Notes of a Dirty Old Man

I discovered Charles Bukowski’s work completely by accident. Before that, I thought he was a writer read by 15-year-old girls in love. It sounded far too sweet, at least as it seemed to me: Charles Bukowski. Exactly.

Then I ran into a book. And it attracted me not by its title. It attracted me because it was wrapped in such packaging that without buying it, you wouldn’t be able to read it. I know they do that only with books that contain “swearing and explicit scenes.” It was “Notes of an Old Fag” — and I bought it.

I went out into the woods. For three days. And in the evenings, when the sun goes down, there’s nothing to do there. So I started reading it when I ran out of the other books I’d taken with me—and I got pulled in. I had never experienced such delight from literature. In the “notes” there were no templates, no clichés, no pompousness, no sense that the author was carefully chiseling each line, grinding the language to a dead ideal. No. It was the most alive book. And it remains the most alive of all the ones I’ve read to this day.

I tried to share with you a piece of this atmosphere. I hope I managed.

I hope that on summer evenings you’ll drag all of this into your headphones while walking home drunk from a bar, leaning on your friend’s shoulder.

Musical accompaniment—its own beats (except for the third track), where the samples are mostly underground screamo music.

ATTENTION!
There is profanity.