July 17, 2001

7:04 PM

Remembering BukowskiI've read some nice Bukowski tributes before, but this one seems particularly a propos given the kind of summer LA's been having. Viva La Reverend Tony!
posted by josholalia (27 comments total)

Fucking A that was good, josholalia, thanks for posting that. First link I've ever seen on MeFi that I had to CALL somebody on the phone to tell them to read it. God bless Bukowski, he was a true fucked up fantastic crazy Americans.

The advice that goes 'do what you like, do what you're good at' - he did both and never apologised or bragged about either one. The scenes in "Hollywood" where he talks about going to sit in the parking lot of the movie theatre to see how many people were coming out of "Barfly" is somebody being so honest it makes you want to cringe and hug them at the same time.

Speaking of which, I've noticed a lot of Bukowski influence in the better film and fiction that's around these days.

Speaking of which, WTF happened to Mickey Rourke?
posted by GriffX at 7:39 PM on July 17, 2001

Some more Buk goodness. Sadly, they were recently forced by his estate to remove from public view the archive of manuscipts and letters that was also hosted here. Used to be one of my favorite places to drop by after a beer or ten...
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:42 PM on July 17, 2001

proper.

long live the Buk...
posted by lizardboy at 8:21 PM on July 17, 2001

I think of Bukowski every time I get ripped and blow a paycheck at Hollywood Park. Therefore, I think of Bukowski alot....
posted by Optamystic at 8:50 PM on July 17, 2001

Is there any more to the site than one picture and a few paragraphs of text? I don't see any kind of navigation, but then I also don't see anything that would be worth calling someone on the phone to tell them about, so I'm sure I'm missing something...
posted by kindall at 9:44 PM on July 17, 2001

20 something, pseudo-intellectual males (my demographic, thank you very much) all go through a Bukowski phase.

Being no exception to this, I read nearly everything he wrote back in college.

After all that, I came to some conclusions . . .

Was Bukowski true to himself? Yes.
Was he a good writer? Maybe (a better poet, I think).
Does he deserve to be in the canon of great American authors? No.
posted by aladfar at 10:03 PM on July 17, 2001

kindall: click the pic.
posted by davehat at 10:05 PM on July 17, 2001

Oh. Yeah, the picture is such an obvious navigational tool, I'm shocked I didn't think of it sooner! %)

Much better.
posted by kindall at 10:34 PM on July 17, 2001

People have recommended him to me but I've never tried him. (He doesn't look like my cup of tea.) What's the best Bukowski piece?
posted by pracowity at 11:43 PM on July 17, 2001

pracowity : hard to say what his best work might be, but a quick googlage brings back a few sources to read some of his b-list poems online. The link I posted above used to have a fair bit of bukcontent, and here are a couple other bookmarks near the top of my favorites pile :

a Buk jumpstation

The Dignity and Depravity of Emotion
in Charles Bukowski's Barfly

Note to self : MeFi engine doesn't like 'li' tags.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:57 AM on July 18, 2001

Someone say bukkake?
posted by dong_resin at 1:02 AM on July 18, 2001

Down boy! You'll make the baby jesus cry if yer not careful!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:22 AM on July 18, 2001

> Note to self : MeFi engine doesn't like 'li' tags.
• Do
• you
• want
• these
• things?
I get them with Alt-0149, but I don't know if that works on all systems.
posted by pracowity at 1:29 AM on July 18, 2001

> near the top of my favorites pile

I'll go read some of this guy now.
posted by pracowity at 1:38 AM on July 18, 2001

pracowity : I was just checking out your homepage, and, well, despite the fact that I agree with you on that there usage stuff, I get the feeling that (as you said) Buk may not exactly be your cup of tea. Here's hoping, though, that after you read a poem or two, you bring down the bottle of the scotch from the shelf, and dig in...


Thanks BTW for the Alt-0149 heads-up!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:01 AM on July 18, 2001

aladfar, I agree with you except for the "males" part. I went through a "Bukowski is God" phase myself, then drew the same conclusions. He was an honest man and a good writer. Not a great one.
If anyone is looking for an intro, how about "Post Office". It's short, fairly autobiographical, and engaging. Then maybe move on to "Women". Be forewarned, though, this stuff's not for the easily offended.
posted by hazyjane at 4:26 AM on July 18, 2001

Hazyjane, let the "easily offended" read Updike, Anne Tyler, and Amy Tan. For the rest of us, there's Bukowski, Fante, Selby, and Leonard Gardner.
posted by matteo at 4:40 AM on July 18, 2001

Fante, yes, beautiful stuff. Wasn't he one of Bukowski's main influences? I haven't read the other guys.
Can't stand Tyler and Tan. Ashamed to admit I haven't read Updike. For me, Virginia Woolf and Milan Kundera are the greats of the 20th century, Phillip Roth too to a lessar extent. But it's a matter of personal opinion, of course. And like I said, Bukowski was a good writer.

wonderchicken, I checked out pracowity's site too, and it lead me to the opposite conclusion. The usage stuff seemed mostly about breaking free from cliches - something Bukowski certainly did.
posted by hazyjane at 5:26 AM on July 18, 2001

Buk was at times brilliant, especially in his poetry. But he was uneven. Perhaps some more revision and less excess would have moved him into the "great" category. But who am I to complain about excesses?
posted by trox at 6:37 AM on July 18, 2001

enter moral squad: "whats goin on here"....
_ _
o
posted by clavdivs at 8:12 AM on July 18, 2001

c.b. was...he was a master at seeing the humanity in the precieved"undercurrents" of american society. of course i would have like to see him explain to my kids what Dong-Resin means. (as a newbie, im into screen savers(oh-ah) and i put dongs pic up, kids come in: " cool, whos that with the emperor, is he the new sith?" "yeahhhh" "whats his name?" "yeeaaahhh".
posted by clavdivs at 8:26 AM on July 18, 2001

Definitely Fante was an influence on Bukowski, and he discussed that in a few of his books. I want to say in "Ham On Rye", which was in fact my favorite of his.

I agree with the notion that most of us male types go through a Bukowski phase (especially us modern literature grads...I even used Ham On Rye in my Orals Exam for my degree (no orals jokes please)). Like many of you, I'm sure, his novels and poetry sit on my "A" Shelf now, untouched. Partly because I have read them all so many times, partly because I'm just not sure I want ot go back there right now.

I started on Kerouac in high school, gave him up for Miller, thanks to Miller found Hamsun, and somewhere along the way just independently developed some ways about me that just weren't right, and started on Buk...which led to Fante and on and on and on...

When all is said and done, Hamsun is the top of the bunch.

Since we're having a little literary love-fest here, how bout a little love for my favorite, Haruki Murakami
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:29 AM on July 18, 2001

i have a nice little penguin of 'Hunger'. call me sentalmental but i like yoshimoto, "Kitchen" blew me away. Of course, "Daughter of Han", is a nice autobi. Nice because the reviewers rarely mention the humor that T'ai, t'ai employed to help her through. Hamsun is hard to refute in this head. if he where an american(thank god he wasnt), hell...oranges and mothballs
posted by clavdivs at 12:51 PM on July 18, 2001

Regarding the current position in space/time of Mickey Rourke, the last time I spotted him was in the short film "The Follow," directed by Wong Kar Wai, part of the BMW film series.

In it, he plays an actor who can't find work anymore. How's that for type-casting?

As for Bukowski, I also recommend "Post Office" from among his novels. And "Septuagenarian Stew" is a good intro to his work as well, since it contains a mix of his poetry and fiction that's more consistent than some of his other collections.
posted by poseur at 9:32 AM on July 19, 2001

"In it, he plays an actor who can't find work anymore. How's that for type-casting?"
bullshit, mickey almost had to much work these days.
posted by clavdivs at 7:01 AM on July 22, 2001

for the record the correct link to the Bukowski tribute is here: http://www.tonypierce.com/summer/buk/
posted by tsarfan at 1:31 PM on July 17, 2002