During the current pandemic there been much debate about at what point students should return to the classroom. I’m guessing Charles Bukowski would suggest they should never go back and head to the nearest bar to swig, celebrate, argue and fight with one another until they drop down unconscious then write about the experience through their Delirium Tremens until their livers exploded.
This was the technique that Bukowski himself employed to great effect throughout his career.
He only had two years of studies at Los Angeles City College, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature, before quitting in 1940. He then moved to New York City where he took low wage jobs, drank and wrote about his and the worlds decay from his own unique perspective.
Bukowski was introduced to alcohol by his friend William "Baldy" Mullinax. He wrote:
“This is going to help me for a very long time.”
And for Bukowski it did. For others - not so much.
I am sure you have friends who bought into the romantic ideal of “The Alcoholic Artist on The Road To Oblivion” and, in my experience, it rarely turns out well.
It takes a special type of commitment to combine the twin disciplines of personal destruction and making art. It takes a terrible toll on both the body and mind to do both but I have more than a little sympathy with Bukowski’s radical point of view on this matter.
The modern day college often churns out fresh faced callow youths in all areas of the arts with “Marketable Skills” for commerce or teaching without and ounce of original thought between their ears. They are often to be found teaching BTEC courses to other hopeful youths with dreams of greatness who end up a few years later teaching those same courses. An endless loop of banality.
The poem is read by Whitstable’s greatest living Welshman Shane Attwooll who believes in moderation in all things - especially moderation.