The concert was almost over and we followed the director to the VIP bar. We were among the select. Wow!

There were tables tables in there, a bar. And the famous. I made for the bark. Drinks were free. There was a huge black bartender. I ordered my drink and told him, „After I drink this one, we'll go out back and duke it out.“ The bartender smiled.

„Bukowski!“ „You know me?“ „I used to read your „Notes of a Dirty Old Man“ in the L.A. Free Press and Open City.“ „Well, I'll be god-damned…“ We shook hands. The fight was off.

Linda and I talked to various people, about what I don't know. I kept going back to the bar again and again for my vodka 7's. The bartender poured me tall ones. I'd also loaded up in the limo on the way in. The night got easier for me, it was only a matter of drinking them down big, fast and often.

When rock star came in I was fairly far gone but still there. He sat down and we talked but I don't know about what. Then came black-out time. Evidently we left. I only know what I heard later. The limo got us back but as I reached the steps of the house I fell and cracked my head on the bricks. We had just had the bricks put in. The right side of my head was bloody and I had hurt my right hand and my back.

I found most of this in the morning when I rose to take a piss. There was the mirror. I looked like the old days after the barroom fights. Christ. I washed some of the blood away, fed our 9 cats and went back to bed. Linda wasn't feeling too well either. But she had seen her rock show.

I knew I wouldn't be able to write for 3 or 4 days and that it would a couple of days before I got back to the racetrack.

It was back to classical music for me. I was honored and all that. It's great that the rocks start read my work but I've heard from men in jails and madhouses who do too. I can't help it who reads my work. Forget it.

It's good sitting here tonight in this little room on the second floor listening on the radio, the old body, the old mind mending. I belong here, like this. Like this. Like this.

2/21/93 12:33 AM

Went to the track today in the rain and watched 7 consensus favorites out of 9 win. There is no way I can make it when this occurs. I watched the hours get slugged in the head and looked at the people studying their tout sheets, newspapers and Racing Forms. Many of them left early, taking the escalators down and out. (Gunshot outside now as I write this, life back to normal.) After about 4 or 5 races I left the clubhouse and went own to the grandstand area. There was a difference. Fewer whites, of course, more poor, of course. Down there, I was a minority. I walked about and I could feel the desperation in the air. These were 2 dollar bettors. They didn't bet favorites. They bet the shots, the exactas, the daily doubles. They were looking for a lot of money of a little money and they were drowning. Drowning in the rain. It was grim there. I needed a new hobby.

The track had changed. Forty years ago there had been some joy out there, even among the losers. The bars had been packed. This was a different world. There was no money to blow to the sky, no to-hell-with-it money, no we'll-be-back– tomorrow money. This was the end of the world. Old clothing. Twisted and bitter faces. The rent money. The 5 dollars an hour money. The money of the unemployed, of the illegal immigrants. The money of the petty thieves, the burglars, the money of the disinherited. The air was dark. And the lines were long. They made the poor wait in long lines. The poor were used to long lines. And they stood in them to have their small dreams smashed.

This was Hollywood Park, located in the black district, in the district of Central Americans and other minorities.

I went back upstairs to the clubhouse, to the shorter lines. I got into line, bet 20 win on the second favorite.

„When ya gonna do it?“ the clerk asked me.

„Do what?“ I asked.

„Cash some tickets.“ „Any day now,“ I told him.

I turned and walked away. I could hear him say something else. Old bent white haired guy. He was having a bad day. Many of the mutuel clerks bet. I tried to go to a different clerk each time I bet, I didn't want to fraternize. The fucker was out of line. It was none of his business if I ever cashed a bet. The clerks rode with you when you were running hot. They would ask each other, „What'd he bet?“ But go cold on them, they got pissed. They should do their own thinking. Just because I was there every day didn't mean I was a professional gambler. I was a professional writer. Sometimes.

I was walking along and I saw this kid rushing toward me. I knew what it was. He blocked my path.

„Pardon me,“ he said, „are you Charles Bukowski?“ „Charles Darwin,“ I said, then spepped around him.

I didn't want to hear it, whatever he had to say.

I watched the race and my horse came in second, beaten out by another favorite. On off or muddy tracks too many favorites win. I don't know the reason but it occurs. I got the hell out of the racetrack and drove on in.

Got to the place, greeten Linda. Checked the mail.

Rejection letter from the Oxford American. I checked my poems. Not bad, good but not exceptional. Just a losing day. But I was still alive. It was almost the year 2,000 and I was still alive, whatever it meant.

We went out to eat at a Mexican place. Much talk about the fight that night. Chavez and Haugin before 130,000 in Mexico City. I didn't give Haugin a chance. He had guts but no punch, no movement and he was about 3 years past his prie. Chavez could name the round.

That night it was the way it was. Chavez didn't even sit down between rounds. He was hardly breathing heavily. The whole thing was a clean, sheer, brutal event. The body shots Chavez landed made me wince. It was like hitting a man in the ribs with a sledgehammer. Chavez finally got bored with carrying his man and took him out.

„Well, hell,“ I said to my wife, „we paid to see exactly what we thought we would see.“ The tv was off.

Tomorrow the Japanese were coming by to interview me. One of my books was now in Japanese and another was on the way. What would I tell them? About the horses? Maybe they would just ask questions. They should. I was a writer, huh? How strange it was but everybody had to be something didn't they? Homeless, famous, gay, mad, whatever. If they ever again run in 7 more favorites on a 9 race card, I'm going to start doing something else. Jogging. Or the museums. Or finger painting. Or chess. I mean, hell, that's just as stupid.

2/27/93 12:56 AM

The captain is out and the sailors have taken over the ship.

Why are there so few interesting people? Out of the millions, why aren't there a few? Must we continue to live with this drab and ponderous species? Seems their only act is Violence. They are so good at that. They truly blossom. Shit flowers, stinking up our chance. Problem is, if I want the lights to go on, if I want this computer repaired, if I want to flush the toilet, buy a new tire, get a tooth pulled or my gut cut open, I must continue to interact. I need the fuckers for the minute necessities, even if they, themselves appall me. And appall is a kind word.

But they pound on my consciousness with their failure in vital areas. For instance, every day as I drive to the track I keep punching the radio to different stations looking for music, decent music. It's all bad, flat lifeless, tuneless, listless. Yet some of these compositions sell in millions and their creators consider themselves true Artists. It's horrible, horrible drivel entering the minds of you heads. They like it. Christ, hand them shit, they eat it up. Can't they discern? Can't they hear? Can't they feel the dilution, the staleness?