Original subtitles

Okay.

You don't like nature.

Whores are natural.

The trees, the countryside...

They bore me.

Carl Weisner took us through a trip through Germany, showing us all the hills

and the hill with the greenness. I started nodding off.

Shit, one time I was giving a poetry reading up in Oregon

or Washington somewhere.

Some guy was driving us

after the reading where I'm supposed to rape

an English teacher, a female teacher

by the time I got there I was so dulled I couldn't even get my dick up.

Trees, greeness...

It's okay! It's okay, but I mean it can finally be deadening.

It's just like uh green trees...

green trees, green trees, green trees.

Okay!

All right. What are you gonna do with it?

Give me the cities, give me smog.

I like what the kid told me in Paris. The king of the what? The king of the punks?

He said:

"People complain about smog - I love it" and he zipped up and down

And you know there is a way of loving smog

it's not a non-truth, it feels good. You walk out and you go

You're part of it, shit! You're walking through smog, you live through smog

you love the buildings, you love the inflation

There are creatures who adjust to conditions.

There will be fo...smog people, inflation people.

The higher the price. You're gonna go in their place someday

you're gonna, the waitress'll say

"Well, it's a dol..$365 for a a leg sandwich of mutton."

and you'll say: "Is that all? I'm gonna pay you $565

and here's a $365 tip!"

These are the people who are gonna survive, don't you see?

They're ready for inflation. They're ready for smog.

They love it! What's the difference? It's only mental.

Go with it!

Here, have a $500 tip.

No, it's okay.

It doesn't mean anything unless you want to make it mean something. Hell...

So you keep changing governments, you keep changing women,

what's the difference?

Here we're back to women.

You said that starving doesn't create art, that it creates many things

but mainly it creates time.

Oh yeah, well hey, that's very basic. I'd hate to use up your film to say this

But you know

if you work an 8 hour job and you're gonna get 55 cents an hour you're gonna get it

if you stay home you're not gonna get any money

but you're gonna have time to write things down on paper.

I guess I was one of those rarities of, of our modern times who

did starve for his art. I really starved, (you know) to have...

a 24 hour day, unintruded upon by other people.

I gave up food, I gave up everything

just to...I was a nut. I was dedicated.

But you see...

the problem is

you can be a dedicated nut and not be able to do it.

Dedication without talent is useless.

Understand what I mean? -Yeah

Dedication alone is not enough. You can starve and want to do it

Hey, you know? -Just a waste.

I know.

And how many do that?

They starve in the gutters and they don't make it

But you knew you had talent.

They all think they have.

How do you know that you're the one? You don't know.

It's a shot in the dark, you take it or you become

a normal civilized person from 8 to 5.

Get married, have children

Christmas together, here comes Grandma. "Hi Grandma, come on in" "Hi you"

You know.

Shit, I couldn't take that. I'd rather murder myself.

I guess just, in the blood of me couldn't stand

the whole thing that's going on. The ordinariness of life.

I couldn't stand family life. I couldn't stand job life.

I couldn't stand anything I looked at.

I just decided I either had to starve, make it, go mad,

come through or do something.

Even if I hadn't made it on writing

I could not do the 8 to 5, I would've been a suicide, something. I'm sorry.

I could not accept

the snail's pace, 8 to 5.

Johnny Carson.

Happy Birthday. Christmas. New Year.

To me this is the sickest of all sick things.

So I just had to lock a helldown, somebody took a pile of my short stories somewhere.

Now I just sit around and drink wine, and I talk about myself

because you guys ask the questions. Not because

I give the answers.

Okay? -Okay.

So one time I'm working in this comic book house

and these two clerks got in an argument about...

comic books. Somebody counted a rack of a

a stack of comic books wrong. The other one's arguing about, I said:

"Jesus Christ. This job isn't even, a comic book house.

It isn't even worth arguing about."

"Well, that's the first time we heard you speak, in a couple of weeks."

"We all know you always think you're a genius."

"We know you think you're a genius! We know you think you're a genius!"

I saw all these teeth come out. All the faces

I wasn't trying to be a genius, I just didn't want to be in a comic book house.

I want to be out in the park. I want to be sailing down a river in a sailboat

I want to- anything decent. I could not resign myself

to the 8 hour job of nothingness. I could not understand it.

That's all. So I bummed and I bummed and I bummed.

It was one job after another. It was a park bench...

It was a job in Dallas. It was a job in Atlanta. It was a job in Miami.

Name the city somewhere south, I been there.

And that's how one day you ended up in Philadelphia?

Oh yeah, Philadelphia. First I ended up in New York.

Then, New York was so bad I thought: "I want to go to a nice, shady, quiet city."

"Everything is calm, the people are decent, there's no trouble."

"Philadelphia, what do they call it? The City of Brotherly Love."

"I'll just go there where people are dumb. They don't fuck with anybody."

I went there, it was tougher than New York.

They killed on the streets, they bribed the cops.

My first night in this bar I'm writing about, that's what appeased me, attracted me.

I walked in half dead, I just went in for a beer.

It wasn't even a night, it was about one in the afternoon. I walked in

and the place was packed, it was in a poor neighborhood.

I sat down, drank a beer, looked around.

It was packed! Everybody was crazy and drunk. They were all drinking beer but

all of a sudden

here came a bottle flying through the air.

This guy next to me I find out his name's Danny Freely, turns and that, he says:

"You ever do that again man, I'll kill you!"

I said: "Boy, this is the place I want to be. Something's finally happening."

Another bottle flew by, through the air. Crash!

The bartender just poured another drink, he didn't say anything. I said:

"This my Nirvana, everything's happening. Open...violence. Decent open violence."

And then, two guys got in a fight. They start slamming it around

and I went to take a piss- they're still fighting. And I went right through them,

I said: "Okay pardon me, gentlemen." And they both stood aside

and they start fighting again. When I came back they, I said "Pardon me gentleman..."

They start, I said: "This is my heaven."

I'm gonna drink in this bar, I'm gonna fight like this and live like this.

This is the thing that I'm talking about: this bar, this place

You know what happened? That night never repeated again.

It was like they had all planned it for me.

And the same people were there, and I waited and I waited.

I waited 2 1/2 years. I went away a year and I came back

I waited 2 1/2 years again, I sat in a stool. There was never any night

like that first afternoon.

I was trapped into a dream that I wanted.

That's all. Bad shit.

Conversation on a telephone

I could tell by the crouch of the cat

the way it was flattened

that it was insane with prey;

and when my car came upon it

it rose in the twilight and made off

with bird in mouth

a very large bird, gray

the wings down like broken love

the fangs in

life still there but not much,

not very much

the broken love-bird

the cat walks in my mind

and I cannot make him out

the phone rings, I answer a voice,

but I see him again and again,

and the loose wings

the loose gray wings,

and this thing held

in a head that knows no mercy;

I put the phone down

and the cat-sides of the room

come in upon me

and I would scream,

but they have places for people who scream;

and the cat walks the cat walks forever

in my brain.

That was a tough afternoon, saying that

is that the one- that's the way it is, everybody says

that's nature, you know. Nature is not normal.

God is not normal. Nature is not kind. Nature...doesn't give a fuck, man.

And I give a fuck

So when I see something happening, something getting,

something else killing something else I don't like it.

But you know

the real intelligent people say: "Well, that's the way it is, you see."

"This is killing that and this is feeding that"

"and here is the grasshopper, there's this- this feeds upon that. It's all arranged."

Except when something jumps upon them they scream, don't they?

You see

they don't get themselves in with the spider and the fly.

I got myself in

I am the fly, that's the spider you see

They don't get themselve into... they're indifferent to what's happening

Oh, that's interesting. Look

But you see they too are involved

But...

the only is that there's a human going to kill now.

But they don't know it

they're arranging it, but they don't know it.

They're dumb! They're dumb.

Almost all people are dumb.

Ever see people go into a restaurant to order food?

They don't even want to eat food.

They come in because it's time to eat. They're not even hungry.

The more I think of humanity, the less I want to think of them.

Is there anything else you ha... ask me something. Jesus.

You lived in East Hollywood before moving here.

What are the places we could film there?

Nowhere.

The bars are shut down

The Big Twenty

is covered with plywood

like the, like the police have come and nailed plywood across the

front of it with little tacks.

The Big Twenty is closed down like it was a malaria joint.

And that whole neighborhood is very, very dead. I mean, umm...

We used to walk around there and you'd see

pimps and whores hanging around the corners, eating hotdogs,

with mustards dripping down their chins.

There's nothing, there's nobody there anymore.

There's no place to film anything anymore.

I get the feeling the world is more and more drying up.

I don't where the whores are going, where the black pimps are going,

where the music is going.

But my idea in life is

where the black pimps are, where the whores are, where the music is playing

where the bar, where the...

jukeboxes are playing in the bars, where the lights are on,

that's where life is.

That may seem to be a terrible type of life to most people

but you listen to that music and you walk into that bar sometime

and you walk in try to find a barstool

and you sit down and the bartender comes up and serves you a drink

you're glad to get it.

Cause you're in a lively joint where something is happening.

I think degradation, black pimps, prostitution

are the flowers of the earth.

I think those joints, where this is going on

I think there's great happiness

in terror and horror too

but that all counts in adding up

when you walk into a place to get a drink.

It's a liveliness.

When you clean up a city you kill it.

There's no place to film around Hollywood and Western, anymore.

It's dead...dead...dead.

It stinks of death.

The Puritans. The Christians. They've cleaned it up, they've dried it up

like no rose will ever grow there again.

I've always been used because I'm a good guy.

And women when they meet me they say:

"I can use this sonofabitch. I can push him around, he's an easy going guy."

So they do it.

But you know, finally I get to resent it a bit

What do you resent?

Just being pushed.

Pushed?

Yeah.

Just being pushed.

Why do you let yourself to be pushed by this kinda shit? You idiot.

Why do you allow yourself to be pushed by this sort of thing?

I've told you a thousand times to leave, you won't leave. I've told -Wait a minute

No wait, that doesn't have anything to do with it -Get an attorney to tell you to leave

Why do you continually allow yourself to be pushed?

Because I'm kind-hearted, I give the other person another chance.

You do? - I've given you dozens of chances.

You keep pushing and pushing

and you keep laughing at me. That's why I'm gonna tell you

I'm getting an attorney and I'm gonna get your ass moved out of here.

She thinks I don't have the guts. She thinks I can't live without her.

I can move your ass out of here so bright and so fast with a Jewish attorney

you're gonna feel like your ass is skinned, baby.

You think that you're the last woman on earth that I can get?

Never had a thought about it. - Yeah, well...

you better start thinking.

I'm turning you over to the next.

Next what?

The next guy, he can have you. I won't be the least bit jealous.

Your...bull shit, all your goddamn... stay out every night bull shit.

I don't need the kinda woman you are

I don't need your shit, baby.

I don't need it

What about the hostess?

I don't need them either.

See what Linda doesn't realize, when I met Jan,

she pushed the shit that Linda's putting on me now.

Out every night, showing up 5:30 -Not every night.

I don't want you to give these people that impression, because it's not true.

Okay, then you're not out every night. Okay. -That's better. -All right.

Linda's not out every night -Thank you. Thank you very much.

You know what a fucking hunk of phony shit you are?

I hate liars.

You lied right into their faces, you cunt.

Just then? -Yeah... I did not.

You were out five nights in a row, last weekend. You came in at 5:30 one night,

3:30 the other. The night before last you came in at 2:01am

There was a reason for every one of those nights -Hey...

And I told you about them and you simply wouldn't accept them.

Of course not, would you accept my nights out? -Yes I would!

I invited you along every time, I said come you can see, nothing is happening. Come.

Don't enjoy. Just come and understand that there is something

that I am doing. That I require. I need to do

in my life! And it's not bad, it's not against you

it doesn't make me love you less.

It might even...

permit me to love you more.

Listen -You don't see that.

I don't want a woman out six nights a week after 2am in the morning.

I don't care what the excuse is. -It wasn't like that for six nights a week.

The month of May you were out fifteen nights past midnight.

It's true. The calendar is marked.

So what? -So what.

This is why, I'm gonna get an attorney -What do you think? What? Wait a minute!

to get you off of my ass. -Wait! Wait! Wait!

Why are you so offended by... -Why should I tolerate you?

Why are you so offended by me

doing something else?

Because I live with a woman or she lives with me, she doesn't live with other people.

I do live with other people and I'm going to for the rest of my life.

I know, I'm gonna turn you over to them. Don't you see? -No, no no.

Like shit! You fucking cunt!

You think you'll walk out on me every fucking night?

You fuckin' whore.

You bitch!

Who do you think I am? Just, I'm gonna do this, live with other people.

I didn't... -You fucking shit!

What's the address here, Hank?

Ah, this is 2122 Longwood Avenue.

The house of horrors,

the house of agony.

The house where I was almost done in, but not quite. I'm still here you see.

This is the lawn that I manicured.

I had to mow it both ways.

This way first, then this way

and I had to get all the hairs with the shears.

If I missed one hair, I got a beating.

One hair.

It's very hard not to miss one hair. Try it some time.

So I always got a beating. In here we have...

a torture chamber.

So, we'll go and see that. -You'll go see a torture chamber, okay?

Well...

this...

is a torture chamber.

This is where I learned, something.

The old man had a razor strap

he used to hang here, and he'd just pick it off...

Drop your pants and your shorts.

I would stand about here

and he would begin.

And I wouldn't know how many lashes he would give me. They'd be hard.

Eight, ten, twelve, fourteen.

And ah, of course you can't help screaming

especially when you're six years old, seven years old.

As I got around to be about

ten, or eleven, or twelve I screamed less, in fact

the last beating I got I didn't scream at all. I just...

didn't make a sound

and I guess that terrorized him because

that was the last one, when I didn't make a sound.

So, uh...

this place holds some memories all right.

I don't know it's just a terrible place to stand and talk about it.

Let's forget it, okay?

You're a small creature and you have a large creature beating upon you

and the mother...

says okay. Okay, this sounds very tearful and like uh...

I'm weeping for mercy or something, but at that time

it's very, very difficult because there's no place to go, there's nothing you can do.

But as we said earlier, and I've said other times

I think my father taught me how to write.

Because, even now in times of difficult problems, I never weep, I never beg.

I go through the next

situation quietly

without

asking mercy. I just move on to the next situation.

I think it's good training.

I don't want that kind of training for anybody.

But for me, now that I've gotten it

it makes me...you know, know things like other people have

get a flat tire, something bad. They go crazy.

I say

well, that's just something bad that happens again. It all, it should happen.

So, I take it better. You know.

I lose a leg, somebody leaves, somebody robs the house.

Yes, well, that's it. You see

they made me ready.

And my father especially...

Since my father's left me I've found others who have taken his place, you see.

Sometimes in female form.

So the father never leaves, even after he's dead.

Fathers always...

No, I was against me.

Not in my heart, he might be under my toenail somewhere like dirty...grime.

Happy night, you know

everybody, you know sometimes you have a good night, everybody's laughing

you're feeling good.

So, while we're going to the store to get more beer, of course I'm buying

I'm one of these type that always buys...

I'm a sucker. Anyhow

so coming back I'm, they're carrying all these six-packs which, how everybody

three or four people, we're all laughing

and all of a sudden this guy comes up. He says:

"Gee, you guys seem to be having a good time"

"You mind if I come along?"

They all said: "Yes, yes, yes!" And I said: "Hey, wait..."

He says: "Oh come on, let me come along." I said: "All right, come on."

So we all in, and we start drinking and drinking.

So, uhh...

There's a piano there. I go to play the piano. The night goes on.

I can't play it, but I play it.

And I'm sitting in a chair-I don't like this guy too much and I'm giving him um...

Oh, what he's doing...

He's talking about the war he's been in and how many people he killed.

And that didn't interest me too much, you know, because in a war...

you can kill people and it doesn't mean anything. It's legal.

It takes guts to kill somebody when it's not legal. Got it?

Okay

So I told him this.

He kept talking, bragging.

About various things: what a good shot he was, how many people he killed.

I said: "Bull shit, Get out of here!" He said: "You don't like me?"

I said: "Yeah, leave."

So he left a while, we're all talking. You know, you drink.

Is a lighter here? -Yes. I keep losing it...

So, uh...

All of a sudden he came back.

He had a gun.

Suddenly I had no friends around me. You know, they kind of disappeared away...

and then he came up behind me, and he said: "You don't like me, do you?"

Well, you know...

this is the point

where people often make a mistake. But I'm only gonna talk about myself.

I, I told him the truth. I said: "No, I don't like you."

So he came up behind me and he put the gun to my temple.

He says: "You still don't like me, do you?"

I said: "No, I still don't like you."

Let me tell you something, I really wasn't frightened

at all.

It was almost like seeing a movie, somewhere...

So he said: "Well, I'm going to kill you."

And I said: "Okay."

Let me tell you something

I said: "If you kill me know..."

"you're gonna do me a favor."

It was true what I told him.

I said: "I'm a suicide case anyhow."

"I've been wondering how to do this thing, now you've solved my problem."

And also, I said:

"P.S. By the way, If you kill me"

"you've solved my problem"

"and you've got a problem."

"You do life in jail"

"or the electric chair, whatever the hell's going ona round here."

There was silence...

I could feel it just pressing on me.

Just stayed there and I didn't say anymore, he didn't say anymore.

Then he put the gun down

and he walked toward the door, and the screen door slammed, he walked out.

And, what I said was really true, you know, it ju...

I had a suicidal, it didn't matter. But he came up a wrong, along...

a wrong, around, in between, on top of the wrong guy.

He came across the nut as bad as he was.

There was no solving

but I think, if the person had, you know, had been me and said:

"Oh no! Don't do it!" He might have done it. You see...

Even though I wanted him to do it.

So later, all my friends came around

"Oh Hank you all ri-" I said: "Yeah, you guys are really great while I was in the"

"You really helped me, didn't you?'

"Just standing, watching. You couldn't have grabbed him from behind or anything"

"Well Hank-" I say: "Okay..."

So later it was discovered

he'd gone into some drugstore

with a gun and did something

smashed somebody with the gun butt, and tried to shoot

and they put him in a madhouse, later.

So, he was really for true, you know

but you know there's nothing like one nut

talking to another, you know. There's nobody

well, there are many so crazy you can't get to them.

But, uh...

I lucked it.

But I was really ready to go. It wouldn't have been a big thing.

And he knew it. If you don't feel the fear, you don't react.

Sometimes. Some don't feel the fear and they still react.

So that's all. No big story.

That's a lady fortune teller there.

I went in there one time.

She read my palm, she said: "You're an alcoholic."

I said: "Really? Do I gamble too?" She says: "Yes, you gamble."

"That'll be five dollars."

Well, this is Hollywood and Western. This is the place.

Look over there, man. Great!

There used to be...cement benches out front

and all the insane people would sit there. And all the people would sit there.

The street people, they'd talk to each other, all day long.

Here at this corner. -Yeah, it's still all right.

Got it?

This is where the people are.

There's the old sex shop. Keeps changing hands.

They used to call this...

The Big, The Big Twenty, but they changed the name now

to The Rail.

Used to have women across the street would sit in the windows.

You'd just say: "I want you."

There's, there's a woman who's not a hooker.

There's a dope dealer.

That's a place I never got a loan, like I told you.

Oh, I been in this liquor store, many a time.

Many a time!

Great place.

There's one of my men.

Bank of America.

All right!

Shit! There's a back of, look at that hotel, man. La Paula Apartment.

Beautiful.

That's all there is. That's all.

Oh, here's a strange place. You know, wanna get stuff about the devil?

You go in there.

You can get all kinds of powder, if you know, you mail them to people and they die.

For 15 cents, you know, something like that, you can kill somebody.

It's nice.

Okay, this is the end of your territory? -This is the end!

They won't let me beyond. They didn't let me beyond.

Where did I get all those stories out of those few blocks?

Well, they came to see me.

The girls, you know.

The most vicious women in the world knocked on my door.

They knew how to find a softy, yeah.

Well...

now I'm all straightened out.

Feel great.

Oh, I miss a little bit of that dirty action now and then. I gotta admit it.

Teaches you where humanity is, you never want to forget that, you know.

You never quite want to forget

who they are, where they come from and how they act.

You don't want to get too far away from that.

This bar used to be called The Playwright -Yeah -Did you go there?

Not too often, just went there 4 or 5 times till they kicked me out. Gave me the 86.

I just went in drunk, I said:

"This place is called The Playwright? Where the hell are the playwrights?"

"The bartender's not a playwright. That guy's not a playwright."

They took offence.

So this is the famous corner? -Yeah, and there's The Pioneer.

It's open all night.

Lots of hookers go up there, you know, late at night.

Guys. Thieves. Murderers.

Get a late snack, get a...

3:30am, get a little bite of something.

After they've rolled somebody, you know.

It's quite chummy and warm there, there are good feelings there.

So, umm...

there go a couple girls there.

Did you get 'em? Good.

Hey man, what's happenin'.

So, umm... -We're gonna go down Western. -All right.

Oh yeah, there's a motel here

I stayed in here after Linda King ran me out one night

she came back, got me and I ended up living with her again.

Terrible mistake.

This motel, a great place, they have a swimming pool.

Used to have.

There it is. -Yes.

I had a terrible hangover and two big fat guys were jumping in it and

they must've weighed 400lbs a piece.

I start laughing at 'em and they came up to get me.

I bolted the door and they're beating on the goddamn door

There was another liquor store there

Used to...and there's some of my friends.

That about covers it.

So you see, you don't have to come to Hollywood now

I've told you all about Holywood and Western.

You got it, relax, forget it.

Go to sleep.

What do you think of then...

the drugs (inadudible)?

Ahh, my favorite subject.

I think a man can

keep on drinking

for centuries.

He'll never die.

Especially wine and beer.

But I've met too many...

young people, especially when I was working for Open City

just smoking marijuana

within a two year period who were intelligent at first

and after two years of marijuana they just came around like:

"Hey! Hey! How you doing?"

I'm gonna be one of the first to say...

that marijuana is very, ultimately, destructive.

And then finally, there'll be government studies to prove

that it's totally harmful. Much more harmful that's ever been

exposed to have been.

Cause I've seen it through people.

they just end up:

"Hey...hey..."

I don't like that. I like drunkards, man, because drunkards

they come out of it, they're sick and they spring back, they spring back and forth.

But even the light drug freaks, they're just...

"Okay. Okay." It's like...

all mind circulation, all spirit has been cut off.

I've met good old alcoholics

you know, this old guy Jim... I don't know if he's in...

Yeah. He's in port. He's a great old guy, got drunk every night

but his face was human, you know, he'd talk to you, he'd say:

"Well, Hank..." He'd talk a definite language

these other, you know these kids

There's um...

so...yeah. I'm anti-drugs. Put me down.

It's a very,

very lousy way to go.

Just, out of what I've seen.

I can't call it.

Be an alcoholic.

If you gotta be anything, be an alcoholic.

What a...what can you dream?

Alcoholism...

well...

or drunkness. If I hadn't been a drunkard

I probably would have commited suicide long ago.

You know, working the factories, the eight hour job.

The slums. The streets.

Okay

you work a god damn lousy job, you know.

You come home at night, you're tired.

What are you gonna do, go to a movie?

Turn on your radio

in a three dollar a week room?

Or, are you gonna rest up and wait for the job the next day, for $1.75 an hour?

Hell no! You're gonna get a bottle of whiskey and drink it.

And go down to a bar and maybe get in a fist fight.

And meet some bitch, something's going on.

Then you go to work the next day, and do your simple little things, right?

But you're not, gonna just...

do your 8 hour job and go back to your place in a bicycle factory.

This guy told me, I was working in a, he said:

"You can have a job here all you like, if you want."

Great!

Wow! I mean alcohol...

gives you the release of the dream without the deadness of ahh...drugs.

You know, you can come back down. You have your hangover to face.

That's the tough part. You get over it, you do your job. You come back.

You drink again.

I'm all for alcohol, I'll tell ya.

It's the thing.

I loved murder. I loved anybody who tried to murder me cause I had a suicide complex.

So they told me anybody who walked in there who wasn't known would be murdered.

So, of course, any suicide would walk in there.

So, I walked in and uhh...

they didn't fulfill their promise.

Because you talked to the wife of a gangster, I think I remember.

Said: "You talk to here, you're dead, man" So, I went right up and talked to her.

She was a good looker.

And, you know, like any other woman

she played right along with me. Says: "Hi, how ya doing?" Shook her head. I said:

"I'm doin' all right, baby." Well, I wasn't, had about $13 in my wallet.

So, uh...

some guy came up.

Well, there were two big, you know how these Italians look.

And they're both glaring at me,

but you know, when death is there, death looks like anything...

Death can look like a milk bottle or a milk carton or, or a...

death can take any form. Human, the human form doesn't even matter.

This guy came down...

You know when a tough guy tries to be tough and you're ready for death

it doesn't matter. He came down. He said: "Hey buddy"

Oh, she went to take a leak, that's what happened.

You have to go down this long stairway down. I found out later.

"I'll be back. I have to go to the ladies room to powder my..."

I don't know if she said that.

I said: "Okay, baby. I'll be here."

Meanwhile she said: "You know what my favorite song is?"

"Her Tears Flowed Like Wine."

So, I kept going to the jukebox

and I went, must've been a nickel or a dime in those days. I think it was a nickel.

I kept pumping nickels into the damn thing.

So all night long was "Her Tears Flowed Like Wine".

And I love it, I like that song myself. So it got me all hyped up.

So some-while she was down there

this big moose came up. He said:

"Hey, man." I said: "Yeah..." He said:

"You know..."

"You know what you're doing?' I said: "Yeah, I don't know. Yeah..." He said:

"You're messin' with the boss' girlfriend."

I said: "Yeeeaaahhhh?"

He said: "You know what that means?"

He said: "You know what that means, man. Lay off and get your ass outta here now!"

"Yeeeaaahhhh?

I was a nut, you know.

So, he walked down, they both looked at each other and she came up. And I said:

"Put some more money in the juke, baby. Her Tears Flowed Like Wine." We're thinking

Got my arm around her, "Her Tears Flowed Like Wine", we're going like this.

These two guys are looking-the boss is out of town somewhere evidently.

And this is a tough, Philadelphia joint.

I'm still drinking. So, finally I gotta take a piss.

So, I walked down...and I go down the stairway and I saw the...

Finally I hear these two guys, each step I take, they're kinda in rhythm.

you know, I hear these two big guys, at the bar, they're behind me, like

they're like two big shadows, each time I could take a step they come boom, boom

But you know, I feel no fear.

No fear at all.

And I go down, and they're both standing behind me.

And they're waiting. I unzip and I start pissing

They're both standing and all of a sudden I feel this arm raising. I don't even move

I feel it coming down. I stand there. It goes...aaagh!

I finish zipping, I piss up.

I finish pissing, I zip up.

I piss up and I finish zipping. Okay, either way.

So, I turn around and they both look at me.

And one of 'em says to the other:

That's us...oh no, wait, I say:

"Pardon me gentlemen. I want to get through here."

And I start going up the stairway and the other guy says:

"That sonofabitch is crazy! You can't kill him."

So, I went upstairs again, I said: "Bartender..."

"two more drinks."

The jukebox has stopped playing

I went up and put in some more coins and it was: "My tears flowed like wine".

And the bartender didn't wanna come up. I said:

"Hey man I told you, I wanted some more to drink for me and my lady. Now, come here!"

And he very hesitantly came up, he finally poured me-looked at the other two guys.

I was sitting there all night.

And finally the night went on.

The bar closed

and I noticed this bar was different from the other bars.

Because when the front door closed

all the people stayed inside and they kept pouring drinks, except the lights went out.

And so, I don't, I'm talking but I really wasn't interested in her.

I was just trying to prove

that I was not afraid.

And I guess that's a weakness, when you try to prove you're not afraid.

But I still had the weakness, but I didn't even want to fuck her.

She, I don't know, she looked like. I wasn't even interested in her.

It was just the challenge that somebody else wanted.

I was supposed to pretend to want, that they were supposed to want.

And I think they finally knew that I kept dragging, drinking. Then finally

about...3:30am, the bar opened.

We all went outside, we're singing songs.

We got our arms around each other. The bitch is gone somewhere, I don't even care.

And finally a guy says: "Hey,"

"Hank." They learned my name. He says:

" Man, we really love you. You got the guts."

"You're a madman. You're insane. You got the courage."

"You're beautiful. You know what we want?" I said: "What?"

"We want you to join our gang."

"We're the toughest gang in Philadelphia. We want you man, you've got what we need."

I said: "Shit! I don't fuck with that kind of shit, you guys."

"I gotta go away."

"It was nice being with you."

"Goodnight, babies." And I just walked off all by myself. I had to...

well, I shoulda gone this way, but see they were all standing here.

I had to circle the whole block, go back to my rooming house room.

Then I, no. What I did, I was smarter than that.

While I was trying to circle this way

a police car came by, and I said: "Hey!"

"I been blackjacked. Somebody tried to take my money."

I was in need of medical attention. I was bleeding like mad.

So they took me to a hospital

The cops? -Yeah, yeah.

So they said: "Who robbed you?" And I said:

"Well, officers. You're not gonna believe this."

"But it was two sailors who jumped me from behind."

"They tried to take my money and I fought 'em. I fought 'em off."

"You really?" And I said: "Yeah..."

So, I was sitting there and they're, everybody's on my side. They said:

"Well, it could be two sailors." Everybody was very sympathetic toward me.

But the nurse who was playing with my head

she had beautiful legs.

And she had them crossed. All of a sudden drunkeness got across from me, I went:

"Oh, you bitch!" And I started playing with her fucking knee.

And the cop said: "Oh oh! This guy's no fucking good."

And they just stood up and they said: "Get him out of here!"

And the doctor said: "Okay. Okay, we'll let him go. We'll get him out." So they

pushed me out of there.

But I did get my stitches in my head which are still here.

Feel that bump? -I know. I know.

So that's, that's one of those bar stories, eh?

Ahh, God...

And that whole gang

I was sitting in the other bar about, three days later and I said:

"You hear what ha-what helped, what, what

happened up at uh...

We'll call it Murphy's.

"The cops came in. I knocked over some tables."

"Two guys shot some guns. One guy got killed."

"They all got locked up."

So, thank God I didn't join that gang.

Just now, we're living here, we have our little garden.

Our three kitties, right? See?

I do all the right things, don't I baby?

Part of the time. -Huh? Shit.

Oh, I told you I'm not a guru.

I'm not a leader.

I drink my wine, I play the horses and I type poems. That's all there is you see.

I have nothing to say about anything.

There's nothing to say. The less I say the better I feel.

You ever tried keeping quiet all day long?

The moment you awake

till you go to sleep. And better yet

just sleep all day long and forget the day.

Get up the next day, you'll feel great.

People do too much, they say too much.

There, I'm giving directions but you know what I mean. -Yeah, I do.

Forget it.

That's my problem.

I'm usually living with a woman.

I try not to, but somehow I find myself with...

one.

When I'm alone

I'm handling my own propositions. I always, or usually...

when I'm alone.

I have periods where, you know, when I feel a little weak or depressed.

Fuck it! The Weaties aren't going down right.

I just go to bed for three days and four nights

pull down all the shades and just go to bed. Get up. Shit. Piss.

Drink a beer down and go back to bed.

I come out of that completely re-enlightened for 2 or 3 months. I get power from that.

I think someday...

they'll say this psychotic guy knew something that...

you know in days ahead and medicine, and how they figure these things out.

Everybody should go to bed now and then, when they're down low

and give it up for three or four days.

Then they'll come back

good for a while.

But we're so obsessed with, we have to get up and do it and go back to sleep.

In fact

there's a woman I'm living with now, get's around 12:30, 1pm, sh-I say:

"I'm sleepy. I want to go to sleep." She says:

"What? You want to go to sleep, it's only 1pm!"

We're not even drinking, you know. Hell, there's nothing else to do but sleep.

People are nailed to the processes.

Up. Down. Do something. Get up, do something, go to sleep. Get up.

They can't get out of that circle.

You'll see, someday they'll say: "Bukowski knew."

Lay down for 3 or 4 days till you get your juices back

then get up, look around and do it.

But who the hell can do it cause you need a dollar.

That's all. That's a long speech, isn't it? But it means something.

It's always

trying to avoid being swallowed by machinery.

Yeah, basically all was, every inch of

even when you walk in, you meet a waitress, you know, she walks up and says:

"You wanna cup of coffee?"

Right there it starts

cause you don't even know if you want a cup of coffee cause she...

Either she's up too fast or she's around too long.

It's always questions and answers and they have to fit.

We're never allowed to...

you know?

That's why...

we all enjoy seeing madmen, in movies or something.

We admire them

because they're doing exactly what they want to do. It might be...

cutting heads off of little girls and putting them all in the bathtub or something

We admire that creature

because it's aligned to do exactly what it wants to do.

And the closer you get to exactly what you want to do

the better you are as a human creature.

Or as any kind of thing.

This wood, anything.

It's waiting to get burned. Let's forget that.

But, you know my point

So, if you get... -People are pointless!

Shit.

One more poem.

What is it?

Oh...that's not any good.

The Tragedy of the Leaves.

I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,

the potted plants yellow as corn;

my woman was gone and the empty bottles like bled corpses

surrounded me with their uselessness;

the sun was still good, though,

and my landlady's note crackled in fine and undemanding yellowness;

what was needed now was a good comedian,

ancient style

a jester with jokes upon absurd pain;

pain is absurd because it exists,

nothing more;

I shaved carefully with an old razor

the man who had once been young

and said to have genius;

but that's the tragedy of the leaves,

the dead ferns, the dead plants;

I walked into a dark hall

where the landlady stood

execrating and final,

sending me to hell,

waving her fat, sweaty arms

and screaming

screaming for the rent

because the world has failed us both

Good poem, even if it's an oldie.

But I write much better shit now.

What's the difference?

The difference is, there is no differnce. I write the same thing, over and over.

The difference is...

area.

But, you know the terror

is always there.

The ugliness is always there.

There's no way out.

You can get a beautiful woman living with you and she can be more ugly

than putting your quarter into a newspaper stand and lifting it up.

Taking out the next days news.

There's never any escape

from anything at all.

You're always going to be burnt.

There is never any pleasantness,

easiness anywhere.

You'll be burnt down to the grave.

No matter how much you know, no matter how much you feel you're gonna be burnt,

burnt...burnt...burnt.

Till the last minute you breathe.

Till you open a cap on a mustard jar, you're gonna be burnt.

If you open up a can of cat food, you're gonna be burnt.

Everything is burning. All you're trying to do...

is walk across a room and drink a glass of water and take it easy.

There's always things burning, ripping at you.

It's the whole universe.

It's everything.

Women. Men. Friends. Everything.

Rips and tears...

Rips and tears...

all you wanna do...

The best seems, a good eight hour sleep. If you can get it.

If you can't, you might as well get drunk. Hell.

What are we gonna do, you stupid fuck?

Let's go to Paris and burn the town down. Shit, man.

Oh! -What, you don't hear anything?

No, we have a... -The mike disappeared again.

There should be a camera doing what we're trying to do.

Wait, I can't find it.

Linda.

Oh, I feel something. What? Something's coming out, something's going down.

Wait, what is it? Is this all right?

Can you hear?

There's a little clip.

Well, Henry Miller's dead. They gotta find somebody...dying.

Jesus! We had to done this with Henry in his last days.

Yeah.

He appeared on all the talk shows.

Baby, you're not gonna get, oh this is just as bad, isn't it?

Next question. Shit. -No...

Why you don't want to go on a talk show?

Going to a talk show...

Okay.

A man begins typewriting with a typewriter, generally...

he's got a tiny room somewhere, and he begins...

telling something

I won't say that it's bothering him, but it's something must come out.

And it just comes out naturally

like a firecracker exploding. You put a match to it, it blows up.

And this process goes on a while and it's a very good process. And all of a sudden

you get a letter in the mail, the royalties get a little better. And somebody says:

"I'll give $375 to appear on a talk show for 15 minutes."

Uh, the other guests will be

so-and-so and so-and-so.

And you know what, they bite on it.

How can they have the strength to begin with, to be original...

and then have the very non-strength to appear on a talk show

and sit in a chair

and...

say little, unreal things because

they're not gonna say anything real, sitting with the other people.

Why do they do it? I don't know.

It's like swallowing your own vomit.

I was gonna say, if you ever catch me on a talk show...

Okay!

You can shoot me. No.

The only talk show I'd go on would be Dick Cavett

because that's the only guy I respect.

To go on Merv Griffin or, Johnny Carson, or any of those

is swallowing your own vomit.

I know you would go. Don't look at me.

I am me, you are you.

I'm speaking to my companion.

My female companion.

Of the moment.

No...

it's really bad. I don't see how an instinctive...

person can have that non-instinct to finally bite the poison they've been trying to avoid.

I don't know what else to say. It's just, it's just death.

This whole place is diseased with the presence of everybody but myself.

Now, Linda's gonna come back. I'm not gonna be happy when she comes back.

Pretend, I say: "Hi..."

I just don't like people. I only like myself.

There's something wrong with me.

I don't know what it is

but I'm not gonna try to cure it.

All I want is what I am. I'm gonna keep pumping up

what I love.

You smell a rose up your asshole

your asshole is dead shit to begin with it doesn't matter if there are roses up it

or a thorn's dick!

God! You people don't understand any invented decency of any sort.

You're just so subliminal to,

sublimal, subliminal...

to whatever occurrence. You just ride

tendered little wave of nowhere.

You have no original courage of definition.

You're all flat-pancaked mamas with syrup spilled over your head.

You have nothing. You have no direction.

You have no motive.

All you want is money.

You don't even would money is. You want it

but when you get it you wouldn't even know what to do with it.

Just smear it up your asshole and swallow it.

Out your nostrils of death.

And I know less than you, either.

Even though I talk about it

at least I smooth it out and dance it around.

Which makes more

sense than just letting it sit.

I'm pretty clever in spite of my dumbness. Don't worry.

I handle my asshole. Turd twirl.

Okay, next question, next poem.

Shit.

I'm sure you've all been at places like this.

The Man at the Piano.

The man at the piano plays a song he didn't write

sings words that aren't his

upon a piano he doesn't own

While people at tables eat, drink and talk

the man at the piano finishes to no applause,

then begins to play a new song he didn't write

begins to sing words that aren't his

upon a piano that isn't his

and as the people at the tables continue to eat, drink and talk

when he finishes to no applause

he announces over the mike

that he's going to take a ten minute break.

He goes back to the men's room, enters a toilet booth, bolts the door,

sits down,

pulls out a joint, lights up.

he's glad he's not at the piano

and the people at the tables - eating, drinking and talking

are glad he isn't there either.

This is the way it goes almost everywhere with everybody and everything

as, fiercefully in the hinterlands,

the black slum burns.

You know, sometimes I've walked down the streets, you know, and I've felt like

you wanna reach out and grab this woman and do it, but you think

just before you reach you think, why haven't other men

reached and

you think

because there's a penalty for this.

We're all screened.

We're screened through the years.

It's very interesting. Do you realize

how well we're screened?

But then, they think they've screened us, and all of a sudden we fool them finally.

On some bright day, in some special place.

And we cut of their legs, their arms, their heads. Float them down the river

laugh and drink our wine, and eat our chocolate cake.

Okay.

So...

We;re all that way. Not only me, but you and you and you.

We're all rapists. We're all murderers.

It's just...while I'm not a murderer.

It's just, can we get away with it.

It's what holds us back.

I think.

Or maybe I'm wrong.

I hope I'm wrong.

I've admired all men,

like Adolf Hitler.

All gross

evil creatures have something

because they don't believe in the rules. I mean you're supposed to-this is not right

These guys just come out and say: "I'll do..." Well, you know.

But they, they;re, they have escaped from all teachings.

And so...

The rest of you men or...says: "They're insane. They're insane."

What happens when these evil men start attracting followers?

Well, if enough evil men attract enough followers

and the followers spread all over the earth then they become good men.

Then we need new evil men to overthrow

Evil is what most people don't do well by people who do the other thing.

Celine was evil.

Well, all the good men are evil, that I can think of

only using in

the terms of human terms they say this man is evil.

To me the evil men are the good men. You see, it's all reversed.

Anybody who can see the opposite of what's going on

I think is exceptional.

Like, any place you go you see a long line of people standing

You see another line, you see a line of fifty people standing in one line

and four people standing in another

You know which line you get into, don`t you baby?

You always get in the line of ten people

and you'll be better off.

No matter what? Politically... -Right. Automatically

in any way? -It's because the masses are always wrong.

You see a line of 1000, a line of 800, a line of 50, a line of 12,

a line of 2...

If you just see an open place

waiting for

nobody's gonna go there. Go right there, and that's going to be it.

Wisdom...

is doing everything the crowd does not do.

All you do is reverse

the totality of their learning

and you have the heaven they're looking for.

It's true...Yeah. -That's how you win at the track.

Well, that's how I break even at the track

and why they lose.

So, uh, yeah...

It's a basic wisdom.

Wherever the crowd goes, run in the other direction.

They're always wrong.

Through centuries they're wrong and they will always be wrong.

Look.

There's a sense of human privacy

I believe that everybody...should have.

And if they come in with three heads on, that's their business.

Now, if I come in with four heads on, that's my business.

You just take a glance and go back say, well...

I'll have french fries and onions, you know. That's it.

It's what I call

style.

Style...

is very important.

A sense of

decency.

If we have nothing else left, amongst our

carnivorous, glutinous,

anti-human, anti-life ways, we should have a minor sense of style

left in all the rubbish.

We should realize, well, we're all dead, we're all fucked up

but at least give us a glance and settle with our indifferences.

and order our meals, and leave each other alone.

That's a graceful sense of style, that's all.

Why stare? Why, if you stare

you're trying to defeat

and say I am better than you are.

Of course I am better. I don't have to glance and stare.

Yes?

The style is

applies

to everything.

Not to the writing but to

well, the whole way of behaving. Not only at staring, but...

I think style is more important

I always like to use that: more important than truth. You know, like I say.

Endurance is more important than truth,

I think all things are more important than truth.

If we keep thinking of truth, we're not going to get there.

But we do, we do all things outside of truth and we may arrive there.

But we don't search for truth.

We do everything except the truth.

You understand? We just don't fuck with truth.

We don't go to temples.

We don't go to special occasions.

We sit in small rooms, pull down the shades

and jack-off or read a magazine.

That's the truth.

Right then.

The further away I am from the human race

the better I feel.

Even though I write about the human race

the further away I am from them, the better I feel.

Two inches is great, Two miles is great.

2000 miles is beautiful.

As long as I'm able to eat.

They feed me

because I feed them.

But I don't like to be near them.

When somebody even brushes against me with an elbow, in a crowd, I react.

I do not like the human race.

I don't like their heads. I don't like their faces.

I don't like their feet. I don't like their convesations.

I don't like their hairdos. I don't like their automobiles.

I don't like their dogs or their cats or their roses.

Earthquake.

Americans don't know what tragedy is.

A little 6.5 earthquake can send them to chattering like monkeys

A piece of chinawear broken

The Union Rescue Mission falls down.

6:00 am

they sit in their cars, they're all driving around. Where are they going?

A little excitement has broken into their canned lives.

Stranger stands next to stranger.

Chattering gibberish fear

anxious fear, anxious laughter

My baby, my flowerpot

my ceiling, my bank account,

This is just a tickler, a feather

and they can't bear it.

Suppose they bombed the city as other cities have been bombed

not with an A-bomb but with ordinary blockbusters,

day after day.

Every day as has in other cities of the world

If the rest of the world can only see you today

Their laughter would bring the sun to its knees

and even the flowers would leap from the ground like bulldogs

and chase you away to where you belong.

Forever that is.

And who cares where it is as long as it's somewhere

away from here.

I'm not interested in solving the ills of society.

I don't want to save the world.

I don't even want to save me.

I think...most talk is so boring.

I mean, save this, do that, do this

I think...we're all so boring say everything

we don't even want to save ourselves, we're so boring talking about it.

There's nothing left to say.

We;re so fucking boring.

Let it die, I say.

Let there be a new beginning.

It's awful.

Goodnight.

Fucking thing's been shut off for 20 minutes by now.

You guys don't fool me.

Shit!

And you missed the best part.

No.

All right then.

Do you think there is

there is absolutely no way the

the human condition can be improved?

Well, you know anybody asked that question would have to

swallow a martini and an olive before answering it.

Would you ask me that again?

I mean, do you think that there is no way that

anything can be improved in the troublings

of man and the problems of man?

I would say... -Like maybe the rent control or

I would say,

if you're really serious

I would say we would need less

God guru spiritual outlets

which allow people to...

escape their pains in another

God form in other, in order to exist.

In other words, if you have an alter God up there that you can

crawl to

after you've been defeated all day long

by a guy you're working a 14 hour day for

$6 an hour or

$3 an hour.

Well...

then you're only helping that man.

In other words, I would say the only way humanity can escape

what is bothering them a little bit

is by removing

the creatures in the sky and coming down and facing

what's looking at them.

But you're not gonna get them to do that.

So they're going to keep on accepting

their bad husbands, their bad wives, their bad jobs,

their bad whores, their bad children,

because they have gods up in the sky. Later...

who are gonna solve all these things for them

when it's all unscrambled after they've died, you see.

But after you die is no time to unscramble things.

And they can't even be unscrambled now, but they can be

a few kinks can be taken out of the

air hoses. So you can breathe a little better.

I'm not a guru.

I wish you wouldn't pose these things on me, man.

Ask me about women or something.

The only time I've been felt desperate for company is when I've been set up

by a broad.

Like, you know, they make you used to them. You know, some...

long red-haired bitch, walking around with her hair.

Looking at herself in the mirror. Putting on lipstick, talking.

They cause the vacancy when they're gone.

But it's not a true vacancy, you see.

What you're trying to do is find someone to substitute for

what is gone when they are gone. But this is not you.

This is what they have built in you.

The vision that they want.

But if they stay

over

six or seven days,

two or three weeks

it heals, you don't need anybody. You don't need a replacement.

What it is, is just a mirage or somebody you think you need, you see.

I go with Ibsen's...

the strongest men are without gods.

I think it was Ibsen.

If it wasn't, whoever said it was a fine gentleman.

So, when yout talk about the gods it's mostly about your luck.

And you talk very often about the luck.

The luck. The luck.

And, uh...luck

we can go into that for centuries, uh...

it's talent mixed with

circumstance mixed with

being there at a certain spot when somebody is looking at you.

That's all. I have no more to say.

Do you think there are many people that are...

No.

There isn't any undiscovered talent laying around under the bushes.

It's just not there. In fact, as time goes more and more on

there seems to be an attrition

of natural

creative talent. I guess it is

the crush of the numbers upon the earth. And also...

the fact that we're all narrowed down through uh...

shit like television, newspapers, communication.

Communication is the greatest destroyer of talent

because it makes everybody like everybody else. And the only way...

a child who

you must start as a child to become original

is to be shut out

from

these forces of communication.

And, the only way you can do that is to have cruel parents

to be burried under ground for six months or something terrible.

The brilliant child cannot be brilliant because he's taught to be brilliant.

You see, he must be the counterpart to all these

forces that are telling him what to do.

It gets harder and harder for a child

to become individual because they're more and more melded together into one piece.

So as time goes on and on

it's gonna be more and more difficult.

We're gonna have to look in, uh...

little places in Africa and then...

Okay, this sounds very dismal but

that's it. The chance of genius becomes less and less.

The others say it becomes more and more.

But it's the same kind of genius that they agree with, you see...

The true genius like Idi Amin,

Adolf Hitler,

and Charles Bukowski

will become less and less and less.

Further questions?

There is something behind the light.

The devil's face.

Generally speaking, you're free till you're about four years old.

And then...

five around, then you go to grammar school and you start becoming

demented and solved in.

Orientated and shoved into areas.

You lose what individualism you have, if you have enough, of course...

you retain some of it.

But most don't have enough so, you become

watchers of game shows, you know, and things like that.

Then you work the eight hour job with almost...

a feeling of goodness.

Like you're doing something.

And you get married like marriage is a victory,

and you have children like children is a victory.

But most things most people do are a total grind. Marriage. Birth. Children.

It's something they have to do because there's nothing else to do.

There's no glory in it, there's no steam, there's no fire.

It's very, very flat.

And the earth is full of them.

Sorry, but...

that's the way I see it.

The Proud Thin Dying

I see old people on pensions in the supermarkets

and they are thin and they are proud and they are dying

they are starving on their feet and saying nothing.

Long ago, among other lies, they were taught that silence was bravery.

Now, having worked a lifetime, inflation has trapped them.

They look around,steal a grape chew on it.

Finally thay make a tiny purchace, a day's worth

Another lie they were taught:

Thou shalt not steal.

They'd rather starve than steal

(one grape won't save them)

and in tiny rooms while reading the market ads they'll starve

They'll die without a sound pulled out of roominghouses

by young blond boys with long hair

who'll slide them in and pull away from the curb

these boys handsome of eye

thinking of Vegas and pussy and victory.

It's the order of things:

each one gets a taste of honey then the knife.

So...

this is um...

where I lived

and drank

and wrote some stories and some poems

and had a hell of a lot of trouble.

I guess trouble make stories, you know.

That's about it. This is the place, I got a lot of work done here.

Great.

This is where you wrote 'Woman' and where most of 'Woman' happens.

A lot of 'em were here, in fact...

I think all of them came here, at one time or another.

There were a lot of them.

Good and bad, mostly bad.

But, I got a book out of it.

That's all it's -Airplane.

Lots of airplanes.

The cops used to circle overhead with their helicopters, shine the light down...

The helicopters used to circle our pad, you know, we'd go out and look at them

nude and naked and leering.

It was great.

They'd say: "No! I'll kill you!:

I'd listen there'd be glass breaking, you'd see shards of glass

flying through the night. You'd hear screaming

but you know the cops never came. It'd go on for two or three hours.

And finally there would be silence of one voice

so you knew somebody would either be dead

or reamed up the ass with a telephone pole or something, but you know

but they got what they wanted.

So, San Pedro's all right but I kinda miss those nights too...kind of interesting.

I always liked the cops never came, in those cases.

The big hype now is to bring up

there's a message goes through the underworld

of all the grapevine, you know, all the bigwigs.

The big message now is to bring up Liz Taylor back to where she used to be.

Now, all the hype and the propaganda is to say

Elizabeth Taylor is a great, beautiful woman.

She's the most wonderful creature of all-time.

Now, all the hype, all the media has been told to do this and they're doing it.

All of a sudden I read the papers and I think

God! She must be some kind of super goddess.

All these films I saw her in were really crappy except the one,

you know, 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?'

Oh, I read on that. Oh, I missed something.

Then,

there's even a quote from J.D. Salinger.

"She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

And, you know when I was a kid,

and I'm 61,

when I saw her as a kid...

now this, okay, I did.

I thought that woman is really ugly. Her face is ugly.

Her eyes are ugly, her mouth is ugly.

And I always thought, Elizabeth Taylor is one of the most ugly women I've ever seen.

She had the most portentous, evil,

grabbing, gross...

She exemplifies the, the...

female creature grabbing for everything

because her lips are formed a little bit like that.

Her eyebrows are a little bit like that, her eyes are a little bit like that,

and her hair is a little bit like that.

That has nothing to do with beauty.

That has things to do with the mada- mathematical equation of where

the chin should be and the ears should be.

Beauty is nothing.

It's an idea of something.

The gods don't give beauty.

The gods don't give beauty.

There's no idea of physical beauty.

So she's a stupid woman.

Oh my god, it makes me sick.

I'm sorry.

And she can sue me for saying it.

I'll stand on it.

Get and put it right on in

I said what I said.

I will Elizabeth Taylor you are an ugly woman.

And we will go into the courts to prove whether you are ugly or beautiful.

The judges will say you are beautiful.

But the gods of everywhere,

beyond this place will know

that you are not beautiful.

You just, ears were formed in certain way.

Your mouth was formed a certain way.

Your eyes were formed a certain way.

But you are not beautiful, Elizabeth Taylor.

You are hardly anything.

This is beautiful.

Millionaires

you, no faces, no faces, nothing at all

laughing at nothing�

let me tell you

I have drunk in skid row rooms with imbecile winos

whose cause was better

whose eyes still held some light

whose voices retained some sensibility,

and when the morning came we were sick

but not ill,

poor but not deluded,

and we stretched in our beds and rose in the late afternoons like millionaires.

In those places people were closer to each other. A knock on the door...

someone has a bottle to share.

Yeah, very true.

There was almost...

I'll say no night there because that's the way I used to talk.

No night there you went without a drink and if you didn't have one

well, somebody would show up. I guess...

why they did it, I don't know. But it just happened like

Many a night I'd be laying there, I'd say: "Jesus, what am I-"

I'd have, I'm all out of money...

somebody would knock, a door would open, and here come a hand with a bottle.

"How ya doin', Hank?"

"Hey! Come on in."

Then you start drinking

pretty soon someone else comes in,

pretty soon you look up there are 3 or 4 people in the room. A tiny room.

And all of a sudden people start getting out of money. They run out of wine.

Somebody gets up a quarter, somebody gets up a dollar.

Somebody runs down the hall, comes back with a...

Pretty soon, somebody goes down. There's more wine bottles.

Pretty soon everybody's smoking, drinking, talking, the radio's on. Everybody's drunk.

Can you imagine this happening in this neighborhood?

Come on.

Quite interesting.

So the poor

since they have

What's the difference between having 75 cents or nothing?

You know, you might as well give it to someone or share it, you know. So...

pretty good.

Style.

Style is the answer to everything.

A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing.

To do a dull thing with style

is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it.

Joan of Arc had style.

John the Baptist

Christ. Socrates.

Caesar.

Garcia Lorca.

Style is the difference.

A way of doing, a way of being done.

Six Herons standing quietly in a pool of water

or you walking out of the bathroom naked

without seeing me.

I'm not one of these

self-centered, genius-driven characters, who wakes up and...

I'm more like a slug. I'm more like a...

a very slow, easy creature.

I really don't want to do anything.

I wake up in the morning, I just wanna lay in bed

three or four more hours.

There's nothing I wanna do...

in fact,

even going to the typewriter,

as I walk toward it I realize I must be a writer because, you know...

I made money at it. I don't even like the looks of a typewriter.

Sometimes I stay away from it for days because it seems like jobs I used to have.

The minute I sit down to the damn thing I have a few bottles of wine. A few bottles...

Well! A half a bottle of wine

the thing starts humming

and the words start popping out.

You know, like popcorn kernels.

So there's, there isn't

For me there's no egocentric or...

I'm not doing it. Something's doing it to me.

See. So, I walk into it and here's the gift. Hi, baby. And it happens.

That's not just false modesty, it just occurs.

I'm set off. I'm tripped out.

I guess I'm just a good ole kid,

from the stockyards or railroad yards and the post office.

I'm thinking at my 60th birthday,

Saturday...

Do you realize ten years ago I was a postal clerk

down at Alameda Street,

sticking letters into slots like this.

Within ten years

I'm published in Germany, Norway, France, Holland, Italy...England.

You know, more. I can't name six or seven more.

What happened?

I don't know, kid. I guess...

I just wrote down the words the way they were meant to be.

And it scares me alot because I wonder...

No. You get a little touch of luck, can you carry on with the same grace?

It's a good bloody hard test.

I mean, okay, I'm 60...

soon I'll be 61,

62, 67, 73.

Soon I'll be 83, 85, 89...

Am I still gonna be typing at 92?

I just heard from my uncle, he's 93. He said:

"I hope you're in good health, Henry."

"Louisa and I are in good health, except our knees hurt."

Maybe I'll be hurting-writing about hurting knees....

at the age of 93. I hope not. I hope I'm long dead and long gone.

Earthquake

Americans don't know what tragedy is.

A little 6.5 earthquake can send them to chattering like monkeys.

A piece of chinaware broken

The Union Rescue Mission falls down

6am.

They sit in their cars, they are all driving around. Where are they going?

A little excitment has broken into their canned lives.

Stranger stands next to stranger

chattering gibberish fear,

anxious fear, anxious laughter

My baby, my flowerpots.

My ceiling, my bank account.

This is just a tickler, a feather, and they can't bear it.

Suppose they bombed the city, as other cities have been bombed

Not with an A-bomb but with ordinary blockbusters, day after day.

Everyday as has happened in other cities of the world.

If the rest of the world could only see you today

their laughter would bring the sun to its knees.

And even the flowers would leap from the ground like bulldogs

and chase you away to where you belong

wherever that is.

and who cares where it is as long as it's somewhere away from here.