Q: The only writer I can think
of who crossed over to the mainstream from the underground was Charles Bukowski,
and it took him 20 years to do it.
It took having his books available in
college bookstores, independent bookstores, and being available in translation, overseas.
And then it took a movie based on his life to give him the final push.
He
has a conglomerate publisher now, but they bought the backlist and the vault, after
he died. While he was alive, they wouldn't touch him.
It strikes me that
(1) you're crazy to expect New York to publish you, and (2) it's too late for a small
press publisher to do for you what Black Sparrow Press did for Bukowski.
You missed the boat.
Why do you still have hopes of having a career as a
writer?
A: I'm having a career as a writer. An underground writer.
I'm
writing about what that career is like. Its hopes, its sorrows. Its joys, and satisfactions.
Inside Underground Writing.
TWO ZINE FESTS, A HOOTENANNY, AND A SIDE-TRIP
TO PARADISE GARDEN.
I have hopes of having a career as a writer because (1)
what I am writing is better than much of what's out there, (2) the writers who are
having careers are, for the most part, careerists, who have forfeited the right to
call themselves writers, (3) writers like me are always resisted and opposed by the
establishment, and (4) writers like me eventually prevail.
Q: Give me an example.
A: Jack Kerouac.
Q: Give me another example.
A: Hunter S. Thompson.
Q: Any more title changes to this book?
A: Just one. I promise.
Q: What is it called now?
A: INSIDE UNDERGROUND WRITING: TWO ZINE FESTS, A HOOTENANNY, AND A SIDE-TRIP
TO PARADISE GARDEN.