[To Carl Weissner]

May 27, 1969

good you liked the dirty stories—they were easy to write—mostly after the races, tired, hitting on can after can of beer and smoking cheap cigars, sitting here under this lamp—there was this sense of ACTION—I knew that whatever I wrote it would be on the streets in a couple of days—no waste, no time-lag—hit the bull’s eyes, BANG! and on to the next. once a week, week after week…it was a good piece of ass thing. now compare it—I have written two long stories, one—“The Life, Birth, and Death of an Underground Newspaper”—send it to Evergreen—it has been two months—no answer. another story, “The Night Nobody Believed I Was Allen Ginsberg,” has been resting with Playboy for 6 weeks. there’s just no movement. even if the stories go, it is not the same fast-paced type of vibration. yes, Open City folded, and there was lot of shit involved for it all, and I wrote it in the Evergreen submission. Bryan phoned the other night, high, from Frisco, saying he wants to start another newspaper, this time sex, no politics, and so I might be back on the weekly column kick if he wasn’t dreaming high. so, we’ll see.

but, actually, the fact you want to translate the stories into the German is a high honor to me, no shit, it gives me the creeping chills to think of crawling back to the Fatherland like that—my own tongue, cut out—but you’ve got a good tongue, Carl, you speak for me, and gracious thanks for the miracle. The ESSEX HOUSE boys say, however you want to work it, Buk. so all’s all right, only should it come off, they want a contract to sign, whatever it says. so I don’t think that’s too much bother. [* * *]

just heard from Martin on the phone—Blazek got 3 grand for his mag from the Coordinating Council of Little Mags…. about ten of them got grants. he says. says Martin. how much did you get, Carl? Martin says none of the good mags got anything. which means you got nothing. what is it, Carl? just one big ass-suck. all this poet-in-residence. all these grants. I suppose if I got one, though, I’d say it was all right. then there’s Levertov who gets a yearly grant from the National Foundation of the Arts, has used up a year’s grant, demands her next year’s grant in advance. it wouldn’t be so sickening, but these people just aren’t that good, Carl. I mean with the word, putting it down, and maybe in a lot of other ways. me, they’re still trying to fire me from the post office, trying to knock me all the way down to skid row. I may just quit. [* * *]

[To Carl Weissner]

[July 1969]