1980 6 of 10
SATURDAY, JUNE 14: Peter serves me breakfast and a wonderful conversation, I bus to Edmonton, talking to driver about driving in the incessant PLAINS in this part of the world, take a city bus to the glass pyramids of the Muttart Conservatory and revel in flowers, check in at the clean, cheap YMCA, right next to people paying $60 for their single rooms in the new Four Seasons Hotel.
SUNDAY, JUNE 15: Introduced to "Indian" problem of drinking in Canada (they have piles of oil money and nothing to spend it on), talk to old woman who was one of 21 children in Canada, and bus driver goes out of his way to show us the south shore of the Lesser Slave (Slave was the name of an Indian tribe, nothing to do with slavery) Lake. Peace River, Alberta, has nothing for tourists except a statue of 12-foot David and his grave on a hill, which I climbed up to before seeing "Luna" in the movie house, only show in town.
MONDAY, JUNE 16: Bus through Grimshaw, Manning, and High Level, then across the 60th parallel into the Northwest Territories, bus driver stopping to let ME out to get a shot, and everyone piles out at Alexandra Falls and Louise Falls, spectacular, and I chat with driver until Hay River. When I offer him coffee, he offers me a tour of Hay River. In the Greyhound bus! Look at the Old Town destroyed in a storm on Great Slave Lake, the New Town, and that's all there is. Motels getting expensive: this one $40 for a single per night.
TUESDAY, JUNE 17: On the bus driver's advice I change my plans to bus up to Yellowknife, buy a plane ticket there tomorrow, and bus across to Wood Buffalo National Park with a super-great driver who lets me off whenever I want to get a picture of a buffalo on the road, a bear, or a sinkhole. Yet another driver told me about Jacques Van Pelt, pelican researcher in Fort Smith, and he gives me a telescopic tour of the pelican feeding and mating and flying and nesting while the bus refuels, and then we ride back to Hay River---this doesn't SOUND exciting, but it was a great day indeed!
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18: Fly across Great Slave Lake, delighted to be seeing so much of Northwest Territories, the largest hunk of Canada, and walk Yellowknife all day, stumbling into the Wildcat Cafe for lunch, VERY native, and get a tour of the Con Gold Mines for the afternoon. Sit in library and in "Tom Horn" until midnight, which is when the ONLY bus (3 days/week) leaves Yellowknife!
THURSDAY, JUNE 19: Sun sets at 10:40 pm, but it's never really DARK. Board bus and see lots of Indian villages and giggling kids at 1, 2, and 3 am. Take an old ferry across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence, roust more buffalo, and have breakfast in Enterprise, striking up a conversation with Ian Stalker, from Montreal, out looking for summer work before returning to college, and we talk all through the day until hitting Edmonton at 10 pm; back to YMCA.
FRIDAY, JUNE 20: Beautiful bus ride down to Calgary, across to spectacular Banff under the fluffiest clouds in the world, where a railroad engineer who knows everything there is to know about the mountains, rails, weather in this part of the world gives me lessons on everything until he gets off in Revelstoke. Lunch in Glacier Park produces a series of photographs of a snow-into-rainstorm moving off the glaciers on the hills. Duck in the beautiful Okanogan Valley and drop asleep in the tacky Three Gable Inn in Penticton.
SATURDAY, JUNE 21: Bus to Vancouver talking to Mary, who heard both the Hope Slide, and Mount St., Helens, and who saw many forest fires through here. Her daughter, who studied natives in islands off Fiji and invited her mother there for two weeks, which I heard all about, and son-in-law met her and me at the airport and told me all I needed to know about Vancouver. Checked into the YMCA and then bussed out to the airport for my flight to Inuvik (you need a good map for this trip!). My tickets were delayed, was among the last to check into the plane, distressed by my aisle seat, and Jim and Viv Robertson, from Vancouver, insisted I sit at the window because they'd seen all these mountains before. Fabulous flight, but Inuvik, even though it WAS sunny at midnight on the longest day of the year, was crummy and boring, though it was fun to dig into Permafrost and buy genuine Eskimo handmade prints on burlap that were sold as Christmas cards---only thing worth buying.
SUNDAY, JUNE 22: Tour of Inuvik in school busses, but we got in at midnight and there was so little to see we were back at the airport at 3:20 for the 4:30 am flight back. Oh, yes: the Arctic char (fish) for dinner on the flight up WAS delicious, and all the wine you wanted helped lend a festive air to the tourists. Breakfast on the flight back started with cognac, which was nice, and I spent the rest of the flight in the pilot's cabin, listening to what it looked like when one of them had flown over St. Helens when she blew the first time. It really affected this whole part of the continent. Into Vancouver at 7:30 am and back to Y, sleep a bit, but Vancouver is cloudy so I take the Seabus across the Bay and sightsee a bit and get to bed early.
MONDAY, JUNE 23: Still cloudy, so I decide to continue, bussing up the Frazer River to Prince George, which ONLY had Paul Robson and Cedric Hardwicke on TV in an ORIGINAL movie version of "King Solomon's Mines"; I get more sleep. (Also TV coverage of NY's "Towering Inferno" on Park and 49th---good TV night!)
TUESDAY, JUNE 24: Seattle had four small earthquakes this morning---I worried at times that this whole section of the continent would explode! Pull my back for the only discomfort of the whole trip. Sit next to Jimmy from Cornwall who's looking to buy a farm here for him and his two brothers, so we share conversation and a room in Dawson Creek---the start of the Alcan Highway! Wander down a side street and run into Ian Stalker again; nothing much.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25: Bus across border to my LAST Canadian province or territory to visit: the Yukon! Mountains clouded but still spectacular; bus still comfortable even though the schedule requires that I spend nights on them.
THURSDAY, JUNE 26: Into Whitehorse at 6:05 am, fall into bed until 10 am, tour a riverboat, take a boat ride on the Yukon River, see a campy "Frantic Follies" until 11 pm and take sunset pictures until 11:30 pm. Pleasant frontier town.
FRIDAY, JUNE 27: Continue bussing Alcan Highway to Fairbanks, chatting with mother and daughter from Newport, first glimpse of Alaska Pipeline, and great talk with driver, who recommends a decent-enough $12 Fairbanks Hotel, far better than the $80/single Fairbanks Inn, where a rider I spoke with was staying. Lots of pictures at the Alaska border, my LAST state! Everyone who lives in Alaska just loves it, but Fairbanks doesn't have much going for it.
SATURDAY, JUNE 28: Decide to fly to Point Barrow---want to see the northernmost tip of the North American continent, and it's "only" $280 for flight and tour. Suspense waiting for LAST seat on plane, between carpenter who MOVED to Barrow and tells me all about it, and Randy, a tour escort who tells me about his group's tour, and I'm doing almost EXACTLY the same trip, but from independent plans made in Whitehorse. Great guy, Randy! Ice still in at the Arctic ocean shoreline, Eskimo show of dancing and crafts very interesting (pity the hall was too dim for photos!), and the place was totally fascinating: tundra, plumbing, government research, papooses in parkas, reindeer soup---and then a flight along the rim of the continent to Prudhoe Bay and the unearthly sight of the start of the Alaska Pipeline: looks like an infinitely long railroad train from the air, but from the ground it's enormous! Arctic ocean ice has patterns like roads and parks and cities, extraordinarily beautiful, and I have a window seat even though they almost guaranteed I wouldn't get on the plane. FABULOUS! Fly back to Fairbanks and catch my only glimpse of Mt. McKinley before landing. Collapse into a hot tub (not bad, 55 in Point Barrow) and sleep.
SUNDAY, JUNE 29: Socks damp still, damn! Train down to Anchorage a day earlier than planned, scenery rainy and romantic. Talk to Doug, who lives in a coed convent, teaches in Univ. of Alaska, and knows all there is to know about Alaska. Great traveling companions! Phone friends of Dennis in Anchorage and am heartily welcomed to the first Anchorage orgy! Nuff said!
MONDAY, JUNE 30: Dennis's two friends go off to work and Rob shows me the town, including Earthquake Park, where an exclusive community sank into the ocean, currently fringed by ANOTHER exclusive community NEXT to sink into the ocean! Treat Rob to lunch (it was the least I could do!) in a hotel-top dining room looking over the bay, then he drops me off at Jake's at 4, and HE takes over to drive me to Portage Glacier: Anchorage is cloudy and weather at glacier is TOTALLY clear and blue and sparkling and breathtaking. Back to find that Mark's made dinner for us four, and I ring down the curtain.
TUESDAY, JULY 1: Jake wakes me at 5 for the 7 am plane to Juneau along one of the most incredible mountain-bay-glacier landscapes in the world, and I then fly back to Whitehorse, which sounds backward, but I wanted BOTH to take the ENTIRE Alcan Highway, so I wanted to go from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, where it ends, AND I wanted to take the narrow-gauge railroad SOUTH from Whitehorse to Skagway. Glad the same cheap Fort Yukon Hotel was still available right next to the bus station. Toured the local museum and took a boat the OTHER direction on the Yukon River with 6 crew and 5 other tourists for a picnic on an island---a steak barbecue, liberal wine, GREAT weather. Bed.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2: Train down with Rick Hereld and his O-ma (grandma), who lives on W. 91st St. in NYC (Rick's in Victoria, having escaped to Canada to avoid the draft), and lots of shots of the Chilkoot Trail of the 98er's, and a really spectacular last hour going over the British Columbia-Alaska border (not too far after the Yukon-British Columbia border---I SAID you need a map!) in a jumble of mountains, glaciers, streams, bridges, and camera-angles. Roar into Skagway, one of the neatest tourist towns I've ever seen, and join those two for dinner and have some drinks and enjoy my good cheap room.
THURSDAY, JULY 3: Tour the town and two gals collar me for Flight-Seeing over Skagway: $35 for an hour. INCREDIBLE!! Glaciers and moose and PORCUPINES (yes, we DID fly low enough to see porcupines VERY clearly!) and rivers and forests and bears and the Chilkoot Trail with hikers following the Trail of '98---the best hour of the trip. Onto the ground to find the local cemetery, the museum, another tour, another meal, exhausting the charming community, and then it's time to board the Taku, the Alaska Inland Passage ferry, at 6 pm. Stay up watching waterfalls and fjords and mountains and a glorious sunset---boat not at all crowded, very nice---
FRIDAY, JULY 4: until we get to Juneau (yep, again) at 3 am. First hotel is full (only time that happened on the whole trip) so I go down the street to the Alaskan, VERY colorful (read: cruddy), and sleep till 9. Out to find the town gathering for the July 4 parade, pass all the floats, and cab to the airport for a short flight to Gustavus, which is ALSO having a parade, this one in trucks and on horseback and with everyone (all 70 of them) in town there. Bus for an hour out to Glacier Bay Lodge and fall in love with it---the only woodsy place I've ever seen that's NICER than Hemlock Hall---I wanna go back THERE, I tell you. Lunch with Randy, then out with his group to the Glacier Bay Explorer, a 70-passenger yacht, and out into Glacier Bay at 2, totally unseasonably clear and sunny. Gulls and mures and guillemots and mergansers and terns and loons and phalaropes and harbor seals and bald eagles and porpoises and killer whales. Glaciers and clamorous waterfalls and calvings of glaciers with huge waves and gunshot-sounds for the July 4 something-different festival. (The glaciers broke off with gunshot sounds, there were no guns.) Fabulous fresh salmon and halibut dinner, great people in Randy's group, more glaciers as the sun sets about 11:30, and then a midnight snack of gargantuan proportions---totally sybaritic!
SATURDAY, JULY 5: I wanted waked for dawn, glorious, but then clouds moved in and the day was more "typical": overcast and gray and drizzly. Still no sight of humpbacked whales, which they think the tourists drove out of the bay. Pity. Back to lodge at 10 am, lovely forest trail through rain forest, then to flight back to Juneau, where I cabbed back to Alaskan, got lunch in the Indian village, climbed the Mount Roberts that Juneau is smack up against (it's GOT to be the most picturesque village of ANY state capital---sad that it's being replaced in a number of years by Talkeetna), and stagger into the Red Dog Saloon for two beers before collapsing into bed at 8 pm.
SUNDAY, JULY 6: Waked at 2:30 am and got onto ferry Malaspina, which leaves at 3:30 am, and I'm alone in a cabin for 4. Join a bunch of retired Georgians in the lounge for a chat (getting a front-row chair in the bargain), and spend the day talking, eating, looking at passing towns along the coast, and deciding this was nice, but not the best part of the trip. More porpoises, killer whales, lots of passing ships, Petersburg and Wrangell colorful, and we get a tour of totem poles in Ketchikan at 9 pm. Bed exhausted.
MONDAY, JULY 7: Woke at LAST call just before leaving Prince Rupert at 5 am, and town is dead, so I read in terminal and get to airport at 9 and fly to Vancouver by 11 am, for the BEST, CLEAREST weather that cloudy town's had all year. Get to Stanley Park and enjoy the zoo and aquarium and restaurant and OUTSTANDING roses, see more totem poles before dinner, and to last YMCA bed.
TUESDAY, JULY 8: Wake at 4:40 am for the 7 am flight from Vancouver to New York, great views over Calgary, the Rockies, the Great Lakes, and finally New York at 3:15. Rip off NYC transit system by having only 52 (how was I to know they'd raise the fare to 60 while I was away?) for the exact-change bus, and get home to unpack and get greeting from Dennis, and dinner, and during the next week send off my 20 rolls of film for my 450+ photos!!
ENTERTAINMENT 5
8/5/80
THE BERLIN BALLET (7/22, 25, 26)
Trying to get TKTS tickets for this on Monday, first by going to the downtown office and being told they sometimes get them, but too late for THAT office, then by going uptown and finding none listed at 4, seeing "Fame" till 7, finding none THEN, walking up to the Met and finding it's SOLD OUT, everyone SEEKING tickets, leads me to a "feeding frenzy" in which I buy a ticket for Tuesday for the same program and resolve to see the final Saturday, too. Well, it's not that wonderful. Tuesday's "Firebird" with Evdokimova has brilliant sets by Jurgen Rose (which Fred Courtney hates), but Klaus Beelitz isn't super. Panov and particularly Panova do well enough with "Don Quixote Pas de Deux," though only about 8th overall in that ballet event. "Five Tangos" elicits interesting gay-historical background data about the Argentinean tango from Fred, Nureyev does well enough with the angular movements, and the two guys are nicely erotic, but it's nothing to be seen again. "Miss Julie" has Nureyev looking rather lumpish compared to the elegance of Erik Bruhn, and Panova's good but not super, again. But I'm looking forward to more, and to seeing more people like Gelvan and Robert Blankshine, neither of whom I see at ALL. But Friday's "The Idiot" is a disaster, even from the second row; a mishmosh of Shostakovich music leading nowhere and building notime, only one or two duets for Nureyev and Panova that have ANY charm, lots of over-dramatization by Panov, and Evdokimova isn't convincing as an ACTRESS at all. Even the vaunted spectacle and costumes creak and groan into place pointlessly and with too much speed to be appreciated, and only Sandor Nemethy stood out as a DANCER as Ganya. The plotting was ludicrous, and only the final almost-naked bell-ringing sequence for Nureyev remained in the memory. Didn't look forward too highly to "The Nutcracker," but the growing tree was too heavy, the snowflakes seemed to dance forever, there wasn't much of ANY glory in ANY of the choreography, and as Nureyev almost dropped Panova in "Miss Julie" he completely fumbled Evdokimova toward the end here, so he must be getting tired; he surely no longer possesses the sit-up speed and panache of earlier years, but sadly the Berlin Ballet would have been sadder WITHOUT him---can't see why I'd care to see the company again.
ENTERTAINMENT 6
8/5/80
LE CYGNE---$120 restaurant (7/30)
Sitting at the 5-seat bar is pleasant with kir and Drambuie (though $9.50 is WAY too much) with two other men, and we're seated toward the back near the kitchen and a 10-person party in the middle gets louder and louder, so the noise level is outrageous all the way along. My paté was good but not super, but Dennis's moules au moutarde were deliciously clean, tender, fresh, and tasty: a good start. I'm glad I remembered the Muscadet du Sevre et Marne for $13, because it's bland but not offensive. My quenelles are sheer heaven, whispery clouds of lovely tasting pike in a honey-crayfish sauce that's just marvelous. His veal in champagne with morels is very tender and tasty, though possibly a BIT bland, but he only gave me a taste once. Pureed green beans were nice, bread good, but I had to serve the wine because everyone was so VERY busy and rushed. We ordered the raspberry soufflé which was just extraordinary with the crushed fruit on top: light and flavorful and warm and sweet and delicious. Cute guy from Philadelphia at the corner table wanted some, so we tasted his cake for dessert, too, and got into conversation about his selling rare stamps, her belly dancing outside Lima, and my indexing---gave him a card for "sending me a catalog" and later Dennis and I wondered what brought them together: he probably gay: commenting how slender we looked while eating in all these great restaurants. On the other side Dennis concluded that the married businessman was trying to seduce his Turkish or Levantine younger Andre-like partner. The food was above Caravelle and Grenouille and below Lutece, the price was a bit high, to be sure, but this was dinner, not lunch, and only the noise and the crowd was really AGAINST it, but I'd like to try more things on the menu, more of their desserts, too, since the soufflés have to be for both. Both dinners were fix-priced at $36.50, Dennis's coffee was $1.25, which he knew but treated himself to, and the supplement for the dessert had to be $8 to make the tax $7.75 and the bill $103, which I remember (and how sad I didn't pay with Visa so I could take if off my account), and left the rest from $120 for a tip, so this is the FIRST $100+ restaurant!!
ENTERTAINMENT 7
8/5/80
PALACE---$153.64 RESTAURANT (7/31)
Interesting to compare this with yesterday's Le Cygne: that loud and crowded and very expensive, this silent and spacious and even more expensive, but with food that was more INTERESTING than DELICIOUS. We walked along loud 59th Street from "Arabian Nights" to the so-silent entrance and we were the FIRST, at 7:30, of only 17 patrons (everyone says they're not doing well, and though July and August wouldn't be their BEST month, Thursday shouldn't be their WORST night): two Village-y types behind Dennis, young socialites to my left, a top-heavy executive and his wife behind me, a father-mother-son Chinese trio next, then a gray haired man/blonde woman duo, and then a foursome (2M/2W) at the far table. The wine list was dazzling: prices under year across from domaine running as high as $1200 I see, and we got essentially the LOWEST of the imports: $20 for a Kobrand Muscadet du Sevre et Marne, a tiny bit more tasty than yesterday's $13 bottle. Roll good, butter Dennis-soft in a roll-over server, dishes gold rimmed to the hilt, but the menu listed a 9-course dinner for $150 that could for the MOST part be eaten on the 7-course dinner for $95 AND (except for the Releves, mainly fish) on the 6-course dinner for $50! (Entree, soup, meat, salad, dessert, coffee). $150 added another entrée and a sherbet before the meat. I fell for the "Violet au Petales d'une Rose," "Cameaux and Emailles," a sprinkling of caviar atop mixed lobster and beef tartare on a tippy artichoke heart swimming in a salty green (reduction of watercress and spinach) sauce with pink rose petals which I ate. Dennis had lobster salad, tasty, but on the bland side. My salmon was light and flavorful, the scallion-tied carrot and green bean (and asparagus for Dennis) faggots picturesque, his filet tender in a tasty (though not extravagant) Béarnaise sauce, and the tiny puff potatoes in potato chip baskets nice. And another vegetable puree of turnip and carrot. Salad nice, but not incredible, but the desserts (for which I was left nicely vacant) were overkill: lush white chocolate mousse in chocolate surroundings, apple pie, house-chocolate mousse and cake, and a whole hard-sugar (broken, for our table) presentation of strawberry, pastry, éclair, tart, other pastries that we finished up. Coffee tasty, though he didn't bring back a second filling. We left at 10:30, after many others, and the Royal Table remained empty, oddly carpet-less, the candles dripped onto the living roses and baby breath, the place was breathlessly noncommunicative, and even when we TRIED to warm up the help they remained cold and aloof, commenting frostily on the spun sugar, animal fat, flower, lobster shell, ceramic, glass presentation pieces.
WEDNESDAY, 8/6/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #7 (6/3): Amazed that I didn't do a page for this, but since last time was good, this time was probably bad. Even more depressing, I remember, was that beautiful Roy seemed to be into sharing his body and himself, necking and kissing with lots of guys, none of them me. There seemed to be more people there each time, but so many of them were old faces that I seemed to pre-reject myself from going up to them. A blond fellow with an incredibly beautiful body seemed to sport a perpetual hard-on through the entire evening, ending up on the bleachers with a row of guys on stools against the bar, including me, but I'd rubbed myself so raw and nerve-less by this time that I couldn't even THINK of coming, even though I stayed until about 1:30, the latest of them all. The tall guy with a big cock who seemed to want just to play with himself (I think this was the night) was at the IND subway station since the IRT was closed down again into Clark Street, and he didn't look at me AT all, which was depressing. Didn't want to get the headache I got before, so I didn't even take in the popper bottle, taking one inhale from someone else during the evening and getting a more positive response doing it that way. Completely observed myself holding off for the most beautiful people and then being disappointed when they didn't come over to me to seduce me. Some few tried necking with me and I put them off with the story that I'd just come, and I WAS glad to see that some of the downers from before weren't coming back. Consoled myself with the thought that if last time was good and this time was bad, that would just mean that the NEXT time would be good, even though it would be just before I leave on my trip. Maybe this was the week that John was away, so I didn't feel put off by his antics that I didn't feel right in participating in. Began to think that I should be more into necking, which I do better than screwing, but this seemed not to be exactly the place for that kind of activity. Since this was over two months ago, I can't remember exactly what else happened, except that I still wasn't put off enough by one evening's disappointment to seriously think about going elsewhere for my uninhibited sexual kicks.
THURSDAY, 8/7/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #8 (6/10): Worked on the index until I was sure I could finish it tomorrow, and then decided I WOULD go since it was my turn to have a good time. Jerry was there, wanting to neck and tease, saying he was going to Chicago for a few days, canceling out my going to Alaska for a month. Roy was even more promiscuous than before, though still not getting near me, and I tried getting into a group around the beautiful bodybuilder, but he specifically pushed me away. I kept hanging around the pool table, and there were a few scenes going on there, including a few guys that I could have gotten off on, but I just didn't feel like making any approaches to any of them for fear of being rejected. I felt better not having the poppers with me at all, but then I didn't have anything to offer anyone, either. Tried to find some guys who just liked to be WATCHED, but that didn't seem possible. Then, too, I was rather worried and over-concerned about how much I had to do before leaving on the trip on Thursday, so I felt preoccupied with other thoughts and left about 11, enabling me to work more on the index starting at 11:55. Felt that it would be a good thing to be away from the place for a month or so: let them get some new clientele, let me out of my feeling that no one wanted me, and maybe show me some new technique of going with the particular flow of the place so that I could get something to make it worth the time I devoted to it. Even tried not drinking for a bit, but then it was warm in some corners and I just had to drink some beer to cool off. People seemed to be getting more into fist fucking and screwing than before; I became somewhat annoyed that people didn't think of this as a JERK OFF night, which was what it was supposed to be. I don't think I came at all, which was depressing, too, and I probably jerked off quickly just to relieve the pressure after 1:55, when I stopped work on the index. Gave myself the excuse that I was concerned about finishing all the indexes before going off on my trip, which promised to be an expensive one, and I'd even gotten about $2000 in traveler's checks and decided to take along my VISA card for anything that might be over that---$100/day for 27 days is $2700!!
FRIDAY, 8/8/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #9 (7/15): In my CRIF this afternoon I suddenly thought that I was trying to act as everyone ELSE acted at J's: being humpy and sexy and studdy, whereas all I wanted to do was find someone who liked long, teasy, sensual jerking off. Decided that what I HAD to do, then, was situate myself on the bleachers and work myself into a nice oozy erection and play with myself at the edge of coming until everyone was so fascinated that they joined me and came off the same way. It seemed so simple until I got there! Then the bleachers were full until it got started, then the background action was much more interesting. I kept my hands off my cock so that it'd be fairly fresh when something interesting happened, but then two guys got into it and I started working on myself and before I knew it I was scummy and sweaty. Art Bauman was there, had been there the first time last week, and he seemed to be enjoying it, saying he'd phone and we'd talk at a more appropriate time. I'd sit on the bleachers and play with myself every so often, but this time there was a CUTE kid with a GREAT j/o face who would egg everyone on into coming, and he'd stand in the middle of the floor and talk with the blond, who'd now become a bartender; John declared he was a porno star, and it was a kick to see him behind the bar working on himself, and putting himself out for anyone who wanted to lean over the bar to suck him, and then when he was off he'd come to the table and get everyone hot around him as he jerked off. I came once on the table; Jerry did too, and it seemed like this might be a more happy atmosphere---at least I felt like coming back next week with something like optimism. I seemed more content to WATCH, now, waiting for anything to happen if it WOULD happen, not fulfilling my fantasies of jerking off on the bleachers but at least doing more what I wanted to do, rather than trying to look like everyone else. Many of the newcomers were quite attractive, too, and I suppose I held out the fantasy that they'd run through the gamut of beauties and then work their way down to me, who'd turn them on and we'd all have fun. That took a couple of weeks to die, but die it did, finally, by the time of J's #11.
SATURDAY, 8/9/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #10 (7/29): Dennis said he might go along, since I had a good time last week, but then he said he'd have to work, but ROLF called and said HE wanted to go along. I put on my sexy Indian shirt from Art, which I wore last week and felt good in, and we got there fairly early to find the place crowded. There was action downstairs in the dim red-rooms down there, and for awhile I thought I may have found a good corner to perch on and watch the action: tall fellows with nice bodies were being jerked off down there and some even reached over to me for some moments---though when I reached over to one and he was soft that sort of turned us BOTH off. There was an awful scene of fist-fucking on the table with someone who was HIGHLY stoned wincing and wanting more from a wiry fellow who was giving it to him, but then the white lotion turned pink and started splotching on the green baize top, and I walked away before any more blood started flowing, totally turned off. I tried sitting on a stool by the table to overlook anything that went on, but then it would seem that NOTHING went ON! Got into a nice circle with the sexy-eyed guy from the first few times egging me on, and I managed to shoot off and he said "Thank you," with a smile, but when I reached for him HE was soft, and there didn't seem to be an electricity. There were a few times around the table with the kid-like sexy dark-haired guy, and with the bartender with the body, but John was acting up with some fairly ugly guys, and there was a growing tendency that turned me off: some sexy young man would shoot and the hands of the gnarled old men would snake out to scoop the come off the table and lick it off: it seemed cannibalistic and rather too desperate to be watched by me with equanimity. But then, I told myself, last time wasn't that bad, so THIS was the bad time before the good time NEXT time. The short guy who looked like Joe Angelo stood eyeing me for a bit, and I fantasized my "stand-awayness" might be attractive to him---and he did find himself talking to older, plumper fellows than he, and he DID like to neck, so there was a chance of something happening, I hoped. Some sexy scenes under the lights around chairs in the corner, but nothing to make me very happy, so I left about midnight before Rolf did, who said he had a marvelous time.
SUNDAY, 8/10/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #11 (8/5): Bruce said his birthday party would be TOMORROW night, so I looked forward to "good" turn tonight. Dennis said no, Rolf said yes, I drank lots of wine with an early dinner and felt pleasantly loose, even wearing my jockstrap, but when I saw the "fashion" was for baggy ones that SHOWED big boxes, I felt my tiny one for holding me IN wasn't good, so when the line to the checkroom finally dwindled about 10, I checked it too. Took my popper this time, swigging from it from time to time, but it seemed too strong at first sniff to really WORK. Downstairs was even busier, except when one light went off at the front, and Rolf was part of a circle of action with a cute guy and the Joe Angelo-type necking like mad, but no one even reached out for me, except one fellow upstairs in a chair when I got hard watching a circle of 3-4 guys egging each other on, but only one shot. Lots of guys with great hard cocks seem NEVER to come (at least under my prying eyes). After my CRIF this afternoon, I tried seeing what ENERGY to use and came up with the interesting conclusion that this place might not WANT light, that anyone who would be PROMISING as a lightworker wouldn't even COME here, so maybe THAT'S why trying to use the energies got me less than nothing. There didn't seem to be ANY group around the table tonight, there was LOTS of necking going on between duos and LOTS of fucking and ass-eating around the room, which turned me off. Jerry said he was finishing an affair of a month; John hardly jerked off at all, and I left at 11:30 because I knew the Clark Street wouldn't be running after 12. Home depressed and jerked off quickly to good porno. Figured since THIS was supposed to be the good time, I'd change off and try visiting Man's Country, the Club, Everards, the Ansonia, and a few of the other places before returning to J's---a change of pace would be good. John moaned about how CROWDED is was: 130 last night, so THAT'S why I had #39 coat check from a second or third series and there was a line. But it's good for their business, but it seemed somehow more CONVENTIONAL cruising with open sex than a jack-off party like I would have fantasized it would be. DID enjoy looking, but not WORTH it that much.
MONDAY, 8/11/80: 8/6/80 WHERE AM I NOW?: Have LOTS of indexing to do, so I'll have lots of money. With lots of work, I won't mind indulging in lots of entertainment until that wears out. Then I can get back to the books and the other things on my LIST-10 sheet. Encouraged by Richard's statement that it's "impossible" for a CRIF to fail, saying that the effects will be felt over a period of weeks, and I DO feel more direct, more unmixed, though some of the simplicity is beginning to surprise people: Dennis is shocked with the extent of my THROWING OUT as I took advantage of his suggestion for me to have a tag sale and I pushed if off onto HIM. We DID get to lots of restaurants last week, Forsythe Saga is over in a few days, freeing me up for LUNCH for more, followed by movies and plays and museums, so THAT all looks good. Caught up on my telephone calls to Don and Andre and Arthur and Susan, which is fine. Now that the last of these pages is over I can start on indexing in earnest. Dennis and I seem pretty good: he's working lots with enthusiasm, which is good, and we've had good sex the last few times, so that seems to be fine, as do the meals we have together. It's good there's not much on TV. Actualism seems more special now that our group's gone down to 6, though I really feel sorry that we might be delayed to wait for another group, since I don't feel myself in need of "consolidation." Though the fantasy of getting off for a month of joining John in India, or taking the Antarctica trip, is appealing---have to talk to Crystal about that. Finances are good, pornography is sorted out, closet are emptying, apartment fairly clean, and aside from the horrible cleaning, even the dentist is under control and getting finished slowly. Am I "storing experiences" against the calamities of the 80s? Astounding that 1980 is over HALF over and nothing much has happened except (big except!) Mount St. Helens. Amy'll be back soon, so more readings, Arnie's occupied with travels, Don's not called back, and letters will have to be done sometime, but not soon. Pictures still to be labeled, but that can wait. Bruce's dinner tonight; air conditioning appreciated during these weeks of HOT HUMID weather, so THAT'S where I am! Not much terribly interesting, but there it all is anyway, down to page-bottom.
WEDNESDAY, 8/13/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #12 (8/12): I'd told everyone I didn't want to go back, but Paul Bosten came over to give me $20 for a past and present bottle of poppers and VERY much wanted me to come with him on his first time there, so I finally said OK, since he'd done favors for me in the past and I'd like to keep on the good side of him. Then Rolf called, saying he was going too, so we met for the car at 9:10 here. Like two old maids, John and John change the place around: this time the open area between the two right areas above the step had been closed in, making it essentially two "rooms," the first brightly lit, the second dimmer. The swinging partition was gone, good, and the downstairs room, which had been dimly lit before, was now dark except for a light in the NEXT room which made a streak of visibility about 5'6". At first I thought it might be fun: people were more into SHOWING OFF, but when NO one touched me, and EVERYONE would clear out of EACH roomlet or section that I'd go into, I began to suspect I had some odor or visual aspect that actively turned people off. Though people who were objectively much more unhandsome than I were getting their rocks off with no trouble. The leather vested kid got onto the table under the light and jerked off with a gusto, which all onlookers (and there were a LOT of them) liked, and it was so "public" that the older hands didn't even come flicking out to gather and swallow the cum. John was on the table straddling someone, and came, but though I sat by the stool for a long time, there wasn't much action there. Paul ended up liking it, Rolf seemed to gravitate toward the handsomer fellows, and I didn't get approached (nor did I approach) ONCE. I analyzed and found that my problem was ANALYSIS: everyone came there to FEEL and TOUCH, and there I was NOT feeling and touching, but THINKING. But then I hadn't wanted to be there anyway. So my $5 lasted for 3 beers, 7 tokes of popper, and from 9:35 to 10:50, when I met Paul and said I was going---along with a number of other people who seemed to be leaving. So again I vow not to go back for a long time: again it's the PREJUDGMENT: THIS one is too pretty for me, THIS one turned me down before, I don't like all of THOSE, and it's SEPARATIVE.
THURSDAY, 8/14/80: SEPARATISM!: Decided to do a session this morning with Wisdom AND Red, and came up with the idea that SEPARATISM is the crux of my sexuality: THIS person is "sexable" and THAT person is not. Among those who are NOT are women (half the human race---not to mention all the OTHER races), those much older than me, those much younger than me, those whom I judge to be too pretty for me, those whom I judge to be too ugly for me, and those who don't have sexy faces, bodies, cocks, and intelligent minds and personalities and senses of humor. That effectively separates the world into them and ME. As does jerking off! Then I think of it in terms of Actualism progress: THEY would have EVERYONE equal on the inner; but I'm based so much on the OUTER (like the difference between Dorothy Kent and Bob Dukes, for example---it may be that Dorothy is FAR richer inwardly than Bob, but that's sure not the way I LOOK at them!) that I can't even SEE the inner. This leads me to an idea of "take-away" which I never like. But what could be ADDED (there are so many MORE inner dimensions, they say, than there are outer) is so much the GREATER. Yet I know and sense and feel that I can't TALK about it and get anywhere, I have to DO something about it. Werner's dictum floated through my mind again: "When you're hot, you're hot; when you're not, you're not," and I added "And OUGHT has nothing to do with it," since I "ought" to be hot at J's, and feel all the more frustrated when I'm NOT (not ONE TINGE of a hard-on last night, with all that blatant sexuality, yet I remind myself of my erection in the shower with the German in Vancouver, and then I KNEW that I was hot!), and it's equally frustrating to "ought not" be hot when I AM, but since THAT hasn't occurred in so long, I should be willing to give it a try. And of course there's the parameter of my own physical age: one doesn't NEED sex as often at 43 as one did at 34---usually DON'T need it twice a day, now, even if I need it ONCE a day, which I seldom do, and THEN even when I get into it, it's an unusual session when I go TWICE, let alone the three or four or even five and six times that I'd try for in earlier days. So I have a DIRECTION that seemed DIFFERENT (toward NON-separatism). Let's TRY it.
FRIDAY, 8/15/80: BROADWAY PLAYS: Saw "They've Playing Our Song" last Monday, and it was better than I thought it would be, better Simon than usual, and yet, in the long run, it's no big deal. Saw "West Side Story" last Wednesday, and it was better than the reviews would have led me to believe, and the play IS strong and DOES stand up, though the cast wasn't the dynamite impact of the first, but it was worth seeing for $9.50. "Oklahoma" is closing in a few weeks, and I've never seen it, so I should go to see that next. There are others that appeal to me, and Amy said "Are you trying to make up for the rest of your life?" and of course I CAN'T. The Broadway plays close, open, change, move, get revived, get sold out, and to KEEP UP WITH IT would be an infinite task. So I have to get to the point where I am NOW: PAST the point of saying "I haven't seen anything in ages, I don't use New York like I should, I've got to get out and do more," and not QUITE to the point of saying "I've had it, there's nothing more here, I have to start concentrating on something else." Of course there is the rarely-hit point in the middle of moderation: let's go to the theater once a week, or once every two weeks, and let me think that I'm keeping up with it without feeling deprived without it. That philosophy applies to other things: I KNOW how I feel when I'm sated with opera, ballet, modern dance, galleries, museums, and even sex. But now that I'm feeling deprived, I have to add THAT BIT which will satisfy without sating. Even more areas come to mind: reading, writing, indexing, travel, sexual encounters, movies, TV, crossword puzzles, stamps, people, solitude, non-travel. Too much of ANYTHING is too much. What about LIFE?? That only takes AS MUCH LIVING AS WILL SATE ME, and then I'll probably want a respite from that too, though as far as I can tell I'll probably want to go back into it at some later date. But TO DATE I haven't lived enough so that I'm sated with it, so I'm not ready to give it up. Though TIME brought the contentment with LESS sex, and probably some day I'll be content with NO sex at all, so maybe at THAT point I'LL FIND OUT that it's possible to be sated with life, to want it to end, to want to leave in order to come back again all over again.
SATURDAY, 8/16/80: BACK TOWARD EVERY-DAY-ISM: Some part of me LIKES to index all day, then absorb entertainment all the next day, then travel all the next week, then play all the next month, then work all the next year, then absorb entertainment all the next lifetime. I wonder how much THIS life, so MUCH without "oughts" to fulfill, might not be some "reaction" to "previous lives" in which I've been tied up with the responsibilities of a family, or a job, or a permanent mate, or just the strictures of economics and society, so that EVERYTHING I did was something I OUGHT to do: provide, take religion, be responsible. Now everything that I OUGHT to do, I don't: write, exercise, absorb entertainment to MODERATION, massage my gums, become enlightened. But there seems to be so much to DO every day: bathe, shower, shave, exercise, eat, lightwork, index, clean the apartment, read, and absorb some sort of entertainment. It would become FLAT, I believe, with too much repetition. I CAN repeat for a bit, but then I take off on a trip, or I work for 15 hours in a day, or I spend the day in front of the TV, or I see two plays and a movie and eat in a restaurant. More balance in action might serve for more balance in Reaction---and where did THAT come from?? Sometimes I regret not doing daily pages: what will I remember of yesterday when I watched TV, washed kitchen curtains and the windows, bought two light switches to stop my work light from flickering and relit one-half my bed light, talked to Mom on the telephone, read some of Doctor Doolittle, entertained Paul Bosten, went to J's, jerked off to "Rock Hard," served Dennis a different dinner of fish, peas, and crème-de-menthe whipped cream over brandy-Galliano-cherry Marnier-soaked fruit salad, and corrected his index misconception of an index with 6 chapters as an index with six headings, each of which has 57 subheadings? And got three phone calls from various indexing jobs to impress Paul as he sat here drinking wine and complaining about the lack of planning that went into the computer system that may drive "Morning's at Seven" from his Schubert Theater. And then there's writing, which I still don't do, and stamps, which are rising to the top, and finishing various books as I'd wanted to before but STILL haven't done.
SUNDAY, 8/17/80: Note from 8/15/80 DAY OF ENTERTAINMENT: Yesterday, after dreaming and Dennis leaving, I decided at 9:30 to get right over to Arnie's to see the beginning of the Forsythe Saga, but when I couldn't find them, I contented myself with an hour with Royal Heritage, feeling oddly touched when Prince Charles examined Charles III's schoolwork and allowed similarities between their feelings of inadequacy in Latin and went on to say that everyone thought Charles III was shy until they got to know him and then they thought he was intelligent and charming. Then "That's Entertainment, Too" had some good clips of Garbo "wanting to be alone" and Gable's "I love ya" and people effortlessly composing songs and lots of Hepburn and Tracy and even more of Sinatra and Garland and Kelly and Astaire. Then watch episode 5, getting hungry around 2, and getting home to realize I WANT to see "Battle Beyond the Stars" and "Starcrash," so I phone for the schedule and have hamburger and hear Dennis doesn't want to go and subway there for the anticlimax of "Starcrash" with only the tall slender beauty of David Hasselhoff (unless he was the pocked-faced evil) to make it interesting. BBTS had some rather beautiful other-planet effects, but Akira was so simpy and Richard Thomas so clean-faced (except for his birthmark, which they could have erased, surely, in that far a future) that there wasn't any GUTS to the movie, and even Nestor (or whatever the clone-race was called) was not that well-delineated. Then out to look at what was available on TKTS and there's "Peking Opera" at the Met for $13.50 for the most expensive price in the least desirable seating: extreme side of the Grand Tier, not quite as good as 8th row center orchestra. So I pulled another ligament in my leg rushing up there, had a slice of pizza on the way, and sat through the opera rather impatiently: once every 3-4 years is quite enough for this, though it IS colorful and pleasantly foreign and JUST about what a stoned mind would dream up for exotic diversion. Out at 10:30 and home for fish and wine and get a call for Dennis, so go down to comment on his last curtain-hanging, finish the Chambord liquor and have some Iced Sloe Gin, not bad, and get to bed at 1:25 to sleep uncomfortably in the humidity and be VERY surprised when we wake at 10:55, I read New Yorkers, he serves me scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and I'm up at 12:30 to type pages after reading mail, and it's now TWO days that I've done essentially NOTHING!
ENTERTAINMENT 8
8/19/80
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS---SPECIAL EDITION
Only 1.5 minutes of the desert, Mongolian, in which a ship, Mexican, is found, and 3 minutes inside the mother ship, with the ceiling rising off the central entrance chamber to reveal a pomegranate-like cluster of little ships in the center which fins lower around, with the little red light zipping around and entering (which Dennis didn't remember at all), and then he looks up a large wall (tears in his eyes, unmoving) with lots of windows showing the creatures, some moving around, and at the ceiling is a neon light ring that starts a downpour of white, liquid light, which moves inward to white out the screen, and there's no knowledge if this atomizes him, enlightens him, purifies him, kills him, or what. AND it seems he's the ONLY one to enter the ship, which wasn't clear before. OTHER things now seemed clearer: the marking on the map to say the contact point is NOT on the summit of Devil's Tower (though how the TIME was established isn't made clear yet), his seeing a helicopter flying BEHIND the tower and lights coming from BEHIND the tower, so they know they don't have to CLIMB it, and the governmental shenanigans and Truffaut's questioning of him don't seem to be so RANDOM, now that I know how it ends. And "When You Wish Upon a Star" (your dreams come true!) is so orchestrated during the inner-ship sequence you hardly recognize it. But the second time through the wide-eyed stares and the teary-eyed alien still bring tears to my eyes, though sitting through a second time is a bit boring, and it's not quite the total entertainment package that "Star Wars" (either of them) is, and not quite the holding power even of the climax of "2001," but it's not bad, though the audience at the Embassy (not even half full) isn't all respectful, though some of them are, almost like attending to a religious experience. But the kids in the movie are still impossibly crabby, Dreyfuss is still believable, but the kid sort of sinks more into the background and the previous sights of the smaller UFOs are diminished by anticipation of this huge apparition from around Devil's Tower, so it really almost HARMS to see it again. But it was vaguely worth $5 just to see for myself what the Special Edition was.
ENTERTAINMENT 9
8/19/80
DANCIN'
Leave it to Bob Fosse to come up with an entertainment that's fast, sexy, plotless, engaging, and even SHORT without seeming to be (with two intermissions, understandable to give the dancers a rest), without a star in the lot. But the impression is that they're ALL stars: the facially and figure-beautiful Terri Treas, the gal who looks like a young Gwen Verdon or Donna MacKecknie, some of the sexy guys, and particularly the tall, handsome, dark-haired, sexy, beautifully-built guy [2004: would be funny if it was---WHO is the choreographer? Jerry Someone? who started in "Will Rogers Follies"] who just did two dances and was one of the alternates so it wasn't even clear what his name was. The audience seemed to love it, it was more fully occupied than something like "Ain't Misbehavin'," which, like it, has played for something over two years (this opened March 27, 1978), so there must just be great word of mouth about what happen on the stage, as I would give it great reviews, too. Flash and dash and interesting musical elements, like the solos to various instrumental solos, like the quiet beginnings that swell into huge endings, the bit of ethnicity of Bojangles and Americana, and then the tight costumes and almost constant steram of tit-wiggles and bumps by both men and women to let everyone's libido range free---you just wish they'd strip everything off and REALLY go at it: an X-rated musical better than "Oh, Calcutta!" The rapport with the audience was consistently good, too: always the sideways leer, the excited whoop of Ginoux when surrounded by two pretty women, even though half the audience may be convinced he's gay, the seductive looks always curling around the eyes and red lips of Terri Treas, and then the sheer SKILLS of someone like Kubala to sing perfectly presentably and then dance up a storm and then act convincingly enough for you to think he's having a great time. Maybe the fact they HAD lots of alternates brings a better show: underlings have their chance and are turning on all their charms, older ones who've done it hundreds of times being given a rest---and maybe the chance to see someone rising who will become extraordinarily popular, as that we can say "I saw him when he was only an alternate in "Dancin'," but he looked great and sexy even then, and I knew he had a great future ahead."
FRIDAY, 8/29/80: Note from KATHRYN FALK CLASS OF 8/21 /// EXCITEMENT!: Get there to find almost everyone assembled, with Lonnie holding forth. I'd forgotten how pedantic and measured his cadence was, how lulling his voice is, and how embarrassing it is to listen to these budding writers. Then, about an hour into the session, he finally said something that I felt like writing down, since it echoed what I'd written on 8/13 about "everyday-ism" WITHOUT using the word ROUTINE to apply to it or the word EXCITEMENT to apply to the OPPOSITE of "everyday-ism." So I started taking notes:
"There's more EXCITEMENT working under heavy deadlines than working AS A ROUTINE. How to increase CONTROL over this excitement? Is it FEAR that you'll get CANNED? Way of getting ATTENTION? No one is the "only one" with ANY problem.
Black comes up with marvelous malapropisms: "People have an aherbance of violence, they otacize anyone who HITS someone." He's hung-up on TV, saying that TV shows the have-hots what the haves HAVE. Lonnie: "Violence has ALWAYS been a part of culture---it's an EXCEPTION for a culture NOT to ENJOY violence."
Lonnie: Fear of success allays fear of rejection, of being a "good little boy" by going BEYOND success of PARENTS. OR fearing CLOSENESS of success, or fear of unknown BROUGHT by success. OR have to measure up to NEW deadlines or NEW levels of accomplishment. Left relieved at 8 pm, NEVER go back!
Told Dennis about this, and as I spoke, I realized that OUR relationship lacks EXCITEMENT, and it became the catchword of the day! I found plays EXCITING when it was a challenge to find the time and money to see them; but when I saw them too easily, with too much time and too much money, they became common, everyday, routine, and excitement-less. Certainly "Talley's Folly" didn't hit me as good, as the 5th play I saw, as "They're Playing Our Song," which was the 2nd play I saw. By the time the 6th of "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" rolled around, I was TIRED of plays, but then THAT was sort of down at the bottom, and I HAD gotten to the point where I wasn't going to stand in line for just ANYTHING anymore. Then STAMPS were exciting until I worked on them too much, got tense because of them, and then gave them up for the time being (see NOTEBOOK 328). Cyclic!
SATURDAY, 8/30/80: DO I NEED TO "DO" FOR OTHERS??: Indulging in all the movies I want to see, all the plays I want to see, spending money on tickets and porno and restaurants on my own, but I get tense and irritable at others and feel that I should start working on the indexing book and DO something, and it occurs to me that IN THE PAST I reacted against reading too much or going after MY OWN interests too much by branching out into something that "Others" needed: I worked and spoke for Mattachine, worked as an assistant for est, started the JOYI surveys, aborted the "guru" ads, took up training of indexers, wanted THROUGHOUT to write books that would educate people to "the proper" (namely, my) point of view of sex and the world and morality and responsibility. Now, when stamps (see NOTEBOOK 328) and reading and entertainment-absorption pall (see NOTEBOOK 326) I find myself wanting to emphasize writing the indexing book, writing a play on the games we involve ourselves in (see NOTEBOOK 327), or AGAIN involving myself in things that involve OTHERS---even if it's as self-centered as throwing a party for Paul and George, or Avi and Robin, or Don and Ernie, or Dana and Jody, or Amy and Adam (whom I call, and she's still going to break up with him, though she was surprised when Crystal said "Thinking of moving to the West Coast?" when she told her about it---she MAY move to Los Angeles if she can continue her Alexander training there, but she's not EAGER to go there and drive everywhere), or going to all the new baths and saunas and cruising parlors that seem to be proliferating. Thought it was interesting to compare that need of mine to DO for others to Dennis's expressed needs to WORK WITH others, but there seemed to me to be a decided difference between his need for SOCIALIZATION and my felt need for OTHER-IMPROVEMENT, which may be judgmentalizing our relationship to death, for that matter. I can DO for others, but I seem to do AGAINST those with whom I'm having a relationship: trying to "improve" them, irritated at what they continue doing even after I want them to stop doing it (Dennis's lateness, sloppiness in eating, chronic lack of index-planning, and lack of self-confidence, which of course I help feed by "getting at him" all the time).
SUNDAY, 8/31/80: ENTERTAINMENT-ABSORPTION PALLS//TIME AGAIN!: Having seen most of the plays I want to see, seen all of the movies worth going to, finding nothing more on TV, working all the crossword puzzles in the Sunday Times and New York Magazine, reading three books in as many days, having been SO much involved in stamps for a little period of time (though 10 days is a little period only in a RELATIVE way), I find that I get tense and irritable and angry with myself, and I GUESS it's because I decide that I'm WASTING time and time is the only thing I have that ISN'T renewable! It brings me right up against my death---the end of the amount of time that I have. I still haven't done the writing or exercising or lightwork that I should have done in the meantime (though blessedly the absence of the do-list HELPS in that that's ALL that I have to do, there's not much more hanging over my head except for the slips of paper in the top desk drawer, which is now a sort of surrogate "list of things that I want to do at some time that I don't want to forget phone numbers or addresses for), and now the summer's almost over and I don't even have a sheaf of DIARY pages to show for the passing time! And my irritability works out on Dennis and Arnie and anyone who slows me up: the subway, the theater performance, lines at grocery stores---anything that wastes my already wasted TIME and gives me the time to think of all the things that I SHOULD or COULD by doing (like the play-idea, which could make one "rich and famous" even more quickly than BOOK publishing could: it only takes 6 months to GET a play going, rather than two years for a book, and only a month or so to WRITE as opposed to a number of months for a book, and ONE play can DO it, whereas one book, particularly a book on indexing or jerking off, could hardly do it in writing). Of course, there's the idea that entertainment then SHOULD pall because I've SEEN the majority of what I want to see: why should I continue to want to go to plays when all the better plays have been seen already---except for good NEW ones like "42nd Street," which I just called Dana about and he already HAS tickets for NOVEMBER, but wants to join Dennis and me at Hawaii Kai before, so I may mail-order. So much for entertainment-absorption, culminating in a "coincidental" $10 ticket for the Picasso exhibit (NOTEBOOK 329).
MONDAY, 9/1/80: WRITE A "GAMES" PLAY?: One morning last week I just get a blast of an idea about a play about GAMES:
1) The sex game, changing partners, fidelity versus freedom, sex versus love;
2) The money game, earning, working, investing, saving, worrying about, losing;
3) The guru game, following, getting disillusioned, remaining gullible;
4) The passivity game, waiting for someone ELSE to do what YOU want done to you;
5) The enlightenment game, comprising many subsections:
a) The Watts "You are God" game of pantheistic wholism,
b) The est "You control everything" game of total personal responsibility,
c) The Actualism "You harmonize yourself" game of processing & consumption,
d) The Tai-Chi,Alexander,Rolfing,Shia-Tsu,Bodywork gameofpressure/movement,
e) The Zen Koan verse bringing satori in an instant, instantly forgotten,
f) The Theosophy astral, reincarnational, theistic-mystical game,
g) The Tao and I Ching, Buddhistic, pacifistic, nihilistic Nirvana,
h) The psychoanalytic hyper-personal multiyear multi-thousand dollar game,
i) The hyperactive Primal Scream,Hate,Pillow-Punching therapies,ala Esalen,
j) The flower-child dancing/singing/chanting/mesmerizing/brainwashing game,
k) The meditative drop-out-of-the-universe game withTranscendental removal,
l) The Sufi ecstatic-dancing game leading to dizziness and vomiting,
m) The Tantric excess-sex-stuff game of having too much of a good thing,
n) The constant-reader bookishness that relies on words, not experiences,
o) The atheistic, nihilistic, anarchistic, destroy-anything Kali game,
p) the syncretic, synthetic, amalgamated, osterized, castrated summation.
6) The game game, Scrabble & Monopoly, Boggle & Othello, Chess & Checkers & Go;
7) TheEntertainment-absorptionGame & movie/play/TV/dance/opera/drama/music/jazz;
8) The food-absorption game of restaurants/cooking/cookbooks/dieting/schooling;
9) The play-writing game done by people who see this play and think it's easy;
10) The marriage/mortgage/stability/security/family/placidity/routine game;
11) The wartime/murdering/raping/activating/energized/hyper/excitement game;
12) The "nothing's very important why play any game at all?" game;
13) The puritanical-antisocial/critical/sneering "I never play games" game;
14) The acting game of these people on the stage right now entertaining YOU!
TUESDAY, 9/2/80: STAMPS CLOY AGAIN: Soaking stamps off paper and sorting them and putting them into the book is only the work of three days, this time, though the last time was almost two years ago, but then I get into OTHER activities: trying to go through the loose-scattered LARGE stuff that'll never go into the books (and going through things I'd THOUGHT to put into the albums and decided NOT to, like most of the souvenir sheets) and catalog THOSE according to price, and then John keeps saying that Becky wants stamps. Well, I go through United Nations, vaguely sorted out within the envelope; Australia and Argentina, which I sort out, and find that it just takes HOURS, and I decide I have to break down the envelopes of duplicates once MORE: not only into "double-duplicates" that I have hundreds of for the MOST common countries, not only into "mint" for the more expensive issues to keep no matter how many I have, but now into the "tradable" and "give-away-able" for people like her. It'll save lots of time in the future, help me get rid of lots of junk stuff, and take up less room in the GENERAL section of envelopes, but it'll just take a lot of TIME. And then I start putting away the large blocks of stamps that have been hanging on for years, and start with France as the biggest and decide that even those that are scattered through the album NOW should be marked: had decided AGAINST re-hinging EVERY new stamp; as being too damaging to the stamps---after making the DIFFICULT decision that I AM a collector and NOT an investor, and half the fun IS seeing the stamps, so I DO want to include mint stamps in the book, though the glassine sleeves for Bill's expensive ones are nice enough to get for the more expensive Canadian ones, for example. But then I get into circling ALL the French stamps in the catalog and it just takes two hours to go through the 40's, and it'll take AGES to go through THAT ONE country, not to mention the 16 others in the to-be-hinged sets, NOT to mention the REST of them. So I get VERY much involved in tension and time and wanting to do TOO much (NOTEBOOK 326) and getting irritable, so I just have to PUT them away, as they are, knowing they're AHEAD of where they were, the new ones are INCLUDED, and I'll have to get back to them NEXT year sometime.
WEDNESDAY, 9/3/80: I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING!: ONE of the most discouraging things about entertainment-absorption (NOTEBOOK 326) is that I don't REMEMBER anything! When this is brought forcefully to me, I get depressed: what's the use of ABSORBING if I don't REMEMBER what I absorbed after a few years? Get Sturgeon's "The Golden Helix" and read ALL the stories, even though they'd been half-collected and printed before, and ALL of them seem new to me, even very TOUCHING ones that I'd read BEFORE, and I don't remember much about them at ALL. Try to think back over the books by Heinlein that I read ALL of, and don't recall much except that every so often he throws in a cute animal, that he's pretty good with characterization, that his plots are all "impossible tasks" that get DONE, and that he's grown crotchety and conservative in his old age, but to say WHAT Podkayne of Mars was about is impossible. Then I schedule to watch "Knight without Armor" on TV, with Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrich, but JUST BEFORE it comes on I think to see if I've seen it before---and I have, as recently as January 3, 1978! Look back to find that I have a three-line DESCRIPTION of it, and I don't remember ANYTHING of it, not even the cute young soldier who kills himself for her before they marry. So why should I watch it again if I watched it before and remember nothing of it? Yes, well, but some of it WOULD have seemed familiar, and that was PART of my theory of the movie list, that if a movie was so FORGETTABLE as to be forgotten in 2 years, I CERTAINLY shouldn't waste time seeing it AGAIN. Movies that ARE great remain WITH me: I certainly remember the rain scenes from "The Rains of Ranchipur" and the flood and earthquake in "Green Dolphin Street" though I haven't seen them in years, and I remember that "Repulsion" was great though I can't exactly say HOW it was so much better than "Psycho"---and there's the weak rationalization that I can then experience it ANEW when I see it again. SOME movies, like "Four Feathers," which impressed me when I was a kid in Akron, can be seen now not to be very interesting to me, which shouldn't make me feel awful, but it DOES: what I did years ago isn't VALID now, and has to be REDONE, so that lessens the "good" it did when I did it FIRST. And of course there always IS the "then-present" entertainment value that it DID have, which I want to EXTEND through time, not be localized, as it indubitably IS.
ENTERTAINMENT 10
9/4/80
THE CRAZIES
I expect to watch this Romero movie only to catch up with his output since "Night of the Living Dead," which I didn't care for the first time and liked more the second time; but Dennis said he saw this and didn't care for the basic premise, which turned out to be the common man's distrust of the army, police, and anyone in authority, because they LIED all the time. And despite the fact that their "cover-up" enabled the doctor to entrust deadly virus, thinking it was vaccine, to the nurse to spread around the "heros" (one of whom turned out to be immune, but he was so angry at the "system" that he never "turned himself in for science"), and despite the fact that all the discussing they could do STILL resulted in many gory deaths, STILL they contemplated setting up a nuclear-weapon aircraft crash which would explain why the whole town went up in a nuclear cloud if it was necessary to use the SAC planes to stem the infection. The "heros" spread the disease more in their stupid-macho attempt to stick up for themselves and the pregnant heroine, and Dennis phoned to chortle about the dim-witted blond's being Lynn Lowry, his costar as Alma Winemuller in "Summer and Smoke" at the Manhattan Theater Club. But I LOVED the cut-off communication that leads to ever-greater confusion, and even that WHEN they had all the time to talk and explain, things STILL went wrong. And they didn't even HAVE to follow up the indignation of these Pennsylvania rednecks at being ordered around by a BLACK colonel flown in to save them. No one obeyed orders, no one thought they could err, everyone thought they knew best, yet it was a complete shambles of miscues and lack of knowledge and communication . The frantic pace never stopped, with whooping sirens and rattly choppers and ghostly white-suited radiation-men who were gunned down automatically and not thought of unless the death was on "our" side and THEN there was lamentation and sorrow. Even the scientist went nuts, running off to get put into the loony bin after shouting that he'd found a solution, not telling the assistant, who couldn't find WHAT (or even IF) he'd found. A great movie in one of the least expected time slots: 11 am Saturday morning. Only the bleeps of the assholes and shits and fucks marred the glory of the movie.
TUESDAY, 9/9/80: DENNIS CALLS ME AN "EX-LOVER": Talking to Robin at brunch Sunday "my ex-lover" seemed to just slip out of Dennis's mouth, and then he said it quickly AGAIN, reaching over to pat my arm and say "That sounds awful." I asked him about it at Dardenelle's that night, and when he asked if it hurt, I said I WAS sorry about it, and he insisted we talk fully about it. He said he thought of himself and Dick as lovers, since "lovers" to him meant "learning about one another and having really intensely committed sex a lot." I said lovers didn't REALLY mean sex, and we discussed that Paul and George didn't know what to call each other aside from "roommates," and we agreed it would be exceptional to be lovers for 25 years. Then Monday night, having diner with Dennis, I thought to ask him (after telling him about Rick Pollock, ENTERTAINMENT 11) not to say "You shit" because I thought too much of myself, or to cover what he might WANT to say, for instance "There's NO chance," or "Well, then DO it!" but that I had had the thought that I COULD seduce him into an exciting sexual encounter again: I KNEW where he was sensitive, how he liked to be touched, how he purred like a kitten (he growled---I said "Not CHOKING!) when he was touched the right way, but I said he had to realize I wasn't saying I was GOING to do it, but neither was I saying I WASN'T going to do it, I just wanted his reaction to what I said. Typically, he said he'd think about it, but he said that he felt rather PLEASED when I insisted what his gut-feeling was ("Do you rather I just not talk about it?" "No.") when he first heard what I was going to say. He brought up the valid point that ANYTHING like a seduction depended on the CIRCUMSTANCES: that at times it would be very welcomed (when he brought up his wall plaque, for example, he felt horny and wanted to have suggested sex, but when I blurted out that I didn't want to hear ANYTHING from him (referring only to the plaque he wanted me to fix, of course) he decided that was kind of a turnoff and he wouldn't suggest it), but that in other circumstances it might go over well. HE was worried at times when he wanted TOO MUCH sex, since he couldn't work, and then go the OTHER direction and worry why he WASN'T HORNY when he wanted to do something but wasn't hot for it. Then we changed the subject.
ENTERTAINMENT 11
9/9/80
RICK POLLOCK
It's been so long since there's been an INDIVIDUAL session (outside the bars or baths, at least outside of Jerry Crown) that it seems worthwhile to write about. John called me over while I was preparing for Robin's dinner, and I went over to be pleasantly surprised by the openness and youth of this "old tried-and-true hand," but Dennis got a very negative idea of him because, as he said "He didn't even look at me," which Rick denied the next day, after he phoned at 11 am to want to come over, and I postponed him until 3, at which time he called to say he was lost at Fulton Street and his voice had none of the brashness or swagger of a macho character: he sounded sweet and lost. Getting here at 3:30 he settled into my chair and started playing with his erection, taking it out rather slowly, and I guess I came out of my cut-offs too fast, because he talked at length about how he wanted to see what my cock was like when I'd come to meet him at John's, enjoying it "being right there" and he not being able to see it and play with it. But he had his own fixations, centered around "TWO MEN having sex" which he breathed extra heavily on, and then he started in kissing with surprising gentility and fervor and emotion, whispering how he liked to fuck his cock with his fist, how it was always ready, how it didn't have to "get ready" for any cunt or ass or mouth, but it was ALWAYS right there to render service. He loved fantasies, talking about people watching, he watching me and Dennis, and I kept wanting him to talk about his own feelings, but he wouldn't, even when I said I wanted to come and for him to tell me when he was close. He DID say he was getting closer, and then I demanded he go down there and he watched what he described as "so THICK a cum, so much of it, it went and covered your T-shirt," and then he came, a surprising gush of CLEAR juice followed quickly by spurts of more milky and clotted come, and we lay together dripping, he despising those who had to rush for a towel immediately. Then he showed me his photo on the cover of "Gay Chicago," his photo jacking off with a boot in his mouth for "Rough Rider" or some such magazine, and told me about the 9 plays he was seeing, little action at the Y, and how next time he might come for one week again, he was TIRED after two weeks, including two Tuesdays at J's and a night at the Mineshaft and a night with the 13th Street-staying Joe Gage, not his real name, making a movie here now.
SATURDAY, 9/20/80: AUTOMATICITY ISN'T EVERYTHING: Things seem to go so AUTOMATICALLY: I put the stamps away when I had to, cleaned the apartment before Lorene and Mike arrived, did the dishes at the right time, finished one index in time to start working on another, didn't have things hanging over my head (except in the form of a rather over-crowded calendar and top-desk-drawer), answered letters and paid bills and kept the laundries circulating, but still I found that I WASN'T exercising and I WASN'T doing my Actualism lessons. I guess the relief of GETTING into Third Advanced still hasn't worn off. Not getting as many body session as I'd like, but I don't feel that I'm terribly out of shape. Still spend time mooning about trips that I'd like to take, but not so much that I'm displeased with myself. "Processing" Dennis and Susan and Bruce and Actualism and whatever I have to do, including keeping the place cleaned up, and even working on the play, which Sergio seems to agree to, and then the coincidental conversation this evening with Rolf (whom I just call to say "Come over for more porno" and no one answers) saying that he's spent $5000 for a demo tape by Someone Rudnitski, his neighbor who's written for "All in the Family" and "The Village People Movie" and who's gotten together a talented bunch of people to make a rock record-group called Future Tense, and I tell him he can have his choice after his current success: producing Sergio's electronic music or my play to his music. He remains noncommittal. Get through the mail and other things, even typing these sheets, but there's nothing GRIPPING about what I'm doing: I constantly AVOID getting involved with 1) the indexing book, 2) THE play, or anything else that I should get involved with. But the automaticity IS good, since there's not even the wishing I had time to clean things up or wash lamp fixtures or visit Dennis or read his book or type pages or sort things out or read the Times, which I'm waiting to do this evening, or go to the baths, which I'm tempted to do this evening except that I came nicely today already, so I don't even have the sexual tension necessary to do something. I guess I need more deadlines and more needs for money and more PRESSURES to react against.