Ok, Younguns, on this birthday of one of your mommas, I been a feeling kinda lousy for a few days, wishing an angel veterinarian might mistake me for an ailing coyote and happy juice me to the happy rabbit hunting ground.
Dreams last night left me wondering if something wild might be coming down from up Montana way, where I spent three memorable days in September 1999, after hitchhiking from Birmingham to where I yet knew not, researching Diary of a Redneck Mystic, which I shamefully didn’t sit down and write after I reached Seattle, then was diverted down to Los Angeles, and then was routed back to Birmingham on the wings of Delta, as I recall.
I was thinking maybe I would write about that earthy and heavenly trip today, when I saw something cosmic from Erik Rittenberry's Poetic Outlaws in my email, about cheating Death.
death is smoking my cigars
By: Charles Bukowski
You know: I'm drunk once again here listening to Tchaikovsky on the radio. Jesus, I heard him 47 years ago when I was a starving writer and here he is again and now I am a minor success as a writer and death is walking up and down this room smoking my cigars taking hits of my wine as Tchaik is working away at the Pathetique, it's been some journey and any luck I've had was because I rolled the dice right: I starved for my art, I starved to gain 5 god-damned minutes, 5 hours, 5 days- I just wanted to get the word down; fame, money, didn't matter: I wanted the word down; and “they” wanted me to be a stock boy in a department store. Well, death says, as he walks by, I'm going to get you anyhow no matter what you've been: writer, cab driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I'm going to get you… Ok baby, I tell him. We drink together now as one am slides to 2 a.m. and only he knows the moment, but I worked a con on him: I got my 5 god-damned minutes and much more.
Roy GomezTo do something well, truly well, costs nothing less than our all.
Barbara Mars
Humans in Space
" I got my
5 god-damned minutes
and much
more."
That's the point. He did fulfill his drive, urge to write in spite of the detours and road blocks. He also got much more because of it. We readers did too.
Sloan Bashinsky
Sloan’s Newsletter
Fucking hilarious
Fucking drop dead steel irony
Fucking precious
Got to be writing it down
no matter what
That’s the ancient rhyme
the Muse sung
over and over and over
since the beginning of written time
She sings because she must
She sings because that is
her reason for being
She needs no instruction manual
no writer’s workshop
to know how to sing
A jealous mistress
like no other
Another thing
Death cannot defeat
Her songs echo in Eternity
blazing across Infinity
Greg F.
Clarity, like death, is a bitch. But a comfort too, when brought into focus.
Debbi Mack
The Crime Cafe Newsletter
Fuckin' A, man.
Nika
Needed to read this right now. Thank you so much.
Sean Garrisson
getting it down in a time warp no matter what.
Tori
THE BODEGA
Death is lighting my cigars
Richard Blaisdell
Richard’s Substack
A writer’s dilemma squeezing time through the cracks of light in the day, doing jobs to get by, but having a smoke with the reaper and drinking the last of wine squeezed a creative moment for clarity.
Sloan Bashinsky
Everything has a crack in it,
that’s how the light gets in,
sang Leonard Cohen
Bob Rohan
Bob’s Substack
Anyone out there who is willing to die, really die, for their freedom?
Sloan Bashinsky
I died many times for my freedom,
not physically,
but in all other ways-
freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,
Joplin sang,
When we ruin our reputations,
we can be free,
I heard someone say
before I did it,
which reminds me of Jesus in the Gospels saying
we must die to the old and become the new
to enter the Kingdom of God.
Sean Garrisson
I could die for freedom. Can I kill for freedom?
Sloan Bashinsky
We can kill in us what keeps us from being free,
but first we must know what it is.
Sean Garrisson
You know what I mean.
Sloan Bashinsky
Not sure I do, but there are folks in America who seem to think it’s okay to kill people who don’t think like they do :-)
Russell C. Smith
The New Now
If you're new to Bukowski, start here: Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, Selected Poems 1959-1973
Pat Spano
Gobsmacked. An oldish hospice RN.
"The Major"
Thinking Entertainment
So he's a different man than he was younger. People maybe reading him like he's listening to Tchaikovsky. Is death Tchaikovsky? Are we partying with dead guys? And it's probably better than living the day to day as some Joe shmo? I liked the casualness of thisPatris
Patris’s Substack
We party with the dead every time we think of them. He rises up and spends time each time you read one of his words. Like now. Say hi.
Sloan Bashinsky
Ah, but Ole Charles
he ain’t dead,
that’s a Christian myth?
Ole Charles is still around,
being read by people born
after he simply changed shape.
Patrisit can get crowded can't it
Sloan Bashinsky
:-) good luck convincing Christians, and such
Meanwhile, another Nebraska cornhusker howler from Free Radio Rulo's Wonder Bread truck, you can use the link to read the whole thang-
Free Radio Rulo
https://freeradiorulo.substack.com/p/news-from-rulo-443/comments#comment-53831797
Grim news folks! The new Primo Gazebo call center went ahead and signed a deal with our rival neighboring city, Falls City’s corrupt city council. This unexpected move came after Falls City council members allegedly received substantial kickbacks from corrupt Rulo City council member Terry Perry and lucrative offers from Falls City bankers in exchange for relocating the call center contract.
My good buddy Gary has a source, some say ex military intelligence? telling him that this might all have to do with that freak hail storm we had last summer and some shady backroom dealings with the deep state and Gazebo insurance fraud. That hail storm practically wiped out all of Falls City’s public gazebos. Now the entire town and their dog has brand new gazebos! Kind of fishy how not one gazebo got replaced in Rulo. Those 4,052 pompous assholes in Falls City think they are so much more sophisticated than us common folk in Rulo with their fancy ass gazebos and green spaces for their nuclear families and pets.
Many precious tax paying residents of Rulo are feeling betrayed and were counting on employment at the new call center. Gary’s unnamed source thinks that “Freak Hail Storm In Falls City” might not have been an “accident.” Gary and his source have also heard whispers at the Ye Ole Time Saloon, of a possible connection with a deep state weather machine. Some believe the hail storm may have been manipulated to provide cover for suspicious claims and further benefit the call center's relocation to Falls City!I found this excellent book down at the Rulo library on the deep states weather machine up there in Alaska. After reading it all this makes sense.
JIm
Sloan Bashinsky
Sloan’s Newsletter
Liked by Free Radio Rulo
After reading this howler, I started to worrying that you might be creating more enemies in low places, and in case you didn't already know how to acquire proper safe clothing-
KEVLAR https://www.safeguardclothing.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2uiwBhCXARIsACMvIU1OEiqqINk8dUU0knr09iKgm-bYlBrMdX8ZqIkrWH4xSuG7fCyfLjQaAnZGEALw_wcB
Free Radio Rulo
I appreciate your concern! I won't be bullied by the corrupt city council! The true power in Rulo is the community! Democracy will prevail!
We might not have a call center or a weather machine, but we have community, culture, and art!
Sloan Bashinsky
Liked by Free Radio Rulo
And then there is that lovely lady, Karma, who sometimes graces her deservings with understanding of why they just got their shit storm, and sometimes she just leaves their ignorance alone :-)
I know you younguns are busy with stuff old farts like me can’t do no more, but maybe someday, if you are lucky, or unlucky, I leave that for you to decide, you will be an old fart with plenty of time on your hands, and you might wonder if maybe you should read more of what the Muse did to me, free reads at the internet library, archive.org, which allowed me to live a whole long longer on Planet Earth than religion and science predicted.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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