JUNE 30, 1978 JOURNAL ENTRY

THe first half of 1978 ends today. It's 10:30 and I'm ready for the new half-year. Tomorrow morning I depart my departure to Charleston, West Virginia, where I will paint Alice's father's house. As a teenager I painted two houses in my neighborhood in the Blue Hills. Ten years ago. My parents' and a neighor's split-level. All the houses on my street with split-level. My older brother and I were a team. The job took us two weeks. My hand hasn't touched a brush since. So many of my friends here are artists. I asked Ro for advice.

"Put down a drop cloth. Start at the top and paint with up and down strokes. Wear a hat and long sleeve shirt to protect yourself from splatter. And don't do it by yourself."

Alice says she will help.

A ticket on Piedmont is waiting for me at JFK. I have $70 in my wallet. Her father will pay me $500 for the job. At present I'm lucky to earn $100 a week. I hope to finish in two weeks. Alice says it is not a big house. Her father is a lawyer. It has to be as big as my parent's house, but it is not a split-level. At least it isn't a hillbilly shack up some hollow with moonshine running down the creek. Chareleston is the Capitol of the Mountaineer State. I know nothing about it, but I suspect her home is in the suburbs up a creek.

This afternoon I asked Ro what I should buy for a gift.

"Perfume. Opium by Yves St. Laurent. It's a natural scene with mandarin, jasmine, patchouli, and vanilla. Very sensual."

We made love at my place and then I went up to Bloomingdale's. Matthew worked in the perfume department. He wants me badly enough to give it to me. I trade a kiss for the perfume.

Alice doesn't wear any. She is a hippie. She smells good without any I sniff the perfume. Patchouli. She will like that hint. She's a hippie. I open the box and spray on a little. The attar warms on my skin. It reminds me of smoking opium and I wish I had some.

I pack a bag. Jeans, tee-shirts, and an old seersucker jacket. Alice says it's hot in the mountains. I'll bring a bathing suit. Maybe I'll swim in a moonshine creek. I haven't flown since Chuck and Jackie's Philadelphia wedding in 1975. I was in the wedding party. They moved to Cinncinati. It's not far from West Virgina. Maybe I can find their phone number by dialing infomation at 555-1212.

The New York Post featured a report about a Miami voodoo priest who creates Baron Samedi dolls of victims by gathering his victims' nail clippings and hair with water and a little rum and then puts them into a Waring blender after which the finished product is poured into a small doll. Supposedly the victim wakes thinking he is a doll.

La Guardia-Charleston flight departs at 1:30. I'll get there two hours before take-off. An hour flight to DC. A three-hour layover. Then an hour to Charleston. 7-8 hours with the subway the first stage of the trip. A distance of 500 miles. Ten hours by car. Longer by hitchhiking. West Virginia is the original hillbilly country. They hated hippies. They must hate punks even more. I'll soon find out.

Later

The musicians at CBGBs only talk about music, drugs, or other musicians. My world has fallen into a world of drum, guitars, and bass. Their only goal in life. Hit the Top 10. Even Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Hard-driving noise band with Lydia Lunch singing. My fav song EVERYTHING. It is so radically un Top 10 with James Chance on sax, but in their eyes I see the collective dream of opening for the Rolling Stones. All the girls on the scene think Richard Hell is cute. No one thinks that of Teenage Jesus. They sound like they're covering Lour Reed's Metal Music Machine, whihc is almost unlistenable. Cecil Taylor loves them.

OPIUM
Black tar
On tin foil
Stuck into a pipe
A match
Fire
Smoke furls in the air
Suck
Suck
Suck
My mind stalls
Into a dream
Of nothing
A land of Nod
So sweet nothing
So nothing at all
In a sleep smooth as glass

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks

I woke up dreaming

JOURNAL ENTRY - JANUARY 21, 1979 - EAST VILLAGE

Last evening of mishaps, adventure, and parties was marked by a midnight tragedy. Bill Yusk, a Dixie gambler, Doctor Bertoni, a lead anesthesiologist at NYU, and I were speaking to Haoui Montauk, who was working at the door of Rock Lounge located at where Jane Street ran into the Hudson. The three of us were lit on LSD. Bill's irises were blown open to the max. The chubby Kentuckian shuddered when a blanketed boy hit the street's cobblestones with a groan.. I thought it was a bag of garbage, until a hand flopped onto the street. ""Fuck, I hate suicides," said Haoui. SRO hotels were the last stop for too many strangers. Doctor Bertoni shook off the acid and knelt by the naked man. He pulled a stethoscope from HIs jacket and listened for a heartbeat. "Is he dead?" Haoui asked and Doctor Bertoni answered, "Not yet. Call 911." As Haoui went inside, man's naked foot and leg slithered from underneath the blanket. Dr. Bertoni wasn't wrong. The man was still alive, but blood was pooling on the street stones. We waited for EMS. The two-man crew trundled the suicide onto a stretcher and slid him into the ambulance. "Do you think he will make it," asked Haoui from the steps. "He will if he had more life in him," said Doctor Bertoni, as Bill Yusk hailed a taxi. The three of us piled into the rear of the Checker and I said, "Tier Three." It was a downtown club featuring absurdly-named No Wave bands and dancing in a three-floor pit. The doctor and I were grooving on the DJ's playing a cut fro TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS, When screams broke through the noice. Someone was puled on the crowd fro the third tier. Not someone. Bill. We hurried him into the night air. He was no longer within this dimension and I grabbed a plastic bag for the taxi ride to his apartment building. Luckily he had a doorman and we left him into the old uniformed Puerto Rican's care. I don't remember the rest of the night.