Charles Bukowski's Posthumous Edits: As the Spirit Wanes, Shit Happens

[mjp]

Can I Do it? No, I'm a filmmaker working odd jobs outside of my field to support myself and my daughter.

If not you, then who?

Everyone doing any kind of research into Bukowski has a "real" job they have to work in order to earn money and support families. There's no BUKOWSKI RESEARCH INSTITUTE waiting in the wings to identify researchers and provide grants, so if you want to see it done, do it yourself. If you don't know how to do it, invest your own time and resources into figuring out how to get someone who does know how to do it to do it for you. When you have your results, you can cash in by writing a book or selling them to The Iowa Review or McSweeney's. Then you can buy yourself a yacht.

That's how the vast majority of research into Bukowski and his work is done (I'd say all research, but if I say that, some asshole will dig up an obscure half-page treatise on the kind of wristwatch Bukowski wore that was funded with Taco Bell gift certificates just to prove me wrong). It's done by the teeming unwashed and unpaid proletariat. Or more accurately, by a tiny group of lunatics who want to see it done. Not by groups or institutions.

So if you believe in your idea, step up and see it through.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

*

BROUGHT TO YOU BY TACO BELL

 

[Widdis]

Abel. Or you, mjp.

You see, me saying “I can’t do it”—I don’t like that. But I also know that there are those who are in a unique position to do something and who are not doing it. That’s what keeps me coming back to this—that and the justifications for doing nothing have sucked: Abel just says he won’t, mjp says he won’t because he knows better (as a believer or something, I’m led to believe).

As for “the teeming unwashed and unpaid proletariat... [or the]... tiny group of lunatics who want to see it done...” The will to do sth can’t get you anywhere if the means to do it are not in your hands. As for “groups or institutions”... why could such things not help, especially if they possessed the resources, capabilities, etc. to further ones aims? Is not this community a group?

Again: me saying “I can’t do it”—I don’t like that. But to have the means—raw data (Abel’s digitized Buk archive in addition to what is on this site and elsewhere); academic expertise and connections to educated people (Abel, Calonne, among others); know-how (mjp merged these threads, after all, maintains this and other sites, and has years of tech experience); time (what is it...? 5.5 months and counting as per your podcast)—to have all this all in one place and to say “I won’t,” well, that’s fucked.

But the ball’s in my court now, eh? Good pass (off)!

Hoochmonkey from Dartmouth! Your boy there at Dalhousie did a bang-up job on the Beatles. You ever hit up the Midtown tavern? I heard it moved over the last decade or so, but I’m hoping it still holds some charm...

 

[mjp]

So you're not going to do it, got it.

 

[Widdis]

And neither will you, boss.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

Aw hell, I'll do it.

I'll need a protractor, Passion fruit Snapple, a box of mint Jello mix, a box of extra small condoms and lots of Zima.

Maybe set up a go fund me thingy?

 

[hoochmonkey9]

Ok. Interesting results so far... Lennon/McCartney wrote The Shoelace.

Science!

 

[mjp]

An unopened case of vintage Zima has been located and purchased. All you have to do is pop in to Pappy Pete's Hooch Hideout over in Bangor to pick it up. That's as close to you as I could get it without paying exorbitant Mountie bribes.

Flash the 18th Street Gang sign and show him your belly tattoo when you get there, that's how he'll know it's you. Pappy used to be MS-13, but that shouldn't be a problem. He hasn't killed anyone lately as far as I know, and he's kind of a Beatles fan (he likes the Ringo songs), so he'll recognize your game.

For what it's worth, I tried to get Widdis to chip in on the cost of the Zima, but he just kept repeating, "I can't do it, I can't do it," so, whatever.

 

[Widdis]

For the record, mjp DID NOT contact me with regards to the Zima. Actually, I am working my way down the the list, getting to the Zima; Zima is the last, and considering my location, by far most difficult item. It would be easier for me to get real passion fruit, fowl jello, or sorghum-based shine, etc. Also: they do not serve Zima at the Midtown—that must be an across the bridge, “Darkness” thing...

Mjp DID mention sth about the extra small condoms... saying that he WON’T part with the rest of his, as his supply is dwindling... his fit just right and he has to be careful rationing them out, not unlike Elaine Benes with her sponges. He also said his protractor is not forthcoming; the blunted, straight edge part of it has never threatened his masculinity—it, too, is just right. (That, and it helps him when he’s doing research into the shoelace formula.)

Maybe set up a go fund me thingy?

If you set up a go fund me page and I like the looks of it, I’d contribute to it. Anything for the author of The Late Season, Stehen Hines (sic). Also: good job fixing the “Taco Bell” error; moderators get to have all the fun.