John Martin, rest in peace

John Martin of Black Sparrow Press passed on. This morning, I read a memory of a rare book dealer purchasing and reading Bukowski's poetry after seeing the film Barfly in the 1980s, and then I discovered The New York Times obituary released from its paywall. The Charles Bukowski introduction to John Fante's Ask the Dust is a favorite piece of writing published by Black Sparrow. Bukowski also wrote a famous letter of gratitude to his publisher. Rest in peace, John Martin.

an ample tip

"Instead of their original destination, they drove downtown and ate lunch at a fancy burger joint. He felt good — joy, even. The portions were generous; the mood was right. He left an ample tip."

~~ from "An Amazing Turn" by Alex Kudera

shack jobs

"'Shack jobs' is how the poet Charles Bukowski described live-in lovers. He wasn’t such a primitive, but early on he felt the lack of space. There were two bedrooms, and he more or less took one. He stayed in there as much as he could."

~~ from "An Amazing Turn" by Alex Kudera

Chicago, that [broken] city. . .

I finished the Nelson Algren biography, a wonderful book. Algren's life was not presented as one in which he had to share Chicago only with Richard Wright, who left, or Saul Bellow, who mainly stayed but also left. Simone de Beauvoir figures prominently in the narrative, as does Algren's entanglement with federal authorities over his involvement with the Communist movement as a young man. The Guardian and The Chicago Sun-Times present news of the day which would fit the Depression-era 1930s when Algren and Wright first became acquainted in the Windy City.

Also, I stumbled upon a blogger who connected Algren's writing with Bukowski's, no doubt because they both so often chose downtrodden misfits and outcasts as their subjects although with Bukowski, he is much more evidently writing about himself through his alter-ego Henry Chinaski. Algren would be the more richly descriptive writer, but Bukowski seems to be the one who has lasted as far as book sales and cultural memory are concerned.

Post Office

“I had come a long way from a guy who had worked in slaughterhouses, who had crossed the country with a railroad track gang, who had worked in a dog biscuit factory, who had slept on park benches, who had worked the nickel and dime jobs in a dozen cities across the nation.”

~~ from Post Office by Charles Bukowski

Carver as Bukowski

Dr. Don Riggs, Poet Laureate of L.U.S.K. and recent reader on a rooftop near you, alerted us to Raymond Carver's "You Don't Know What Love Is," a poem inspired by the life and work of Charles Bukowski.

Bukowski on the little press life. . .

. . . yes, the "littles" are an irresponsible bunch (most of them) guided by young men, eager with the college flush, actually hoping to cut a buck from the thing, starting with fiery ideals and large ideas, long explanatory rejection slips, and dwindling down, finally, to letting the manuscripts stack behind the sofa or in the closet, some of them lost forever and never answered, and finally putting out a tacked-together, hacked-together poor selection of typographically botched poems before getting married and disappearing from the scene with some comment like "lack of support." Lack of support? Who in the hell are they to get it? What have they done but camouflage themselves behind the facade of Art, think up the name of a magazine, get it listed and wait for submissions from the same 2 or 3 hundred tired names that seem to think they are the poets of America because some 22 year-old jackass with a bongo drum and a loose 50 dollar bill accepts their worst poetry.

~~ from On Writing by Charles Bukowski

(written originally as part of a letter to James Boyer May, January 2, 1960)

Dan Fante, writer

The writer Dan Fante joined his father John Fante this week. Both were novelists of Los Angeles championed in France for their "down and out in America" themes. Dan was published in French before he was published in English, and his best works were Chump Change and the family memoir, Fante. Mostly off the beaten path as an adult, Dan was teaching at the UCLA extension school for writers in some of his last years. Possibly his father would be seen as the more "important" literary figure (Ask the Dust, Brotherhood of the Grape, Dreams of Bunker Hill, screenplay credits including one for Algren's Walk on the Wild Side), and Dan was quite proud of his father's accomplishment and his Italian heritage. Late in life, Dan was partnering with his native province in Italy and getting his works translated into Italian. I discovered Chump Change in a Barnes and Noble across the country, back when small-press titles had a shot of sneaking into the chain stores, even if the authors weren't "local." Fifteen years later it would be far more difficult to learn of writers like the Fantes although since I found Chump Change in Philly, I've seen that Dan has had most of his books reprinted by a New York big, and almost all of John's titles have stayed in print and seem to be selling as well as ever. Famously, it was Charles Bukowski who discovered John Fante in the Los Angeles library, and would help revive interest in the author years later. They're all gone now, but not forgotten.

Guardian obituary: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/25/dan-fante-underground-writer-legacy-chump-change-mooch

My interview with Dan in 2009: http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/05/21/an-interview-with-author-dan-fante/

Dan Fante articles in the L.A. Times: http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/dan-fante

Other obituaries: 

Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/article/daniel-smart-dan-fante-february-19-1944-november-23-2015

Italoamericano: http://www.italoamericano.org/story/2015-12-11/dan-fante

two buck chuck

"You could be sure that the worst writers had the most confidence, the least self-doubt." - Charles Bukowski
— Bukowski Quotes (@BukowskiQuotez) November 13, 2014

Buk on work

Charles Bukowski Rails Against 9-to-5 Jobs in a Brutally Honest Letter (1986) | Open Culture http://t.co/h2AVwmCnYC
— Eric Gilliland (@E_Patrick909) July 17, 2014

I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: “I’ll never be free!”

One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.

So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I’m gone) how I’ve come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.

To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

yr boy,

Hank

a bit more Buk

For hump day, here's just a bit more from John Fante's star student, two-bit Chuck.

And here's another because Bukowski was hardly an average fellow.

pause for station identification

we interrupt this duck for Chuck,

and while we're here,

why not dabble in some Buk redux?