S6E4. Some people never go crazy: Barfly (1987)

Some people never go crazy, but truly horrible lives they must live. Welcome to Wake Up Heavy, the World's Greatest horror movie podcast. On this episode, my weird dad and his friends will be talking about this is the world where everybody's got to do something, They gotta be something. Sometimes, just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't want to do, all things that I don't want to be. Welcome.

Nobody sits next door because she's crazy crazy. You're the damnedest barfly of ite. Hobbies None, religion, none, education nine. The word asks your sex. You've written none, well, hardly none.

Your wife is just a bunch of kids. You can't work, you can't fight. You could look at a woman's legs for hours. I got nothing but time. You know, every time I get with a woman, something happens.

You're Henry Chanaski. I'm one of the main producers of the Contemporary Review of Art and Literature. We've discovered you. I had an idea that I'd be discovered after my death. How does it feel to be on the other end?

And I smellet perfumes. Baby, look about it. It's a cage with golden bars. You get out of here. I'm going to peel you away from the perfume.

We don't have to be bar flies, right down of the gray, Mickey Rourke. I don't want to fall in love. They Dunaway, don't worry. Nobody's ever loved me and four Life on the Edge as seen by Charles Bukowski, directed by Barbay Schroeder. Hello and welcome to wake Up Heavy Recollections of Horror.

This is Mark Bigley, your host, and joining me tonight for the second or third time. I believe is Heather Drain Hello, Hello and joining us as well for a second or third time. I also believe is Anthony King, Friends and lovers. Thank you for allowing me to join you. That was so smooth.

I know very continental. I'm fancy. We just talked about London. I'm fancy. I need an ass, Scott.

I feel very underdressed right now. Tonight we are talking about Barbe Schroeder's nineteen eighty seven film Barfly, scripted by Charles Bikowski. I drank in a gamble and I write, and starring Mickey Rourke as Henry Chanaski, Faye Dunaway as Wanda Wilcox. We find out in the credits, Jack Nance as a private detective and Alice Creeg as Tolly Sorenson aka Tolly Baby. The film is about two down and out alcoholics who meet in a bar one night and spend the next few days getting drunk, trying to find jobs, and hitting the bars.

You make it sound so sad, Heather, When was the first time you saw Barfly? And what did you think? Oh goodness, I first saw a Barfly about thirteen twelve or thirteen years ago, and it was the perfect time. I'd heard about it for years, But it kind of timed right, is I was really getting into reading Bukowski, like I'd picked up a short story collection of his that was the most Beautiful Woman in Town. And it's just hooked his language, his heart.

It pros is something. I mean, I've always been a very avid reader, but Pros is really I love Pros. But a writer that can really hook me is a very kind of special thing, because there's not a ton that have. And then I saw the movie and I loved it. I loved it immediately.

It's funny, it's beautifully made, I mean even just visually cinematography. It's my absolute favorite Mickey Rourke performance. I think he's perfection. I think he's absolutely perfect in this and I think just also getting to see a film about alcoholics where it's just not a morality tale, which I think is kind of a lot of times how we see that like these you know, it's like there's a great humanity two our main characters, just a great heart without being cheesy or pretentious. And I think a lot of that's Mukowski writing the script because trying to write about poets, especially that are on that are having a rough time, can you could go so easily in a pretentious lands with that, and the film never does.

So Yeah, I'm a fan and Anthony, how about you. I watched Barflight for the first time today. When I was in high school, I read Women by Charles Bukowski and then I just picked up Ham and Rye earlier this year and read that. I don't want to give up on Bukowski, but these, you know, these two characters that he writes about in those books are just awful people that I didn't want to spend any more time with. I finished the books, so that says something.

But I'll be honest, I wasn't super looking forward to watching or Fly. Although huge Mickey Rourke fan, and I'll read a book in like two weeks, right, bar Fly is one hundred minutes long. That's a big difference. I can spend one hundred minutes with a character I don't like, and as it turns out, I do. I mean a lot of it is Mickey Rourke.

He's just charming his Hell, I much prefer the movie to the book. All that said, I do want to give some more Bukowski. I don't want to read about Shannaski anymore. And I can't even really remember. I just remember being disgusted when I was reading Women.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was a I'm a pretty upstanding gentleman, and so like the way he writes about women. And I was just like, oh god, this is not That's not my thing, man, this is so gross. Heather, I know you're a fan. And just like I was saying on movies from hell, like a lot of times we might disagree on opinions on movies, but I will always come back. Like the first time you were on cult movies, we talked about El Topo, right, hell yeah, And I didn't really like El topo.

Going into that episode, we talked about it and I was like, I gotta give this another chance. Watch it again. I'm like, oh yeah, obviously it's a brilliant movie. So you're a big Bukowski fan, I'm I'm gonna lean on you to be in in the right direction here as I get my lasso out. Just drag me along, please.

That's I will say. As an alcoholic, watching Barfly was totally fascinating, and so I couldn't help but watch these characters through the lens of you know, someone who is sober and part of the program, part of alcoholics anonymous and goes to multiple meetings a week and everything. I'm like, oh wow, these people are totally fucked up. Well, I saw this theatrically, and I saw it because of Angel Hart, which was the previous episode for Wake Up Heavy. And I want to say there was a trailer for this before the showing of Angel Hart.

They came out the same year Angel Hart was in April. This was in October. I know that the film was ready for con that year, which is in May. So I think it's believable to say that a trailer was ready when Angel Hart came out, and then it naturally would have been played before another Mickey Rourk film. All I know is that when I learned about it, I knew I wanted to see it, and I wanted to see it because of Mickey Rourke, because of his performance in Angel Hart, which I absolutely loved.

Knew really nothing about the Cowsk at that point. It's a name that I had heard battered around in different occasions, different instances, not really sure what. The only thing I explicitly remember is they mentioned him in a big audio dynamite song on their second album, which I have. It's called The song is called Hollywood Boulevard. They talk about all these people in Hollywood.

There's a line about Charles Bikowski in that. I believe I had the tape, and the tape came with the lyrics. So I remember reading that name and going, that's an odd name. The only other thing that I remember seeing is on Entertainment Tonight. They actually went to the premiere, so that was probably, I don't know, sometime October of that year.

Why they were at that premiere, I don't know, but they showed Bikowski, they interviewed him briefly. Roger Ebert was there. He was a big proponent of the film. David Lynch and Isabelle Rossellini were there, and I was sort of just getting in to land at that time, and all these things just converged. Went and saw it.

And it's not hyperbole to say that this movie changed my life because it led to so many things that I would discover, things that I would do. Other authors, publishing, writing, all this stuff came about because of this movie. Because once I saw the movie, fell in love with it. The very next Monday, I was a freshman in college, so Angel Hart, when I was still a senior in high school, this came out, I had already started Fresno Estate, went to their library to the index cards, found out where Bikowski was in the shelves, went up there, picked up Post Office, read the first line and was instantly hooked. And so I used the library for a lot of my initial reading, and I stuck with the pros because I was like, oh, poetry, you know, I'm not fancy, I'm not pretentious.

I'm going to read the novels and the short stories. And then of course after that there's only so many of those. It's like, oh, I guess I'll start reading the poetry, and that really hit as well. If we had recorded this two days ago, we would have hit the thirty fifth anniversary of the release of Our Fly, But of course Anthony doesn't record on the weekend, so we weren't able to hit that milestone. Not very Bikowski, is shaw of you.

I'm the anti asky. Oh that's a weird good thing, but yeah, yeah, right. I don't know when Fresno got it. I doubt they got it on opening weekend. I'm kind of surprised it showed here at all, played in the same theater, and I saw it on the same screen as Angel Hart.

By the way, as well. It's very likely that it's been thirty five years sometime between when we record this and when the episode will come out, but I saw it, so sort of an anniversary for me as well. Oh that's awesome. I've seen this movie a gazillion times. Can quote it.

Sit there and watch it by myself and quote every other line. But we're not here to turn it in. I mean, we can turn it into a quote fest. The hell invented the sandwich? You ought to write a book about him.

I know it is a really well made movie. I knew nothing about Urb Shoulder beforehand, or very little. I think I had seen Cocoa the Gorilla on PBS or something. Did you all know that he directed a movie about the oh interesting gorilla that could sign His filmography is nuts. Yeah, it's weird things.

Yeah. And he started that company that produced all these new wave films, Eric Romer and I think Shock Rivett, and he did those movies that had the Pink Floyd scores, and and you know, after this it became the Hollywood era. And he did that movie on with Jeremy Irons on the what were their names, the guy that's Sonny Buelow. Oh yeah, oh what was that? I remember that something fortune not us fortune, rageous reversal of fortune.

Yeah. I wish it was that rageous fortune that would be told from her. She's narrating the whole story, which is kind of, oh my goodness, single white females pretty good. After that, I don't know, kind of lost track of his filmography. The direction, I think the difference, and we won't talk about the other adaptations right now, but I think the big difference, The biggest difference is that Bikowski wrote this script, and so it has that heart Heather that you mentioned that I think a lot of people miss in his writing because it's kind of surrounded by all this junk and garbage and hard stuff to read.

But there is a lot of heart to his work and that really shines through in this. I would say this is quite different actually than a lot of his writing as far as the story, the humor. It's a lot more easygoing and less crass. Yeah, and his writing, yeah, I mean, I think part of the reason why we haven't seen a lot of adaptations is that a lot of his stuff, if you especially if you were to be trying true to the source material, I mean trying to get funding, well great, and I mean I think it's a negative thing, but I mean, especially if you're trying to do anything big budget. We live in an era where everything is about test screenings and CGI franchises.

Everything's got to be and you know this having these raw, this raw world that Bukowski paints his stuff is like a wounded animal. It's still beautiful, you know, there's still that beauty, there's still that that spirit there that despite actually I knew a guy once that had a handle that went by beating not broken, and that always stuck with me. It's like, oh, I love that. It's so simple and to me that's you know, I mean anthy. I can definitely understand why you had that kind of like woo, because I think that I think that's common with Bukowski's stuff, and especially I would not have women.

If somebody asked me how to get me into Bukowski, women would not be And I love women, but that would not be the one. I'd be like, yeah, start off with that, like noon no oh. I think Boskowski is really misunderstood because I think a lot of people, even people that try to imitate them, because all they see is like, yeah, this guy that drinks a lot and he's talking about you know, pussy and and yeah, I'm gonna be like that, and it's like, well, you're missing the point. A Plenty of people live like that and can't write worth a ship that nobody should want to live like that either, Like I don't. I mean, it felt like he wanted to live like that.

I mean, if you read him, I mean, because they have you read hand on Rye, I mean that's pretty much autobiographical. That's a horrible way to grow up. That's a brutal way, and I think that's the thing that it's Bukowsky stuff has so much truth about the brutality of life, but there's always, to me and a lot of his work little flashes of beauty. This is somebody who wants love. This isn't a monster.

I mean sometimes he maybe does kind of things that are monsters, but a lot of people do, and especially if they're almost treated like an animal, you're you know, if you're beaten enough in this life, yeah, sometimes you're gonna acts like, you know, not the best version of yourself and not cope in the healthiest ways because nobody's taught you how. His stuff just it really, I don't know. It hits me. It always hits me hard reading so much of Bukowski stuff. Barfly is way lighter, I would agree it is, but in a really good way.

And I think the thing is, like, that's so hard for people to adapt to stuff too, is that even though Barbie shoulders not American, this film to me felt so authentic to the locations and to the experience. I think that's the other team when filmmakers try to be like, here's a dive, bar here's the slum, and it's like, yeah, the slum is something we would be paying eight hundred dollars a month for in a nothing town. You know, like there are versions of slums. It's like, do you know what a slum is? Have you ever lived in a shitty apartment?

You have three bedrooms? You know, there's no stains on the wall. You know, I don't see black I don't see any black mold in here. You know where Barbie fly. The locations are legit authentic, I mean literally authentic that they look it.

There's that feel and even some of the sign characters, like even the people that are just extras in the bar that Henry hangs out at, it look I mean almost it's like a Diane Arvis photo, like they have that that looked to them, that weathered look. Every single person is an individual to look at. It's not just like the central casting. Even if it was, it doesn't feel late. And if I ramble too much, please interrupt me.

I just I love the kowski so much, and I love this film. You're right though, because it is a mix of real actors and people. I've listened to the commentary a few times, and I have read Hollywood. It's been a long time, but I have read Hollywood. If I'm not mistaken.

Schroeder spent a good amount of time from eighty one when the script was written, when he commissioned the script, to eighty six when they film. I might have even commissioned it before then. I think he initially called the Cowskin like seventy eight or seventy nine, told him, you know, I want you to write a there's a great there's a time there's on my old DVD. There's a little making a featurette that's I don't know, maybe twenty minutes long. He called Bikowski Kowski hung up on him, immediately called him back and said, well, you know, don't hang up.

I want you to write a screenplay. I said, hey, fuck you man. I started to hang it up, and I heard him say twenty thousand dollars. I said, when can you come over. That's how the Bikowski tapes came about.

He was there. I don't know that he was in LA for the whole like seven year process, but he was there a lot and took that time to do the filming of those Bikowski tapes. That's sort of part of the way that they got this done and spent a lot of time scouting those locations, found locations that apparently Bikowski lived in or Jane, who is the Wanda character, lived in. Not real sure how factual that is, but they weren't the actual locations. They were very near places where he really lived.

The bars were very near where he drank. They were all real locations. That Golden Horn bar that we see so much of where main action takes place, just ended up being the perfect setup. That long bar with a little swirl at the end, which a lot of the action takes place in the alley behind it was the alley attached to that bar. So it's not even like their hopping locations to create the world.

A lot of it was just there. I guess Wanda's apartment the outside is not where they filmed the interior, but again they match it so well that the inside is so perfect because it has that bail Bonds building across the way that has that pegasyst that plays a part in the movie so beautifully, and so I think it was his due diligence that makes it feel so authentically La, so authentically American, and frankly so authentically Bukowski. That is one of the big differences between it and the other adaptations is that feel. And none of the other adaptations have that at all, even the one that's filmed in LA, which is Tales of Ordinary Madness, totally different feel. Oh, it doesn't even feel like it's i mean, other than that one apartment there, there's an apartment building in it that looks very that era of LA.

But other than that, I mean, it could have been made in Denmark, Captain, Like, it doesn't feel it doesn't have that feel to it in my opinion, theater. Yeah, that's the thing is Bukowski in this film like his writing, but also is writing to give you that flavor of Los Angeles that we don't typically see or read it that because everybody with LA tends to focus on obviously more the entertainment industry, the glitzier palm trees, like everything's the beautiful people, and instead it's not that. I mean even the bars, Like there's that great montage in the beginning of the film of all the different bars, and some of them you could almost tell by the signs they have those beautiful signs, and some of them probably like really nice in the twenties or thirty like, and it's just with that, you know, like things over time.

It's kind of like how the beautiful theaters of the twenties or cinemas in the twenties were these like palaces, these were these just gorgeous buildings. Then by the time you get to the sixties and seventies, I mean they're they're porn theaters. Right, it's seedy, it's dirty, but there's still like the sort of it's almost like Shanavski himself, there's still a regalness. I think Wanda, I'm trying to think it's one of my favorite descriptors where she, yeah, was like he walks around like debauched royalty or something like that, you black, like some weird blue blood royalty, and he does he has this like or does it so beautifully this sort of just swagger about him like he's you know, he's beaten, but he's most definitely not broken and just the whole God, there's somebody like, do you have a favorite quote, Anthony before I just start riffing, like, is there a line that stuck it to you where you were like kind of if not chuckling, maybe making the devil horns a little bit or no, there's no specific line, but there's I just I love how Mickey Rourke plays the character Chenasky.

He elongates everything, everything's so cool. He's so charming, and it just proved why I love Mickey Rourke so much. I'm my favorite Rourke is Pope and Greenwich Village, but this is pretty fucking close now because he is so great in this, and it made me empathetic towards the character of Chennavsky, Whereas when I was reading him on Rise, like fuck this guy, I don't like, please die by the end of the novel, this guy's crash. But then I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, he's cool. I hope obviously, I know he's not going to get any help, but I'm like, god, I hope nothing bad happens.

So that's a cool thing about this movie, Like it's just a hangout movie. Nothing serious happens. I don't think we get enough with those anymore, Like it has to be some big, spectacular thing that happens in the story, and we don't get these middle of the road just absolute hangout movies where nothing really happens. We're just hanging out with a couple of characters for two, three, four days and that's it. But no, there's no specific line.

I just love Rourke's character, the way he plays it, the way he elongates all these you know, he's perpetually drunk, and it doesn't necessarily slur. His slurring is more of the elongating each of these words. And I dig that. So I Heather go go. That threw me off the first time I saw and I'm like, nobody talks like this.

And I don't know how long it took before I actually heard Bikowski talk and I was like, oh, he kind of toned it down. Oh really, is that how Bukowski talks. Bikowski has a higher pitched voice, but he does have that lilt. Look at that old man. A sweet birdie with brown eyes said to a sweet birdie with green eyes.

He's really fucked up. A couple times in the movie it sounds like WC. Fields Ish, Yeah, yeahholt very he keeps it under wraps pretty good. Bikowski has a very interesting voice, Anthony. You should watch a clip on YouTube.

My husband, who was also a huge fan, we were actually texting each other quotes from this movie. Was getting ready. He wants to describe Bukowski's voice. This is my favorite descript of it, as a Tomcat perm And it's like, how that's perfect, Yeah, because he kind of have that like it's you're right. Nobody else talks like that.

It is higher pitch than you would imagine, though, especially if you've only some pictures of his face. Yeah. I thought he'd be like deep and gruff and this big rocky crag of a face, and then you hear him talk and you're just like, what the fuck? I had seen that Entertainment Tonight thing, but I don't know that I really paid attention to him talking in that My sister brought I was working in this warehouse for a title company. I had actually taken over her job because she was going to go to Russia with the choir or something.

So it had to have been pre nineteen ninety, so I was already pretty heavy into Bikowski and trying to find books and watch this movie bazillion times. She showed up. She walks in and she hands me this massive VHS box, this big yellow and black, like four inch thick thing. But she had from Tower Video, and I looked at it and it's the Charles Wikowski tapes, and I'm like, what the fuck is this. I flip it over and I see the running time two hundred and forty minutes or something around there, and you open it up and it's two VHS tapes and I'm like, what is this?

What is this? And it's all those recordings that Trigger did of Bikowski in La over the year. It's like you can tell the year's change. He looks different, and a lot of the clips but these were shown on French TV at night, like after midnight or whatever, five minute clips, and it was the whole collection of them. I don't think I had ever heard about it or had any realization of it at that moment.

Went home and watched it and was like, oh, that's how he talks. I get it now, I get the Mickey Rourke performance. You know. There's a lot of that ugly stuff in those tapes, a lot of the sad stuff when he visits his childhood home, talks about his dad, talks about the abuse that he suffered for years. It's really a Bikowski completest type of thing.

I wouldn't suggest the novice fan. You digging into all four hours, but it's included on that new Imprint Blu ray that's out, so those that have ordered that will get it, and I believe it's the full four hours. Oh God, I want that set so bad, but I'm almost afraid to see what the price is. The shipping alone scares me away from order. It's the shipping is expensive as hell from what I've seen, and I can't remember which sites I've seen it on, but it's around fifty I think, okay, and I believe those are American sites that are selling it.

I don't know what it would be from Imprint itself since there in Australia, but I imagine, like Anthony says, the shipping would probably be ridiculous. I have to admit I'm probably not going to get this addition because I don't need the Pikowski tapes. My friend recently gave me his DVD of them, and I don't. It's not something that I think I need, like in four K or anything. No jeez.

Now, So when and if they release the Barfly disc on its own, I will most likely get that. But people that are interested, and I have seen a lot of people sharing it on Instagram and Twitter and elsewhere I have bought it. That's another nice little timely thing here with this episode. If you're listening to this and are interested in the movie, you've got a great new print of it to watch. This thing upon me like a flower in a feast, this thing upon me pulling like a snake.

It's not death, but dine will solve its power. And as my hands drew up the last desperate pen, it's some cheap room. They will find me there. I never know my name, my meaning. I knew the treasure of my escape.

One more beer, I'll take you all. LOLLI. I'm kind of curious, Anthony, since you actually signed up for this episode, what was the impetus for doing so? Since you weren't a big Bikowski fan initially, and I hadn't seen the movie because I'm not a big Boukowski fan, and I like Mickey Rourke, I knew the very general premise of the story, and I was like, you know what, I'm sober. I want to talk about this movie.

I like to watch and talk about movies because I my experience with Bookowski has not been positive. I want to talk about that so I can hopefully grow to Makowski and luckily I you know, I really really enjoyed the movie. I will say probably the first half of the movie, I was like, Oh, this is definitely going to be in my top ten discoveries of the year. And then about the eighty five eighty six minute mark, I was like, this motherfucker is grading Chenaski himself. As much as I loved Mickey Rourke's performance, I was like, I don't want to hang out this guy anymore.

So about eighty to eighty six minutes is my limit with him? And so that it dropped down a little bit because I felt like it was a little over long because it is a hangout movie. I was like, does it need to be a one hundred minutes long? I don't know at what point, though, did that happen? What was playing out?

I'm curious if it's where I lose interest. It was. I think around the time he gets oh god damn it. It's before he no, because he fights Stallone at the are he end, right, he goes out to fight him at the very end. Yeah, the book ends when Faye came back in the middle of the night.

It was after she had beat the shit out of him. And he had cleaned himself up, but then she comes back like a day later. Timing, isn't I also love how timing is so ambiguous and it's obviously it's only a couple of days, maybe three days we're hanging out these people, but you don't really know because I mean, it's just like the life of a drunk, like time does not exist. You're in a blackout most of the time, and you don't really know what's happening, where are you, who is around you? And then he wakes up from and he's cleaned up, and then she has come back in to the apartment and it's either late at night or early in the morning.

But at that point I was like, and role credits and Okay, guess we're gonna keep going with this. So that's I think it is about that point. Okay, I thought it was going to be with the Tolly sore insun part that would be mine. That was Yeah, that's the only negative thing I really have about this movie. I feel like the Alan and I love Alice Creegy like like I kind of hate, and she's absolutely gorgeous in this movie.

Yes, yeah, she's kreegears, but I mean she's hot as a borg. I can't remeb which star Trek, but she was like the borg but she was like rocking it. Then it's like wow, you know, go girl. But her section I feel like drags a little bit, but it's far from a til riker. Like it's not um create.

I feel like I might be the ultimate degenerate to quote the great Michael Finlay movie, because I'm just like, I love Shanavski so much. To the survey, I was like, brk mark, give me the Avenger's blength with this man, you know, like just especially the fight was Stallone. I mean, can we even mentioned Frank Stallone? How could we not talk about Eddie? Probably his best performance?

Oh fucking a. I mean what else? I mean he said other things, but I mean, come on like that. But he's great here, Like he's sot, alpha male, d bag, jocular. What was it, macho male like obviousness.

He symbolizes everything that discussed me, obviousness, an original macho energy ladies man, explain this staff to me at the Golden Horn. Frank Stallone is one of the bartenders. Ben yeah, Ben or Jim. Jim is the owner. I believe Jim is the owner.

Okay is the night and then there's Eddie and Ben Yeah, Kevin Knight manager du Yeah, Joe Onger right, Joe from Night, Muren elm Street Yeah. I was like, who the because I saw it, Like for the second fight with stallone, Ben was like he's taking off his coat and jumping over the bars, Like the fuck is this guy? And like the movie opens with JC quinn behind the bar, and I was like, okay, and I was just trying to keep this straight. Ben is behind the bar at the opening too. When the camera pulls in, he's sitting there reading the paper.

No, they're in the bar, but I'm talking about behind the bars. Serving It's a small thing to get hung up on. But I was like, dude, Jim, real your crew in, man, And I realized this is like a completely different time. This is in nineteen eighty seven, and this is I mean, it's almost seems like skid Row, just the outskirts of skid Row right that we're in, and so like anything kind of goes I was like, dude, real, your fucking crew in again, it's a movie, and it was entertaining, Like the we go through the bar and we hear all the shouting and stuff, and then we're out in the alley that's where everybody is, and still Rourke are duking it out, um and you know that's it's It's funny. One of the best first lines in a movie.

Wouldn't you be like swallowing? I mean, if we're gonna quote things, let's quote things. Ben Is is just the guy that takes over when Eddie has to fight Henry. You know, Jim just runs the place. Jac Quinn, you know, I was so unfamiliar with most of this cast other than the leads when I first saw this, But I love watching movies now where oh there's jac Quinn, there's well Joe Unger I've only seen like a nightmare like I mentioned, and a couple of the things I didn't realize that was Napoleon.

Dynamite's grandma in there, one of the women who's wow, always hanging off of Eddie, and that's always your dan Caesadilla, Get off, Napoleon, make yourself a dank Sadilla. Oh my god, I love it when she's the way she gives the finger. I wish she's lift it up like I've ever seen anybody so put everything they have in their soul and body and through a middle finger gesture, it's great. You've got one of the barfly guys. Is one of the cabbies in Taxi Driver.

Oh wow. And then you've got Pruett Taylor Vincent there, who had also been an angel Hart. This was like his maybe third or fourth movie, Love seeing him and stuff. The Galvet plays Lily, the cantinkerous woman at the end of the bar Henry's antagonist through most of the film. Oh she's great.

She's been in tons of stuff, but you don't recognize her because she's so dressed down on this there's a video of like their after party, the Rat Party, and I finally figured out. I'm like, who's this woman that they keep showing in this dress and all made up? And it's her. You would not recognize her red all. It's amazing.

Oh god, Now, I mean she looks like somebody that got rescued from a dust bowl. Yeah. In the film, like she slowly got that Dorothea Lane kind of real this. You know. I don't think you can talk about supporting casts without talking about Grandma Moses, who has some of the best lines in them.

Nobody swallows paste better. Nobody in this neighborhood can swallow paste like I can't. I was eating lunch when I was watching their eating breakfast when I was watching this, and she dropped the pasteline and I was like, disgusting. One of the guys at the bar has the same reaction, right, yeah, he was eating a sandwich. Yeah, I almost made a gift of that, and I was like, I have the same reaction as that, because paste is I've heard all sorts of other words for seamen, but paste hole.

Yeah. Yeah, but that's a level of viscosity. Yeah, that it does not work. That does not work. Yeah, Yeah, we don't get too many of those old timey I think that's probably more from the Kowski's era, like forties or something.

Women made. It might have more men probably were more likely to have said that. That's a weird colloquialism. Yeah, as you guys were sort of talking about the neighborhood, and I feel like this movie is otherworldly. I don't think it feels and I'm not a California guy.

I don't think it feels like la. I think it feels like and Mike Figus is stormy Monday. They're in Newcastle, in the UK, but it doesn't feel like a Newcastle village or in David Mammett's American Buffalo. They're in Provincetown, Rhode Island, but it doesn't feel it just feels like a specific neighborhood, but like an unspecified specific neighborhood. We don't know exactly where it is.

And that's what I feel like Barfly does this very small area in which they traverse is one of the characters, you know, I mean, like when Dunaway pulls them up to her apartment, like walks through a little fucking cornfield, Like what, that's not downtown LA. That's not skid Row as far as I know, And so I like that this does feel it doesn't feel like LA. I had to look up does this take place in LA because I knew Bukowski's from that area. I don't think it feels like anywhere specific. It just feels like its own planet, its own place.

And I really like, I also love a movie or story that really incorporates in you know, like this obviously takes place in you know, some neighborhood in Brooklyn or in the Castro in San Francisco or wherever. But I also love these sort of weird, one of a kind most of the time, their hangout movies. Nothing like huge or dramatic, super dramatic happens in these movies. And the area of this very specific or very small neighborhood is one of the characters. Where is it fucka final, but it's one of the characters.

That's what I really loved about Barfly is that we're in these two bars. We're in Chinaski's disgusting ass apartment or if a Dunaway's fine looking apartment, still kind of gross, and then these two bars, and then outside this you know, just the crosswalks, the sidewalks. That's about it. It's almost a bottle movie but has its own little chambers, but it's still encased in this one bottle if that makes any sense. Yeah, I think it's a very specific area that not a lot of people outside of La be all that familiar with.

I've kind of driven through some of that part of la on a number of occasions, but you don't normally see it in films, and I'm sure it looks a hell of a lot different these days. If any of those places, even I know, the Golden Horn, does I don't think it's that's the actual name of the bar, but I believe it's still in existence or was until recently, as far as like the apartments and stuff. I tell Henry's place is still there. But apparently again his room that he lives in was actually in the building above that bar that were they filmed. He comes down that one time, has a little encounter with the landlady and I've got a job killing the cockroaches on that place of years, and he walks into the bar, and that's which goes to a lot of his stories.

A lot of times he lived in flats above the bars that he frequented, and it makes sense because he probably didn't have a car for a great deal of his life. Probably best that he didn't have a car. Easy tripped down down the stairs end of the bar that was his workday, go back up at the end of the night. There was something you said earlier, Anthony, that I really love, and it's such a great point. I don't think enough people really make about film.

It's just how nice it is to see something that's just like a slice of life. Because you're right, we don't really I feel like, I mean, not like I'm watching a ton of new movies, but you know, I watch the ones that interested me. But I'm like, I don't know, it's like I'm picking, but but no, it is nice to see that. And you know, especially because these films, you know, this film particular, all the characters to me are really fascinating and I love like it's it's so fascinating with rot And I know, Mark, you've seen this, because I think it's in that same is it in that making of? Because I remember seeing an interview with Bukowski where he was kind of crabbing because he initially didn't want make you Roark as Shanasky and he's like, who go I can't do the Pikowski plays, Yeah, who who goes in there?

And some let's go tell my friends? Now you go to all my friends like that or something like that. It always makes me laugh. I think by the end he had warmed over, like he liked Mickey and they got a long fine. The whole thing is he originally wanted like Sean Penn, which I think would have been wrong completely a shopin It's done some great acting.

I'm not a hater, but he would have been too young at that point, because this is like eighty seven, Yeah, I think the eighties. Yeah, that's all laid out in Hollywood. Yeah, you know, and everybody's given these real cheesy pseudonyms, which is kind of funny to pass out who everybody is. Yeah, they remained friends. I think he really liked Sean Penn as a person.

But Sean Penn wanted Dennis Hopper to direct, and Dennis Hopper had gone clean and sober, and he was like, oh, he can't, he can't do this story justice, and so he was against Hopper directing. Otherwise it probably would have been Sean Panna's Channasky and this I don't know, you know, Dennis Hopper. It was so funny. So I watched this this morning. I go to a Monday night meeting and last night it ended up being one of those meetings where people just shared we call more stories, just how did you start drinking?

Like tell some of the crazy shit that happened. I feel like that's sort of like Barfly is one of the war stories. He's on this, like three Day Bender, It's a war story. Hopper was, although probably a little boggled in the head, still at this point, full of those war stories and sober enough to be able to do this justice. I'm not saying Schroeder didn't do this movie justice, because I think he directs the hell out of it.

But Dennis Hopper as a director of bar Fly, I would kill to see that sounds fascinating, but not wish. I think it would. Well, Yeah, it would be a very different because Schroeder was a fan boy, So I think that's another one of the pieces that's necessary. I don't Dennis Hopper probably hadn't read a word of Bikowski and would have taken it in very different directions. Yeah, and Dennis Hopper has directed some great movies.

Sean Penn has had some brilliant performances. This was the right combination. No, yeah, I agree. I think it's the right combination. I'm just saying I think Hoppers would be really interesting because it'd be a lot weirder.

It'd be a hell of a lot darker. I like dark and weird. That's true, so do I. And this is dark. You know you could watch this and like pity Chinaski the whole time because it I mean, he's a pitiful character, really, but Mickey Rourke is so charming and you're like, God, I love hanging out with this guy.

The dynamic with Faye Dunway is another interesting layer to the whole story. But I'm saying Hopper directing this interests me a lot because it would be a hell of a lot weirder, a hell of a lot darker, And so that's all I'm saying. Yeah, I agree completely. It would be a completely different film I would not want to see. And I loved Dennis Hopper.

We legit have a picture of him on our fridge, like I mean, like like he's a child now that he is one of our patron like saints in an altered universe. Him directing something like him on Rye because he could do dark bar Flight is a different universe in a weird way. I mean it's not, but the tonal tonality is different. Sean Penn and he's a hell of an actor, but he's the child of Hollywood people, and I feel like to play a CHINASKI like Mickey Rourke was an X boxer. Mickey Rourke is this working class guy and even though this is when he was consider it's still a pretty boy.

He isn't pretty here like he you know, it doesn't. He feels authentic to me, like he has that working class gravitas to it. Penn is an actor and everything he does is acting work Inhabits. This doesn't feel like I'm an actor. It just feels like he is rich and ASKI in a way to me, does that make sense?

No? That's why I love Pope of Greenwich Village because like him, and I think Eric Roberts is sort of the same way, especially when he was younger, right, like they were these characters and so you look like Diner even Year of the Dragon, all these roles that I mean, even today I watched a new fucking Mickey Royal horror film called war Hunt. The guy You're executive, Heather Inhabits whatever, the character is the Sin City movies. God, he is so fucking invested in these characters and becomes these people. It's fascinating to watch.

And he's such a great actor. Oh, I love him. I mean even by favorite commercials ever, and this is some European like ironically a beer commercial but for not alcoholic beer. But Mickey Rourke is fooled into drinking the not alcoholic beer. But he gives the best toast in the world, and he says to God, it was too small dogs and God damn revolution, and I collapsed.

I was like, this says my man. I fucking love him. I will get in a fist fight for making or I follow him on Instagram and he's also a delight like he seems like a really good human being and he loves small dogs. This this man is so secure. He's got an agger with people if he feels that they're even mocking his dead dogs.

And I relate to that because I love I don't know, you can hear my dog, who I've had to shut out because he has some very strong opinions. And this is why I love like I love getting to talk with like friends with great taste and like you guys, because you guys are awesome. Yeah. I love at Anthony that you you have like a different view of this, because I feel like Mark and I were pretty much like as soon as he brought up bar Fly to me a few months ago, I was like happy dancing. I was like, fucking It's like, no, it's interesting because I never find Shanavsky.

I would never use the word pitiful for him, and I don't know if part of this is because I feel like he still has, like he's retained a dignity despite just being especially this has reflecting more of the books, but like being shit on. You know. I feel like our society so always looks down on people that are lower class, that are addicts, you know, that aren't the status quo, that aren't a part of acceptable society, and that's fucked up because it's like you're denying people their humanity. Burkowski is Shanavsky like, and yeah, I mean he's And it's those times where people like nobody trying to cancel me for defending Bukowski because I'm like at the time that I love. People are like they're terrible, and I'm like, yeah, life is terrible, but it's also beautiful too.

I love that. I feel like he had one of the best lines ever where it says, nopebody and I'm probably gonna fuck it up now, but nobody suffers quite like the poor, and maybe nobody suffers like the poor, and that has always hit me so hard. It's it's the truth, barful. It is kind of a nice way of giving you that sort of human you know. Obviously, it's more of a comedy in a way, and I wouldn't really call any of Ukowski stuff funny.

I love it. I love it with all of my heart and soul. I know it's from a dirty old man. I can take a leave, but yeah, yeah, you know, as far as a lot of short stories and books, you know, brilliant, I just would never say pitiful. I don't know.

It's like, this is a character I love. I'm not saying yeah, I worry about him too. Like if I knew this guy in real life, I'd be like, God, you know, you're amazing and you're brilliant, and I love you, and I hope shit gets healthier, certainly, and keep away from Grandma Moses, because you know what kind of Oh, there's a warmth in this that isn't present in a lot of the writing. And I think it may just be so he was in his sixties when he wrote this. A lot of that stuff that's maybe a little bit more crass and heart edged is from way way earlier.

I don't know if it's just the format or if Schroeder gave him a feel of what he wanted. This is in the same world as the book Factotum. During that same time, a lot of that book concerns his relationship with Jane, who is the Wanda character in this, the love, the quote unquote love of his life, who ended up dying. I believe due to her alcoholism. There's always a warmth around those stories or poems that are about her her, Since this is all him and her, I think that comes through a lot more.

It's definitely not as edgy and blunt and brusque as a lot of the stuff that are in those, especially the City Lights collections like the Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Tales of Ordinary Madness as that stereotypical Bukowski who is that Red Flag author. I don't know if either of you have seen this on Twitter. Comes up every once in a while. If you go to a man's house and he has any of these books on his shelf, then forget it. So it's Catcher in the Rye.

I don't even know what the other ones are. It's not a particular Bukowski, it's any Bukowski. And I'm like, well, bitch, don't come over to my house because you're going to run right out. There are like two shelves worth. Yes, you come over to my house and you can read Abou Marjo occult movie stars.

I have the Marjo books too, highly. Yeah that's uh yeah, Marjo's the man and John Harrison, the Australian writer, is a phenomenal love John. You can also come over to my house and read Chicken Soup for the Soul or Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus. I'm kidding. I don't have those books.

Oh my god, my heart stopped. First, I get Anthony as a longtime fan. I would never begrudge anyone for not and joined Bikowski or getting the same thing out of it that I do, or the thing that you get from it, Heather, and we might get two different things. Yeah, yes, it is nice to have that. This isn't just three people worshiping by sir.

Yeah, it's nice to have the third view on this. Yeah. I came to Barfly as an alcoholic and that's really that as an addict, and watch this and the people that I know, you know my sponsor, and you know the people that I go to meetings with on Mondays and Thursday nights, and you get to know these people. I know Chinaskis, but they're sober now and I've heard these stories. I know wandas and the only difference is most of the alcoholics that I know and hang out with, we were all like solitary alcoholics.

We drank at home. That's what got us into trouble, like we isolated ourselves. I liked watching Barfly because I was like, gosh, I wish I was a social drinker like that. Of course, it's it's so much more expensive nowadays. And I mean, again, this is such a different time period.

They cut people off now, like these bartenders would be going to jail for serving you know, I mean, because that's what bartenders go to jail for overserving people now. And so it's one it's a fascinating time capsule, but it's also fascinating as an addict. And I love what you know, Bright Lights, Big City. I love watching It's fascinating to me because I've been there. All of our stories are different, but they're the same because we're all suffering from the same disease.

And so it was really interesting sitting there watching Wanda, watching Chenasky and thinking we're the same in some aspects. We say it all the time and meetings that the best thing that ever happened to us was becoming an alcoholic and getting sober. I can't speak for anybody else. I look at life differently now than the way I did more than a year ago, thirteen months ago. Being able to empathize with Wanda, with Chenaski, but also think you're on a real bad track here.

It's like a mix of pity and a mix of understanding. Because what I like about Nasky and this was the way I was at the end of my before I got sober, so self destructive, and you don't give a shit about life. I wanted to die, and like Chinaski, there's so many instances like that's why he fucking fights out in the alley and gets his ass kicked all the time, and like comes away smiling because he just doesn't give a shit. And I'm thinking, yes, yes, I was exactly the same way. Being able to relate to this character in that way made me enjoy the movie even more.

Thinking back, you know what if I watched this for the first time two years ago, when I'm in the throws of my addiction, where I knew I was addicted, and I tried to avoid watching things or reading things like this because I didn't want to look in the mirror and have it reflected back at me at my life where I was headed, and so thinking like what if I watched this two years ago, I probably would have been like, oh no, it's way too depressing. No no, in reality, oh no, my life is way too depressing. And now watching it for the first time that I'm over a year sober, I can enjoy it so much more to be able to relate to this character on that sort of special level where we're both addicts. A lot of people were surprised that this was we call it a comedy.

I don't really sure that there's a category for what this is. I like the slice of life idea. If you read the blurb or this description of the film. That's why I was like, well, how do I describe this? At the beginning?

I mean, it's three days and two alcoholics lives, so you go into that thinking, oh, this is going to be a depressing film. I was planning on doing this a couple of years ago, and I watched the film then and it was the first time I really realized, like, we're not really seeing any repercussions of their drinking. We don't get even the bad hangover let alone maybe waking up in a place you don't recognize, or waking up in the gutter, or any number of things that can happen to people, especially in this area of life where they live. Waking up in a really dangerous place or in a dangerous circumstance. We don't I don't want to say it's sugarcoated.

It's definitely not moralized, which I appreciate, but it's also there's no real there's nothing that they seem to suffer because of their drinking. I will say, when you get to a point where it's every single day you have a hangover, it's just normal. Or you wake up and you don't remember anything, or where are you. Luckily again, I was an isolated drinker, so I never woke up in a strange place. I know people where they wake up on a different couch or on the street somewhere different every single morning.

But that's just normal, and so to me, a hangover is just part of everyday life. Now. When I got sober and stopped waking up with hangovers, I was like, oh my god, this is so nice. I didn't know this is what waking up normally feels like. That's just from my experience.

I don't know, Mark. I think you're right it was probably sugarcoated for the movie, because I don't think Schroeder was really thinking that deeply about it. Maybe they were, who knows. From the movie standpoint, I think you're right it was probably sugar coated. If nothing else, it's not there.

And I think that's a little And maybe this is me in twenty twenty two saying this, but I think that's a little dangerous. It didn't make me go out and just drink to abandon this movie. You know, my appreciation of the movie, that's not one of the influences that had on me. I had a lot of other influences. That wasn't one of them.

When I look at it now as a fifty three year old man, I'm thinking, is that you're responsible in any way? Or is this just it's just a movie, so it doesn't really need to I appreciate that it doesn't moralize them as bad people or undesirables. We get that great little scene of the old timer that comes in orders whiskey and builds it all over the counter because he's got the DTS and he and his arms. He can't steady his arm to take the drink, and so the bartender gives him another on the house, old timer, Yeah, it does the scarf trick, pulls his arm up to his mouth and drinks the drink. And that's sad.

But they're not telling us how to feel about it. This is what could happen. This is the path that Henry's on. It's documenting. I think it's a little more glamorized than a documentary, but it is.

It's a slice of life. It's just documenting what is going on. Reminds me of sort of On the Bowery, that old movie where I can't remember who the eleimate it. I'll look it up as i'm talking, but the filmmaker was in the Bowery in New York City. Has It's by Lionel Rogeson and it's a mix of so this is just reading from letterbox, a mix of documentary and scripted footage on the Bowery, New York City, skid Rowe gets a backdrop of men and women drinking in bars, talking and arguing, sleeping on sidewalks.

We have the story of Ray and so Ray is this main character and it's all non actors. It doesn't condemn these people for drinking, spending their lives in the bar, waking up every day with a hangover. It's just documenting them. And I feel like that's what Bukowski and Schroeder did on bar Fly. It's just documenting three days in this dude's life.

I think there's something to be said about just giving an observation, kind of like I mean, speaking to the documenting. I mean, it's the thing is like when Lou Reed wrote Heroin, those very controversial song, and part of that, the real controversy of it wasn't because it was about Heroin. It's because there is no judgment. He's not saying it's a bad thing. He's not saying it's a great thing.

It's not an endorsement. It just is. This is just something. This is a story about what this person's going through. I don't I would definitely never view it as dangerous.

I think I think dangerous would be if if we have art repeat, we're afraid of what somebody will do if they watch it. People need to be taught critical thinking. We don't need to change anything at artistic I mean, Lou Read's one of my heroes and I've never ever would imagine trying to do heroin. That's not a judgment. I've had friends that had been through that, and I never judged important.

You know. It's just everybody's got everybody's got demons. Some are different than others, some take different shapes. But I love the fact that bar Fly isn't moralistic. I don't think it's making I don't think it's celebrating and being like, yeah, these people are awesome because of drinking.

It's just like, no, these people are awesome despite it, SHANASKI. I mean, Kowski is a great well yeah, artists forever, right. I know he's no longer with this in physical form, but he's a brilliant writer. But not because of drinking, and not because of you know, any of the when he was a womanizer or anything like that. It's just part of It's part of the problem, but it's not ever the solution.

I think also the time of his life too, And I think you were kind of speaking to this earlier Mark. At this point he's married and that last wife, Linda, extended his life. She's still with this. It's a very healthy woman. I highly recommend the born into this documentary about Bukowski.

It's awesome other than the Botto part. And I'm going to complaint no fence any you too, fans, Hey, I love Unforgettable Fire too, but Botto at no place that fucking documentary. But we do get Tom Waits in here reading stand which is Ya, and you see her and you know she's this intelligent, strong woman. She really did extend his life, give him stability. I mean, seriously, fucking Bono, I'm sorry, it's still it was a fan too well.

I know they went to a U two concert. I think his wife pulled him at Bokowski would be nice. I think he had a rare moment of like, No, I'm not saying Bikowski was a fan. I'm saying Bono was a fan of They got invited to a concert. They went.

I probably didn't care for it. I come from sam Pedro to put Ridondo beach on the map. I don't think I can be destroyed. Basically, I don't think they could destroy me. I'm too strong.

They came too late with too little. We got to remember this guy was born in nineteen twenty, grew up during the Depression, was abused horrifically during his entire childhood suffered from a severe case of acne vulgaris that face? Look at that face. It's not an excuse for anything he did later in life. I think it explains a lot of what he did.

Yeah, in particular the drinking, in particular his treatment of women, which is not good. I don't know if they include this camera, if they include the scene where he kicks yeah Linda and the burn into this, because that was on the Bikowski tapes. Yeah, and I got to that segment and I was like, oh, fuck, that's not cool. Anytime I watched it after that, I was always tempted to skip it, and I always made myself watch it because I'm like, warts and all, I mean literally warts and all. Yeah, he did shit like that.

People that have had as bad of childhoodhoods as he did didn't necessarily grow up and do those things. Some of them do, some of them don't. Some people with very pleasant childhoods grow up and do these horrible things. Now, this is why he's the Red Flag author. Yeah, I do.

And this is getting beyond the scope of the movie, but I do take umbrage with his defense of being called a misogynist and He's like, Oh, I'm an equal opportunity offender, and my character is usually the one that looks like an idiot. It's like writing your character to look like an idiot and writing all your women to be really two dimensional harpy horrors, to use his term, is different. I'm just putting this out there because it's like, you know, I don't know all that gobbledy gook that we all say to reconcile. Liking things from bad people are not even bad. I'm not going to call somebody a bad person.

Difficult people, I guess. I mean, no, there are many moments in there were I look like a complete asshole, and I felt like one. It's always been very weird to me. And actually had a conversation similar to this recently with a friend of mine and and me and her were just talking about kind of like the thing about reality is like many artists that you love, a lot of them are people that sometimes you're going to want them to watch like a plant, much less date or live with them or let them babysit or whatever. The thing is like a lot of people, because I've known people that even like I've seen people shame somebody for like you know, oh, I can't really like that.

I mean, that's bullshit because it's like, well, they're not saying there's because you like a film doesn't mean you're saying, oh, you know what Roman Plansky did to that model is great, Like no, no, it's different. Like the thing horrible people. This is the amazing complex thing about humanity. There are people that are horrible, people that are capable of great beauty and even occasional kindness a great thing, and sometimes there are people that are amazing humans that have done something, done one thing that kind of fucked up. It's humanity.

It's a story. And I think also people kind of conflate if you say, well, this is this person did this because of this, they're saying, oh, well you're making excuses. No, no, no, it's just But the thing is like, if we're ever going to grow as a as a species, much less a culture, like we have to understand each other. We have to have that conversation. We have to have those conversations that are really that are hard, and that hurts sometimes because it's like, yeah, let's like finding out like a relative you love was racist after they died and you never knew it because they weren't so racists.

They were open about it. But it's like, I mean, yeah, it hurts your heart. You're like, I can't believe us, But does it make you not love them? Well, no, you once you love somebody, there's always that party that really loves them, and you saw aside to them that was good. It's complicated, like life is fucking complicated.

And that's why I love art, because art, to me, is a way for us to handle these true in a way to kind of understand each other better, like with Bukowski. And then the reason why that documentary is great because Linda talks about it and she basically like, you know, yeah, he humiliated me. That was not fucking cool. And she's like, it didn't have I made sure it didn't happen again because basically, and she even was so charming about it because she's like, the next time he'd get try to pick a little fight, she would just be like, okay, have fun, deer and like go off and just kind of giggle what she can hear him just raging to himself in the basement or whatever. And that's the thing I love about her.

She's definitely not that's why I write with the documentary too, because you see more of her and you realize that this woman isn't a victim by any means. The kicker of that little bit, it was always at the end title Kard comes up and says, Linda and Hank were married on whatever, August eighth, nineteen eighty four. So it was like most you know, this incident that happened, But it's like it's like that that hated documentary about Gig Allen where you see that great quote at the beginning, you're like, yeah, that's a really intelligent, beautiful quote, and then a beat later the person that said the quote comes up and it's John Wayne Casey, and you're like, oh my god, you're like throwing a holly water on the TV.

You know. But I've recently been trying to have these conversations because I'm trying to reconcile and I don't even know if reconcile it is the right word, but that's the word I'm using my love for because I'm the type person that can separate art from artists. Yeah, yeah, I've said it on the past. I don't know I five podcasts I've been on Woody Allen is one of my all time favorite filmmakers. And I tried to have this conversation with somebody recently and they're like, fuck that, No, I'm never going to watch any of that, and I don't know why you are.

You shouldn't be doing that. I was like, I want to have a conversation about this, and I think the only way to do that is to watch this art, read their work, watch these movies, look at their paintings, whatever. It's really hard. Again. As I get older and as I get more sober, I'm becoming more confident in the way I am, in what I believe.

I'd like to think. I'm a decent human being, and just because I like somebody's work doesn't mean that I'm less than or that you should think less than me. My friend Brian Kuyper said it best. He said, because I had tweeted a couple months ago, and I think Mark, you responded this too. You struggle with this, I said, do we need to make like every time we say we like something, do we need to make an excuse or like a caveat like oh but he's a piece of shit?

Like James Woods is another one. I the more I watch James Woods, I'm like, he might be one of my favorite actors of all time nineties Arab Woods. Yeah, hello, right, yeah. But every time I mentioned someone, do I have to say, oh, but this person's a piece of shit. I'm not going to do that.

And so anyways, my friend Brian said, you know what, I think people can just assume you don't approve of what they say or these actions that they did in the past. Yeah, that's how I'm sort of moving forward with this because in the past, again with the Woody Allen thing, like I have not, I tend to post everything that's now, watching things, everything that I watch. I usually don't do that with quote unquote problematic filmmakers because I'm afraid of what somebody will say. And I'm getting to the point where I'm like, I just don't give a shit, Like I'm watching this and either I'm gonna like it on its merits as the piece of art I'm not. I'm not going to think about and this is just me.

I can't speak for anybody else. I'm not going to think about all this person. You know, Polanski is a good one, like he made one of the greatest movies of all time. Rosemary's Baby. We can't take that away from him.

And like, I'm gonna watch Rosemary's Baby every year because it's fucking awesome. Yeah, I'm not gonna be like, but I don't like Roman. People like he's not a good human being. Fuck that, just assume I believe that. Okay, Yeah, I see, especially on Twitter, I think social media is the big propagator of this.

You know, I'm watching this movie, but I do see a lot of people like, once they find out about something, oh well, I'm never watching that again. Who well, I'm never watching any of the Yeah. I mentioned early on that this had a profound effect on this movie. Barfly had a profound effect on me. Didn't make me want to drink to excess, didn't make me want to womanize getting into his reading, didn't turn me into a racist or a misogynist or asand well, actually I'll hold off on that last one.

There are some ideas in this movie that I didn't even realize I connected to so firmly. One of the lines, one of my favorite lines, is when he comes back from the job interview, he's talking to Jim. Jim asked him how it went. He gave me a heart on. They couldn't use a herd on.

Then he goes into this, he goes into this bit about this is a world where everybody's got to do something. You know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's got to do something. They gotta be something, you know, a dentist, the glider pilot, and narc the janitor, a preacher, all that. Sometimes you just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't want to do, all the things that I don't want to be, all the places that I don't want to go, like India, I get my teeth clean, saved the way, all that. I don't understand that you're not supposed to think about it.

I think the whole trick is not to think about it. That clicked with me in reference to nine to five Office Work, which once you start reading the Kowski you really start to hate along with him, the idea of being a drone in a beehive where you're doing this work to enrich somebody else's life who doesn't give a shit about you. And I think about during the pandemic when that became a thing for a lot of people where they finally were at least free from the confines of their office, maybe not their whole job, but of their office. And we're like, oh, so I don't actually have to be there under this person's thumb all day, just so that they know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. You know, I got a little bit of my humanity back during the pandemic because I didn't have to do that.

And that's what the whole book Factotum is about, is doing these menial, meaningless jobs that still need to be done, and the boss is leaving in their Mercedes and you're taking public trans at home because they're not willing to pay you a minute. I didn't realize that that kernel of an idea was in there for me. And then this throwaway line. There's a lot of this great these repeat jokes throughout the film. Grandma Moses is one the ambulance drivers who have to come back to the apartment three different times.

Great great running gag. When he first meets Wanda, she says, I hate people. Do you hate people? And he's like, no, but he seemed to film better when they're not around. Yes, And that's me, guys.

So there are other people like this who Yeah, I don't hate people, but really like being alone much more than they like being in crowds. And it's just one of those things that struck me on a personal level that really anti corporate America, anti capitalist idea. Those are the kinds of things that stuck with me more so than playing the horses or or going to bars or things like that. Pull what you want from it, or pull what works for you from it, and you can leave the other stuff on the wayside. I think too many people pick up on a lot of those other things, like, oh, if you want to be like Pikowski, you gotta do this.

You got to drink and you gotta fuck, and you got to play the horses and listen to classical music and turning into a classical music fan. So yeah, it's yeah Dakota's line about Eddie, it's obviousness. That's what people do, right, you know? That original and it's and it's always what people you know, like one of my favorite another writer, but I'm a huge fan of his Leicester Bangs, and and I feel like it's always Lester's kind of like that where people just tend to pick on the obvious, like, oh, the great personality, big and it's like, no, this man had the heart of a lion. His writing has a pulse to it, you know, and that's always what pulls me.

I gotta have that pulse. I gotta have that heart to go back to something earlier. I keep doing this through this episode, but it's like you guys keep having us the lions that are like staying in my brain, like rattling seeds is um mark, I'm so glad you brought it up. Yeah, gatekeeping is bullshit, Like Anthony, it's okay, Like if it's not your flavor, it's all good because there's something worse when people are like, oh god, no, no, no, you gotta love this, and it's like that everything's for everybody, Like I. I there's a guy worked with who's super smart, cool guy.

He did not like Taxi Driver, and he was like super shocked, Like he found out how much me and my husband loved Taxi Driver. It's one of my favorite movies individually and as a collective, and he was like, well, what do you like about it? I'm like, let's it's just dance, a masterpiece. Everything, every element I think is great and he just couldn't good up for having a main character that wasn't really a likable character. Yeah, basically you have this character who's extremely dysfunctional, mentally ill, who's kind of an outcast of society.

Original in celt right, But I stressed to him, like, dude, it's so because he's like, well, maybe I need to wash it again, and I'm like, well, if you don't want to, don't do it. You know I'll be There's plenty of things. And I had to retell story when I studied Russian literature. I fucking hate told story. I can't.

I can't with Toll Story. You give me Dostoevsky, Yes, give me Google, Absolutely, give me La monta fucking a. Don't make me retell story again. I'm still reading Warren Peace. By the way, dude, Oh my god, I could send you a list of authors that A Hero of Our Times is depressing, but it's so fucking brilliant by McKale The Month of Bulgagovs.

It probably must passing Saint Master Margharita novels ever. But I know people that love toll Story and get something, like really, they get something out of him, and I think that's awesome, Like that's the beauty of art is even though you have like an autour you know, whether we're in with filmmaking or you know, a great riot or whatever, it refracts light in different ways to each person. And I think that's something that's really cool. I mean, the whole Marvel Superherituran right now is not for me. But I have friends that I cherished that they love it and it's really giving them something to chew on.

And if that works for them, I think that's great. You need to cut those people out hither. No, well, no, it's not my ship, dude. Yeah, it's totally not my for me, but but no, I mean it's but I do think Saltee's loved ones and I'll I like your friend joking about or you say, oh factotum and that Mark and I are like speaking Latin backwards at them. Your thought of somebody recommending fact out Um over bar Fly as a movie, but legit objectively, you know, that's different flavors from different people.

I mean, there's nothing nothing wrong with that. I write plays and musicals and when I have people come over to read them, we do a table read and then they offer up notes afterwards and each of them have taken my story a different way. And as the creator, I have to like when I put my thing out there, and I think this, most creators know this. When you put your thing out there, and even Heather, you know, when we write for websites or essays or whatever, we put it out there, it's not ours anymore. It's yours.

It's the world, and you interpret it however you want to do with it what you will. And so when people read I wrote this very very dark musical that ends in a suicide, and most people are like, no, why would anyone want to watch this? Or like who would want to watch this? And I was like me, that's why I wrote it. I think as someone who does create and then put stuff out into the universe, that helps me be comfortable with as I consume or ingest media or art.

When I experienced these things, if it doesn't hit, I know that. You know, when people say a lot of people joke when they say it, but there's people that are serious when they say you have a wrong opinion. I'm like, no such thing as a fucking wrong opinion, dude. Yeah, like the thing just did not It's not for me. Sure, there's stuff out there that is actually bad.

You know, Bukowski. I'm gonna try to read some of his poetry. If it doesn't hit, I'm not going to continue with Bukowski. It's just not for me. You know.

That's not me saying Bukowski sucks and you all are fucking idiots for liking Bukowski. I'm not saying that at all. Heather, Like I said on the podcast last night or two nights ago, your opinion on things is one that I absolutely cherish. And so when you say you like thing or like you know that when we were talking about Claus today over DMS, God, thank you. Like this is the conversation that I want to have about these things, and it helps me appreciate the art, and it helps me learn how to watch or read things, maybe more smartly, if that makes any sense, smarter or just differently.

And I think if we are open enough as human beings to experience art, whatever that art is, if we're open to experiencing it, then there's no wrong way that you feel about that thing. Sometimes we're gonna like stuff, sometimes we're not. It's our job, as the producers want to call us now consumers. It's our job to be open enough to experience whatever it is we're experiencing whatever, you know, the painting we're looking at, or the movie we're watching, or the record we're listening to, or the book we're reading. And thinking that the creator has published this thing and put it out there, and knowing that they've now moved on to the next thing is sort of exciting to me.

I say, as I get older and as I get more sober, I'm becoming more comfortable and confident and knowing what I like and what I don't like. So fucking shoot me some of you. Not you two don't shoot me. No no, no, we love you. No no violence here.

Like I said early on, I would never begrudge someone for not Bikowski is definitely not an acquired taste, but a very specific taste. And I from the beginning knew that he wasn't for everyone. This wasn't like something I discovered years later. It's like, oh, a lot of people do not like this guy's writing for numerous reasons. Too simple, too earthy, and he's writing about low rent characters.

I mean, these aren't the things that you write novels about, right, you write novels about high class society to the Great Gatsby, or it's not your normal milieu or literature quote unquote literature. And that's why I liked it so much, because a lot of that other stuff bored me. The stuff that I read in high school bored me two tears, which is why I read so much Stephen King. It's like, well, this is the only mass market writer that I can actually read that makes sense to me. Pikowski stuff was so easy to read, and I don't think that that's a negative thing.

I don't think that something being easy to read means that it's less deep than something that you struggle to read. You don't have to spend two hours reading one page just to figure out what the hell the author is trying to say. And he was vehemently anti that. Yeah, just say what you want to say and let the people figure it out. Keep it simple, stupid.

The reason I kept writing was because not because I was so good, but because they were so damn bad. And the cool thing about Barfly is that it ReLit that fire, that Bukowski fire in me, Because before this I knew I wanted to read some Bukowski poetry soon, probably not, but after watching this, I'm like, God, this guy has something. He wrote the script. I love the fucking script of Barfly. He's got something that I dig.

I just have to find it. So we'll try the poetry. So anyway, I already ordered something. I don't even know what the hell it was, but Buokowski Poetry on the Way to Me. Yeah, if you like the poetry, the short story collection The Most Beautiful Girl in Town, I think that's a good starter.

That was what Okay. I remember reading it while I was in like an er waiting room while I loved one of mine was going through some kind of scary shit, and it actually really kind of got my mind off. Thanks, And I'm a super anxious like highly, it's something I've worked on. I have to work on out myself, hears, because I am a natural innate anxiety carrier from hell. So to get my mind steady enough to be like the world's not gonna end, you're fine, take some skills.

But again, yeah, if it's not like it's a I don't like Tolstoy. Everybody. We all have things that just don't connect us, and that's that's fine. If anybody gives you shit for liking anything. Fuck them.

The world is on fire right now. There's plenty of things on this planet to be mad about. Somebody's opinion on a film they like or an album or whatever. That the only red flag writer, in my opinion, is if I don't see a book on the shelf, if you're not reading one fucking book, that's the red flag. What does John Waters say, don't have sex with people that don't read, Like, if you don't see one book and there, don't put out And I agree, I'm much John Waters.

We can't argue with the pope. Come on, like that's unless it's like a doctor Oz book, then yeah, don't fuck him Ross. I've got the Bill O'Reilly collection. Oh I legen, I don't. I don't no, no, no, no no.

You've brought up a traetic memory because when we were talking abo were dating, he one time like started quoting like he'd to get out to gross me out. One of Bill O'Reilly's like fiction books where he like a sex scene he wrote and the writing is terrible, and it's Bill o'reiley writing a sex scene, which is just like a a level of hell where it's like yeah, like please, everybody wants to it's like getting the mindset of like that one rapidly conservative relative you have, and like getting in there id and then you're like, I want to set us off a fire. I'm pretty sure, Like my my genitals are husked now, they're just like corn us because this is like so rotten. I think that's a metaphor Bukowsky would appreciate because I could loop that shit that that was very Bukowskian of you.

This whole shaving thing is so silly. I'm so glad you guys are are on the same page with that, because that's there's so many problems that are in our world loving something creative, Like, I'm not a Woody Allen fan. Firstly, I'm not gonna shame somebody for like no. I mean, he's made a lot of films that a lot of people have really connected to his art. Is he a terrible person?

Yeah, probably more than likely, but so is Kin Skate, and I love his art. I mean, if you only ingest and consume art, I hate the word using consume. It makes feel like when they live, but you know what I mean, then if you're only the people that live piously, that's gonna be a very very short lived luck. And even then it's like old Hollywood that you know, people like, oh, things were better fact than if you read any book about how actors, especially actresses were treated in the old studio system. Good luck, there's gonna be a lot of films off that list.

Anything with Judy Garlands alone, don't fuck it because she was treated monstrously. And it's like that old song that's in refo. Man, it's not that old obviously brought Pablo pot Nobody called Pablo Picasso an asshole, an asshole, which I doubt, oh not plenty of people. We're talking mistresses about wives. I'm sure some of his kids, plenty of people.

It's a show though. It's like, yeah, it's but you can still love. You can still love Picasso's art. That's a I think it's kind of amazing that people that are terrible can make something great. It's something, it's right.

It's almost inspiring that even something in our humanity, even if somebody's just come out the raw end of the stick and they're just a shit heel, that there's still something in them that can do something amazing and touch you. That seems a little hopeful for me. Because I think all art is beautiful. If that beautiful thing comes out of you, that means there's beauty in you somewhere, all sorts of trauma or whatever the monstrosity saying that's in your head, in your body. There's a glimmer of hope in there though.

And so I'm a rosy glass his glasses half full type of guy. I like to assume there's good in everybody, even if their name rhymes with Phil smobiley. Maybe there's something, you know. I just like to think that there there still took me a minute, there's still it is not supposed to be. It is dead.

I'm speaking in code here to go with like Phil Protector. Yeah, I thought you were totally going full spect. Okay, now that that would be spill fector and it's not making excuses at all. Right, Right, that thing what Brian said is really stuck in my head. Can't we just assume we all condemn the bad shit that people have done?

Can we just assume that and not have to say it all the fucking time, because that's all we would do in our life, because hello, we're all humans. We've all done shitty things, some worse than others. But do I like to think about the shit that I've done in my past? Not really, but sometimes I have to. That's how we grow.

I mean, that's anybody that tries to act like they've never fucked up or they don't have baggage. As a liar and a fool and probably maybe a Charlotteston. We're all united together in this beautiful mess of life, and thank God for that. Bar Fly kind of shows that it's documenting the slice of life, but it's ultimately humanity, and we meet all these different characters and they're all screwed up in one way or another. But Schroeder or Bukowski isn't condemning them it.

I didn't feel like I was condemning these people. There's no one in Barfly where I was like, Oh, what a piece of shit this person is? So maybe for Eddie, Oh yeah, Eddie, I don't know. He streaks alone. I'm like, I like his music, man, He's he's chreazing music, but I love him.

My favorite was like that in the first fight, we're SHANASKI the thing about like at the funeral, like I'm behind your mother and when your money's growing at the funeral and then the way he just kind of basks and like ends up being his downfall before. Yeah, Like it's like he gets lost a great line. I just said the Reverie. Yeah, Eddie, that's the other one. I was like, yeah, you got lucky.

Last time Shanaski I had that was that had the cold. So the last time I watched Why the Flu, It's gonna be next time, Eddie. The aints. Like you mentioned humanity, and I think that's another great line. Humanity.

You never heard it from the beginning. M These people have that, they have that humanity, and it's those uptight, the false people, the ones that can't appreciate the art for the art that didn't have the humanity. Jim. Think about Jim, owner of this bar. The old timer comes in, he's got the DT's real bad, right, and he brings the shot up and he loses most of it right, And then Jim's like another one on the house.

He is the ultimate as much as Chinaski is just sort of loving of everybody, right to all my friends. But Jim has this empathy for these people. He's not cutting these people off, he's not kicking them out of his bar because he knows this might be the safest place for them. Even if Eddie and Anchor out in the back kicking the shit out of each other, it's still probably safer here in the bar and out in the alley than it is out on the fucking streets and in that disgusting apartment that Channaski lives in. He understands that this is their safest place, and he's happy to include.

He doesn't push anyone out right, He's inclusive of everybody. He wants everybody there. And it's not obviously because he wants their money. Who's fucking paying for their drinks in this bar? Nobody?

Everybody's on credit. I love that character of Jim. He's not really an inabuler. He's more of a caretaker of these people, which I think is really interesting. Oh absolutely, well, especially Yeah, there's a line, and I think it's the woman I believe, the amazing cranky woman who in my head, yea, yeah, Dorothea langlady like I forgot her names.

He basically says an effective light, Well, everybody's got something. I can't remember how he phrases it, but it's it's clear that he doesn't view himself as better or anybody is lesser. He's as right as any of us. He is such like a great kind of moral sort of center. And I love the fact that like when when you know, we finally have the great showdown between the epic showdown like the war if the Gargantua's showdown with Eddie and Henry, Like Jim's got Henry's fact, he's got faith in him because he's got a full tank.

He had the guts all along, but now the guts have the fuel. And the way Mickey Work does a little dance, it's almost like this little dance. Yeah, that little smile, I just it always just absolutely delights me. I've actually horrified friends by saying because I know a lot of people he was like a heartthrob in the eighties for a lot of a lot of ladies. And I'm like the lyth's never found him attractive?

Is in bar Fly. I think he's the most charismatic because the Nine and a half Weeks is really kind of about a fucked up, unhealthy relationship. That's funny time about Kinsky Anthony, like the story about like the original story about A lot of people are like, oh this erotica, but if you read the book, it's it's about a really fucked up, unhealthy, toxic relationship and the dangers when you sell your individuality to somebody else for that. And yeah, Nine and a half Weeks is kind of has that little bit and it's not sexy at all. And you know, Angel Heart's great, but I mean, I don't, I don't know, I can't, I can't, imad.

I know it has sex in it, but I'm ever seeing Angel Hart and being like, this is an awesome movie and I'm not turned to It's not the point of it. You know, Barflay, he's just so lovable and he has Have you guys seen beach Bum? No, Matthew McConaughey, it's Who's what? What's that filmmaker's name. I'm gonna look.

I loved beach Bum. I hated spring Breakers, but I loved beach Bum And it's sort of this same concept. It's just a hangout movie. I gotta think now, after seeing barfly Harmony Krinn probably cribbed some story from Barflyer or at least an idea, But it's the same kind of thing. Like Matthew McConaughey's character in that movie.

It's not like a good, respectable human being, and he spends most of his time high as fucking drunk as fuck, but he's just so lovable, right, And so it's the same thing with Mickey Rourke in this movie. He's drunk almost all the time, but he's just so lovable. He like he doesn't have a hateful bone in his body, it seems like to all my friends. And I think he really means that, not in some sort of like sad the people at the bar, I'm buying your friendship. I think he really feels like, yes, I accept all of you, just like my buddy Jim here at the bar, I accept all of you.

I'm very inclosive in my life. It's sort of refreshing seeing a character like that, because that's not like the real world. So being in a movie like this, seeing this very flawed, very imperfect person be such a humanitarian is quite refreshing. Oh, my friend, Oh that's so beautiful. I feel like that we'd be remiss if we at least didn't give a little bit of love.

Jack Nance. I don't think I realized until I don't know when, that that was racorhead, that was Henry Spencer. I think I saw this before I actually saw Blue Velvet. I recognized him and both of those because he wears almost the exact same outfit. It's got a fedora on in both and suits, and I don't think it was until I looked into Blue Velvet a little bit more like, oh, oh, it's the same guy from a racorhead.

Yeah, yeah, him as the little private detective and you're wondering what the heck is this little guy doing going into his apartment, and that whole little apartment gag is great. I love the humor of that where Chennaski goes back to the wrong and it's great too because there's telling a story visually. He goes to room twenty six. They show him from this low angle, and they show him trying to get in and he turns his hand a little bit and you can see the number twenty five on his key, like you know cats At the first couple of times you watch this movie, and then you discover he's in the wrong room. He gets his fuel for that fight later on.

Yeah, that huge works so well on the film, and I think it's it's so much more subtle than a lot of the humor can be in Bikowski's writing. I don't know if that makes sense either at all. Yeah, the humor tends to be a little more darker and in some cases. I mean, there's that one story and I can't remember the name of it, where it's like a rare, kind of fantastical piece of his where a man gets seduced by a witch and she shrinks him and it's plays it too. I think that is the fetish microphilia.

But basically, you shrink somebody down to where you've used them as an apparatus. Yeah, I mean too that that sounds kind of cool. There's a lot of that stuff, like in that collection The Most Beautiful Woman in Yeah. Yeah, that humor is so much more broad. Yeah.

Actually, I remember a friend of mine in college and the first time I ever heard that, I talked about reading Ukowski and she that was what she read, and she was like, God, he's discussed, which seems to be a People say that a lot about various artists that I ended up loving. We're like, oh, and I'm like what, it's great because I'm curious because I know Andy and I we neither one of us got the chance to see Crazy Love, which that is the one I do want to see. Let's go ahead and take a break and we'll come back and discuss the other adaptations of Bikowski work, and I'll do my little story here as quickly as possible to fuck me right, aren't you girls? Well? That all fly?

Yeah? Can you think I keep my pussy to him? Dial is the answer to everything. We're back, We're still talking Barfly and Bakowski. This is one of the things that I had planned to do on the bar Fly episode back at the beginning of the pandemic.

I was going to do these on my own. Angel Hart and bar Fly were two important movies for me, This little Mickey Rourke obsession that I had, ever so briefly yet ever so strong, that really centered around these two movies, and I was going to include this story in that episode. So bear with me. I'm going to try to keep it brief. I actually spoke to one of my friends who was on this trip with me the other night to see if I remember things pretty accurately, and we agreed on most of it.

One of the things I was trying to figure out is when we actually took this trip and it was the summer of nineteen eighty nine, so I had been a Bikowski fanber a couple of years. Now, there's not a lot here in Fresno where there wasn't at the time. A couple of bookstores had one or two maybe poetry or short story collections, and I bought those and would find them out other places and mainly relied on the library from our reading. One weekend during the summer of eighty nine, three friends of mine and I decided to take an overnight trip and we headed off to Santa Cruz. Not really sure why we picked Santa Cruz.

It's fairly close to Fresno beach town. Probably we're going to go scope out the chicks or something, And I think the plan was to camp there overnight, because I know we had a tint with us, which plays into this story. Later we got there, we went to the boardwalk, cruise the beach, ended up unable to find anywhere to stay the night. I think it was still pretty early because somebody had the brilliant idea, and that might have been me, Well, why don't we go to La in case you're not from California and don't realize Santa Cruz in La are about three hundred and fifty miles apart from each other, not too short of a trip. And we decided, and again this might have been me, instead of going back the way we came, which would have taken us back by Fresno.

I think my fear was, you know, once we get close to home, we're just going to call it off him go to our homes and to our nice company beds, and that's the end of our weekend trip. So somebody suggested that we go down PC, which is Highway one that travels all along the coast of California. Oh night. And I didn't fully understand the route of PC at the time. I don't know what time it was we left Santa Cruz, but we're trucking down Highway One.

My friend Brad, who was driving, was notorious for dozing off at the wheel. Oh gee, but he was the one with the car that would make this trip. So he was driving somebody who's in the front, and two of us are in the back. At some point we got to a spot that had a curves ahead sign. Usually you see like curves ahead next ten miles, curves ahead, next five miles.

This sign said curves ahead next seventy eight miles and it was starting to get foggy, and our friend Brad was driving. We started a white knuckle it this grade go for a while and I think he was doing his best to be pretty careful and drive slowly and with the curves and stuff, a few of us started to doze off. At some point during this part of the trip, we hear a loud smack and a screech. Apparently we hit a deer. Oh god, with thankfully the side of our car, because when I think about it now and think about how that deer could have gone through the windshield and we all would have gone over the edge of the cliff that apparently went over, it's even more horrifying.

So that was the first bad omen or I guess the second if you consider the sign the first bad omen So apparently we hit a deer and flung it over the side of this cliff that we were on. With these windy roads, there was no real place to turn out for a good while. We finally were able to. There was little to no damage to the car, thank god that the light was still working, and all that got back in the car continued the trip for I don't know how long, probably at least an hour or two. Started to get pretty late at night.

We got to one of these pretty large churnouts that they'll have along the highway where you can stop and take a break, and so there were a couple of cars already parked there. Instead of just sleeping in the car, since we had this tent, we decided, oh, well, let's get out other people are here, pitch the tent, and we'll sleep in it. So it's a two man tent. There were four of us, so we were like foot to head. And I'm always the last to fall asleep in unusual places, you know, like even relatives houses.

I'm never comfortable unless I'm in my own bed. So we're laying there for a while, listening to the ocean and hearing the occasional car drive by. It's kind of peaceful. So at some point a car pulls into this rest area fairly close to where our car was parked. I could tell door opens, somebody gets out and starts walking around our tent.

Oh oh my god. Now, so I'm laying there going, oh, what's this about? And after a few minutes I finally was like, is anybody else still awake, and at least two of my friends were like yes. I'm like, did you hear that? They're like yes.

I'm like, let's get the fuck out of here. So we zipped open the tent real fast. No one was there, having no idea who it was. If it was like a cop checking to see if some kids were screwing on the side of the road, if it was somebody meaning to do somebody hard, who know, no idea, got back in the car, started heading towards LA again. Drove for hours more.

At some point I think we were getting pretty close to LA. I'm like, wide awake. Now. I didn't doze off anymore thrust to that part of the trip. But my friend Brad, who's notorious for dozing off at the wheel, starts going off the freeway.

Brad, He's like, I'm not falling asleep, but I'm very tired and I need to sleep. So we're pulling over. So pulled over, pulled into a church parking lot. I don't know what town we were in. Fullowed into this church parking lot, stayed in the car.

We all got a couple hours asleep. My friend Steven got up at some point, crawled out of the window because I don't think it had backdoors, crawled out of the window and walked over to the McDonald's across the street, and we all end up going and getting breakfast. Anyway, we finished the trip to La find a motel, We did the beach thing. I think we hit Melrose or something at some point did the tourist DLA stuff, And either that first day or the next day, I think on our way out we wanted to go to Hollywood Boulevard. We make our way there, we hit Hollywood Boulevard and we take a right on this street, last Palmas Avenue.

I'll never forget the name of the street. And there was this wide open parking lot with no attendant, no meters or anything. So we pulled into that no other cars in the lot, pull in there, park, get out, and my friend Brad goes, hey, Mark, there's a bookstore, because they knew that I That's what I was looking for, Like when we went to Melrose and stuff. I was trying to find places where I could buy a Bikowski. Yeah.

So he's like, oh, there's a bookstore, and I'm like, well, what the hell, It's the only one we've seen other than some comic bookstores on the rows. Let's check it out. So we walk across the street, go in typical cantinkerous used bookstore owner sitting at the desk, old guy, a younger guy at his desk buying books, looks at us Crossley, you know, can I help you? And I said, yeah, do you have any Bikowski? And the dude that was buying books just laughed, and I'm like, thinking, oh, we must be in the right place.

So he points to a shelf all this Bikowski, all the Black Sparrow books, a whole bunch of other Black Sparrow authors, and I'm like, oh, okay, cool, I can buy something. That's where I bought Hollywood because it had just come out. I don't even know if I had heard about it, to be honest with you, and was like, oh, what's this? Quickly read the first Poh, it's about the making a bar flight. Great.

Then I look over at this case. He's got all this rare Bikowski stuff that I had only ever read about or seen in the bibliographies of his book books. He had horse Meat and The Wedding, which are these portfolio sized books that Black Sparrow put out with photos from Michael Montfort, who was basically Bikowski's photographer for years, of him at the racetrack and these twenty poems about the race track and the wedding is like the portfolio of him and Linda Lee's marriage, all these other little rare books and it's like, Oh, this guy's the fucking real thing. So I think I just bought Hollywood and maybe a John Fonte book or something. Later find out that Bikowski has written poems about this guy, he's a character, and pulled his last novel, the noir novel that he wrote, and they were buddies.

They would go to Mousso and Franks all the time because it was right across from there. That's where Last Avenue is. So he just happened after this wild trip to find like the what's the word that Nirvana of Bikowski books and just by chance, I mean, other than the weird circumstances to brought me to meeting my wife, like this is the only other experience I've ever had in my life like that, we're just pure dumb luck yeats brought me to the Golden Calf. I guess this is the word I was looking for earlier. That's my little Bikowski trips.

So I eventually went back, I think two more times, and each time as that area got more run down, and as he got older and crankier, it was like you had to be rung in because he had been robbed so many times and he was always still kind of cranky. And then I ended up years later buying from somebody else that horse Meat book and some other things, and I mentioned that to him, so it was like, oh he oh, like this is a serious collector, So let's not be so cranky because maybe by one of my rare books. And so it's called the Baroque Bookstore on Las Palmas. It hasn't been there for years. And he died.

I'm not sure when, but so that was ridz Todlski and the Beyond Baroque Bookstore or the Baroque Bookstore. Sorry, yeah, that is crazy. I'm so jealous. That's hey, Mark, there's a bookstore. Oh sure, why not?

Yeah? What could it hurt? I'm glad I didn't just go like, uh, forget it, let's just go down to Hollywood Boulevard. Oh god, I'll go to any use bookstore. But that's the thing music, books and movies.

It's like I'm a box of the flame. Yeah. Unfortunately, the used bookstores, the great use bookstores here in my town, they'll close down and now we're left with like half price books, which is fine whatever. But you know, we had like this place called the Antiquarium that it was just like that place you're describing Mark, you know, Frankie, old guy smoking cigarettes, bare feet get you know, kind of in a gruff manner, and and then he's just got you know, I'm familiar with that name. Actually, I wonder if I looked or found something from them on ab books at one point or another, because I know that name.

Unless other places use it, that's interesting. Yeah, it's really baby. Nobody who could really work to them? Could ever wing peace? Last time I show you you got enough?

Now you've got a woman in a radio ju he's the radios. Yeah. So Bikowski, you would think there would be tons of adaptations of his work because he has so many fans. There's only been five full length feature films. The first was Tales of Ordinary Madness, which is not my favorite.

Matt has some interesting crazy moments. Susan Tyrrell is Queen pretty great in it. Her scene is wild, everything everything. Yeah, Ben Gazzara does not do it for me. As the Bikowski character in this, who's called Charles Serkin because Taylor Hackford owned the rights, I guess to the Chanaski name at that point.

He was supposed to make Post Office and never did. That is one of those ones, Heather, like we talked about earlier. It doesn't feel like LA. Although it's shot mostly in LA. There are some scenes done in Georgia for some reason, and then when easy in New York, it's shot in New York, but it doesn't.

Yeah. I always assumed, well, this is an Italian director. They shot in Italy. That's why it sort of feels off. Sometimes movies do that, like, oh, it's supposed to be America, but it's Canada, and it's like you can tell.

But it's shot in LA and it just doesn't. It's interesting, but it's not great. It's not great. I don't hate it, but yeah, it feels European. It feels fair, which isn't a bad thing necessarily.

Like with Ukowski, he's so you're approaching an artist who's so quite essentially American, So it's it's off, you know, it just feels there's something off about it. It's not bad, but there's an awfulness. And I love Gazzara. Fu look gazar but yeah, he's not he's trying too hard. It feels like, Yeah, there's one scene at the end when he's supposed to be drunk and he is literally stumbling along the beach back and forth, really over done, and I'm thinking, no, this would be more like Mickey Rourke where you've got the functional yeah, alcoholic whose maybe lilting and stuff, but this is ridiculous.

This isn't you know, not that he ever not got stumbling drunk, but it was forced. I think, Yeah, I agree. Then imagine of Susan's tyrrelevant and bar Fly, Oh oh my heart. Her scenes are crazy. And then there's a scene with Judith Drake, who oddly enough is in Angel Heart.

She's the woman in the Ocean and Angel Heart. It's just kind of a weird little connection there between worlds. Yeah, but yeah, it just doesn't work for me. And the other one that I watched was The Loon Fraud. I'm not sure Cold Moon, I'm not sure of the pronunciation in French.

It was originally a short film that was based on the copulating Mermaid of Venice, California, which seems like the go to people that want to do a short. It's almost like those you know, Stephen King Dollar babies. It's like everybody that does a Pikowski short does this story because it's again it's another one of those fantastic mole I mean, this is not beyond the realm of reality, but finding the beautiful newly dead corpse that these guys defile, it's like the go too. So it was a short originally and then the guy expanded it where at the end you get to this part of the story and it's told in flashback because it was filmed, you know, like three years earlier, so the guys are obviously younger.

So it kind of words and it was an interesting buddy picture up until that point. It wasn't really all that bad, but I didn't get a whole lot of Bikowski out of it. I think that's pretty hard to track down. Factotum with Matt Dillon, Lily Taylor, Marissatoma. Every one of these films was made by a foreman.

Foreman by a foreign film director, even this guy's Norwegian was filmed in Minneapolis, which is strange and very clean compared to downtown LA. So again it doesn't have the right feel for me. I love Matt Dillon, I love Lily Taylor and Marissatoma. It's the script and the direction and it's missing that spark. This had the back of Linda Lee Bikowski and John Martin of Black Sparrow Press, but it's I don't know.

It's like a neutered version of bar Fly. It treads in the same territory. There's even a scene in a liquor store where they are calling the guy that she's seen to get okay to buy this alcohol on his credit at the store. I mean, it's like beat for beat, the same scene as what's in bar Fly, but it just plays out so differently. If this is your favorite Bikowski, more power to you.

But I don't think I'll ever be watching this one again. It was really just to compare. But then there is Crazy Love, which is Belgian. It's really strange because it shouldn't work because most of it takes place in rural Belgium. It spans between nineteen fifty five and nineteen seventy six, and there's three stories, him as a kid, him in high school, and then him as an adult.

The first part always threw me off because I'm like, is this supposed to be from ham On Rye? Because I'm not recognizing this. And he has a good relationship with his mom, like a warm the little kid. I think he's supposed to be about twelve. He has a really warm relationship with his mom.

The Kowsky's mom was very distant and cold with him. It just it was weird. But there's an alcoholic father in there, and I'm like, I was reading a little bit about it today and I guess that's actually from a John Fonte book. So he sort of merged the two and I'm like, Okay, well that makes sense now that's why it's unfamiliar. Yeah, that is the one that is definitely worth checking out.

I have long held it as my second favorite, and it kept true to that today when I watched it. It's the second part is ham on Rye. It's when he's a senior going to his senior prom and he's got the really bad acne and then he wraps his face up and has a dance with the girl and then the last part is again the copulating Mermaid of Venice, California, but it's much shorter and it's handled a little more delicately than the French film that tackles that. I really like this and I think it goes to prove that you can take this out of la you can take it out of being in English, you can set it in a rural Belgium and still get a Bikowski feeling from it because it has that warmth and humanity that most of these other ones are missing.

Man, I believe I sent you guys the link for that, so you did check it out after the fact. Yeah, it's definitely worth seeing. I got to see it for the first time in London on March fifteenth, nineteen ninety at the Everyman Cinema shout out to the everyman over there. And I had read about it for a long time. Anytime you read about Barfly, you know, and remember there was this movie and there's Tales of Ordinary Madness.

So those are the three at the time that were available. Our Fly still the king as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, it was nice to hear about some of the like just all of them in that concise way, especially because like nobody ever really talks about Cold Moon. That's the one I think I've heard the least about. The other story it's supposedly based on is called Trouble with the Battery, and I haven't read I believe again, that's from one of those City Lights collections, and I haven't read any of those in a long time, so I don't know what that story entails and how well it was translated in this.

I mean, that was pretty fun to watch. It's just goofy, drunk guys bopping around somewhere in France. One of them really loves Jimmy Hendrick, so there's only Jimmy Hendricks songs throughout that the reason why it's hard to find. Yeah, it's it's pretty fun, Okay, anything else? Yeah, I feel like we've delled and died and had a really like hearty discussion.

This has been very cool. Oh great. Yes, when you're not reading the kowski Heather, where can people find you? Well, you can find me over at my website Mondo Heather dot com. I'm also on Twitter and Instagram under at Mondo Heather, and I also have a Patreon, which is originally and forever called at Mondo.

Heather like to keep it consistent, so I try to do. Feel free to check out any of those arenas from my various writings, musings, occasional bits of pros and other sunduries, anything coming up that you can divulge. Well, actually, I just contributed a list of some picks for the Halloween season over on Aero Films website. That's good. Oh, thank you, Thank you to check it out.

Yeah, yeah, to the writers, it's great because everybody's list is really it's a really cool mix of films. I think each one of us picked very diverse for the Halloween season. This is one of the things is why I lights of going to mentioning my social media because I always end up forgetting light three or three other things. I'm working on a number of projects right now. The one thing I actually I'm trying to think of what I can talk about it like it's like I'm a CIA agent, right.

I actually did get to and this was a dream gig of mine. I got to write and narrate a video essay on speaking of arrows. They just recently released this beautiful set of the two count Yorga films. Oh yeah, I just saw that. Yeah, and it's so gorgeous and I'm a huge fan of Robert Corey and the Yorga films.

I got to do the video essay to count in California, which was beautifully edited by Chris O'Neill, who's lovely and does beautiful work, and where I get to kind of discuss what makes that film in particular are so special and unique, especially that era with vampire cinema and tropes. The set has a ton of heavy headers, I mean, cat all injuice on it, Tim Lucas, David Duval, like a number like you have so many people, I don't know. It's one of those things I have to pinch myself because I feel very honored got to be a part of it. So definitely, everybody please check that out, and that would make me very happy. My happiness is King apparently, and Anthony, what is happening with you?

Let's see here this I don't know when this is coming out, Mark, but probably next week. Okay, Well, Cult Movies is going on in a mid season break here. We'll take a few weeks off and then get back to it in like mid November ish. Who the fuck knows this's my podcast. I can do whatever I want, but I'm over on Twitter.

That is some kind of attitude, dude. Well hello, who's anyways, I'm so tired of all the things that I don't want to be and don't want to do like podcast. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and letterbox at Cult Movies No at Anthony aka Donley Jesus Christ and then Cult Movies is on Twitter and Instagram, at Colmoviespod, Patrion dot com, Backslash could Movies Pod. So we got a regular episode every Sunday, and then for the blessed you get extra Cult Movies on Wednesdays every week, brand new episodes. We're doubling up.

It's lots of podcasting, it's lots of fun, lots of movie talk. That's what life is all about. And everybody check that out. Anthony does beautiful work. And if you're a fan of esoteric cinema, get on at people go sign up, sign up for all these things they've mentioned, and you can find me at wacap heavy dot com on all social media at wake Up Heavy.

Wake Up Heavy is a part of the New weirding Way media conglomerate, along with Chris Stashu and Mike White. You can find their shows. I think there's like almost twenty shows on there now, including mine, Great group of Things, Colt Chack, Colombo, Eighties, TV Ladies, scary Stories. We tell all kinds of stuff. You'll find something you like, and if you don't, don't blame it on me.

Thanks for being here, you two, and thanks to everyone for listening. And don't forget. Hey, I can't take the money, Jim. I suppose I'd lost but a lot of drinks with this slugger. Since you put it that way, I'll take a couple of Scotch in one is we should take some more.

Hey, what do you think I am? A bund the shoe life, a woman, a tire that's flat, a disease, a desire, beers in front of you, fears that hold so still you can study them like pieces on a chessboard. It's not the large things that send a man to the mad house death he's ready for, or murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood. No, it's a continuing series of small tragedies that send a man to the mad house. Not the death of his love, but a shoe lace that snaps with no time left.

The dread of life is that swarm of trivialities that can kill quicker than cancer, and which is always there. License plates or taxes or expire driver's license, or hiring or firing, doing it or having it done to you, or constipation, speeding tickets, rickets or crickets or mice or termites or roaches or flies, or broken hook on the screen, or out of gas or too much gas, the sinc stopped up, the lando lord's drunk, the president doesn't care, and the governor's crazy speech, broken factor of mouth, light switched, broken mattress like a porcupine. Three hundred five dollars for a tuna, carburetor and fuel pump, but serious robot, and the phone bills up, and the market's down, and the toilet chain is broken, and the light has burned out, the whole light, the front light, the backlight, the inner light.

It's darker than hell and twice as expensive. Then there's always crabs and ingrown toenails, and people who insist they're your friends. There's always that, and worse, leaky fawcet christ and Christmas blue salami, nine day rains, ninety sent avocados and purple liver wurst, or making it as a waitress. It norms on the split shift. There's an emptier of bed pans.

There's a carwater, a busboard where a stealer of old ladies purses, leaving them screaming on the sidewalks with broken arms. At the age of eighty suddenly two red lights in your rear view mirror, and blood and your underwear toothache, and one thousand, nine hundred and seventy nine dollars for a bridge, nine hundred dollars for a gold tooth, and China and Russia and America, and long hair and short hair, and no hair and beards and no bass, and plenty of zigzag, but no pot except maybe one to piss in on the other one around your gut. With each broken shoelace out of one hundred broken shoelaces, one man, one woman, one thing enters a madhouse. So be careful when you bend over.