Thursday, June 23, 2011

Modern Americana - Part 2 - Charles Bukowski

"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way." - Charles Bukowski (all continuing quotes are also Charles Bukowski (except "parenthesis")).

Modern - Of or relating to recent times or the present.  Characteristic or expressive of recent times or the present.  One who lives in modern times.

Americana - refers to artifacts related to the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States.

Charles Bukowski - American poet, 1920-1994.


Sometimes when I take a walk outside I see garbage along the outside perimeter of my house. So I walk down, pick it up and throw it away. Every now and then when I'm doing this, I'll see someone drive by and throw out more garbage than I am picking up.

Okay, I'll admit it. I love garbage. You have to if you live in this society. But I wish everyone could keep the place where they live aesthetically consistent, consistent to change, but not the change of "lets go eat at McDonalds" and then glorious step number two; "lets throw these McDonald's wrappers out our car windows. Roll them down electronically." There is so much energy and time wasted just in the fact that McDonald's exists and that people eat there. The fact that they throw greasy purloined bags, soaked from soy and carbon sprays in with all my shit that I use and throw away or shit out? I can't wait to have backyard so I can start composting, which will remove most of my trash anyway, and then I'm only a DIY incinerator away from feeling better about myself. And better then you fuckers who will be using toilets. That's right. I'm excited to poop into a box and burn the poop.


"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."


Usually when someone presents an idea, they will use such other ideas as "thesis" and/or "theme" and/or "motif" and/or you know we could do one of those bits where the sentence keeps moving with that structure of and/or and "parenthesis" (well, just parenthesis. They do exist and I made them) but I'm sick of writing that way. Well, the theme today is 'collage' and right now I'm trying to write one. But let me tell you about my favorite kind of collage. The collection and/or anthology (parenthesis " ").


"there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late"


An interesting thing about collections and anthologies is that they have a consistent theme. For example,you have styles associated with times. Realism and ideas of objective reality happened around the romantic period and it has this theme due to being a response from the industrial movement. Of course, everything I just said could not be true, which means its a bunch of horseshit. A funny thing about collections, most of them that are focused on the theme of great poets will only pick a few, if any, 20th century poets. A good reason could be the time it takes to discover greatness. Consider composers; it used to take hundreds of years to discover a great composer, now it only takes about a hundred. Of course, everything I just said could not be true, but its fun to feel like an intellectual. Why is that? Some part of our horrible human condition I wonder?


"Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them."


No matter. The point I'm "putting at" (as I sure ain't driving at it) is that there is always one 20th century poet that everyone agrees on. I hope. There might be some intellectual out there who is ready to trump me on this one. I am ready and willing to be trumped. My light research has shown though, all signs point to Charles Bukowski. It's not a sign that you necessarily have to frown at, either.


"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now." 


But, like all old MC's I used to idolize, he isn't perfect (NSFW?).

Bukowski is/was another example of what a majority of America is comprised of; frustrated, intelligent people, with no medium or agency (until he started writing, which was later in his life and required a bit of luck (doesn't it always?)). He is someone proletarians should claim (he worked in the US mail industry most of his life), especially if intellectuals are so quick to. He could become another Charles Baudelaire ("A tale of Two Chucks"), who is also kind of like the Tupac of surrealism but turned into a Catholic pretty boy (even though all his poems are about fucking - well, until the ones released posthumously (hence the Tupac comparison)).

Bukowski. Some kind of genius. Some kind of horror. I'm glad he wrote most of it down. 


Note: I found these quotes from Google Reads. Heres a link to the poetry reservoir.