by Ron Padgett
August 29th, 1967
I’m outside sunbathing on Kenward Elmslie’s lawn in Calais, Vermont. I would say that it’s about 10 o’clock. I’m all covered with suntan lotion. The sun is not shining. The sky is total gray clouds. You never can tell about Vermont, tho. It might clear up at any moment. Wayne is crying. Now he’s laughing. Wayne is Pat and Ron Padgett’s new baby boy. They’re up here too. And so is Jimmy Schuyler. He’s still asleep in the front bedroom. Kenward is down at his work cabin working (I think) on collaging a table with magazine ads from the ’20s and ’30s. Ron (in white gym shorts) just stood up and said, “Well.” He smiles at me, meaning “No sun” and goes inside. I bet, for a Pepsi.——I was right. He is coming back out now with a Pepsi. There is a hummingbird over there on those yellow flowers by the “Emslie Road” sign. I always forget how little they are. “Emslie” is local misspelling of Elmslie. Ron just went back inside the house again. Already I am thinking of this as a “piece of writing,” and wondering if I can get by without really saying anything. And if so, how will I end it. Ron just came back out with a can of macadamia nuts. He says, “Do you want some?” I say, “No, how do you spell it?” He says, “M-A-C-A-D-A-M-I-A.” So I wrote it down up there where I said “Ron just came back out with a can of . . . ” I’m a terrible speller. I’ve been looking around me at all the dark green and I decided not to push myself. I’m just going to lie back and wait until something happens or until something comes to me that I really want to say.——
I heard someone going up the stairs and closing the bathroom door. It’s probably Jimmy.——I’m going to listen real close and try to hear all the sounds I can hear.——I hear birds chirping. The waterfall. Flies buzzing around.——Ron’s hand in the macadamia nuts. Chewing. A buzz-saw very far away. The wind in the trees. Ron is reading Shelley. A car.——The hot water heater is doing something. Wayne is making little noises from his bedroom. There are bang noises from the kitchen. I bet Jimmy is making coffee. Another car. You probably think it’s very noisy here, but it isn’t really. Most of the sounds I’m telling you about you have to listen real close to to hear. Pat just came outside with Wayne under her arm and bottle in hand. (Milk.) Wayne is crawling to the macadamia nuts. Ron just said to Pat that Byron was only 5′8½″ tall. Wayne is having a hard time with the macadamia nuts. He can’t get the lid off. Little grunting sounds. I’m going inside to get another Pepsi.——
——I was right: Jimmy is up. He just made a fresh pot of coffee so I’m having coffee instead of a Pepsi. There is a tiny breakthrough in the sky.——Now it’s gone. I hear an airplane. Jimmy just came out and is sitting on the steps with a cup of coffee. He announces a fresh pot and Pat goes in for some. Wayne is coming in my direction.——
I don’t have an inferiority complex or anything like that, but for some reason I’m always trying to prove myself. I like to please people. One thing about me, I really am a nice person. At least I think I am. I think that a lot of people think that “being a nice person” is just a cover-up. I don’t think so. Or, if it is, it’s a better cover-up than most. At any rate, I enjoy being a nice person. I’ve got a lot of things wrong with me too. One thing I lack is morals. I have practically none. There is something that I lack as a painter that de Kooning and Alex Katz have. I wish I had that. I’d tell you what it was except that I don’t know. I can see myself as a Cornell or a Man Ray, but somehow I doubt that I’ll ever be a de Kooning or an Alex Katz. Of course, you never can tell. I work hard and I’m smart. There is a hornet buzzing around me.——I love people a lot. It’s good to know that. But I suppose that everyone does. I’m going to get corny if I don’t watch out.
——You know what I’d like to have? I’d like to have a giant dick.
A really big one. Not a freak one, just a really big one. I would say that mine is about normal, but I’d like to have a really big one. One thing I hope is that all people are pretty much alike. I’m no extraordinary person, and I’d like to think that all people think that about themselves. At least, most people. I mean, if it occurs to me sitting here that I’d like to have a giant dick, I’d like to think that other people would like to have giant dicks too sometimes. At any rate——
Ron just went inside with his blanket, saying it is going to rain. And it is. I can feel drops already. I guess I’ll go inside too.
Jamaica 1968
March 2nd
Well, here we are in Jamaica. Kenward Elmslie, Jane and Joe and Elizabeth Hazan, and myself. What I feel right now is that perhaps I shouldn’t be here. That perhaps I have no right to be here. That perhaps I don’t deserve to be here. I felt much the same way about flying here. (BOAC.) It occurred to me that perhaps I had no right being up in the sky where I was.
March 3rd
Our house is a little house up on top of a big hill. All white and modern with very little furniture. Except chairs. There are chairs everywhere. There are thirteen chairs just in the living room alone. We have a swimming pool and two maids. I don’t like having two maids. I can’t ignore them. It seems that I am continually saying “hello” to them. There are buzzards that fly very low. And geese. They come around and drink from the pool, quack, and do enormous piles of green shit. And there are brown goats, and beautiful peacocks. I would say about a hundred of them. I have never seen anything more beautiful.
March 4th
I’m outside sunbathing. There is a goose over by the swimming pool. Jane thinks it is something else that does the green shit piles but I’m sure it’s the geese. Just beyond the swimming pool is a drop-off area full of wild poinsettias. Beyond the poinsettias are green hills that slowly turn into blue hills. Beyond the blue hills is Montego Bay: the bay. Beyond the bay is Montego Bay: the city. Beyond the city is the ocean. And endless sky. We really do have a terrific view up here.
March 5th
The peacocks woke us up this morning with their various noises. They make incredibly loud sounds. Like a high honk-honk. And they jump up and down on our roof with their claws. Worst of all, tho, are their long tails that swoosh against the window screens. But Joe Hazan got up and shooed them away and we all went back to sleep.
March 6th
The peacocks woke us up again this morning. About six o’clock. They really are beautiful tho. Today I tried working on a cover for Ted Berrigan’s new book of poems Many Happy Returns. Not much luck tho. It’s hard to get down to brass tacks here because I don’t really feel like I am here. I feel like I am no place in particular. A funny thing about Jamaica is that it’s a hard place to believe in. I can’t imagine its having a past or a future. (And hardly a present.)
March 7th
This morning we went to the Agricultural Fair in Lucea. Morris Golde said to be sure and go to Lucea. It was only eighteen miles away and a beautiful drive. The fair itself, tho, wasn’t much. Mostly it was empty. There were some pretty pastel decorated cakes. Some 4-H girls all in green. And some other kind of girls all in red and white checks. Loud Methodist music from a Methodist booth. Big pink and orange velvet pillows. And Christmas cards sewn together into wastebaskets and wall pouches. Men pee a lot in the open. The young men here have beautiful rear-ends. There really ought to be a better word for rear-end than rear-end. Bottom. I don’t like bottom, either. Or fanny. Or seat. Or posterior. At any rate, their rear-ends really are beautiful; high and tight and full. There is something very superior about them, and of course, sexy. I just remembered ass. I don’t like ass either. The women here, I must admit, are not so beautiful to me. They really do carry big bundles on their heads.
March 8th
If Jamaica is not as beautiful as I thought it would be, I am not disappointed. I didn’t really expect Jamaica to be the way I thought it would be. And, in all fairness, it’s only a small part of it I am seeing. There are a lot of allspice trees around here. I always thought that allspice was all different spices mixed up together but it isn’t. It’s one single spice called allspice. Also there are pimento trees. Not the red kind
you buy in jars but a spice called pimento. As I understand it, Jamaica is the only place in the world that it grows. There is a certain kind of fruit tree around here that if you eat the fruit before it is completely ripe, it will kill you. The flowers around here are not so hot really. Perhaps it’s the wrong time of the year. Some of the leaves, however, are really fantastic. This one bush I especially like has big shiny red and black enamel-like leaves.
March 9th
The peacocks didn’t come around and wake us up this morning. I’ve been working on a movie script for a Rudy Burckhardt movie about money starring Edwin Denby as a nice rich man. Not going so well. Sometimes in the afternoons we go for walks. Or, yesterday, a drive. To Montpelier. We couldn’t find anything in Montpelier except the post office so we sent some postcards and drove back. The drive back was really beautiful. There were some really big tree trunks: fat and irregular. I especially liked the big clumps of bamboo trees that get more and more delicate as they go up.
March 10th
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be twenty-six. I have nothing against growing old that I can put my finger on except that I just don’t want to. No peacocks again this morning. Elizabeth is better. Jane and Kenward have trouble sleeping at night. I am outside sunbathing. I want a good tan to show for my trip. Sometimes I have the feeling that I’m not really a very good artist. Most of the time, I admit, I paint to keep busy. I hope that in the future I will rely more upon inspiration. Perhaps I’ve been swamping it.
March 11th
Today is my birthday. Tomorrow I will be back in New York City. Jamaica? I like it, but I’m not nuts about it. Next time I go someplace big I’d like to go to England. Right now I’m very anxious to get back to New York City and to all my friends. If you are one of my friends let me tell you right now that you are absolutely terrific. I know how lucky I am.
What Is Money?
(Words for the film Money by Rudy Burckhardt)
Money is a funny thing. It means many different things to many different people. Some people like it and some people don’t. Most people do.
What is money? Money is what you buy things with.
There is an old saying that money is the root of all evil. There are two sides to every coin.
Mrs. R. P. from Salem, Arkansas says “Money is very important.”
Mrs. N. S. from Hollywood, California says “I don’t know what I would do without it.”
Mr. J. H. from New York City, New York says “Money is the root of all evil.”
Miss P. S. from Tulsa, Oklahoma says “Money is not the root of all evil.”
Mrs. E. R. from Dayton, Ohio says “I like it.”
Mr. J. B. from Watermill, Long Island says “There are two sides to every coin.”
Mrs. T. C. from Calais, Vermont says “Money is a funny thing. It means many different things to many different people.”
What is money? Money is what you buy things with. Today we use paper bills and metal coins to buy things with. But what did people of long ago use to buy things with?
Cows.
From the stories of Homer we learn that the ancient Greeks used cows to buy things with. “How many cows is this house?” a Greek man would say.
Cows, however, were not the only things people used to buy things with. The Chinese used fish. “How many fish is this house?” a Chinese man would say.
The American Indians used colorful beads to buy things with. “How many colorful beads is this teepee?” an Indian man would say.
Then as time went on people got tired of carrying around cows and beads and stuff and so they invented the metal coin much as we know it today.
Metal coins were fine for buying little things, but if you wanted to buy a house, or something expensive, it was very impractical. “How silly it is to be loaded down with all these heavy metal coins” they said. And so they invented the paper bill much as we know it today.
Even today, however, the natives on the island of Yap use large stone wheels to buy things with. Each stone wheel weighs 1000 pounds and will buy 10,000 coconuts.
* * *
Have you ever heard the expression “As queer as a three dollar bill”?
There is no such thing as a three dollar bill.
* * *
I once read about a rich man from upstate who went bankrupt and jumped out of a window. When they were digging his grave they struck oil.
* * *
There is an old saying that money is the root of all evil. I would say that the root of all evil is money . . . and bad women.
And sometimes even good women.
I once read about a pastor’s wife from upstate, a good woman, Methodist, who won a cereal contest, bought a little printing press for Sunday school bulletins and song sheets, and ended up a counterfeiter. Rather than face ten years in jail she shot her husband in the head and jumped off the steeple.
* * *
Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, founded the first bank of the United States. It was called “The First Bank of the United States.”
* * *
Money. What is money? Money is what you do with it. Some people save it and some people spend it. Some people invest it. Some people put it in the bank. I once read about a man from upstate who ate it. He died several years ago, donating his body to medicine, and they built a new hospital.
* * *
Money. What is money? Money is really very much like life. Nobody understands it. And death. What is death? Death is really very much like money. Nobody understands it.
* * *
I once read about a man from upstate who bought a rock for ten thousand dollars.
Little-Known Facts about People
Did you know that Kenneth Koch’s wife Janice used to be an airplane pilot? Once she had to make an emergency landing on a highway.
When Kenward Elmslie was a kid he wanted to be a tap dancer. Did you know that Kenward’s grandfather was Joseph Pulitzer?
Kenward once told me that Jane Russell is a dyke.
Andy Warhol wanted to be a tap dancer when he was a kid too.
D. D. Ryan wanted to be a ballerina.
Did you know that Pat Padgett was Ted Berrigan’s girlfriend for years before she married Ron?
Ron Padgett and I were in the same 1st grade class together in school in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ron’s father, Wayne, was a notorious bootlegger in Tulsa until Oklahoma went wet.
A few years ago Ron’s father got divorced and married a beautiful Las Vegas showgirl younger than Ron’s wife Pat.
Did you know that Bill Berkson was once bat boy for the Yankees?
Ted Berrigan married his wife Sandy after having only known her for five days.
Did you know that the first poems John Ashbery ever had published were published in Poetry magazine under the name of Joel Symington?
Did you know that Bill Berkson was on the “100 Best Dressed Men” list of 1967?
Rudy Burckhardt once dated Miss Vermont of 1938.
Donald Droll is in some way related to Daniel Boone.
Frank O’Hara once told me that what he really wanted to be was a concert pianist.
Did you know that Harry Mathews started out to be a composer? He studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
Edwin Denby was born in China.
Anne Waldman’s father wrote a book called Rapid Reading Made Simple.
Tom Veitch’s father writes Christmas card verse.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a fashion designer, a minister, and an artist.
Peter Schjeldahl’s father is very famous in the plastic area. He discovered the new lightweight plastic used in Bufferin bottles. Soon he hopes to open a contraceptive factory in Red China.
Did you know that Bill Berkson was once on I Remember Mama?.
D. D. Ryan went to see The Boys in the Band with Jackie Kennedy just a week before she married Onassis.
John Ashbery was a quiz kid.
Kenneth Koch once won th
e Glasscock Award.
Did you know that Ron Padgett has blebs on his lung which may explode at any moment? They have exploded twice already.
Tina Louise once sang “I’m in the Mood for Love” to Bill Berkson over London broils at P. J. Clarke’s.
Did you know that Ted Berrigan did his thesis at Tulsa University on George Bernard Shaw?
Did you know that the Katz Tumor is named after Ada Katz who discovered it?
Edwin Denby once performed in Berlin’s “Wintergarten” billed as “Der Amerikanische Grotesktaenzer Dumby.”
Yvonne Burckhardt was the backstroke swimming champion of Connecticut for one week.
When I lived in Boston I used to panhandle on the street where all of the art galleries were, and I got my cigarette butts from the urns in front of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Did you know that Ted Berrigan’s first book of poems, A Lily for My Love, was published by the Lenox Bar in Providence, Rd. Island?
Greta Garbo once called Bill Berkson her ice cream man.
I once went to a “come as your favorite person” party as Marilyn Monroe.
Did you know that John Ashbery once worked in a cherry canning factory?
Diary 1969
Sunday, March 30th
The sun is coming out. Today is Sunday. I feel good today, but sort of empty inside. Sundays often do this to me. I don’t know why. Sundays, actually, are no different for me than other days of the week. But somehow there is a difference. It’s more quiet. There is a yard outside my window and usually I can hear birds. Actually, there are several yards out there. A whole series of yards. At any rate, I don’t hear any birds this morning. I live on Jane Street. Jimmy Schuyler and I went uptown yesterday to see some shows. It made me realize how tired I am of art. I bought a beautiful big blue and white marble which pleased me more than any of the paintings we saw except for a Bonnard at the Met which I had never seen before. Of three ladies and a lavender tree. I don’t mean to say, of course, that the marble is better than all the paintings we saw except for the Bonnard. I just mean to say what I said. That it pleased me more. My flu is gone. I wrote three letters this morning. I don’t like to talk against art, as it is now, today, just because I don’t, but something does bother me and that is the more intellectual minimal stuff. Like earth works, etc. I wonder who needs it? I am, at the moment, pretty much off art for art’s sake. I’ve had all I want. But I guess if you really love art it makes sense, and is interesting. It surprises me tho that there are that many people left who love art that much. I feel something much lighter in the air. Fun. No bullshit. And lots of sex. I don’t mean to pick on art in general. Only when it starts taking itself too seriously. I suspect that years and years from now people are going to find themselves stuck with a lot of snotty art. As for me, I love de Kooning. And his generosity. But there is one thing about life I am sure of. There is always somebody to appreciate anything and anybody. I really don’t, you know, believe very much in good and bad. I believe in what people need and I guess people need all sorts of different things. But I still don’t think that art is all that interesting.