busblog

god bless the bard

rest his soul

I took the train to work today. I think I’m going to make a habit of it. My work pays for public transportation. Which is a nice thing, because I can read one hour in and one hour out.

Today I am reading Henry Charles Bukowski The finest poet of 20th-century. He does everything right it’s hard to compete and impossible to compete so you may as well just enjoy.

Last night I had a delicious dinner with a beautiful girl. I think Charles would have appreciated it.

When I dropped her off instantly two very suspicious men walked near her and made me fear for every woman out there.

Good thing there’s guns.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

he’s also my hero, duh.

he’s america’s greatest poet of the 20th century, maybe ever.

this one is one he wrote in a poetry book called “The Last Night of the Earth Poems”

it’s called “Question and Answer”

he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that–
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.

putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.

who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.

as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you’re going to have to
save yourself.

still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he poured
another
drink
c: gave the blade
another
spin.

we know this because he never sweated the small stuff

he took his time.

he hit his stride in his 50s.

for years he lived just blocks away from where i write you tonight.

on warm nights like tonight i bet he would do just what we’re all doing

prop up the window, fire up the xbox

and watch don draper on netflix

struggle with his riches.

theres nights when im all how did bukowski deal with crap like this

and then theres nights like tonight.

Q. Hi Tony, I was at a concert last night and I realized that I had slept with have the band. I’m a terrible person, aren’t I?

A. nah, you’re just sleepy.

there was a full moon yesterday. things happened and i found myself taking a nap around 6:30pm. i woke up at 8ish.

then i received a text message saying that my evening plans had been cancelled.

even though it was with a beautiful woman, america, you have no idea how relieved i was.

what’s wrong with me that i would rather sit around my house in my pajamas instead of enjoying a perfectly fine spring evening on the streets of LA in the company of an interesting person where anything could happen?

i watched the dodgers angels and lakers games, ate chinese, inhaled m&ms and tweeted.

vibe had a link to the new nicki minaj video.

the way its lit, and her clothes, and the makeup, and the extreme curviness of her body, well

i had to turn it off because it was Good Friday, a day many Christians believe to be holier than Easter or Christmas, and i didn’t want any of my unholy thoughts

to bubble.

but i did tweet this:

I would totally take @nickimanaj to the pizza place tonight. Show her the moon. Shake some extra cheese on her slice n stuff.

which made me wonder: do i love nicki? or do i love the idea of having pizza with her?

if i had a back to the future machine i would bring back a 25 year old charles bukowski

and have him take nicki manaj to the race track

while tolouse latrech painted it.

and afterwards the clash would play.

pretty sure in heaven you can ask for stuff like that.

he says

i know some times you try to be like me

dont do it.

he whispers i wasnt all that happy you know

he pushes me away from the west side

he nudges me from going into the val

the ghost of charles bukowski hides the remotes from my tv

and doesnt really want me to get another tv, this one for the living room

because he likes the fact that when the ladies come over, if they wanna watch tv

they have to go in the bedroom and sit on the bed

because if theres one thing your favorite writer enjoyed it was rooms

with no couches no chairs no nonsense

just music and wine and a bed

and a writer

and a subject.

todays subject is love.

just like every day.

the message was

the boss will meet you at Gisselle’s birthday party

i was all i dont know no one named damn Gisselle

but i was in the neighborhood anyway

and when i saw the sign i was all, omg i know whose birthday it is today

drove two blocks down, tossed my keys to the valet

a gentleman cracked open the front door of the house a smidge and said recite me a poem

i said one of mine?

he said you wanna get in, dont ya.

so i was all, ah right, ok heres one by bukowski

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it’s not pretty.

and the door opened.

from the readers in the comments.

and show pictures from vacation.

this picture is of a “Cowboy Killer” its a pretty bush with the strongest, sharpest spikes you wouldnt believe it.

Lilian asks: “What are your top 5 Bukowski books”

thats super easy

1. Ham on Rye

2. Hollywood

3. Women

4. Factotum

5. You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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