Bukowski's Influence on Others. Add Observations. (2 Viewers)

[Danny Mac]

I would like to start a thread whereby we the people of this site can add examples of things that we observe that we believe to have been inspired by Buk. It can be anything. There will obviously be authors who have been influenced by Buk but I'm sure there are many subtle ways that Buk has influenced others that will be harder to notice.

The idea that I have is that I noticed many times where Buk talks about looking out his window. We all know that he mentioned looking out his window in numerous pomes. There was that one poem where he is in New Orleans and he looks out his rented room window at the same old boring regulars there. Most of his window references were from his DeLongpre address. There are numerous times when he talks about what he is seeing out his "window."

I grabbed a couple of examples. This is from "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" June 29,1974. Taken from Absence of the Hero.

I lived for eight years on a front court on DeLongpre Avenue, and the poetry and the stories flouished. I'd sit at the front window typing, peering through excessive brush onto the street.....

This is from a letter to Douglas Blazek dated Dec. 16,1967. Taken from the book of letters 1960-1970, "Screams from the Balcony."

I still wait, wait for the poem to come out- butter and tacks and a lady with a limp and beautiful knees going by my window. my window my window my window ah my window.

If that doesn't give you an idea of how much Buk loved his window, nothing will.

I have one last one that I found recently. This is from "the strangest sight you ever did see" and is from, "Run with the Hunted" page 204

I had this room in front on DeLongpre
and I used to sit for hours
in the daytime
looking out the front
window

there were any number of girls who would
walk by
swaying;
it helped my afternoons
added something to the beer and the
cigarettes.​

So it is obvious that Bukowski loved his window. The observation I have is that he probably, or should I say may have been the influence for a certain pop song. Way back when, when I used to drum constantly I used to drum along to records which then became CD's. As a drummer I used to like to drum to challening music which usually has good complex drumming and drummers. One such drummer was Terry Bozio who was in the 80's band Missing Persons. He also did a couple albums with Frank Zappa and a band called UK. I don't know much about UK.

Missing Persons had a popular song called "Windows." I have a strong feeling that they wrote this song because they were influenced by Buk. My theory is that they lived in the LA area and since they are 'artists' they were into things considered cool and counter culture. It is not too far of a strecth that some of the band members were VERY aware of who Buk was and probably read his stuff.

You may think I'm cracked or maybe you think, I've gone round the bend, but this is my theory and I'm sticking to it. In conclusion Charles Bukowski's many references to his "window" in his poems inspired the members of Missing Persons to write the song 'Windows.'

WINDOWS
Something feels so strange tonight
It’s not wrong but it’s just not right
Some hidden complications, fill me with hesitation
And it gets so dark in here
Can’t see through doubts and fears
Walled in by expectations, I need a deviation
Change in perspective Alternative view
To help me see clearly Observe something new

All I want is a Window to look through
All I need is a Window to look through
It’s the only thing that I wanna do anyway

Outside the world is so dangerous
It’s hard to find someone to trust
Fills me with reservations
Drives me into hibernation
I watch what’s going on
But I don’t want to belong
Have me in my introspection
Safely behind protection

All I want is a Window to look through
All I need is a Window to look through
It’s the only thing that I wanna do anyway

Looking through windows at the world
Safe behind windows from the world
Watching my window world go by
Without my window who am I

Terry Bozzio & Dale Bozzio
MISSING PERSONS
Spring Session M​

 

[5:28am]

A story about a writer. And there's a window. It all makes sense now...

 

[skiroomalum]

I once had a secret window. I called it
"Niall". 'Twas my only friend in boarding school.

 

[5:28am]

I've been trying to find writers influenced by Bukowski. So far, I've found Raymond Carver... anyone else?

 

[mjp]

90% of the people who have had a poem published in a literary magazine in the past 50 years. You can count them.

 

[PhillyDave]

I've been trying to find writers influenced by Bukowski. So far, I've found Raymond Carver... anyone else?

Billy Collins I like and has made it known he's influenced by Buk.

 

[mikestro1]

every small press poet today

 

[Danny Mac]

I'm going to continue with my window theory, as in how much Buk loves his window. I've got a quote here from, "Screams from the balcony" page 319. "I still wait, wait for the poem to come out- butter and tacks and a lady with a limp and beautiful knees going by my window. my window my window my window ah my window."

 

[Dora]

I would suggest looking at the early poems in "Burning in Water, drowning in Flame". Windows do not have such a prominent place there, sometimes the speaker can't even look through them. I have the impression that windows started being important around the 70's, when Bukowski started writing mostly narrative poems.

 

[Danny Mac]

That's cool. I can dig that. But all's I know from my end is that I can't believe how many times I've seen him mention his window or the window. He clearly enjoyed looking out windows on the world.

Here is a quote from Buk to and Bauman on May 10, 1962. "Am sitting here having a beer and staring out the same window, 3 floors up, miles out into the nowhere of Hollywood." That's on page 31.

Here is another window example which is from a poem from the "Pleasures of the Damned." This is on page 143. It's kind of a long poem so I'll just read the first section. The name of the poem is, "the strangest sight you ever did see--"

I had this room in front on De Longpre
and I used to sit for hours
in the daytime
looking out the front
window
there were any number of girls who would
walk by
swaying;
it helped my afternoons,
added something to the beer and the
cigarettes.

I've got other notes to myself that I just have to get on to this page. I guess I'm going to be the window guy.

 

[Danny Mac]

I went and found the other book which is living on luck and according to my yellow sticky notes there is only one window in this book which I find hard to believe. This is from page 96 and it is a letter to John Martin dated March- April 1970. It looks like he just got back from one of his reading trips and he was expressing how he was happy to be back in his for walls.

"The nurses are coming in now and I look at their legs and their asses and I love them. I am back at the old window."

I'm sure there has to be more window references in this book. Oh crap. I just stumbled upon one right here on page 135. "don't remember getting on in. but here I am, several days later, looking out the window at the De Longpre."

It looks like I didn't scan this whole book for window references like I thought I did. That's the problem with wine, fogs the mind.

I'm sure you have all heard of the way that Buk used to throw empty bottles through windows. Here's a quote mentioned on page 209, of "Living on Luck." "I've puttied back in all the windows and it's quiet tonight. I intend to go on." Buk would fix his own windows. He said that the guy down at the hardware store thought he was nuts because he was always coming into the shop having to buy the same size glass over and over again. What do you say to that? Buk was nuts. Buk was a character. Buk cracks me up.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

Looking out of a window is an act of detached awareness. I can't think of a scenario in which that would not have appealed to Buk.

 

[Ponder]

Danny: your research start (or fascination) on Buk & Windows reminds me a bit of
the essay Charles Bukowski - The Man in the Room by Robert Sandarg.
Published in Jahrbuch der Charles-Bukowski-Gesellschaft, (2006.)
Here are the first lines:


Charles Bukowski is the great poet of the room. He writes about the
many rooms that he occupied throughout his lifetime – bathrooms,
bedrooms, library rooms, barrooms, rented rooms and writing rooms.
Rooms as torture chambers, as refuges, as stages . . . rooms to live in,
to create in and to die in. Hank was never free of rooms and neither
are we, his readers, for the ultimate and inescapable room is the
coffin.

Let us begin with Bukowski’s childhood, which was his saddest
season. For him, the family home (the place most firmly fixed in
everyone’s memory) was hardly a cradle of maternal tenderness, since
his mother was totally eclipsed by his sadistic father. Thus, the
bungalow on Longwood Avenue, where Bukowski spent his teenaged
years became:

the house of horrors
the house of a thousand beatings
the house of brutality and unhappiness . . . .

(a drink to that, in: Open All Night, p. 105)​

In Bukowski’s mind, that home will always be hostile space, will
always be a prison. And the bathroom where his father beat him will
always be the darkest of dungeons – the prison within the prison --
the place he calls the torture chamber.
The rooms of Bukowski’s childhood were tombs, with the exception
of his bedroom, which offered him temporary shelter from the ogre-
father.

the room was beautiful.
I couldn’t see him anymore.
I couldn’t hear his voice.
I looked at the dresser.
the dresser was beautiful.
I looked at the rug.
the rug was beautiful . . . .

(enemy of the king, 1935, in: The Flash of Lightning
Behind the Mountain, p. 109)


​

 

[Dora]

Bukowski loved his walls indeed! Seems that windows in his poems allowed him to observe the outer world (and thus write about other people) without leaving the protective shelter of his room.

 

[Ponder]

Bukowski loved his walls indeed!

From the same essay:

. . . I couldn’t WRITE
on the street.
it was very important to have a
room, a door, those
walls . . .

(the writer, in: The Last Night of the Earth Poems, p. 143)​

 

[Ponder]

I don't know if you have "The Days Run Away", Danny, but plenty WINDOW references in that book.

 

[Skygazer]

Danny: your research start (or fascination) on Buk & Windows reminds me a bit of
the essay Charles Bukowski - The Man in the Room by Robert Sandarg.
Published in Jahrbuch der Charles-Bukowski-Gesellschaft, (2006.)
Here are the first lines:[...]
View attachment 5497

I loved reading ( part of) that essay Ponder, Thank You.

 

[roni]

Dora has an essay in our upcoming yearbook about windows and space in Bukowski's poetry.

 

[PhillyDave]

CRAZY WINDOW STORY: "From the Bukowski Tapes, vol 2" I saw on youtube Bukowski describe what he considered his worst hangover ever. He sees a man fly past his apt window and plummet to his death.

 

[roni]

that's also in his story '3 women'.

 

[Danny Mac]

All of those posts were fantastic. I agree with Ponder's post about the love of his four walls. There are so many references to his love of his walls and of being away from people. I hope I can somehow get a copy of the yearbook. Have you all made other 'yearbooks'?

I'll have to get "The Days Run Away." I need to buy another Buk book before my money runs out. I'm unemployed again. Soon you will all believe me to be a two-bit loser with my unability to keep a job, to be apparently apparent. It's not me, I swear. It's the crazy world.

Well, sports fans, I found another window and I have to post it clearly here for all of us to gaze through it.

This is from "Living on Luck" on page 15. It's a letter to our friend John Willaim Corrington on Feb 23, 1961.
"What his name is doesn't matter and you can multiply him by the hairs of grass that look so sickly up to me from my 3rd floor rented window."

I'm very familar with the guy flying past his window. Jane was puking in the toilet. Good times. Good times.

That's a great picture of Mr. Bukowski standing by the lighted doorway. It's nice to see the occassional picture of him were he actually looks happy. It looks like he's about to head out for a winning day at the track. Thanks for that nice picture.

 

[Skygazer]

You're not a loser Danny ... ever! it is this crappy set up.
Here is another photo that I hope will cheer you up, it's when he won the Mr Wet T-Shirt competition.
Here he is consoling the runner up:

 

[Danny Mac]

That picture is too much. I've never seen a picture of Buk with pure joy happiness pouring from his face. I think I see some of the "dirty old Man" persona there as well. It's good to see Buk that happy.

Thanks for the photo and the words of inspiration.

 

[roni]

that's a screenshot. Belongs to a video-snipplet where Buk is the 'watering-boy' for that contest. It sure is on youtube somewhere. Look for: "super van".

(that other pic, accompanying the 'room'-article, was shot by Michael Montfort.)

 

[Skygazer]

That picture is too much. [...]

You are welcome Danny; It looks a bit incongruous in this lovely thread you started, I probably lowered the tone. But what I like is that it shows he wasn't some brooding, morose, Mr Rochester, hiding in rooms from the world and as much as I enjoy his " everything is shit" work, the wonderful thing is that often you see (despite himself) his love of life and women and laughing -which I love about him.

roni - I need to work on my delivery, I was just kidding about him being the winner - he came third.

 

[Ponder]

"When I first met Neeli, he was 16 and I was Bukowski."

http://realbeer.com/buk/sure1/sure1.nc.html

 

[roni]

[...] That's a great picture of Mr. Bukowski standing by the lighted doorway. [...]

since we're all so much in a giving modd these days. Here's said picture in its original colors:

 

[Danny Mac]

I love that quote. "When I first met Neeli, he was 16 and I was Bukowski." The first time I read that I laughed. What is Buk drinking there. Is that one of those oversized Heinekens. It doesn't look like a normal sized beer or maybe it is a normal sized beer and it just looks big because of his "Angel" hands.

 

[Ponder]

https://bukowskiforum.com/threads/the-madness-of-the-windows.6339/