“He loads his head full of coal and diamonds shoot out of his finger tips. What a trick. The mole genius has left us with another digest. It’s a full house – read ’em and weep.” – Tom Waits
Born from Bukowski’s columns, the LA underground press of the 1960s, Bukowski defined his early alter ego, Hank Chinaski, as a self-described dirty old man who eyes his defeatist attitude about himself with his clarity to see humor and holiness in others. Addictive and instructive listening, Bukowski delivers the humanity and intelligence of all the unseen. Filled with his usual obsessions – sex, booze, gambling – Notes features Bukowski’s offbeat insights into politics and literature, and his tortured, violent relationships.
“People come to my door – too many of them really – and knock to tell me Notes of a Dirty Old Man turns them on. A bum off the road brings in a gypsy and his wife and we talk…drink half the night. A long distance operator from Newburgh, N.Y. sends me money. She wants me to give up drinking beer and to eat well. I hear from a madman who calls himself ‘King Arthur’ and lives on Vine Street in Hollywood and wants to help me write my column. A doctor comes to my door: ‘I read your column and think I can help you. I used to be a psychiatrist.’ I send him away….”
“Bukowski writes like a latter-day Celine, a wise fool talking straight from the gut about the futility and beauty of life….” (Publishers Weekly)
OBIE winner Will Patton (Remember the Titans, The Good Wife, Armageddon) recreates Bukowski in his visceral prime, along with every eye-popping character in his life, each adversary, lover, and stranger in a lost city.
More about the author:
Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for 50 years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was 24, and began writing poetry at the age of 35. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.
