Poet Laureate of Douchebags? (1 Viewer)

Calling Bukowski "the poet of douchebags" is just plain wrong.
It's just plain incorrect. That writer obviously doesn't know what a douchbag is, which is kind of hard to believe since we're living in the biggest decade of douchbaggery since the '80s. Everyone from CEO's to celebrities continue to shock and amaze with their public displays of douchbaggery.

My only question is this: can a woman be considered a douchbag too? Cuz there's no shortage of the female version out and about these days. (hmm, Kim Kardashian comes to mind)
 
Hey, B-Ville.

How the fuck have you been?

Please give me some tablespoons of sanity. I have been watching people here let BUK get scrunched up in a rake-piled bundle of leaves, and some dickhead getting away with it -- with only minor I AM FUCKING PISSED OFF AT THIS ASSHOLE response. Do you have some vindictiveness in you? Can you help step on this ant? Dad gum, I hope so. Good to talk, bro...

Pax, anger, and humility...
 
Not left field...DH.

What I wonder is whether a journalistic attack upon douchebags is only a revelation of the attacker's/writer's pasty-pink vengeance. And guess what...the douchebags dont give a shit. They'll still somehow get hotter chicks...and kick your ass too. Bad journalism will not help...they, those douchebags, are immune to ridicule. Writers who even address such an ordinary element of society (no matter how wierd or confused the specimens appear) obviously possess no creativity .

We have all been the butt of laughing opinions. I reserve the right to ridicule anyone to any degree of harshness...and they do the same to me...all the time. It all has only ever come to blows very seldomly.
 
Doing good Homeless Mind. Doing good. Yourself? Sounds like you're fired up and ready to go. That's good but pick your battles carefully. As they say in the south: there's always bigger fish to fry and that piss-ant's presenting a minnow. Calling Buk a douchbag is like calling Bill Gates dumb. It falls kinda flat.

P.S. on a side note. I'd be lying if I said it didn't disturb me a little that you asked ME for sanity. That's never happened to me before, but thank you. Maybe the inmates CAN run the asylum.

In the words of a famous madman, " Keep fighting or you're outta the show ... keep fighting!

W. Axl Rose
 
Not left field...DH.

What I wonder is whether a journalistic attack upon douchebags is only a revelation of the attacker's/writer's pasty-pink vengeance. And guess what...the douchebags dont give a shit. They'll still somehow get hotter chicks...and kick your ass too. Bad journalism will not help...they, those douchebags, are immune to ridicule. Writers who even address such an ordinary element of society (no matter how wierd or confused the specimens appear) obviously possess no creativity .

We have all been the butt of laughing opinions. I reserve the right to ridicule anyone to any degree of harshness...and they do the same to me...all the time. It all has only ever come to blows very seldomly.
Point missed. Bukowski was not the poet of douchebags (or a douchebag). The writer is a douchebag. His editor, too, for allowing that line.

Calling Buk a douchbag is like calling Bill Gates dumb.
Sanity is front row and center, ala the infamous Billville. Many thanks, my twisted brother. I can always count on you for sage advice from above...:eek:

Pax
 
Point missed. Bukowski was not the poet of douchebags (or a douchebag). The writer is a douchebag. His editor, too, for allowing that line.
Yeah, yer right. I missed the point. Got distracted by the un-glam of those party boys in the pictures. Douchebags and Bukowski do not cross paths at any point. The whole damn thing may now be officially dismissed.
 
I think Journalist integrity has to have some merit. If you write about something you know nothing about that is just wrong. I know it happens all the time. Does that make it right?
It really pisses me off when someone "KNOWINGLY" divulges wrong, bad or unfounded and untrue information. And Fuck yeah we should get upset about it....
He didn't do his research and should be rightfully kicked in the ASS.
But how do you know he knows nothing about Bukowski ? You're all inferring that subjectively because you feel hurt by his words (what I can understand even if for my part I find his assertion amusing). He is not the first one to reduce Buk's work to its sole scatological dimension. The psychiatrist in Apostrophes also revealed his indifference to Buk by centring round this aspect. A girl studying with me expressed with a genuine disgust her astonishment when I told her I was mad about Buk : How can an apparently balanced girl like me could like such a sexually deranged man ? These were her words, she even called him a pedophile, referring to The fiend. It turned out she had read several of his books in order to refine her opinion. I didn't feel offended but began laughing and couldn't stop. I perfectly conceive that some people can have such a perception of Buk, it depends on their literary tastes, their state of mind, their sensitivity, etc. I discovered Buk a little more than two years ago and adopted him immediately but I don't think at all that I would have like him if I had read him a few years earlier, when I was that gentle teen who cried while watching "Princess Sarah". I would have certainly been disturbed by his coarseness, have as well considered him as sexually deranged and have got bored by his repetitiveness. These reasons of dislike which wouldn't have been considered as the good ones by some of you wouldn't have meant that I understood nothing to Buk, they would have meant that I understood him in a different way than his admirers.

What we can say is that he doesn't seem to like Buk and has taken pleasure to express his dislike by caricaturing him in an article he could have written without dropping Hank's name.

I really want people to be a bit more involved and thorough when divulging info to others who know nothing about it. How are those, what did you call them... " Stupid people going to know to look any deeper"
But we're not living in a Disneyworld where people are walking hand in hand. We're living in a world of shit (© Sergent Hartman) where people are puking on each others and journalistic integrity is a mere sweet dream.
It's not that I'm not afflicted by the media's dishonesty and manipulation, but I'm skeptical about the existence of any efficient remedy and I anyway think that complaining about it on a forum won't change anything.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ambreen, if the writer knew a lot about Bukowski then he isn't showing it. he made a false statement, which doesn't show his vast knowledge on the subject. if he said "Bukowski is the poet laureate of doucebags because he writes about getting drunk and horse racing," I could live with that. it's a one demensional take, but has some validity.

ok, just to sum up for the last time: Ambreen, we don't get mad when Buk is criticized, he had plenty of faults that the writer could have picked, but we ask that the critique have factual basis, not a throw off line for a laugh.

ok? ok.
 
Thanks to All who contributed to this thread. I will not be reading the fucking article, and instead will read some Bukowski. Maybe something from 'Sifting Through The Madness, For The Word, The Line, The Way'...CRB:)
 

Ok...cause I'm tired
diabled.gif
 
I guess if we didn't want opinions on the matter, it wouldn't have been posted here originally.

I will fall on the sword for Sir Charles. No apologies; the ire remains. I'll do the same for Lennon and Marley, to mention two others I respect for their art and contributions to the world -- for different reasons.

And for all those who haven't, or disagree, you can always goto: www(dot)douchebag(dot)net
 
The real problem is opinion disguised as "criticism." If the writer of the trite Esquire piece had bothered with actual comparative techniques...if he bothered looking at language, & sentence structure, & tried to unlock a few metaphors instead of his blanket dismissal of Buk's work..maybe I could take what he said more seriously. None of us are weeping in our gazpacho because someone didn't "get" Buk's work...the point is, the hump didn't even bother pretending. The line basically comes of as something semi-smart he over-heard somewhere.

No - the real crime is that guy was paid to write the piece; & that the magazine published the piece; & when we read it it was obvious how hopelessly ill-informed the writer was...& we had no choice but to discount what the writer & the magazine attempts because they are lazy & don't check facts...thereby wasting everyone's time.
 
The line basically comes of as something semi-smart he over-heard somewhere.

I think you're probably correct in saying the guy is repeating something he once heard (or misheard) rather than having an actual opinion about Bukowski's poetry based on having read it himself.
 
I am tempted to write a page of fake Bukowski "quotes," link to it from the side navigation there and then Google them in about a year. ;)
 
The real problem is opinion disguised as "criticism." If the writer of the trite Esquire piece had bothered with actual comparative techniques...if he bothered looking at language, & sentence structure, & tried to unlock a few metaphors instead of his blanket dismissal of Buk's work..maybe I could take what he said more seriously.

Yes

No - the real crime is that guy was paid to write the piece; & that the magazine published the piece; & when we read it it was obvious how hopelessly ill-informed the writer was...& we had no choice but to discount what the writer & the magazine attempts because they are lazy & don't check facts...thereby wasting everyone's time.

And yes.

Last time I checked the URL here, it had nothing to do with douchebags.

My bad for steadfastly sticking up for a (perceived, in my mind) friend, even though I'm not on the Christmas card list...However, having read and collected BUK for decades, my opinions and knowledge of him may be just a bit more qualified than the asshole with the throw-away line.
 
I certainly do know, what a 'douchebag' is, but I wonder, where that word comes from.

What would be a 'douch(e)'...?

Is there any English word like this? Or anything similar? Would it make sense with the combination of '-bag' and the meaning of 'douchebag'?


... and please, don't come 'round, telling me a 'Douch' is just the short form of 'Douchebag', okay?!!
 
A Douchebag is a product for women to wash out their vaginas. They are called douches or douchebags (although I believe that douchebags are reusable, while douches are usually disposable). I'm not sure why this has also come to represent people, but it has. I'm not sure how to describe what a douchebag is, but Think Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch, and that will give you a good idea.

As far as other English words that use -bag, there are a lot. Scumbag, shitbag, dirtbag...

I believe that "douche" is French for "Wash". Someone that speaks French can confirm this.

Bill
 
If I may magically place a mirror in the Esquire writer's bathroom, have him walk in after cashing his check for writing that piece of shit he wrote (the entire story was bad), and look directly into a focal point, I would have a visual definition of douchebag.

Words unnecessary.
 
[...] other English words that use -bag, there are a lot. Scumbag, shitbag, dirtbag...

yeah, I was thinking along that line. Which would need douch(e) to mean something dirty.
But I didn't know, What that could be. Your explanation with the vagina-washing-product would fit. So I truly guess that's it.

'douche' in French is a 'shower' (as is 'Dusche' in German) - but this wouldn't make sense. So I go with bill. Unless some linguist comes up with some savvy idea.


What is bag French for?

sac.
(I suppose, but don't know, it's related to the English AND German word: 'sack' / 'Sack')
 
Okay, this thread has deteriorated to the point of this old joke.

A drunk walks into a bar and slaps a wad of cash down and says, " Bartender a want to buy a round, and even one for the old douche bag down there." pointing at the old lady barfly. "Hey hey hey, wise ass that's no way to talk to a lady." shouted the bartender angrily. "You should apologize."
The old lady said, "No, don't worry about it just get me the drink."
The bartender asked, "What will you have ma'am?" She said, "Gimme a vinegar and water."
 
Okay to clarify:
From Wikipedia:

A douche is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself.

Douche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity. A douche bag is a piece of equipment for douching - a bag for holding the fluid used in douching.


So now if you think of it in realistic terms:

You get drunk, you have sex, with some asshole you met at a bar. You of course were to drunk to stop it, it happens, been there done that....
The next morning you wake up and Think "What the fuck was I thinking having sex with that douchebag"
You immediately go to the bathroom to wash that whole experience out and down the drain.
The douchbag hold the contents of the whole humiliating, stupid, insane, drunken and unmemorable experience.:D
 
In these advanced times, I would think that the term "douche bottle with turkey-baster-like attachment" would be more appropriate. But not nearly as derogatory, of course.
 
You get drunk, you have sex, with some asshole you met at a bar. You of course were to drunk to stop it, it happens, been there done that....
The next morning you wake up and Think "What the fuck was I thinking having sex with that douchebag"
You immediately go to the bathroom to wash that whole experience out and down the drain.
The douchbag hold the contents of the whole humiliating, stupid, insane, drunken and unmemorable experience.:D

Strangegirl coming outta her shell!
 
Kubrick's version, or William Makepeace Thackeray's? ;)
Kubrick's one, of course. He (helped by Ryan O'Neal) succeeded into transfiguring a character that appears as incredibly ridiculous and hateful in Thackeray's picaresque novel.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top