Sober Now

Herein are some ideas that helped me stop abusing alcohol.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Charles Bukowski Urban Philosopher

Things I Learned from Charles Bukowski


couple 
 

Bukowski was disgusting, his actual real fiction is awful, he’s been called a misogynist, overly simplistic, the worst narcissist, (and probably all of the above are true to an extent) and whenever there’s a collection of “Greatest American Writers” he’s never included.
And yet… he’s probably the greatest American writer ever. Whether you’ve read him or not, and most have not, there’s 6 things worthy of learning from an artist like Bukoswski.

 
I consider “Ham on Rye” by Bukowski probably the greatest American novel ever written.  It’s an autobiographical novel (as are all his novels except “Pulp” which is so awful it’s unreadable) about his childhood, being beaten by his parents, avoiding war, and beginning his life of destitution, hardship, alcoholism, and the beginnings of his education as a writer.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit he’s an influence. Many people hate him and I’m much more afraid of being judged than he ever was.
1)      Honesty. His first four novels are extremely autobiographical. He details the suffering he had as a child (putting his parents in a very bad light but he didn’t care), he details his experiences with prostitutes, his lack of interest in holding down a job, his horrible experiences and lack of real respect for the women he was in relationships with, and on and on.  His fiction and poetry document thoroughly the people he hates, the authors he despises, the establishment he could care less about (and he hated the anti-establishment just as much. One quote about a potential plan the hippie movement was going to do: “Run a pig for president? What the fuck is that? It excited them. It bored me.”)
 
Most fiction writers do what fiction writers do: they make stuff up. They tell stories that come from their imagination. Bukowski wasn’t really able to do that. Whenever he attempted fiction (his last novel being a great example) it fell flat. Even his poetry is non-fiction.
There’s one story he wrote (I forget the name) where he’s sitting in a bar and he wants to be alone and some random guy starts talking to him: “its horrible about all those girls who were burned” and Bukowski says (I’m getting the words a little off. Doing this from memory), “I don’t know.” And the guy and everyone else in the bar starts yelling, “This guy doesn’t care that all those little girls burned to death”. But Bukowski was honest, “It was a newspaper headline. If it happened in front of me I’d probably feel different about it.” And he refused to back down and stayed in the bar until closing time.


(Matt Dillon playing a young Bukowski in "Factotum")
He had very few boundaries as to how far his honesty could go. He never wrote about his daughter after she reached a certain age. That’s about the only boundary I can find. Every other writer has so many things they can’t write about: family, spouses, exes, children, jobs, bosses, colleagues, friends. That’s why they make stuff up. Bukowski didn’t let himself get hampered by that so we see real raw honest, a real anthropological survey of being down and out for 60+ years without anything being held back. No other writer before or since has done that. For a particular example, see his novel, “Women” which detailed every sexual nuance of every woman who dared to sleep with him after he achieved some success. Most of these women were horrified after the book came out.
I try as hard as possible to remove all boundaries. But it’s a challenge with each post I do.
2)      Persistence. Bukowski got two stories published when he was young (24 and 26 years old) but almost all of his stories were rejected by publishers. So he quit writing for ten years. Then, in the mid 1950s he started up again. He submitted tons of poems and stories everywhere he could. It took him years to get published. It took him even more years to get really noticed. And it finally took him about 15 years of writing every day and writing thousands of poems and stories before he finally started making a living as a writer. He wrote his first novel at the age of 49 and it was financially successful. After 25 years of plugging away at it he was finally a successful writer.
25 years!
Most people give up much earlier, much younger. Both my grandfather and father wanted to be musicians, for instance. Both gave up in their 20s and 30s and took what they thought was the safer route. (The safer route being, in my opinion, what ultimately killed both of them).
And this persistence was while he was going through three marriages, dozens of jobs, and non-stop alcoholism. Some of this is documented (poorly) in the move “Barfly” but I think a better movie about Bukowski is the indie that Matt Dillon did about his novel, “Factotum” which details the 10 years he was going from job to job, woman to woman, just trying to survive as an alcoholic in a world that kept beating him down.
He wrote his first novel in 19 days. Michael Hemmingson who I write about below, wrote me and said Bukowski had to finish that novel so fast because he was desperately afraid he was going to be a failure at being a successful writer and didn’t want to disappoint John Martin, who had essentially given him an advance for the novel.


(a tattoo of the epitaph on Bukowski's tombstone)
3)      Survival. When I think “constant alcoholic” I usually equate that with being a homeless bum. Bukowski, at some deep level, realized that he needed to survive. He couldn’t just be a homeless bum and kill himself, no matter how many disappointments he had. He worked countless factory jobs (the basis of the non-fiction novel, “Factotun”) but even that wasn’t stable enough for him. Finally, he took a job working for the US Government (you can’t get more stable) working in the post office for 11 years. He didn’t miss child support payments (although he constantly wrote about how ugly the mother of his child was), and as far as I know he was never homeless or totally down and out from his early 30s ’til the time he started having success as a writer.
And despite writing about the overwhelming poverty he had, he did have a small inheritance from his father, a savings account he built up, and a steady paycheck. The post office job is documented, in full, in his first “novel”  called, appropriately, “Post Office”. Many people think that’s his best novel but I put it third or fourth behind “Ham on Rye” and “Factotum” and possibly “Women”.  He also wrote a novel, “Hollywood” about the blow-by-blow experience of doing the movie “Barfly”. All the names are changed (hence its claim to be fiction) but once you figure out who everyone is, its totally non-fiction. Like all of his other novels (not counting “Pulp”, which was the worst American novel ever written and published).
[See, 33 Unusual Ways to Be a Better Writer – many tips I got from reading his books.]
4)      Discipline. Imagine working a brutal 10 hour shift at the Post Office, coming home and arguing with your wife or girlfriend, or half-girlfriend, half-prostitute that was living with you, finishing off three or four six-packs of beer and then…writing. He did it every day. Most people want to write that novel, or finish that painting, or start that business, but have zero discipline to actually sit down and do it. If there was any talent that Bukowski had that I can’t actually figure out how he got it, its that discipline.
When he was younger (early 20s, late teens) he spent almost every day in the library, falling in love with all the great writers. The love must have been so great it superseded almost everything else in his life. He had to write like them or he really felt like he would die. He had to “put down a good line” as he would say. And every day he would try. And good, bad, or ugly, he probably ultimately ended up publishing (many posthumously) everything he ever wrote. I try to match that discipline. Even when I don’t post a blog post I write seven days a week, every morning. At least 1000 words and a completed post. I used to do this in my 20s when I was trying to write fiction. My minimum then was 3000 words. I did that for five years.
It adds up. The average book is 60,000 words. If you can write 1000 words a day then you’ll have 6 books by the end of the year. Because poetry books are much smaller, Bukowski probably had around 80 or so books published by the time he was dead and I bet there are more coming.



(his first novel at age 49. You're never too old).
5)      His “literary map”. He was inspired by several writers and he inspired many more. Some of my favorite writers come from both categories. He was probably most inspired by three writers: Celine, Knut Hamsun, and John Fante. I highly recommend Celine’s “Journey to the End of the Night”.  Celine is almost a more raw version of Bukowski. He was constantly angry and trying to survive and do whatever it took to survive. The thing about Bukowski, as opposed to many other writers, is he didn’t concern himself with flowery images or beautiful sunsets. He totally wrote as if he were speaking to you and Celine does that to an extreme but he’s so raw and smart that the way he “speaks” is like an insane person trying to spew out as much venom as possible. 600 pages later his first book is a masterpiece and I often use it in my pre-writing hour every morning when I read stuff to inspire myself to write.
John Fante wrote the underappreciated “Ask the Dust” which was completely forgotten until Bukowski’s publisher republished it and all of Fante’s books. (I also recommend the movie  with Colin Farrell and a naked Salma Hayek).


(maybe Hayek's best role)
Bukowski was almost afraid to admit how much Fante directly influenced him. He wrote in one “short story”, “I realized that admitting John Bante had been such a great influence on my writing might detract from my own work, as if part of me was a carbon copy, but I didn’t give a damn. It’s when you hide things that you choke on them.”
Note he spelled “Fante” as “Bante”. That’s the extent of Bukowski’s fiction. Another interesting thing is the last line. Nothing flowery, nothing descriptively beautiful, yet a line like that is what made Bukowski unique and one of the best writers ever, getting at the hidden truth of what was really happening in his head, rather than telling yet another boring story filled with flowery descriptions like most books and stories are.
Then there’s the authors Bukowski influenced. Michael Hemmingson wrote an excellent review of Bukowski in the book “The Dirty Realism Duo: Bukowski and Carver” which I highly recommend. Raymond Carver comes from the same genre of down-and-out, oppressive relationships that were beyond his ability to cope with them, and realist, simple writing that was mostly autobiographical (although that’s a little less clear in Carver’s case). I’d also throw Denis Johnson’s book of short stories (Jesus’ Son) in that category (Johnson studied with Carver) and more recently, books like the above-mentioned Michael Hemmingson’s  “Crack Hotel”, “The Comfort of Women”,  “My Date(Rape) with Kathy Acker” and other stories.  I’m dying to find other writers in this category.


(I haven't seen the movie. Is it good?)
I read how Denis Johnson needed $10,000 to pay the IRS. So he threw together some vignettes he had forgotten about, called the collection “Jesus’ Son” and sent it off to Jonathan Galassi and said, “here, you can have these if you pay the IRS”. So I Facebook-friended Galassi and asked him if he could tell me one author in Denis Johnson’s league but I’m still waiting for a response.
I wish I could find more writers like these. Perhaps William Vollmann who wrote “Butterfly Stories” but his bigger fiction is too difficult for me to read (anecdote: he wrote the afterward to the recently re-published Celine’s “Journey of the Night” so all of these writers tend to recognize their common lineage.)
6)      Poetry. I really hate poetry. When I open up the New Yorker (blecch!) and read the latest poems in there I can’t understand them, they all seem like gibberish to me, they all seem too intellectual. And yet, out of all the poets I’ve read, the only ones I really like are: Bukowski, Raymond Carver, and Denis Johnson. Poetry allowed them to master making each word in a sentence effective and powerful. It was this training that allowed them to destroy the competition when they sat down to write their longer pieces. It makes me want to try my hand at poetry but even the word “poetry” sounds so pseudo-intellectual I just have no interest in doing it.
Bukowski: Alcoholic, postal worker, misogynist (there’s a video you can easily find on Youtube where he must be almost 60 and he literally kicks his wife in anger while he’s being interviewed.), anti-war, anti-peace, anti-everything, hated everyone, probably insecure, extremely honest, and he had to write every day or it would kill him.
In his own words, words which I hope to live by: “What a joy it must be to be a truly great writer, even if it means a shotgun at the finish”.
————————
Suggested Reading:

Biographical:
–          Michael Hemmingson:  The Dirty Realism Due: Charles Bukowski  and Raymond Carver
–          Howard Sounes: “Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life
Bukowski’s Writings (that I recommend):
  • –          “Ham On Rye”
  • –          “Factotum”
  • –          “Women”
  • –          “Post Office”
  • –          “Hollywood”
  • –          “Portions from  a Wine-Stained Notebook”
  • –          “Absence of the Hero”
  • –          “The Last Night on theEarth”(poems)
  • (I don’t recommend “Pulp” – don’t read it).
Other fiction in the “Dirty Realism”category:  
  • –          Celine, “Journey to the End of theNight”
  • –          Fante, “Ask the Dust”
  • –          Raymond Carver, “Cathedral”
  • –          Denis Johnson, “Jesus’ Son”
  • –          William Vollmann,  “Butterfly Stories”
  • –          Michael Hemmingson, “This  Other Eden”
  • –          Junot Diaz, “Drown”
  • –          Jerzy Kosinski, “Steps”
Poem:
“You Don’t know What Love Is (an evening with Bukowski)” by Raymond Carver.
Article: John Fante, father of LA Literature:
Movies:
“Factotum”

If anyone  can think  of  anybody else in this specific “dirty realism” category, please put it in the comments. I’d also like to read women in this category but I think it’s a particularly male category. Jack Kerouac falls somewhere in there but he’s more “beat” which I think is different. And Chad Kultgen’s recent books (“The Average American Male”, for instance) are also somewhat in the realism category but not quite “dirty” enough.  





Giving dad some backchat.


Psychedelics




Hallucinations. Vivid images. Intense sounds. Greater self-awareness.
Those are the hallmark effects associated with the world's four most popular psychedelic drugs. Ayahuasca, DMT, MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms can all take users through a wild mind-bending ride that can open up your senses and deepen your connection to the spirit world. Not all trips are created equal, though – if you're sipping ayahuasca, your high could last a couple of hours. But if you're consuming DMT, that buzz will last under than 20 minutes.


Still, no matter the length of the high, classic psychedelics are powerful. Brain imaging studies have shown that all four drugs have profound effects on neural activity. Brain function is less constrained while under the influence, which means you're better able to emotion. And the networks in your brain are far more connected, which allows for a higher state of consciousness and introspection.
These psychological benefits have led researchers to suggest that psychedelics could be effective therapeutic treatments. In fact, many studies have discovered that all four drugs, in one way or another, have the potential to treat depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and other mental health conditions. By opening up the mind, the theory goes, people under the influence of psychedelics can confront their painful pasts or self-destructive behavior without shame or fear. They're not emotionally numb; rather, they're far more objective.
Of course, these substances are not without their side effects. But current research at least suggests that ayahuasca, DMT, MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms have the potential to change the way doctors can treat mental illness – particularly for those who are treatment-resistant. More in-depth studies are needed to understand their exact effects on the human brain, but what we know now is at least promising. Here, a look at how each drug affects your brain – and how that's being used to our advantage.


AyahuascaAyahuasca is an ancient plant-based tea derived from a combination of the vine Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of the plant psychotria viridis. Shamans in the Amazon have long used ayahuasca to cure illness and tap into the spiritual world. Some religious groups in Brazil consume the hallucinogenic brew as religious sacrament. In recent years, regular folk have started to use ayahuasca for greater self-awareness.
That's because brain scans have shown that ayahuasca increases the neural activity in the brain's visual cortex, as well as its limbic system – the region deep inside the medial temporal lobe that's responsible for processing memories and emotion. Ayahuasca can also quiet the brain's default mode network, which, when overactive, causes depression, anxiety and social phobia, according to a video released last year by YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE. Those who consume it end up in a meditative state.
"Ayahuasca induces an introspective state of awareness during which people have very personally meaningful experiences," says Dr. Jordi Riba, a leading ayahuasca researcher. "It's common to have emotionally-laden, autobiographic memories coming to the mind's eye in the form of visions, not unlike those we experience during sleep."
According to Riba, people who use ayahuasca experience a trip that can be "quite intense" depending on the dose consumed. The psychological effects come on after about 45 minutes and hit their peak within an hour or two; physically, the worst a person will feel is nausea and vomiting, Riba says. Unlike with LSD or psilocybin mushrooms, people high on ayahuasca are fully aware that they're hallucinating. It's this self-conscious tripping that has led people to use ayahuasca as a means to overcome addiction and face traumatic issues. Riba and his research group at Hospital do Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain, have also begun "rigorous clinical trials" using ayahuasca for treating depression; so far, the plant-based drug has shown to reduce depressive symptoms in treatment-resistant patients, as well as produce "a very antidepressant effect that is maintained for weeks," says Riba, who has studied the drug with support from the Beckley Foundation, a U.K.-based think tank.
His team is currently studying the post-acute stage of ayahuasca effects – what they've dubbed the "after-glow." So far, they've found that, during this "after-glow" period, the regions of the brain associated with sense-of-self have a stronger connection to other areas that control autobiographic memories and emotion. According to Riba, it's during this time that the mind is more open to psychotherapeutic intervention, so the research team is working to incorporate a small number of ayahuasca sessions into mindfulness psychotherapy.
"These functional changes correlate with increased 'mindfulness' capacities," Riba says. "We believe that the synergy between the ayahuasca experience and the mindfulness training will boost the success rate of the psychotherapeutic intervention."


DMTAyahuasca and the compound N,N-Dimethyltryptamine – or DMT – are closely linked. DMT is present in the leaves of the plant psychotria viridis and is responsible for the hallucinations ayahuasca users experience. DMT is close in structure to melatonin and serotonin and has properties similar to the psychedelic compounds found in magic mushrooms and LSD.
If taken orally, DMT has no real effects on the body because stomach enzymes break down the compound immediately. But the Banisteriopsis caapi vines used in ayahuasca block those enzymes, causing DMT to enter your bloodstream and travel to your brain. DMT, like other classic psychedelic drugs, affect the brain's serotonin receptors, which research shows alters emotion, vision, and sense of bodily integrity. In other words: you're on one hell of a trip.
Much of what is known about DMT is thanks to Dr. Rick Strassman, who first published groundbreaking research on the psychedelic drug two decades ago. According to Strassman, DMT is one of the only compounds that can cross the blood-brain barrier – the membrane wall separating circulating blood from the brain extracellular fluid in the central nervous system. DMT's ability to cross this divides means the compound "appears to be a necessary component of normal brain physiology," says Strassman, the author of two quintessential books on the psychedelic, DMT: The Spirit Molecule and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy.
"The brain only brings things into its confines using energy to get things across the blood-brain barrier for nutrients, which it can't make on its own — things like blood sugar or glucose," he continued. "DMT is unique in that way, in that the brain expends energy to get it into its confines."
DMT actually naturally occurs in the human body, and is particularly present in the lungs. Strassman says it may also be found in the pineal gland – the small part of the brain associated with the mind's "third eye." The effects of overly active DMT when ingested via ayahuasca can last for hours. But taken on its own – that is, smoked or injected – and your high lasts only a few minutes, according to Strassman.
Although short, the trip from DMT can be intense, more so than other psychedelics, Strassman says. Users on DMT have reported similar experiences to that of ayahuasca: A greater sense of self, vivid images and sounds and deeper introspection. In the past, Strassman has suggested DMT to be used as a therapy tool to treat depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions, as well as aid with self-improvement and discovery. But studies of DMT are actually scarce, so it's hard to know the full extent of its therapeutic benefits.
"There isn't much research with DMT and it ought to be studied more," Strassman says.


MDMAUnlike DMT, MDMA is not a naturally occurring psychedelic. The drug – otherwise called molly or ecstasy – is a synthetic concoction popular among ravers and club kids. People can pop MDMA as a capsule, tablet or pill. The drug (sometimes called ecstasy or molly) triggers the release of three key neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. The synthetic drug also increases levels of the hormones oxytocin and prolactin, resulting in a feeling of euphoria and being uninhibited. The most significant effect of MDMA is the release of serotonin in large quantities, which drains the brain's supply – which can mean days of depression after its use.
Brain imaging has also shown that MDMA causes a decrease in activity in the amygdala – the brain's almond-shaped region that perceives threats and fear – as well as an increase in the prefrontal cortex, which is considered the brain's higher processing center. Ongoing research on psychedelic drugs and the effects on various neural networks has also found that MDMA allows for more flexibility in brain function, which means people tripping on the drug can filter emotions and reactions without being "stuck in old ways of processing," according to Dr. Michael Mithoefer, who has studied MDMA extensively.
"People are less likely to be overwhelmed by anxiety and better able to process experience … without being numb to emotion," he says.
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted researchers permission to move ahead with plans for a large-scale clinical trial to examine the effects of using MDMA as treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Mithoefer oversaw the phase-two trials – backed by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an American nonprofit founded in the mid-1980s – that informed the FDA's decision. During the study, people living with PTSD were able to address their trauma without withdrawing from their emotions while under the influence of MDMA because of the complex interaction between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Since the phase two trials had strong results, Mithoefer told Rolling Stone in December that he expects the FDA to approve the phase three trial plans sometime early this year.
While research into MDMA's use for PTSD treatment is promising, Mithoefer cautions that the drug not be used outside of a therapeutic setting, as it raises blood pressure, body temperature and pulse, and causes nausea, muscle tension, increased appetite, sweating, chills and blurred vision. MDMA could also lead to dehydration, heart failure, kidney failure and an irregular heartbeat. If someone on MDMA doesn't drink enough water or has an underlying health condition, the side effects can be life threatening.


Psilocybin MushroomsMushrooms are another psychedelic with a long history of use in health and healing ceremonies, particularly in the Eastern world. People tripping on 'shrooms will experience vivid hallucinations within an hour of ingestion, thanks to the body's breakdown psilocybin, the naturally-occurring psychedelic ingredient found in more than 200 species of mushrooms.
Research out of the Imperial College London, published in 2014, found that psilocybin, a serotonin receptor, causes a stronger communication between the parts of the brain that are normally disconnected from each other. Scientists reviewing fMRI brain scans of people who've ingested psilocybin and people who've taken a placebo discovered that magic mushrooms trigger a different connectivity pattern in the brain that's only present in a hallucinogenic state. In this condition, the brain's functioning with less constraint and more intercommunication; according to researchers from Imperial College London, this type of psilocybin-induced brain activity is similar to what's seen with dreaming and enhanced emotional being.
"These stronger connections are responsible for creating a different state of consciousness," says Dr. Paul Expert, a methodologist and physicist who worked on the Imperial College London study. "Psychedelic drugs are a potentially very powerful way of understanding normal brain function."
Emerging research may prove magic mushrooms effective at treating depression and other mental health conditions. Much like ayahuasca, brain scans have shown that psilocybin can suppress activity in the brain's default mode network, and people tripping on 'shrooms have reported experiencing "a higher level of happiness and belonging to the world," according to Expert. To that end, a study published last year in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet discovered that a high dose of mushrooms reduced depressive symptoms in treatment-resistant patients.
That same study noted that psilocybin could potentially treat anxiety, addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder because of its mood-elevating properties. And other research has found that psilocybin can reduce the fear response in mice, signaling the drug's potential as a treatment for PTSD.
Despite these positive findings, research on psychedelics is limited, and consuming magic mushrooms does comes with some risk. People tripping on psilocybin can experience paranoia or a complete loss of subjective self-identity, known as ego dissolution, according to Expert. Their response to the hallucinogenic drug will also depend on their physical and psychological environment. Magic mushrooms should be consumed with caution because the positive or negative effect on the user can be "profound (and uncontrolled) and long lasting," Expert says. "We don't really understand the mechanism behind the cognitive effect of psychedelics, and thus cannot 100 percent control the psychedelic experience."
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that Dr. Jordi Riba's work is supported by the Beckley Foundation, not MAPS. 


Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/what-psychedelics-really-do-to-your-brain-w471265