Charles Bukowski Mondays

Contribution to Voyagers "Poetry in Motion" Series from the 1990's

By Charles Bukowki



Transcript:
"Reading the poets has been the dullest of things. Even reading the great novelists of the past, I said, "Tolstoy is supposed to be special?" I go to bed, I read War and Peace. I read it, I read it, I say, "Where is the specialist in War and Peace?" I really tried to understand. I mean, and then many of the great poets of the past, I've read their stuff. I've read it. All I get is a goddamn headache and boredom. I really feel sickness in the pit of my stomach, I say "There's some trick going on here, this is not true. This is not real, its not good."
You see poetry itself contains as much energy as a Hollywood industry. As much energy as a stage play on Broadway. All it needs is practitioners who are alive to bring it alive. Poetry has always been said to be a private, hidden art. Not to be appreciated. The reason it's not appreciated is because it hasn't shown any guts, hasn't shown any dance. Hasn't shown any moxie. Poetry is generally very dull, very pretensive. Uh, those who say the poet is very private and precious person, I don't agree with. Generally, he is just a dumb, fiddling asshole writing insecure lines that don't come through, believing he's immortal, waiting for his immortality which never arrives. Because the poor fucker just can't write. Most poets, coets, whoets, carrots, can't even write a simple line. Like, "The dog walked down the street."Nothing should ever be done that should be done. It has to come out like a good hot beer shit. A good hot beer shit is glorious man. You get up, turn around, look at it and your proud. The fumes, the stink of the turd, you look, you say, "God, I did it. I'm good." Then you flush it away and there is a sense of sadness when just the water is there. It's like writing a good poem, you just do it. You, its a beer shit. There's nothing to analyze, nothing to say it's just done. Got it?
I really hate reading verse because you're really getting up there. You've written poems that you really meant alone, you know, by you're typewriter, then there's crowd out there drinking beer and all that. And you're reading it to them. The writer has no responsibility. Except to jack off and bed (vet?) alone and type a good page. I continued writing even though it came back and got drunk for 10 years. I felt there was nothing out there. So I had to continue because they were so bad, not because I was so good. And I'm still not so good, but they're still very bad. There is still room for somebody to step in here you see, and I hope he arrives or she.
That should be enough right there, with that bottle of 55 poets, that should cure them. With their melody but it wont. Goodnight, goodbye, and happy reading.

Weekend Literary Inspirations:

The Origins of Joy in Poetry

By Jack Kerouac
Chicago Review, 1958

The new American poetry as typified by the SF Renaissance (which means Ginsburg, me, Rexroth, Ferlinghetti, McClure, Corso, Gary Snyder, Phil Lamantia, Phil Whalen, I guess) is a kind of new-old Zen Lunacy poetry, writing whatever comes into your head as it comes, poetry returned to its origin, in the bardic child, truly ORAL as Ferling said, instead of gray faced Academic quibbling. Poetry & Prose had for a long-time fallen into the false hands of the false. These new pure poets confess forth for sheer joy of confession. They are the CHILDREN. They are also childlike graybeard Homers singing in the street. They SING, they SWING. It is diametrically opposed to the Eliot shot, who so dismally advises his dreary negative rules like the objective correlative, etc, which is just a lot of constipation and ultimately emasculation of the pure masculine urge to freely sing. In spite of the dry rules he set down his poetry itself is sublime. I could say a lot more but ain't got time or sense. But SF is the poetry of a new Holy Lunacy like that of ancient times (Li Po, Han Shan, Tom O Bedlam, Kit Smart, Blake) yet it also has the mental discipline of pointing out things directly, purely concretely, no abstractions or explanations, wham wham the true blue song of man.

(His complete view of himself as a poet)

Nostalgia Fridays: 1950's J.Ds and Rock n Roll

On this week's episode of Nostalgia Friday I present you with a clip of several Juvenile Delinquent movie trailers. It is hard to imagine that these movie trailers of: teenagers rockin' to an unfamiliar beat, racing down the streets in their hot rods, and on their motorcycles, and fighting each other with switchblade knives were treated as sycophants, "teenage cycle hounds going out for thrills, laughing at danger playing at love, the kind of playing that leads to plenty of trouble." That this type of behavior was the scourge of society, when in present day terms seems somewhat ridiculous and tame. It was, of course, a different time. American societal worries were few and far between. Where "Leave it To Beaver," "Ozzie and Harriet" reigned supreme and the rock n roll phase, to some, was about to be fazed out.



I recently bought a cd called "Rock N Roll & Rock A Billy Inferno."
It is a fabulous compilation of music from the 1950's with Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and many other Rock n Rollers. What fascinates me about this 2-disc set though are the multiple tracks of actual radio broadcasts and commercials from the era. Beginning with: an interview radio DJ Bob Neal had with Elvis Presley before one of his shows in Texicana in 1955 (which also introduced, by name, a young performer named Johnny Cash), leading to a actual commercial for a 1957 Chevy and a debate with Beat Generation Poet Allen Ginsburg and others talking about the "Beat Generation" in 1959.
The coup de gras and most eye and ear opening, in my mind, is a debate on the Meaning of Rock n Roll in 1958 between an unknown interviewer and debater. It is an amazing listen and to hear some of what the debater speaks on about the relevance to what he believes rock n roll music to be and his idea that, at that time in 1958, it would be fazed out.

Interviewer: "Now, you know rock n roll, I think you'll agree, by in large has a bad name. Whose responsible for it?"

Debater: "Steve, the fact that parents did the same thing doesn't make it right. I mean, all I hear is that parents when they
were young fell into the same trap. Well, I say the trap is getting deeper. There is no doubt that its interpretation. The very fact that it appeals to a certain kind of interpreter. For instance if I say, (in a Sinatra voice) 'I love you truly, truly'. But if I say, (in a raspy voice) "I love you truly' and weave my eyes, twist my body when I say 'I love you truly, truly' you know what I attend to convey when I say 'I love you truly' that way. This is doing a great disservice and its being done strictly for profit. And incidentally this program is about four weeks to late because rock n roll is on it's way out as you know.

Interviewer: "Is it on the way out?"

Debater: With all do respect Joe, you being an attorney and I love ya, your a wonderful fellow its on its way out. Irving and LP records are in their way in.

Interviewer: "LP records are on their way in, but rock n roll is just beginning to make itself. I think the fact that a definite dance beat has been reestablished for the kids. I don't think the lyrics to which you were referred to, the lyrics to which you referred before as having a particular connotation. I think we can go to any...

Debater: "Well how was Rock n Roll born!? Rhythm and Blues and race. Now Joe, you know that Rock n Roll was born out of Rhythm and Blues and race, written by people who didn't know the english language, didn't know how to spell, didnt know how to play but could accompany themselves on the guitar and so forth and that's how Rock n Roll was born. And you know that, along came a clever fellow whose, like Buck Ram, who knew how to write good songs and to make a profit and I don't blame them for it, they imitated Rhythm and Blues and race and created Rock n Roll...

Interviewer: "Why did it get so popular though?"

Debater: "Anything can become popular over night. It's a six-month sensation, a year sensation. This is very fast era, that little thing called radio can make 170 people conscious of a thing AND unconscious all within one week ya know."

Quite fascinating I must say. I wonder what became of that debater.

President Obama Makes CNN's Ed Henry His "Companion"

I watched as President Obama addressed America and the White House Press Corps last night, and like many of the other responses afterwards, a few moments stood out in my mind head and shoulders above the rest: 1) The "race" question and 2) his smack down of Ed Henry from CNN.
I am not about to tout myself an expert on politics or on presidential White House press corps addresses, as I have only since the 2008 Presidential campaign jumped upon the bandwagon. Therefore, with regards to addressing the WH press corps last night, I am not sure how exciting or dull they are in general-or what are deemed stupid or insightful questions. Yet, I do have opinions on what I believe were important and exciting issues and topics.

To be honest, I watched unfazed, except for a few "yes we can" and "go on with your bad self" moments under my breath, as questions were being asked and answers were given. Until the President's unequivocal straight forwardness to the "oh no he didn't" moment(s) stated above. With regard to the "race" question the woman reporter asked on whether his first weeks in office have been colorblind, which seemed extremely vague and open ended, Obama reacted in a considerate and respectful way. Mulling over his answer with thought and precision. He spoke that the focus has been on the economy, not about race. He said the convention and inauguration was a time to address race, “but that lasted about a day.” As I now watch and read enthusiastically and with concern each day about what our government is doing to keep this country out of the "porcelain god" the Bush administration flushed us in, it is a relief to see our Commander in Chief put some smackdown on questions like Ed Henry asked on why it took a while for Obama to reveal his outrage toward the AIG bonuses, "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I am talking about before I speak."

In the words of Keith Olbermann, "Ooo snap!"

In The Washington D.C. bubble in which these politicians and reporters live; where as I read somewhere Michigan could be considered a foreign country to them, and their constant 24-hour addictive craving for information, it is as if the idea of a head of state or even an elected official visiting and meeting with Main Street instead of Wall Street and actually thinking before speaking is a novel one. It blows my mind.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On MSNBC tonight, Keith Olbermann interviewed Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. They spoke on the reaction towards this news conference and rather bluntly in particular, the way Ed Henry got "owned" by the president where by Robinson uses, in layman's terms, a sports analogy of Kobe Bryant doing a reverse 360 degree windmill tomahawk jam over and in the face of his opponent and acknowledging the fact that "the guy just made you his companion."

At that moment I burst out laughing as well did Keith Olbermann because well... it was true. He did get "owned". President Obama's blunt, straight forward comment to Ed Henry I believe not only answered the question that was asked but sent a message to the country and within the Washington D.C. bubble that this president will think before he speaks.

Change has truly come to.

Drinking and Waiting...With a Smile

I went to a wedding this past weekend back home in Alaska. I watched as my best friend since grade school tied the knot. Went the distance. Took the plunge. Whatever analogy you would like to use, he is now grown up, the husband to a wonderful woman and I could not be happier. Being surrounded by the many friends and families that he and I both grew up with from the days of our youth and today, it felt like, not only a wedding of two friends, but of a family reunion of sorts. Growing up together all these years, I knew I would see the many different faces of my past; from grade school to high school. And like high school, I ended up traversing, mingling from person to person as I did a decade ago.
It was refreshing, cathartic. To be able to go up to nearly everyone there and begin again where we had left off. Not having the anxiety, constant and perpetual tiresome feeling of starting from scratch. Boring out nearly entire life stories. No, this time, we all knew each other's lives and watched as two of our own continued theirs together; it was something to witness.
The groom and I have had our ups and we have had our downs, we've had our share of bickering, laughter and tears. Yet, as with true friends both past and present, the good times always outlast the bad. Being a year older than I, he was like the big brother I never had. I could confide in him, lay down my guard with him, be myself with him. At a time where I questioned my place in society, his friendship made life easy. As I contemplate, I am reminded of a quote I have seen before from Henri Nouwen:

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

and Charles Bukowski:

"That is what friendship means. Sharing the prejudice of experience."

Knowing that I can physically, or rather vicariously, go back home to my birthplace and see my friend(s) makes being alone tolerable. He let me be who I was and there was never a need to apologize for that. Like Bukowski, who in my view was the writer most comfortable in his own skin, demonstrated in simplicity the darker side of life, while shining through with style and unapologetic fervor. Even his friends and lovers knew who he was and accepted, or rather tolerated him. As, A.D Winans, a long time friend, wrote of Bukowski:

He would be the first
To tell you that
He was an asshole and
He was
And so are you and
Sometimes more and
Sometimes less
Depending on
The
Circumstances
He would be the first
To admit that
He was a hustler and
A con man and
He was both
But he did it with style
Which is more
Than you can say
For most of us

Amen
Rest in Peace

As I sit here scribbling once again all alone, reminiscing the past and my friend as silence mushrooms the air, I crack a grin. Things have changed. Time has changed. Therefore, I leave you with a poem called "drink and wait" by Charles Bukowski:

well, first Mae West died
and then George Raft,
and Eddie G. Robinson's
been gone
a long time,
and Bogart and Gable
and Grable,
and Laurel and
Hardy
and the Marx Brothers,
all those Saturday
afternoons
at the movies
as a boy
are gone now
and I look
around this room
and it looks back at me
and out through
the window pane,
time hangs helpless
from the doorknob
as a gold
paperweight
of an owl
looks up at me
(an old man now)
who must endure
these many empty
Saturday
afternoons.


I can now drink and wait alone with a smile.
Thank you Bukowski
Thank you dear friend

Charles Bukowski Mondays

Observations on music

By Charles Bukowski

I have sat for thousands of nights
listening to symphony music on the radio;
I doubt that there are many men my age
who have listened to as much classical music
as I have-
even those in the profession

I am not a musicologist
but
I have some observations:
1) the same 50 or 60 classical compostions
are played over and over
and over again.
2) there has been other great music written that we
ignore at our peril.
3) the second movement of most symphonies
is only kind to insomniacs
4) chamber music has every right to be energetic
and entertaining
5)very few composers know how to END their
symphonies
but
most opening movements, like romance, have
early charm.
6) I prefer a conductor who inserts his own
interpretation rather than the purist who blindly follows
the commands of the master.
7) of course, there are always some conductors with so much ego and
"interpretation" that the composer
vanishes.
8) music is much like fucking, but some composers can't
climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener
jaded and spent.
9) humor is lacking in most so-called great musical
compositions.
10) Bach is the hardest to play badly because he made so few spiritual mistakes.
11) almost all symphonies and operas could be
shorter.
12) too much contemporary music is written from the safe
haven of a university. a composer must still experience life in its raw form in order
write well.
13) music is the most passionate of the art forms;
I wish I had been a musician or a composer.
14) very few writers know how to END a poem like this one
15) but I do.

Charles Bukowski Mondays

Beasts Bounding Through Time
By Charles Bukowski

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoyevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward us
impossibly.

flophouse

By Charles Bukowski

you haven't lived
until you've been in a
flophouse
with nothing but one
light bulb
and 56 men
squeezed together
on cots
with everybody
snoring
at once
and some of those
snores
so
deep and
gross and
unbelievable-
dark
snotty
gross
subhuman
wheezings
from hell
itself.

your mind
almost breaks
under those
death-like
sounds

and the
intermingling
odors:
hard
unwashed socks
pissed and shitted
underwear

and over it all
slowly circulating
air
much like that
emanating from
uncovered
garbage
cans.

and those
bodies
in the dark.

fat and
thin
and
bent

some
legless
armless

some
mindless

and worst of
all:
the total
absence of
hope

it shrouds
them
covers them
totally.

it's not
bearable.

you get
up
go out

walk the
streets

up and
down
sidewalks

past buildings

around the
corner

and back
up
the same
street

thinking

those men
were all
children
once

what has happened
to
them?

and what has
happened
to
me?

it's dark
and cold
out
here.

Weekend Literary Inspirations:

The Loser
By Charles Bukowski

and the next I remembered I'm on a table,
everybody's gone; the head of bravery
under light, scowling, flailing me down...
and then some toad stood there, smoking a cigar;
"Kid you're no fighter," he told me,
and I got up and knocked him over a chair;
it was like a scene in a movie, and
he stayed there on his big rump and said
over and over: "Jesus, Jesus, whatsamatta wit
you?" and I got up and dressed,
the tape still on my hands, and when I got home
I tore the tape off my hands and
wrote my first poem,
and I've been fighting
ever since.

Nostalgia Fridays: Live Fast, Die Young, The 50's Mad Ones

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!." - ( On The Road by Jack Kerouac)

What Is Happening To Our Newspapers: Will They Survive?

One particular segment of the Rachel Maddow Show intrigued me while watching late last Friday night. Usually I am entranced by her entire show; with her charm, wit and excellent reporting of each days breaking and sustaining news stories, yet this one particular segment piqued my interest. It had been reported a while back that it was probable one of Seattle’s daily newspapers, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, would become a web-based news resource. The owner of the paper, Hearst Corp. had put the flailing newspaper up on the auction block back in January of this year stating it will close down unless a buyer was available to save it. It was also mentioned, if that were to be the case, Hearst Corp. would have the P-I re-emerge as an online-only publication. With the 60-day deadline to find a buyer nearing, it is looking as though we Seattlites will have only one daily soon enough.

Most recently, in late 2007, three smaller newspapers from the Midwest and Plains: the Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post and Capital Times from Madison, Wisconsin, all went the way of the web. So, while turning solely to the internet for former printed news publications is not an original solution, for Seattle’s second largest daily newspaper it just might be. For the P-I, which began publishing in 1863, would be the first big city paper to join the digital ranks.
According to the reports, those online-based local newspapers have seen substantial gains, not only financial, but in readership as well. Therefore, this departure from print to web-based may help the P-I, at least for now.
With news of other newspapers in numerous large cities filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy itching our minds, On Friday’s show Rachel Maddow interviewed Greg Mitchell, author and Editor for Editor & Publisher Magazine. Doing his best to talk her down, the two discussed the recent news out of Seattle and whether the news media and democracy itself can survive on blogs alone?
It is no surprise of what society, especially people in prominent and affluent positions-within government, entertainment, sports, and business-to name a few think of the media. Like Maddow parlays, from both the left, right and center, the news media is constantly berated with names, for example, “Brain-dead media,” “Mainstream media,” “Drive-by media” . Reminiscent of our middle school days and the bully from the Simpsons who points and laughs repeatedly. “Ah ha, Ah ha, Ah ha!” With multiple newspapers disappearing, we will be hard pressed to continue name calling, pointing and laughing with a mouse in our hand.

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Maddow states, that there is no reason why a free press cannot be evident online. I agree whole-heartedly, but I also feel, as she so eloquently mentions, that within a democracy, there needs to be a plethora of reporters, journalists, photographers dispersing the news full-time. That we cannot survive on blogs alone. I ask the same question, Can we?
Look, I am not saying that blogs authored by, in Rachel Maddow's words, “spunky, volunteer citizen journalists,” myself included, have to stop or be rendered useless. We all have our reasons of why we began blogging in the first place, whether they be for personal diary-type reasons or to put our name out into the void. But what I believe will be missed if most print turns to digital is the actual feel, the news literally at our fingertips and the objectivity. As Maddow and Mitchell both acknowledged, the use of professional print resources is key to distributing to the masses what our world is doing, and the maintenance of other news mediums like television and radio. Even though I am part of and supportive of the new media, I feel that print journalism is the original key component to our society and a way of garnering and broadcasting local, national and world events. As Greg Mitchell states about newspapers, “I see the tremendous work they do everyday to expose things as real watch dogs.” While commenting as well, that the new media is one of the reasons Barack Obama is in the White House.
Considering our media's past, their are limits to what our present and future forms will be capable of doing. I do see that our new media, like blogging, that are here now and which will be in the future, are beginning to have sway over a wide range of original coverage which unfortunately has taken away the importance of our professional reporters, editors, and photographers.

With that being the case, while I do enjoy purchasing the newest everything, including supporting any type of new media that comes now and years from now. Nevertheless, I am cognizant of the importance of both a free press and the use and feel of professional print media as well.

Charles Bukowski Mondays

Excepts from
"The L.A Scene: The Poets, The Madmen; The Impoverished and the Rich of Soul; The Bland, The Bastards, The Drunks and the Damned..."

By Charles Bukowski

"After a bad marriage I decided, well, hell, I might as well be a writer, that seems easiest, you say anything you want to and they say, hey, that's good, you're a genius. Why not be a genius? There are so many half-assed geniuses. So I became another half-assed genius.
My first thought was to stay away from writers, artists, creators, feeling that they could take one off the path with the misdirection of their ambitions. After all, a good writer need only do two things well: Live and write, and the job is done. In Los Angeles it is possible to live in total isolation until they find you, and they will find you. And drink with you for days and nights, and talk for days and nights. And when they are gone, others will come along. One doesn't mind the women, of course, but the others are definitely consumers of the soul...."

"Los Angeles is full of very odd people, believe me. There are many out there who have never been on a 7:30 a.m. freeway or punched a timeclock or even had a job and don't intend to, can't, won't, will die first rather than live the common way. In a sense, each of them is a genius in his or her way, fighting against the obvious, swimming upstream, going mad, getting on pot, wine, whiskey, art, suicide, anything but the common equation. It will be sometime before they even us out and make us say quits.
When you see that city hall downtown and all of the proper precious people, don't get melancholy. There is a whole tide, a whole race of mad people, starving, drunk, goofy, and miraculous. I have seem many of them. I am one of them. There will be more. This city has not yet been taken. Death before death is sickening.
The strange ones will hold, the war will continue. Thank you. "



(Trailer for the film "Factotum")

Nostalgia Fridays: Greasers, Hot Rods and Rockabilly- The Original Punks

I love the 1950's. More precisely I love the greaser, rockabilly and hot rodding lifestyle side of the 1950's. As I have heard from a few of my fellow bloggers and friends, it seems we were born in the wrong decade. My love for this more care-free, rebel way of life, which brought up my own parents, is like Marty McFly going back in time in Back To The Future but without him desperately trying to return to his cocoon of the 1980's.
I am not abashed to confess I went through many phases of acceptance and comfort. Essaying forth questions in my mind of who I was and what type of skin I felt comfortable in. Changing outfits and interests, not only to please myself, but to please others and to fit in. Not until I found classic cars, hot rods, Rockabilly and original rock and roll music - like Elvis, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent - did I feel comfortable with my surroundings and who I am. Wondering why it took me so long to realize.

I cannot fully explain my love for 1950's nostalgia but from today onward I will bring you bits and pieces each week from the rebel without a cause side of our classic and wistful past beginning with an educational hot rodding film from 1953.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Going Postal Vicariously Through the Arts

Have you ever had days where you felt you just wanted to hit something? Scream turrets at the top of your lungs? Yeah I thought so.
That is what I have been feeling like all day today. That song, "Break Stuff," from the late 1990's - early 2000's rap-alt band Limp Bizkit comes to mind. I realize how cheesy that band is and I would not even have mentioned them if for reasons: 1) They had a song called "Break Stuff" where within the entire video there are ordinary people intertwined with famous faces nodding their heads together, dancing around and screaming into the camera (while Pauly Shore is humping in the background), and of them well... jumping and breaking stuff, plus 2) The lyrics actually coincided with what I wanted to do all day:

Its just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sucks
You don't really know why
But you want justify
Rippin' someone's head off
No human contact
And if you interact
Your life is on contract
Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker
It's just one of those days!!

And 3) that song just popped into my head.



Screaming profane words at the top of my lungs is always a good elixir for my few and far between foul moods I tend to get in when the day just does not turn out the way I would like it to. It reminds me of the two scenes in Mike Judge's 1999 cult film "Office Space" where Samir has had it with the fax machine and the three friends go out in the field and beat in the uncooperative machine.

We all have our good days and our bad days. I can scream and shout. I can jump around and break stuff. Hell, I can also go out with friends onto a hill of grass with a bat and my fist and go postal on a fax machine.

Yep, I love living vicariously through the Arts. I feel much better now.

To Understand Life and The Sexes I Turn to Bukowski

“Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and 5 out of 9 I’ll show you an exceptional man.” - Charles Bukowski, 6-27-67, over his 19th bottle of beer.

“show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 out of 9 I’ll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.” - Charles Bukowski, 6-27-67, over 20th bottle of beer.


Forget E! Entertainment’s experts. I dump on the Queer Eye Men. I scream turrets at morning talk show relationship gurus. I discredit the so-called how-to “experts” on the world wide web. On matters of the heart of the sexes, I prefer to get my information from Charles Bukowski. The late acclaimed writer and poet takes on the mind-set of the male and female species with straight talk and no inflated bullshit puffery of any kind. According to him, “the state of the kitchen is the state of the mind.”

In “Sensitive,” within the pages of Tales of Ordinary Madness, Bukowski deliberates both men and women and their habits all which seem to be dependent on how they keep their kitchens. As he essays forth his wild mind,

“ ...confused and unsure men, pliable men are the thinkers. Their kitchens are like their minds, cluttered with garbage, dirty ware, impurity, but they are aware of their mind-state and find some humor in it. At times, with a violent burst of fire they defy the eternal deities and come up with a lot of shining that we sometimes call creation; just as at times they will get half drunk and clean up their kitchens, but soon again falls into disorder and they are in the darkness again, in need of BABO, pills, prayers, sex, luck, and salvation.”

While on the other hand he believes the ever-orderly kitchen is the freak.

“His kitchen-state is his mind state...he has let life condition him quickly to a basened and hardened complex of defensive and soothing thought-order. If you listen to him for ten minutes you will know that anything he says in a lifetime will be essentially meaningless and always dull.”

In just a few short sentences, he puts forth genuine thought about the state of mind in relation to how we keep our kitchens. How we function through life. Society sizes one another up by the simplest forms: how we dress, the types of shoes we wear... how clean or impure our kitchens are. We all know what he is talking about, we have experienced or have even let ourselves go at times, even women.
“some women have theories on how to save the world but can’t wash out a coffee cup.” Bukowski adds.

What makes Bukowski’s advice and knowledge about men and women more applicable than the so-called “experts” with letters after their name is that of his no-nonsense, “I don’t give a damn” attitude and perspective. He does not shy away from controversy or the truth. That is why I am fascinated by him. Plus, to many of whom follow his words, he is the literary-equivalent of Led Zeppelin and classic Guns n’ Roses -just to name a few- whose love for the debauchery and perversions of life nearly equaled their genius.
Categorically documenting the sordid details of life living in Los Angeles, Bukowski chronicled what he knew - that old adage of write what you know - he knew his surroundings and the people living in it. He even surmises, “ perhaps I have wandered from kitchens to vindictiveness. There is a lot of snot in each of our souls, and plenty in mine, and i become mixed-up on kitchens, mixed-up on most.”
Bukowski speaks in words on the sexes and on life openly and with scarred but real authenticity and candor. He opens wide his Muse with topics ranging from drinking, women, sex, fighting, the toils of nine to five, and in this example, kitchens.

In a world full of faux know-it-all’s posers bullshitting about the grit and the grind of life on celebrity television and morning talk shows, Bukowski’s words are a haven. An escape.

Charles Bukowski Mondays

If I Taught Creative Writing
By Charles Bukowski

now, if you were teaching creative
writing, he asked, what would you
tell them?
I’d tell them to have an unhappy love
affair, hemorrhoids, bad teeth
and to drink cheap wine,
to keep switching the head of their
bed from wall to wall
and then I’d tell them to have
another unhappy love affair
and never to use a silk typewriter
ribbon,
avoid family picnics
or being photographed in a rose
garden;
read Hemingway only once,
skip Faulkner
ignore Gogol
stare at photos of Gertrude Stein
and read Sherwood Anderson in bed
while eating Ritz crackers,
realize that people who keep
talking about sexual liberation
are more frightened than you are.
listen to E. Power Biggs work the
organ on your radio while you’re
rolling Bull Durham in the dark
in a strange town
with one day left on the rent
after having given up
friends, relatives and jobs.
never consider yourself superior and /
or fair
and never try to be.
have another unhappy love affair.
watch a fly on a summer curtain.
never try to succeed.
don’t shoot pool.
be righteously angry when you
find your car has a flat tire.
take vitamins but don’t lift weights or jog.
then after all this
reverse the procedure.
have a good love affair.
and the thing
you might learn
is that nobody knows anything–
not the State, nor the mice
the garden hose or the North Star.
and if you ever catch me
teaching a creative writing class
and you read this back to me
I’ll give you a straight A
right up the pickle
barrel.

a poem for swingers, a poem for the playgirls of the universe

By Charles Bukowski

I like women who haven’t lived with too many men.

I don’t expect virginity but I simply prefer women

who haven’t been rubbed raw by experience.
there is a quality about women who choose

men sparingly;

it appears in their walk

in their eyes

in their laughter and in their

gentle hearts.

women who have had too many men

seem to choose the next one

out of revenge rather than with

feeling.

when you play the field selfishly everything

works against you:

one can’t insist on love or

demand affection.

you’re finally left with whatever

you have been willing to give

which often is:

nothing.
some women are delicate things

some women are delicious and

wondrous.
if you want to piss on the sun

go ahead

but please leave them

alone.