1977 6 of 11
DIARY 11961
MONDAY, MAY 23. Up again about 10, phone Dennis and Arnie and various people, then maybe do dishes and buy groceries and bake cakes and have something to eat before leaving at 2:20 to see "Farewell My Lovely" (Mitchem, Velma ONLY woman / Sanders, TWO women) "The Falcon Takes Over" and "Murder My Sweet" (Powell, DAUGHTER and mother) before eating at Chock Full with $1 chicken and I walk up to Actualism (see DIARY 11963) while Dennis goes to Nathaniel Brandon, to whom his brother went to group therapy session with high acclaim, who uninspiredly talks abut HIS weekend training that so bores Dennis with its logicality that he leaves at intermission, getting home as I've returned and am talking to Arnold while the artichokes boil on the stove. Hamburger and artichokes and he eats and we probably have sex.
DIARY 11964
TUESDAY, MAY 24. Up and sex and eat breakfast last while reading magazines, then home to talk for a long time on the phone with Bruce about Actualism while he's taking calls for the company and I'm putting away stamps. Put away and put away, maybe doing dishes sometime in here, sorting through lists of pages still without stamps on them, and pass the day getting ready for the party tonight with BobR, Rolf, and JohnC. JohnC arrives at 6:30 while I'm still icing the mock-banana cakes I baked today with the cake tins I just washed, and then we're out at 7 to Bilqis where he loves the chicken Gismonda and gulps two glasses of iced tea that "Splash in his stomach," as Glenway Wescott told him. Stroll on the Promenade and back here at 8:15 to discover that "Key to the Universe" went on at 8. We start, get sucked in, BobR comes in at 9 to shower, Rolf enters at 9:15 and get engrossed in the program, so we all watch it until 10, me insisting I want to see it again, which I do the following Sunday and take notes on it then. Then I drag them into the bedroom for movies, but it turns into an unsatisfactory orgy (see DIARY 11965) that's not over until 1:45, when Rolf exhaustedly leaves.
DIARY 11964
WEDNESDAY, MAY 25. Up about 10:20, work on Clues and Clocks index from 11-12:50, 1:15-2:05, 2:20-4:55, and 6:15-6:35, taking time out for phone calls and eating things, then quickly shower and shave and subway to meet Dennis at Martha Graham's Dance Company at the huge Lunt-Fontane Theater at 8, and again they've changed two items from the program, so I only see two new pieces, but it doesn't disturb me so much this time, and we're out about 10:30 to come here, since Dennis doesn't mind, and have sex and get to bed late. I'm pleased when Deborah Jowett comes up to ME so that I can introduce Dennis to her, and Graham's company has some VERY sexy guys in it (see DIARY 11966).
DIARY 11967
THURSDAY, MAY 26. Possibly Dennis has class this noon, so we're lying in bed late, having good sex late, eating a leisurely breakfast, and I get to the index from 12:15-4:50, from 5:15-8:25, when I have dinner, and from 9:05-1:25, when I finish most of the work on the Clues and Clocks index for a 12:05 hour WORKING day in which I ALSO managed to type 3 pages about a CHANGE OF LIFE which has since lost quite a bit of steam, but at least the entry of these JOURNAL pages starts from that time. Bed exhausted, but not exhausted enough to prevent me from getting out porno and jerking off.
DIARY 11967
FRIDAY, MAY 27. Wake at 9 and immediately to proofread and finish typing cards from 9:10 to 11:55, then make some quick eggs and talk to Dennis and get out at 12:20, fearing to be late but getting to Actualism JUST at 1 pm for my session with Lois, and quite a brain surgery it IS (see DIARY 11968) until 2:30, surprised that it's so long. Subway down to the 59th Street station on the AA and then switch to the D and change to the F at Rockefeller Center for Harper and Row JUST at 3, and get the G&K LIT index and the G&K index which doesn't have page numbers yet. Home about 4, starved, and read "Poetica Exotica" while having lunch, and I'm glad that Dennis hadn't gotten tickets for the free play from Equity for LAST night, or I wouldn't have been able to finish the index. Read and loaf in the wake of my surgery, then get out too late to be on time for "Utopia Unlimited" at LOOM, dashing IN just as Dennis was handing in my ticket, but we have to sit in the back during the first number, and then we sit between a fidgety child and a burping man for a pretty awful production because of Raymond Allen (see DIARY 11970). Out at 10:30, find the paperback place closed and get to my place to bed sexless.
DIARY 11967
SATURDAY, MAY 28. Wakened at 7:30 by the buzzer, and I listen to the door open and close and get downstairs to find ten MORE films from Maverick. My letter clearly SAID I was missing two, so this is TOO much. Dennis sleeps until 9, then we're having sex until 10, he has a tryout or something today, and I decide to have a "Chinese brunch" since I have no orange juice and no half-and-half, but we check the Chinese restaurants (3) on Henry Street to find NONE that serve coffee, so we end up on the corner coffee shop for a GREASY pastrami sandwich and he has a hamburger which is well done when he requested it rare. He leaves on the subway about 1:15, I get home to get a message from Bruce that he was coming to the Heights, and he rings about 1:30 and comes up to chat until about 4:30 about my brain surgery and his problems with the woman, and I'm beginning to lose patience with his eternal Jewish kvetching. I start to read the book about Ballard, but feel VERY sleepy and doze for about an hour, then jump up because I'd forgotten "Scorpio" on television with a GRAND cast: Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Paul Scofield, but it's a LOUSY spy-versus-spy nest-of-vipers plot where Delon kills people, Lancaster kills people, Delon shoots Lancaster and then his girlfriend, who'd ratted on him, and is then in turn shot at the final credits. Bravo. That's from 6:30 to 8:30, then I watch the classic last Ernie Kovacs show where he's silent with the tilted stage until 9, then a "Space 1999" that drags ON and on about three monsters that they have to battle to survive, and it's just DREK that I simply WON'T watch again. Do some various things and leave at 10:30, getting to Dennis's at 11 with the Times while he's cooking a chicken, we eat, look at the Times, and then get out to the "Rocky Horror Show" at the New Yorker at 12 with people who'd obviously seen it before, since they applaud and boo before the people come on (applaud and boo the credits for the people, that is) to be identified. The writer-director is creepy as one of the aliens, Tim Curry is outrageous (but is that good?) as the transvestite Frankenfurter, Barry Bostwick isn't as pretty as he later is (and his plaster statue showed a VERY small cock) as the innocent, there's a cute scene where both he AND his girl are fucked by Frankenfurter, some great underwater scenes and with the Transylvanian cyclist-gang, but Rocky Horror isn't terribly sexy in his baggy gold swim trunks, won't kick at ALL in high heels as Bostwick goes with glee, and it's a good icky show. Home about 2 and fall exhausted into bed without sex.
DIARY 11972
SUNDAY, MAY 29. Wake at 10, have lovely sex, I check the Times and find that "Star Wars" goes on at 12:10, ending an argument we'd been having about my not wanting to stand in line, which argument ends afterward with Dennis saying that sometimes I DIG at him when I want to make suggestions, so I tell him to TELL me when I dig, and that seems to solve the problem. His folks call early, thank goodness, at 10:40, and at 11 we start on breakfast and get out at 11:40 to get to the theater at 12 to find a long line, on which he makes cracks about standing "so long in line being boring," and we're in to an almost-full movie house for a star-western (see DIARY 11973) that's come in for a LOT of news making. I phone Rolf who'll come over for "Key to the Universe" at 3, we get to my place at 2:45 and Dennis showers and shaves and I can't get the tape recorder to work because the tape's been wound on the wrong side, so I take notes (see DIARY 11974) which are better anyway. Dennis is bored by 4 and leaves to work on his index, and Rolf sits around from 5 to 6 and talks, and then starts watching "Rider on the Rain" which Dennis had said he'd liked for the work of Marlene Jobert, who kills her rapist, throws the body into the ocean, and then is morally blackmailed by Charles Bronson who's looking for his escaped mental patient from the Army and falls in love with her (you can tell, he breaks a window with a walnut when he throws it at it). That's from 6-8, Rolf left at 6:15, and I finish "Ballard's 20 Years" and watch Cousteau's "Nights of the Squid" and the amusing "sex-blush on the male as he reaches the peak of ecstasy" in MANUALLY taking his sperm from his spermatophores and PUTTING them near the female's egg pouch. Hey, hey, squids jerk off when they have sex! I'm feeling tired so I go to bed early, starting to read "Icarus" until I get tired enough to slip off to sleep about 12 pm, early only by comparison.
DIARY 11972
MONDAY, MAY 30. Wake at 10, which must prove that I've been tired, finish "Icarus" and continue with reading "Daedalus," not the most interesting books, rather dreadfully dated, and I manage to type 7 diary pages before going off with only a bowl of cereal to see "Fun with Dick and Jane," which is a TOTALLY immoral movie of fired rich people stealing money, but it was only a step until people KILLING people excite the audience to cheer (as they already HAVE, I'd forgotten, in Bronson's vigilante film). "The Front" is poor Woody Allen not knowing whether to try to be funny with his pathetic love scenes with whoever-daughter's-it-was or telling in his indictment of someone like McCarthy in the 1950s. The audience is a real ZOO: blacks shouting back at the screen, people telling them to shut up, people telling the HUSHERS to shut up, kids screaming, people eating, smoking, arguing, and I just sit through it, amazed at my coolness in the face of it all, and figure it must be doing SOMETHING right (and now I almost contemplate with coolness the thought of flying to Akron if Grandma dies). Then across to try to find Arnold's Cuban restaurant, but we can't do it, so eat at Zad when they SAY they have shawerma, but then he gets frozen stuff from the refrigerator and fries it up, and it's NOT the same, but we eat it anyway. Then I think of an ice cream as Dennis does, and he again accuses me of reading his mind (as he did this morning at breakfast when he says I can talk to my sister, and I say "How's Dennis's cock?" and he shouts "How did YOU know what I was thinking?!"), so we have it, then he goes home and I go down to Actualism (see DIARY 11980) for the last of the basic course, free next week, and walk back up to have dinner and probably sex and bed.
DIARY 11979
TUESDAY, MAY 31. Wake late since he has a tryout, I guess, and we have sex again with poppers, which he loves, and we eat slowly and I start reading Updike's "Picked Up Pieces," which gives an AWFUL impression of him as a PERSON, though he STILL writes well, and I'm home just about in time to watch the "Gong Show" at 1 with Dennis's friend Paul countrying-it-up too much and coming in tied for third with 27 after a sexy Caprice Clark gets 30, and Jaye P. Morgan killed them by giving an 8, saying she loves old furniture, after someone gave them a 10 because they loved old songs. But there WAS the beautiful black body of Ocean Tyson, that danced, ruined by his mouth that talked about SOMETHING black that turned EVERYONE off. I read "The Astral Plane" and get some odd ideas from it (see DIARY 11981), and I make a note of the idea, since I seem to be NOT typing at ALL these days, and I'd put down some of the dreams I'd been having (see DIARY 11983), and then remember that Ron Greenburg is moving to San Francisco, so I can incorporate "Whaddya Know" onto my lists in the journal-diary (see DIARY 11984-11991). Also decide to type in the notes for "The Battle for Investment Survival" to get THAT out of the way (see DIARY 11992). Work on the G&K LIT index from 2-3:30, phoning when I seem to have pagination problems, and Martha's not in and Susan doesn't seem to be able to handle it, so I have to stop working on it. Read "Over to You" in a delight of good reading: Dahl writes MARVELOUS tales of GREAT charm, and then there are other things that I've forgotten and I watch "Search for the Great Apes" on the National Geographic Special, with a couple studying orangutans in Borneo, convincing them to get wild again, and a marvelous Diane Fosse studying mountain gorillas around Mt. Visoki in the Verunga mountains in Rwanda, leaving from Gisengi on Lake Kivu, for BEAUTIFUL territory, where she literally becomes one of them to study them. Then watch the Queen's Silver Jubilee gala at Covent Garden with great pleasure form 9-11:30 (see DIARY 11993), and I probably jerk off and get to sleep about 1, after starting reading Golding's "The Hot Gates."
DIARY 11982
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1. Up at 9:30 and immediately start working on the G&K LIT index, phoning to find that I'll have to go in, which I do immediately, talking to the pleasant Molly Heron about Seth and plants, and that goes until 1:30 and I finish numbering the new pages, then go out with Susan for our much-postponed lunch at the Beefburger, where I make the mistake of ordering the sole which is FULL of bones. Back at 2:30 to the office and I decide to treat myself and walk up to Argosy, where I find a copy of "Karma" for only $3.50, so quickly write a cancellation letter to S&S when I get home about 5, and I type up the two Actualism pages for lessons #19 and #20, type two diary pages, phone for questions and find I've mixed it QUITE up, but they don't seem to mind. Meet Arnie and subway in to our different ballet companies at 8, and ABT is so-so (see DIARY 11994), and I phone Dennis during the second intermission to find he's with someone, but I should come over anyway, which I do at 11, bringing half-and-half for blueberries and honey, but we eat late and talk and don't even have a chance to MISS sex.
DIARY 11995
THURSDAY, JUNE 2. Alarm goes at 8 and he's up, but breakfast's not ready until 10, since he's going to rehearsal for his scene with the girl this morning, so I get home late, write 4 checks for BUGas, Yorkville Audio for three tape-recorder belts, Books for Libraries for "Ten Minute Stories," and Samuel French Ltd for "Through the Crack." Then finish the G&K LIT index completely from 12:30 to 6:30, Jean-Claude Perrin calls at 5 and will call tomorrow at 10 am, raising my rate to $20/hour, the highest ever, though it's STILL a low/entry rate. Then I'm making my hamburger dinner (AFTER the ballet) and showering and Dennis comes in to type for a bit, and we watch "Giselle" on TV with Makarova and Baryshnikov, which isn't very good (see DIARY 11996) until 10, and Dennis fidgets and fidgets. Then I make dinner, we eat, smoke, drink, and get down to spectacular sex, bed at 12! NO, this is the evening I want to play the new FILM for Dennis, but he drifts off to sleep, so as the projector cools I take porno outside and come nicely by 1:30!
DIARY 11995
FRIDAY, JUNE 3. He's up for sex, I do dishes, then type 1 page when Jean-Claude calls about 11, I phone Martha to say I'll be bringing in the index, and check Gotham bookshop to find nothing, take in the index, leave the bill, pick up xeroxed pages for NEXT index, and walk up to meet Jean-Claude at precisely 12:30 in the central hall of the Metropolitan. He's hungry, so we eat salads in the restaurant, then out to the bank for him, back for the rather disappointing Egyptian exhibit (there was a lot of KNOWLEDGE and little SPECTACLE, it seemed), then about 2:30 out for a post office at 85th and Third, back for the subway down to Wall Street, tour Trinity Church, and the Dubuffet sculpture, and he's interested so we're to the top of the World Trade Center for a fabulous view for both (see DIARY 11997). Down at 6 and subway to my place to pick up binox, eat at the Promenade since he wants only "American" restaurants, and subway to City Center to pick up a late ticket for Paul Taylor, who's FABULOUS (see DIARY 11998), while he goes back to the Y, tired from the time change. I'm out feeling exhausted, so I phone Dennis at Andrea's and say I'm going home, and it occurs to me that talking FRENCH all day has tired me out. But read a bit more, come, and bed about 12.
DIARY 11999
SATURDAY, JUNE 4. Wake about 9, have cereal for breakfast while reading Golding, then continue to read, but feel like COMING, so I get out the porno and DO, thanks probably to Paul Taylor's sexy dancers, and I water plants, talk to Dennis who loved last night, talk to Arnie for a long time, down for the mail. When it becomes clear that I'm NOT going out to the store for groceries today, though I DO do the dishes, and start clearing away lots of stuff to get into typing, even sorting through letters to see who I have to write. Have lunch of warmed-over hamburger from Thursday, beef from earlier in the week, last of the peas and carrots, and the last of the cake, so that I can get into something NEW. Then get down to typing in the diary, doing 10 pages before having to stop to shower and shave and eat some small hamburgers before meeting Arnie in the station at 7:20 to get me to ABT and he to NYCB, where he insists that neither "Who Cares?" nor "Watermill" are strictly ballets. I'd done a couple more checks to Rowland Hill (can't RESIST mint stamps at LESS THAN FACE VALUE!) and the series of 8 dances at Brooklyn College, having taken a LOT of time to see HOW I'll spend my 20 TDF vouchers with my June Dance Calendar. Dennis likes the real "Giselle" better than the TV one (see DIARY 12000), and we're out at 10:10 to get artichokes, squash, and berries at the vegetable stand, the rest of the groceries at Big Apple, and the Times, and he lets me make artichokes as we decide not to watch "The Giant Behemoth," finish eating the grand artichokes with his bread toasted for the rest of the QUARTER-POUND of melted butter he made, then cuddle and get into sex about 11:30, he comes, then I come with much sweating, and we fall asleep about 1 am, exhausted.
DIARY 11999
SUNDAY, JUNE 5. He insists on alarm at 7, up groggy, makes hamburger and squash for breakfast (he phoned folks yesterday morning), and we're out at 8:35 to sweat subway coming and get to Felt Forum at 9 for interesting seminar (see DIARY 12001) which Dennis leaves at the first break, and I take notes and leave at 9:15 and buy orange juice, cheesecake, and muffins in the deli and get in to find Dennis NOT THERE YET at 9:50, and both watch (he gets in RIGHT after me, having forgotten my keys at his place) the Tony Awards, appalled that such trash as "Annie" and other things seem to be winning awards. That's over about 11:30, and he smokes and we have great sex, and I come VERY strainingly, which we both get a kick out of. Oh, Mom called from the airport today on the way back from Italy, saying Rome and Florence were now first, Hawaii second, and other places with Russia bringing up the rear.
DIARY 12011
MONDAY, JUNE 6. Alarm set for 8:30 and we cuddle and have sex again, then up for breakfast and I'm just finishing cooking my omelet at 9:30 when Mom calls in high hysteria saying that Grandma's had another stroke: she'd seen the light on in her window at Manor Care as she got back from the airport, and didn't answer the phone when Henry called her at 11:30 Sunday night, but got the news at 8:30 this morning. She's still exhausted from her 13-hour trip back from Italy, starving, and has been crying. I say to let me know, then tell Dennis all about it, and he's finished my breakfast and waited for me to get off the phone. He leaves and I decide I HAVE to do the diary, so I sit down and type and type and type until I've finished 34 pages (about 8 of them only numbering of "Whaddya Know?" but still 34), and had gone to the grocers and taken out my pants to be cleaned. Dennis wasn't clear about coming for dinner, so I made chicken and ate it at 8 while watching "The Circus of the Stars" from 8-10, and he comes in at 9:35 to have more chicken, then we watch "Sonny and Cher" (LOUSY!) from 10-11 for Shields and Yarnell, good automated team, while I shower and shave and clean my teeth, then drink a stinger from Green Crème de Menthe and Kahlua, and Dennis smokes a lot and we're in the middle of DYNAMITE sex to the orchestral "Tommy" when Mom calls at 11:45, sans tears, to say that Grandma died at 10:30 tonight, and she even went in and saw her looking peaceful in the bed, no longer the labored breathing or the pain, hair brushed, and she kissed her, then cried a lot until they told her she'd wake up the hospital. She sounded surprisingly calm over the telephone, so there seemed to be no emergency about anything. Told Dennis about it, then suggested he smoke some more and take more popper, and he got into GREAT sex with his cock pressed against my belly, gasping with the delight of the come, and we got to sleep about 12:45, but I had some SLIGHT trouble thinking of all I had to do, and all the theater tickets I'd be giving up by going now, before going to Akron tomorrow, and I probably drifted off to a sadly too-brief sleep about 1:30.
DIARY 12012
TUESDAY, JUNE 7. Wake about 5, thinking a mile a minute, then doze until about 7, then to 7:45, and about 8:10 I'm up to piss and get a pen and card and make a list of the things I have to do today, and at 8:15 the alarm rings and Dennis is up and shaving and showering, I'm making breakfast, and then he leaves about 9, I get to recording the Borodin and washing the dishes until 10:15, when I call Trip'n'Travel to see WHEN the flights to Akron are, then call Mom and Helen's screaming for me to be there yesterday, so I'll take the 5:15 United flight 979, stopping in Pittsburgh, arriving in Akron-Canton at 7:25, and then call Mom to tell her about that. Gave the tickets to Dennis, and told him where stamps and porno are, then called Susan, who has two indexes for me, and she delivers one quickly, which is good. I get out to duplicate keys, give a set to John for mail and plants, return record, deposit checks and send off a check for the account, then back to catch up on the diary by 1:50, having typed 4 pages today, and all I have to do is shower, write a letter to Actualism, call Jean-Claude, and pack to leave by 3 to catch the 3:45 bus for the 5:15 flight. And at least to THIS point, I'm not concerned about it much, like Pope calling to express his DELIGHT about finding the doctor for his venereal warts so PLEASANT! Then JUST at 1:58 Mom calls to say that funeral isn't until FRIDAY, possibly, and so I should come TOMORROW. I SAY that I have a reservation and am all set, but she almost shouts, "I want to be ALONE," so what can I say? Call Marietta and change the reservations, type the letter to Actualism that I was in the process of finessing, and phone Pope, Susan, Arnie, and Dennis, and tell John and then with my spare time finish "The Hot Gates" because I'll be starting "Resurrection" on the trip. Decide at 8 to call Helen, and she tells me that the funeral's on THURSDAY, with the showing on Wednesday, TOMORROW, from 2-4 and 7-9; she asks why I'm not there ALREADY, and I tell her about Mom's comment, and she tends to attribute it to the fact that Mom's APARTMENT isn't fixed up enough for her wishes, and I suppose that could be. So I phone Dennis and Pope AGAIN (had been on and off with Pope about the flying governors' talk tomorrow at the Brooklyn TM center, but it was finally off), finish packing, showered and shaved, and left about 10:15 with everything together for the Greyhound, standing in line and reading "Resurrection" until we board about 10:50, and I get a seat at a window on the right and manage to keep the seat next to me empty, and the black bouncy kid across from me goes to sleep immediately, the chesty fellow in the seat behind with the backpack, blue jeans, and woman with the same black-and-white checked shirt that HE has on floats through my fantasy-mind as I watch the extremely clear lights of New Jersey fade out with distance and lack of population. Doze for a bit, feeling not as uncomfortable as I thought I'd feel, sort of letting the scenery wash over my mind, and STILL think of it as a good way to travel (see DIARY 12018), mourn a poor eager collie at the rest stop, and then get a few hours sleep lying down awkwardly as the bus
DIARY 12016
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8. rushes toward Youngstown. Wake to watch the sun rise in the rear as we cross the border and eat in a dreadfully small restaurant before Youngstown, then in there at 7:30, to Akron at 8:40, and phone Mom, who says "Oh, you dear boy," when she find out I'm there early, but I'm not willing to spend another 20 on a phone call to the taxi to take me to her, so I walk down Main Street past Cascade to West Market, and hitchhike until a bus comes. It's 35 and they don't make change, so he lets me put in a quarter, so there's the saved 10 from the phone. Off at 733 and someone lets the door open for me, and I buzz her about 9:20 to find that she's not dressed yet and the place IS somewhat a mess. We talk as she fried bacon for our breakfast sandwiches and she rambles on alternately about her mother's death, her trip to Italy, and our plans for the next few days. I hang up my suit, eat cocoa and a bacon sandwich on toast, and she goes to get her hair fixed at 11, when I read a bit and then feel tired at 11:30 and nap until she returns at 12:30. Then again the toast comes out for a lunch of sandwich spread and soup and fruit cocktail as she searches for something to delay our arrival at the Carr Funeral Home until well after 2 pm. We get there about 2:45 to a flurry of visiting people (see DIARY 12020), and we leave about 5 to drive out to Hibachi (refusing the first invitation to Helen's for something to eat, but Mom insisting I don't tell her where we're going) to be the second table in at 5:30, when they open. She sends me a rueful glance when the car that drives up next to ours emits a black couple, but Errol Fitzpatrick and Delcinia Costa are marvelous, talking about their 5 previous times here, how we have the flashiest hibachi-knifer, how many people they and Mom know in common, my life in New York, and we pay only scant attention to the 3-member family to our left who'd been to Japan only on tour and didn't know HALF the places I knew. Out about 7, Mom complaining about the wine and saying she HAS to go home, so she does, though she doesn't change clothes, and then we're out to the funeral home for another round of visitors, including Rita (see DIARY 12021) and a rosary, and we're out about 9:30 to Helen's, where there's more incredible conversation and interaction among my extraordinary family (see DIARY 12022). Leave about 11:30, exhausted, and fall into bed about 12:30 after Mom forces me to shower and shave before morning, and I find no trouble falling asleep on the cot without earplugs.
DIARY 12019
THURSDAY, JUNE 9. Wake about 7:30 and she rouses me at 7:45, but thankfully Helen has decided to prepare breakfast for Rita and Dennis, so they won't be over until later. Mom makes scrambled eggs with bacon that we just finish as they come in at 8:50, and again she stalls until 9, when we're into her car driven by Dennis to get to the funeral home again last at 9:20, then I'm into the car and we follow the hearse to St. Vincent's', where I'm a pall-bearer, and St. Vincent's seems so SMALL from what I remember it to be, and there are only TWO people in the church beside those in the party, and Mom's still bitching about their not having a car for the family, but I'm sure everyone is FAR happier traveling with their OWN family rather than the four brothers and sisters in one incredible car. Service is lousy with a sermon about people being reborn in sexy 35-year-old perfect bodies at the end of the world, and who'd KNOW Grandma at 35? He has NO eye-contact, the microphones tend to muffle things, and I forgot Mom's "Eeee, she's lookin' at me" when she insisted on being LAST to look at Grandma, though staring daggers at Helen when SHE was. Something in a VERY Satie-minor mode played on the organ when incense is used on the bier, Mom asks me who went to communion and I don't remember, though she surely goes first, and there are prayers at the door coming and going, and the bier's heavy, as I remember it to be for Dad. Showers earlier but the sun's out as we leave about 11, Mom asking Dennis to slow as we pass ICWU to see if anyone's watching for the procession, as if anyone would THINK of it, and there's talk about the trip, changes in Akron, "Where is he GOING?" and other things EXCEPT Grandma in the long ride out to Holy Cross, where Mom repeats that SHE has a plot, too. Rita loves driving through red lights, and they stop ALL traffic for us, which is neat, even at Main Street. Out of the car and Mom alone goes to KNEEL on the wet grass at Grandpa's grave, showing off again, and then she grabs my arm and hangs on (was glad I was there to hold her hand as we walked first down the aisle of the church, too), and the prayers are quick and the need to make reponses takes one's mind off what's being SAID, so it passes quickly and we're all back in the car to drive down the street to Brown Derby at 11:30, where we have a perfectly DREADFUL dinner of what tastes like Swiss steak that's supposed to be roast beef, canned peas and fresh carrots, and lousy mashed potatoes. Helen hadn't planned on drinks, but I got a daiquiri and others got others, so THERE. Dennis and I chat a bit about his future plans (he wants to get out of the Air Force, but he's not sure where he wants to go, only that he wants something that CHANGES all the time, and I mention Logical Technical Services, though he says he doesn't like the CITY, though Westchester would be good), Lorene talks brightly about going to Poland with Mom if she pays half her way, and we leave about 2:30, when Mom keeps insisting that Dennis drive her to the funeral home to get things while Helen's there and Dennis insists they're going back to Newark, which they do. To the funeral home to apportion the bouquets, glass goblets, baskets, and other items and Helen snaps "Of COURSE I have the wedding band," when I remind Mom to ask about it. Help Jimmy load up the car to take bouquets for "each floor" of Manor Care (which BOTH Mom and I think is silly), and the attendant chats patiently about what they do with all the flowers, and how flowers are getting FEWER, thank god. Then we're home, I say I'll read while Mom rests, but she keeps up a steady stream of conversation so I put down the book and pick up the books on Rome and Florence, and she shows me the stuff she's brought back, tries to give me junk but I only want stamps, and then she decides SHE wants to collect stamps (oh, Marion says she'll travel more now that Mom's gone, Helen and Jimmy will spend more time at their two new condominiums in Virginia Beach that they go to a couple times a month, and Mom will collect stamps and garden more to occupy her time), so she breaks everything into two, keeping ALL the sets when I demand that the sets be kept together, and I tell her to buy a small album. Then we're changing to get to Henry's at 6, where I chat with Greg and Gary in the kitchen while getting peacefully blotto with Southern Comfort on ice, then talk with Marion, who keeps saying we'll have to make plans to get our $1,000,000, which I hadn't remembered, and there's arguments around the table about foods, people, times, and all. Say goodbye to everyone and Mom drives me to the station (having forgotten three times when I'm going) after our dinner of sandwiches, awful cake from Mom's neighbor, and salads and more tea. I luck out by being first in line outside as the bus pulls in, Mom leaves so the black won't put his suitcase on her car anymore, and I'm in to the second seat behind the death seat, reading until Pittsburgh, since we're in at 11:10, and there's no use sleeping until then. Sun doesn't set until something VERY close to 9 pm, which is a kick, and the wooded hills are rather beautiful outside my unfortunately clouded window. Move up to the front when we stop in Youngstown, then right to stand second in line at Pittsburgh, hoping to get another window seat so I can sleep, and the line starts in at 11:50, lots of black babies carrying who finally go totally to sleep, which is nice, and I DO get a window seat about 4 back against the road, but then they announce a stop at Breezewood at 1, so I keep on reading, much to the discomfort of the guy who sits next to me with his gal across the aisle, until then. Out in the chilly air, but the interior is SO depressing, except for a crotchy fellow in jeans with his patient wife who sits and smokes while I sit and watch people, that I go out about 2:30 and watch the most pathetic collie half-breed with the shaggiest tail I've ever seen and a very thin, misproportioned body walk hopefully up to everyone who passes, but no one seems to own him and no one seems to want him, so he sits and forlornly bites his fleas and continues to wag his tail at everyone who passes until our bus moves out at 2:45. Then, perversely, the guy in front of me decides to read, and I try to sleep, getting about 3-4 hours in short dozes, and wake somewhere in New Jersey to a cloudy day and no sunrise, and rain in various places has slowed us down (and I cringe when I read the "Slippery when wet" signs and the driver doesn't seem to slow at ALL!) so that we arrive at 8. Out of the bus into the incredible bustle of New York Port Authority, and if I want to walk fast, this is the time to do it.
DIARY 12025
FRIDAY, JUNE 10. Subway home at 8:30 to find my mail waiting for me, ring John to get the keys back, and put things away, listen to my phone messages, talk on the phone to Arnold and Dennis and Pope so much about how no one would believe what happened to me in Akron even if it were a soap opera, I sit down and type the outline for a PLAY entitled "Grandma's Band" (see DIARY 12013) before getting to the P&F index from 1:05 to 1:30, then stopping for something to eat and miscellaneous activities, then working again from 3-3:30, and I think Dennis comes over to have dinner here since I have to get rid of hamburger that I'd gotten before I left, and this may be the time he reminds me that I'd invented the hamburger with mushroom-soup sauce for having with NOODLES, and he laughs at the expression on my face as I DO remember that. Then we're out to the New York City Ballet for the typical change of program that turns out not to be very interesting (see DIARY 12030), and we're up to his place for what is probably incredible sex, though I recall I have to work at mine even though I haven't come for awhile, but it's quite a shot filled with the little plasticky nodules that form when I haven't had an orgasm in awhile.
DIARY 12029
SATURDAY, JUNE 11. Up for more sex (we may have been here) and I get back to the finish of the index from 1:20 to 5:25, and it turns out MUCH too low, even at $20/hour, so I add on another hour. Haven't been doing ANY Actualism (well, may have done an hour on Friday morning to "rest up"), so that's not taken any time, but it's taken by reading mail, phoning people, and moving around the apartment. We have dinner separately and I get to the ballet early because I'm with Arnold---oh, went to his place at 7:10 to get across to the parking lot to meet Mark Elliott and Arnold, who met Arnie when a friend of theirs sold Arnie a ticket and put him in touch for another ticket, and they're the two who gave Arnie the tickets for me and Dennis tonight, and "Swan Lake" starts PROMPTLY at 8, so Dennis is a bit late, coming in after the curtain goes up, and it's interesting with Bujones and Morishita (see DIARY 12031). Out at 11 and out to the car and drive quickly back to get up to Arnold's---OH, I went to Arnie's for DINNER of roast pork, green beans, and ice cream with chocolate sauce when he invited me to help his clear out his refrigerator, since he's leaving in a week for a series of tours of California that will keep him out there until the middle of October---for bagels and cheese and ice cream and nuts and sauce until 12, Arnold being very pleasant, Mark leaving Dennis feeling "I wouldn't want to make an enemy of him," and we're home to glance through the Times and get to bed about 1:30, possibly after sex.
DIARY 12039
SUNDAY, JUNE 12. (First day-page after I mistakenly decided it would be "better" to eliminate them, but the result is that I'm 14 days behind now, the longest in AGES, and I'm just not working out with the other scheme, so I just went through and erased the new "JOURNAL" entries and put the days back on top of the pages "where they belong." Let's see if I can't get to the business of writing for publishing some OTHER way than cutting down on the amount of writing for MYSELF.) Wake with the memory of two dreams, but type only one that I remembered on DIARY 12014, the only page of that day. Dennis calls his folks about 10:30 so they won't call him at his place, and we have a very late breakfast after going through the Times (at LEAST my "change of life" back on May 26th has stopped me doing the PUZZLES!), and then we're out to a somewhat overrated Lily Tomlin at another of Dennis's favorite theaters, the Biltmore (see DIARY 12040), then out at 5:40, right in the middle of the showing of "Rollercoaster" at the Forum, but Dennis remembers that it's at the Murray Hill, which is right near where he wants us to eat tonight, so he phones and finds that it starts at 6, so we have just time to walk there and pay for our tickets and I go to the john and get a drink of water during the trailer, and it starts. Reviews said that it wasn't very good, but I and Dennis thought it was good enough, though they didn't ride on the roller coasters long ENOUGH, and used the Sensurround (which Arnold said was toned down because of the small size of the theater) for LOOKING at, as well as riding on, the rides, but the plot was involved, Timothy Bottoms had neat gimmicks to control George Segal, and the effects of the crash at the first were good enough for us to stay through a second time. Out at 8:15 and over to Cuisine du Coeur (where they say Dennis doesn't have reservations, but I see he reserved at 8), and we have decent apricot terrine to start, but the veal portions are small for me and the chicken is interesting for him, and then MATTHEW walks in with three rather gay friends, two of whom DO seem to be hairdressers, and we're on the warm side because they don't use air conditioning. No wine, sadly, because it's Sunday. Walk over to 7th and up to 34th and subway to his place for sex and sleep fairly early, maybe as early as 12:30.
DIARY 12041
MONDAY, JUNE 13. Breakfast over and I get a call from Arnie who says he got a call from EGR to help with a group at the Plaza from Cincinnati, so he says I should call Joyce Palmer, which I do, and she's pleasant about giving me the information, and I say I'll be in the neighborhood tomorrow so I'll drop in, for which she says she's appreciative. I tell Arnie that I'll give him the same deal I have with Dennis: 7.5% for dinners for each of us from my earnings. Get only two pages typed, one (DIARY 12015) about an interesting production of "Adding Machine" on Channel 13 from 1-3, and I may be out for groceries or picking up Chinese laundry and down for the mail and reading New Yorks and doing other things to pass the time of day. It feels funny not to be going to Actualism tonight, and Bruce Lieber even calls tomorrow to find how tonight went, but I tell him that I'd postponed my personal interview for going into advanced. Haven't been doing ANY light-work recently, and have been WANTING to get into exercising, since I've actually gone over 160 pounds and have a spare tire that I don't care for at all around my waist. Have trouble getting into some of the tighter pants, and the khaki trousers have to be loosened whenever I sit down to do light-work, or else they feel uncomfortably tight. Phoned Michael and congratulated him on his first day of work in the new company (and they gave him $50 in an envelope on leaving Ask Mr. Foster, which was nice), and he'll be joining Dennis and me tonight at Jeff's. Dennis comes here for dinner since I think I'm getting rid of the last of the hamburger with some sort of sauce, and we leave about 7:15 and get to ATL very quickly, somewhat woozy with wine, and he wants to go have some coffee, but I'm concerned about getting good seats and meeting Michael, so we stick around and talk to Vernon and his friend and get to the second row center where we both read. Michael comes in just after 8, and Jeff's program isn't that good (see DIARY 12042). We're out at 10, telling Art that we liked his piece and avoiding Jeff, and Dennis has to go uptown for rehearsal with Ski for his TV class tomorrow, so I walk Michael down to 14th Street and get home to run a film at VERY slow motion and dribble so much that I get a feeling of something that's IMPOSSIBLE to do, which I LOVE (see DIARY 12043)! Bed at 1.
DIARY 12044
TUESDAY, JUNE 14. Out of bed at 8:45 and do light-work with the healing, and get to the typewriter at 9:30, and do 9 pages in all, getting up to June 10, and then I have just time to make some quick eggs to get into the shower to wash my hair and get out at 1 for Actualism (and Rebekah had called to change the time of it, so I had to call Joyce and find that she could see me later, so I had more time to type), sweating that I might not make it in time, but get there at 1:40 even before Rebekah gets there. Have a good session (see DIARY 12045) until 2:15, and subway down to 57th and there's a D train waiting for me, and the switch at 50th is fast, too, so I'm at Joyce's almost at 2:40. THAT interview seems to go well, too (see DIARY 12046), though she never DID call me back. Talk to John Kiley, and leave just after 4 pm, feeling GREAT about the day. Back home to phone Arnold and tell him about it, work on G&K index 5:10-6:40, phone some people but get no one to go with me to see Rachel Lampert and Dancers, and I'd called Art Bauman to pick up the stamps he said he had for me, and he TOLD me to call him around 6, but I forgot, phoning him from the NYU theater when I see David White in the audience after the intermission that tells me that Art isn't in the phone book, but Art doesn't answer when it's all over. I get out about 6:45 and get there in enough time to have a slice of pizza, since I never seen to leave time for EATING, and there'd been some movies that I wanted to see, but I figured they'd be around SOMEWHERE, at least on TV, so that I could see them again. Rachel Lampert is pretty good for her first program (see DIARY 12047), and I'm out at 9:10 to debate going to "The Hindenburg" and "Airport 1977," but the last double started at 8, so I've missed the start and most of the "Hindenburg," which I'd wanted to see. Home and put on another movie, this time REALLY getting into my cock and coming with GREAT gusto after a LONG period of teasing, and for the next few days I feel vaguely TIRED when I wake up and sort of DRAG through the day, and I even entertain thoughts that I'm taking too much ENERGY by coming in such an extreme way, but it sure feels GOOD. No, index work 11:45-12:45, bed tired from that!
DIARY 12048
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15. Up whenever, maybe coming again since I have everything out to do so, and water plants and clip 17 from the four pot plants, which aren't doing that grandly with all the room to do so. Make out the check for the rent and take it down with the garbage and it seems lots of other things. Maybe this was the day that I washed the dishes while recording the Mussorgsky music so that I could return it to the library, and then got another record so that I could go buy more stamps at the post office and have a place to put them. Probably talked to Bruce Lieber for a long time on the telephone today, OH, checked the job-money book and find that I was up at 9:05 to work on the G&K index from then until 10:30, when I probably did the stuff, and then returned from wherever to work on the index from 4:45-6:15, when I had to stop to shower and shave and get down to the New School for a couple I wanted to see. "Poil de Carotte" was JUST impossible to believe: the mother (Maxime Fromiot?) was too impossibly prejudiced against the boy and FOR the ridiculous older siblings to be believed, and Harry Baur was so dense as the father, and then turned out so loving, that even HE couldn't convince me it was real. Robert Lynen was effective as "Carrottop," but the film seemed VERY old and dated. "The Blue Light," on the other hand, had Leni Riefenstahl as a liberated woman already, drawn to the blue light of crystals atop a FABULOUS mountain in the Dolomites, which the villagers were led to by the misguided lover, and she later fell to her death to his dismay. BEAUTIFULLY filmed with lots of filters and screens, and I suspect early prints may have been tinted, too; and some of the mountain-climbing sequences were great. Out about 10:30 and up to Dennis's for dinner of lots of stuff, and then we both get into our cocks, but he sits on my chest and I have to whale away at my poor limp cock when he's finished, and I'll have to talk to him about that soon. I guess it was tonight that I was left with ONLY a $20 and had to buy a bottle of Cassis to break it to get a subway token, and Dennis used it up in record time, emptying it without MUCH help from me by Saturday, the 25th, and he STILL doesn't restock his liquor supply often enough for my tastes. Bed late, I seem to recall.
DIARY 12049
THURSDAY, JUNE 16. Up with Dennis about 8:30, but he takes time to do things and delays breakfast until fairly late, so I catch up on magazines and New Yorkers from his place, and when I get home I read the mail and get to the index from 12:15 to 2 (though maybe one of these days I stopped for groceries, getting wine first, too), when I stopped to watch "Beauty and the Beast" again, but it seemed to go quite slowly, though the faces in the fireplace and the arms of candelabras are still as effective as ever, and then I have something for lunch before getting back to the index from 4-5 and from 5:30 to 5:45, and again have to get things together for Rachel Lampert, who has a different program (see DIARY 12050). Dennis is in, high with good feelings, and I help Sergio take down the xylophone after his piece during the intermission, so we chat about how busy he is with the house, and then I phone Art Bauman and he says he has a friend over, but would we like to have some ice cream and cookies? Of course. I get confused with which apartment entrance is his, and Dennis kept thinking I meant Jeff when I was talking about Art. His friend is sort of strange, and Art's been talking about all the stamps he has to give me, but it turns out that he has only a few from Britain and from a few other places, but I make nice noises about them anyway. He's interested in showing off his "bong," and he explains it and I say "Dennis will do it," but when he passes it to me, I do it, but don't feel that the grass does anything but make us all quieter, we all listen to Beatle's "Abbey Road" in rapt attention, and we devour three kinds of Pepperidge Farm cookies, all the ice cream with honey and bananas with sour cream that he can serve, and I keep feeling that feeling of ANTICIPATION, but I know that I don't want to start anything, and it ends up vaguely embarrassing, and then Dennis says he has to leave because he has a meeting tomorrow at 9:30, and we leave. He doesn't care where he goes, so we buy some half-and-half and he comes to my place, where I think we're so stoned and tired that we don't do anything but get to sleep about 1, but he may come anyway, as usual.
DIARY 12051
FRIDAY, JUNE 17. Dennis is off by 9:40, having been given not too much of a breakfast, and I finish the G&K index from 9:45 to 11:45, and then get out to Arnold's to give him the Times (since he wants to take it with him and I want the 52nd Street Fair section from Dennis's) and get stuff from his refrigerator, and there are packages after packages of sausages and chicken livers, which I have for the entire next week, and pesto sauce and tortillas and Chinese egg roll pastry and marinated lemon rinds, and ricotta frozen and lots of books about Britain. Then get off to deliver the stuff to Susan, and Arnold had told me about the $2 lunch at Singles, but I think it's on 2nd and it's on 1st, so we stop at an AWFUL Chinese restaurant and for some crazy reason I hadn't brought along enough MONEY for paying for her, so returning I splurge and say I'll take her to La Grenouille next Friday when I bring in the index (which Dennis later says he wants to make Saturday, finding that Susan likes that better, too, and they're closed July 2, so it's now July 9), but lunch was from 1 to 2, and I don't have any money to check ANOTHER used bookshop on 53rd between 3rd and 2nd, right next to the Science-Fiction shop. Back to have her give me the WRONG manuscript, as I find when I look at it at 5:30, after getting home and thumbing through ALL the new books on Britain that Arnold gave me, but she doesn't want to deliver it then, so I have a free weekend. Dennis is here for an AWFUL dinner of veal sausages and pork liver, and we AGAIN rush in at the last minute to the Hudson Guild Theater for the Carol Conway Dance Company (see DIARY 12052), and there's Vernon again, so we sit next to him and chat about dance and dancers, and then Dennis has another rehearsal---no, maybe we get home at 10:30, have sex in all its glory BEFORE 1, when I crawl out of bed and watch "Help" from about 1:15, and it's sort of fun and sort of silly and slow, and I almost fall asleep a couple of times during it, and it's nothing near their "Yellow Submarine" for imaginativeness or wit. Even Beethoven's Ninth didn't seem to fare as well as I'd remembered it. So I crawled into bed at 3, totally exhausted.
DIARY 12053
SATURDAY, JUNE 18. Dennis wakes about 10, which means that I have a decent amount of sleep, We then have sex for about an hour, which is fabulous, and I wanted to get to the "Sodom and Gomorrah Day" in Washington Square Park that I read about in Soho News, so we subway there about 1 and I get INCREDIBLY turned off by the cops everywhere (see DIARY 12054). We stay only about 30 minutes, meeting Vernon again who said someone was dragged off by the cops, and then I want to leave, so we wander up to 8th Street and look in some bookshops along there while Dennis pokes into record shops, and then we stop at the flea market on Greenwich Avenue (after looking at some books on the square of Greenwich, 6th, and Christopher), but it gets quite hot (and managers of it have to shout through megaphones up to kids throwing balloons of water down on the exhibits from the adjoining building) and we continue up for Dennis to look for more records and I get to the bookshop and the owner says he'll GO for the "Retreat Diaries," and I find a copy of Clarke's "Going into Space" for only $1, which is great, and he returns to say he'd wanted to list it for $30 but he'll give it to me for $20, and I open my wallet and show him $15, so he says he'll take that, and I have to borrow $1 from Dennis for the other book. Then stop in Benchley's for a beer but Dennis's treasure friend isn't in, and he has to get home, so I subway home and put books away. Paul calls to invite us to his place for dinner, but Dennis reminds me of the ballet this evening, and then I phone Paul and invite him for dinner HERE, so I have to go to the supermarket and buy loads of stuff, coming back and starting on the fresh peaches in Sambuca, which is fabulous, and he enters at 5:30, I continue with the salad and have been frying the skinned sausage meat for spaghetti, and Dennis enters at 6:15 and we eat quickly in the steamy room, me rushing around, and we leave about 7:10 for the ballet, which isn't that good (see DIARY 12055), and we subway up to Dennis's so that I can shower and shave while he looks through the Times, and we chat a bit about ballets and have sex and get to bed about 2. I feel that I've been VERY busy today and am quite tired, maybe getting sick?
DIARY 12056
SUNDAY, JUNE 19. We wake about 9 and have sex, getting out of bed at 10 so that I can watch pieces of the canonization of Bishop John Neumann as the first US male saint. But it's mostly a DREADFUL play in the style of "Do you think one day he might be made a saint? It's entirely possible" movies of the worst ilk. Read the Times while watching that from 10 to 11 and songs from the "Grass Harp" with a muscular "15-year-old" singing away with no style to very unforgettable songs produced, directed, and played by the two composers. They really ARE running out of things to do. Decide I don't want to attend the 52nd Street Fair (walking back from the restaurant with Susan on Friday (she hadn't heard of the fair, and WORKS on 52nd St!) we saw them putting up the most LEADEN clouds as part of the décor, so that seems to bode ill, particularly its billing as the "largest crowd of people on one street at one time," which meant that nothing could be seen), and get home to feel pretty awful. Read the end of "Resurrection" and can't imagine why it's considered such a great book (Katusha even decides to MARRY someone else, and they're NOT exiled, at the end) except for its INCESSANT harping on the evils of land-holding and cheating the poor and hypocrisy in upper echelons of business, the army, and the ruling class. Had gotten the stamps from Rowland Hill yesterday, so I looked through them with great glee, though increasingly hot and muggy weather makes it treacherous to handle them with moist fingers, and managed (see DIARY 12027!) to pass the time until 9, selling popper to Bryan for $10, when I watched "I Never Sang for my Father," in which an aging doddering Melvyn Douglas tried to blackmail Gene Hackman (distractingly named Gene in the movie) into staying with him after the wife/mother dies, and Estelle Parsons plays a PERFECT Helen Arnett with her practicality and unfeelingness, except here it happens to be MOSTLY right, and Sherwood Anderson has written another highly literate play that no one will be able to touch for the next 50 years. That goes to 11, then I watch Monty Python, and Dennis may have come over, but he didn't, and I read some more until I got too tired to keep my eyes open and then fell asleep, maybe after jerking off with the slide projector.
DIARY 12057
MONDAY, JUNE 20. Wake at 8 with a dream of a play rehearsal (see DIARY 12026), and much of the morning is described there, one of the bad things that started when I decided I didn't want to do day-pages anymore, and even remembered yesterday all wrong, since that's when all the READING started (see DIARY 12027), but since THAT page had been dated 6/20, I thought the READING had been on 6/20, but that page is ESSENTIALLY a day-page that I didn't want to let go of, thought it was for TODAY, and too late see that it was YESTERDAY. Anyway, get a kick out of reading, get a messenger delivery of the REAL P&F pages, though both days I felt SO logy that I lay down anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and tried to just take a nap, partly from the increasing heat and humidity in the apartment (temperature inside right NOW is 81), partly from the jerking off I've been doing recently, and NOW I realize, partly from the lack of exercise letting my body go to flab. It HAD been going increasingly to flab BEFORE, but I never recently connected my lack of pep with lack of exercise, but now that I think of it, it's always been that way. When I start to feel tired just coming up the STAIRS, let alone not running, SOMETHING'S going wrong! Anyway, read most of yesterday and today and even felt GOOD about it, though I was feeling lots of guilt about not doing light-work, though I'm looking forward to tonight's session. Type the two pages mentioned earlier, cursing that I'm behind on diary pages but unwilling to do anything about it, and one of these days I even went out to get large pots to replant the pot in, but that hadn't been done yet! Then have some small thing to eat, maybe doing dishes for the third or fourth time, since that's a big thing recently, and get out at 7:20 to Actualism, getting in at the dot of 8, the last one there (see DIARY 12028). Leave at 9:55, earlier than I'd expected (OH, also forgot that Mark Elliott called about my pilot, but said I should get it copyrighted, so I send a request for copywriting, send the check for theft insurance, and write 12 letters to mushroom-spawn companies from "The Green Pages."), and Dennis is cooking scalloped potatoes, so I watch "Man from Atlantis" with lovely 5-6 bodies on guys! Read his magazines and we do LITTLE chatting (something seems to be wrong there recently), and we eat about 11:30, drink, he smokes, and we get into nice sex, though I think I don't come, since I'm horny tomorrow.
DIARY 12058
TUESDAY, JUNE 21. (Just aborted a page on Actualism Advanced #1 because I realized I HAD DONE it before, and NOW know that without these DAY-pages, I wouldn't have anything to put in the DATE column in the Table of Contents, except possibly for the widely-variable typing date. But I may not have realized that until I TYPED the contents pages in January, tsk tsk.) Home to find "Ten-Minute Stories" waiting for me, type 4 pages (see DIARY 12028-12031) trying to catch up in SOME way, do light-work, and then watch "Smiles of a Summer Night," which is amusing in having the same names, but it just goes so much more SLOWLY, and some of the people are so STIFF, like the hero/lawyer, and they don't make enough of the LOVELY-looking son, and I can't SEE that the very pretty maid would take up with the FAT old coachman just because he's in her CLASS. But that takes the time until I have some lunch, and I'd done SOME work on the list of ballets (see DIARY 12059) until I turn on TV to watch "Knots" from 10-11, and some of the personality-conflicts seem sto convincingly done that I sort of feel sorry for some of the mooning men. Juan Merino has tight pants, can sing, dance, play piano and drums, juggle, mime, and is obviously gay. Others are interesting, but some of the knots lead to the VERY est-like realization that if you wouldn't WORRY about what was going on around you, you wouldn't GET yourself tied up in all these knots! Dennis went out for drinks with someone after TV class, so he didn't get in until about 10:50, just in time for the final credits on "Knots," and then we had some dinner which included my INCREDIBLE invention of melon with Sambuca which tasted so much like brown sugar that I ended up putting some on top, and it DID turn out to be incredible, even when Rolf called it "Two kinds of candy." He got into his cock, and I tried and tried and finally came with mine, bathed in sweat, and though I can manage to do it, I'm beginning to get annoyed about not having the energy to get into my OWN cock so that it looks good and feels good, and I'm sad that Dennis doesn't care to get into the porno that turns me on so greatly. But I have to tell HIM!
DIARY 12062
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22. We're up about 8:30 and masturbate together just to start off the day with a spasm till about 9:30, and then while Dennis is showering I jot down notes about a dream that I had (see DIARY 12063). Eat some scrambled eggs with the awful ricotta that I defrosted (and poured the rest of it down the drain) from Arnie, then Dennis left and I got to the index from 10:25 to 11:20, and then Bruce Lieber called and started talking convincingly about body-work, so he said he had to check on something, I worked on the index between 12:15 and 12:25, when he called to say that I should come right over. Well, I have to shower and shave and brush my teeth, so I get there in about an hour. He comes down and we go around the corner for pizza and pass the upstairs bookshop which I check and there's nothing new for me, and then the Community Bookshop re-introduces me to Andy Ramer (!) who says he remembers me from three years ago when we both helped (June 27, 1974, as it DID turn out) at NGTF, and HE'S the fellow that Bruce told me was freaked of Leadbeater's EYES! Then up to Bruce's to look through "The Zen of Physics," having BOUGHT "Tales of Power" that Bruce said I should probably wait three or four weeks to read, while waiting for his fat roommate and someone who'd wanted to listen to the Actualism intro to leave so that he could give me a body session (see DIARY 12064) from 2:30-3:30, and I feel rather light-headed after I get off the table. Then walk up other streets and pass the BROOKLYN library, and in to find that the BALLARD book is by someone OTHER James Ballard, and borrow a copy of "Easter" to xerox and find they have four OTHERS that I want. Phone Dennis at 5:20 but he's left work already, and home about 6 to find that he'd decided not to come over this evening (and I think this is the evening he ended up spending with GUY again, which is great!), work on index 6:30-8:20, I have something to eat, then watch "Trailblazers of Modern Dance," which is so good that I watch it again on Sunday and take notes on it. That's from 9-10, and then I either jerk off again with great gusto to a movie (no, I think I do BOTH), and then I continue reading "Intro to Philosophy" until 1:50 and I'm tired enough to sleep.
DIARY 12065
THURSDAY, JUNE 23. Up about 9, feeling somewhat groggy, and do an hour's light-work, which seems to help a bit, and jot down a note on a bit of a dream that I remember (see DIARY 12063), and when I finish with everything, I get down to working on the last of the index from 1:15 to 5:35, and in the middle of that I phone Susan and Martha Hayes and ask if I can't bring it in THIS evening, since I'm going to meet Dennis at "Vanities" anyway, but no one's staying, she WANTS the cards anyway, and as it turns out I wouldn't have had time to finish all the work ANYWAY. When it turns out I won't be going in, I stop and put together notes from the library, deciding to add a Watts to the list, which is really obsessing me recently. Type page 95001, just to continue work on the play, and then shower and get out for "Vanities," meeting Dennis pretty nearly on time at 7:50 at the Chelsea Westside Theater for an interesting production (see DIARY 12066). It's over just about 10, so there's time for me to get home and put on pork chops to broil for dinner, and Dennis is drinking sherry, which we finish, and then he goes on to white wine, which we finish, and then the pork chops are fine and the cooked corn is good and the melon in Sambuca and brown sugar is totally luxurious. He goes into the bedroom after washing, with drink, and I think to put on the Debussy tape, and he gets turned on by that and the booze, and we start caressing in a sexy way to the music, and we're both hard without hardly thinking about it, and he smokes a bit, and we get out the popper, and it just seems like an INCREDIBLE evening of sensuality and hedonism, though not particularly SIMPLE: food, booze, music, poppers, grass for him, comfortable bed, light, and we each come very nicely, except that he seems about ready to fall asleep as I come, and we finish at 1:50, delighted with each other, even talking quietly across to each other after the light's out, and I have a marvelous feeling of well-being, except that I'm getting more and more concerned about my STOMACH, which is so ugly when I washed off the come I could hardly own it as being mine, and I tell myself for about the dozenth time that I should start exercising again QUICK.
DIARY 95001
6/23/77
POINT OF VIEW
(DIARY 95000 is GRANDMA'S BAND original sheet typed on DIARY 12013.)
Figure that the number of children of Grandma could be dropped to THREE, and the daughter Lorene and the muscle builder son Gary could belong to the same parents. Then think that the silent lover could vanish since it would be better for the hero-narrator to speak to the AUDIENCE, rather like a guided tour of "Our Wake." But then having a narrator seems like a copout: anything that needs to be EXPLAINED to the audience would be better given in DIALOGUE among the characters. Hey, how about doubling Rita's husband with the muscle builder?? New list of minimal characters appears to be the following:
YMC 1. Hero: me, grandson, observer, "carrier of the spotlight," instigator of revelations.
OFL 2. Mother: Mom, "oldest daughter," boring, complaining, seeking love, bitchy.
YFC 3. Sister: Rita, "deserting" Mom, possibly ruined forever, married to
YML 4. Muscle builder: Dennis/Gary, love-interest of hero, silent ignorant copper.
OFC 5. Aunt: Helen, biting, fighting Mother, manipulating, married to
GMC 6. Dodderer: Jimmy, nervous, garrulous, Southern, financially involved, about to die.
OML 7. Uncle: Henry, businessman, sensible, father-image to Sister, married to
OFC 8. Busybody: Marion, socialite, do-gooder, "set things right with Mom," stupid, cancerous.
YFL 9. Beautiful woman: Lorene, Uncle's daughter, out-of-towner, fresh life-image.
Down from 14 to 9, not bad, and Mr. Didi can be talked about, the object of the former ideas meant for the lover can be the Sister; Aunt can lead the rosary instead of the priest, further infuriating Mother; Uncle can give the stabs of practicality that the undertaker would have furnished; Mom's friend can be only talked about, as can the old woman mother-in-law. Four men and five women seems about right: three couples and mother-son-daughter. The fantasy would be that ANY stock company would have JUST the right people, and EACH character would be in great demand as a tour-de-force: O=old/Y=young: M=male/F=female; L=lead/ C=character produces: listing to left of names, with only the old-female-characters needing two, and they're probably in most abundance anyway. Already thinking of the STOCK companies after the great hit that it makes on Broadway! Counting royalties before play's written!
DIARY 12067
FRIDAY, JUNE 24. Alarm doesn't ring because Dennis forgot to set it, but we're up about 8:30 and he gets out about 10, and I get back to finish the last of the indexes for Harper and Row from 10:15 to 12:45, and then don't even shower but, since Susan is having lunch with someone else, get out to Harper and Row about 1:30 and give it with the bill to Martha Hayes, and then xerox the complete Watt's "The Story of Easter," remarking something on the back about "4000 years of Christmas," an intriguing concept. Oh, had a dream that I jotted down just a bit of (see DIARY 12063). Then walk down 5th Avenue to look into Brentano's, and they have THREE Eiseley books that I hadn't seen before, so I buy them for $9 and change, and then continue down to the library and look at the addresses for xeroxing some of the Blackwood and Watts books, and then continue down to 40th Street to look at "Gravitation" and decide it's so incredible I MUST have it, so I continue down to 19th Street and Barnes and Noble and wouldn't you know find two of the three Eiseley books for half price. Then down to the basement and find a 49 Huxley "Ends and Means" just before we're all chased out at 5:45 closing time. Stopped around the corner on 19th for a bookshop there, too, but didn't find anything except a book initialed A.W. by Alan Watts that HAD a preface by Governor Jimmy Carter that someone had torn out. Also, Rebekah surprised me this morning by calling when Dennis was here, and she suggested "C2" was better than "second center," which did NOT agree with the top of the Human head, since the Human and Physical centers are in the SAME place, though Human's are larger. Tom is NOT in the group, my tongue is probably OK as long as it opens the esophagus, so she DOES call back after 24 hours. I'd had a call from Rolf, and he decided to come over later, so I ate, with wine, then watched most of start of "West Side Story" with the great helicopter shots at the start at 8, then an INCREDIBLE "Documenta 6" (see DIARY 12068) from 10:30-11, and Rolf comes in selling poppers and talks until 2:45 (see DIARY 12069), and I get to bed but fuss about missing light-work, so I get up and DO it from 2:55 until 3:25, figuring THAT'S enough for now, almost nodding into sleep, but feeling good about DOING it, anyway.
DIARY 12070
SATURDAY, JUNE 25. Out of bed about 10:15, and decide to treat myself to a number of lovely hours merely sorting the stamps from Rowland Hill into the 51 countries I now have to put away, this until about 1:30, and then (no, earlier) did light-work that was noted for its cacophony (see DIARY 12036), which leads me into lots of thoughts about control (see DIARY 12037), and about unproductivity (see DIARY 12038). Mark Elliot had called before, but I didn't answer, and he called again and said he'd be over to pick up the two Frommer books that Arnold had left with me for his trip to England on July 1-9, and he came over while I was watching a very inept "Horizons of the Sea" with the most repeated programmatic music I've ever been SO conscious of in a diving film about the coasts of Australia that taught me precisely NOTHING. That lasted from 3-4:30, during the last part of which I had some pork chops and corn for a meal from 4:15 to 4:45, during which I had two glasses of wine, and then was inspired to write the section on what I was thinking about NOW (see DIARY 12032-12033) and about the Philosophy reading and research I was doing now (see DIARY 12035) and thoughts engendered by Rolf's statement last night that the things he didn't do tended to slip through the cracks (see DIARY 12034), which made up the 7 pages I typed today. Then there's no more time left to type, because I had to shower and shave and get ready to meet Dennis at the Metropolitan Opera House for MY LAST TICKET OF THE SEASON, and since I'd been trying to squeeze in as many TDF dance performances as I could, then decided I wanted the TIME more (oh, had a LOVELY time cleaning the tub and sink in the bathroom one of these days, starting a cleaning job SORELY needed by the apartment), and figured that $12 in donations to ATL were worth it. "The Sleeping Beauty" wasn't that great, even with Cragun, though Haydee was fine (see DIARY 12071), and we're out at 11 to have him take me to Parenthesis where my veal is small (though good with walnuts) and watery and his chicken doesn't taste of the lime it's cooked with (and watery), and the wine is good, and then we're to his place about 1 after looking at ALL the gays on Columbus, and I put his new popper bottle in the fridge and the new grass in his pipe, but I'm tired, he wants to read the Times, I read part of the Times, we're to bed at 2, without sex, though we talked about it a bit; however, both of us WERE tired.
DIARY 12072
SUNDAY, JUNE 26. We wake about 9:30 and I start jerking him off, going on and on and on, sometimes very fast, sometimes slow, and at the end wetting my fist and scraping down on his head until he gasped and clutched and shuddered and came with gushes at 10:45, just minutes before his folks called, JUST as he'd gotten up to clean off before them and to put on coffee. I watched the mannered Ned Rorem talking about the pretty mediocre music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes from 11 to 11:30, and then read the Times and part of my book while Dennis poked around and finally made breakfast that ended about 1:30, and then he showered and we both watched "Trailblazers of Modern Dance" from 2-3 (see DIARY 12073), and then I left because he had to vocalize and then rehearse, and I wanted to type. Home to phone some people and decide that I'd made a mistake to discontinue the day-pages, so I go back and count some things like days versus pages in 4 weeks (missing 4 pages) (see DIARY 12039), and then type 13 pages in all, feeling VERY good about it. Do light-work. Water plants, exercise at last for first time in 5 weeks (!), phone Dennis to find that he'll be coming over after he goes to a New York Jazz Festival concert (and part of his delight on tonight's bedding was how good it was), so I have another artichoke while typing, and then do dishes---OH, today was the Gay Pride March, and both Pope and Rolf loved it for its stability, crowds of about 50,000, and I read back over the past ones and decided I was glad I didn't go, having decided on Saturday that I wouldn't, and calling Pope to that effect. Poor Malcolm had wanted about 20 people at his place and ended up with 5 in all. Then I made the last of the pork chops for Monty Python's Flying Circus from 11-11:30, and then watch a GREAT program on reincarnation on David Susskind with a voluble Huge Lynn Casey, talking about the great work of HIS son in A.R.E.; Ruth Montgomery, formerly a "hard-headed reporter" and now a thorough believer in the proof of reincarnation (like the kids who remember their most recent life); Gina Cerminara, who put me off by insisting that SHE'D lived a perfect life, though later I'd wished she'd spoken more; and Dick Sutphen, who hypnotized two people into an Indian massacre and a Roman general's stoning in "84" for killing his father-in-law. Dennis comes in just at the end, at 1:30, and he finally smokes a bit and gets into his cock and comes on my chest, pleased as anything about where we get his cock.