The Drug Diaries of Oscar Hammerstein II

Work on “Green/Lilacs” adaptation halted unexpectedly. Lorenz Hart is dead. Dead, dead. I couldn’t go to bed. Sat down for drink with Rodgers and young Lerner before remembering Hart’s struggles with alcohol. Took a little marihuana to calm the nerves instead.

Turkish water pipe! Oh, mama! Spent weekend high as an elephant’s eye.

Jerome Kern has the best weed in town. Dreamt of ballet and Oriental broads. There’s a bright golden haze in the studio. Rodgers thinks I’m overdoing the weed. But if you don’t have a dream, how are you going to make a dream come true?

Big party at the house. Lots of grass passed around, crazy shit - dancers singing, actors dancing. Rodgers thinks why the fuck not, it could work.

Went up to Harlem to see my man, got stoned listening to Bizet. What was the name of that fine Nubian princess? Awwwwyeah, Carmen Jones.

Walter Winchell tells his readers I work standing at a “high” antique desk, wink wink. Asshole.

Yul Brynner rubs me the wrongest way. Thinks he IS the King of goddam Siam, Ruler of the Eastern Hemisphere, et cetera. Cueball bastard rarely without cigarette in hand but still dissin’ on the ganja man.

Line about Hart’s death turns up in My Fair Lady. Macabre shit. Lerner and Loewe, my ass. More like Leopold and Loeb.

Pipe Dream nominated for Tony, lost to lame-ass Pajama Game. George Abbott kept getting up in my face, going, “No cigar, eh Oscar?” Winking seven-and-a-half-cent show doctor motherfucker.

Josh Logan turned me on to some wild new kicks today. There is nothing like cocaine. Nothing in the world. There is nothing you can name that is anything like cocaine.

Talented kid, Sondheim, keeps calling me HammerSTEEN; dawg should know better. Snorted a few lines, checked out the MoMA. Stevie be rapping on colors in Seurat painting for six hours.

The sound of Rodgers’ music is driving me fucking crazy, yo. Took a little of this new LSD, wrote ersatz Kraut folk lyric for new show. Everyone claims to dig it, posers just humoring me. Makes me want to vomit. Not feeling so well these days.

Ah, sweet, sweet heroin. Window left open, rain cool on the skin. Wallet missing from nightstand. Good night, young lovers, whoever you were.