http://alistapart.com/articles/survey2009

Basically I told them that things are fucked, and that life, as far as employment goes, sucks.

I remember doing a website for a guy once. He asked me what I’d like for compensation. I needed a printer at the time, and asked him to get me a printer. It was a cheap, and basic printer. He agreed, and I built the site.

How do you like it, I asked when I was done.

Fantastic, he said. Only problem is that my wife doesn’t think we should get you the printer.

I took the site down. Fair is fair.

Most of the work I do on the web is like that. Most of the work I do, period, is like that.

Okay. Enough of my kvetching.

- -
As ever,
Father Luke

A friend of mine is doing poorly. I miss him, and he has been asking for me. I’ve spent my life being harassed, ignored, and stepped on in the usual ways, and by the usual people. . . girl friends, co-workers, and strangers.

When a friend is down it matters to me, and there is not much else to do but go to them. All we have in this life is those who matter to us.

For all the arguments, for all the entanglements, and for all the lies people fight to release themselves from, they’re all forgotten in kind words from a friend. And to hear one of those friends has been ill, and asking for you can break a heart long since resigned to being black, cold, and hard as diamonds.

 Love is all that matters in the end.

- -
Okay,
Father Luke

- -
Okay,
Father Luke

I don’t know about the rest of you fuckers, but it’s harder and harder finding work that pays. Every dish-washing job is being snatched up by former six figure salaried humps with mouths to feed willing to grovel for a crap job on skid row.

Ho ho. Yes these are tough times. I have a statement from the Social Security office in my country showing that I have had paid income every year of my life since the age of sixteen. Every fucking year. This year has been no exception. The truth be known, I have worked like a field hand since I have been seven years old. I’m not lying.

I was raised on a farm and I worked from sun up to sun down, and into the dark hours. Then it was get up, mister, make your bed, and back to work. Hard work. Slave work. Fuck you if you don’t believe me. I know about work. I’ve done it all my life.

I’m fifty years old. Today I was approved for food stamps. What the fuck? I have never lived on charity in my entire fucking life. The kindness of strangers was like a disappearing rainbow the closer I got to it. And today I fucking ate. I bought an orange, some grapes and a couple of bananas. I wanted to tell everyone:

“Look at me! I’m buying food!”

like a gleeful idiot. But I bought the orange, and grapes, and the bananas, and just took them out of the store and ate them while walking among all of us.

It’s a savage thing to starve a nation into submission. I don’t know who has all the money, but there are horrible things at work in the world today. Terrible. Maddening. A nation too weak to fight for itself, and starved into submission.

Fuck the world. I have that tattooed onto one of my elbows. But no matter. Today I ate food I bought myself. Life, in one sparkling instant, has been good.

- -
Okay,
Father Luke

A new Charles Bukowski-inspired magazine
The first publication of Purple Glow Press:

(click for bigger)

buk scene 1 is a limited edition of 252 copies, 200 numbered, 26 lettered and a special black and white edition of 26 numbered copies.

112 pages, big format: 8.5" by 11"

Flat in the middle of the magazine, is featured a 32 pages article on Steve Richmond, written by Mike Daily. It is titled Gagaku Meat.

The numbered edition is $15, the lettered edition $25 and the special black & white edition is $17.
The magazine will be shipped from Canada where it is being printed as you read this.

The lettered copy will include a beautiful purple blank page of acid free Canson paper with a hand printed letter, and perhaps a hand scribbled doodle, if time permits.
Then, also to be added are two different unpublished postcards, from oil paintings inspired by photographs of Charles Bukowski, plus a colored print of the painting Buk and Tina, on photographic paper with a personal greeting. An added feature is that the Gagaku Meat article will be printed on goldenrod paper.

The regular numbered edition will also include a colored postcard
of Buk and Tina.

The special black and white edition will differ by featuring a black and white cover with buk scene 1 in red, followed by a red blank page of acid free Canson paper with a hand printed number and a small drawing, if time permits, plus a black and white print of the painting "Bukowski", on photographic paper with a personal greeting and an unpublished black and white postcard, profile of Bukowski (oil inspired by a photograph taken by Linda Bukowski.)

You can order buk scene 1 by sending an e-mail to purpleglowpress@hotmail.com (this is NOT their PayPal address), and then the payments will be paid through PayPal.

In order to keep the postage as low as possible, they will be sending the magazines one at a time as letterpost, to avoid sending them as small packet, which significantly boosts the shipping cost. The mag. weights almost one pound. They are keeping the postage as low as possible.

Shipping to the USA is $6.50 and shipping to Europe is $13.

Part of the buk scene 1 content

Tribute poems to Steve Richmond by Todd Moore, Neeli Cherkovski and Jim Chandler.

Unpublished essays on Bukowski:

Flowers For the Grave of Charles Bukowski
A journal written in the days after Bukowski’s death by David Barker.

Bukowski: Wrack & Ruin. The Destruction & Salvation of American Poetry
by Hosho McCreesh.

Harry Calhoun’s "a small foot in the Small Press" (includes excerpts of unpublished Charles Bukowski and John Martin letters.)

A visit to the Dew Drop Inn (plus photographs) by David Barker.

The Birth of Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook by David Calonne.

Oil paintings by Jocelyne Desforges (black swan):
Charles Bukowski and Tina Darby in full color.
Bukowski from a photograph by Linda Bukowski, Post Office, the book cover of The Last Night of the Earth Poems in full color,
detail of Bukowski (book cover of Portions of a wine-stained notebook), Bukowski, from a photograph of Bukowski by Michael Montfort.

Unpublished poetry: Michael Phillips, Steve Richmond, Stephen Hines, David Moscovich, Linda King, Justin.Barrett, Christopher Cunningham, Justin Hyde, Whitney Woolf, Father Luke, and others.

Gagaku Meat: The Steve Richmond Story, by Mike Daily.
Gagaku Meat is a 32-page special feature including rare photos, book covers, letter excerpts, ephemera and more.

Daily interviewed a lot of poets, writers and publishers including Gerald Locklin, FrancEyE (Frances Smith, mother of Bukowski’s daughter, Marina), John Martin, A.D. Winans, Linda King, Ron Androla, S.A. Griffin, Alan Kaufman, Mat Gleason, Billy Childish and many others.

Here is a preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmQcGjYF3fY

In memoriam – Michael Montfort, by David Calonne.

All ink drawings in buk scene 1 by Jocelyne Desforges.

Unpublished poetry by the late Dave Church, (written on the back of letters to A.D. Winans.)

Photographs by Lawrence Robbin: Charles Bukowski & Linda Lee Beighle in 1976.
Steve Richmond reading FUCK HATE in front of his cave in 1976, (this photo is the back cover of buk scene 1.)

Tribute poems to Charles Bukowski by Hosho McCreesh, Justin.Barrett, and others.

Column on the American Small Press by Rodger Jacobs.

Tribute poems to Dave Church by A.D. Winans and Glenn W. Cooper.

                               _______

I support my friends in the small press. I hope you will, too.

- –
Okay,
Father Luke

I used to have about forty pieces of email each day which absolutely needed responding to. Low estimate, by the way. Was it really hundreds I felt were important? I do know for certain that I did have thousands of pieces of spam each day.

(click for bigger)

Now I have, maybe, ten pieces of spam a week. And that one email that I should absolutely answer today? I will. When I get around to it I mean.

It’s not really that I am cutting my self off from the world. I don’t see it that way. I remember living with Ray and Gloria at The Double Cross Monastery in Santa Cruz. Ray and Gloria owned a Pentecostal Church.

On Sunday, my only day off, I would hear tambourines, snare drums, hollering in tongues, and a variety of other sounds coming from inside the Church. Including Ray’s voice booming about God. All I fucking wanted to do was sleep. I didn’t have a computer when I was living there. Or, rather, I did have one for about three months. Then it died. Not being a man of means I let it die. And to celebrate it’s passing, I jumped up and down on the fucker until my ankles bled. The point being that all the friends I thought I had on the interweb disappeared. 

I began writing to Victor on Death Row. Sometimes three and four times a day. It was then, I feel certain, that my writing voice became clear to me. Such as it is. Hey? Nothing beats good honest communication. But again, this is not the point.

Friends to me are those who stay in touch. Friends are people who understand that it may be some time between communications, but it really is quality not quantity. Friends contribute to my aliveness, in little ways each day, ways which help me to remember that I am still alive.

I’ve had, and lost, thousands of friends on the interweb. Thousands of friends. And that is the point.

I check my email maybe once a week now. I have very little spam. I have very few emails that absolutely need answering.

Victor says hi, by the way. And by the way? Victor doesn’t do email.

-  -
Okay,
Father Luke

Ah. The wonderful, glorious, silvery, metabolic, undigested small press.

(spitting on the floor)

You know, it’s an occasion when I have something bad to say. I mean, take a look at this blawg. Some of my comments to others have been to the point, but the poasts have been along the lines of: “Find the good and praise it” because I don’t see lots and lots of use in griping about what’s so if I don’t like it unless I’m willing to offer suggestions about what might be.

In the past year the small press has begun finding me. I was lucky. The Noble and Praiseworthy Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press found me. Bill and I published a book. I was damned proud and happy that a man of his drive and commitment found the cave drawings I leave on the web and wanted to put a few between the covers of one of his beautiful chap books.

I have a few friends in the small press. They know who they are. I have also begun to gain a few enemies. Nothing significant, which bothers me. In American Indian tradition a man is judged by the enemies he makes, and I have only a few. And then only insignificant enemies. Kind of like kids chew candy cigarettes and play that they are all grown up. I have those kinds of enemies.

Turning that around, I have begun to despise the process. Let me tell you why.

I told Jenifer, whom I love, that I have given this crap, I laughingly call my writing, away for the free and the fun of it on the interweb for many years. And now flies have been buzzing around asking me for “manuscripts”.

(if you click these they get bigger – I mean if you dare. . .)

“See so, and so for a recommendation about who I am,”  they tell me.

Well. That’s nice. But I make judgements for myself. I’m a big boy. I even brush my own teeth. The few which are left after a lifetime of being kicked in them by well meaning others.

There is a woman, who shall remain anonymous for the time being, who sent me a copy of someone else’s banking information, and asked me if I wanted that money refunded to me because she was already sending me a contributor’s copy of my work. Then she ignored me when I asked her why she was sending me someone else’s banking information.

William Taylor Jr. has taken the monstrous task of collecting his favorite authors including Christopher Robin of my hometown Santa Cruz (Christopher is kind of Cock of the Walk in Santa Cruz. And rightly so. . .), and Christopher Cunningham, Father Luke, Hosho McCreesh and some others including himself, and begun editing a journal which he will soon be publishing. I like William Taylor Jr. I know him. He married a friend of mine. He’s a nice guy. So, when he came to me and said, Hey? father luke? Poetry collection. Wann’a be in it? Well, fuck. Yeah! Okay, sure! I know you, William Taylor Jr. I like you. How’s your wife? Here are a few things to consider for your collection.

There are others who frequent my website, and wish to use my work. People who take great joy in despising me publicly (snicker).

LiteraryMary, now co-owned by Jenifer Wills and I, put out a Journal when Mary was run by Jenifer. Jenifer is that part of my life that I turn to when I look for comfort and grace. Submitting work to LiteraryMary was like telling stories with a friend on a cold winter night, drinking something nice by the fireplace and watching the smiles. It’s a beautiful journal, and we’ve less than thirty left.

I’m happy that Jeff at nibble – a poetry magazine – likes my work. I’ve sent him things which I won’t put on my website until he publishes them.

Kim, at strangegirl.net  printed up some broadsides of my poems. I love them They are beautiful.

Then, too, are the publishers of Along The Knife’s Edge (proudly linked over yonder), who invited me to submit a few pieces. I have given them never before published original work. Such as it is. I mean, really? In all modesty I want to write more, but I don’t see what anyone sees in my writing. I just don’t.

So where does this leave me? It leaves me with the rest of the modern world: Broke, living off my savings, relying upon the kindness of family and strangers to make it through the day, living off my wits, and still pounding the keyboard of my ‘puter to keep my fingers warm in the coming coldness of the strange black hole known as my future.

Yes, Father Luke, but. . . what? Why the long poast? What crawled up your ass, Son?

To whom it may concern:
Let this be fair warning . . .

My work has been available on the web, and for free, for as long as I have lived. If you want a “manuscript” of my work to be submitted “for consideration” take a look, and see if there is something you would like. Then write to me for permission to reprint it. But to have the pomposity, and the arrogance, and the bile to come to me and tell me you may perhaps consider my work for publication so that you may turn a profit, and consequently fuck me in the ass. . . well, then fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you. Fuck your press, and fuck your mother, and fuck your children right in the head.

• Bill Roberts? Took the time to know me as a friend.
• William Taylor Jr.? He did the same
• Jenifer knows what color my pillow case is
• christopher cunningham – Hosho McCreesh? They took time to see me as an individual and as a friend
• Jeff at nibble? Again the same.
• Kim? Know her quite well indeed.

You want what I have? I can’t hardly see why. But if you do, do not come to me with greed in your heart. Or hate. Or envy. What I have has been available free, available to anyone who should happen upon it, and it has been this way for years. If you come to me with malice in your heart? I will eat you alive in front of those who love you.

Thanks, Gerard, for the photos. They are dandy.

-  –
Okay,
Father Luke

they want your time
they want your money
they want your attention

They want what you have so that they can be as good as you.

They’ll never be as good as you,
because they start out as equals
and then diminish themselves,
and you,
by wanting what they think you have

It’s never ending.
The only rest is to give it to them
and let them be disappointed with their gain.

–
Okay,
Father Luke

No God

- –
Okay,
Father Luke

- –
Okay,
Father Luke