Charles Bukowski, on writing:

When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about.

My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.

- Charles Bukowski.

On this day in movie history - Barfly (1987):

Barfly

directed by Barbet Schroeder

written by Charles Bukowski

was released in the United States on October 16, 1987.

Music by Jack Baran.

Cast:

Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Alice Krige, Jack Nance, J.C. Quinn, Frank Stallone, Sandy Martin, Roberta Bassin, Gloria LeRoy, Joe Unger, Harry Cohn, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Joe Rice, Julie ‘Sunny’ Pearson, Donald L. Norden, Wil Albert, Hal Shafer, Zeke Manners, Pearl Shear, Rik Colitti, Michael Collins, Ronald G. Joseph, Damon Hines, Lahmard J. Tate, Gary Carlos Cervantes, Peter Conti, Vance Colvig Jr., Stacey Pickren, Leonard Termo, Gary Cox, Fritz Feld, Albert Henderson, Sandy Rose, Madalyn Carol, George Marshall Ruge, Debby Lynn Ross, Charles Bukowski, John Forker.

Recommended reading - The Movie: "Barfly" (1987):

The Movie: "Barfly"

By Charles Bukowski.

Edited by Barbet Schroeder.

Published by Black Sparrow Press.

Published in 1987.

ISBN 10: 087685708X

ISBN 13: 9780876857083

Paperback.

Description:

The screenplay of the 1987 movie, directed by Barbet Schroeder.

Writing, a poem by Charles Bukowski:

Writing

a poem by Charles Bukowski

1991

Often it is the only thing between you and impossibility.

No drink, no woman's love, no wealth can match it.

Nothing can save you except writing.

It keeps the walls from falling.

The hordes from closing in.

It blasts the darkness.

Writing is the ultimate psychiatrist,

the kindliest god of all the gods.

Writing stalks death.

It knows no quit,

and writing laughs at itself, at pain.

It is the last expectation, the last explanation.

That's what it is.

Recommended reading - Pulp (1994):

Pulp

By Charles Bukowski.

Published by Ecco.

Published in 1994.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 9780876859261

ISBN-13: 978-0876859261

Description:

“Poet laureate of the down-and-out.” – LA Times.

Opening with the exotic Lady Death entering the gumshoe-writer's seedy office in pursuit of a writer named Cèline, this novel demonstrates Charles Bukowski's own brand of humor and realism, opening up a landscape of seamy Los Angeles.

Pulp is essential fiction from Buk himself.

Nicky Belane, private detective and career alcoholic, is a troubled man. He is plagued not just by broads, booze, lack of cash and a raging ego, but also by the surreal jobs he’s hired to do. Not only does he have to track down French classical author Cèline – who’s meant to be dead – but he also supposed to find the elusive Red Sparrow – which may or may not be real.

Pulp is Charles Bukowski’s brilliant, fantastical pastiche of a detective story.

Packed with wit, invention and Bukowski’s trademark lowlife adventures, it is the final novel by one of the most enjoyable and influential cult writers of the last century.

Recommended reading - Ham on Rye (1982):

Ham on Rye (1982).

By Charles Bukowski.

Published by Ecco.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 006117758X

ISBN-13: 978-0061177583

Description:

In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

On this day in movie history - Factotum (2006):

Factotum

directed by Bent Hamer,

written by Bent Hamer and Jim Stark,

based on the novel by Charles Bukowski,

was released in the United States on August 18, 2006.
Music by Kristin Asbjørnsen.

End titles song: Slow Day by Kristin Asbjørnsen.

Cast:

Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, Didier Flamand, Fisher Stevens, Marisa Tomei, Adrienne Shelly, Karen Young, Thomas Lyons, Dean Brewington, James Cada, James Michael Detmar, Kurt Schweickhardt, Dee Noah, James Noah, Michael Egan, Terry Hempleman, Emily Hynnek, Wayne Morton, Tony Papenfuss, Lana Schwab, Sally Wingert, Robert Downing Davis, Bryan J. Walker, Dan Lee Jr., Peter Moore, Bruce Bohne, Larry Roupe, Chris Carlson, Stephen D'Ambrose, Emil Herrera, Michelle Hutchison, Andy Hubbell, Martin Marinaro, Raye Birk, Stephen Pelinski, Stanley Kipper, Brent Doyle, John Paul Gamoke, Jim Lichtscheidl, Jay Gjernes, Clyde Lund, Debbie DeLisi, George McGuire, Brad Madson, Gary Tournier, Esera Tuaolo, John Nadeau, Cathi Cooper, Carole Samuelson.

The Laughing Heart, by Charles Bukowski:

The Laughing Heart

by Charles Bukowski

Your life is your life.

Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

Be on the watch.

There are ways out.

There is light somewhere.

It may not be much light but

it beats the darkness.

Be on the watch.

The gods will offer you chances.

Know them.

Take them.

You can’t beat death,

but you can beat death in life, sometimes.

And the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be.

Your life is your life.

Know it while you have it.

You are marvelous.

The gods wait to delight

in you.

Born on this day – Charles Bukowski:

Charles Bukowski

Writer

August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994

Credits:

Books:

A Bukowski Sampler (1988); Absence of the Hero (2010); All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966); At Terror Street And Agony Way (1968); Barfly (1983); Beerspit Night and Cursing (2001); Betting on the Muse (1996); Bone Palace Ballet (1997); Bring Me Your Love (1983); Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974); Cold Dogs In The Courtyard (1965); Come On In! (2006); Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965); Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981); Factotum (1975); Fire Station (1970); First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers (1994); Ham on Rye (1982); Hollywood (1989); Hot Water Music (1983); In the Shadow of the Rose (1991); Living On Luck (1995); Love Is a Dog from Hell (1977); Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972); Mondo Barbie (1993); Mondo Elvis (1994); Mondo James Dean (1996); Mondo Marilyn (1995); Mondo Marilyn (1995); More Notes of a Dirty Old Man (2011); New Poems Book Four (2003); New Poems Book One (2003); New Poems Book Three (2003); New Poems Book Two (2003); Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969); On Cats (2015); On Drinking (2019); On Love (2016); On Writing (2015); Open All Night (2000); Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979); Poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window (1974); Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook (2008); Post Office (1971); Pulp (1994); Reach for the Sun (1999); Run With the Hunted (1962); Screams from the Balcony (1993); Selected Letters Volume 1: 1958-1965 (2004); Selected Letters Volume 2: 1965-1970 (2004); Selected Letters Volume 3: 1971-1986 (2004); Selected Letters Volume 4: 1987-1994 (2005); Septuagenarian Stew (1990); Shakespeare Never Did This (1979); Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems Book 1 (2002); Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems Book 2 (2002); Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005); South of No North (1973); Storm for the Living and the Dead (2017); Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972); Tales of Ordinary Madness (1983); The Bell Tolls for No One (2015); The Bukowski / Purdy Letters (1984); The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998); The Continual Condition (2009); The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969); The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain (2003); The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992); The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way: On Writers and Writing (2018); The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories (1983); The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (2013); The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps (2001); The People Look Like Flowers At Last (2007); The Pleasures of the Damned (2007); The Portable Sixties Reader (2003); The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988); There's No Business (1984); War All the Time (1984); What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999); Women (1978); Writing Los Angeles (2002); You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense (1986).

Movies and television:

900 Pounds (1987); A .45 to Pay The Rent (2010); A Man (2005); Alone with Everybody (2016); Amor por menos (1994); An Evil Town (1995); Apostrophes (1978); Apporte-moi ton amour (2002); Artbound (2014); Barfly (1987); Bluebird (2022); Breakfast with Bukowski (2011); Bring Me Your Love (2000); Broken-Mirror Music (2001); Bukowski (1973 / 2023); Bukowski at Bellevue (1995); Bukowski: Born into This (2003); BXLx24 (2011); Charles Bukowski's Nirvana (2013); Cinéma cinémas (1982); Code Name: Arabesque / The Charles Bukowski Tapes (1985); Crazy Love (1987); Death Is Smoking My Cigars (2021); Dr Nazi (2011); Droit de réponse: l'esprit de contradiction (1982); Eddie and Eve (2021); Encore une nuit de merde dans cette ville pourrie (2008); Factotum (2005); Fan des années 80 (2012); Figure (2017); Frozen Food Section (2005); Fuck the Forest (2013); Functioning on Zero: Robert Dean Live from the Lost Well (2020); Girl on the Escalator (2016); Gunnar Goes Comfortable (2003); Guts (1991); Hit Man (2014); Horseshoe (1998); Il falso bugiardo (2008); Ioana Dobroiu: The Night Kept Coming on and There Was Nothing I Could Do About It (2018); Jukebox: From Edison to Ipod (2007); Kasabanin En Güzel Kizi (2018); La pétaudière de Gontran H (2024); Lonely at the Top (1993); Loren Cass (2006); Love for $17.50 (1998); Love Is a Dog from Hell (2014); Love Lasts Three Years (2011); Love Pig (1990); Lune froide (1988 / 1991); Ma langue dans ta poche (2016); Mask (2011); Mermaid of Venice (2011); Metamorphosis (2022); My Old Man (2004); Nedgång och Fall (2009); Nice Guy Blues (2007); No Leaders Please (2021); Nothing Else to Do (2016); Opowiesc o ordynarnym szalenstwie (1987); Paradise Now, Apocalypse Later / The Laughing Heart (2017); Personenbeschreibung (1982); Pink & Tender (2007); Piss (2018); Poetry in Motion (1982 / 2020); Resiliencia (2020); Run to the Sea (2014); Sieh an, sieh an (1985); Sitting on a Fire Escape Eating Eggs (2015); Småfysen (2022); Somebody to Love (1994); Son of Satan (2003); Supervan (1977); Sve Zene Se Zovu Kiki (1991); Syn Szatana (2008); Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981); The Best Hotel on Skid Row (1990); The Big Pot Game (2013); The Blanket (1994); The Bottle (2019); The Crossing Guard (1995); The Devil Was Hot (2010); The Icecream People (2022); The Killers (1984); The Last Straw (2008); The Laughing Heart (2012); The Living Room Festival (1995–1999); The Man with the Beautiful Eyes (2000); The Midnight Show (2012); The Pleasures of the Damned (2024); The Strangest Thing Just Happened (2015); The Suicide (2006); The Works III (1994); There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here (2008); Vessel (2015); Warm Face/Cold Place (2015); Welcome to the Basement (2015); You Never Had It: An Evening With Bukowski (2016).

Recommended reading – Post Office (1971):

Post Office

By Charles Bukowski.

Paperback.

Published in 1971.

ISBN-10: 0753518163

ISBN-13: 978-0753518168

Description:

It began as a mistake. By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and race-track betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers. This classic 1971 novel – the one that catapulted its author to national fame – is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, and Dirty Old Man Charles Bukowski and his fictional alter ego, Chinaski.

“Wordsworth, Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and the Beats in their respective generations moved poetry toward a more natural language. Bukowski moved it a little farther.” – Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was twenty-four, and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).

Charles Bukowski, on writing:

In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.

Maybe I'll write a novel, I thought.

And then I did.

- Charles Bukowski.

Introvert insight:

In my quiet, I was working something out.

- Keanu Reeves.

I'm constantly around people that talk a lot but say nothing.

A sad case.

- Henry Rollins.

Do you hate people?

I don't hate them ... I just feel better when they're not around.

- Charles Bukowski.

People empty me.

I have to get away to refill.

- Charles Bukowski.

On this day in television history - The Ordinary Madness of Charles Bukowski (1995):

The Ordinary Madness of Charles Bukowski,

documentary directed and produced by Vanessa Engle,

an episode from the Bookmark documentary series,

was released in the United Kingdom on March 18, 1995.

Cast:
Charles Bukowski, Linda, Bukowski, Sean Penn.

Introvert insight:

Whatever kind of introvert you are, some people will find you 'too much' in some ways and 'not enough' in others.

- Laurie Helgoe.

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

- Susan Cain.

Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.

- Paulo Coello.

Beware of those who seek constant crowds; they are nothing alone.

- Charles Bukowski.

On this day in movie history - Bukowski: Born Into This (2003):

Bukowski: Born Into This,

directed by John Dullaghan,

was released at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States on January 18, 2003.
Music by James Stemple.

Cast:
Charles Bukowski, Bono, John Bryan, Linda Lee Bukowski, Marina Bukowski, Neeli Cherkovski, Joyce Fante, FrancEyE, Taylor Hackford, John Martin, Mike Meloan, Jack Micheline, Pam 'Cupcakes' Miller, Dom Muto, William Packard, Sean Penn, Steve Richmond, Barbet Schroeder, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Waits, Carl Weissner, Liza Williams, James Stemple.

Charles Bukowski, on writers:

Lawyers, doctors, plumbers, they all made the money.

Writers?

Writers starved.

Writers suicided.

Writers went mad.

- Charles Bukowski.