La Dolce Vita

Can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ) n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis

"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."


La Dolce Vita: 1970

Life in Roma settled into a routine. Awakened early by the busy motorcycle repair shop beneath my window i would have a European breakfast of coffee and bread augmented with yogurt. Then i would check the pages i'd written the night before. Soon after i would go out for a walk. Two short blocks away, down an alley, was a courtyard which formerly housed a stable. At the moment it housed an incredible steel and iron sculpture piece of an astronaut which was being welded and shaped by American artist Robert Brennan. Big, bearded, and jovial, the stable was his studio. Bob sculpted in stone but his main passion was metal and he was very serious about his craft. Like everywhere from Paris to Greenwich Village, there were artists who worked at it every day-or those who talked at it. Both Bob and myself were trying to be the former, which basically meant living a simple-if colorful-existence centered around one's work. It also meant missing the  romps and parties in favor of writing three to five pages every night. So i would check out Bob's progress and he mine, exchange gossip and be on my way. After that i might walk anywhere, across town to Piazza del Popolo, or through Campo di Fiori and across the river to Trastevere, or over the Spanish Steps to Via Veneto to see if any movie stars were lounging about. Along the way i would pop into the odd church or palazzo to check out the decor, or browse the local art galleries and antiquities shops, or window shop the wonderfully crafted clothes, shoes, furniture, what have you-and everywhere i turned was a fading fresco, a fragment, a sculpted archway...art. Oh yeah.
i would stop for coffee and a cigarette at selected cafes then wander back to Piazza Navona in time for lunch. During this entire urban hike i was of course mulling over various plot and character options for Raga Six, the novel i was working on.
With the help of friend Don DeMare i hooked up with a solid hash connection and was enjoying the spiritual and creative benefits of some black Afgani. However since it was hard to come by, i didn't smoke until after dinner, when i was sitting down to work. Back then we rolled it with tobacco and the fine black hash exuded that deep Bauderlairian aura with tints of Crowley.
It was cold during that winter which included a light snowfall. i would haul five-gallon jugs of kerosene through the alleys behind Piazza Navona to my apartment. Because of the cold we would basically live in our large bedroom where the kerosene heater was installed. The stove would heat the kitchen and if it was sunny the living room would warm up during the afternoon. Otherwise the marble floors and stone walls of old Rome were as cold as the Catacombs.
There was a small circle of ex-pats on the scene. The willowy African American model Luna lived up the street with an assortment of eurotrash. Kyle, a South African combat reporter and his German girlfriend were close by, Don DeMare's fellow med student and bad drunk Bill, Rory Calhoun a motorcycle buff from New York whose brother lived with Farley Granger, Peter Gonzalez who was lead in Fellini's new film and lived with Orion, a stunning Manhattan party girl and practitioner of Cuban voodoo, i'd encountered in the city years back--were all there in the hood. We'd get together, get high, drink some wine, the usual. Since Lady M and myself were fluent in Italian all the cinemas were available.
Still our liras were rationed and a bleak December was made even worse by rows of wooden stalls selling identical stacks of candy while blocking off the beautiful fountains, not to mention the psychic flow. i managed to pull of an O.Henry Christmas and as January moved towards the solstice, Raga Six began to jell and take possession of my life. That's when you know it's going well. So, i kept turning over pages on my red Olivetti portable typewriter. As Anne Lamott said in her wonderful book on writing, "just take it bird by bird."
As February pushed towards spring i hit the homestretch.
The first draft was finished sometime in March and i immediately went back to page one and began going over every word. As someone said, "There's no good writing only good rewriting."
i do know Hemingway said, "All first drafts are shitty."
By May the novel was ready to be professionally typed (by Nancy DeMare) and mailed off to my new, unknown editor at Bantam Books, Alan Ravage. And then all you can do is cross your fingers, drink plenty of holy water, and hold your breath...

Recommended Reading: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Edited by Robert Gilman