4 ms·

Seriously, 9-5 is the dream. This article is so filled with naive melodrama. Does this person realize how much effort it takes to kill, pluck, and dress a singl

by mjfl 10y ago

Seriously, 9-5 is the dream. This article is so filled with naive melodrama. Does this person realize how much effort it takes to kill, pluck, and dress a single chicken? to grow a single ear of corn? Things you might eat in a single meal? Someone has to "slave" themselves away to grow that for you. They can't just quit and become a poet, if they did the author would starve. That attitude is the definition of childish because it always assumes that someone is going to be there to provide for you, whether it is the state, some rich patron, or your actual parents.

lapsock 10y ago
No, you just lack breadth in your understanding of life. People have different personalities, Bukowski clearly had a personality that caused him to despise the 9-5 work environment. He grww up with people telling him if he didn't work 9-5 he would be a dirty bum hippie. That explains his hatred for the 9-5.
- damontal 10y ago
  Well he was kind of a dirty bum.
  - intrasight 10y ago
    And a dirty old man
chillwaves 10y ago
You do realize that efficiencies in agriculture means our country alone has more than the capacity to feed the entire world? Second consideration, no one opts in to capitalism. You are simply born into a situation with scarce access to natural resources (fenced off by the rich and powerful). Now, it only seems fair to me that a person has to ability to opt out, if we wanted to level the playing field between workers and owners. That is the price of civilization.
- mjfl 10y ago
  So who's going to grow your food while you "opt out"?
  - nothrabannosir 10y ago
    The people who labeled the earth we were given as their property, and who deny us access to it? I'm a staunch free market supporter, but OP is right: you're lucky if you like this competitive society we were born in. If you don't like our rules, we screw you. You can't just up and move to a fertile plot of land without anyone bothering you, anymore. The least we can do is recognize that.
    - wernercd 10y ago
      But the technology IS approaching that can make a basement a place to grow food. How much longer until we can literally grow food anywhere that has electricity?
  - chillwaves 10y ago
    There is a cost to the existing world order. Right now it costs on average over $40,000 a year to put someone in jail in America -- for breaking the social contract. It seems fair to me that the rich, in return for being the few who own so much, pay for someone to live and not die in the streets if they do not want to work (a pittance). We have the resources as a society, so scarcity is not a compelling retort. Secondly, the resources are being used anyway (welfare, prison, police), arguably inefficiently and can be done without needless suffering and waste of human potential. If the owner class is going to close access to resources we need to live, it is the right of the worker class to break the social order. Your assertion that people who recognize this hierarchy of power as "childish" seems unfair. And the real reason why basic income is untenable for the rich is that it gives too much negotiating power to those who work for a living, because they would not die in the streets if they were to opt out. That reality greatly undermines any notion of freedom in the economic sense. Time is money and it seems the rich get to take both from the poor with impunity. edit since I can't reply: Did you read my comment? Somehow you are under the strange perception that the rich people, who own literally almost everything are at the worse end of the deal wrt to subsidizing sustenance living for the poor. To answer your question: anyone can grow the food, but no one will be forced to. Does it occur to you that the owners are actually doing nothing (if they choose) while everyone else grows THEIR food and provides an endless list of goods and services? I see you don't have a problem with this system, which is strange since you are so insistent that everyone must work for their food.
guiambros 10y ago
> This article is so filled with naive melodrama. Well, of course it has to be full of complexities and life melodrama; this is Bukowski after all. It is his trademark. But his life story has a beautiful twist, which unfortunately is not covered in OP's piece. From the interview[1] with John Martin, his longtime friend and editor, and the guy who paid the $100 per month: "We sat down with a little piece of paper. I sat there with a pen, and he listed out all of his monthly expenses—and you've got to remember, this was 1965, when his rent was $35 a month. He had $15 in child support, $3 for cigarettes, $10 for liquor, and another $15 for food. And yet, even though that sounds pitifully small, at the time he was feeding himself and had nice clothes, drove a very old car, and lived in this completely or partially destroyed unit in East Hollywood. He could get along on $100 a month. I was only earning $400 a month, so I was giving him 25 percent of my income. But as soon as the thing took off we did much better. At the very end, I paid him a retainer so I wouldn't owe him some horrible amount of money. Eventually I paid him $10,000 every two weeks. So he went from $100 every month to $10,000 every two weeks, and then, at the end of the year, I'd make up whatever I still owed him. Later, the really big money came in when we started to sell his books for movies and stuff like that." [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bukowskis-longtime-publisher-i-never-saw-him-drunk https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bukowskis-longtime-publis...
- intrasight 10y ago
  I read Bukowski in the '80s but I never read ABOUT Bukowski - so I found this very interesting
- vmeson 10y ago
  To put the initial amount in context: $100 in 1965 equals ~$760 in 2016. (http://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=100&year=1965 http://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=100&yea...)

by mjfl 10y ago

lapsock 10y ago

No, you just lack breadth in your understanding of life. People have different personalities, Bukowski clearly had a personality that caused him to despise the 9-5 work environment. He grww up with people telling him if he didn't work 9-5 he would be a dirty bum hippie. That explains his hatred for the 9-5.

damontal 10y ago
Well he was kind of a dirty bum.
- intrasight 10y ago
  And a dirty old man

chillwaves 10y ago

You do realize that efficiencies in agriculture means our country alone has more than the capacity to feed the entire world? Second consideration, no one opts in to capitalism. You are simply born into a situation with scarce access to natural resources (fenced off by the rich and powerful). Now, it only seems fair to me that a person has to ability to opt out, if we wanted to level the playing field between workers and owners. That is the price of civilization.

mjfl 10y ago
So who's going to grow your food while you "opt out"?
- nothrabannosir 10y ago
  The people who labeled the earth we were given as their property, and who deny us access to it? I'm a staunch free market supporter, but OP is right: you're lucky if you like this competitive society we were born in. If you don't like our rules, we screw you. You can't just up and move to a fertile plot of land without anyone bothering you, anymore. The least we can do is recognize that.
  - wernercd 10y ago
    But the technology IS approaching that can make a basement a place to grow food. How much longer until we can literally grow food anywhere that has electricity?
- chillwaves 10y ago
  There is a cost to the existing world order. Right now it costs on average over $40,000 a year to put someone in jail in America -- for breaking the social contract. It seems fair to me that the rich, in return for being the few who own so much, pay for someone to live and not die in the streets if they do not want to work (a pittance). We have the resources as a society, so scarcity is not a compelling retort. Secondly, the resources are being used anyway (welfare, prison, police), arguably inefficiently and can be done without needless suffering and waste of human potential. If the owner class is going to close access to resources we need to live, it is the right of the worker class to break the social order. Your assertion that people who recognize this hierarchy of power as "childish" seems unfair. And the real reason why basic income is untenable for the rich is that it gives too much negotiating power to those who work for a living, because they would not die in the streets if they were to opt out. That reality greatly undermines any notion of freedom in the economic sense. Time is money and it seems the rich get to take both from the poor with impunity. edit since I can't reply: Did you read my comment? Somehow you are under the strange perception that the rich people, who own literally almost everything are at the worse end of the deal wrt to subsidizing sustenance living for the poor. To answer your question: anyone can grow the food, but no one will be forced to. Does it occur to you that the owners are actually doing nothing (if they choose) while everyone else grows THEIR food and provides an endless list of goods and services? I see you don't have a problem with this system, which is strange since you are so insistent that everyone must work for their food.

guiambros 10y ago

> This article is so filled with naive melodrama. Well, of course it has to be full of complexities and life melodrama; this is Bukowski after all. It is his trademark. But his life story has a beautiful twist, which unfortunately is not covered in OP's piece. From the interview[1] with John Martin, his longtime friend and editor, and the guy who paid the $100 per month: "We sat down with a little piece of paper. I sat there with a pen, and he listed out all of his monthly expenses—and you've got to remember, this was 1965, when his rent was $35 a month. He had $15 in child support, $3 for cigarettes, $10 for liquor, and another $15 for food. And yet, even though that sounds pitifully small, at the time he was feeding himself and had nice clothes, drove a very old car, and lived in this completely or partially destroyed unit in East Hollywood. He could get along on $100 a month. I was only earning $400 a month, so I was giving him 25 percent of my income. But as soon as the thing took off we did much better. At the very end, I paid him a retainer so I wouldn't owe him some horrible amount of money. Eventually I paid him $10,000 every two weeks. So he went from $100 every month to $10,000 every two weeks, and then, at the end of the year, I'd make up whatever I still owed him. Later, the really big money came in when we started to sell his books for movies and stuff like that." [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bukowskis-longtime-publisher-i-never-saw-him-drunk https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bukowskis-longtime-publis...

intrasight 10y ago
I read Bukowski in the '80s but I never read ABOUT Bukowski - so I found this very interesting
vmeson 10y ago
To put the initial amount in context: $100 in 1965 equals ~$760 in 2016. (http://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=100&year=1965 http://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=100&yea...)