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Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
Wow, what a great website. Damn it, I don't have time to read all this incredible stuff. It's terrible. I've been lurking here for a couple days now. Found it by accident, looking for an old Buk poem. I have read the guy since maybe 1964? High School, the L.A. Free Press. Hooked since then. I'm way behind with all this posthumous stuff. I buy the new books as they come out. Have read Bukowski pretty much in chronological order, as the books came out, but, shit, life has caught hold of me good and I'm way behind, about up to 1994, I think. And now all these rare uncollected poems, manuscripts, art work, Jesus. I'll never catch up. Someone has done a fine job here. I may pop in now and then to add my battered and corroded two cents. You guys are hardcore. You know more than I've forgotten. Bless you all. Cheers...

down to one beer a night, I'm an aging dude. Got to take care of my health before it takes care of me.

(West Coast)
 
Rekrab said:
Wow, what a great website. Damn it, I don't have time to read all this incredible stuff. It's terrible. I've been lurking here for a couple days now. Found it by accident, looking for an old Buk poem. I have read the guy since maybe 1964? High School, the L.A. Free Press. Hooked since then. I'm way behind with all this posthumous stuff.
Click to expand...
Welcome o most experienced one! ;)
Now how about telling us about your first Bukowski-read in 1964. Thats more interesting than the posthumous stuff! Must have been exciting to follow his rise to fame from obscurity. Have you seen the following thread: https://bukowskiforum.com/showthread.php?t=28
 
Thanks for the welcome.

Yes, it was a wonderful thing, but also a jealous thing. It's like having a fantastic secret, only you and a handful of others know, and you want to keep it to yourselves, and then the whole freaking world finds out eventually (as they must), every kid in Kansas knows about it, and the secret is out. Not that it really bothers you, it just shifts. I see Buk's name everywhere now, and it's hard to believe he's gotten this big. I remember telling a poet/small press editor friend way back (late 60s?) that I thought Buk would go big time, become a major author, and he thought I was full of cap. I won that one. How I read him first in High School was that my older brother used to go into L.A. (we lived in a suburb) and brought back copies of the L.A. Free Press, and I would read them too. Radical political articles, insane personal ads, etc., and then I came across this column by CB, NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN, and that was pretty good, rough around the edges, nuts, but good. I read all of those I could find. I had no idea he wrote other stuff. You couldn't Google anybody back then. Didn't think of checking in a library. A year or two later, in college, this same editor friend tells me, you think the stories are good, you ought to read his poems, the early poems, they're fucking great. And he was right about that. It surprised the hell out of me. I wasn't expecting all that wild lyric beauty and off the cuff surrealism from the guy who wrote about coming home from the track and cracking open a beer. Later, I put it together and it made sense.

I'll check that thread and report back.
 
always glad to hear from another lurking in the shadows of these boards.

as for the good job here you can thank Mr. Michael Phillips a.k.a. mjp

and for the extensive contributions of uncollected and unpublished poems and general tidbits of bukowski, you can thank Cirerita.

I hope you enjoy these forums and archives as much as I and everybody else does.
 
Erik suggested I read that thread about "what was the first Buk book you ever read?" Thanks for the recommendation. Interesting how people come to an author, each by a different path. When I said I read him "as the books came out, in chronological order," what I meant was that I read the Black Sparrow Press collections, pretty much in order, starting with POST OFFICE, classic Bukowski and still a great place to start, I think, then THE DAYS RUN AWAY LIKE WILD HORSES OVER THE HILLS, my introduction to his poetry, also classic Buk and a good place to start for the poetry. The BSP books were findable in new book shops in the L.A. area, but not the earlier chapbooks. You'd have to go to a rare book dealer for them, or buy them mail order, even back then, and I wasn't much aware of that stuff then. I was lucky enough to be able to watch him grow from a cult figure, admired by a small but loyal following, into a major author known around the world to (I assume) millions. In those days (late 1960s/early 70s) it was almost inconceivable that films would be made based on his works. He was the archetypal anti-hero. The small number of literary types even aware of him were split into two opposing camps: those of us who thought he was clearly the best writer ever, and those who thought he was a disgrace to literature. I guess puking in pianos and hitting on professors' wives while drunk didn't help that situation any. No middle ground. Either you loved him or loathed him. I was a big fan from day one. It didn't take an Einstein to figure out how good he was. You would read the poems and they were better than any other poems you'd ever read. They did more with less. Nothing else even came close. His misses were better than other writers' hits. No contest. It's nice how the world has come around to the opinion me and my fellow Buk acolytes held in those days. The guy never let us down. He never got fat and lazy. He got rich, but he still cared very much about laying down the good line, the lean hard line. I think maybe he cared about little else in this world. I think he accomplished what he set out to accomplish. He'll be read a hundred years from now, I'm sure of it.
 
indeed. if there was any one writer completly dedicated to writing, it was him.

THATS WHY HE MADE IT...because he didn't try, he did.
 
When I showed my wife my post about the Dew Drop Inn, she was shocked to see that I'm not using my real name here. She says hiding behind a cryptic userid is kind of creepy. She's probably right. She usually is. So in the spirit of full disclosure, and to lessen my inherent creepiness, I'm making a confession and telling you all who I really am: David Barker. If that means nothing to you (the most likely scenario), I'm the clown who wrote CHARLES BUKOWSKI SPIT IN MY FACE, among other pieces on Buk. I sort of knew him in the early 70s, although you should not read too much significance into that; it's not like we were buddies or anything. More like I tagged along, got to hang out around him a few times, and fell into a melodramatic scene that I'm still trying to live down. My wife thought you'd want to know that. I'm not so sure it's going to help my reputation around here, but I'm not running away from the fact. My intent in not giving out my name was that I didn't want to seem self-serving, like I was using this ultra cool forum to toot my own horn. And now that it's out, I feel a bit like a roach scuttling across the linoleum floor when someone comes into the kitchen at 3:00 AM and turns on the light. My apologies for the deception. I thought my userid was pretty transparent, but I guess it isn't. Or did you guys really know it was me all along? Great site. Hope you let me continue to hang around...

David (Rekrab)
 
David,
Hello, my friend! You got me! I had no idea that it was you....

Welcome to a great forum.

Was I the only one that did not know that this was David Barker? I feel like an idiot....


All best,
Bill

p.s. Judy was right to have you out yourself.
 
Bill

I was sure you, of all people, recognized me. I guess I had you fooled, eh?

Thanks for the welcome,

David
 
Hi David,
I don't take hints very well.... Yes, I am an idiot...

Great to have you on board. mjp runs a damn fine forum. I have found myself addicted to it.

A great bunch of like-minded people.

Best,
Bill
 
Bill

Yes, it is an addictive forum. I don't normally go much for bulletin boards. Was only involved in one before, anonymously. Had fun with it for a couple months until the moderator turned out to be a raving pyschotic, a controlling, manipulative, lying, evil, mean-spirited bastard. I swore off them after that, but I can tell this one is different. How could someone be a true Buk freak and that big of an asshole at the same time? I suppose it's possible, but not too likely. I can tell mjp is a good guy. At least he hasn't run me YET. At first, I was just lurking here, leary of getting involved, but how could I not participate when these people share my interests so completely? And the tone of the whole thing -- the Forum, the rare texts, the images, the gray everything -- it's so damned calm, so relaxed and un-uptight. It felt like a safe place, and I took the risk. Had trouble thinking up a userid and turned my name around backwards -- what else??? I figured everyone would see right through that ruse. In retrospect, maybe it was kind of snakey. Yeah, Judy is almost always right about shit like this. Glad she talked me into fessing up. So, are you really going to do the reprint on cork of the cover of IT CATCHES? That would be so great. I'm in line for that one!
 
Are you the same David Rekrab who is responsible for "Time-Clock Blues?" I liked it very much and have passed it along to many friends.
 
I am. Many thanks. Bill Roberts gets most of the credit for that. He picked the poems and gave it that title. I am lucky to be published by Bottle of Smoke. Best thing that ever happened to me was meeting Bill. Maybe I should start publishing as David Rekrab. Then I wouldn't be confused with that 1870s Maine poet or the guy that makes horror films. Bill: what do you think?
 
Ah! I always reverse seemingly nonsense words to see if they are hiding a word or a name, and I got Barker, but I didn't place you as the author of CHARLES BUKOWSKI SPIT IN MY FACE. I always want to buy one of those when you sell the copies on ebay with the original art in them, but I miss out or the biding gets too high.

Rekrab said:
How could someone be a true Bukowski freak and that big of an asshole at the same time?
Click to expand...
Oh, they could be.

But I have other outlets I can go to when the urge to be an asshole overcomes me. ;)

We were very lucky here and got a great core of early users (cirerita, Superstar!), and by some minor miracle incredibly knowledgeable contributors continue to show up, so we're off to a great start.
 
I'll be putting more copies of SPIT on eBay. Maybe I should do some with boring paintings (I'm serious) to keep the prices down. I ran out of the regular editions, without art.

I wish I could remember all the details of what I experienced in 1960s-70s. Wish I would have kept a notebook or diary. Lucky thing I wrote my memoir of Buk in 1982. If I'd have waited another 10 years, I would have forgotten even more stuff.
 
Hi Cirerita

Sorry, but I had you identified immediately. But then, you were on my mind as we'd just exchanged emails and traded stuff. If I hadn't discovered the forum for another six months, I might not have made the connection. Your posts and the great uncollected items you've uploaded are one of the things I like about this website.
 
Rekrab said:
When I showed my wife my post about the Dew Drop Inn, she was shocked to see that I'm not using my real name here. She says hiding behind a cryptic userid is kind of creepy. She's probably right. She usually is.

David (Rekrab)
Click to expand...
Wives are great that way (that sounds condenscending, I don't mean it like that)... a few years ago I was having a hot streak with getting things published (a minor league hot streak, not joe dimaggio or anything), and this one magazine said they would take 6 of my poems...2 years later, nothing. I thought they were pretty good stuff, and i thought because I was having such good luck with getting things taken by mags that they were being wasted by not coming out right away (I know, the fucken vanity of me....). anyway, instead of doing anything about it, I just bitched and moaned around the house until my wife got fed up and found the phone number and called the mag. she was very cryptic, my wife. the publisher asked who was calling, why she was calling, etc. my wife was very polite (we are canadian, remember) and just said we would like to know when the poems would be published because we had other interest in them.
a month or 2 later, the mag arrived in the mail with all 6 poems published.
if it wasn't for her....ah christ I'm a sad fuck...
 
I waited two years for a book to come out, and the wait drove me to drink.

Well...it drove me to drink in greater quantities, anyway.
 
I've waited longer than two years for magazines that finally did come out with my stuff. Some of them never come out. The worse was a collection of poems accepted by a small press. The editor even insisted I sign a contract (seldom done in small press publishing). Ten years went by...nothing. I finally asked him when it would be released. He had forgotten all about it. It never did come out. I wasn't too bothered. I don't think much about the fate of the things I send out. Either they get printed or they don't. I seldom send them on to a second editor if the first one passes (or, as often happens, doesn't respond). I'm just too busy and too lazy to juggle manuscripts.

But, back to the earlier subject, these wives do motivate one, for better or worse. Mostly for better.

David
 
man mjp...thats no good they're sold out. i wish i would've known sooner. i would've picked one up.

btw I don't think I ever did thank you for the great poem you sent me.
"in the stick..."
 
No, it's good that they sold out! ;)

If the publisher hadn't vanished I could probably get my hands on a few more copies, but what can you do?
 

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