new here, just wanted to comment on how nice a resource this forum is (1 Viewer)

Hi all, newbie here from Minneapolis MN with only one post in the classical music thread.

I had Tales of Ordinary Madness for years and liked it but kind of dismissed because I just wasn't in the right headspace to appreciate it correctly. Then a few years ago my 14 year marriage broke up and I got back into creative writing again as a way to work out some stuff inside. I had a layover in Los Angeles shortly after that, waiting at beautiful Union Station waiting for the train that would take me up the Pacific Coast Highway to Big Sur and I had a few hours to kill so I went for a stroll as I had never seen any of LA except from what a person sees flying into the airport. Well, when you take a stroll towards the city from Union Station you walk straight through Skid Row. I'm into photography so this was a great little chance for some street photography.

There were a couple times when I was scared my camera was attracting attention but aside from that I LOVED IT THERE! The streets were alive with people, and while I'm glad I wasn't in their situation I appreciated the whole vibe of the area. I stumbled into a bar to get a little buzz on and the bar was (I found out in retrospect) a legendary dive bar on Skid Row called the King Edward Saloon that supposedly a lot of people like Tom Waits and other LA lushes had dug. It was crazy fun in there, cheap beer and talking easily to strangers and they had a little glass booth fishbowl thing for smokers to sit in. This was the city I wanted to see. It was one ofg the grandest afternoons I have ever had exploring Skid Row while drunk and taking incognito photographs of bums and people laying in the street and the fabulous Mexican food trucks and people people people. It just felt alive.

Seeking books about that whole vibe I stumbled into John Fante's Ask The Dust (wonderful book)
and that led me back to Bukowski who I decided to give a second chance. A couple of weeks ago I slipped into a major Bukowski bender with the help of the Minneapolis Public Library, books and bios and watching all the movies a person can find out on the internet and just totally immersing myself in his stuff. There are so many other dimension to Bukowski's writing that I had missed on my first reading of him.

It's wonderful to find a writer that really excites! I always have had an attraction to the underside of things, and always felt that oddballs and addicts and transvestites and crazed artists and sidewalk visionaries were more interesting that working for a living and having the stereotypical American dream. I had previous drug periods and after the marriage crashed had to quit doing drugs because I would have ended up on the streets or home living in my parent's basement or something so I developed a taste for scotch and cigars ( a person has to have something....) and got into writing again and that led me back around to Bukowski. Searching out info on his haunts and neighborhoods led me here a few weeks ago and it has been very great cruising the old threads and learning more.

Factotum was filmed around Minneapolis and St. Paul so it was cool to see local sites in a movie related to Bukowski. I hadn't read the book when I saw the movie but now have at the beginning of my Bukowski binge.

Bukowski has one of those wonderful speaking voices, like the director Werner Herzog also, that sort of seep into a person's head. The Barbet Schroeder interview tapes are really great because he just rambles great streams of thought, like a non-stop verbal manifesto that just pours out. I have just about run through his novels and bios and stuff on film and now am getting ready to dive into his poetry. It's a nice pleasant and life-affirming journey.

I do have to say that drinking and writing doesn't work well for me most of the time, I end up drunk and cranking up the stereo and goofing off. Pot and coffee/speed always were the best drugs for me to write on. When I write when I'm drinking I get maudlin and sentimental and it just doesn't work, but it does just feel right sitting in front of the keyboard with a lowball of scotch and a cigar going and pretending to write! I just wish it was an old typewriter instead of a laptop.
 
Let the record show: This is the first time I have ever bothered reading a 7 paragraph introduction - much less enjoyed it.
You have a knack for stitching words together. Welcome to the forum.

And just like The Only Good Poet said above, I also envy you for having all the poetry still ahead of you. Enjoy !
 
Welcome! Long, but interesting introduction. If you weren't from MN, I wouldn't have read it, but my favorite person is from St. Paul, so you caught my eyes...

Glad you had that great experience in my home town (LA) when you did and got to reap in a bit of the real life that goes on here. Maybe you can post some of the documenting you did.

There's nothing like delving into Bukowski when a long relationship has ended. It can save your life really.

Always, again, welcome! :)
 

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