OPEN CITY No. 74, Oct. 18–24, 1968 — Bukowski on First Wife Barbara Frye, How Wallace Can Win; Sirhan Bishara Sirhan Part 2; Biff Rose; In Memory of Florence Beaumont

An issue of the Los Angeles underground weekly in the full broadsheet format, featuring Charles Bukowski's "Notes of a Dirty Old Man." The column draws on his real-life marriage to Barbara Frye, a small-town Texas poet he agreed to marry sight unseen after a correspondence. The column opens with Bukowski living on Kingsley Street, working as a shipping clerk, drinking beer each night, stuffing poems into envelopes and mailing them to little magazines — letters come back saying he is God. A woman begins writing to him, sending photos, not bad at all, writing that nobody will ever marry her. Drunk one night he writes back that he will. They end up on a bus to her small Texas town, arriving at 3:59 a.m., the trip already going sideways. In Texas they fall in with a man named Mr. Dyer who owns farms, walks them past fish ponds and turkey runs and talks about the land. The column closes out on that flat Texas ground with Bukowski taking stock of where his life has brought him. The front cover leads with "How Wallace Can Win" by Andrew Fox of the New York Press. Interior includes Jack Hirschman's "Sirhan Bishara Sirhan Part 2," a Bob Garcia profile of Biff Rose, and a memorial for Florence Beaumont. Advertisements include Lee Michaels at the Whisky-a-Go-Go and a Lord Buckley World Pacific Records release. Full broadsheet format, black and white throughout. Full broadsheet format, 22.5" x 15.5", pink and black spot color on cover, black and white throughout interior. Provenance: Mailing label on front cover addressed to John E. Bryan, 22420 Edgecliff Drive, Cleveland, Ohio — the editor's father at his home address. This copy is in great shape. The folds are fairly even, the pages are white and the color is vibrant. Small tear on right side of horizontal fold, some small tears and folds on interior pages that stick out slightly.