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Saturday, December 10, 2022

Northshore Notes: Number Two On Her Love List


     You don't see Bukowski quoted much anymore. Well, I don't anyway. Maybe he's read aloud and recited, name-checked and referred to, all the time, in that loud, boisterous discussion about drink and writing and hotel rooms and failed dreams going on somewhere else, among people I never met, just out of earshot. Anyway, I was glad Caren brings him up today.

By Caren Jeskey

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
                                                        — Charles Bukowski
     Alternating, as I do, between experiencing life as a highly intellectualized (often paralyzingly so) artist (with debilitating anxiety at times, causing stage fright that didn't let me stay on any stages when I had the chance), a rigidly righteous intellectual, an unrealistically idealistic creative, and who knows what else, I wish Bukowski were here for a conversation on the topic. And not on Zoom. A face to face talk, with tone, inflection, and body language. The whole bit.
     I’m longing for dinner parties of yore. When we still carried flip phones, or no phones at all, and paid attention to each other for endless hours. Our brains grew, and we laughed. We kissed hello and goodbye on the lips.
     If I’d met Bukowski would he have been drunk? “My beer drunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees of the world.” Or sardonically spot-on? “People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.” Or perhaps a sage for these times? "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."
     Doing a shallow dive into Bukowski this week was prompted by responses to my blog post last week. I wrote about some tough stuff, revealing dark corners of my inner landscape. Some readers and friends responded “I get it. Thanks for saying what I was feeling.” Others replied as though it was a cry for help. A family member even asked if I’ve talked to my therapist. 
     (I am doing okay. Better than okay, probably. But thanks dear readers, for reading at all).
     I found myself wondering if people would give me advice were I a man? I wondered who’d have had the chutzpah to tell Bukowski what to do? After spending way too much time thinking about gender inequity and starting to bristle and being mansplained about, I snapped out of it. I realized “Oh. I can just read some Bukowski.”
     His screenplay "Bar Fly" left one of the deepest impressions a movie has ever made in my life, and further solidified my cinephile ways. I saw the movie when I was 18. Formative years. It made me want more grit. More reality. By that time I had already spent too much time bellied up to dirty bars with sticky floors. (My friend had been dating a 44 year old bartender for years by then).
     I had planned to tell a story today about what a misogynistic, tragic fellow Bukowski was. But I can’t, since now that I’ve looked back at his words I realize I’ve been thinking about him all wrong. Or partly wrong. I attended an eye opening talk this week about implicit bias, led by Sterling Haukom Anderson. She helped us see our biases more clearly. She touched upon the “horns effect,” which occurs “when we see one bad thing about a person and let it cloud our opinions of their other attributes.” I do this more than I realized, now that I look at it. This may seem obvious, but I think it's good to remember that our unconscious biases are doing push-ups in our minds even if we don't know they're there. We learned that "automatic decision-making is an unconscious 'danger detector,'" from Joseph LeDoux's work, Professor of Neural Science, Psychology, Psychiatry, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University. Not a dumb guy.
     I realize that there’s a lot going on in the world, and I do pay attention. But I also realize that the only path to contentment is to have less discord, not more, within ourselves and with others. To learn from others rather than categorizing them. (To be fair, it will be next to impossible for me to learn anything from this crackpot for example but I guess I’ll have to challenge myself to try).
     For today I’ll stay away from upsetting news — life is so damn short and I want to feel more joy dag gummit! — and hold onto a simple truth from a healthier part of my mind. Here it is. This week a child told me she thinks her mother loves her the most out of anyone in the world. She said, “then, I think it’s you.”
     “The hope is a touch of graceful humor, no matter what's occurring. The ability to laugh, the ability to see the ridiculous, the ability not to tense up too much, when things become impossible, just to face them anyhow.”                                                                                                               — Charles Bukowski

16 comments:

  1. Bukowski had his problems, don't we all? Still, he had remarkable insights into the human condition and managed to get them down on paper in such a wonderfully poetic fashion. I read his work regularly and gain from it immensely. Life is giggles, wonder, heartache, absurdity, and occasionally horror. The key, as always, is not to obsess on what life throws at us, we have no control over that. The key is how we react to what life throws at us. That allows us to put giggles and wonder at the top of the list of daily sacraments. You are an incredibly thoughtful and interesting person - keep up the great work bearing witness on the journey of life.

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    1. Ditto, Dennis. Thanks for weighing in.

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    2. The anon comment was me — Caren (not logged in).

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  2. "She touched upon the “horns effect,” which occurs “when we see one bad thing about a person and let it cloud our opinions of their other attributes.”

    Jumping right into the deep end then, like with Kanye West?

    I'm what you'd call an "older white male", and generally at least 10 years behind the current trends in hip-hop, but Ye's older work ('Jesus Walks" comes to mind) caught my ear like any good pop artistry does. His "I'm a suffering Christ" imagery might have been overboard, but there's no denying he touched something in me that caused me to think about the Black experience in UnMeriKKKa, and my relationship to it.

    Yesterday I got an email update from Change.org, a group of charities I regularly contribute to, asking me to sign a petition imploring streaming services to delete Kanye's music from their catalogs.

    Now there are many words that are overused, and used improperly these days, censorship being at the forefront (just ask any garden-variety Proud Boy and I'm sure they'd be glad to enlighten you). So is it just that they ask me to consider this? I say no. Even the currently deranged, antisemitic Drumpf-sucking 'artist formerly known as' Kanye West speaks some sort of truth when he goes off on his rants, that truth being that antisemitism still exists and we need to be vigilant.

    Should he be condemned soundly? Yes.

    Should I be prevented from listening to "Golddigger" on my streaming services?

    Say yes only if you're willing to have someone else tell you what to do with your mind next time. I mean, how many times has it been suggested that Bukowski's writings be banned, in order to make our nation more pure?

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    1. A lot to think about. Thank you. I feel the biggest failing regarding the artist you mentioned is that we are not talking about the gigantic elephant, as usual. Serious untreated mental illness— partly caused by institutionalized racism that has rightly broken the trust of people experiencing the ills (evils?) of intersectionality— compounded by his wealth (that opens up too many doors sometimes) and our idolatry of stars. This time unfolding before our eyes by a person with great talent. The song Moon knocks me off my feet.

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  3. I think you hit on a common thread on today’s blog that includes both you and Neil. Although quite different in style and subject matter, you both address disturbing issues as well as subjects that are totally unrelated that simply entertain and are often educational.
    You both share emotions that range from furious to sad to elating.
    It’s all very much appreciated.
    We can be, and I believe must be, aware of what’s going on but still find all the good that life provides.

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    1. I agree. It’s good to (almost) be at this awesome dinner party.

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  4. I experienced agoraphobia for many years after the tragic death of my closest friend just before my first marriage .

    When I finally sobered up I realized for me cannabis exacerbated this condition.

    After seeking psychiatric help and finding Dr. Lee Gladstone I was able to return to function using devices I was taught to combat my condition. Some 40 years later I still experience echoes of this anxiety and during coevid, alone and with feelings of dread I relapsed into drinking.
    Got a fews days behind me again . Am navigating this strange new world best as I can.

    Grateful for a second second chance

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    1. Hi Franco! Welcome back. The field of addiction treatment— and even free (secular) support— has grown tremendously. With increasing knowledge about brain functioning & neuroplasticity there’s more hope. Please email me if you’d like some resources. My full name at Gmail.

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    2. Franco, previous msg was from me.

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  5. It's been some time since I've thought of the wonderful and wild Bukowski. I'll be searching through my boxes of older boxes this weekend. Thanks!

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    1. I recall reading some of Bukowski's writings in underground hippie papers in the late Sixties and seeing some of the 1980s comic books that he and R. Crumb collaborated on in the 1980s. But all that was a long time ago, and I don't remember much about either his words or his comics. For once in my life, I cannot post a comment.

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    2. But you commented anyway, which I enjoy!

      Lemme Google that Collab for ya: https://www.openculture.com/2017/08/three-charles-bukowski-books-illustrated-by-robert-crumb.html

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  6. Another fine post, Caren, prompting some compelling comments, as well.

    "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."

    I've found that quote to be very applicable to these times, as well, and decided to look it up after reading it here. It's included in this piece from "Quote Investigator," but the citation they use differs from that wording and it applies to writers. Evidently, similar observations were made by W.B. Yeats and Bertrand Russell. Russell's version was from an essay in which he "lamented the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany" in 1933. No wonder it seems sagacious with regard to our benighted nation today.

    https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/04/self-doubt/

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    1. Thanks for reading Jakash, and thanks for that information. Speaks to the idea that no thought is original, yeah?

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