Monday, August 20, 2007

"Hello, I must be going. I came to say I cannot stay, I must be going."

"Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member".

30 years ago yesterday (Aug. 19), Julius Henry Marx, better known as Groucho Marx, passed away. Overshadowed by Elvis' death just 3 days earlier, Groucho Marx died of pneumonia at the age of 86 Some of my favorite Groucho quotes:

"I married your mother because I wanted children. Imagine my disappointment when you arrived."

"If I hold you any closer, I'll be in back of you."

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."

"Room service? Send up a larger room."

"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

"You call this a party? The beer is warm, the women cold and I'm hot under the collar."

"A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running."

"A woman is an occasional pleasure, but a cigar is always a smoke."

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough."

"Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife."

"Here's to our girlfriends and wives; may they never meet!"

"Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse."

"How would you like to feel the way she looks?"

Friday, August 17, 2007

Happy Birthday Bukowski

Charles Bukowski, one of the so-called "beat" poets: 1920 - 1994, would have been yesterday, age 87. A couple of his poems:

"MAN IN THE SUN" by Charles Bukowski

She reads to me from the New Yorker
which I don't buy, don't know
how they get in here, but it's
something about the Mafia
One of the heads of the Mafia
who ate too much and had it too easy
too many fine women patting his
walnuts, and he got fat sucking at good
cigars and young breasts and he
has these heart attacks - and - so
one day somebody is driving him
in his big car along the road
and he doesn't feel so good
and he asks the boy to stop and let
him out and the boy lays him out
along the road in the fine sunshine
and before he dies he says:
how beautiful life can be, and
then he's gone.
Sometimes you've got to kill 4 or 5
thousand men before you somehow
get to believe that the sparrow
is immortal, money is piss and
that you have been wasting your time.

"THE TRASH CAN" by Charles Bukowski

This is great, I just wrote two
poems I didn't like.
There is a trash can on this
computer.
I just moved the poems over
and dropped them into
the trash can.
They're gone forever, no
paper, no sound, no
fury, no placenta
and then
just a clean screen awaits you.
It's always better,
to reject yourself before
the editors do.
Especially on a rainy
night like this with
bad music on the radio.
And now--
I know what you're
thinking:
maybe he should have
trashed this
misbegotten one
also.
Ha, ha, ha,
ha.