There was the skinny-dipping together, and of course, the letters:
One of his books was a work of fiction called Vital Signs, in which the protagonist wrestles with his attraction to masculine beauty. "I choose to override my desires for men when they swell in me", Weiner wrote, "waiting out the passions like a storm, below decks." At one time, Weiner self-published his own zines featuring inflammatory pieces about gay sex at San Francisco bathhouses. He was apparently opposed to such things. But he was a friend of beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the very, very out gay author of Howl. In a 1970 letter to Ginsberg, someone signed Michael Weiner described a semi-erotic encounter he had had with another man in Fiji. Weiner says he did not write the letter, though the return address was in Honolulu, where Weiner resided at the time. Savage now describes his one-time friend Ginsberg as "latrine slime," and says that upon hearing of his death, "I clasped my hands together and prayed to God. I said, 'Thank you, God, for answering my prayers. One of the blights of the human race is gone.'"
http://www.nndb.com/people/588/000044456/Radar magazine reports that, back when he was a botanist known as Michael Weiner, the syndicated radio host was friendly with poet Allen Ginsberg. According to the mag, on March 8, 1970, Savage wrote to Ginsberg, who visited him in Fiji:
"After speaking to you on the phone ... I walked downstairs to the school courtyard, where a little-known black brother looks at me, takes my hand gently, we do some old-world lower East Side finger tricks, and he peacefully kisses the back of my hand - I do the same for his hand. I told him about our brief talk and he says, 'I must have felt the vibes.'"
Radar says the letter can be found among Ginsberg's collected papers at Stanford University. Ginsberg, who belonged to the North American Man/Boy Love Association, wouldn't seem to be on the "buddy list" of Savage, who once said, "The gay and lesbian mafia wants our children!"
But then, Radar reports, Savage's "thinly disguised confessional" novel, "Vital Signs," did have a protagonist who admitted he was drawn to "masculine beauty," saying, "I choose to override my desires for men when they swell in me."
Savage, who is married, calls the Radar story a "smear campaign" launched by "gay fascists."
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/90478p-82252c.htmlHawaii was also a crossroads of a different sort. Ever fascinated by the counterculture, he began writing letters to Allen Ginsberg, whom he had met briefly while living in New York, cajoling the poet to come to Hawaii for a reading. Weiner offered to make all the arrangements. The correspondence, consisting of ten letters and three postcards — and preserved as part of the Ginsberg collection at Stanford University — spans four years. In 1973, after having passed on Weiner's invitations several times, Ginsberg, along with friend and fellow poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, accepted his offer and stopped over in Hawaii on his way to Australia.
The next year, with his wife and young son in tow, Weiner arrived in the Bay Area to take up doctoral studies at UC Berkeley. Having hosted Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti in Hawaii, he enjoyed instant credibility as he burrowed in among the bohemians of the North Beach cafe scene. "He went around showing people a photo of him and Ginsberg swimming in the buff in Hawaii," says Stephen Schwartz, an ex-Chronicle reporter and former leftist turned conservative scholar, who was a North Beach regular at the time. "It was like his calling card. He traded on his association with Allen to get a toehold."
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2006-07-19/news/feature_full.htmlMarch 8, 1970
Dear Allen:
After speaking to you on the phone about how nice the black-white thing is in mountain villages in Fiji, I walked downstairs to the school courtyard, where a little–known black brother looks at me, takes my hand gently, we do some old–world Lower East Side finger tricks, and he peacefully kisses the back of my hand – I do the same for his hand. I told him about our brief talk, and he says, "I must have felt the vibes."
Michael Weiner
Botany Dept.
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI
http://christianparty.net/michaelsavage.htm
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