I Used To Think I Was Poor.

Whatever New York Loses, If You Go To Other Cities Around The World, Or Around The Country, New York Still Has A Kind Of Energy Level You Find Nowhere Else. Paris Doesn't Have It, London Doesn't Have It, San Francisco, A Great City, Doesn't Have It.

I Learned To Distrust Writers Who Talked About How They Squeezed The Blood Onto The Typewriter. They Just Don't Want You To Know How Much Fun They Have - You'll Resent It.

I Was Doing Cartoons And Mocking White Liberals, Mocking The Attitude Of Government Who Said To Go Slow, While Intending To Do Absolutely Nothing For Black People, Then Called Negroes. And I Had A Lot Of Fun And I Expressed A Lot Of Anger. That Was A Thing That Was Important To Know At That Time. As I Was Emerging Into More And More Into Politics That I Was Angry.

When People Started Reading Me And Talking To Me About The Work, They Didn't Say How Funny, Or How Satiric, Or How Brilliant, Or How This Or How That, They Said, How'd You Get Away With It? How'd You Get That Into Print?

I Didn't Have A Job. Employers Were Afraid Of Losing Their Reputations. I Didn't Have A Reputation. I Had Zilch. So, I Had The Freedom, Which Unemployment Gives You, And That Was To Behave As Badly As I Believed I Should Under The Circumstances. And The Circumstances Were Quite Awful.