Q: One of the last sections of HOUSEHUSBAND was called Fishing Stories. You published it as a pamphlet.

It was poems about fishing. With your brother Bill, mostly. And Don Riley.

A: Yes. Those were some good poems.

Q: Is GULF COAST STORIES going to be mostly poems?

A: I don't know.

Q: About fishing?

A: I don't know.

Q: About spearfishing?

A: I don't know.

How do you write about Key West without writing about spearfishing, and fishing.

Drinking.

I could have drunk Hemingway under the table, or held my own with him. Before I became a rummy.

I was powerless over a teacup, at the end.

Q: So was he. George Plimpton said his liver coiled around his trunk like a strangler fig around a ficus tree.

A left hook to the liver would finish him off.

A: Bukowski went ten rounds with Hemingway. I went ten rounds with Bukowski.

Q: The back cover of Bukowski Never Did This says,

Charles Bukowski is the ultimate underground-writer success story. Publisher John Martin gave him an allowance to quit the post office and write a novel, Post Office, which became a huge success in Europe. Bukowski toured Europe with a personal paparazzo to document his journey, and wrote a book called Shakespeare Never Did This.

He was still largely unknown in the United States, where he is better known for the movie he wrote about himself, Barfly, than for his many novels and books of poetry.

One of the things Bukowski wrote about was going ten rounds with Hemingway. In Bukowski Never Did This, underground legend Jack Saunders writes about going ten rounds with Bukowski.

Writing over 250 books while working full-time jobs, taking on the literary establishment, and raising a family aren't easy things to do.

Jack Saunders has done them. Bukowski Never Did This is a partial record of his journey, sans paparazzo.

A: I'm my own paparazzo.

In GULF COAST STORIES I carry a digital point-and-shoot camera in a musette bag.

I capture pictures off the Internet.

Actually, a fanny-pack.

A YLS knock-off from Wally World.

Q: You gave yourself an allowance to quit your job and write GULF COAST STORIES.

A: I didn't quit, I was laid off for lack of work.

I'd rather fish than work.

I'd rather write than fish.

Q: Nelson Algren wrote a book called Notes From a Sea Dairy: Hemingway All the Way.

A: Yes. I could call GULF COAST STORIES NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND: BUKOWSKI ALL THE WAY.

This is like a sea diary only I stay at home. I don't go anywhere. Except in my head.

I stay in my room, like Bukowski.

Q: Bukowski all the way.

You gave yourself an allowance to write ON ASSIGNMENT.

You wrote ON ASSIGNMENT without an allowance. While on assignment.

A: Yes, and I saved enough money, working, to write GULF COAST STORIES, too.

Q: I think you are writing a pair of books called Notes from Underground: Bukowski All the Way.

ON ASSIGNMENT is finished. It covers working as a contract technical writer for a defense contractor, writing training programs for the unemployed.

GULF COAST STORIES is in progress. It covers being unemployed, that is, free to write GULF COAST STORIES. On the money you saved working as a contract technical writer.

A: You know, that's not a bad idea.

I think I'll drop the subtitle FOUR MONTHS OF DAILY TYPEWRITING from ON ASSIGNMENT.

I think I'll drop BUKOWSKI ALL THE WAY from NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, too. Just call it NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND.

Q: Good idea.