the reason the average person is at the track is that they are driven screwy by the turn of the bolt, the foreman’s insane face, the landlord’s hand, the lover’s dead sex; taxation, cancer, the blues; clothes that fall apart on a 3rd wearing, water that tastes like piss, doctors that run assembly-line and indecent offices, hospitals without heart, politicians with skulls filled with pus … we can go on and on but would only be accused of being bitter and demented, but the world makes madmen (and women) of us all, and even the saints are demented, nothing is saved. He began his cycle of getting kicked out and moving into different homes and hotels (which is elaborated more on in Notes of a Dirty Old Man). I find it extremely difficult to rate this read, it is not your traditional novel, I cannot even recommend it, simply because I don’t believe a lot of people will understand what it was meant to serve. The Free Press circulation of nearly 100,000 gave Bukowski the largest consistent audience he would ever have. Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them.

A few times, generous people who admire his writings will allow him to stay with them rent free, though he does not understand why people enjoy his writings so much.His vivid, uncompromising depiction of the underworld of Los Angeles has achieved cult status as the ultimate in realist writing. Which makes for a hilarious companion, where we tend to stick around near him and cannot wait to see what he will say or do next, but never want him to be anywhere near our children. This is the first of his books that I've read and I catch myself thinking that I really don't hope the rest of his book are the same. As the title suggests, these are notes, and the man penning them is dirty minded and getting on in life.

And who are admired by the ignorant as witch men with cure when most of the time they don’t know their own arsehair from celery shreds. Notes of a Dirty Old Man has all the stickiness of ill mannered sex, sordid situations, crass thoughts, and broken down poetry, but it does feel good to read it, like taking hard liquor that burns the throat, once it hits the belly it loosens you up. And not even because it was nasty or creepy (because let's face it, despite panic attacks and crap, I made it through Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho and if I can get through that, I think I can get through any book). Those syndicated appearances are not listed here, as they are duplicates of the columns as they appeared in the "home" papers. Parole in libertà prendendo di mira tutti gli stereotipi possibili, dall'altra parte della barricata insomma.There is a sequence in "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" where a painting instructor gives a young Bukowski brushes and paints (he didn't bring his own), and instructs him to paint a vase, just like his classmates. As with the story of Neal Cassady, there is something profoundly swift in the way it opens up the wounds of humanity, to drain the infection. He’s a decent tie in for those interested in the beat generation and those looking for irreverence in everything.

Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski is somewhat a autobiography of Bukowski himself but also his alter ego, Henry. The long backstories that leads to the phrase “I once lost a million dollar to a Japanese fisherman” or “eating a small animal with a tiny asshole” or “cold shit, warm shit, it’s still shit” are some of the standouts. It is life uncluttered by the niceties and civilities of the numbed life most of us, under the confines of comfy blankets, PC's, cell phones, the latest fashions, million channel TV, etc.This isn't a review, it's just a long winded reminder to myself about what I've read as I have a habit of forgetting certain specifics of a book after reading it. The stories tend to get disgusting, but if you dig deep enough in the shit that the author presents, you are able to find the harsh truth. Oyy ok let’s get this wrapping up, I’m rambling which means I had a lot of thoughts and didn’t know how to frame them. If this serves as a catalyst towards anyone else reading it then that's cool, but I honestly couldn't really care either way.

Half an hour passes and judging by the volume of the pages read and those left, we can assume he's halfway through.Without taking his eyes from that nonexistent spot straight ahead, he reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and takes out a small object. Barfly (the movie he wrote about his life) wasn’t bad, I watched it after reading, but then I read that he didn’t like his actor’s portrayal. Some are pure fantasy (like a guy with wings playing baseball) while many others happened to some extent, and almost all include some kind of graphic sex (I’m not going there to describe it). I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths.