Take your Psycho little Dogs

I finished reading Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski today while I was home sick. It's his pseudo-memoir about growing up poor in LA. It was pretty good... The general theme was knowing you're down socially, so why not drink your sorrows away.

Bukowski knew he'd never amount to much because of his peasant bloodline of drunks and good-for-nothings, and because of that, he never tries to attain what those he went to High School with had.

The two biggest points in the novel are when he's introduced to masturbation and to alcohol. Suddenly, he doesn't feel so empty. These are his bread and butter, his wife and his children. The protagonist looks upon the corporate, cubicle, married, world as if they're as lowly as him, so why even try?

That's what true literature is about: Why bother if it's all insignificant shit to make yourself feel good? Gatsby tried the opposite--get outta the slums and become great and that just led to his greater demise.

I do recommend this book, though it is rather graphic in its sexual depictions and other things...



Hell yes. Oh, and the boy on the right is Bukowski himself. Not much of a looker...