Chamblee54

This is a repost from a couple of years ago. I am currently reading Factotum, by Hank Chinaski, aka Charles Bukowski®. You will learn nothing by reading Hank Chinaski novels. Hank will not make you a better person. Hank requires little of the reader, except the labor of turning the page. Hank recycles the same story over and over. Work, fight, drink, fuck, over and over. I would say rinse and repeat, but Hank is not big on washing. When you are finished with a Hank Chinaski story, you are left with wasted time, instead of insights into the plight of humanity. My kind of book. … What follows is part four in the chamblee54 celebration of Hollywood, by Charles Bukowski/Hank Chinaski. The book details making the movie Barfly. Other installments of this series are available. one two three five Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
29 – The movie is shooting. Press people are starting to descend, in search of interesting copy. People have this notion that Hank is gonna be interesting. “The phone rang every day. People wanted to interview the writer. I never realized that there were so many movie magazines, or magazines interested in the movies. It was a sickness, this great interest in a medium that relentlessly and consistently failed, time after time after time, to produce anything at all. People became so used to seeing **** on film that they no longer realized it was ****.”
Hank Chinaski has to have a pro-active editor. This book is too smooth, and too easy to read. There is no way that a broken broken down urinal-feeder like pink China’s key can write a page turner like this. (Sometimes it is best to not correct the robo secretary.) Easy riding makes hard reading. Stream of consciousness is more fun to write, than it is to read.
Barbet Schroeder/Jon Pinchot did a series of interviews with Hank for French TV. I’m gonna find them on YouTube, and listen to as much as I can stand. (I did not make it through two minutes.) I thought I could use them as background noise for a graphic poem. The text was written by Ambrose Bierce, yet another drunken journalist. I’m gonna to use pictures of dogs for the background. This is gonna be the first time that I’ve married images to text in a while.
30 – Hank and Sarah go to a party. They meet a lawyer representing somebody. The client owes Hank money. The lawyer says the check is in the mail. Hank, Sarah, and the lawyer, continue to drink heavily. The lawyer’s wife, Helga, is a retired drunk. Hank says that there is absolutely nothing worse then being sober around drunks.
I was brought up in a Southern Baptist house. Father would drink a beer or two, but mom was a teetotaler. As a result, I really never learned how to drink. A social outcast in high school, I didn’t learn there either. I may be the only person alive that never drank, before he was legal. By this time, I was a dedicated pothead. It went from enjoying an occasional beer, to the point where the drinking was more than I was comfortable with. I never got a DUI, and I never progressed to hard liquor dependency. When I was 34, I quit, and never looked back.
I quit drinking on December 31st 1988 … The windows robo-secretary quit, for the last time. I am moving over to google docs, which is much better. … I’m not as willing to put up with alcoholic nonsense as I was before. I try not to be obnoxious about it. Alcohol serves as a social lubricant, that helps you get to know people. I spend a lot more time by myself now. It got even worse when I quit smoking pot. Now I’m an anti-social mess. It would be best if I could figure out *moderation,* but that is not happening for me.
31 – The checks did arrive. They promptly bounced. … I’ve always liked the phrase, returned for insufficient funds. The last time I got a reality check, it was returned for insufficient funds.
There’s a campaign ad, from a lady named Kay Ivey. She’s some sort of politician in Alabama, and she has nothing good to say about President Brandon. I’ve condensed this video down to the best 5 seconds. This lady looks at the camera all sweet and squishy and says “poor Joe bless his heart.”
32 – So they’re shooting the scene in a bathtub. Francine is concerned that her tits are going to show. Mickey is not loosening up. They’re on their 19th to take. The camera man wants a drink … he’s a brilliant camera man, and a drunk. They don’t want him to drink. However, people do want Francine to have a drink, so she can loosen up. Finally, Sarah comes out of the kitchen, with of coffeecup of whiskey, gin, and cat piss. Francine drinks the concoction, and the scene is shot.
Being a retired drunk is nothing to be proud of. If I was really doing it right, I would have learned the gift of … what’s that word, not sobriety, not temperance … anyways that that word that means that you can drink enough to enjoy yourself, or to loosen up when you need to, but not become a basket case. Now I can’t remember the word. I never could do it when I was drinking, and now I can’t remember the word for it. I’m sure I’ll remember it later.
33 – They’re shooting a scene. The building they’re using used to be a ballroom. It was full on Saturday night. The drunks outside hated the bougie dancing people. Now the building is a rehabilitation center for alcoholics, full of “reformed drunks who read the Bible, smoke too many cigarettes, and play bingo.”
This German lady, and this Italian lady, want to interview Mr. Chinaski. Italian lady goes first, all she wants to do is talk about drinking. Hank wants to talk about being pickling up the ass of death. By the time he got to German lady, Hank ran out of things to say. … There’s an old joke, about this Polish starlet. She thought she could get a part by fucking the screenwriter.
I am happy with the google robo secretary. It is time to take this further, and try editing in gd. as this program is affectionately initialized. I have to have background music. This would be The fastest guitar in the world. A man named Lloyd Ellis created the album in 1958. A bunch of studio musicians record instrumentals, destined for the $1.98 bin at K-mart. Meanwhile, the timer on the phone goes off. Breakfast is ready. Life is good.
34 – Jon Pinchot calls Hank. The movie has been cancelled, again. That seems to happen a lot. Hank is sympathetic, and invites Jon over for a few drinks. Pinchot says no thank you, I have a date with two lesbians. Hank was going to go to the racetrack anyway.
The racetrack system is all based on the concept that the public must lose. You decide what the public is going to do, and bet against it. Hank has a good system, but doesn’t always follow it. One of the problems that you have to defeat is human weakness.
Cary Grant was a star of LA racing. He would go to Hollywood Park, place a $2 bet, and go into hysterics when losting. The former Archie Leach was so well known at the track, they named a race The Cary Grant Stakes. Randolph Scott was a drink served in the clubhouse.
Hollywood Park eventually became obsolete. It was torn down, and SoFi stadium was built on the site. The Super Bowl is playing in this venue as we speak. I have a digital converter powering a huge tv that weighs 66.6 pounds. It was given to me. The game is on Channel 11, where over-the-air broadcasting is not a priority. The picture is on for a while, then breaks down into pixelated goulash.
35 – Hank and Sarah go to see a scene shot. They go to the bar. It is somehow connected to a flop house hotel. They go in, and a famous film critic there. .. Siskel and Ebert or Airhead or one of those guys .. Soon, Francine Bowers/Faye Dunaway comes in with her little notebook.
She is playing Jane, Hank’s gf, and wants to know about her. The Barfly cheat sheet says that Jane is “real,” but I suspect that her name is really Betty. In one of his books, Hank talks about his shack job Betty. Neither one was a member of the Junior League.
This man, Illiantovitch, comes in, and orders a double vodka. I had that I had to Google that name because it’s not in the Wikipedia summary. I found this Bukowski Forum. They had a text document, with every character in Hollywood, and the real life counterpart. There is no information about Illiantovitch, which is too bad. He is a sloppy drunk, but a neat character. Illiantovitch keeps drinking double vodkas, cussing out everybody when they go to watch the movie.
Francine is a great name. On dead Saturday, 1973, I went to a Stadium concert in Charlotte NC. One of the bands was ZZ Top. This was back when their beards were only about three fingers long. ZZ Top was the only band that to play an encore. One of their star songs was Francine.
36 – They need to shoot the bar fight. They’ve got doubles, to do the real fighting. Mickey Rourke is just going to pretend, in a couple of close-ups. Let the doubles do all the dirty work. Hank is nostalgic for his days as a barroom drunk. Later, Francine asks Hank how Jane died. She was the maid in this hotel, and everybody gave her a bottle of wine for Christmas. Hank went over to see her, and saw all these bottles in her room. “Babe you can’t drink all of that you’re going to die.” He came back a few days later, all the bottles were empty, and she was laying on the bed unconscious. Jane came to long enough to say “I knew it was you going to be you.” She died an hour later.