When Humor Had Class - 2011

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."

"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." “ Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.“ Winston Churchill

A modest little person, with much to be modest about.“ Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."“ William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?“ Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.“ Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.“ Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.“ Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.“ Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend. if you have one.“ George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second¦ if there is one.“ Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.“ Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator.“ John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.“ Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."“ Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.“ Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.“ Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."“ Thomas Brackett Reed

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.“ Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.“ Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?“ Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.“ Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.“ Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts¦ for support rather than illumination.“ Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music.“ Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.“ Groucho Marx

Born Into This 2003

Born Into This 2003

Documentary on Charles Bukowski, author of 'Notes of a Dirty Old Man', 'Love Is a Dog from Hell', and the autobiographical novels, 'Women', 'Hollywood', and 'Post Office'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Z1_pw0HeY

PEOPLE SUCK Gus and the Snowmen

It's Super Bowl Sunday and I am wandering around the Fort Greene Observatory in a green cotton robe.

The windows are open and the curtains are up.

The people in the new condo building are probably staring into their binoculars and saying, "That crazy old coot is naked again."

Those squares are dead wrong, but I'm about to get real naked in my bathtub.

The water was too hot, so I decided to kill a few minutes on Facebook.

A New Yorker had posted the above photo about Charles Bukowski and then wrote the dead poet sucked.

Me and a woman defended Bukowski.

"Who cares about a dead wino?"

"I do."

"Read my blog."

I did and his poetry sucked.

The courageous woman wrote that she liked sleeping with dead winos and I added, "Dead winos don't snore."

The failed poet had no sense of humor and called the woman 'an asshole'.

She reminded him that 'asshole' was one word.

I posted PEOPLE sung by Barbra Streisand and joked that Charles Bukowski had written the lyrics.

"Who cares."

The woman retorted, "You do."

And their text intercourse got rough.

I next accused the New Yorker of being a Jets fan.

Those losers have no sense of humor.

He then blocked me from the conversation, but not before I posted PEOPLE SUCK by Gus and the Snowmen.

To hear PEOPLE SUCK by Gus and the Snowmen please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEhjaXrOHyM

FLOP HOUSE Charles Bukowski

you haven't lived until you've been in a flophouse,
with nothing but one light bulb and 56 men
squeezed together on cots with everybody snoring at once

and some of those snores so deep and gross and unbelievable—
dark
snotty gross subhuman wheezings from hell itself.
your mind almost breaks under those death-like sounds
and the intermingling odors: hard unwashed socks pissed and shitted underwear
and over it all slowly circulating air
much like that emanating from uncovered garbage cans.
and those bodies in the dark
fat and thin and bent
some legless armless
some mindless
and worst of all:
the total absence of hope
it shrouds them
covers them totally.
it's not bearable.
you get up
go out
walk the streets
up and down sidewalks
past buildings
around the corner
and back up the same street
thinking:
those men were all children
once
what has happened to them?
and what has happened to me?
it's dark and cold
out here.

~ Charles Bukowski

Sadness Of The Sober

A woman reacted to this quote online.

She - This man was really a sad lunatic. To go through life and seeing all that misery and ugliness, which I don’t deny, but not seeing the beauty of a first day of spring , blossoming of flowers , or the jubilant sound of the laughter of children playing in a distance is total madness and beyond my comprehension!!

She - He was a drunk

Moi - And?

Serge Gainsborough after a beautiful woman said he was ugly. "Yes, I am ugly and you are beautiful, but I will always be ugly while your beauty will fade." The true shame is man's creation of ugliness instead of beauty.

Juff another commenter - and if he'd had set his sights a bit higher than spending his life riding barstool, there's no doubt his works wouldn't have been so fuckn dreadful.

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way. - Bukowski

Sober people are sober. Good on 'em.But unlike me. I was once a drunk. Wasted days and wasted nights. Drinks for all my friends. Rage on against those who have never sinned, except in judgment. Their words are dust on the wind. They have never stood in Kansas. And we don't need their prayers. We lived. For good. For bad. Mostly for the in-between. Thankfully without a thought for them.

ps Bukowski tended to write about the darkness of life.

Born Into This Charles Bukowski Movie

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.