CHARLES BUKOWSKI STANDING IN

I've been under the weather again, hence the patchy blogging output. But let me just check in by quoting my favorite author, Charles Bukowski. "Hank," as he was known, can do my thinking for me tonight. And, undoubtedly, do it a lot better.

The passage I'm posting concerns creativity and how our culture is so often gutted by those who do not understand -- or see as a threat -- the creators who live beyond the safe perimeters of our sedated society. Don't be discouraged that it may take a full minute and a half to read. Enjoy! True art, real culture, was not meant to be appreciated in nanoseconds like clicking from one meaningless web page to another. Slow down. Reflect. Savor. Feel something.

[NB: The following was written some time ago so allow for inflation where dollar amounts are mentioned.]

"Good Art, Creation, is generally 2 decades to 2 centuries ahead of its time in relationship to the establishment and the police state. Good Art is not only not understood but also feared because to make the future better it must state that the present is bad, very bad, and this is hardly an endearment to those in control -- it threatens their jobs, their souls, their children, their wives, their new cars, and their rosebushes, at least. 'Obscenity' is the word they use to excuse their own rot in order to raid the works and outposts of creative men... The creative artist has always been continually harassed by officialdom and the public itself -- Van Gogh was hooted by children who threw stones against his window. He was lucky to have a window. He was lucky to have one ear. Hemingway was lucky to have a shotgun. I am lucky right now, to have this typewriter, this room, to type this thing, to tell you about it. I do not ask for mercy for the artist, I do not ask for public funds, I do not even ask understanding; I only ask that they leave us alone in the joy and horror and mystery of our work, and if they sell our work for millions of dollars after we are dead, after we are carried from our roach-filled, rat-filled, ghost-filled, bottle-filled rooms, that is their business. But I ask that they leave us alone -- we have let you have the fine ladies, the castles, the new cars, the tv's, the war, the steaks, the $45 shoes, the 5 thousand dollar funerals, the mile-wide cactus gardens, the original Van Goghs -- just leave us alone with your 'obscenity' and raid the newsstands with their titty and ass photos, page after page after page, naked dull stupid meat, bland-faced meat for high school boys to jack off to... raid these, raid this million dollar industry IF YOU MUST RAID SOME DAMN THING but leave us alone LEAVE US ALONE. A hundred years from now those books that you are confiscating will be taught in your universities if your leaders are not silly enough to get us blown to hell. I think that when you raid that you raid your own fear, you raid your own conscience (what little there is), and you raid, in anger, the lostness of your souls. I do not ask you to understand too much. Please do not force me to make you understand. I am busy with something else."

--- Untitled Essay by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)