" ... what was left of the moon shone in, she did, and I closed the door, drained a last tired beer, lights out, I made it to the bed, got the clothes off, dropped in as down in the railroad yards they moved across the tracks picking cars, places, hoped destinations -- better towns, better times, better love, better luck, better something. they'd never find it, they'd never stop looking.
"I slept."
Charles Bukowski could be considered an alcoholic, curmudgeonly American treasure, a brilliantly talented and woke-r Archie Bunker. I first became familiar with his writing and much of his outlook on the world through the stellar "Ham on Rye" -- which, not incidentally, won a Scootie as the 2011 Scooter & Hum Book of the Year.
"I was the city slicker who had hooked the rich girl. I MUST have something, surely, and I did: a very tired cock and a suitcase full of poems."
"I began late and live too long alone in small rooms drinking wine. they always figure that a hermit is insane, and they may be right."
Though he denied all attempts to label him a cynic, Bukowski is at his darkest in "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," a collection of underground columns he wrote for the Open City newspaper. He and the publication adapted an informal approach that eschewed traditional grammar and punctuation, and even allowed notes for the printing press to be included.
"Then one day after the races, I sat down and wrote the heading, NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN, opened a beer, and the writing got done by itself."
"(by the way ... I realize I switch from present to past tense, and if you don't like it ... ram a nipple up your scrotum. -- printer: leave this in.)"
These mini-essays run the gamut, tackling alcoholism, suicide, dissolution, cultural decay, and societal imbalances. Somehow, even his commentary on politics manages to be both contemporary and prescient.
"but it's fairly obvious to me that the Left Wing Liberal forces are being picked off one by one ... whatever the reason, the left-wingers are being murdered and put into their graves while the right-wingers don't even get grass-stains on their pantscuffs ... how very odd."
"some men hope for revolution but when you revolt and set up your new government you find your government is still the same old Pap, he has only put on a cardboard mask."
Of course, his trademark hilarity runs through it all, tying one story to the next and defraying some of the caustic material.
Some of it, mind you.
" ... we are all going to be smashed, very quickly into broken children's toys, into those highheels that ran so gaily down the stairway to be fucked out of it forever, forever, dunces and fools, dunces and tools, god damn our weak bravery."
There are certainly pearls here among the swine, but you must be willing to dig for them. Bukowski is not for everyone, but he is also unlike anyone. The refusal to apologize for that -- and for how he chose to live his life -- is what draws many to his raw, unflinching perspective on mid-century America.
"I've seen too many intellectuals lately. I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. that's why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave."
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