JUNE 3: Wake at 6 and up at 10 to breakfast and find VVV office and city information. Go to Rijksmuseum from 12-5, having good lunch there and back to hotel to rest and stand on line at Concertgebouw for Beethoven's 9th and to Moderne for dinner and Bonaparte and meet lovely Gilbert.
DIARY PAGE: Wake at 6 in the bright room, and lay and dream, exhausted, and up at 10 to breakfast at 10, and the co-owner is disgusted with everything and hardly sexy, and I have breakfast and finish to the delightful arrival of flowers from Svein, and they're just beautiful and they give me the strength to get out and tackle the unknown city of Amsterdam. Walk through the streets according to the map I found in the gutter yesterday, and hit a tourist office, and he says I can get everything at the VVV office, so I'm there and stock up on guide information and maps, and I begin to know what I'm doing. Beeline to the Rijksmuseum, walking along the canals, and trying to get up some excitement for the city, but it's not very successful. The museum is great, though, even though there are lots of people about, and every so often a herd of students sweeps through on their way to five or six selected paintings, and I look til I'm tired at 3, then down to the restaurant, which is empty, but still the service is poor, for a very good lunch, though expensive by their standards, but it's relaxing, and it's nice to look at real flowers on the table after looking at them in paintings all day. Back to get through the furniture and art-objects section of the place, but don't get to the ground floor at all. Out at 5 and walk back to the hotel to rest, and figure I can just get a seat to the Concertgebouw, since the ticket office isn't open when I stop there on the way back, and there's an enormous line waiting for cancellations, hardly seems ANY chance at all, but the people are waiting, and what else can I do, so I stand there, 8 passes, and they begin handing out tickets which have been cancelled, and thankfully they DO have enough to get to me, and I get a strange jump seat along the aisle, but can see quite a bit, and the acoustics are good so that when everyone lets loose in Beethoven's 9th, which climaxes the evening, it's quite splendid, even though the choir is facing the other direction. To the Modern across the canal for a terrible fruit-cocktail-sweet sole, stumble into the Bonaparte, nice decor but same odd crowd as DOK, and start talking to Gilbert, who says he'll meet me for the opera tomorrow, and I feel better about the city already. Stand till tired and back to hotel to bed.
DATE BOOK FOR WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4: Wake at 5 and wash hair and breakfast with someone else from NYC and to Zaanse Shanse and Volendam 10-2 in rain and phone for tixs and see Royal Palace and buy stamps, lunch in Kowloon and take boat tour and see Hansel and Gretel and to all three bars!
DIARY: FRAGMENTS FROM AMSTERDAM: She said "oil," I thought of motor oil, and wondered about the "chocolate" roasting, and he said it was peanuts with "scale" (or shell?) and he was making PEANUT oil, crushing them under the millstones, roasting it over a fire stirred by mill, pounding them if necessary, then pressing them to get oil, and cake for cattle with what was left. The "slap slap" giving a SOUND, as well as the shuddery FEEL of power. One lovely guilder's worth of Holland. Working Mill. 1640, everything made from two trunks of 3000 tons (?). Piles sixteen meters down in wood and concrete.
"Oh, they wriggle for hours after they're dead" she said cheerfully about the six-inch eels being slit and gutted, jerking under the knife. Boy efficiently cleaning matjes herring. Men in wide trousers looking like skirts while standing, covering their shoes, women in long black skirts with pinstriped white aprons worn over black stockings and yellow wooden shoes. Try "Young" ginever 32% and "old" 52%. But it has the lousy stingy spicy-seedy cumin taste of aquavit and makes me slightly nauseous. Walk through town and see church and shopping and tiny streets and houses. As a "bonus," stop at cheese-making factory, and I already spent ten guilders for a large Edam for Joe and 7 guilder for a small Edam for Mom, including postage (4 weeks) to the US. I think to ask for a receipt, but decide not to, to trust her. Well, OK. Inside the cheese factory they tell us that US factories use the WHEY for cheese, but THEIR cheese is 55% fat. They sell cheese and slicers "taking any money, even Russian rubles." Ha. Then a donation box saying "Thank you for the service." Free samples, tastes like cheese. Edam in north, Gouda and Limburger in south, near Rotterdam. Dam MEANS dike, and Amsterdam is dike on river Amstel, and Rotterdam on Rotter.
In Royal Palace: "Mercury, God of Trade," standing looking over one shoulder with one limp wrist on him, the other hand JUST ready to remove the cloth clutched at his crotch. Not much of the vaunted collection of Empire furniture to be seen: a set of tables, sofa and three chairs in each of four corner chambers, somewhat more in two or three other rooms.
6/4. Decoration: "The surrounding decoration consists of poppy heads to suggest the peace of mind resulting from insurance." "Saturn, god of Time and Agriculture. He begets the hours, and, although they are his own children, he also eats them up."
Rembrandt's house has every known print, but avoids the fucking ones, though it has a fat clown pissing, left hand held BACKWARD on cock. Pass Waterloo Plein and see undoubtedly the world's junkiest junk market, even to kid selling rusty roller skates, buckle-less belts and household glasses and cups and bent forks. UGH. Rain comes and I end up in Kowloon Chinese Indonesian restaurant at 4 pm.
[Maybe the EFFECTS of pot are due to momentary flashes of drugged sleep. Thus the mind dozes off, with the fantastic fugues that accompany falling asleep when exhausted. Time is distorted, everything is like tiny bits of falling asleep! Oh, to paint contemporary handsome faces beautifully, or photograph them, or paint or photograph males having sex BEAUTIFULLY---and recruit the models!!]
DIARY PAGE: Wake at 5, can't figure why I can't sleep, and take the chance to use the shower to wash my hair, and thankfully there's enough hot water once it gets started, but it takes an absolute age to get started. Down to breakfast and there's a guy there from NYC who's taking a car up to the northern part of the country for shipping, but it appears he won't be back in time for the opera, and I don't like him that much anyway, so I'm off to the VVV referred tour of Zaanse Shanse, like in TD 46, and it's raining on and off, and even though I'm wearing my raincoat, it's not the nicest way to tour, though the guide is pleasant enough with her information, and I'm about the only one who asks any other kind of questions. Then we get to Volendam and I take the chance to buy some cheeses for Mom and Joe without a receipt, and we're through more of the countryside, which is level and pleasant, though I don't feel inspired to take any other tour just through the countryside, because I see how they make cheese and I've seen a windmill, or three, and that's about all there would be. Back to the city at 2, and get into the Royal Palace, which is large and roomy, but not terribly elegant a place to live in, but it'll make a nice museum. This is on TD 47. Phone for tickets to the opera to make sure I have the two that I want, and then across to the post office to buy stamps, and there's still time so I walk over to Rembrandt's house and look at all the prints, then walk back through the Waterloo Plein in the rain and eat lunch in Kowloon restaurant at 4, ordering one appetizer after another just to taste them, and then the sun comes out and I take the boat tour, seeming to find a nice area just to the south east of the terminal, but I never get back to that area of sailors, bars, and slant-walled houses and narrow streets. Back to the hotel to change for the opera, and wait for Gilbert, but he doesn't come, damn him (though he WAS supposed to call if he WAS going to make it, but I just hoped against reason even after he didn't call), and the opera was awful, and the seats were poor, and the only interesting thing was how good a Hansel the stocky mezzo made. Out and to some Austrian-German type restaurant for a good dinner with wine, and then to the third bar (which was empty), back to the Bonaparte, which was the same, back to the DOK, then back to the hotel, feeling terribly tired and depressed.
DATE BOOK FOR THURSDAY, JUNE 5: Wake at 4 and 6 and 8 and get to all-day tour of Aalkmaar and bulb fields and Scheveningen and Hague for Maurits Huis and sandwich and to Madourodam and Delft and Euromast in Rotterdam and back to hotel at 9 pm, eat at Indonesia and bed very tired at 11 pm.
DIARY: Delft has a VERY leaning church tower---and a peahen on a factory roof and a WINDMILL.
The wheel turns, CHRIST, how the wheel turns. Ban de Huile---BAN de wheel, as Joe says). Think of talking to Azak when I return, how I find that everyone in the world is the same, how everyone is different. They all want love, they all show themselves in laughter and tears. And suddenly laughter and tears are the same emotions: a convulsive motion of the stomach. Huh, huh, huh, is that a laugh or a cry? They can go from one to the other, or both merge with a scream, it's all the same expression. Ex-pression. From, pressure, it's all pressure on the stomach---just like giving birth to a baby---expressing your feelings just as a mother presses her baby from her. God, it's ALL the same, ALL the same, and I stop eating toast at Jean-Jacques' just to write this down. The wheel turns, CHRIST, how the wheel turns.
DIARY: For the second time when I'm pressed (as in London when I decided to move to Leslie's apartment---without which I would not have ended up with Alex) to tell when I leave, I choose the earlier of two dates. Debated whether to leave Friday (trains not busy during week) or Saturday (busy), and tall fag asked when I leave and I say---tomorrow! [Then in front of homes one of these portable---pullable---steam calliopes with the bummy looking fellow with the small brassy coin-collector---with the attitude that we SHOULD REALLY WANT to donate to his forced music.] I only hope that I meet someone the next day (orgy in the train compartment?) as I did before. Never was more clear the benefits of "having someone" in a city as in Amsterdam, particularly boasted by the failure of Gilbert to call AND my failure to sell his ticket to the rather lousy (I think more than subjectively lousy---they didn't even have ONE of the fourteen descending angels, and I was so SURE that the gnarled tree has a ballet dancer's lovely body) "Hansel and Gretel." One of the unconscionably (and unnecessary) difficulties of the touring business comes when the FIRST bus (scheduled to leave at 9:30, SAID to leave INSIDE at 9:45, said to leave OUTSIDE at 10, I got there at 9:15 (a bit early, to buy my ticket back to Paris), and we LEAVE at 10:15, second bus trailing behind---anyway taking those who speak only Spanish. LINT restaurant! Park 3.5 square miles---bigger than the Bois de Boulogne, 1 times Central Park, 3 times Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park together. 500 lots/hour, 6:30-11:30, 5 hours; 2500 lots, sometimes with 1000 flowers. Thus over a million flowers sell per day. Great hair-trigger scheme, customer pushes clock hand way up, and it falls rather quickly back. FIRST button pressed from seat STOPS clock at price they want, and seat number lights up. 90% exported, 60% of those to West Germany. Daisies EACH flower wrapped in plastic. Roses, carnations, FEW orchids, five or six other types.
Each blasted petal, imperfect, browned, torn, eaten, wilting at the tip, but dozens in each bloom, making a somewhat more lovely ensemble. Dozens of blooms in a bunch, tightly packed, almost no green visible save around unopened bud; dozens of bunches in a lot, piled in same-colored pyramids. Three lots in each side of the two-layered carts, a dozen in all, on wheeling table tops of color, all one flower type, but many colors. Hundreds of carts in a room, lightly smelling, wall-to-wall, some wrapped, some labeled, some numbered. Three or four rooms stretching at a distance, maybe a dozen rooms in all. 12 rooms, 200 carts, for 2500 carts; 1200 flowers on a cart, or three million in all, staggering, vaguely green smelling, impressing that in ten minutes it can be in an airport and on a plane and in hours to the US or France or Italy. Staggering. Industry: shipping, wood preparation, tourism, flowers. Everywhere: first blue drooping lycine, now in Netherlands (Holland only the biggest PROVINCE), the yellow hanging wisteria and pink flowering like-chestnut.
Eremurus blooms like backward sparkler: dead at bottom, blooming in middle, buds at top, giving upwards slowly its blooms, Tulips grown for bulbs cut off very short stems on flowers that are THROWN AWAY. Boat loads of petals to be sunk or burned. Tourists herded through sales desks where they buy nothing, to the disgust of the salespeople. How the French must appear to be second best when they give a talk like "These are floats made out of the hyacinths glued onto chicken wire, very difficult to make," to "Les Jacinths." Many Indians or Indonesians or Japanese on tours. Sun comes and goes, and I'm rapidly tiring of the whole country---including Annika's scolding me for getting into Eleanor's bus, even though Annika wasn't really scheduled for this trip, but only took the second bus. Slide show sat about 40, but the two busses comprised about 75. Ugh. "Dutch" a name Americans gave them. They have BOTH names Jaap and Joop, latter like John. Wassendar spectacularly rich beautiful town. Benzine (ben-zeen-ay) is put into cars. Spoor-track is Dutch word. In Scheveningen they swim only two months and "I don't swim at all, the North Sea is too cold." The new herring for $1.25 are slimy and relatively tasteless, the brine being very dilute, I guess. But though raw, it's extremely tender and clean tasting, though the onions may mask much of the taste. The cleaner didn't quite get the bone down to the tail, so there was a sick crunch at the end, but the taste was very nice and delicate, in sum. [Recommended to see the Museu "Lazaro Galdeano" in Madrid, the Six house, which has to be reserved at the desk of the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, and Guanajuato, city and state in Mexico.] Lovely "jolts" in Madurodam: baby ducks being bumped by water skiers, a CROW running across the airfield, ducks swimming in canals, gum wrappers covering people, swimmers all at the bottom. The Hague means, originally, "Count's Gardens," but the guide pronounced count much like "cunt."
I'm wondering why the plate I bought for 3.50 was the same as others selling for 5.50? Maybe they forgot to change the label on one item for the foreign tourist trade? Bouquet from Svein-Erik: three red roses, three pink roses, six blue iris, seven yellow iris; nine sweet williams of four colors, three pink carnations, three white sprays, seven purple bachelor buttons, two leaf sprays, for forty-three items, a strange number.
Overheard faggot conversation "Our rapport (pronounced ree-POOR) is more complementary rather than based on similarities." God!
DIARY PAGE: Wake at 4 and at 6 and at 7, and get up to breakfast and over to wait for the all-day tour, which I described pretty thoroughly on TD 48-49, except for some of the details. Long boring ride out of the city, through the large park, and into the model-looking side-streets of Aalkmaar, with each house neatly set in the center of its plot, a row of flowers up the straight walk to the door, flowers at the corners of the lawns, and one house leading to another as if in some sort of master pattern, and each with the canal running down the front, with the wooden bridges over for pedestrians, and not too many people have cars, because there aren't many driveways. The market and auction is staggering, and then we're to the seller, where there are blooms on display and into the back barn for all sorts of junk, and it's a pity we missed the bulbs in the fields in flower, and continue up to Scheveningen, where the clouds come down gray and thick, and the water is cold all the time, we have our herring, and on to the Hague, where I intuit that lunch will be awful and dash off to the Maurits Huis, which is perfectly set up for a one hour's viewing, being small but prettily select for famous names and for good examples of some of the not-so-famous painters. Dash back to the bus to find an enormous delay because everyone couldn't get served in the hotel, so I dash up to a cutlet shop and get a beef sandwich, and have time to finish that and a lot of the chocolates before the bus gets started about 45 minutes late, with my partner crying because SHE didn't choose to see the Maurits Huis. To Madourodam in the rain, but it's very nice and impossibly huge, spreading all the time and improving, and the street plan alone is enough to make anyone dizzy. Then to Delft after a terrible delay, and it's too late to see the workers, but the stuff is there for sale and I buy a tiny thing for about 70, just to have it, and then we're to sprawling, harbor-oriented Rotterdam and elevator to the top of Euromast, spending money on candy to stop hungering, and look over the town, down and left off near the Hotel, and I'm starved, so I figure it's a good time to try the Indonesian restaurant, and there's a nice selection of food, and the service is good, and when I'm through I've had it for the day, so wander back to the hotel and fall into bed, exhausted, at 11.
DATE BOOK FOR FRIDAY, JUNE 6: Up at 7 and come and pack and write this at 9:30. Out to Stet Likje and Van Gogh, and get streetcar to station, tear pants, and look and write and eat lunch on train to Paris at 6 pm, subway home and read and JJ's home at 9 and we eat in and to bed at 12.
DIARY: Friday: Oh, I must be SO tired. Wake at 4 to hear voices outside and around room and again at 6 to see light streaming in and then toss to 8. It must be partly a lack of sleep that causes a real physical fatigue. Had the first headache of the trip yesterday---probably from not eating too well until 10 pm after breakfast at 9 am.
The suitcase seemed enormously heavy, so I may be physically weak (though the suitcase IS heavy), but it's the emotional and mental fatigue that most concern me. Walking to the Stet Likje I pass fluffy clouds over sun-bright canals and almost ignore them before they shout out to me "Hey, look at me! Remember? I'm supposed to be so beautiful." Well, for one thing it's been rainy and cold for the whole time in Amsterdam (although it was rainy and cold in London and I LOVED the city), and I've not had the conditions to see the place as beautiful (though some sections along the Herrengracht and the Oude Zuigal canals were startling). That's the trouble with being intellectual (he said, wishing he could be kidding himself into feeling better---and that's another point of being overly intellectual: there are always interrupting connecting thoughts---though I should be learning which detours are worth noting and which not) there are reasons and counter-reasons for everything!
But the van Goghs were interesting for two reasons: 1) I bought a nice book on van Gogh, and 2) I said "See, he did what he did because he HAD to do it. His GENIUS drove him to it." As my genius drives me to---write? Certainly NOT travel---that's my DEVIL driving me, not my genius. Neither reason, you note (you, who are YOU? The person I wish I had---but that's me! Incipient split?) Note there's nothing resulting from the actual VIEWING. That comes later, when I name drop, "My dear, the Stet Lijke in Amsterdam has all THE van Goghs.
Then everything goes wrong when I'm tired. (Except that stupid guy thinks 4 34's are 128, and I let him). Everyone at breakfast says Amsterdam is fabulous and I was a fool not to hit it right---and makes me sorry for a second that all those fabulous numbers looking at me with love were NOT hookers. Then I get on the wrong door of the streetcar, and have to go to the front to get a ticket and go back. Then I sit on my suitcase on track 8a and rip a hole in my good black trousers when I slide backward over the sharp shard on the handle. But NOW the train moves out AT 11:56 EXACT. [A plane rose on its smoke stalk.]
Then there were all my thoughts about getting old. Being tired must be one of the worst hardships about getting old---no more the joy of being able to run---you really don't want to run, and if you did you'd have the idea of loping into a long easy stride, but the legs don't seem to stretch so far apart, the knees don't operate the way they once did, the feet don't fly over the ground as they used to---now the legs are fearful of twisting and turning and breaking, the feet are sore, the wind is short. And you have the young for their unheeding speed. Their shouts and songs and screams hurt your ears, their sun-bright hair dazzles your eyes.
Two LOVELY blonds from Western that turns out to be Western Ontario, whom I know I've seen before and thought I'd seen at the National Gallery, turn out only to have been in Holland so far this trip. The small lovely has a stutter (both in English and German, though what he would have to be reticent about, I have no idea). The gaggle of Spanish (I'm sure they must have been Italians) guys get on fairly quietly, their main fault being smoking. But then the drinks must have started around, because soon one then many began singing, and soon there was the sound of a harmonica egging them on, and the voices rose and fell together not unpleasantly, until they started horsing around and slamming tempo on the backs of their seats, which were the backs of MY seats. I slammed back twice, hurting my palm and slamming my watch, too, and decided they were too much for me and left to have lunch, where I met the two dolls from Western. When I got back to the compartment, the drink had gotten to them to the point that they had fallen silent and drawn the drapes, and one glowered up at me from his corner as he slouched sideways in his seat. Later he staggered past (the train had stopped) looking far the worse for wear.
The stop at Brussels seemed to revive them and they began talking back and forth again, then to my horror they turned on a portable radio and to "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore," they began singing, tapping their cloddy feet, improvising on trumpet parts, and clapping their hands. It's at times like this I wish I had a portable Beethoven's Ninth that I could blast them with. Then, uncannily, the guy in FRONT had a radio, too, and I was surrounded by cacophony.
But when the train started, the noise of the rails drowned it out and it was peaceful again, leading to the normal result sitting in the warm sun with the rocking motion of the train: sleep. My eyes closed, the heat built up, and the smell from the orange stewed from my fingertips into the air. An old gent from St. Malo got in next, almost leaving as I said something, but obligingly threw his cigarette out the window when I pointed to the no smoking sign. We talked a bit, but despite the rumor of a writer's liking to talk to "types" (French pronunciation, please) on trains, I let the talk lapse as quickly as I could. Cute man next, who said not a word through the whole rest of the trip.
DIARY? PAGE: Up at 7 to come and pack and fill out the datebook to date at 9:30, and decide that today's the day I'm leaving, finding out from VVV the time of the trains back to Paris, and the only thing I've left to see is the Stet Lijke, and my comments on that are on TD 50-52, as is the rest of the trip down to Paris. Get in precisely on time at 6 PM, tired from having written so much during the day, happy to get back to my last stop, just plain tired from the cumulative effect of the whole trip. Take the subway home even though all the walking with the suitcase is just about to kill me: I walk quickly so that it will be over soon, but my hand just won't hold the bag, and it begins to slip out, so I stop and sweat and change hands and gather my energy to go again as far as I can. Then it slips out again, and people bump into the back of me and I feel terrible and hot and tired. Rest at the tops of stairs and at the bottoms of stairs so I won't have to stop on them, and can't even sit down in the subway. Finally get home, hands literally unable to hold the suitcase for more than 10 or 20 steps anymore, and the long sweep down Rue Croulebarbe was terrible torture. Into the apartment and collapse, then read a bit, and he gets in at 9, we eat in when he fixes something for 2 that he'd originally planned for 1, and he gets out the slides and I'm reminded of the early part of the vacation which now seems so terribly far in the past, and we talk, but I'm tired and into bed at 12.
DATE BOOK FOR SATURDAY, JUNE 7: Up at 10 and breakfast, dress for Phillip's lunch with Gabriel and Alain and Marc at 12:30, and sex to 4 and buy tickets for tonight and Thursday, and JJ and I eat at Alliance and see Gluck's Orpheus at Opera-Comique and sit in Cafe Flore to 1 am and bed tired.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 10, and I'd called Charles last night and he's invited me to his place for lunch today, and I dress sexy in white bells for the first time for Charles, and there with Gabriel, still in his olive green tight trousers and lime green shirt, still a doll, Alain is there in blue, looking almost as handsome as Alain Delon, but on the heavier, shorter side, and Marc, who's uptight and dressed nicely and probably gay as Charles suspects, and Gabriel is so cute and cuddly that everyone would know about him and not care a bit. The apartment is nice, large-proportioned, oddment furnished, and dark from draperies about the windows and fabric on the walls. The maid serves a tasty steak lunch with tomatoes and potatoes and good wine, and we all sit around and talk, they in French quite a bit, and I'm beginning to follow, but I really don't care about all the chat about Pompidou/Poher/DeGaulle. They leave at about 2, and the maid seems gone and Charles and I go into what he calls "The Prince's room" since it seems that there was a title somewhere in the back of the family, and he puts on Saint-Saens Third, by some remarkable coincidence, and we begin ruffling up to sex, kissing, fondling, and he again goes into those ludicrous groans of pleasure when I hold onto his cock, and we get out into the hall to undress before a floor-length mirror, and he's up to his ears in excitement, and I just barely go down on him and he comes, and it's somewhat more difficult for me, but I manage it too, and it's nice. Back to his room to lounge around and talk, and he keeps getting involved with the idea that he'd love to be able to afford to come back to New York with me, and that he'd wished he'd met me when he WAS in New York, working at La Crepe, because it would have made his stay there so much different. It's probably best, because I can't see myself GOING to bed with him in NYC, here it was just a matter of desperation meeting the least unlikely candidate - that's being extreme, but the truth is somewhere in that direction. Subway down to buy tickets at the Opera-Comique (the Comedie-Francaise has a reputable production of Cyrano, which would be about the only thing I could see, having read it in French, but they're mainly sold out on the days I'd like to go), and get tickets for tonight for the Gluck "Orphee" and on impulse buy tickets for next Thursday for "Tales of Hoffman," so I have to stay until then, and I'd been thinking about leaving on Monday after the weekend, but now I have four more days to fret about the flight. Back home and JJ and I scan the Michelin for a good restaurant, and we end up at the Alliance, which is stuffy and the food is adequate only, and the people are stuffy, too, and we're just on time for the "Orphee" and I hear the flute-theme which Bernie had liked so much at the nude marathon, and today was the day I heard that "Lover's Concerto" is from the Anna Magdelena Bach book, so how's THAT? The place is nice, but no opera, and we're out to park and sit in the Café Flore watching the people pass, hearing the brass band run into troubles with the cops, looking at dogs and dogs.
DATE BOOK FOR SUNDAY, JUNE 8: Up at 9 and finish "Foundation" and Charles comes at 1 and we're to L'Hay des Roses for roses, eat, and to Vaux-le-Vicomte to 5, and cocktails at Etienne's and Adolf's and eat at Chez Marie and home at 12.
DIARY PAGE: Bed at 1 and up at 9 to finish "Foundation," and JJ is again to his parents for the day, and I met Alain in the hall and looked at him pleasantly until I realized it WAS him, and it would be nice, but terribly intricate. Charles arrives at 1 and we're through town to L'Hay des Roses, and the day is warm and sunny and the roses are out or over-bloomed, and the variety and layout is staggering, and also there are few people, so the roses can be enjoyed for what they are: beautiful, colorful, vibrant, alive, of a magnificent range of scent from scentless to slightly strawlike to opulent, lush and perfumed beyond description. Charles is impatient, because I'd forgotten about his plans to meet friends at 6, and we're down the road a bit to stop into a small place to eat, and the food is tasty, what there is of it left, and we talk long about being in France. Then out to Vaux-le-Vicomte, which JJ has recommended, and which Charles didn't want to go to because he thought the house was closed. Indeed not, and there's a huge crowd of cars, but when we're inside, they sort of vanish into the garden. The house is stuffily nice, and it's funny to look at the enormous reception hall which was left unfinished when the king ordered his finance minister put into jail for mis-spending public funds. Charles talks of the people who lived here when he came to visit, and we're out to the gardens, enormous and well-laid-out, and though nothing's blooming, the forms are there and the hedges are clipped, and we walk across the parterre talking about ourselves, and I'm quite happy and he's ecstatic. Up to get a closer view of the Hercules, and sit on the long-mowed grass, resting in the hot sun, and down around the pools again and walk back through the woods, looking like a sequence from the green-golden sections of "Elvira Madigan." Into the car and the traffic is terrible and Charles worries along like a cat with a mouse. Finally to Etienne's, right near the Musee Rodin and through a neat courtyard, and Etienne collects Magrittes and paints like him, and Adolf is simply beautiful in face and smile and affection toward Etienne, and we meet others who sit around and talk in French, and Gabriel and I cuddle on the floor, and we're all ten out to Chez Marie where we all carry on like mad, and Charles brings me home at 12.
DATE BOOK FOR MONDAY, JUNE 9: Up at 9 and completely waste time in AM, typing some, breakfast at 11, reading Upanishads and out at 2 to get tix to Hair and go to Rodin Museum to 4, quick lunch at Gafe Musee, home to change for Hair, eat out, and home at 1.
DIARY: Again and again the idea of suicide comes up. First it was during that terrible second session in Canada, then again only in the pot-smoking sessions, but just as the "connectedness syndrome" and the "all is one" feeling seems to be recurring more frequently even outside of pot, so the thoughts of suicide are recurring. I don't deny the idea that passes through my mind that my dwelling on suicide has some bit of the melodramatic about it. But as Rauschenberg said that to STOP painting Kennedy merely because Kennedy was shot would be as affected as starting to paint Kennedy AFTER he was shot, I would say that not writing about suicide just because it's melodramatic would be just as affected as NOT writing about something that occupies my thoughts. And it's part of the indissoluble unity of opposites. Anyone who likes life as much as I say I do would presumably like death equally as much, or the liking of life might be considered false. This may be just another case of painting myself into a corner as I so effectively did during the second session, but I think not, since at this point the idea of suicide isn't so much centered around the idea of COMMITTING suicide as it is around the idea of the ACCEPTANCE of the idea of suicide and death. The idea of flying off on a plane to the United States in four days obviously has something to do with my state of mind, also. But I read the Upanishads and see that at the end of every cycle of existence, even Brahma dies, and the souls of everyone who dies come back unless all the desires possible have been satisfied. And the last desire would be the desire (if that's too strong a word, read acceptance) of death. I can't say that I DESIRE to die, but I would like to say that I would be able to ACCEPT death. In fact, it seems a bit like the final rationalization of a rational life: I must certainly die one day, I have no way of knowing when it will be, therefore, I should be ready to die ALL the time, so that I wouldn't be disappointed by dying unexpectedly. So I should expect to die at any time. That leads quickly back to Krishnamurti, and the idea that each day should be lived for the pleasure it contains, and there should be little thought about the past or the future. Be happy day by day, and when death comes, there's no chance to carp "Gee, but I was just getting ready to be happy."
6/9. Read over what I've written so far on this trip, and there's not much to be happy about. I can foresee a long siege of rewriting the trip when I get back to New York, based on the sketchy notes I've handwritten from time to time, the few pages I've typed, the entries in the daily calendar, and memory. It seems it will take a while. But again the futility of accumulating memories and souvenirs and writing around me takes hold, based on the following idea: my suitcases going back to the states will be full of books I've read and annotated, stamps I've bought for very large quantities of money, typewritten and handwritten memoirs and observations, small pieces like the Delftware and the Moroccan spoons, numbers of catalogs from art and other museums, and then the innumerable ticket stubs, programs, admission tickets, brochures, bills, menus, folders, and souvenir booklets that I've laboriously gathered: the results of almost three months of my life. What happens if the plane goes down, and these suitcases are thrown into the ocean? All the stamps into a glued mass, all the souvenirs left to rot at the bottom of the sea, all the clothes going unworn, the souvenirs completely useless because of their own decay, and because of the decay of the individual who took the effort to collect them. So what good would the trip be? But that situation, of the suitcase full of items collected being destroyed, applies in a larger sense to my apartment: how many more souvenirs and programs and writings and tapes and records and books and souvenirs are ensconced there, objects of my casual veneration, and only occasional showing to an intimate friend that I'm seeking to entertain by revealing the depths of my experiences? And that goes to an even larger sense, the sense of my entire life, my brain with its memory and knowledge and experiences, my body with the memory of sensuality, the effects of exercise, the product of so much eating and defecating and showering and sleeping---all that goes to waste when the breath leaves the body and the heart stops. So what was it all good for? What's the final result? Will it matter to me if I have children who will live after me, genetically somewhat more related to me than to the next person, but unquestionably a different person, with his own life to lead and mistakes to make and joys to experience; or if I leave books and writing behind to be read and enjoyed by thousands or millions of others? It would be consoling to me NOW to know that this WILL happen, but it will make absolutely no difference to me THEN, when I am in FACT dead. Again the wheel returns to Krishnamurti, and the idea that one can't live over the happiness of the past, one has only the SHADOW of the past for a memory, not that actual happiness, nor can one live for the happiness of the future, because that might not happen. So I save things, hopefully, because I enjoy saving things now, and not because I plan to get joy from them in the future. I write because I want very much to write right now, and not because I'm banking (good word) on future publication, or even future adulation and discussion with a public who's read what I've written and wants to thank me for it or say that I'm stupid for it.
This morning has been much on that line: I woke up and felt like doing nothing, so as usually happens when I feel like doing nothing, I took to a book, and started reading. After a bit, I got tired of reading, and a compulsion for writing took over. I fought it for a while, but my mind wandered while reading, and finally I left the book and went to the typewriter, where I did this. Then at a certain point I got hungry, and even though the cleaning lady was here, it really seemed no reason NOT to eat, so I stopped typing, because I'd had enough of it for awhile, and went to eat, because the requests from my stomach were disturbing my mind as I wrote. What I'll do for the rest of the afternoon I have no way of knowing, because I don't know NOW what I'll feel like doing then: either going to the Rodin Museum, or the Louvre, or to buy tickets, to see about my return to the states, or to go cruising in the Tuilleries.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 9 and completely waste time in morning writing TD 76-78 and exercising and coming exhaustively and doing meditation and yoga, breakfast at 11, read Upanishads, and finally leave at 2 to get to the enormous Place de Republique to shop for Joe's oil paint, and get lost again trying to find the theater which is showing "Hair," and because the seats are so expensive at 50 francs, over $10, they have seats for the evening, but I can't see spending that money for anyone else, so I just buy one. Back into the subway for the Rodin Museum, and some of his pieces are nice, but they end up awfully repetitious, just a guy and a gal intertwined in rough plaster or milky marble. Buy a book and go down to the Cafe Musée for a sandwich (they don't have croque monsieur) and a beer, across from the Invalides, then home and change and shower for the show, and out to the Republique again, talking to someone who seems to realize I'm from the states, but I don't think he's worth following up in his dirty blue jeans, and I wander the streets looking for someplace to eat, finally finding a pleasant, empty place and watch the little old lady on my left and the father and son on my right enjoying themselves, and the waitress and bartender are old-style pleasant and enjoyable. (I forgot, sometime in here, JJ and I drove all around HIS sort of town, showing me the canal coming down from the north east that they want to block, I guess it must have been before London, maybe even before Morocco.) Out in time to look at the Hair-y audience, and I don't understand much of it, except what they HAVEN'T changed to French, and then the audience doesn't laugh because it doesn't understand the New York atmosphere. Everyone in the cast is nude, and for quite a time, and there are even other sections in which pants are dropped and tits are bared, so it's a sexy show, and Woof is cute and blonde, but I can't figure who he was. Walk down the dark streets late, but there's very little action, and get to the subway as they're closing the gates, and must get the last train, getting home at 1, undressing in the dark as usual so as not to disturb JJ who's already in bed, not asleep.
DATE BOOK FOR TUESDAY, JUNE 10: Up at 9 at last start exercise again. Get ticket home settled 11-12, then out to Vincennes and Floralie, after walking entire park. Home at 4, shower, Phillip at 7, and to "Vietnam, Year of the Pig" and eat on Ile St. Louis, home and bed at 12.
DIARY PAGE: Whoops, I didn't exercise yesterday because I got up at 9 today and at least started exercises, in preparation for getting back into shape when I get back to NYC. To Transcaparis and decide I'll have to borrow money from JJ to actually pay for my return flight, since he won't cash in my half-freighter ticket. Then decide I want to see Vincennes and the Florallie, and subway to a random exit along the park, walk to it and through it, seeing a nice boating lake, and get to a car-filled roadway and see a sign for the Florallie which leads me into the thick of the forest, along a stream just filled with squirming tadpoles, with kids trying to catch them for experiments, and it's pleasant, but I don't get anywhere. See another sign and follow that, but I'm alongside a road which leads to the other side of the park, and back in almost at random along another stream, and it's cool and quiet and nice, but I'm getting tired of walking. Another sign directs me somewhere, and I find myself walking along something with a name like Demi-Lune, and there are people, all men, stopping cars and going into the bushes, and I get looked at, and I peer down into the greenery, but can see nothing, but something is sure going on back there which I might be interested in, but am too cowardly to go down to see. Come to a traffic circle, and the sign directs me to a hard left, so I try that, but again it's a tree-filled road to nowhere, and get to a cross-street and there's a ticket booth for the Florallie, so wandered down a road bordered by fields, now, watching a neat model plane flying by remote control with a flat blatting noise, and finally there are the grounds, and I walk around one side to get to the main entrance, and don't buy a book because it has no pictures, only prices of produce, and they don't have the nice little maps I buy one of just as I leave. Into the enormous grounds and eat in an outdoor cafe, with a fashion show, and then look into the planted landscapes, the pavilions from different countries, Japan being great, and the Dutch florists having some ENORMOUS cut flowers in six-foot bouquets, and out to the bulb and root places, and vines, and walk and walk, and I've about had enough, so I'm out the other entrance, walk all along the castle of Vincennes to get to the subway and home at 5, tired. Shower, Charles arrives at 7, we see "Vietnam, Year of the Pig," good, eat on Ile St. Louis, pork and kraut, drive up to Sacre-Coeur and look at town, back and bed at 12, kissy him.
DATE BOOK FOR WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11: Up at 9, inundated by allergy, and do this by 9:30. Pay for ticket and to Gobelin's manufactory at 3. Home and Charles at 5:30, sex, dinner at Brasserie Flo, to Conciergerie for marais Berlin Ensemble, and to La Coupole to 1 am.
DIARY: Torture! Torment! I sit and brood on my misery and the time creeps by, the seconds being countable, the heart beats loud in the ears, felt through the body. I'm flying to New York City the day after tomorrow, and it's no longer any good to count the days, so I begin to count the hours, by groups of 12 hours, from eight this morning to eight tonight (when I'll be with Phillip and hopefully oblivious) to eight tomorrow morning (when I'll be getting up and out to the Louvre to avoid the cleaning lady) to eight tomorrow night (when I'll be getting ready to see "Tales of Hoffman," which I'm beginning to wish I hadn't gotten tickets for, because then I would have gotten a ticket Saturday for Monday, and that would have speeded up my misery and by now I would be "happy." But what a joke that "happy" will become. I sit in JJ's apartment and think of all I'll do in New York, like listen to my records, type on my electric typewriter (but I'll probably feel the same listlessness I feel now), go for a walk in the park (but it'll be too hot), sun on the roof (but there'll be people around and I'll be too much of a chicken to sun in the nude as I would dream), go to the beach (but there'll be no one to go with, and I'll be scared shitless to do anything in the johns) or go cruising in the park (but I'll be afraid to pick up anyone nice, and won't want to pick up all those who aren't nice who are looking to pick me up), or put my souvenirs away (which I'll probably spend far too much time doing), or calling people (how I look forward to talking with Joe and Arno and Peter and Joan and Azak and John and Doug and Herman and Norma and Cyndy and Larry Anger and Bob Oldakowski and Paul McLean, but how stale and unprofitable they'll seem when I actually DO). There are the things I should be doing here, like typing (but I sit and stare at it, and nothing comes), or reading (but I'm so worried and bored that I can't concentrate, and that turns into fatigue, and I feel I have to lay down, but then all I do is brood and torture myself with thoughts of how I shouldn't be brooding about the flight and doing something else, and then I'm up to read or write or do something else, but still the time hangs heavy and the hours drag. OH, GOD, I cry, would that I were home, but when I'm home I mope around and dream of the times I'll be traveling. But no more traveling, except around the United States, for quite awhile---namely, until this feeling wears off. I'll be so happy to be in a place where all the conversations take place in English, and I won't be worried about what I'm missing, too embarrassed to ask questions about things I don't know, and too stupid to join into the conversation. And then I won't have the phony excuse about not being "home" for not really seriously falling in love with someone. And who will I meet in New York? Either a tourist which will repeat the situation here, or someone from the city with whom I'd be terrified to start a relationship. As I said, if they're good enough for me to want, I'm terrified of them, that they might not like me, that they might like me for the wrong reason (money, my writing, my lies), that they might like me, then leave me.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 9, vexed by allergy as in TD 35, fill in the datebook by 9:30, do some typing of TD 79-80, take JJ's check down to the bank and get my last bit of money converted except about $10 which I'll save for New York and the first weekend, and then I'm to the Gobelins manufactory by 3, to wait in the "Musée du Siege," and I wonder what siege they're talking about, and it turns out to be a lot of CHAIR frames, which I find uninteresting except to see what the worms have done to it, but worse what the constant hammering of fabric has done to it. Into the main building and examine lovely old tapestries done in wool and gold and silver, and then see the six looms which are currently going, and they only operate during daylight hours, only on request of the government as presentations to other governments or for public places, and everything is modern, operating off designs by Picasso, Miro, Arp, and other modernists which aren't even terribly attractive. It's really depressingly modern in the huge old factory. Back to shower, and again Charles arrives early, while I'm still drying myself from the water, and we have sex, sex, sex, and then we're dressed and all across town, again getting tied up in traffic, again being very late, again getting lost and berating himself, "Oh, Charles, you're so stupid, and how are YOU, Bob, my you look wonderful tonight, DAMN this traffic," etc. Into the Brasserie Flo, and the decor is handsome in black and brass and mirrors, and the asparagus with Riesling is fine and the lamb, though not good, is tasty with the Beaujolais, and the evening goes swimmingly fine. He drives like an idiot back to the Conciergerie for the concert of Marais, and we park illegally, but thankfully he doesn't get a ticket. Into the hall at 8:14, JUST as it's about to start, and we just get seated for the first number, and the acoustics are surprisingly good, I glance through the books, which are expensive but I guess worth it, and we move into the first corner during intermission, and he even meets someone he knows, which is nice for him. He wants me to see La Coupole, so we hunt for parking, wander through the inside, see Pierre Clementi and others, and out for enormous beers for our thirst, and I have a sundae, and the crowd is nice inside and out, and we chat and home again at 1, exhausted.
DATE BOOK FOR THURSDAY, JUNE 12: Up at 9, pack all morning and off to Louvre, but David's closed! Watch people, buy bath oil and home at 4 after cafe lunch. Charles for sex, eat in St. Germain, to "Tales of Hoffman" and again to Coupole. Say goodbye to him.
DIARY: The only alternative then is to drink, drink for dinner last night two wines, a Riesling with the asparagus and a Beaujolais with the lamb, which was lousy, at the Brassierie Flo. With that, the vapors erased most of the concern about the flight, and the evening at the Conciergerie with the soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, and afterwards at the trattoria of the Coupole, I thought hardly at all of the impending flight. So this lunch I took two beers, and came home on the Metro slightly muzzy, to find the Valencian housekeeper hard at work in the kitchen, so I came into the bedroom to type. There's a nice fog in the air, subjectively, and if it starts to vanish by the time Charles arrives at 5:30, I can always pep it up with some of the beer JJ has in the fridge. It really seems to be the only solution. Hopefully tomorrow morning I'll have the guts to take a strong slug of vodka in my orange juice, and then the 29-hour day should start swimmingly. I won't even mind having a headache or a hangover the following day, so long as I get through the flight without any untoward occurrence. I can visualize myself literally falling apart on the flight, sobbing and screaming and throwing myself onto the mercies of the stewardesses, who, I'm sure, have had similar cases before. The closest name I can think to give it is nervous exhaustion. Not that I'm quite as outwardly nervous as Charles, who picks at his fingers, smokes, taps his fingers on the steering wheel, shakes, blinks, scratches his head, and stutters when things begin or continue to go wrong. But I'm probably far more tied up inside that he, who externalizes everything. I might even break down on his shoulder tonight, but again there's the taste of the dramatic. As someone said in the innumerable psychology books I've read, there's nothing like a bit of honest fear or helplessness or confession of simple humanity, erring, frightened, nervous, worried, to make someone think even more highly of someone else. Heaven knows Charles doesn't think of me highly sexually anymore, since that horrid fiasco last night. I almost wanted to shout out in self-defense that I hadn't even masturbated since the last time we'd been together on Saturday, and even during the day I'd felt myself getting slightly hard just thinking of the coming orgiastic evening, but after the initial hardness before the clothing comes off, I went down and for all intents and purposes STAYED down. His utter patience enabled me to masturbate myself into a state of willingness to come, but as much as I tried to stay hard so that he could play with me for a bit hard, I couldn't manage it, and so I came soft, groaning all the same with the pleasure of it, and he, to his credit, had no trouble coming right afterwards, so that we could both lie together, sweating, breathing hard, kissing, resting from our orgasms, feeling rather nicely together until I drew attention to the wet between us, and there were spots of come on the sheets when we were through. Had a discouraging day at the Louvre. Went there especially to see the larger David's in the huge exposition rooms that I remember so well from before; I'd seen everything else there was to see, and I was saving the best for last. Go backwards on the staircase, which I thought led to that area, and some huge rooms are closed and the only entrée leads to the old Italian paintings. Oh, I think, it must be somewhere else. Ask inside the Italian corridor for the David's, and he points me out into the main gallery. As I go out there, I recall that there was only the room with the Mona Lisa, the blocked off area, and the room with the special exhibit. Well, maybe it's on the other side of the special exhibit. Go through that, and find that the only stairway is to the LeCase exhibit downstairs. Ask another attendant, and he says just through the door to the right. But that's blocked off, too. Another attendant tells me to go down the stairs, and when I do, there's nothing there. By this time I'm fearing the worse, so I'm back to the Gioconda room and ask the teleguide attendant where the large David's are. She says they're open in Juilliet. I look at her blankly, and she asks if I understand, but I only say "This is June," and she says they've been closed for renovation since the first of January, and will be closed until the first of July. Look around the room that I'd seen before in complete disgust, then go into the main hall and plunk myself down on the center sofa to watch the people pass by for over an hour and a half, and there was a little cruising, some large tours, small knots of people who talked of their other travels, and mostly couples or families who certainly didn't look like they were enjoying it, but merely doing it for the fact of having done it. I was reminded of one of the girls talking, who said she was flabbergasted by the amount to see in Paris, and said on the second day, "Couldn't we leave now, and just be able to say that we'd BEEN to Paris?" This seems to identify the common complaint: everyone wants to be able to say they've BEEN and SEEN, but they're staggered by the amount of seeing there is to be done, and how hard it is on the feet, and there's not only one museum in a town, but many museums, and then there are the historical sights, the points of view, the towers, the tombs, the churches, the rivers, the shops the bars etc etc etc, and that's true not only for one town, but it's true for EACH town that they want to see. How much better it was yesterday, when the 10 minutes in the ridiculous "Musee des Sieges" and the half-hour in the workshops of the Gobelins was just exactly enough to refresh my sense of exhaustion after being interested in what was going on for most of the time. How long it would take to see the world that way. And why, for God's sake, is it necessary to see the world anyway. I keep telling myself that I should be happy with what I have at home, and look again at some of the museums there, look again at the people there, enjoy the comforts of the apartment and the shower and the records and the books and the typewriter and telephone I have there, and I can keep up with things by periodicals in a language I can understand, I don't have to limit my theatergoing to the language I understand, I don't have to worry when cruising that I'll miss something pregnant that someone says, that I'll be able to participate in every conversation I hear, I won't have to make my way around with a subway map and a guide, and I won't feel obliged to do anything EVERY day: and in New York, heaven knows, there are enough days when I don't do anything, anyway. Oh, if I could just cultivate the feeling of how GREAT it feels to be ABOUT to return to New York, rather than getting hung up on the possible disasters awaiting the plane en route. Listen to all these tourists, do they worry about their planes crashing? Of course not, and I ONLY want to get BACK HOME, oh JOY.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 9 and pack all morning, fearing I'll never get everything into two suitcases, and I get off to the Louvre, as described in TD 81-83, watch the people, across to the Magazin du Louvre to buy the bath oil for Joe, and across to a cafe to have a Croque Monsieur and two beers to ease my flying fears, and back at 4 to type TD 81-83 and shower, and Charles arrives early for the last time (one of these days I went out to put the garbage out, and as the door slammed I realized I didn't have the keys, so I had to go downstairs to the super to get them), and we have sex for the last time, and I'm counting the hours to the flight. He's running out of places to take me, so we end up in a place on St. Germain des Pres which isn't very good, and we're again parked illegally on the corner (but then everyone parks on the corners) so that we're over to the Opera-Comique for "Tales of Hoffman," which I think is a glorious production, but he nods and dislikes much of it, and he's very officious in the corridors during the intermission, and I'm just as happy this is my last evening with him. I want to get to bed early, but he insists on one last time at La Coupole, and we again roam through the place to see who's there, and again we're thirsty so we have beer, and we sit around making small talk, and it's all I can do to keep my eyes open, but I'm hoping to be so exhausted that I'll fall asleep and not know anything until the alarm rings for the plane to take off. I still haven't finished packing, everything is together on the table, but it's not going to fit, and I weighed everything and it's over 100 pounds(!) (over 45 kilograms), and I'm very sorry to be going back by plane, but I want everything that's in the suitcases, and I don't want to ship it, I just want to be HOME and over WITH IT ALL, and have everything with me without the prior planning to have it done cheaply or efficiently. Drive home and he's terribly low, but I keep the talk cheery, about when he's coming to NYC, and about his friends that I'll look up, and we stop and he looks at me with those sad cow/dog eyes and we kiss goodbye, and for the fifth time that minute he says something about "Oh, God, Bob, how much I likes you," and it's over [and sadly he's dead in just a few years], he pulls off in his white car, and I'm up the elevator for the last time, and into the apartment for the last time, and fall into bed for the last time in PARIS THIS TRIP!!
DATE BOOK FOR FRIDAY, JUNE 13: Up at 6:45, wash, pack, bus to Orly and fly home 11-1 pm. Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell on plane. Home to rest, dinner with Avi and Joe, bed at 11, after reading mail.
DIARY PAGE: Didn't sleep the entire night, looking at my watch at 2 and 3 and 4 and 5, and finally at 6:45 I can stand it no longer and get into the bathroom to shave and wash and begin packing again. This time the Tourister actually pops open due to the pressure of items inside, and I'm forced to remove first my sweater, then my raincoat so that it'll fit. It takes so long I have no time for breakfast, which is fine, since there are no eggs, anyway, and we're out at 8:10, JJ bringing up the car for my fantastic 45 kilos of luggage. Wait and wait and wait for the bus, feeling the worst is about to happen, and it comes at 8:45, getting to the airport just after 9. Exhaust myself carrying the bags through the station and the girl wants to charge me $79.25 for 20 kilos overage, but I say I have only 245 francs, so she reduces the overload to 12 kilos and charges 235 francs. Bless her. Onto plane at 9:40 and sit to 10:40, then take off over outskirts of Paris, good view, and over diminishing French farms. Lunch is served at 11, which is fine, but I still gasp at each lurch of the plane. "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell" is shown from 1:15 to 3, after we pass out over the ocean, and I continue to read New Yorker and Esquire until we hit a gorgeous Nova Scotia and a spectacularly explicit Cape Cod, all along the coast to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Gardiner's Island, then the two points of Long Island, and looking out, flying is worth it. Circle for a bit and land at 6:05 Paris time, 1:05 New York time. The customs officials are tedious, taking everything apart, but they don't find stamps or pornography. Bus and cab home, and read all the mail by 6 PM, then call Avi for dinner, and he and Joe and I eat at 79th Street Japanese place, not bad, but I spill soup. Joe and I walk to get Thalia schedule, walk back through park, and I'm home to read Life magazines until Darwin gets in at 11, we talk for a bit, and I get to bed, completely exhausted from my 21 hour day, with the last clean sheet in the middle of a cruddy apartment.
DIARY PAGE: Saturday, June 14. Wake at 6 as I wished to, and lie to 6:45, then up to read more Lifes, and Darwin's up and we talk about my trip, and Cyndy didn't tell him that I was gay, so I did to fill him in exactly on the khif experience in
LIST OF SLEEPING PLACES: (ORIGINAL PLANS)
Week 1
4/12 Sat Saulieu Aurillac
4/13 Sun Saulieu Barcelona
4/14 Mon Saulieu Barcelona
4/15 Tue Beziers 4 days in France Alicante
4/16 Wed Cadaques Gibraltar
4/17 Thu Montserrat Tetouan
4/18 Fri Valencia Casablanca
4/19 Sat Grenada (Irving) Agadir
Week 2
4/20 Sun Grenada (Sierra) South
4/21 Mon Torremolinos 6 days in Spain Agadir
4/22 Tue Rabat Ourzazate
4/23 Wed Safi Marrakech
4/24 Thu Agadir Marrakech
4/25 Fri Agadir Ksar es Souk
4/26 Sat Agadir Meknes
Week 3
4/27 Sun Marrakech Fes
4/28 Mon Marrakech Beach
4/29 Tue Ourzazate Beach
4/30 Wed Erfoud Seville
5/01 Thu Meknes Cordova
5/02 Fri Fes Grenada
5/03 Sat Fes Malaga
Week 4
5/04 Sun Smir 13 days in Morocco Cuidad Real
5/05 Mon Ronda Toledo
5/06 Tue Seville Madrid
5/07 Wed Seville Madrid
5/08 Thu Toledo Zaragosa
5/09 Fri El Escurial Pyrenees
5/10 Sat San Sebastian 6 days in Spain Lascaux
5/11 Sun Paris 1 day in France Paris
MEASURE OF 1000 Kilometers:
-0000km-Paris 4/12
Millau -1000km-Beziers 4/15
Valencia -2000km-Alicante 4/19
Tangier -3000km-Rabat 4/22
Tiznit -4000km-Goulimine 4/26
Oukaimeden -5000km-Ait Ourir 4/29
Azrou -6000km-Meknes 5/01
Ceuta -7000km-Algeciras 5/05
Segovia -8000km-El Escurial 5/09
San Sebastian -9000km-Tours 5/11
-9400km-Paris 5/12