Leaves of Grass and Leaves of Ass: Walt Whitman's Little Black Book

right now. I'm sorry and I can't get close. Um, but it's okay. We're here, we're family. Yeah, I gotta tell you all. My my mother was helping my sister by a home and she's they're trying to somebody was trying to scam her, like total made up company, made up business, made up phone number is. You can't trust people. I'm just saying, be vigilant out there, everybody. True. I had one last a couple of years ago or somebody.

It was during the pandemic. You were out of town and somebody texted me pretending to be an old boss that I had previously worked for because they found my name on the company website. They were like, hey, it's it's so and so your old boss. Can you do me if I'm in a conference in a conference meeting, I need some help real quick. I need you to go buy some gift cards. That gift cards thing was going around and there were people like in the d

M s being like, hey, it's Kanye. I just need to prove like what I promised me and you know, or like they would say, I'll send you a pick to prove it, and it would be like clearly runway shot or stone like a shot from set, like they have blood on their face, something like it's me Andrew Lincoln. I'm currently being attacked by zombies. But if you could help me out, he could send me dollar Apple gift cards. I think I can give them to each of these

zombies that make them go away. Anyway, Stay safe out there, every buddy, Stay sweat, stay vigilant, don't give anyone your name ever. Hide in your homes, don't answer the phone, don't turn on your computer. Line your walls with dinfoil. Oh, we're going off on a direction. Make sure you've got six months worth of drink of clean drinking water, and don't trust anyone. You know, if your spouse calls, it's not them. Damn, you're really going in on this. Look,

I'm just it's better safe than sorry. I've been burned before. I almost bought some iTunes cards. Look, we're not scamming you. In fact, I really am Eli and I really am Diana really are here with an exciting new episode of Ridiculous Romance. Yes, I'm excited about this one because I

love Walt Whitman absolutely. Before you get that, we really got some really nice reviews from some of y'all, and I just want to say, it's the best thing in the world, the messages we get from you all, uh comments on our Instagram posts and these Apple podcast reviews really do a lot, not just for our self esteem, which they do so much, but they help other people decide to listen to the show too, because how often you're scrolling through you're like, oh my god, there's so

many podcasts. What are the people saying? That's what I want to know. And we have recently gotten some really nice reviews. I just want to share a couple here real quick, because you put the time in sending us your words, Let's let's send them back. This one just came through from Naisi Maybe, and this person said, I love this podcast so much. I wait patiently for new episodes. I love Eli and Diana's witty banter and their way of delving into difficult topics with grace and comedy. I

hope you to never stop making this podcast. Thank you. I could tell you you we never stopped making this podcast all day. Maybe their name is nice. That's a very nice thing to say. Thank you so much for sending that. Really like a lift to the day to This one came from HEB Tink classic Heap Tank review here. If you follow the heap Tank reviews, you know you're going to get some truth. Absolutely, hep Tink says, the hosts clearly have a background in performance. I don't know

what gave you. What do you mean, do I sound like a thespian? Uh? They say? Because each episode is so very engaging and entertaining. They are both hilarious. Oh thank god, because sometimes people call one of us out over the other and it's just too hard for the other person. It's really tense at all. He Tink says. We have a nice balance of wholesomeness, wit and cringe. I appreciate how they approach each story with open minds. I love listening to each episode and recommend it to

all my friends. Yeah, I tink doing it right. Hell yeah. And finally, a fan among fans leaves this glowing five star review hilarious. That's it. That's all I needed to hear. Listen. Shakespeare once said brevity is the soul of what's right, and Henry David Thorrow said, simplify, simplify. I always wonder why didn't just say simplify. I'm probably gonna you're making fun of my stammer. There's that Brooklyn quote I was

waiting for. It almost had been twenty minutes. It's always fun. Well, let's get to Walt Whitman, because I'm very excited to talk about this guy is one of my favorite, personal favorite poets. I didn't read all of Leaves of Grass by any means, but I definitely read some of it and felt incredibly smart. In high school and early college we had we read some selections and ap Litz and remember that was really cool, like I'm going to check this out. And then I found the book. I was like,

oh god, it's extremely that's a lot of poems. It's quite a tome. But yeah, so when I say, well, women, though, what do you think of what what comes to your mind? Um, leaves of grass, the story I just told, that's what comes to my Mind's like any of his famous lines perhaps spring to mind. I would say, like, uh oh oh, obviously do I contradict myself? Very well? I contradict myself. I am large multit love it isn't that just says

so much? And people do. We've talked about We've come across that in many episodes where I'm like, they're saying one can do it another, what's going on? It's like human behavior. Yeah, people are a lot too. It's yeah, that's what Walt Whitman was saying in excessive words. People are a lot. If only you could just read your thorough simplify. One of my favorites was always I too am not a bit tamed. I too am untranslatable. I sound my barbaric yea over the roofs of the world.

You did not make you want to go sound a barbaric yea over the roofs of the world. Well, both of those famous lines were from his poems Song of Myself, of course, one of his most famous poems. You might recall Oh Captain, My Captain, Robin Williams jumping up on the desk, inspiring the youth. If you're really into Walt, you might know that the night movie Fame has a song and it called I Sing the Body of Electric Does that was inspired by Leaves of Grass, was taken

from Leaves of Ye. And if you don't mind a fun fame fact, who doesn't love a good musical theater fact? Give it to us. This is just funny for me. But originally the movie was supposed to be called Hot Lunch. What. Yeah, there's a there's a line in it where it's like, oh, you want guarantees, Well all you get here is seven classes and a hot lunch. The rest is up to you. You know. It's like some inspiring speech or whatever. And

they they're going to call the movie Hot Lunch. They combed through the script, looked at all their lines and said, which one really speaks? Which one tells the story of this movie in a single sentence? Yeah? What is everyone going to say? Hey, did you see the new movie? Blank? I know Hot Lunch? Well, apparently the reason it's not called Hot Lunch. It's not just because it's terrible. No, it's because the director Alan Parker was walking by. I

walked down the street one day pass an adult movie theater. Okay, so they were showing a pornography called Hot Lunch starring Al Parker, and he was like, too close for comfort? Did I make a porn without remembering that I had done it? Oh my god? Okay, Well, thank goodness for Al Parker in the porn Hot Lunch for stopping the movie fame from being called Hot Lunch. Oh my god, that's terrible. What a terrible title movie. That's the worst title of a movie I've heard since Needle in a

Time Stack. So bad that did that movie ever come out? We saw a trailer like last year. Yeah, I think we said we would actually watch. It was just a terrible title, but it looked like it might be actually okay anyway, Well, anyway, there's so many things inspired by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He's just got such an echoing legacy in in literature. But did you know that Walt was gay? He would cruise for cuties in the streets of the work. He frequented the first gay bar

in America. He even did a little cross dress. So I want to talk all about Walt's love life and how he revealed himself and his poetry and how it caused problems throughout his lifetime, and of course the man that he eventually fell in love with. Yes, let's hear all about Walt's multitudes. Let's go, hey their French come listen, well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a lover.

It might be any type of person at all, and abstract concept, don't a concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the Second Clans Ridiculous Roles a production of iHeart Radio. Waltz started out his life in Long Island, and he was the second of nine children. And he left school at only eleven years old. How many geniuses literary and scientific out there like dropped out of school real early, and here I stayed the whole time. And I'm an idiot drop out of school. Boys and girls. He learned

from the streets. Okay, he got life. He went to the college. I learned my poetry on the streets, I mean kind of now. He worked as a type setter and an errand boy. He taught at various schools. He did some editorial writing before he started reviewing music, particularly opera, from newspapers. He once said, quote much for the opera, I could not have written leaves of grass. And for much of his youth he was a teetotaler who advocated for temperance. And this is pretty funny because later on

he became a big fan of wine. He even wrote a temperance novel called Franklin Evans or the Inebriate in eighteen forty two, and he later dismissed it as quote complete rot. And he was like, I wrote that in three days, just for the money. And by the way, I was drunk at the time, when oh so not much of a teetotaler after all. So I gotta say this is you wrote down the word teetotal here teetotaler, and I really always thought it was t e a, and that teetotaler meant I totally only drink tea. That's

what I thought teetotaler came from. I totally only drink tea. That is amazing. I guess that's not it. I don't know why it isn't, because that is much more delightful, I say, I moved to change it. I guess teetotalers were just like straight edge, the straight edge of their time. All right, where's the word come from? We don't have time? Yeah,

I didn't look it up. So in eight Walt was a delegate for the Free Soil Party, which basically meant that Walt did not necessarily believe in abolition, where the government would come in and tell you you can't own slaves anymore. Um. But like the others in the Free Soil Party, he believed that expanding slavery into the new Western territories would be a threat to free white labor. Yeah, that's why we we need to make money out there

at all. And that was a position that William Lloyd Garrison hilariously called quote white man ism and just white man is um and should be you know, probably used more often today. I'm a certified white man iss oh. By eighteen fifty, Walt was starting to work on Leaves of Grass, after being inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's eighty four essay The Poet. He wanted to write something distinctly American, something that captured the American spirit and culture, something about

real life. So he wrote in free verse, with themes of nature and democracy and the self, striving for a cadence similar to the King James Bible. This is a Walt Whitman episode, y'all. You know where we've got to spend a lot of our time. We're gonna go on down the poetry corner and hear a little bit of his poem Song of Myself, from the edition Walt Whitman. A cosmos of Manhattan, the sun, turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating,

drinking and breeding. No sentimentalist, no standard above men and women or apart from them, no more modest than a modest. Unscrew the locks from the doors. Unscrew the doors themselves from their jams. Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. Through me, the afflattists surging and surging through me the current and index. I speak the password primeval, I give the song of democracy. By God. I will accept nothing which all cannot have

their counterpart of on the same terms. Through me, many long, dumb voices, voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, voices of the diseased and despairing, and of thieves and dwarfs, voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, and of the threads that connects the stars, and of wounds, and of

the father stuff, and of the rights of them. The others are down upon of the deformed, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, fog in the air, beatles rolling balls of dung through me, forbidden voices, voices of sexes, and lust's voices veiled, And I remove the veil, voices indecent by me, clarified and transfigured. I do not press my fingers across my mouth. I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart. Copulation is no more rank to me than

death is. I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling are miracles, And each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, And I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from the scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer, this head, more than church's bibles and all the creeds uh this guy's going places. So I feel like this guy is gonna be a successful poet. I mean, I love it. It's so evocative and fresh and real and right in

your face. Yeah, I just love it. It's really beautiful, and I love some of this stuff like, um, like, whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns at last to me. That's just philosophically something I very much believe that you you can't uh, just in the grand scale of eternity. You will suffer the bad things you do to other people and vice versa, and the good things too. So it's best to put

as much good out there as you can. You have to are literally building our own paradise, Spike by doing better things for other people anyway, without getting to into it. Well, he presented the very first edition, which he self published in eighteen fifty five, to his brother George, who said it quote wasn't worth reading. I brought your leaves of grass, George is like, you know, walts grass comes in blades,

not leaves, So again I'm throwing this in the fire. Well, George was not the only one who felt that way. The collection was not popular. UM sales were minimal Again, he was breaking all the rules of poetry. He was doing this rhyming thing. He wasn't talking about the same themes that people were talking about, and they were just like, what the hell am I like? An app roses are red? Violence of blue? Hey, Walt Whitman learned to write a poem. Wow,

I could break convention too. But things changed a little after he received a very complimentary letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson himself, saying quote, Dear Sir, I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of leaves of grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion. Damn. I mean you liked this ship into it? Yeah, for real. I was a big Emerson fan in school, totally. I

really liked Transcendentalism back in high school. Couldn't define it for you today, but I know at the time I was very into like, this is it. Yeah, this is all I'll ever care about from no one. Give my little poetry journal, and the first page was like, it's time to start journaling. And I still have that notebook with that unsentenced written in it and nothing else and six more just like it. I saw some tweet the other day it was like, this is my emotional support

pile of unfilled notebooks. Exactly stop now. Of course, once people like myself knew that Ralph Waldo Emerson, the literary taste maker himself liked the book Leaves of Grass, it became more widely distributed and read. But the reviews started to focus more on the obscene nature of the poetry, as they called it, the breeding and the fleshy sensual stuff.

They were like, right, too much. So Walt took a quote from Emerson's letter that said, I greet you at the beginning of a great career, and he embossed that in gold leaf on the second edition of Leaves of Grass, essentially inventing the book blurb, with a foreword by Ralph Waldo Emerson, it's once she really is the defining America. It was like, I need a marketing hook now. But this was almost not published because of all the bad

reviews that had come out before. But it did come out in eighteen fifty six with an additional twenty poems, and it continued to be added to and revised. Throughout Walt's life. He would just keep, but not a new edition. It was like, you know, a video game, he just kept. It was a new update, new update. You thought you bought it, but it's not done yet, still going. People were probably like, I already paid for this book once. You can't keep changing it because there's so much news.

Have you got the DLC yet for leaves of Grass? The Snyder cut? No, I don't want the Snyder cut of Leaves of Grass. You have to read ity slow. Waltz is probably more like released the butt hole cuts accurate. So all these new editions and revisions we're often very revealing. For example, in eighteen forty eight, Walt went to New Orleans and he had a little bit of a love affair, and he wrote about that in a poem called once I passed through a populous city and surely describes all

the things he passed through. The story at the time was that he had had an affair with this aristocratic creole woman and caused a total scandal, and he did abruptly leave both his journalism job and the entire city of New Orleans only three months after he got there.

So was something of a scandal. But, as Richter Norton writes in his article Walt Whitman Profit of Gay Liberation, the original handwritten poem was found in nineteen twenty five, and then they discovered that Walt had changed the gender in the poem to make it more palatable for publishers. Richter writes, quote such a subterfuge, of course, suggests that Whitman, far from being an innocent, was aware of the queer

nature of his passions. So literally is like in the in Leaves of Grass, the new addition that came out, it was about him and a lady. But when they found the original letter, they were like, oh ship, oh he crossed out he and him and man and boy and all this stuff. He was like, oh, they're not going to print this right, So I want to put us back in poetry corner so we can hear a little bit of Once I passed through a populous city. Once I passed through a populous city, imprinting my brain

for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, tradition. Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a man I casually met there who detained me for love of me. Day by day and night by night. We worked together. All else has long been forgotten by me. I remember, I saw only that man who passionately clung to me. Again, we wander, we love, We separate again. Again he holds me by the hand. I must not go. I see him close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

M hmm, lovely, that's nice. I saw a lot of ship in New Orleans, and I do not remember a thing about it. Yeah. Um, interesting romantic than that, right, Interesting that so much of this poem. He uses me so much in this poem. It's all like his love of me. This is not forgotten by me. He clung to me. Um, It's just it puts you in his place, right, Like, That's what it feels like to me, is I'm me, I'm here, like I don't know, just feeling what he's feeling.

It's it's a very personalizing way to write it. Yeah, well, and he was so concerned with personality and self and stuff. He probably really wanted that to feel like you were seeing through his eyes and feeling what he was feeling at the time that he was seeing those things. They certainly degree you can look at some of his poems and be like, well, this guy was very excited about himself and was like, y'all would be lucky to be me. I contain multitudes. You're just you're just a single tude.

But what's great and get in on my multitudes? Well, what's great is like his line about I'm I'm no standard above man or woman, no more modest than a modest because he's saying that's me, So that's also usual. It's not just me. Everyone has this heavenliness about them simply and solely because you exist in this miraculous world. And I think that's really beautiful. Except for Kevin Down. That guy sucks. He always leaves a cart in the

middle of parking lot. Now more editions came in the eighteen sixty third edition, and these were called the Calamus Cluster of Poems. Rictor Norton says that in eighteen fifty eight or eighteen fifty nine, Walt wrote in his personal journals about an affair with a man that he just preferred to as M. The letter M M is race Fiends in the New Bond movies. Maybe it was race Fiends. It wasn't look Walt Whitman would totally fall for Race,

absolutely too. Honestly, they make a great couple. Let's assume that was a race Fiends type, the speculations station Beens type. Rictor writes, quote, this affair apparently involved a completely frank acceptance of himself as homosexual, but that Walt's love was not reciprocated. Walt wrote, quote, I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not returned yet. Out of that, I have written these songs. And when they broke up, what was almost driven to suicide. He was so upset,

but instead it led to the Calumus poems. Fortunately, I guess he had a better way to express his dispandum. And Richter says that Whitman quote in effect, came out with the lines I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me. Okay. He also points out that calamus itself has a special significance. Um it's a plant that mostly grows by ponds, and it's capped by tubers that look like penises. They kind of, oh, yeah,

I'm familiar with the penis plans. The penis than Yeah, everyone's favorite that goes around. There's always memes the penis. Then it's also was named for a river god, Calamus, who grieved the death of his boy lover who drowned. That's why he's always next to a body of water like this. Yeah, exactly, And in Calumus, I'm talking about Dick. These are my poems poems, I mean, Richter says, quote, it's not likely that Whitman would have called these Calumus

poems without being fully aware of the plants homeo erotic coating. Yeah. Um. But funnily enough, when he did receive a letter in eighteen ninety from a stranger named John Simmons asking him point blank if the Calumus poems were about gay love, Won't wrote back a letter that was basically like, uh, no, I don't know what you're talking about. I have six illegitimate children out there. I stay fucking so explain yourself. So it just was very defensive. My girlfriends in Canada.

You can't meet her, you've never met her, but beautiful children together. But actually no historian has ever been able to trace any of these alleged children. Probably just said that in a France. I mean, this is a stranger, so you don't just be like, don't asking me, Yeah, right, I can you. I don't know. You ain't gonna tell you who I sleep with. Okay, so I can understand why he might either not respond to that letter or respond with a lie. But I think it's so funny.

He was like, oh whatever, He's like, Look, I already told you I called him the dick poems, the dick plant poems. So with no, I'm not going to answer your very dumb letter. All you told me is you have no literacy, sir, and no respect for botany. M You don't know the language of flowers. But now Walt might have been feeling more free to be me, you know what I mean, because in eighteen fifty nine he started frequenting a bar called Facts that might very well

be the very first gay bar in America. And we will hear much more about that right after these messages. Welcome back to Walt Whitman. Welcome, welcome back, Hold back Whitman. Wow, so proper, Okay, we're talking about Fafts quite possibly the first gay bar in America. And look, Fafts is a great name for a gay bar. Quite frankly, I don't care what decade it is, what century, who opened it. One day, Babe, let's open a gay bar called FAPs.

Absolutely great. Look, if there were a bar in town called Fabs, I would assumed that it was a gable. It's got to be better than the recently closed gay bar down the street from us, the cockpit. Come on, it's a little on the nose. I guess. Fafts owner was a German guy named Charles Faff, who modeled the bar on the beer sellers that were popular in Germany at the time. Now Walt, the former teetotaler who used to totally only drink tea but now drinks a lot

more than that. He once said he was quote the best selector of champagne in America. Again Walt, he very short of himself in a lot of ways because he was like, I have listen, I've drank a lot of champagne at this point. This man has the finest. But it was the company that really made fast special right, and it was frequented by Bohemians led by Henry Clapp Jr. Henry was this notable anti slavery and temperance advocate. But

then he went to free Will in France. You know what happens when any of our subjects go off to France, they come back just ready. For he returned to America one hundred pent done with social reform, and he fully committed to Bohemian values of free love, poverty, and the appreciation of beauty and art. Full on rent vibes. Absolutely, he definitely light my candle. He definitely jumped on a table full of food, kicked plates off as he was

dancing around talking about life or whatever. Exactly really obnoxious stuff probably, But this is the guy who gathered together all these notable poets and writers and actors and actresses, artists, all these folks to hang out at fafts. This is not just Walt Whitman, but also Thomas Nast, who was the cartoonist who gave us the modern version of Santa

Claus gay Icon, m gay Icon. We also had the humorist Artemis Ward, who was considered the first stand up comedian icon truly the philosopher of his time, I'm sure sure really was staying some show that really mattered. And also Ada Claire, who was an actress who shocked the world by living unapologetically as a single mother to an

illegitimate child. Oh woman, bring me my fainting couch, living alone, Wow, fasts just you never know what you're gonna get at Fafts Types Types Now for over ten years, Fafts became as writer Alan Gerganis wrote, quote the Andy Warhol Factory, Studio fifty four and the Algonquin Round Table all rolled

into one. Hell, yes, I would go to fasts. Henry Clapp also started this little zine called The Saturday Press, which was one of the few publications to champion Leaves of Grass, and it contributed to the much greater success of the third edition with all those Dick poems, right, yeah, which I hope, I hope he when he would be like, hey, all you reviewers that keep talking about Walt Whitman, I got a clap back, right, I'm Henry Clapp and I

got a clap. But now the real draw for Wall was that it fast, he could hang out with men who loved men. Um. He met a man there named

Fred Gray who created the Red Gray Association. According to Whitman biographers Ed Folsom and Ken Price, that was quote a loose confederation of young men who seemed anxious to explore new possibilities of male male affection, and in a PPS documentary about Walt Witman, Literary scholar Karen Carbiner says that Walt even did a little cross dressing during this time. He would wear women's fluffy bloomers tucked into his boots, so he was kind of like, hey, boys, how you doing.

And I think that's so funny because at the time, all these orthodox clergy guys and dudes that didn't like women's rights. Basically, we're like, bloomers will bring down society, you know, women in pants everything, miss we'll be on fire, you know, the downfall of masculinity exactly. Well, they called it, quote a usurpation in male authority, So I think, look what happened. Men were totally usurped do they were used, sir, There was no male authority after you too. When a

woman put on a pair of pants, it's done. That was the last time. But I found it kind of a layered irony that they were pants were for men, and then women made women's pants, and then Walt was wearing women's pants to show that he was a man who loved men like women. Cat wear pants. Alright, I'm a man, I'll put them on pants. They're wrong, no matter what to do. Yeah, boy pants can't get away

with anything. It's also at fasts that Walt met his first long term boyfriend, a man two decades younger named Fred Mona. Well, Walt was about forty and so Fred was twenty. Um this. He lived with Fred for several years, and they only broke up once Vawn reached an age where he was expected to get married and start popping out baby Oh yeah, yeah, so probably around Oh wait, is that what Leo did? DiCaprio. He's like, you're supposed to start having babies now, and I can't do that

for you. So that's not the man I'm breaking it up with you. For you, is Walt another? Leo's five? You gotta go for a drive away from me. No, that's not what he does. Justin Martin, in his book Rebel Souls, says that Fred ended up working as an insurance salesman and elevator operator while his wife raised four sons. Good for you, Fred, but he also became a terrible alcoholic,

Martin writes. Quote. In the early eighteen seventies, after roughly a decade of silence, Vaughan reconnected with Whitman, writing him several letters, one of which includes the following heartrending passage. I never stole, robbed, cheated, nor defrauded any person out of anything, and yet I feel that I have not been honest to myself, my family, nor my friends. One letter in lutes, my love, my Walt is with you always. That's so sad. You know, he tried to do it

the way he was told and miserable. Yeah, I'm sure he was happy with the kids and stuff, but like he was so miserable, right right, well again, you know, do you feel like he was lying to himself like he did. I never defrauded anyone, but I feel like I did fraud it myself. Yeah. Ah, summer, really bummer,

speaking of bummers. Speaking of bummers. The Civil War was looming, one of America's biggest bummers, and when it came, Waltz carefree nights at fasts would be over for a while because Walt's brother, George, volunteered for the Union Army, but Walt did not. He was forty two years old and he'd grown up with Quaker values. Didn't stop his brother,

but Walt adhered to this. He wanted to do his part, though, so he became a nurse and he wrote poems about the sacrifice of the soldiers and the horrors of warhaw spitals, where he would walk by baskets of amputated legs, arms and hands and feet just waiting to be carted away. His work consisted of bringing tobacco and oranges to the soldiers, writing letters that they dictated their loved ones, and dressing

their wounds. Which I gotta say. If I had someone writing my letters home and it was Walt Whitman, oh my god, why don't you just say, however you think, tell my wife I love her and miss her, but do it in like a Walt Whitman kind of way.

But do it like good you know what. Although at the time they might have been like, yeah, you can write my letter to my mom, don't include any dick steps that the calumus letters home to my mother, I would read that you got like, dear mother, it's been eighteen days since I've seen a warm bed and a hot meal, but it's only been two days since I've seen a long, turgid flower down by the pond. This mother gets it. She's like, what is happening to poor

what's his name? What's a civil war name? What's happening to poor Josiah. He's like, ps, my letters are being dictated to Walt Whitman, who is putting his own spin a problem, which is like, oh, that's that nasty poet. Now. The National Endowment for the Humanity says that Walt cared for tens of thousands of soldiers around Washington, d c. And this earned him the nickname the good Gray poet. He's like a like a Gandalf given them magic words.

They did actually say that he kind of had a preternatural ability for feeling like he would come along and somehow it would help in a way that the other doctor or nurses were able to do. It's really interesting the power of words right right there. Like he said, I am holy, All that is me is holy. Everything I touched becomes holy. That was like in his in leaves of grass. And they were like, it's kind of true. The pen and the sword, like that's not that's not

from nothing. No, they don't say that for nothing. Richter Norton says that Walt fell in love with several soldiers during this time, including a fellow by the name of Tom Sawyer. Now, this likely could be the actual Tom Sawyer who was a real person. He was a fireman who rescued ninety people from a ship fire once, and he was good friends with Mark Twain and the inspiration for his character of the same name. Wow, the real

Tom Sawyer, I'm madam made out with Walt Whitman. Real Tom Sawyer led a much more fascinating life than the fictional Tom Sawyer. Oh my god, it's insane because I read a whole thing about and it doesn't even this night. This nine person rescue is not even the least of the ship that he did. He is amazing. Does he have much of a love life? I mean they got married and open to bar Okay, that's enough for me to do an episode on Tom Sawyer for like y'all know,

we'll stretch it to tell a good story. Walt also likely fell in love with a man named Lou Brown, which is very funny here in the house because that's Diana's dad's name. I know he but surely your father appreciates Walt Whitman, but probably would not have fallen in love with him, doubtful. Walt even suggested that he and all these guys go live together. Um, it's just a big party. Full of firemen and writers and soldiers and me right in the middle. Give me a sexy threesome

to manage to live in rerst of my life. You there, fireman, you there, soldier. Come over to my place, and I'm just gonna write about all these incredible things that are happening. Another man that Walt wanted to live with after the war was over was a man named Elijah Fox, but Elijah ended up getting married instead, so then it was time for Walt to fill out his little black book get a few notches on his belts. He was like,

I'm done falling in love. I'm just gonna go get me some I'm a man my prime, I'm forty four years old. It's time to go sleep around all over New York City, Washington, d C. Wherever we are. Let's hear about walt special little book, literally a little diary that he kept him all the all the fellows he hung out with. Right after this commercial break, All right, everybody, welcome back to Walt's Specialist of special friends, the o G Facebook. He's like he's hot or not? Oh no, no,

I'm just kidding. So yeah, this is when Waltz was like on the prowl. He's cruising for Cutie's almost obsessively. He was going out every night and picking up bus drivers and ferry boatmen, like working class types, because he was like a lot of bohemians in that he felt that, like the poor roughs of the world, had more wisdom to offer than the most educated man um, which is

not untrue. I would say different wisdom. Well, yeah, sure, sure, but you go down to the shipyards and you're like, tell me about life, right, and you're gonna get some philosophy. Very true, And I mean again, he's like, I'm writing about America. I want to tell people about America. That doesn't mean you stick with the rich literary salams or anything. You gotta be out here in the peat, in the streets with the folks doing the work, getting dirty. And

he sure did get dirty and do the work. Charles Shiveley's book Calumus Lovers details some of the around one hundred and fifty entries in waltz journals from this time. But these are actual entries from Walt Whitman. These are literally things he wrote down in a book, yes, to save for later, to save for another totey can remember Peter large, strong boned young fellow driver. I liked his refreshing wickedness, as it would be called by the orthodox.

George Fitch Yankee boy driver, good looking, tall, curly haired, black eyed fellow. Saturday night Mike Ellis, wandering at the corner of Lexington Ave in thirty second Street. Took him home to one Fit seven Street, fourth story, back room, bitter cold night. William Culver, boy in bath, aged eighteen. Daniel Spencer, somewhat feminine, slept with me September three. Theodore M.

Carr came to the house with me. James Sloan night of September eighteen, twenty third year of age, plain homely American. John McNelly night October seven, young man drunk walked up Fulton and High Street home. David Wilson night of October eleven sixty two, walking up from mid off, slept with me. Chorus Ostrander October twenty second, sixty two, about twenty eight years of age, slept with him. December four at sixty two. October nine, eighteen sixty three. Jerry Taylor, New Jersey, of

Second District Regiment slept with me last night. Whether soft, cool enough, warm enough heavenly Wow, Festrol Walt Whitman just got this. It's kind of creepy. He's got this little book like this. When I slept an eighteen year old, is when I slept with the twenty four year old. This is when I slept with a driver, when I slept with the soldier, This is when I slept with

a drunk guy. Hi. Yeah, basically yeah. Well, Rick to Norton was like, these are at the very least masturbatory aids, you know, for him to go back and be like, m, who do you want to think about tonight or something? Okay, um, which I think is probably true. I guess who knows what they actually they're doing. Well, Bitman's actual spank bank, that's what we've got here. And of course, yeah, I

guess he wrote everything down. Kind of thing. But eighteen sixty four would be a year of tragedy for Walt Whitman. His brother George was captured by the Confederate Army and he was held for five months. Another brother of his died, and Walt had to commit a third brother to a

lunatic asylum. So he was barely over this series of family tragedies When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April of eighteen sixty five, and you had, of course the entire country in a period of morning after this, and Walt himself was deeply affected because he was a great admirer of President Lincoln. He once wrote quote, I love the President personally. He wrote a lot about him, one selected quote.

As an elegy to Abraham Lincoln, Walt penned four poems, including when Lilacs Last in the Dooryard loomed, and Oh Captain, My Captain. These were more conventional than the sort of free verse poems that he'd written in Leaves of Grass, so that, combined with the topic, made them more popular than anything else he ever wrote. Really, right, he was really working with the zeitgeist. Yeah, I mean again, he's so good at emotions. Yes, and we didn't need that expression,

yeah exactly. It must have been nice to read his outpouring of emotion and feel like, finally someone saying everything that I can't how to put words to. You're reading Walt Women's poem and you're like, yeah, that's that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, remember how last night I was like, oh suxy that that happened. This is captain, my captain. We've all got different skills. I'm gifted in other ways. Also, Okay, before we get off Lincoln here,

I love the I love the president personally. Lincoln famously probably could be had some had some fellows. Wellow do you think do you think? All right? Speculations station? What women in Abraham Lincoln totally did it if they met, which I don't know for sure if they did, because they well they wouldn't say something, but they wouldn't tell He wouldn't tell you he did read leaves of grass. The legend has it that Abraham Lincoln did read leaves

of grass. Okay, so while while the trains parked here, Abraham Lincoln read leaves of grass, picked up the Oval Office phone and was like, hey, get Whitman right now. And I was like, do you want me to put it in your schedule? No? No, no, no, don't write it down, not making your poet laureat, nothing like that. We're going to, Yes, go build a log cabin, if you know what I mean. Go examine the calamus plants down by the pond. I've got a couple of calumus plants I'd like to show him by my pond. I

would like to score four times with Whitman. I love this speculations station, and I hope they did score four times. Yeah, so oh Captain. My Captain was the only poem of what Whitman's to be anthologized in his own lifetime, and also won him finally the literary acclaim that he'd been working towards since eighteen fifty five. Even so, the Calumus cluster of poems continued to cause him problems. Later, he got a job at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but

he got fired very soon after. According to the National Endowment of Humanities, the story was that James Harlan, the Secretary of the Interior, quote objected to having the author of a dirty book on staff. A dirty book, you know, leaves of Grass that's smut. Well, fortunately, the very next day he got another job, and he even had some writers take up the pen in his defense, and that helped his popularity too. It wasn't the worst thing that happened to me. But love was still eluding him until

eighteen sixty six. Went on a stormy night he met nineteen year old Peter Doyle. Peter Doyle wasn't he the monster in Young Frankie Stone. That's Peter Boyle, Ray Romano's dad, and everybody loves Raymond. That's right. I always forget that he played Yeah, that's so funny. Well, yeah, because how much everybody loves Raymond. Did you watch I think I think just the one scene with Batton Oswald not doing anything because he talked about Twitter. Now, Peter Doyle was irish.

He was an illiterate bus conductor. This is the exact kind of guy while it's looking for him. All right, it's a little creepy, but um Peter described their meeting best in an interview. He gave quote, he was the only passenger. It was a lonely night, so I thought he would go in and talk with him. Anyway, I went into the car. We were familiar at once. I put my hand on his knee. We understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip. In fact,

went all the way back with me. From that time on, we were the biggest sort of friends, biggest sort of friends, the biggest sort of friends. Woh, He's like, oh, this, this guy is the only man on the bus. I'm going to go back and put my hand on his knee. Okay, I mean I think he just knew. Yeah, maybe he was just like I don't know, I get it. I get the sense that this person might be willing to accept in advance from me. They had gaydar in the

eighteen sixties. Sure, well, probably better because you had to be so careful. Yeah, you know, you can touch the wrong person, you could. It could be real bad. Yeah that's true. Do you think you know who Walt Whitman was. I guess he was illiterate a lot of poets, yeah, unless someone read it to him. I mean, but how would he know, Like he would be like, that's that, that's that guy over there. Oh my god, an illiterate

man falling in love with a poet. That's like such a gift of the magi set up, you know, like I wrote you this book. Oh no, I don't know what he would do. I bought you this bus, you know, like I don't drive. Whatever it was. Well, Walt taught Peter how to read and write. He taught him geography and arithmetic. Um. He would meet him most nights and hang out during Peter's last rides of the night. Um. Afterward they would go and have a drink together. They

took long walks under the moonlight. They strolled the banks of the Potomac. They slept together under the stars. Walt sometimes bought Peter flowers, and this was a full romantic relationship. Um. They never lived together, but they shared their lives every day. Now, Richter Norton does point out that we don't know for sure if Walton Peter ever like did it did it? We don't know if they had penetrative sex. We don't

know if they ever experienced orgasm together. Um, but really with any of his other right, but quote, we do know that they often kissed and embraced and sometimes slept together naked. It's just sometimes called a carets, which is a kind of naked chastity that Socrates seem to advocate in the Symposium, which in the religious practices of India amounts to prolonged erection without ejaculation. Guy would be like, yes, you can't actually have an orgasm, but you can do

all kinds of sexy stuff anyway. It interesting. So Walt and this boy that he loved would lie naked next to each other with presumably raging heart on and just not and kiss. That'll be all thank you. I mean, you know, we don't know that's truth. And it's likely that with sometimes they might have gone a little further than that, right, because we know they did that much.

We just don't know any further. Yeah, but um, but I think that Walt did write sometimes that like just to kisses enough, just to touch the hand, you know, Like, so it makes me think if you're so like, I don't know, cut off the love that you crave, that even a tiny little bit of it, it seems like your cup overfloweth, you know what I mean. So he's like, I'm not trying to go too far or something. It could be romantic a sexual that's true too, or yeah, or just that just put it on a higher plane,

like it's not about that. That's that's breeding procreative ship, like a beautiful high beauty you know type thing maybe or the the shame of the era. You know, it's like this is as close as I can get. And then again we had to stop. I don't feel good about this. Hard to say. We cannot know. Now. Walt did spend a lot of time talking about the importance of romantic friendship between men without necessarily having sex. He thought that it was actually essential for men's health and wellness.

He even attributed his love and affection towards men as the reason that he was such a good nurse when he worked with the army, right that preternatural healing ability. He was just like, well, I come in just full of love and affection, and there I hold them close if they want to hug me, and I have many soldiers kiss on my lips and all this stuff. So he's like, I give them this love. That that's what

they really need. That's that's more than anything. It's very healing and that kind of affection instead of like whoa, no, homo right, which I'm kind of like he might be onto something. And I think, you know, America's men are very lonely. It said in some studies. I don't have right in front of me, but I feel like it like it is said had this paper in the in

the journal Nature just written, man are very lonely citation myself. Um, but yeah, it's a you know, maybe yeah, and that that men don't necessarily hug very much, you know, or spend much time together or something like that, and that you know, rely on their significant other for a lot of that kind of right, right, so maybe he's got

something now. Also, at the time, though, the terms homosexual and heterosexual just didn't exist yet, so Walt described it as adhesive love, and this was as supposed to amative love between a man and a woman. He thought adhesive love was just as important for health as food and water. Now.

In eighteen sixty eight, an addition of Leaves of Grass was published in the UK for the very first time, thanks to the publisher William Rosetti, and it won the heart of more than one writer across the pond goodness, and they sent quite a lot of letters about it. Um But we will talk about those heart burnings and heart yearnings in our next episodes. Yeah, we've got some friend zoning and some fanboy behavior that will just delight.

We just had to talk, you know, we had we decided we had to do a whole second episode um on on this story because so much more going on, and a lot of famous names start popping up from the time authors. You'll recognize, very exciting stuff. So that's super cool. But what a sweet story. Him and Peter and him and everyone just his whole life is just like, I don't know, just such a projection of love. I feel like he had so much. He had a lot of um self love, which we spent a lot of

time today talking about. You'll hear that episode coming up soon as well, about the the idea that you know, really admiring yourself can just do so much for you in terms of your relationship with other people, in terms of your position in the world, and just your happiness in life. And it seemed like, well, despite his uh you know, frequent he certainly lived through some tragedies and

through some challenges, but he thrived through it all. And I think, uh, really recognizing this love that he had for himself and for the people he met, really really affected that in a positive way. I think we can all learn from that. Yeah, And I think I think the word that kept coming to my mind when I was learning about him, searching him and stuff was the

word generous. He seems like a generous person and he's just very like giving of his energy and he went to like flow so much, you know what I mean, with everything going on and I want He's like, I want a lot, so I want to give a lot. You know. He was just very and he was so engaged in everything going on around him, and he wanted to be out in the streets walking around and seeing

things and witnessing the world. He found it all so fascinating, and he was literally like a blade of grass is as holy to me as a church, you know, like it's all so amazing. Are you looking at this ship? You know, it's really awesome. I mean reading some of it, but I was like, I need to go outside immediately.

So we all, I mean, I feel like we all have those moments, you know, where they break through where you're like, oh my god, this is outrageous, Like the fact that I exist is unbelievable, and that and that grass is here, this little thing is a whole thing, right, that's wild. Oh shot, I gotta get to work. Let me stop thinking about that, right you know, like that's the problem. Yeah, But he's like, there's a whole ecosystem around this grass. It's got a root that's doing things,

it's contributing. I mean, what the funk If you think about everything, it's all so amazing, you know. And I just like I like that energy, love it generous. Yeah, except when it came to orgasm and he was like, no, no, no, we didn't do that I may touch your calumus and I might touch my. But near the trade Twain shall meet Mark Twain. Also published in Henry Clap Saturday Evening Post Clap Clap them on the the the pulse, Oh, the pulse. Oh thank god. I wasn't sure what you

were going to say there. I hung out at fasts and I had my thumb on the pulse Society. What a suggestive pause. Amazing. Well, I hope you loved this story about Walt Whitman. I love him. I'm gonna go try to read more Leaves of Grassy, even though I probably won't get through that much of it because it's long. But I hope you loved it. Please let us know what you thought. Yeah, definitely to us. We love hearing

from you. Write us a little poem in free verse when you see and feel every day, I'm as free as a verse verse verse verse. But yeah, do please send us an email at predict Romance at gmail dot com right or we're on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Dianamite Boom and I'm at Oh great, it's Eli and the show is at predict Romance. And please, like we said at the top of the episode. There's nothing better for us than you drop in a review on Apple Podcast. We would love your five stars and your kind words,

and we'll even read some more on the show. Uh Holly the best. We love having you, I love you. Thank you for spending your time with us today, and we'll see you in the next one. Al right, by bye, so long Frances, time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends name is Uncle Sandez. To listen to a show Ridiculous roll Dance