chinaski

ive never cared about the american dream. or at least my idea of the american dream. wealth, respect, stability. its much too easy coasting through life and not thinking about how things will end up. the way i see it, i will always be the age that i am and never the age that im gonna be. i dont make plans. the charm of life for me comes in a brown 12oz bottle and shrugging off all responsibility and consequence. maybe that is the american dream though. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness through alcohol. 

i fancied myself a writer as a kid. short form. poetry. from my late teens into my early twenties i wrote daily. in the younger years it was all fluffy high school love shit disguised in a bunch of abstract verses to cover up how fucking girly and emo it really was. then i turned 21. i started drinking pretty frequently. at first, the writing didnt stop. most of the time i would just sit there with my pen or keyboard thinking about writing and continuing to get more and more shitfaced. the next day i would wake up and read all of my profound thoughts on being a drunk with writers block. as i drank more the content continued to be pretty void. i mean, fluffy love shit or heart break was at least about something. now im just drunk and pissed off about being too drunk to write. so i quit writing.

there is a heavy metal band called anthrax. they put out a record in the late 90s called Stomp 442. one of the songs contains a lyric "bukowski's on my shoulder". that always stuck out as a particularly non metal lyric. im not sure why it took me half a decade to find out why the hell they were singing about bukowski instead of all the typical metal bs. fuck it, enter the keyword "bukowski". love at first read.

40,000 flies

torn by a temporary wind
we come back together again

check walls and ceilings for cracks and
the eternal spiders

wonder if there will be one more
woman

now
40,000 flies running the arms of my
soul
singing
I met a million dollar baby in a
5 and 10 cent
store

arms of my soul?
flies?
singing?

what kind of shit is
this?

it’s so easy to be a poet
and so hard to be
a man.

that was the first thing i ever read of his. i never stopped. the more i read, the more i wanted to read. he was dirty. crass. rude. honest. perverted and FUCKING DRUNK! this ass hole was my new rock star. his writing ritual.... hang out during the day. start drinking at 6 and sit in front of the type writer. drink and drink and drink and wake up to a pile of pages. i can finally aspire to something. i too can be a drunk, womanizing, grumpy asshole who has no focus except finding that pile of paper in the morning. maybe that wasnt him at all, but its what i saw and i wanted it. 

sadly, unlike chuck, the more i drank, the less i wrote. i just drank. i loved the drinking far more than the writing. not to mention the fucking real world. even as a lush, i still obsess over the idea of being a good human being. i have a genuine interest in making the world a better place. that really gets in the way of the drunken sexism and overall disdain for the human race. fortunately i always seem to end up going back to the lush part. my favorite part. the part that says and does shit that i should regret. that ever so perfect part that puts selfishness in the forefront. hyde. i wish i didnt have to leave that place.

i tell people i love beer for the taste. the truth is, i love the taste of beer, but that isnt why i love beer. i love beer because its more fun to not give a shit. and i dont. i drink because it gives me the power to forget about wealth, respect and stability. it gives me my american dream. it helps me be more like Chinaski. my Chinaski. 

im never going to grow up and be bukowski. especially the famous (or even good) writer part. ive probably even misconstrued who he really was. screw it, i like my bukowski. so im gonna try anyway. you can call them weird aspirations. you can say anything you want. truth is, ill just tip up a pint, tell you to fuck off and then try to get your girlfriend to to send me pictures of her tits. cus thats livin'. 

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since i talked about it, its only fair to share couple. the first is one of my earlier (and shitty) poems about being drunk. the second is a light hearted confession that im too drunk to write. also, the link between the writing and drinking and chuck may have been lost... in fact, i know it was. sorry. it was supposed to be there. maybe if i were hammered, instead of sober on a plane, i would have done a much better job.

Releasing Me

There are words when my mind is silent and letters when I close my eyes
I always feel like writing, but the pen doesn’t always work well with my hand
Knowing where to start isn’t the hard part,
      it’s knowing how to end it and not being afraid
I'm afraid of everything, the end, the beginning, and the filler
I don’t even know what they mean until they are ready to tell me

And they always do.

What else really matters than this purity, this optimistic view of loneliness?
I’m not sure what of it seems feminine to me; maybe I’m just stereotyping
Real men don’t tell the world so voluntarily that they cry when they’re alone
Maybe that’s the traitor, dripping negotiations into my skull like the
      thick drool from an infants toothless mouth
Should this thing I use to fall in love keep me from sharing anything but
      hormones?

I did not think so.

If one boy could, then I’d beat every man with his own half-empty beer bottle
      until he fell away from his Monday nite football
“Kill yourself with this pen, and use both hands!” is what I’d yell in his bloodied ear
I drink too, not so I forget my weaknesses, but so I remember them.
Taking heed to every chard of whatever I am dreaming, and stabbing
      masculinity with it
In fact, I need another

Another drink or another weakness?

If either would condition (or perhaps just warp) these sweet little cravings,
      I’d set aside my recycled insecurities
Unwinding the spools of manhood around my neck, choking on my own bile
Abyssal pleas corroding my lungs and pressing outward while pride and
      humility restrain revelation
And as I hung by my swollen love, I could only stutter that passion and emotion are
      perfect strangers, or at least to me
It kills me already

We can all dream.

-B.H. June 2000

Something Else for a Change

I wanted to be a writer tonite
I set out to decide the course of my thoughts with the aid of toxins

    1 down
    2 down
    3 down
    4
    I finished 6 and could still drink more

I wanted to be a writer tonite but I got caught up in the 5.6
I got caught up in a different way

Fucking amateurs

-B.H. May 1, 2001