Chamblee54

This is part two of a book report on “Hollywood,” by Charles Bukowski/Hank Chinaski.
13 – Jon Pinchot needs to move out of his house, and lands with Hank and Sarah. They get to drinking and hanging out, and Jon tells a movie financing war story. This wealthy lady in Russia wanted to work with him, but only after Jon goes to church with her, and fucks her. “please understand I have nothing against the old the aged but it was like kissing a sewer hole.”
This afternoon, I took the book with me to the Kroger parking lot. The idea was to read, while waiting for my brother to finish shopping. When I went in for my groceries, i got in the checkout line behind a lady with WIC coupons. By the time I got through, and returned by shopping cart, the checkout line was cleared up, and Mac was almost ready to go. I did not get to read, and peruse the cosmic comic insights of alkies in movieland.
I did get to drive home. The Kroger parking lot is a nightmare on the best day, but I got out, and on to Clairmont going north. I am going to be turning left in a couple of blocks, and there is no point in being in the right lane. This is a problem for some drivers. People on Clairmont road drive as though they were still on I85, and are very annoyed when someone does the speed limit in front of them.
14 – Hank and Sarah see a movie about skid row degenerates. It turns out to have clean cut, well dressed actors playing broken down drunks. Inevitably one of them gets Jesus, which may have been the point of the movie all along.
These facebook fuddy-duddies were talking about Joe Rogan. I had enough of the negativity, and decided to find some of the content, that makes Mr. Rogan the most entertaining man on the internet. I found this: “black people didn’t know what plastic surgery was, so the deal was you take that government butter and you rub it on your titties on your ass and they said it’ll make it grow yeah … that’s what we used to do back in the day.”
This is the person Nikole-Hannah Jones was talking about when she said, in response to a tweet form: @AllMattNYT “Joe Rogan is what he is. We in the media might want to spend more time thinking about why so many people trust him instead of us.” @nhannajones ” With respect, I don’t get this. We need to understand why millions of Americans don’t mind the open racism? It’s not a mystery. Been reporting on it for years. So what do we do with that?” IOW, giving a comedian the opportunity to tell us about using government butter, to make your titties bigger, is open racism. TBH, to say that government butter will make your titties bigger probably does qualify as misinformation.
15 – “Something went wrong. Try again in a little while.” I am trying to find the motivation to write about a boring chapter. Hank is trying to force a screenplay out of his typer, and it is not happening. There is a letter about how to play the horses. There is a trip downstairs to plead for mercy from Jon Pinchot, who responds by saying that François is coming back from France, and they are going to move out to somewhere.
The fifth letter of François is c-cedilla. Ç “is a Latin script letter, used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Manx, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish, Zazaki, and Romance alphabets. Romance languages that use this letter include Catalan, French, Friulian, Ligurian, Occitan, and Portuguese as a variant of the letter C.” To make Ç, you hold down the alt key and type the numbers 0199. Or you just find someone else who typed it, and copy that. If you want a ç, the code is alt+0231.
16 – Jon and François have moved into a ghetto, and they think it is the coolest thing ever. Hank is not so sure, but he gets his knife, puts his money in his shoe, and drives down there. I have known lots of people who lived in “those” neighborhoods. They are usually happy to get out, even if they don’t say so out loud. You have to wonder how long it will take the romance to wear off with these two Frenchman-living-among-the-natives.
17 – Let’s see if the electronic section robo secretary is working hey it’s working too bad I’m not. So I boot the computer now the robo secretary is working. Chapter 17 is kind of boring. Hank and Sarah go to a party at John and François’s place in the ghetto. They’re having a cookout in the backyard and cooking chicken. François doesn’t know how to cook chicken. It turns out hard as a rock. Hank can’t eat it. Someone steals the wheels off of François’s vehicle, and sells them to him for $38. The robo-secretary hears “ghetto life” and gives me “get a life.”
18 – There are these two characters. Wikipedia tells me that it’s Sean Penn and Dennis Hopper. The story is that Sean Penn wants to be in Barfly, but insists that Dennis Hopper direct. Barbet Schroeder ( robo secretary: Barbie show drunk Schroeder) hates Dennis Hopper. He hates him so much, he calls Paris and talks to his lawyer. A clause is written in his will. If Mr. Schroeder dies in the production of Barfly, Dennis Hopper cannot direct this movie.
The story took place when Sean Penn was married to Madonna. The fake name in Hollywood is Ramona. “All’s fair in hate and Hollywood.”
19 – Hank and Sarah go to meet an actor who wants to play the part. Mickey Rourke eventually played the role, so it is probably him. He lives in this broken down bachelor pad. “there were springs sticking out of the sofa, and there were pillows on the floor, used magazines, paper bags. “This is a real male hangout” Sarah laughed.
They mentioned that Francine Bowers was the female they were trying to get to play some role in this drama. Francine Bowers is a great name for Faye Dunaway. There was a person at Cross Keys named Mr Bowers, aka officer dibble. He was this guy that went around in the halls, before school, making trouble for everybody. Later, I had a friend that thought he was a musician. One of his stage names was Harry Bowers. Francine Bowers is a good name for the ultimate diva actress.
20 – Hank is going to a party for some sleazy Hollywood type and he goes by the Chateau Marmont to pick up Norman Mailer. Hank asks Norman if he has anything to drink. Mormon … calling Norman Mailer Mormon…. Norman has the bottle of wine, but no Corkscrew. Hank says that he was an amateur drunk. Hank is not a purist, and drinks the wine.
21 – Hank goes to this party for a producer who may or may not be Harvey Weinstein. IMDb doesn’t say that Weinstein produced BF, but the character at this party was certainly acting like you would expect Harvey Weinstein to act. At the end of the night, Hank has decided that he likes Mr. Weinstein. John Pinchot says that he’s the nicest person he’s ever met, including Idi Amin. Other parts of this series are available. one three four five Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

I had this bright idea. I was going to do a chapter by chapter commentary of Hollywood, by Charles Bukowski. Hollywood has 48 chapters most of them are only a few pages long. This is my kind of book. Jack Keruoac made a single sentence last five pages. Per this source, Keruoac is the only beat that CB never met. “… Neal Cassidy and Ginsberg ( i think ) coaxing Buk out for a joy ride in Hollywood. … Cassidy was a wild man and drove like a racer in death race 2000. He spun the car out near Ivar and Buk went to floor. Apparently he wet his pants. …”
1 – The story starts with Hank Chinaski (Charles Bukowski,) and Sarah, on a mission. (Sarah is Linda Lee Beighle, his wife.) They go to a meeting in a wealthy part of Los Angeles. Hank does not feel comfortable. “We have just landed upon the outpost of death. My soul is puking.” Sarah replied, “Will you stop worrying about your soul.” This sets the tone for what is to follow.
2 – Hank and Sarah meet an obnoxious, drunken Frenchman. Some people are trying to get Hank to write a screenplay for a movie. Barfly eventually did get made. I’ve never seen it, which is not unusual. I don’t see a lot of movies. There is a scene on youtube, where Mickey Roarke picks a fight with a bartender. It is not pleasant to watch, either on video or in real life. I have known degenerates that can’t control their impulses, and they are no fun at all. Fortunately, the dead tree version of Hank Chinaski can be put down whenever necessary, and then revived again when it is convenient.
3 – Chapter 3 is what I read the other day, when I went to Walgreens for my booster shot. It gets quite juicy. Hank is attending a screening of a documentary, about an African tyrant. Barbet Schroeder, whom Hollywood is dedicated to, once directed a movie about Idi Amin. The dictator would kill his opponents, and then dump them in a swamp, where the crocidiles would become impossibly fat. It is not good for the swamp’s ecological balance.
4 – Two of the obnoxious frenchmen are François Racine and Jon Pinchot. It is uncertain who they are stand ins for. François and Jon go to a Las Vegas show starring Tom Jones. François hates it, and rants on and on about how much he hates Tom Jones. I remember Mr. Jones, aka Sir Thomas John Woodward OBE, fondly. Mr. Woodward was on the WTF podcast last year, but that show is now behind a paywall. I wasn’t going to listen to it anyway, just to remember a few good stories.
Tom Jones: “Fast-forward to 1965. My own singing career had taken off, with three hit records and a big-selling album, and I was on my first trip to America. I went to Paramount Studios to talk about recording a song for a movie and someone told me that Elvis was filming on the neighboring sound stage and wanted to say hello.”
“‘Oh, my God! Surely Elvis Presley doesn’t know who I am’. But I walked on the set, where he was sitting in a helicopter, and he sort of waved in my direction. I couldn’t believe he was waving at me, but I waved back, just in case. Then he came over and said he knew every track on my album and he sang one of my songs, With These Hands, all the way through. He said to me, ‘How the hell do you sing like you do?’ And I said, ‘Well, you are to blame because I listened to all your records in the 1950s.” He told me that when he heard me singing What’s New Pussycat? on record, he thought I was black. I thought that was a bit ironic, as I’d thought he was black when I first heard him singing.”
5 – Hank is in a bar, hating it. A man comes up, and says he wants to finance his screenplay. The man just finished a film about Jack Keruoac called Heart Beat. (Those are not the names Hank uses, but it easy to figure out what he means.) The movie-dude tells Hank the title of the Keruoac-flick. Hank hates the title, and won’t talk to the movie-dude after that.
6 – This chapter is a meeting in a hotel room, full of Frenchmen who talk too much. It is much better when Hank tells the story. I have never known anyone named Hank. When I was a kid, the Braves had a player named Hank, who you have heard too much about. One night, during their lame duck season in Milwaukee, the Braves played an exhibition game at the toilet-bowl stadium. After the game, my long suffering dad took me to the bowels of the stadium. You could stand outside the clubhouse, and get autographs as the players left. A couple of times, the door would open, and you could see a naked player. So, Hank Aaron came out, patiently signed a bunch of autographs. He was smoking a cigarette. Joe Torre came out, saw the crowd of people, ducked behind a truck, and took off away from the autograph seekers. Good times.
7 – Hank finally gets to work on the screenplay, when he is interrupted by a phone call. This is counter-productive to the business of writing. The caller is a hip-talking German, who Hank asks for money. Hank tells him a joke. “Whats the difference between a chicken’s asshole and a rabbit’s asshole?” “I don’t know. What’s the difference?” “Ask little dick.” I don’t get it. I think this one is funnier. “Why did the pervert cross the road? He couldn’t get his dick out of the chicken.”
8 – Some slick talking tax finagler calls on Hank, who is very leery of the whole thing.
9 – Hank goes into this real estate office, and is treated as though he were a degenerate. The only appropriate thing to do is go into a bar. The ale house is full of biker types, who recognize Hank and call out to him. Hank is a wino rock star, and insanely uncomfortable. He gets out of APES HAVEN before you can say rehabilitation.
10 – One of the bits of money advice Hank gets is to buy a house. He goes, with Sarah, to this rundown place in the sticks. It is a scene out of a bad movie. Someone spray painted over the bath tub, IF TIM LEARY AIN’T GOD, THEN GOD IS DEAD. Finally, Sarah gets this notion that this is the house where Charles Manson killed somebody. This is too much, even for Hank Chinaski. They leave before they get too drunk to drive home.
When typing the existential exhortation about Tim Leary, I decided not to use the cap lock, but typed it one letter at a time. If I had it to do over again, I would have used cap lock, even though typing in cap lock is the facebook equivalent of saying LOOK AT ME I AM AN IDIOT. I had a co-worker once who typed with one finger. I think it was the index finger on his right hand. When Kyle wanted to type a capital letter, he would turn cap lock on, type the letter, and, turn cap lock off.
11 – Hank brings in the mail. There are two items. One is a fan letter. Someone writes this letter full of vile insults, and then wants Hank to read his poems. Hank reads one and a half, and decides that he has better things to do with his time. The second letter is from a lawyer. It is incorporation papers, the intention being the incorporation, for tax purposes, of Henry Charles Chinaski. Hank reads through the papers, and crosses out the parts he does not like. The corporation can have Hank declared insane, and take all his money away. Eventually, Hank and Sarah open a bottle of wine.
12 – The neighborhood that Hank lives in is going downhill, even to a point where it is worse off than Hank. People from somewhere in Central America are flooding in, and bringing fourth world conditions to third world LA. Finally, Hank gets busy with the house hunting, and finds something to his liking. The note is going to be $789.81. This is where I was in the book, when I had the inspiration to write this falling-off-a-cliff-notes version of H-wood. This is a good place to stop, edit what I have already written, and decide what to do next.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. More is available. two three four five