Charles Bukowski In High School

by Stephen J. Gertz

Los Angeles High School, 1917-1971.

Once upon a time - the late 1930s - Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), America's poet laureate of the depths, attended Los Angeles High School. His hard living years were ahead of him. His post-high school aspirations did not include writing. His ambition was to join the Navy. To that end he was a member of L.A. High's ROTC program.

A set of seven Los Angeles High School Blue & White semi-annual yearbooks - Summer 1936, Summer and Winter 1937, Winter 1938, Summer 1938 (in dust jacket, and a duplicate copy), and Winter 1939 - has recently appeared in the marketplace, offered by William Dailey Rare Books.

The provenance could not be more sterling; the copies of William Mullinax, Bukowski's closest boyhood friend and loyal high school buddy, who appeared in the novelist's Ham On Rye (1982) as Eli "Baldy" La Crosse. We know the provenance is solid because Bukowski inscribed two of the copies to Mullinax and other copies possess inscriptions to Mullinax.

Mullinax, the son of an alcoholic surgeon, was the person who introduced Bukowski to booze.

Bukowski has signed Mullinax's copy of the Winter 1939 yearbook on the front free endpaper. Whether he was aware of what he was doing or not, the line breaks suggest an eye and ear for poetry. And a sense of humor.

Best of Everything

to a good baseball

player and a swell

student.

Henry Bukowski

His inscription squeezed next to Mullinax's class photo is not so proto-literary; it's standard high school yearbook prose: "lots of Luck an old pal and truly great guy, 'Baldy' Bill Mullinax."

Bukowski's inscription in the Summer 1938 yearbook is found on the page devoted to ROTC Company A, and is another exercise in breaking the boundaries of standard Jahrbuch-Stil prose.

Best Wishes

to a good army 

man. I hope you

will be a Nevins

sergeant next

term. 

Navy

Hank Bukowski

1st Class

Seaman

Buk drew a line from the inscription to his ROTC Company A photo. He's fourth from the right in the second row down. You need a magnifying glass to see him with any clarity yet he stands out: deeply tanned between two snow-white boys, his cap with insignia at a rakish angle to the right and tipped down to  his  eyebrow. The attitude is already there.

The above page from Los Angeles High School Blue and White Summer 1938 is reproduced in Ben Pleasant's Visceral Bukowski (2004) and an enlargement of Bukowski within the group portrait is inset.

Of further value to collectors is that other classmates are found in the yearbooks who Bukowski later sandwiched into Ham On Rye, his semi-autobiographical novel recounting his youth in Los Angeles: Al Cole, Jimmy Newell; Jimmy Haddox, Jim Hatcher; and Harold Mortenson appears as Abe Mortenson. As a bonus, an autograph note is laid into the Winter 1939 yearbook, from Jim Haddox to Bill Mullinax, "Jim Hatcher" to "Baldy."

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Images courtesy of William Dailey Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Bukowski's First Appearance In Print, 1944

Charles Bukowski, Artist

Lost Original Drawings Of A Dirty Old Man

 Charles Bukowski's Last, Unpublished Poem

Charles Bukowski Bonanza At Auction

Dirty Old Man Exposed At The Huntington Library
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Bukowski's First Appearance In Print, 1944

by Stephen J. Gertz

A wonderful association copy of the scarce March-April 1944 issue of Story, featuring the first published work by Charles Bukowski - at the time only twenty-four years old - is being offered by PBA Galleries in its Beats, Counterculture & Avant Garde - Literature - Science Fiction. Collection of Richard Synchef sale, October 10, 2013. It is estimated to sell for $2,500-$3,500.

Bukowski's contribution, Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip, was composed just two years after he had begun to write, and was inspired by a note from Story publisher-editor Whit Burnett regarding a recent submission:

Dear Mr. Bukowski:

Again, this is a conglomeration of extremely good stuff and other stuff so full of idolized prostitutes, morning-after vomiting scenes, misanthropy, praise for suicide etc. that it is not quite for a magazine of any circulation at all. This is, however, pretty much the saga of a certain type of person and in it I think you've done an honest job. Possibly we will print you sometime but I don't know exactly when. That depends on you.

Sincerely yours,

Whit Burnett

In Factotum (1975), Bukowski described his experience with this first publication, calling Whit Burnett "Clay Gladmore":

"Gladmore returned many of my things with personal rejections. True, most of them weren't very long but they did seem kind and they were very encouraging...So I kept him busy with four or five stories a week." 

Bukowski later recalled the circumstances of the short story's publication in an interview just shortly before he died:

"I can remember my first major publication, a short story in Whit Burnett's and Martha Foley's Story magazine, 1944. I had been sending them a couple of short stories a week for maybe a year and a half. The story they finally accepted was mild in comparison to the others. I mean in terms of content and style and gamble and exploration and all that."

But Bukowski was not happy when Burnett finally published him. Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip had been buried in the End Pages section of the magazine as, Bukowski felt, a curiosity rather than a serious piece of writing. The cover's tag line - "Author to editor with everybody discomfited" - didn't help. Bukowski felt discounted and humiliated; he never submitted anything to Story again.

In that same interview, he noted that in the aftermath of Aftermath... "I didn't feel that the publishers were ready and that although I was ready, I could be readier and I was also disgusted with what I read as accepted front-line literature. So I drank and became one of the best drinkers anywhere, which takes some talent also."

"Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany, 1920. His father was California-born of Polish parentage, and served with the American Army of Occupation in the Rhineland where he met the author's mother. He was brought to America at the age of two. He attended Los Angeles City College for a couple of years and in the two and one half years since then he has been a clerk in the postoffice, a stockroom boy for Sears Roebuck, a truck-loader nights in a bakery. He is now working as a package-wrapper and box-filler in the cellar of a ladies' sportswear shop" (Bio in Story).

Laid in to this copy of Story is a postcard from Christa Malone, daughter of Wormword Review publisher Marvin Malone, stating that this copy belonged to her father. Bukowski was the most frequent contributor to the Wormwood Review, with works appearing in more than ninety issues. It's a strong association.

Story was founded in 1931 by Whit Burnett and his first wife, Martha Foley, in Vienna, Austria. A showcase for short stories by new writers, two years later Story moved to New York City where Burnett and Foley created The Story Press in 1936.

By the late 1930s, the magazine's circulation had climbed to a relatively astounding 21,000 copies. In addition to Bukowski, Burnett and Foley published early stories by Erskine Caldwell, John Cheever, Junot Diaz, James T. Farrell, Joseph Heller, J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams and Richard Wright. Other authors in the pages of Story included Ludwig Bemelmans, Carson McCullers and William Saroyan.

In 1942, Burnett's second wife, Hallie Southgate Burnett, began collaborating with him and Story published the early work of Truman Capote, John Knowles and Norman Mailer. Story folded in 1967 secondary to lint in its bank account but its roster of authors established and has maintained its reputation as one of the great American literary journals.

After finishing Bulowski's Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip,  readers of Story could take advantage of a fabulous offer advertised by the Book-Of-The-Month-Club. New subscribers to the BOTMC were offered a free copy of My Friend Flicka (1941) and its sequel (1943). Those familiar with the novel will note its thematic similarities to the work of Bukowski. 

My Friend Flicka is the story of a horse and the boy that loved him, and "Flicka," as we all know, is Swedish for "little girl." Flicka was quite the filly, and Bukowski had a keen eye for fillies - at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park racetracks. And, yes, Roddy McDowall, who starred in the 1943 film adaptation (as the boy, not the horse), was a dead ringer for Charles Bukowski, though a bottle or three of whiskey may be  necessary to appreciate their resemblance to each other.

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All images courtesy of PBA Galleries, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Bukowski: Lost Original Drawings Of A Dirty Old Man.

Charles Bukowski, Artist.

Charles Bukowski's Last, Unpublished Poem.

Charles Bukowski Bonanza At Auction.
  
Dirty Old Man Exposed At The Huntington Library. 
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Charles Bukowski, Artist

By Stephen J. Gertz

From: All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966).

In 1966, after enduring a hemorrhoid operation, Charles Bukowski, America's poet laureate of the depths, published a commemorative short story. All the Assholes in the World and Mine featured a drawing by Bukowski, a Posterior-Impressionistic portrait of proctology's finest hour as a  team of crack surgeons removes a bunch of wrathful grapes from Bukowski's butt. 

A richly inscribed copy has come into the marketplace, addressed to the publisher, Doug Blazek of Open Skull Press, a prolific underground poet, key figure in the scene, publisher of the legendary literary chapbook, Olé, and one of the first publishers to recognize the rough, uncut diamonds in Bukowski's early work. The inscription reads: 

"To Doug Blazek - As if a man don't have just enough fucking pain just looking out the window - But, no, there are always the little extras, one of which appears in this story - The poor asshole: Charles Bukowski Oct. 26, 1966."

From: Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Sleep With Beasts (1965).

A year earlier, in 1965, Blazek published Bukowski's Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Sleep With Beasts, which introduced the author'a alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, to the world, and featured a cover illustration by Bukowski.

This copy is inscribed, "For Doug Blazek - Doug - You know / what I mean - / that where almost all  / men have fallen apart / under the smallest / circumstances, / you've held to it / kept it / like a sugar cube / in a vase. / O, tough young bastard of / holler, true son of / truth, - my remains of / love, / Buk 1-25-66."

Below the initial salutation is an original drawing, perhaps of a face, that covers Bukowski's false start to the iniscription.

This copy also includes two pieces of original Bukowski artwork to the final two blanks, "Hangover and First Drink"...

...And "Dream of the Insect."

(I suspect, however, that the true dream of the insect is to be able to sit down and read a good book - 

...or suck up a good book's words).

Factotum (1975).

A thousand hardcover copies of Bukowski's Factotum were issued upon its publication in 1966.

250 of those copies were signed and numbered.

From: Factotum.

Seventy-five copies were signed and numbered, and included an original watercolor painting by Buk.

Recently, Loren Kantor, an artist located in Los Angeles who publishes Woodcuttingfool: Journal of a Carving Enthusiast, created the above portrait woodcut of Bukowski. Those interested in acquiring a print may directly contact the artist.

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BUKOWSKI, Charles. All the Assholes in the World and Mine.  Bensenville, IL: Open Skull Press, 1966. First edition, one of approximately 400 copies. Octavo (8.5 x 5.5 in.). [12] pp. Illustrated saddle-stitched wrappers.

BUKOWSKI, Charles. Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Sleep With Beasts. Bensenville, IL: Mimeo Press / Publisher's of Ole, 1965. First edition, one of approximately 500 copies. Octavo (8.5 x 5.5 in.). [24], [2, blank] pp of alternating colored leaves: maize, white, and pink. Illustrated saddle-stitched wrappers.

BUKOWSKI, Charles. Factotum. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1975. First edition, one of 75 copies (out of a total of 1000) signed and numbered by the author and with an original painting by Bukowski,

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Book and art images courtesy of Whitmore Rare Books, currently offering these items, with our thanks.

Bukowski woodcut image courtesy of Loren Kantor, with our thanks.

Reading bug image courtesy of EmpireOnline, with our thanks.

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Of related interest:

Dirty Old Man Exposed at the Huntington Library.

Charles Bukowski's Last, Unpublished Poem and the Bestial Wail.

Charles Bukowski Bonanza At Auction.

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Charles Bukowski Bonanza At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

Charles Bukowski is the star at PBA Galleries Fine Literature and Fine Books sale on Thursday March 15, 2012.

Twenty-eight lots of rare and, in a few instances, extremely scarce books from the Bukowski bucket will be offered, including Carlton Way Suite, Twelve Photographs of Charles Bukowski by Michael Montfort, privately published by the photographer in 1982. With each original print signed by Bukowski and Montfort, it's one of only two sets ("A" and "B") produced out of a planned run of twenty-six lettered copies. It is estimated to sell for $12,000 - $18,000.

In the  Carlton Way Suite deluxe portfolio, Michael Montfort chronicles Bukowski in various situations in and around Los Angeles and San Pedro, CA, including: pumping gas; smoking while driving; a few domestic tableaus; in his room tossing clothes around; petting a cat; at typewriter, eating; carrying laundry; two in a graveyard (in one he is lying down, in the other he's in front of  a headstone appropriately memorializing the "Beers" family); etc. 

The cover label states this is copy “B” of a limited edition of 26 copies, but in fact only two sets were originally produced: Montfort had to halt production due to costs much greater than he anticipated.  Some years later, a similar portfolio was produced in a limitation of three more copies, but with slight production differences with red ink signatures, etc. it was, strictly speaking,  a second edition.

Bukowski's original typescript for I Met The Master, his tribute to his literary hero, John Fante, is also being offered, along with the autograph envelope the typescript was mailed in to comix legend and artist, S. Clay Wilson.

Those seeking the ultimate, soothing Bukowski experience can be tranquilized by an infernal lullaby, Bukowski as a satanic Mr. Sandman reciting 90 Minutes in Hell, the original 1967 reel-to-reel tape of Buk's recitation of a selection of his poetry. 

In that year, Santa Monica, CA poet, Earth Books shop-owner, and Bukowski protege, Steve Richmond, dropped off a tape recorder and some blank tapes to Bukowski at his Hollywood apartment. Bukowski performed solo and gave the two completed tapes to Richmond, who, in 1977, issued the recordings as a two-LP set.

The Curtains Are Waving... #91 of 125. Signed, with Bukowski sketch.

Other rare and scarce Bukowski books being offered include, Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With Beasts (1965); At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968); The Curtains Are Waving and People Walking Through the Afternoon Here and in Berlin and in New York City and in Mexico (1967); and more.

No Bukowski library is complete without a copy of his collection Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8-Story Window (1968), and, of course, one is being offered by PBA. Here's a snippet from one of the suicide notes in the book:

I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself...

From Cows in Art Class (1966).

It is fortunate that America's Poet Laureate of the Depths didn't take that 8-story dive.
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Images courtesy of PBA Galleries, with our thanks.
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Of related interest:

Charles Bukowski's Last Unpublished Poem and the Bestial Wail.

Dirty Old Man Exposed at the Huntington Library.
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Charles Bukowski's Last, Unpublished Poem and the Bestial Wail

by Stephen J. Gertz

On Friday, February 18, 1994, at 2:14 PM - eighteen days before his death - Charles Bukowski, America's poet laureate of society's fringe, sent to his publisher, John Martin of Black Sparrow Press, via FAX, what would be his last poem.

#1

oh, forgive me For Whom the Bell Tolls,
oh, forgive me Man who walked on water,
oh, forgive me little old woman who lived in a shoe,
oh, forgive me the mountain that roared at midnight,
oh, forgive me the dumb sounds of night and day and death,
oh, forgive me the death of the last beautiful panther,
oh, forgive me all the sunken ships and defeated armies,
this is my first FAX POEM.
It's too late:
I have been
smitten.

We wondered about it and asked John Martin for insight.

"On February 18, 1994 Hank had a fax machine installed at his home. He sent me his first fax message in the form of that poem. I'm sure he visualized sending me his future letters and poems via fax, but sadly 18 days later he was gone.

"I ran off nine photocopies of the fax, for a total of ten, and numbered and initialed them. Over the next few months and years I gave copies to individuals who were Bukowski collectors and regular customers of Black Sparrow. I think I gave away the last one more than 10 years ago.

"That poem has never been published (except as described here) and the poem has never been collected in a book."

A copy, #4,  has just come onto the marketplace, offered by Whitmore Rare Books.

FAX Poem #1 a far cry from the poetry in Bukowski's first chapbook, Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail, published in an edition of 200 copies by Hearse Press out of Eureka, California in 1960, which introduced readers to the major themes that informed many of his works, particularly “the sense of a desolate, abandoned world,” as R. R. Cuscaden pointed out in The Outsider, the small literary magazine edited by Jon Edgar Webb  that published only five issues 1961-69. 

Thirty-four years after Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail, Charles Bukowski was no longer struggling with the demon muse. For the first time, after a long, difficult existence, his personal life and finances were secure. He had a home. He drove a nice car. 

He possessed, for once, a simple sense of joy. The lyric hard truths of his early poetry had given way to an almost childlike sense of wonder, carefree of the world, the bestial wail becalmed to a coo of delight.

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All images courtesy of Whitmore Rare Books, with our thanks, who, in addition to offering this absolutely scarce copy of FAX poem #1, offers this copy of Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail.

A personal thank you to John Martin.
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Of related interest:

Bukowski: Lost Original Drawings of a Dirty Old Man Are Found.

Charles Bukowski Bonanza At Auction.

Dirty Old Man Exposed at the Huntington.
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Dirty Old Man Exposed At The Huntington Library

By Nancy Mattoon

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
Notes Of A Dirty Old Man.
San Francisco: City Lights, 1971.
(Courtesy Of CollectingBukowski.com)

Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy, after happily living in an exclusively elegant enclave since 1922, suddenly has to cope with a rather earthy new neighbor. The Poet Laureate of the Gutter, the Bard of the Barroom, the Rimbaud of the Racetrack, Charles Bukowski is shaking up the staid environs of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanic Gardens.

How, you may well ask, does the archive of a self-proclaimed "dirty old man," who is more familiar with a quart of whiskey than a quarto of Hamlet, end up in permanent residence at a library which holds, among other treasures the original manuscript of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and seven drafts of Henry David Thoreau's Walden? Well the answer is, as so often in matters of real estate, "location, location, location."

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
Longshot Pomes for Broke Players.
New York: 7 Poets Press, 1962.
One of approximately 200 copies.

(Courtesy Of CollectingBukowski.com)

The Huntington Library in San Marino is just down the pike from Charles Bukowski's own personal piece of paradise, the Santa Anita Race Track. But while Bukowski opined that "there is nothing as depressing or quiet or stinky as a museum," his second or third wife, (depending on who's counting) Linda Lee Bukowski, disagreed. Rather than playing the ponies, she found nirvana by exploring the lavish gardens of the Library. While her hubby risked another bundle at the track, Linda noticed that the staff at The Huntington was strictly blue ribbon, "Every single thing they do, whether it’s botanical gardens, archiving libraries, art, landscaping or architecture, they’re the best."

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
Horsemeat.
Santa Rosa, California: Black Sparrow Press, 1982.
Signed & Numbered Edition of 125 copies.
(Courtesy Of CollectingBukowski.com)

When Bukowski met his maker in 1994, there were plenty of libraries that would have paid a pretty penny for the papers he left behind, estimated to be worth well into the six figures. But Linda Lee Bukowski, "didn't want to let the archive just sit and stagnate." She offered to donate the irreplaceable manuscripts, rare books, and ephemera to The Huntington. "Some people look at me like I'm nuts for not selling," she said. Donating instead, she notes, "has given me a great deal of joy." Bukowski's widow was actually responsible for obtaining much of the material, according to Sue Hodson, the Huntington's curator of literary manuscripts, "She acquired a lot of things he never had or no longer had, including early pieces in little mimeographed poetry magazines that are almost impossible to find."

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
The Movie: "Barfly."
New York: Ecco, 2002.
(Courtesy Harper Collins Books.)

Beginning in October 2010, The Huntington will host the most comprehensive exhibition on the writer ever undertaken, Charles Bukowski: Poet on the Edge. Among the rare books on view will be first editions of his works, including Ham on Rye (1982), the autobiographical novel about his brutal childhood and young adulthood; Factotum (1975), the fictional account of his succession of low-end jobs; and Barfly (1984), the screenplay he wrote for the 1987 film starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. Corrected typescripts of poems and of the novels Pulp (1984) and Hollywood (1989) will also be included in the show.

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail.
Eureka, California: Hearse Press, 1960
One of 200 copies of Bukowski's first chapbook.
Extremely rare in any condition.
(Courtesy Of Collecting Bukowski.com)

In addition to the manuscripts, there will be original drawings by Bukowski, correspondence and fan mail, and large-format printings of his poems produced by the Black Sparrow Press and other fine printing houses. Scarce, important "little magazines," which were the first to publish Bukowski’s works, including such publications as Wormwood Review, The Outsider, The Limberlost Review, and Runcible Spoon will also be on view for the first time in a formal exhibit. And Linda Lee Bukowski is graciously lending a number of iconic items, including Bukowski’s manual typewriter, an original oil portrait by John Register, and very scarce early books, including Flower, Fist & Bestial Wail (1960) and It Catches My Heart in Its Hand (1963).

Oui, September 1981.
(Courtesy Of CollectingBukowski.com.)

But no Bukowski exhibit would be complete without a few more unusual items. These are represented by skin magazines, such as Oui, which Bukowski admitted in a 1986 interview were his first source of real income from writing, "I started out...selling to the porno mags. What I used to do was, write a good story and throw in some goddamn sex. It worked. I only got one story rejected--it had too much sex! They draw a fine line. 'Bukowski,' the editor wrote me, 'nobody on earth screws that many women in a week and a half!' It was my own true story. The guy was haunted by jealousy. The porno mags... paid $230 to $290 a story. I could write one in a night with no problem." And what other author's exhibit would include hand-annotated racing forms outlining his patented betting system for picking the winners at Santa Anita?

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
Das Liebesleben der Hyäne.
Frankfurt: Zweitausendeins, 1980.
Women translated by Carl Weissner.
(Courtesy Of CollectingBukowski.com)

Charles Bukowski's writing was infused with the loneliness, isolation, and rootlessness he found at the core of his native Los Angeles. He captured the lives of those who, like himself, worked at an endless series of menial, soul-crushing, dead-end jobs. His stories are peopled with drunks, drug addicts, petty criminals, low-lifes, and hookers. Many of his characters have been ground down, mangled, and spit out by the machinery of life. The are the "losers" most Americans turn away from in disgust. Bukowski lived with them on the fringes, and found the beauty in their mere survival. He wrote about them in the language of the streets: unaffected, slangy, elemental, often profane, visceral, graphic, vulgar, sometimes stomach-churning, but always honest. He once said he worked to keep his writing "raw, easy, and simple" in order to stay true to "the hard clean line that says it."

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck.
Broadside/Prospectus.
Santa Rosa, California: Black Sparrow Press, 1972
This is one of 100 copies which were signed and numbered.
(Courtesy Of Collecting Bukowski.com)

Because of his writing style, his subject matter, his persona, and his lifestyle, Bukowski was ignored by the literary establishment. Not one of his poems could be found in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry (1973), despite the fact that a poem by another poet, which included a direct quote from Bukowski's Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, was. John Dullaghan, the director of "Born Into This," a documentary on Bukowski who assisted with research for the Huntington exhibit said, "He didn't like academia. He resented it, he didn't feel like they embraced him."

BUKOWSKI, Charles.
All the Assholes in the World and Mine.
Sacramento: Open Skull Press, 1966.
One of approximately 400 copies.
The story of Bukowski's hemorrhoid operation.
(Courtesy Of Collecting Bukowski.com)

Dullaghan thinks Bukowski would find his posh new home at the San Marino Library to be a good joke, "He wasn't the typical Huntington type of person, but to be included in this, he would have just been tickled." Curator Sue Hodson and the writer's widow, Linda, agree: "Bukowski was such a raw writer and street poet and the Huntington has this staid image," says Hodson. "Linda and I laugh about this quite a bit. Even if it's not an intuitive match, we think it will work very well."

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