Philadelphia (cont'd)

I cracked Bukowski Never Did This
and thumbed through it. if I picked it up
in a bookstore and did that I would buy it.
I might buy it for the back cover alone,
with the picture of me eating a tray of portugaises
at the Acme Oyster Bar at Baytowne Wharf.
Or the title and subtitle. Bukowski Never Did This.
A Year in the Life of an Underground Writer and His Family.
Whoo-ee, praise God, amen, as Ella said when she came in
and Owen was cooking deer meat in a skillet. I fell out laughing.
If you can hear the tone of voice, it's funny. In a deadpan,
Buster Keaton way. Measuring off a yard of ticker tape
with his nose and an extended arm. In The Saphead.

Literature separates the men from the boys.
That's what guy lit is about. Manhood.
How to be true to your responsibilities to
your loved ones and to your own finer qualities,
your talent, your sensitivity, your patience,
and your loyalty to a beau ideal. It's not anti-female,
as a dick lit might be, a bunch of books written by a guy
who lived off his wife, or played around on a faithful woman
because he could.

As I said about naked women standing on balconies
in the French Quarter and drinking in the streets,
"What fun is that?" Pamplona is bullish on
American yuppies, vicarious tourism, I'll have
a tray of portugaises, please, I just finished writing
a story up over the sawmill while you phonies
were sitting in the cafes, talking a good fuck.
Trust funds akimbo. Is that the Aga Kahn
who's funding you or the CIA? You're just
a front man, a stooge, for big business, big government,
big military-industrial-academic complex. While I'm
a professor of cracker studies without portfolio emeritus.
A writer-in-residence expelled. My 180-day appointment run out,
no OPS job in the offing. We'll go to Nashville and cut a demo tape
if we can all get our vacations at the paper mill together.
Lester "Road Hog" Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys.
Live at the Johnny Mac Brown High School.

Pat and I went for basically
a two-hour walk on city sidewalks,
ending up at the Philadelphia Free Public Library,
where we gave out fliers advertising our reading at
the Medusa Lounge. Philadelphia Weekly called it
a read-off, as if it were a poetry slam. Read-off is
a put-down. I apply it to myself, for participating.
Like calling myself the Madcap Titan of the Dustbin,
or King of the Hard-Mouth Poets. I call Michelob Ultra
rice beer and ice water. Kirin Ichiban. Special Premium Reserve.
The authentic first-press beer. Whatever that means. Get a young boy
with clean feet to mash the Scuppernong grapes in your galvanized washtub.
Maybe Terry Gross will come to catch our show. Karl invited her.
Right after the war with the Eskimos. Walking down the sidewalk
I asked Pat if the Harlem Globetrotters were in town. Meaning people
in exercise clothes with pro-team logos on them. Underground writer, c'est moi.
I'm the franchise. I established the brand. I blew up like a ripe papaya
or Zero Zilenski's kingfish.

I've worn my ULA Literary All-Stars
#2 Writer badge on a lanyard
around my neck all weekend,
and no one has noticed it,
or made a comment. That's nothing.
I have a cloisonné Kurt Schwitters
Merz Centennial pen, 1887 - 1987,
I wear as brass on my woolen o. d.
Greek fisherman cap, olive drab, not
outer diameter, makes me look like
Zippy the Pinhead. I've had the hat
for 18 years, and no one has ever
commented on it, either. Here comes
Radio Raheem with his ghetto-blaster.

Q: How did the readings go?

A: It was mostly ULA members and well-wishers. No press. Nobody who took a flier from us.

I enjoyed myself.

Q: How did you do?

A: I don't think people could hear me.

I spoke into a microphone, but there was no monitor, so I couldn't hear what I was doing.

I read some introductory material and then three Art Brew columns from Slap Out, Alabama.

They were interminable. Boring.

I got one or two laughs.

I'd have to say that reading isn't my strong suit.

The stuff is meant to be read on the page, not listened to, by someone reading it aloud.

Or not by me reading it aloud.

Q: Do you think the reading was an event? A happening?

A: Historic, do you mean? Like the readings ar the Six Gallery?

It depends on how the book, Bukowski Never Did This, does.

It was just a party, if the book doesn't do well.

It was historic for me, personally.

Q: In what way?

A: I feel like this is it. This is all there's going to be. But this is enough. I don't need any more.

I know who I am, and what I've done. What I'm doing.

A handful of kindred spirits know.

I'm enjoying myself.

There is the book fair today.

I'm doing a workshop at 1:00.

Q: Do you know what you're going to say?

A: I'm going to make an outline.