Sunday Sermonette: “What is terrible is not death”

PROFANITY WARNING if such things bother you, and that’s okay. Father Bukowski was a salty dog. And as we read in the Gospel According to Mark, Chapter 9, verse 50: “Salt is good: but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.”

The Truth here is worth pondering. However, as you nod your head, thinking, Hey, I know people like that, take a step back. Take a breath, and ask yourself: Am I maybe one of these people myself? We’re not always as cool as we like to think we are.

And now the lesson is yours.

Sunday Sermonette: Father Bukowski Speaks of Soulless Writers Who Would Move Our Souls

For the record, Bukowski actually admired Camus to a degree. But Bukowski’s dissatisfaction with this aspect of Camus’ writing reminds me of how I feel reading writers like John Updike (once huge, now dead and well on his way to becoming forgotten) and Joyce Carol Oates. Their authorial voices all too often sound like those of extraterrestrial scientists trying to make sense of human civilization, and not quite getting it.

Not to get too Miniver Cheevy about this, but it’s even worse today, as literary writing is entirely the province of an elite caste of upper middle class people, with all their spendy, upper middle class hoops to jump and merit badges to acquire, like attendance at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, MFA programs at Ivy League or (at least) second-tier colleges, internships at Big Corporate Blogs, etc. 

These people who would touch our hearts and move us to tears don’t even see people like you and me as people. How could they? While they chat in the coffee shop in between classes, the rest of us have to go to work. 

At least Albert Camus had an interesting life, having risked it as part of the French Resistance during the German occupation in the ealy 1940s. If he didn’t scream while he burned, it might be because keeping his emotions in check was necessary for his survival. I’m not a Camus scholar, so I wouldn’t know. 

Of course, we’re all painfully aware of how today’s little hothouse flowers scream without burning, going into supernovas of outrage over opinions they disagree with on Twitter. This is the madness of the crowd at this point in the early 21st century, and there is little sense in seething over it. Our part, as always, is to do the best we can with what we have for as long as it lasts. If we do it well enough, we’ll find our audiences. 

And as for the striver-caste ciphers who don’t see people like us, I don’t see them, either. There’s too much else to write about here at Ground Zero where the real people live, suffer, and work. The more I think about it, the prouder I am that I write zombie action novels. Even that milieu has more flavor of reality to it than the latest Sad Rich Kid Is Sad story.

Let them have their exclusive, deluxe ball pit to play in. As one of Bukowski’s favorite poets put it:

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

And now the lesson is yours.

Sunday Sermonette: Father Bukowski Addresses NaNoWriMo

...and that writer’s group you go to for “feedback” when you should be secure enough in your talent to write and edit yourself. Verily, thou shouldst shun people and their opinions, find a place to sit down and write, then sit down and write. Hearken ye unto the wise counsel of Father Bukowski, even as he rambles a bit, that you might make the core truth your own:

I bought a laptop in 2008 because I was romanced by the notion that I could go anywhere and write. I’ve found it doesn’t work that way. All my writing happens in this small office/bedroom in my finished basement, in the corner between the door and the unfinished storage closet leading under the stairs. I’ve been at it for years in this space, with the laptop sitting over the desk on a brace so the air flows beneath it while allowing me more room on my desk.

It’s a cozy space where other people are not. Ironically, despite going to literal ground here, I’ve made new friends in the UK, Germany, and France from my chair in its fixed location underground, and connected with all kinds of people across the good ol’ USA, thanks to the miracle of Twitter. It’s one big happy fandom with everyone a fan of everyone else, and no one getting hurt.

But the writing is done alone. Always alone. This is how it must be. “WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.” The chatter of the keys must never stop. Hit the target with what you know, and don’t stop to learn that which you should already know. 

My machine gun emplacement.

You are not here to research. You are not here to entertain dinner parties or charm professors. You are not here to participate in Write a Novel in One Month contests. You are not writing to impress So-and-so at the writer’s group who hates the sight of you. Your readers don’t need to know what you look like.

You are behind closed doors. You are offline. You are writing. Or you are not. You are writing the kind of book you’d want to read, or you have no idea what you’re doing. In which case you’ll keep writing until you figure it out. Or not.

Is you are or is you ain’t a writer? We shall know thee by thy fruits.

And now the lesson is yours.

Special Guest Sermon by Charles Bukowski

Like the best sermons, it will go right over most people’s heads, save for those select few who already got the message.

Here’s the transcript:

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

I really need to make my own memes of these things. Right now, I just want to get over this cold. I spent the night fighting vampires in my dreams, with full-spectrum light rifles and sigils drawn quickly on the concrete floor, which means I’ve managed some R.E.M. sleep. It’s a start.

Happy Sunday.

On Hump Day, Bukowski Speaks of Death

Ten and one-half hours standing up and shoving baskets into the bellies of college students by way of crowd control (when I run out of baskets, I block the door until someone walks out) takes its toll. It’s amazing how time has slowed down. I’ve got Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to go, and I wish I could feel excited about only having three more of these shifts to do. No, I have three more shifts to do. I’d rather it be none. My best hope is to get through this with nothing major breaking. Like a lot of people, I’m one minor catastrophe away from the street.

Meanwhile, I’m supposed to feel bad for a multi-millionaire comedian, beloved the world over, who killed himself. Richard Cory strikes again.

Oh, what a rant I could get from this. I’ve got to go to work, though. Charles Bukowski Week continues:

Naturally, the above quote does not describe Robin Williams. He seemed a thoughtful enough guy. But good on him for being able to afford checking out. I’ve still got a son in high school and a wife who depends on me to keep my act together. I’m glad I’ve got people, don’t get me wrong. But never, ever ask me to feel sorry for someone who would laugh at how “little” money I owe relative to what he would make for one episode of a bad TV comedy series. 

It’s a quarter ‘til already. I gotta go.

Charles Bukowski Week Begins Today

I would have started it yesterday, so it would be a full seven days, with the week ending on the great man’s 94th birthday this Saturday. This seems more fitting. Buk himself probably would have passed on celebrating for an entire whole week. Also, it makes sense to start it on Monday. 

Something that escapes most bourgeois fans of the Last Poet Who Mattered is that Bukowski worked for a living. Not because he wanted to, not for “material” for his writing, but because that’s the way the plantation is set up for most people who are not to the McMansion born. Slave or starve. Endure the abuse of the boss and the customers and all the other poor, troubled people you work with, or enjoy trying to get a nap on the dirty concrete outdoors before the Protect and Serve crew move you along with their sticks and shoe tips.

I could have set these memes to go earlier—I should have set these memes up to be automatically published as the week goes on, as I’ll be working ten-and-a-half hour days from now until Friday at the campus bookstore. I’m in for a long, miserable week. It’s kicking off early, as the smoke detector decided to let me know the battery was dying at 3 a.m., and my wife thrashed around in her sleep after I went and took the smoke detector off the ceiling and put it in the garage. Oh, yeah, a real sweet start. 

Maybe I’ll get some ideas while at work this week. They’re not happening here at home, not even in my basement sanctuary, and the bills aren’t paying themselves, besides.

I'll make a deal with myself. Let’s get this week started, get it over with, and on Friday and Saturday nights, I’ll get roaring drunk. We’ll work it out as we go. 

Charles “Hank” Bukowski would understand, and, for that, among many reasons, is why I honor him this week.