Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and raw!
Review: deadpan often depressing and brutallyhonest collection of short stories. never a feel good story in this collection. know that when you start reading it

Rating:
Summary: Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis...
Review: Hey Charley I'm pregnant
and living on 9th street
Above a dirty bookstore
Off Euclid avenue
I stopped taking dope
I quit drinking whiskey
My old man plays the trombone
And works out at the track

He says that he loves me
Even though its not his baby
He says that he'll raise him up
Like he would his own son
He gave me a ring
That was worn by his mother
And he takes me out dancin
Every saturday night

Hey Charley I think about you
Everytime I pass a fillin' station
On account of all the grease
You used to wear in your hair
I still have that record
Little Anthony and the Imperials
But someone stole my record player
How do you like that?

Hey Charley I almost went crazy
After mario got busted
I went back to Omaha
To live with my folks
Everyone I used to know
Is either dead or in prison
So I came back to Minneapolis
This time I think I'm gonna stay

Hey Charley I think I'm happy
The first time since my accident
Wish I had all the money
We used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
I wouldn't sell any of 'em
I'd just drive a different car
Depending on how I feel

Hey Charley for chrissakes
Wanna to know the truth of it?
Don't have a husband
He don't play the trombone
Need to borrow money
To pay this lawyer
And Charley, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
Come valentines day

-Not that anyone would notice, but you sit in your dingy apartment reading this collection, the light coming from a single lamp with no shade, certain thoughts come to mind. You realize many, many things and come to an understanding and an appreciation of things that I think many people either never do, or either are in constant denial of. That's a constant theme with Buk, I think. Hell, I don't know and I'm dam* sure no deep-thinker about such things. But, the bottom line is that Buk, like Tom Waits, can never do wrong. Never. Ignore anyone that says otherwise or tries to come off with some, "Well, this isn't his greatest work..." or the...."this is inferior Buk." That's all absolute garbage and all of those individuals who make such statements - combined - could not produce in a lifetime, anything of such beauty that Buk produced in a day. Period.
Get this, treasure it, cherish it and you will understand.


Rating:
Summary: The First Great Bukowski book!
Review: I picked this up right after another great Amazon pick, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez. Perez's writing calls to mind much of Buk's work. And this Buk book, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, which is a collection of Bukowski articles, deserves special attention. Here we have the first glimpse of the Bukowski character -- someone who WILL NOT COMPROMISE his integrity, someone who would sooner do himself in by drink than allow others to diminish him. Hard not to admire a guy like that. This book also first displays his famous disregard for English grammar. He could care less about starting off sentences with lower case letters and using improper punctuation. In fact, he's totally rejecting the status quo. Not just the world at large (of phonies and [tooshie]-kissers), but the writing or so-called "literary" world with its "proper" rules and snobbery as exemplified by magazines like the New Yorker, etc. You never get the impression that Buk is afraid to live his life and behave in a manner unbecoming an "author." Buk is after the truth, the RAW truth -- and that entails stripping away the BS and the pretention to achieve a greater authenticity and to find his OWN VOICE. This is a great first book, one I recommend! Buk deserves a special place in the pantheon of great American noncomformists! This is what makes him a great writer!

Rating:
Summary: huh?
Review: I would have to say that pretty much everything Bukowski has written is worth a look. How many other writers can you say that about?

Rating:
Summary: Old Man Buk, The One and Only
Review: jeez, I think we found my long lost father here. Sorry, I haven't read the book, but now I must. See, I am a young lad who thinks of himself as a dirty old man, is known to most around me by the name Buk, with much discontent for the youth about, and has a fairly unsophisticated way with the ladies, if you will. When I stumbled across the name Buk being used as a short form of this Bukowski fellow, and that he wrote a book titled "Notes of a Dirty Old Man", I was very intruigued. I think you can understand why I needed to post this.

Rating:
Summary: A CLASSIC!
Review: Notes of a Dirty Old Man, the book, published in 1969, is 204 pages of excerpted columns written by Charles Bukowski, a beat generation legend, who wrote these pieces for a notorious Los Angeles underground paper called OPEN CITY. Bukowski's column was also titled notes of a dirty old man.

The book is shear nonsensical, no-nonsense pleasure to read, describing the life and times of the writer. Bukowski, (1920-1994) RIP was a helluva guy. A poet and a writer who lived by the seat of his pants. He had a cult following, but never was appreciated, artistically or financially by the public at large. I'm not sure he would have enjoyed fame, nor do I know if he ever really seeked it. Just an educated guess on my part. For instance, he refused to do poetry readings when he could have used the money.

This book digs down into the grit of the life of a man who as a youth was the punching bag for a wannabe hard-áss father who turned coward when the bag finally punched back. Bukowski developed what he describes as the Frozen Boy Stance, later developed into a Frozen Man Stance. A posture and attitude of not being affected by life's hardships.

Bukowski loved to drink. Alcohol was his short term enemy, but sorry roundheads, it was a key to his greatness. He lived and described skid row life from a first person perspective. He stayed true to the hard values he learned there.

Charles Bukowski reminds me a little of Kerouac, a bit of Thompson. In the end, this is fun read! Do yourself a favor and buy this book!

Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez

Rating:
Summary: This Book is Hysterical
Review: Once you start reading Bukowski, you will not want to read anything else, ever. Buk is clearly the best storyteller of the 20th century.

Rating:
Summary: The essence of Bukowski
Review: Some consider Charles Bukowski overrated... some think of him as an unhearalded genius. This collection falls somewhere in the middle. Initially I read this book ravenously, and fell in love with about half of the stories. Since then I have revisited it with a bit more care, and I continue to fine amazing beauty in the way Buk Takes jagged, rusty words and puts them together with duct tape to create these urban scenes. The greats could never have done this, None of them knew LA. This book seems to do the imposible. At once it honors the city of angels with an incredibly accurate rendering of what LA is, and it makes you hate the city all the more for the same reason. This is a great place to start reading Bukowski.

Rating:
Summary: Not Afraid
Review: The first time I read Charles Bukowski it was in Spanish. The words still remain in my mind and once I got the opportunity to read him in English... I was speechless and shocked at how no one ever had dared using the English language like he has... How could you play with words so much and yet make them all fall in place so gracefully?. So crude, yet so insightful. Bukowski can express himself in terms of crap and intellect all in one paragraph. Any of this man's work is worth spending time on. =)