Intro to "It Catches My Heart In Its Hands"/Corrington split
- Thread starter mjp
- Start date
his many fall-outs with former friends (in some cases after the first meeting in real-life) are well known. You could nearly call it a pattern.
Back in August this year, I even planned to add an extra-chapter to my bio, dealing with these (the Webbs, Corrington, Blazek, Winans, Norse, Sherman, Unpleasants, Richmond, Neeli for a while ... ). That's why I was reading myself into the Corrington-split-up so detailed then. But now, I don't think, I'll write this chapter.
What is an interesting fact is, that nearly everybody who remained friends with him in the long run, either met him only rarely (Weissner, Martin, even Montfort) or at least, knew, when it's time to leave (Locklin).
It seems that Beard was on downers the last weeks but
has switched to uppers again, (not that it would make any difference...)
He definitely needs professsional help. But not from this forum.
Gary Eisenberg
RIP
Don't bother with the downers. Just make sure it is GOOD vodka.
mmmm vodka ... and as usual d gray and ponder prove themselves to be stunningly articulate conversationalists, developing ideas and fleshing out perspectives with courage, compassion, veracity and above all profound insight.
the thing is is that unlike (apparently) most people who discuss Bukowski, he himself was a philosopher. He studied the philosophers, they saved him (according to his own testimony in Shakespeare Never Did This) perhaps in a similar fashion to the way in which his father gave him poetry. He was a poet first of course, but definitely a philosopher. He saw farther, dug deeper and worked with more compassion. On top of that, the passion for the word, the good clean line.
I'm not sure what it is about my reasoning that you grumpelstiltskins find to be so challenging. Am I the only one who read "In defense of a certain kind of poetry" in the collection that David put together? Most people couldn't hang with Bukowski, they just weren't on his level. He could condescend and trade 12s (as they say in the jazz), but after a while it was inevitable that they would return to their more typical path and he would return to his, more electric, more generous, more alive one:
"My god my god, if I could only rip my fucking heart out tonight and let them see it! But even then they would only take it as an apricot ..." p.45
"His troubles are not my troubles. He has chosen against trouble and to die. I have chosen trouble and to live." p.44
"Given 2 choices, being a professor of English or a dishwasher, you take the dishwasher. Perhaps not to save the wold, but to harm it less." p.43
"if we cannot save the world, then at least let us know what it is, where we are." p.42
"The dead are easy to find -- they are all about us; the difficulty is in finding the living. Notice the first person you pass on the sidewalk outside -- the color has gone from the eye; the walk is crude, awkward, ugly; even the hair on the head seems to grow in a diseased fashion. There are many more signs of death -- one is a feeling of radiation, the dead actually throw off rays, stink from the dead soul, that can make you lose your lunch if you remain too long." p.41
the first three quotes are absolutely and inarguably saintly. there's no doubt about it. that is the kind of thing saints say. the second two quotes are different, more objective and, finally, more disgusted. thus, bukowski, in addition to being a poet, is a philosopher, but not a saint.
the thing is is that unlike (apparently) most people who discuss Bukowski, he himself was a philosopher. He studied the philosophers, they saved him (according to his own testimony in Shakespeare Never Did This) perhaps in a similar fashion to the way in which his father gave him poetry. He was a poet first of course, but definitely a philosopher. He saw farther, dug deeper and worked with more compassion. On top of that, the passion for the word, the good clean line.
I'm not sure what it is about my reasoning that you grumpelstiltskins find to be so challenging. Am I the only one who read "In defense of a certain kind of poetry" in the collection that David put together? Most people couldn't hang with Bukowski, they just weren't on his level. He could condescend and trade 12s (as they say in the jazz), but after a while it was inevitable that they would return to their more typical path and he would return to his, more electric, more generous, more alive one:
"My god my god, if I could only rip my fucking heart out tonight and let them see it! But even then they would only take it as an apricot ..." p.45
"His troubles are not my troubles. He has chosen against trouble and to die. I have chosen trouble and to live." p.44
"Given 2 choices, being a professor of English or a dishwasher, you take the dishwasher. Perhaps not to save the wold, but to harm it less." p.43
"if we cannot save the world, then at least let us know what it is, where we are." p.42
"The dead are easy to find -- they are all about us; the difficulty is in finding the living. Notice the first person you pass on the sidewalk outside -- the color has gone from the eye; the walk is crude, awkward, ugly; even the hair on the head seems to grow in a diseased fashion. There are many more signs of death -- one is a feeling of radiation, the dead actually throw off rays, stink from the dead soul, that can make you lose your lunch if you remain too long." p.41
the first three quotes are absolutely and inarguably saintly. there's no doubt about it. that is the kind of thing saints say. the second two quotes are different, more objective and, finally, more disgusted. thus, bukowski, in addition to being a poet, is a philosopher, but not a saint.
i'm sure. it's cause you're a pompous pseudo-intellectual full of vomitous pseudo-insights.
how's that for philosophical, motherfucker...
You can beat around the bush all day, but the fact is that anybody who reads this thread is immediately confronted with the fact that I have gambled on attempting to dig deep and express real things about a man that I care about, and you have expressed emoticon cliches while trying in vain to draw strength from cuss words and personal insults. I have no ego involvement here, my concern is with Bukowski.
It is distasteful to see somebody who means something being disparaged on the subway walls of posterity. "Oh poor bukowski had it rough growing up!" He referred to himself as lucky! This relates directly to the thread topic, because Bukowski was superior. That is why they would inevitably 'split.' People could not keep up with him. Writing it off as some kind of neurosis a la Freud is not only wrong, but a perfect example of pseudo-intellectual jibber jabber!!!
Feel free to ante up, and take on any of the points that I mentioned, or dig up any quotes to contradict or flesh out the meaning of the quotes that I posted. If you demonstrate that anything I've said is wrong, then so be it, you could earn yourself some respect. I have no problem being wrong and I respect anybody who can actually drop some science on a discourse.
mjp
Founding member
I think you've got the equation backward there, chum. You're the one who has yet to earn anyone's respect. The warm embrace of your particular delusion may bring you comfort, but you should know that most people here see you as a babbling, unhinged kook.
So you can simmer down now, or you can disappear. It's up to you. But just so it doesn't come as a surprise, you should know that many of us are growing tired of you and your sloppy mania, so understand that the clock is ticking toward your ouster.
That's all the science you need dropped at the moment. Word.
Gary Eisenberg
RIP
You've got something here, MJP, I must agree. I do have a hard time following his line of reasoning. Uh...a while back I suggested vodka only. Maybe including the downers was not such a bad idea after all? Still, it's only humane to keep with the good vodka, regardless.
that wasn't beating around the bush. that was a "burning bush". bitch...
mind your place, prospect. now go clean my motorcycle with your toothbrush, get me a beer, and
tell your woman she gave me crabs again...
Yeah. Where's Pogue and Sky's posts?
Hmmm.....Scotland looks a bit different since my last visit.
I think Beard contacted Saul Goodman's guy, for Growing Beard has been disappeared.
Pogue Mahone
Officials say drugs may have played a part
I realize he had very little to contribute and what he did contribute was way too fucking long. My "words hurt" comment was tongue and cheek, but this "Lord of the Flies" shit is starting to get a little too "Animal Farm" for me.
Sky and I are over on the next island, fucking like Banshees, reading Bukowski to the natives like a couple of Mormons on their first mission, and ordering four rounds at last call. She's a monster in bed too... we got a complaint about too much screaming at 4 a.m., but it was me doing all the screaming. That's nurses for you...
I any case, R.I.P. Growing Beard. May you mumble in your sleep where no one can hear...
Sky and I are over on the next island, fucking like Banshees, reading Bukowski to the natives like a couple of Mormons on their first mission, and ordering four rounds at last call. She's a monster in bed too... we got a complaint about too much screaming at 4 a.m., but it was me doing all the screaming. That's nurses for you...
I any case, R.I.P. Growing Beard. May you mumble in your sleep where no one can hear...
Ain't love grand. Now where's my Wormwood Pogue? Or did you gift that along with tobacco to the Islanders?
Gary Eisenberg
RIP
This is damned good writing, Pogue Malone. Keep 'em coming!
Okay..... I finally found it. Getting back to business here. I found the paragraph that I was using as my example of how Buk described himself and his inability to get along with other people once he met them. I know I'm kind of ruining a really funny string of posts but I've got to get this off my chest.
This is from "Screams From the Balcony." It's page 168.
"I've never felt good with the crowd and it started in grammar school, I sensed that they touched each other understood each other but that I did not belong and now, 45 years old, I find I still do not belong, fuck dramatics, but the worst part is that I do not even belong with the best ones, the living ones, I seem sliced off for ever by some god damn trick, either my imagining or some type of insanity, but even the good ones leave me dangling and I feel like a fool, and I know that I am a fool for I feel what I know."
So, this is what I wanted to share as far as the main topic of Bukowski and his split with Corrington. Just got home from work on Saturday night and some wine and smokes and Bukowski.net is going to set me straight.
This is from "Screams From the Balcony." It's page 168.
"I've never felt good with the crowd and it started in grammar school, I sensed that they touched each other understood each other but that I did not belong and now, 45 years old, I find I still do not belong, fuck dramatics, but the worst part is that I do not even belong with the best ones, the living ones, I seem sliced off for ever by some god damn trick, either my imagining or some type of insanity, but even the good ones leave me dangling and I feel like a fool, and I know that I am a fool for I feel what I know."
So, this is what I wanted to share as far as the main topic of Bukowski and his split with Corrington. Just got home from work on Saturday night and some wine and smokes and Bukowski.net is going to set me straight.