OPEN CITY No. 75, Oct. 25–31, 1968 — Bukowski Notes, How to Blow Up a CIA Office, L.A. Rightist Bombings, Small Faces, John Mayall and Eric Clapton

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 runs across two pages, opening with Bukowski not feeling good, meditating on peepfreaks and jackoff artists and the indignity of the barbershop — a barber breathing liquor and spinning into a monologue. It ranges through domestic frustration, a man named Frank who keeps appearing, and the impossibility of modern life: the gas is off, the lights are out, money owed everywhere, the doctor won't see you, the magazine says you have no time left. The column closes with a pigeon dying on the sidewalk, a girl with an impossibly short skirt and fine nyloned legs walking past, and Bukowski still not feeling well.

The front cover is one of the most visually striking in the run — a bearded man in American flag underpants standing in a psychedelic blue and white checkerboard vortex, asking "Obscenity? Politics?" — printed in blue and black two-color, alongside John Bryan's editorial on his obscenity trial. A page 10 feature presents an interview with a Liberation News Service demolitions expert on bombing police cars and CIA offices. Also featured is a report on Los Angeles rightist bombing activity. Advertisements include the Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake on Immediate Records and a John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers anthology featuring Eric Clapton. Full broadsheet format, 22.5" x 15.5", blue 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, Euclid, Ohio — the editor's father at his home address.

Slightly uneven fold leading to some of the top and bottom pages sticking out a bit, but minimal tears to the page edges with some light browning. Color is vibrant and pages are white.