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"!

ALEISTAR CROWLEY 666

Aleistar Crowley was born Edward Alexander Crowley in Lemington, Warwickshire, England in 1875. He felt that he was born with special powers to be Lucifer's prophet. Crowley was the son of a brewer, his father was a part-time preacher in the Plymouth brethren. Senior Crowley was a zealot who would deliver powerful anti sex, anti freedom of thought and anti being sermons that spawned heavy guilt trips on his parishioners causing inklings of  powerless. This gave cause for the unlettered and poor people to recoile from one another in guilt and confusion, neurotically.  The rigid social and cultural yokes laid on the people of  Victorian society caused the English people to live uninspired, hackneyed and boring lifes.

Aleistar was presented with the task of preaching along side his father at the age of 12.  By 15 young Crowley rebelled against the draconian Victorian Jesus yoke.  With as much zealotry as his Reverend father clasp the Bible to his bosom, young Aleistar did a one-eighty to the dark side embracing the tenebrous teachings of the occult, which he would pursue through his life. 

Aleistar Crowley was a brilliant academic, poet, writer and performance artist.  His creative mind and free thinking were off the chart for the 19th Century. By 17 he was cast to the stones by zombie eyed religious parents who were afraid of him. Upon testing, interviewing and presenting his writings to Trinity College, Cambridge he was immediately accepted without trepidation. His early work at Cambridge was black art,  brilliant and ground breaking theologic thinking, cracking a hole through the heavy fuck -yoke of the Victorians. 

After three quarters Crowley outgrew Cambridge, he took what he needed from Cambridge, Learning Latin, Eastern Studies, Geometric form, Symbolism, Numerology, Archeology, History of Ancient Roman, Greek Classics, Mythology. Eygptian Sun Gods, The Sun as God, Alchemy. All as a compass to map out dark movement, free-world thinking, drugs, free sex and fun with evil! LORD what a breath-taking-space, in the fixated, fuck guilt yoke of the VICTORIAN ERA------ " DO WHAT THY WILL" , hail LUCIFER!

In the 19th Century, Crowley was a member of secret societies. By 20 Aleistar joined the "HERMANTIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN" the first order and  lowest tier of the "SOCIETUS ROSICURIANAS EN ANGLIA", (S.R.I.A.),  founded by "FREEMASONS" Samuel Mathers, William Woodman and William Hardon. (S.I.R.A.) was a appending body to the FREEMASONS. Later Hardon went on the find "THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY'' another organization dedicated to the study of occult and mystical unwritten law. Many freethinkers and artist of the times were listed as members of these secret societies of (S.I.RA.), "GOLDEN DAWN, FREEMASONS and THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. People such a the poet William Butler Yeats, Joseph Conrad, Jon Cocteau, Pope Joseph II,  Marcel Duchamp, Dali, Picasso, Fredrick Fellini, Truffaut, Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse.

The teachings of the Secret Societies are presented to aspirants as layers of curriculum to build a  foundation. Still in sync with FREEMASON learning structures of today.  The layers of curriculum could be represented as follows:

THE GOLDEN DAWN the outer or first layer of curriculum, but all three layers collectively are known as THE GOLDEN DAWN.

   

First Level or Outer Level: GOLDEN DAWN is based on the study of the HERMANTIC QABALAH ( root: Mystic Judaic study of Kabbalah).  The curriculum focuses on three elements;  Qabalah, Tarot and Astrology.

Intermediate Level or Inner Level: THE RUBY ROSE AND CROSS OF GOLD teaches the use of magic in everyday life to cast spells to influence political, economic events, love or personal endeavor. Astral travel for free flying fun with ANGELS or DEMONS.  Entering souls of political figures or to alter their focus to GOOD or EVIL. It is said that the BLUE BLOOD CONSPIRATORS OF EUROPEAN GENTRY, purveyors of the ILLUMINATI, ---300 year old plot of  BLUE BLOOD genetic linage to become EARTH KINGS AND DEMI-GODS, to use 500,000 survivors as chattel or slaves for material support, BLUE BLOODS, living in sufferage utopia, a perfect world of demigods, nobility--- empowered Crowley to  associate with the founders of Nazism. Crowley genetically engineered Hitler using astral projection and curses to fine tune his (Hitler's) inner-man to extraordinary rank of evil. He cut the chain of young Hitler as the eldest child and ruptured baby Adolph's umbilical cord  injecting it with demon bile. Planting the black seed in Hitler and lighting a macabre black charismatic aura to attracted other human demons of black bile, (Hitlers Henchman). In behest, to achieve greater genocide for the masters of the ILLUMINATI, killing off more of the earth's population. As Crowley whaled into the dimness of the 20th Century devilry, HAIL the dark one, LUCIFER (hail SATAN!). 


Fabled Third Level : THE SECRET CHIEFS: Members who had risen above the real world,  and who live mostly in the ether-world. Some might call them ghost, but they are not ghost. Hardly, lost spirits banging around in ether-world, but inordinately evolved psyche beings that take human or spirit form at will. Psyche beings that can influence world events. THE SECRET CHIEFS are not ANGELS, neither GOOD or EVIL. They "DO WHAT THY WILL"! At times evil, doing vile and shocking things, repulsive deeds, moving through the ether-world, committing extrasensory vandalism for kicks, circumspection, wariness, striking down babies or children. They might assassinate world leaders, or taxi drivers. Their motives are unclear. At other times THE SECRET CHIEFS, might play ANGEL and save someone from a car wreak. They operate with no consistent modus ponens. One thing for sure they don't give a flying fuck about plain-vanilla, no great shakes Joe Blow weighted down in material motives of the world. Nor are they moved by award winning people with accolades, Nobel Prize, Oscars or Grammy winners. Celebrities were marks that they would play with by spiking their tea, or creating compromising situations to dishonor, shame or embarrass them.  Political leaders are marks to assassinate, they will fill their (world leaders) souls with evil or use world leaders to gain control of events. Overall though, THE SECRET CHIEFS care little about human-kind, their woes or troubles. They are a free wheeling lot whose motives are not known.

ASIDE: From my research, I am not sure why Crowley summoned the brobdingangian plumb of evil in the 20th Century. Was it a grand experiment? 

Did Aleistar get sadistic sexual pleasure garnered from suffering and torture of others?  Crowley saw first hand the poor souls of  the Concentration Camps while touring Germany with his friend Herman Goebbels. Or was Crowley a member of THE SECRET CHIEFS? Enjoying the pleasures of the material world, chosen to write a aspirants' curriculum. 

Was Crowley a son of the Devil doing Lucifers work? Or was he a puppet of the Illuminati Blue Blood conspiracy? Doing his evil to reduce world population through genocide?  The scope and envelopment of Crowley in the evil circumstance of the Nazi Holocaust as well as Stalin's Gulag, Mao's Revolution of One (All genocides of immensity) will never be known. But, he was there in spirit and as a material force. And perhaps he was one of THE SECRET CHEIFS by the 20th Century, able to influence world political phenomenon from the spiritual and the material world. Crowley never really gave a press conference to the world explaining what he was capable of or did (No one would believe him anyways).  What Crowley did leave behind is a detailed curriculum and course illustrated with geometrics, numerology and latin, parts of which are still in-scripted as curriclum for Freemasons, Skull & Bones and Wegans today. DE LIBRE OF ALEISTAR CROWLEY is the chronicle he left behind to explain his years of experiment in black occult and evil.

In 1904 Crowley traveled to Egypt with his new bride Rose.  Aleistar had a mystical experience on a barren moon night, the planets were in line with Scorpio 3-2-1, a night of fine crescent moon and star, a pernicious black night. A night of little faith or inspiration, a flat night. A night to hide in your tent and pray in earnest to whatever God who might take pity on one's poor crestfallen earthling soul. 

Rose began to behave bizarrely in Cairo. Rose had occurrences of seizures, convulsions, uncontrollable orgasms like waterfalls that shook her body. Rose was in a smashing state,  frenzied sermonizing in ancient tongues. Crowley felt Roses soul, spirit, and womb had been raped and purged by THE SECRET CHIEFS.  Rose's voice from beyond gave Aleistar instructions to perform a invocation at the EGYPTIAN TOMB of HURUS, which was a success. Crowley learned that he was a prophet with a message to deliver to the  material world. The voice told Crowley to wait for further instructions from the pneuma suzerain THE SECRET CHIEFS. He was told to give the world a alternative curriculum to the BIBLE,  the LIBRE DE ALEISTAR CROWLEY. Only the LORD above or LUCIFER below will ever know how Crowley mandated and unchained the vile nefariosisms on the 20th Century and for what reasons?

Aleistar Crowley wanted to fashion a reformist alternative to the transcendent impediment of  20th century ironclad, tight-lipped, bovine, exactitude of  Catholicism and Anglicism. Anglican theologic interpretations of GOD as secret and unascertained HEAVAN. As something you can't see but can only accept on faith. Religious leaders of the times laid down anachronistic laws that were chaste and guilt ridden. Religious laws that frustrated and stupefied the masses, "the yoke of  feudalism". Laws that forbid free love, gay sex, masturbation, nudity, freedom of art and expression. Worst of all, THEOLOGIC DOGMA that should bring one to the inner-part of ether-al galaxia was used to block astral traveling, projection, deep soul rebirthing and transcendentalism, the very things that human-kind needs and needed to connect to our SUN KING GOD. 

ASIDE: As far as the 21 Century is concerned---American variety Evangelism, Jewish or Muslim zealotry, belief as anachronism---- little has changed. These medieval and obsolescent religions do create war, guilt and mystic blockade on Planet Earth. Aleistar Crowley as a artist, prophet and free thinker saw through the bullshit, and did his own fucking thing---DO AS THY WILL--- Enjoying dope, orgy, pagan ritual, astral projection, writing free verse poetry. His life style scared most people then and now.

In his autobiography "The Confessions of Aleistar Crowley" he said: "I was remarkable from the moment of birth. I bore the three most important distinguishing marks of a Buddha. I was tongue-tied, and on the second day of my incarnation a surgeon cut the fraenum linguae (tongue). I also had the characteristic membrane, which necessitated an operation phimosis three lustres later. Lastly, I hade upon the centre of my heart four hairs curling from left to right in the exact form of a Swastika."

Crowley was known as the "Wickedest Man in the World" in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the Victorian era his life style was off the charts. The press had a field day with his outrageous appearance and utterances. Today his behavior could be compared perhaps to certain temporal and passing behavior of rock stars, movie stars or rappers----Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osbourne, The Rolling Stones and even The Beatles were perhaps possible confederates of Aleistar Crowley for a fleeting period only, or at least have studied his curriculum in LA LIBRE OF ALEISTAR CROWLEY. Rappers Tupac Sukar and 50 Cent often sang of the GANSTA ILLUINATI---. AC was a world traveler, mountaineer, chess player, a gifted performance artist, a free thinker, a junky who experimented with, opium, mescaline, ganja, ether, morphine. He was a poet and artist who was tweaking square and spurious Victorian morays. 

Many of his writings and thoughts seem to be as relevant today as they were in the 19th and 20th Century, especially with 21st Century obsession with ARMAGEDDON, RAPTURES and the coming of the ANTI-CHRIST 666. Crowley if alive today could have played the role of ANTI-CHRIST to perfection. Not only as a actor on the world stage, but using the powers of THE SECRET CHIEFS to bring on RAPTURES. 

Crowley writings also include teachings of TAO, the CONFUCIAN philosophy of YIN & YANG.  AC's curriculum in  LA LIBRE  addresses good as well as evil as magnetic self activating forces.

In the LIBRI  chapter, "Pentecost" in the text "The Sword Song" Crowley explains himself in a poem that is both revealing and chilling.  Aleistar's poem as follows, addresses the YIN & YANG, the ancients, the idea that the SUN IS GOD. And, he takes a informal belt at the press of the day, funny chaps---who in reality were utterly clueless of the gradation and sheer stratums dominion of Crowley's influence on the Nazi's and other evil-doers of the 20th Century.

I find some folks think me (for One)

So great a fool that I disclaim Indeed Jehovah's hate for shame

That man today should not be weaned

Of worshipping so foul a fiend

In presence of the living Sun

Any yet replace him oiled and clean

By Egyptian Pantheon,

The same thing by another name.

Thus when late Egyptian Pantheon,

The same thing by another name.

Thus when late Egyptian Gods

Evoked ecstatic periods

In verse of mine, you thought I praised

Or worshipped them--I stand amazed.

I merely wished to chant in verse

Some aspects of the Universe

Summed up these subtle forces finely,

And sang of them (I think divinely)

In name and form; a fault perhaps--

Reviewers are such funny chaps!

I think ordinary folk, 

Though, understood the things I spoke. 

For Gods, and devils too, I find

Are merely modes of my own mind.

Crowley was well versed in BUDDHIST TEACHING,  understanding that at times good and evil was centered between one's ears.

 In SVB FIGVRA X he details his mission on earth as a prophet. He explains that he sees both light and dark in himself.  AC calls the rays he sends forth to the small dark orb (the world or earth) V.V.V.V.V. .

AC sees himself as coming from beyond the Space of the dark orb. To deliver words that the world is not yet ready to hear. (very true in the 19th century and even now perhaps).

Crowley believes that certain men received his message.  He feels his universal knowledge is not for all men. That few are called but many are chosen. 

He speaks of " many and diverse conditions of life upon this earth. In all these is some seeds of sorrow. Who can escape from sickness and death. (true enough)

And in the spirit of the "Course of Miracles"  he speaks of a life intense with knowledge and extreme bliss which is untouched by earthlings but lives amongst us. 

So perhaps Crowley has a lighter side too. Maybe the truth he found in experiments with occult and ethereal phenomenon reveals more universal truth than the major religions of the day. But much of it is just too shocking for most ears and eyes of our times. 

As Crowley began to live in the spiritual world more using mescal, esoteric teachings and chanting, he began to speak of a wonder in the third world that was a enriching and splendorous. " They shall say he is lost in the clouds. But he shall rejoice in the sunlight" THE SUN IS GOD.

ASIDE: Crowley s teachings in LE LIBRE OF ALEISTAR CROWLEY are astronomical and ginormous. I don't attempt to wear the hat of the scholar or evoker here. The story is my interpretation of what Crowley was about, there are many more astute and sagacious studies of Aleistar Crowley than my simple story. THIS IS JUST A STORY! conjured up by the beast Figaro Lucowski, a jollification of hedonism perhaps. 

ASIDE: In the interest of the reader I think it might be interesting to give a brief synopsis of Aleistar Crowley's latter years. In his life he was a infant-terrible, a literary and erudite pet of High Society. He bedded many wealthy and beautiful heiresses. High Society Dames of the time had a bizarre fascination with the occult, so it opened allot of financial doors for Crowley. He was not as accepted in Academia of the day. I think his extramundane, ethereal and paranormal prowess were not  part of 19th and early to mid 20th Century Academia. And put simply, MOST WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SHIT HE DID AND WAS CAPABLE OF DOING ANYWAYS? 

In Crowley's latter life he lived life beyond his means. It could be said that Crowley ether-world travel and evil doing as grounded in fantasy perhaps, were not earthen for financial chastity and restraint. Notwithstanding, was the fact that he never shook his drug addiction and was heavily addicted till death. By 1939 he had to file for bankruptcy. His popularity as Master of High Society which-craft was finished, even the ether-world couldn't help him now from his bad karma. His books DIARY OF A DRUG ADDICT and MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE provided small royalties,  he was forced to live in a boarding house, as a junky. Crowley's past began to catch up with him while living in England during World War II.  He admitted to being a force in the birth of he Nazi Party and Hitler, saying "Before Hitler, Am I" the comment was a death knoll for Crowley as far as societal acceptance. He died a woeful, pitiful, lamentable and disturbed man. 

In 1947 on December 1, Aleistar Crowley died of a heart attacked caused by his failure to get a script for morphine,  cascading into junk sickness and withdrawal from which he would never return. 

Nobody will ever know what he did or was capable of doing for sure, but he very well was the most powerful and evil Magician of the 19th and 20th Century.


FIGARO LUCOWSKI, JUNE 20, 2010

Hash Oil Factory Part 1

South Milwaukee, Wisconsin was in the deep freeze during the winter of 1983, everything froze up, it was impossible to get a pizza delivered without it turning to ice before it came to your door. Figaro was working part time at the Harley Factory on Juneau Avenue, spray painting Harley tanks, fenders and side covers as they flowed by, strung on wire hooks and chain. $8.75 a hour and no benefits. FL lived in a room in a old south side factory, with no heat or electricity. There was Fig and big Mikey, AKA his 'countship'.  To survive we set up propane heaters and slept in our snow mobile suits with space blankets. If the propane heaters ever blew, our snow suits would fire up like spark in dry pine. We would use bedside buckets at night to pee because the only toilets in the old factory were frozen thru. 

Fig and big Mikey were working for the drug lord of Milwaukee,  Jimmy,  AKA the 'Chemist'.  On the second level of the old factory, sitting on the mighty 100 year old scantling, sat a 200 gallon stainless steel drum that the Chemist had welded up as a hash oil distillery.

Fig and big Mikey were paid $225 cash a day. A hefty sum for us poor south-side boys. Figaro was stashing the money from work at the Harley Factory and hash oil still to "flee da holy by Jesus"  out of deep freeze  Milwaukee for paradise, Mexico City.

Working at Harley spray painting tanks was awful on Figaro Lucowski's lungs, It was as though the tradition of  'The Wisconsin Death Trap" the rugged wooden cross of self destruction, socialism and Jesuit teachings, meant that as young men, both Fig and big Mikey would do dangerous work selflessly. After work, all young Jesuit south-side socialista were required to  destroy their bodies even further, doing boiler makers (shots of well whiskey dropped in large steins of Blatz).  Smoking filterless cigarettes, only Luckys and the rare pack of Camels were true to form.

The work with the giant 200 gallon stainless steel hash oil still was extremely dangerous. Using canisters of propane run through copper piping to stoke the slow burning flame under the drum. Boiling dried, shredded ganja mixed with butane and flaxseed oil, in minutes a supercritical fluid extractio, hash oil seeping through. The Chemist would show up from time to time, like a Wehrmacht engineer, with a pointer, quantifying, lecturing, shacking his head stiffly, not enough hash oil. Fig and big Mickey knew the still didn't have enough ventilation, one spark, boom and out like two fleshy fire balls.  The metal work, tightening, welding, wiping the drum clean, had to be done before loading the ganja mix and firing up. Once fired, Fig and big Mikey wrapped up in green army flannel. Any mental; belts, chains, keys, crucifixes, engineer boots removed. "Smoke em if you got em" filterless, Luckys dipped in Hash Oil outside the factorium meters from the still. There was allot of in-between or downtime, listening to blues & jazz on a ghetto box, powered by a small Honda gas engine generator.  Three or four meals a day, Meatball and Tuna subs from Subway,  Cheesy Dans Pizza and coffee from the Coffee Trader.

Fig was working the spray paint line at Harley, it was burgundy flake day, at break time FL got a  call on the Harley factory phone from a the Chemist. Using code he said that the newspaper had been shut down because of lack of circulation, telling Fig to pick up his shit, paycheck and beat it. The still wasn't producing enough hash oil to cover expenses. Jimmy was making so much money as Milwaukee's number 1 coke supplier, the hash oil scheme was a jape, a five minute coca vision.

Aside: The Chemist eventually got busted after Figaro Lucowski was long gone from the hash oil scene. He did five years in a Federal pen and roomed with the Reverend Jim Baker. He later told Fig that Jim Baker was the most impossibly anal person in the world. Baker's job at the pen was cleaning toilets, wiping every one of them personally. After the Chemist did his time, he used the coca money he stashed in a locker at the "YWCA"  to buy up real estate on Milwaukee's Eastside. He was a great guy really who invented the phrase "sport fucking" and  never got  involved in any violence in all his years of dealing coca. 

Lucowski in the earily eighties would buy his clothes in the hispanic neighborhood of Milwaukee's South-side, Leo's Wholesale. Pants with color, burgundy, brown, purple. Long pimp loafers, red and brown, lumber man boots in winter. Knee length brown or black leather coats, shirts, open collar of all colors, and always the essential fashion accessory, a Harley leather wallet with chain. With hair died black to his waist, Figaro Lucowski was a rare breed of white-bread peacock, biker, junk and pimp. 

Figaro was out of a job and broken hearted after breaking up with his platinum haired beatnik old lady Pearl. With a healthy stash of cash, Lucowski would venture into dark caverns of gothic night and fuel bars, snorting coca mixed with heroin, drinking cognac to keep warm in still winter. He would prey on goth geishas using coke and hash oil, laying Trout lines, Gold-fishing, skilled at breaking down tough exteriors with false words of love, he could fuck women and girls every night of the week, Still dead inside, missing Pearl.

Lucowski had  one VCD. He watched it over and over, he memorized the lines, it was his touchstone, his bible and savior, his personal lotus charm. 'The Night of the Iguana' the John Huston film, screenplay by the brilliant Tennessee Williams. FL was bi polar with brain endings that needed kick starting.  He loved watching the opening scene, Richard Burton as Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon breaking down as he delivered his sermon to his flock of grey faced puritans. Lucowski would watch Shannon breaking down over and over again, as though 'the something' that was breaking down in Shannon was breaking in Lucowski as well.

Aside: Religion for me is personal and subjective, it does not need to be hung from a crucifix, memorialized in Rome, participate in unholy wars or wear payot.

Modern day religion; preceding, out of touch, restraining mother earth and human kind from breath taking spirituality and transcendence. If Jesus, Mohammad or Mose came back to earth they would all be appalled! You could liken this to Norman Mailer's metaphor on NASA rockets blowing spent jet fuel into space, disturbing the angels highly tuned sensitivities. 

Aside: I wrote the preceding statement a year ago and have since become a atheist who holds tight to fantasies of angel names like:  Galgliel- Haamaih- Jophiel- Lailah- Manakel- Trgiaob

It was March in Milwaukee, still winter. Lucowski had watched "The Night of The Iguana" a couple of thousand times. Figaro was unemployed, broken hearted over the loss of platinum haired Pearl, so cold that he could feel it in his bones, sitting on $10,000, he figured it was time to make a pilgrimage to Mexico City. Lucowski could remember winter vacation with his family in Mexico in1968. One such flashback went like this, as written in Lucowski's diary.

My best Christmas memories are unconventional and have nothing to do with garlands, cozy fires and egg nog.
In 1967 I spent Christmas in Mexico with my family. We were staying at the Las Hamacas Hotel on Acapulco Bay. In front of the hotel, on the bay, there was a small taco cafe that had a juke box with a few gringo hits, topical music of the time. Psychedelica: The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones and Beatles.


On Christmas Day, I met a Californian surfer dude with blond shoulder length hair and his younger sister from Malibu, they were also staying with their parents at the Las Hamacas. We shared a common interest, scoring some marijuana. We were told to look for a local Mexican by the name of "Maestro Magico". The process of scoring was like a pagan ritual. When we found the Maestro, we scored a few fingers of "Acapulco Gold" wrapped in paper sack.

We Three Kings went back to the Las Hamacas, hid in the toilet and turned on. It was my first time; we sat at the pool and threw small stones in, watching the water ripple outwards as ringlets, expanding , each ripple a Sacred Malady of life.
When we got bored with the pool we decided to go body surfing. We were fithteen and seventeen, but the Mexicans on the beach sold us all the Corona and tequila we wanted. Corona was great in those days, comparable to german beer in thickness. We were smashed in a seconds, we smoked our Acapulco gold openly on the deserted beach.


After the sunset, we went back to the Los Hamacas to crash. I passed out with my surfer friend’s sister in their room.  Joy, blind without her oval tortus shelled specs, long sepia hair, pear like breast exposed allot in her macramé bikini. She was a angel. We  fumbled and managed to get it on somehow. I didn't know where her vagina was for sure, guessing it was somewhere between her legs. Back then in the late sixties, tongue swallowing kissing, was the best thing happening.


Through a mescal golden haze later that night, I realized I missed Christmas dinner with my family. When my mother got hold of me, she verbally hammered out the "riot act" in triplets. Then she smacked the shit out of me, punching me a few times, calling me a little shit. She was a tough old Army RN for sure. The discipline was energizing, in a few years at sixteen I left home. 

But I am going to tell you, the ass kicking I got was worth it.  For those who may breeze through the diary of scared beast, that groundbreaking Christmas was the best on record. No church or crucifix, garland or colored light, no cozy fire place, no fat dinner, could make me as happy as the parting of: Virgin angelica and sacrifice, I enjoyed the night.

Some times dreaming on mescaline, Lucowski remembered reading "The Night of The Iguana" was filmed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He wondered if the dried leaf roofed and cheap brick beach houses were still there? FL visualized, hoping somehow, that the players were all in place, interacting.  Some local Mexican actors could have taken over and carried on, play acting the parts as the windmill churned, a memorium playhouse or ghost hotel:

(T Lawrence Shannon, shit canned by the Anglicans, holding his crucifix spatially in the face of demons, busted on a tequila bender, guileless, working as a guide for  a cheap ass tour company, breaking down, living between heaven and hell, bringing puritan church ladies to a blah blah's dumpy banana leaf and coconut tree resort, with gay pimp marimba beach boys, a opium smoking chinaman cook, wasted, lying on a Parrot fishbone, a white haired 90 year old Brit poet, not unlike Frost reciting Orpheus's Exit, left over drunken Argentinian Nazis nudist saluting 'hail Hitler', cocks at attention, enjoying gay sex and tequila orgies in the jungle AS SEEN THROUGH THE PIERCING NIGHT EYES OF A LONLEY IQUANA ---PATHOS PAUCITY---- TIED UP ON A PIECE OF TWINE…….)

One day, oh about, the middle of May in 1983, it was still cold in Milwaukee. Lucowski began to sense that something was breaking inside him, and that all the beer and pussy in the city couldn't warm him up. A few days earlier, platinum Pearl gave Figaro a VCD for his birthday. Pearl thought he was behaving weirdly; mishegas-shlimazel-messiah-savanthood disorder she called it. The VCD  starring FL's idol Richard Burton and Richard's inamorata immortal Elizabeth Taylor was 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" by the great Edward Albee. Figaro dropped some mescaline to tune into the screenplay. The dialogue was brilliant, but astrally damaging on mescaline. He had to drink a bottle of cognac to shake it off. Like a bent green twig, bent too far, Lucowski snapped towards the middle of the fourth act as Martha said to George "you make me puke", George replies, "Martha, in my mind you're buried in cement right up to the neck. No, up to the nose, it's much quieter". The sixth act propelled Lucowski into the stratosphere, somewhere between proper mental hygiene and "talkin to the Devil",  George's soliloquy did him in---"You take the trouble to construct a civilization, to build a society based on the principles of... of principle. You make government and art and realize that they are, must be, both the same. You bring things to the saddest of all points, to the point where there is something to lose. Then, all at once, through all the music, through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the Dies Irae (Latin: mass for the dead). And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours !--- George's existential, academically astute cynicism didn't mix well with Lucowski's mescaline trip.  ~FL~  Monday, May 24, 2010