I had a couple of chances in my life to kiss rear ends and I never could really do it. An older friend, Ralph came to visit me one day in the used bookstore where I worked in the Irish Channel in New Orleans when I was barely 25 and started asking how much money I needed to live on if there was a writing project available. We worked it out, but he seemed upset that I insisted on cigarette money- I was living on $400.00 a month back then. It seems Hazel Guggenheim McKinley was looking for a ghost writer for her autobiography. Everyone back then told her I was the one that had something- little did they know. Anyhow, I had met her and became friends with her secretary, a girl my age that was out in the world on trial before going to take her final vows to be a nun. All of us 'arteests' that were friends with Ralph were invited to Hazel's apartment for a salon. I sort of remember discussing John Horne Burns ("The Gallery") with her- she had known him.
And all of the good wine on the table. I guess my price was too high, which was probably just as well, because I probably couldn't have written the book then- just not enough know-how. I had to go spend another two years writing my first very bad book. I avoided going to any more of the salons- I had no interest in old women. Hem probably wouldn't have passed up the opportunity.
There was also a big house in Beverly Hills and several jobs I missed out on (but those are other stories)- cause I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Hazel's painting above- she died in '95 -really old- I don't think the autobiography ever got written.
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