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8/28/91 11:28 PM
Good day at the track, damn near swept the card.
Yet it gets boring out there, even when you're winning. It's the minute
wait between races, your life leaking out into space. The people look gray
out there, walked through. And I'm there with them. But where else could I
go? An Art Museum? Imagine staying home all day and playing at writer? I
could wear a little scarf. I remember this poet who used to come by on the
bum. Buttons off his shirt, puke on his pants, hair in eyes, shoelaces
undone, but he had this long scarf which he kept very clean. That signaled
he was a poet. His writing? Well, forget it...
Came in, swam in the pool, then went to the spa. My soul is in danger.
Always has been.
Was sitting on the couch with Linda, the good dark night descending,
when there was a knock on the door. Linda got it.
"Better come here, Hank..."
I walked to the door, barefooted, in my robe. A young blond guy, a
young fat girl and a medium sized girl.
"They want your autograph..."
"I don't see people," I told them.
"We just want your autograph," said the blond guy, "then we promise
never to come back."
Then he started giggling, and holding his head. The girls just stared.
"But none of you have a pen or even a piece of paper I said.
"Oh," said the blond kid, taking his hands from his head, "We'll come
back again with a book! Myabe at a more proper time..."
Tha bathrobe. The bare feet. Maybe the kid thought i was eccentric.
Maybe I was.
"Don't come in the morning," I told them.
I saw them begin to walk off and I closed the door...
Now I'm up here writing about them. You've got to be a little hard with
them or they'll swarm you. I've had some horrible expreriences blocking that
door. So many of them think that somehow you'll invite them in and drink
with them all night. I prefer to drink alone. A writer owes nothing except
to his writing. He owes nothing to the reader except the availability of the
printed page. And worse, many of the doorknockers are not even readers.
They've just heard something. The reader and the best human is the one who
rewards me with his or her absence.
8/29/91 10:55 PM
Slow at the track today, my damned life dangling on the hook. I am
there every day. I don't see anybody else out there every day except the
employees. I probably have some malady. Saroyan lost his ass at the track,
Fante at poker, Dostoevsky at the weel. And it's really not a matter of the
money unless you run out of it. I had a gambler friend once who said, "I
don't care if I win or lose, I just want to gamble." I have more respect for
the money. I've had very little of it most of my life. I know what a park
bench is, and the landlord's knock. There are only two things wrong with
money: too much or too little.
I suppose there's always something out there we want to torment
ourselves with. And at the track you get the feel of the other people, the
desperate darkness, and how easy they toss it in and quit. The racetrack
crowd is the world brought down to size, life grinding against death and
losing. Nobody wins finally, we are just seeking a reprieve, a moment out of
the glare. (shit, the lighted end of my cigarette just hit one of my fingers
as I was musing on this purposelessness. That woke me up, brought me out of
this Sartre state!) Hell, we need humor, we need to laugh. I used to laugh
more, I used to do everything more, except write. Now, I am writing and
writing and writing, the older I get the more I write, dancing with death.
Good show. And I think the stuff is all right. One day they'll say,
"Bukowski is dead," and then I will be truly discovered and hung from
stinking bright lampposts. So what? Immortality is the stupid invention of
the living. You see what the racetracks does? It makes the lines roll.
Lightning and luck. The last bluebird singing. Anything I say sounds fine
because I gamble when I write. Too many are too careful. They study, they
teach and they fail. Convention strips them of their fire.
I feel better now, up here on this second floor with the Macintosh. My
pal.
And Mahler is on the radio, he glides with such ease, taking big
chances, one needs that sometimes. Then he sends in the long power rises.
Thank you, Mahler, I borrow from you and can never pay you back.
I smoke too much, I drink too much but I can't write too much, it just
keeps coming and I call for more and it arrives and mixes with Mahler.
Sometimes I deliberately stop myself. I say, wait a moment, go to sleep or
look at your 9 cats or sit with your wife on the couch. You're either at the
track or with the Macintosh. And then I stop, put on the brakes, park the
damned thing. Some people have written that my writing has helped them go
on. It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats.
There's a small balcony here, the door is open and I can see the lights
of the cars on the Harbor Freeway south, they never stop, that roll of
lights, on and on. All those people. What are they doing? What are they
thinking? We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone
should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and
flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
Keep it going, Mahler! You've made this a wonderous night. Don't stop,
you son-of-a-bitch! Don't stop!
9/11/91 1:20 AM
I should cut my toenails. My feet have been hurting me for a couple of
weeks. I know it's the toenails yet I can't find time to cut them. I am
always fighting for the minute, I have time for nothing. Of course, if I
could stay away from the racetrack I would have plenty of time. But my whole
life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to
do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.
I should make a giant effort to cut my toenails tonight. Yes, I know
there are people dying of cancer, there are people sleeping in the streets
in cardboard boxes and I babble about cutting my toenails. Still, I am
probably closer to reality than some slug who watches 162 baseball games a
year. I've been in my hell, I'm still in my hell, don't feel superior. The
fact that I am alive and 71 years old and babbling about my toenails, that's
miracle enough for me.
I've been reading the philosophers. They are really strange, funny wild
guys, gamblers. Descartes came along and saind, there fellows have been
talking pure crap. He said that mathematics was model for absolute self-
evident truth. Mechanism. Then Hume came along with his attack on the
validity of scientific causal knowledge. And then came Kierkegaard: "I stick
my finger into existence -- it smells of nothing. Where am I?" And then
along came Sartre who claimed that existence was absurd. I love there boys.
They rock the world. Didn't they headaches thinking that way? Didn't a rush
of blackness roar between their teeth? When you take men like these and
stack them againts the men I see walking along the street or eating in cafes
or appearing at tv screen the difference is so great that something wrenches
inside of me, kicking me in the gut.
I probably won't do the toenails tonight. I'm not crazy but I'm not
sane either. No, maybe I'm crazy. Anyway, today, when daylight comes and 2
p.m. arrives it ill be the first race of the last day of racing at Del Mar.
I played every day, every race. I think I'll sleep now, my razor nails
slashing at the good sheets. Good night.
9/12/91 11:19 PM
No horses today. I feel strangely normal. I know why Hemingway needed
the bullfights, it framed the picture for him, it reminded him of where it
was and what it was. Sometimes we forget, paying gas bills, getting oil
changes, etc. Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody else's.
It shocks them, terrifies them. It's like a great surprise. Hell, it should
never be. I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk
to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready."
There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn
about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives
people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own
lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They
concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their
mindes are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow
country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others
think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they
talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and
they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. Thare's nothing left to
die.
You see, I need the horses, I lose my sense of humor. One thing death
can't stand is for you to laugh at it. Trues laughter knocks the logest odds
right on thir ass. I haven't laughed for 3 or 4 weeks. Something is eating
me alive. I scratch myself, twist, look about, trying to find it. The Hunter
is clever. Your can't see him. Or her.
This computer must go back into the shop. Won't bless you with the
details. Some day I will know more about computers than the computers
themselves. But right now this machine has me by the balls.
There are two editors I know who take great offense at computers. I
have these two letters and they rail against the computer. I was very
surprised about the bitterness in the letters. And the childishness. I am
aware that the computer can't do the writing for me. If it could, I wouldn't
want it. They both just went on too long. The inference being that the
computer wasn't good for the soul. Well, few things are. But I'm for
convenience, if I can write twice as much and the quality remains the same,
then I prefer the computer. Writing is when I fly, writing is when I start
fires. Writing is when I take death out of my left pocket, throw him against
the wall and catch him as he bounces back.
These guys think you always have to be on the cross and bleeding in
order to have soul. They want you half mad, dribbling down your shirt front.
I've had enough of the cross, my tak is full of that. If I can stay off the
cross, I still have plenty to run on. Too much. Let them get on the cross,
I'll congratulate them. But pain doesn't create writing, a writer does.
Anyway, back into the shop with this and when these two editors see my
work typewritten again they'll think, ah, Bukowski has his soul back. This
stuff reads much better.
Ah, well, what would we do without our editors. Or better yet, what
would they do without us?
9/13/91 5:25 PM
The track is closed. There is no inter-track wagering with Pomona,
damned if I'm going to make that damned hot drive. I'll probably end up with
night racing at Los Alamitos. The computer is out of the shop once more but
it no longer corrects my spelling. I've hacked at this machine trying to dig
it out. Will probably have to phone the shop will ask the fellow, "What do I
do now?" And he will say something like, "You have to transfer it from your
main disk to your hard disk." I'll probably end up erasing everything. The
typewriter sits behind me and says, "Look, I'm still here."
There are night when this room is the only place want to be. Yet I get
up here and I'm an empty husk. I know I could raise hell and dance words on
this screen if I got drunk but I have to pick up Linda's sister at the
airport tomorrow afternoon. She's coming for a visit. She's changed her name
from Robin to Jharra. As women get older, they change their names. Many do,
I mean. Suppose a man did that? Can you see me phoning somebody:
"Hey, Mike, this is Tulip."
"Who?"
"Tulip. Formerly Charles, but now Tulip. I will no longer answer to
Charles."
"Fuck you, Tulip."
Mike hangs up...
Getting old is very odd. The main thing is that you have to keep
telling yourself, I'm old, I'm old. You see yourself in the mirror as you
descend the escalator but you don't look directly at the mirror, you give a
little side glance, a wary smile. You don't look that bad, you look
something like a drusty candle. Too bad, screw the gods, screw the game. You
should have been dead 35 years ago. This is a little extra scenery, more
peeks at the horror show. The older a writer is the better he should write,
he's seen more, endured more, he's closer to death. The page, that white
page, 8 and 1/2 by 11. The gamble remains. Then you always remember a thing
or two one of the other boys have said. Jeffers: "Be angry at the sun." All
too wonderful. Or Sartre: "Hell is other peopple." Right on and through the
target. I'm never alone. The best thing is to be alone but not quite alone.
To my right, the radio works hard bringing me more great classical
music. I listen to 3 or 4 hours of this a night as I am doing other things,
or nothing. It's my drug, it washes the crap of the day right out of me. The
classical composers can do this for me. The poets, the novelists, the short
story writes can't. A gang of fakes. What is it? Writers are the most
difficult to take, on the page or in person. And they are worse in person
than on the page and that's pretty bad. Why do we say "pretty bad"? Why not
"ugly bad"? Well, writers are pretty bad and ugly bad. And we love to bitch
about one another. Look at me.
About writing, I write basically the same way now as I did 50 years
ago, maybe a little better but not much. Why did I have to reach the age of
51 I could pay the rent with my writing? I mean, if I'm right and my writing
is no different, what took so long? Did I have to wait for the world to
catch up with me? And now, if it has, where am I now? In bad shape, that's
what. But I don't think I've gotten the fat head from any luck that I've
had. Does a fathead ever realize that he's one? But I'm far from contented.
Something is in me that I can't control. I can never drive my car over a
bridge without thinking of suicide. I can never look at a lake or an ocean
without thinking of suicide. I mean, I won't linger on it all. But it will
flash on me: SUICIDE. Like a light going on. In the darkness. That there is
an out helps you stay in. Get it? Otherwise, it could only be madness. And
that's no fun, buddy. And whenever I get off a good poem, that's another
crutch to keep me going. I don't know about other people, but when I bend
over to put on my shoes in the morning, I think, Christ- oh-mighty, now
what? I'm screwed by life, we don't get along. I have to takй little bites
out of it, not the whole thing. It's like swallowing buckets of shit. I am
never surprised that the madhouses and jails are full and that the streets
are full. I like to look at my cats, they chill me out. They make me feel
all right. Don't put me in a roomful of humans, though. Don't ever do that.
Especially on a holiday. Don't do it.
I heard they found my first wife dead in India and nobody in her family
wanted the body. poor girl. She had a crippled neck that couldn't turn.
Other than that she was perfectly beautiful. She divorced me and she should
have. I wasn't kind enough or big enough to save her.
9/21/91 9:27 PM
Went to a movie premiere last night. Red carpet. Flash bulbs. Party
afterwards. Didn't hear much said. Too crowded. Too hot. First party I got
cornered at the bar by a young guy with very round eyes who never blinked. I
don't know what he was on. Or off. Quite a few people like that about. The
young guy had 3 rather nice looking ladies with him and he kept telling me
how they liked to suck cock. The ladies just smiled and said, "Oh, yes!" And
the whole conversation went on like that. On and on like that. I kept trying
to figure out whether it was true or whether I was being put on. But after a
while I just got weary of it. But the young guy just kept pressing me,
talking on about how the girls liked to suck cock. His face kept getting
closer and he kept on and on. Finally, I reached out and grabbed him by his
shirt front, hard, and held like that and I said, "Listen, it wouldn't look
good if a 71-year- old guy beat the shit out of you in front of all these
people, would it?" Then I let go of him. He walked around the other end of
bar, followed by his ladies. Damned if I could make any sense out of it.
I guess I'm too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a
few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets,
gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This can't be helped. But I feel like
kicking myself in the ass when I go to gatherings, even if the drinks are
free. It never works for me. I've got enough clay to play with. People empty
me. I have to get away to refill. I'm what's best for me, sitting here
slouched, smoking a beedie and watching this creen flash the words. Seldom
do you meet a rare or interesting person. It's more than galling, it's a
fucking constant shock. It's making a god-damned grouch out of me. Anybody
can be a god-damned grouch and most are. Help!
I just need a good night's sleep. But first, never a damned thing to
read. After you've read a certain amount of decent literature, there just
isn't any more. We have to write it ourselves. There's no juice in the air.
But I expect to wake up in the morning. And the morning I don't, fine. I
won't need any more window screeens, razor blades, Racing Forms or message-
taking machines. The phone rings mostly for my wife, anyhow. The Bells do
not Toll for Me.
Sleep, sleep. I sleep on my stomach. Old habit. I've lived with too
many crazy women. Got to protect the privates. Too bad that young guy didn't
challenge me. I was in a mood to kick ass. Would have cheered me up
immensely. Good night.
9/25/91 12:28 AM
Hot stupid night, the cats are miserable, caught in all that fur, they
look at me and I can't do anything. Linda off to a couple of places. She
needs things to do, people to talk to. It's all right with me but she tends
to drink and must drive home. I'm not good company, talking is not my idea
of anything at all. I don't want to exchange ideas -- or souls. I'm just a
block of stone unto myself. I want to stay within that block, unmolested. It
was that way from the beginning. I resisted my parents, then I resisted
school, then I resisted becoming a decent citizen. It's like whatever I was,
was there from the beginning. I didn't want anybody tinkering with that. I
still don't.
I think that people who keep notebooks and jot down their thougts are
jerk-offs. I am only doing this because somebody suggested I do it, so you
see, I'm not even an original jerk- off. But this somehow makes it easier. I
just let it roll. Like a hot turd down a hill.
I don't know what to do about the racetrack. I think it's burning out
for me. I was standing around at Hollywood Park today, inter-track betting,
13 races from Fairplex Park. After the 7th race I am $72 ahead. So? Will it
take some of those white hairs out of my eyebrows? Will it make and opera
singer out of me? What do I want? I am beating a difficult game, I am
beating an 18 take. I do that quite a bit. I do that quite a bit. So, it
mustn't be too difficult. What do I want? I really don't care if there is
God or not. It doesn't interest me. So, what the hell is it about 18
percent?
I look over and see the same guy talking. He stands in the same spot
every day talking to this person or that or to a couple of people. He holds
the Form and talks about the horses. How dreary! What am I doing here?
I leave. I walk down to parking, get in my car and drive off. It's only
4 p.m. How nice. I drive along. Others drive along. We are snails crawling
on a leaf.
Then I get into the driveway, park, get out. There's a message from
Linda taped to the phone. I check the mail. Gas bill. And a large envelope
full of poems. All printed on separate pieces of paper. Women talking about
their periods, about their tits and breasts and about getting fucked.
Utterly dull. I dump it in the trash.
The I take a dump. Feel better. Take off my clothes and step into the
pool. Ice water. But great. I walk along toward the deep end of the pool,
the water rising inch by inch, chilling me. Then I plunge below the water.
It's restful. The world doesn't know where I am. I come up, swim to the far
edge, find the ledge, sit there. It must be about the 9th or 10th race. The
horses are stil running. I plunge of my age hanging onto me like a leech.
Still, it's o.k. I should have been dead 40 years ago. I rise to the top,
swim to the far edge, get out.
That was a long time ago. I'm up here now with the Macintosh IIsi. And
this is about all there is for now. I think I'll sleep. Rest up for the
track tomorrow.
9/26/91 12:16 AM
Got the proofs the new book today. Poetry. Martin says it will run to
about 350 pages. I think the poems hold up. Uphold. I am an old train
steaming down the track.
Took me a couple of hours to read. I've had some practice at doing this
thing. The lines roll free and say about what I want them to say. Now the
main influence on myself is myself.
As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes
them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a
trap. If you are in one nad you don't realize it, then you're finished. I
believe that I have recognized most of my traps and I have written about
them. Of course, all of writing doesn't consist of writing about traps.
There are other things. Yet, some might say that life is a trap. Writing can
trap. Some writers tend to write what has pleased their readers in the past.
Then they are finished. Most writers' creative span is short. They hear the
accolades and believe them. There is only one final judge of writing and
that is the writer. When he is swayed by the critics, the editors, the
publishers, the readers, then he's finished. And, of course, when he's
swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with
the turds.
Each new line is a beginning and has nothing to do with any lines which
preceeded it. We all start new each time. And, of course, it isn't all that
holy either. The world can live much easier without writing than without
plumbing. And some places in the world have very little of either. Of
course, I'd rather live without plumbing but I'm sick.
There's nothing to stop a man from writing unless that man stops
himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will. Rejection and
ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longer he is held back the
stronger he will become, like a mass of rising water against a dam. There is
no losing in writing, it will make your toes laugh as you sleep, it will
make you stride like a tiger, it will fire the eye and put you face to face
with Death. You will die a fighter, you will be honored in hell. The luck of
the word. Go with it, send it. Be the Clown in the Darkness. It's funny.
It's funny. One more new line...
9/26/91 11:36 PM
A tittle for the new book. Sat out at the track trying to think of one.
That's one place where one can't think. It sucks the brains and spirit out
of you. A draining blow job, that's what that place is. And I haven't been
sleeping nights. Something is sapping the energy out of me.
Saw the lonely one at the track today. "How ya doin' Charles?" "O.k.,"
I told him, then drifted off. He wants camaraderie. He wants to talk about
things. Horses. You don't talk about horses. That's the LAST thing you talk
about. A few races went by and then I caught him looking at me over an
automatic betting machine. Poor guy. I went outside and sat down and a cop
started talking to me. Well, they call them security men. "They're moving
the toteboard," he said. "Yes," I said. They had dug the thing out of the
ground and were moving it further west. Well, it put men to work. I liked to
see men working. I hand an idea that the security man was talking to me to
find out if I was crazy or not. He probably wasn't But I got the idea. I let
ideas jump me like that. I scratched my belly and pretended that I was a
good old guy. "They're going to put the lakes back in," I said. "Yeah," he
said. "This place used to be called the Track of the Lakes and Flowers." "Is
that so?" he said. "Yeah," I told him, "they used to have a Goose Girl
contest. They'd choose a goose girl and she went out in a boat and rowed
around among the geese. Real boring job." "Yeah," said the cop. He just
stood there. I stood up. "Well," I said, "I'm going to get a coffee. Take it
easy." "Sure," he said, "pick some winners." "You too, man," I said. Then I
walked away.
A title. My mind was blank. It was getting chilly. Being on old fart, I
thought it might be best to get my jacket. I took the escalator down from
the 4th floor. Who invented the escalator? Moving steps. Now, talk about
crazy. People going up and down escalators, elevators, driving cars, having
garage door that open at the touch of a button. Then they go to health clubs
to work the fat off. In 4,000 years we won't have any legs, we'll wiggle
along on our assholes, or maybe we'll just roll along like tumbleweeds. Each
species destroys itself. What killed the dinosaurs was that they ate
everything around and the had to eat each other and that brought it down to
one and the son-of-a-bitch just starved to death.
I got down to my car, got my jacket, put it on, took the escalator back
up. That made me feel more like a playboy, a hustler-leaving the place and
then coming back. I felt as if I had consulted some special secret source.
Well, I played out the card, had some luck. By the 13th race it was
dark and beginning to rain. I bet ten minutes early and left. Traffic was
cautious. Rain scares the hell out of L.A. drivers. I got on the freeway
behind the mass of red taillights. I didn't turn on the radio. I wanted
silence. A title ran through my brain: Bible for the Disenchanted. No, no
good. I remebered some of the best titles. I mean, ot other writers. Bow
Down to Wood and Stone. Great title, lousy writer. Notes from the
Underground. Great title. Great writer. Also, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Carson McCullers, a very underrated writer. Of all my dozens of titles the
one I liked best was Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts.
But I blew that one away on a little mimeo pamphled. Too bad.
Then the freeway stopped and I just sat there. No title. My head was
empty. I felt like sleeping for a week. I was glad I had put the trash cans
out. I was tired. Now I didn't have to do it. Trash cans. One night I had
slept, drunk, on top of trash cans. New York City. I was awakened by a big
rat sitting on my belly. We both, at once, leaped about 3 feet into the air.
I was trying to be a writer. Now I was supposed to be one and I couldn't
think of a title. I was a fake. Traffic began to move and I followed it
along. Nobody knew who anybody else was and it was great. Then a great flash
of lightning crashed above the freeway and for the first time that day I
felt pretty good.
9/30/91 11:36 PM
So, after some days of blank-braining it, I awakened this morning and
there was the title, it had come to me in my sleep: The Last Night of the
Earth Poems. It fit the content, poems of finality, sickness and death.
Mixed with others, of course. Even some humor. But the title works for this
book and this time. Once you a title, it locks everything in, the poems find
their order. And I like the title. If I saw a book with a title like that I
would pick it up and try to read a few pages. Some titles exaggerate to
attrat attention. They don't work because the lie doesn't work.
Well, I'm done with that. Now what? Back to the novel and more poems.
Whatever happened to the short story? It has left me. Here's a reason but I
don't know what it is. If I worked at it I could find the reason but working
at it wouldn't help anything. I mean, that time could be used for the novel
or the poem. Or to cut my toenails.
You know, somebody ought to invent a decent toenail clipper. I'm sure
it can be done. The ones they give us to work with are really awkward and
disheartening. I read where a guy on skid row tried to hold up a liquor
store with a pair of toenail clippers. It didn't work there either. How did
Dostoevsky cut his toenails? Van Gogh? Beethoven? Did they? I don't believe
it. I used to let Linda do mine. She did an excellent job -- only now and
then she got a little piece of flesh. Me, I've had enough pain. Of any kind.
I know that I'm going to die soon and it seems very strange to me. I'm
selfish, I'd just like to keep my ass writting more words. It puts the glow
in me, tosses me through golden air. But really, how much longer can I go
on? It's not right to keep going on. Hell, death is the gasoline in the tank
anyhow. We need it. I need it. You need it. We trash up the place if we stay
too long.
Strangest thing, I think, after people die is looking at their shoes.
That's the saddest thing. It's as if most of their personality remains in
their shoes. The clothes, no. It's in who has just died. You put their hat,
their gloves and their shoes on the bed and look at them and you'll go
crazy. Don't do it. Anyhow, now they know something that you don't. Maybe.
Last day of racing today. I played inter-track wagering, at Hollywood
Park, betting Fairplex Park. Bet all 13 races. Had a lucky day. Came out
totally refreshed and strong. Wasn't even bored out there today. Felt
jaunty, in touch. When you're up, it's great. You notice things. Like
driving back, you notice steering wheel on your car. The instrument panel.
You feel like you're in a goddamned space ship. You weave in and out of
traffic, neatly, not rudely -- working distances and speeds. Stupid stuff.
But not today. You're up and you stay up. How odd. But you don't fight it.
Because you know it won't last. Off day tomorrow. Oaktree Meet, Oct. 2. The
meets go around and around, thousands of horses running. As sensible as the
tides, a part of them.
Even caught the cop car tailing me on the Harbor freeway south. In
time. I slowed it to 60. Suddenly, he dropped way back. I held it at 60.
He'd almost clocked me at 75. They hate Acuras. I stayed at 60. For 5
minutes. He roared past me doing a good 90. Bye, bye friend. I hate getting
a ticket like anybody else. You have to keep using the rear view mirror.
It's simple. But you're bound to get tagged finally. And when you do, be
glad you're not drunk or packing drugs. If you're not. Anyhow, the title's
in.
And now I'm up here with the Macintosh and there is a wonderous space
before me. Terrible music on the radio but you can't expect a 100 percent
day. If you get 51, you've won. Today was a 97.
I see where Mailer has written a huge new novel about the CIA and etc.
Norman is a professional writer. He asked my wife once, "Hank doesn't like
my writing, does he?" Norman, few writers like other writers' works. The
only time they like them is when they are dead or if they have been for a
long time. Writers only like to sniff their own turds. I am one of those. I
don't even like to talk to writers, look at them or worse, listen to them.
And the worst is to drink with them, they slobber all over themselves,
really look piteous, look like they are serching for the wing of the mother.
I'd rather think about death than about writers. Far more pleasant.
I'm going to turn this radio off. The composers also sometimes screw it
up. If I had to talk to somebody I think I'd much prefer a computer
repairman or a mortician. With or without drinking. Preferably with.
10/2/91 11:03 PM
Death comes to those who wait and to those who don't. Burning day
today, burning dumb day. Came out of the post office and my car wouldn't
kick over. Well, I am a decent citizen. I belong to the Auto Club. So, I
needed a telephone. Forty years ago telephones were everywhere. Telephones
and clocks. You could always look somewhere and see what time it was. No
more. No more free time. And public telephones are vanishing.
I went by instinct. I went into the post office, took a stairway down
and there in a dark corner, all alone and unannounced was a telephone. A
sticky dirty dark telephone. There was not another within two miles. I knew
how to work a telephone. Maybe. Information. The operator's voice came
through and I felt saved. It was a calm and boring voice and asked what city
I wanted. I named the city and the Auto Club. (You have to know how to do
all the little things and you have to do them over and over again or you are
dead. Dead in the streets. Unattended, unwanted.) The lady gave me a number
but it was a wrong number. For the business office. Then I got he garage. A
macho voice, cool, weary yet combative. Wonderful I gave him the info. "30
minutes," he said.
I went back to the car, opened a letter. It was a poem. Christ. It was
about me. And him. We had met, it seemed, twice, about 15 years ago. He had
also published me in his magazine. I was a great poet, he said, but I drank.
And had lived a miserable down-and-out life. Now yong poets were drinking
and living miserable and down-and-out because they thought that was the way
to make it. Also, I had attacked other people in my poems, including him.
And I had imagined that he had written unflattering poems about me. Not
true. He was really a nice person, he said he had published many other poets
in his magazine for 15 years. And I was not a nice person. I was a great
writer but not a nice person. And he never would have ever "paled" around
with me. That's what he wrote: "paled." And he kept spelling "you're" as
"your." He wasn't a good speller.
It was hot in the car. It was 100 degrees, the hottest Oct. first since
1906.
I wasn't going to respond to his letter. He would write again.
Another letter from an agent, enclosing the work of a writer. I
glanced. Bad stuff. Of course. "If you have any suggestions on his writing
or any publishing leads, we would much appreciate.."
Another letter from a lady thanking me for sending her husband a few
lines and a drawing at ther suggestion, that it made him very happy. But now
they were divorced and she was frelancing it and could she come by and
interview me?
Twice a week I get requests for interviews. There's just not that much
to talk about. There are plenty of things to write about but not to talk
about.
I remember once, in the old days, some German journalist was
interviewing me. I had poured wine into him and had talked for 4 hours.
After that, he had leaned forward drunkenly and said, "I am no interviewer.
I just wanted an excuse to see you.."
I tossed the mail to the side and sat waiting. Then I saw the tow
truck. A young smiling fellow. Nice boy. Sure.
"HEY BABY!" I yelled, "OVER HERE!"
He backed it around and I got out and told him the problem.
"Tow me into the Acura garage," I told him.
"Your warranty still good on that car?" he asked.
He knew damn well it wasn't. It was 1991 and I was driving a 1989.
"Doesn't matter," I said, "tow me to the Acura dealer."
"Take them a long time to fix it, maybe a week."
"Hell no, they are very fast."
"Listen," said the boy, "we have our own garage. We can take it down
there, maybe fix it today. If not, we'll write you up and give you a call at
first opportunity."
Right there I visualized my car at their garage for a week. To be told
that I needed a new camshaft. Or my cylinder heads ground.
"Tow me to Acura," I said.
"Wait," said the boy, "I gotta call my boss first."
I waited. He came back.
"He said to jump start you."
"What?"
"Jump start."
"All right, let's do it."
I got in my car let it roll to the back of his truck. He got out the
snakes and it started right up. I signed the papers and he drove off and I
drove off...
Then I decided to drop the car off at the corner garage. "We know you.
You been coming here for years," said the manager.
"Good," I said, then smiled, "so don't screw me."
He just looked at me.
"Give us 45 minutes."
"All right."
"You need a ride?"
"Sure."
He pointed. "He'll take you."
Nice boy standing there. We walked to his car. I gave him the
directions. We drove up the hill.
"You still making movies?" he asked me.
I was a celebrity, you see.
"No," I said, "fuck Hollywood."
He didn't understand that.
"Stop here," I said.
"Oh, that's a big house."
"I just work there," I said.
It was true.
I got out. Gave him 2 dollars. He prostested but took them.
I walked up the driveway. The cats were sprawled about, pooped. In my
next life I want to be a cat. To sleep 20 hours a day and wait to be fed. To
sit around licking my ass. Humans are too miserable and angry and single-
minded.
I walked up and sat at the computer. It's my new consoler. My writing
has doubled in power and output since I have gotten it. It's a magic thing.
I sit in front of it like most people sit in front of their tv sets.
"It's only a glorified typewriter," my son-in-law told me once.
But he isn't a writer. He doesn't know what it is when words bite into
space, flash into light, when the thoughts that come into the head can be
followed at once by words, which encourages more thoughts and more words to
follow. With a typewriter it's like walking through mud. With a computer,
it's ice skating. It's a blazing blast. Of course, if there's nothing inside
you, it doesn't matter. And then there's the clean-up work, the corrections.
Hell, I used to have to write everyhing twice. The first time to get it down
and the second time to correct the errors and fuckups. This way, it's one
run for the fun, the glory and the escape.
I wonder what the next step will be after the computer? You'll probably
just press your fingers to your temples and out will come this mass of
perfect wordage. Of course, you'll have to fill up before you start but
there will always be some lucky ones who can do that. Let's hope.
The phone rang.
"It's the battery," he said, "you needed a new battery."
"Suppose I can't pay?"
"Then we'll hold your spare tire."
"Be down soon."
And as soon as I started down the hill I heard my elderly neighbor. He
was yelling at me. I climbed his steps. He was dressed in his pajama pants
and and old gray sweatshirt. I walked up and shook his hand.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm your neighbor. Been there for ten years."
"I'm 96," he said.
"I know it, Charley."
"God won't take me because He's afraid I'll take his job."
"You could."
"Could take the Devil's job too."
"You could."
"How old are you?"
"71."
"71?"
"Yes."
"That's old too."
"Oh, I know it, Charley."
We shook hands and I went back down his steps and then down the hill,
passing the tired plants, the tired houses.
I was on my way to the gas station.
Just another day kicked in the ass.
10/3/91 11:56 PM
Today was the second day of inter-track wagering. Where the live horses
ran at Oak Tree there were only 7,000 people. Many people don't want to make
that long drive to Arcadia. For those living in the south part of town, it
means taking hte Harbor Freeway, then the Pasadena Freeway and then after
that more driving along surface streets to get the track. It's a long hot
drive, coming and going. I always came in from that drive totaly exhausted.
A small-time trainer phoned me. "There was nobody out there. It's the
end. I need a new trade. Think I'll get a word processor and become a
writer. I'll write about you..."
His voice was on the message machine. I phoned him back and
congratulated him for coming in 2nd on a 6-to-1 shot. But he was down.
"The small trainer is finished. This is the end," he said.
Well, we'll see what they draw tomorrow. Friday. Probably a thousand
more. It's only inter-track wagering, it's the economy. Things are worse
than the government or the press will admit. Those who are still alive in
the economy are keeping quiet about it. I'd have to guess that the biggest
business going is the sale of drugs. Hell, take that away and almost all the
young would be unemployed. Me, I'm still making it as a writer but that
could be shot through the head overnight. Well, I still have my old age
pension: $943.00 a month. They gave me that when I turned 70. But that can
die too. Imagine all the old wandering the streets without their pensions.
Don't discount it. The national debt can pull us under like a giant octopus.
People will be sleeping in the graveyards. At the same time, there is a
crust of living rich on top of the rot. Isn't it astonishing? Some people
have so damn much money they don't even know how much they have. And I'm
talking millions. And look at Hollywood, turning out 60 million dollar
movies, as idiotic as the poor fools who go to see them. The rich are still
there, they've always found a way to milk the system.
I remember when the racetracks were jammed wtih people, shoulder to
shoulder, ass to ass, sweating, screaming, pushing toward the full bars. It
was a good time. Have a big day, you'd both be drinking and laughing. We
thought those days (and night) would never end. And why should they? Crap
games in the parking lots. Fist fights. Bravcado and glory. Electricity.
Hell, life was good, life was funny. All us guys were men, we'd take no shit
from anybody. And, frankly, it felt good. Booze and a roll in the hay. And
plenty of bars, full bars. No tv sets. You talked and got into trouble. If
you got picked up for being drunk in the streets they only locked you up
overnight to dry out. You lost jobs and found other jobs. No use hanging
around the same place. What a time. What a life. Crazy things always
happening, followed by more crazy things.
Now, it has simmered away. Seven thousand people at a major racetrack
on a sunny afternnon. Nobody at the bar. Just the lonely barkeep holding a
towel. Where are the people? There are more people than ever but where are
they? Standing on a corner, sitting in a room. Bush might get reelected
because he won an easy war. But he didn't do crap for the economy. You never
even know if your bank will openin the morning. I don't mean to sing the
blues. But you know, in the 1930's at least everybody knew where they were.
Now, it's a game of mirrors. And nobody is quite sure what is holding it
together. Or who they are really working for. If they are working.
Damn, I've got to get off this. Nobody else seems to be bitching about
the state of affairs. Or, if the are, they are in a place where nobody can
hear them.
And I sit around writing poems, a novel, I can't help it, I can't do
anything else.
I was poor for 60 years. now I am neither rich nor poor.
At the track they are going to start laying off people at the
concession stands, the parking lots and in the business office and in
maintenance. Purses for races will decline. Smaller fields. Less jocks. A
lot less laughter. Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at
itself. Moving toward 2,000 A.D. I'll be dead and out of here. Leaving my
little stack of books. Seven thousand at the track. Seven thousand. I can't
believe it. The Sierra Madres weep in the smog. When the horses no longer
run the sky will fall down, flat, wide, ponderous, crushing everything.
Glassware won the 9th, paid $9.00. I had a ten on it.
10/9/91 12:07 PM
Computer class was a kick for sore ballls. You pick it up inch by inch
and try to get the totality. The problem is that the books say one way and
some people say the other. The terminology slowly becomes understandable.
The computer only does, it doesn't know. You can confuse it and it can turn
on you. It's up to you to get along with it. Still, the computer can go
crazy and do odd and strange things. It catches viruses, gets shorts, bombs
out, etc. Somehow, tonight, I feel that the less said about the computer,
the better.
I wonder whatever happened to that crazy French reporter who
interviewed me in Paris so long ago? The one who drank whiskey the way most
men drink beer? And he got brighter and more interesting as the bottles
8/28/91 11:28 PM
Good day at the track, damn near swept the card.
Yet it gets boring out there, even when you're winning. It's the minute
wait between races, your life leaking out into space. The people look gray
out there, walked through. And I'm there with them. But where else could I
go? An Art Museum? Imagine staying home all day and playing at writer? I
could wear a little scarf. I remember this poet who used to come by on the
bum. Buttons off his shirt, puke on his pants, hair in eyes, shoelaces
undone, but he had this long scarf which he kept very clean. That signaled
he was a poet. His writing? Well, forget it...
Came in, swam in the pool, then went to the spa. My soul is in danger.
Always has been.
Was sitting on the couch with Linda, the good dark night descending,
when there was a knock on the door. Linda got it.
"Better come here, Hank..."
I walked to the door, barefooted, in my robe. A young blond guy, a
young fat girl and a medium sized girl.
"They want your autograph..."
"I don't see people," I told them.
"We just want your autograph," said the blond guy, "then we promise
never to come back."
Then he started giggling, and holding his head. The girls just stared.
"But none of you have a pen or even a piece of paper I said.
"Oh," said the blond kid, taking his hands from his head, "We'll come
back again with a book! Myabe at a more proper time..."
Tha bathrobe. The bare feet. Maybe the kid thought i was eccentric.
Maybe I was.
"Don't come in the morning," I told them.
I saw them begin to walk off and I closed the door...
Now I'm up here writing about them. You've got to be a little hard with
them or they'll swarm you. I've had some horrible expreriences blocking that
door. So many of them think that somehow you'll invite them in and drink
with them all night. I prefer to drink alone. A writer owes nothing except
to his writing. He owes nothing to the reader except the availability of the
printed page. And worse, many of the doorknockers are not even readers.
They've just heard something. The reader and the best human is the one who
rewards me with his or her absence.
8/29/91 10:55 PM
Slow at the track today, my damned life dangling on the hook. I am
there every day. I don't see anybody else out there every day except the
employees. I probably have some malady. Saroyan lost his ass at the track,
Fante at poker, Dostoevsky at the weel. And it's really not a matter of the
money unless you run out of it. I had a gambler friend once who said, "I
don't care if I win or lose, I just want to gamble." I have more respect for
the money. I've had very little of it most of my life. I know what a park
bench is, and the landlord's knock. There are only two things wrong with
money: too much or too little.
I suppose there's always something out there we want to torment
ourselves with. And at the track you get the feel of the other people, the
desperate darkness, and how easy they toss it in and quit. The racetrack
crowd is the world brought down to size, life grinding against death and
losing. Nobody wins finally, we are just seeking a reprieve, a moment out of
the glare. (shit, the lighted end of my cigarette just hit one of my fingers
as I was musing on this purposelessness. That woke me up, brought me out of
this Sartre state!) Hell, we need humor, we need to laugh. I used to laugh
more, I used to do everything more, except write. Now, I am writing and
writing and writing, the older I get the more I write, dancing with death.
Good show. And I think the stuff is all right. One day they'll say,
"Bukowski is dead," and then I will be truly discovered and hung from
stinking bright lampposts. So what? Immortality is the stupid invention of
the living. You see what the racetracks does? It makes the lines roll.
Lightning and luck. The last bluebird singing. Anything I say sounds fine
because I gamble when I write. Too many are too careful. They study, they
teach and they fail. Convention strips them of their fire.
I feel better now, up here on this second floor with the Macintosh. My
pal.
And Mahler is on the radio, he glides with such ease, taking big
chances, one needs that sometimes. Then he sends in the long power rises.
Thank you, Mahler, I borrow from you and can never pay you back.
I smoke too much, I drink too much but I can't write too much, it just
keeps coming and I call for more and it arrives and mixes with Mahler.
Sometimes I deliberately stop myself. I say, wait a moment, go to sleep or
look at your 9 cats or sit with your wife on the couch. You're either at the
track or with the Macintosh. And then I stop, put on the brakes, park the
damned thing. Some people have written that my writing has helped them go
on. It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats.
There's a small balcony here, the door is open and I can see the lights
of the cars on the Harbor Freeway south, they never stop, that roll of
lights, on and on. All those people. What are they doing? What are they
thinking? We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone
should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and
flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
Keep it going, Mahler! You've made this a wonderous night. Don't stop,
you son-of-a-bitch! Don't stop!
9/11/91 1:20 AM
I should cut my toenails. My feet have been hurting me for a couple of
weeks. I know it's the toenails yet I can't find time to cut them. I am
always fighting for the minute, I have time for nothing. Of course, if I
could stay away from the racetrack I would have plenty of time. But my whole
life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to
do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.
I should make a giant effort to cut my toenails tonight. Yes, I know
there are people dying of cancer, there are people sleeping in the streets
in cardboard boxes and I babble about cutting my toenails. Still, I am
probably closer to reality than some slug who watches 162 baseball games a
year. I've been in my hell, I'm still in my hell, don't feel superior. The
fact that I am alive and 71 years old and babbling about my toenails, that's
miracle enough for me.
I've been reading the philosophers. They are really strange, funny wild
guys, gamblers. Descartes came along and saind, there fellows have been
talking pure crap. He said that mathematics was model for absolute self-
evident truth. Mechanism. Then Hume came along with his attack on the
validity of scientific causal knowledge. And then came Kierkegaard: "I stick
my finger into existence -- it smells of nothing. Where am I?" And then
along came Sartre who claimed that existence was absurd. I love there boys.
They rock the world. Didn't they headaches thinking that way? Didn't a rush
of blackness roar between their teeth? When you take men like these and
stack them againts the men I see walking along the street or eating in cafes
or appearing at tv screen the difference is so great that something wrenches
inside of me, kicking me in the gut.
I probably won't do the toenails tonight. I'm not crazy but I'm not
sane either. No, maybe I'm crazy. Anyway, today, when daylight comes and 2
p.m. arrives it ill be the first race of the last day of racing at Del Mar.
I played every day, every race. I think I'll sleep now, my razor nails
slashing at the good sheets. Good night.
9/12/91 11:19 PM
No horses today. I feel strangely normal. I know why Hemingway needed
the bullfights, it framed the picture for him, it reminded him of where it
was and what it was. Sometimes we forget, paying gas bills, getting oil
changes, etc. Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody else's.
It shocks them, terrifies them. It's like a great surprise. Hell, it should
never be. I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk
to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready."
There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn
about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives
people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own
lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They
concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their
mindes are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow
country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others
think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they
talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and
they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. Thare's nothing left to
die.
You see, I need the horses, I lose my sense of humor. One thing death
can't stand is for you to laugh at it. Trues laughter knocks the logest odds
right on thir ass. I haven't laughed for 3 or 4 weeks. Something is eating
me alive. I scratch myself, twist, look about, trying to find it. The Hunter
is clever. Your can't see him. Or her.
This computer must go back into the shop. Won't bless you with the
details. Some day I will know more about computers than the computers
themselves. But right now this machine has me by the balls.
There are two editors I know who take great offense at computers. I
have these two letters and they rail against the computer. I was very
surprised about the bitterness in the letters. And the childishness. I am
aware that the computer can't do the writing for me. If it could, I wouldn't
want it. They both just went on too long. The inference being that the
computer wasn't good for the soul. Well, few things are. But I'm for
convenience, if I can write twice as much and the quality remains the same,
then I prefer the computer. Writing is when I fly, writing is when I start
fires. Writing is when I take death out of my left pocket, throw him against
the wall and catch him as he bounces back.
These guys think you always have to be on the cross and bleeding in
order to have soul. They want you half mad, dribbling down your shirt front.
I've had enough of the cross, my tak is full of that. If I can stay off the
cross, I still have plenty to run on. Too much. Let them get on the cross,
I'll congratulate them. But pain doesn't create writing, a writer does.
Anyway, back into the shop with this and when these two editors see my
work typewritten again they'll think, ah, Bukowski has his soul back. This
stuff reads much better.
Ah, well, what would we do without our editors. Or better yet, what
would they do without us?
9/13/91 5:25 PM
The track is closed. There is no inter-track wagering with Pomona,
damned if I'm going to make that damned hot drive. I'll probably end up with
night racing at Los Alamitos. The computer is out of the shop once more but
it no longer corrects my spelling. I've hacked at this machine trying to dig
it out. Will probably have to phone the shop will ask the fellow, "What do I
do now?" And he will say something like, "You have to transfer it from your
main disk to your hard disk." I'll probably end up erasing everything. The
typewriter sits behind me and says, "Look, I'm still here."
There are night when this room is the only place want to be. Yet I get
up here and I'm an empty husk. I know I could raise hell and dance words on
this screen if I got drunk but I have to pick up Linda's sister at the
airport tomorrow afternoon. She's coming for a visit. She's changed her name
from Robin to Jharra. As women get older, they change their names. Many do,
I mean. Suppose a man did that? Can you see me phoning somebody:
"Hey, Mike, this is Tulip."
"Who?"
"Tulip. Formerly Charles, but now Tulip. I will no longer answer to
Charles."
"Fuck you, Tulip."
Mike hangs up...
Getting old is very odd. The main thing is that you have to keep
telling yourself, I'm old, I'm old. You see yourself in the mirror as you
descend the escalator but you don't look directly at the mirror, you give a
little side glance, a wary smile. You don't look that bad, you look
something like a drusty candle. Too bad, screw the gods, screw the game. You
should have been dead 35 years ago. This is a little extra scenery, more
peeks at the horror show. The older a writer is the better he should write,
he's seen more, endured more, he's closer to death. The page, that white
page, 8 and 1/2 by 11. The gamble remains. Then you always remember a thing
or two one of the other boys have said. Jeffers: "Be angry at the sun." All
too wonderful. Or Sartre: "Hell is other peopple." Right on and through the
target. I'm never alone. The best thing is to be alone but not quite alone.
To my right, the radio works hard bringing me more great classical
music. I listen to 3 or 4 hours of this a night as I am doing other things,
or nothing. It's my drug, it washes the crap of the day right out of me. The
classical composers can do this for me. The poets, the novelists, the short
story writes can't. A gang of fakes. What is it? Writers are the most
difficult to take, on the page or in person. And they are worse in person
than on the page and that's pretty bad. Why do we say "pretty bad"? Why not
"ugly bad"? Well, writers are pretty bad and ugly bad. And we love to bitch
about one another. Look at me.
About writing, I write basically the same way now as I did 50 years
ago, maybe a little better but not much. Why did I have to reach the age of
51 I could pay the rent with my writing? I mean, if I'm right and my writing
is no different, what took so long? Did I have to wait for the world to
catch up with me? And now, if it has, where am I now? In bad shape, that's
what. But I don't think I've gotten the fat head from any luck that I've
had. Does a fathead ever realize that he's one? But I'm far from contented.
Something is in me that I can't control. I can never drive my car over a
bridge without thinking of suicide. I can never look at a lake or an ocean
without thinking of suicide. I mean, I won't linger on it all. But it will
flash on me: SUICIDE. Like a light going on. In the darkness. That there is
an out helps you stay in. Get it? Otherwise, it could only be madness. And
that's no fun, buddy. And whenever I get off a good poem, that's another
crutch to keep me going. I don't know about other people, but when I bend
over to put on my shoes in the morning, I think, Christ- oh-mighty, now
what? I'm screwed by life, we don't get along. I have to takй little bites
out of it, not the whole thing. It's like swallowing buckets of shit. I am
never surprised that the madhouses and jails are full and that the streets
are full. I like to look at my cats, they chill me out. They make me feel
all right. Don't put me in a roomful of humans, though. Don't ever do that.
Especially on a holiday. Don't do it.
I heard they found my first wife dead in India and nobody in her family
wanted the body. poor girl. She had a crippled neck that couldn't turn.
Other than that she was perfectly beautiful. She divorced me and she should
have. I wasn't kind enough or big enough to save her.
9/21/91 9:27 PM
Went to a movie premiere last night. Red carpet. Flash bulbs. Party
afterwards. Didn't hear much said. Too crowded. Too hot. First party I got
cornered at the bar by a young guy with very round eyes who never blinked. I
don't know what he was on. Or off. Quite a few people like that about. The
young guy had 3 rather nice looking ladies with him and he kept telling me
how they liked to suck cock. The ladies just smiled and said, "Oh, yes!" And
the whole conversation went on like that. On and on like that. I kept trying
to figure out whether it was true or whether I was being put on. But after a
while I just got weary of it. But the young guy just kept pressing me,
talking on about how the girls liked to suck cock. His face kept getting
closer and he kept on and on. Finally, I reached out and grabbed him by his
shirt front, hard, and held like that and I said, "Listen, it wouldn't look
good if a 71-year- old guy beat the shit out of you in front of all these
people, would it?" Then I let go of him. He walked around the other end of
bar, followed by his ladies. Damned if I could make any sense out of it.
I guess I'm too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a
few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets,
gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This can't be helped. But I feel like
kicking myself in the ass when I go to gatherings, even if the drinks are
free. It never works for me. I've got enough clay to play with. People empty
me. I have to get away to refill. I'm what's best for me, sitting here
slouched, smoking a beedie and watching this creen flash the words. Seldom
do you meet a rare or interesting person. It's more than galling, it's a
fucking constant shock. It's making a god-damned grouch out of me. Anybody
can be a god-damned grouch and most are. Help!
I just need a good night's sleep. But first, never a damned thing to
read. After you've read a certain amount of decent literature, there just
isn't any more. We have to write it ourselves. There's no juice in the air.
But I expect to wake up in the morning. And the morning I don't, fine. I
won't need any more window screeens, razor blades, Racing Forms or message-
taking machines. The phone rings mostly for my wife, anyhow. The Bells do
not Toll for Me.
Sleep, sleep. I sleep on my stomach. Old habit. I've lived with too
many crazy women. Got to protect the privates. Too bad that young guy didn't
challenge me. I was in a mood to kick ass. Would have cheered me up
immensely. Good night.
9/25/91 12:28 AM
Hot stupid night, the cats are miserable, caught in all that fur, they
look at me and I can't do anything. Linda off to a couple of places. She
needs things to do, people to talk to. It's all right with me but she tends
to drink and must drive home. I'm not good company, talking is not my idea
of anything at all. I don't want to exchange ideas -- or souls. I'm just a
block of stone unto myself. I want to stay within that block, unmolested. It
was that way from the beginning. I resisted my parents, then I resisted
school, then I resisted becoming a decent citizen. It's like whatever I was,
was there from the beginning. I didn't want anybody tinkering with that. I
still don't.
I think that people who keep notebooks and jot down their thougts are
jerk-offs. I am only doing this because somebody suggested I do it, so you
see, I'm not even an original jerk- off. But this somehow makes it easier. I
just let it roll. Like a hot turd down a hill.
I don't know what to do about the racetrack. I think it's burning out
for me. I was standing around at Hollywood Park today, inter-track betting,
13 races from Fairplex Park. After the 7th race I am $72 ahead. So? Will it
take some of those white hairs out of my eyebrows? Will it make and opera
singer out of me? What do I want? I am beating a difficult game, I am
beating an 18 take. I do that quite a bit. I do that quite a bit. So, it
mustn't be too difficult. What do I want? I really don't care if there is
God or not. It doesn't interest me. So, what the hell is it about 18
percent?
I look over and see the same guy talking. He stands in the same spot
every day talking to this person or that or to a couple of people. He holds
the Form and talks about the horses. How dreary! What am I doing here?
I leave. I walk down to parking, get in my car and drive off. It's only
4 p.m. How nice. I drive along. Others drive along. We are snails crawling
on a leaf.
Then I get into the driveway, park, get out. There's a message from
Linda taped to the phone. I check the mail. Gas bill. And a large envelope
full of poems. All printed on separate pieces of paper. Women talking about
their periods, about their tits and breasts and about getting fucked.
Utterly dull. I dump it in the trash.
The I take a dump. Feel better. Take off my clothes and step into the
pool. Ice water. But great. I walk along toward the deep end of the pool,
the water rising inch by inch, chilling me. Then I plunge below the water.
It's restful. The world doesn't know where I am. I come up, swim to the far
edge, find the ledge, sit there. It must be about the 9th or 10th race. The
horses are stil running. I plunge of my age hanging onto me like a leech.
Still, it's o.k. I should have been dead 40 years ago. I rise to the top,
swim to the far edge, get out.
That was a long time ago. I'm up here now with the Macintosh IIsi. And
this is about all there is for now. I think I'll sleep. Rest up for the
track tomorrow.
9/26/91 12:16 AM
Got the proofs the new book today. Poetry. Martin says it will run to
about 350 pages. I think the poems hold up. Uphold. I am an old train
steaming down the track.
Took me a couple of hours to read. I've had some practice at doing this
thing. The lines roll free and say about what I want them to say. Now the
main influence on myself is myself.
As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes
them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a
trap. If you are in one nad you don't realize it, then you're finished. I
believe that I have recognized most of my traps and I have written about
them. Of course, all of writing doesn't consist of writing about traps.
There are other things. Yet, some might say that life is a trap. Writing can
trap. Some writers tend to write what has pleased their readers in the past.
Then they are finished. Most writers' creative span is short. They hear the
accolades and believe them. There is only one final judge of writing and
that is the writer. When he is swayed by the critics, the editors, the
publishers, the readers, then he's finished. And, of course, when he's
swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with
the turds.
Each new line is a beginning and has nothing to do with any lines which
preceeded it. We all start new each time. And, of course, it isn't all that
holy either. The world can live much easier without writing than without
plumbing. And some places in the world have very little of either. Of
course, I'd rather live without plumbing but I'm sick.
There's nothing to stop a man from writing unless that man stops
himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will. Rejection and
ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longer he is held back the
stronger he will become, like a mass of rising water against a dam. There is
no losing in writing, it will make your toes laugh as you sleep, it will
make you stride like a tiger, it will fire the eye and put you face to face
with Death. You will die a fighter, you will be honored in hell. The luck of
the word. Go with it, send it. Be the Clown in the Darkness. It's funny.
It's funny. One more new line...
9/26/91 11:36 PM
A tittle for the new book. Sat out at the track trying to think of one.
That's one place where one can't think. It sucks the brains and spirit out
of you. A draining blow job, that's what that place is. And I haven't been
sleeping nights. Something is sapping the energy out of me.
Saw the lonely one at the track today. "How ya doin' Charles?" "O.k.,"
I told him, then drifted off. He wants camaraderie. He wants to talk about
things. Horses. You don't talk about horses. That's the LAST thing you talk
about. A few races went by and then I caught him looking at me over an
automatic betting machine. Poor guy. I went outside and sat down and a cop
started talking to me. Well, they call them security men. "They're moving
the toteboard," he said. "Yes," I said. They had dug the thing out of the
ground and were moving it further west. Well, it put men to work. I liked to
see men working. I hand an idea that the security man was talking to me to
find out if I was crazy or not. He probably wasn't But I got the idea. I let
ideas jump me like that. I scratched my belly and pretended that I was a
good old guy. "They're going to put the lakes back in," I said. "Yeah," he
said. "This place used to be called the Track of the Lakes and Flowers." "Is
that so?" he said. "Yeah," I told him, "they used to have a Goose Girl
contest. They'd choose a goose girl and she went out in a boat and rowed
around among the geese. Real boring job." "Yeah," said the cop. He just
stood there. I stood up. "Well," I said, "I'm going to get a coffee. Take it
easy." "Sure," he said, "pick some winners." "You too, man," I said. Then I
walked away.
A title. My mind was blank. It was getting chilly. Being on old fart, I
thought it might be best to get my jacket. I took the escalator down from
the 4th floor. Who invented the escalator? Moving steps. Now, talk about
crazy. People going up and down escalators, elevators, driving cars, having
garage door that open at the touch of a button. Then they go to health clubs
to work the fat off. In 4,000 years we won't have any legs, we'll wiggle
along on our assholes, or maybe we'll just roll along like tumbleweeds. Each
species destroys itself. What killed the dinosaurs was that they ate
everything around and the had to eat each other and that brought it down to
one and the son-of-a-bitch just starved to death.
I got down to my car, got my jacket, put it on, took the escalator back
up. That made me feel more like a playboy, a hustler-leaving the place and
then coming back. I felt as if I had consulted some special secret source.
Well, I played out the card, had some luck. By the 13th race it was
dark and beginning to rain. I bet ten minutes early and left. Traffic was
cautious. Rain scares the hell out of L.A. drivers. I got on the freeway
behind the mass of red taillights. I didn't turn on the radio. I wanted
silence. A title ran through my brain: Bible for the Disenchanted. No, no
good. I remebered some of the best titles. I mean, ot other writers. Bow
Down to Wood and Stone. Great title, lousy writer. Notes from the
Underground. Great title. Great writer. Also, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Carson McCullers, a very underrated writer. Of all my dozens of titles the
one I liked best was Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts.
But I blew that one away on a little mimeo pamphled. Too bad.
Then the freeway stopped and I just sat there. No title. My head was
empty. I felt like sleeping for a week. I was glad I had put the trash cans
out. I was tired. Now I didn't have to do it. Trash cans. One night I had
slept, drunk, on top of trash cans. New York City. I was awakened by a big
rat sitting on my belly. We both, at once, leaped about 3 feet into the air.
I was trying to be a writer. Now I was supposed to be one and I couldn't
think of a title. I was a fake. Traffic began to move and I followed it
along. Nobody knew who anybody else was and it was great. Then a great flash
of lightning crashed above the freeway and for the first time that day I
felt pretty good.
9/30/91 11:36 PM
So, after some days of blank-braining it, I awakened this morning and
there was the title, it had come to me in my sleep: The Last Night of the
Earth Poems. It fit the content, poems of finality, sickness and death.
Mixed with others, of course. Even some humor. But the title works for this
book and this time. Once you a title, it locks everything in, the poems find
their order. And I like the title. If I saw a book with a title like that I
would pick it up and try to read a few pages. Some titles exaggerate to
attrat attention. They don't work because the lie doesn't work.
Well, I'm done with that. Now what? Back to the novel and more poems.
Whatever happened to the short story? It has left me. Here's a reason but I
don't know what it is. If I worked at it I could find the reason but working
at it wouldn't help anything. I mean, that time could be used for the novel
or the poem. Or to cut my toenails.
You know, somebody ought to invent a decent toenail clipper. I'm sure
it can be done. The ones they give us to work with are really awkward and
disheartening. I read where a guy on skid row tried to hold up a liquor
store with a pair of toenail clippers. It didn't work there either. How did
Dostoevsky cut his toenails? Van Gogh? Beethoven? Did they? I don't believe
it. I used to let Linda do mine. She did an excellent job -- only now and
then she got a little piece of flesh. Me, I've had enough pain. Of any kind.
I know that I'm going to die soon and it seems very strange to me. I'm
selfish, I'd just like to keep my ass writting more words. It puts the glow
in me, tosses me through golden air. But really, how much longer can I go
on? It's not right to keep going on. Hell, death is the gasoline in the tank
anyhow. We need it. I need it. You need it. We trash up the place if we stay
too long.
Strangest thing, I think, after people die is looking at their shoes.
That's the saddest thing. It's as if most of their personality remains in
their shoes. The clothes, no. It's in who has just died. You put their hat,
their gloves and their shoes on the bed and look at them and you'll go
crazy. Don't do it. Anyhow, now they know something that you don't. Maybe.
Last day of racing today. I played inter-track wagering, at Hollywood
Park, betting Fairplex Park. Bet all 13 races. Had a lucky day. Came out
totally refreshed and strong. Wasn't even bored out there today. Felt
jaunty, in touch. When you're up, it's great. You notice things. Like
driving back, you notice steering wheel on your car. The instrument panel.
You feel like you're in a goddamned space ship. You weave in and out of
traffic, neatly, not rudely -- working distances and speeds. Stupid stuff.
But not today. You're up and you stay up. How odd. But you don't fight it.
Because you know it won't last. Off day tomorrow. Oaktree Meet, Oct. 2. The
meets go around and around, thousands of horses running. As sensible as the
tides, a part of them.
Even caught the cop car tailing me on the Harbor freeway south. In
time. I slowed it to 60. Suddenly, he dropped way back. I held it at 60.
He'd almost clocked me at 75. They hate Acuras. I stayed at 60. For 5
minutes. He roared past me doing a good 90. Bye, bye friend. I hate getting
a ticket like anybody else. You have to keep using the rear view mirror.
It's simple. But you're bound to get tagged finally. And when you do, be
glad you're not drunk or packing drugs. If you're not. Anyhow, the title's
in.
And now I'm up here with the Macintosh and there is a wonderous space
before me. Terrible music on the radio but you can't expect a 100 percent
day. If you get 51, you've won. Today was a 97.
I see where Mailer has written a huge new novel about the CIA and etc.
Norman is a professional writer. He asked my wife once, "Hank doesn't like
my writing, does he?" Norman, few writers like other writers' works. The
only time they like them is when they are dead or if they have been for a
long time. Writers only like to sniff their own turds. I am one of those. I
don't even like to talk to writers, look at them or worse, listen to them.
And the worst is to drink with them, they slobber all over themselves,
really look piteous, look like they are serching for the wing of the mother.
I'd rather think about death than about writers. Far more pleasant.
I'm going to turn this radio off. The composers also sometimes screw it
up. If I had to talk to somebody I think I'd much prefer a computer
repairman or a mortician. With or without drinking. Preferably with.
10/2/91 11:03 PM
Death comes to those who wait and to those who don't. Burning day
today, burning dumb day. Came out of the post office and my car wouldn't
kick over. Well, I am a decent citizen. I belong to the Auto Club. So, I
needed a telephone. Forty years ago telephones were everywhere. Telephones
and clocks. You could always look somewhere and see what time it was. No
more. No more free time. And public telephones are vanishing.
I went by instinct. I went into the post office, took a stairway down
and there in a dark corner, all alone and unannounced was a telephone. A
sticky dirty dark telephone. There was not another within two miles. I knew
how to work a telephone. Maybe. Information. The operator's voice came
through and I felt saved. It was a calm and boring voice and asked what city
I wanted. I named the city and the Auto Club. (You have to know how to do
all the little things and you have to do them over and over again or you are
dead. Dead in the streets. Unattended, unwanted.) The lady gave me a number
but it was a wrong number. For the business office. Then I got he garage. A
macho voice, cool, weary yet combative. Wonderful I gave him the info. "30
minutes," he said.
I went back to the car, opened a letter. It was a poem. Christ. It was
about me. And him. We had met, it seemed, twice, about 15 years ago. He had
also published me in his magazine. I was a great poet, he said, but I drank.
And had lived a miserable down-and-out life. Now yong poets were drinking
and living miserable and down-and-out because they thought that was the way
to make it. Also, I had attacked other people in my poems, including him.
And I had imagined that he had written unflattering poems about me. Not
true. He was really a nice person, he said he had published many other poets
in his magazine for 15 years. And I was not a nice person. I was a great
writer but not a nice person. And he never would have ever "paled" around
with me. That's what he wrote: "paled." And he kept spelling "you're" as
"your." He wasn't a good speller.
It was hot in the car. It was 100 degrees, the hottest Oct. first since
1906.
I wasn't going to respond to his letter. He would write again.
Another letter from an agent, enclosing the work of a writer. I
glanced. Bad stuff. Of course. "If you have any suggestions on his writing
or any publishing leads, we would much appreciate.."
Another letter from a lady thanking me for sending her husband a few
lines and a drawing at ther suggestion, that it made him very happy. But now
they were divorced and she was frelancing it and could she come by and
interview me?
Twice a week I get requests for interviews. There's just not that much
to talk about. There are plenty of things to write about but not to talk
about.
I remember once, in the old days, some German journalist was
interviewing me. I had poured wine into him and had talked for 4 hours.
After that, he had leaned forward drunkenly and said, "I am no interviewer.
I just wanted an excuse to see you.."
I tossed the mail to the side and sat waiting. Then I saw the tow
truck. A young smiling fellow. Nice boy. Sure.
"HEY BABY!" I yelled, "OVER HERE!"
He backed it around and I got out and told him the problem.
"Tow me into the Acura garage," I told him.
"Your warranty still good on that car?" he asked.
He knew damn well it wasn't. It was 1991 and I was driving a 1989.
"Doesn't matter," I said, "tow me to the Acura dealer."
"Take them a long time to fix it, maybe a week."
"Hell no, they are very fast."
"Listen," said the boy, "we have our own garage. We can take it down
there, maybe fix it today. If not, we'll write you up and give you a call at
first opportunity."
Right there I visualized my car at their garage for a week. To be told
that I needed a new camshaft. Or my cylinder heads ground.
"Tow me to Acura," I said.
"Wait," said the boy, "I gotta call my boss first."
I waited. He came back.
"He said to jump start you."
"What?"
"Jump start."
"All right, let's do it."
I got in my car let it roll to the back of his truck. He got out the
snakes and it started right up. I signed the papers and he drove off and I
drove off...
Then I decided to drop the car off at the corner garage. "We know you.
You been coming here for years," said the manager.
"Good," I said, then smiled, "so don't screw me."
He just looked at me.
"Give us 45 minutes."
"All right."
"You need a ride?"
"Sure."
He pointed. "He'll take you."
Nice boy standing there. We walked to his car. I gave him the
directions. We drove up the hill.
"You still making movies?" he asked me.
I was a celebrity, you see.
"No," I said, "fuck Hollywood."
He didn't understand that.
"Stop here," I said.
"Oh, that's a big house."
"I just work there," I said.
It was true.
I got out. Gave him 2 dollars. He prostested but took them.
I walked up the driveway. The cats were sprawled about, pooped. In my
next life I want to be a cat. To sleep 20 hours a day and wait to be fed. To
sit around licking my ass. Humans are too miserable and angry and single-
minded.
I walked up and sat at the computer. It's my new consoler. My writing
has doubled in power and output since I have gotten it. It's a magic thing.
I sit in front of it like most people sit in front of their tv sets.
"It's only a glorified typewriter," my son-in-law told me once.
But he isn't a writer. He doesn't know what it is when words bite into
space, flash into light, when the thoughts that come into the head can be
followed at once by words, which encourages more thoughts and more words to
follow. With a typewriter it's like walking through mud. With a computer,
it's ice skating. It's a blazing blast. Of course, if there's nothing inside
you, it doesn't matter. And then there's the clean-up work, the corrections.
Hell, I used to have to write everyhing twice. The first time to get it down
and the second time to correct the errors and fuckups. This way, it's one
run for the fun, the glory and the escape.
I wonder what the next step will be after the computer? You'll probably
just press your fingers to your temples and out will come this mass of
perfect wordage. Of course, you'll have to fill up before you start but
there will always be some lucky ones who can do that. Let's hope.
The phone rang.
"It's the battery," he said, "you needed a new battery."
"Suppose I can't pay?"
"Then we'll hold your spare tire."
"Be down soon."
And as soon as I started down the hill I heard my elderly neighbor. He
was yelling at me. I climbed his steps. He was dressed in his pajama pants
and and old gray sweatshirt. I walked up and shook his hand.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm your neighbor. Been there for ten years."
"I'm 96," he said.
"I know it, Charley."
"God won't take me because He's afraid I'll take his job."
"You could."
"Could take the Devil's job too."
"You could."
"How old are you?"
"71."
"71?"
"Yes."
"That's old too."
"Oh, I know it, Charley."
We shook hands and I went back down his steps and then down the hill,
passing the tired plants, the tired houses.
I was on my way to the gas station.
Just another day kicked in the ass.
10/3/91 11:56 PM
Today was the second day of inter-track wagering. Where the live horses
ran at Oak Tree there were only 7,000 people. Many people don't want to make
that long drive to Arcadia. For those living in the south part of town, it
means taking hte Harbor Freeway, then the Pasadena Freeway and then after
that more driving along surface streets to get the track. It's a long hot
drive, coming and going. I always came in from that drive totaly exhausted.
A small-time trainer phoned me. "There was nobody out there. It's the
end. I need a new trade. Think I'll get a word processor and become a
writer. I'll write about you..."
His voice was on the message machine. I phoned him back and
congratulated him for coming in 2nd on a 6-to-1 shot. But he was down.
"The small trainer is finished. This is the end," he said.
Well, we'll see what they draw tomorrow. Friday. Probably a thousand
more. It's only inter-track wagering, it's the economy. Things are worse
than the government or the press will admit. Those who are still alive in
the economy are keeping quiet about it. I'd have to guess that the biggest
business going is the sale of drugs. Hell, take that away and almost all the
young would be unemployed. Me, I'm still making it as a writer but that
could be shot through the head overnight. Well, I still have my old age
pension: $943.00 a month. They gave me that when I turned 70. But that can
die too. Imagine all the old wandering the streets without their pensions.
Don't discount it. The national debt can pull us under like a giant octopus.
People will be sleeping in the graveyards. At the same time, there is a
crust of living rich on top of the rot. Isn't it astonishing? Some people
have so damn much money they don't even know how much they have. And I'm
talking millions. And look at Hollywood, turning out 60 million dollar
movies, as idiotic as the poor fools who go to see them. The rich are still
there, they've always found a way to milk the system.
I remember when the racetracks were jammed wtih people, shoulder to
shoulder, ass to ass, sweating, screaming, pushing toward the full bars. It
was a good time. Have a big day, you'd both be drinking and laughing. We
thought those days (and night) would never end. And why should they? Crap
games in the parking lots. Fist fights. Bravcado and glory. Electricity.
Hell, life was good, life was funny. All us guys were men, we'd take no shit
from anybody. And, frankly, it felt good. Booze and a roll in the hay. And
plenty of bars, full bars. No tv sets. You talked and got into trouble. If
you got picked up for being drunk in the streets they only locked you up
overnight to dry out. You lost jobs and found other jobs. No use hanging
around the same place. What a time. What a life. Crazy things always
happening, followed by more crazy things.
Now, it has simmered away. Seven thousand people at a major racetrack
on a sunny afternnon. Nobody at the bar. Just the lonely barkeep holding a
towel. Where are the people? There are more people than ever but where are
they? Standing on a corner, sitting in a room. Bush might get reelected
because he won an easy war. But he didn't do crap for the economy. You never
even know if your bank will openin the morning. I don't mean to sing the
blues. But you know, in the 1930's at least everybody knew where they were.
Now, it's a game of mirrors. And nobody is quite sure what is holding it
together. Or who they are really working for. If they are working.
Damn, I've got to get off this. Nobody else seems to be bitching about
the state of affairs. Or, if the are, they are in a place where nobody can
hear them.
And I sit around writing poems, a novel, I can't help it, I can't do
anything else.
I was poor for 60 years. now I am neither rich nor poor.
At the track they are going to start laying off people at the
concession stands, the parking lots and in the business office and in
maintenance. Purses for races will decline. Smaller fields. Less jocks. A
lot less laughter. Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at
itself. Moving toward 2,000 A.D. I'll be dead and out of here. Leaving my
little stack of books. Seven thousand at the track. Seven thousand. I can't
believe it. The Sierra Madres weep in the smog. When the horses no longer
run the sky will fall down, flat, wide, ponderous, crushing everything.
Glassware won the 9th, paid $9.00. I had a ten on it.
10/9/91 12:07 PM
Computer class was a kick for sore ballls. You pick it up inch by inch
and try to get the totality. The problem is that the books say one way and
some people say the other. The terminology slowly becomes understandable.
The computer only does, it doesn't know. You can confuse it and it can turn
on you. It's up to you to get along with it. Still, the computer can go
crazy and do odd and strange things. It catches viruses, gets shorts, bombs
out, etc. Somehow, tonight, I feel that the less said about the computer,
the better.
I wonder whatever happened to that crazy French reporter who
interviewed me in Paris so long ago? The one who drank whiskey the way most
men drink beer? And he got brighter and more interesting as the bottles