Bukowski
“Bukowski-X048”
Began watching this last night, a documentary on writer Charles Bukowski. I discovered him in high school, when I was devouring beat writers and the like. Bukowski wasn’t a beat, although he was certainly beaten down. He wrote of long drunken afternoons, the hell he found working in the post office, and how such an “ugly old man” could get so many young women, among other things.
The documentary tells his story, every drunken burp of it, with open eyes. (At least the part we saw, since in true CB fashion the pinot kept us from finishing…). He’s an arresting character, not to everyones taste, to be sure, but raw and real. For example:
what can we do?
at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.
some understanding and, at times, acts of
courage
but all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn’t
have too much.
it is like a large animal deep in sleep and
almost nothing can awaken it.
when activated it’s best at brutality,
selfishness, unjust judgments, murder.
what can we do with it, this Humanity?
nothing.
avoid the thing as much as possible.
treat it as you would anything poisonous, vicious
and mindless.
but be careful. it has enacted laws to protect
itself from you.
it can kill you without cause.
and to escape it you must be subtle.
few escape.
it’s up to you to figure a plan.
I have met nobody who has escaped.
I have met some of the great and
famous but they have not escaped
for they are only great and famous within
Humanity.
I have not escaped
but I have not failed in trying again and
again.
before my death I hope to obtain my
life.
from blank gun silencer – 1994
He also wrote prose, and one of the first I remember reading was his piece on the Stones concert in LA published in Creem magazine, 1975. Read Jaggernaut here.
