In 1969 Norman Mailer, a famous writer, ran for mayor of New York City. This is the true story of how I played a minor although not insignificant role in polishing off his already tarnished campaign.
It all took place during a campain rally for Mailer held at a famous jazz club in Manhattan's Greenwich Village called The Village Gate. I lived nearby on Perry Street in a quaint first-floor efficiency so small I washed my dishes in the bathroom.
I had become friendly with a number of long-time residents in my Greenwich Village neighborhood. One of them was what we'd call today a "political operative," a woman with many contacts in the reform wing of the Democratic Party, which dominated among the artists and professionals living in the West Village.
As thick as Republicans are in wealthy suburban towns in Texas today, that's how thick Democrats were in those days in Greenwich Village.
My friend the political operative asked me if I would volunteer to be the bouncer at a campaign rally for "Norman" at "The Gate." My job? To sit on a bar stool outside The Village Gate's front door and make sure only people with valid tickets entered the rally. She said that after the event began I could go backstage and hobnob with the important people. It took me a split second to decide this was the perfect gig for me.
Norman Mailer was well known as a top-notch, prolific writer with a string of best-selling books to his credit. (I'm sure he'll be rediscovered any day now.)
Mailer's career had its ups and downs. He made a big splash with a World War II novel called The Naked and the Dead in the late 1940s. He wrote a number of other novels in the 1950s and early 1960s that were not best sellers. During that time he was also co-founder of The Village Voice, an achievement no one remembers. In time he became famous again, this time for the reporting he did for Life Magazine on a NASA moon launch, the book now called Fire on the Moon; also for reportage he did when he covered an anti-Vietnam protest march on The Pentagon, the book now called Armies of the Night. His writing made those issues of Life Magazine instant bestsellers and collector pieces (not to mention the lucrative advances Mailer earned writing them and the books that came out afterwards that are still in print.)
Mailer may be best known for being one of the inventors and early proponents of what was at the time called New Journalism, a pastiche combining the writing tools of fiction with a reporter's eye for nonfiction reporting to get at the subjective truth of what actually happened, or might have happened.
At one point a news service labeled him "the Macho Man of American Letters," and that tag stuck. There really was a song called "Macho Man," by the way. It was made famous by The Village People, the same group that made "YMCA" famous.
Mailer's "founder of theVillage Voice" credit is ironic because Norman Mailer was a denizen of Greenwich Village until he moved to Brooklyn Heights after he became rich and famous and stabbed his wife. Yes, in Norman Mailer's life there were plenty of ups and downs: plenty of best-seller lists, plenty of writing awards, and plenty of gossip-columnist notoriety for drunken rows and horrible events including one party where he threw a drink in the face of another famous writer claiming that he had been told in advance that that writer intended to throw a drink at Norman. Norman had no doubt who would be the one to do the throwing. (I'm quite serious, by the way, although it does sound crazy, doesn't it?)
Norman Mailer was a macho guy cut from the same cloth as Earnest Hemingway, although his themes and writing style were distinct and very much his own.
On the night of the Mailer political rally I arrived early at The Village Gate. I got my bar stool and positioned myself outside the front entrance on the corner of Thomson & Bleeker Streets.
The fact that I was the bouncer at an historic landmark in the history of jazz was not lost on me. Only six or so years before, while in high school, my mother had taken me to the Village Gate to listen to The Thelonious Monk Trio perform. That was her birthday present to me. (What a mother I had.)
Anybody who knows me knows that I am not especially a hulking, menacing presence; I don't come off particularly mean. My six-foot frame, on the lean side, does not a bouncer make. That was obviously lost on my political operative friend who asked me to volunteer.
Yet that evening everything went swimmingly. I stopped everyone as they were about to enter the establishment, asked to see their tickets, and verified everything was on the up-and-up.
The Village Gate was a large venue; I would estimate that more than a thousand people were in attendance that night.
The only hitch came towards the end of the "rush" when last-minute stragglers were entering. Two older women with short hair, no makeup and plain clothes presented themselves at the front door where I sat on my stool.
"Tickets, please?" I said.
They both talked at once. They had been promised tickets but the tickets got lost in the mail. They spoke rapidly in strong voices, dropping names of "dear friends" in the Democratic Party I should check with, names that meant nothing to me, of course.
My soul told me something was amiss. There was something menacing about these two. I sensed it deep down, but I refused to acknowledge it in my conscious brain because if I had I would have had to take a stand. And taking a stand, telling them, "No, I won't let you in," was very frightening to me.
My friend and I never discussed what I should do if something like this came up.If I had had a backup I could have left that person at the door and gone and asked for help. But I didn't have a backup.
I didn't have a walky-talky. There were no smart phones in those days. Everyone was gathering inside The Village Gate. I was outside. And now more guests were arriving behind these two women. They were holding up progress.
I could have asserted my personal power and had them stand aside and wait until I could run inside and get someone to verify them. But then as soon as I left the door uncovered they would have probably run inside themselves.
I did a rapid risk-reward analysis and told myself, "But what the hell are we talking about here? What possible damage could come of letting two non-glamorous, Greenwich Village hippy-type Democrats enter without tickets?"
Whatever suspicions I might have had, it was not within the realm of possibility for me to foresee how these two hardened women could, and in fact would, disrupt this Mailer-for-New-York-City-Mayor political rally and attempt to take it over. There seemed to be no solution, so I waved my hand and said, "Go on in." I could see the glint in their eyes as they passed. It was the look of arrogance. They had won. It was too late.
Then I made my way backstage.
Jimmy Breslin, Norman Mailer's running mate, the famous journalist and writer in his own right (later, author of The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight) was there; he was scheduled to speak after Norman went on. When I arrived backstage, Jimmy and Norman were quietly and agreeably chatting with one another.
The truly great writer stood not more than ten feet away. He was luminescent. His deep blue eyes were irresistible. I didn't want to interfere or call attention to myself, but I had to look at him. He was dressed in a dark blue pinstriped vest and cuffed pants with a white button-down shirt and a loosened tie. His hair, as usual, was wildly curly. Unruly. Like he had worked all day, and now he was drinking and getting loose, getting ready to work the crowd. Yes, he was holding a tumbler in his hand and it was filled with rocks and brown stuff.
Just as Norman was about to go on, there was a ruckus on the stage. At the edge of the curtain I looked out with one eye and saw the two women I had allowed to enter strutting back and forth across the stage, making pronouncements in very loud, angry voices, getting attention for some cause or another. I don't remember anything they said.
In short order two of New York City's Finest, in their sparking blue uniforms and silver buttons, came up on stage and escorted them away to the cheers of the crowd.
This brief sideshow had to give everyone present that night at The Village Gate the distinct impression that the Mailer for Mayor campaign was in a state of chaos, which, of course, it was.
Once the two women were led off stage, it was Norman's turn to go on. I looked at his sparkling blue eyes again and this time I couldn't resist saying something to him. I said, "Break a leg, Norman," and he nodded at me and went out on stage.
After he passed away in 2007, The New York Times ran a retrospective on his unsuccessful run for New York City mayor. Turns out that rally at The Village Gate was a turning point of his entire campaign. From then on it went into a tail spin.
I quote from that article: "Mr. Mailer's political nadir was a campaign rally at the Village Gate nightclub where he vilified his own supporters as 'spoiled pigs.' Mr. Breslin left the rally early. He later told a friend, 'I found out I was running with Ezra Pound.' Mr. Breslin was referring not to Pound's poetry, but to his insanity."
I never told a soul my bouncer story until now; I felt horrible that I played even a tiny role in helping Norman Mailer's mayoralty campaign fail miserably. Now, of course, I can see beyond and below and above so much crap that went on. And I'll bet you, Dear Reader, along with Norman himself any amount of money that the statute of limitations has run out on this one. In any case, I no longer feel guilty.
