<>The Fascination for Chuck Bukowski.

A FEW of my responses to discussions/posts in Friends’ Facebook page, slightly edited. 

I READ and wallowed on Chuck Bukowski when I was in college. Great mind. But that's what to cultivate in/from him. His work. His life was an orgy of drinking, chain-smoking, dalliances with hookers (or sex workers) and other inebriated walks on the wild side. Sadly, that "life" of toxic excess made him more "cool" than the brilliance of his writings. Of course, he was late to bed and late to rise. LOL!

       But Mr Bukowski isn’t alone in this deadend gig. The list is endless: Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck, Dylan Thomas, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, etc etcetera. Many died via suicide caused by severe depression but not necessarily alcoholism or substance abuse (but often they came together): David Foster Wallace, Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, and of course, Hemingway and Thompson. 

       Although alcoholism is a constant, "perverted" (to describe these literary geniuses) is a matter of opinion. Meanwhile, there are also many who are relatively sober or spot-clean such as Isaac Asimov, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, James Baldwin, L. Frank Baum, Pearl S. Buck, Michael Crichton, and more. Some kicked the bottle and drugs and continued on in prolific spree such as Stephen King or Bob Dylan. 

       Bottomline, I focus on the work and not the person. And for me, substance intoxication ain't cool. Drugs and alcohol don't make or unmake a great person or writer/artist. It is circumstantial or a matter of access and availability. Such as addiction. And alcohol and drugs got more addictive in time due to commercial bombast or sociocultural pitch as cool. 

       Going deeper and wider, I am against "canceling out" great writers or their work due to their personalities or way of life and that of course including the "perverted" ones which are also many. It's the work, not the writer. The product, not the producer. Anyhow, from George Harrison: "It's all within ourselves. No one will make us change. Within you, without you." 🍻🥃🍻