Lester Bangs on Bukowski, Creem Oct. 1974 (1 Viewer)

Digney in Burnaby

donkeys live a long time
It was 37 years ago this month that I was introduced to Charles Bukowski. Not the greatest piece of writing by LB. Maybe the cover photo sold it for me. That, and the titles he listed in the text of the story.
bangs on buk creem oct 74.jpg
 
Thanks for that. I've been buying old issues of CREEM lately and I don't have that one yet.

Coincidentally, CREEM is where I first read Bukowski too. The Jaggernaut piece.

They don't make 'em like that anymore. And I'm referring to CREEM, Bangs and Bukowski.
 
Bangs does have a way with words, such as, "vicarious degeneracy", "corrosively appealing lifestyle", "best American prosodist", etc. :D
 
Well I am a pack rat keeping too many things. Helps the memory which fails me constantly. And those mags also fill in blanks, etc.

Can't remember the first book I read by Bukowski. Or even the article/story. Maybe it was the jaggernaut piece a year later in Creem. By 1976 I was at a college that had published Bukowski in their little lit mag, Event. Bukowski books, signed and numbered on the library shelves. I even copied the Penguin poems long hand. Still have that note book.

Funny, a couple things in those old Creem issues jumped out at me. The New York Dolls playing Vancouver in 1974 and a review of Good to see you again, Alice, a concert/comedy of the Billion Dollar Babies tour. I remember the Dolls playing town, but only finding out about it after the fact. And I was at the Vancouver BDB show in 1973 but never saw the movie until now. Pretty fucking bad.
 
I had that "Jaggernaut" issue of Creem, a zillion years ago. I first read Bukowski around 1965 -- 46 year ago. Hard to believe it's been that long.
 
You can still find the Jaggernaut CREEM for around $10-$15. Oddly enough, the chapbook reprint that Beat Scene did (it was him, yeah?) sells for more than the original mag.
 

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