by Charles Bukowski

In the betting line the other day

man behind me asked,

“are you Henry Chinaski?”

“uh huh,” I answered.

“I like your books,” he went on.

“thanks,” I answered.

“who do you like in this race?” he asked.

“uh uh,” I answered.

“I like the 4 horse,”

he told me.

I made my bet and went back

to my seat….

the next race I am standing in line

and here is this same man

standing behind me again.

there are at least 50 lines at

the windows but he has to find

mine again.

“I think this race favors the

closers,” he said to the back of

my neck.

“the track looks heavy.”

“listen,” I said,

not looking around,

“it’s the kiss of death to talk about horses

at the track…”

“what kind of rule is that?”

he asked. “God doesn’t make

rules…”

I turned around and looked at him:

“maybe not, but I do.”

after the next race

I got in line, glanced behind me:

he was not there:

lost another reader.

I lose 2 or 3 each week.

fine.

let ’em go back to Kafka.

here in this dark cold unfriendly city alone, today danielle was in the best mood i think ive ever seen her in.

the boys dont even strip search her the way they used to when she would try to gain access into the xbi, theyre all hey danielle how was your weekend.

she tells them and they smile and look down her dress but she doesnt care, shes outta here soon, shes off to rad school, shes playing that game of life the way you oughtta, taking the long cut through College and soon she will have a pink and blue peg in her lil car in no time

and you’ll see her shopping at the gelsons, watching the mexican load her mercedes, telling her kids to shush shush mommy has to make a phone call

and you’ll remember these days like i will when she skips to my desk in the hangar twirling around and hopping on my lap whispering in my ear and saying

lets blow this taco stand at noonish and have an early lunch.

to which i said, my love, ive forgotten my camera at the hideout.

and she replied, where for art thou camera of magic

and i said over by my hollywood hills cabana

and at noonish we sped across town feeling like a zillion bucks, exchanging good lucks, and she made a to-go order with palms thai via her cellular phone, and there it was waiting for us when we arrived. ta-da.

so we ate it at my place. we watched a little south park, she tried on several of the sunglasses that i purchased via ebay. and we had to drive home.

had to, i say, because it was so warm outside and so nice, and we were having so much fun, that we really just wanted to rip off each others clothes and hang out at my house drinking gin and juice and giving the finger to the man.

but alas we’re good little injuns and we drove back to work, where we arent loved the way we should be, work that doesnt pay us what we should earn, work that doesnt even really want us

and during the ride home danielle said “i will miss you so much tony.”

i said, “i dont believe you.”

she said, “how can i prove to you that i mean what i say?”

i said, “lift up your dress a little and let me photograph your lovely legs for the good readers of my blog.”

and she not only lifted her little dress for you, my sweet friends,

but for america as a whole.

and parts of canada.

jess + jennifer + sk smith

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he’s in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to

mess me up?

you want to screw up the works?

you want to blow my book sales in Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night

sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be sad.

then I put him back,

but he’s singing a little

in there,

I haven’t quite let him die

and we sleep together like that

with our

secret pact

and it’s nice enough to

make a man weep,

but I don’t weep,

do you?

today is charles bukowski’s birthday 8/16/20

poem for my 43rd birthday + my bukowski photo essay + ebay listings “bukowski“

location: hollywood

hair color? skintone

eye color? brown and occassionally bloodshit

age? hundred and something

sexiest man ever? prince

do you like your breasts? they’re hairy, theyre firm, they dont sag, whats not to love?

color of your bathing suit: white, blue, and frequently unused

is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? depends on if the love was worth it.

give me a book, movie, CD, and song recommendation. cruddy, my life as a dog, loretta lynn’s van lear rose, band+girls+money

what could you never tell your parents? who wil wheaton is and how many more hits he gets than me every damn day.

are you in a romantic relationship right now? several, however, unfortunately none are sexual

paper or plastic? plastic which i then recycle at the store

favorite song lyric? if only you were lonely/i’d go home with you

tell me a secret: theres not as much lying going on here as i would like

are you a good liar? the best, which is why i try not to abuse it

opinion on gay marriage? if we enforced the “till death do you part” commitment then marriage would mean something. therefore all of this is just a piss test to see who the homosexual more. currently the president is winning that dubious honor.

if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? i would have interned for the LA Times a long time ago.

what’s your favorite accent? pillow talk

are you on antidepressants? fuck modern medicine until they can cure the common cold.

tell me a joke: half of america will vote for bush

everyone knows most people are… better than they come across on television

vous-parlez francais? un petite peut

is there a song or a CD or something that you strongly associate with a certain event in your life? i cant listen to the ramones’s version of “do you wanna dance” without thinking about the time that my friends’s apartment was being raided by the cops on the same night that the xbi poisoned me with six hits of liquid acid and i could barely walk let alone skateboard.

how have you changed in the past year? ive given up on all of my dreams. (in a good way.)

what is one thing you want to do before you die? triplets.

do you like to travel? mais oui.

states you’ve been to: almost all of them.

what countries have you been to? england, france, italy, sweden, denmark, belgium, switzerland, germany, mexico, aruba, spain.

where do/did you go to school?:

medinah high school, santa monica college, uc isla vista

smoke cigarettes? only while undercover

lucky number: 666

favorite super hero: underdog

favorite sport: competitive blogging

worst mistake you ever made: not marrying my true love in frisco

if you were an animal, what would you be? endangered

last cd you bought: American IV: The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash

last movie you saw: magnolia

favorite tv channel: E!

ever been arrested? not yet

ever had to have surgery? im indestructible

kind of bike you had as a kid? schwinn with a banana seat and a sissy bar

kind of phone: lame ass big one.

lefty or righty: im a deadly slap hitter from both sides of the plate, but i have suprising power from the right side.

what would you want to do if you got drunk? smoke.

do you like your name? it’ll do for now.

what do you want to be when you grow up? fat(er)

favorite concert you have been to? replacements at the roxy in LA circa 1986

favorite board game: APBA

favorite drink: baileys tall with some ice and some cream

favorite sound: bacon crackling in the morning at a new girls house

favorite smell: freshly cut wrigley field grass in the early morning

drinks with or without ice cubes? this is 2004. such things shouldnt even have to be asked. the question should be what type of ice. i like the ones that look like little life preservers because the girls like to play little kissing games.

favorite thing to do on the weekends: think about writing

favorite soundtrack: urg: a music war

what was the first thing you thought to yourself when you woke up this morning: god im lucky.

what are you doing after you finish this? looking for a picture to put next to it. or two.

who did you get this from: fragrant de milo

litwack + planet sara + tim blair

and you know what happens when b-list bloggers come home tipsy, thats right, we leave comments on fcc chairman michael powell’s “blog” that he abandoned a month ago right before he said, “I am traveling for the next 2 weeks and will have limited internet access…”

know this: i will never be anywhere for two weeks with limited internet access. voluntarilly.

if i ever say something like that know that it’s code for “im being kidnapped, alert the authorities and search my house for clues!”.

but first, you really should click here to view the quickie little quicktime fisking that Outfoxed co-producer jim gilliam fine-tuned on everyone’s best friend bill o’reilly.

if you remember last week, gilliam posted a tv show where o’reilly was a guest. also on the panel was nyt columnist paul krugman. o’reilly visibly upset by Outfoxed, the currently released documentary that takes aim at Fox News and their talk shows led by o’reilly’s “The Factor”, began cracking and thus lying and exaggerating.

in this new clip gilliam splices that appearance with segments of Outfoxed that o’reilly is rallying against.

needless to say, we discover that the former host of A Current Affair is less than truthful.

gilliam wins.

o’reilly should probably either throw up the white flag and admit defeat, or put his tail between his legs and quit trying to fight Outfoxed, or at least stop saying that they edited his words when they clearly didn’t.

which brings us to the secretary of state’s son Chairman Powell

who thought it was not only a good idea to get a blog

but to get a blog with publicly displayed comments

hosted on a site called Always On, which, to its credit, lives up to its name.

anyone a little more familiar with the blogosphere, or even usenet, would know that if someone has a chance to call you an asshole via the internet, someone will.

which is why, if youre eligible for being called an asshole, you probably should host your own blog and have editorial control over your comments.

unless youre a kickass debater, and not a tool of the right, and totaly willing to be fair to people.

but if you have something to hide, as powell clearly does, you should probably do exactly as the chairman did, which was stop “blogging” immediately after three posts, never to return again.

well, i returned and i left a comment.

Dear Chairman,

I can understand why you wouldn’t want to blog about situations that you might have to make decisions about, but don’t you think it would be valueable to explain to the public and to current (and future) broadcasters and talent as to why you reached certain decisions?

For example when Howard Stern described anal/oral sex many years ago he was not fined. But then this year you went back in time to fine him. And then you didn’t fine him for all the stations that it was broadcast, just one. Detroit. Isn’t indecency in Detroit indecency in New York and LA and all the stations that Howard described blumpkins?

I have the same question about the Janet Jackson super bowl incident. Why were only a handful of the tv stations fined? Shouldn’t all of them been on a delay to protect their viewers from that tiny little brown spot on their television?

I would think that you would want to be very clear about your decision-making process and the reasons why only certain broadcasters and certain stations are fined while others are not. I would think that you would want everyone to know where the line is and why the line is there. I would think that you would want to silence your critics who say that you are nothing more than a tool of the right, and the best way to silence them is to show them that you are simply enforcing the rules and this is why you judged the way you did.

You were correct to start a blog. Blogs are perfect places to think outloud and get heard without having to call a press conference or speak to a reporter. Through a blog you can think about what you want to say, write it up, edit it, and then post it. By avoiding the more controversial/important topics you give creedence to the critics and appear to be hiding.

Why would the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission want to censor his own communications in the freest form of communication in this new century: the blog?

tony_pierce | POSTED: 08.15.04 @02:07 + raymi + darling maggot + happy anniversary jack

the first time was when these hippie girls put weed in the spaghetti. true story.

then a month later in the dorms i accidentally put two of my roomates lsd laced sugar cubes in my cereal.

later that month, after that i came home drunk and started chewing on what i believed to be some dried out mushroom stems.

and then there was the time on new years eve where i drank from the ecstasy punch bowl

all reasons why i never thought i would get into the xbi

but they lie detectored me several times and saw that i was being truthful

and then They poisoned me while i was at college.

some of the drugs aren’t even on the market any more.

shit that should never had made it on the streets let alone behind the counter.

my childhood doctor wondered aloud why i had two kidney stones before i was 25 and i told him it was job related, he said what sort of job could do that to a man, i told him i was a soda tester, that i had to drink about a gallon of soda a day taste testing etc.

the doc said, wouldn’t you just spit it out after you had tasted it?

i said, i was also testing the caffeine levels. he said well it just produced a little kidney stone, i recommend that you find a new line of work.

but you cant quit the xbi.

once they poisoned me with a love potion.

i was on haight street at a bar called the midtown. these long dreadlocked vampire girls worked the bar. cute sparkley satan necklaces and noserings and powder. bleach white these girls with velvet long sleeves and striped turtlenecks and hair wrapped like a cobra around and around as it went up. barbed wire barrettes and doll head earrings.

i lived on 591 haight directly across the street from the midtown. a good girl who had just sexxed me called me from the payphone next to the liquor store and waved when i saw her. come over lets have a drink

i said im about to go out

she said one drink, she knew i never went out

i said

she said oooooone drink i swear how is one drink going to kill you

i said fine

and this was about the time when i thought i had quit the xbi

and maybe they thought that i had quit too

and the vampire girl with the shiny vinyl mini skirt and ripped running fishnets and tall boots uncorked a vial of the love potion

and spilled it into a frosty mug

knowing i would order a guinness

which i did

and i fell in love with that girl and did exactly what she wanted me to

and im still in love with her

but jeanine was a different story. there was no love potion. there weren’t even any good first dates. bad dates is what they were.

jeanine seduced me by singing for me, and playing guitar.

call of the wild.

and we were in super love deep deep love and two girls walked home from school with me. and they seemed to like me an awful lot.

and i liked both of them an awful lot.

and the girls sat down in my room with me, on the carpet, and it was the middle of the day like three p.m. and each of us had a bottle of beer in our hands, it was sunny outside, perfect, and we sat there and ate cookies and the feeling was exactly like the time when the xbi put ten hits of x in my baja burrito

accidentally.

and i was dressed up in a sombrero, i swear to you, and a poncho, for it was halloween, and my only assignment that night was to walk around del playa and make sure that the kids kept everything cool. so easy in such a mellow town.

apparently one of the guys would always number things with a decimal after it. so if you wanted two machettes he would type it up as 2.0 machete. so someone ordered one gram of mdma and he wrote it up as 1.0 but the guy in the supply room didn’t see the decimal point and grinded up 10 hits and there i was on dp loving everything that i saw.

and people say you cannot hallucinate on that shit but things were slow motion, the street looked like it was slightly wave-like like a gentle pond, and colors were slightly brighter. i did have a terrible headache in the morn.

so when me and those two girls were in my room finished with our cookies we sat there and looked at each other and one of the girls was very pale and tall and blonde and wore the reddest lipstick id ever seen

and i felt a trace of that ecstasy and the floors started to move and i could have definitely said lets kiss each other and it would have happened, not because im such a catch but because those girls could feel the overwhelming love that i was feeling for jeanine

and what solidified a deeper confidence in that love, my friend the truth blog, was by excusing myself from the room, going to the bathroom whose walls were “breathing” like the time the xbi put acid on my graham cracker during a campout in the woods

looking in the mirror and seeing that i had a slight sweat on my forehead

and saying to myself these girls are devils

super cute devils and probably not really devils but the flattery is all that is needed

fuck the followup.

and i went back in the room, i didn’t sit back down on the floor with them

i simply said i have to go now

even though i was in my own house

and the girls smiled at each other and walked out of the house together and we said that we’d see each other in class

sometimes you don’t know that you might be

the devil threat yourself.

doc searls + great pics from florida (scroll down), my wife was on dennis miller

this week’s listings are dedicated to Mark O’Brien (Brando from Seven Inches of Sense) who was killed in a car accident on Wednesday.

mark’s son burke was featured on ABC’s NYPD 24/7 after he was murdered last year.

tonight

epmd, henry fonda

B-52s, vault 360

the damned, house of blues

thorn, roxy

tomorrow 8/14

matt sharp, knitting factory

j mascis + built to spill, el rey

the corrs + sophie b hawkins, kodak theatre

michael penn, largo

sunday 8/15

pj harvey, henry fonda

chris isaak, santa barbara bowl

gene loves jezebel, malibu inn

steel pulse, roxy

monday 8/16

pj harvey, knitting factory

tanya donelly, largo

tuesday 8/17

earth wind & fire + chicago, greek

rilo kiley, amoeba (free)

liz phair + the cardigans, house of blues

goovy rednecks, the joint

wednesday 8/18

john waite, the grove (free)

they might be giants, house of blues

nine inch chili pumpkins, the joint

thursday 8/19

the donnas (pictured), the echo

billy vera, santa monica pier (free)

carole king, greek

the truth blog + the ward + oliver willis

an angry storm to wash away the sins of the dirty south.

the palm trees bent and the salty waves crashed.

the birds tumbled through the relentless wind and the chads hung no more,

they flew and were set free.

talking heads in weathergaurded parkas and microphones stood beachside and reported the oncoming bonnie and pissed off charley while back in the studio the doplar radar animated the ominus two front attack

but it was the lord at work

mother nature the pagans called him but he never cared much for names

just actions.

bonnie curved like a kerry wood screwball, swirling west at new orleans but then swerving east where real sin sat

florida

home of the lame

anita bryant, broward county, jeb bush, butterfly ballots

the state that offered exile to steve bartman but kicked out elian.

the alligators snap at the evil and shit out tax free palm trees but all the coke in kokomo cant make things better again

all the buried and forgotten tony montona cockroaches have risen again like junkie zombies taking the form of government officials and judges who try to make us believe that black people in their county overwhelmingly voted for patrick j. buchannan.

burn hollywood burn

hollywood florida that is

and by burn i mean of course soak.

soak in the silky suds of salvation, you,

our least sunshiney state.

the swamp where dreams and democracy died.

“blow wind blow”

by tom waits

from frank’s wild years

I ride upon a field mouse

I was dancin’ in the slaughterhouse

And if you swing along the beltway

You skid along the all day

Cause I went a little crazy

And I sat upon a high chair

And I’m smokin’ like a diesel

Way out here

And if you’ll blow wind blow

Wherever you may go

Put on your overcoat

Take me away

danielle + nay + bored housewife

my dearest tony –

–chokey–

Dear Chad,

a) I cannot reveal my sources regarding the Howard Stern mp3s which are priceless to me. I adore Howard and i cannot fuck up that hook-up. Let’s just say that one of the benefits of writing this blog is that people send me gifts that they know i will like.

Some of the gifts are material, some are sensual. Some are just sweet little comments in my blog and emails in my in box. Someone sent me a Harry Crews novel last week anonymously. Thank you whoever you are.

If you would like to send me stuff feel free to address them to 4845 Fountain #15, Hollywood, CA 90029.

b) i believe you are referring to my answering machine messages? i hope so because now i will tell you my secret to getting my answering machine messages onto my blog.

Blogger in all of its wisdom has incorporated Audblog into its free Blogger service.

I have a digital answering machine in my landline phone. that phone also has a speakerphone option which is great when i forget that i’ve put the phone in the fridgerator next to the milk.

what i do is i call Audblog using my cell phone. when the time is ready i hit Play on my answering machine and hold my cell phone up to the speaker of the answering machine and let it run.

for the exception of the phone numbers that people leave, what you hear is what is on my answering machine.

i do this for two reasons. 1) i like to save things and this is a great way to do it without filling up my answering machine 2)it gives the world the false impression that girls from everywhere call me and want to hang out with me.

c) The world is Constantly giving you things to write about. open your eyes, boy.

it’s my belief that people get writers block not when they cant find anything to write about but because they Censor themselves from writing about what is forefront in their minds.

quit censoring yourself. if you want to write about some girl you wanna bang, write about that. despite what your girlfriend might say. (it might not be a good idea to put it on your blog, but write about it in a journal or on a different blog.)

if you want to write about sports, or movies, or about how you feel about going to your first year of college, write about it.

talk about your town, your friends, your dreams.

forget about what people might think about you, or say in rebuttal, or what EVER. write.

infact write precisely about the things that freak you out the most to say.

snoop dogg writes about pimping and smoking and drinking and gangbanging which are true for him and not only has he pulled it off, but he is one of the most beloved people in the world because he’s not bullshitting or holding back.

learn from snoop, young jedi.

the blogosphere and the media is full of people who lovelovelove to attack people who bring to light the fact that this president is a phony a fraud and a moron. i dont like to be attacked any more than the next guy. i might be a cub fan but im no sadist. but i write about bush because it is real for me and id be a fucking pussy sellout riddled with writers block if really wanted to say fuck bush and i didnt.

learn from the busblog, close yr eyes and floor it.

once you write whats in your heart and it gets out there, then theres room for the next thing, and then the next thing. but you Must get that first thing out there.

its more like pooping than you think.

my critics will agree.

go now in peace good man

and tell us your deepest darkest feelings.

your pal,

tony

chokey chicken + virginia + mist

blogger of your website, or even janitor at your bowling alley,

one thing that you would never ever ever have to lose any sleep over

is that i would never come to you or call a press conference

and say, i have been cheating on my lovely wife

with a man.

and thats because im as loyal as a lap dog.

college was tough. i gotta say that.

jeanine and i were madly in love, but we had some neighbors, and friends who were tempting.

hell, all of isla vista was a calvacade of hot tamales walking around in their miniskirts or cut offs.

i learned a technique that i ended up using later in life because it worked.

if i saw a hot chick walking down the street i looked down on the ground

if a cutie said hi to me, i would look at her shoes.

people probably thought that i was a rain man because i wouldnt look them in the eye and i would stutter a lot and i would say definately a lot.

mons pubis is definately playing at Xanadu Lanes, i would say. definately. right after wapner. definately after wapner.

the problem is, people dont look at their shoes anymore, and they should.

anna kournikova has the right idea, she doesnt come over to my house because she knows that she wont be able to keep her dirty little hands off me.

and vice versa.

i dont care that theres a gay gov in jersey, and i dont think any enlightened person does. i think they care that he cheated on his wife, and lied to her, and is probably a liar to the public on other things.

and after reading the buzzmachine, turns out he was a bad governor.

and thats too bad because some people might think that he was a bad gov cuz he was a gay gov.

im sure being gay had zero to do with it.

similarily we dont blame the president for being a bad president because hes a retard.

we blame him for being bad because he’s a deceptive retard with no vision, no plan, no sense of duty to the country that he represents, and because he deserted during a time of war and then covered it up by destroying the records.

the gay gov of jersey is bad because he lied to his wife. im sure the corruption that he was part of, allegedly, will start streaming out in the next few days, to the utter glee of those who find glee in those things.

hopefully it began and ended with appointing his gay lover Jersey Homeland Security director.

right now i just feel bad for his old lady.

and i would love it if springsteen could replace him, if only for a little while.

buzzmachine + kitty bukkake + bunny has lesbo shots