What Happens When the Magic is Gone?

In reading Hemingway's biography by Carlos Baker ("A Life Story") -- the absolute most complete biography available -- I was again struck at what happened to Hem in his final days. You see, he was getting shock treatments for depression, and taking blood pressure pills, and he found that he could not write any longer: his imagination was gone. He couldn't stand it. So he busily went about trying to kill himself and his wife stopped him a couple of times and even locked his guns away in a closet.  But she didn't hide the keys well enough and he blew the top of his head off a few weeks before his 62nd birthday, and just seven years after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I'm well aware that a writer's imagination is a fleeting, mercurial thing. It is a limited fountain.

At one point, about 10 years ago, I had a gran mal seizure and while the paramedics were trying to put an oxygen mask on me (I pushed it away because I couldn't breathe fast enough), my heart was beating out of my chest--faster than ever in any race I'd run.  I  fought off death, which took every last ounce of my effort. My most pressing thought was, "I won't get to finish writing my novel!" This was my first book. It was very important to me. (a few years later Hurricane Katrina hit and I ended up publishing that book first.)

I woke up in the hospital a few days later, and the doctors told me they'd scanned my brain and I had huge tumors all over it and they showed me the CAT scan image. It looked like a skull with a glove inside it. Talk about making you feel mortal. They said I had non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had maybe 30 days left. I accepted it. Nothing I could do but call my teenage son to the hospital room to let him know that Pop was on his way out. (The first thing he asked was, 'Does Grandma know?")

A couple of days later a doctor came in and said they had made a mistake, and that they'd been giving me antibiotics and I was responding. All I needed to do was submit to a spinal tap just to make sure, and they'd let me out of the hospital. Oh, and also, the spinal tap is painful and can have life-threatening effects. I said OK. I had the worst headache in my life for about a week, since In was about a quart low on spinal fluid.

Turns out it was not a tumor but lesions from a rare brain infection that comes from a parasite found in the water in the southern U.S. The lesions were shrinking, and would eventually calcify and disappear. I took heavy medicine for a year and they did serial MRI scans to verify the progress.

They had me on an anti-seizure drug. The effect of it was that I couldn't write.  I had no imagination. I couldn't stand it, so against doctors' orders I tapered off the drug (I told them I wanted off of it and they said don't stop suddenly).  Eventually, when the lesions were gone, they said it was probably OK.

So I am quite aware of the finiteness of life, and this fuels my urgency for writing, even living.

When asked what the best age for writing is, William Faulkner said, I believe, "in your thirties." This only serves to remind me what a late start I got!

Right now I am doing essentially "contract writing" for three nonfiction business/tech books, which is almost like having a job. I haven't had a real job in over 20 years. But worst of all, it keeps my from the deliciousness of writing fiction, plays and poetry -- the type of literature that can last. Tech books go out-of-date fast. A good novel can stand up for 500 years!

Back to the initial point: lately there have been several deaths of celebrities who had lost their edge or whose talent had diminished.  They could not adjust: the magic was gone. Football player Junior Seau killed himself, Whitney Houston died of a drug overdose, and I believe that even Michael Jackson's death a few years ago was the result of his thinking that he could not perform like he used to, that he was not up to the challenge.

There are many more examples. Sometimes people compete too long, since they don't know what else to do, and they end up injuring themselves.  I think that's what happened to Mohammed Ali.

It's a tough one, but you have to prepare. you have to be cognizant that God-given gifts have an expiration date.

I can't wait to get back to writing my next novel!

A Day for Ol' Buk

On Sunday I drove up the coast to San Marino, California, where the Huntington Library held an exhibition of Charles Bukowski's works and life. I thought about how nice it would have been to lay around in the sunshine on the beach and not fight traffic for 6-7 hours, but I reasoned I could do that most any day, and this was an important piece of the history of literature. And I wanted to see how it was presented.

The Huntington 'Library' is actually this expansive campus with long, perfectly-groomed rich green lawns, large trees, and classic statues. It's much more than a library in that it includes several buildings full of art, botanical gardens, and a collection of rare books and manuscripts. If I'd done a little more research, I'd have gone up for a day or two!

I approach these kinds of things with a sort of reverence and respect for the author. I was first going to take the train, then I was looking for someone to take the ride up there with me, but it didn't work out. That was OK, though, since it gave me time to think, and to think about writing. I wasn't the slightest bit bored or lonely; it was satisfying.

This was similar to visiting Hemingway's house on that bluff overlooking Havana, only that was a was a deeper look into Hem's life, home and elevated writing room. To peek at his stocked bar and books and mounted big game was like taking a step back in time. And then to climb the stairs to the study where he wrote, to see the same view that he saw when he was writing great books -- that was almost chilling.

When I pulled into the series of full parking lots, their size hidden by the wooded grounds, I almost expected to see a few spontaneous parties, maybe a tailgate party and kegs of beer, with various smokes wafting about; but no, weaving and circling through the lots I couldn't find a spot and only saw a few young couples heading toward the main building. I backed into a spot that wasn't really a space, and figured it'd be OK.

I was just a little late, and harried, and still I was looking for that bubbling, raucous crowd, but no, there were just families and ordinary citizens.

I bought my ticket at the window asked for directions and quickly overshot the building, but it gave me a view of the beautiful grounds. Doubling back and nearing the exhibit entrance, anticipation sizzled inside me.

The Bukoski exhibit grabbed you when you walked in: a huge poster with his picture and name, and there, encased in glass, was his beaten-up typewriter (or "typer" as he called it), his radio and a stained glass of wine. The the typer was lightly splattered with different paints, as Bukowski did a lot of sketches and some painting too.

I scanned the crowded room. No loud drunks, no smelly bohemian-types, just college students and bespectacled middle-aged couples. One college kid with a hat, maybe an aspiring writer.

Viewing the personal sketches, poem and novel drafts he'd hand-edited, first edition books, his racing forms, postcards, letters, and those from a few dedicated supporters and editors, along with some adoring fans, one got a real personal look into his life. I read every single description of every single item exhibited in the two rooms, which were pretty full of visitors, so full that you had to sometimes wait and shuffle and squeeze by to get to the next exhibited item. Every so often I'd glance around the room, and still, everyone looked perfectly normal. No crazies, no drunks. Just silent study and reverence. Strange.

I've read all his novels, and some of his poetry, but I learned a little more about Charles Bukowski and also about writing by seeing the exhibit. He'd written more short stories than I knew about, and he was busily sending them out to magazine editors. When he found he couldn't get into staid publications like the New Yorker or Atlantic, he hit the smaller ones, and built a following. He also published in mainstream porn magazines like Penthouse and Oui. The point is that he was working, pushing, trying the whole time. Scraping and scratching his way into history, like it or not.

Bukowski never wrote a New York Times bestseller, but he left his mark. He was mostly ignored by academia, but now he has to be dealt with. Sure, he's the hard drinking, brawling, dirty old man, but he did that better than anyone else. In fact, I recently saw him at the top of a prominent 'dirty writers in history' list, ahead of the likes of James Joyce and Philip Roth.

They had some sort of tour and reception and they were going to read some of his work but I can hardly stand it when those pathetic literary gadflies get up and start trying to imitate. I was there to see Buk.

After an hour I went to the bookstore and they had the largest display of Bukowski books, postcards, and memorabilia I've seen. I bought a few things, including a mousepad with a picture of his typer and some postcards that read, "what matters most is how you walk through the fire."

I also bought a small journal book with one of his drawings on the cover.

Heading back I got slightly lost at first, then got on the freeway and soon I was ensnared in 10 mile per hour L.A. traffic. It didn't much matter though, since I was pretty satisfied with those 90 minutes I spent to peer into the life of a modern writer whose popularity is growing, now almost 20 years after his death. That's the sign of a true artist.

When I got back home in Mexico, I sat in my recliner, sipped a dry martini, and wrote six poems in my new Buk journal. And I hardly ever write poetry!


 

Running with the Bulls Will Scare the Sh*t Outta You!

Awake at 6AM in Pamplona, first day of the Running of the Bulls, San Fermin Fiesta; breakfast buffet: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, Swiss, croissant, tepid whole milk, hot coffee, juice. College girl shooting curious glances a few tables over. Shapely, glasses, wavy brown hair. I consider a bold move. Nope. Melons, peaches at the buffet taunting me. Decide to go. Steal a banana and yogurt. Back to room, try to sleep. Fantasize about lusty college girl. Can’t sleep. CNN, shower? No—don my wine-stained shirt, white pants, red sash and kerchief, out in the street.

“Agua! Agua!” Water crashes down from balcony buckets, corks pop and spray rooster tails of champagne into the crowd, sangria wine squirts from leather flasks, staining the delirious revelers. Dancing, music, food, beer and wine, the crowd is feverishly drunk by noon. Spend the day sipping beer and grabbing tapas between happenstance conversations and toasts with near strangers. Head back early since the bull run is in the morning.

6AM, phone rings, “This is your wake up call, sir.” I roll over to catch a few winks, then out of bed. Shower? Shave? No need to, really. Gonna get all soaked in spraying booze anyway. Throw on my San Fermin wine-stained shirt and rest of the white and red garb, tie my shoes and out the door. Coffee? No time.

Following the swelling throngs I make my way, pushing and shoving through the thickening crowd to the central plaza. Fence in front for spectators. No, gotta get closer. Loop around and jump the fence, melting into the crowd of mostly athletic young men, all wearing white with red neckerchiefs.

We mill nervously like animals being readied for slaughter. Some fear, a lot of nervousness, but mostly anticipation and chatter. A few teenage boys guzzle down liters of beer and hand the bottles to a policeman on the safe side of the fence. I'm thinking I’m glad I didn’t have coffee, don’t have to pee, this crowd is stuck tight and I'm penned in. No turning back.

Clang, clang, clang…the church bells ring eight as the crowd silently counts, then BOOOM!! A cannon blast announces the bulls are out, on the loose, starting their charge.

I look over a sea of white and red and bobbing heads. No bulls. Some men jump up and crane their necks for a better look. Some bend and stretch. The crowd mills forward, a little, then faster, like minnows after a bug...

A quick thunder and, “THEY’RE HERE!” The masculine mass breaks and scrambles and scatters and a crooked horn bounces near, I start to run and fumble for my camera but 15 tons of animal muscle and sharp horns rumbles up, frenetic and wild, panting, hooves pounding the street, scraping and slipping as they round the bend, I run, pumping knees and elbows, cut, push, elbow, shove through the chaos and screams; leap onto the wood fence and hang on with hope, the herd tramples and pounds by, surrounded by a blur of white and red.

Laughter, relief, shouting, …they’ve passed.

Suddenly a charging pack of steers roar upon us and another scatter-scramble, and then wild laughter, giggling and giddy; we collapse to the ground in joy.

I stagger to my feet, giddy, goofy, laughing, laugh-crying, my insides electrified. Felt like I’d just jumped out of a plane.

“Are there any more?! Is that it?”

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t see any!

“That was a riot, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah, that was something!”

Ambling deliriously through the crowd, a man in a neck brace is carried on a stretcher, blood trickling from his ear; I search for a beer stand and guzzle one to calm my nerves.

Wow. That was a lot of fun!

Hemingway Was A Marketing Genius

It was my birthday last month so I went to Paris and took the train to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls (San Fermin Fiesta). It was something I'd always wanted to do and it was my big 5-0, so I went for it.

Quiche Lorraine and a croissant in the Paris summer morning, a cup of espresso, then hopped the train through the plains of France, past Bordeaux, then the mountains of Spain, the salty sea air near Biarritz, then San Sebastian and you're there. I went straight to the hotel and out into the buzzing streets, popping in and out of bars for tapas and beer, and bought a scalped ticket for the bull fight.

I had a good seat, maybe 7-8 rows up, and on the shady side of the ring. Perfect. The first bull went as expected, but the second bull charged the matador and got too low and stuck his horns in the dirt, then flipped over completely and "poof" a blast of dust as he flopped to the ground. Some gasps and laughter, then a few boos among the cheers. The bull steadied himself and took another charge--and again stuck his horns and flipped over completely, rolling down his backbone and plopping to the ground. More boos, some cheers, but the matador turned and left the ring, and the picadors too. The bull was out there alone, tail twitching, confused, looking to charge. Then a pack of steers was let out, they milled around and surrounded the bull, and the whole group trotted out the gate. His life had been spared since he just wasn't athletic enough to put on a good fight. The only other time I'd seen that was in Mexico, but that bull put up such a good fight that they spared him, although he was covered in blood and panting.

After another bull or two and I left and returned to the teeming Pamplona bars for more tapas and beers.

The next day I flipped on the Spanish newscast and among the rapid Spanish gibberish one name came through clearly, over and over, "Ernest Hemingway."

And throughout the week, his name was bandied about. A writer friend of mine even had several dinners with Hemingway's grandson.

The next day was a big party and the following morning I actually ran with the bulls, (I'll detail that later) but then it was off to Barcelona and Prague for a book signing, and what was the first bar I saw when I climbed out of the subway? A Cuban bar with live salsa and a "Hemingway Salon."

So Hemingway created an image, such an enduring image, that it has been spread and exploited throughout the world -- 50 years after he blew his head off.

Now that's PR!

What a Writer Really Needs is Time

Some writers are afforded long lives and therefore have the chance to develop and contribute over a long period. Others have died tragically early, perhaps having penned one or two great ones, but they weren't able to gain their proper place in history. And there is some luck, good fortune that plays a role there.

Back when Faulkner and Hemingway were around, it wasn't so uncommon for men to die in their 60s (they both did) and still have lived a full life. Burroughs and Mailer lived to their 80s, but some of the real, real greats, like Fitzgerald, Kerouac and Oscar Wilde died in their 40s. So did Carson McCullers, who was pretty amazing herself. And then there's John Kennedy Toole, who offed himself in his 30s because he couldn't get A Confederacy of Dunces published -- and it was subsequently awarded a Pulitzer.

Wilde particularly got screwed. After his fiasco with that royal boy and hard prison time, he was finished, only writing a few sad and dark pieces and then dying in Paris. He was on track to surpass Shakespeare, I believe, and also, I don't really believe Shakespeare wrote everything he's given credit for -- not even half (and there's tons of evidence to back that).

My hope is that I am granted the time to do the work I know I can do.

Technology and Writing

Technologies impact what is written, what gets published, and even impacts the characteristics and content of the writing. Novels used to be shorter, due primarily to the arduousness of writing and proofreading by hand, and the cost of typesetting the book. Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is just over 100 little pages, and Fitzgerald's Gatsby isn't much longer.

Today, popular writers churn out books using pretty standard language. There's a lot of copy-pasting going on, a lot of formula writing that is pushed on the public. Basically, popular novels today are like watching TV. Pretty canned. I believe writers in the past created works that were more like watching live theatre where there is spontaneity and risk.

And I wonder if writers like Chekhov or Oscar Wilde would have made it today or if they would have labored in obscurity. I like the purity in their works, untainted by technology (although I know I am losing something with translations of Chekhov).

Technology of the times affected other writers. When portable typewriters became available, Hemingway had one, Tennessee Williams had one, and it changed their lifestyle and made writing just a little bit easier, and more portable. A laptop computer today provides amazing advantages.

But I wonder what is lost by not writing by hand and crossing things out. I don't usually do that, unless there isn't a computer available. But when I started my Katrina book, I wrote on the back of an envelope, then re-wrote that and continued writing in a journal. When I finally got to a computer, I was zooming out 3,000-4,000 words a day, and I was able to edit and improve the work on the fly. Of course, there were many edits after that, but they were rapid-fire, since I completed the book in less than a month.

Technology allowed me to publish my first book, and it is allowing me to post this from Mexico, while listening to the local New Orleans radio station.

But I still wonder what is lost with the rush of technology we have available. Certainly that combined with the oligarchic mass media cuts out many true artists, those who are on the fringe, are being muffled or trampled, depriving the world of, perhaps, some great works.

How Should You Write?

Aspiring writers must search for their voice. Test, try, experiment, adjust. Finding a voice can be one of the most arduous tasks for a writer, but once it appears and sharpens, (and only then), should a writer go about producing published works aggressively. That's not to say that a writing voice cannot evolve, it most certainly must as the writer grows, learns and develops.

For me, sitting down and writing my Hurricane Katrina book in 3 1/2 weeks crystallized my voice; at least it sent me well on my way.

Today, short bursts, as found in blogs, can help shape a writer's voice too. Sometimes you shouldn't think too much -- just let it flow.

Generally, I prefer an economical style, where significant effort is put into writing concise sentences that convey powerful meaning without wasted words. But also, sometimes, a long, flowery sentence is called for: it is the only approach that will fit for the art of the story, and its rhythm is called for at precisely that point in the work.

Bukowski, if you read his novels, opines that a sentence should be as short and full of punch as possible. He believed that all those extra adjectives and long sentences and paragraphs merely mask the fact that a writer can't find the precise words they are looking for, so they hope the reader will somehow find the meaning the writer intends in a puffy, vague sentence.

If you read Hemingway, his prose is noticeably terse and efficient, but now and then he departs from his usual style. F. Scott Fitzgerald does it naturally and perfectly, only using a few extra words when they are absolutely needed, to add to the richness of the story and lyricism of the sentence and paragraph. Flaubert and Checkov are also economical in their use of prose.

That is not to say that there is only one way to write. Take Tom Robbins, for instance. He developed his own style. He leans toward using long sentences and fabulously obscure words. But it works. And as Robbins said, "In fiction, there are no rules. That's what I have against 'teaching writing' in academia. In fiction, what works, works."

And take Kerouac: he found his voice by writing quickly, nonstop, tapping his brain (and some amphetamines at times) to rattle out stream-of-consciousness truths. Of course, he meticulously revised his work, although he didn't let that fact out much.

A writer should try different approaches. William Burroughs even experimented with physically cutting out words and sentences and moving them around, pasting them where they really didn't belong -- all in the interest of discovering a new way to construct words. I believe it is the writer's responsibility to use words in ways they have never been used, or even to invent new words or forms of words. Hey, Shakespeare did it. Supposedly he used a vocabulary of 20,000 words, some of which hadn't been invented yet. The average person might have a vocabulary of 4,000-5,000 words.

Another unique writer was John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces), who had a brilliant style all his own, full of juicy descriptions that hit the mark. No one can imitate his work!

You should go out and find your style, your voice. And you do that by writing, writing, writing. But the absolute worst thing you can do is to try to imitate another writer. That only makes for pathetic reading.

So, what is a writer? One who writes (not one who quotes others' writing or simply talks about writing).

A Day with F. Scott Fitzgerald and "Gatsby"

Yesterday I walked to a small Mexican cafe and had "huevos Mexicana" with beans and potatoes, sitting next to two Mexican police. I had a book with me so I figured they'd think me harmless.

Then I walked to the local coffee shop and and read a couple of chapters of "The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald (he was named after his famous relative, Francis Scott Key, who wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner," but he was called only "Scott"). Turning each page I was just awed by his lyrical prose. It's so deft and smart and pleasant to read that "lyrical prose" doesn't do it justice. And Fitzgerald wrote this in his twenties! He died at 44 and I just kept thinking how far behind I am, how I will never catch up, and how, maybe, I should just forget about writing at all.

Walking home I thought that if I work at it hard, things will be different in 10 years.

Most people don't know that Fitzgerald lived in New Orleans for a while. In 1920, he took a room at a cheap boarding house on Prytania Street, in the historic and grandiose Garden District. With $600 from winning the O. Henry Prize (by the way, short story writer O. Henry fled to New Orleans to avoid embezzlement charges from a bank in Texas) he bought his future wife Zelda a platinum and diamond watch and went to Montgomery to propose. But she wouldn't marry him until, "This Side of Paradise" was published the following spring.

Fitzgerald and Hemingway were ex-pat friends in Paris, and Hem had great respect for Scott's writing. But they argued, as writers do. I heard a story that after Fitzgerald wrote a long written critique of a new Hemingway novel, Hem scrawled, "Kiss my ass," after it. But I'll bet he re-read the critique and took it to heart and improved his writing.

Later Hem wrote elegantly about how natural and effortless Fitzgerald's talent was. He wrote this in the preface to, "A Moveable Feast" one of my all-time favorite books:

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.

Fitzgerald was destroyed by drink and his crazy wife Zelda, who was in and out of mental institutions, and who encouraged him to drink and write short stories for fast money, rather than to focus on novels (a source of contention between Hem and Scott). Zelda was a Southern Belle, the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge, but a real firecracker who later was recognized as a leader for women's rights. Scott called her the"golden girl," and "the original flapper."

Scott and Zelda were always drinking and fighting. Tennessee Williams wrote the play, "Clothes for a Summer Hotel," about Scott and Zelda's tumultuous relationship. It takes place when Scott takes a visit to see Zelda at a mental institution in North Carolina, where she later burned to death after Fitzgerald's untimely death of a heart attack. It was Tennessee's last play to debut on Broadway but was a critical and financial failure (although it sounds interesting, doesn't it?)


Back to my day: After a stop at the grocery, and few glances from Mexican housewives, I walked home and took a short nap.

My neighbor, a defrocked lawyer (who is just another one of the miscreants who have landed in Tijuana), stopped by and brought a quart of beer so we split it. We talked about how he's been working hard on his Spanish and meeting a lot of girls and that I should learn more, and he taught me a new word. Then we talked about how crazy it is that they caught the leader of the big drug cartel, and that 150 people had been killed in TJ in the last 2 months. But that it doesn't affect us here at the beach. In fact, it doesn't affect anyone unless they are in the drug or police business, except that fewer people go out to nice restaurants after a recent slaughter (of drug runners) at one.

He headed back to cook dinner for his roommate, and I went over to the local seafood restaurant to watch the sun set over the ocean and return to "Gatsby." I read while I drank a few more Tecate beers and ate three shrimp tacos. I didn't bother with telling them that I prefer them not to be fried, since I was pretty hungry. I read as much as I could, between glimpses of the salmon-pink sunset and shimmering waves, and then I just closed the book and thought.

After a short stop at home I walked up to a little smoky dive bar, had a couple more beers with limes, ate some peanuts and looked over at the two incredibly cute and young senoritas.

"I really gotta learn Spanish," I thought.

Major Writers on Writers

I love to hear big-time writers criticizing other big-time writers, or even just telling stories out of class about them. For most of us, that's out of bounds; we don't have the standing to do so.

Truman Capote famously said of Jack Kerouac's rambling style, "That's not writing, that's typing!" Last week at the San Miguel Literary Festival, Tom Robbins said, "But much of what Kerouac wrote was as good or better than what Capote wrote." Ouch. As it turns out, Kerouac was constantly writing, and those close to him said he was always revising and re-writing, although his style makes it seem like a stream-of-consciousness first draft.

Robbins also addressed research in his workshop. He said it should be woven in, so that it becomes a natural part of the writing. "Not like Michener, who spent the first 40 pages of his book, Mexico just spouting out research."

Then there's Michener criticizing Hemingway, although he revered his work. Hem's friend A.E. Hotchner was asked to edit a Hem piece for Life magazine that was supposed to be 10,000 words. Life gave the 120,000 word manuscript to Hotchner to edit. Michener said it was incredibly overwritten and full of repetition and run-on sentences. The polished manuscript ran to about 70,000 words, and when the final version got down to about 45,000 words, it was pretty good. Hmmm...back then they had REAL editors! Today, a book has to be ready to go or publishers won't even look at it.

Once, when Hemingway was just starting out, he gave a manuscript to F. Scott Fitzgerald to critique. Well, Fitzgerald let him have it in a detailed and biting way. Hem scribbled on it, "Kiss my ass." But surely he made some changes to the book after that.

Of course, there was always this ongoing competition/discussion between Hemingway and Faulkner on style. Hem said he knew those big words that Faulkner used, he just preferred to use simpler ones. Personally, I think writing should be clear and succinct, unless a particular thought or passage demands it. Some of Faulkner's stuff you can just get lost in. Like James Joyce.

Michener said of Truman Capote, "I grew ever more grateful to him for playing the role of the genius-clown who reminds the general public that artists are always different and sometimes radically so."

Funny thing about Truman Capote: On cross-country trips he would make the driver take him to a library in some rural county seat and wait while Capote ran inside. When asked what he was doing, Capote said, "Checking the card catalogs. In this one Mailer had seven cards. Gore Vidal had eight. But I had eleven."

The wonderfully crass and honest (and butt-ugly!) poet, Charles Bukowski, when he was rising up, wrote that he knew there was room for him in the literary world, since he had read Tolstoy and all the others, and they just weren't that great. I enjoyed reading Bukowski's novels, especially, Ham on Rye, Women, and Hollywood. They read fast and they're funny and entertaining; sometimes a little gross. Read them and you'll know what I mean.

Bukowski's favorite writer was John Fante. I like him too. A lot. I wish he would've written more novels. Although he was known mostly as a screenwriter, his style is very efficient and clear. I loved his novel, Ask the Dust. Every single sentence is well-written. He also wrote the screenplay adaptation of Nelson Algren's Walk on the Wild Side," which is set in New Orleans.

And then there's Andrei Codrescu's story of how, when he as a young man in New York, fresh from Romania and barely able to speak English, the Beat poet Allen Ginsburg set up a meeting for Codrescu with Wiliam S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, Junkie). During lunch, Burroughs slid his cold, bony hand on Codrescu's thigh. Codrescu, (as he tells it) told Burroughs he wasn't into that.

You know that Burroughs lived on the Westbank of New Orleans? Yes, in 1948 he lived in Algiers. The cops were always trying to arrest him for shooting heroin, but they could never catch him. So the city council passed an ordinance that you could be arrested for having track marks on your arms. Then the cops picked him up for that.

Burroughs was also arrested after police searched his home and found letters between him and Ginsberg referring to a possible delivery of pot. Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape imprisonment in Louisiana. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge's statute of limitations.

Burroughs used to shoot an apple off his wife's head, as a drunken game. In 1951, Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a boozed-up game of "William Tell" at a party above the American-owned Bounty Bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before his brother came to Mexico City and bribed Mexican lawyers and officials, which allowed Burroughs to be released on bail while he awaited trial for the killing (he never did).