Sound off.

Keep this or not?

I need to practice this a bit more, me thinks. I've given up on writing pretty much. I don't do much personal writing lately and all of the freelance work is funneling, counter-clockwise down my motivational toilet and I'm fine with it. So this works. I never thought I was that great anyway. I write like I speak. Like Yoda with Strep Throat. Like Marlee Matlin drunk. Like Jabba without Bib Fortuna. Like...fershure.

I'm So Tired.......

repost 2007

Egg...

Everything that I wished for before I now have
and everything I now have is nothing compared to what I had.

Clean room and kitchen
check movie times
call family
text friendos
drink

This is how it works

It feels a little worse
Than when we drove our hearse
Right through that screaming crowd
While laughing up a storm
Until we were just bone
Until it got so warm
That none of us could sleep
And all the styrofoam
Began to melt away
We tried to find some worms
To aid in the decay
But none of them were home
Inside their catacomb
A million ancient bees
Began to sting our knees
While we were on our knees
Praying that disease
Would leave the ones we love
And never come again

On the radio
We heard November Rain
That solo's really long
But it's a pretty song
We listened to it twice
'Cause the DJ was asleep

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

And on the radio
You hear November Rain
That solo's awful long
But it's a good refrain
You listen to it twice
'Cause the DJ is asleep
On the radio
(oh oh oh)
On the radio
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() = @ ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

I'm going to let my fingertips guide this
but my mind has already decided where this will go
I'm clearing my throat
I do this a lot now
I try to focus
fingertipstypeonmy4head
thinking
waitforitwaitforit
i spend so much time doing something that I hate
my mind numbs
i go home
and spend so many hours searching for things
exposing/illuminating myself to so much
information
i have learned
so much
after
work

Thank you SO MUCH, Mystery Box...............REALLY.

"There flooded in the perception of something in the sky. I wasn’t on LSD or any other drug, not at the time; just this deprivation of the sense of other living things about me. What I saw was some form of evil deity…not living but functioning; not looking so much as scanning, like a machine or monitor. It had slotted eyes and always hung over one particular spot. I’ve used it for the title of my next-but-one story, A Scanner Darkly.

I don't know how much beauty I can stuff into my head anymore...I can't keep track of it all. I have to make lists of my lists and I'm electric and listless...SOMEDAY, I will miss this.

It all kinda started at Christmas when my sons and I were hanging ornaments on the tree.  We have an ornament that is a little electric guitar and my six-year-old son was looking at it and asked, “What’s this Dad?”
I said, “What??? It’s an electric guitar.”
To which he replied, “What’s that?”
Well, I was kinda horrified so I ran downstairs and pulled out an old hollowbody electric (that is my wife’s), an amp and I came upstairs, plugged it in and ripped into “My Generation” by The Who. Well, my one son actually climbed me in point 2 seconds and leaped off my shoulders while the other one looked like I had plugged the lights on the tree into him. They flew around the room dancing for two straight wonderful hours. I got the point. I grew up playing only electric and it was like remembering how to be free. For many reasons, it was so needed. So I got free.
The next week I headed into my studio and recorded “City Of Ghosts” and away I went. I wrote about the war and being a parent in “The Field”, two topics close to my heart. I wrote about being a teenager and how heavy that time can feel and how it can shape the path you take. So, gratitude is in there somewhere. I wrote about doubts and fear, about God and Spirit, and about hope and possibility and things that are elusive and hard to name. I wrote mostly about them, and they came into the room like angels and beasts.
This whole time I knew the record would be called Blood Of Man. I also kept hearing two phrases in my head during recording. Maybe you can decipher them, for I know not where they come from or what they mean exactly: “Do you remember when the world was young?” and “In the beginning there was blood on the lamb.” Whew.
I wrote about how hard it is to be 34 and be a parent and sane and married and true and positive and yourself and a man and funny and a decent person and a not decent person and human and in love. I turned the music up so loud so often that my ears rang every night. I wrote about death, of course. I wrote about life. I wrote about pain and addiction. And I let it flow and left it raw. I worked fast and I let my heart lead.
I guess I have come to the point in my life and my art where I just want to make music that I love and not mess with it. If people dig it: cool. If not: cool. I will be making it anyway. I have to. I realized that too. By the grace of god: I have to make music. More importantly: I get to.
Also, before anything, I am a music listener. So, this record has not been messed with in any way. What you have is exactly the music I listen to in my van and the way I have given it to my friends on CD-Rs. My hope is that it can help where help is needed. Music saved my life and I am so grateful for it. Thank you for listening. Rock.
Mason Jennings
Minnesota

wakeup, kiddo

and he lost it for a bit - maybe for a loooooong time
maybe he didn't know what he was doing
maybe he now knows a little bit more than before
but still wishes for more back then
and maybe he needs to practice getting up everyday
and needs to create new reasons to do so
he is not pretty
and life can be quite ugly at times
and this is crap
but it is what it is
and it looks all blocky and weird and bad writing-y
but he likes it
at least for now
he will never get awards or praise for his writing
he's a bit better at making you laugh when you're getting a drink
and don't tell me to smile
because when you see me, I'm not sad
I'm just not an extension of your fun that night
I want to take away Kyle's pain this Friday because of his break up
I want to be a good friend and to be better at it
I need to buy black pajamas for my Halloween outfit tomorrow
and am excited to pass out candy to the neighborhood kids
I'm still excited about that commercial that I'm going to be in
and want to visit you in Austin, Santa Maria, SF, Orlando, Baltimore, New Ringold, Brooklyn, McAllen, Baltimore, Downtown L.A. and in the year 1971, 1865 and 1993
he doesn't get it and never did
he was pedaling a bike with no tires
and searching for gold on Mars
wakeup, kiddo

before it goes
before you can't catch up with the rest of the crowd
and the donkeys refuse your carrots
and before you run out of things to say

he needs to
wakeup, kiddo
he needs to
wakeup, kiddo

Ahhh...

But bad poetry can sometimes be GOOD poetry, can't it?

but

Not TONIGHT.

Dumping ground

from my p k d tour 2009
to
the buddhist temples
to
my r w a

needs to be done

these are notes to myself

and not for you

I sleep so much now.

I'm worried.

Women are even creepier when they're smart.

The Revolution!!!

Starts with Jeff Goldblum.

bis vincit qui se vincit in victoria

He conquers twice who conquers himself in victory

im the guy

right now

writing about things to write

my soul is the Earth’s sun 8 million years from now

and my heart is chum, constantly thrown into oceans

jotting down ideas

and always writing about writing

and my writing

always takes a lot of rewriting

i’m so tired

and so ready

to cultivate the paddy fields of your mind

mine your ore

and excavate your precious resources

i am big business

when not writing about not writing

you’ll never see my greatest moments

and if you do?

then I’ll see it first

because,

im the guy

right now

writing

trying

Kevynn Malone

If You Were To Die Right Now, How Would You Feel About Your Life?

Tyler Durden just said that. I asked Tyler what he was doing in my living room and he punched me in the face and told me to stop asking sissy questions. I spit out a tooth and said that I wished that he'd blow up all of the credit card company buildings in real life like he did in Fight Club, I could benefit from a little Project Mayhem to eradicate my credit history. Then he kicked me in the eye with his boot heel and said, Kevynn, you have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression. We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them. I told him that he was scaring me, and then he grabbed me by the balls and dragged me into a corner of the room.

Right about that time - Charles Bukowski came into the room. He just walked on in, downed a can of Schlitz, crumpled it, and threw it towards the corner that Tyler and I were in. It bounced off of Tyler's shaven head, and I thought that Tyler was going to beat him up, but Tyler just smiled, swatted Buk on the back as he walked on by, told him that he was a big fan, and that he loved Post Office, and then left.

I could hear noise coming from the fridge, and groaningly got up. Buk was already polishing off one of my beers. He stripped down to his boxers and asked me where all the goddamn real booze was. I told him that was all I had, and that did he really believe in a god? He grabbed another one of my beers, kicked off his shoes, and said, I have more faith in my plumber than I do the eternal being. Plumbers do a good job. They keep the shit flowing…and then he disappeared into my bathroom.

I shuffled over to the phone and was about to call 911, when there was a knock at the door. I didn't want to answer it, so I peeped through the peephole. It was Frank Sinatra. Shit, it was Frank - so I opened the door. He looked great. Sharp. His pinky rings twinkled in the moonlight. I invited him in. He grabbed a seat by my fireplace and asked me how my bird was. I told him that I didn't have any pets, except for a bunch of cats. He rolled his eyes and said, no, man - how's your bird and pointed to my crotch. That confused the hell out of me. Why was Frank Sinatra asking about my dick? So, I just told him that my bird was flying around. That seemed to please him immensely. I relaxed a little. Frank was pleased. I was pleased. Maybe Frank could swing me a room in Vegas? Bukowski came out and stank up the whole place. He grabbed another one of my beers and then sat down at my computer. All of my cats instantly congregated around his feet and purred. He asked if I had any decent classical music in the place. I looked at Frank. He nodded slightly, and I tuned the radio to a station that Buk seemed to not mind. Frank asked me how everything else was goin'. I said that I guess that everything else was okay, nothing that exciting. He said that it was good to not be one of those complicated, mixed-up cats looking for the secret to life… just to go on from day to day, and to take what comes…

That seemed to make sense to me. I politely excused myself and told Frank that I thought that I needed to spit out a couple more teeth; did he want me to pick him up some stuff for martinis, or get him some whisky? He told me that he was okay for now, he was waiting for Ava. I got the feeling that he'd be there for a long time, and I left out through the front door to wiggle my loose teeth around. Tyler was in the parking lot of the park across the street, fighting somebody. I didn't want to attract his attention because I was afraid he'd tell me to duke it out with a Puerto Rican busboy. But I ended up walking over to him. Something was bugging me. I needed to tell him something.

He just got finished, and was wiping blood out of his eyes with the heel of his palms.

What do you want, Malone?
You want me to take you shopping or something?
Do you want me to politely ask the world to get off your back?
Are you finally sick of your life?
Are you ready to sacrifice everything
to become the type of person that you're supposed to be?

No, not really, Tyler. I just wanted to answer your question.

What fucking question, Malone?

"If you were to die right now, how would you feel about your life?"

Yeah…and...?

I'd feel fine.

I guess I should go out and do something. I just put down the book. I've flaked on two things tonight - an engagement dinner and meeting some out-of-town friends for a different dinner. I think I'm also supposed to hang out with two other people but I don't really remember how my conversations went with them because I have a horrible memory and I tend to drink too little. Why do I do this? I Gollum myself in my dark room, feeling miserable at times and at other times, I'm oh-so-fucking happy and loving my life and biting into my raw fish.

I'm going to get ready now, out of guilt more than anything else. I'll be thinking about my book though and of this quiet room and then when I'm all done, when all of the conversations, laughter, hugs and drinks are all doneanddone - I'll be right back where I was when I was typing this...

In this room
precious womb

drink up, baby, stay up all night
the things you could do, you won't but you might
the potential you'll be, that you'll never see
the promises you'll only make

drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days
do what I say and I'll make you okay and drive them away
the images stuck in your head

people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
that push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

drink up, baby, look at the stars
I'll kiss you again between the bars where I'm seeing you
there with your hands in the air, waiting to finally be caught

drink up one more time and I'll make you mine
keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest
where I like you the best and keep the things you forgot

the people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
that push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Your sorry eyes, they cut through bone.
They make it hard to leave you alone.
Leave you here wearing your wounds
Waving your guns at somebody new.

Baby Im a lost
Baby Im a lost
Baby Im a lost cause.

Theres too many people you used to know
They see you coming they see you go.
They know your secrets and you know theirs
This town is crazy, but nobody cares.

Baby Im a lost
Baby Im a lost
Baby Im a lost cause.
Im tired of fighting
Im tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause

Theres a place where you are going
You aint never been before
Theres no one laughing at your back now
No one standing at your door
Is that what you thought love was for?

Baby Im a lost
Baby Im a lost
Baby Im a lost cause
Im tired of fighting
Im tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause.

ido

I don't care if I'm up too late
I don't care about what I'm eating
I may be hedonistic
shallow
abusive
not motivated
I make mistakes
I'm compulsive
I'm weak
I won't be a good father
or a good mate, mate
I may not be the droid you're looking for

I may be Voltron in reverse
onebigROBOTseperatedinmanypieces
I may be totally stupid and full of shit
I don't think so, though...

I may be writing on the interweb
about personal stuff
ithink
ido
really
likemylife
finally

ido
really

I don't care if I'm up too late

He who tries to forget a woman, never loved her...

Which one are you?

The one I miss now?

Or the one I loved before?








reposted! :)

imissplayingmusicinfrontofpeople

Short stories...

on the back burner.

Better things that I'm writing

Right

NOW.......................

I'm playing the snare drum to this while you sleep...

posumeezeemsgoogleplex

I'm not insane.

Just yelling at them to not eat Marcel's food.
One almost came into my room the other night...

DUDE!

This kid is back AGAIN!

I JUSTJUST yelled at him, like...WHAT? 15 seconds ago?

I can always tell if it's an Opossum because of the sound of the way that they eat and the way that the food grinds against their teeth.

I don't hate them.

It just gives me something to do, to be honest.

Black Lion.

I think I'll write this on Friday.

Blue Lion.

You wanted an avalanche of progress and not the glacier-like reality

Green Lion.

On the front porch watching the sprinklers. It reminds me of childhood...except that I'm not trying to hump bedposts and basketball poles.

Yellow Lion.

The only phone call that I got today was from an older Italian gal that comes into my work. She's really sweet. I didn't pick up the phone because I hate long conversations. She was wondering and hoping if I got enough sleep today after my horrible night last night and I did get a lot of sleep. I almost got up early but then thought to myself...ehhhh, what's the point? I do this everyday but today especially because it's Labor Day.

Wheeee!!!!

The house is quiet today and I'm peckingly watching snippets of Band of Brothers on TV - which is depressing. I never turn the thing on. I was actually considering playing a video game but I play the things once every five months or so. Now that I think about it....what do I do? I work, I stay up late and fuck around on the computer, I hang out late with Patrick and walk, rarely jog and sometimes drive around a bit?

I want to dodge bullets. I want to teach a child how to spit properly. I want to learn how to make flaming arrows. I want you to play the piano while I sing. I want to go skydiving again. I want you to take me to an arcade and the batting cages. I want to write a story with you. I want a puppy. I want to go camping. I want you to buy me a bunch of paint and for you to give me a big canvas. I want to go to another bug fair. I want to watch chimpanzees look at me looking at them look at me. I want to play the Star Wars Drinking Game. I want you to beat me in chess and to punch me in the chest.

The house is quiet today.

Red Lion.

Beezus Christ - I'm still here. Still not writing, still talking about not writing when I'm writing and still not writing the things that I should be writing.

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Ugh. Really?

SMILE/frown

thinkingofmoving

And when I'm here
and when I put words down again
and when sometimes
I think that I know what I'm going to say
it gets lost right before the fingers start to type
even if my mind had already begun to write

I thought, tonight that
for once
it might, be alright
to entertain the notion
of writing elsewhere

And when I'm there
and roots are planted once again
and when I'm thinking that I want to go back

I'll think, that night that
wow
it just might, be alright
to entertain the notion
of finally writing

about the things that I always
meant to write about when

I was there

And I'll be far, far away

from here

LION CUB...

Do you remember how we met?
Silhouetted by the lights...
You were drunk and tried to take a mental picture with your hands
I was thinking about that
And a bunch of other things
Stop looking at the floor...
I need to pour out this expansive dose of words.

I can't explain...
I need to be alone.

I know the timing isn't great
But these things, you just can't plan.
I just need a little time
So I can find myself again
'Cause I get buried underneath
All the things they think you are
And I'm too tired to pretend it doesn't hurt
To be left out

I had a pocket full of dreams
But I gave them all to you
Now I think I want them back
So can you tell me if I'm crazy or confused?
Don't ever change
The way you are
I've never loved anyone more.

A guitar string broke

rightbeforeyoushowedup
and
rightafteryouleftmyhouse

I about threw down
more melodies
more lyrics in my head

soon to be forgotten
is it best
to let dead be dead?

Our odd is pretty odd
so that makes us pretty even
You may be god to my say ten

I meant my satan to my god
my god, my god
times ten

Oh, dog
nehw? nehw?

A string rewinded in my heart
tonight at night
and the heart string you plucked
isbackagainbackagain

ready to played
againandagain
ready to played
againandagain
ready to played
againandagain


andagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagain

re re post

Writing

On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Follow the bubbles...

*GASP!*

I broke the surface.

My aching lungs filled with oxygen.

I started walking towards the shore.

To dry land.

Home.

Sailor Ripley + Alec Empire = Nostalgia

I love my cheapy-ass UKULELE but will probably buy a better one by next week. Yet, I suck at playing the guitar - go figure...

"The General Specific"

If your trials end, are really getting you down
We had a close call, I didn't even see it, then another one, I hardly believed it at all.
What the writers say, it means shit to me now.
Plants and animals, we're on a bender when it's 80 degrees, the end of December was coming on,
Only for you and me.
When the showing up ends, going back to the south, where hungry necks that I know, and runnin'
A blender in a lightning storm, disguised as a blessing I'm sure.
Knowing up here, there comes a fork in the road, pants have gotta go, we're on an island on
The fourth of July, looks like the tide is going home.
In time I'd find a little way to your heart, down to the general store for nothing specific,
Gonna wash my bones in the Atlantic shore - only for you and me

Wonder, Alice...

I'd look through that glass but It's already shattered.

Keep on hopping - oops, I meant hoping.

KRS 6

It's nice to help people write
to lead them along
to encourage talented people
to help them do the things
that I battle with every day

UEZ...Y?

I know that
all of you
are asleep by now
but will be morUning birds
that wake
and sing praises about the dawnE

I want to
but it's way too late for me
like always

I'm just hoping for better daZys ahead

Y?

For Bobo...

sosayweall

It took hours
for me
after reading
for hours
and hours
of writing
tonight
to write

THIS

Jisas Yu Holem Hand Blom Mi

I want to be the AWOL Jesus

before the ships came

and took him back to War

to Life

to Hell

and then Salvation

I want to remain on that Island Of Peace

notaprizebutperfectinastrangerseyes

I am not a bad guy

I have my moments, at least

not a bad guy

flawed

duh

Everything Must Go...

I wrote about this in many furious moments scribbled down shorthand with a full heart and a full head of numbness and cried and cried and spun around and argued and fought and fucked you and with FUCK YOUS and WHY MES? and WHY US AND ME WITH YOU AND WHY AM I HERE AND I DONT WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORES

and all of this
and of this all of this
started to make sense even when it continued to not do so
and my fingers and my eyes would crackle the nails would bleed and the eyes would start to tighten

and im still here
and im still doing this
and im different and not cool for you or anybody and ive compiled so many regrets and beat myself up so much and I know that you all might want to beat me also

and
please forget me all if you need to you
its best
i understand
but understand
that i never will...YOU.

all of this. EVER.

Cake When I'm Hungry/Astroland Tower/Border Radio?

Do I need to be here?

Daymares...

Your wooden bowls
my pictures of lost pets

bad reams good reams

There's no hope for me. Let's be friends.

repost = compost

repost = compost

Maybe Deja-Vu Is...

That somebody in an alternate universe is reading that book about you, the comic book or watching your movie and either had to re-read that sentence, chapter, etc. or rewind to the last part before the phone rang or having to feed the dogs.

Some Pig...

Flu
Viruses
Diseases
Nature's version of population control
Romona
Beezus

Jesus

RELAX

nononoyeayyeayyeaymaybemaybemaybe

I'm peckingly typing while giving you second hand smoke/cancer company.
You're sleeping when I'm waking up.

Two houses alike in dignity.

You are solar panels and I am The Vampire Lestat.

Just not as gay.

The Vampire, not the alternative energy source.

This was stupid.

It was a long work shift, forgive me.

Researching Buddhist temples and old houses of PKD's right before my rebellious shit started to foment...

I ended up standing in the exact same spot as Philip K. Dick's apocalyptic life-changing courier. But I didn't ring any doorbells because I kind of wanted to open new doors instead of being a ghostly bell ringer...



vesicle pisces or bust!

HANK RIP

Early life

Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany, on the night of August 16, 1920, as Heinrich Karl Bukowski. His mother, Katharina Fett, a native German, met his father, Henry Bukowski, a Polish American serviceman, after the end of World War I. Coincidentally, Bukowski's paternal grandfather had also been born in Germany, so Henry was fluent in German and managed to woo Katharina's reluctant and undernourished family by bringing them rations of food and speaking German. Bukowski was fond of claiming that he had been born out of wedlock, but Andernach records show that his parents were in fact married on July 15, 1940, a month prior to his birth.

After the collapse of the German economy following the war, the family moved to Baltimore in 1923. To sound more American, Bukowski's parents began calling him "Henry" and altered the pronunciation of their last name from Buk-ov-ski to Buk-cow-ski. After saving money, the family moved to suburban Los Angeles, where Bukowski's father's family lived. During Bukowski's childhood, his father was often unemployed, and according to Bukowski, verbally and physically abusive (as detailed in his novel, Ham on Rye). When Bukowski's mother, Katharina, was called to the school nurse's office to be informed that her son had dyslexia, her immediate reaction was fear of her husband's disappointment in Bukowski.

During his youth, Bukowski also suffered from extreme acne vulgaris and shyness. Bukowski was a poor student, partially on account of his dyslexia. He claims that in his youth, the only award he ever won was for an ROTC drill at his high school, which he described in a book of collected essays entitled, Notes of a Dirty Old Man. After graduating from Los Angeles High School, Bukowski attended Los Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature; however, as in high school, he was a poor student. Around this time he spoke of fascism and Hitler, causing his family to worry. He later attributed this to a case of childhood rebellion, claiming that he never had any affiliation with any political ideology.

Early writing

In the early 1940s, Bukowski traveled through the United States, taking odd jobs and then quitting them to write (and drink). This lifestyle led him to near-starvation, and eventually he wrote home to his family for money. All he received was a letter from his father stating how ashamed he was of Bukowski. According to Bukowski, this was when he first knew he was destined to be a writer. Upon receiving the letter he was depressed and contemplated suicide, but even while having suicidal thoughts he couldn't crush his desire to write. Feeling both an intense desire to kill himself, and an intense desire to write, he started scribbling in the margins of a newspaper.

At 24, Bukowski's short-story "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" was published in Story Magazine. Two years later, another short-story, "20 Tanks From Kasseldown," was published in Portfolio III's broadside-collection. Bukowski grew disillusioned with the publication process and quit writing for almost a decade. During part of this period, he went on living in Los Angeles, but also spent some time roaming around the United States, working odd jobs and staying in cheap rooming houses. In the early 1950s, Bukowski took a job as a letter-carrier with the United States Postal Service in Los Angeles, but quit after less than three years.

In 1955, he was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer that was nearly fatal. When he left the hospital, he began to write poetry.

By 1960, he had returned to the post office in Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a clerk for over a decade. Bukowski lived in Tucson briefly, where he befriended Jon Webb and Gypsy Lou, two people who would be influential in getting Bukowski's work widely published.

The Webbs published The Outsider literary magazine and featured some of Bukowski's poetry. Under the Loujon Press, they published Bukowski's It Catches my Heart In Its Hand (1963) and A Crucifix in a Deathhand, in 1965. Jon Webb bankrolled his printing ventures with his Vegas winnings. It was at this point that Bukowski and Franz Douskey began their friendship. They argued and often got into fights. Douskey was a friend of the Webbs, and was often a guest at their small Elm Street house that also served as a publishing venue. The Webbs, Bukowski, and Douskey spent time together in New Orleans, where Gypsy Lou eventually returned after the passing of Jon Webb.

Beginning in 1967, Bukowski wrote the column "Notes of A Dirty Old Man" for Los Angeles' Open City underground newspaper. When Open City was shut down in 1969, the column was picked up by the Los Angeles Free Press. In 1981, he published a book, Notes of A Dirty Old Man, which contained several of the pieces he wrote for the column.

Women

Bukowski often writes and speaks extensively about his relationships with women and his sexual encounters, often humorously. In the documentary, Born Into This, he speaks of losing his virginity at age 24 to a "300 pound whore" and breaking all four legs of his bed in the process. In an essay, he described the experience as terrible.

On October 29, 1955, Bukowski and writer/poet Barbara Frye drove to Las Vegas and were married there. Frye was the editor of Harlequin magazine. During a period where Bukowski was having trouble getting published, he sent a stack of poems to Frye in response to an ad requesting submissions. Frye accepted several of his poems, responding that they were some of the best she had ever read. They corresponded through letters for some time. Frye would often lament about her spine deformity and how she would never find a husband because she was missing two vertebrae in her neck, causing her head to practically rest on her shoulders. Bukowski said he'd marry her, so she responded with a letter telling him when and at which train station to pick her up.

Frye wanted a child. Bukowski didn't. When she finally became pregnant, she miscarried. The young couple was convinced that it was because Bukowski drank so much. They divorced in 1958, on March 18. Frye insisted that their separation had nothing to do with literature, though after their marriage she often doubted his skill as a poet. As she continued to edit Harlequin, Bukowski insisted that she not publish certain writers, often out of revenge for those writers not publishing him in their publications. Following the divorce, Bukowski resumed drinking and continued to write poetry.

Jane Cooney Baker was Bukowski's next girlfriend, an alcoholic. She died in a hospital on January 22, 1962, after going on a severe alcohol binge. With cancer, cirrhosis, and hemorrhaging, there was little that could be done. Her death sent Bukowski into a long bought of depression; he continued being an alcoholic and suffering from a suicide complex.

On September 7, 1964, a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his then live-in girlfriend Frances Smith. Marina's conception had been a mistake, due in part to Bukowski's hatred of condoms and the expectation that the 42-year old Frances Smith was too old to have a child. Bukowski proposed to Smith out of a sense of responsibility, but she said no, opting rather to live together and raise the child together while out of wedlock. She later remarked that he was a wonderful father, constantly attentive. Whenever Bukowski had suicidal thoughts, he now had two reasons to continue living: His daughter and his writing.

Bukowski also dated fellow writer and sculptor Linda King for some time, despite being about twenty years older than she. Although immediately repulsed by him, she sculpted a bust of his head and slowly became attracted to him. She encouraged him to write about the women in his life. Between then and his second marriage, he had a strong cult following and lots of young female fans would show up to his readings and insist on having sex with him. At the height of his sexual popularity, women would show up on his front porch and wait for him to wake up (often in the afternoon) so that they could could have sex with the "famous writer."

In 1976, Bukowski met a fan of his work that caught his eye: Linda Lee Beighle, a health-food restaurant owner. She was different from the other fans, particularly because she refused to have sex with him for quite some time. Two years later, the couple moved from the East Hollywood area, where Bukowski had lived for most of his life, to the harborside community of San Pedro, the southernmost district of the city of Los Angeles. Bukowski and Beighle were married by Manly Palmer Hall on August 18, 1985. Linda Lee Beighle is referred to as "Sara" in Bukowski's novels, Women and Hollywood.

Work and death

Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the late 1950s and continuing on through the early 1990s; the poems and stories were later republished by Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollins/ECCO) as collected volumes of his work. John Martin, who started Black Sparrow Press, visited Bukowski in search of material for his publication. A nonchalant Bukowski invited him in, offered him a beer, and told him to look in the closet, where a waist-high heap of approximately 5000 manuscripts were waiting to be discovered. Later, John Martin would offer him a $100 monthly stipend "for life" for writing pieces for Black Sparrow Press. Bukowski quit his job at the post-office to make writing his full-time career. He was then 49 years old. As he explained in a letter at the time, "I have one of two choices—stay in the post office and go crazy … or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve." Less than one month after leaving the postal service, he finished his first novel, titled Post Office.

As a measure of respect for Martin's financial support and faith in a then relatively unknown writer, Bukowski published almost all of his subsequent work with Black Sparrow.

Bukowski acknowledged Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, Knut Hamsun, Ernest Hemingway, John Fante, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Robinson Jeffers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, D.H. Lawrence, and others as influences, and often spoke of Los Angeles as his favorite subject. In a 1974 interview he said, "You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every bitch on the street corner and half of them you have already messed around with. You've got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are. …Since I was raised in L.A., I've always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I've had time to learn this city. I can't see any other place than L.A."

One critic has described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: The uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free."

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing his last novel, "Pulp." His funeral rites were conducted by Buddhist monks. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try."

Please look into the trashcan in your garage and maybe take out the new Converse box with the old shoes in it. There's our tickets for the show that we saw tonight and also for the baseball game that we saw yesterday. I've stuffed mementos in a drawer of mine in the house that I never seem to be at anymore. Keep them just in case, okay. Even if the best thing seems that we probably shouldn't be together. Why not? We all end up throwing away things inevitably, right?

I've never seen an ant stand still.

Baa...

baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir...

Strike that - I don't.

Good Morning.

I didn't just wake up from a nap.

But will...soon.

Good night.

Old Post.

Frustrating not to be able to share my simple joys with complicated people.

Frankenstein's monster ended up confusing flower petals with brittle, little girl necks.

Lenny wanted to share the soft and soothing experience of petting cute bunny rabbits with hard, callused ranch hands.

The satisfaction that you get with filling a house full of new furniture does nothing to quell the vast emptiness of my soul.

Your fast food gives you ths satisfaction equivalent to my frustrated headache.

What noisy gardners give me before waking dreams is your extra hour to get a cup of coffee before work.

Nintendo to your Wii.

My Mad Libs to your Blackberry.

I breathe lung cancer.

You live.

I am too far-sighted and not hungry enough to follow a fucking carrot.

I see six million blind and beautiful shuffling mules.

Not even aware of the shit that they're leaving behind.

I see me forever mulling over the potential beauty of six million animals blinding me with their unstoppable momentum.

Frustrating

confusing

hard

nothing

headache

noisy

I breathe

You live

I am too far-sighted

and not hungry enough

blind

and beautiful

shuffling

behind

forever mulling over
the potential beauty of
six million animals
blinding me with
their unstoppable momentum

Frustrating not to be able to share my simple joys with complicated people.

Rigur Sos...

here i am
my eyes are Spider
I shiver like Chico
I am the crackling, feral, green parrots of downtown
here i am
me
my eyes are clouded
I focus
I don't miss this
runrunrun
fizzled roman fireworks
here i am
am i here
nevernevernever
unfocused
donedonedone
you said
FOCUSFOCUSFOCUS
you said
cataracts

I'm not ignoring you and I'm not being rude. You're on the phone. I'm okay with that. The reason that I'm writing now is because I just really wanted to write something.

repost = compost

Maybe Deja-Vu Is...

That somebody in an alternate universe is reading that book about you, the comic book or watching your movie and either had to re-read that sentence, chapter, etc. or rewind to the last part before the phone rang or having to feed the dogs.

You

are lemonade
and I am the hot, summer day.

My Eyes And Soul May Be Tired...

but the fingertips itch a bit
and I have so much to say
and
I'll never be able to get it all down

I've written about this for years

Stop Being A 3===D

One of these days it will all make sense.
One of these days I'll miss these days.
One of these days I'll be better than before.
One of these days I'll be in Ireland.
One of these days I'll go back in time and make it all right.
One of these days I'll remember everything.
One of these days I'll breath deep
and
It'll be too late
to look back.

Atari Teenage Riot...

Took all of my action figures out of their packages.

I know.

Pig.

If I had a dollar for every pen that I've stolen from work - then I'd have a lot of money and a lot of pens.

...

I was getting ready for work and sat down in my chair to put on my shoes and thought that I sat on my dog.

But then I remembered that I didn't have a dog anymore.

The District Sleeps Tonight..

I just started to write three totally different things and saved them all for later.

But I'm fine, thank you.

Dandy.

Fat Free Milk.

I like talking now.

A Collection of Abject Musings ...

I think I could do this for the rest of my life. I just opened a beer and have adjusted myself properly in my chair. Guitars and violins are running through choruses to my left outside my door. Really. It’s amazing to live in a house filled with musicians. They’re wheeling in a xylophone now. It’s also raining – can you believe that?

I know I’ve written about it before but for every bad day there are days like these. Completely wasted, lazy days or nights with no ambitions. Nothing but the next five minutes of your life planned. Floating, vaporous days turned into solid joy.

I spent a year watching sunsets in my old place on Commonwealth, spent years walking my dog in the vast park at the old house and maybe in this house, after all of the heartache, confusion and mistakes I’ve made – maybe what I’ve been practicing slowly will finally turn into one big smile instead of the minutia of tiny smiles that I’ve accumulated here. Maybe in the next place, I’ll look back fondly on days exactly like today.

Kmalo

So, I was going to tell you about how I needed more time to myself in front of the computer and maybe to write and needed a little bit more time to get work out of system and that my friend, Pat invited me down to his work and I thought that it would be nice to get out of the house because everybody else seemed to be doing something either interesting or NON and why not, eh?

And as I was about to write this, he just texted me to come down and I think I might so I better hurry up.

I just wrote this post in two minutes, me thinks.

Bye.

Lovelove

Just Found This On Somebody Else's Website?

I barely remember writing this. Neat.

Bye.

fatfreemilk@gmail.com

There will never be enough time to

A Journey - By Edward Field

When he got up that morning everything was different:
He enjoyed the bright spring day
But he did not realize it exactly, he just enjoyed it.


And walking down the street to the railroad station
Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks
It was a long time since he had breathed so simply.


Tears filled his eyes and it felt good
But he held them back
Because men didn't walk around crying in that town.


Waiting on the platform at the station
The fear came over him of something terrible about to happen:
The train was late and he recited the alphabet to keep hold.


And in its time it came screeching in
And as it went on making its usual stops,
People coming and going, telephone poles passing,

He hid his head behind a newspaper
No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes
To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabric.


He didn't do anything violent as he had imagined.

He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down
A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,

And at the end of the ride he stood up and got off that train:
And through the streets and in all the places he lived in later on
He walked, himself at last, a man among men,
With such radiance that everyone looked up and wondered.

Nothing makes you feel weirder and older
than singing in a laundry room with a gaggle of underage girls
Thank you for the Disney songs, kids
Thank you for saying that you thought that I was twenty-five
and maybe no thank you for saying that I looked like Luke Perry from 90210

I shouldn't have been there, I guess.

You forgot your Gnome.

We have more bikes in the backyard than monthly visitors now.

Tonight, the moon was bigger than I've ever seen it before.

My ears have been plugged up for days.

I played a video game for six hours today and didn't pick up ONE book.

Thanks, Kyle.

on a beautiful, deserted island
building a boat

slowly

Now I saw,

though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.


1. The only reason that my name is spelled “Kevynn” sometimes is because I started it when I was 16 and really started to write a bunch of Emo thoughts, poems and stories into notebooks. Back then I only spelled it with one “N”. I kind of helped me out when I started doing a lot of Content and PR work for a bunch of failed TEH Interweb/nets companies and embarrassing music magazines. Nice to use your real name when you’re writing for new companies and not to be Googly-haunted by Bloggy, random articles, posts and blargh blargfh with the Emo one.

2. I only reason that I exist is because my father worked doing secret, secret stuff for an agency that only has three letters and because my mother was super hot and because he knocked her up. My brother was born in Vietnam and my older half brother was born in Bolivia. I would like to thank Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and all of Communism for this award.

3. I wear contacts and hate wearing glasses. Even though I like how I look in glasses. Sometimes. Glasses suck. Try to lay your head down sideways and watch 30 Rock with glasses, bitch.

4. I’ve always been this thin – but my weight fluctuates based on what’s going on in my life.

5. I hate talking on the phone. Hate it.

6. I usually don’t know that I’m speaking until somebody asks me what I meant, laughs or frowns.

7. I will die on the freeway sitting in the passenger seat.

8. I’ve lived in haunted houses more than once. I’ll tell you stories if you buy me a comic book and tell me that you like my shoes.

9. One of my eyes is lighter than the other.

10. I like Atari Teenage Riot and Crass.

11. I don’t know what I’m doing.

12. I miss playing in punk/surf bands.

13. I’ve always had Deja-Vu. It gets so bad sometimes that if I shut my mouth than I can silently watch everything that I know that will happen…happen. It drives me nuts but at the most, it only goes from 15 seconds to 30 minutes. What do you do with this? Nothing. Sometimes I know what you’re going to say. If you’re by me next time, I’ll write it down and show you later. Lame, I know – but true.

14. I never had much but AMAZING friends. I’ve never had any guidance. Especially in the last 15 years. I’ll take this over a solid family structure anyday.

15. I was homeless more than once and traveled via Greyhound across the USA and used to sleep in parks, friend’s cars, schools, park benches and used to sray up at 24-hour donut shops. AND more and more and more awesome places. Yay!

16. I have bad knees because of skateboarding when I was a wee tyke and have crappy, broken ankles. I walk like a young Benjamin Button when I wake up but it gets better in about fifteen minutes and I don’t hobble so bad.

17. I don’t have any family that lives in California.

18. I have amazing hand/eye coordination and amazing balance and aim. Really, it’s uncanny. I’ll show you…

19. I am a horse whisperer.

20. I always have to have something to drink. Water, juice, soda – anything. I can’t not have water or something by me. I’m either weird or OCD or my kidneys hate me or all of these things combined.

21. I have probably fallen asleep to Empire Strikes Back 300 and something times.

22. I paint about ONE picture every year.

23. I know a lot about comic books. More than anybody that you know.

24. I believe that right now, things will make themselves right in progressive, snail-like increments. I hope to look back on my newly-created phosphorescent trails and smile…happy to see how far I’ve travelled.

25. I am Jane Goodall's Tanzanian monkeys typing about bananas. My fingers are Santa's little helpers. My hope is a sporadic rainfall - yet a torrential downpour in all creative environments. I am Theseus, unspooling golden yarn. Sisyphus, sweating uphill. Bukowski, scribbling away in rooming houses. A river always flowing. I am the nightmare of stagnancy and the god of imagination. Not really... I'm just tired And Full Of Poo...

Who's scruffy-lookin'?

I'm a hungry Wampa without a Tantaun
Chewbacca without a Bowcaster
Greedo with good aim
Salacious Crumb without the cackle
A Sarlaac without a pitt
Boba without the jet pack
Echo Station without a shield generator
A Snow Speeder without a tow cable
I am Dantooine without the millions of voices suddenly crying out in terror that were suddenly silenced
I am a Land Speeder without the vaseline smeared glob beneath my wheels
R2-D2 incessantly chirping
I do not know how big I've grown eating food of this kind
I am the crying Rancor Keeper
I am Yak and Prune Face
I am Sy Snootles without The Max Rebo Band
I am a Gundark without ears
I am Darth Vader without asthma and an Emperor without finger-tipped lightning bolts
Jabba without delectable frogs and Bib Fortuna without the head tentacles
Watto without wings
John without the Williams
Leia sans slave outfit
I am Dagobah without its swamps
Bantha without the poodoo
and I'm a dud of a Thermal Detonator
I have convinced my new master to take of my restraining bolt
I am Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen without Tupperware glasses
I can't make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs
I am the ninth moon of Endor
I am Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa
I am Kit Fisto, Plo Kloon and that other Jedi guy dying like bitches
I am the fat, dancing Twilek in Jabba's Palace
I am the bone in your Rancor's teeth
I am Jek Porkins dying in a shower of sparks
I am Industrial Light and Reality
Luke screaming, Yes! That's true! Yes, it is possible!
A tank without Bacta
An AT-AT without armor plating
Ewoks without a village
and Han Solo without a bounty over his head
4-LOM without Zuckuss
I am a canceled Boonta Eve race
and a quadrapelegic Wookie wanting to rip off your arms
I am the Star Wars Holiday Christmas Special
and a swarm of sucking Mynocks
I have a bad feeling about this

and

I am not the droid you're looking for.

Thankthegodsfortheglimmerof hope
atleastinthenextpairofeyes
thatlookat me
they'llsee you
andmycataracts
andispeakslower now
withlessenergytheysay
Thankthegodsfortheglimmerof hope
atleastinthenextpairofeyes

Mark MacGavern

is the homeless man that I met tonight as I was walking home
he gave me a good book list
was calm and pleasant to talk to
I told him that I had tried to volunteer at one of our local churches
I was curious what he needed and invited him to my house
I have all of my old clothes that don't fit me anymore, canned goods and a lot of Hagan's old camping equipment, a sleeping bag, etc.
I gave him money that he reluctantly accepted
and tried to give him my Steinbeck
he wasn't interested and showed me what he was reading
All he needs is hot, washed blankets
Now, I have that covered
and I spent two hours in the cold on a bench with him
just because I said hello
Mark looks like Rasputin and Zack Galafinakis
we
talked
man to man
about words
books
family
feelings
regrets
we are
both strong men

I'm sorry to see how things have gone in my life lately
but I never would've had this moment tonight
if I hadn't already fucked up the one I had

good
bad

but I remembered the old me from a long time ago
and I think the one that you loved

The one that I LOVED

Thank you, Mark.

Bukowski? You're still not my friend. I've re-read this eight times and don't know how I feel about this...

blasphemy of love

in my beginning
as with every human
being, we're
born early
into the truest sense
of the word NEED.

I was given the sustenance
of existence
until I was able to live without
any further original need
and so I boldly, naively believing
and brightly blazing
thrust myself
forward into life, filled
with an insatiable apatite
for self reliance, with
an almost curiously anti-dependant
desire; to be whole
without any outside force,
to rely on nothing
and no one else.

I searched and settled
and pondered and cursed thin air
and most often through the years I've
found myself in life
continuously fighting an almost
insurmountable surreal desire-
to be
needed by another...
I've finally come to know now unequivocally
that I am NOT, never
have been
and never will be.

I am a man, but I am not a leader
nor a follower or a Father.

through disenchantment and heartbreak,
through disappointment and
disillusionment, through false promises
given by and taken from me
through the whole of my
self-sustained life
it has ultimately
led me back within myself-
clarity has come for me
through a disintigration of truth
an obliteration of hope
a caricature of self
a malignancy of soul
and a blasphemy of love
most people know
every fire needs fuel
to continue,
or it must succumb
to an inevitable
cool weightless ash
and a dissipating smoke.

my dilemma has been that
I feel no need to seed
another human
into being
in need
of
original love to survive,
to endure another plight of life
in utter ultimate
useless
needlessness...
so to those I've loved I can only say this:
"I knew I wanted to be with you,
but I never needed you,
I thought you might have needed me,
but you didn't and you don't.

I apologize for not knowing that
better back then.

but I promise you this
My Loves,

it'll never happen again.