Charles Bukowski: Reads His Poetry 12"

This is Charles Bukowski. "Well, let me just sit here and drink beer." Thus begins the September 14, 1972 poetry reading from which this 1980 release on John Fahey's Takoma label is drawn. This is quintessential Bukowski, from the rude n crude drawing that adorns the front cover to the belches that punctuate the poems. As for the work itself, it's not really what you'd commonly conceive of as poetry, but rather observations and vignettes drawn from life's darker side, focusing on perversions, poverty, drunkenness, gambling, and bodily functions.

But Bukowski's bemused air and self-deprecating humor blunt the shock value of the words and emphasize the universality of the themes. "I want you to hate me," he says to the audience, but it's hopeless he is one of us. Having rescued this recording from the clinical, digital world of the compact disc and restored it to its proper vinyl format, Real Gone are now putting it out on colored LP. If there were ever an echo of the analog, non-PC (personal computers or politically correct) world, this album would be it.