Today’s Wednesday literature post features a reading by Tom Waits of Charles Bukowski’s poem Nirvana. Jordan Peterson uses it in his presentation below to great effect. If you want to just listen to Tom’s narration you can watch it from…
Blog Archives
(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night – Tom Waits
(Looking for) the Heart of Saturday Night comes from Tom’s second studio album called The Heart of Saturday Night. It was released 10 months after I was born in October 1974 which makes Tom pretty frickin’ old. Not really, he’s…
Tagged with: (Looking for) The Heart of Saturday night, Charles Bukowski, Rolling Stones, The Beats, Tom waits
Posted in Music
Posted in Music
Glad Wrap and other ‘Broken Shoelace’ Events
So here I am unwrapping the dreaded ‘glad-wrap’ plastic to seal over a plate of food that I will perhaps reheat the next day….and I’m in kind of a hurry. When you are cooking for just one, you’re always in…
Tagged with: Charles Bukowski, cooking, glad wrap, humour, poem, The Shoelace
Posted in Reading, Reflections
Posted in Reading, Reflections
The Telegram
A school-friend kindly sent me a telegram after I won at the Australian Schools Athletic championships, admitting I was good enough despite wearing cheap sneakers called ‘Trax‘. I still have the results of the event which show my Australian record just below Cathy Freeman who also…
Tagged with: All I want is you, Athletics, cathy freeman, Charles Bukowski, telegram, trax, U2, U2 All I want is you
Posted in Reflections, Sport and Adventure
Posted in Reflections, Sport and Adventure
Charles Bukowski – The Genius of the Crowd
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who…
Charles Bukowski’s Gravestone Epitaph ‘Don’t Try’
Many people have wondered what the gravestone epitaph of the great American counter-culture poet and novelist Charles Bukowski means – ‘Don’t Try.’ I was baffled by this too until I came across this illuminating quote from Bukowski which should substantiate…
Tagged with: all the way, Charles Bukowski, Don't try, novelist, poem, poetry, screenings, slow night in the fast lane, The New Censorship
Posted in Reading
Posted in Reading
Ham on Rye – Charles Bukowski
I had been wanting to read a Charles Bukowski novel after seeing the illuminating documentary, Born into this. As Goodreads describes Ham on Rye, ‘Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice…
Tagged with: American literature, Born Into This, Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye, Henry Chinaski
Posted in Reading
Posted in Reading
Comedy and the Ages. Lenny Bruce, Charles Bukowski and Hunter S Thompson
George Carlin himself once put it: “Lenny Bruce opened the doors for all the guys like me.” Last night I watched the sobering documentary on the infamous American comedian Lenny Bruce called, Swear to tell the truth. It was disturbing…
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