- A Love Story
Gonna tell a love story now, 'cause you have background material on me. Ah, this occurred before I was married, a long time ago, out in Manhattan, I was in Manhattan. I was at City Center, this was ages ago, I was watching a ballet at City Center, and I'm not a ballet fan at all, but they were doing the dying swan, and there was a rumour, that some bookmakers had drifted into town from upstate New York, and that they had fixed the ballet. Apparently there was a lot of money bet on the swan to live. And I look at the box, and I see a girl, and my weak spot is women, ah, so I always think someday they're gonna make me a birthday party, and wheel out a tremendous birthday cake, and a giant, naked woman is gonna leap out of the cake and hurt me and leap back in the cake.
So I pick up this girl, I was very glib, and she was a brilliant girl, she was a Bennington girl, studying at Bennington to be a woman male nurse at a four-year program, working on a term paper on the increasing incidents of heterosexuality amongst homosexuals. The girl was a swinger, however, I must....The girl was brought up in Darien, Conneticut, and when she was younger, she had a little brother about six years old, eight years...his parents sent the kid to military school. And while he was there, he stole jam or something, and they caught him, and they wanted to do things right, 'cause it was military school, so they held a court martial there. They found the kid guilty. They shot him. They returned to his parents half the tuition.
Meanwhile, I was running amok with his sister, his sister was fabulous, she was a great, great, blonde, and she had tatooed on the inner surface of her thigh, the words 'Bird lives', which, unfortunately, I was never privileged to see in the relationship, but had it been printed in Braille, I would have had a great thing going with her. We used to go up to her apartment late at night, and all her beatnik friends would be sitting crosslegged on each other there, and they would be trying to make opium out of the poppies given out by veterans on street corners. She used to plug in her twelve and a half dollar hi-fi set, y'know, with the teakwood needle, and put on the record albums on of Marcel Marceau, y'know, just....
She crushed me, I...Every time I tell the story, I'm reminded...I was what you would call, not a intellectual, up to her...she was...I was thrown out of college, and when I was thrown out of college I got a job on Madison Avenue in New york, a real dyed-in-the-wool advertising agency on Madison Avenue, wanted a man to come in, and they pay him ninetyfive dollars a week, and to sit in their office, and to look jewish. They wanted to prove to the outside world, that they would hire minority groups, y'know. So I was the one they hired, y'know. I was the show jew at the agency. I tried to look jewish desperately, y'know. I used to read my memos from right to left all the time. They fired me finally, 'cause I took off too many jewish holidays.
- Bullet In My Breast Pocket
Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet...a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon bible out a hotel room window, hitting me in the chest. Bible would have gone through my heart if it wasn't for the bullet.
- Eggs Benedict
I had once a pain in the chestal area. Now, I was sure it was heartburn, y'know, 'cause at that time I was married and my wife cooking with her nazi recipies, y'know, chicken Himmler. I didn't wanna pay twentyfive bucks to have it reaffirmed by some medic, that I had heartburn. But I was worried 'cause it was in the chestal area. Then it turns out my friend, Eggs Benedict, has a pain in his chestal area, in the same exact spot. I figured if I could get Eggs to go to the doctor, I could figure out what was wrong with me, at no charge, so I con Eggs. He goes. Turns out he's got heartburn. Cost him twentyfive dollars, and I feel great, 'cause I figured I beat the medic out of twentyfive big ones, y'know. Called up Eggs two days later - he died. I check into a hospital immediately, have a battery of test run and x-rays. Turns out I got heartburn. Cost me a hundred and ten dollars. Now I'm furious. I run to Eggs' mother, and I say: "Did he suffer much?" And she said: "No, it was quick. Car hit him and that was it."
- Kidnapped
I was kidnapped once. I was standing in front of my schoolyard, and a black sedan pulls up. And two guys get out, and they say to me, do I wanna go away with them to a land, where everybody is fairies and elves, and I can have all the comic books I want and chocolate and wax lips, you know. And I said "yes", y'know, and I got into the car with them, 'cause I figured, y'know, "What the hell", I was home that week-end from college anyhow, y'know. They drive me off, and they sent a ransom note to my parents. And my father has bad reading habits, so he gets into bed at night with the ransom note, and he read half of it, y'know, and he got drowsy and fell asleep, then he lent it out, y'know.
Meanwhile they take me to New Jersey, bound and gagged, and my parents finally realize that I'm kidnapped. They snap into action immediately: they rent out my room. The ransom note says for my father to leave a thousand dollars in a hollow tree in New Jersey. He has no trouble raising the thousand dollars, but he gets a hernia carrying the hollow tree.
The FBI surround the house, "Throw the kid out,", they say, "give us your guns, and come out with your hands up."
The kidnappers say "We'll throw the kid out, but let us keep our guns, and get to our car."
The FBI says "Throw the kid out, we'll let you get to your car, but give us your guns."
The kidnappers say "We'll throw the kid out, but let us keep our guns - we don't have to get to our car."
The FBI says "Keep the kid."
- Mechanical Objects
These... I should just add, parenthetically, these stories are true. These things actually happened to me. I don't make them up. My life is a series of...of...eh...these crises that...that eh... I came home one night, some month ago, and I went to the closet in my bedroom, and a moth ate my sports jacket. He was laying on the floor, nauseous, y'know. It was a yellow and green striped jacket, y'know. The little fat moth laying there, groaning, y'know, part of a sleeve hanging out of his mouth. I gave him two plain brown socks. I said "Eat one now and eat one in a half hour."
Someone asked me if I would tell this...story. A long time ago... It's a wierd story. 'Twas out in Los Angeles and I was at a party with a very big Hollywood producer, and at that time he wanted to make an elaborate cinemascope musical comedy out of the Dewey Decimal System. And they wanted me to work on it, and I go out to the producers building in downtown Los Angeles,and I walk into his elevator, and there are no people in the elevator, no buttons on the wall or anything. And I hear a voice say "Kindly call out your floors, please." And I look around, and I'm alone. And I panic, and I read on the wall, that is a new elevator and it works on a sonic principle and it all sound. All I have to do is say what floor I wanna got to, and it takes me there. So I say "Three, please", and the doors close and the elevator starts going up to three. And on the way up I began to feel very selfconscious, 'cause I talk, I think, with a slight New York accent, and the elevator spoke quite well. I get out of it, and I'm walking down the hall, and I look back, and I thought I heard the elevator make a remark. I turned quickly and the doors closed and the elevator goes down, y'know, and I...didn't wanna get involved at the time with an...elevator in Hollywood, but - this is the strange part of the story, the other was the normal part - I have never in my life had good relationships with mechanical objects of any sort. Anything that I can't reason with or kiss or fondle, I get into trouble with. I have a clock that runs counter-clockwise for some reason. My toaster pops up my toast and shakes it, burns it. I hate my shower. I'm taking a shower, and somebody in America uses his water. That's it for me, y'know, I leap from the tub scolded. I have a tape recorder, I payed a hundred and fifty dollars for, and as I talk into it, it goes "I know, I know."
About three years ago I couldn't stand it anymore. I was home one night. I called a meeting with my posessions. I got everything I owned into the living room. My toaster, my clock, my blender. They never been in the living room before. And I spoke to them. I opened with a joke. And then I said "I know what's going on, and cut it out!" I have a sun lamp, but as I sit under it, it rains on me. And I spoke to each appliance, I was really articulate. Then I put them back, and I felt good. Two nights later I'm watching my portable television set, and the set begins to jump up and down, and I go up to it. And I always talk before I hit, and I said "I thought we had discussed this, what's the problem?" And the set kept going up and down, so I hit it, and it felt good hitting it, and I beat the hell out of it. I was really great, I tore off the antenna, and I felt very virile. And two days later I go to my dentist in New York. I had gone to my dentist, but I had a deep cavity, and he'd sent me to a chiropodist. I'm going into a building in mid-town New York, and they have those elevators, and I hear a voice say "Kindly call out your floors, please", and I say "sixteen" and the doors close and the elevator starts going up to sixteen. And on the way up the ellevator says to me "Are you the guy that hit the televison set?" I felt like an ass, y'know, and it took me up and down fast between floors, and it threw me off in the basement. It yelled out
- My Grandfather
Wanted to flash this watch, I flash it all the time. It's my antique pocket watch, and it makes me look British, and I need that for my analysis. It is a georgeous gold pocket watch, however, and I'm proud of it. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch. My grandfather was a very insignificant man. At his funeral, his hearse followed the other cars. It was a nice funeral, you would have liked it, it was a catered funeral. It was held in a big hall with accordion players, and the buffet table was a replica of the deceased in potato salad.
- My Marriage
I wanted to discuss my marriage, 'cause that's important. My marriage, or as it was known, "The Oxbow Incident". I had a rough marriage. Well, my wife was an immature woman and, ah, That's all I can say, she...See if this is not immature to you: I would be home in the bathrroom, taking a bath, and my wife would walk right in, whenever she felt like, and sink my boats. It was partially my fault that we got divorced, I had a lousy attitude toward her. The first year of marriage I had a bad att...basically a bad attitude toward her, I guess. I tended to place my wife underneath a pedestal all the time.
We used to argue and fight, we finally decided, we either take a vacation on Bermuda or get a divorce, one of the two things, and we discussed it very maturely, and we decided on the divorce, 'cause we felt we had a limited amount of money to spend, y'know. A vacation in Bermuda is over in two weeks, but a divorce is something that you'd always have. And I saw myself free again, living in the Village, y'know, in a batchelor apartment with a wood burning fireplace and a shaggy rug, y'know, and on the walls one of those great Picassos by Van Gogh, and just great swinging...Airline hostesses running amok in the apartment, y'know. And I got very excited, and I ran into my wife, she was in the next room at the time, listening to Conelrad on the radio, y'know. I laid it right on the line with her, I came right to the point, I said "Quasimodo, I want a divorce".
And she said "Great, get the divorce", but it turns out, in New York state, they have a strange law that says you can't get a divorce unless you can prove adultery, and it's weird, because the ten commandments say "Thou shalt not commit adultery", but New York state says you have to. Well, finally, what happened was, my wife comitted adultery for me. She's always been more mechanically inclined than I have.
- Pets
When I was little boy, I wanted a dog desperately, and we had no money. I was a tiny kid, and my parents couldn't get me a dog, 'cause we just didn't have the money, so they got me, instead of a dog - they told me it was a dog - they got me an ant. And I didn't know any better, y'know, I thought it was a dog, I was a dumb kid. Called it 'Spot'. I trained it, y'know. Coming home late one night, Sheldon Finklestein tried to bully me. Spot was with me. And I said "Kill!", and Sheldon stepped on my dog.
- Private Life
This is my third night here, I haven't been here in about eight months now, was the last time I was here, and since I was here last, a lot of significant things have occured in my private life, that I thought we could go over tonight and evaluate.
I moved, let me start right at the very beginning, I formerly lived in Manhattan, uptown east in a brownstone building, but I was constantly getting mugged and assaulted and...sadistically beaten about the face and neck. So I moved into a doormanned apartment house on Park Avenue, that's rich and secure and expensive and great, and I lived there for two weeks, and my doorman attacked me.
I don't know what else has happened...Oh I know, I became a corporation since I was here the last time. Last year I had difficulty with my income tax. I tried to take my analyst off as a business deduction, y'know. The government said it was entertainment, y'know, we compromised finally and made it a religious contribution. I formed a corporation this year, and I'm the president, my mother is vice president, my father is secretary and my grandmother is treasurer, my uncle is on the board of directors, and they got together the first week, and they tried to squeeze me out. I formed a power block with my uncle and we sent my grandmother to jail.
I went to NYU myself, I was a philo-major there, too. I took all the abstract philosophy courses in college, like truth and beauty, advanced truth and beauty, intermediate truth, introduction to God, Death 101. I was thrown out of NYU my freshman year, I cheated on my metaphysics final in college, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me. They threw me out, and my mother, who is a really sensitive woman, when I got thrown out of college, she locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of Mahjong tiles.
I was in analysis, you should know that about me, I was in group analysis when I was younger, 'cause I couldn't afford private...I was captain of the latent paranoid softball team. We used to play all the neurotics on sunday morning. Nailbiters against the bedwetters, and if you've never seen neurotics play softball, it's really funny. I used to steal second base, and feel guilty and go back.
- Second Marriage
Which I think brings me to my main...conclusion here, that is that I got married, that's the biggest thing that's happened to me over the last... I got married for the second time, incidentally. I should have known something was wrong with my first wife, when I brought her home to meet my parents, they approved of her, y'know, - my dog died, that's what happened. I got to be careful what I say about her publicly now, 'cause she's sueing me. I don't know if you read that in the paper or not, but I'm getting sued because I made a nasty remark about her..she. She didn't like it, she lives on the upper west side of Manhattan, and she was coming home late at night, and she was violated. That's how the put it in the New York papers: "She was violated", and they asked me to comment on it, and I said "Knowing my ex-wife, it probably was not a moving violation."
Let me tell you how I met my second wife, which is really...romantic. I read an article in Life magazine saying there was a sexual revolution going on on college campuses all over the country, and I reregistrated at New York University to check it out, 'cause I used to go there years ago, I was a history of hygiene major at NYU, and I was thrown out of college, and when I was thrown out I got a job. My father had a grocery store in Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, and he hired me to work for him. I was a delivery boy for my father, that was my first job, and I unionized the workers and we struck and drove him out of business. He's always been touchy about it.
Now, when I went back to school, suddenly everybody wanted to fix me up with women. And I have had a very bad history with blind dates. You must not misunderstand me - believe it, sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five it's fantastic. I was very depressed about that for a long time. I was gonna kill myself, but as I said, I was in a strict freudian analysis, and if you kill yourself, they make you pay for the sessions you miss. So I accept this date. First blind date in years, I go to a fourth floor walk-up, and then knock on the door, and this girl comes to the door, and she is absolutely beautiful, but really terrific, great long blond hair, and a short skirt and boots and a sleeveless jersey, and she is packed into it. When I see her look that beautiful, I wanna...cry, write a poem, jump on her. I'm very sensitive, y'know. She asked me what I wanted to do, and I'm not a swinger. My idea of a big evening is go down to the corner roticimat and watch the chickens revolve, y'see.
I take her to a party on McDougle Street in Greenwich Village. We go into a smokedfilled room, and I do not use - you should know this about me, too - any sort of consciousness expanding material. My body will not tolerate that. Y'know I took a puff of the wrong cigarette at a fraternity dance once, and the cops had to get me, y'know. I broke two teeth trying to give a hickie to the Statue of Liberty. The party begins to move downstairs now, unto the street, and everybody is playing bongoes and guitars, and a cop on horseback comes up to me, and he puts his arm around me. He says to me "Are you one of those draftcard burners?" And I say "No, I'm not. I never registered, I don't have a draftcard." Now a little girl feeds, what look like a cube of sugar, to the policemans horse. The horse showed up at a sit-in in Georgia. Now I decide to strike. I get my date, and I jam her into my Hertz. I have a rented car, which is a flat rate 12 cents a mile, in an effort to cut down on the mileage charge, I back up every place. So I'm backing over the George Washington Bridge.
That was two o'clock in the morning, and I get my date back to her apartment, and the two of us are alone, and we're going pretty good. I have to explain this very delicately, 'cause it's really tentative. As I... as I am an inordinately...passionate...man. Volatile. Sensual. In general a stud. When maki
- Summing Up
In summing up, I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with, I don't. Would you take two negative messages? My mother used to say to me when I was younger, "If a strange man comes up to you, and offers you candy, and wants you to get into the back of his car with him...go".
Good night.
- The Lost Generation
I mentioned before that I was in Europe. It's not the first time that I was in Europe, I was in Europe many years ago with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway had just written his first novel, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said that is was a good novel, but not a great one, and that it needed some work, but it could be a fine book. And we laughed over it. Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
That winter Picasso lived on the Rue d'Barque, and he had just painted a picture of a naked dental hygenist in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Gertrude Stein said it was a good picture, but not a great one, and I said it could be a fine picture. We laughed over it and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald came home from their wild new years eve party. It was April. Scott had just written Great Expectations, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said it was a good book, but there was no need to have written it, 'cause Charles Dickens had already written it. We laughed over it, and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
That winter we went to Spain to see Manolete fight, and he was... looked to be eighteen, and Gertrude Stein said no, he was nineteen, but that he only looked eighteen, and I said sometimes a boy of eighteen will look nineteen, whereas other times a nineteen year old can easily look eighteen. That's the way it is with a true Spaniard. We laughed over that and Gertrude Stein punched me in the mouth.
- Unhappy Childhood
I was talking about this on TV last week. I escape always into a rich fantasy life, that comes from an unhappy childhood. I come from a poor family. My father worked at Coney Island. He had a consession on the boardwalk, where you knock over milk bottles with baseballs, which I could never do for my entire childhood. There was a tidal wave at Coney Island, when I was a child, ripped up the boardwalk and did about a million dollars worth of damage, houses and everything. The only thing left standing was those little milk bottles, y'know.
I was, I would say, overdiciplined which is really humiliating. I had to be home nine thirty, prom night. I made a reservation at the Copa Cabana for five o'clock. I took my date and we wathced them set up. I was, as a matter of fact, when I think of it, terrorised as an adolescent. I was not that young when it happened, I was...eh...I guess about thirteen or so at the time, and was on my way to an amateur music contest. And, my family is musical, you should know that, my father used to play the tuba as a young man, he tried to play the tuba, he tried to play "Flight of the Bumblebee", and blew his liver out through the horn.
Now I'm on the subway with my clarinet [jewish?] jazz musician style, unwrapped and everything, and these twelve guys come running through the subway. Really hairy-knuckled types, y'know, raced through there. Apparently they just come from a settlement house, y'know' as they were dribbling a social worker as they went through the car. They stop right over me, y'know, because I was conspicous, 'cause I had just eaten a sea-food lunch, I had forgotten to remove the lobster bib, y'know, so I looked like a farmer with a fat tie, y'know, with Neptune on it. They stand over me, they start cursing and smoking and tearing up seats, y'know. I don't say anything, y'know, I just sit there, look down, continue reading 'Heidi'. All of a sudden the leader puts his finger under my neck, like this, and goes feeww. I got up. He snapped his knee up, quickly, and I refused to give him the satisfaction of doubling over, but I did one of the greatest imitations of Lily Ponds, you've ever heard. I hit an M over high C and I'm being [????]. Showed up an hour late for the music contest. Came in second anyhow. I won two weeks at Interfaith Camp, where I was sadistically beaten by boys of all races and creeds.