there was this thread on twitter against bukowski

all these so called educated people talking about how much they hated him

it made me curious how much theyd read

but surprisingly they had lots of examples of how bad he was

terrible examples, of course, because everything they posted was beautiful

and real

and true.

it just shows to go ya half the world isn’t gonna love you

no matter who you are.

no matter what you do.

no matter what you write down, or experience, or battle through

bukowski was living in the worst part of skid row

and he died a millionaire.

FROM WRITING

and it was the opposite of top 40

it was dirty and grimy and lots of times he painted himself out as the villain

and for sure not heroically.

that alone is worthy of praise

but i didnt wanna fight em.

some things you cannot debate to the madding crowd

today is charles bukowski’s birthday, hes 101

i went away for 5 days and when i did i took two books. one was a bukowski book.

number of books i even opened: 0

maybe i should just sell all my books because seriously, who am i kidding?

i am feeling good today. for two reasons. i made some shrimp and scallops, rice, and very large broccoli

i may have undercooked the seafood and thats why im feeling buzzed and light headed.

if i die know that i loved every girl ive ever kissed and i felt lucky every time.

found a pic of an old gf the other day, standing nude in the rain.

how have i been blessed this much? me? was i really that funny? is that all it takes?

i ask these questions now because i have no prospects for any love in the future and that might be fine because i dont have any job prospects either.

will i die poor and heartbroken?

bukowski didnt and i feel i have as much to bring to the table as that guy.

for starters im not an alkie. not that theres anything wrong with that, but im not gonna get into fights and blow a ton of cash on $17 beers at the Rams games

but will i write a novel like Post Office?

probs not either.

so maybe i will die heartbroken

and poor.

fine.

 

I really hope Miss Ford didn’t give up on her dreams

 

Sometimes you don’t know why you get a rejection letter. Sometimes they spell it out to you. Sometimes you don’t get one at all.

For decades today’s birthday boy, Charles Bukowski got one rejection letter after another telling him he was gross, disgusting, sloppy, immature, unrefined, and writing about the worst parts of Los Angeles.

It wasn’t until he turned 51 that he had his first novel published, Post Office, which to this day is beloved, in part because it is gross, disgusting, sloppy, unrefined and about the worst parts of LA. It’s also super funny and totally relatable about how tough it is to work a job you aren’t really into.

Today Bukowski would have turned 99. It’s incredible that he lived past 35 as that was when he nearly died from a bleeding ulcer from drinking so much and eating so poorly. But someone upstairs wanted him around. I think it was to give us all hope.

And to show that if you stick to your guns and be yourself, that you don’t have to try to adjust to the times, the world will spin towards you.

The guy who couldn’t sell a poem to any distinguished outlets for most of his life sold millions of books after his 50th birthday.

If you are discouraged, hurt, or sad, keep this in mind: They can’t all say no.

Happy 99th to America’s greatest poet and LA’s patron saint.

maybe i wasnt meant to be bukowski

John Martin and Bukowski

maybe i was meant to be john martin, the publisher who “discovered” him.

despite the fact that he was getting printed in various magazines and smut papers, charles bukowski, as legend would have it, was plucked from obscurity by a book publisher in santa barbara

who told him that he would pay him whatever he was currently being paid at the post office

and then give him royalties on his books

if only he would quit sorting mail.

the deal was agreed to and the rest was literature history.

if i was a publisher i would pay good money to get Zulieka outta the mail room

because look what she wrote yesterday

today is charles bukowski’s birthday, he’s 24

charles bukowski let it kill youborn in a rowboat in Lake Los Angeles during the stock market crash, charles bukowski, americas greatest poet, never saw riches until he was in his 50s and never cared about them once he had them.

what he loved he did, be he broke or wealthy: the drink, the dance, the fight, the fuck.

he had a higher voice than youd expect and he sang when he spoke.

how do you doooooo, he’d say as his horse rounded the home stretch with the lead.

he loved to gamble on the ponies so much that he’d often drop off his wife at the huntington library in pasadena even if the horses were running in hollywood park. afterwards he would pick her up. was he drunk? probably. did he ever get a DUI?

did mark twain?

did hemingway?

did Moses?

if you were talking to Tom Petty right now would you ask him such a question?

Charles “Henry” Bukowski loved cats and classical music. he didnt care for your questions unless you were a pretty girl at a poetry reading at a college where he was invited to speak. and then he would just watch their lips move and eyes crinkle and hair gently flow.

did he ever cheat on any of his girlfriends or wives? WHERE DID YOU GET THESE QUESTIONS? DID ROOSEVELT? DID MONROE? DID LASORDA?

he smoked when he drank and drank when he wrote and wrote in a rocking chair in front of a typewriter until the year 19 hundred and 90, the year punk broke when he switched over to an Apple Quadra. the step brother of the Mac. a very young Steve Jobs himself  poured sand in Bukowski’s keyboard so the clicking sounds would be louder.

once Jobs offered Bukowski LSD but the poet didn’t want any of that nonsense. he wasn’t a Beat! he’d bellow. give that hippie crap to Ferlinghetti or Proust or Philben! he just wanted a cold bottle of something bubbly

and your undying love.

you, the one with the ruby red lip colors

you with the barrette

you with the notepad half filled with scribbles.

hop into my rowboat.

hi america

chris in front of the wacky packages

.. and canada. didnt mean to leave you hanging today. you know i like to write something first thing but i had to watch the sopranos before someone told me what happened and then i had to shit then i had to eat and then i had to shit again. see why i say dont apologize for not writing – you get tales that you dont want to hear.

anyways somethings wrong with me. i dont know what. i feel like im depressed but i havent been depressed in decades. centuries maybe. is it the pills im taking for the cold i caught? is it that im back at home and theres no hot babe waiting for me? no wild shit for me to do here? just back to the grind? is my grind really a grind?

in the last four weeks ive spent most of it on the road getting drunk getting lo toplesspartying and making out with beautiful women. ive been able to write and work and walk and talk

and last night and today i looked in the mirror and the devil whispered youre the ugliest man in the world, you have replaced bukowski and noone could figure out how he got his fingers stinky and noone can figure out how you do it either but your luck is gonna run out and its gonna run out soon. and depression is what happens when you look at that mirror and see things through satans cheap sunglasses.

i had a hard time falling asleep last night partially because i didnt need to wake up this morning and partially because i was thinking about what he was saying. then i watched the sopranos and that tony was asking himself the same questions that this tony was asking. who am i, where am i, what am i doing. the trilogy of fucked up questions that rarely lead to enlightenment as generally ive discovered that im at my most happy when im asking someone else those questions, and their answers are here with you, close to you, getting as naked as i can get.

life doesnt have to be very hard. and as tony soprano was on his oxygen and his wife was trying to figure out what music to play i was relieved when she slid in tom petty and smoke on the water. and if sonny ever shoots me in the gut and you want to calm me in my icu room please put on tsar the replacements ac/dc and as much old stones as you can find. i know its cliche but the stones are rock n roll. hell you could just put on midnight rambler on repeat if you get tired. its pretty much a song thats on repeat anyway. and if you want me to really be happy put on the blues brothers soundtrack.

last night the phone rang and usually when it would ring it would be my true love, but since shes in deepest darkest africa for two and a half years i knew it wasnt her, but i still had hope. thats the sort of thing that can lead to depression too. ridiculous hope. and calling girls your true love who get it on with fat white republicans instead of you.

the more i live in this hollywood apartment a mile away from where bukowski wrote pretty much all of his best works, i really understand how he was able to do it and not blow his brains out. he worked his 9-5, came home and then wrote. his job had no real dramatic ups or downs and he was able to drink and write each night until he passed out.

its the very high peaks that fuck us up when we get back to the petty pace of the day to day and make them seem like lows. what i have right now isnt a low, its a normal, and its a damn huge high compared to the dusty shit that my truest is up to her neck in right now in uganda.

i have no problems compared to that world. im hungry but all i have to do is walk out of this house and in fifteen minutes i could be eating japanese, chinese, armenian, soul food, fast food, mexican, cuban, russian, or korean. im depressed because i choose to be. im lonely because im lazy. im fat because im a sloth. im horny because i deserve to be. i suck because im alive.