"Katharina" Bukowski obituary (1 Viewer)

mjp

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So that would make this is the house the neighbors raided after Bukowski's father died two years later:

doreen.jpg


Four miles due south of Santa Anita.

Nice lawn.
 
wow. $477,000. That is some pricey real estate.

That house would sell for about $160,000 in Delaware, maybe less given that it only has one bath...
 
The porch is in the middle of the front of the house, recessed and low, with only a couple shallow steps. Many Southern California homes were built with that sort of design.
 
buk says his father saw him fighting the admiral from "up on the porch" PLUS were two car garage doors that wide in those days ?

i'm not trying to be argumentative just thats not a typical 56 year old house in the picture IMHO

who had two cars back then anyway?
 
Is it possible that the house has been altered since the 50s?

What fight with the admiral? This wouldn't have been his childhood home.
Most of his childhood was spent at 2122 S. Longwood Ave, 90016.

While I think of it, when Bukowski talks about the 'torture chamber' in the Tapes, he's at Longwood Ave, but the timeline we have would suggest that the majority of his childhood beatings would have been at 4511 W 28th St, Los Angeles 90016 - if they truly started when he was 6 or 7 and lasted until he was 11 or so.
 
it is very possible the house has been altered, yes, that could be established by a search through building permits issued since then as i am highly doubtful the original house had a single door two car garage
 
I don't know if two car garages were common in the 50s, but many families had two cars. My parents did. My mom had her station wagon for grocery shopping and my dad had his Model A (a transportation car, not thought of as an "antique" or "classic" by him) for driving to work We were an average middle class family.
 
It's a very typical 60 year old house, look at the pictures of the inside from the real estate link above. A lot of the interior looks original, just covered in paint. The garage isn't important.

None of it is really important, except as it relates to one story. The gutting of the house by neighbors while he stood by and told them to take whatever they wanted. Whether that even happened isn't really important, he's using it to illustrate the point that he doesn't give a shit about his dead father's things (or his dead father, for that matter).

The picture of the house was just posted as a trivial nugget, since I hadn't even seen the address before finding the obituary.

hank solo's point is more interesting.
 
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the point i got was he didn't want to be burdened with them (the belonging) - just like that house was not originally burdened with a garage (it along with central A/C was added on later as the garage is "detached" from the house) so was the fathers belongings and so were proceeds from a house that were lost on subsequent gambling - kinda like the opposite of a phoenix - an IMplosion of fire on itself

the MORE that was TAKEN the LESS the remaining BURDEN

he cared all right - cared that his parents didn't accept him OR his results

which is why he could't have a sexual relationship with his fathers girlfriend after dating after death

anyWAY that's that

enjoy your TRIVIAL NUGGET


frankD

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That scene where the neighbors come and take away all his dad's possessions always reminded me of the scene in the film Zorba The Greek where an old woman is dying and the neighbors come and strip her house bare. It's probably something that happens in many different cultures. What novel is that from? Ham on Rye? It's been too long since I read that to remember.
 
[...] beatings would have been at 4511 W 28th St, Los Angeles 90016 - if they truly started when he was 6 or 7 and lasted until he was 11 or so.
As far as I remember, the beatings stopped after he knocked his father down when daddy tried to put his face into his vomit. This wouldn't be at age 11, but a little later - after he started drinking.
 
No, I'm thinking of when he says that the regular strappings stopped soon after he stopped crying, which he said must have freaked his father out.
 
weLL now you can sEE the dangers of codifying and universalizing and standardizing and cataloging and computerizing........bukowski, or any ARTist for that matter, like a CIGAR, you really canNOT fully experience it, until you SMOKE IT, and then all it is is ASH and gone forever AND maybe doin the hokey pokey IS what it's aLL about
 
He didn't seem to care all that much for material items through most of his life anyway. I remember reading somewhere how he would often confuse coworkers by, after hearing them talk excitedly over paychecks, saying, "Oh, it's pay day?"
 

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