Screams From the Balcony by Charles Bukowski
* * *
[To Douglas Blazek]
November 3, 1967
[* * *] on the dick-print thing I thought it over and I can’t help you. at first I thought SENSATIONAL, why not? like Hedy Lamar strung to a cross at any age. but later I got to thinking—no, dad, you’re too OLD to print your cock across a cover. leave it to some hairy young cat. I am not crying the old-age blues, Blaz, I mean it just doesn’t work to have some old beggar like me print his cock. it shuffles over into the area of madness that way, which is o.k., only I am mad enough crazy now. I hope you understand and do not think me chicken-shit. I go on instinct, and for me the thing does not seem spiritually sound. o.k. I let you down.
[To Louis Delpino]
November 7, 1967
I’ve kind of dropped out of the letter-writing phrase [sic] in order to batch up enough glue to hold myself together a bit longer. the letter-writing thing can become a trap—I started by writing one or 2, then it got to three or four, then it got to 13 or 14, and all I was doing was writing letters. now, if this were my prime purpose, fine enough, but there are other things to do along the way too—like taking a good crap or inking out a sketch or catching a few winners at the track, or just staring at walls. wondering about toes and your waste, and what the game was about. there are TIMES TO DO NOTHING. very important times. hard to get between women and jobs and sickness and and and…so, the writing of too many letters to too many people can get to be like carrying 50 pound rocks back and forth during your few moments of leisure. but people will get pissed; they will think you’re up tight or writing President Johnson or essays for the Atlantic. me, I’m hanging onto the slippery walls.
* * *
[To Douglas Blazek]
December 16, 1967
hello virile captain slugger of the gross elephants:
no, not going with the overtime, too sick, really, washed-out, parts broken, and you might be walking down Haight any day now and somebody will come up to you and say, “hey, Blaz, you remember this Bukowski guy?” “yeh.” “well, he died.” even Bukowski can die. Hemingway did, and they say, Christ. well, christ, christ, so I am hanging on, barely. (I will write you a letter some day when I am 70. from the fountains of hell.)
hope to enclose last column of Dirty Old Man. I can’t enclose them all. Open City has moved over to a fairly respectable boulevard, near City College, and I hadn’t been over until today, and some of my fears were true. I mean as soon as the publications begin moving up a little, they begin to operate like he dear madam’s exclusive fly suckoff parlor, extra phone, new hustlers and con-men, take-over chaps, and the volunteers get younger with tight dressers and cool pussies of snobbery. it wasn’t too bad today but I did detect a bit of it, and I foretold to a buddy of mine who used to write for them but no more—“as soon as we help them make it they will have no use for us. bad writers will take over, the pages will be ¾ ads, and the rest will be unreadable.” I’m not saying they’ve gotten to that yet but swinging in the door here was this receptionist and she gave me this look like, “if you’re the trashman, he’s already been here,” but I busted right past her cool cunt and hollered “Bryan Bryan where ya at?” I saw him nailing a board to the wall and he said, “Hey, Bukowski!” and the cool cunt musta read the paper because when she heard “Bukowski” she hiked her skirt 4 inches, spread her legs and her pussy started to hiss Yankee Doodle Dandy thru her bargain basement panties. but maybe they won’t get up too high down there, I hope not, anyhow, one column a week is almost too much for a dying man and maybe I am looking for an excuse to quit. quitter, quitter; dirty dying old man. all right, all right. [* * *]
sure, man, run some of my letters, would like to see, for whole thing becoming covered with a kind of moss and I feel dead already & would like to see that I did gabble about in my palmier days—when I jacked off with both hands, crosshand stroke, underhand and back up around the ass. would really like to see it; would revive some of my mimes. right now, as far as the writing goes it goes slowly. I wait on myself, feeling badly, feeling the Notre Dame worms crawling in my bellyhairs, I still wait, wait for the poem to come out-butter and tacks and a lady with a limp and beautiful knees going by my window. my window my window my window ah my window. [* * *]
* * *
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
[December 27, 1967]
want to thank you for the o.k. to PENGUIN on reprint of some of It Catches stuff for the Penguin Poetry Series. it won’t be out until Xmas ’68, and the royalties are not astounding but if I am around by then whatever bit it is might save me from the pit, the pit of madness, sickness, the row, whatever pit there is, each inch helps save what’s left, so thanks, surely, the o.k., esp. since you are evidently down on me—a column, a Shermanism, whatever the hell, I don’t know, but that’s the way it works. I know that you were very unhappy and worried in Tucson and both not feeling well, and it was a bad time for me to be there. so it goes, but still you were good enough to give the PENGUIN O.k., so you do not play small and bitter games and crash a man down because of dislikes. that’s good moxie, and all I can say is “thanks,” which doesn’t seem like very much.
I hope that wherever you are now that things are easier.
I didn’t get the grant. just a form-letter. so it’s try to hang onto the horror of the post office; if it weren’t for Marina I think I’d just go out and lay down in the gutter. everybody I know has either gotten a grant or been offered one, so I guess Bukowski is just shit with the govt. agency, and so I sit and peck at the typer while my toenails bite at my feet. in same mail—a few weeks back—a letter from W. C[orrington] telling me, in essence, that I could dish it out but not take it.
the dog-pack is really after my aging ass.
did have some luck with Evergreen. poem in Dec. issue and they have accepted a rather long one on bullfighting for a future issue.
so the horses began again Tuesday and maybe a little action can help me forget the whole damn poetry scene. it’s good to drink a hot coffee out there, the ice wind from those snow mountains north chilling your god damn shorts as you work out the winner of the first race. that’s as good as anything. we don’t ask much of the gods. just that they keep quiet for a while.
all right, then. punchy, I shape up to stick more letters. in my neat little shit-cage. and remember the good days past. there were some.
* * *
• 1968 •
[To Douglas Blazek]
January 15, 1968
[* * *] Heard from Penguin & Webb relented, said o.k., so it’ll be Norse, Bukowski, Lamantia, Dec. ’68.
The problem with being a poet is that by the time you get well-known you can’t write anymore. or, at least, not as well. but, still, being young & unknown isn’t the answer either. a lot of them grin out machine-made shit that they think is very real only because they like it. then, they quit. to become a good writer takes time & luck & moxie & no special desire to be a good writer. [* * *]
* * *
[To Jon and Louise Webb]
February 25, 1968
[* * *] don’t know if I told you but I have been twice interviewed by the big boys in the post office who don’t quite like the idea of me writing this column “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” that column has cost me plenty of woe, as you might know. also somebody wrote in to them saying that I was not married to the mother of my child and that we lived separately. the same person also mailed them a batch of “Notes” with certain passages outlined in ink. they didn’t care too much for something I wrote about the post office, plus a thing on sodomy. I told them that I would have to continue writing “Notes,” no matter the result. “Are we to consider the postal officials as the new critics of literature?” I asked them. I also mentioned the ACLU. they said that they were not sure of what to do with me because they hadn’t had “a case like this in ten years.” ten years? I wonder who the other guy was? anyhow, I am told that the whole business must be taken up higher for review. I was sitting in a large dark
“have you ever had any books published?” they asked me.
“yes.”
“how many?”
“I don’t know. 4, 5, 6, 7…I don’t know.”
“how much did you PAY these people to publish your work?”
ummm, ummm, umm.
[* * *] have really been in very strange mind state lately. seem to be frozen. can’t move or write. 25 or 30 unanswered letters in big coffee can on shelf. Harold Norse seems to be in this same deep freeze—the inability to do anything. shot to shit, sick, weak. it might only be a refueling period. or maybe we’re both finished. difficult to tell. strange that we should both be in the fix at the same time. I consider Hal a much better writer and person than I am, more human, and getting a letter from him is always a big event to me. I hear Anais Nin is trying to get him a grant so he can come here to Capistrano Beach, where he thinks there is a doctor who can cure him. that’s a place down about halfway to San Diego. it would be good to see him. no need to talk. we could just sit around the same room for a couple of days and look out the window, or walk along the beach, say about 6 p.m. among the insane and wild-eyed gulls, we walking along wondering wondering what went wrong with the machinery of everything. [* * *]
met Neal Cassady before he died, up at Open City one night. I had some beer with me. have one, I said. he drank the thing like water. “have another,” I said. he was crazier than I was. it was beginning to rain and we all got into the car, Bryan, myself and Cassady. we got one of the famous Cassady rides on the rain-slick streets. then we ate together at J.B.’s and had a few more drinks. Neal was the hero of Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road. about a week after I met Neal they found him dead along some railroad tracks in Mexico. he’d mixed too much booze with nembutal. deliberately, perhaps. [* * *]
* * *
[To Thomas Livingstone]
February 26, 1968
well, Mahler’s 10th on and I’m hungover and climbing out, climbing back in again. I read your fuck-piece and that boy is a master-fucker, man; I guess every man wants to be a master-fucker and that every woman wants to be fucked by one, and maybe a few men too. well, I have never been a master-fucker; I am usually too drunk or disinterested or cold-hot; a task, you know. and fucking often turns out to be a dirty task, a trick to do. and, in a sense, I think any man’s crazy who does it with real Art. 2 dogs fucking outdo anybody. so, still, yes, enjoyed your piece.
uh, Stuart still has Crucifix. he doesn’t know how to move them, nobody knows he has them. [* * *] Terror Street out soon. also a tape to be issued of Bukowski reading from some of the poems in book. $10. too high, of course. but John Martin (Black Sparrow) knows his collectors. so he’s only issuing 50 tapes. he knows how to make money printing the poets. his royalties, per issue printed, I think he is the highest in the business. he’s printing everybody now—Creeley, Olson, dozens of names like that, pays them in front upon publication and still makes good $$$$. but he realizes the market is limited—really, you know—so he runs only issues of 150 to 250 books, but he gets rid of them. me, he’s going to do first, he said, 500 then 750 because so many whores taxi drivers sex freaks circus barkers and Fuller Brush salesmen read me. I am easy to understand even when I don’t understand myself.
also have had an old book picked up that has gone from hand to hand, not bad poems really but each person who has touched them has been kissed-off by bad luck, so now I hope Potts don’t eat poison or something. but he’s gone to work on getting Darrell of Glendale to work up the book with his new press, and Charlie completely off screw, he intends to publish, what was it 1,000 copies or 2,000? but sensible enough to charge only one dollar. he also wants to lay money and 150 copies on me, but I tell him, take it easy, kid. he writes poetry, and I met him down here once, we got a little high here at my place. real quiet guy. not much talk. I liked him. I am not much talk either. so we just sat around without strain. anyhow, book called Poems Written Before Leaping from an 8 Story Window. c/o Charles Potts, 6433 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, Calif. 94609. Apt. #J. one dollah. I intend to agree with him. I think the fucking thing will sell out. it’s the next poem that counts, we know. it’s the way we walk across the floor. but it would still be well to see things working good all around. we’ve had some coming—good pussy and good luck. I’ll take the latter.
listen, Tommy, the next time an old lady very active in church work leaves fleas and lice behind, you tell the man. you missed a perfect shot. I been kicked out of too many rooms for being a drunk and a madman, a bringer-in of ladies of the street. kafka would have spilled the beans on her; me too. if a church lady has fleas and lice the church is fucking her up. sometimes I think twice before killing a fly, but I always end up killing it if I can. all that stupid flesh recognizes is shit. in a pigpen you wouldn’t stand a chance of getting a piece of ass. let us know where we are, then we can be kind when kind is sensible. when kind is insensible we are only adding to error. we’ve got enough help with that. end of lecture.
I have written 40 or 45 weekly columns for the local underground newspaper Open City. column called “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” some smut-peddler in North Hollywood who thinks that I am dirty instead of literary wants to run columns in book-form. hinted $500 to $1000 advance. but I am so fucked-up, job killing me, health bad, sucking on beer bottle, smoking smoking, I get on phone now and then and talk to the guy, hard to reach, must get past his fucking switchboard, “this is Charles Bukowski,” I say, “I’d like to speak to Mr. X.”
“Charles Bukowski? are you one of our distributors? your name sounds familiar.”
“no, baby, the only thing I distribute is the end of my cock into wet and throbbing pussies.”
she gasps and connects me with Mr. Big.
“ah, Bukowski!” he says. “what is it?”
“ummm, ummm,” I say.
“what is it?”
“I’m tied up. can’t get out to see you. must get things in order. tremendous fucking job.”
“I know. yes. well, Charles, line it up. can you call me Tuesday?”
“I think so.”
“o.k., you call me Tuesday.”
Tuesday comes. she gasps and connects me.
“listen, Mr. X, I got fucked-up. I don’t know, you know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“ummm, ummm.”
“what?”
“how about next week? I should have all the stuff lined-up by then. hell, I gotta buy some kind of artist’s portfolio to haul the crap down in and I hate to go into Art stores, everybody is fake as hell and it takes ten years off my psyche.”
“o.k., call me Wednesday next week, line it up, and then phone me.”
“o.k.”
I think I’ve had 5 or 6 conversations with this guy but I haven’t moved an inch. I kind of know what Harold is bothered with over in England: THE FROZEN MAN IN THE BARGAIN BASEMENT OF HELL. I can’t move. it doesn’t matter. after all, who really wants fame or money or pussy or anything you have to STRAIN at or WORK for?
lay back, wait for the Junkman to come get you. it seems the only sensible thing. world-renown means world-error. there’s never a way out. sit and wait for the ax to fall. just try not to be shocked by its fall. your head, my head. balls.
all right, man, they are beating on the walls.
I am not much good at constant correspondence. just felt like writing tonight. and your letter was down there on the floor. you were the target.
all right, another beer, another smoke, then to bed, waiting for ye Ax, ah.
* * *
[To Carl Weissner]
Febr
yes, I too have 35 or 40 unanswered letters, but now entirely beyond me to answer them; I can’t keep up; for each answer to a letter, 3 more come in. I am not in the letter-writing business. I am in a stricken-down stage now, anyhow, bad health, can barely make it about, hand on. I’ve just decided to let people think I’m a shit; it’s easier than answering all those letters. [* * *]
rumors on town hall reading of Bukowski, Corso, Micheline…impossible. didn’t you know I have made it known for years that I don’t read publicly? I am a shit, Carl. just turned down a reading, with fee, at Univ. of Southern Calif. Festival of the Arts. I’ve never read in public, don’t intend to unless it means the difference between starving in the gutter and starving in a closet. I prefer to starve in a closet. have turned down fees of from $200 and $700 and told them to go screw. I believe that if the pricks get a man on stage they get a man jumping through their hoop, they make a jerk out of him. I am not an actor, I am a creator, I hope. I do read on tape because this still leaves an area of solitude and peace, but actually I’ve done very little reading on tape and any professional actor could read my stuff better. for a general audience, that is. [* * *]