met Neal Cassady before he died, up at Open City one night. I had some beer with me. have one, I said. he drank the thing like water. “have another,” I said. he was crazier than I was. it was beginning to rain and we all got into the car, Bryan, myself and Cassady. we got one of the famous Cassady rides on the rain-slick streets. then we ate together at J.B.’s and had a few more drinks. Neal was the hero of Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road. about a week after I met Neal they found him dead along some railroad tracks in Mexico. he’d mixed too much booze with nembutal. deliberately, perhaps. [* * *]

[To Thomas Livingstone]

February 26, 1968

well, Mahler’s 10th on and I’m hungover and climbing out, climbing back in again. I read your fuck-piece and that boy is a master-fucker, man; I guess every man wants to be a master-fucker and that every woman wants to be fucked by one, and maybe a few men too. well, I have never been a master-fucker; I am usually too drunk or disinterested or cold-hot; a task, you know. and fucking often turns out to be a dirty task, a trick to do. and, in a sense, I think any man’s crazy who does it with real Art. 2 dogs fucking outdo anybody. so, still, yes, enjoyed your piece.

uh, Stuart still has Crucifix. he doesn’t know how to move them, nobody knows he has them. [* * *] Terror Street out soon. also a tape to be issued of Bukowski reading from some of the poems in book. $10. too high, of course. but John Martin (Black Sparrow) knows his collectors. so he’s only issuing 50 tapes. he knows how to make money printing the poets. his royalties, per issue printed, I think he is the highest in the business. he’s printing everybody now—Creeley, Olson, dozens of names like that, pays them in front upon publication and still makes good $$$$. but he realizes the market is limited—really, you know—so he runs only issues of 150 to 250 books, but he gets rid of them. me, he’s going to do first, he said, 500 then 750 because so many whores taxi drivers sex freaks circus barkers and Fuller Brush salesmen read me. I am easy to understand even when I don’t understand myself.