I was walked into a room. The nurse did the usual. Blood pressure.
Temperature.
The the doctor. He examined the welts.
"Looks like a spider," he said, "they usually bite 3 times."
I was given a tetanus shot, a prescription for some antibiotics and
some Benadryl.
We drove off to an all-night Sav-on to get the stuff.
The 500 mg Duricef was to be taken one capsule every 12 hours. The
Benadryl one every 4 to 6 hours.
I began. And this is the point. After a day or so I felt similar as I
had to the time I had been taking antibiotics for TB. Only then, due to my
weakened state, I was barely able to walk up and down the stairway, having
to pull myself along by the banister. Now it was just the nauseous feeling,
the dullness of mind. About the 3rd day I sat down in front of this computer
to see if anything would come out of it. I only sat there. This must be, I
thought, the way it feels when it finally leaves you. And there is nothing
you can do. At the age of 72 it was always possible that it would leave me.
The ability to write. It was a fear. And it was not about fame. Or about
money. It was about me. I release of writing. The safety of writing. All
that mattered was the next line. And if the next line wouldn't come, I was
dead, even though, technically, I was living.
I have been off the antibiotics now for 24 hours but I still feel dull,
a bit ill. The writing here lacks spark and gamble. Too bad, kid.
Now, tomorrow, I must see my regular doctor to find out if I need more
antibiotics or what. The welts are still there, though smaller. Who knows
what the hell?
Oh yes, the nice lady at the receptionist's desk, just as I was
leaving, began talking about spider bites. "Yes, there was this fellow in
his twenties. He got bit by a spider, now he's paralyzed from the waist up."
"Is that so?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "and there was another case. This fellow..."
"Never mind," I told her, "we have to leave."
"Well," she said, "have a nice night."
"You too," I said.
11/6/82 12:08 AM
I feel poisoned tonight, pissed-on, used, worn to the nub. It's not
entirely old age but it might have something to do with it. I think that the
crowd, that crowd. Humanity which has always been difficult for me, that all
repeat performance for them. There's no freshness in them. Not even the
tiniest miracle. They just grind on and over me. If, one day, I could just
see ONE person doing or saying something unusual it would help me get on
with it. But the are stale, grimy. There's no lift. Eyes, ears, legs, voices
but... nothing. They congeal within themselves, kid themselves along,
pretending to be alive.
It was better when I was young. I was still looking. I prowled the
streets of night looking, looking... mixing, fighting, searching... I found
nothing. I never really found a friend. With women, there was hope with each
new one but that was in the beginning. Even early on, I got it, I stopped
looking for the Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare.
With people, all I found were the living who were now dead -- in books,
in classical music. But that helped, for a while. But there were only so
many lively and magical book, then in stopped. Classial musics was my
stronghold. I heard most of it on the radio, still do. And I am ever
surprised, even now, when I hear something strong and new and unheard before
and it happens quite often. As I write this I am listening to something on
the radio that I have never heard before. I feast on each note like a man
starving for a new rush of blood and meaning and it's there. I am totally
astonished by the mass of great music, centuries and centuries of it. It
must be that many great souls once lived. I can't explain it but it is my
great luck in life to have this, to sense this, to feed upon and celebrate
it. I never write anything without the radio on to classical music, it has
always been a part of my work, to hear this music as I write. Perhaps, some
day, somebody will explain to me why so much of the energy of the Miracle is
contained in classical music? I doubt that this will ever be told to me. I
will only be left to wonder. Why, why, why aren't there more books with this
power? What's wrong with the writers? Why are there so few good one?
Rock music does not do it for me. I went to rock concert, mainly for
the sake of my wife, Linda. Sure, I'm a good guy, huh? Huh? Anyhow, the
tickets were free, courtesy of the rock musician who reads my books. We were
to be in a special section with the big shots. A director, former actor,
made a trip to pick us up in his sport wagon. Another actor was with him.
These are talented people, in their way, and not bad human beings. We drove
to the director's place, there was his lady friend, we saw their baby and
then off we all went in a limo. Drinks, talk. The concert was to be at
Dodger Stadium. We arrived late. The rock group was on, blasting, enormous
sound. 25,000 people. There was a vibrancy there but it was short-lived. It
was fairly simplistic. I suppose the lyrics were all right if you could
understand them. They were probably speaking of Causes, Decencies, Love
found and lost, etc. People need that -- anti-establisment, anti-parent,
anti- something. But a successful millionaire groupe like that, no matter
what they said, THEY WERE NOW ESTABLISHMENT.
Then, after a while, the leader said, "This concert is dedicated to
Linda and Charles Bukuwski!" 25,000 people cheered as if they knew who we
were. It is to laugh.
The big shot movie starts milled about. I had met them before. I
worriend about that. I worried about directors and actors coming to our
place. I disliked Hollywood, the movies seldom ever worked for me. What was
I doing with these people? Was I being sucked in? 72 years of fighting the
good fight, then to be sucked away?
The concert was almost over and we followed the director to the VIP
bar. We were among the select. Wow!
There were tables tables in there, a bar. And the famous. I made for
the bark. Drinks were free. There was a huge black bartender. I ordered my
drink and told him, "After I drink this one, we'll go out back and duke it
out."
The bartender smiled.
"Bukowski!"
"You know me?"
"I used to read your "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" in the L.A. Free Press
and Open City."
"Well, I'll be god-damned..."
We shook hands. The fight was off.
Linda and I talked to various people, about what I don't know. I kept
going back to the bar again and again for my vodka 7's. The bartender poured
me tall ones. I'd also loaded up in the limo on the way in. The night got
easier for me, it was only a matter of drinking them down big, fast and
often.
When rock star came in I was fairly far gone but still there. He sat
down and we talked but I don't know about what. Then came black-out time.
Evidently we left. I only know what I heard later. The limo got us back but
as I reached the steps of the house I fell and cracked my head on the
bricks. We had just had the bricks put in. The right side of my head was
bloody and I had hurt my right hand and my back.
I found most of this in the morning when I rose to take a piss. There
was the mirror. I looked like the old days after the barroom fights. Christ.
I washed some of the blood away, fed our 9 cats and went back to bed. Linda
wasn't feeling too well either. But she had seen her rock show.
I knew I wouldn't be able to write for 3 or 4 days and that it would a
couple of days before I got back to the racetrack.
It was back to classical music for me. I was honored and all that. It's
great that the rocks start read my work but I've heard from men in jails and
madhouses who do too. I can't help it who reads my work. Forget it.
It's good sitting here tonight in this little room on the second floor
listening on the radio, the old body, the old mind mending. I belong here,
like this. Like this. Like this.
2/21/93 12:33 AM
Went to the track today in the rain and watched 7 consensus favorites
out of 9 win. There is no way I can make it when this occurs. I watched the
hours get slugged in the head and looked at the people studying their tout
sheets, newspapers and Racing Forms. Many of them left early, taking the
escalators down and out. (Gunshot outside now as I write this, life back to
normal.) After about 4 or 5 races I left the clubhouse and went own to the
grandstand area. There was a difference. Fewer whites, of course, more poor,
of course. Down there, I was a minority. I walked about and I could feel the
desperation in the air. These were 2 dollar bettors. They didn't bet
favorites. They bet the shots, the exactas, the daily doubles. They were
looking for a lot of money of a little money and they were drowning.
Drowning in the rain. It was grim there. I needed a new hobby.
The track had changed. Forty years ago there had been some joy out
there, even among the losers. The bars had been packed. This was a different
world. There was no money to blow to the sky, no to-hell-with-it money, no
we'll-be-back- tomorrow money. This was the end of the world. Old clothing.
Twisted and bitter faces. The rent money. The 5 dollars an hour money. The
money of the unemployed, of the illegal immigrants. The money of the petty
thieves, the burglars, the money of the disinherited. The air was dark. And
the lines were long. They made the poor wait in long lines. The poor were
used to long lines. And they stood in them to have their small dreams
smashed.
This was Hollywood Park, located in the black district, in the district
of Central Americans and other minorities.
I went back upstairs to the clubhouse, to the shorter lines. I got into
line, bet 20 win on the second favorite.
"When ya gonna do it?" the clerk asked me.
"Do what?" I asked.
"Cash some tickets."
"Any day now," I told him.
I turned and walked away. I could hear him say something else. Old bent
white haired guy. He was having a bad day. Many of the mutuel clerks bet. I
tried to go to a different clerk each time I bet, I didn't want to
fraternize. The fucker was out of line. It was none of his business if I
ever cashed a bet. The clerks rode with you when you were running hot. They
would ask each other, "What'd he bet?" But go cold on them, they got pissed.
They should do their own thinking. Just because I was there every day didn't
mean I was a professional gambler. I was a professional writer. Sometimes.
I was walking along and I saw this kid rushing toward me. I knew what
it was. He blocked my path.
"Pardon me," he said, "are you Charles Bukowski?"
"Charles Darwin," I said, then spepped around him.
I didn't want to hear it, whatever he had to say.
I watched the race and my horse came in second, beaten out by another
favorite. On off or muddy tracks too many favorites win. I don't know the
reason but it occurs. I got the hell out of the racetrack and drove on in.
Got to the place, greeten Linda. Checked the mail.
Rejection letter from the Oxford American. I checked my poems. Not bad,
good but not exceptional. Just a losing day. But I was still alive. It was
almost the year 2,000 and I was still alive, whatever it meant.
We went out to eat at a Mexican place. Much talk about the fight that
night. Chavez and Haugin before 130,000 in Mexico City. I didn't give Haugin
a chance. He had guts but no punch, no movement and he was about 3 years
past his prie. Chavez could name the round.
That night it was the way it was. Chavez didn't even sit down between
rounds. He was hardly breathing heavily. The whole thing was a clean, sheer,
brutal event. The body shots Chavez landed made me wince. It was like
hitting a man in the ribs with a sledgehammer. Chavez finally got bored with
carrying his man and took him out.
"Well, hell," I said to my wife, "we paid to see exactly what we
thought we would see."
The tv was off.
Tomorrow the Japanese were coming by to interview me. One of my books
was now in Japanese and another was on the way. What would I tell them?
About the horses? Maybe they would just ask questions. They should. I was a
writer, huh? How strange it was but everybody had to be something didn't
they? Homeless, famous, gay, mad, whatever. If they ever again run in 7 more
favorites on a 9 race card, I'm going to start doing something else.
Jogging. Or the museums. Or finger painting. Or chess. I mean, hell, that's
just as stupid.
2/27/93 12:56 AM
The captain is out and the sailors have taken over the ship.
Why are there so few interesting people? Out of the millions, why
aren't there a few? Must we continue to live with this drab and ponderous
species? Seems their only act is Violence. They are so good at that. They
truly blossom. Shit flowers, stinking up our chance. Problem is, if I want
the lights to go on, if I want this computer repaired, if I want to flush
the toilet, buy a new tire, get a tooth pulled or my gut cut open, I must
continue to interact. I need the fuckers for the minute necessities, even if
they, themselves appall me. And appall is a kind word.
But they pound on my consciousness with their failure in vital areas.
For instance, every day as I drive to the track I keep punching the radio to
different stations looking for music, decent music. It's all bad, flat
lifeless, tuneless, listless. Yet some of these compositions sell in
millions and their creators consider themselves true Artists. It's horrible,
horrible drivel entering the minds of you heads. They like it. Christ, hand
them shit, they eat it up. Can't they discern? Can't they hear? Can't they
feel the dilution, the staleness?
I can't believe that there is nothing. I keep punching in new statios.
I've had my car less than a year yet the button I push has the black paint
completely worn off. It is white, ivory-like, staring at me.
Well, yes, there is classical music. I finally have to settle for that.
But I know that is always there for me. I listen to that 3 or 4 hours a
night. But I still keep searching for other music. It's just not there. It
should be there. It disturbs me. We've been cheated out of a whole other
area. Think of all the people alive who have never heard decent music. No
wonder their faces are falling off, no wonder they kill thoughtlessly, no
wonder the heat is missing.
Well, what can I do? Nothing.
The movies are just as bad. I will listen to or read the critics. A
great movie, they will say. And I will go see said movie. And sit there
feeling like a fucking fool, feeling robbed, tricked. I can guess each scene
before it arrives. And the obvious motives of the characters, what drives
them, what they yearn for, what is of importance to them is so juvenile and
pathetic, so boringly gross. The love bits are galling, old hat, precious
drivel.
I believe that most people see too many movies. And certainly the
critics. When they say that a movie is great, they mean it's great in
relation to other movies they have seen. They've lost their overview. They
are clubbed by more and more new movies. They just don't know, they are lost
in it all. They have forgotten what really stinks, which is almost
everything they view.
And let's not even talk about television.
And as a writer... am I one? Oh well. As a writer I have trouble
reading other writing. It just isn't there for me. To begin with, they don't
know how to lay down a line, a paragraph. Just looking at the print from
distance, it looks boring. And when you really get down there, it's worse
than boring. There's no pace. There's nothing startling or fresh. There's no
gamble, no fire, no juice. What are they doing? It looks like hard work. No
wonder mostwriters say writing is painful to them. I can understand that.
Sometimes with my writing, when it hasn't roared, I have attempted
other things. I have pouren wine on the pages, I have held the pages to a
match and burned holes in them. "What are you DOING in there? I smell
smoke!"
"No, it's all right, baby, it'all right..."
Once my wastebasket caught fire and I rushed it out of my little
balcony, poured beer over it.
For my own writing, I like to watch the boxing matches, watch how the
left jab is used, the overhand right, the left hook, the uppercut, the
counter punch. I like to watch them dig in, come off the canvas. There is
something to be learned, something to be applied to the art of writing, the
way of writing. You have just one chance and then it's gone. There are only
pages left, you might as well make them smoke.
Classical music, cigars, the computer make the writing dance, holler,
laugh. The nightmare life helps too.
Each day as I walk into that racetrack am blasting my hours to shit.
But I still have the night. What do other writers do? Stand before the
mirror and examine their ear lobes? And then write about them. Or their
mothers. Or how to Save the World. Well, they can save it for me by not
writing that dull stuff. That slack and withered drivel. Stop! Stop! Stop! I
need something to read. Isn't there anything to read? I don't think so. If
you find it, let me know. No don't. I know: you wrote it. Forget it. Go take
a dump.
I remember a long raging letter I got one day from a man who told me I
had no right to say that I didn't like Shakespeare. Too many youth believe
me and just not bother to read Shakespeare. I had no right to take this
stance. On and on about that. I didn't answer him. But I will here.
Screw you, buddy. And I don't like Tolstoy either!
18
Temperature.
The the doctor. He examined the welts.
"Looks like a spider," he said, "they usually bite 3 times."
I was given a tetanus shot, a prescription for some antibiotics and
some Benadryl.
We drove off to an all-night Sav-on to get the stuff.
The 500 mg Duricef was to be taken one capsule every 12 hours. The
Benadryl one every 4 to 6 hours.
I began. And this is the point. After a day or so I felt similar as I
had to the time I had been taking antibiotics for TB. Only then, due to my
weakened state, I was barely able to walk up and down the stairway, having
to pull myself along by the banister. Now it was just the nauseous feeling,
the dullness of mind. About the 3rd day I sat down in front of this computer
to see if anything would come out of it. I only sat there. This must be, I
thought, the way it feels when it finally leaves you. And there is nothing
you can do. At the age of 72 it was always possible that it would leave me.
The ability to write. It was a fear. And it was not about fame. Or about
money. It was about me. I release of writing. The safety of writing. All
that mattered was the next line. And if the next line wouldn't come, I was
dead, even though, technically, I was living.
I have been off the antibiotics now for 24 hours but I still feel dull,
a bit ill. The writing here lacks spark and gamble. Too bad, kid.
Now, tomorrow, I must see my regular doctor to find out if I need more
antibiotics or what. The welts are still there, though smaller. Who knows
what the hell?
Oh yes, the nice lady at the receptionist's desk, just as I was
leaving, began talking about spider bites. "Yes, there was this fellow in
his twenties. He got bit by a spider, now he's paralyzed from the waist up."
"Is that so?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "and there was another case. This fellow..."
"Never mind," I told her, "we have to leave."
"Well," she said, "have a nice night."
"You too," I said.
11/6/82 12:08 AM
I feel poisoned tonight, pissed-on, used, worn to the nub. It's not
entirely old age but it might have something to do with it. I think that the
crowd, that crowd. Humanity which has always been difficult for me, that all
repeat performance for them. There's no freshness in them. Not even the
tiniest miracle. They just grind on and over me. If, one day, I could just
see ONE person doing or saying something unusual it would help me get on
with it. But the are stale, grimy. There's no lift. Eyes, ears, legs, voices
but... nothing. They congeal within themselves, kid themselves along,
pretending to be alive.
It was better when I was young. I was still looking. I prowled the
streets of night looking, looking... mixing, fighting, searching... I found
nothing. I never really found a friend. With women, there was hope with each
new one but that was in the beginning. Even early on, I got it, I stopped
looking for the Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare.
With people, all I found were the living who were now dead -- in books,
in classical music. But that helped, for a while. But there were only so
many lively and magical book, then in stopped. Classial musics was my
stronghold. I heard most of it on the radio, still do. And I am ever
surprised, even now, when I hear something strong and new and unheard before
and it happens quite often. As I write this I am listening to something on
the radio that I have never heard before. I feast on each note like a man
starving for a new rush of blood and meaning and it's there. I am totally
astonished by the mass of great music, centuries and centuries of it. It
must be that many great souls once lived. I can't explain it but it is my
great luck in life to have this, to sense this, to feed upon and celebrate
it. I never write anything without the radio on to classical music, it has
always been a part of my work, to hear this music as I write. Perhaps, some
day, somebody will explain to me why so much of the energy of the Miracle is
contained in classical music? I doubt that this will ever be told to me. I
will only be left to wonder. Why, why, why aren't there more books with this
power? What's wrong with the writers? Why are there so few good one?
Rock music does not do it for me. I went to rock concert, mainly for
the sake of my wife, Linda. Sure, I'm a good guy, huh? Huh? Anyhow, the
tickets were free, courtesy of the rock musician who reads my books. We were
to be in a special section with the big shots. A director, former actor,
made a trip to pick us up in his sport wagon. Another actor was with him.
These are talented people, in their way, and not bad human beings. We drove
to the director's place, there was his lady friend, we saw their baby and
then off we all went in a limo. Drinks, talk. The concert was to be at
Dodger Stadium. We arrived late. The rock group was on, blasting, enormous
sound. 25,000 people. There was a vibrancy there but it was short-lived. It
was fairly simplistic. I suppose the lyrics were all right if you could
understand them. They were probably speaking of Causes, Decencies, Love
found and lost, etc. People need that -- anti-establisment, anti-parent,
anti- something. But a successful millionaire groupe like that, no matter
what they said, THEY WERE NOW ESTABLISHMENT.
Then, after a while, the leader said, "This concert is dedicated to
Linda and Charles Bukuwski!" 25,000 people cheered as if they knew who we
were. It is to laugh.
The big shot movie starts milled about. I had met them before. I
worriend about that. I worried about directors and actors coming to our
place. I disliked Hollywood, the movies seldom ever worked for me. What was
I doing with these people? Was I being sucked in? 72 years of fighting the
good fight, then to be sucked away?
The concert was almost over and we followed the director to the VIP
bar. We were among the select. Wow!
There were tables tables in there, a bar. And the famous. I made for
the bark. Drinks were free. There was a huge black bartender. I ordered my
drink and told him, "After I drink this one, we'll go out back and duke it
out."
The bartender smiled.
"Bukowski!"
"You know me?"
"I used to read your "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" in the L.A. Free Press
and Open City."
"Well, I'll be god-damned..."
We shook hands. The fight was off.
Linda and I talked to various people, about what I don't know. I kept
going back to the bar again and again for my vodka 7's. The bartender poured
me tall ones. I'd also loaded up in the limo on the way in. The night got
easier for me, it was only a matter of drinking them down big, fast and
often.
When rock star came in I was fairly far gone but still there. He sat
down and we talked but I don't know about what. Then came black-out time.
Evidently we left. I only know what I heard later. The limo got us back but
as I reached the steps of the house I fell and cracked my head on the
bricks. We had just had the bricks put in. The right side of my head was
bloody and I had hurt my right hand and my back.
I found most of this in the morning when I rose to take a piss. There
was the mirror. I looked like the old days after the barroom fights. Christ.
I washed some of the blood away, fed our 9 cats and went back to bed. Linda
wasn't feeling too well either. But she had seen her rock show.
I knew I wouldn't be able to write for 3 or 4 days and that it would a
couple of days before I got back to the racetrack.
It was back to classical music for me. I was honored and all that. It's
great that the rocks start read my work but I've heard from men in jails and
madhouses who do too. I can't help it who reads my work. Forget it.
It's good sitting here tonight in this little room on the second floor
listening on the radio, the old body, the old mind mending. I belong here,
like this. Like this. Like this.
2/21/93 12:33 AM
Went to the track today in the rain and watched 7 consensus favorites
out of 9 win. There is no way I can make it when this occurs. I watched the
hours get slugged in the head and looked at the people studying their tout
sheets, newspapers and Racing Forms. Many of them left early, taking the
escalators down and out. (Gunshot outside now as I write this, life back to
normal.) After about 4 or 5 races I left the clubhouse and went own to the
grandstand area. There was a difference. Fewer whites, of course, more poor,
of course. Down there, I was a minority. I walked about and I could feel the
desperation in the air. These were 2 dollar bettors. They didn't bet
favorites. They bet the shots, the exactas, the daily doubles. They were
looking for a lot of money of a little money and they were drowning.
Drowning in the rain. It was grim there. I needed a new hobby.
The track had changed. Forty years ago there had been some joy out
there, even among the losers. The bars had been packed. This was a different
world. There was no money to blow to the sky, no to-hell-with-it money, no
we'll-be-back- tomorrow money. This was the end of the world. Old clothing.
Twisted and bitter faces. The rent money. The 5 dollars an hour money. The
money of the unemployed, of the illegal immigrants. The money of the petty
thieves, the burglars, the money of the disinherited. The air was dark. And
the lines were long. They made the poor wait in long lines. The poor were
used to long lines. And they stood in them to have their small dreams
smashed.
This was Hollywood Park, located in the black district, in the district
of Central Americans and other minorities.
I went back upstairs to the clubhouse, to the shorter lines. I got into
line, bet 20 win on the second favorite.
"When ya gonna do it?" the clerk asked me.
"Do what?" I asked.
"Cash some tickets."
"Any day now," I told him.
I turned and walked away. I could hear him say something else. Old bent
white haired guy. He was having a bad day. Many of the mutuel clerks bet. I
tried to go to a different clerk each time I bet, I didn't want to
fraternize. The fucker was out of line. It was none of his business if I
ever cashed a bet. The clerks rode with you when you were running hot. They
would ask each other, "What'd he bet?" But go cold on them, they got pissed.
They should do their own thinking. Just because I was there every day didn't
mean I was a professional gambler. I was a professional writer. Sometimes.
I was walking along and I saw this kid rushing toward me. I knew what
it was. He blocked my path.
"Pardon me," he said, "are you Charles Bukowski?"
"Charles Darwin," I said, then spepped around him.
I didn't want to hear it, whatever he had to say.
I watched the race and my horse came in second, beaten out by another
favorite. On off or muddy tracks too many favorites win. I don't know the
reason but it occurs. I got the hell out of the racetrack and drove on in.
Got to the place, greeten Linda. Checked the mail.
Rejection letter from the Oxford American. I checked my poems. Not bad,
good but not exceptional. Just a losing day. But I was still alive. It was
almost the year 2,000 and I was still alive, whatever it meant.
We went out to eat at a Mexican place. Much talk about the fight that
night. Chavez and Haugin before 130,000 in Mexico City. I didn't give Haugin
a chance. He had guts but no punch, no movement and he was about 3 years
past his prie. Chavez could name the round.
That night it was the way it was. Chavez didn't even sit down between
rounds. He was hardly breathing heavily. The whole thing was a clean, sheer,
brutal event. The body shots Chavez landed made me wince. It was like
hitting a man in the ribs with a sledgehammer. Chavez finally got bored with
carrying his man and took him out.
"Well, hell," I said to my wife, "we paid to see exactly what we
thought we would see."
The tv was off.
Tomorrow the Japanese were coming by to interview me. One of my books
was now in Japanese and another was on the way. What would I tell them?
About the horses? Maybe they would just ask questions. They should. I was a
writer, huh? How strange it was but everybody had to be something didn't
they? Homeless, famous, gay, mad, whatever. If they ever again run in 7 more
favorites on a 9 race card, I'm going to start doing something else.
Jogging. Or the museums. Or finger painting. Or chess. I mean, hell, that's
just as stupid.
2/27/93 12:56 AM
The captain is out and the sailors have taken over the ship.
Why are there so few interesting people? Out of the millions, why
aren't there a few? Must we continue to live with this drab and ponderous
species? Seems their only act is Violence. They are so good at that. They
truly blossom. Shit flowers, stinking up our chance. Problem is, if I want
the lights to go on, if I want this computer repaired, if I want to flush
the toilet, buy a new tire, get a tooth pulled or my gut cut open, I must
continue to interact. I need the fuckers for the minute necessities, even if
they, themselves appall me. And appall is a kind word.
But they pound on my consciousness with their failure in vital areas.
For instance, every day as I drive to the track I keep punching the radio to
different stations looking for music, decent music. It's all bad, flat
lifeless, tuneless, listless. Yet some of these compositions sell in
millions and their creators consider themselves true Artists. It's horrible,
horrible drivel entering the minds of you heads. They like it. Christ, hand
them shit, they eat it up. Can't they discern? Can't they hear? Can't they
feel the dilution, the staleness?
I can't believe that there is nothing. I keep punching in new statios.
I've had my car less than a year yet the button I push has the black paint
completely worn off. It is white, ivory-like, staring at me.
Well, yes, there is classical music. I finally have to settle for that.
But I know that is always there for me. I listen to that 3 or 4 hours a
night. But I still keep searching for other music. It's just not there. It
should be there. It disturbs me. We've been cheated out of a whole other
area. Think of all the people alive who have never heard decent music. No
wonder their faces are falling off, no wonder they kill thoughtlessly, no
wonder the heat is missing.
Well, what can I do? Nothing.
The movies are just as bad. I will listen to or read the critics. A
great movie, they will say. And I will go see said movie. And sit there
feeling like a fucking fool, feeling robbed, tricked. I can guess each scene
before it arrives. And the obvious motives of the characters, what drives
them, what they yearn for, what is of importance to them is so juvenile and
pathetic, so boringly gross. The love bits are galling, old hat, precious
drivel.
I believe that most people see too many movies. And certainly the
critics. When they say that a movie is great, they mean it's great in
relation to other movies they have seen. They've lost their overview. They
are clubbed by more and more new movies. They just don't know, they are lost
in it all. They have forgotten what really stinks, which is almost
everything they view.
And let's not even talk about television.
And as a writer... am I one? Oh well. As a writer I have trouble
reading other writing. It just isn't there for me. To begin with, they don't
know how to lay down a line, a paragraph. Just looking at the print from
distance, it looks boring. And when you really get down there, it's worse
than boring. There's no pace. There's nothing startling or fresh. There's no
gamble, no fire, no juice. What are they doing? It looks like hard work. No
wonder mostwriters say writing is painful to them. I can understand that.
Sometimes with my writing, when it hasn't roared, I have attempted
other things. I have pouren wine on the pages, I have held the pages to a
match and burned holes in them. "What are you DOING in there? I smell
smoke!"
"No, it's all right, baby, it'all right..."
Once my wastebasket caught fire and I rushed it out of my little
balcony, poured beer over it.
For my own writing, I like to watch the boxing matches, watch how the
left jab is used, the overhand right, the left hook, the uppercut, the
counter punch. I like to watch them dig in, come off the canvas. There is
something to be learned, something to be applied to the art of writing, the
way of writing. You have just one chance and then it's gone. There are only
pages left, you might as well make them smoke.
Classical music, cigars, the computer make the writing dance, holler,
laugh. The nightmare life helps too.
Each day as I walk into that racetrack am blasting my hours to shit.
But I still have the night. What do other writers do? Stand before the
mirror and examine their ear lobes? And then write about them. Or their
mothers. Or how to Save the World. Well, they can save it for me by not
writing that dull stuff. That slack and withered drivel. Stop! Stop! Stop! I
need something to read. Isn't there anything to read? I don't think so. If
you find it, let me know. No don't. I know: you wrote it. Forget it. Go take
a dump.
I remember a long raging letter I got one day from a man who told me I
had no right to say that I didn't like Shakespeare. Too many youth believe
me and just not bother to read Shakespeare. I had no right to take this
stance. On and on about that. I didn't answer him. But I will here.
Screw you, buddy. And I don't like Tolstoy either!
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