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??
- 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:
Oh come on, Pleasants doesn't know his ass from his elbow, anyone can see that.
that sums it up.