Buk tape/video at San Francisco University

[Digney in Burnaby]

How did I get here? Can't remember.

Scroll down to find this:

Charles Bukowski: December 6, 1973
30 minutes, Audiocassette, $15.00
Original Poetry Center Archives recording.

Charles Bukowski: December 6, 1973
30 minutes, VHS, $25.00
Poet and short story writer Charles Bukowski reads "No Title," "The Young Lady That Lives in Canoga Park," "Now She Hates Me," "Woman in the Supermarket," "Two Hundred Years," "Kiss Me," "Song of This Old Man," "The Closing of the Topless and Bottomless Bar," "Dreamlessly," "The Avoidance of Boredom," "Well, Now That Ezra Has Died," "All God's Children Got Trouble," and "So This Is How They Killed Dylan Thomas." Kathleen Fraser introduces Bukowski and William Stafford, at the San Francisco Museum of Art.

 

[cirerita]

That's a great find. Has any of this been released elsewhere? I don't recall seeing this one before, but I do not keep track of the audio/video stuff...

 

[chronic]

I've never heard of this either, and wouldn't ya know it... I don't have a cassette player or a VCR.

 

[hank solo]

:eek:
Wow.

They should really have that stuff digitised.

 

[cirerita]

If we all pay for this via Paypal, I'm sure someone on this forum could rip the VHS and the audiocassette to a digital file and upload it... somewhere ;)

 

[bospress.net]

I don't have a cassette player anymore, but have a VHS. I just can't digitize it from that. I know that there are places that will take a tape and put it on DVD. If so, I'm in for some PayPal funds to get this.....

I just noticed that the timeline also shows this reading. I guess that it was either just updated or mjp knew about it, but not that there was a recording being offered?

Bill

 

[mjp]

The timeline has listed that reading for a while. I believe "Cupcakes" told me about it because she went with him, but she didn't know the exact date (I would have to check my email to see if that's the case, but someone who was there told me about it). Timeline has now been updated with the date.

---

Eh, couldn't have been Cupcakes, she didn't meet him until late 1975. So scratch that. Now I'm not sure what the source for that reading was, but it doesn't really matter.

 

[Ponder]

Can someone (American) buy the thing before it has been sold?
Don't worry about the $25.

 

[hank solo]

Site says they duplicate to order...

 

[mjp]

I have an order ready to go here, but I missed the postman, so it won't go out until Monday.

 

[Ponder]

That's great, mjp.

 

[Bukfan]

Wow, awesome find. Digney! I've never heard of it before.

I have an order ready to go here, but I missed the postman, so it won't go out until Monday.

That's great! It's not everyday we stumble upon a "new" Buk reading.

 

[connswater]

Wow - that's a great find!

 

[strangegirl]

Well that is interesting. Hmmm I used to work for SFSU, Well technically I am still a Lecturer/Teacher on their list. I will see what I can do...
I do have a cassette machine and a VCR and can probably convert these to Digital files.
I will also look in to this. It says that Tapes can be loaned free of charge to Students, I wonder if Teachers are eligible for the free loan as well.
I will inquire.

 

[xxedgexx]

I would love to be in on this...I have a DVD recorder that takes RCA input for converting VHS to DVD...if that helps?/??//???"

 

[roni]

Wow!
Amazing!
I need a copy badly!
Great find!

 

[d gray]

hey! i was just gonna say that!

 

[willrodgers]

I ordered one vhs last week. If I am able to copy it to dvd (if it is not copy-protected), I will offer of few copies here. for free of course.

 

[mjp]

Remember this? I finally received it today. Just have to hook up the VHS box and take a peek.

The tapes are all hand labeled...very one-off. Like someone making a dub for you. Heh.

 

[Ponder]

I'm looking forward to it!

 

[Black Swan]

I ordered one vhs last week. If I am able to copy it to dvd (if it is not copy-protected), I will offer of few copies here. for free of course.

I would be happy to pay for one, sent to Canada.

 

[Bukfan]

Me too! For Europe.

 

[mjp]

I haven't seen it yet (this weekend), but it's probably not copy-protected. It's just a dub, made onto a retail VHS tape (you must have to order those from a specialty place now...). The audio cassette is the same.

 

[willrodgers]

just received the vhs tape today, and watched it straight away.
not bad quality considering the age.
much better looking than the Bellevue dvd.
only 26 minutes, but still impressive stuff.

 

[mjp]

Well, I gassed up the old VCR and watched this today. Overall, quite disappointing. It starts in the middle of a poem about a stray cat pissing all over him, then he reads two more poems and says he's finished. So obviously, most of the reading is missing.

"What, you want more?" he says after the two poems and the crowd is heckling the usual heckles, and then, inexplicably, Jack Micheline appears on stage, elbows Bukowski out of the way and reads two poems. Awkward and strange, bum rushing the podium like that.

Finally Bukowski comes back and reads two more, prefacing the final poem with, "Thanks, and especially, ho hum." When a woman in the audience interrupts the last poem he says, "Hey now...don't be a Micheline..."

But really, four poems read from a podium - it's pretty insignificant. There's nothing to see (well, with the exception of the hijacking by Micheline). I suppose it's a good audio fragment. I haven't listened to the cassette (no machine here), but unless it has a lot of material that the video doesn't, it's going to be equally unimpressive.

Poems:
Wet Night (partial)
The Avoidance of Boredom
Well, Now That Ezra Has Died...
All God's Children Got Troubles
The Last Poetry Reading

 

[james]

"hey now...don't be a micheline..."
that almost seems worth the price of admission right there!

someone should use that as their signature...

 

[Ponder]

Overall, quite disappointing. It starts in the middle of a poem about a stray cat pissing all over him, then he reads two more poems and says he's finished. So obviously, most of the reading is missing.

Perhaps some Bukfans will like some details of the tape.
Buk seems quite relaxed this time.
He is drinking Vodka-Orange? out of a big milk? bottle.
But yes, we only can wait untill the entire reading is available.

"What, you want more?" he says after the two poems and the crowd is heckling the usual heckles, and then, inexplicably, Jack Micheline appears on stage, elbows Bukowski out of the way and reads two poems. Awkward and strange, bum rushing the podium like that.

Typical Micheline!

In a Bukowski letter (also in 1973!) to Winans: "Micheline is all right---he's one-third bull shit, but he's got a special divinity and a special strength. He's got perhaps a little too much of a POET sign pasted to his forehead, but more often than not he says the good things--in speech and poem--power- flame, laughing things. I like the way his poems roll and flow. His poems are total feelings beating their heads on barroom floors."

 

[mjp]

He is drinking Vodka-Orange? out of a big milk? bottle.

Yeah, it looks like a quart orange juice bottle. I assumed a lot of what was in there was vodka as well.

 

[Bukfan]

He's got perhaps a little too much of a POET sign pasted to his forehead

That's pretty funny...

 

[hank solo]

Some related text and a grainy cropped photo here:

http://www.pbagalleries.com/search/item181574.php?&PHPSESSID=eeb941

4½x2 original photograph of Bukowski on stage giving reading inked on verso by Bukowski: "Buk, Dec. 73, S.F. Museum of Arts, Reading Dirty Shit." Ink stain on verso.

Poetry Flash Eleven, Jan. 1974, single sheet printed on both sides (14x8½) with old folds, top margin with one inch tear & chip. Section at bottom and most of verso circled ink and with arrows (by Buk pointing out what they were saying about him and the event) regarding the reading event with Bukowski and William Stafford at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Poetry Center. "He Was Drunk... Bukowski was up on the stage with his bottle of "orange juice', looking like a wino from Fifth and Minna, vastly entertaining like someone who can fart at will, and he had these groupies...changing clothes and shuffling chairs while Stafford read, and lusting after Bukowski's body while he read...Bukowski...took time out from his own reading to mock Mr. Stafford...introduced himself by bellowing "Let's get this dirty job done'...[ending with] Jack Micheline, also drunk, taking over the microphone to herd us all toward some final cosmic boredom while Bukowski played with his groupies at the edge of the stage...This reading was shocking. It is insensitive to put anyone short of King Kong on the same bill with a charismatic slime like Bukowski. It is doubly insensitive to put a poet of...Stafford's unique status on such a bill...[who's] poetry allows no place for the gross, distorted sensibilities of a Bukowski, nor for the absurd "superstar-wino' posturings...Stafford's poetry is nothing short of a monument to that admirable sensitivity to the nuances of human feeling that marks the real poet...his calm, self-effacing poetry bears no relation to Bukowski's chest-beating, masturbatory verse." But continues: "Perhaps Bukowski is the more "real' of the two poets, and the L.A.-style decadence in his work and his life probably seem a lot more attractive to many readers than the countrified quiet of Stafford."