404: Gay Bar 5 - Candy

Starts at 8.20

Finishes at 0.35

Candy 1968
Directed by Christian Marquand
Screenplay by Buck Henry

Film adaptation of Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg’s satirical pornographic 1958 novel. The book was a sexual variant of Candide, in which Candy, a naïve beautiful girl makes her way through the world unwittingly arousing and almost inadvertently having sex with all the people she encounters. The book became notorious and one further aspect of Southern’s reputation for transgressing taboos.

The film features an enormous number of comics and stars making cameos in this films including Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, John Huston, Ringo Starr, Walter Matthau as doctors, politicians, generals, gurus. It’s not a good film, but it’s spottily entertaining with some weird performances and jokes to make up for longeurs, and the ten minute credit sequence in which all the characters reappear in a sort of allegorical tableau to a rock soundtrack is loads of fun like similar endings in “Buckeroo Banzai” or “The Life Aquatic”.

At one point in the book, Candy is arrested by the police, whose car then goes careering into a drag bar. So in this dramatization you get more screaming female impersonators on screen than have possibly ever been collected until “Paris is Burning” (1990). This is mostly just hysterical men in dresses running around shrieking and shrieking and shrieking amidst the rubble. Apparently a number of these are real drag performers not just actors for the days, but I’m afraid time has mostly forgotten them.

Eventually one of the stunned cops is able to declare that this is "a nest of commie, fag draft-dodgers!” and is about to start beating up the drag queens. However, the drag queens overwhelm the one cop - a little foreshadowing of what happened at The Stonewall Inn the next year.

There’s then the moment where the other cop confusedly finds himself kissing a man in a drag, and when he realises what he’s doing, knocks down his kisser, telling him “to fight like a man”. And of course, whenever a homosexual is threatened with violence, the natural response is a sadomasochistic “Yes! Yes! Give me some more!” So assorted perversity in this little scene of about 30 seconds. Actually, it's a little more significant than that. For the longest time "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971) used to get trotted out in lists as the first gay kiss in mainstream cinema, but this mostly forgotten film preempts that by three years.

1968 also saw Frank Sinatra in “The Detective”, which was a lot, lot more seriously intended than this film. “The Detective” was a film rather overly in love with its pretensions to the gritty realities of police work. Its crime plot was about an investigation of a murder with sexual mutilation elements which ends up diving into the New York homosexual underworld including how the trucks on the docks were used as a scene for sex. So one to watch in a double-bill with Al Pacino’s “Cruising”.

291: The Magic Christian (1969)

“The Magic Christian” (1969)
written by Terry Southern, and John Cleese and Graham Chapman

Adapted from Southern’s short episodic novel of the same name, the film is a series of sketches, in which multi-millionaire Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) employs his money to make people indulge in shocking stunts. So the jokes are two-fold:
1) to demonstrate what indignities people will suffer when offered wads of cash, from minor bribes to a scene of city bankers diving into a vat of ordure sprinkled with pound notes
2) to indulge in stunts which disturb conventional sensibilities - some are intended to be subversive, some are just freak-outs

Vito Russo in his book “The Celluloid Closet” absolutely LOATHED this film: “'fag' jokes fly in a viciously homophobic film".
Somewhere I have a “Spitting Image” parody of late Mel Brooks with the tagline “Totally obsessed with Nazis”. It’s not really stretching a point to say the same about Terry Southern and homosexuals. I mean, really, really, really, really, really obsessed. Well, you understand the emphasis. I suppose he should be given some sort of acknowledgement in managing so many ways for homosexuals to be creepy for comedic gross-out purposes. Maybe, homosexuals really were just that odd and perverse to mainstream audiences at the time, and this film reflects that. (To offset this, there is a very affectionate tribute in Southern’s collection “Now Dig This” to his friend the gay poet Frank O’Hara, capturing his camp, sexually mischievous manner. Although that it SHOULD be the camp, impertinent, sexually mischievous side of O’Hara that Southern fixates on and enjoys...?)


0.00 – 3.22
Laurence Harvey as “Hamlet”
Here’s an instance of satirical humour overtaken by the events of the day. The joke is the unexpected metamorphosis of a performance of Hamlet’s soliloquy into a burlesque strip. Whether it’s actually gay or not is up for debate. When a man performs a woman’s role, it can’t help but look camp. Besides, there’s the fact that he’s offering his body as an object for desire, topped by the chap with the binoculars trying to get a good look at the end.
By the time this was released to the public, cavorting nudity on the stage was very much the thing of the day, with such ultra-hip atrocities of embarrassment as “Hair”, “Oh Calcutta” and “Dionysus 69”. Exploration of homosexuality in Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre also raised its head on the contemporary stage. There had been an all-male 1967 production of “As You Like It”. There had also been an explicitly homosexual 1969 production of Marlowe’s “Edward II”, with Ian McKellen as the lead, and also featuring Peter Bourne (now better known as Betty Bourne of Bloolips). This touring production of “Edward II” aroused a lot of tight-lipped scrutiny from the local moral forces wherever it was staged because of male kissing and unabashed affection. An issue of the early gay lifestyle magazine “Jeremy” had a big feature on the production and interviews with the cast, though no one was questioned or felt up to declaring a personal sexual interest. It also prompted the “Sunday Times” to identify McKellen as one of the actors to watch out for, with a photo-feature of McKellen clad in nothing but some tight leather trousers and sprawling in a chair. Which must have raised a few eyebrows over the breakfast table. (Oh, and I see a BBC recording has been released on DVD earlier this year,) But nothing in this sketch plays off the idea of gay actors, it a subversion of Shakespeare.
So given all this, the overwhelming impression made by this sketch, and indeed by most of the bits and pieces in “The Magic Christian,” is not one of major cultural subversion and criticism, but of a camp, self-congratulatory sense of “How naughty we are!”. As the various outrages are played out, it’s sometime hard to distinguish between the filmmakers portrayal of the onscreen audiences and their attitude to the real one watching the film. There’s a constant sense of being nudged in the ribs, and the impression they want that you should just throw up your hands and cry, “Scandalous! Simply Scandalous!”



0.00 – 1.38
Nosher Powell as the ginger boxer
There’s about 3 previous minutes of verisimilitudinous boxing bout scene-setting before this bit, but I’m sure we’ll all prefer going straight to the real action, shan’t we. In this scene, Southern updates his earlier attempt in the book version of “The Magic Christian”. Then, it was just one boxer pretending to fey and effeminate. Here the ante is upped to actual gay kissing. Nosher Powell has a very fey voice dubbed, and does that limp-wrist gesture. And we don’t get to see the kiss, though the direction is slightly more stylised to point up that fact. As in the book, it all ends in an rioting audience when their taste for violence is subverted. Which is apparently the same conclusion as in “Bruno”.



4.42
The discomfort of a stuffy ex-army type suddenly made the focus of homo-erotic attentions. A formal heightening of the oddness of such devotion to the body beautiful by these muscle men, with a little race-discomfort just to add to the mix. As before with the Hamlet sketch, there’s an obvious homosexual, fluttering his tip at the entertainment, and resting his head in a primping manner, just to highlight the faggotry of it all.


7.45
Leonard Frey as Lawrence Faggot (pronounced Fag-Oh, French-style, so a joke that probably slips past most of the audience. Because simply calling a gay character “faggot” - oh, ho, ho, ho - no we’re much more hip than that) revisits his performance from “The Boys in the Band”. Solicitously and disarmingly oleaginous with a few up-market camp insinuations, in an outrageously over-styled suit. All of which must have been even more of an in-joke, as the film version of “Boys in the Band” wasn’t released until the year after this.


2.00-4..5
Two body-builders dancing together. Which is mostly the boxing gag revisited, but in the context of the elite society of the other dancers.
And the all-out oddness of Yul Brynner in drag, overdubbed with a female voice singing “Mad About the Boy” to Roman Polanski. And then the final reveal and reversion to Brynner’s gravelly voice. Intercutting between the two, these is something of an intense perversity to this.

277: The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist

in “Evergreen Review”, December 1966
Written by Michael O’Donoghue
Illustrated by Frank Springer

Michael O’Donoghue was the great, wonderful marvellous revelation of my first explorations into “National Lampoon” magazine. To say I could almost love him, given his offensive propensities, might seem an extreme, let alone unlikely, reaction. Yet his erudition, his mastery of linguistic style, his surrealism, his accurate satirisation of current culture, and also his penchant for savage black humour exposing the worst of human nature up to and including genocide, all make him a one-man equivalent of Monty Python at its best. There isn’t a collection of his best work. You either have to collect the original magazines, or the earliest “National Lampoon” best of anthologies. They’re worth it. He’s certainly worth it.

Anyway, O’Donoghue first made his name with his collaboration “The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist”. It was a comic strip, drawn by professional comics artist Frank Springer, appearing in “Evergreen Review” in the mid 1960s. “Phoebe Zeit-Geist” was an unlikely experiment for “Evergreen Review”, a respected alternative literary journal which first featured the postwar European avant-garde and then became a venue for the new Beat writers. Cartoons were beneath anyone’s critical radar, but an early advert for the magazine in the style of Charles Atlas was O’Donoghue’s first collaboration with the comics artist Frank Springer.

O’Donoghue was a huge devotee of Terry Southern and William Burroughs, and his work extends their brand of pinpoint accurate irony and bad taste. “Phoebe Zeitgeist” was a cartoon strip in the tradition of “The Perils of Pauline” damsel in distress. In each instalment, the titular heroine is menaced by some new villainy. But, as in Terry Southern’s novel, “Candy”, these menaces are usually exercises in sexual perversity. Instalments will feature necrophiles cultist, sadists, shoe fetishists, lesbians, torture and humiliation, mad scientists, and Norman Mailer. It’s inevitable that homosexuals will have to feature at some point.

The comic strip became a cult hit, and was much spoken about for often conflicting reasons. Springer executed Southern’s detailed scenarios with matching dedication, and it therefore had a following with genuine comics fans. Some readers objected to the idea of any comics in their beloved highbrow journal (and “Evergreen Review” also ran “Barbarella” at exactly the same time). Some objected to its deliberately provocative content, its sexual imagery, its violence against women, its racist stereotypes. O’Donoghue’s fascination with Nazis, meant that one issue was banned in Germany because it featured banned Nazi imagery, which only made for further publicity. And let’s not overlook the fact that it was chock full of drawings of a naked women in weird sexual situations, which could appeal to some people, I suppose.

“Evergreen Review” wasn’t afraid to feature homosexual content. It had featured serious works with gay content by the Beats, John Rechy, excerpts from “Last Exit to Brooklyn”, explorations of contemporary homosexual life as a previously unexplored underclass. With this comic effort we get fashion-obsessed bitches, camp, petulant, and violently misogynist. Fey, petty or peevish expressions. Hands splayed out, ear-rings, ID bracelets, and note the rather fetishised trousers. Preening and effeminately house-pround, possessed of a trivial manner wholly incommensurate with the effective running of a submarine. Yet they’re not transvestites, or wearing make-up, so it is a thought-out execution of clichés, which is what one would expect of O’Donoghue. Think of them as untrammelled characters from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”.

As to what I really think of the sailors? Several people have said this one has made them feel a bit uncomfortable. I’ve been doing this for so long I’ve almost got over most feelings of offence. I look at it and I can see how the high cultural furnishings of Captain Nemo’s submarine might make you think there was an interior designer knocking about the place. And then there’s all the ancient clichés about sailors and homosexuality. So I can see that O’Donoghue’s shown some ingenuity in bringing it altogether to create yet another surprising scenario in which to humiliate his heroine.

Then the two characters are only making brief appearances, and at least he’s got them doing something in every panel. And honestly, is their behaviour much different from “The Boys in the Band”, a couple of years later? It’s a cliché that’s stuck for a reason. A large part of the debate over Gay Pride that crops up in the gay media every bloody year is embarrassment over the “bad homosexuals” who someone always perceives as letting the side down in some way. Or to put it another way: I am gay, You are queer, They are faggots. Straight-acting is a matter of perception.

I just found an old SNL sketch, “The Gloria Brigade” from 1992, and it’s so slow, and the performances are so weak that I find that more insulting, because they don’t think they need to try. That some hack work about gay stereotypes is enough to make people laugh, says more about ideas of gays as a source of humour. So, yes, the two sailors make me wince a little, but it is over 40 years. The clip of a camp young Oliver Reed is occasionally dragged out for laughs, but it was from 1960 when homosexuality was illegal, and any mention had usually be censored from TV, film, radio and theatre. So some outdated stereotype is part of the process of social relaxation about taboos. But in the specific case of “Phoebe Zeitgeist”, everything is attacked, subverted and degraded. If gays were left out, it would mean that they were beyond the pale. Not because our sensibilities are too soft for attack, but because at this time, we would have been censored from the picture. Although there is the underlying assumption that gays naturally fit into this indecent world.

It’s an irony of the 1960s that almost every instance of a gay comedic character or some piece of sustained comedy involving homosexuals originates from a writer or comedian we can assume to be liberal and positively-inclined towards gays and their rights. Homophobes at this time wouldn’t feature them in their jokes, because their attitudes would be that homosexuals were too offensive even to make jokes about.

And finally, as villains, the pair foreshadow the trend of the late 1960s when it seemed like every other stylish thriller/crime caper featured some sort of camp or gay character: Modesty Blaise, Kaleidoscope, Deadfall, The Italian Job, Anderson Tapes, Kremlin Letter (besides the non-gay but camp villains of Batman and The Monkees). It adds a little titillation of perversity and outré mannerisms to plain criminality.

221: Terry Southern - “The Moon-Shot Scandal”

“The Moon-Shot Scandal”
By Terry Southern in “The Realist” November 1962

A significant difference between Soviet and American space efforts has been the constant spotlight of public attention focused on the latter, while our antagonist's program has been carried forward in relative secrecy. This has presented tremen¬dous disadvantages, especially in its psychological effect on the national-mind, and it harbors a dangerous potential indeed. If, for example, in climax to the usual fanfare.. and nationally televised countdown, the spacecraft simply explodes, veers out crazily into the crowd, or burrows deep into the earth at the foot of the launching-pad, it can be fairly embarrassing to all concerned. On the other hand, it is generally presumed, because of this apparent and completely above-board policy, that everything which occurs in regard to these American spaceshots is immediately known by the entire public. Yet can anyone really be naive enough to believe that in matters so extraordinarily important an attitude of such simple¬minded candor could obtain? Surely not. And the facts behind the initial moon-shot, of August 17, 1961, make it a classic case in point, now that the true story may at last be told.
Readers will recall that the spacecraft, after a dramatic count¬down, blazed up from its pad on full camera; the camera followed its ascent briefly, then cut to the tracking-station where a graph described the arc of its ill-fated flight. In due time it became evident that the rocket was seriously off course, and in the end it was announced quite simply that the craft had "missed the moon" by about two-hundred thousand miles-by a wider mark, in fact, than the distance of the shot itself. What was not announced-either before, during, or after the shot-was that the craft was manned by five astronauts. Hoping for a total coup, the Space Authority ¬ highest echelon of the Agency-had arranged for a fully crewed flight, one which if successful (and there was considerable reason to believe that it would be) would then be dramatically announced to an astonished world: "Americans on the Moon!" Whereas, if not successful, it would merely remain undisclosed that the craft had been manned. The crew, of course, was composed of carefully screened volunteers who had no dependents, or living relatives.
So, in one room of the tracking-station-a room which was not being televised-communications were maintained throughout this historic interlude. Fragmented transcripts, in the form of both video and acoustic tapes, as well as personal accounts of those present, have now enabled us to piece together the story - the story, namely, of how the moon-bound spaceship, "Cutie-Pie II," was caused to careen off into outer space, beyond the moon itself, when some kind of "insane faggot hassle," as it has since been described, developed aboard the craft during early flight stage.
According to available information, Lt. Col. P. D. Slattery, a "retired" British colonial officer, co-captained the flight in hand with Major Ralph L. Doll (better known to his friends, it was later learned, as "Baby" Doll); the balance of the crew consisted of Capt. J. Walker, Lt. Fred Hanson, and CpI. "Felix" Mendelssohn. (There is certain evidence suggesting that CpI. Mendelssohn may have, in actual fact, been a woman.) The initial phase of the existing transcript is comprised entirely of routine operational data and reports of instrument readings. It was near the end of Stage One, however, when the craft was some 68,000 miles from earth, and still holding true course, that the first untoward incident occurred; this was in the form of an exchange between Lt. Hanson and Maj. Doll, which resounded over the tracking-station inter-corn, as clear as a bell on a winter's morn:

Lt. Ranson: "Will you stop it! Just stop it!"
Maj. Doll: "Stop what? I was only calibrating my altimeter¬ for heaven's sake, Freddie!"
Lt. Hanson: "I'm not talking about that and you know it! I'm talking about your infernal camping! Now just stop it! Right now!"

The astonishment this caused at tracking-station H.Q. could hardly be exaggerated. Head-phones were adjusted, frequencies were checked; the voice of a Lt. General spoke tersely: "Cutie-Pie II-give us yuur reading-over."
"Reading thpeeding," was Cpl. Mendelssohn's slyly lisped reply, followed by a cunning snicker. At this point a scene of fantastic bedlam broke loose on the video inter-corn. Col. Slattery raged out from his forward quarters, like the protagonist of Psycho - in outlandish feminine attire of the nineties, replete with a dozen petticoats and high-button shoes. He pranced with wild imperiousness about the control room, interfering with all operational activity, and then spun into a provocative and feverish combination of tarantella and can-can at the navigation panel, saucily flicking at the controls there, cleverly integrating these movements into the tempo of his dervish, amidst peals of laughter and shrieks of delight and petulant annoyance.
"Mary, you silly old fraud," someone cried gaily, "this isn't Pirandello!"
It was then that the video system of the inter-corn blacked out, as though suddenly shattered, as did the audio-system shortly after¬ward. There is reason to believe, however, that the sound communi¬cation system was eventually restored, and, according to some accounts, occasional reports (of an almost incredible nature) con¬tinue to be received, as the craft-which was heavily fueled for its return trip to earth-still blazes through the farther reaches of space.
Surely, despite the negative and rather disappointing aspects of the flight, there are at least two profitable lessons to be learned from it: (1) that the antiquated, intolerant attitude of the Agency, and of Government generally, towards sexual freedom, can only cause individual repression which may at any time-and especially under the terrific tensions of space-B.ight-have a boomerang effect to the great disadvantage of all concerned, and (2) that there may well be, after all, an ancient wisdom in the old adage, "Five's a crowd."

--------------------------------------------

Lisping? Check
Bitchiness? Check
Transvestites? Check
Wholly inappropriate homosexuals comically disgracing some bastion of all-American masculine pride? Check
Well if nothing else this is pretty comprehensive in enumaterating many of the mannerisms and comedic set-ups that would obtain for the better part of the next 20 or so years. I am however absolutely entranced by the phrase “insane faggot hassle”. If ever there were a perfect title for some queer ‘zine then it must be “Insane Faggot Hassle”. Of course this piece is mostly written in a deliberately conservative style appropriate to a report, to set a contrasting background for the sudden eruption of queaniness, so there’s little else to rise to that kind of word-juggling, which is a shame.
The illustration is from a reprint in the short-lived late ‘60s English humour magazine “Private Collection”.
There is a recurrence of comedy homosexuals in Southern’s works, his writing and his films. If there is a sudden sprinkling of cameo comedy queers in the more daring films appearing in the later ‘60s then it is not merely because there is a new license in sexual matters in society but because the films are often either written by Southern, adapted from his works, or else the film-makers are trying to capture the same tone.

---------------------------------------

From “An Impolite Interview with Terry Southern" in “The Realist” May 1964

Q. Some readers have felt that, in a couple of things you've written for "The Realist", that there was an underlying hostility toward homosexuals. Do you have an underlying hostility toward homosexuals?

A. No, I do not, Paul, but def! Some of my best friends, in fact, are absolutely insanely raving gay. "Prancing gay," it's sometimes called - that's the gayest there is. My notion of homosexuality, by the way- I mean the area of interest it holds for me - is in the manner, speech, and implicit outlook, and has nothing to do with the person's sex-life.
I know guys, for example, who are actually married to boys, but they wouldn't be homosexual in my mind because their manner and so on is non-gay. On the other hand, there does exist a very definite gay-syndrome, and anyone who has not observed this is simply too busy playing the fool. Now if you want to say that the very awareness of the syndrome is hostility, I could not argue that-though I hasten to add that by no means do I find it an unpleasant syndrome. As for its significance, I would certainly say that persons who are quite openly and freely gay have more in common, or believe they have, than persons who say they are Catholic or Jewish have.
In fact, if you were to compile a list of group-identifications which have any internal strength left, I would say the gay would rank fairly high. The highest of course, would be the junkies - they have a sense of togetherness, a common frame of reference, and so on, that surpasseth all. Jewish is finished, Negro is rapidly falling to pieces. The Gurdjieff people, Actors Studio people- I think they're fairly tight, but of course they're both tiny groups.
But you take the gay-well, I don't want to go too far out on a limb here, prediction-wise, but by God, I'll just bet that if someone, a smart politician, really used his head - no pun intended there, Paul, har, har - and made a strong, very direct bid for the huge gay vote. . . well!

Q. As a matter of fact, there is a gay politician who, when a reporter asked him off the record if he thought his homosexuality would affect the election, he replied that he was hoping for the latent vote.

A. Anyway, if I may return to your question, I say no, I am not anti-gay, and, in fact, I say moreover that only a non-gay could have interpreted my articles as such.

180: Gay Boxing 2

“The Magic Christian” by Terry Southern, 1959

The Champ was a national hero. He became a TV personality, and his stock in trade was a poignant almost incredible, ignorance. He was good-natured and lovably stupid - and, boy-oh-boy, was he tough!

Well, Grand got through somehow, put his cards on the table (two million, tax-free) and made an arrangement whereby the Champ would throw the next fight in a gay or effeminate manner and, in fact, would behave that way all the time, on TV, in the ring, everywhere - swishing about, grimacing oddly, flinching when he struck a match, and so on.

The next big bout was due to go quite differently now. The challenger in this case was a thirty-three-year-old veteran of the ring named Texas Powell. Tex had an impressive record: 40 wins (25 by K.O.), 7 losses and 3 draws. He had been on the scene for quite a while and was known, or so the press insisted, as a 'rugged customer', and a 'tough cookie'.

'Tex has got the punch: they said. 'The big if is: Can he deliver it? Will he remain conscious long enough to deliver it? There's your Big If in tonight's Garden bout!' Well, the fix was in with Tex too, of course - not simply to carry the fight, but to do so in the most flamboyantly homosexual manner possible. And finally, a fix - or zinger, as it was called in those days - was in with the Commission as well, a precaution taken under best advice as it turned out, because what happened in the ring that night was so 'funny' that the bout might well have been halted at the opening bell.

Fortunately, what did happen didn't last too long. The Champ and the challenger capered out from their corners with a saucy mincing step, and, during the first cagey exchange - which on the part of each was like nothing so much as a young girl striking at a wasp with her left hand - uttered little cries of surprise and disdain. Then Texas Powell took the fight to the Champ, closed haughtily, and engaged him with a pesky windmill flurry which soon had the Champ covering up frantically, and finally shrieking, 'I can't stand it!' before succumbing beneath the vicious peck and flurry, to lie in a sobbing tantrum on the canvas, striking his fists against the floor of the ring - more the bad loser than one would have expected. Tex tossed his head with smug feline contempt and allowed his hand to be raised in victory - while, at the touch, eyeing the ref in a questionable manner.

Apparently a number of people found the spectacle so abhorrent that they actually blacked-out.

-------------

“The Magic Christian” was a cult book of the ‘60s. Guy Grand is a multimillionaire, who uses his wealth to practise assorted anarchic practical jokes upsetting society’s standards, all to prove that people will really do anything when offered enough money.
Here, Southern undermines the fetished masculinity of popular sports, in this case professional wrestling. At this relatively early date, knowing that he is writing only for a minority hip readership, Southern can afford to be quite explicit about what he means by gay. In 1959, Southern can, slightly smugly, think that a public display of sissiness is enough to outrage and shock his fictional lumpenmass. When the book was adapted for film in 1969 the stakes had to be upped and so the sketch ends with the two boxers kissing each other.

40 - Terry Southern Interviews a Faggot Male Nurse

in "The Realist", September 1963

LARRY M., 34 YEARS OLD, WHITE, born in Racine, Wisconsin, has lived in New York for nine years, and is presently employed as a ward attendant in one of the city's largest hospitals. The following is a verbatim transcript of an interview recorded there on March 7, 1963:
Q. Good. Well, let's see. . . now you've been a faggot male nurse for what-nine years, I believe?
A. Well, now, wait a minute! Ha-ha. I mean, look. . . well, I don't know what this magazine is you're from-the Realist, you said. I mean the copy you showed me and so on, but there was nothing about that kind of thing. . . I mean, ha, I'm not going to go along with that kind of thing!
Q. Oh well, listen, I didn't mean to be . . . well what do you say-gay"? "Homosexual"?
A. Well, gay, yes, I mean gay is all right. Homosexual-yes, I'm not ashamed of it if that's what you mean.
Q. All right, now let me . . . well listen, what do you mean, "faggot" is . . . I mean you think "faggot" is what? . . . derisive?
A. Derisive, yes, it is derisive-l think it's derisive. . . I think it's derisive.
Q. Well, I didn't mean it that way-I assure you that. . . I was just trying to use words.. . . you know, words of "high frequency incidence," as they say. I mean, semanticists and so on, that's what they say-that that's the word in currency-"faggot."
A. I know they do, I know they do, and it's probably. . . well, they're probably right, that that is the word they use. But, well, I didn't know, you know, exactly how you-well, you know, ha-ha. . . .
Q. But you really think "faggot" is derisive.
A. Well, I think. . . well, I know, I know for example that it's used that way.
Q. What, derisively?
A. Well, derisively. . . maybe not derisively, but patronizing . . . condescending. . . yes, condescendingly. Well, it's that . . . that kind of tolerance. . . you know? I mean liberals use it-the worse kind of so-called liberal uses it!
Q. Is that true? Well, what about a word like "queer"?
A. "Queer"! Oh well, ha! There you're talking about, I don't know what. . . I mean nobody would use a word like that except some kind of . . . of lizard or something.
Q. Yes, well I wouldn't use a word like that, like "queer" . . . or actually I wouldn't use a word like "fairy" either, or "pansy" . . . they just seem, I don't know, archaic or something. But what about "fruit"? I mean I think Lenny Bruce has made "fruit," you know to use the word "fruit," okay, don't you?
A. "Fruit"? Lenny Bruce used it? Well, Lenny Bruce . . . I mean Lenny Bruce uses these words and. . . well, what, you mean he used it instead of "gay"?
Q. Well, he used it, I don't know, he uses it some way, and. . . well, you know, it seemed to make it all right.
A. Yes, well. . . what, you mean he used it instead of "gay"?
Q. Yes, instead of "gay," instead of "faggot"-he uses "faggot," too, you know.
A. Yes, well some people, I mean some people can do that. . . they can do that and it isn't offensive.
Q. Yes, well that's the point-when I said "faggot" I didn't mean to be offensive.
A. Oh I know that. . . I know that now, that you didn't! But you see. . . well, the thing is you'd be surprised at the kind of people who do.
Q. What, here at the hospital?
A. At the hospital. . . well, everywhere, everywhere. . . yes, here at the hospital, yes, this is a kind of . . . of cross-section I guess you'd say.
Q. Well, listen, let's. . . I mean I'd like to ask you some questions about your work and so on, so why don't -
A. Well go, man, go, ha-ha. .. or baby-I don't know what to say. . . I mean you're not going to use our names or anything. . .
Q. Well, I'm not going to use your name. I mean, you know, isn't that the -
A. Well, that's the thing, yes, I mean I can't do that-you have no idea, I mean this is a very tough state, you can't just talk about these things with. . . with immunity. . . impunity? which is it? You're the writer. Ha-ha. Are you a writer?
Q. Impunity. . . you can't talk about them with impunity.
A. You didn't an-swer!
Q. What, about being a writer?
A. Yes! What do you write?
Q. Yes, well, listen, let me interview you, and then. . . you can interview me. Isn't that good?
A. Oh, ho-ho-ho . . .
Q. No, I mean what I'd like to do, you see, is be able to just put this straight down off the tape, without any editing or anything like that, and, well, if we get, you know, side-tracked. . . well, it's going to be all mixed up. You know what I mean?
A. Chrysler wouldn't like it?
Q. Chrysler?
A. Chrysler? Didn't you say Chrysler? Your boss!
Q. Oh, Krassner . . . yes, Paul Krassner.
A. Krassner! Yes, Paul Krassner-what's he like?
Q. Oh, well, listen, we can't. . . well, I'll tell you one thing about him, Paul Krassner, he's got this thing about format. . . you know? Tight and bright. "Let's keep it tight and bright!" he's always saying. : . and that's why we've got to stick to this one thing-you know, like your story. . . or I'll be in a real jam with Paul. Dig?
A. Do you call him "Pau1"?
Q. Yes.
A. Ha-ha.
Q. What's wrong with that?
A. Noth-ing, noth-ing! Don't be so touchy!
Q. Well. . . let me ask you now what attracted you to this sort of work?
A. People! I love people-I love to be with them, and to help them. That's what hospital-work is-helping people.
Q. What about being a doctor, did that ever -
A. Oh no-no, no, I don't have the patience for that. . . for that sort of training. It's too. . . technical, and too, I don't know, cold-blooded. No, my approach is different. . . it's more intuitive, more instinctive, and more direct, much more direct-you see, I deal directly with my patient, and all the time. . . the doctor sees the patient, maybe five minutes a day-I see. . . well, I don't see, I'm with, that's the difference, I'm with my patient, all the time, as much as he needs me. The doctor has no . . . no relationship with the patients. I have close. . . warm. . . wonderful, wonderful relationships with my patients! They all love me, all of them-not all, no, I won't say that. . . there are some who, well, you know the kind, they don't want help, they don't know what love is-they cmit love, well, you know the kind. . .
Q. You think they don't love you due to gayness?
A. Due to gayness? Ha, ha. Due to my gayness? Yes! No, I say yes and no! They don't like me . . . it's true some of them don't even like me-some of them hate me, and the feeling is mutual . . . well, I won't say that, I pity them-they don't like me because they're afraid-they're afraid of love, and they're afraid of themselves-and this is especially true of the doctors.
Q. The doctors? The doctors don't like you?
A. The doctors, ha, ha . . . well, I don't get along with the doctors too well-our approaches are different, you see. . . I mean, they don't really care about the patient-and they know that I know it! And they're afraid-they know that my power. . . my love, is stronger, and they're afraid. . .
Q. What, for their jobs?
A. Or for their souls! Ha, ha.
Q. Well, surely some of the doctors like you-I can't see how you could stay on unless-
A. Oh some of the doctors, yes! The really, really good. . . well, great ones, do, yes-they appreciate my work and I appreciate theirs. We respect each other. But how many good doctors are there? One in a billion? Not to mention great doctors-which are practically non-existent!
Q. Well. . . I don't understand-do you mean there aren't any really good ones. . . or any that like you?
A. No! I don't mean that, I don't mean that. What I mean. . . Well, take Dr. Schweitzer . . . I've never met Dr. Schweitzer, but I think he must be a great doctor, and I think. . . well, I know, he would understand what I'm doing. And there are others, right here, not great, but good. . . the best. . . and they like me; they respect me.
Q. Well. . . let's see, how about-
A. Listen, don't get the idea that I'm giving a big buildup to the whole. . . well, whole profession, if you like, of hospital attendants-or male nurse, whatever. . . I mean, don't take me as a typical example by any means. I mean some of the others-well I wouldn't want to say.
Q. Why, what are they like?
A. Well, I'll tell you this much, it isn't because they like people they're there!
Q. What is it? Why is it?
A. Well, they're sadists, a lot of them-especially in the mental wards. . . big, insensitive-well, you've got no idea, what goes on in some of those wards-animals, like apes. . . big cruel apes! They just sit around waiting for someone to blow his stack so they can slam him!
Q. Really? Slam him?
A. That's what they call it-"slammin'." Somebody blows his stack and they yell "Slam him, Joe! Slam that nut!" What it really means, what it's supposed to mean is that you put him in the slammer, like, you know, in a padded-cell, and slam the door-but it means the subduing part too.
Q. And how do they do that?
A. How? Are you kidding? Any way they feel like. With their fists, if they can-that's what they really like. . . I mean the tough ones are proud of their reputations for never using the sap-you know, the leather thing. . . the black-jack. Or they may say "Big Joe had to use the sap!" which means that it was a really bad case if Big Joe had to use the sap! But of course a real nut is as strong as about four ordinary people.
Q. Well. . . but they aren't all like that, are they? Is that just the mental ward?
A. The mental ward. No, there's another kind, the exact opposite -not opposite, but completely different-they work in hospitals to be close to morphine, so they can get morphine. They couldn't care less about hitting anybody-they just sort of step aside. . . I guess hoping the guy will fall out the window or something. And when they have to sap him, they just tap him on the back of the head-no expression, nothing. . . they live in a world apart, some of them have terrible, terrible habits-I mean that would cost them two or three hundred dollars a day if they didn't work at the hospital.
Q. And they get morphine-how do they get it?
A. Oh well, they get it! Ha, ha, they have to get it-I mean they would get it if you. . . if you put it in a safe and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean! They're like Houdini when they go after that-nothing could stop them, nothing! I mean they don't even worry about how to get it-all they want is to be in the vicinity of it, because, if they are, they'll get it! And you know therl1s a lot of morphine in a big hospital.
Q. Well, what do you think. . . I mean, are they good at their work?
A. No! They're like zombies-no feeling, none at all . . . they can't help the patient. Why I have some wonderful relationships in the mental wards-but they don't care, about the patient, about anything. . . they don't even speak to anyone. Not to me anyway -none of them will even speak to me.
Q. But they must do their job. . .
A. Of course! They do their job. They make sure of that, that they do their job! Yes, that's true, they do their job and they do it very. . . well, very thoroughly-I mean, you see, they cannot afford to get fired, so . . . so they do their job very. . . very well, in a way. Very careful and serious-but never a smile or a kind word for anyone. Oh no, they're too serious! Ha! Well, I certainly wouldn't have them in my hospital. I can tell you that!
Q. What, you mean. . . well, do you think about that? About hospital administration? '
A. Yes! That's what I'd really like to do-I'd like to organize my own hospital!
Q. What would you. . . would you have. . . an all-gay staff?
A. What? Ha-ha I No-ooo! Don't be silly! What an idea! Ha, ha, ha! An all-gay hospital! Well, who knows. . . maybe it would work out that way. . . who knows? I mean, one thing I do know, I would not, repeat not, use women nurses!
Q. You would not?
A. No! I would not! And I know what you're thinking, but I don't care, it isn't true, I would definitely not use them. .
Q. Yes. . . well, why not?
A. Why not? For the very simple reason that a hospital. . . a hospital should be . . . clean. . . efficient. . . well-run! With an atmosphere of love and. . . human affection, human warmth! And care for the patient! People who care about the patient! And not just constant. . . bitching about having their period! Or not having their period! Qr having their menopause! Or not having their menopause! Or washing their hair! Or not washing their hair! God!
Q. Is that-
A. Do you know. . . let me just say this . . . do you know that nurses. . . women nurses, are one hell of a lot more trouble than the patients are? That's right. They're always sick-always sick! If it isn't their period, it's something else. Something's wrong with their breast! Or their insides-ovaries! womb! uterus! vulva! tubes! And God knows what else! Christ, if I hear another nurse talk about her goddamn tubes. . . !
Q. Well-
A. I know, I know. . . I'm exaggerating. All right, all right, you're right. . . I am. But. . . But! . . . it's only an exaggeration. Do you follow? I mean it is true. . . it's true, but exaggerated. Right? Do you dig? And here's something else, and this is true-most nurses, almost no nurse, in fact, is married. . . they're sexually frustrated, and bitter, baby. . . bitter, bitter, bitter!
Q. Well, can't they make it with the doctors, or the patients? I mean -
A. Yes! Of course! Oh, they do, they do! With the doctors, patients, interns... ward-boys, janitors-anybody! Listen, I could tell you. . . well, that's why you can never find one of them! They're either. . . lying down in the rest-rooms, coddling their period, or they're off somewhere getting laid! In the. . . the broom-closet or someplace! Ha!
Q. Then you don't-
A. Oh listen, I've known some nice nurses, I don't say that. . .there's one here, right here, on this floor-day-nurse . . . a darling, perfectly darling little old lady-she's let's see, how old is [name] now. . . ? She's sixty. . . four. Sixty-four years old! And a marvelous nurse! Really. Marvelous sweet old lady! But, I mean, ha, ha, well, I don't mind telling you it's. . . well, it's a rare thing, a very rare thing!
Q. Yes, well-
A. But listen. . . just a minute-what did you say? Just before? You said why can't they make it with them? The patients and so on-is that what you said?
Q. Well, you said they were frustrated. . .
A. Well, but that's not going to change their. . . well, what kind of hospital is that, for heaven's sake! With the nurses getting laid all over the place! You think they should do that? Ha, ha, you. . . you've got some funny ideas about hospitals!
Q. I didn't say they should do that, I just wondered if they did.
A. And an all-gay hospital! Ha, ha! That's very funny!
Q. Well, you don't think that's. . . what, that isn't even conceivable?
A. Well, you couldn't get an all-gay staff to treat only gay patients, I can tell you that.
Q. But would it be possible to have an all-gay staff? I mean are there gay janitors, for example?
A. Oh, ho-ho! Are there!
Q. Well then, theoretically -
A. Ha, ha! Some of my best friends are gay janitors!
Q. Well, the point -
A. No, no, that was a joke!
Q. Yes, I realize that, I realize that. It's very funny.
A. Ho-ho! You didn't laugh!
Q. Well. . . I did really. I mean I recognize it as a joke. I
acknowledge it as a joke. Ha, ha. How's that?
A. Ha, ha . . . Well, you have some funny ideas about hospitals, that's all I can say.
Q. I don't have any ideas about it-I wanted you to tell me about it. I mean we've. . . you've made certain generalizations, about doctors and so on, so I was asking about that.
A. About an all-gay hospital?
Q. Well, an all-gay staff, yes.
A. Well, it would be a damn good hospital, I can tell you that. Better than any there are now!
Q. Well, what about the . . . wouldn't the gay staff try to . . . try to take advantage of the non-gay patients? While they were asleep, or weakened or something?
A. Ha, ha! Well, I mean if you call love and. . . and-well, what do you mean "take advantage of"?
Q" Well, I don't know. . . it seems like they would.
A. Well, anyway, one thing-you could be sure of getting plenty of attention!
Q. Yes. . ,
A. And I do mean you!
Q. Uh-huh . . .
A. Ha, ha! Now, now, don't take it so person-ally!