Not poet types at all.Charles Bukowski was a contradiction. He wasn’t very handy with the ladies, but the original dirty old man needed some loving too. Hell of a trip.Nice Canadian people who set Finally fell against the radiator and cracked a 6 inch gash in They got me back on the elevator back at the hotel and I kept Dirty stuff and the other kind.ĭrank before the reading and 3 bottles of red wine during but read the Have video tapes of the thing inĬolor, runs about two hours. Hotel, fell and cracked my head open real damn good on the heater.Īnd from page 276, dated Novemto Carl Weissner ".Backįrom Canadian reading. Drank before reading and 4 bottles of red wine during. Octoto Hank Malone from the 4th paragraph which begins, Say about the Vancouver Gang from Living on Luck Selected Letters He used some of the footage and then this film miraculously came back into my life. Luckily, John Dullaghan made the documentary Born Into This based on Bukowski’s life and found this film. Time and circumstances had shuffled it off to a forgotten corner shelf. It was and remains a testament to a great poet and writer.įOOTNOTE: It’s worth noting this film sat in Bukowski’s archives for close to 25 years. It was the last time he performed outside the United States. There was also plenty of tears and shouts resounding with love and adulation for this man. There was plenty of yelling, screaming, and applause. We set up chairs, put Hank in front with a bank of microphones and filmed it. Perfect! Since it seemed to me laden with the overtures of many lives. It was a hall used for weddings and dances mostly. The reading was at an old hall in the Downtown Eastside on Hastings They came through arrivals several hours late - but, they were here! We took them to their hotel where they freshened up and we went out on the town and got to know each other. There was a dense fog that night and they were rerouted. Hank and Linda Lee Beighle (later to become Mrs. I set the date for Friday, October 12, 1979. I organized flights and hotel, rented a hall and advertised. He answered said yes, he would come back. Would he do another reading? My friends would get to see him live, I could film it and make sure that this visit would be recorded. What could I do? I decided to write Bukowski and tell him and ask if he would be willing to come back and try it again. That tape, which I thought existed, was nowhere to be found. One day I arranged for that reading to be shown to me and several friends. Unfortunately there was no record of the first reading. When Bukowski arrived here to read in 1979, it was for the second time. Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here! Bukowski Live in Vancouver 1979 Although technically raw - sometimes jittery, people walking in front of the camera - it ultimately fits the mood of the last Bukowski reading. It’s presented here publicly for the first time. The videotape sat in my collection for 25 years, coming out only occasionally, once to have it digitized to preserve the full color and sound. Not until I showed the film to Linda Bukowski (Charles Bukowski’s wife) did I find this out. At that time, I had no idea it was to be his very last poetry reading (listen to the final eerily prescient poem, Giving a Poetry Reading, with this in mind) and didn’t find out for another 25 years that a swan’s song was, in fact, what had been captured. I was working for a record label that was putting out a Charles Bukowski LP and used the connection to film this concert. The full impact of the reading is not in the individual poems, rather it’s the total performance.Īround 1980, the first generation of consumer video cameras came out and I got one. In short, the reading veered off the predictable course from the get-go and I watched, breathless, to see how much further out of bounds it would lunge. He was now prepared to get to work: a full frontal assault directed at the standing room only crowd made up of adoring fans, friends, colleagues, soon-to-be irate overly serious poetry enthusiasts (who wanted him to read the poems already), and, like me, accidental observers who stumbled in and were about to be treated to a great big adrenaline-rush surprise. He walked out like a businessman settling in at his office desk, took off his jacket, sorted his papers, but then poured himself a water glass of red wine and lit a bidi. I set up my video camera at the back of the club, plugged into the soundboard for the audio, and hunkered down for what was to be a bumpy night. One Tough Mother -The only available complete poetry readings of Charles Home The Readings DVD Extras Purchase One Charles Bukowski: the last 2 readings "There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here!" (1979) and "The Last Straw"
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