no, not going with the overtime, too sick, really, washed-out, parts broken, and you might be walking down Haight any day now and somebody will come up to you and say, “hey, Blaz, you remember this Bukowski guy?” “yeh.” “well, he died.” even Bukowski can die. Hemingway did, and they say, Christ. well, christ, christ, so I am hanging on, barely. (I will write you a letter some day when I am 70. from the fountains of hell.)

hope to enclose last column of Dirty Old Man. I can’t enclose them all. Open City has moved over to a fairly respectable boulevard, near City College, and I hadn’t been over until today, and some of my fears were true. I mean as soon as the publications begin moving up a little, they begin to operate like he dear madam’s exclusive fly suckoff parlor, extra phone, new hustlers and con-men, take-over chaps, and the volunteers get younger with tight dressers and cool pussies of snobbery. it wasn’t too bad today but I did detect a bit of it, and I foretold to a buddy of mine who used to write for them but no more—“as soon as we help them make it they will have no use for us. bad writers will take over, the pages will be ¾ ads, and the rest will be unreadable.” I’m not saying they’ve gotten to that yet but swinging in the door here was this receptionist and she gave me this look like, “if you’re the trashman, he’s already been here,” but I busted right past her cool cunt and hollered “Bryan Bryan where ya at?” I saw him nailing a board to the wall and he said, “Hey, Bukowski!” and the cool cunt musta read the paper because when she heard “Bukowski” she hiked her skirt 4 inches, spread her legs and her pussy started to hiss Yankee Doodle Dandy thru her bargain basement panties. but maybe they won’t get up too high down there, I hope not, anyhow, one column a week is almost too much for a dying man and maybe I am looking for an excuse to quit. quitter, quitter; dirty dying old man. all right, all right. [* * *]