I'd love it if someone shot video...
John Dullaghan's 11 year old punk rock son John was there shooting video. Don't know where it might end up.
Meloan: why this guy continues to show up in conjunction with Bukowski is a mystery to me. He read
this article, covering his first meeting Bukowski and being thrown out of his house once on new years eve. But he threw in a story I'm pretty sure could not have possibly happened. As soon as he said it I looked at Linda and she was shaking her head (anyone know when Linda's Dew Drop Inn closed?). He's a terrible, meek, stumbling speaker, even when reading his own writing from a page. This seems to sum him up; Joe Frank said: "Nobody evokes a sense of mood and place quite like Meloan." Charles Bukowski said: "Mike Meloan is a jerk-off."
Sue Hodson from the Huntington spoke without saying much, and read "History of a Tough Motherfucker" with plenty of jokes about being a "square" librarian and saying such naughty words. She had a slideshow of all the usual Bukowski photos with one exception that surprised me when it popped up: a very clear picture I've never seen before of a young Bukowski (maybe 7?) and his mother, sitting on a lawn next to a wall. I didn't know the collection included personal photos. There must be some great stuff in there.
Everyone who spoke read poems, most from
Continual Condition. It felt a bit like an infomercial at times.
S.A. Griffin read a couple poems and talked about Red Stodolsky, of all people (Griffin didn't know Bukowski, so again, I have to wonder how he's relevant, other than being friendly with Linda and having a wife who works at the Huntington). But in what was the highlight of the evening thus far, Griffin gave a long and generous shout out to "My friend and great publisher Bill Roberts in Delaware," (paraphrasing there) explaining that
As Buddha Smiles was first published by Bill.
John Dullaghan was good. A good speaker, told some new stories from his interviews for
Born Into This. Stuff you already generally know from Bukowski's days at the post office, but he also sought out people who knew Bukowski
senior and interviewed eight of them, none of which made it into the final film. "Want to know what they all said about him?
Great guy! Real good with children." He also talked about the woman inserted into the picture on the DVD cover. He said he had worked on the movie for seven years, quit his job, spent all his money, and when the distributor said, "There's gotta be a
whore in the picture," he was taken aback but said, "Fine, put a whore in the picture. Whatever it takes to get this thing out there."
Carol was talking to Linda before the shindig started (she was in the back, doling out drinks from behind a table like some kind of parallel universe book store bartender) and she said, "Oh, I'm not going to read, it terrifies me! All these people are professionals. I didn't even bring my glasses!" But she did bring her glasses, and she was far and away the best reader and speaker of the evening.
She started with a Steve Richmond poem from
Hitler Painted Roses. A poem where Richmond calls Bukowski the best poet in history or something. She said Bukowski and Richmond were "dear friends in the 60's and remained friends for the rest of his life."
She then read "let's have some fun" from
Condition, and it was just a tremendous reading. She did voices and inflections - just nailed the poem. Then she talked a bit about how great it was that everyone had come out on a Saturday evening (it was standing room only in the Vroman's event space), said a few things and they wrapped it up.
But then Hodson asked if anyone had any questions for any of the speakers and a couple of people asked Linda questions and she went off on some great long answers that lasted longer than her talk at the podium.
She talked about finding the box of a thousand manuscripts ("all dated and signed") in the rafters of the garage and needing a neighbor's help to get it down. She said that John Martin went through them to decide what to use in the book (though it seems Bill's Bottle of Smoke published half of it first).
What did she say that you didn't already know...hmm...ha ha. Well - here's one; Bukowski took her to
Disneyland one year on her birthday because she asked him to take her ("Reeeeaaally?...Ooookay kid."), and he loved it. He didn't want to leave the Pirates of the Caribbean ride - "I want to stay with those guys, up there!" I assume referring to the animated drunken pirate figures in the ride. She also said he loved
Star Wars; "The first one - it was something about Chewbacca..."
It ran about an hour and 15 minutes, and they should have just propped the microphone up in front of Linda for all that time. She stole the show, which was a little surprising, knowing her and seeing her speak in public before. But she was on a roll, man, and the words were coming out perfectly. Too bad she only spoke for 20 minutes or so.
