Liberation (34 page)

Swami told me Pavitrananda wrote him about my visit and said I had such great humility! This really does amaze me. When Swami says such things I feel I know why—it's because he subconsciously expects all western “intellectuals” to be overtly arrogant. But how could I have conveyed humility to Pavitrananda? Because I took the dust of his feet? Surely not. Don't these two dear saints realize that it is the very height of pride for the proud man to have a few people before whom he humbles himself—as much as to say, behold, even I, in all my greatness, am bowing down!? That is exactly what T.E. Lawrence used to do.

There has been a big pot fuss at Vedanta Place, because of the goings-on of Charlie Mitchell, who runs this so-called First Liberty Church. Charlie and all his disciples are now forgiven, more or less.
¹¹¹
I do wish however that Swami had made it a little bit clearer that what he is really condemning is the elevating of pot into being a sacrament and an adjunct to meditation. That Charlie Mitchell should set himself up as a guru is almost incredible, anyhow [. . .].

An infuriating David Susskind program on T.V. on the 29th: “What It Means To Be a Homosexual.” What David Susskind meant was that he confronted four functioning homosexuals with four who had been “cured” by Eli Siegel's Aesthetic Realism
¹¹²
—which teaches, apparently, that you can't be a satisfied homosexual because aesthetics require true opposites (in this case, a man and a woman) and queers are not opposite. What humanly emerged from the show was that the four uncured cases seemed surprisingly “wholesome” and “healthy,” while the four cured ones had the twisted malicious faces which are supposed to belong to Boys-in-the-Band-type faggots.
¹¹³
Also, the cured ones were desperately eager to convert the uncured, but not vice versa.

Clement Scott Gilbert is in town, but we haven't seen him yet. And we haven't succeeded in talking to Jennifer since her dramatic marriage to Norton Simon (May 30). A suggested telegram to her: “Sister, can you spare a dime?”

 

June 16.
Chetanananda, the new assistant, finally arrived on the 11th and I met him last night. It turns out that we had previously met at Belur Math, the last time I was there. He is thirty-four and looks younger—quite cute looking, with big dark eyes which he opens wide; he is flirty in that Asian way, shows his beautiful white teeth in endless smiles, poses his face sideways on his hands. He can also maybe be malicious or teasing. He is tall, slim, fairly well built. He wears his hair cut close. He makes mistakes in English but speaks fluently, without hesitation.

This is only a first impression, but I fear Asaktananda may become jealous of him, because he is more at ease socially than Asaktananda. Asaktananda seemed silent and a bit sulky when we were together.

Don and I are still toiling at “Frankenstein,” just approaching the making of the Creature.

An offer from the BBC to do a radio play of
A Single Man
. Also, a young actor named Michael Brandon
¹¹⁴
wants to do it as a film. Jim Bridges knows him. The question is, does he have any money and can we get a director we want?

We have seen Clement Scott Gilbert, but there seems no prospect of our getting
Meeting by the River
done. Grete Mosheim
¹¹⁵
showed up out of nowhere—such a sparkling, pretty old thing still—and I gave her a copy of the play for possible production in Germany; but not a word from her, yet.

And I am still waiting for the British proofs of
Kathleen and Frank
. It is sort of a waiting time.

 

July 13.
Just an entry to restart, after this long gap. The British and U.S. proofs of
Kathleen and Frank
are all corrected and returned. No word from Clement Scott Gilbert or from Grete Mosheim about
Meeting by the River
. Nothing more from Michael Brandon about filming
A Single Man.

We have been slogging along on “Frankenstein” and are now only about halfway through. Hunt Stromberg remains in Texas and doesn't even call us; merely sends messages through his secretary at Universal to say that he likes the teleplay so far!

Truman Capote called, really (I think) enthusiastic about
Kathleen and Frank
. He says he wants to review it in
The New York Times
.

I went to see Dr. Ashworth about my hand and he said it must be operated upon; the nodule on the joint is getting bigger. So we have tentatively agreed that it shall be done in September, when Ashworth gets back from his vacation. I'll have to spend two nights in hospital and have a general anesthetic; which is rather depressing.

Don works and works. Since the end of June we have been going on the beach and in the ocean quite a lot. Also we keep up our vitamins and the gym. I can't get below 148 but seldom go above 150.

 

July 26.
This
is
a quiet period, though a happy one on the whole. My one misery is the “Frankenstein” teleplay. I seem to have so little energy for it and it's the sort of job one should finish in a single night-and-day session powered by coffee and Dexamyl. To make matters worse, Hunt has just sent one of his letters of suggestions, wanting us to stop and rewrite past scenes in accordance with them because, as he puts it, “I am thrilled with what you have done to date—I just want it now to be platinum studded.” His letter also tries to blackmail us into doing this at once by saying that he hasn't sent the last lot of pages in to the front office at Universal because he is afraid they won't like them quite as much as they did the first lot. However—unless he raises a real fuss—I am determined to go ahead, at least as far as the costume ball scene.

This morning, the original two sets of page proofs of
Kathleen and Frank
arrived from Methuen, postmarked June 14! They had been sent surface mail, just as I suspected.

Don has talked to Irving Blum and they have agreed that Don shall prepare a new show—of big drawings, little ink drawings and paintings. And then Irving will come and see if he likes it and is prepared to put it into his gallery.

Am reading
Henry James at Home
, H. Montgomery Hyde;
The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia
, Knightley and Simpson; Jung's
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
, and the eighth volume of Chekhov stories,
The Chorus Girl
.

Weight at gym today, only a fraction under 150. And Don's weight yesterday was 137, a record low! Am slightly worried about this—but he looks well.

 

July 27.
Don's weight went up a bit yesterday, to 140. Today he has gone to see Ray Unger and Jack Fontan at Ray's late mother's house at San Bernardino. He has been reading Proust— all of
Swann's Way
and then the opening of
Cities of the Plain
:
¹¹⁶
“Introducing the Men-Women.” Proust's falseness and his respect for the Establishment both disgust Don; Don really loathes him. I suppose his character will be loathed increasingly by younger generations; in my time we were ready to eat his huge shit-sandwich for the sake of the delicious morsels of truth in the middle. Now I'm beginning to hate him through Don's eyes.

Last night I had gut-ache and we saw
Guys and Dolls
, which is interminable, but the songs are still marvellous, some of them. Today I have gotten on with “Frankenstein” in rough, quite a bit, and have been in the ocean, jogging down there. (I met Madge MacDonald, who cried, “You look wonderful—you and I are going to live to a hundred!”) This afternoon, a nice man from
The National Observer
named Bruce Cook interviewed me. He likes Kerouac and has written a book about him and the other Beats,
¹¹⁷
which was a bond of interest. I now make it a point to talk to all interviewers about my queerness. He was just a tiny bit embarrassed, smiling bravely. In the midst of this, Hunt called from Texas, still wanting us to kill off Mrs. Blair the landlady and have the Creature unjustly accused of the crime! He told me that the prefab house he and Dick had put up on their ranch property was burned to the ground only a couple of nights ago! He was wonderfully calm about it. I got him to promise not to show any more pages to Universal for the present. He says he's coming back to Los Angeles in two weeks.

 

July 28.
At the gym, Don weighed 141 and I about 149 and ½, which was a drop, considering that I'd had quite a bit of lunch not long before. But, drop or no drop, I'm in a fat gassy state. I
feel
fat. After the gym, we saw
Peter Rabbit
—such a miserable pale coy film which has the impudence to say it's based on the Beatrix Potter stories. Actually it's based on the Royal Ballet at its most tepid—the boys and girls cavort in animal masks—it's like a dancing class and I found almost no consolation in knowing that, if I could have pulled off the right animal's head, I'd have unmasked adorable Wayne Sleep. Don hated it too so we left in the middle, to eat turkey salads at the Beverly Wilshire drugstore with Mike Van Horn. Then Mike (who'd already been to a ballet class) took Don off to dance with him at The Farm. I hope they are having fun, bless their darling hearts. Old Drump is going to bed and to sleep, perchance to snore.

The termite man came to inspect and we have to pay 170 dollars for sprayings.

Cloudy today but I went in the ocean and the water is warm. There is a “red tide,” the worst in many years; it is expected to kill about one hundred tons of fish.

 

July 29.
Lunch with Swami today at Malibu; Pavitrananda and Swahananda (from Berkeley) were there too. Conversation at lunch: how many words had I written, which poets were most admired nowadays—both Pavitrananda and Swahananda came on very literary. Swami was happy because the New American Library has agreed to publish his
Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta
.
¹¹⁸
But he seemed very tired. He told me he has just heard that Prema (he never calls him Vidya) is being paid by some French devotees to go with them to India and interpret. Swami brought up Vidya's unfortunate remark again—writing to Swami he said he would see him
if the Lord wills
. Swami interprets this as a claim by Vidya to know the will of the Lord! But, anyhow, poor Vidya does have a most unfortunate knack of rubbing people the wrong way.

When I got home, Hunt Stromberg called, to say that the head of Universal (I forget his name
¹¹⁹
) is going to England about the 18th of August to arrange to film “Frankenstein” there and that Hunt wants him to have the script as far as the costume ball—the rest will be filled in from our treatment. He says they want to show the film in movie houses. Hunt himself is coming back here about the 10th or 11th, to see about this. I'm relieved in a way that we have got to get a move on.

Then I ran down to the ocean and took a dip, and on the way back I met Mike Steen, who told me that Tennessee's play
¹²⁰
didn't do badly in Chicago and that a man from the Ahmanson Theater has gone to see it and decide if it shall be produced here.

 

July 30.
Last night, when we were ready for bed, Doug Walsh showed up, drunk. He has been to see me again today, drunk. Very briefly, one of his daughters, aged seventeen, ran away with a black man, a married black man who is a musician of some kind, and lived with him for a couple of weeks. When she came home, under pressure from the police, she talked “nigger talk” to Doug, which so enraged him that he hit her and broke her nose. Soon after this, she ran away again. Now she has written him from Boston, saying that she left town to save the black man, whom Doug has been threatening to kill. She also said that the black man saved her from the drug scene and that she wants to live with him and bear his children. Doug is now checking up to find if the black man is still in Los Angeles or if he has joined her in Boston. If he is still in Los Angeles, Doug says he won't kill him.

During our talk today, Doug said his father died of cancer and that he is sure he has it too—only in his case it's lung cancer. He was very happy in the army because it gave him “guidance.” Otherwise he has been “a miserable sonofabitch.” His wife doesn't understand. He sacrificed himself for his country and what is his reward? His daughter runs off with a nigger. Do I think he's prejudiced? I evade the question.

Doug is a living proof that you don't have to be educated or win an Oscar to be like Harry Brown. But, actually, he's much better company. The funny thing is, despite his self-pity, he has lots of drive and is an affectionate dog-type. We both think he has a big queer streak in him. Today he shed tears and then said, “A man of my stature ought not to cry.” I thought to myself, thank God I'm not a psychiatrist—imagine earning your living by listening to this sort of thing. . . . And yet, in my cool Isherwood way, I'm really quite fond of Doug. I would even like to help him. But all the help he wants is something I won't/can't do; write a television story about him and his daughter and the tragedy of parents in our day and age!

At the gym, down to 148 and ½. We went in the ocean, which is brownish red. Very humid. Ninety degrees in town but only seventy-six down here.

 

July 31.
We went in the ocean this morning. I've been in at least twenty times this month! A slightly drunken drip with a moustache came over and told me he'd read
Prater Violet
five times and still didn't know what it was about. He went on to say the same thing about several of my other books. He was a perfect specimen of the Hostile Fan type.

Here's part of a questionnaire sent me by a Miss Jean Ehly from Amarillo, Texas: What is the loveliest thing about your home? What does home mean to you? Can we not teach love, compassion, tolerance to our children, thus enabling them to better cope with the world? How important is beauty to you in your surroundings? Sir, how important is meditation to you (at home)? Today many people do not like to stay home—is boredom evidence of lack of communion with God in our home life?