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Notes of a Dirty Old Man (circa 1972)

Story (circa 1972)

Excerpt

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

"You ain't a real cowboy until you got some steer dung on your boots." Pall Mall McEvers—July 29, 1941 Phoenix, Jan. 13th, 1972 Well, being a writer means doing many things so that the writing is not too lousily aligned from one base, and one doesn't always choose the obvious —like Paris or San Francisco or a COSMEP meeting—so here I am typing standing up, a la Hemingway, only on an overturned table spool somewhere in an Arizona desert, a yellow monoplane with propeller going overhead—Africa and the lions far away—the lessons of Gertie Stein ingested and ignored—I have just stopped a dogfight between a small mongrel dog and a German police dog—and that takes some minor guts—and the mongrel lays on the cable spool below my feet—grateful and dusty and chewed—and I left the cigarettes elsewhere—I stand under a limp and weeping tree in Paradise Valley and smell the horseshit and remember my beaten court in Hollywood, drinking beer and wine with 9th rate writers and after extracting what small juices they have, throwing them physically out the door...

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