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Life Arts    H4'ed 5/27/10

Reading Bukowski for fun and profit

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Bob Patterson
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It seemed that since one of the paste-up artists, a tall Icobod Crane-ish fellow, named Burke, who had a voice that might make John Carradine envious, would finish his shift at 1 p.m. and have time to go out to the race track in Inglewood and make a few wagers on the races in the last half of the day's program. Since he had a "hot tip," he was collecting some fins and sawbucks from the folks who had more normal shift hours and had offered to act as their proxy agent and place bets on this "sure thing" nag to win, despite the very long shot odds that were being offered.

Being an Irishcatholicdemocrat of modest means, the chance to turn a sawbuck into more than a C-note seemed irresistible, but in a fit of moderation we replied: "Tell Burke that I've read Bukowski." The fellow, who was rather well read and, in the contemporary-culturally aware sense of the word "hip," was flummoxed and befuddled by the literary reference.

After the flock of fans bid the fellow a fond farewell, I explained my reasoning for balking at the chance to cash in on the fellow's kind and generous offer to provide the means for a sudden influx of unexpected paper money into my wallet.

Charles Bukowski had written an autobiographical novel about a rogue titled "Post Office." In it, after working for a dozen years for the folks with a monopoly on delivery of mail within the borders of the USA, the rascal had quit his job and drifted into a picaresque existence. He had, on the first day of being assigned to urban domestic delivery duties, got (as the crude people would put it) lucky with a woman on his route and thus inspired him to spend a dozen years waiting for a recurrence of the delightful interlude. After leaving the Post Office he wound up working for the Los Angeles Times on a shift that ended just after lunch time.

Bukowski's literary alter ego, named Henry Chinaski, would hustle off to the race track after convincing his coworkers that he had insider race track knowledge about a long shot that would surprise the audience with a come from nowhere burst of speed and a place in the winner's circle. The guy would pocket the proxy bets and use those funds for lavish meals and extra liquid refreshments protected by the iron clad excuse that the nag had failed to deliver the windfall of the monitary kind.

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BP graduated from college in the mid sixties (at the bottom of the class?) He told his draft board that Vietnam could be won without his participation. He is still appologizing for that mistake. He received his fist photo lesson from a future (more...)
 

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