Read Online The Captain Is Out to Lunch by Charles Bukowski - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charles Bukowski
Tags: United States, Fiction, Literary, General, Historical, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Criticism, Authors, Business & Economics, Poetry, Diaries, Management
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still demanding money, Jack sliding down the beanstalk, Jack who talks about it but doesn't do it, Jack who gets away with murder, Jack who jacks, Jack who talks of the old days, Jack who talks and talks, Jack with the hand out, Jack who terrorizes the weak, Jack the embittered, Jack of the coffee shops, Jack screaming for recognition, Jack who never has a job, Jack who totally overrates his potential, Jack who keeps screaming about his unrecognized talent, Jack who blames everbody else.
You know who Jack is, you saw him yesterday, you'll see him tomorrow, you'll see him next week.
Wanting it without doing it, wanting it free.
Wanting fame, wanting women, wanting everything.
A world full of Jacks sliding down the beanstalk.
Now I'm tired of writing about poets. But I will add that they are hurting themselves by living as poets instead of as something else. I worked as a common laborer until I was 50. I was jammed in with the people. I never claimed to be a poet. Now I am not saying that working for a living is a grand thing. In most cases it is a horrible thing. And often you must fight to keep a horrible job because there are 25 guys standing behind you ready to take the same job. Of course, it's senseless, of course it flattens you out. But being in that mess, I think, taught me to lay off the bullshit when I did write. I think you have get your face in the mud now and then, I think you have to know what a jail is, a hospital is. I think you have to know what it feels like to go without food for 4 or 5 days. I think that living with insane women is good for the backbone. I think you can write with joy and release after you've been in he vise. I only say this because all the poets I have met have been soft jellyfish, sycophants. They have nothing to write about except their selfigh nonendurance.
Yes, I stay away from the POETS. Do you blame me?
3/16/92 12:53 AM
I have no idea what causes it. It's just there: a certain feeling for writers of the past. And my feelings aren't even accurate, they are just mine, almost entirely invented. I think of Sherwood Anderson, for instance, as a little fellow, slightly slump-shouldered. he was probably straight and tall. No matter. I see him my way. (I've never seen a photo of him.) Dostoevsky I see as a bearded fellow on the heavy side with dark green smoldering eyes. First he was too heavy, then too thin, the too heavy. Nonsense, surely, but I like my nonsense. I even see Dostoevsky as a fellow who lusted for little girls. Faulkner, I see in a rather dim light as a crank and fellow with bad breath. Gorky, I see as a sneak drunk. Tolstoy as a man who went into rages over nothing at all. I see Hemingway as a fellow who practiced ballet behind closed doors. I see Celine as a fellow who had problems sleeping. I see e.e. cumming as a great pool player. I couldn't go on and on.
Mainly I had these visions when I was a starving writer, half-mad, and unable to fit into society. I had very little food but had much time. Whoever the writers were, they were magic to me. They opened door differently. They needed a stiff drink upon awakening. Life was too god-damned much for them. Each day was like walking in wet concrete. I made them my heroes. I fed upon them. My ideas of them supported me in my nowhere. Thinking about them was much better than reading them. Like D. H. Lawrence. What a wicked little guy. He knew so much that it just kept him pissed-off all the time. Lovely, lovely. And Aldous Huxley... brain power to spare. He knew so much it gave him headaches.
I would stretch out on my starvation bed and think about these fellows.
Literature was so... Romantic. Yeah.
But the composers and painters were good too, alway going mad, suiciding, doing strange and obnoxious things. Suicide seemed such a good idea. I even tried it a few times myself, failed but came close, gave it some good tries. Now here I am almost 72 years old. My
You know who Jack is, you saw him yesterday, you'll see him tomorrow, you'll see him next week.
Wanting it without doing it, wanting it free.
Wanting fame, wanting women, wanting everything.
A world full of Jacks sliding down the beanstalk.
Now I'm tired of writing about poets. But I will add that they are hurting themselves by living as poets instead of as something else. I worked as a common laborer until I was 50. I was jammed in with the people. I never claimed to be a poet. Now I am not saying that working for a living is a grand thing. In most cases it is a horrible thing. And often you must fight to keep a horrible job because there are 25 guys standing behind you ready to take the same job. Of course, it's senseless, of course it flattens you out. But being in that mess, I think, taught me to lay off the bullshit when I did write. I think you have get your face in the mud now and then, I think you have to know what a jail is, a hospital is. I think you have to know what it feels like to go without food for 4 or 5 days. I think that living with insane women is good for the backbone. I think you can write with joy and release after you've been in he vise. I only say this because all the poets I have met have been soft jellyfish, sycophants. They have nothing to write about except their selfigh nonendurance.
Yes, I stay away from the POETS. Do you blame me?
3/16/92 12:53 AM
I have no idea what causes it. It's just there: a certain feeling for writers of the past. And my feelings aren't even accurate, they are just mine, almost entirely invented. I think of Sherwood Anderson, for instance, as a little fellow, slightly slump-shouldered. he was probably straight and tall. No matter. I see him my way. (I've never seen a photo of him.) Dostoevsky I see as a bearded fellow on the heavy side with dark green smoldering eyes. First he was too heavy, then too thin, the too heavy. Nonsense, surely, but I like my nonsense. I even see Dostoevsky as a fellow who lusted for little girls. Faulkner, I see in a rather dim light as a crank and fellow with bad breath. Gorky, I see as a sneak drunk. Tolstoy as a man who went into rages over nothing at all. I see Hemingway as a fellow who practiced ballet behind closed doors. I see Celine as a fellow who had problems sleeping. I see e.e. cumming as a great pool player. I couldn't go on and on.
Mainly I had these visions when I was a starving writer, half-mad, and unable to fit into society. I had very little food but had much time. Whoever the writers were, they were magic to me. They opened door differently. They needed a stiff drink upon awakening. Life was too god-damned much for them. Each day was like walking in wet concrete. I made them my heroes. I fed upon them. My ideas of them supported me in my nowhere. Thinking about them was much better than reading them. Like D. H. Lawrence. What a wicked little guy. He knew so much that it just kept him pissed-off all the time. Lovely, lovely. And Aldous Huxley... brain power to spare. He knew so much it gave him headaches.
I would stretch out on my starvation bed and think about these fellows.
Literature was so... Romantic. Yeah.
But the composers and painters were good too, alway going mad, suiciding, doing strange and obnoxious things. Suicide seemed such a good idea. I even tried it a few times myself, failed but came close, gave it some good tries. Now here I am almost 72 years old. My
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