well, now I need sleep, if I can only SLEEP! little girl slept with me last night and pissed all over me as usual. but she is a sweet box of candy. she is joy. I look at her and light goes all through me. I am soft, man, soft, and I don’t mind a bit. to feel some kind of love after the jars and holes they’ve had me in, it’s the neatest of miracles. [***]
Corrington’s novel, The Upper Hand, was published by Putnam’s in 1967. The parody letter is “A Letter from Chuck Buck” by Felix Pollak in The Smith, no 7 (15 October 1966), pp. 40—47.
[To John William Corrington]
February 11, 1967
so you’ve done a moderne novel? May? good. now Putnams. you get around. slip me a free one, book I mean. I’ve got a whole bookcase full of free books, mostly poetry. I take much pride in my free books, most of them being vury good because the people wanted me to read them and felt I would see some light within the pages, and it works, easy like. [***]
I’ll mail you the Smith. your name is mentioned in there. it is a parody of me, or whatever you call it. they pretend they have intercepted one of my letters. I write letters. by the way, I have never submitted anything to Ed Sanders. I wonder where they get that stuff? it doesn’t matter; I think you might even call it a fun-piece except the satire is the sharp exaggeration bit, you know, and believe he detests my style and my guts—which is going to happen to all of us at one time, and it is part of the rocks in the shoes. [***]
as to the poetry writing, I am writing very good again after a kind of 2 years slump. which lasted from about Oct. 64 to Oct. 66. I do not mean that my poems were not being published, I mean that I did not care for them. now they come out full of butter and steel and my fingers hit the keys and it is easy. but my health shot. [***]
[To John William Corrington]
February 22, 1967
[***] I am not so worried about whether I am writing any good or not; I know I write a valley of bad stuff. but what gets me is that nobody is coming on that I can believe in or look up to. it’s hell not to have a hero. it gets harder and harder not to have a hero. somebody to blow out the fire, knock out the goof, give you the word. my heroes are dead and the replacements seem very shoddy indeed. what can I do with Mailer, what can I do with Lowell? what can I do with anybody I can name? the thing is, when you first start the big boys have already been there a while. you look around. well, names. Dos Passos. Hemingway. Frost. Pound. Cummings. so forth. so forth. Jeffers. so forth. so you look round and let them go. they’ve been there. maybe you don’t really like them but they are old boys in a picture book on the coffee table and it’s kind of sad and kind of interesting. LeRoi Jones, Andy Warhol, D. DiPrima, Ray Bremser, you gotta be kidding! where’s the big wooly guy with the diamond eyes and the cement lines? let me the HELL OUTA HERE! [***]
Bukowski’s “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” column in Open City (July 14—20, 1967) gave a sardonic account of his trip to Tucson. In it, Jon Webb is transparently disguised as “the great editor.”
[To John William Corrington]
November [?15], 1967
thanks for return of The Smith. being attacked by men of no talent is only a bit enjoyable for me, to me. also somebody, a gash, attacks me in what she conceives to be my poetic style in the latest issue of what? what? oh, The Sixties. they seem to be worried green shit about me, and that’s all right. I don’t worry about ’em.
yes, it’s sad about Jon Webb and me, kid. he gave me two great books and was publishing and pushing me when hardly anybody else was. I can’t forget these things. but I did write the column in Open City, but I hardly think it’s a hate-column or unjust or dirty; I just told a story of a few things that happened on some very hot Tucson days. column enclosed, and if you think I am a fink or disloyal, well, shit, then it can’t be helped. Tucson was hell, kid, I stayed at Univ. of Ariz. cottage and it was between 100 and 110 degrees every day, and I was the only one who could drink, except Lou’s old father, and I quaffed a few with him. but it was a rough trip. Jon kept trying to get me into an argument about the hippies. and I stayed out. he wanted me to write something attacking the hippies and I didn’t quite feel like doing it. I am neither pro or anti-hip. I just watch. I mean, like I am neither pro or anti-milkman or pro or anti-tree, and I am not even sure about the war. the black-white war, the Vietnam war or any other war. then they wanted to play cards. so we played cards for hours, for dimes, and they seemed to enjoy it. I’d win the money most of the time and give it back. they have this gambling bug. which is their business but I am not bitten this way except with horses. so they keep running off to Vegas. where Lou plays the slot machines—the biggest percentage gyp evoked against the gambler, the worst play you can make. they told me that the ladies get a free pair of stockings for each FOUR jackpots they hit. they told me that Lou had won either 14 or 16 pair of stockings the last time they went, and Lou doesn’t use stockings. their business, but I view it as a type of madness, especially when they are crying broke most of the time. naturally I didn’t put this crap in the column and I only tell it to you because I consider you a friend and figure I can talk straight with you, and want you to get the FEELING of what occurred while I was down there. ah, plus I looked at old Jon a bit oddly for couple of days—he’d dyed that beautiful double wisp of white hair RED. god. and all day long it was, “Lou, have I taken my pill yet?” and there’d be a long discussion on whether Jon had taken his pill, and then Lou had this bad lung thing and couldn’t breathe and that was sad, but she still snuck her smokes. and some kids came by and they both ran in back and I had to talk to the kids. I showed them some of the books and I showed them the press. very nice young kids, clean, quiet. they left. then Lou hollered out, “Jon, you can come out, they’re gone now!” and out came Jon, with quivering and quavering voice saying to me, “WHAT’D YOU SHOW THE PRESS FOR?” I didn’t answer him. I didn’t know what to answer. dirty gossip? Jon is hard to get along with, kid. he’s always got the sword out, slashing at something. then he’d try to bait me on the hippies again. and it was hot and Lou couldn’t breathe and then the cards came out; none of this in column, and no man’s perfect, not me, not you, not Jon, and this ain’t news, kid, I get attacked plenty myself—the other day a poem-letter knocking my life and ways in local underground paper. it wasn’t even a good poem. but back to Jon and Lou, they are bookmakers supreme and good people too, but sometimes I write and I wrote this column which I enclose. I sent the column to a reporter of the Tucson paper who interviewed (bigshot) me, and told him not to give the column to Jon until he felt that Lou was feeling better, but I did want Jon to see it; I don’t like to hide or sneak punch. evidently he eventually saw it because when I wrote him he didn’t answer and so I knew. Jon is a very sensitive cat, not a sloppy hardened beerhead like me, but I guess he figured it as a kind of disloyalty, just like people figured I was being disloyal to you when I attacked one of your books of poetry. but it isn’t disloyalty; I would be the first to come up with blackjack and snub-nosed automatic to blast a hole in some human wall or inhuman wall if you were in a jam and needed to get on through. there’s still some German in me. which means loyalty, honor, all those old-fashioned words, and I half expected both you and Jon to understand this, but sometimes maybe I don’t think or figure too good. well, enough of all that. [***]
so here I am, 47 years old, hanging from the same old rotting limb, Jon pissed, you half-pissed, and my little 3 year old daughter more beautiful than ever, a perfectly formed body jumping with life, gold-red hair, she loves me. and the other way around. if we were both standing at the edge of a cliff and somebody said, “o.k., one of you will have to jump.” I wouldn’t hesitate—I’d push her right off. no, kidding now, man, I would go. and I’ve never been that way before. but I have some of that feeling for you and Jon, even tho I don’t show it too much, and now the old gang is fucked up and torn to shit. which shows you what a dangerous instrument the typewriter is. [***]
jesus, what a gloomy letter! but I am badly hungover
and all horrors magnified, I guess. so now that I’ve cheered up your day I’ll let you go. [***]
DeLoach was editor of Intrepid (Buffalo). See vol. 1, p 296.
[To Allen DeLoach]
Late November, 1967
[***] I’ve been writing so long and failing so long that there is hardly anything anybody can do to my balls now. I was always a very slow starter, and even in my early twenties, laying around drunk and jobless in N.Y., Atlanta, Philly, New Orleans, Miami, St. Louis, San Fran, I always had the thought: “Bukowski, if you can ONLY LIVE TO BE FIFTY, you will be there.” I am 47, and I might make it. with me, it is this strange thing filling up inside of me, day by day, year by year, I can feel it happening through all the women and drunks and fails and sleepless nights and suicide days, I feel this FILLING THING working down inside of me. deaht, of course, I meant to say DEATH but doesn’t it spell nice “deaht”—deaht is always there, but the filling thing functions on merrily and without any help from me. I’ve got some kind of LUNCH stewing up inside and it’s nice to have, I mean while walking down the street or shitting or fucking or breaking your leg, it’s there. how sweet can the gods get when and while they are ripping you to pieces? [***]
· 1968 ·
[To John William Corrington]
January 3, 1968
ah, balls. listen, everybody writes me, “why haven’t you answered my letter?” [***] listen, I have this large blue coffee can on the shelf and it is full of unanswered letters. this neither means that I like or dislike the people who have written them; it means that I am drunk or playing horses or sick or non-electric, can’t do, you know. no snob, just no time; I’d like to be a snob but I’d rather have the time. here, let me show you—I reach into this can and I pull out these and find that I OWE letters of response to: one: Jack Micheline (c/o Cohen); a Steven Osterlund—who wrote last August asking where he could get holden a some of my pukes; a Willie who calls himself the “manic”; an x-horse magazine editor called Conte who is now in Augusta (postmark says Sept. 25); a Douglas Blazek; a William Stetson (his postmark, Aug. 22, unanswered); a Bassett at the William Morris Agency—1350 Ave. of the Americas—postmark, June 12, ’67; a Larouche of Albuquerque; a William Wantling; a Marcus Verily Grapes who writes very drippy letters; a Jim Roman (his dated 6-26-67); a Heinrich Fett of Andernach, Germany, 547 Andernach, Privat Str 1, my 79 year old uncle who says “I don’t understand why you haven’t written. Are you well?”; an A. W. Purdy, 137 Waverley St., Apt. 3, Ottawa, Canada (his mark: Oct. 11); an Ann Menenbroker of Sacramento, who I ask to please RELENT but the letters arrive, one two three a week; my x-wife, one Barbara Hayakawa of Aniak, Alaska; one Scott Reed of Edwards, Mississippi; a Hale Chatfield of Hiram, Ohio; one Stuart McCarrell of Chi (his mark: March 19, 1967); one Dan Georgakas, a most interesting and violent anarchist; one H. Norse of 23 St. Marks Crescent, London; a Boatright; a DeLoach; a Charles Potts, Listade Ciereaex or something, L, no Jalisco, Mexico; a Richmond, Steve, of Santa Monica, Calif; a Bob Peters, dept. of English; a Fox, dept. of English; a Winski, writer of lurid sex tales; a Sherman, writer of lurid sex tales; a John and Susan Cornillion who promise to visit “this summer, if we may”; a Ben Tibbs, who always sends me a dollar for Christmas; and more and more, Christ, there are others that I have simply thrown into a big closet box and have closed the door on forever, I simply throw my dirty sox on top of them. shit, meaning what?
I guess that each of these people does not realize that there are other people writing me, and sending their little signed books of poetry. all right, I’m not Henry Miller. I’ve not made it as one writing. I work the post office. my ass is bloody. I went to the track today and lost $100. what do I have to do with anything? I can’t keep up, I can’t keep up with all these people. me, I write Jon Webb but he doesn’t answer. well, that’s dirty laundry and a kind of joke but I guess you know I am hurting, drinking beer, and it’s vaudeville, good show, not snot. I think you read. I really think that you do; otherwise I wouldn’t fuck with you, or visa versa—as the Spaniards yoused to say. oh yes, I like your IBM. send me one in the mail, right away. I want my little girl to know what they look like because I will be punching one, I mean she will be punching one all day for some greasy pinching slob because I don’t have money enough to send her to college let alone buy her pretty candies and ribbons, tho she is beautiful without, they will prb. kill that. like the sparrow is on the eye of god and he better start cleaning out HIS bunghole.
back to letter-writing. belles lettres. yah. and your, our same old argument about Faulkner and tons of falcon stream of conci. dirty-boy italics. ah, let’s not get on THAT again. oh boy. only, I mean, I just CAN’T answer all these damn letters, and I’m not even famous or even decently bearable to the sky, I mean I can walk down any street and bow wow, nobody will even sperm-like separate me from the pebbles, which is good, I am lucky to live and flow into the tons of open areas waiting, see, you know; so, I mean, I still can’t answer ALL THESE LETTERS BECAUSE IF I DID I WOULD DIE BECAUSE SO MUCH CLAIMS A MAN, FINALLY, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER THAT HE HAS TO MAKE CHOICES. if he makes the wrong choices he is dead before his time—war, women, horses, friends, literature, whiskey, the way he points his head when he sleeps…
(I owe a letter to Carl Weissner) (a good boy, a good German boy. a shepherd.)
so, with the letters, feel good. I eliminate or they eliminate me. I must answer: William Corrington, Douglas Blazek, Harold Norse, Carl W., Jack Micheline. the others may be good boys, and so was Guys and Dolls a good musical, so is Marat/Sade—the Nuts, also good.
but. of course, I am pissed. you inferred, as they say, in your last, that I could dish it out but could not take it. mother, I have been taking it for a long long time. in the factories. from the whores, from the goslin bosses. from godly goldy lox. from Amos and Andy, the 3 Stooges, Bob Hope, Santa Claus. all the shits. I have for a long time held still for a literature and a culture that pretended to be life and talk about life but I will no longer do that. [***]
I mean, babe, I have been taking it. and so have you. and when these college profs rip my doorbell, I do not hate them. they bring me whiskey. they’ve heard some tale. and they have a class in the morning. so they sit and listen to me talk and wonder where it comes from, where the hell the wonderful SECRET IS IT MUST BE SOMEWHERE, EH? they look so much better, talk too much better, have more, feel fucking ass more, —how come their words don’t come out…o.k.???? me, I can’t tell them. only maybe they got too much butter in their ass, maybe they aren’t old enough or burned enough or the ass comes too easy or looks too good and when the nails come up through the shoes you don’t beat them down with a hammer, you buy 3 new pair.
looking down, if I may, it seems that hardness kills, the tough boys kill each other, I have seldom seen a living man in a factory, and looking up, it seems, if I may, that softness kills, I have seldom seen a living man teaching a class in English Lit. I. and so when they come around and bring me whisky and I get drunk and cuss them, there are later little letters in the mail that they still love me and understand me. this is their training and not their passion. in a sense, it is their passion, like ham and eggs for Sunday breakfast, but it is NOT their blood-passion, and the sooner they learn their blood-passion, the sooner they are going to have trouble where they work, and the less they will need me. who am an old man, drinking beer. [***]
books? Terror Street holding up because I’ve got to do this tape and 34 more drawings. could have done the whole bastard thing while I was losing $100 to the horses. but it’s not always like that. sometimes I win. one meet I won $3,000 and took off 3 months and slept in different motels along the coast between L.A. and Mexico, while still keeping my apartment (with shack-job) and fucking every whore and some non-whores in between, feeling good, looking at the ocean while drunk in the moonlight, lifting the bastard coronet of that bottle, knowing that it would never be that good again, like that, I mean, now, maybe it’s even better, there’s the little girl, Marina, walking throu
gh it all, but I am sure she wouldn’t have been a shit to either of us (me and her) if she hadn’t appeared through the spectrum of the other. like that.—I mean, I have fairly-well worked-out a kind of battle palsma [?plan] to face, death, you know, take it good like that, easy, rather like I do now, only she, Marina, has brought me a kind of holiness, a kind of teaching and I do not laugh as much or hate as much, the other people, she tells me that they are something other than I think, and I accept some of this. we have long talks in the dark, before sleep, this 3 years old girl and I, and since her picture is clear, unlearned, unburned, but clear, still, I pick up, I back up, and I don’t use her—she simply fills me. Or, so I think.
all I need now is 60 days in jail or 10 years, and my whole thought processes will be realigned. everything happens for the best and the worst. like when Marina was first born, the line popped into my head, “she will probably be fucked by a sailor who never read Walter De La Mare.” that was then. now, I think, so what? what could be more beautiful? only that, if she wants a sexual fulfillment, let it be hers, and let it be as near the man she likes as is holy possible. the problem of the poor being that they just usually submit; the problem of the rich being that they never know what they are loved for. [***]
Living on Luck Page 7
