Just finished watching the Buk Tapes.... (1 Viewer)

...and was shocked when he said 'true geniuses like Idi Amin and Adolf Hitler will become less and less'..

I'll put it down to him being drunk as a lord, but still.

Stuff like this makes him an incredibly easy target. Despite the fact I think his writing is sublime, it will unfortunately always come secondary with a lot of people.
 
You can explain the word genius or geniuses in many different ways. This may become a long thread. I hope not.

Keep reading Buk.

And buy Hitler painted roses - Steve Richmond
 
Well, Idi Amin didn't exterminate Jews (and he probably only mentioned him because Barbet made a film about Amin), so I don't think you can draw some final solution conclusion from that statement. He also said he hates nature and trees. I think he didn't care for most people, so mass murderers were an easy name drop. He was being shocking and controversial. Look closely and you can see just as many examples of empathy for people in his work - empathy for people and hatred of humanity. I don't happen to believe one excludes the other.
 
...and was shocked when he said 'true geniuses like Idi Amin and Adolf Hitler will become less and less'..

I'll put it down to him being drunk as a lord, but still.

Stuff like this makes him an incredibly easy target. Despite the fact I think his writing is sublime, it will unfortunately always come secondary with a lot of people.

I think that Mr Bukowski had been an easy target most of his life.

He was certainly an easy target, and a captive one, for his Father. He talks
quite a bit about it. Then too, he was an easy target for the landed gentry,
which he was apart from. There is the scene in Barfly where he makes a little
money buying food for others, and certainly the scenes in Barfly where the
Bartender beats the blood out of him, and beats the blood out of him on more
than one occasion.

In his past, he talked Nazi propaganda, and not a few have made
controversy from this, Was Bukowski a Nazi, you know.

My impression is that writing is a lonely life, or it can be, and writers
sometimes take liberties to entertain themselves at the expense of the truth.
Yes. There are certain risks involved in that. And, Hey? Life is too important
to be taken seriously, and all that, you know?

Another example you may run across is a short piece he wrote about raping a
small child. Was Bukowski a madman, a terrorist, a bloodthirsty, people eating,
baby-raping, anti-Semite? The facts show differently.

All in all, more grist for the Bukowski mill which brings fans together, and keeps
the less interested away more effectively than any no trespassing sign ever
could.

I think he would've liked that.
 
Couldn't it be possible that he did in fact consider Hitler and Amin to actually be geniuses? Is that even a word? Sorry, but it's quite possible he did. To do what they did, on the level they did is quite a big deal. I don't mean the mass exterminations. But rising as high as they did. Getting people to do exactly what they wanted. Through fear or whatever means. I don't disagree that he may have been creating controversy or being shocking. But I can also see where he may have thought just what he said. Relatives of mine had a summer home and next door was a man who was an actual boss of one of the five mafia families in NYC. He had allegedly murdered many men and had a horrible reputation, but he had the charisma and vitality to rise to a position like that. Which is a huge deal, especially at that time. He was a very smart man. So I think I'm reading Bukowski's quotes a little differently.


Shane
 
yes. i agree with father luke's last point.
and i think buk was just purely trying to be shocking with what he said.

Hamsun and Celine of course both supported Hitler, but that will never change the fact that they are both brilliant writers. Politics totally ruined them. And I hate politics.

Peace
 
Relatives of mine had a summer home and next door was a man who was an actual boss of one of the five mafia families in NYC. He had allegedly murdered many men and had a horrible reputation, but he had the charisma and vitality to rise to a position like that. Which is a huge deal, especially at that time. He was a very smart man.


What was the name of that NYC mafia family boss?
 
Ah, him! Boss of the Bonanno Family in the late '70es. Thanks, MadBull!
 

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well one can think an individual is a genius but doesn't need to necessarily support his/her actions.

i.e. ive always mentioned how Hitler was a charismatic public speaker and his knowledge of human nature was astounding. (how else would he have done what he did on such a scale).

but these comments do not mean i am a Nazi.
infact i am the complete opposite: a central american humanitarian.
anyway im on verge of going on a tangent.
lol
 
YAY! They just arrived. One problem. So did my flatmates friend from Auckland. And now I have to be sociable and 'entertain'. At times like this I wonder what Hank would do. At leasy im getting drunk!
 
Buk said a lot of shit when he was drunk, well anytime, just to get reactions, and
he changed his position on things frequently, like Hemmingway, so it hard to tell.
And then there's the thing when he was in college? is it, where he was pretending, or so he says, to side with the Nazis, just to piss people off.
Other things as well, like specifically mentioning if the wine or beer he was drinking was from Germany, his stated preference for German composers, the Iron cross hanging from the rear-view mirror in his old VW.
So who knows?
How red was his face when he said this, on some of those tapes his face is the same color as the wine he was drinking, if he's merlot colored, forget it.
 
Why should a genius be good? Why can't a genius be eviL?

Exactly... Hitler was a genius. Lunatic genius, but genius none the less. (In manipulating and politicking, not militarily). He was also an asshole.
The planning and execution of the plane bombs on Sept. 11th was also genius...just the wrong kind again.
 
I would disagree that Hitler was a genius. I haven't read anything about him that would suggest that.

He was extremely ambitious though, and he eventually surrounded himself with many evil people who had a knack for capturing the public's attention, imagination and support. The Nazi's had a good PR machine going. You know, until the bodies started to pile up.

But there is also a kind of groupthink that takes over in times of great change or upheaval. Read Hitler's Willing Executioners for a really interesting explanation of how otherwise reasonable Germans were caught up in the Third Reich.
 
Sure.
But I think Hitler's genius lay in his ability to exploit and nurture the worst in others.
He was mesmerising (so I've read) in person and could whip a crowd into a frenzy with the power of his rhetoric - even though he was saying almost nothing.
His political manoeuvrings in the early thirties were astonishing.
Very few (any?) people could have so rapidly imposed the changes needed to put his monstrous team into place at the exclusion of all others.

I'll check out that book. Ta.

Anyway... just talking about this makes me feel kind of dirty.

Fuck Hitler... let's talk about Bukowski!
 
Buk & Idi Amin

Buk said a lot of shit when he was drunk...
Personally, I think Buk was dead serious in his praise for Amin. If you'll recall the "Jon Pinchot" film on an African dictator he liked so much and wrote about in Hollywood, I've always assumed that it was Amin that was the subject of that film. So, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to believe that he wasn't just talking shit about the "genius" of dictators, African or German.
 
[...]If you'll recall the "Jon Pinchot" film on an African dictator he liked so much and wrote about in Hollywood, I've always assumed that it was Amin that was the subject of that film[...]

Yes it was; 'Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait' (or 'General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait'), written and directed by Barbet Schroeder.
 
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