The campaign to save Bukowski's De Longpre bungalow (1 Viewer)

Hintinwood,
I think that if you are sucessful in saving the building, but erroneously saddle Bukowski as a Nazi to the poem that it is mentioned in every mainstream article from this point on, you will have won the battle and lost the war.

The people that you are up against could care less about the truth. They are using this Nazi issue to make money. It will probably work. If they say it enough times and loud enough it becomes true.

I would hate to see the place saved only to have mainstream Americans (and people outside the US, for that matter) think that Bukwoski was a Nazi.

Again, I say to tear the place down... Build a Starbucks.

Bill
 
bospress.net said:
This is the case of people trying to do good by saving the residence will probably noww have Buk branded as a NAZI to the general public. Once you are accused of something and the public believes it, it stays with you forever. If you don't believe me just ask Richarrd Gere.... We know that Buk was not a NAZI, but if this gets ugly he will be forever branded as one and no article will be written in the mainstream press without mentioning this....

I say to let them tear the fucking thing down and preserve the legacy in his books...
Click to expand...
I agree with you Bill, to let it go is the right thing to do, to much resistance.
When money talks, that 's all you get to hear. Let her sell the damn thing and let's preserve Bukowski's true nature. An abrasive son of a beehive...but a very good man.
 
bospress.net said:
Hintinwood,
I think that if you are sucessful in saving the building, but erroneously saddle Bukowski as a Nazi to the poem that it is mentioned in every mainstream article from this point on, you will have won the battle and lost the war.

The people that you are up against could care less about the truth. They are using this Nazi issue to make money. It will probably work. If they say it enough times and loud enough it becomes true.

I would hate to see the place saved only to have mainstream Americans (and people outside the US, for that matter) think that Bukwoski was a Nazi.

Again, I say to tear the place down... Build a Starbucks.
Click to expand...

I see where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree. At this point the allegations have already been made and we can't go back in time. Luckily they're very VERY easy to refute, and that lady is doing a bang up job of making herself sound crazy as it is.
To not address the situation, and just say "okay nevermind, we don't want to landmark this building anymore" and quietly just go away - well you might as well be confirming what they're saying.
 
God, I hope that you are right....

I hope that you are right, but also know that once you are branded as something as repulsive as this the truth will not matter. I fear that you will save the place only to have it on the "Neo-Nazi bus tour" next year. I am not implyting that esotouric will run it, but someone will. Being in Hollywood, there will be a draw to the famous and the infamous. They do have tours of Nicole Simpson's condo still, right?

Again, I hope that you are right, but also know that your main focus is on preserving the physical place, where there are many of us on the forum that would light the match ourselves if it meant preserving his reputation and his place in literature.

Bill
 
Hindinwood said:
I see where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree. At this point the allegations have already been made and we can't go back in time. Luckily they're very VERY easy to refute, and that lady is doing a bang up job of making herself sound crazy as it is.
Click to expand...
That is a naive outlook, I'm afraid. You are talking about taking a million dollars out of someone's pocket. If you think they will be easily stopped you may be in for a surprise.

They will hammer the bogus Nazi angle into the ground and the longer this goes on the worse the end result will be. Take away the Nazi angle and they will come up with a half a dozen other ways to attempt to discredit Bukowski. Next he will be a wife-beater, then - oh, there are so many possibilities for anyone who wants to portray him in a negative light. They just went for the trump card first.

As Bill and others have pointed out, it doesn't matter if you refute the claim. The claim itself is damaging. If you accuse someone of being a Nazi or a pedophile, it doesn't matter what comes next. The stink of that accusation hangs on you forever.
 
Hindinwood said:
So, apparently the lawyer plans on citing the incendiary Ben Pleasance (sp?) article, which I understand is more a product of a personal feud than anything else.
Does anyone have any examples of text, interviews, etc. that would explain their relationship and discredit this guy??
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I am in a big lack of time these weeks, but maybe I could flip through my own annotations I made inside Pleasants book and look for some arguments you could use.

What's your deadline?
 
It's a sort of poetic justice that a half-assed hack like Ben Pleasants who wrote a book about Bukowski purely out of jealousy will only be remembered for the book he wrote about Bukowski.
 
If he's remembered for that. ;)

For my part, I am having my memory cleansed of any reference to him. It's an expensive and dangerous process, but worth the risk.
 
south of no north
page 33 : "politics"

bukowski wrote of his nazi charade
during his l.a. city college days

also in south of no north
page 93
he seems to have sympathized
with "dr. nazi"
and who could blame him
 
Hindinwood said:
So, apparently the lawyer plans on citing the incendiary Ben Pleasance (sp?) article, which I understand is more a product of a personal feud than anything else.
Does anyone have any examples of text, interviews, etc. that would explain their relationship and discredit this guy??
Click to expand...


- concerning their relationship I use to refer to something Linda King has said some years ago.
She said: "I would not believe ANYTHING that any of these two says about the other." - and she knew Buk AND Pleasants back in the times when they were 'friends' as well as after the split up.


- Pleasants' inaccuracy with facts shows all over his book.

one example: In his foreword, on page xii, he states he and Buk "were close for more than twenty years, from 1965 to 1985 [...] During all those years we never argued, we never fought and we never attacked each other in print." So everything was fine till '85? Well, only a few pages later, he starts with a large story, dated back in the late 70s that sounds way different. (from "I felt my guard immediately go up, as it always did when Bukowski was involved." - p.19 through his, Pleasants', foolish acting in that scene, till his bitter feelings towards Buk at the end (p.28) - it all shows their so called never-arguing-never-fighting before 85 is a hoax.)

another example: on page 69 Pleasants talks about Buks admiration of Richmond's poetry-book 'Hitler painted Roses' (for which Buk also wrote the foreword). It's true: Buk liked the book and the title. But what has that to do with Nazism? How can Pleasants claim Hitler to be Buks "mentor" (p.69) only because he liked a provoking title of a book that had nothing to do with Hitler at all? That's a shortcut-deduction that lacks even the slightest piece of brain.

one more: Pleasants claims Buk was afraid of the FBI and thus threw away all his propaganda-material and started wandering around (p. 131f). Well, we do know about an FBI-incident concerning his draft, and luckily we know the circumstances: If Buk had really been on elopement from the FBI, why was he only one time late in giving his new address to the authorities? why didn't he appear in the FBI-files of that time more often that this one time, if he was such an active member of the German Bund and/or the American-First-commitee? Why wasn't he under regular watch by the detectives (at least after his FBI-incident)? - I can only see ONE reason: he was not of interest to the FBI, he was NO active Nazi, he was just a bum trying to get along cheap.
When the FBI started it's REAL investigation on him, in 1968, it was due to possible Communist-connections. What does this tell us?


- the main problem with Pleasants book is: it's Not ALL a lie, not ALL made up. He happily intermixes hard facts, pure oppinions (correct ones as well as random and arbitrary ones) and simple lies in such a natural way, that readers could easily get confused. This perfidy of style makes it a dangerous book. (yes, I said Perfidy, yes I said Dangerous!)

I'd cope with this fact by pointing out the problematic relationship between these two and would insist, that the lawyer (or whoever) who uses Pleasants as a source gives at least ONE additional source to proof these claims. (They will find not one!)

You could also play the race-card back by stating, because it IS such a serious subject, how unfair it is to come up with such big accusations without ANY evidence of truth behind them. Such behaviour is at least irresponsible!



so much for today.
Love.


p.s.:
you could make it way shorter by quoting mjp:
mjp said:
Oh come on, Pleasants doesn't know his ass from his elbow, anyone can see that.
Click to expand...
that sums it up.
 
I'm afraid there's at least another person who would [have] argue[d] that B looked up to Hitler and thought Nazism was interesting. That person is dead, but if he were alive, he probably would argue as much.
 
yep. Apparently, they sent Nazi war songs to each other when they corresponded. Alas, I didn't copy any letter from that period (late 60's) and I cannot confirm nor deny this.
 
Ben Pleasants:
What brought Bukowski around to the Nazi viewpoint, and more particularly to the ideas of Adolph Hitler, is hard to say.
Click to expand...

This dickhead was also not able to wrote the first name in the right way!
 
Ponder said:
Why only the initials, John Thomas?
Click to expand...
yeh, just wanted to make sure first that I'm guessing right.

on this special topic, I'd consider having a second look at the story 'Night Streets of Madness' (I think it was that one), where he refers (in short) to his friend Neeli Cherry being Jewish and his friend John Thomas being a Nazi. He says something like, he didn't care for the politics, but liked both of these persons.


I would not expect Thomas, (as cirerita indicated,) to think Buk was a Nazi. Though I sure can imagine them sending Nazi-songs to each other - Buk would have had a great laugh with that. He wouldn't take it serious at all. So it might be a bad joke, but still is a joke. It doesn't make him a Nazi. It doesn't mean anything at all.



and one more thing on Pleasants:
he obviously has a complex due to his own Jewish descent! ("For me, being part Jewish had been a problem. [...] most of the neighborhood kids I grew up with [...] did not know Jews and didn't like them. [were they all Nazis?] [...] my feelings about being part Jewish are always with me." (p.47)
So - would anyone expect an impartial view from this person on this subject?
 
cirerita, do you mean his Father?

Funny coincidence is, James Ellroy, as a youth used to expound Nazi Slogans and Propaganda. I think it is a common triat of people who feel passionate - opposition to the Common Lot, to kids or young adults who are 'outsiders' or 'horribly introverted'. They seek to emulate that which the Majority is terrified by. Nazism was clearly a Great choice for people who waned to RILE up the petty liberals and convervatives. Mock nazism in youths gave them the EXTREMNITY that 'suburban doclity' soo lacked.

Bukowski also read Nieztche. Now, N was no Nazi. But what they shared in common, was an OVER turning of MORALITY. They embraced a certain 'endurance' of Cruelty. They wanted Man to be hard, pliable, open to extremes, open to the perverse, the dark, the need to dominate and be dominated.

Bukowski certainly understood and openly admitted
that the the inhabitants of the world,
were for better or worse:

repressed little fucking nazis.
who couldn't come to terms with
their own shadow.
and therefore could never
over come
their ERRORS,
and their cruelty!
 
combat primer (excerpts)


they called Céline a Nazi
they called Pound a fascist
they called Hamsun a Nazi and a fascist.
they put Dostoevsky in front of a firing
squad
and they shot Lorca

[...]

and you want to be a
writer?

[...]

all right, go ahead
do it
but when they sandbag you
from the blind side
don't come to me with your
regrets.

now I'm going to smoke a cigarette
in the bathtub
and then I'm going to
sleep.

_____________
Appears in what matters most is how well you walk through the fire
​
 
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listed at 1.3 million

990004469
 
If the property becomes a NATIONAL HISTORIC BUKOWSKI TOOK A CRAP AND PUKED HERE site what would the owners get? Zilch?

What I mean is this: Would LA City Council take over the site (eminent domain or something) and give the present immigrant owners cash?

Would said cash be less than 1.3 million bucks?

Could the mighty civic titans of LA stiff the present owners and just take over the property, as used to be done in (GASP!) communist countries?
 
MULLINAX said:
Could the mighty civic titans of LA stiff the present owners and just take over the property, as used to be done in (GASP!) communist countries?
Click to expand...

Under Emminent Domain, any city would still have to pay the owners market rate. Of course, that is always where the fight is. If they are asking twice what it is worth and can actually get that, then that amount really is the market rate.

Still, the Supreme Court, after getting their big money, big business friendly majority raled about a year ago that Emminent Domain can be used to take property that is to be used solely by a corporation. Under the old rules, the land could only be forcably taken to build a road, government building, or such. Under new Bush Supreme Court rules, your house could be forcably sold to Starbucks because they want to open a store exactly where your house stands and you are being a pain in the ass by not leaving when they told you to.

Of course, they would still have to go through the state or town councils, which are not quick to do this. It is being tried in PA (it was fought and the occupants won) and DE (at this point, the owners lost, but it is now in court).

That is the long legal answer for a guy who has no law degree.

Bill
 
Olaf said:
Bukowski also read Nieztche. Now, N was no Nazi. But what they shared in common, was an OVER turning of MORALITY. They embraced a certain 'endurance' of Cruelty. They wanted Man to be hard, pliable, open to extremes, open to the perverse, the dark, the need to dominate and be dominated.
Click to expand...

Though Nietzsche (spelling!) was abused by the Nazis, esp due to his sister's work, he himself Never had agreed with their point of view.

He was always shouting out AGAINST the German Reich (which was the 2nd at his times, not the 3rd Reich of the Nazis, but also very right-winged). He said things like : "As far as Germany reaches, it kills culture." He longed for, and called himself, a "good European". He had NOTHING of a Nationalist.

Concerning the growing anti-semitism of his time (his sister Eilsabeth was married with one anti-semite), he even called himself: "An Anti-Anti-semite"! And he split up with his publisher, because he was going on the anit-semite-train.


On his anti-moral and toughness: (this is of course just a shortened surface-thing) - the first came mostly from his hate against christianity (in special) and the oppinion of the major majority (in general); the second came mostly from his big illness during the late 1870s, which almost killed him - he had DECIDED to survive by being hard and just refusing to die and giving up his pessimistic (Schopenhauerian) and romantic (Wagnerian) viewpoints. (sure another reason for his split-up with Wagner was him, Wagner, becoming "German" - as Nietzsche put it and becoming "a Christian" - and here the circle closes, right?)
 
So booooooring:

Here's a suggestion: If you, like me, think the false accusations against Buk are absurd, ignorant, and downright cowardly, then stop fueling this thread.

Its OK if Hindenwood keeps us posted on the progress of the thing, but why not put it in a thread with a different title? Just putting the N-word in the title seems to be playing up to their intentions. Why not rename it to: "Cheap slanderism" or "False accusations from scumbag lawyers" or some such.

Just stirring up the muddy water and getting riled up won't do any good. It might even do some damage.

So here's a suggestion: the best way to refute this cheap slanderism is to ignore it. Or even better: start other threads about themes that obviously show the slanderism is false.

And please rename this thread!
 
False accusations from scumbag lawyers

The thing that is bringing me down is that people are sending me the links to the article that is popping up because they know I'm in to Bukowski and one person even asked me, "did you know this about him?"

It's a shame and it's bumming me out.
 
And Nietzsche, by the way, refers to himself in many parts of his work (very proudly, that is) of being an offspring from some kind of Polish aristocracy, if I remember it right.

Which wasn't true at all (as we know today) but kind of closes the circle to B. in a funny way.
 
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Erik said:
the best way to refute this cheap slanderism is to ignore it.
Click to expand...

true, and usually I do so.
Only in THIS case there was a reason to talk:
our man needed food for his argumentation at the hearing. That's why I contributed. So I'll stop now anyway ,-)
 
Erik said:
Here's a suggestion: If you, like me, think the false accusations against Buk are absurd, ignorant, and downright cowardly, then stop fueling this thread.
Click to expand...
We renamed the thread, good idea.

Unfortunately there is plenty to find out there, searching for the words; 'Bukowski' and 'Nazi' together. Father Luke made a good point in a conversation we had about this behind the scenes, and that was that he would rather have someone searching for 'Bukowski' and 'Nazi' together find this thread than some article that just makes or reports the accusation with no counterpoint.

The whole thing is unfortunate, but the genie is out of the bottle on this one, so pretending the accusation isn't out there won't do us any good. Refuting it probably won't do any good either (you can see that even posters in this forum believe Pleasants' story without question because, hey, it's on the internet!), but if we here are the only ones who attempt to point out the idiocy of Pleasants' poison pen diatribe, then we're doing something positive.

nymark said:
The momentum builds for this horseshit.
Click to expand...
Well, this was inevitable, wasn't it. The story spreading to larger media outlets.
 
Well, the motion went through.
I know feelings are very mixed about the nomination, but I think everyone would be happy to know that the Nazi angle was pretty much universally scoffed at, and the commission blatently stated that they didn't believe it. A writer from the AP was there, so hopefully that will make it's way back out to the national media and put this to rest. Don't forget that Garcetti, the LA Conservancy, and the LA Times Editorial Board are all backing it.
Thank you so much to the people on this forum who engaged in such an intelligent discussion about this. The quotes and ideas you brought up were very helpful to my presentation (which was the anti-Nazi segment).
-Lauren

Emminent domain would not enter this scenario. Today at the meeting one of the commissioners tried to explain to the owner's lawyer that the designation could actually make the property more attractive due to the historic association, and various tax easements, but he kept interrupting. The commissioner also pointed out that the structures are very adaptable to renovation, and that the property would really be worth less if the buildings were torn down and some other structure was squeezed in there. Oh yeah, he's an architect...
 

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