Art Pepper Part 1

Art Pepper was born in 1925. Pep's Grandparents were hard drinking, hard workin, hard fuckers in general. 

His grandfather Arthur ---Peppers Name-sack-- would beat his wife and Art's dad Richard when he was drunk.  At 15 Richard left home and became a merchant seaman to escape his drunk old man. 

One night ashore in San Pedro, California, Peps dad  felt instant karma as his eyes turned on a beguiling, 15 year old girl with  jasmine skin. 15 year old Milli Betranadini. The scene was straight out of a Fellini film. 15 year old Italian broad like the Virgin Mary in spotlight, sepia on flour. 

Peppers old man was tired of going to sea and wanted to settle. This is how Art explains in his urban hipesse;"THEY MET AND HE BALLED HER, AND I GUESS HE FELT THE OBLIGATION, AND I GUESS HE CARED FOR HER TOO, SO HE MARRIED HER, SHIT HAPPENS MAN." 

Peppers mother got bored with Richard quickly and just wanted to meet guys, ball and booze. And a Goddamn kid would just get in the way. She did everything she could to try to kill poor Art as Fetus in the womb. 

Pep in usual his straight ahead hipesse again. " MY MOTHER STARVED HERSELF AND TOOK ANYTHING THAT ANYBODY GAVE HER TO MISCARRY. BUT TO NO AVALE. I WAS BORN AND, SHE LOST, I WON". 

Art was born with rickets and jaundice as a up-shoot of the shit Mulli took to try to kill him. But by by four----Milli & Richard ( who flipped over what she did) were latter divorce---. Richard brought Art back to life with love and lotza protein, garlic, and anchovies olive oil, when he came home from sea. 

Art was alone with Mulli in Watts, when Richard  (Moses) was at sea, they had moved from San Pedro. And once again in Peps locutious words; "SHE HAD THIS FRIEND, BETTY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY DID.THEY'D DRINK. I WOULD BE LEFT ALONE. THE ONLY TIME SHE WOULD SO ME ANY AFFECTION WAS WHEN SHE WAS SLOPPY DRUNK AND I COULD SMELL HER STINKING BREATH. SHE WOULD SLOBER ALL OVER ME" 

aside:  PEP IS SO DETACHED FROM HIS MOTHER THAT I FIND HIS COMMENTS ON HER LAUGHABLE. 

Richard and Milli would constantly get drunk and fight. Richard broke her nose four times. Art was a precocious kid who knew what the score was in spades. He felt no body wanted him or cared about him, and he just wanted to die. 

Art Pepper a progenitor  of urban cool hated the country. He felt the silence and lack of his kind of distractions made him  come face to face with his terrified inner being. Peps was no Johnny Cash. 

By 10 Art was living with his Grandmother and Dad, attending perocial school in San Pedro, California. Richard was a union leader on the docks, a tall good man, a leader, Art called him Moses. Milli, wild little shit she that she was, running with a besotted country western singer, AND,  after trying to kill Art as a fetus,  was now in love with him wanted little Pep back back. Milli was one toasted bi-polar) 

aside: IT IS MY OPINION ALL THE SHIT MILLI DRANK TYRING TO ABORT ART, MADE HIM A ADDICT AT BIRTH. IN OTHER-WORDS INSTEAD OF DYING IN MILLI, THE OLE DEVIL PEPPER WAS GETTIN JUICED AND DREAMING UP JAZZ RIFFS IN MIL MILS UTERAS. NOW-WITHSTANDING, PEPS IN MY BOOK WAS A DOUBLE JUNK, EVEN WITHOUT THE SHIT MuL MuL WAS DRAINING, TUBING IN HERE UTERAS !and if! ART WOULD HAVE BEEN BORN CLEAN HE WOULD HAVE BEEN A JUNK ANYWAYS, BORN TO BE.  RAY CHARLES AND YARDBIRD WERE THE ONLY FAMOUS PEOPLE THAT WERE IN PEPS LEAGUE AS A JUNK. 

Art was born copiousness with  fear;  " I KEPT HAVING FEARS. IF I WENT TO OPEN A CLOSET DOOR I WOULD BE SCARED TOO DEATH, IF I WENT WALKING A THE NIGHT TIME I WOULD SEE THINGS IN THE BUSHES". 

By the time Art was 11 he was totally preoccupied with sex. He would was keenly as chicks crossed and uncrossed their legs, what he didn't see he could imagine like a X-Ray machine. Art's family would never touch one another. It is amazing they fucked enough to procreate, and if they did they would try to kill their babies, would it be a stretch to say this was animalistic or primitive behavior? 

Moses ( Dad) bought a used alto sax for Art at a pawn shop when Art was 11. Pep was such a detached kid. Art was the inverse jock, detached, deflecting attention, hated sports. The only thing Pep had in common with jocks getting turned on looking up cheerleaders skirts. Arts early life is similar to Bukowski in allot of ways. BOTH,  outsiders lacking self confidence hating the straight and square world, the 20s to the 60s. AND, for some like ~FL~, even still,  if Buk & Pep were alive, THE WORLD WOULD BE AS UNIFORM AS EVER  TODAY IN THIER EYES. 

Peps mother-side of the family was musical. I could play, being from the mother land, they played zithers. accordions and gypsy violas. Art loved music from the start, even the old world shit of Millis family did a thing on him. Everyday Art would pass Old's music shop , eyeballing and perusing the  shine on the horns. he would go inside and touch them, wondering how you could key em and blow em to get music. Finally Pep told his old man he had to have a horn. Moses felt a horn for the for the misanthropic Peps would be a boon. 

Art really wanted to play a trumpet, but when the music teacher saw Art's chipped teeth, he felt a clarinet would suit him bette. Larry Parks the music teacher was a lousy musician, bu he had a kind beardless Santa Claus look about him, cherubic with a lotza love. So maybe for Pep with all his self doubt and fears, he needed a grand dad to get him started playing, not a Coleman Hawkins. 

Parks became like a grandfather to young Art, and many there was many nights Art would go eat dinner at the Parks who were childless. The lessons were so effortless for the wunderkind that he never had to practice the previous weeks assignments. Pepper would just play over them once before class, they were in his heart and mind. When he played for his teacher, he never read the exercises and could just play the full songs instead of the bits you get as a starter. Art just played what he felt. It's like Art Pepper could just play, born to, without lessons. 

Soon after Art started playing clarinet, Moses would take him to a bar to play for the his pals froms the docks. All the tough guys from the docks were Mose's friends so no one said shit when the old-man would put Art on a bar, sit him on a stool, to play his clarinet. 

Art was blooding staggering and mind-boggling. He ran through a played a exercise of a song,  through it once, and he had it. The old man made him play songs Art hated for the square dockworkers shit:"Auld Lang Syne ",  "Nola", "The Music Goes Round & Round". 

Arts old man would stand right next to Pep as he played with a look on his face like---- this is my boy, he plays music and you better like it or? The dock workers crapulous sods brawling, Pep would keep on playing right thru it, maybe, " The Church in the Wildwood". By the end of the night Art would take home 20 bucks or so, and ole Moses let him keep the whole some. Pep mostly would spend it in the local bagnio (cathouse). 

By 16 Art was playing at night clubs in LA, living with his Grandmother. Peps was going on and off to Fredmont High, but playing gigs till 2am & get-tin up to go school was tough. Art had no friends at High School, he gave a grand shit about all the hoop la.  

When Peps transferred to San Pedro High as a bandleader he became popular. In the 30s there were allot of gangs in San Pedro. Art joined the COBRAS, thinking it would make him look tough to his dad.

He wore a black silk Chinese jacket with a COBRA on the back. 

It was like West Side Story or James Dean shit in the 50s.  the COBRAS would get challenged to rumble and pile into 'hotrods" go to a remote place, beat the shit out of each-other till they got tired and totter back into the rods and speed off. 

Music soon cut Peppers gang calling short, the accord he found with his musician pals was more euphonic. Most the guys in the high school bands were playing out of tune, with little knowledge of scales, they would look over in the corner, dumb fucked, and there was a little 16 year old kid going through pentatonic scales with key signatures. Allot guys at Sand Pedro High gave up music because of Pepper. 

Art was listening to Basie, Ellington, Charlie Bennett, Benny Goodman. But the first time Art heard  Django Rienheart it blew his mind. He would also go out to see T-Bone Walker and Coleman Hawkins play when they came to LA. He was good enought to play after gigs with them.  

At 17 Pep said fuck highschool to go pro. He was playing Alto Sax. He left San Pedro to play with a conventional weeked dance hall band in San Diego  Gus Arnhiem the No Star Band. Of course Art thought it sucked, Gus might as well hung a banner in the ballroom---NO IMPROVISING, KEEP TO THE SHEETS, CHECK YOUR FEELIN WITH THE HAT CHECK GIRL.--- 

After a week of the Gus Method,  Art was back in LA playin in Central Ave. This was a extrordinary  period for West Coast Jazz  at the clubs on Central Ave in LA. Central 40s was like Halem 30s. But the morping of WEST VS  EAST, Davis vs Baker didn't happen till latter much later in the 60s. 

Pep was already  known in the world of jazz at the time, a 18 year old kid. Dextor Gordon Lee Young were looking to put together a qaurtet to play at the new club Alabam. Art auditioned and got the job. Art was fucking tingled.  The Central Ave, LA , Club Alabam scene was real hot. Dexter Gorden, Mingus, Gerald Wiggins, Slick Jones and now Art.  

I love Arts' discription of the times. Just a taste: ---- AS YOU WALKED DOWN THE STREET YOU HEARD MUSIC COMING OUT OF EVERY PLACE. EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY. EVERYBODY LOVE D EVERYBODY ELSE, OR IF THEY DIDN'T I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT. ( THIS WAS THE 40S NOT THE SIXTIES) WIGGINS, DEXTOR GORDEN, MINGUS SLICK JONES WOULD JUST WALK OUT INTO THE STREET AND PEE OFF THE CURB. I WAS JUST COOOL! WE WOULD JUST LIGHT UP A JOINT IN THE STREET, WE HAD MOTA, WHICH WAS MOIST AND BLACK, AND SMOKE IN FRONT OF THE CLUB.  

Pep says-----( talkin about the 40s on central ave) THE DOPE THING HADN'T ENVOLVED INTO WHAT IT IS NOW. I NEVER HEARD THE WORD NARCO. NO BODY WANTED TO RAT ON ANYBODY OR PLANT THEIR CARE WITH DOPE.  

Art Pepper was 18 years old playin with the few elite master east coast jazzmen, ( such as Dextor Gorden) using, getting blow jobs between sets, things couldn't have been much better.  

He was hanging allot with  his idle, Dextor Gordon. Dex ( pun intended) introduced white crosses to Peps (pun intented)  it help the guys stay up for late gigs.  

Aside: Keith Richards once said that smells the smells of diesal fuel and horse shit after WWII got him "thinkin" about junk. 

                                                       

                                                             jUnK 

In 46 Art got a call from  Stan Kenton,  Kenton spoke with a German accent and reminded Peps of this Dad. It was a dream come true for Art, through the haze of bennies and booze, he had established a reputation as a virutuoso, inventive and ground-breaking jazz man. Kenton was formidable and puissiant.  He had a snoot and eyes like a eagle and would look right through you. Kenton could relate and ally with all kinds of audience: Middle Americans, East and West coast Jazz purest, drunks, chained, zuit suited pimps white and black in Harlem.  

The Stan Kenton Band as a White Band, was a phat and kinky band compared to mainstrem traveling big bands of the 50s, such as the Benny Goodmans and Tommy Dorseys types, who were in the majority at the time. Of course Black Bands were on big time by the 50s, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and of course Thelonius Monk. 

Art was playing with Shelly Mann, Bud Shank was in the sax section with Peps, June Christy as scatter, Laurindo Almeida on Guitar. Of course there were chicks following the band,  fellare (to suck in Greek) ready in any setting. But Art was lonley.   

In 48 the band was playing a 17 week gig at the Paramount in NYC, backing Vick Damone, it was packed every night.  Arts  libido was in over drive because of all the booze and pills he took, and 19 yr old testostrone.  

Pep was staying in a Hotel on 48 and broadway. One morning a mad knocked on the door and asked if she could clean the room. She was a hot Mexican chick, with long curly black hair and tits and ass to die for. Pep told her to go ahead. Art was sitting in a chair across from the toliet, drinking his usual hangover topper, a Bloody Mary. The loo door was a full mirror. Pep could see the Mexican broad in the mirror bending over cleaning the toliet.  He couldn't believe his eyes, she was bent over and he could see her purple lace pantys. She had a great ass and legs, Pep was getting really hot. Then he went to the loo door and just stood and looked, Chica just keep on cleaning shaking that awesome ass. Then when it came time to clean the floor, Art still watching, his heart pumping. Chica on all fours with top unbuttoned, exposed her tits to him,  through her purple half-brassiere. Peps still stand at the door on his second bloody marry watched as Chica began to rub her pussy. So Art had a nice wank. 

Circa 50, Art was with the Kenton band in Chicago doing a gig at the Civic Opera House. He was staying at the Croydon Hotel. He was rooming with one of the guys in the band, Stanley Curtis, a charming and talented Trombone player.  Art was now the featured artist in the band, got all the applause, and in his words---it was great while it was happening, but when the gig was over I was still all alone---. Notwithstanding a full blown alcoholic. But his desolation would gravitate to a new dominion as synthesis, he was about to meet his maker, muse-lover and greatest tormentor.  

After the show they kicked Art out of the bars at 4am. No liquor stores were open so he went back to his room with a sick feeling. It wasn't the first time, at the hotel room, roomy, sammy was having a trifling junk party with a few guys in the band. Roy King and the Singer Sheila Harris and some piano player. Art asked them if they had anything other than the China White, and they said no. Pep was feeling crestfallen, disenchanted and flat that night. This wan't the first time he had been around the shit but he knew the minute he did it, it would be over for him. 

Sheila who was a legend in those days both as a artist and nymph,  she had a rep for sucking cock ultra ultra fine.  She came upon Art. She had natural corkscrew hair, and was wearing a moo-moo with fuck me pumps.  Art did have a hard on for her though she was plesantly plump but real sexy. Sheila could see that Art was hang dog . She said---Art doll, why don't you hang up that jive ass shit and get in a cooler groove---  come in the bathroom with me and I will show you a new way to go---PEP SAYS--- I was at my wits end and the only other thing I could do was jump out the 14th floor window of the hotel. 

Aside: you know junk stuff  seems very gripping and dramatic, but while writing, my ITune began playing a classic peice,  Mahler 5 piece you might associate with Bukowski who, during the pensive moment at midnight in "Barfly" regrouped,  the shit he had garnered after Stalones brother beat the shit out him in the alley. Most my tunes are blues or jazz and it seems natural to shoot up China White for the first time with this sound. But when the Mahler cut in, Man o Man, I felt the inconsolable, sorry, greif stricken rosary stuff that goes with the junk life, for real man.

Art for fuck sack knew god damn well, the "new groove" was 3000 lb. monkey.

Sammy (Peps' roomy) saw what Sheila was about to do to Art and threw a shit fit.  (Mahler 5 just came back again, hip life, for all it's magic can be a low down life.) Sammy told Shiela not to get Art started. Then Roy said, ---nothing could be as godawful as the booze head shit Pep is into---. So Roy and Sheila cooled Sammy down and Shiela took the virgin sacraficial lamb, Art Pepper into the loo. 

The first thing the nympho Shiela did to Art in the loo was grab his cock. Then Pep said---wait a minute let's get to that other thing then we can get back to this. I was all excited about something new, the heroin, I had made up my mind---.

Peps and Sheila didn't shoot up, they just snorted the shit like coke with dollor bills. Pep felt the sting in his nose and the burning in his throat. Then as though jesus had touched our boy with his own hand Pep felt, qoute---as though all the wondering and wondering and the frustration had vanished and he finally found peace----.

a {MY SOURCE FOR THIS STORY IS "STRAIGHT LIFE" 

BY ART & LAURIE PEPPER}

b {I QOUTE WHAT I COPY DIRECTLY, BUT MY STORY IS MY TAKE IN MY WORDS ON ART PEPPER'S LIFE}

                                        {END OF PART 1 ART PEPPER}  ~FL~ 

"Bukowski claimed the majority of what he wrote was literally what happened in his life. "

" To make himself more picturesque for the reader he did little to elaborate on himself"    

Heinrich Karl Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany in August, 1920.

By 1924 the family settled into LA, living in a two bedroom house on Jefferson Park Rd. LA was paradise in 1924. There was plenty of work in agriculture and the budding movie industry. But the palms and  the clean orderly ways of America 1924, passed the bizarre immigrants by.  

"A TWISTED CHILDHOOD HAS FUCKED ME UP" Bukowski would say.

Bukowski's Mom dressed young Charles in velvet trousers. He was a mark for the world from the start. Buk was getting shit canned form both ends. His old man ' the Nazi sergeant' strapped him endlessly if he missed a blade of grass doing chores. After the beatings at home, Buk would have to fight for his life at Virginia Road Elementary.

Bukowski  hated the world already as a young man. He often would brew his juice by lying in his room looking at light patterns on the ceiling and listening to Brahms or Mahler. Like most outlaw literary geniuses his horrendous struggle in daily life forced him to go further in his inner mind. 

Bukowski began writing as a boy, he sensed that what lie ahead was no picnic. Writing because of its solitary nature, and the way it can help a person gain perspective in deep muse became Buk's foil. But his hammer was booze. 

By 15 Buk was already a full time alcoholic. He could buy booze anywhere, he looked 33.  His was a zit faced kid. His face looked like a deathly horse head . Most people found it hard to look at Buk.  

One night Charles came home drunk to the family house on Jefferson. He was 15. He broke a lock to get in and was greeted by his old man.  Henry Senior immediately began strapping Buk with a leather belt, metal end. Bukowski puked on the new family carpet. (This could be one of the most famous puke scenes in 20th century literature). Somehow young Henry got the strength to stand up and hit his old man with a straight upper cut ending the confrontation. During the ruckus Buk's mom packed a small card board suit case, eventually pushing the drunken Bukowski out the door before his old man could come to. I mention this suit case as a metaphor for Buk's right of passage. Buk used the case for some years later painting it with a coat of  black "Dyn Shine', to look more acceptable to his bar fly chums.  

After graduating from LA High, (he didn't bother to pick up his diploma) Buk enrolled in LA City College. He now lived free from his old man the 'sadistic Hymie'. Buk began his bar fly life in a small dumpy room over the "Starlight Lounge" while he was studying  journalism and literature. He particularly liked true grit type authors like Sinclair and Hemingway. He supported himself and his boozing by working part time as a janitor at Sears.  

Buk was apolitical throughout his life. His twisted fucked up early life and rejection by main stream society made him anti social. He would root for bad guys, out of spite. During the build up to World War II he wrote a short story in support of Hitler. Of course Buk didn't give a flying fuck about Hitler. He got in trouble at LA City College for writing it. But, he discovered the joy of tweaking and outraging the self righteous main stream. Something that was easy for him and would bring him joy until his death. 

After a year at LA City College circa 1942, this butt ugly outrageous character, hit the road. He was writing full time now sending stories out to 40s rags like "Popular Mechanics" and "Thriller Detective". Buk was in search of a glue bag of experience to sharpen his writing chops. So he caught a Grey Hound bus from LA to New Orleans. All he took with him was a couple of shirts and his small black card board "suitcase". He had 13 dollars in his pocket. 

Aside: While traveling in the 40s, Buk would often run out of money and live on candy bars. The author  asked him once at a after poetry reading party circa 1976. "Buk, how'd you do it you sick fuck?  and he answered wisely " one candy bar a day"

When he got to New Orleans he lived in a tar-paper shack lit by a single light bulb. Buk couldn't hold down a job in New Orleans, preferring to booze it with the bums and  whores. He took a job on a rail road gang and left New Orleans. On the way to Texas he picked up a copy of " Notes from the Underground" by Dostoevsky. The descriptions of Czarist elite reminded him of his days at LA City College. In truth, Bukowski is one of the great writers of the 20th Century having lived underground most his  life, breaking  through Czarist American oppression and elitism  to tell his true grit story. 

BUKOWSKI WROTE BECAUSE HE WAS HURT AND PISSED OFF. WRITING, BOOZE AND MAHLER WERE THE ONLY WAYS HE COULD DEAL WITH HIS CHILDHOOD.

  

This following snippet of a Buk poem illustrates some of his "rage against the machine" as well as his frustration from being on the shit end of the Capitalistic system most his life. It is from "Factotum" circa 60s.

….the days of 

the bosses, yellow men

with bad breath and big feet, men

who look like frogs, hyenas, men who 

walk as melody has never been invented,

men who think it is intelligent to hire and

fire and profit, men with expensive wife's

they possess like 60 acres of ground to be 

drilled and shown-off

Buy the early 1950s Bukowski had returned to his beloved LA via Texas and New Orleans. He had been writing since the 40s, mailing manuscripts to editors all over the United States. None were accepted, his work was considered to be dark and morose. It contained unheard of radicalism, sex and reality,  unlike the cherished testicluar and simple minded values  "The Donna Read Show", " Disney Land" and "IKE".

He worked at the an LA Post Office, fighting with his boss constantly. On off hours Buk would drink at the "Sunlight Inn", write and listen to Mahler.  I don't think Buk went to the beach once during all his  years in California. But he liked to watch surfing on TV. Bukowski's spot on, toxic, mercurial voice was buried somewhere between the ally and the cracks on the floor of the of the "Sunlight Inn"

One day circa the 50s Bukowski got a letter from Barbara Frye, the editor of  "Harlequin Review" out of Wheeler, Texas. Harlequin was hardly the "American Poetry Review" but was a start.  Frye told Bukowski in a letter, that she thought he was the greatest poet since William Blake. As their correspondence progressed over two days, she asked Bukowski to marry her. Barbara was missing two vertebrae on her neck and looked like she was permanently  hunched over. She couldn't move her neck from side to side. Buk married Barbara in LA, knowing her only two weeks. Barbara Frye published a special edition of "Harlequin" with eight of Buk,s poems.

In seven years the marriage was toast. Their years of marriage had been like a scene out of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe"? Barbara would make fun of Buk (who by this time had been published in the "Paris Review" along side Sartre.  Germans and the French have a twisted fascination with sick fuck writers like Bukowski and Victor Burgundy). She would talk shit to him like "why don't you get off your ass and stop drinking, and, get your ugly ass up and go look for work?"  The bitch once called Buk the 20th Century William Blake and now she wanted him to go get a job at Monkey Wards as a stock boy! 

ASIDE: Frye's comments were not untypical of some American women I have known and loathed. The author has been on long haul hiatus in Bangkok,  Thailand and is married to a Thai Women.  

John Webb spent three years in the joint for a dope induced bank hold up. Inside the fucking hole he developed a love for literature and poetry. Webb became the editor of the prison paper, which was mostly used for ass wipe and rolling ganja. When Webb got out he contacted William Burroughs, Henry Miller, Lorenzo Ferlinghetti and other underground writers urging them to contribute to his new avant-garde rag "The Outsider". His old lady called herself "Gypsy Lou" and worked with Lou on the rag.

In the early 60s John and Gypsy Lou Webb contacted a like minded publisher friend in LA named Jory Sherman. They wanted him to be the west coast promo man for "The Outsider"  and contact Bukowski. They loved Buks work and talked of it's  "realness, he is not phony at all, he just seems honest and down to earth". The Webs published Factotum, a collection of Buks poem. 

ASIDE: The author  believes there is a watered downed, quality amongst allot of  entertainers, writers and artist of the day. Post modernist like Stephen King  (a great writer, who plays by the rules), Ann Rice and the bitch who wrote Harry Potter have ushered in a era of 'kiss ass" snob intelligentsia and elitism. I would rather puke on their shit and use it as wipe than sell out. And if Bukowski were alive today he would say the same. 

In 1966 Buk went into the hospital to have his hemorrhoids removed. His face had always  looked as though it was covered with hemorrhoids. He wrote a brilliant account of the operation called "All the Assholes in the World and Mine". Can you imagine sitting in New York with the gang from 'Sex and the City",  or going to a party at Mayor Bloomberg's house and talking about your asshole. SICK FUCKS SCREAMING ' I DON'T WANT TO GO THERE'.

Bukowski took to the "flower power" and the drug culture  like a cat takes to a dog.  Buk started writing  what would turn into his novel " Notes of a Dirty Old Man" as short stories for the hippie rag the "LA Free Press", published by John Bryan. Buk would ass whip the other writers on the paper calling them "scummy commie hippie shits" His thinking was more in line with the Hells Angels and the Nazis, than the self righteous hippies from rich families at the time.

One time Buk met Neal Cassidy of Beat fame. Cassidy was on his way to Mexico and John Bryan offered to put him up at his house in Hollywood.  Cassidy had a 63 Black Plymouth wagon with a V8. The three of them decided to go for a ride. Cassidy the x parking lost attendant who could back a semi truck into a donut hole, took the wheel. Buk sat in the back seat, John rode shotgun. Buk offered Cassidy a beer and Neal slugged it down like a pro. "Have another" Buk said, once again down the hatch. Buk felt OK with Cassidy.

By the late 70s Buk's " Notes of A Dirty Old Man" was published by Ferlinghetti's Black Sparrow Press out of, San Francisco. This wasn't his best book, but it was a big seller and brought him world fame and moderate wealth. He still was living the bar fly life, drinking 24/7.  He  bought a track house in San Pedro. a mansion compared to his rooming house shit holes of the last 30 years. He also bought his first car at this time, a BMW which he kept till his death. He loved to drive the new BMW, his first car, to the track at Santa Anita in the morning. He would sip beer, hidden in a bag, watching the "stiffs"  going the opposite direction on the expressway to Thousand Oaks Banks. It gave him a real sense of satisfaction. Usually the crouch of his baggy chinos was wet with beer by the time he got to the track. He would walk  to the betting window looking like he just pissed his pants. He liked the look.

BOOZEHOUND POET CHARLES BUKOWSKI WRITES A HYMN TO HIMSELF IN   HOLLYWOOD  AND STARTS SINGING.

                                                                         

So ran the profile in "People Magazine" on Charles Bukowski when the publicist of the film "Barfly" started the media blitz. This film would never have been canned  without the mammoth production effort of Dennis Hopper's Venice Beach friend, Frenchman Barbet Shroeder. The stories surround the making of this film are legendary. Barbet was a mixed of Mossed hit man and Yakuza. He pushed the film through, showing up at the the suite of Golan-Globus (the bank rollers) with a chain saw threatening to saw the room up if they didn't give him more money.  

The advent of "Barfly" changed Buk some. He would strut around his house at times , loaded, feeling  the part of  the sheik of Sunset Blvd. But his  constant inner companion was a very sad man that even booze and pussy couldn't kill. The part in the film "Barfly" were Henry Chinowski (played hilariously by Mickey Rourke) is pensively alone is his room, feeling his heart as he listens to Brahms is spot on. Underneath the wild man there was a sensitive and hurt soul.

Buk had as much respect for Hollywood Stars as he did hippies. The only films he cared for at all were "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolfe".  One time Buk met Arnold Schwarzenegger at a snob party for some actor and called Arnie a "piece of shit" in German. The most hilarious scene ever was when Sean Penn, who was in awe of Buk, and a regular visitor, brought his new wife Madonna to Buk's San Pedro house. Bukowski's neighbors new him (Buk) only as the neighborhood drunk. A little girl who lived near by asked him, "Mr. B  was that MADONNA at your house"?

By 1987  following the premier of 'Barfly" Bukowski's health was beginning to go down hill. Years of constant boozing was catching up with him. He was writing his last novel "Hollywood". He felt like his was dying and could not eat or sleep. "Hollywood" was the story of his experience on the set as screenwriter during the making of "Barfly'. Who would have thought that a ugly drunk bum like Bukowski dealt a deuce, had a chance to make it in Hollywood?

Buk finished "Hollywood" writing as always, loaded, late through the night. He was feeling very ill and close to death. Writing kept his pain at bay. Buk finished his book roaring in laughter. Knowing that the modern world of "Hollywood" was crazier than any of the shit he had been though.

Charles Henry Bukowski's body gave in to booze on in March of 1994. He was 74. Considering the voracity of abuse he directed at himself with booze, it is amazing he made it as far as he did, both physically and career wise. He wrote to find a way to understand and cope with everyday life. He wrote about the world's "losers" which for Henry Chinowski were his "Winners"!