The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way. Charles Bukowski

at night. NOW look at me. Tomorrow the WORLD! Got fired for sleeping in the ladies’ crapper. The L.A. TIMES simply doesn’t appreciate talent . . .

      Do you get uptight when you ask for cigarette papers? Tell them they are paper bandaids for the asshole of a cardboard bee you’ve designed for the state fair . . . There is something very discouraging about Bobby Kennedy but we don’t want to admit it, not yet, right after old dull whip-boy Johnson; but lord, lord, when’s a man going to come along??? . . . This country, right now, on the point of revolution, can go any way, can go fascist, can go communist, socialist, can remain within the democratic mold with changes. But the whole thing reminds me of a headless horse running down a midnight street. And it’s sad. For I live here and I want to see it go well . . . And let that be the end of this type of column for I have winded up with the deep deep blues. It’s best to create the mold directly from life and let the others talk about it. Amen, men . . .

      Open City, April 19–30, 1968

More Notes of a Dirty Old Man

      You may not believe it but there’s nothing as dull as tits and haunches and buttocks when you’ve seen enough of them and have seen them continually. Furthermore, there’s nothing as sexless as a bathing suit: sand spread across the crotch, wrinkles under the butt, wrinkles above and below the hips, and also, here and there—warts, moles, and all the twitchy little infirmities the human body gathers. Look at that single long hair growing under her chin. Doesn’t she see that? What’s that blotch? And worse than a bathing beauty is a nude. If man has any imagination, he can forget it now. Look at her—whipped cream and pork rinds, soft balloons, and the sexual machinery in the center, almost a threat.

      Sometimes, since I often write for the sex mags, I enter a mag store which deals exclusively with periodicals of that content. Since I create quite a realistic story I have to check the mags for their editorial courage. Here in Hollywood there are quite a few of these sex mag dungeons. So when was it? Saturday? Anyhow, I walk into one of these stores and I am stopped by a man who stands high in a pulpit-like structure.

      “Psst!” he says, “Sir! Sir! Stop!”

      “What’s the matter?” I ask.

      “It costs 50 cents to go in there,” he tells me.

      “But I don’t want to buy a magazine,” I say.

      “That’s just it. You gentlemen just come in here and look at the pictures. We have to protect ourselves. The 50 cents can be applied to the purchase of any magazine. We give you this returnable token.”

      I give him the 50 cents and he gives me the token. I am allowed to walk in.

      The place is quite filled with men. The owner is the grand priest and the place does have the feeling of a temple. The men hardly move. They stand very quietly, turning pages. Some of the magazines feature men on the covers. On one, a photo of a penis, a diseased-looking and curved thing, pokes through some torn shorts. What the hell is this? I think. I walk around and don’t know what to do. There is a glass case full of rubber penises. I look at them and walk on. Then, to give a façade of one belonging, I pick up a girly mag and finger through. The first photo I see puts me headlong into a gaping vagina. Has this been the object of so many of my pleasures? May the gods have mercy!

      To resurrect myself, I pick up a more standard sex mag. Here she was on the cover—some lass with an I.Q. of 69 trying to leer back while seeming passionate. The faces of these cover dollies! Pancakes. A layer of skin with proper nose-size, proper lip-size, proper eye-size, proper ear-size, proper chin-size. That many men go to hell for these darlings is not my fault. I do suppose the photographers must realize that they are wasting flashbulbs upon female morons. But the editors, who write the copy under these photos, always attempt to invest these things with both intelligence and understanding. Soul, if you’ll buy it.

      Now, here’s a shot of Lila. This time, just her head. She’s pensive. She’s so damned pensive that she’s thrown her delicious head down into some green brush. That’s getting there, think of it. But the eyebrows are plucked and the mascara is still there, even down in the green brush. All right, Lila, get up. That one’s over. Now you see her leaning on a fence. She talks to animals. Mother Nature is her mother. Look at her in that Indian headdress! Jesus Christ. O, Lila, I’d like to have you in that Indian head-dress! But what’s that blotch on her back? How’d they let that get in there?

      Now, here’s Tanya. She loves water. First photo you see, there’s water spilling all over her big tits. Wow. The next photo doesn’t make much sense at all. Her butt is spread over a frog pond. She seems to be screaming. Constipated? Now she’s standing behind a highly polished table. There are candles everywhere. Her tits hang down. She looks at you. What the hell? You think. What am I supposed to do? I’m told that she cries a lot for no seeming reason. Then one day she walks along under this raining sky and the sky opens a big hole right to the heavens and she gets the answer. She comes to California with her big tits and tail. She studies the dance. She’s learned the discipline of Hatha Yoga. She’s read Ayn Rand, the novelist. Tanya states: “The earth is in trouble.” Profound.

      And here’s Clara. She hides behind rocks. Swims with the fishes. More of the water thing. Water’s the thing, I guess. Keeps the body from stinking. Anyhow, she’s a rivermaid. She’s an enchantress. She has large breasts also. The deeps of the river flash in her eyes, I’m told. Also, she gives her love to the lonely men who swim up the river at night. Too bad. Lonely men don’t swim up rivers at night. They get drunk or kill themselves or go to a movie.

      Here’s Deedee. Deedee somehow came across a volume of and/or on Buddhism and came to Hollywood. Deedee wants to go back to nature. She’s an expert on wild plants and herbs. She also has big tits. She likes the “Jefferson Airplane” but she also enjoys chewing birch bark. Her buttocks look fairly nice.

      I have done my duty. I place the mag back in the rack. I am the last to arrive and now I am the first to leave. I walk toward the Hollywood night and the dark smoggy air. I am almost to the entrance.

      “Hey, buddy!”

      “Yes?”

      “Aren’t you gonna cash in on your token?”

      “No.”

      “Why?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Immediately I see the fear and respect in his eyes. He thinks I am the heat.

      I take out a pack of smokes, light one.

      “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

      He stiffens and doesn’t answer.

      I walk to the parking lot, get into my car, and start the engine. As I do, I imagine one of the photo cover girls telling her shackjob:

      “Ladybug Magazine was by today. They wanted to snap my snatch. I told them it would be a hundred bucks extra.”

      “Atta baby!” says the shackjob. They lean back and watch TV.

      I drive on out, and as I take a left down Hollywood Blvd., I toss the 50-cent token out the window. The night takes it, and I am free.

      Candid Press, November 29, 1970

More Notes of a Dirty Old Man

      I was put in touch with them by somebody who had heard me at a poetry reading and so there I was driving around that part of Hollywood looking for a parking place, and it was hot. I was sweating, and I finally gave up and just drove four or five blocks off, parked and walked back. The walk wasn’t bad because I was following this girl in the mini and she wiggled it at me, and I could have passed her but I didn’t have the strength. She was good for three blocks, then turned into an apartment house. I walked the other block or so, uninspired. I walked up to the guard’s gate. The old woman who ran the switchboard doubled as guard.

      “Yeah?” she asked.

      “My name’s Bukowski. I have an appointment