Charles Bukowski

Dear Hank,

September 14, 2011

I’m reading Hollywood by Charles Bukowski. His main character is Henry Charles Chinaski or “Hank” for short. It’s him in fictional form. Bukowski is one of those writers who somehow I became aware of. Actually, I’d say he was on the periphery of my awareness, like being aware of a town that’s next to the town that’s next to the town you think you passed through once.

I remember you told me about him, or mentioned him, or I asked you about him, and you aced like you knew all about him, without being able to tell me anything about him. I went to Barnes and Noble to see if they had any of his books and found a foot and a half of shelf space taken up by his works, all different! What to get? I couldn’t decide and walked out leaving them where they were.

Then we got an ipad; or is it Ipad? No, iPad –whatEver. After loading all kinds of stuff on it I tried loading some books on it. I then promptly started playing Fuzzle for five months. I’m just pulling out of that phase and began looking at a few of the “books” I downloaded in the initial stage of acquisition. You know that stage where you say to yourself, “Hum, I wonder if reading a book on this thing is any good?”

I originally bought it to try writing on it (It would be better than carrying a computer around.) That was a disaster. The keyboard was a display on the screen. It was too small, even when placed in the horizontal position and the keypad was way too touchy. If you so much as brushed the thing it would put letters on the screen. There was no click, no feedback that it got your keystroke, and most annoying of all if you touch typed it would jump around on the display. The paragraph you started at line eleven would end when the cursor jumped for some unknown reason on line five. Trying to correct things was hopeless, as was cut and paste. They had this little magnifying glass icon that you could scan over lines and try to place the cursor. You’d have better luck at the penny arcade three-hook grab machine.

One book I downloaded was Bukowski’s Hollywood. If you’re ever worried that you are becoming a drunk, read Bukowski, he’ll tell you what a lush really is.

At first Hollywood reminded me of American Splendor, which was about the guy who wrote the comic books about his life that he got others to illustrate and Paul Giamatti stared in the movie version. As I read along I’m saying to myself, yeah, yeah, yeah, what? If I stop reading and thought about what he is saying I realize how friggin’ crazy it was. This is a novel about the making of a movie and Chianski our protagonist is the writer for a movie, which a guy he knows, named Jon, says he wants to make. Chianski takes a distant view of the proceedings. No one is interested, at first, then someone is, then someone else is, then the first group isn’t. There are signing of papers then the deal falls through. Jon finds someone else but can’t get the first group to release the picture even though they don’t want to make the film. He threatens them by going on a hunger strike and saying he will start cutting off his body parts unless they release the film. He buys an electric chain saw and brings it to various meetings. If Jon isn’t getting what he wants he starts up the chain saw. What? How did we get here?

Trying to tell anyone about this book is hopeless. They either become bored or disbelieving. Maybe, it’s they’re bored due to disbelieving. I can picture their eyes glazing over as I begin to tell them. I picture a younger me trying to talk more excitedly about the book and my speech speeds up. This has the effect of driving my audience to look for escape as I trip over my words, mash them together as salvia gathers at the corners of my mouth and I begin to foam. Now, whoever was listening is thinking about when their last rabies shot was. I realize the hopelessness of trying to tell them anything and don’t say anything. I think about what would happen if I said, “You know I’m reading Bukowski’s Hollywood. It’s about the making of a movie. A Guy has a chain saw and if he’s not getting what he wants he threatens to cut off a body part…” Bingo, glaze over, duck and run, Warning Will Robinson!

But like Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail, which was described by the chief staffer of Muskie’s bid, as a fictional account of the political campaigns that season and one of the most accurate accounts, Hollywood, even though it is a work of fiction, and even though it sounds outrageous, I got the sense that yes, in fact Hollywood no doubt works this way. It makes me wonder if most of the people running the business are manic-depressives, or are they just hugely delusional?