More Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski, David Stephen Calonne

across the sand toward the parking lot. There were quite some hours left in our Monday together and we needed something different to do.

    I have lost some of the letters or I am too lazy to look for them but the first one was something about him being in a motel, in Sunland maybe, no, that doesn’t sound right, maybe it was the Sunland Motel, no, that isn’t it either, anyhow, I let the letter lay around three or four days and then I phoned, and the phone number given was one digit short, so I looked up the motel, whatever it was, and I phoned in and asked for a Jack M—, and Jack M—was out, and I left the message, and then I got lost, either at the track or in some other way and one day I was home (home?) and the phone rang and it was Jack M—and he said he had been trying to reach me and would Friday night be all right? I said yes. And he said, about 8, I gotta catch a plane at the International at 10:30, it’s a shame I couldn’t a gotten you earlier.
    So that Friday Neeli and Liza happened to be around and we were drinking beer in the breakfastnook and I warned them that this professor from this eastern university was coming around and that they’d better brace up, you know, for anything.
    We weren’t to be denied. The doorbell rang and Neeli and Liza began laughing. “It’s the professor,” I said.
    I went to the door.
    “ARE YOU CHARLES BUKOWSKI?” he asked with great pompous and sonorous force.
    “Yeh,” I said, “Come on in.”
    He followed me to the breakfastnook. He had a briefcase and a six-pack of beer. He had heard the legend: you go see Bukowski, you better bring a six-pack. I made the introductions and opened the beers. The prof sat down. He looked more like 1940 than anything else. Very straight back. Tie. Tweed jacket.
    He began to interview. But he didn’t have a tape recorder. And he didn’t take shorthand. It was evident he couldn’t interview me. The questions were harmless and I suggested that we go into the other room. I still attempted to answer Jack M—’s questions the best I could. We finished his beer and then I brought out my own. But he was nervous. Neeli and Liza were goading him a bit and I don’t think they realized that he knew it, so I tried to treat him with a bit more civility. But then he had to leap up to use the phone.
    It was the time of the protests of Nixon’s move to blockade the harbors in N. Vietnam. Jack M—had heard that protestors were down at the airport, and they were, but he found out over the phone that flights were still leaving, but it was obvious that he was very nervous about it, and we agreed with him that it was best that he left soon.
    A week or so later I received a letter from the professor explaining that here were some questions he had really meant to ask (but in all the confusion . . .) and would I mind? The questions sat about a week or so and then I sat down and answered them. It went like this:
    1) Why is your phone unlisted ?
    Simple. Two years ago, that is before I quit my job, I didn’t have as much laying around time as I do now. The little free time I had then was needed toward creation. A ringing phone is a hazard. People have a way of inviting themselves over. At one time I didn’t answer the door, the phone or the mail. I feel that I was justified. I feel that what I created during that time proves it. Now I murder my own time. But I feel that what I create now also justifies that.
    2) Have you ever written, or thought about writing, a film scenario ?
    Excuse me, what is a film scenario? Does it have anything to do with movies? Then the answer is no. I have never seen a movie that didn’t make me a bit sick. I don’t want to make anybody sick.
    3) Do you have anything like an aesthetic theory ?
    What does “aesthetic” mean? I don’t have any theories. I simply DO. Or is that a theory, uh? Uh.
    4) How about a philosophy of history ?
    I don’t like history. History is a terrible weight which proves nothing except the