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Happy birthday Bukowski
08.16.2012
12:42 am
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In 1967 an older poet friend of mine, Zoltan Farkas, gave me a copy of Charles Bukowski’s “Crucifix in a Deathhand” and my life was changed forever. I went from being a teenager interested in being a writer to a one who absolutely had to be a writer. I quickly found out that attempting to write in Bukowski’s straight ahead style was much more difficult than it appeared. Shedding literary pretension and cutting to the heart of whatever is at hand is a process in which you have to get rid of everything that stands between you and the truth, including art.

Here’s a little video I made for one of my favorite Bukowski poems. “Something for The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You” is Charles Bukowski at his absolute best - angry, bitter, sad, beautiful and funny. From the 1974 collection Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame.

The video is composed of found footage and clips from the works of Arthur Lipsett and Gregory Markopoulos.

If you think you’ve seen this here before, you have. I felt it worth sharing again.
 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.16.2012
12:42 am
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Cool Charles Bukowski graffiti
07.03.2012
07:13 pm
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Photo: Mirgun Akyavas
 
Austin, Texas has some of the finest examples of street art of any city on the planet. Here’s something that recently went up in the downtown area. I don’t know who did it and they may want to stay anonymous. If not, and you see this, let us know who you are so we can give you credit for this splendid piece of art.

To the right of the portrait is the famous Bukowski quote: “Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must live.”

Posted by Marc Campbell
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07.03.2012
07:13 pm
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Ben Gazzara as Charles Bukowski explains Style
03.15.2012
12:53 pm
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Ben Gazzara performs Charles Bukowski’s poem “Style,” from Marco Ferreri’s film Tales of Ordinary Madness.

Style is the answer to everything
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous
thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable
to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style, is what
I call art
Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art
Not many have style
Not many can keep style
I have seen dogs with more style than men
Although not many dogs have style
Cats have it with abundance
When Hemingway put his brains
to the wall with a shotgun, that was style
For sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Christ
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca
I have met men in jail with style
I have met more men in jail with style
than men out of jail
Style is a difference, a way of doing,
a way of being done
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, walking out of the bathroom naked without seeing me

A memorable definition, and a fine delivery from Gazzara, which you can compare against Bukowski’s reading below.
 

 
Bonus - Bukowski reads “Style”

 
Thanks Tara McGinley!
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.15.2012
12:53 pm
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‘Born Into This’: Charles Bukowski documentary
03.09.2012
03:29 pm
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Charles Bukowksi (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) made me want to write and he made it look it look easy. But there is an art and skill to “easy” that is everything but easy. Finding your own true voice in writing is something multitudes of young novelists and poets have attempted only to watch their words lay there on the page like orderly dead flies. Shake em off and start over again.

Bukoswki made me want to write because he made writing seem essential to life, a sign of life, as important as breath or food or drink. As profane as Bukowski could be, he could also draw forth the spiritual in the most mundane of acts and make tying your shoe seem as profound as death.

Rich with footage shot by Taylor Hackford and Barbet Schroeder and plenty of talking heads who knew Bukowski well, Born Into This is probably the definitive documentary on the man.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.09.2012
03:29 pm
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Charles Bukowski walks past Charles Bukowski
12.05.2011
04:57 pm
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I can’t find the provenance of this one. Anyone know?
 
Update: It’s from Bukowski’s “Shakespeare Never Did This” with photographs by German photographer Michael Montfort. Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
 
(via KMFW)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.05.2011
04:57 pm
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Charles Bukowski: ‘I drink, I gamble, I write…’ the making of ‘Barfly’
11.22.2011
05:22 pm
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A behind-the-scenes look at the making of Charles Bukowski’s semi-autobiographical movie Barfly, with Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, director Barbet Schroeder and the great, Bukowski, who explained the film’s title:

‘I was the barfly. I would open the bar and I would close the bar and I had no money. It was a place to be. It was my home.’

Bukowski wrote the script for Schroeder, who was so passionate about making a film with the poet, that when backers Canon planned to exclude the project form its production schedule, the director threatened to cut-off his own finger with a battery-powered saw if he didn’t get the finance to make it.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.22.2011
05:22 pm
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Two Undiscovered Poems by Charles Bukowski
05.06.2011
07:47 pm
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LA poet, Yvonne de la Vega has located two of Charles Bukowski’s “undiscovered” poems, which are published today in the Examiner:

Charles Bukowksi’s first generally recognized publication date is in the 1960s, yet citations from the early 60s exist in Sanford Dorbin’s early bibliography, and The Roominghouse Madrigals prints poems from the late 40s.

The fact is that Bukowski has published extensively in various small literary publications for over thirty years. These publications exist in small numbers and are difficult if not impossible to find. Fortunately, John Martin of Black Sparrow Press has managed to cull together these poems and stories over several collections, until catching up with his contemporary writings in the 80s.

The following poems are from the private collection of The Los Angeles Poetry Examiner’s, copied from Pearl-Number 14 Fall/Winter 1991 and have yet to be found elsewhere.


An Answer

within the past six years
there have been four
different rumors that i
have died.
I don’t know who begins
these rumors
or why.
and certainly humans
do worse things than
this.
yet I always feel strange
when i must tell people,
usually over the
telephone, that I am
not yet dead.
somebody out there
or perhaps several
people
evidently get some
satisfaction
in announcing that I am
no longer
around.

some day,
some night
the announcement will be
true.
to put it mildly,
I am no longer
young.
but these death-
wishers
are an unsavory
group,
these hyenas,
these vultures,
these failed writers,
will also some day be dead,

their petty bitterness,
their lying gutless
beings gone into
the dark.
but for the moment,
I am here
and these last lines
are for them:
your cowardice will not be missed.
even the roaches
lived with more
honor
and you were always
dead
before
me
without
rumor.

Charles Bukowski 1991
San Pedro, California


On The Bum

moving from city to city
I always had two pairs of
shoes

my work shoes were
thick and black
and stiff.
sometimes when I
first put them on
they were very painful,
the toes were
hardened and bent
back
but I’d get them on
on a hangover
morning.
thinking, well
here we go
again.
working for
miserable wages
and expected to
be grateful
for that,
having been chosen
from a score of
applicants.

it was probably my
ugly and
honest face.

but putting on
those shoes
again
was always
the beginning.

i had always
imagined myself
escaping that.
making it at the
gaming table
or in the
ring
or in the bed
of some rich lady.

maybe I got
like that from
living too long in
Los Angeles,
a place far too
close to
Hollywood.

but going down
those roominghouse
steps
with each beginning,

the stiff shoes
murdering my
feet,
stepping out into
the early sun,
the sidewalk was
there,
and I was just one
more
common laborer,
one more
cpmmon
human,
the whole universe
sliding through
my head
and out my ears.
the timecard waited
to check me in
and out.
and afterwards
something to
drink and the
ladies from
hell.

work shoes
work shoes
work shoes
and me
them with
all the lights
turned
out.
 
Charles Bukowski 1991
San Pedro, California

 

Bonus clip: Bukowski gives a tour of Hollywood
 
Via the Examiner
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.06.2011
07:47 pm
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Charles Bukowski: Poet on the Edge exhibit at the Huntington
11.23.2010
09:02 pm
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It’s great to see that Los Angeles is finally starting to properly celebrate the life of one of her greatest writers, Charles Bulowski. Presently on exhibit at The Huntington is a show called “Charles Bukowski: Poet on the Edge,” drawn from the archive of his papers donated to the museum by his wife, Linda Lee Bukowski, in 2006. The exhibit is being held in the West Hall of the Library and continues through Feb. 14, 2011.

Among the rare items on view in the exhibition will be first editions of his works, including Ham on Rye (1982), the autobiographical novel about his brutal childhood and young adulthood; Factotum (1975), the fictional account of his succession of low-end jobs; and Barfly (1984), the screenplay he wrote for the 1987 film starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. Corrected typescripts of poems and of the novels Pulp (1984) and Hollywood (1989) will also be on view. There will be original drawings by Bukowski, correspondence and fan mail, and large-format printings of his poems produced by the Black Sparrow Press and other fine printing houses. scarce, important “little magazines,” which were the first to publish Bukowski’s works, will include such publications as Wormwood Review, The Outsider, The Limberlost Review, and Runcible Spoon. More famous (or infamous) magazines like Oui and High Times will show a more lucrative aspect of Bukowski’s craft.

In addition, Linda Lee Bukowski is graciously lendng a number of iconic items, including Bukowski’s manual typewriter, an original oil portrait by John Register, and very scarce early books, including Flower, Fist & Bestial Wail (1960) and It Catches My Heart in Its Hand (1963).

Charles Bukowski continues to attract a huge following of readers who feel a deep connection to the writer who spoke for the downtrodden and disaffected.  Writing as an outsider, on the periphery of both society and the literary establishment, Bukowski knew that, for him, “the place to find the center is at the edge.”

Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.23.2010
09:02 pm
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Back alley Buddha in action - Bukowski documentary from 1973
10.06.2010
08:47 pm
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In 1967, an older poet friend of mine, Zoltan Farkas, gave me a copy of Bukowski’s Crucifix In A Death Hand and my life was changed forever. Imagine discovering Bukowski at 16, well before he became a hero to millions. Opening the pages of Crucifix opened up a whole new world to me, where writing was accessible and real, not a mystic art but a blunt weapon, a blackjack of words upside my head. He rescued poetry from academia and the bardic tradition and brought it down to earth, from marble halls to the sidewalk, from the bards to the bar. And he made it look so easy…but it isn’t. Taking the energy of language from where you got it, thu the poem to the reader, is tougher than it looks. Bukowski inspired me to write by making me feel it was possible. He taught me that poetry, great poetry, takes not only passion, it takes guts. Rimbaud, Henry Miller and Bukowski: the big 3.

Bukowski was directed by Taylor Hackford in 1973 and broadcast on KCET in Los Angeles. Hackford’s film was responsible for bringing Bukowski to a wider audience. It was said to have been lost forever, but remastered clips from the film appeared in the recent Bukowski documentary Born Into This. So, there must be a good master somewhere. Until an official version of this is re-released, here’s the best that is available.
 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.06.2010
08:47 pm
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Charles Bukowski painted with red wine
08.20.2010
03:07 pm
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Red wine paintings by artist Marcelo Daldoce.
 
(via Nerdcore)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.20.2010
03:07 pm
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Charles Bukowski’s Historically Preserved Home
10.02.2009
11:21 am
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Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.02.2009
11:21 am
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Charles Bukowski Los Angeles Tour (Hollywood and Western)
07.23.2009
06:53 pm
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I love Los Angeles, I am an Angeleano by choice and forever shall it be. I’ve lived in New York, London and Amsterdam but Los Angeles is my favorite city by far. It’s great here!

I am also a big fan of the writings of Charles Bukowski. The city of Los Angeles is practically a character itself in all his books. As unique as Bukowski was, of course, he was very much an “LA character.” It’s hard to imagine him existing anywhere else. This video, one of 52 shorts made by Barbet Schroeder in 1985 as part of “The Bukowski Tapes” sees Buk taking the camera on a tour of his favorite dive haunts in the section of town near Hollywood and Western.

Approximately ten years after this was shot, I myself lived on this particular corner for a period of about two months (don’t ask!) and although it had been cleaned up quite a bit since 1985, it was still pretty horrific. The first night I spent in the hotel where I was staying, a man was shot and killed outside my window. On another occasion I had to sleep in the bathtub because a shot had been fired right outside my room. I figured I’d be safe from stray bullets in the iron tub. The corner had an all night hot dog stand (seen in video) beside a porn store that was also open 24/7. Tranny hookers that were over six feet tall and didn’t pass strolled the area.

It was, as one friend of mine put it, like an early Funkadelic album cover had come to life. Take a look for yourself:


Via The Rumpus

Thank you Michael Kurcfeld!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.23.2009
06:53 pm
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