buk and animal rights (1 Viewer)

jordan

lothario speedwagon
i've read some pretty neat letters recently (mostly near the beginning of living on luck) in which buk discusses animal rights... he stops short of advocating vegetarianism, but he comes damn close.

are there any poems with similar sentiments? i haven't found any yet, and i'm wondering if it's the kind of thing he didn't like to write poetry about. as i read more letters (and more and more poetry), i'm curious to see if there are subjects that pop up in one but not the other, or if it all runs together, thematically speaking.
 
can vegetarians be poets? buk seemed to eat a lot of eggs.
aren't eggs a meat?

To the fanatic vegetarians, called vegans, eggs are seen as a kind of meat, therefore they stay away from eggs and anything just remotely connected with animals and fish. Vegetarians of the more "normal" persuasion can eat eggs and fish...
 
Oh shit, let's not get silly here. The philosophy of vegans is irrelevant in this case. Eggs are in no way shape or form a kind of meat!
A person decides not to eat them because they are the ovum produced by a female animal for reproduction and, as such, part of an animal - and vegans don't eat animals or parts of animals.

That's like saying fur is a kind of meat - because vegans wont wear fur.

Sheeesh!
 
i don't consider myself a fanatic, and i will evidence that by trying to keep this thread on track about references in buk's poetry to animal rights issues (or the more general subject of whether or not there were things he wrote letters about but not poems or stories)... if you want, we can meet in the everything but buk forum and talk about veganism.
 
Oh shit, let's not get silly here. The philosophy of vegans is irrelevant in this case. Eggs are in no way shape or form a kind of meat!
A person decides not to eat them because they are the ovum produced by a female animal for reproduction and, as such, part of an animal - and vegans don't eat animals or parts of animals.

That's like saying fur is a kind of meat - because vegans wont wear fur.

Sheeesh!

Of course eggs are not meat but as for vegans you could say a KIND of meat - figuratively speaking. I did'nt mean it literally. Yes, eggs comes from animals, that's why I wrote "they stay away from eggs and anything just remotely connected with animals or fish". Let's not split hairs...
 
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Jordan - to address your original question - I don't recall any poems where Buk speaks of animal rights or sentiments to that effect.
We all know his fondness for cats and the poem Winter speaks of a heartbreaking encounter (from a distance) with a dog that has been hit by a car. But I can't think of anything more specific than that.
I think the man had empathy for and sensitivity to all the little creatures that inhabit this place.
We can take the other conversation elsewhere, but I'm neither here nor there on Vegans - I tend to think it's a very sound position to hold - naught but respect.
It just riles me to se someone refer to an egg as meat.
i.e. It's not the philosophy but the biology I have an issue with.

I don't consider such a basic difference 'splitting hairs'... but then I am an asshole - or so I'm told. :)
 
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Vegetarians of the more "normal" persuasion can eat eggs and fish...
Vegetarians do not eat fish. Fish are sentient beings, beating heart, brain, eyeballs, all that stuff. When you eat fish you are eating the flesh of an animal. I was one of them vegetarians for more than 20 years, so I speak from experience. ;)

That's like saying fur is a kind of meat
Mmmmmm...fur meat!
 
Vegetarians do not eat fish. Fish are sentient beings, beating heart, brain, eyeballs, all that stuff. When you eat fish you are eating the flesh of an animal. I was one of them vegetarians for more than 20 years, so I speak from experience.

I stand corrected. I thought fish was an exception, at least for some vegetarians. Well, even I can make a mistake...:rolleyes:
 
fish is an exception for some "vegetarians". however, vegetarians that don't eat fish don't consider fish eating vegetarians to be vegetarians. kind of like how some people (especially in France) think that "vegetarian" means you don't eat red meat.
 
i could be totally off base here, but i have a vague feeling that Buk makes some kind of crack about not being keen on eating red meat in Hollywood (don't have a copy on hand so can't check it out). something to do with Linda trying to make him eat more healthily
 
AH HA! I had a vision, call it prophetic if you like, that I would be able to get this thread on track, and I have found something CLOSE to what you're looking for. In his letters dated November 17 and November 26 to one John William Corrington he ultimately rejects vegetarianism saying something along the lines of "a vegetarian can't cut it in today's world." He does however, recount two things to Corrington:
1) His experience in a slaughterhouse. How he hated the peculiar and unique smell of the blood and how it stuck to and stayed in his shoes and clothing. He would see people looking at him because they smelled the blood on him, but they would go home to "eat porterhouses." He made a vague indication that he had seen an animal slaughtered and that was barbaric or something to that effect, and that although he would never stop eating meat he never wanted to see another animal butchered in his life. It was an experience that was "impossible to rebuild" or something to that effect.

2) A story ("funny" he called it) a friend had told him about a guy who killed two chickens with a hammer because he didn't know to wring their necks as an experienced man would do. He had to pound their heads repeatedly and Buk is a bit graphic about the results (eye dangling from a cord, beak smashed into the head, and yet he still couldn't catch them). While horrible he admits that the head-smashing spoke more to idiocy than outright cruelty.

You can find the letters in Living On Luck: Selected Letters 1960-1970 about twenty pages in. If you do look it up in the hardcover book (if there was another printing) with the Buk drawings on the outside would you mind telling me what was on pages 38-48? Someone cut them out, and cleanly, too! All that's left of the pages line up exactly and the edges are almost perfectly vertical and straight.
 
as a "fanatic" vegan i will say we dont eat eggs, but none of us consider eggs meat at all, we just do not support the cruel harvesting practices detailed here...

http://www.eggcruelty.com/

i doubt buk cared much about this cause, but he always struck me as a man with a big heart, so perhaps he would be sympathetic to the cause.

bukfan, you seem like an alright guy, but you really should educate yourself about veganism before you go around tossing out the term "fanatic"
 
bukfan, you seem like an alright guy, but you really should educate yourself about veganism before you go around tossing out the term "fanatic"

Sorry Michael, I did'nt mean to step on anybodys toes! But I do believe most meat eaters think of vegans as "fanatics", compared to "ordinary" vegetarians. So, it's not necessarily my opinion but people in general. It was in this context I used the word.
That's unfortunately how people think. If you're into something the general public is not, you will be labelled a "fanatic", an "exstremist" a "screwball" or whatever...
 
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Since when is the term "fanatic" such an insult (or implied insult). To me it just indicates a strong passion for or against something. Nothing wrong with that in my book.
 
Well, vegans are fanatics and extremists. It's an extreme practice, and I've never met a vegan who is casual or laissez faire about it. They are, typically, fanatics. That's not a value judgement, it's just the way it is.

I met a kid once and we were talking for a bit about web servers (ha) and it came up that I was a vegetarian. He said he was a vegan, and he looked at my Dr. Martin boots and scrunched up his face and said, "If you're a vegetarian, how can you wear leather?! Did you know there are great boots made by blah blah blah out of paperclips and old Pepsi bottles, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..."

That sort of enthusiasm is cute, but, uh, kiss my ass, punk! ;)

Anyway, you are 1,847 times more likely to get a lecture like that from a vegan anarchist hippie punk squatter than you are from any other human, so I'm afraid that the stereotype, in this case, fits like a glove.
 
i've read some pretty neat letters recently (mostly near the beginning of living on luck) in which buk discusses animal rights... he stops short of advocating vegetarianism, but he comes damn close.

are there any poems with similar sentiments? i haven't found any yet, and i'm wondering if it's the kind of thing he didn't like to write poetry about. as i read more letters (and more and more poetry), i'm curious to see if there are subjects that pop up in one but not the other, or if it all runs together, thematically speaking.

haha i totally ignored the first paragraph, sorry...
 
there are plenty of "laid back vegans"
Yeah, I'm sure there are some pretty groovy guys in the Taliban too. Shame they all get labeled with that extremist tag.

but i kind of agree with the kid giving you shit for your hypocrisy... which is far more offensive than anything else.
You don't know what my beliefs are, so I'm not sure how you can call me a hypocrite. Bit of a logic disconnect there.

The brave cow who gave his life for my shoes was not butchered for his hide, that is just a byproduct of the meat harvesting. When people quit eating cows I'll quit using the bits that they can't eat. Look here, I'm greener than you, motherfucker! How dare you!

Isn't there a WTO protest somewhere you should be at? How are they going to flip and burn all those cars without you?
 
mjp you are so edgy and bukowski like!

puke.

people like you are so fucking boring it kills me. you are a clown, and a shitty one at that.

...bring on the hate guys, i know you have a neat little club here where everyone thinks the same, and you will stick up for your own, others bored enough with the real world to commit so much time and energy to a message board for a guy who would laugh his withered ass off at were he still alive.
 
Yeesh, touchy!



Maybe you need a hamburger...to take the edge off...(obligatory shitty clown joke).
 
i knew this would happen when i started this thread. and bill, you'd be surprised how many times i've been at a jewish gathering (i'm jewish), only to have other jews tell me i should eat brisket or lox or whatever because hitler was a vegetarian. there's a song by a band called anal cunt called "hitler was a sensitive man" that talks about how he was a vegetarian, and that if he were alive today, his favorite band would be the smiths.

look, i think bukowski's stuff in living on luck (cited by ninjerk) is applicable to the little spat going on here. buk was horrified at the animal rights violations he saw in the meat industry, yet he continued to eat meat, not because he was a huge hypocrite, but because he drew his personal line where he did... sensitive enough to care that humanity had advanced to a state where it could treat animals like that, sensitive enough to give a shit about them, but not so broken up over it that he changed his lifestyle to accommodate this sensitivity. to me, that's better than some asshole who says "fuck the cows, they're dumb and deserve to die", even though that asshole is consistent. likewise, mjp at one point didn't eat meat, but he didn't draw his personal line at not using any animal products at all. likewise, i still eat honey, although i have vegan friends who will not, because i draw my personal line in between bees and other animals. finally, i have heard mouthfuls from people who rag on me for wearing outdoorsy clothes made from petroleum based products (like polypropylene or gore-tex), saying that i should wear wool, because it's greener. does it make me a hypocrite that i profess to care about the environment while wearing these clothes, because it's more important to me not to wear something that had to be sheared off of an animal? it's a personal choice. the only time i ever lecture someone is in defense ("not eating meat means you're not a real man"), or because their lack of compassion is startling. to me, caring is the most important thing... which is why it doesn't disturb me too much that buk rejected vegetarianism. "deeds not words" i know, but the capability to feel that compassion says a whole lot to me about someone's character.
 
I don't eat meat for almost 10 years. It's not even a big issue to me. In real life I rather avoid the subject.

I drink and smoke.
 
OH MY GOD. how can you be a vegetarian and smoke?! YOU HYPOCRITE!!!

seriously, someone please ban this guy.
 
Good choice, Michael.

The links you dropped here are useless. People google them if they feel the need.
Of course I know Hitler was a vegetarian and Steve Richmond painted roses.
 
i knew this would happen when i started this thread. and bill, you'd be surprised how many times i've been at a jewish gathering (i'm jewish), only to have other jews tell me i should eat brisket or lox or whatever because hitler was a vegetarian. there's a song by a band called anal cunt called "hitler was a sensitive man" that talks about how he was a vegetarian, and that if he were alive today, his favorite band would be the smiths.

look, i think bukowski's stuff in living on luck (cited by ninjerk) is applicable to the little spat going on here. buk was horrified at the animal rights violations he saw in the meat industry, yet he continued to eat meat, not because he was a huge hypocrite, but because he drew his personal line where he did... sensitive enough to care that humanity had advanced to a state where it could treat animals like that, sensitive enough to give a shit about them, but not so broken up over it that he changed his lifestyle to accommodate this sensitivity. to me, that's better than some asshole who says "fuck the cows, they're dumb and deserve to die", even though that asshole is consistent. likewise, mjp at one point didn't eat meat, but he didn't draw his personal line at not using any animal products at all. likewise, i still eat honey, although i have vegan friends who will not, because i draw my personal line in between bees and other animals. finally, i have heard mouthfuls from people who rag on me for wearing outdoorsy clothes made from petroleum based products (like polypropylene or gore-tex), saying that i should wear wool, because it's greener. does it make me a hypocrite that i profess to care about the environment while wearing these clothes, because it's more important to me not to wear something that had to be sheared off of an animal? it's a personal choice. the only time i ever lecture someone is in defense ("not eating meat means you're not a real man"), or because their lack of compassion is startling. to me, caring is the most important thing... which is why it doesn't disturb me too much that buk rejected vegetarianism. "deeds not words" i know, but the capability to feel that compassion says a whole lot to me about someone's character.


Hi Jordan,
Nothing wrong with defending your rights, certainly. Also nothing wrong with defending yourself against the charge that "real men eat meat". What some object to is the "fanatics" that feel the need to assault people for NOT being a Vegan. I have mad respect for someone that has the dicipline to live a Vegan life. In today's world, that is not easy. It all but rules out eating at many restaurants. Again, I think that being a Vegan would be great and have nothing but respect. It I had the dicipline I would do it (also I can't go without sushi, so there is that). Shit, I publish poetry. I know the idea of people thinking that real men watch football, they don't read poetry.

If only some people could avoid insulting people that are NOT vegans. We don't want to see pictures of buckets of checken heads. We don't want to see dead chickens lying on mounds of feces. We know. The poultry industry is a mess and a shame.

I guess that all pro-lifers do not go out handing pictures of aborted fetuses out at the mall and all vegans go not go on mesage boards callling vegetarians hypocrites and posting websites of dead chickens...

Bill
 
Wow, this got ugly fast.

As long as we are all shitting and pissing in our fresh water supply, I suggest we all back the fuck off with the name calling.

Hmmm?
 

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