It was poking at J.J. in England that first dehumanized you, then it was getting paid good money for a bad novel, no, not a bad novel at all, a medium novel, a wooly jockstrap of fatal reference and day-dreaming, plus a few fine passages. But like money turns a whore’s head, money turns a man’s head also. After all, there is a hell of a lot of difference between being printed in Epos by a Commie who lives with a mulatto (mulatto? u, should know), then getting a bit on fine stationary from an editor in N.Y. with circulation push and that thin but fat check placed within. This makes you a pro. Although some thinks this makes you a prick. Some think Mailer is a prick. But he is mostly a pro. But pros seem to turn to pricks, finally. See Mailer, Genet, Burroughs, Ginsberg, who the hell else? showing at the Chicago Yippie thing. As giants of Humanity? Bullshit. As Giants of Publicity. Still, all these were at one time pros. and some pro remains within them. It is difficult to destroy a truly good man even tho he makes many foolish mistakes against his soul. I ain’t no Saint. I drink myself sick and play horses and love my child only and work like a coward on a job that has destroyed me for eleven years.

But I want you to know that I still do not consider you my superior, even tho I am a postal clerk and you are a Dr. of Literature. To put it bluntly, I think that I am the better writer and the better man and that your refusal to answer my letter was chicken-shit and chickenfeathers and chickenfat. My dear Southern Gentleman. of course, I am drunk, what other way is there to be? And I’m even fond of you for Christ’s sake, no form what? Anyway, I am sorry that home in New Orleans is swallowing all your money like a slot machine. ah, life can get HARD, can’t it? especially in Berkeley.—DON’T TELL ME THOSE ACID-CATS CAN’T UNDERSTAND FINNEGANS WAKE? tell them that’s it’s just like music or singing or talking, you say and feel what you want, but don’t INVENT majestics that are not THERE like you people do, also with POUND’S Cantos which are nothing but dry and hard work with little joy, and Art is the Joy of Telling the Truth, bastard, just like I am telling you the truth now.