Hi, I don't have a copy of 'Sifting through the madness' on me but I was trying to find a poem in it, it goes something like 'no one is more hard done by than the average white man' and the poem lists a whole load of 'homosexual black lesbian feminist' poets etc. etc. I really wanted to show someone the poem but can't recall a title or a line clearly. Thoughts on a dinner plate, please.
It's called "giving thanks," and since it appears in Sifting, you should read it with the knowledge that there are probably words in there that Bukowski didn't type. Like nincompoop. It's long and repetitive, but you have the gist of it (oh fuck it, here's the whole thing): giving thanks I have to admire that most abused of the human species: the white American middle-class male. as a writer I have been criticized for writing unkindly of females; other writers have been criticized for writing unkindly of Blacks, Orientals, homosexuals, lesbians, Amerindians, the aged, the unborn the newly born the lame or the Chicanos the Jews the French the Italians the Greeks the English or the whatevers. actually, making mild minor sport of or criticizing almost any minority group has ruined the careers of not only writers but politicians sports commentators, and people in entertainment. it is a touchy age. everybody is on the defensive. you must not speak unkindly about us, they say, or we will finish you off! now for a writer, this is grade-a hell. a good writer must simply let it all go, regardless. if I find a Black or a woman or a dog or a cripple or a tree or a child or an Oriental individually obnoxious I think it is my duty to describe them as such. I often describe myself as obnoxious, for example. I demand that all territories be open for criticism! I will not be guilty of treading heavily on the truth! even so, I still give everlasting thanks to the white American middle-class male who can still be trashed and insulted and demeaned again and again and no one ever protests, and he never protests, he just doesn’t give a damn. but, oh, says the politically correct chorus, they’re just too satisfied with their mundane existence! yes, some of them are, but not all of them. some of them are just as heroic as homosexuals and lesbians and feminists, and Blacks, and all the etceteras; and in some cases, even more so. but our white American middle-class male never protests when I find him out of order. but, says the politically correct chorus, that’s because he’s running the show! maybe, maybe not. all I know is that as a writer he’s a good and fair and uncomplaining target for me. I can abuse him and punch him, I can lay him low in the poem, I can abuse him in stories, novels and screenplays, and he’ll take it all without a whimper. in our very restrictive overprotective society it’s great for a writer to have one such wide-open playground to play around in. so again here’s to the white American middle-class male, the butt of all the jokes, the clown, the brute, the watcher of tv, the dog, the drinker of beer, the sexist pig, the bumbling husband, the fat-bellied dim-witted nincompoop who will take every possible abuse and say nothing, he’ll just light a fresh cigar, shift uncomfortably in his chair and try to smile. here’s to this forgotten hero! now, go ahead, hate me.
nincompoop? Wtf? And: Olaf? Wtf? Long time no see. Whatcha been doing since 2006? Edit: ah, I see you've been posting in the last years. . Somehow I missed that. It just felt like 2006.
