Who is Jonathan Shaw (1 Viewer)

Something seems wrong here to me...

Buk started writing for LAFP in 1974, not the late 60's.

I bet that this could have been written by any one of the 1000 bartenders in San Pedro that also regularly served him.

Bill
 
Bill,

B first wrote for the LA Freep in 1967.

I've never heard of this guy, but there were a lot of "writers" working for that paper. Don Strachan, Penny Grenoble, Liza Williams, etc...
 
I don't doubt that the guy met him or even "knew" him, but the "regular friends and drinking buddies" bit, and the general cotton candy dumbness and boastfulness of the whole thing just make it sound like so many other Bukowski encounters, real or imagined.
 
Bill,

B first wrote for the LA Freep in 1967.

I've never heard of this guy, but there were a lot of "writers" working for that paper. Don Strachan, Penny Grenoble, Liza Williams, etc...

Hi,
I stand corrected, but according to Fogel, he only did a review (1966) and a dialogue (1967), then in 1974 he started writing regularly for LAFP.

I find it fantastic that a "regular guy" would have read a review and dialogue and then seek out Bukowski based on that. Of course, he may have been a reader of the small press. You know how many of those there are out there.

I agree that he could have known him. Maybe he didnt. Hell, I went to High School with Dave Grohl from Nirvana and Foo Fighters. I even remember seeing him in the hallways, but I cannot say that I ever said a word to him.

Still, I bet that there were hundreds of people that tell the "story" of sharing a bonghit with him.

Bill
 
It's very cliché. Even one who never met Buk could've written it - the mentioning of the Royal typewriter, Buk's W.C.Fields drawl, Buk insulting the visitor while drunk etc. It all sounds so cliché...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's very cliché. Even one who never met Buk could've written it - the mentioning of the Royal typewriter, Buk's W.C.Fields drawl, Buk insulting the visitor while drunk etc. It all sounds so cliché...

I agree with Bukfan, plus the waaay heee wriiites liiike he's imitating Bukowski is so much bullshit he may as well have been calling him his good buddy 'Charlie'.
All of that could have been deduced from reading about Bukowski. The heroin addict part could have been fabricated as well.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah, I remember first reading Bukowski in the LA Free Press when I was in Jr High School which would have been somewhere between 1969 and 1972.
 
I thought I read Buk in the L. A. Free Press in the late 60s, and now that I really think on it, it was while I was still living at home, before I got married in 1968. I clearly recall laying on my bed in my childhood bedroom, reading "Notes of a Dirty Old Man". So maybe he was published there before 1974?
 
B wrote the "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" columns non-stop from 1967 to 1985, save during 1977-80 (though I'm not completely sure; that I have not seen them doesn't mean that he didn't write them). The complete, detailed listing will be available before long... of course, "long" is a very relative term :D
 
Remember, the new database will be available before long as well!







And anyone who accuses me of stalling in order to steal the information in Abel's book, well, all I can say is I am shocked and saddened by your cynicism! And frankly, insulted. I am not a crook!
 
"He moves his head in a strange rhythm to the music, like a prizefighter..."

"...the empty beer bottles standing like little ghosts around his typewriter."

"...the cardboard box I'm holding like a temple offering."

"An empty pint bottle of whiskey sits on Bukowski's end like a captured Queen in a chess match..."

Maybe he met him; maybe not. Why lie about it?

I just find the story to be a bit too laden with similes "” good or bad.

And how do you end up fighting someone who just hours before you were worshipping?

That's where is doesn't work for me. Writing aside, if I met EAP or someone I truly worshipped, I don't think I would brawl with him when the beer ran out. I'd probably offer to get some more, and be fascinated with the strange and unique person with whom I was conversing...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Of course I get that; but does that mean he met him? Or didn't?

Things become cliches because they are, generally speaking, true.

Do you believe he met Sir Charles? Does it matter?

Pax
 
I thought I read Buk in the L. A. Free Press in the late 60s, and now that I really think on it, it was while I was still living at home, before I got married in 1968. I clearly recall laying on my bed in my childhood bedroom, reading "Notes of a Dirty Old Man". So maybe he was published there before 1974?

A) This is almost the same verbage that I posted elsewhere, on another thread, when the LAFP came up.

B) Both times, I made the same logic error. Just because I read Buk's column circa 1967-68, doesn't mean it was in the Free Press. Could have been in another underground paper.

That's the danger of posting at 5 AM.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top