1972 2 of 8
DIARY 2759
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19. Home fairly quickly and start immediately searching for the cards on which I took notes from Clingan's class, and finally find them in the drawer where I thought they'd be in the first place. Work on the article about Pittenger's sermon and the article about Clingan's talk, and type them up, to find that it's pretty close to noon. Eat lunch and fix the rooms up a bit, and then decide I really have to sort out the stuff for Mattachine, and end up making up a number of files for information and papers, and just about get finished at 1:30 when Marc comes in right on the dot for the Mattachine Times meeting (see next page). It goes along until 4:15, when they all leave, and I'm relieved because I didn't want Bernie coming in the middle of their meeting, and I start putting things away AGAIN, watching the snow come down in torrents outside, when the bell rings at 4:30 and it's a cold, wet Bernie, who walked from Port Authority and his train ride up from Philly to Penn Station, and we kiss and he wants me to make some burdock-root tea, which isn't terribly tasty, and we chat about his analysis and counseling job and ballet lessons and lack of sexual congress since before the first of the year, and I tell him about the trip and John and India, and we talk about what we're going to do this weekend, and John comes in about 5:30 and we get out at 6 to walk in the slush to City Center to buy $7.95 seats for "Cinderella" this evening, and then back to the Yangtze River for $4 dinners for the three of us, my moo shu pork pretty bad, as was Bernie's sweet and sour chicken, and John's beef in oyster sauce was avoided by Bernie who can't digest beef. We're early to the boring crowd waiting for the National Ballet's "Cinderella" and I'm happy to see that it's Fuente, but he's pretty awful as a partner, though he isn't helped by impossible choreography for the first part of the only pas de deux in the whole thing, consisting entirely of awkward lifts which Marilyn Burr doesn't do terribly well, though she'd make a good second-string dancer in most companies. Out at 10:15 and wander through Marlboro's and Bookmasters then here to talk to 12:30, when he decided to go to the Continental after I finish the Times; I smoke, John enters, won't smoke, bed at 1.
DIARY 2761
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20. I'd fixed the bed for Bernie, but he doesn't get in until 9:30, when John and I are in the middle of an intimate conversation (see next pages) which I'd rather he hadn't interrupted. He says the Continental was overcrowded, but he managed to break his sexual fast at last. John's had coffee and doesn't want breakfast, so Bernie and I go out toward 9th Avenue, but get stopped by Asparagus, and he has a pretty awful looking triple-decker club and a dry piece of cake, while I have a cheeseburger platter which has little meat but lots of everything else, and a great hot fudge sundae with lots of pecans, even though it WAS $1.35. Back home and John's gone, having decided not to go to the restaurant afterwards because he can't afford it, and Arnie calls and comes over to get his shirt for his play, meets Bernie, and we subway down to awful timing, getting in just at 3:10 as the play's beginning, and "Nightride" is pretty good, despite the fact that Lester Rawlins is grossly overacting and Chandler Hill Harbin, or whoever, looks too much like Jackie Kennedy to be believable, though the young mute is just beautiful of body. The audience is hideous, what with campy remarks thrown out by the Philly crowd and the jangly bracelet and crackling program of the guy behind us (and his wife, who has the bracelet). Out at 5:15 and on the bus to Horn of Plenty which turns out to be the place John and I went for a buffet some holiday past. Out to buy wine, forgetting that it's Sunday and liquor shops are closed, and end up with Champale and a talk with Bill from Allentown, Pa, which is where LeHiHo is from. The meal of chicken curry is skimpy but good, set off by hot cornbread and lots of butter. Out at 7:30 with Alan Henderson and his fairly cute friend Pat, and we drive up to my place at 8 to smoke and listen to music before driving to Cinema I to meet Barry, and the theater's jammed, so we drive and drive, trying a jammed "Cabaret," too, and finally I say "I'm leaving" under the marquee for "Nicholas and Alexandra," giving Bernie the keys and going off to John's, remembering as I get there that I've forgotten to take HIS keys, but thankfully he's there. He's tired and we're right to bed.
DIARY 2764
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21. Up at 7:45 and do him with great determination until he DOES come with an enormous groan at 9, and then we're both up and leave at the same time for him to go to Virgil's, and we're both stuck in some sort of subway tie-up, not getting to where we're going until 10, and I get into the apartment, very surprised, to find Alan Henderson pulling on an undershirt, and I'm immediately glad I DIDN'T have a set of keys, since Bernie now had warning of my coming from the time I rang the bell downstairs, which must have given him a greater sense of privacy. We talk fairly awkwardly for a bit, and they're both hungry, so we dress and get out toward Ninth Avenue, and pass Arnie and Norma, to whom I give the note about the apartment for $240 in Brooklyn Heights that John says is perfect for one person, and we get to Evening Star about 10:30 and have French toast and other things for a fairly expensive breakfast, but we sit there and talk and talk and talk until 1 pm, when people start coming in for lunch. Alan's going home to change and shower and Bernie's off to the Metropolitan Museum for "two hours, I can't take more" and I dawdle around the apartment washing dishes until 2:30, when I subway up to the Thalia for "La Femme Infidele," which is a Chabrol film that refers to an earlier film "Les Biches" and starts out nicely as a normal unfaithful-wife story of great sensitivity until the husband kills the lover, and it turns into a "will-he-be-caught" triteness. "Diary of a Mad Housewife" is great, with Carrie Snodgrass being impossibly impatient with a shitty Richard Benjamin and an equally shitty Frank Langella, and it's certainly a MAN'S point of view movie, no matter how sympathetically she's drawn. Home to find Bernie in, and we're out to eat at the Fuji Sukiyaki restaurant, but he doesn't care for all the spinach and the spiced meats, but likes tempura and mushrooms and rice and accepts the sukiyaki as a new experience. Alan's over at 8 and they're out to see "Nicholas and Alexandra" and I call Dick Smith to talk longly about Arthur Warner, and call Marc Williams to give him a financial committee with John's name. Then subway to John's, reading, and we're to bed.
DIARY 2765
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22. [These nights are ALL confused.] Do John THIS morning and get stuck on the subway until 10 am, and Alan and Bernie are still cuddling in my bed when I get in. I fuss about in the living room having breakfast until they're out of there, then I transfer my activities into the bedroom when they move into the living room to have paté and rolls for breakfast, and I join them, talking between times to Henry Messer and Charles Mountain and others, saying I'll have to establish hours for my Mattachine phone calls. They sit around and we all chat, Bernie insisting that I sit next to him on the sofa, and when Bernie goes to the john Alan talks about how ROMANTIC Bernie is "Imagine, he didn't even take his clothes off but he wanted to dance to soft music. That's never HAPPENED to me before." And we decide to get out to see "Clockwork Orange" during the afternoon, when it won't be crowded. We get out at 1:30 and wander through the Autopub, which is too crowded to serve us on time, and then into the place on the corner of Lex and 59th, which is truly lousy: 45¢ added for two slices of tomato on a 95¢ toasted cheese sandwich, a fairly good omelet with bacon for an astounding $1.85. Dash to the movie and get there in time to kvetch about the heat, the color, and the stupid music, and "Clockwork Orange" is a beautiful vehicle for both Malcolm MacDonald, cute and vicious at once, and Patrick McGee, as a maddened writer. I hate the character and feel he's getting his just desserts by being punished, though I can see some people would sympathize with him: the most inhumane scene was the eyeball pulling and the political activities that use him as a pawn. Out at 5:15 and bus home, and they decide to leave at 6 and I get down at 6:30 with John to Pamplona for a fairly good meal before subwaying back up to the Embassy 72nd (I thought it was 8:45) at 8:15 in time for the lovely gorilla scenes at the start of "Promise at Dawn" with a magnificently strong Melina Mercouri and a handsome Assaf Dayan, and a shockingly-ending "Carnal Knowledge" with Rita Moreno catering to the sick fantasies of Jack Nicholson to get him up so she can do him for $100. We walk down in the bitingly cold windy evening to my place, talking appreciatively about the movie, and it's almost midnight, so again we crawl into bed without sex, though I warm up against him, lying on my back to think till 12.
DIARY 2766
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23. Wake at 7:30 and he gets out the vibrator and goes softly to work on me, and I come with great panting, and then when I turn the tables on him, I don't even make him numb though I play gently and slowly with him for a long period of time. Then he's out and after breakfast I get down to typing, and it goes very well, stopping for lunch, until I've caught myself up to date once again with 22 pages, which makes me feel just great. I also do tiny odds and ends like spray the pot for another infestation of the damned little spiders, read more out of the longest Scientific American in the world: the special September issue on Energy and Power, which is more interesting than it looked on the surface, clean up the apartment after the mess left by Bernie and Alan, and phone Ed Berger about Tsi-Dun, but he's going to Puerto Rico for about ten days tomorrow and probably won't make it. Then Arnie calls me while I'm exercising, going back to the third level after having let it go completely since last Friday with the out-of-town visitor, and I give him the time and place for Tsi-Dun tonight, and then Sergio Ponce calls me while I'm showering, and I drip all over the floor as he tells me I can review "I Want What I Want" at a free preview at the Murray Hill Cinema tomorrow, so I call Bill Hertelendy and find that he WILL be in tomorrow, so I call Sergio back and say I can go, and by this time it's 7:15, and I might be late to Henry's, so I eat hamburger with bread this time, hoping NOT to get the same attack of shits that I did last time when I ate it before the NYU class, and whether it was the bread, something else, or other circumstances, I didn't have any trouble with the hamburger. Out at 8:05 with the Constitution for Henry ready in an envelope, and it's snowing just beautifully, my front windows lit with a preternaturally white light from the city lights reflected and refracted off the finely falling snow. Dash through the corridors when someone else runs up the stairs, and JUST get through the closing doors of a local, so I get to Henry's early at 8:25, just in time to pass the pot to John, give envelope to Henry, greet Arnie, and sex (see next pages).
DIARY 2786
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24. Wake at 8, dead tired, and lay until John leaves at 9. Then out of bed and start checking Mattachine names in the phone book from Brooklyn, then call information for more of them, and by then it's 10:15 and time for me to take off for unemployment. Home at 11 to find that the check is not there YET, which is a pity, and I'd finished "Total Theater" finally on the various subways. Then find I don't have enough cash to see the program at the Olympia, but telephone and find it's playing until Saturday, so I plan to go tomorrow. Settle into typing and type nine pages about Tsi-Dun and the day's activities, and then get out the Mattachine stuff and begin working on corrections, going through all the stuff I corrected with Correctype, which has begun showing through, and with the tacky Writeout, and erase all the things and retype them, except that by the time I'm ready to start on the new stuff, it's time to get ready for Azak. I'd also typed three pages of names and phone numbers to check with the officers of Mattachine to see what kind of people they are: no use getting a whole slew of Ralph Nelsons and Arthur Warners working for Mattachine. Don't have dinner because there's nothing to eat, and then have a long conversation from 6:15 to 6:45 with John (see preceding pages), and shower and subway down to 34th, cursing because I just missed a subway, but another comes quickly. Meet Sergio and Jim in front of the theater and chat about the movie, then Bob Milne shows up without Jerry, so John could have had a ticket, and Azak shows up surprisingly early, and tells some agreeable tales about Rio. Then into the movie at 8, and "I Want What I Want" is done perhaps in TOO good taste, because though Anne Heywood does a great job, it really isn't a very good movie, mainly because of the awfully boring plot and poor acting in other roles, particularly the Father. Terrible lesbian laughs very distracting from the loaded audience. Out at 9:45 and walk across to 7th Avenue and the subway, getting tuna fish from the deli and eating it, then reading the Voice and getting into bed to smoke at 11:30. John enters at 12 without a word, and we sleep.
DIARY 2787
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25. Wake at 7 and leave without a word at 7:15, torn. Get home before 8 and sit down at the typewriter immediately for HURT (see pages T275-T285), interrupted at 8:30 by a call from John, and we talk until 10, and he agrees that he should come over for us to talk in person. I continue typing until 10:35, then have breakfast, and he came in just before 11 and we talked until 1:15, when he went off to work. I finished typing the twelve pages I did in all that day, and then phoned to find that the movies started at 2 pm, so I grabbed the check that came in the mail and went out immediately to the bank, which took from 1:20 to 1:30, then dashed around the corner to the City Center to pick up four tickets for two future dates, then dashed for the subway, getting up to the Olympia just in time for the start of "Bedazzled," which was very funny, particularly in the nun scene with Dudley Moore, who really is rather cute and cuddly, as a nun and everyone doing the Leaping Lena devotional until the time would note the "great feet" of Lena and cannonize her (misspelling intentional). The popcorn smell is all over the place because the help is snitching it, but they're not selling any. "Fearless Vampire Killers" shows the pretty ass and legs of Roman Polanski and the Catherine Deneuve-blank-beauty of Sharon Tate, burt was very UNFUNNY in parts. The balcony is closed for repairs and the reputed Zabar's snack bar is nowhere to be seen, so I have to settle for two Hershey bars. Out about 5:45 and subway back home to get groceries with my new money, and some wine, which I'd run out of, and get home about 6:30 to eat dinner after exercising and showering, and then get down to various Mattachine typings to while away the time until Arthur comes over and watch TV 8-9. He phones at 10, saying he'll be here at 10:30, and as luck would have it, John calls at 10:15 to say that the performance at DTW is now over, it's one of the best, and he figures he'll be busy until 12:30, at which time he'll come here. I say OK, and then finish fixing myself up for Arthur, who rings the bell at 10:30 (see next pages). We're aware of the time, and he leaves at 12:10, thinking John might be early, which he is, though he gives me the chance to clean everything up except the spots on the blanket, and he's here at 12:25, then I do HIM with the alpaca rug, bed at 1:30!
DIARY 2795
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26. Wake at 8 and lay until about 8:30, and then John gets up to leave. Since I'd fixed the place up more or less completely between the time Arthur left and John arrives, there was nothing more to do, and after I had breakfast I went back to some last items left from the Mattachine file, watch "Unknown Island" from 11:30-1, but not even having time to catch up with the diary when I get out to "La Collectioneuse" which is TERRIBLY boring, and even a line from the movie which says that things "without commitment or passion" are a bore seems to show that even Max Rohmer knows what he's not doing: he's not being terribly interesting. If this is IV of "Six Moral Stories," the only moral is "You don't get what you don't want" (since he didn't get Haydee, since he didn't want her), and when you DO get what you DO want, you don't what THAT either (he'd wanted to be alone in the villa, and when, finally, he WAS alone, he called for a plane for London that day). Then III "My Night at Maud's" came up in black and white, and after a terribly slow start with simply eons in masses, it began getting vaguely amusing, except that the bounds of credulity were stretched to infinity when not only was his future wife known to Maud, she had been her FIRST husband's LOVER. And there was a bit of sex in the back row (see next page). Out at 5:50, standing in the back of the lobby to get out first, and quickly subway to John's buying a bottle of plum wine just to show him how good I was feeling, and I even TOLD him that arguing with him on Friday must have had a cathartic effect on my feelings, because I felt so enormously GOOD toward him and the world in the two days since then. He smiled somewhat ruefully and said maybe I should do it more often. I thought I detected layers of different meanings beneath that comment, but I didn't follow it. I cleaned and cut the celery and filled it with the cream-cress-caviar filling and we sat down to chat before the first guests arrived, and Norma entered first with arms filled with sparkling Catawba grape juice, sesame-seed munchies, and a plastic bag filled with a crunchy Granola-type heavy cereal with nuts and raisins. Then the party started in earnest (see following page), ending at 11:30.
DIARY 2798
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27. Up to MORE fantastic sex in the morning, quite exhausted from the prolonged and agonizing sex I've been having recently, and wash my hands from the Baby Magic, then get right into the kitchen to start on the dishes at 10, finishing about 11, and then out for the Times, which I read just about all through until 1, when I have a too-large bowl of the cereal that Norma brought, feeling completely filled up by it. John had thought he might want to come along to the services, but when 1:30 came and he still wasn't dressed, we agreed that he really didn't seen to want to come along. I dressed and dashed down to the subway, to find one just left, and another doesn't come until 20 of 2, and I figure to be late, but make good time and get to the church just at 2. The meeting is quite interesting (see next pages) and the discussion is finally over at 5:35, when Carl and Henry drive me to the subway station for me to get to John's. He's there when I get in with tuna and English muffins bought from the expensive deli, and he works for awhile while I read the rest of the Times and then we sit down to eat together at about 8, debating what to do for the evening. He sort of wants to try the Stud's new orgy room, but I suggest that we try calling John Casarino, but he's involved in some kind of paper and can't leave the apartment, then Glenn and Charles, but there's no answer, and finally the dancer from the Gay Church, but he's got to get up at 5:30 the next morning, so can't do much tonight, though he indicates he wants to get together in the future on some other evening. By then it's 8:30 and too late to go to any of the shows that I want to see, and John's still wandering around naked, so I sit on the sofa while having the last of the torte, after showering, after exercising, feeling very self-conscious about my smelly shirt from my nervous tension at the church, and then I say "Well, do you mind if I smoke?" Meaning that I can smoke even if we're going out, since he'll be driving, but he says yes, I should fill it for two, so I get the stuff out and he finishes and we smoke after I bring out the radio and put it on the sideboard and he lights the candles for sex (see following page).
DIARY 2803
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28. I'm awake at 8 but feel totally, completely worn out. Lay around recuperating, and get out of the apartment about 9:30 in order to avoid the awful subway traffic that surrounds 9 am. Home and realize that I want to see three double-features in the next two days, and phone various theaters to get the schedule, and since people are coming over tonight and we're going to the Joffrey tomorrow night, there just doesn't seem to be any chance of seeing all three. Fuss around the apartment a bit and want to type up to date, but do only one page, which isn't anything, except that I'm no further behind, and then have lunch prior to going out to the Embassy on 72nd, walking up in the spring-like weather, to see "Little Murders," which is quite wildly funny, with remarkably TRUE and WORTHWHILE and REAL performances and speeches by Donald Sutherland as the incredible pastor of the First Existential Church, Alan Arkin as the Inspector Practice, looking even more like Uncle Edward, and the father and the son and the mother and the daughter of the family giving such convincing performances that you figure they MUST be EXACTLY like that in real life to have portrayed them on the screen so well. And the humor that's wrung out of power failures, earthquakes, muggings, beatings, shots from high windows that kill unknowing passersby, elevator malfunctions, and Central Park is so agonizingly REAL it's hard to believe. And, with "Carnal Knowledge" last Tuesday, this is the second Jules Feiffer script in one week, and some of his lines are fantastically appropriate in this crazy city. Surely one of the TRUEST movies in a SLANTED way about New York City ever made, though it was AWFUL that the strength and "I don't care" attitude of Elliott Gould was finally eroded at the end, and his bloody wandering on the subway after his wife was shot was a bit TOO much. Then "Long Ago Tomorrow" was touching with Malcolm McDonald putting in another great role as a cripple, and added poignence was furnished by Michael Flanders portraying a fictional cripple in his real-life wheelchair, exploding about how unfeeling people are. Home to confusion (see next pages).
DIARY 2807
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 29. [I've GOT to change this dateline to the TOP of the page; it's just too AWKWARD to think of ONE LINE before going into special pages.] [Now, the thought about what happened at the beginning of the day is at the START of the page, where it belongs.] John's up and out without another thought of sex, and I get to the typewriter with NEW hopes of catching up, but the best I can do is 14 pages, which only gets me up to the middle of the special pages on Sunday, but I hope to catch up tomorrow, the perennial catch-up day. Then call Charles Mountain back and forth to find he's not been able to get together his last articles, so I don't visit him on the way up to the Symphony at noon. It's not open at noon, as she said over the telephone, but I'd suspected she was off by 20 minutes because of the rest of the schedule, and she was. Ate two tasty slices of pizza at the next-door stand, and got in at 12:20 for the start of "Thoroughly Modern Millie," and it was surprisingly good, though it was obvious from the outset that James Fox was rich, though being the son of Carol Channing and the brother of Mary Tyler Moore was a bit much. John Gavin had a fabulous part as a beautiful man with a rosy soft-focus introduction to the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus. But some of the songs, like the Jewish wedding, were obviously tacked on for no good reason, and she was a bit TOO cute in some parts. "Sweet Charity" was a heartbreaking story which even the brashness and ugliness of Shirley MacLaine couldn't spoil, and the end bit about living HOPEFULLY ever after was quite heart-rending, and Chita Rivera did fabulously well as the dancehall madam. Out at 5 and downtown after getting no answer from Charles, and John comes in right after and we're down to the Ramayana at 6:00, and the food is pretty good, though it's overpriced, and I fear getting stomped by the picketers to whom I give the fist as I enter, but they're gone when we get out at 7 and walk downtown to look at the bookshops around 42nd Street (and Tom of Finland is reduced from $7.50 to $3.50, but I have only 25¢ in my pocket because the bill, at $20.50, was higher than I'd expected) and then uptown to the Joffrey, which had a great "Reflections," a classical ballet that John hated, a fairly poor "Weewis" except for pretty Tony Catanzaro, and a fun-for-once "Pineapple Poll," and then subway out to Brooklyn Heights so John can leave early.
DIARY 2808
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1. (For DATING "DOUBLE-HEADED SEX" in Table of Contents) [First page of the NEW format, convenient for the first of a month, and this'll also make the DATING in the Table of Contents better, since it can now refer to the day AFTER the special page, rather than the day AFTER the day after the special page---and I can NOW tear off the February page of the calendar!] John's up at 7:30 and I leave quickly while he's still getting ready for his day's jaunt to Washington to talk to someone about an editing job, due to return to my place about 11 pm. Home in good time but don't feel like doing anything. Get hung up reading a copy of Scientific American, but I'm getting so tired of its scientificness and so eager to get into the stacks of Life magazine that I finish the October one and leave November-March in the stack to take up with when I get the 8 back issues of LIFE read. This could go on forever! Then STILL don't feel like doing anything, even debate smoking, but I feel there's too much I HAVE to do, but just don't DO them. There was an article about the 38 national parks in Sunday's Times, and when I put it away I brought my list of them in EB up to date, filled out the order of attendance list in it, and generally wasted HOURS of time with one silly stupid list! Put it away and Charles called to say that he'd be over about 3 pm to give me the rest of the articles that had to be typed by Friday evening, when Don was to begin pasting up the issue, and I'm moving lethargically around the apartment at 2:30 when the bell goes from downstairs and I assume it's Charles early, but get to the door and find it's Roger Evans. He comes in and we chat about the inconvenience of living outside Manhattan, the good books on marijuana that are now available, and various drug-buying and selling news. And Charles interrupts at 3:30 for about an hour's stint of chatting about various items for this and the following Mattachine Times, and I give HIM all the finished stuff to proofread, and he leaves about 4:30 without Roger even asking what it was about. Then I suggest we can smoke, and Roger says he never turns it down (see next pages). John enters at 10:45, but he's tired from the day and we get into bed and talk to 11:30.
DIARY 2811
THURSDAY, MARCH 2. [This new scheme also has the advantage that all the pertinent information is now at the TOP of the page---no disarranging the sheets to see how Thursday started at the BOTTOM of a previous page, just a check at the TOP to see the last DATE, so see what this next date on THIS page will be.] I'm still feeling a hangover from smoking last night, so John's up and out while I'm just crawling out of bed. Have felt very depressed the last couple of days about not DOING anything, and I sort of break through to the idea that I'm being more and more inundated by things that I have to do that AREN'T on my list, and I'm keeping one on paper and another in the HEAD, and a way to get around my frustration with that is to write a NEW list. So I figure all the things I want to do today and make a heap of things I want to take along with me to unemployment; call Drake to pick up "Acid House" and they say to come to a meeting NEXT Thursday, sign for unemployment, buy Hoover bags and a piece for the replacement nut that's been missing about a year (if I could only get these things done AS THEY HAPPEN, rather than letting them go and pile up, it'd be easier to KEEP UP), then up to transfer my account from one Chase Manhattan bank to another, and have VERY foul thoughts while waiting on the interminable lines (see next pages). Buy two marijuana books recommended by Roger, but find, when I get home, that one has the last booklet missing, so I have to go BACK. Buy groceries and get home to washing the dishes, and make out a NEW list from items I'd jotted while waiting on the unemployment line, and it's STAGGERING. Call Bob Rosinek, but he's only home after 6, call Avi for a terrible tale (see following page) from 3-4, and catch up with other odds and ends so my list doesn't have to be THAT long, and call Alex to pick up "Acid House" this evening after Mattachine, but then have second thoughts, since John's expecting me, and call her just before 5 to say "something came up" and she should bring it to the office tomorrow. Then shove a can of tuna in my pocket, wait for the elevator and find that BOTH are out of order, walk down, and get to Mattachine (see subsequent page), then to John's for chain-sex (see NEXT subsequent page) and bed at 12:30.
DIARY 2819
FRIDAY, MARCH 3. Up groggily, cuddle and chat, and get home about 10, and the junk mail has already been distributed. The warm weather has turned cold and rainy and very ugly again, and I decide that I won't go to pick up the copy of "Acid House" that Alex was supposed to have brought into the office this afternoon. Get busy typing the articles for Mattachine, and have great troubles redoing the membership form and the ownership block, because I'd done them before and have to redo them for petty corrections. So I balk and balk, and feel myself frustrated as I get into them, making more mistakes than usual, but finally I get over that hump, using the intermissions while the white-out dries to do little things around the apartment, and finally finish after having lunch in time to get to Mattachine in the evening at 6. (See next page.) Leave just before 9 and get back home in the very cold weather, and John's in, but to my surprise I find a bowl of salmon on the stove and he's lying in bed from a nap, saying he's been in bed since 7. He says he hasn't eaten yet, and then it turns out that he's put about a full pipe of grass into the salmon, and he's been planning that we WILL go to the Beacon Baths tonight, and since eating it is supposed to delay the action and stretch it out, he figures that eating it will be just the trick. I have steak and he has his salmon, and we get out in the cold, then I remember we don't know the address, and the E. 46th number sounds wrong from the phone book, so I dash back up to the apartment, grab a sweater against the intense windy cold, and check that that IS the address, and it's on the 11th floor. Catch a bus down, and all the Broadway shows are getting out just at 10 pm, when we pass, so the trip is a fairly lengthy one. Out at Third Avenue and walk up the blustery streets, and John says it hasn't hit him yet, but that maybe he'll feel better once he gets his clothes off. We're into the lobby of an ordinary-looking office building and into the elevator, which starts with a lurch, and when we get to the top floor, there it is (see following pages). The evening is quite horrible for me, so we leave at 12, taking the bus back and get right to bed.
DIARY 2824
SATURDAY, MARCH 4. Out of bed for breakfast, and then immediately to the typing and editing of the four articles from Bob Milne and the two or three from Charles, getting entirely too many errors, feeling awful about it. Finished just about 11, and called to find no one at Mattachine, so I figured Don wasn't answering the phone, but when I got there about 11:30 there was no one there! Decided to work around the place (see next page) and finally finished at 7 pm, subwaying home to eat a very late lunch of a bacon sandwich with the last of the bacon and the last of the bread, and shave and get down to Dance Theater Workshop, early again at 8:05, and read Dance Magazine until the doors open at 8:30. The performance is completely reserved by telephone, so I immediately have a couple waiting for spare seats, and then Dr. Watson is very ugly about demanding to see Jeff Duncan, who simply isn't there, and Art later comes out and says HE can do nothing, so I have to be firm. They come in so fast I can't keep track of the numbers, so ask John for a seat count, and he says there are 14 left. Leave in a number of those who had been waiting for awhile (Watson left), and again lose count with excessive people-pushing, and get John to check again, and there are four seats left, which admits the last couple. I'm supposed to sit on the stool, but give that to the last couple, and find a single chair in the middle of the front row for a very good performance (see following page). It's over about 10:30 and we put the chairs away, clear up the plastic cylinders, stack the risers, and get out onto the cold street with the Harmses, both quite charming, and we go to the El Quixote, where I have a good Quixote special which is rather like a tasty sloe gin fizz, and the chopped meat which is fairly tasty, but not as good as the great black beans. There's a salad and a celery tray and others have beer, and the gazpacho isn't very tomatoey, and when we stop talking about the trip, their work, South America, dancing, critics, books, and other things, it's 12:30, John is yawning, we drive them home to 95th, and we're parked in front of my place to fall into bed at 1 am.
DIARY 2827
SUNDAY, MARCH 5. John surprised me by coming back here, so I bought the Times as we came up at night, and we woke about 9 to go to the john and come back to snooze, and finally when John got out of bed, after we cuddled briefly, it was 11 am and we were both surprised. He got into the shower while I checked that nothing good was on Camera Three, and then we both got into the Times, except that after about fifteen minutes he went to typing, and then to telephoning people from DTW to apply for a grant. I finished reading the paper about 12, in time for the Abbott and Costello "Hold that Ghost" which did NOT have the hand from the wall that I remember, but it DID have the candle moving that I recall, maybe even as far back as when it came out in 1941, since I doubt there was much of a RERUN audience back then, when there were two or three films by them each year. I resisted the impulse to check in on the last half-hour of the severely cut "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars" on another channel. Then started reading "A Child's Garden of Grass" until 3, when I wanted to watch the Wrestling Championships, but I turned on Channel 13 to find a rerun of "This Restless Earth," which I watched through to the end with its fabulous models of the ocean floor made specifically for the program, and then at 5 went back to the book while John took a nap, getting up at 6 to moan over the poor quality of the hamburger that I'd gotten, and I even accused him of making himself sick if he DID eat it and DID get sick. He cooked it very slowly "to kill the buggies" and we had wine and that and finished the cake, over at 7 to call for reservations for Charles Weidman, and we drove down there at 7:15 to find what I counted as a house of 16, and John said he saw 20 chairs. Anyway, small. It was a more than usually interesting "old choreographer's concert" (see next page), and we got out at 9:30 feeling we'd gotten our $2.50's worth. To his place and I'm up to the john and then shower, and get out to debate whether to read the book or fill the pipe with wine, and John gives me an eyelash-flutter and a grin, so I fill up the pipe with wine and we have a very unsatisfactory evening for me (see following page).
DIARY 2831
MONDAY, MARCH 6. Wake early and lay quietly until alarm rings, then cuddle until John's up at 8:00. Leave about 8:10 and get home before 9, eat breakfast and get right down to typing, determined to do a lot today. Keep going until lunch, stopping to read the stamp ads in the Times and to check the TV movies for the week, and finish with 29 pages about 6 pm, feeling very good about it, determined to get lots of items off the list tomorrow and thus being able to catch up on lots of things before I must act and DO something about getting more money in. Stop at 4:30 to watch "Singing in the Rain," which I saw ages ago in California, and I'd taken it seriously then, and today I'm much more aware of its put-on qualities, through at 6 and finish typing soon after, then shower and shave and eat dinner of franks and beans before subwaying up to Mattachine at 7:30, hoping to catch some of the officers in the office before the meeting to check the name list for telephoning for the Action Committee. Things feel so much better today now that I'd been doing something. Called Bob Milne and got him to agree to my bringing flags into the Board of Director's meeting so that majority vote could cut off any speaker determined to be a bore, and I felt good about that, too. A number of movies are scheduled for the week, and I'm amused to see that, during a week when there are no movies OUT, I manage to find a great many interesting movies IN. There are still so many little things I want to do that I find my mind cluttered, but there's the grateful thought that I can do about ten of the tiny things in a day with no trouble at all, and then can start a new list. I've taken a new slant on lists, too, with their numbering. Instead of starting all over again with a sequential numbering system when making out a new list, I'll KEEP the numbers from the previous list, so that I can tell just how long it takes me to do EACH ITEM, and I figure that number 1, fixing the turntable, is going to be around for a long time, since I dread both the cost of the repair and the loss of the turntable for a week. But, up to Mattachine (see next page) and home at 10:45 to find John not here yet, and watch a good Barrymore "Svengali" from 11-12:30, John to bed at midnight.
DIARY 2833
TUESDAY, MARCH 7. He's out of bed at 8:30 and I feel too self-conscious about my breath to kiss him without inhaling, and vow to talk to him about it. He's out, I have breakfast and move about the apartment until 10, when I turn on "Dishonored" with Marlene Dietrich and a poorly-Russianized Victor McLaglen, and this is the one where she plays a Russian peasant woman without makeup to perfection, then gets dressed up for her firing squad, the first young commander breaks down and shouts "It's murder," and then the old general who first got her into the business orders her killed and she staggers backwards a few steps and sprawls ungracefully in the snow, though this version scarcely capitalized on the ugliness of it. Dash in to type a page and a half, thinking to get lots of little things done today, and the doorbell goes. I find that I CAN talk to the person below, and he says "It's Roger." Arnie had called about getting a membership with some gal as man and wife at the Museum of Modern Art, and he called again at noon and we talked about it. Roger got out an envelope of grass and started playing with it, and after I hung up he suggested that we smoke. I didn't think anything about it, and did so, but then he continued to sit around, saying that he wanted to go to the movies and wanted someone to go with him, and I felt a bit of panic because everything I wanted to do today was going out the window. I thought as hard as I could in my stoned condition, trying to think of a way to say "No" to him, but I realized that this WAS something that he wanted, and that I probably wouldn't be able to do anything because I was stoned ANYWAY: if I'd managed to make him leave, I knew, I'd probably listen to music and masturbate, and the day would be lost anyway, so I said I'd go with him. He wanted to see "Play Misty for Me," and "Sometimes a Great Notion," and I called the theater for the schedule and we went (see next page). Back at 5 and I cook up the tortellini that Bernie sent me, and have green peppers and pineapple. Then John Casarino calls and invites me to his place, so I go (see following pages), and get to John's at 11:30, to find him NOT there. Call, he's HERE, and blankly subway BACK here at 12:10, he's in bed.
DIARY 2837
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8. John's up early and I get up to vacuum the area where the desk should be and move it back, then dust a few things, but John says he has to be somewhere at 10 am, so I say I'll wait for him to leave to sweep, and then I put on TV for "No Man of Her Own" with Carole Lombard, properly icily bitchy, and Clark Gable, much too self-assured as a con-man who sends himself to jail to "square things" and then goes straight for her sake, though the ending, with his telling her a string of lies about his trip to South America, was effective. John comes up when I turn on TV and knows I'm watching, pity. That's over at 11:30, and I fix myself up and eat lunch early, then (earlier, when John was here, I went out for groceries and took the laundry out) cash checks at the bank at 1 and get to MMA for a regular membership with my "wife," a friend of Arnie's, for $25, and down to read all the member's materials before "The Duck Hunters" a fairly funny thing with Billy Bevan that everyone remarks "There's Charlie Chaplin" about, and "Grandma's Boy" with an already aging (in 1922) Harold Lloyd as a faint-hearted lover who gets his pappy's "magic talisman" (in a lovely cameo of the Civil War) and quells the fierce-eyed bum who terrorizes the town. Then cross town to 3rd and Alex's office to pick up one of the final copies still out of "Acid House" (leaving only Drake and the place in Brooklyn, aside from Sidney's), and shop Alexander's and Bloomy's for Golden Fleece and a kaleidoscope, and have no luck in either. Then find a kaleidoscope in the toy shop on 58th, and dash home just after 4:30 for "House of Dracula" on TV, and even John watches the hunchback, the mad doctor, Dracula, Frankenstein, the wolf man, all go through their paces, and Dracula dies AGAIN, the only character seemingly not interested in continuity, as Frankenstein so much is. This is the one AFTER "House of Frankenstein." John comes in during, then we're out to eat at Harbin Inn [for which I fill out the form only NOW] until 7:30. Think to walk on Riverside, but it's cold and blowing, and even though I TOLD John it's going to be cold, he wears only a sweater. Into the New Yorker bookshop and find three NEW Heinlein paperbacks, to my great surprise, and into "Simon of the Desert" and "The Idiot" (see next page). John leaves at 11, and I'm home at 12, crawling tiredly into a warm bed.
DIARY 2839
THURSDAY, MARCH 9. Up and cuddle, and I feel so self-conscious about my breath that I even force myself to talk about it to John (see next page). Then up about 9 and he's out, and I eat breakfast and watch the incredibly stupid "We're not Dressing" with Carole Lombard, again, a brassy Ethel Merman, and Leon Errol with many flip gay comments about Ray Milland and his cute fellow-prince. Bing Crosby was truly awful looking, wasn't he? And Burns and Allen did their same routine, endlessly. Then dash out for unemployment, and they don't say anything about being a half-hour late, and the line is much shorter, too. I'd forgotten about Drake in the AM, but they called at 9:15 to say I'd have to come in at 11 tomorrow, since the fiction editor wasn't going to be in today, so it was good the appointment DIDN'T take place. Get uptown at 12:10, but decide to see "Modern Times" anyway, just to get the item off my list (see following page), and it was pretty good in parts, but hardly one of the film classics of all time. Classic comedy, maybe, but somehow a comedy can never, in my mind, achieve the greatness of a tragedy. Watch much of it a second time, getting home at 2:15, hungry, so I eat lunch and look through New York Magazine and plot out my movies for the next week, many of them, and just DON'T feel like writing ANYTHING, so at 2:30 I settle down to "Space Cadet," bought last night, and get all through with its 220 pages and marvel at the ineptness of the plotting and stereotyping of the characters, and finish at 5:30, just enough time to shave and brush my teeth and wash my face and comb through my hair, which is getting lousier and lousier as a result of the razor-cut in the subways, and get out at 5:50 for Mattachine, getting there just one minute after 6, expecting all sorts of people, but there's no one there yet (see subsequent page). Out promptly at 9:35 and subway quickly to John's at 10, eat tuna and take a shower, but get out to find John saying he's tired, and he's in bed under the covers, obviously ready for sleep, when I crawl in at 10:45, so the remainder of his high, and his delight with his letter to Hunter about his computer "love-affair" over his grant, is cut short in sleep at 11.
DIARY 2843
FRIDAY, MARCH 10. Up and cuddle, but he's out of bed and I'm onto an early subway at 8:30, getting home at 9, and I have breakfast and do some little things, including typing one page, but I just don't feel like writing AGAIN and decide to waste the day AGAIN by reading the SECOND Heinlein book I bought on Wednesday, and settle down about 10:30 for the 250-page "Citizen of the Galaxy" which I have a tuna fish lunch during, and then follow it with yogurt because I'm still hungry, and then take off at 2:15 for the Elgin (see next pages) for "Cisco Pike," which is good only because we're not sure Gene Hackman's narc is setting up Cisco Pike for another bust (and we're not even sure at the end, when Hackman is blasted and Pike escapes) and Viva is underkeyed enough to be funny, and "Celebration at Big Sur," which is curiously lacking in interest, except for the helicopter views of the Pacific surf around Esalen. Sit through to 6:15, then walk down and have no trouble finding La Chaumiere, and I'm there at 6:30, first, and Jeff shows, then John, then Francis, and we have the great bread, and I try the grated cabbage, which is fabulous with a special tart sauce, and the boeuf en brochette, which isn't as successful as the nid, but the béarnaise sauce is ravishingly sweet and tasty, and the strawberries in cream for dessert are large, soft, and tasty. Jeff notes the derriere of the taller server, and the pair are quite extraordinary. Francis seems gay enough for Jeff to make faggoty comments through the evening, and I detect others at the other tables looking at us as if we were "someone," which is fun. Francis doesn't seem so very shy, and the food is great, even though he chooses not to share tastes of everyone's plate. We drive to DTW and again it's sold out by phone, but the crowd is far more orderly and there's no trouble, nor even a packed house. The program isn't as interesting as Saturday's, though the improv group of four, then three, girls work together nicely, but Lenore Latimer's suicide was a bit too freaky, and Connie's nudity in "Revealing" is old-hat already. Arnie and Norma come here afterwards, and we smoke and hear music (see following pages).
DIARY 2849
SATURDAY, MARCH 11. I'm determined to have sex this morning, and when John seems vaguely agreeable, I get out the vibrator and he comes up nicely and I work and work over him for a time, then he gets to work on me, then I take it back and he comes, and then he works over me until I come. After breakfast I'm still thinking about getting things off my list, so I suggest we go to the Museum of Natural History for the Tibetan Tankas, so we walk uptown in the spring-like air and get into the lobby to find that the exhibit of Southeast Asia [after touring the New York Historical Society rather completely looking for the Warners' relative's paintings---and THEY are the ones who have all the fabulous Coles and Bierstadts] [and the new galleries are extremely handsome] is only in one tiny showcase, and the tankas have left. John goes back to my place to work while I walk across the park to find Pedro's only a tacky bar, then decide to call Ed Berger, and he invites me up for coffee and a look at his ball-fucking device, and I enjoy squeezing his cock even though he has to get out on his bicycle for his daily swim. I don't bother to check Casa Brazil since he says it's there, and it's in the phone book, and I buy hard candy for the dish and get back to my place through non-cruisy Central Park at 2:30. Eat lunch and type six pages, but still not nearly up to date, and then watch the World Figure Skating Championships (with surely crooked judges, since they didn't like the US skaters, and favored their own country's entrants), from 5 to 6:30, and then shower and prepare dinner for myself and John comes over just as I finish at 7:30 for Ken Russell's "Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World," with the strangely young-old Vivian Pickles. It seems very dark and out of focus, but maybe it's because she was that way. There were some marvelously funny scenes, and it seemed to convey some idea of a personality: whether it was Duncan's or not, I don't know. Then continue to sit at 9 for Jean Renoir's "Rules of the Game" (see next page) until 11, and "Awake and Sing" (see following page) by Clifford Odets, until 12:45, and John's not back from the Eagle and the trucks, yet, so I go reluctantly to bed at 1.
DIARY 2852
SUNDAY, MARCH 12. John doesn't wake me when he gets in at 3 am, and I'm up at 8:45 and into the living room to read the entire Times before he gets up at 11, telling me that he went to the trucks after the Eagle and had only about a half dozen there. I have breakfast, argue with John about apartment (see right next page) and get into the bedroom to type six pages before watching "Red Detachment of Women" ballet on TV at 2, and both John and I are surprised how good the leading female is, and wonder if she's given preferential treatment even in Red China. Then I leave for the Museum of Modern Art just before 3 with my umbrella, and the stupid guy at the entrance demands that I check it, even though I say I'm only going down for the film and it would take me at least 15 minutes to go through the check-in line. He continues to refuse and I furiously poke it down at the base of a painting, and he shouts "I won't be responsible for it," and I dash down to sit for five minutes when "Robin Hood" with Douglas Fairbanks starts late. The castle is monstrous and tastefully done, the villains are properly villainous, but the acting and the plot and the jumping-bean tendencies of Robin's merry men (and the name Robin Hood isn't mentioned until a little more than half the 124-minute film is run through) gets on my nerves, and when I go back upstairs the umbrella is gone, though after a long conversation with the black attendant I'm feeling somewhat better towards MMA, so I'm feeling terribly depressed on the subway (see next page) down to Eleo Pomare's. Up the open-topped elevator to the singing of someone, and I go in to find that it's a performance, and his lithe sinewy dancers are a marvel to behold, but since I get there at 5:45 because the subway is so late, we have to leave at 6, picking up Jeff at DTW, and get to Larry Richardson's new dance studio on 14th Street, and he's marvelously beautiful around the eyes and body, as is his manager, and there are other lovelies there, which doesn't make me feel any better about stuffing my mouth with cheese, crackers, and cheetos. Then out at 7:10 to American Theater Laboratory for ushering and seeing (see following page), then drive to John's for a look at his choice for an apartment, a depressing talk and bed.
DIARY 2857
MONDAY, MARCH 13. Subway to my place after waking to no sex at all, and immediately start the search for an apartment (see next page). Finish about half the apartments at 2:15 and find myself on 106-107 and Broadway, hungry for lunch, and stop into the good La Pyramide, with canvas hung tent-like from the roof, ordering Kofta Sullayah, at $2.25 the most expensive item on the menu, and get a good tossed salad with rice, and very spicy chopped lamb heavily marinated in a tahini sauce which the rice soaks up just magnificently. Feeling good and relaxed when I get back to the job of apartment hunting at 3. Finish just before 5 and walk down in the beginning hazes of rain to the New Yorker JUST in time for the beginning of "Tokyo Story" by Ozu (see following page) at 4:55, rather than at the 12:35 one I'd INTENDED to see. Out just after 7, after awful non-sex at the New Yorker (see subsequent page), and dash up to the bookstore to see if they have Heinlein's "Past through Tomorrow" by any chance, but they don't. Subway down to my place, thankfully early at 7:20, but amazed to find my door unlocked and John and Hamp inside: John had been too tired to take his dance class, had come home at 5:30 and been wakened by Hamp who arrived on an earlier plane at 7:05. Hamp didn't drink, to my renewed surprise, and John and I talked about apartments, Hamp decided he wanted to see what the Continental Baths were like, and I figured this would be the perfect time to have dinner at Nirvana, so I call and make reservations for three, and we get out at 8:15 to walk through the drizzle for a window table, and they all ejaculated over the décor, the park, and the food (Hamp pays the bill, insisting he'll get the money back somewhere), and I could even recommend it to Marty Sokol when he asked for a good restaurant on Thursday. Definitely one of the best restaurants so far. Out at 9:30 and taxi up to 79th, and John loves the apartment too, as does Hamp, and we walk him to the baths at 10, and decide to wait for a subway rather than walk, and talk about money, waiting ages for a train, and get to my place to make a list of costs (see next subsequent page), and Hamp amazes by coming in at 11:15, saying he had everything, and John and I continue to talk to 1.
DIARY 2862
TUESDAY, MARCH 14. John and I continue the talk in the morning, and then he gets up to make coffee for himself and Hamp. John leaves for work and Hamp goes off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then I start calling the eighteen garages in the neighborhood of the new apartment to find that the monthly costs for garaging a Volkswagen range from $47.70 including tax to $90 excluding tax and insurance. Telephone Susan at noon and she tells me to call City Circle Realty, and they say to come over before 4:30 with references to fill out the application for the apartment, and I list the people I think would work well for references for me, and talk to John to get his dossier, and am in the process of typing them up when Roger calls from downstairs about 2. He comes up, returning books that he borrowed from me, and pushing Asimov and another grass book off on me to read. There was more confusion, since John Connolly had called asking John and me to go with him to Alice Tully Hall (though I had the impression he said the Philharmonic with Witold Malcuzynski), and I invited him to the orgy on Friday, but he didn't want to talk about it over the phone, and said he would come over later. Roger then called, saying he wanted me to try some of his new grass, and I tried to put him off, but he was busy after Thursday and I'm scheduled for jury duty next week, so he decides to come up today anyway. So he takes out this packet of grass and we smoke, which completely stones me for the application-ceremony at City Circle (see next page). Out of there at 4:50 and catch two subways, still stoned, over to the Chapellier Gallery on East 80th for the Duveneck opening that Hamp had come into town for (see following pages) and I get gloriously re-stoned, or super-stoned, with loads of champagne, so that I'm feeling no pain as we grab a cab across town to Alice Tully Hall, since I'd called John to ask if he still had the tickets available, and he did, and Hamp enjoys meeting Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler (lovers since age 17), even through the recital is awful (see subsequent page). Eat GREAT pastrami at Fine & Shapiro's. Subway to John's to find John Casarino just leaving, and I say "I'm tired, though I didn't do anything today," and John remembers it for the next week. Bed at 11:30.
DIARY 22868
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15. John wakes at 7 am, simply because he's thinking about the apartment so much, and Hamp and I leave at 7:30 to get to my place to get ready to welcome John Connolly at 8:30, set last night when we left Tully at intermission. To my great surprise, LAIRD calls at 8:15, saying he's in town, thought I had a job, and I invite him up for a group do, and he comes up before John does at 9, and everyone chats, then I go out to the bank, and when I get back John's down to tee-shirt and I say I can't join the group and start on the telephone to talk to Susan and John about his final decision. Warren calls and says he'll treat me as I'd like to be treated, and I cash another three IBMs to get cash for the move. John's conversation is extremely intelligent (see next page), and they finish up at 10, slowly dressing and departing as I talk to John, and John C. says he'll be here before Tsi-Dun so that I can hold his hand (he later calls and says he doesn't want to go). Laird gives me something about a part-time job and tells how much trouble he's having finding a new job, and I get out on the bus, still feeling slightly stoned from everything, to get to Goldner's a bit early at 10:55. He says the rent is $390, then finally $375 for the first year, $390 for the second, and demands rent from March 15, which is TODAY. I refuse, he says he'll call us if no one takes it by April 1, and I leave at 11:05, bussing back to my place before calling John to tell him the news. He suggests I call the agent, which I do, and then I have lunch and get out to "Summer and Smoke" dress rehearsal at 12:30 (see following page). Out just after 4, get back to read New York Magazine, John's going to the Scott Joplin concert, so I'm going to "The Milky Way" a fun theology-absurdifying movie, and "The Conformist." an awful thing with a perfectly disgusting Trintingant and a cute Pierre Clementi as the guy who tries to suck him off as a child---and who'd try to kill HIM? No action at all at the Garrick, but there's fuss and fun and pretty guys and awful transvestites coming from the Waverly premiere of "Cucumber Patch" or something. To John's for another long talk (see subsequent page) and smoke to sleep.
DIARY 2872
THURSDAY, MARCH 16. We talk in the morning and I read the Voice before leaving at 9:30 to get down to talk to Barry Spatz at Drake at 10. He talked until 11:15, which amazed me, critiquing the book not too well, saying that the "subsidy" for getting the book printed would be between $1500 and $2500, though with 250 pages it would be more the latter than the former figure. And he told, in secrecy, about his idea of anthologies on a certain subject, where each person would get a cut of the profits. Still, there's nothing for me to be interested in, so I said I'd call him, which I won't do. Then dash to unemployment, getting it done quickly outside the regular hours, then subway up to Donnell for two hours of Surrealistic films, "Surrealism and Dada" pretty good, "Entr'Acte" good for an UPSIDE DOWN FILM of a roller coaster, "Giacometti" pretty poor, and I WATCH the eye-cutting in "Chien Andalou," and "Paul Klee," is a surprising bore, being ONLY quick shots of his works, and "Magritte" is pretty awful too. Then starved to home for lunch, eating a large piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie, also rather awful, and have time to type six pages before showering and getting to Mattachine. Was also determined to get some items off the list, so I called Bob Rosinek and talked to him about his "deja vu" experiences of recent months, his return to the hypodermic needle paintings, and his continuation of monogamous relations with his wife. Talked to Joe Easter, too, to find I'd angered him by NOT calling after Rita's and my dinner with him, and telling him "Thank you" and how my sister reacted to my telling her I was gay. How awful! Then to a rather dull evening at Mattachine (see next page) and leave precisely at 9:30, waiting an age for the subway and getting to my place to have hamburger and John comes in while I'm eating, and we talk for a bit and get to bed. This is the first day in AGES with only one extra page, and it's a relief to be able to type it so briefly. I suppose I'm trying, paradoxically, to NOT finish the list, because then I'd have nothing left to do. John seems to agree that now might NOT be the time to move, and that he should fall BACK in love with me before we do.
DIARY 2874
FRIDAY, MARCH 17. Wake about 7:30 and lay together without talking, and he gradually moves closer. I'd waked with a horrendous hard-on which took ages to lose, and when he started caressing me, I feared I might not get it back, but it DID come back, and he got out the Baby Magic and lay on top of me and rubbed strongly back and forth, then reached around behind his leg and started pulling at me. Since I hadn't come since the previous Saturday, almost a week ago, I was really ready to shoot, and when I did it was such a sensation that I shouted "John, STOP" and he grabbed on and wrested against my stomach and my hand until HE came with a great gob of come, and we lay together, sighing and catching our breath, and I said to him while he made coffee that I was glad that happened, since I hadn't wanted to give THAT good a load to just any old person at Tsi-Dun. He smiled and kissed me. Maybe things are looking up. Typed ten pages, taking an ungodly amount of time for each day, and then determined that THIS would be the day that I'd get half the list done, so that I could start a new one, so I sewed the coat button on, took the trousers to the laundry, went to the Playwright's place to find they wanted a TV writer for another "All in the Family," this one in a gas station with a black and an Italian in attendance, and then over to 47th and Sixth, marveling at the dungareed dolls wandering around for St. Patrick's Day, whose bands could be heard from Fifth Avenue, to get my binoculars fixed, and felt MARVELOUS walking home in the beginning-to-rain freshness of the day. I was DOING something and I felt GREAT about it: just crossing four items off the list cause GREAT joy. Back to find a letter from Elaine, so I typed her a quick response, ate dinner, and John was over so we walked up to Voigt's apartment with umbrellas in the rain, John high from his "braised in butter and pot" steak of an hour before, and we had an extraordinarily good time at the party (see next pages), walking back home getting donuts and English at 12:27, and eating and getting into bed at 12:45 to get quickly to sleep, feeling quite drunk from all the vodkas and tonics I had through the evening. And get the package of stamped envelopes from FABULOUS BILL!
DIARY 2880
SATURDAY, MARCH 18. Feel quite hung-over when I woke in the morning, and lay in bed until John got up about 9, and then got out of bed with reluctance, not feeling like eating, and retrieved the envelopes that Bill sent me from around the apartment where my enthusiasm had strewed them last night, and then started to sort them out, reading through the postcards while John worked on the typing of his "Making of a Brilliant Music Critic" about Virgil Thomson. I went through hundreds of postcards, feeling gradually worse, and took some aspirin which I think upset my stomach more than anything else. Kept going through the envelopes and cards, then decided to put them into strict country order regardless of envelope or card, and figured that later I'd go through my collection and soak off whatever wasn't a duplicate, which would be about a dozen out of the hundreds he'd given me. Told John that I felt pretty awful, and by the time I was finished about 1, I was vaguely sweaty and nauseous, showed John some of the more interesting pieces, and getting some of my cards for transcriptions (see next pages). Have lunch, feeling somewhat better, but still awful, and then put the envelopes away and decide to take my turntable out. Try a couple of phone calls to see where to take it, then pack it up and get out about 3 to lug it all the way to 44th and Lexington, having to detour around the Pan Am building, fingers sore from lugging it, feeling weak from my hung-overness. Then back and John's finished typing so I can use it, and get 14 pages typed, which brings me up to the start of last night, which is fine and long overdue---I can't let myself get so far behind, but next week is Jury Duty and I type ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the entire week, so am again far behind, but catching up rapidly this morning. Quit typing at 7:30 for a Channel 13 marathon of watching (see following page) "Byron" on Biographies, "Intimate Lighting," and "Between Time and Timbuktu---a Space Fantasy by Kurt Vonnegut" with the incredible (though not SO good here) Bill Hickey. John's not back from the Eagle and the trucks yet, so I move around the apartment, sorry I had to call Arthur and cancel tonight, bed at 1.
DIARY 2884
SUNDAY, MARCH 19. John gets in about 2:30, so I'm up at 8:30 and reading the Times before he's up about 11, and then we have breakfast and pack cans of fish for lunch and take off for Jones Beach about 11:30, getting there at 12:30 in the bright sunlight. Have cookies and cake to start, and are dismayed by the awful cranes for construction of a sewer outlet from the Island which will dump tons of garbage and sewage two miles out at sea, to wash onto the shore, no doubt. The beach is quite crowded with walkers and picnickers, and we have to go a distance before it gets quieter. It seems the winter was rough on the sand dunes, because the beach seemed far wider than it did last year, the high bluffs were gone, and the whole island seemed smaller than it did before. We tried a few secluded places to spread our blanket, but the best few were already occupied by naked males peering over the greenery at us, so we tried one spot that was too windy, then settled into a lower spot where I disrobed and sunned for an hour and a half, reading "Human Knowledge" between times. John went off and played with the older fellow with the display down one leg of very tight white pants, and then it got more cloudy and cool, so I dressed and we had hot chocolate and left about 3. Back to John's and I suggested we eat down in the Village and see the Anthology Film Archives, so we showered and dressed and got out about 6 to Sixty-Eight, and though the Piranesi Room was closed, the same menu applied, and we had champagne cocktails, a flop, and a small decanter of a pleasant red wine with our meal, and it was extremely tasty and quite a find in all. Wander around the streets a bit to kill time, and then into the Public Theater to look at their future schedule and watch "Aerograd" by Pudovkin, full of great faces in silent motion, slimy Japanese with squinty side-glances, and a great climax of a sky full of planes with parachutists sitting on the wings and bodies, with one caught up in the tail dangling back and forth, and the starting song, a cappella with the volume increasing and decreasing as the plane swooped through the clouds, was great too. Back to John's, me amazed because he actually LIKED the film, and bed about 11.
DIARY 2885
MONDAY, MARCH 20. Leave John's about 8:15 but get to the courthouse early at 8:45. It's a big mess, but we finally get shuffled around and I read "Human Knowledge" and write notes in the endpapers (see next page). Get on a panel for a damages case, and dismissed by lawyer for plaintiff suing building and elevator people for negligence causing personal injuries. Then out just before 1 for lunch, and decide to see if there's any work available at the census, and find the building cordoned off. The cop says Nixon's inside, so I go through the lines and up to the revolving door, and inside there's a glare of TV lights, and the pink smiling face of Richard Nixon bobbled to the cameras, then strode rapidly out another exit. Then Nelson Rockefeller held forth for a much longer time, but finally the doors were opened at 1 pm and I dash for the elevator, after talking with Harold Bordainick about the lack of jobs and his "expert's" salary of about $3.50 per hour, and his fuss about their attempts to over- control his reporting and work. Upstairs to talk to Mr. Harlan, who looks unhappy to see me, and they send me to Mr. Lobritto, the awful fat money-pincher who assures me that there's no outside work available, and the only thing I could apply for is one or two weeks' work every month, which I don't care for, in the office. Take the forms but throw them away. Across for a quick busy hectic lunch at Monterey Coffee Shop, and get back a bit late at 2:05. Then 20 of us are called to CRIMINAL court, and I'm selected as first alternate, but we're dismissed before hearing anything at 4:35. I get back home and read the mail and still have no time for the Times on the sofa, and do some little duties around the apartment, then take off for the Mattachine Times meeting at 72nd Street at 8 pm (see following page). Also watched a bit of "Road to Bali" on TV, for its conclusion of the erupting volcano, and the fires were fun, but I found what I wanted to: it certainly was NOT filmed on location, so I'm not sorry I missed the first part of it. Leave Mattachine, angry, at 9:30, and get to John's to talk about the apartment (and I THINK we have sex, after I shower and eat) since Susan called to say we now HAVE it again; very confusing.
DIARY 2888
TUESDAY, MARCH 21. John leaves to Virgil's before I have to leave, this time taking the far more convenient BMT line, as opposed to the awkward walk from the IRT yesterday. Get there before 10 am, and again read "Human Knowledge," taking notes on the flyleaf (see next page). Lunch break comes at 12:47, and we're told we don't have to be back until 2:40, and Mrs. Lois Underhill says that she was planning to go down to the South Street Reconstruction, so I invite myself along, we walk along under the bridge talking about our lives, since speaking of the trial is forbidden, and get there about noon, when I insist that I'm hungry enough to eat, and I have fish, quite underdone and good-tasting, and chips while she has a hamburger, and then we look at the ships, get a free map, and go up Fulton Street to see the Museum, then around to look at a model shop, and then it's time to get back to the court, getting there at 2:37. We're dismissed at 4:45, which I think is awful, since judges are supposed to stop at 4, and the subway goes very slowly so that I'm slow getting to the City Circle office, where I was supposed to meet John at 5 to sign the papers for the apartment. John's on the street, disgusted, saying the agent lied AGAIN by saying that the landlord would have no objections to accepting a clause about future rent increases, and John stormed out, saying that he was going to write a letter to the city and to the landlord. I said that since the evening was now free, I was going to the Elgin, which I was afraid I wouldn't have time to see, with the opera tomorrow night, and he went to my place as I got another subway south to pick up a slice of pizza to ward off my stomach, and got into the movie just before 6, sadly forgetting to bring my student ID for the discount. "Hellstrom Chronicle" was good as long as the insects held the stage, "Barbarella" was good even a third time, "Voyage to the End of the Universe," sadly, had one of the cliché endings of all time: they break through the clouds to see the new planet and there's the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan. Can't resist staying for "Hellstrom" again (see following page), and out at 12:15, subway up to find that the STAMPS ARRIVED from ABC Stamp Company, and bed.
DIARY 2892
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22. I seem to remember we had sex this morning when I got out the vibrator, determined to do something with John. It's quite successful, and he goes off to work and I to jury duty satisfied. The Bonilla case finishes with a verdict of guilty (see next page), and we're dismissed at 4:01. During the day I dashed off some notes to Bernie Mazie, in thanks for the care package, and to Bill Hyde, in thanks for the stamped envelopes. Home to do not much of anything except begin to sort GLORIOUS stamps from 5-7, eat dinner and still try to catch up on the back issues of Life Magazine (and then I'll have to catch up on the six back issues of Scientific American, by which time there're be about six back issues of Life, and when I catch up there'll probably be a backlog of Scientific Americans, maybe two or three, and then I might be caught up). Shower and out to the Metropolitan Opera House just after 7:45 for "La Fille du Regiment" with Joan Sutherland, John Alexander (and not, sadly, Pavarotti), and some other soprano (Monica Sinclair) than Regina Resnick, but Alexander still hits the high C's of the main first-act aria with clarity and force, and Sutherland is camping it up with glee: interacting with the off-stage drummer by "coming in late," and sticking out her tongue when she comes in on time the next time, tearing up a sheet of music by "someone called Donizetti" with a crescendo and an uprising trill that ends in a funny "Yugh!" And then both sopranos came out with a very convincing horse-whinny to emphasize some other funny point, and Sutherland amazed me when she rapidly alternated notes an octave apart to give a strange reverberating, hollow, echoic sound to the florid passage at the end of one of her songs. Corena was in top form, Velis was extremely funny in his campy way, and Luba Welitsch stopped and bowed for applause, as advertised, and Marty afterwards told me about her "Salome." Tony Coggi and his tall black wife joined another couple, Marty and his new girlfriend Joan, who tried sparkling a bit too much through the evening, but it seems she's nice enough. Back about 10:45 and John's not in yet, and I look through the glorious stamps that arrived yesterday, but have no time to work with them. John back at 12:15, liking movie, doing much.
DIARY 2894
THURSDAY, MARCH 23. I leave along with John, since I have to get where I'm going by 9:30, too, and the day is a drag because I'm just sitting in the main jury-selection room, thankfully for the only totally uninteresting day (see next page). Out to lunch at the Szechuan Gardens, without Lois, since she doesn't seem interested in walking with me, and meet the charming Michael Gonzalez in a lovely way (see following page). Back to the courts to continue reading "Marijuana," not quite finishing, but not having enough to want to bring it back the next day. Dismissed just before 4, and John's been complaining about my apartment mess, with the records strewn all about waiting for me to put them back in order, so I decide I have to do that, and make the backs of my knees mightily sore by doing so, listening to tapes while I'm working on the records, since the record player is still in repair. Finish quickly at 5:30, and just have time to dash up to Mattachine for a fairly quiet evening (see subsequent page). Then have coffee with David and Tanya until almost 10, then catch a subway to John's, thinking to ring the bell at the door, in case he hasn't portrayed me as intimate enough to have my own keys to the apartment, and I say hello to Jeff and to the two homely girls who are managers for Erich Hawkins and who are going into their own management business. John gives me a full tiny glass of buffalo-grass vodka, which is tasty but very strong, and I can't drink all of it even through the evening. He puts on the rest of the Polish stew for me to eat, apologizing about the poor quality of American sausage he had to get when the supermarket didn't have kielbasa, and I find myself mashing the potato into the slop at the bottom and eating with my fork in a fist as if reverting to some racial Polish habits under the vodka influence. The black bread, however, is excellent, and he's left me a piece of the heavily-pecanned pecan pie, which is great, but he eats the 3/4 of the second one himself in the next few days, saying he has NO self control when it comes to food around the apartment. They leave and we get into bed to talk about the evening, ending about midnight.
DIARY 2898
FRIDAY, MARCH 24. Arrive at jury room early, at 9:42 (way before roll call, even though we SHOULD be there at 9:30), and quickly get called for a case (see next page). Reading "I Will Fear No Evil," by Heinlein, in the blank spaces. Lunch in awful "Wise MAN" because of the very short lunch hour (50 minutes), and dismissed from the case at 2:30, which is great, because I can now go back home and work on the stamps prior to getting to the film at the Gallery of Modern Art at 4. But when I get the stamps back out of their envelopes on the table, begin listening to tapes to help the time pass and drown out the increasing number of barking dogs in the building and on the streets, I don't want to STOP, and keep dipping into the incredible richness of the stack in the bag and sorting them out, with by far the majority in just five countries: Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria, but there are MANY of the old ones from each country, loads from countries that I have none of (like Mongolia, Turkey, and others) and something like 92 countries, with only a few of the VERY common ones from the United States, France, and Italy, and there seem to be VERY few duplicates, also, and it seems to be a better bargain than I'd even hoped for from the advertisement, though it doesn't have enough of the African nations or South America as I would have hoped. Delight in going through all of them, even though my fingers are getting sore from the holding in the sorting position, and there are times when I sweat and make the mint cancelled stamps from those Russian satellites stick together. But I finally get them all out, and do some cataloging and pasting to see just how some of the questionable areas turn out, and I double the stock I have in Wurttemberg (going from 1 to 2), and start making a list of catalog values, though I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the extra pages I'll have to be adding to the album, and what I'll do with the stacks of duplicates I'll probably have left over. But I bet I have MORE new stamps than duplicates! Finish at 10:30, tired, and cook steak, eating when John gets in at 11, and he showers and gets to bed quickly, so do I.
DIARY 2900
SATURDAY, MARCH 25. John said he was very tired last night, so I got up when I woke about 8 and FINISHED reading "Human Knowledge," which I so long ago started on August 4, 1970, and John was still snoozing, so I ate breakfast and finished "Marijuana, the New Prohibition," both of which I'd finished pretty close to the end during jury duty, but didn't want to carry them back for only 50-60 pages in each. John's finally up about 11:30, and I watch "The Great Chase," with a majority of the time on Keaton's "The General," until 1:30, and then John and I went out to look at apartments again (see next page). Finished at 3:40 and it's beginning to get cooler in the sunny day, and I walk down CPW to the Gallery of Modern Art for the LAST Fellini film that I've never seen: "Il Bidone" or "The Swindle" with, of all people, Broderick Crawford playing an aging not-too-successful swindler, one of his pretty blond "Vitalloni" characters playing a pathetic thief, and Richard Basehart and Guilietta Massina playing a husband and wife, so he practically had a repertory company for his first few independent films. There's little of his genius in it: it's a fairly straightforward story with little bizarrerie. Take a quick look at the disappointing DeChirico display on four of the floors, then back home to meet John at my place and we have steaks at 6 to be sure to get to the Joffrey early, where I'm disgusted that they've substituted "Trinity" for "Chabrieresque," because of injury, to be sure, but I'm STILL disappointed. "Meadowlark," hardly a "new" piece from Eliot Feld, benefits from better female costumes, and it's intellectually stimulating to see different dancers going through Feld's company's paces, but then "Feast of Ashes" is a total downer: I don't care to KNOW such stuffily stiff people, and I care almost as little watching a ballet about them, though Catanzaro and Dunne form a brilliantly sexy duo in the whorehouse scene. "Trinity" John likes more the second time he sees it, and the rock Kyrie is still very effective. John moves his car in front of my apartment, I buy the Times, and we get to bed about 11:30, John still saying that he's quite tired.
DIARY 2902
SUNDAY, MARCH 26. Up, possibly for sex, and John proofreads his article while I take the chance to TRY to catch up, over a week behind, and do 8 pages between 8 and 9:15 am. Yesterday we'd known we wanted to do something today, and tried calling Jim Maher, no answer, called Michael Gonzalez, who told me about "Windowpane," fairly strong acid for $2 which he tripped from midnight to 8 am at the Continental on, with lovely hallucinations, and he didn't suggest anything, and so I called Laird at Hampton Bays and he said we should drive out there. Get onto the road about 9:30, and have no traffic on a bright sunny day, driving up to 70 mph with a tail wind, and have no trouble with Laird's involved directions, getting to the house at 11:05, amazing Laird and Ed Noonan. We sit and drink peppery bloody marys until noon, then out with Laird to see the Shinnecock Inlet, blasted through by a storm in the 40's, and we go out onto the cold windy pier to get some pictures taken, ostensibly for John's book, and go freezing back to the car to see "Penny Palace," a really cruddy little place they're fixing up for summer rentals, he shows us about a dozen other gay-owned or gay-renovated houses, we chat with someone at Ella's place, and then back about 1 for a delicious chicken-breast-over-broccoli-with-mushroom-soup-and-parmesan-cheese "brunch" with burnt English muffins and strong coffee and great New Zealand date cake and somewhat poorer butter and fruit cake from down under. We talk and talk, I get list of current Eastern Long Island gay bars, Laird gets out his pictures of his current trip back home with Ed, and about 4 pm we decide to leave, taking somewhat longer to drive back, getting tied up in traffic, driving along the expressways at 6:15 just as the sun's going down, and I feel VERY tired, maybe coming down with a cold, so when John suggests the buffet at the Eagle, I say no, read more of "I Will Fear No Evil," then out at 8 to Chicken America for an anomalous encounter (see next page), and back, feeling almost feverish and chilled, and fill the tub with hot water and pine oil, smoke a pipe, crawl into bed with the radio on, trip out with raga music (see following page), and John enters at 12:30; I'm zonked.
DIARY 2905
MONDAY, MARCH 27. Feel a bit logy about things from smoking last night, but at that point I didn't have even a THOUGHT about having a cold. Got to the jury room at 9:40 (see next page), and quickly got onto another case, which was nice. Ate lunch with the awful guy from the jury at Joy Luck, because there wasn't much time to search for anything better, and then back to the duty. Dismissed at 2:45 and get home to read the New York Times quite quickly, want to get down to typing, but only do one page before I stop, and one of these days, but a day when John was here, I went through my file drawer and put away all the travel items, all the scrapbook items into the drawer, and even put out my Income Tax for doing, which I thought I'd get done ahead of time, but now I'll be lucky to finish it by April 15. Marty calls on a number of days, one saying that writing Christmas carols in a sure-fire way of making money, and another, without saying what the project was (and it better not be Koscot) which involves a double-demonstration of Friday night and Saturday morning. Decide NOT to write to Mom and Rita at this point, since it would seem like I was plumping for a birthday present---and maybe it WAS this afternoon that I did this, since I don't think it was any OTHER time, though I'm not sure why John would be here. Anyway, the evening passed, with dinner---no, without dinner, and I talked to Charles Mountain and said that I'd be at the Board of Director's meeting at 7:45 so that he could give me the stuff to be typed for the next issue of the Mattachine Times, and he said I should bring all the stuff that HAD been typed, so I show up and he's not there for a bit. The meeting is pretty awful (see following page), and I get out at 10:10, deciding to walk back as being quicker than taking the subway, and have dinner while John says he's tired (naturally, because I said I wanted him to watch TV), and there's some stupid program taking until 11:30 on Channel 13, which irks me, and then they say they have the ORIGINAL music scored for the first time, so I watch "Potemkin" while John goes to bed about midnight, and I follow him at midnight, thinking it's not SO great.
DIARY 2908
TUESDAY, MARCH 28. We wake about the same time and I feel that I'm caressing him but that he seldom caresses me, and that drives me up the wall. Resolve to ask him if there's anything troubling him, because I feel there's a barrier between us, more than that caused by my having so much time to spend on the jury, like on a job, and don't have nearly enough time to do everything I want to do. Get out a bit late, and miss a train, so that I get into the jury room at 10:01, but there's nothing doing and I read "I Will Fear No Evil" until we're excused at noon until 2. Out and determine to find a GOOD Chinese restaurant, and come upon the Macau, and order the Fong Wong Gai, rather expensive at $4.25, and the egg drop soup is FULL of goodies, including, sadly, shrimp, which gives the broth an iodine taste, but the crisp fried sheet-noodles are very good, and then the main dish is TWO enormous breasts, batter-dipped and fried, with ham inside, and it's all quite lush, except there's a bit too much bak toy, but I sort through for the lovely paper mushrooms, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and peapods. Feel absolutely full, and it's only 1:15, so I'm up to Canal for shopping, finding tiny plastic soldiers, 200 for 69¢ that I can't resist, also buy ball- point pens, since my blue one seems to be running out, and then find a plastic shop where I get four boxes for the duplicate stamps from my recent purchase, feeling very happy about my buying (having gone to the bank this morning, where the procedures are ALL different: sign my name on a DEPOSIT, takes 30 days for a check to clear), and back to jury duty at 2, dismissed at 4:35 (see next page). Subway up to 42nd and get my record player back for $44.26, making them unpack it to make sure it's packed properly, and take over half an hour coming back here by very slow bus, where I take the time to read the Einstein papers, being reminded of them when I finish my novel and take papers out of the wastebasket, only to have the Times claimed by the awful guy---but he said I could take the articles, and you can bet I DID! Home and type 8 pages, feeling better, and then get to WSDG at 8:40 (see following page) and talk with John (see subsequent pages).
DIARY 2913
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29. Wake for necking and fantastic Baby Magic sex, this time HE came first and then pulled ME off, which was a pleasant change, and I told him so. Then I read through the Village Voice and he served me a honeyed English, and I left about 20 of 10 for jury duty (see next page). Out to lunch at BoBo's with the creep, and the food was even better than at Macau, and much cheaper, though the waitress displeased when she ASSUMED the change from $8 for the $6.79 bill was ALL tip, and I said I would have preferred that she left THAT choice up to the customer. Back and get dismissed for good at 2:30, and I call Sidney Porcelain, and Mr. Groene said my stuff was ready to be picked up, so I got up there and packed my book into the BOAC bag, and got home about 3:30, did the washing, read the mail, put the record player back into shape, took a call from Laird who came over with Abdeel at 5:30, and put the laundry away and washed just a bit, shaved and cleaned my teeth, spraying my dirty shirt, and he left at 6:15 after listening to music and vowing to exchange the Schehedren "Carmen" for my "Naked Carmen" after I tape it, and I ate dinner and took off at 7:30 to meet John at the Chelsea at 8:15, where he said he was going to the Netherlands Ballet tomorrow with his newly-acquired student pass from DTW, and we were overwhelmed by the Chelsea set for "The Beggar's Opera" by John Gay, and the first appearance of Mr. Peachum, seamy face, ice-blue eyes, rasping voice, and Mrs. Peachum, ugly blowsy, untrained yet very effective voice, and the whole production was a romp, right down to Filch's pubic hairs which John saw and I didn't. A parade of rouged and highlighted tits, packed crotches, wildly waving female legs, startlingly effective masks which heightened the features only a little, and rattlingly good duets and choruses in a rough-and-ready way that seemed entirely in character with the plotting and sets. John was so enthusiastic that he wrote a postcard to the LaRues that evening, recommending that they see it, and I sat reading the NEW Village Voice from front to back, including apartments and jobs, while he typed one thing or another, and we both got tired into bed at 12:10, when I took the opportunity to warm my cold feet in his warm testicles; both loved it.
DIARY 2915
THURSDAY, MARCH 30. John's out of bed quickly, and I decide that 8:15 is a good time to go back home, rather than read until unemployment time. Get home at 9 after lengthy delays on the subway, including a stupid evacuation through one half of one door to let a stalled train go and get another one in. Begin typing to reduce the backlog, then telephone to see that the Elgin has, in fact, cancelled the rest of the Griffith series, and a telephone call later reveals that "It was bombing" and they couldn't take the reduced business. Out to unemployment at 11:15, avoiding all the lines completely, and back to shop for groceries and find the mail of four birthday greetings: from Jim Maher, whom I called this evening to arrange a Saturday noon visit by me and John to him and John; from Rita, sending me a $20 check; and from Mom, sending me a Harpers "Writers wanted" xeroxed ad with "Did you get back to New York from Akron?????? Me" as its sole message. Bless her, though she included lots of mint stamps from her coworker in Columbia. I have lunch and get back to typing, finally catching up to date just after 5 pm, with 23 pages. Also called some apartments for rent from the Village Voice, but things were pretty slow because of the holidays this weekend, Passover coming just one day before Good Friday. Shower and get up to Mattachine about 2 minutes late, again passing Dick Leitsch on the street, and leave rather promptly at 9:35 (see next page). Again a long platform wait for a subway to John's, and he's not there, so I read more of "The Magic Mountain," which will take ages to read its 726 pages, and he gets in about 11:15, saying that he could barely keep from falling asleep during the Netherlands Ballet, but I would probably like it more. We get into bed at 11:30, he says he's tired, but he leaves the lights on and almost PLACES my cold feet in his crotch, and for a while I think he's driving toward some sort of sex, even though he said he was tired, but though we've just brushed our teeth there STILL isn't much kissing contact, which I miss, and finally he turns out the light, we move apart, he gives me my FAIR share of the bed for a change, and we go to sleep.
DIARY 2923
FRIDAY, MARCH 31. Told him last night that I'd gotten four cards for my birthday, and he was obviously annoyed with himself for not remembering my birthday. Neck only a bit in the morning and I get home to celebrate my newly-up-to-date diary by typing the two pages that KEEP me up to date, and I sort through things on my desktop to put them away before getting to the typing of all the Mattachine stuff that I got last night, and I read many of the Einstein articles over, and get inspired to type some fairly good stuff as offshoots of his theories, and I'm content that I HAVE found something, but feel anomalous that I'll just be able to say "I told you so" after it comes out, rather than having anything to DO with it. That lasts until noon, and then I get busy with the typing, which goes much slower than I'd feared, because I'm making mistakes which take a long time to correct, and many of the articles are longer than I thought, and I'm worried that the typewriter ribbon isn't dark enough. Had been planning to meet John for dinner tonight in Brooklyn Heights with Arnie at 5:30, but at 4:30 it's obvious that I need more time, and try calling John at DTW and Virgil's, and finally get him at home at 5. I continue typing, eating a SECOND can of tuna fish today (and I hope there's nothing about mercury in eating much tuna fish, because I seem to be progressively "heavier" and hope it's not due to my poisoning myself with this crazy diet), for dinner, and then subway to the Brooklyn Academy at 7:50 to meet Arnie and get in for the Netherlands Ballet Company. Since I'm writing a series of articles, now, for the Mattachine Times on dance, I'll start keeping detailed notes on what I see (see next page). We get out just after 10 and though Arnie's been to John's already, he agrees that he'll come up afterwards, and we get upstairs to hear someone on the landing, and I unlock the door to see the candles lit in the dining room, and a CANDLE ON A CHOCOLATE CAKE on the sideboard, and I crow with delight and go inside to find John nowhere, and I hesitate to actually LOOK for him, saying "Oh, he'd never HIDE from me," and come back to find him singing happy birthday to me. I kiss and we have some of the fabulous cake (which is why Arnie came over), and we bed at midnight.
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