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South American Cruise 1975

SOUTH AMERICAN CRUISE WITH TRAVEL DYNAMICS - January 3 - 20, 1975

NYC TO SF FLIGHT
FRIDAY, JANUARY 3. Finish packing real quick [all this is from notes written on the trip], so out early at 8:45, spot taxi at corner, but he gets a FLAT just off the Brooklyn Bridge and changes from 8:55 to 9:05. Pick up Arnie's shaver recharger at 9:30 and to TDI at 9:45. Kirsten getting things ready and I look over all the material. Find the JOHNSON should be JOHNSTON on optional excursion lists (and xerox four copies) and take four parts of the daily itinerary from the file and repack them in order, then find that one of MY flight coupons is missing, and get information about people traveling together who aren't married. Talk to Sam Marcos, HIRED as a Tour Escort for the Galapagos. Lots of questions, lots of information gathered. George comes over to chat, and finally I have to order lunch IN to be able to EAT. Ina calls me a cab at 1:55 and Marcos takes me down---now just an errand boy and packer. It's beginning to SNOW, he says that there's a wreck on the bridge so he goes by way of an icy Triboro, racking up a fare of $13.15! Plus 50 for the bridge and who knows how much for the two boxes, a suitcase, and two flight bags in the trunk, along WITH a set of blueprints someone left the day before AND a briefcase of books and notes with an Air-India flight tag on it! THEN he says it's been PAID for, which explains why he asked me if I had a voucher at the START. Get to airport at 2:50 and check in, wash face for first time in the day and get on flight with GROOVY guys (beard and cutie behind, Redford-type person in first class, groovy beards throughout). Bumpy first fifteen minutes through clouds and then break through to snow-covered fields below and clear above. Dinner from 6:15 to 6:45 (I pass NICE time doing double acrostic---hint for future flights?) and then TRY to sleep. But fail. Watch "Benjy" without earphones, bizarre paper-snatch police-chase to apprehend kidnappers. DISGUSTED with flight, but beautiful jewels around Sacramento makes the landing in the bay, 25 miles south of SF, enchanting. Land RIGHT at 10:06 NY time, and grab CAB for $1 who throws up his hands and says "Why didn't you call the Hilton Inn car?" THEN I check two flight bags and one box and FORGET to take hotel papers and they hassle me because I don't have a CARD. But they give discount anyway. To room and call Mike Rosner, and then get into GREAT shower and try to sleep at 8:30, leaving call for 7 am. Can't sleep so I jerk off before great closet and bathroom mirrors, then sleep at 9:30. Kirsten calls at 9:45 with another passenger and I fall back to sleep.

SF TO LIMA FLIGHT
SATURDAY, JANUARY 4. Waking, feeling GREAT and refreshed, at 6 am, actually looking forward to the day (more specifically, thinking of meeting and handling the people and NOT thinking of the 15-hour flight). Shower and shave and get 7 am call, out to breakfast in the coffee shop and a super-attentive waitress, and then to PSA at 8 to check in one box for the locker, arrange for my 9:30 arrival, and BACK to hotel to finish packing and rearranging and check out for $17.78. Back to airport with all the bags at 9:20 and find people there ALREADY and find that they were requested to arrive TWO HOURS before. People come in a nice steady stream; I write in spare time, and we end up with 31 in the group, one with his OWN ticket, thankfully, and one even replacing the sick Mrs. Albert. Last THREE check in between 10:30 and 10:45, and I'm to counter in time to forestall a GREAT hassle with boarding passes, with mine for 31. They'd mentioned that they'd like to have the list of people that I had, and I took great pains to keep it up to date, but they never asked for it and I never gave it to them, so they had no idea how many people were boarding. To make things worse, many of the people didn't tell the clerks that they were with TDI and so got their OWN boarding pass, messing up their count of people completely. But thankfully the plane wasn't anywhere near full, so there was no problem, and I learn a great lesson about the mechanics of checking a group in, now knowing even more than most of the people behind the airlines counter. Let's hope I have a chance to use it. On plane, nodding to people I recognize, and we're OFF at 11:05 (NOW!) [$15 LAX porters.] GREAT flight (though it lived up to its reputation for being bumpy on the way up, which was the first half of the trip). Very clear view of the snowy mountains inland (after great look BACK at the whole SF peninsula and the distinctive carillon tower at Stanford) and the rocky humpy area that I could only associate with the San Andreas fault. Try to distinguish Mount Whitney, but can't quite make out which of the 3 or 4 snowed peaks is it. Los Angeles is VERY spectacular---huge towers along one road, a unique duo of towers and lots of high buildings, surrounded by plains of private homes. Mountains just to the north are snowy, characterized by roads of dust along their RIDGES. Land at precisely noon, floating over lots of houses in the south, smoggier under a yellowish pall as contrasted to the clear northern sections with a huge stadium. Out and down to the baggage claim area to find NO one from the Coordinated Charter Bus Co. By 12:15 everyone has their bags and I inquire at the PSA counter just as the fat fellow saunters in saying he has a minibus that only seats 12. Five say they're going off on their own, which means that everyone but me gets on the first TWO cars, 13 and 12, leaving me for last, sitting on the median strip, sun warm on my back, at 1:10 pm, waiting for the bus to come back so I can wrestle the rest of the bags up to him and be the last one onto the plane. Probably SHOULD have given someone else the manifest, but I feel safer with it myself, as usual. NYC about 36, SF at 46, LA feels at least 56 (in the sun, anyway), and Montevideo can be extrapolated to 66, Sao Paulo to 76, Rio to 86, Bahia to 96? First car left at 12:25, second at 12:50, third not back YET at 1:15, as I scootch around to see if it's coming down the pike. DOES leave at 1:15, putting bags only INSIDE. To only huge room in West Imperial Terminal to greet Kirsten and Bobby Ludwig; baggage is all lumped together; they're frantic for my ticket, and things are hectic until we board plane at 1:55, take off at 2:25 after baking in the heated plane. Very slow and long takeoff, but flight is in general VERY good. Bob makes announcement: he's Bobby, I'm Bob. Two drinks when ordering and Nancy Dorr comes back and we have a GREAT dinner together, slightly drunk and giggly over wine and drinks, joking about her being from Texas, and Bobby and she start their exaggerated conversations that will keep them together throughout the trip. Since Bobby's personality is not the kind that I care for ("You have to lie all the time," he confided) I'm just as glad he's taken out of my ken. Dr. Post and Mrs. King are very frank with their "traveling together" status, and I make the expected cooing sounds when the plump fair Mrs. King says she's a Grandmother. She hates flying, so she's tense throughout the entire trip, drinking and smoking constantly. Looking at her, I feel positively calm. People chat and sack out, Nancy moves into my seat to sleep, and I wander up and down the aisles and find a few people to talk with, then move to the rear seat and try to sleep, next to the people from the non-smoking section who come back to steal a fag. Good view over south deserts, and the Bay of California is HUGE. The time I spend talking with Dorr and Ludwig and Post goes VERY fast and it's soon dark. Over a Mexico City BRILLIANT with lights, and then Guatemala City glitters in the left distance as some woman gets sick from hyperventilation. Into Lima at 10:35 SF time, 1:35 Lima time, warm and humid, and the flight down through the thick clouds was reasonably frightening when we kept circling and climbing and falling. Not made to feel better when I see that the hilltops to the north of the airport are covered with tiny lights that would have been invisible in the dense fog above.

MONTEVIDEO
SUNDAY, JANUARY 5. Only one shop open, lots closed. Chat. GHASTLY feeling of losing passport in the hallway, but get out to the plane to find it in my tote bag, and then have a momentary shock over the baggage form that she thinks we must have, but then we find we don't have to have it because we're landing in Uruguay, not Peru. Take off at 3:15 Lima time for 4 hour 17 minute flight. Moon's coming up, but it's cloudy. ["18 hollows golf course"] Easily above clouds, more drinks, and Nancy moves BACK to the front out of my seat---she and Bobby seem to have clicked. He changes clothes twice. Lay down in last row [LOVELY golf club in Montevideo, one of four] [Year 19 oh seven to 19 oh ten] Collect all passports and get stuck ALPHABETIZING them while flying at sunrise (which comes VERY fast) over the [mean winter temperature 48F, summer 68F] starkly beautiful mountains and deserts of Southern Bolivia and Northern Chile and Argentina. [Peralta-Ramos, town South of Mar Del Plata and founder] VERY high and snow-swept, TRULY grand. Alphabetize on A-z pink TDI tags, and sun comes up to clear day over Uruguay. Very hungry for breakfast, great eggs, poor ham. Land too quickly to distribute passenger lists, which turns out to be GOOD, since it should be done after a few days on the ship. Bobby takes the passports off as we land, Arnie and Norman Adie and Ron Miller all wave at the plane, and Arnie's first words are "What are YOU doing here?" Give ten manifest lists of December 23 to Ron, who doesn't know what to do with them. Later give him the note that had been detached, to give to Arnie or Dr. Barbi, the agent, but we didn't need them. Onto five buses (land at 9:30) and Arnie talks and talks on bus ONE and I give summary on other busses to placate TIRED tourists. [Graffiti on one house!] Arnie wants to talk, but I want to take the Montevideo tour and DO. He later says he was too busy to talk. [Many MORE graffiti later!]. Susanna good even with sore throat, and I take notes on Montevideo: viz: 11:25-12:25: Uruguay means "Country of the painted birds. Montevideo has 50% of the 2,600,000 people in Uruguay. $1 = 2100 Uruguay pesos, which comes into confusion later when it turns out to be 20 of the new pesos. They go to school in the months of March through November, and December, January, and February is their vacation. 140 km to Punta del Este. $9000 for VW, so there are lots of OLD (and very well maintained) cars. She tells me that the post office is ten blocks from the Plaza Independencia, at the corner of Egido and 18 Julio. To ship at 12:25, the last bus OUT and the first bus to the SHIP. Cathy is there supervising porters that take everyone to their rooms, and luggage comes on quickly. Lunch doesn't start till 1:30, too bad, and plane BACK [great engineering of visible details in water tower---openwork elevator between water pipes] doesn't leave till 2 because of TIA confusion. [Water tower surpassed by only 2-3 buildings, tallest under the Havana sign.] To room and want to shave [didn't WORK on plane, not enough wattage, damn] but don't have TRANSFORMER. Want to shower but have no CLOTHES. Damn. Up to lunch with two couples, buying beer [great Tudor "cottages" of 40-50 rooms, lovely dandelion (or are they buttercups---later turn out to be what LOOK like dandelion blooms on what LOOK like buttercup STEMS) dotting lawns---very pleasant looking city] for couple who'd ordered but hadn't gotten. They loved my paying for it. Try to get LESS food but they pile it on. I just don't clean plate of third kefta and potatoes, but salad and fresh pineapple and melon for dessert are great. Gal calls at 3 to Roldan's and the BROTHER is there and agrees to meet me at the Victoria Plaza lobby at 3:30. Take car in with three others, meet the guy, he thanks me for package (I'd read everything) and I ask for stamps. He tries nearby, only for collectors, and then takes me to the 18 Julio and Egipo to find THAT closed. Nice walking down streets with great-crotched guys (lots of neat bodies on all the sandy beaches, water brown because of winds, sadly not its usual blue---Rio de la Plata so dirty they can't get water to fill the pool), grand shade trees, and many open shops selling toys for "Feriada" tomorrow, the giving to little toys to kids on the feast of the three kings. Walk back with lovely old brother, very kindly, rather like jean-Jacques with his "Remember, we are Latins, too" when we cross in the middle of the street. About thirty people stranded in front of the hotel, only one car operating. This pisses me until I get back on ship at 4:30 after paying five cabs $5 and Cathy tells me that the HOTEL supplied the cars FREE. Ride back with entertainers, who tell me about the STORM and sickness on New Years Eve. Back to ship at 4:30 and it sails at 5. I go down to start unpacking and go to Arnie's room to chat and give him the mail. He said that ONLY his being sick on New Years' Even had permitted him to sleep at ALL. Otherwise it's constant work. Bobby is assigned birthdays and I'm assigned to the newspaper---typing the stencils after I've edited the greek copy. Take a Dramamine while talking to Arnie, but as I'm unpacking I feel worse and worse, and finally have to lay down about 6:30. Want to shower (finally shave) but can't stand the shower curtains swaying back and forth. Keep thinking I might feel better, but really never do. Arnold and Cathy both call to offer condolences (Bobby's ill too, and Ron has gotten himself exempted from EVERY dinner and evening festivity!). Nat plays tonight but I don't hear him. Finally eat the fruit that's brought in at 8 and fall asleep about 10, leaving a call for 6:30, hoping I feel better and that my malaise is as much due to fatigue as to the motion of the front of the ship.

MAR DEL PLATA
MONDAY, JANUARY 6. Up even before 6:30, shave and shower in calmer waters, feeling GREAT again. Give Arnold the last list of his stuff and finally find that the actual Sun Line TICKET had been put into an envelope for the purser. Give out the last of the packages to Ron and Norman Adie, Cathy having gotten her mail by special delivery by me to her at the Hospitality Desk yesterday. At 8:30 Arnie had arranged to meet with the lecturers at breakfast, but only the two dental ones and Dave Nichols and his wife show up. She and I have a great chat about tours and souvenirs, and I'm the liaison with the medical lecturers. They'll need slide equipment. Leave with the 9:30 tour to Mar del Plata, pleasant Susana guide on the bus, notes as follows: MAR DEL PLATA 9:55 am - 12:10 pm. Playa Grande---great sand beach. British polar ship is FLAT on the bottom for towing across ice! MDP engages in textiles and fishing, when not engaged in the tourist business. Sea lions in MDP harbor with same-day fishing boats. Other boats stay out four days. MDP uses desalinated sea water. "Beach is empty today in the cold," and nicely full beaches in view in the 75F day. Gran Hotel Provincial "has 1000 passengers." Casino has 100 tables for 900 players. Last bus leaves city-center at 2:30. Fisherman monument is VERY humpy, but I can find no cards of it. The Chapel "Saturnino" is in Florentine style, and impromptu tour through 250 6-18 years old girl orphanage with pleasant woman. Some FABULOUS bodies. POLITICAL graffiti. Flower calendar in San Martin Park has its numbers and day changed every morning. Good leather coats and good sweaters to buy. Streets crowded, shops open. Warm and stickly, but not NEARLY hot. Lots of shorts and even bathing suits in streets. Highest building is 37 stories; MDP nearly empty in winter. "Very old houses, one of the oldest in MDP is 1922." Easternmost point has tropic current joining COLD Antarctic current: "Cabo Corrientes." Navarchos's ship is wrecked on beach, with a restaurant above. Back to the ship for lunch at the "staff" table with Nat, and he appalls me and Anne Marie with his incessant chatter, slobby messiness, and he seems VERY ambivalent sexually: "I really loved the guy, but then he asked me what I thought about men having relations with men, and what could I say, having been married twice with three kids?" But THEN he wants to walk with me, Arnie saying he's gone to a restaurant to eat and that I should meet him at 3 to talk about the lecturers, and I tell Nat "Sorry, I have to work," do bits and get money exchanged into pesos ($10 for 200 new pesos) and then leave about 1:30 to walk along the top of the quays and get THOROUGHLY wetted by the SPECTACULAR high, windblown waves. Walk to the beach and gape at magnificently tanned young bumpy-ripplies, but many of even the older adolescents have pots. A few of the classic half-hardons by guys with gals that they're feeling up. I'm SURE I'll remember that hour sitting on the wall: the gays sunning together, family groups getting sprayed, couples laughing as high waves wash over their blankets, the aerial sculptures of winds blowing TOWARD land and ALONG shore on spume that was curling AWAY from land, and certain looks by certain large-crotched young men passing by. Great beautiful groups of boys showing off, playing ball, posing for girls. Back to ship at 3 DELIGHTED with afternoon, to find Bobby and Arnie beset by three couples who REFUSE to sail in rough seas, but they CAN'T be guaranteed passage to BA in time for the ship. Cathy tries to get electrician for the transformer for the 4 pm lecture, Norman Adie says his people MUST rehearse to 4:15. I put up sign and complain to Arnie about TEA scheduled at the same time in the Minos Lounge 4:30 to 5, and Dave says he WON'T give a general lecture on the formation of the vagina! Electrician DOESN'T come and DOESN'T come and finally Arnie and I play and plug in the transformer (the microphone still was working). It DOES start at 4:15 with about 20 MDs, and they struggle in to the tune of about 40 by the time they finish at 6. Notes on daily program pages: he talks about the future of medical education and the location and relocation of the uterus: barium paste, dental paste impressions, flexible uterus and urinary incontinence. Ship starts rocking just on leaving, I take Dramamine and feel PRETTY good while putting stuff away (I even ask questions about squatting births) and typing up the 6 January news release, but neglect to say "Ocean News" paper and it comes out on FOLIO paper. DAMN. Finish about 7:05 and down to dress without showering, still a bit tacky from my salt bath, but my hair is windswept, fluffy and pleasant, and I have a ruddy wind/salt burn. Up to be about the last introduced by a beautiful Anne Marie in a white dress to Captain Kopakakis, talk to a couple, spilling my ouzo, he gets sick and goes off (doesn't believe in taking pills) and she joins someone else, so I go in alone to sit with the Rosembaums and chat, and then the Post/King duo joins us. I'd passed poor ill Nancy on her way out, looking frantic. As Jon says the next day, first my face got white then my lips got green, and after finishing the shrimp cocktail and much of the filet, I get my plate of fruit and then carry it downstairs, passing a somewhat irate-faced Captain with Cathy---sure as anything---sitting next to him, and I'm down to feel my mouth fill with saliva for the first time. I lay till I feel steadier, rise to spit and eat fruit, then it's obvious I'm not going back up. So GREAT to remove jacket! Over to chat with a sick Bobby (hear him retching afterward) and a dapper Ron in red silk short-suit and Nat the cabin boy, large-eyed behind his glasses, and back AGAIN to relax, shutting light off at 10:30 and leaving a call for 7:30, since medical lecture has been postponed until 8:30. Sleep well again!

BUENOS AIRES TOUR
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7. Phone wakes me at 7:30, shower and shave and join Arnie and Norman for breakfast, talking about show last night that I missed, and have Rice Krispies and a cheese omelet, then leave to set up projector and screen for 8:30 class, then leave to man Hospitality Desk, type another newsletter, saying yesterday's on the wrong paper is BEHIND, then they've got that DONE already and I staple part of them before the boat drill at 10:15. Down at 10:30 and finish stapling, up to hear Arnie and John's talk about Buenos Aires and Uruguay: Taxi meter x 6 = Rate; taxi meter x 7 = rate + tip. Arnie: so MANY mentions of NYC makes you sound provincial. La Cabana is the best restaurant, starting about 9:30. Michaelangelo requires jacket and tie, shows at 11 and about 1:30. New bills have values in the four corners (on both sides); old bills have the value in the center (of both sides). Jon: avoid lecture, introduce wife the first time around. AT 12 they announce that the landing in BA's been delayed to 3. I write lots of this through the AM and PM, lunch at 1:40 with a hurried harried Arnie who invites me to a steakhouse for dinner and then to Michaelangelo's with him and Ron tonight. Fabulous---love Arnie. Cathy has me on H Desk as she gets something, I copy lists of room and seat numbers to identify people, and then she says I'm free until the BA tour. Up to watch the city loom near on the crowded muddy river and finish to THIS point NOW at 3:15 pm! Go forward to see many close brushes with ships, Una Bota coming up almost to nose us behind, for someone to reach out a pike and grab a rope attached to our rear hawser. Someone's latched on in front, too (but not before poking a hole into Ron's room that moves him from P3 down to P17 for a few days while they estimate the damage and repair the side of the room), and we head around corner, past many wrecks (MANY along Rio, too) and into a channel JUST as wide as we are. Fantastic maneuvers to dock, sexy bods on Trans Una boat and painter on Enrico C from Napoli. Dock at 3:55, then join crowd "champing at the bit" for tour of BA that leaves at 4:15 and returns at 6:35, with Cecelia. 8 million live in BA, 1/3 of the Argentine people. 50% Spanish, 50% French, German, Italian. "Ode to Work" is stone looking like bronze, sexy. San Martin was a Mason, buried OUTSIDE the Cathedral. Changing of the guards inside. Crystal-topped rotunda. Marble tomb atop 12-15 foot pedestal in center. Including tombs (actually an urn) of the Unknown Soldier. Church has huge plain dome, greatly decorated altar. La Plata is city just to east of BA, the capital of BA state. Large white building at head of dock is Navy Building. Casa Rosada is the headquarters, NOT the residence, which is in Oliveros section. Many sidewalk cafes: batteria is a tray of ten meats, good. Elaborate fountains and bronzes before Congress Building. Mr. Martinez sticks "his camera's nose out the window and a pigeon poops on it." MANY buildings with VERY elaborate turrets and cupolas atop them. Rather grimy and tacky look to city. ELABORATE buildings are GRIMY. 150 parks of more than 100 square meters. NO trees OUTSIDE parks, which adds to grimness, as compared to Paris, say. "Our clothes here are half as good as yours." Leather best bargain---Plaza San Martin for leather; Santa Fee for ready made clothes, Florida for other shopping. Harrod's is not NOW owned by London company., "Department stores are not in now, only shops." "No bargaining in BA." Some ELEGANT gated townhouses on Quintana. HUGE impressive Recolleta cemetery on ten acres, a miniature CITY of tomb construction. FIRST place I've seen that I'd like to see more THOROUGHLY. VERY elaborate plan, winding in and out, heaps of flowers, layers under the sidewalks can be seen in broken doors. Every POSSIBLE style: Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Italian, French, Spanish. Bodies many times moved to urns. Only way to ADD a new tomb is to buy out an old. Peron is buried in the Presidential Residence in Olivas. La Chacarita is 50 acres like this style. Louis Firpo "The Wild Bull of the Pampas" buried here. Antonia Pinero, Jose Cabral, too. My "Ideal City" would have ONE cemetery like this and ONE like in New Orleans. GRAND funeral preparations, many military brass, for burial of "very important air crash" victims of a couple of days ago. Palermo parks over 1000 acres. Soccer season April-November. Vacations to Cordova, Bariloche, Atlantic, Iquassu. Copy of large-crotched arches in park (A on map) and they're building a monument (B on map) to Peron. "They will tear him apart and put him in TWO places." Lovely town houses! Jacarandas bloom October and November, some still in purple bloom. Federal Capital of Argentina is BA. But BA is in La Plata Province, the capital of which is La Plata. A good buy is OSTRICH LEATHER. Bellas Artes Museum looks closed. Six years ago were only 100 vicunas. NO more vicuna coats. Stores open 9:30-7:30. 24th floor of the Sheraton has a GREAT view. Embassy Center on Florida, cashmeres, furs, souvenirs from Gaucho, Eton's leather goods. 28 floor pentagonal office building. Credit cards get official rates; personal checks and travelers checks get the good rate. Return to find that Arnie isn't around, the Hospitality desk is manned by the BA expert, so there's nothing for me to do but go to my room, shave and shower and sort through my papers and get things together. Begin to worry about the extra tickets I need between LAX and SFO, but I have to contact Schollar first to see if the office had also sent him THAT ticket. Almost at a loss for things to do, even caught up in NOTES, so I finish reading the Village Voice; Bobby, my cabin boy, asks me for a TDI bag, smiling and cleaning up the bathroom from my recent shower, and sails out of the room in a wake of Greek sweat. Begin to think the cruise might not be so bad after all, and hear Arnie's voice outside about 8:45. Cathy sails off in a wave of perfume and a new dress, saying goodnight. The next morning she says how nice it is to wake in a bed that's not moving to see roses growing outside. Ron and Bobby are going with others, and Arnie sends me to find that there's no need to cancel two of the four reservations at Michaelangelo's. After hearing of the quality and reputation of La Cabana AND of the Michaelangelo, I'm terribly flattered that Arnie (though he's only had LUNCH at the La Cabana and wants to see Michaelangelo's for himself) still is enough of a FRIEND to like being with me even when he has a chance for a sleep to recoup his widely expanded energies. Out about 9:15, everyone exclaiming about his pure white suit, white tie on navy shirt, white shoes to match his gleaming teeth and white hair. Out to see a couple getting into a car and Arnie has no qualms asking if we can go along to town, and by coincidence they're going to La Cabana. I fear we might get sucked into the evening with them, but after a multi-argumented discussion of different places between Mario, the driver, the couple, and Arnie, while the couple exclaims about the driving, we get to La Cabana to watch all the THINGS being broiled and inside past two stuffed steers that look phony as HELL when we go in, but after the marvelous champagne they look FINE on the way OUT. Seated in the corner, restaurant almost empty, but it gets more full and loud as the evening goes on. I start with "Paté Trufado" but there are no visible truffles---though it's pale and tasty. Arnie orders the "native bespatter" because of the name, but it turns out to be a marinated salad that Arnie turns back in exchange for a thick tomato soup tasking of arrowroot or cornstarch, but lovely with onions. We order one salad, which they considerately bring on two plates, but Arnie sends his back. The menu is fabulous---lots of information, some items even described as recipes. The wine list is incredibly cheap, and I thumb through looking at the Argentine wines, since Arnie suggests we should stay native. The best thing on the list is a "Baron B" champagne at 99 pesos ($5) and Arnie says "Why not?" so we get it. He wanted the mixed grill at 50 pesos and I get the baby beef, which turns out to be the HALF baby that I was afraid to order because it said "Emince" and I didn't want CHOPPED meat. It comes out on a BLAZING brazier, all sorts of innards covered with the medium beef. Since Arnie likes everything crisp, as I do, I spread things around and cook everything over: blood sausage, regular sausage, kidneys, heart, testicles, sweetbreads, lots of intestines braided in small tubules in fatty lumps and other unmentionable items were tasty and crisp and crunchy. John would have loved it. Eat and drink and talk about people and his fatigue and weary eyes and the pleasantness of the free night, and the couple comes back to say how much they like it and the champagne is the FIZZIEST I've ever tasted, though not really the TASTIEST, but the bright emerald bottle is such a bargain for $5. Arnie seems SO tired that I made SURE he wants to go, but he SAYS he does. Out to get ONE car that charges too much and get another that's fair, and we turn down street to a terribly dramatic facade and as I exclaim "What's THAT?" I see that the golden-lit old-stone facade is Michaelangelo's. The impression of the red carpet under the vaulted brick roofs through the glass doors is stunning, and the public areas lead to a grand staircase in the rear of elegant proportions, and the lighting, the personnel, and the detailing are all very agreeable. Up to a theater sunk below us. The stage is low-ceilinged but well-lit, back projections used very effectively. There's a fairly poor singer, but I'm ogling the tight-suited boys of the Eder Fadon Dancers, and they're VERY jazzy and fast and jumpy, making big plays to the audience with lots of skin and teeth and crotch. Some of the singers are VERY sexy in their sheer shirts that show their pecs and nipples and tip of pubic hair. The impersonator is rather ludicrous when he tries to do Chevalier or Sinatra (at least to AMERICAN ears) but he's fast on his feet too. But then after an all-boobs, no-talent blond who looks not at ALL like Marilyn Monroe and the impersonator doing Chaplin poorly, there's a comic called Coco Martinez who mimics dances and dancers VERY well and obviously tells jokes so well the audience cracks up. My daiquiri is good but Arnie's gin and ginger is awful. He sleeps through a lot, the captain and his crew comes in, and two nephews are there, and lots of others from the ship. We get pushed into the bill of 200 pesos, TOLD there's no service, so I give 50 more and then we're out to empty streets at 2:15 to try to catch a cab. None. Finally one comes and wants to charge 60 pesos, and we get out unpaid after riding ten blocks. Then we catch a bus to the railroad station and we decide we can walk from there, though streets now closed to traffic in the port, and get back to the ship at the same time that Mandelbaum and the three entertainers come from Michaelangelo's and Bobby and Ron come from Deprechos which THEY say is the best in town. Bed about 2:45, asking to get up at 7:30 so that I can get into town on the bus, but then Arnie says I should see off the doctors at 8:30 so I get up at 8 am, finally.

WALK IN BUENOS AIRES
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8. See the doctors off after I have breakfast, introducing Nichols to the guide and then get on a rickety bus with everyone else to the center of town, right off at the base of Florida. Doctors off at 9:05, shuttle off at 9:20, to town at 9:30. Florida is delightful: nice people, no traffic, lots of great side gallerias with murals and shops and restaurants and lines in front of banks and travel agencies and cambios. Walk itinerary on map, enjoying being alone, following a guy with FABULOUS thighs and calves a bit out of the way, marveling at his shoulders, square, twice the width of his hips. Up La Valle to see the ads for the movies, across 9 Julio admiring the train-window effect of the restaurants open to the air, and down Santa Fe to look at the statues in the Plaza, then look into some shops, pick up a free gift keychain at the Gaucho souvenir shop, and ten talk to Mrs. Mead outside Etons, go in to price bags, through the Galleria Florida to price items, and back to wait for bus at 11:15, but see a comfortable one in front of Eton's and go to take that to ship at 11:30, finding that the Lopez bus finally gets back at 11:55. Lunch on deck, enjoying the sun and the exit from Buenos Aires for the first REAL time on deck. Man the desk but do things busily, but free at 4 when Ron comes on, and Arnie says I'm FREE for a couple of hours. I go down to room and figure that I LAST came on Friday, and this is Wednesday, and five days should have built up QUITE a load, and play just a TINY bit and I DO build up an INCREDIBLE hardon, stiffest in ages, and come SO hard that there's one, two, and then the THIRD spurt hits my CHIN. Admittedly, I AM propped up a bit on the life preserver to get a great view in the mirror, aided by the side light. Feel fabulous having come, staying rock-hard for a long time afterward. Then rest until 8, feeling a bit woozy, but put on my tie for pink night, admiring Cathy and Norman's decoration of pink and Beverly Berlin is beauteous in pink. I feel pretty good for a change, saying this is my FIRST night COMPLETELY OK. Art and I start chatting about grass and growing it, and he says he has some good stuff. We chat very nicely, but I can't figure going to bed with him, but we go down to the Pelagos deck and he says that P24 is his and asks "Wanna smoke?" I pause only a moment and say OK, and he rolls a joint and we talk and Johnny Faro comes in and we all talk in a VERY stoned way. I partake of 3 joints, really smoking fully, and settle back to listen to the symphony of the ship's engine and vibrations and then almost doze off. I'd resisted feeling sick at the table, though there was also a lot of wine at the table to help things along, and then Art was so perfectly low-key in his speaking, comparing travel experiences and exclaiming over the coincidence that Beverly Berlin was born in Ravenna and I was born in Akron, that I forgot about feeling sick. Art's cabin is obviously situated over some engine-connection that rocks the room, and I lay back to hear the loud and soft changes in the overwhelming noises. He's still not very attractive physically, though I have a sort of fantasy about Johnny Faro and his absurd profile, even though I do suspect he's straight, but I don't feel obliged to participate in their stoned talk and drift off on my own. Afraid of making a fool of both myself and Art, I say I'm going to my room and do. Bobby comes past to pick up the three bottles of wine that astounded me when I entered my room, thinking that they might have been sent by Art or even Ron, little dreaming that it was simply a mistake of Bobby's, who told the steward that his room number was P4. He says there's a party at Ron's, and I'm hoping that Cathy won't be there and try to follow, but he loses me in the hallway and I'm not really SURE where it is, so I simply go back to bed feeling quite stoned on the great grass and QUITE left out. Sleep VERY well, seeming to have made the better decision, bed-direction-wise, even though the doctor later says that when the ship is PITCHING (going up and down from stem to stern) it's better to sleep ALONG the ship, but the idea of being tossed head-to-toe like a cocktail shaker doesn't appeal, and he says when it's ROLLING (rotating along its long axis) the best way to sleep is as I'm sleeping, perpendicular to the ship, but it's MOVING AROUND the cabin and changing my orientation that makes me nauseous: lying in bed I become perfectly comfortable.

AT SEA---GENERAL IMPRESSIONS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 9. Up for the 7:30-9 stint at the Hospitality Desk, then breakfast. Having gotten laundry back last night, I give in the rest of the dirty stuff, concerned only about the white trousers with the rip in the back. Later, when Dr. Cooke asks about sewing one of HIS seams, I ask Anna, the telephone operator, if there's any sewing services aboard, and she says to go to the pantry on Pelagos Deck and ask for Nitza. I finally do that and two days later the pants are back in my room, and when I go to give her some money, she shies away with a smile and says that it was so small it didn't matter at all. Marvelous feeling. Since everyone wanders the hall in shorts and miniskirts and swimsuits, I decide in the heat to put on my swimsuit and a white shirt, and it works very well until I remember that I still have the bandaids on my heels for the shoes that will show on my stockingless feet. Oh well. Type today's stock prices, tonight's news, and tomorrow's redone program, since Greek Night and Latin Night have been switched. I type so well they ask me to type customs cards tomorrow! Lunch on deck again, talking for a long time to Lorraine Nichols about a Catholic education and taking kids to Mass, watching the water in the pool do incredible things as the ship rocks and rolls. Back to the Hospitality Desk, writing a lot but still not able to catch up. Rest for a bit and have dinner with the TDI staff at a different table, luxuriating in the far better service, then into the lounge to talk to a few people. The "Sunshine Quartet" isn't so bad on their own, some of the songs they sing seem quite good, but the entertainers really hate them. The costume parade has only 15 entries, most of the prizes ties: humor for the toilet seat and the toilet paper, originality in the backward people, imagination in the Hawaiian number by the Brazilian people, and the clowns, the flower and the bumble bee, and one other pair gets it also, Bed at 11. My feelings for the tourists on this trip is totally different from the Greek cruise: there I knew everyone by name, here there are so many on the ship that I still pull the terrible gaffe of asking "Are you on the ship?" of people that I don't recognize. The Hagmeiers are VIPs, and it's a delight to talk to her scatterbrainedness and his resignation to her silliness and his own humor and delightfulness. We compare notes on Buenos Aires and on Rio as we pull out of Rio, and they even invite me to dinner with them after the cocktail party on deck, and they're thoroughly delightful, bringing up their sons just as frequently as the Biebers brought up theirs. Somewhere in here I get my only tip, too: pass the Wus playing Scrabble and chat for a bit with them, and then they confide they've been trying to get money wired to them from the states, since they've spent all of it in Buenos Aires. I talk to the purser and he says he'll cash a personal check up to $200, which by coincidence was the amount I suggested to the Wus that they might need), provided that Ron has enough Travelers Checks to cover that amount. He does, Mrs. Wu writes out the check right there, and I bring back the $200 in no time at all. They thank me very much and hand me $10. I try to refuse it, but they say it would take a lot of their time and probably that much money to do it themselves, so I take it. A good thing: coming back everyone was very pleasant but totally empty-handed when they shook hands with me. Then there wasn't the opportunity to eat with people: everyone seemed settled at their tables, the non-eatingness of Ron and Bobby, and the fact that Arnie and Cathy seemed to be at the Captain's table more often than not, all made me somewhat of an outsider, taking what fun I could (and many times there was a lot of it) from the entertainers' table, particularly since Nat Bader seemed to find someone else to pester and didn't return to the table with me. Lois Fenton was sort of fun in an old-maid sort of way, Anne Marie would communicate rudimentarily when she sat at the table, and when Ron joined in on Latin American night (see Jan. 10) it was also a treat. But we're only 160, I hate to think what it would be like with the full complement of 230 that's "2/3 the normal capacity" of the ship, as in the brochure. And THEN I wonder what it would be like to take some of the 90-day cruises that Ron's been on---fabulous places, but would I like it?

AT SEA-ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JANUARY 10. Note from Arnie before bed that the bulb on the MEDICAL projector is burned out. Great. Eat breakfast with Nichols and talk to Cooke and Johnson and Arnie. Nichols has a lecture WITHOUT slides and later the CREW comes up with a bulb! Cathy said that one electrician poked the other and said "Say we don't have any." Reputedly Anna tipped everyone for EVERYTHING on the last trip and they don't like the change. Typing again today, helping them out at 4, then to Ron's at 5:30 to talk about Casino Night on Monday, and Nancy Dorr has lots of good ideas and Norman's not afraid of calling Arnie down when he goes off the subject. I'm QUITE tired, so Nancy gets the Rotarian group, too, to whom I wrote invitations. THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING! Find that stamps on postcards from Brazil are 2.5 cruzieros or 37, so I send NO cards now. Proposal sent to George to CANCEL Mar del Plata and note comes back to KEEP it. UGH. ALWAYS feel busy, ALWAYS someone with questions. I actually get to one of Lois Fenton's lectures today, and it's so FUNNY to hear her talk about how "people don't want martinis or manhattans anymore, they go straight for the white wine. I'm not saying you HAVE to have some white wine around, but just be aware that people might be wanting it." Then there are the kinds of invitations to send, the cocktail party that ends with soup to send them out the door, people who know her so well that they go to the next step when it appears she's not going to get to it in time; and then the jokes about the hostess who drops the turkey and is instructed to "Get the OTHER one, please!" and the woman who makes TOO much all the time and leaves the dropped Spanish rice, or whatever, ON the floor until the NEW batch IS served. Then the fuss about what colors, how to use colors, but not red and green unless it's Christmas, and how to provide a nice centerpiece, how great dramatic black candles are, and how this and that should be done to ensure that the guests have a good time. She'd be AWFUL catering one of my orgies, and I think of how far REMOVED I am from something like that with enormous gratitude. Also listen to some of Arnie's talks, and he talks too much, though Jon Rosenbaum seems to know SO much about South America that it's always interesting to listen to him. Tonight for the first time I go into the Minos Lounge for the entertainment, and Johnny Faro is almost embarrassingly bad for a long time until he really starts to get in with the audience, picking on one woman (the same I ordered beer for) who's wiping her eyes from tears of laughter, and everyone really gets off on that, but otherwise his exaggerated PHYSICAL comedy doesn't go over very well, and his obscenities are met with the typical straight-faced sternness of "American Gothic." Art Ostrin isn't always on pitch and doesn't always come across exactly right, but his "I'm in Love with Miss Logan" literally brings tears to my eyes, and no one really cares that he's over 40, he ACTS like the young kid he want to act like, and it's VERY effective. He also does "Cabaret" which everyone eats up so well that he promises to do "Wilkommen" again, which he did for the first performance, but many people were sick. Ron was at dinner tonight and Beverly started into the idea that SHE'S been "around a lot" whereas Ron, with his bright open eyes, is only in his first or second reincarnation, and everything's new and exciting to him, and I can almost put myself inside him, scoffing at her, but she's so marvelously sincere that it's touching to watch her talking to him, and he gulps his big adam's apple in the way he probably knows is so effective, and I try palm-reading with a couple, telling Art that he had a large change in his life in the last year, and it turns out that THAT'S when he broke up with Lee Hoiby [Natalia Petrova, After Eden, Summer and Smoke]. Also see the "shadow heart-line" strongly in Ron's hand, and want to talk to him about it, but that's not what I talk to him about (see Jan. 12). But the audience seems to like Art. Beverly is by far the best, singing well, and her own song is quite good, though it sounds like a thousand others. There's a lot of flack when the movie starts early, not the first of the movie troubles, and for the first time I see the midnight buffet spread out, and it really looks like just too much. I'm having enough trouble drawing the line at REGULAR meals, without throwing this in too.

SAO PAULO TOUR
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11. Up to an early breakfast and type the news while the ship slides past the communities that cooperate to make Santos look like a big city, thankful that the landing has been delayed until 9 am. It gets in even later and there are troubles with customs, too, which I hope is not caused by my typing of the cards yesterday, and Ron and his group get off to Iguassu Falls quite late, missing their scheduled plane, trying to make an arrangement to stay the return flight until people can SEE the falls, and then finding the return CAN'T be delayed, and some RETURN to the ship right then, being told they'd probably get their money back, and others decide to pay an extra $48 and stay overnight in Iguassu and fly up to Rio the next day. They only miss Sao Paulo and one day of Rio into the bargain. The Sao Paulo tour leaves at 9:58, and I'm in the bus with Vera and Anna, the telephone operator, and it looks like a good group. I have four back seats to move around in, too. "Santos is even MORE important as a port than Rio. City Hall built in 1939. 90 minutes, 45 miles Santos-Sao Paulo. San Vincente founded in 1532, the first city; Santos founded in 1534. Colorful houses on the hill. 45-95F is the temperature range. Huge "TV Colorado" and "Pirelli" signs on hills. The first road to SP was a trail following every curve of the mountain. We go on the second road, built in 1947 and planned for 20 years of use, and it's very crowded. They're working on building the third, which will be spectacular with its wide-arcing concrete spans and many tunnels; it appears it's hardly ever on the GROUND. VERY green countryside. Santos specializes in tourists, the port, and beaches. Banana and sugar plantations. Brazil grows 200 million bunches of bananas: 1/2 to Argentina; 1/2 eaten here. Nanica bananas have as much protein in three as in a beefsteak. Lots of great men in the villages wearing only shorts. Brazil has 22 states. Beautiful flowering pink and white trees. Brazil has 90 million people, HALF under 25. Third road IS finished on the plateau, hoped to be completed to Santos by 1975. Sao Paulo is 2500 feet high. There's a 70 km beach to the south of Santos. A ten-minute stop over GREAT panorama of island and inland plain and power plant and refinery and rivers and road construction. "Enco-Zolcsak" sign. HUGE industrial section between Santos and SP: VW, Chrysler, SAAB, farm machinery, etc. Fantastic string of international names on factories on Via Anchieta (founder's name, 1553). SP is the fastest growing city in the world. And it looks it, though it looks JUST as huge as it did 10 years ago. Stop at Independence Monument: Peter I buried here; Peter II in Petropolis. 11:30-11:45, SHE stops at STERNS! She repeats many times: SP grew up without a plan. Feijoada is national dish. Cachaca is the alcoholic drink from sugar cane. Only 40% Catholics in Brazil. Pass Villa-Lobos Musical Conservatory. Some LOVELY bare midriffs. LOTS of peddlers in the streets; window washers, lottery sellers, etc. Some DOLLS. Cachaca is used as base for "lemon batata" and passion fruit: Carambola, drinks. Condemn Vera to the passengers and ride two elevators to Terracio Italia, GREAT view over the entire city, hot outside, cool inside, great meal of filet (tenderest meat on trip) and drinks and I order guarana for the table. Mrs. Castor-Huerta charming with her Spanish. Cathy and I enjoy lunch and fruits and ice cream for dessert, then out to hallway to see Coco, Buriti, and Tomate Francais fruits, and then the manager piles up a plate of three dolces: milk, pumpkin, and chocolate coconut. Then into bus and pass through lovely Consolation residential district. There's a Car-Fair in front of Caravalho Stadium on Sunday mornings. Cemetery a FOREST of angels and Virgins. SIGN: MOTORDIK. State University Students pay ONLY for food. Incredibly huge, spread out University City. Jararaca snake is worst, and has UNIQUE serum (from Butantan). Others can be treated by ONE serum. 3:20 stop at Butantan. Cascavel=rattlesnake! 5.1 meter snake, 311 vertebrae. Outside and kids collecting cigarette PACKS. Jungley environs. Out at 4:10. 8xxx snakes produces 3xxx ampoules of serum, 68 of 73 survived, 1.8% mortality. CUTE kids. Jacaranda and kapok trees. Jockey Club area a BEAUTY: flamboyan trees. Lovely tropical clouds HUGE over city. Great street signs with NUMBERS and arrows to point directions. Why can't NEW YORK have THAT? All families using servants must pay a tax that's 50% of minimum wage for retirement. Europe/American sections MOST luxurious. Small lots but FULL usage. Indian hammocks on sale on corners. Some houses have incredible concrete/glass free-form facades with traditional houses behind! Magnificently colored ballplayers in Ibarapuera Park. Then a poorer area, but shown General Clinic in Saude, Catholic and Jewish hospitals and faculties. Leave city at 5:15, countryside VERY green under lowering sun---fertilizer smell. Stop at fruit shop and get coconut for 4 cruizeros, kid gives me 56 Cr. change and he counts it and smiles at me. Markovitch borrows 50 and two others borrow 10 and 5. The 5 pays me back, the 10 forgot. MAGNIFICENT full low clouds on SPEEDY way back. Hit traffic at 5:35 and start creeping along, watching groups of trucks and motorcycles that pull off road to wait for it to clear, but quickly over edge, leaves glinting in the light. New road 10 km shorter and it will take 50 minutes---if speed continues. But I'm sure 5:15-7:15 will not even be enough. Incredible vistas to ONE side over rivers and hills and cities and ocean, and to the other steep slopes of jungle and LINES of busses and cars at outlandish angles against the greens. Back to CITY at 6:25 very surprisingly. Amazing! Jail becomes a city museum; first Catholic church becomes a religious museum. Orchids in November and March (3 days on display). BEAUTIFUL gardens lining the beaches. 400,000 normally, over a million on weekends in summer. 6:50 stop at Coffee House. Beautiful, thin polished round-segment trays for 4-9 cr, 60-$1.20. Buy a bottle of Bahia Coffee Liquor, 750 ml for 14 cr ($2) (As opposed to 500 ml of Santos liquor for 17 cr). Leave at 7:15 to ship at 7:20. Sail during dinner, knock on Ron's door to smoke, we laze, he puts hand on my knee, I move over to him, we neck neatly, then clothes come off as lights go out, and he turns out to have a HUGE cock, almost always right up, and it's fun playing with, so I do and do and do, and he comes with a gush, and doesn't seem interested in my coming. I return to cabin feeling pleasantly exhausted, even triumphant at finding SOMETHING to do aboard ship! Bed at 12.

RIO-SUGAR LOAF TOUR
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12. Since we were in port all day yesterday we didn't get any news, so for the next TWO days there's blessed relief from the stock market and from the news. Breakfast late and out on the deck to watch the three 40-story towers under construcion (HA) to the south of Rio, and IT, too, looks pretty much the same as before, except that there are lots more things to the south. One day in here I get out really at DAWN and watch the sun creep up, and see dolphins squirting in and out of the water. Have a quick lunch indoors since it's gotten too hot on deck, and I feel somehow reluctant to get too much sun, anyway. Rio Sugar Loaf tour leaves at 1:30 promptly. In July and August it sometimes rains CONSTANTLY, HEAVILY for two weeks at a time. Out Rio Branco (toward President Vargas Ave.) to beach to Botofogo. Building a subway system, scheduled for 1978. Flamengo beach NEW and great with parks. STATE of Rio will be 9.5 million people, STATE of Guanabara will vanish. Rio CITY will be in Rio STATE joined by the bridge finished in 1974. Only bay LARGER than Rio's is SF. But Rio has little docking space; ships may wait 10 days for loading. Urca Hill 800 feet; Sugar Loaf 1200 feet. Changed cars to 75 capacity in 1970. 20 Cr to top. "Dulce et Decoro est pro Patria mori." HA. Sewage system into ocean will be finished in 1975. Copacabana 12-story limit surpassed last year, Air France Meridian Hotel will be 40 stories, Orthon Palace will be 25. Bridge 81/2 miles long. NO private beaches in Brazil. Go up on BELVEDERE and stand in VERY corner with a totally CLEAR view of ENTIRE 360 wide. TOTAL SPECTACLE. IDEAL CITY would have THIS. Islands, dozens of beaches in USE, what WOULD compare with this? SF bay, Hong Kong Harbor, NYC from Statue of Liberty or Promenade; Macchu Picchu from Huanyo Picchu, Mt. St. Michel, St. Michael on Capri, Llao Llao. BEAUTIFUL legs under bathing suits and shirts tied up about their chests. GOD are some of them beautiful! Out of bus at 2, to top at 2:30, start down at 3, down at 3:30 and bus is less than half full. Bridge across rather changes the character of the bay, but still the view is tremendous. Bus finally pulls out at 3:50! Rio is setting up a University City as in SP. Around lagoon to Leblon. They're in the process of building a road connecting Brasilia and Bahia, there is a connection to SP and Rio. Rio is third worst crime city in world---NO WELFARE. Past Botanical Garden and Jockey Club (NOT said). Grass "illegal" but not by much. Floor- through apartment on beach on Leblon is ABOUT $200,000. Minimum wage is $60 a month; 15 for pound of sugar; 30 for pound of coffee. Gas $1.50 per gallon. Maybe 12 stories, but ONE has a GROUND floor, 12 stories, and FOUR floors of PENTHOUSES! STILL 3-4 private houses ON Copacabana Beach. New hotels will WRECK Copacabana, I think. Amazon jungle produces 60% of the world's oxygen! Even MORE fantastic place to live than in NYC! Just as we pull into dock area it starts to rain. Older city is VERY colorful and decaying. Told of "Stern's gem factory tour" that takes you to town, Copacabana, and back to ship. GREAT for AM. Back to ship at 5:15, I'm down to room to come AGAIN (4 days this trip) fabulously, and Ron and his group gets in about 7, and we all descend on him, and he looks just marvelously composed. The evening gets somewhat sticky (see Jan. 15 for details) and I write a lot under the feeling that something's going to happen tonight, but we just grab a cab, Ron and me, and I can't think to talk to him about US, and get to the restaurant way before the tour does. They rush us drinks and some sliced sausage that's delicious, they enter and we greet them, and then we walk blocks before we can catch a cab to the Avenida Atlantica and the Chinese restaurant Arnie wanted so much to eat at tonight. The place is almost empty and we sit on a terrace overlooking the cruising and crotches on the beach, and we can all hardly keep our eyes on our food. We start with hot and sour, shark fin, egg drop, and vegetable soups, get egg rolls, tea, and then shrimps, vegetables, moo shu pork, and beef in brown sauce, all of it quite good, but hardly worth the $11 apiece, even with the four large bottles of beer we managed to drink. Down to wander the streets, I get a HUGE roach down my neck that I flip out and am then weak-kneed about, and we get crushed drinks, Arnold chocolate and I try the pineapple, abacaxi (abacashi), and we walk until midnight, everything closed, and we grab a cab back to boat.

RIO-CORCOVADO
MONDAY, JANUARY 13. I'm up late, feeling rested but still torn apart by the thing with Ron. I don't have anything to do today so I try calling Bill Kaufman but that doesn't work (yesterday, actually), and when I see Ron Johnson and his girl going in to Sterns, I ask if I can come along, and they say OK. Nice ride in, quick tour through the "factory," much of which appears to be set up only for tourists, and then into the nitty-gritty: the showrooms. Beautiful stuff, some of them rather cheap: nice small bracelets are 10-18 Cr; large 3, medium 7, small 10 (butterflies) and 8 beetles on a plate about 14" in diameter is 88 Cr. 3 medium, 7 small, 6 beetles = 48 Cr. Meet someone else who says that the Parque Recreiro restaurant in Botafogo had a GREAT mixed grille (misto) for only 22 Cr. Just a bit over $3. Back at noon to the ship for lunch, and then off at 2:25 to the Corcovado Tour. The Senate Building is the Monroe Palace from the Louis and Clark Exhibition in the U.S. No way to get in now because of subway construction. BODIES, BODIES, GOD THE BODIES! Alta de Boa Vista is fabulous section. She says that Tijuca is only 3 square miles, but she must have gotten something wrong, and others said that she's gotten EVERYTHING wrong! Statue cost 2 1/2 millions, 124 feet tall, 91 feet finger to finger; hands weigh 8 tons, arms weigh 80 tons, whole thing is 1100 tons. Base of statue contains 150-people chapel, closed. Between feet closed. Built 1921-1931. GE lighting. GREAT side view. "Big blue" butterflies in Tijuca with snakes and monkeys. From bus at 3:55 to 8-passenger busses. Leave at 5:35 after watching the clouds going up and down the mountain. Seeing Mrs. King reminds me of tomorrow night, when I say to her she should go in to dinner, after Spiro told me and Nancy to go in, and the bar boy was trying to get the two of them in. She said quite directly "I don't like you at all, you'd better get out of here before I knock your head off." Dr. Post was shaking his head behind, I hope thinking I would think she'd taken leave of her senses, but I couldn't look at her afterward without remembering what she said. I kept telling myself that I shouldn't be so thin-skinned, it's BOUND to happen again. Back through Santa Teresa and Larenjeiras. Lois sits next to me on the way back and is a GREAT pain in the ear. STILL, bodies, faces, smiles, crotches. To boat at 6:05. Cathy's done the decorating while I was out (so she DOES do something), and Ron's so tired he asks to be excused from being money-changer, so that's my job now. I put on Arnie's black bow-tie, Nancy's sewn red garter on my sleeve, and look the part with my black pants---anyway, I'm later told the lights behind me are so bright that they can't even SEE me, since it's blazing into their faces! I get $120 in cash to start with, and am rather appalled when I'm told that Norman's decided to play for REAL MONEY and KEEPS. Lois saves the day by putting on her French whore's outfit and pushing lottery tickets to the tune of $50 for $25. The horse races generate a surprising amount of audience response, I actually talk to the two nephews, some people are quite serious about the whole thing, and a blackjack table gathers that obviously means business, and Norman has to call for Arnie to help, and Arnie pulls the whole thing out of the fire. They begin keeping more of the horse bettings and bingo bettings, and when I add up the whole thing at the end, the evening's cost TDI about $25. Though the ship was rocking, I was so concentrating on making change and remembering that the LARGE chips were $1 and the SMALL chips were $2 and keeping track of a constantly changing parade of people, that I didn't even feel queasy, and helped Arnie and Cathy take down the decorations. One couple (the fat woman and the nasal man) took home about $100 after cashing in about $40 at the start, which isn't quite fair, but then everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, and Arnold actually thinks we pulled off an entertaining evening. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun, rather like the whole trip. But I didn't get to bed until 12:30, feeling uncomfortable in the dressy clothes into the late night, and probably slept a bit later the next morning. Thank goodness I've had no trouble at all getting to sleep, since I've needed every bit of it I could get. Hard to believe at this point the trip's almost OVER!

VITORIA AND THE CREW
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14. Morning passed manning the hospitality desk (which caused me to miss another presentation by Arnie and Jon Rosenbaum, which shouldn't happen again) and typing things, and we pull into Vitoria through a long narrow channel that I'm up on deck for, standing in the shadow of the radar mast, listening to the "travel music" blaring from the loudspeakers, watching the swimmers and the eaters standing around in sun clothing and sun glasses looking off to the sides, as we glide between hills covered with palms and scrubby growth, waving to dark children on porches of tumbledown houses near the rocky escarpments that plunge sheerly into the water, affording an entryway that's impossible in high winds, so they say. The city is much bigger looking than expected, but it quickly runs off into red-earthed villages between the palms, and the heavy heat makes it feel like the real tropics. There are luxury tour busses, and I feel somewhat cheated that no tours are organized today. Bobby and Ron take off to the office while Arnie and I get separated, walking in the heat, and then arguing between Ron and Arnie in the bank entrance causes everyone discomfort. Then we're back to the ship, where the Captain and the Purser and the Doctor want to join Arnie in a trip to the Vila Vilha monastery and the Garota chocolate factory. We're out about 3 into a taxi, but the driver insists on his limit of 4, and Arnie goes off with another couple from the ship. The other three talk in Greek and I feel acutely out of place. Our cab breaks down getting into the factory, and after looking through the immense showroom where shoppers wander buying candy as in a supermarket in the states, Arnie puts me into the taxi with the couple (and the driver sends another taxi to pick up the waiting four) and we go up the hill through the jungle to the monastery. The little old couple have no trouble climbing all the stairs past the other visitors, and there's a strange mix of the devout and the touristy in the chapel with the decorated altar being passed by tourists glancing only at the spectacular view over the surrounding countryside from the terraces on the other side of the sanctuary. There's a slight haze in the air, but we can see all over to the ocean, to the many rivers, and the abrupt slopes of the hills on what appears to be an alluvial plain at the mouth of a greatly diminished river. Buy some terrifically expensive postcards in a strip, pass up the crowded coffee shop, and back down to the taxi about 5 to ride quickly back to the ship, looking at the poorer qualities of the countryside and the non-attraction of the people after the splendors of Rio. Back at the ship to shower and change for some ouzo, then have dinner, and both Art and I seem to decide we don't want to watch the crew performing their numbers on Greek night, so we get down to his cabin and have sex again. Stoned totally with the changing noises and vibrations as the ship eases out of the harbor, and then I get to bed about 12, spaced out from the smoking and drinking. The crew is even more spectacular than before. Bobis, my cabin boy, isn't terribly cute, but he's more than surpassed by the doll from before, who seems to be directed toward being the new Wine Steward, and Lois talks about how shy he is with women. How much a fantasy to think that he's not shy with men. Then there's a new bar boy near the pool, with a boyish face and a shirt so closely fitting that every line of his lovely chest and narrow waist can be traced. His smoothness of skin contrasts strikingly with his huge eyes and delicate nose, and I can't take my eyes off him as he mixes me some drinks when I'm trying to relax one evening. There are others on the stairways that really make me pause and stare at them, and they smile and greet me as if they had managed to make living arrangements with their great personal beauty. Old faces are there, but the original charm seems to have gone from most of them---and I so envy their tweaking and prodding of Ron, obviously more desirable than I am. In fact, most of the time I feel decidedly inferior to everyone, and that probably rubs off on the people I deal with---no real sparks except perhaps with the Nichols and the Hagmeiers. I feel slow when compared with Arnold, plain when next to Ron, and unofficial compared with Bobby's enthusiasm. And Cathy and Nancy leave me cold, despite their seeming courtesy. Thus, Art's presence is even MORE appreciated!

AT SEA-RON AND ME
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15. I'm up, on this day at sea, with nothing to do, with Bobby on the Hospitality Desk, so I decide to sit in on the medical lecture, just to see how they go. Nichols starts by totally DISCLAIMING any relationship to the announced topics. At 8:30 he starts in a very low conversational tone with ten listeners. By 8:40 the group has grown to 20 and his tone rises only a little. 8:50 shows 30, the attendance list is still going around; Nichols' voice has risen to a listenable lecturing tone, and people in the back are leaning forward WITHOUT a word of complaint. Maybe 36 (some observers) at 9:15, more noise in background (waiters talking, blurbs of music), 30 names on membership list---lots of questions from floor. Crile in Cleveland mentioned: the influence of his observations. Totally subject to digressions and Nichols says right here "I've totally enjoyed this opportunity to talk to all of you in a group and individually." Lots of side conversations in room, waiters chatting about in bar area of lounge, and electricians talk ALOUD TOWARD listeners while Nichols is talking! Doctors run in and out at random. Post shows up at 9:35. Coffee served at 9:40. Spallino in LA, expensive tours---get flier on new tour plans. 9:40-9:55 coffee break. Nichols gets back then with about 30. Dr. Cooke arrives at 10 am. 10:15, people start leaving. Awful. I'm down to my room and Ron asks me for something, and I decide I can't stand NOT talking to him, and make a total mess of it. I start by bulling through the fact that Arnie told me about them, and then say I'm jealous, which Ron interprets to mean I'm jealous about ARNIE'S having sex with him, which I have to make clear that I'm jealous about Arnie's having sex with HIM, and make it explicit that I've found him very attractive, but know that he doesn't find me attractive. Heartbreakingly, he doesn't contradict me. He says that he'd been away for three weeks, said VAGUELY that Arnie reminded him of Bill, his 40-year-old lover who consoled him after Ron's wife died, and essentially Bill's the only one Ron's HAD; Ron looks to him for instruction, Bill looks to him for innocence and enthusiasm. Bill got Ron his job with Royal Viking---and that's what Ron wanted to talk about: "I told Bobby this, too; if you want recommendations for jobs with the Royal Viking line or with another line, let me know, and I'll recommend you for a start." GREAT! Anyway, I make it clear that I WANT him, that he doesn't want me, and the topic swings around to Arnie and his seeming fatigue and what to do about it. We play with the idea of "Raspberries" cluing Arnie in that the questions should be answered WITHOUT digression, but when he comes in, I try it and it doesn't work. HA. At the end of our talk, Ron says "Oh, stand up," and I do and he hugs me, feeling very wiry and still and totally uncomfortable. I try to make him relax, risk kissing his neck, but it really doesn't work, and we're both rather uncomfortable, but I still liked the thought. Now to transcribe the notes I wrote at 8:07 pm on 1/12: Having had some coffee liquor---enough to reel my mind---the events of the past 45 minutes have been potent. Ron got back and suggested that Arnie and Bobby take the "Lights of Rio" part of the tour and that he and I would grab a cab and meet them AT the restaurant and then we four would go off to a place by ourselves [and what a meal THAT would be!]. BEFORE that, however, plying Arnie with that SAME coffee liquor [and even my FORMER cabin boy, Bobis, and my new cabin man have toasted me with a "Salut" in Arnie's Sayville High School Flea Market $2 six-silver cups in a leather case] confesses to me that he's HAD Ron, and I'm so struck by the statement that I ADMIT I'm terribly envious, particularly when he says that Ron is 1) very responsive and 2) possessed of a long cock! I really can hardly TAKE it, and then Ron plays with the idea of his and my acceptance of the Nichol's invitation to dinner at the Chalet Suisse this evening and my heart leaps, and then my mind runs through SUCH fantasies as to what Ron and I will DO in the time before we have to leave at 8:30 to grab a cab to meet Arnie and Bobby at the restaurant---I feel in such a whirl that I determine I must TELL Ron the truth, that I've wanted him so much that it hurts, that I even TOLD Arnie that I was jealous, and that I DID fantasy a grapple when he suggested we meet them later, and so for MY peace of mind PLEASE don't suggest such things in the FUTURE or I'll be torn APART. And I hear Cathy coughing in the next room (wet with the moisture that the Captain agrees that Arnie just call the plumber for) and fantasize that I'll have to talk to Ron very QUIETLY since I've in the past 1) heard NORMAN calling to her and then talking and 2) been the OPERATOR in the middle when Bobby and Cathy were talking on the phone and I could hear Bobby through my LEFT wall and Cathy through my RIGHT wall. And I think of how they praised Ron for his coolness under the pressures of the passengers and the drivers and the Varig offices and I feel I'm putting him EXACTLY in the middle of Arnie and me in EXACTLY the same way and fear that HE might not be able to take it---no, I HOPE that he might not be able to take it and he breaks down in my consoling arms and I end up on top, a horrible thing to say when all I want is to HOLD him and feel him RESPOND to me, and then I step back and wonder how much of what I'm thinking of doing is the TRUTH and how much is merely a PLOY to get HIM. I even consider (the eternal I) getting some grass from ART (using my relationship with HIM to further my relationship with RON) to smoke to make the seduction of Ron even EASIER. I feel so FULLY his rapport at the table with Beverly and Art and even LOIS, leaving me out of it completely, and I even fantasy that he's wanted ME so much he couldn't include me in the lot for fear of giving himself away. And I feel the taste and sensation of the multiple drops of Binaca in my mouth after I brushed my teeth to make myself attractive to Ron, feel the tingle of my chin where I've just shaved to make my face smooth against HIS face---and nothing whatsoever comes of the evening (and feel the terror in my stomach as I write this at 8:20, listening to every door that closes, hoping it's him, hoping for more TIME with him, fearing nothing WILL come). Listen to Jon, eat the farewell dinner, dressed but later take my jacket off in the HEAT of the room, and then to the final ghastly performance where band and microphones go totally wrong to leave an abysmal impression of the whole group in the audience's mind, and even tomorrow Art gets a cable from his manager "asking" him to stay on the ship, even though he has ANOTHER commitment on the SECOND! Rather depressed to bed, after the film upstairs started early DESPITE Ron and Bobby!

SALVADOR
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16. Breakfast And on deck to watch the sailing into Salvador, typing the last of the news and stock quotations, and the first tour of Salvador gets off at 9:25 to 11:45, stopping at the Modelo Market from 9:35 to 10:30 to watch a great parade forming with bands on sound-trucks and people dancing in the streets quite solo, while carts decorated biblically with palm fronds are pulled past by patient asses loaded with revelers. The market is NEAT, full of nice stuff, none of which I'm even tempted to price, let alone buy, and the bus goes to the upper town and a great beach view from the corner of the peninsula, then to the smaller version of Corcovado, and to the Governor's palace. Lots of complaints of robbery on the tour: too little for too much. Zwolinski sick through the whole thing, looking pallid and plump while Dr. Mead sits and fans her. The guide asks "Wanna stop at the lighthouse?" and EVERYONE says "No." Great group. Back for lunch, then off on the second tour at 2:35. There are SOME spectacular bodies, but not NEARLY as many or as nice as Rio. Blacks. Good view from residential districts, lots of new hotels on beaches. 15C (60.8F) considered FREEZING. Only 81F at 9 am. 365 churches, they say; actually 165. Red flamboyan flowering trees and yellow-leaf bunches of acacia. City of 1,100,000. 8000 high school students in AM, aft, PM shifts in one school. 18,000 tested for 3,000 seats in the free University. Go FAST up and down old city narrow streets. Stop at Maqria Quitania Square (she dressed as a man and fought against Portuguese). Brazil Independence September 7, 1822; Bahia State Independence July 2, 1823. Tile-FRONTED houses. Stop at vista and church. Stop at San Antonio point. Narrow decaying rococo row houses. Incredible museum girl-guide telling me about the syncretization of the African devils and totem-figures with the saints, the days of the week, colors, and the signs of the zodiac. Cathedral VERY colorful and grand: stone with white and gold. Mem do Sa buried there. Copy of St. Luke's painting of Virgin and Child. MARVELOUS sacristy. Old tiles from original construction. 10 cr for lighting San Francisco. Pilloy Square---reconstruction. Stop at Restaurante Pelourinho for Suco de Maracuja for 5 cr, and he FUSSES that I give him a 50 cr note! Some people order an elaborate menu, giving me a chance to rave about the sticky sweetness of the orange/passion fruit maracuja and extol the gold I paid 10 cr to see in Sao Francisco, great glitter and grandly lifelike statues and angels with adult faces. Only 5:10 and he's anxious to get back. FANTASTIC tanned BLONDES on streets. Lesson on African/Catholic syncretism in museum, linking colors, saints, African gods, days of the week, signs of the zodiac and positive and negative aspects of the zodiac. Dizzying! After getting back, Arnie wants to wander, so we're out to go shopping for him to buy some tea and booze and things for Norma, and then we wander through the town looking at the purple skies after sunset, walk up to look at the boxy church from outside, and then pay 1 cr to enter the park with the zoo filled with monkeys who find the puffy donuts Arnie bought so dry that they wipe them with water before eating them. I taste one and the initial texture and crunch is good, but when it wets down to a greasy paste, you either have to stop completely and forever or else continue eating them to postpone the awful ending-taste. Talk about "Betting you can't eat just one." Back in time to change for dinner, and then---no, TONIGHT is the cocktail party on the deck at 6:30, and the waiters charge for juice served at 6:25, annoying those who'd get annoyed at everything. Huge boat of shrimp, and I can only talk to Art and the Hagmeiers, the feel of "being the host" is so repellent to me that I figure I can't hack THIS very much. Don't even THINK of Arnie's "Believe you're rich enough to treat everyone to this." Chat with Nancy and Bobby and Cathy, then eat dinner with the Hagmeiers, and express surprise that Art's at dinner (much to Beverly's shock) when he'd said the shrimp would do him, and I'd said I might be down to his cabin, and I am. Smoke and sex again, this time he takes to digging into my ass, which I don't care for, and I go down, but haven't had time to do my packing, and don't feel like doing it stoned, so I leave a call for 7 am and get to bed at 11:30, not a BIT worried about all the flying due for the next day.

SALVADOR TO CARACAS TO LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17. Wake at 5:30 and pack quickly enough to get my bags outside at 6:30, the deadline, and though the porters were supposed to come at 7, they didn't come until 8, causing some consternation on the ship. Had a great lunch yesterday with Ron, where we talked about Arnie and the possible troubles of working with him, including all the comments both of us have heard about how poorly Arnie's doing, despite all our efforts to excuse him. Ron says he feels guilty for not participating so much, but I assure him Arnie doesn't think of him as not participating, and I even say that he needs human and sexual companionship, and urge them to be together as much as possible. Maybe if Arnie speaks kindly enough about me----, but this is a current fantasy, not one then. But if I go on the cruise on February 5th----. Then have a VERY awkward talk with Arnie last night, which merely serves to tell him that I occasionally make a fool of myself, that Ron and I care about him, and that we hope the subsequent trips will be easier. Breakfast and find that the plane has arrived from the states very early, and again they have a tour around town before getting to the ship. Everyone else is in the Minos Lounge, people are paying their bills and Spiros is complaining to Arnold that tips are NOT $48 per person, but some are only $20 per COUPLE! Next trip is going to be even WORSE for crew cooperation! I wander around the Minos Lounge making sure everyone sees that there's someone to ask questions of, and soon the new crew from Baltimore and Birmingham are coming on board and we use the same busses to get the people OFF to the airport. They move out slowly at 11:15 but by 11:30 everyone's on the bus and there haven't been TOO many negative comments about how awful the previous trip was. The guide on the bus is a delight, chatting and singing in Portuguese, and I'm sitting next to Dr. Markovitch, who chatters on about how much she's enjoyed everything, and I remember NOW that the bane of my last days was getting everyone the notice that we were scheduled for a LATER flight to SFO, arriving at 3 am, and did anyone need hotels, and for awhile I thought it was TDI-paid hotels, and had to dash around making the clarification. In the end, only Schollar ended up wanting to be paid for his night at the Hilton Inn (where they hadn't made reservations), and then he said "No problem" a bit gruffly and went off to find a taxi to get home. I spend part of the morning putting the passports (tagged with plane seat-numbers last night by Nancy and Bobby) in strict order, which helps us get them all out in no time at all. Buy some coconuts at the beach for only 2.5 cr, and everyone drinks some of the milk, but I refuse any. Had it once. To the airport about 12:15 and the bus drives RIGHT up to the plane, and hardly anybody realizes what a dream THAT is. We hand out the passports in the stifling plane, and there's only one vaccination report missing at last news. We take off promptly at 1, hearing with delight that it's only 5 hours to Caracas, and we fly right into the interior, where I'm surprised to see so many villages and roads built right into Barrieros, and then we make a sharp right and head straight north over the growing jungle. Art comes to sit next to me in the seat by the window I pirated from Jim Sizeland (since he can have it ANYTIME) and we talk about our pasts, our parents, my LSD experience, and we both are so amazed at the other's life that we feel VERY good talking to each other. See one of the mouths of the Amazon, looking bigger than the Mississippi, but clouds prevent seeing the rest. I'm feeling GREAT about the flight, telling everyone that, except when Nancy said that her mother obviously thought she'd never see her again, and I was glad when we landed in LAX safely, letting Nancy off my plane. Sun sets just as we land in Caracas at 5:45, and I buy two bottles of booze and look at all the other stuff. Onto the plane at 7 for the almost 7-hour flight, and everyone sacks out except for one or two, and I might even nap for a bit, too, but then we're over the states and it's clear, so I look out at the cities twinkling below while Art snoozes on my hip, and we land in LA right on time at 11, into customs at 11:30, take about an hour and a half in customs, where I don't have to pay anything, out at 1:15 to TWA, off at 2, in at 3, send Norman Harper's luggage off on a TWA flight, and Dr. Markovitch helps me lug my bags to the Hilton Inn bus, NO TIPS, after getting everyone herded into SFO. To Inn at 4, jerk off to 4:30, collapse into sleep.

WITH MICHAEL IN SAN FRANCISCO
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18. Wake at 10:30, seemingly content with 6 hours of sleep, and the bedspread that I clipped to the tops of the drapes to keep out the sun (clipped with clothes hangers) actually worked. Phone Mike and find he'd been expecting my call, and then call for breakfast, which comes up at 11 and I luxuriate in reading yesterday's Post, that I found on the plane, while eating the eggs and cereal and hot chocolate. Shower and wash my hair, repack my bags for the stay in SF, and get the porter to cart my stuff down to the bus and porter them to two lockers near the American Airlines desk, where I'd booked a flight out at 9 am on Tuesday, just to be sure. Phone and arrange to meet Mike in town at the bus station at 2, and at 2:10 we're walking the streets so that he can get a newspaper at his favorite shop, where he cashes a small check, and then we're off to Salmagundi for cream of mushroom soup and a salad in marvelous surroundings with a tiny terrace and a trickling fountain and lovely people clearing off the tables, and he says that SF is practically RUN by the gays. Walk around town to show it off to me, and we go into the San Francisco Museum of Art to inquire about Soon 3, which we'll see tomorrow, and look at the Ansel Adams photos and some of their modern art, which isn't very good except for a great Vuillard and some fun pop things. Out to the War memorial Opera House where Messaien's "Turangalila" is playing tonight, and buy $4.75 tickets because I really don't want to stand. Then catch the bus to his place, where I browse around his apartment, look at the great view over the entire city from his roof, and greet his fairly attractive roommate, Bill, who comes in and talks about his meditations and his jogging and his exercises to make himself appear even more attractive. We're out finally to wander more streets so that Michael can show me the reconstructed Victorian townhouses, showing me where the fire of 1906 had gotten and where it hadn't, marked by distinctively older houses, and we end up at the Neon Chicken for dinner, a good meal with an almost overly wine-flavored chicken for $10.76 for the two of us, and he doesn't holler very loudly when I pick up the check. He has so many alternatives of trolleys and busses and walking fresh in his mind that I simply follow him wherever he goes. Onto various things to the War Memorial, and it's quite solemn and stately inside, with an interior that's so unified it looks all of a piece, so that if any detail were changed it would fall into pieces. "Turangalila" isn't very effective when the piano is so unmicrophoned that it can't even be heard above the blare of the orchestra, as was the case here, but the Ondes Martinon showed up about as well, and now I've seen one, to the sympathetic strings that vibrate before the speaker and the sliding rheostats on the keyboard. The Loriod sisters are immense in their orange and pink tents, and someone should tell them they should NOT put their chiffon capes over their piano benches: it makes them look even huger than they are. Ozawa prances about the podium a bit much, and I'm sorry I didn't include my binoculars in my overnight case. Nod a few times during the performance, partly because I'm tired, partly because of the heat in the upper ranges of the auditorium. Had gotten information on all the baths in town from the two of them (though Mike's never been) and decide I want to go to the Rich Street baths, but feel so tired that all I want to do is go home. Mike looks well enough, the dark circles about his eyes mostly gone, though he still walks in a sort of a crouch and has a glowering look about him most of the time. His apartment is great with separate bedrooms for the two of them, two living rooms, a large kitchen and a bathroom that's divided into two "civilized" sections, as Michael puts it. He's been unemployed for some months and enjoys the city as I enjoy New York. Starting with wanting to see BART and Ron Schwarz, he surely managed to get me to see a large number of things, have some good meals, and meet some interesting people in a short space of time. Back, making good bus connections, and up to the roof again to see the city at night, from the TV antenna in the west to the city to the north to the hills to the east, and the crest of Potrero Hill to the rear. Close the curtains and get to bed about 11:30, trying to keep on NYC time, where I feel AS tired as I would if it were 2:30 in the morning.

SUNDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO
SUNDAY, JANUARY 19. I wake at 5:30, figuring it to be 10:30 on the ship and 8:30 in NYC, and look through his Penthouse, his art books, and his new Variety that gives me the top film grosses for the year. See Diary 9268. He says he has a great pornography collection, but sadly I don't get to see any of it this time, and would be a bit afraid looking at it at any time, for fear he'd use it for a springboard to "get" me. He made a remark about the consciousness-raising group, that if anyone had any fears, "Say I wanted to go to bed with you but was afraid to ask, they'd ask what you could do against me, what I had to be afraid of." I suppose I changed colors a bit, and the subject was quickly dropped, but I DON'T think the choice of topic was random. He's up about 8:30, and we talk for a bit, bus into town to pick up a Sunday paper (both the Chronicle and the Times), and we look at various sections of town by bus (thanks to my daily pass for 50, though it really doesn't do that much good: I ride exactly twice, exactly paying for it), and we end up at "The Mint" on 1942 Market at about 11, having a great ham and cheese omelet and a bloody mary, and not terribly much liking his ???, with vodka, grapefruit juice, and salt around the rim (Salty Dog is it?). Nice people sitting at the tables, most of whom he knows, and we stay until about 1, when we wander through some more sections of town and eventually end up at the museum to pay the $6 (I pay) for Soon 3, which turns out to be dreadful: everything's too slow, everything's too pretentious, they do it without humor of ANY kind until someone tries to bounce a non-bouncing ball, and the only interesting optical effect was, I'm sure, unplanned, when the movie projected onto the disk which was moved in a circular track by means of a man's head when he walked, naked, across a ring of drums (metal, not bongo)---when the disk moved AWAY you could see the hugely enlarged image on the far wall, and then see the shadow of the MAN HIMSELF (since his image was in the film) cutting across HIS OWN IMAGE. That was nice, but the red paint, the infantile sentences on the three other disks, the shots of ducks and people in the park, and the fleeting evocation of an amusement park when the women-imitating-men-imitating women were bathing nude in the water beneath the seesaw-spheres propelled by men in snorkels and eye visors. I kept thinking of the incredible amount of time and money expended for rehearsals and MACHINERY to do a vapidly silly piece of work. John would have probably loved it. Out about 4 and wander some more through reconstructed Victorian streets to end up at the Corner Grocery too late for the Sunday live classical music, but we had drinks, and then went into the Castro (gay heaven) area to wait on line for 45 minutes to get a lovely hot-fudge sundae with the surprise of banana slices on the bottom only about 90 minutes before we wound up, hours of walking later, at the Roosevelt Tamale Parlour, where we had a huge meal that barely fit past the hot fudge sundae. but AGAIN I felt so tired there was no thought of going to the baths, and we continued walking through the Mexican section, where he had picked up things in a bakery for the next morning, which we never had, then crossed one of the freeways on a pedestrian bridge that had collapsed a couple of years ago, and climbed Portrero Hill on the side, past a lovely curved road to a park overlooking the entire city, and then over the top of the hill, past a crew filming some TV series, and down to the house again to find that Andy and his friend were there, having had some small dose of LSD and coming to see Michael. We sat and talked about opera for a long time, and then they found that "Turangalila" was on the radio, and they played that for a bit, but Andy didn't like it the first time, and Mike agreed with me that he DID like it the second time, now that he knew what it was and where it was going. Andy was so bearded and cute and lovable that I fantasized getting it on with him, but his young friend was ALSO very attractive, and obviously they had more in common, at least both being students, than I had with either of them. Pity. I was put on the sofa while they took over the bed, and I finagled with the curtains until I was sure I wouldn't be wakened too early, and fell into bed and asleep instantly at about 12:30, still hoping to keep on NYC time.

CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING IN SAN FRANCISCO
MONDAY, JANUARY 20. I wake again at 6, read more of his ballet programs, and we're all up about 8 to use the bathroom in shifts and get out, the four of us, for breakfast in a place that Ron likes so much, taking the bus to get there. Breakfast IS casual and great, since everyone seems to know everyone else, coffee is all you can drink, and the self-serve and waiter service combination is pleasant. Walk some more around town, and then get to a BART station and we go under the bay in the very beautiful system until it comes above ground in Berkeley somewhere, and we look back to a mist-shrouded city in the distance. Mike falls in love with a beautiful blond Jesus freak who spouts bible at us all the way back, and we're out in the downtown section to wander for hours in and out the Embarcadero area, the Hyatt Regency Hotel with its appropriate harp music and tinkling fountains and impressive interior landscape, and then out to wander the pre-stressed concrete fountain, finding that the two shirtless wonders were better from a distance, then through more arcades with shops, restaurants, reading areas, living quarters, apartment towers, office buildings. "NO pets" signs, and marvelous textile hangings looking like giant macramé dyed many bright spotlit colors. End up in Stone Soup to talk to another friend of his quite openly about sex, and SF DOES seem like one of the best places to be for sex: pass a couple of people on the street who actually smile and do double-takes when it appears that I might be cruising them. Walk and walk after having the Florentine soup followed by a half-bowl of a free seconds of the lentil soup, step into Lavender U. where Michael gives me all the old views---"Start one in NYC!" and stop into some porno shops, stop in for a very unsatisfactory visit to Ron Schwarz, who might be coming into town in February but I BET he doesn't call me, and he gives me what LOOKS like the same old address for Walter Swan. Buy some fish for dinner and I buy two bottles of wine as a gift to John, and we're back for me to watch the sunset and Mike to cook the squash, artichokes and fish into a great dinner, and then we're off to a consciousness-raising session that he managed to get me invited to, and it's quite a trip (see DIARY 9249), lasting until 11:30, and we bus home, waiting a bit, and I fall into bed for my last evening in SF. We just miss a bus and the next one is late, so rather than being there at 8 we arrive at 8:45, but since most of the participants live in the 8 or so room apartment on Castro Street, there's no great delay. Some of them are feminine, with girlish smiles and long hair, others are strict activists, like the tall one who speaks so well when he bothers to say anything, and some are decidedly unpleasant, like Zack, who launches into the long-haired one when "she" says that some meeting's been changed from the evenings to the mornings, and the poor guy works and can't attend. He leaves during the break. He'd also stared at me rather hostilely when Mike announced me as a visitor. Announcements went on for a bit, these children talking about anarchistic meetings, the necessity of overthrowing the government, and various Marxist-Leninist fascistic cellular activities. If they weren't so serious it would be very funny. I can't think of anything to contribute, except far from agreeing that men and women and even CHILDREN should be treated the same way, someone says something about individuality, and I see everyone in the world on multi-dimensional continua: from the extremely masculine to the extremely feminine, both in actions and sexuality and bed-habits; from agreeable to disagreeable; from intelligent to stupid, and so on. There are cookies and mu tea for the break, and I say a few words, envying the way one of the younger members cuddled with Michael: this one was SO delicate that I actually got up to offer my seat to him when he came into the room, dazzled by his fragile beauty. But they deal with posters and fund-raising and meeting places before getting down to personal things, but they have a great deal of patience with each other's foibles, and afterwards someone new enters and suggests smoking, so we all sit around and smoke various joints that I miss the start of because I can't get the toilet to swallow my long turds. Leave about 11:30, and I say goodbye to everyone, but can't honestly say that I'd like to meet many of them again. Can't tell why Michael's in the group except to meet people, but then he doesn't seem to have much sex anyway---sublimated, like Frank Kameny, I would guess, to his sadness. Gay life sure is different from when I was young!
LAST NOTES FROM SOUTH AMERICA
La Boca Tour: 1) CASUAL dress not indicated; 2) Too expensive; 3) too noisy; 4) they didn't like the passing of the hat for tips afterward.

Artesano Argentina shop in Galleria Florida, between Calle Florida and the Plaza Hotel: green covered bowl, nice 4" round, for 90 Pesos. Rocacrosita freeform tray, 5", 100 pesos. Stone necklaces, 40-100 pesos (20 pesos = $1)

Sterns in Rio has nice small bracelets for 10-18 Cr (7 Cr = $1). Three large butterflies, 7 medium butterflies, 10 small butterflies, and 8 beetles on a 14" diameter plate for 88 Cr. 3 medium, 7 small, 6 beetles for 48 Cr.

Parque Recreiro restaurant in Botafogo, misto for 22 Cr good.

Add Spallino in LA as medical trip offerer.

1974-1975 Official Directory of Rotary International, published by
Rotary International / 1600 Ridge Ave. / Evanston, Ill. 60201 / $2.50
Montevideo, Uruguay, Tu, 12:30, Club Uruguay
Mar del Plata F 21:00 Jockey Club
Buenos Aires W 12:45 Plaza Hotel
Santos W 12:30 Tennis Club
Rio W 12:15 Club Ginastica Portugues
Vitoria F 1:30 Clube Alveas Cabral
Salvador Nazare, Bahia Th 12:45, Rest. Senac
Salvador Santa Antonio Th 19:30, Rua Miguel Calmon 39

On 1/3/75 I took $102.65 in cash, $320.00 in traveler's checks, weighed 154.5#
On 1/22, back 20.50 in cash, $150.00 in traveler's checks, weighing 152.5!

Leave with $422.65, back with $170.50, spent $252.15, of which $147.07 was expenses, so I spent $105.08 on myself, so my salary of $288 is a PROFIT of $183 for 20 days, or $9.15 per day!