Bukowski

THIs is an essay I wrote for Burman's class bout Bukowski... here you go Curran (be aware that I still like the ideas, but don't necessarily like how they came across now that i re-read it...)

The other day, I called a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in a week or so, and asked if he wanted to get a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop. He agreed and 20 minutes later, I was picking him up from his house and we were on our way. I very much enjoy my friend’s company and while I was driving to pick him up, I found myself thoroughly excited. He is very interesting, kinetic[1], has a lot to say, and will always make an awkward encounter at the local coffee shop, for me, much less awkward

This local coffee shop that we went to is called the Pannikin. The Pannikin is located in a historic Santa Fe Railroad Station. They do all of their roasting right there in the café, and have quite a nice ambiance when it isn’t too crowded and when I go the Pannikin I typically expect a good cup of coffee. Maybe now I expect a good cup of coffee because I have tasted it before, and do like it. But even the first time I ordered a cup of coffee there I expected a good cup of coffee.

Let me walk you through my first time at the Pannikin. The first thing I noticed about the Pannikin was the building [as I said before, old Santa Fe Railroad Station]. It was interesting enough that when I rounded the corner and saw some old pictures of the station, I stopped and looked at them for a bit longer than I expected. I continued my journey and walked past the patio that was very crowded, and finally found my place in line, which was at the door’s threshold. I began looking around and found to my right, a retail area where some one was buying a pound of coffee. I took a step forward in line and began looking at the various coffee cups and knickknacks and then at the open beam work of the building. Again I took a step forward. My eyes caught sight of a tuba, and beside it a plow, hanging from the ceiling, and next was the menu [which was hand-written and decorated with chalk]. I took another step forward and noticed a cute girl pouring a cup of coffee. I immediately looked down at the pastries and found the pastries that I would buy if I had enough money [a pie with chocolate chips on top[2]]. I then looked over to my left and found a man ripping open a bag of sugar on a old stove [turned into a condiment bar], then pouring it into his coffee, and then properly using the correct amount[3] of half & half for his coffee size. Another step forward and now it’s the cute girl standing on the opposite side of the counter asking me how I am doing[4].

So this was where my friend and I got our cups of coffee and a chocolate cream pie. After bumping into someone that would have been awkward with out him, we found a table to enjoy our treats and converse. We started talking of this new girl[5] he had been seeing, and after a bit he said, “She’s the apple that by looking at it, you know would make a really good pie, but you can’t reach it. You know it’s out of reach and that it doesn’t really want to be picked, but you still know it would make a really good pie.”

My friend can relate anything in life to three things. Those three things are: baseball[6], an apple tree, and painting houses. Not only can he relate anything to those three things and do it on a regular basis, but also he uses it as moral guidance. For me, all of these ideas are interesting enough to write multiple essays on, but for our purposes today, painting houses[7] will have to do.

In our life, it seems that we always carry judgments and expectations to every interaction. For example, I expected a good cup of coffee from the Pannikin for the many reasons, and now, after tasting their coffee and qualifying its “goodness,” I expect it to be just as good [and it is]. On the contrary, when I go to the coffee shop in an old empty mall parking lot, and miraculously see that the coffee shop has it’s “open” sign flickering on and off, I expect a not so decent cup of coffee. So when that coffee is good, or lets say as good as the Pannikin coffee, it seems as if the cup of coffee is great, perhaps even better than the Pannikin because it exceeded my expectations. This idea, for me, is why the poem “bluebird” by Charles Bukowski is so beautiful.

Charles Bukowski is an American writer, and is said to be one of the most influential contemporary writers of poetry and prose. But for many reasons, Charles Bukowski is disgusting[8]. First of all, his writing is usually vulgar, unnecessary, and at times disgusting when he talks about various things like trying [and failing] to masturbate with some rubber thing some guy gave him at the bar[9]. So when Bukowski begins to talk of things that aren’t vulgar and unnecessary, like in “bluebird,” it is out of character. He exceeds my expectations because I expect him to write a bad poem about something disgusting[10] or completely unnecessary.

But this “disgustingness” may not even be the real Bukowski. Bluebird seems to be written not from the drunk, the womanizer, the loser, the asshole[11], but from what seems to be Bukowski himself[12]. He talks of how he hides his “bluebird” from the outside world[13] with cigarettes and whiskey. We can then recognize that this poem is a bit removed from this world that Bukowski usually writes a bad poem about.

Essentially, this poem acts as his bluebird because it contradicts itself. Everyone interested enough now knows this other side of Bukowski and if we pay attention, can we see this bluebird? Yes[14].

Because I expect Bukowski to be unnecessary and vulgar in his poems, when I read bluebird, it is only beautiful because it comes from Bukowski’s mouth[15]. His poem bluebird is so out of character and for that reason it is beautiful; that because Bukowski is ugly visually, orally, and in respect to his poems, bad, then when he does something good or O.K., he travels much more distance on the beauty scale than Robert Frost who is expected to write something pretty or thought provoking[16]. What I am suggesting is that “bluebird” may just be an O.K. poem, and that my interpretation of it has everything to do with the power of ethos, and that I’m O.K. with that; that expectations have everything to do with interpretations [please see footnote 7].

Bukowski as in painting houses: Bukowski is like the house on your street that has shingles and looks like shit. The paint is chipping off and it pisses you off every time you drive by it. As a[n inexperienced] door-to-door painting salesman, you finally stop in front of the house [after two years of driving by], walk up to the house, and knock on the door. You plan to ask Bukowski if he wants an estimate for the paint job, and while you are waiting [for Bukowski to answer the door], you take a closer look at one of the piece-of-shit shingles. When you touch it, the shingle falls off. Dumbfounded, you pick up the shingle, turn it over [suspecting mold], and find a beautiful bluebird color. You walk to your car [Bukowski didn’t answer], and drive home with a part of Bukowski you never knew before.

[1] By kinetic, I mean he uses his hands and body to convey lots of meaning.
[2] It was a chocolate cream pie
[3] The only way I can describe the correct amount of half & half is this: a nice dark brown
[4] If you haven’t already realized, I have just described to you, everything that would make me expect a good cup of coffee [i.e. the cute girl I fell in love with, it being crowded – crowded patio and line to door]. I reasoned that since they put so much effort into making the place look nice and interesting, that they would probably do the same with their coffee.
[5] She actually cancelled plans with him to go on a hike that morning, and actually freed up his schedule for him to have coffee [by cancel I mean her not picking up his numerous phone calls, until finally picking up and telling him she was sick and didn’t want to go on a hike that day, then showing up at the very café with some of her girlfriends]
[6] An easy example of baseball: three strikes, you’re out [i.e. strike one for her]
[7] Paint houses example and probably the controlling idea of this entire paper: Nothing is, [as good] as it seems. Basically, that if you see a house with shingles that has a great paint job, the painters probably didn’t paint the other side of the shingles so now they are molding and will have to be replaced after this years rain season.
[8] For something to be described as disgusting, for me at least, should be something that is disgusting for every one of the five senses. See: Charles Bukowski was not an attractive man. He was fat, probably had gross teeth, his head was too big for his frame DONE. Smell: I can’t imagine Bukowski smelling nice [or taking showers]. The stench of whiskey, beer, cigarettes, cigars, and sweat isn’t the best combination DONE. Hear: after all the years of smoking, his voice sounds raspy, and usually what comes out of his mouth is some vulgar remark or poem DONE. Touch: I don’t think Bukowski would feel nice for many of the reasons already stated, but also because he was fairly hairy. Taste: I don’t really want to think about this DONE.
[9] Rubber by Charles Bukowski via bukowski.net in the manuscript section.
[10] It is not my intention to give off the impression that I do not like Bukowski, because in fact, I do.
[11] Without his “other side,” or his “Bluebird” side, Bukowski would have been discarded long ago as some porn director, a crazy drunk, or an asshole, but instead, we call him a poet. People say, “I love how in your face he gets,” or “I love how he just doesn’t give a shit,” because he’s so raw, but really, he does give a shit, and yeah he’s right there in your face, but he’s got a mask on. Perhaps Bukowski does give a shit, which makes him that much more interesting! Perhaps he is merely using the conventions of an asshole as a mask because he is in fact, not a complete asshole. Bukowski isn’t an asshole because he recognizes he is an asshole. In his poem “love dead like a crushed fly,” he talks about how he was an asshole: “… wandering through my recent / past, I realized that as a / human being / I could have been much / better, nicer, kinder / not just to her / but also to / the grocery clerk / the corner paperboy / the uninvited visitor / the ragged beggar / the tired waitress / the stray cat / the sleepy bartender / and/or / etc.” By realizing that he could have been “much better, nicer, kinder,” he suggests that he has changed, or that he at least knows how much of an asshole he was. This realization is much like that of a man who questions his sanity. When one questions his sanity, one is therefore able to criticize his actions and logic, and by doing so, he is in fact not insane because the insane man never questions himself [!]. By questioning his “asshole-ness,” Bukowski is therefore, not a complete asshole [which further proves his bluebird is real!]
[12] He first writes: “There’s a bluebird in my heart that / wants to get out / but I’m too tough for him / I say, stay in there, I’m not going / to let anybody see / you.” Bukowski seems to be suggesting at something close to his heart that wants to get out. By the use of the word “heart,” it seems that Bukowski is writing of something important and true coined by the metaphor, “He spoke from his heart.” This true idea, the bluebird, wants to get out, but as he writes, “I’m too tough for him,” and “I’m not going to let anybody see you,” suggests that Bukowski is hiding something from the world that is true, and still very important. Bukowski continues to write: “I pour whiskey on him and inhale / cigarette smoke / and the whores and the bartenders / and the grocery clerks / never know that / he’s / in there” [see footnote 13]. This idea of truth is supported in this piece in that when he pours whiskey on him, and inhales cigarette smoke, he is using them as a mask to hide his true self to the whores, bartenders and grocery clerks. When one takes into consideration what most of Bukowski’s poetry is about, women, alcohol, cigarettes, we may need to assume the same logic that this is also a mask Bukowski is wearing. But this poem contradicts itself in that he is showing everyone who is interested enough, his “bluebird,” his other side. This poem is the bluebird. This suggests that all the poetry before, and perhaps after, has the same qualities of “bluebird” but that they are, by his doing, hidden. If we only take a closer look, we may realize that Bukowski has been using this mask in many poems.
[13] According to the poem, Bukowski’s world consists of whores, bartenders, and grocery clerks.
[14] Bukowski seems to use “bombs” of vulgar and crude language to distract us from the bluebird in him. For example, the poem “the shower” by Charles Bukowski can be interpreted as a scene from a pornographic movie if we don’t search for the bluebird. Consider this: “and then I wash her. . . I / stand behind her [as] / I gently soap up [her] hair / wash there with a soothing motion / then I get the backs of the legs, / the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her, / the belly, the neck, / the fronts of the legs, the / ankles, the feet, / another kiss, and she gets out first.” This poem seems to be Bukowski’s true self, his bluebird. He’s down on his knees conveying his love for her, showing his tender affection with his careful and “soothing” actions to her body. Although he does not include every detail of her body, the message is that he cares for her, washing her, not forgetting any part of the body while he kisses her and caresses her.
Consider this: “and then I wash her. . . / first the cunt, I / stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass / I gently soap up the cunt hairs, / wash there with a soothing motion, / I linger perhaps longer than necessary, / then I get the backs of the legs, the ass, / the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her, / soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck, / the fronts of the legs, the / ankles, the feet, / and then the cunt, once more, for luck. . . / another kiss, and she gets out first” This, the real version of “the shower,” has every word from the previous example [excluding the words in brackets], only this one is loaded with crude bombs such as “cunt,” “cock,” and “ass.”
[15] Which is on his unusually large head, which rests on his [weird and disgusting] body. Also, please reread footnote 8.
[16] In regards to “bluebird,” Bukowski is ugly/disgusting doing something pretty. But if Frost wrote the poem, it would be pretty doing pretty, and therefore meeting my expectations.