The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way

by Charles Bukowski

  So I’m getting by on the typewriter. It’s a miracle. But it’s not as glamorous as you’d think. The movies always show some guy with a scarf—Leslie Howard. Long cigarette holder and a British accent. Got all the answers right there. It’s not that way—you’ve gotta hack it.

  LM: And writers are very boring people. . . .

  BUK: I know, because a writer is not a good talker. He’s got to save the real stuff for the act. That’s why, if you meet a writer who talks a lot, he just doesn’t have it. You can’t be a talker and a writer at the same time. It’s impossible. So a good writer will never give you very interesting conversation.

  He tends to be dull, stodgy. . . . Linda wrote a poem about the great poet—he stands around, scratches his ass, grunts, eats oranges and apples by the dozen. . . .

  LM: What could be more boring that sitting in front of a typewriter all day. . . .

  BUK: Yeah, but once you sit down, once that shit starts flowing, it feels pretty good. You got the sound of the keys, you got a beer bottle there, symphony music is on, you got a cigar in your hand, the lamp’s burning, and the stuff is coming out on the page, it’s actually happening, that minute you’re creating something new! You hope. . . . So it feels good, you know, when the shit is rolling out. You wake up. You look at the typewriter, it looks kind of like a time clock. . . .

  LINDA: What doesn’t feel good, is when it don’t come out. . . . That’s when it’s terrible—when you’re just sittin’ there. . . .

  BUK: You’ve got a bad thing for going and sitting down when you’re not ready. That only ties you up for another three or four days, when you do that. You put the whammy on yourself. Never get near that thing until its right up to your chin. There’s some tricks I’ve learned. . . .

  LM: Do you ever write when you don’t feel ready?

  BUK: On account of this deadline. Sometimes it doesn’t come out. But sometimes I’ve sat down when I didn’t feel like writing at all, for the deadline. You’ve got nothing in your mind, but you write one of your best things. And if it hadn’t of been for the deadline, it wouldn’t have happened. Even though I had no story in my mind, you sit down, you type the first line, and it just goes. But mostly you can’t force it. Somebody told me once of somebody who writes eight hours a day. Now that stuff’s gotta be bad. That’s pure panic. Too much.

  LM: Like Thomas Wolfe.

  BUK: Yeah, God, they had to junk half his stuff. His manuscripts were so large, they had to pull up with a truck to hold all the pages. Then Perkins would go through, thin it out. He was a horrible writer. Thomas Wolfe was the worst writer I can think of.

  LM: Who do you like?

  BUK: Oh, I like Céline, early Hemingway, Dostoevsky, early Gorki short stories. I like Jeffers, that’s about it.

  LM: Those guys are all prose writers. . . .

  BUK: I know, I don’t like poets . . . well, Jeffers was a poet. But I don’t like most poets. Prefer the fiction writers. They’ve got more balls, more snap. Poets don’t have it.

  LM: Do you prefer to write prose or poetry?

  BUK: Well, one helps the other. They’re both good. When you write poetry, the fiction part’s building—when you do the other, it reverses. The poetry tightens the short story, and the short story loosens the poetry.

  They work together. They’re both about the same, it’s just the way you lay the line down. People ask me “What is a poem?” I don’t know. You type it down, you say, “This is a poem. . . .”

  LM: Are you going to stick with your tough-guy image?

  BUK: Well, I’ve got a lot of bullshit in me anyway, and I tend to clown it up, so it’s just part of a little act I’ve built up. . . . But it’s not entirely without truth, you know. The tough guy who drinks a lot, has trouble with women—that’s not entirely without truth. But I did press the keys a little hard there at the piano. So as time went on, if you’ve read my stuff lately, you’ll notice it’s changing. Tonality—I’m moving into other areas. I get tired of the tough boy stance.

  LM: At the end of that TV documentary about you, you say that the notice you’re getting now came too late . . .

  BUK: I mean it came too late to . . . I’ve already got the fat head, I’ve always had a fat head. I’ve got a natural ego, even when I was failing. But it came too late to fatten my head enough to destroy my writing. Some people get recognition and they can’t handle it. Even a minor recognition like I have—no large publisher—came at a time when my insights are already built up, and can’t be affected—I hope—by this little splash.

  I think being known would be much harder to take when you’re twenty-three, and have a lot of years ahead of you. Didn’t Cervantes write Don Quixote when he was eighty? Now that’s pretty good writing for the age of eighty. See, he held himself together in his life. Very few men can hang on for all those years and still keep it together. You’ve gotta know all your moves, you’ve gotta have instincts and everything.

  LM: Is your lifestyle changing now?

  BUK: I’ll tell you, I have to admit it—I’m feeling better about everything. I tend to have more humor in my work, I’m not as serious or as bitter as I used to be—maybe that’s good, and maybe it’s bad. But sometimes it’ll break down—you’ll be walking around and those deep, deep blues’ll jump on your back, and they’ve got you. And I’ll lay down and say “Jesus, I feel awful.” But most of the time I feel pretty good, the writing’s coming along, I feel lucky. So I’m looking forward to a hell of a lot more writing, a lot more people hating me, and a lot more people digging me.

  LM: Now where I come from, it’s fashionable to say that Los Angeles shits. What are you doing down here?

  BUK: Say, I like this town. For one thing, it doesn’t have too many goddamned writers. Frisco’s bad, all those coffee shops, and when you walk down the street everybody says, “Hey, there’s Bukowski!” It’s bad enough down here after that film. Went to get a hot dog at the track, said “Give me a hot dog,” girl said “Wouldn’t you rather have a cheese sandwich?” I say “What?” She says “I just wanted to hear your voice, I wanted to hear you talk.” “Why’s that?” “I saw you in that movie!” That’s where the hatred is so nice. It sets you free. When you’re hated, you can’t fail, you don’t have this—“Oh, somebody likes me!”

  LM: But when I come down here, I feel this strong sense of deprivation—like, there’s nothing to do. . . .

  BUK: What do you mean—there’s plenty to do. There’s two race-tracks, there’s bars, there’s call services, you’ve got everything here you need—you’ve got Disneyland, you’ve got Hollywood . . .

  LM: And San Francisco’s got writers . . .

  BUK: Yeah! You’ve got Ferlinghetti, McClure. The writers down here aren’t very big. Although they think they are. . . .

  LM: But in San Francisco the writer on everybody’s lips is—

  BUK: —Tell me quickly—

  LM: —Bukowski.

  BUK: And he lives in L.A. See, I don’t have to hear that down here, I’m isolated. When the phone rings I kind of jump, I say, “Oh Christ, who’s this going to be?”

  LM: But you’re in the L.A. phonebook. . . .

  BUK: That’s to get readings. Helps the hustle. I never ask to read, but somebody phones me and asks me and I say O.K., depending on the price.

  LM: So you don’t want people to like you, but they’ll only buy your books if they like you. . . .

  BUK: Or if they hate me.

  LM: Why would they buy your books if they hate you?

  BUK: Because they’re curious. They say, “What’s he written now?” I believe the haters are better buyers than the others.

  LM: But isn’t your writing less offensive now?

  BUK: Well, if you’re a good writer you’re always going to disturb somebody with almost everything you write. There’s that word with the capital, “Truth,” you know. . . .

  LINDA: Did you read that column on shit he wrote recently?

  LM: No . . .

  LINDA:
Some woman said, “That is the most disgusting, filthy thing that Bukowski ever. . . .” It was really funny, but she didn’t pick up on that.

  LM: What do you think about Mailer?

  BUK: Mailer? He wrote one novel and turned into an intelligent journalist. He goes on the shows, he gets in battles with the female libbers, he’s no longer a creator, he’s just a journalist.

  LM: Doesn’t he present an image, like you do?

  BUK: I don’t know what his image is. Do you know what it is?

  LM: Probably a badass male chauvinist pig.

  BUK: Didn’t he knife one of his wives? They’re gonna hold that against him. . . .

  . . .

  LM: In San Francisco the writers hang out together—

  BUK: —That’s destructive—

  LM: But down here they’re isolated.

  BUK: Thank God. I think it was Ibsen who said, “The greatest men are the most alone.” You’ve gotta be alone to score, you’ve gotta be alone to know where the hell you’re at. Of course, you’ve gotta go out and see what’s out there. But you can’t stay out there and swim in it and be taken by it—you’ve gotta come back, close the door, and do what you have to do. But this town’s fine. It’s the streets without the artists—that’s what any place is anyway. I just can’t get away from this city. I’ve been on the bum, but I just keep coming back. I like it. I’m stuck with it. It’s fine.

  LM: What do you think of the L.A. Free Press?

  BUK: The L.A. Free Press isn’t much, man. I get more out of reading the Herald-Examiner. It’s more open, there’s more laughter, there’s more actual news stories that are funny. The Free Press reminds me of the L.A. Times—they’ve become very conservative. And the massage parlor girls all have their panties put on them—it’s ridiculous, good Lord—it’s gotten very conservative. They play left wing, but they seem to be right wing if you read between the lines. Then they have columns for each—they’ve got a Mexican girl, they’ve got a Black column, they’ve got a female libber column, they’ve got a column to suit each person.

  Then they’ve got my dirty stories, they put those back in the classified. The Free Press isn’t much, man. I guess because it’s so established—they’ve got the newsstands everywhere and people just buy it automatically because there’s nothing else to do. It’s not a very interesting paper, really drab fare, very lackluster. John Bryan’s paper, the Phoenix, that thing jumps. Bryan’s the best editor I know on the little paper scene. I wish he were down here stirring up some shit. He’s got the touch, he’s got the flare. The Free Press is so drab.

  I wrote a story about Bryan’s paper Open City, the way it ran, the way it folded, and he got a little miffed. He’s still a little bit sore. He came charging in the door one night, he was high, and he was yelling, “Bukowski, why’d you write that goddamn story about me?” So I said, “Take it easy, John, sit down and have a beer.” And he’s yelling, “Oh, goddamn it. . . .” And I said, “What the hell’s wrong, John, baby?” And he grabbed the door and he slammed it—almost broke the window, he slammed it so hard, and he took off. I heard his car going Brrrrrrrrrrm! It upset him so much. . . . Then the phone rang, a couple of hours later, and he said, “Bukowski, I’m sorry, I flipped my lid there.” He’s good for a show. . . .

  When we were talking about tourist places before, it reminded me of the story about Watts Towers. During the riots I was living with Frances, they were burning and shooting and all that—you know what that woman said? She said, “Let’s go down and look at Watts Towers.” I said, “Now?” You could hear gunfire! She said, “Yeah.” I said, “Hey, look, I’m White! All over, I’m the same color. I can’t go down there.” “Oh, they won’t hurt you.” I said, “Hell! You go down there!” That’s when I started thinking I’d better get away from her. She wanted to see me destroyed, I guess.

  But the Blacks usually adopted me. It takes a while sometimes, though. I was usually adopted at the factories or wherever I worked. Black cats dug me for some reason. They used to say, “We give you water, we give them sand.” And I’d say, “Thanks, baby.” I think it was because most White guys in the factory, their mentality isn’t quite as sharp. Lots of Black guys at the factory are sharp because they have to be there but their minds are aware, so they’re more interesting. So I tended to run with them because they were more interesting. So I got adopted. I had my line of shit and they had theirs, and they mixed pretty good.

  LM: Well, you were like them in that you wanted to make it as a writer but you didn’t want to be part of the thing, just like they wanted to make it but not be part of the thing. . . .

  BUK: What’s that? You talk like a jazz musician. . . .

  LM: I’d love to be, but I don’t have any talent. . . . Anyway, if you wanted to be a real writer, you’d have finished college and gotten a Ph.D. . . .

  BUK: Oh, is that what a real writer does? Why is it the professors can’t write, then?

  LM: Maybe it’s educated out of them? Anyway, in San Francisco the big University writers are people like Wright Morris, and Wallace Stegner.

  BUK: Oh, yeah—professional, smooth, polished . . . Actually I write very badly when you come to think of writing. I’m sloppy, careless, and I use any word that comes to my mind—I’m not very professional. I’m craggy. I’m not very good, basically. . . .

  LM: You’ve got a different kind of style. . . .

  BUK: I’ve got my own style. I guess you might call it careless, or I don’t give a damn. I just write it down, if there is a style, I don’t choose it but it’s there. I’m not a smooth, professional writer at all.

  LM: But you’re going to get right up there with those “professionals” anyway. . . .

  BUK: I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind staying right where I’m at. Getting the work done. I really have no plans to move to New York, get big . . . I’m just pumping it from this position, and it’s O.K. Shit, I’ll take fame and a best-seller and a couple of million, yeah, if I could have it I’d take it. But this is O.K.

  LM: Do you think one of the universities will hire you one of these days?

  BUK: Oh, they’re too scared of me. I might start talking about shit or something like that. . . .

  LM: What if somebody like UCLA asked you to teach there?

  BUK: I’d ask them how much, how many days. . . . If the price was right I’d be corrupted a while. I can be bought any time. I’ll sell my literary ass to the highest bidder. . . .

  Berkeley Barb, April 26–May 2 and May 3–9, 1974

  Craft Interview for New York Quarterly

  Interview by William Packard

  Hello Packard, Bill:

  No, the women don’t write my poems for me but kriste knows they caused me to write some, good and bad, but write some. Regarding crafty interview, I am not going east if I can help it, seems Italy is next, September, I guess, got drunk with Inge Feltrinelli who told me some Hemingway stories, and she says she’ll put us up at her place, there’s a bookstore downstairs that Fellini hangs around in; trouble is I don’t like bookstores and I have a book of Fellini movies that I haven’t read, but, wait, what are we talking about here?

  You know I feel foolish about craft interviews and the telephone is out and a cassette tape, no, but if you insist like send a list of questions and I’ll try to make it sound like I’m in the room with you: sound of belches, moans, and laughter. I mean, we can try it and if it works for me I’ll send it to you and if it works for you and yours you can run it maybe with a picture of me cueing up over a rabbit’s ass? You know, I think the poets are just a little too precious with themselves and maybe when they stop getting so holy and precious a few readers might follow along. Whitman said that to have great poets we must have great audiences first. I think maybe we ought to have fairly good poets first, then maybe we’ll get somebody in the grandstand besides our relatives and our whores. I think if I had to choose between making money writing poetry and not making money doing the same thing, I wouldn’t have to flip a coin. />
  all right, then lemmee here,

  Buk

  Dear Charles Bukowski:

  Okay we’re on. Here is a list of 16 questions set up so you can run them through the typer and give answers directly on the page, together with simulated background noises, moans, barfs.

  If you don’t like any of the questions kick it off the page, add any you want to add.

  We’ll need some photos, send me 5x7 black & white, three if possible, the way we set up interviews in NYQ, other issues.

  The question I’m most interested in is #14. By “persona” I mean recognizable mask, that’s a “Bukowski” poem, meaning there are certain characteristic things, but is that “Bukowski” in any relation to what you consider the real Bukowski. Like for example, Robert Lowell sometimes presented us with a persona of Robert Lowell which was very moving but it wasn’t always the literal Robert Lowell. I guess maybe I’m talking about license, literal truth versus poetic truth, and how that impinges on you the man versus you the poet. Li Po you know was the great Chinese poet who always got high on rice wine & wrote his poems & then dropped them from a bridge onto a river so they would float downstream god knows where. Better than sending them out to the Paris Review.

  I didn’t ask any question about what you think of NYQ as a magazine, the other poems in it (besides your own). But feel free to talk about that.

  If you need extra space type on the back of each page.

  I feel like I’m administering a mid-term.

  Good luck and keep your eyes on your own paper.

  Best,

  Bill

  How do you write? In longhand, on the typewriter? Do you revise much? What do you do with worksheets? Your poems sometimes give the impression of coming off the top of your head. Is that only an impression? How much agony and sweat of the human spirit is involved in the writing of one of your poems?

  I write right off the typer. I call it my “machinegun.” I hit it hard, usually late at night while drinking wine and listening to classical music on the radio and smoking mangalore ganesh beedies. I revise but not much. The next day I retype the poem and automatically make a change or two, drop out a line, or make two lines into one or one line into two, that sort of thing—to make the poem have more balls, more balance. Yes, the poems come “off the top of my head,” I seldom know what I’m going to write when I sit down. There isn’t much agony and sweat of the human spirit involved in doing it. The writing’s easy, it’s the living that is sometimes difficult.