from the files

going thru old stuff I found these notes from my only meeting with Sam Steward in the spring of 1982.

time strikes on entering Sam Steward's. it's the clocks all over the house. ticking their unsynchronized concertos. it's the mementoes: Gertrude Stein's stamp box     Valentino's public hair in a reliquary. enough police patches to make a quilt. then it's Sam himself     the man whose lovers aren't just legion but legend. Sam     nearing his 80s   nbsp; & still averaging four fucks a month (large pink slashes in his engagement calendar).

he's just out of hospital wth a pneumonia seige. besides the clocks & the phone which registers a few honks rather than the traditional ring     there's another interlude of bells to remind him to take a pill.

we talk abt his late fame     which still surprises him     & his writing. a roman a clef abt Sir Francis Rose     written in the '50s     is being revised. & he's correcting proof on an old Gay Sunshine interview which was never printd but will appear at last in the 2nd book of GS interviews (which Winston Leyland told me abt last nite). & finally the most recent Phil Andros novel will appear from Gray Fox. (Sam had phoned me in Ohio to see if Craig Russell might undertake a cover     only to discover Don Allen had already askd Tom of Finland whose drawing Sam showed me.)

Sam told me he hoped Mark Thompson wd cease sending him books to review for The Advocate. the last was the Brendan Behan memoir which he found dreary.