Timeline of Charles Bukowski's life and work
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1920 | Henry Charles Bukowski born in Andernach Germany [August 16] Baptized in the Mariendom, Andernach, as Heinrich Karl Bukowski (after his uncle). [August 29] |
Aktienstraße 12, Andernach, Germany Coblenz (now Koblenz), Germany |
Los Angeles population is 576,673. The population would double during the first half of the decade, due in large part to the rise of the Hollywood movie studios. | 1920 | |||
| 1921 | Amelia Earhart begins taking flying lessons in Los Angeles. Charlie Chaplin makes his first feature film, The Kid. Italian welder Simon Rodia begins work on the Watts Towers. He would work on the towers for 34 years. |
1921 | |||||
| 1922 | Los Angeles gets its first radio stations: KFI, KHJ and KNX. (A radio cost about $100) Hollywood bowl opens. |
1922 | |||||
| 1923 | The Bukowskis come to America aboard the steamship SS President Fillmore (leaving Bremen Germany on April 18, and arriving in New York on April 29). Steamship tickets for the family would have cost about $300. Period breakfast menu for the ship. | Baltimore 231 S. Hudson Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101 (with relatives) 222 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena, CA (Bukowski's grandparents' home) |
Opened in 1919, "New York style bar and restaurant" Francois changes its name to Musso & Frank(s). Hollywood Legion Stadium opens, home of the big Friday night boxing matches through the 1950s. Walt Disney arrives in Los Angeles with $40 in his pocket. |
1923 | |||
| 1924 | 2110 Trinity street, Los Angeles, CA 90011 Period map |
Los Angeles population tops one million. The "Hollywoodland" sign is constructed atop Mt. Lee. Its thirteen 50-foot letters are lit by four thousand 20 watt light bulbs. Lionel Sternberger invents the cheeseburger at his Pasadena restaurant, the Rite Spot. He calls it the Aristocratic Burger. |
1924 | ||||
| 1925 | Attends San Marino Grammar School, just South of Pasadena (now Valentine School, it opened in 1918 with 41 students). | Los Angeles Wrigley Field opens. [September 29] Packard car dealership at 7th and Flower streets puts up the first neon sign in Los Angeles. |
1925 | ||||
| 1926 | Attends Virginia Road Elementary School. Father drives dairy delivery truck for L.A. Creamery. |
4511 W 28th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map |
Los Angeles Central Library opens. [July 6] Route 66 is created when a 2,400-plus mile stretch of road connecting Los Angeles and Chicago is designated as U.S. Highway 66. |
1926 | |||
| 1927 | Grauman's Chinese Theatre opens. Construction took 18 months and cost two million dollars. Movie tickets were twenty five cents. [May 18] Aviator Charles Lindbergh arrives in Los Angeles and is given a parade through the city. 200,000 people line the parade route. The parade ends at the Los Angeles Coliseum where he gives a speech to 60,000 schoolchildren. [September 20] First feature-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer. [October 6] |
1927 | |||||
| 1928 | Los Angeles City Hall opens. [April 26] The Henry E. Huntington Library opens to the public. 78 years later Linda Bukowski will donate a large portion of Bukowski's papers to The Huntington. Mines Field opens, two years later it is renamed Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Just Northwest of Los Angeles the two year old St. Francis Dam collapses, temporarily cutting off power to the city. [March 12] Gambling ships start to appear outside the three mile limit off the coast. Walt Disney releases animated "talkie" Steamboat Willie, giving birth to Mickey Mouse. [November 18] |
1928 | |||||
| 1929 | Wyatt Earp dies in Los Angeles at the age of 80 [January 13] (Earp's house was - and is still - across the street from Mount Vernon Junior High School, which Bukowski would attend a few years later). Chateau Marmont Hotel opens. [February 1] 20 year old John Fante moves to Southern California. 10 years later he will publish a novel whose characters live and work in the Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles. The book, Ask the Dust, has a profound impact on the 19 or 20 year old Bukowski when he reads it in the downtown Central Library. Roosevelt Highway (later renamed Pacific Coast Highway) opens. [June 29] Graf Zeppelin touches down in Los Angeles during its circumnavigation of the globe. [August 26] |
1929 | |||||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1930 | Attends Virginia Road Elementary School. Father drives dairy delivery truck for L.A. Creamery. He reported his income for the 1930 census as $7,500. |
3910 W 30th St., Los Angeles, CA 90016 | The area of the original Pueblo of Los Angeles is renovated and opens as Olvera Street. The Greek Theater opens in Griffith Park. The observatory will open five years later. Pilot Laura Ingalls lands in Glendale to become the first woman to fly solo across the United States. |
1930 | |||
| 1931 | 2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map |
Los Angeles County deputies and Federal officers "repatriate" (deport) 12,600 Mexican residents of East Los Angeles. The round-ups begin at La Placita in Olvera Street. Canter Bros. Delicatessen opens in original Boyle Heights location. |
1931 | ||||
| 1932 | Two inches of snow falls on Los Angeles. [January 15] Los Angeles hosts the games of the X Olympiad. Unemployment in Los Angeles rises to 23% at the height of the Great Depression. |
1932 | |||||
| 1933 | Attends Mount Vernon Junior High School (now the Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Middle School, named for the O.J. Simpson trial attorney). Misses six months of school and undergoes painful treatments when he breaks out in an extreme case of Acne Vulgaris. |
6.3 magnitude earthquake in Long Beach kills 115. [March 10] Los Angeles County General Hospital opens. 21 years later Bukowski would come close to death while being "treated" there. |
1933 | ||||
| 1934 | The Santa Anita Park racetrack opens in Arcadia (bankrolled by a dentist and movie director/producer Hal Roach, who made the Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang films). [December 25] The first drive-in theater in California, The Pico Drive-In Theater, opens at Pico and Westwood Boulevards. Adult admission is 30 cents, children, 10 cents. |
1934 | |||||
| 1935 | Begins going to the library; the Baldwin Hills branch of the Los Angeles Public Library at 2906 S. La Brea Ave., 90016. Writes first short story about a WWI pilot. |
The Griffith Observatory opens in Griffith Park. [May 14] | 1935 | ||||
| 1936 | Bukowski's father loses his job yet pretends to go to work every day. | The City of Los Angeles train makes its first run between Chicago and Los Angeles. [May 15] Huge crowds gather downtown on the night of October 9th to celebrate the arrival in Los Angeles of power from the Hoover Dam Power Plant. The Army Corps of Engineers begins building concrete walls around 48 miles of the flood-prone Los Angeles River. The project will take 20 years to complete. Los Angeles Chief of Police James Edgar "Two-Gun" Davis sends 125 officers to the borders of Nevada and Oregon in an attempt to keep "Okies" fleeing the dust bowl from reaching Los Angeles. Jack Parsons and his "Suicide Squad" perform the first American rocket tests in the dry riverbed of the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena. [October 31] |
1936 | ||||
| 1937 | Attends the newly-built Susan Miller Dorsey High School. [September] | Howard Hughes sets a coast-to-coast flying record of 7 hours, 28 minutes flying from Los Angeles to Newark. [January 19] The Del Mar racetrack ("Where the turf meets the surf") opens. [July 3] Like the track at Santa Anita, Del Mar was financed by Hollywood types, including Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper and Oliver Hardy. Dick and Mac McDonald open an octogonal-shaped food stand in Monrovia named The Airdrome. Three years later they will move the building to San Bernardino and change the name to McDonald's. |
1937 | ||||
| 1938 | Outgrows the local library and begins visiting the Los Angeles Central Library (where he first reads John Fante's Ask The Dust). Transfers to Los Angeles High School. [September] |
Los Angeles River floods causing 144 deaths and destroying thousands of homes. [March 1-3] Hollywood Park (officially "The Hollywood Turf Club Park") opens. [June 10] Like Santa Anita and Del Mar, Hollywood Park was largely financed by movie people like Jack and Harry Warner, Walt Disney, Samuel Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, Bing Crosby and others. Bugsy Siegel opens an illegal casino at the Castillo del Lago mansion on Hollywoodland's Durand Drive (in 1993 the house was purchased by Bukowski acquaintance Madonna). |
1938 | ||||
| 1939 | Graduates from Los Angeles High School with a C average. Attends Los Angeles City College to study Journalism and English. |
Two Los Angeles-related novels are published, Nathanael West's dim view of the city, Day of the Locust, and Raymond Chandler's detective novel, The Big Sleep. Union Station opens in Downtown Los Angeles. [May 3] 93 people killed in the only tropical storm to make landfall in Southern California (Long Beach) in the 20th century. [September 25] |
1939 | ||||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1940 | Placed on academic probation by Los Angeles City College. [June] Father throws Bukowski's possessions and manuscripts onto the front lawn after reading his short stories, so Bukowski leaves home temporarily. First staying in an apartment on Third and Flower, then in a room on Temple Street (with financial assistance from his mother). |
First publication; letter to the editor of LA City College paper, Cubby Hole. | 2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map Third and Flower (likely either the Rangeley Apartments at 220 Cinnabar St., or the Rollin Apartments at 247 S. Flower St.) Weekly rent for an older apartment or rooming house was about $8. Period map Temple street, Los Angeles, CA (in what Bukowski describes as, "A small room above a bar in the Filipino district.") 2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map |
America's first freeway, The Arroyo Seco Parkway opens between Downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. [December 30] The first hotel ever built in Los Angeles, The Bella Union (opened in 1849), is torn down. |
1940 | ||
| 1941 | Applies for Social Security card. [May 13] Leaves Los Angeles City College without graduating. [June] Leaves Los Angeles to strike out on his own and see the country, his first stop is Miami Beach. While he wrote about living in many cities during this period, written evidence suggests he was in New Orleans, San Francisco and Philadelphia for the bulk of his time away from Los Angeles. [fall/winter] |
2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map Miami Beach, FL (according to a letter written in 1941) |
Works at the Union Pacific/Southern Pacific railroad's Taylor Yard just north of downtown Los Angeles, cleaning train cars (his mother secured the job for him through a friend). Works part time (very briefly) in stockroom of Sears Roebuck department store at 4540 W Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles for 65 cents an hour. Works making auto transmission parts at Borg-Warner, 1516 S. Flower St., Los Angeles. Works at Di Pinna clothing store (as "a package-wrapper and box-filler in the cellar"), 1036 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. |
The Colorado River Aqueduct is completed and brings its first water to the city. | 1941 | ||
| 1942 | Draft registration card filled out in New Orleans [February 16] During this period he was writing three or four short stories a week in longhand (he had sold his typewriter while in San Francisco) and submitting them to mainstream magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's, where they were routinely rejected. "They were lyrical. They were rambling. The plot and the content were secondary. It was a vomiting up, an effusion of feeling." |
Miami Beach, FL (according to a letter written in 1941) 1024 Camp St., New Orleans, LA [February 16] San Francisco/Oakland, CA |
Works at Di Pinna clothing store in Miami Beach. [cont.] Pumps gas for a New Orleans cab company for 45 cents an hour. Lists place of employment as Sears Roebuck, New Orleans on his draft registration card (probably at 201 Baronne St., which was about a 15 minute walk from his Camp St. address). [February 16] Name appears in the Oakland Tribune in a story about American Red Cross blood donations. In the article his occupation is listed as "shipping clerk," so it's likely that the Red Cross job was a volunteer position. [September 8] |
"The Battle of Los Angeles," a false alarm of a Japanese attack, causes city-wide scare, including anti aircraft fire into the night sky. [February 25] U.S. soldiers empty Little Tokyo and deport all Japanese Americans out of the city in enforcement of an Executive Order decreeing that all Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals be evacuated from the West Coast. Los Angeles gives the world its first parking meter. |
1942 | ||
| 1943 | Sends letter to draft board in New Orleans stating that he has no intention of reporting for induction due to his "personal philosophy." Draft board threatens to hand his case over to the U. S. Attorney's Office. [June] Reports to New Orleans draft board where they reject him for military service. [July 2] Loses virginity to a woman he describes as a "300 pound whore." |
New Orleans, LA | Works as an "errand boy" in the composing room of The New Orleans Item newspaper for 43 cents an hour. Fired from the job when he asked for a 5 cent an hour raise. 722-730 Union St. | The Venice Riots break out after soldiers claim a soldier has been stabbed on the beachfront by the pachucos (young Mexican Americans wearing zoot suits). 500 sailors and civilians attacked young Mexican Americans as they exited a dance at the Aragon Ballroom. [June 3] "Zoot Suit Riots" would continue around the city for a month as soldiers, sailors and marines came in from out of town intent on attacking the pachucos. Los Angeles experiences its first "smog attack." |
1943 | ||
| 1944 | New Orleans draft board decides to re-open his case, they want him examined by a psychiatrist to determine whether he is a "malingerer," but they can't find him. [March] Taken into custody by FBI agents in Philadelphia for suspected draft evasion and held on $1,000 bond. [July 22] Spends 17 days in century-old Moyamensing Prison. Exempted from service in World War II for "Failing To Meet Medical Standards" after a physical and psychological evaluation. [August 7] |
Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip published in March/April issue of Story Magazine. Short story and poem published in Write. It was Bukowski's first published poetry, and - if it predated the above Story Magazine appearance - would have been his first published prose as well. Write was published in 1944/45, but because a copy of the issue that includes his work has never been found, the exact date of Bukowski's appearance is unknown. |
261 W 16th, New York, NY 10011 3545 N Camac St., Philadelphia, PA 19140 2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map |
Works in American News Company distribution warehouse, 11 Park Pl., New York. Works at Fairmount Motors, for 65 cents an hour. 16th and Fairmount St., Philadelphia. Works at the Nabisco plant, 1325 West Glenwood Avenue, Philadelphia, likely making dog biscuits for the U.S. Army K-9 Corps. In 1968 boxer Joe Frazier bought the building and used it (for 40 years) as a training facility. It's now a historic landmark. |
Peak of ridership of the Pacific Electric Railway (red car) streetcars, with 109 million riders on more than 1,150 miles of track in four counties. | 1944 | |
| 1945 | 2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map 1623 Green St., Philadelphia PA 19130 [October/November] |
Works at Merry Co. (picture frame factory), 634 S. San Pedro St., Los Angeles. Works at Snap-on tool warehouse for 65 cents an hour, 1601 Fairmount, Philadelphia. |
Film workers union goes on an eight month strike, halting film production and polarizing the Hollywood community. The stike leads to a riot at Warner Brothers Studio gates in Burbank. [March] Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II [September 2]. |
1945 | |||
| 1946 | Says in an October 1946 letter/drawing to Caresse Crosby (editor of Portfolio) that after losing his job at the Los Angeles picture frame factory, "My father bought me a new suit and shipped me to Philadelphia." | 20 Tanks From Kasseldown published in Portfolio III. Publishes first poems in Matrix. |
603 N 17th St., Philadelphia, PA 19130 | Works at Snap-on tool warehouse in Philadelphia. [cont.] [October] | The Cleveland Rams football team moves to Los Angeles and become the Los Angeles Rams. | 1946 | |
| 1947 | Returns to Los Angeles permanently. In a letter to publisher Whit Burnett (who has suggested that he write a novel), Bukowski says, "I haven't the urge, though I have thought about it, and someday I might try it. Blessed Factotum would be the title, and it would be about the low-class workingman, about factories and cities and courage and ugliness and drunkenness. I don't think if I wrote it now it would be any good, though. [...] The world has had little Charles pretty much by the balls of late, and there isn't much writer left..." |
2020 Mt Vernon St., Philadelphia, PA 19130 [April] Atlanta (in a "tar-paper shack") 2122 S. Longwood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016 Period map 4320 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90031 Period map |
Works at Milliron's Dept. Store, 5th and Broadway in Los Angeles. When Milliron's was bought out by The Broadway in 1950, another department store, Ohrbach's, took over the 12 story Milliron's building (Ohrbach's closed in 1959). | The mutilated body of Elizabeth Short is found in a vacant lot. Her unsolved murder is dubbed "The Black Dahlia" case. [January 15] The first commercial TV station in Los Angeles (and the first to broadcast west of the Mississippi River), KTLA, goes on the air. [January 22] There are about 350 television sets in Los Angeles. (A Magnavox television cost $279.50 at the time.) Jackie Robinson signs with the Dodgers becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball. [April 15] 1500 World War II veterans camp out in MacArthur Park to protest the housing shortage in Los Angeles. Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is shot and killed at his mistress Virginia Hill's home in Beverly Hills. [June 20] The city gets its first telephone area code: 213. |
1947 | ||
| 1948 | Arrested by LAPD for public drunkenness, held in jail overnight. [May 14] Meets Jane Cooney at The Glenwood bar at 724 S Alvarado St. They live together on and off until 1955. Biographers place their first meeting in 1947, but details in the unpublished novel Streetwalker suggest that it was actually 1948. The 1950 census and 1968 FBI files indicate the two were married. While Bukowski never acknowledged a legal marriage to Jane in later interviews or biographical accounts, in poems from 1959, 60 and 66 he mentions his "second wife," and being "twice divorced." In a letter written to Whit Burnett in November, Bukowski says, "I'm not writing much anymore and I'm having a hard time getting along as always." |
4320 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90031 Period map 737 S. Union Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90017 [August] Period map 503 Union Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90017 In late 2019, the owners of 503 Union Drive named the building, "The Bukowski." (Signs of a fire in one of the windows seem to indicate that the naming hasn't destroyed the spirit of the place.) [November] Period map |
The Los Angeles City government fires 17 city workers when they refuse to take anti-communist "loyalty oaths." [August] | 1948 | |||
| 1949 | Arrested by LAPD for public drunkenness, held in jail overnight. [June 12] | 503 Union Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90017 Period map 521 Union Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90017 Period map |
Works at Milliron's Dept. Store. [cont.] Works at Sunbeam Lighting Co., 777 E. 14th Pl. |
Hollywood Park grandstand and clubhouse burn to the ground. [May 5] (Track re-opens a year later.) The Hollywoodland Sign, originally built to last only 18 months, is in total disrepair. The City begins removing it but is halted by public outcry. The sign is refurbished and shortened to "Hollywood." The Pacific Electric Railway Company begins dismantling Los Angeles' ubiquitous street car service by asking the Public Utilities Commission for permission to replace its Red Cars with buses on 11 of its 17 lines. |
1949 | ||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1950 | Bukowski and Jane are evicted from the Aragon apartments for "Excessive drinking, fighting and foul language. Disturbing other tenants." | 334 S Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90057 Period map |
Works at Sunbeam Lighting Co. [cont.] Works for the post office for the first time, December 11 to December 27 as a Temporary Substitute Carrier out of Foy Station, 1808 W 7th St. |
Los Angeles population reaches two million, becomes fourth largest city in the country. | 1950 | ||
| 1951 | Arrested by LAPD for public drunkenness, held in jail overnight. [August 6] | 503 Union Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90017 Period map 2325 Ocean View Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90057 Period map 268 4/6 S Coronado St., Los Angeles, CA 90057 (first court apartment) Period map |
Returns to Sunbeam Lighting Co. Works at Calnevar Co. (making simulated wire wheels for cars), West Washington Blvd. |
Los Angeles voters pass Proposition C, a measure to replace Bunker Hill's tenements with modern apartments. Throughout the 50s developers chipped away at the hill, then in 1959 the Bunker Hill Urban Renewal Project was the final nail in the coffin. The neighborhood was completely erased during the 1960s. Backyard trash incinerators are banned in an attempt to reduce smog. The Los Angeles Rams win their first NFL championship. |
1951 | ||
| 1952 | 268 4/6 S Coronado St., Los Angeles, CA 90057 Period map |
Works at Calnevar Co. [cont.] Returns to the Post Office to work as an Indefinite Substitute Carrier out of Sanford Station, 3751 W 6th St. Annual salary is $1615. [August 17] |
Los Angeles gets live TV feeds from New York for the first time (via a coaxial cable that runs all the way across the country). The UHF channels (14-83) are opened for new stations. A 17" (black and white) TV costs $188 | 1952 | |||
| 1953 | Talking about recent rejections from Poetry and Embryo in a letter to poet and publisher Judson Crews, Bukowski says, "...they do not think my stuff is poetry. I know what they mean. The idea is there, but I can't break thro the skin. I can't work the dials. I'm not interested in poetry. I don't know what interests me." | Promoted to Temporary Carrier Grade 2, $50 raise to $1665. [April 1] | The world's first freeway stack interchange, known in Los Angeles as "The Four Level Interchange," connects the Hollywood, Pasadena and Harbor Freeways. The freeway interchange only adds to the worsening smog problem. | 1953 | |||
| 1954 | Spends nine days in LA County Hospital being treated for an internal hemorrhage (bleeding ulcer), nearly dies. [April] Widely reported to have taken place in 1955, letters and hospital bills from the era indicate the year was actually 1954. The "charity" hospital billed him for $128.16. During the hospital stay his parents meet Jane Cooney and mistakenly believe that her pot belly (the result of her drinking) means she's pregnant. After hospitalization begins writing poetry in greater quantity (earlier letters show that he had not given up writing for ten years after the publication of Portfolio, as he later claimed). |
268 4/6 S Coronado St., Los Angeles, CA 90057 (Bukowski is living here with Jane when he gets out of the hospital) Period map 1237 W. 11th St., Los Angeles, CA 90015 Period map 323 1/2 N Westmoreland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90004 [June] Period map |
Promoted to Temporary Carrier Grade 3, $50 raise to $1715. [April 1] Letters from the time suggest that when he returned to the post office after his hospital stay he drove a mail truck rather than delivering mail on foot. But a promotion to permanent carrier early in 1955 would seem to indicate that he went back to carrying mail at some point during the year. |
Two postal employees are charged with operating large-scale bookmaking operation out of the Terminal Annex Post Office in Downtown Los Angeles. Oil magnate J. Paul Getty opens a museum of his collections to the public in Pacific Palisades. |
1954 | ||
| 1955 | Sends letter of resignation to the post office (citing "ill health") after 2 1/2 years as a letter carrier. [March 11] Sends another letter to the post office asking to be re-hired. [June 16] Married to Barbara Fry in Las Vegas. [October 30] |
323 1/2 N Westmoreland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90004 [June] Period map Wheeler, TX (briefly, with new wife Barbara Frye) 1340 N Edgemont St, Los Angeles, CA 90027 (with Barbara Frye) [November] 2254 1/2 Branden St., Los Angeles, CA 90026 (with Barbara Frye) Period map |
Promoted to Permanent Carrier [March 1]. The $1755 raise doubles his salary to $3470. He quits 10 days later. Works for Supreme Lighting Co., 600 E. Turner St. Works at Graphic Arts Center, 1534 W. 7th St. Underwood portable typewriter. |
Disneyland opens causing a seven mile long backup on the Santa Ana Freeway. Many of the rides were unfinished or broke down, all of the refreshment stands and restaurants ran out of food, and a plumber's strike resulted in a lack of water for visitors (on a 100 degree day). Park employees referred to opening day as "Black Sunday." [July 17] | 1955 | ||
| 1956 | At the request of publisher Doubleday-Doran, Bukowski begins his first novel, A Place to Sleep the Night. The initially submitted chapters were rejected, and the novel went unfinished. Returns to Los Angeles City College to take commercial art classes (night school, at the urging of his wife, who wants him to find a career) [October 1956 to February 1957]. Mother, Katherine Bukowski, dies [December 24]. |
2254 1/2 Branden St., Los Angeles, CA 90026 Period map |
Works at Graphic Arts Center. [cont.] Drives a 1938 Ford. |
30 dead, 130 injured when a a two-car Santa Fe diesel train bound for San Diego derails a few miles out from Union Station. It is the most deadly train accident in Los Angeles history. [January 22] The Capitol Records building in Hollywood, shaped like a stack of 45-rpm disks, becomes the first circular office tower. |
1956 | ||
| 1957 | Co-edits Harlequin with Barbara Frye. Barbara Frye has a miscarriage. Separated from Barbara Frye. |
2254 1/2 Branden St., Los Angeles, CA 90026 Period map 580 N Kingsley Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90004 Period map |
Works at Graphic Arts Center. [cont.] Barbara Frye buys a brand new 1957 Plymouth Fury (at a cost of $2,900) for Bukowski to use to find a better job. He may have used the car to look for work, but mainly he sat in it outside of the Branden Street house and wrote and drank, sometimes spending the night in the back seat. P.O. Box 75-451, Sanford Station (3751 W 6th St.), Los Angeles, 5, Calif. [November 12] Underwood Standard typewriter. |
8 people are killed and 75 injured when a DC-7 on its first flight collides with a U.S. Air Force jet in mid-air and crashes into the schoolyard of Pacoima Junior High School. [January 31] The crash instills a fear of flying in 15 year old Pacoima Junior High student Ritchie Valens, who, along with Buddy Holly, would die in a plane crash two years later. Los Angeles abolishes its 150 foot height limit for buildings. A deal is made to move the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. They will be the first Major League Baseball team west of Missouri. |
1957 | ||
| 1958 | Divorced from Barbara Frye. [March 18] Father, Henry Bukowski, dies. [December 4], Bukowski sells father's house (4927 Doreen Ave., Temple City) for $15,000 ($8000 was still owed on the mortgage). Reconnects with Jane Cooney. [December] |
580 N Kingsley Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90004 Period map 3806 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004 (Hotel Felix) Period map 1623 North Mariposa Ave., #303, Los Angeles, CA 90027, where he sleeps on a Murphy bed (that folds up into the wall) and types on a small metal typewriter table. Period map |
Gets a job at the post office (for the third time) working as a Temporary Substitute Distribution Clerk (mail sorter) for $1.82 an hour. [January 2] Bukowski, postal employee number 106160, will work as a clerk at the post office for the next 12 years. |
78,672 people watch new Los Angeles Dodgers play for the first time at the Los Angeles Coliseum. [April 18] Television station KTLA becomes the first in the nation to use a news helicopter. |
1958 | ||
| 1959 | In a December 13th letter he says, "I've earned $47 in 20 years of writing..." | 1623 North Mariposa Ave., #303, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Period map |
Promoted to Distribution Clerk (still sorting mail, but no longer temporary). [March 21] | Alaska and Hawaii become states. Two LAPD officers attempt to arrest five LGBTQ people one night at Cooper's Do-nuts in downtown Los Angeles, near skid row. Patrons came out of the shop to protest, and the officers are forced to retreat under a hail of donuts, coffee, dishes, and silverware. The resitance spread and police reinforcements have to be called in to contain what became a riot. It was the first time LGBTQ people in America resisted police harassment and abuse. [May 18] The first jet service from Los Angeles International Airport begins (between Los Angeles and New York). The one-way fare was $168.40 [June] Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visits Los Angeles (where he is barred from visiting Disneyland and angrily leaves town the next morning). [September] The Los Angeles Dodgers win their first World Series (attendance of 92,706 for game 5 remains a World Series record). [October 8] |
1959 | ||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1960 | First contact with Outsider publisher Jon Webb. Begins submitting poems to small literary magazines in greater numbers. Begins correspondence with Sheri Martinelli that will go on for seven years and be collected in the book, Beerspit Night and Cursing. [June] |
His Wife, The Painter (broadside) [June 16] Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail [October] A Signature Of Charles Bukowski Poetry [December] |
1623 North Mariposa Ave., #303, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Period map |
At the Democratic Party national convention in Los Angeles, John F. Kennedy is nominated to run for president. [July 13] NASA launches Echo 1A, the world's first communication satellite. [August 12] The Hollywood Walk of Fame opens. The Minneapolis Lakers basketball team moves to Los Angeles and is renamed the Los Angeles Lakers. Los Angeles population reaches 2.5 million, becomes third largest city in the country. |
1960 | ||
| 1961 | In a letter written to family, Jane Cooney says, "In regard to Hank - he has proven to be a wonderful friend - he takes me to the races now and then, and stakes me. On Xmas and such I go to his place and cook a dinner... He's gotten over that meanness and we get along fine - but that's all!" [January 30] Writes about "trying to buy a shack," and "working on small shack deal" in several letters to Sheri Martinelli. 18 years would pass before he bought his shack. Arrested by LAPD for public drunkenness, held in jail overnight. [June 7] Attempts suicide with gas stove, wakes up with a headache, opens windows. |
Signature 2 [August/September] A Charles Bukowski Album (from Outsider #1) Longshot Pomes for Broke Players [October] |
Nomad editor Anthony Linnick reads 15 Bukowski poems and letter excerpts on Los Angeles radio station KPFK. [May 5, repeated July 2] Bukowski wrote, "I didn't listen to the broadcast because it meant going out to buy an FM radio and some lady (Sheri Martinelli? Jane?) had just bought me a new AM, and she howled when I mentioned another radio, and so she wouldn't feel bad, I didn't bother." A tabletop FM radio would have cost about $75. |
The worst brush fire in Los Angeles history, "The Great Bel Air-Brentwood Fire" destroys 484 homes. [November 5-8] The last of the Red Car trolley lines, the Los Angeles to Long Beach line, ceases operation. |
1961 | ||
| 1962 | Jane Cooney dies. [January 22] First important review of his work, by R.R. Cuscaden. Outsider of the year award from the Webbs. "I need an operation for one of my maladies but don't know if I have either the guts or the time for it." [November 22] (He would finally have the operation more than three years later.) Arrested by LAPD for public drunkenness, fined $20, held in jail overnight. [December 17] In a letter to Jon Webb, Bukowski estimates that he has lost 200 to 300 poems since 1955 because he does not keep copies. [December 19] |
Run with the Hunted [June] Poems and Drawings [November] The Priest And The Matador (broadside) |
45 minute poetry reading on Los Angeles radio station KPFK. "They asked me to come to their studios, which is like asking me to go to church with a hangover, so instead I mailed them what I had made in my room among the beer-cans..." [August 5] Audio release: Poetry of Charles Bukowski, CDR from Pacifica Radio, circa 2008 | Takes an unpaid 30 day leave of absence from his post office job. [October] | Dodger Stadium opens in Chavez Ravine. A bleacher seat ticket was $1.50, while a box seat behind a dugout would set you back $5.50 [April 10] The space-age "Theme Building" opens at the center of Los Angeles International Airport. [June 25] The last of the Red Car trolleys ceases operation. [July 9] |
1962 | |
| 1963 | Appears on the cover of The Outsider #3 as "Outsider of the year." [March] First published interview in Chicago Literary Times. [March] Arrested by LAPD for public drunkenness, fined $20, held in jail overnight. [August 12] Meets Frances Smith. |
It Catches My Heart In Its Hands $5 ($9 with a full page hand-written text on signature page) [November 26] Same Old Thing, Shakespeare Through Mailer (Wormwood Review broadside/mailer) |
Leslie N. Shaw, the first black man to serve as Postmaster General of Los Angeles, is appointed. [October 1] The Vincent Thomas Bridge opens, connecting San Pedro and Long Beach (via Terminal Island). [November 15] The Baldwin Hills Dam collapses, releasing its reservoir into the surrounding residential neighborhoods. Five people die in the flood and 277 homes are destroyed. The aftermath is reported live from Los Angeles station KTLA's helicopter, making it the first news event ever covered live on television from the air. [December 14] |
1963 | |||
| 1964 | Marina Louise Bukowski born. [September 7] Bukowski runs an ad in Ole #1 offering to write a book of prose ("certainly to be colossal whatever it is") for anyone who would send him $500. |
His Wife, The Painter, The Old Man On The Corner, The Paper On The Floor, Waste Basket (broadsides contained in Coffin #1) Grip The Walls (Wormwood Review #16 center section) [Winter] |
1623 North Mariposa Ave., #303, Los Angeles, CA 90027 Period map 5126 1/4 DeLongpre Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027 (with a pregnant Frances Smith) [May] 5124 DeLongpre Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027 In 2008 Los Angeles declared 5124 DeLongpre Avenue "Bukowski Court," Historic-Cultural Monument #912. [February 26] |
Makes home recording for the Webbs (probably poems from It Catches My Heart In Its Hands), but when he sends it to them, their machine won't play it. [January] Makes home recording (not for the Webbs) but erases it because he "got too drunk and started talking too much between poems." [April] |
The Whisky A Go Go opens. [January 16] The Beatles play in California for the first time at the Hollywood Bowl. Ticket prices range from $3.50 to $7.00 [August 23] |
1964 | |
| 1965 | Makes the 42 hour trip to New Orleans on the Southern Pacific Railroad's "Sunset Limited." Writes many of the poems for Crucifix in A Deathhand while in the city visiting the Webbs. [March 6-20] (Poems rejected by Webb for the book would show up in Cold Dogs in the Courtyard and Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Window.) Suffers from vertigo at work, is prescribed Librium. [Summer] Receives first letter from future publisher John Martin. [October 19] Visits the Webs again who have now relocated to Santa Fe. [October 15-17] Separated from Frances Smith, doesn't "shack up" with a woman again until he moves (briefly) to Silver Lake with Linda King in 1973. [November] |
Crucifix in a Deathhand [April] Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts [August] Cold Dogs in the Courtyard [Summer] |
5124 DeLongpre Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027 | Temporarily writes in longhand due to "dead" typewriter. Replaces it with a cheap used portable typewriter that he does not like. [April] Phone: (213) 661-6385 |
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens. [March 30] Marina del Rey, the largest man-made pleasure boat harbor in the world (home to 6,000 private yachts) opens. [April 10] The Watts riots begin after California Highway Patrol officers beat Marquette Frye and his brother. [August 11] 34 people die in the five days of rioting. Restrictions are lifted on immigration from East Asia and Koreatown begins to form along Wilshire Boulevard. |
1965 | |
| 1966 | Bukowski and John Martin meet for the first time. [January 22] Hemorrhoid operation at Queen of Angels hospital in East Hollywood (now Hollywood Presbyterian). [March 2] Bukowski wrote, "They tell me that my liver is in bad shape too. My drinking days are over—if I am able to stop, and I don't think I'll have any trouble." Returns to work at the post office. [April 29] At the urging of John Martin, Bukowski begins writing a novel. Tentatively titled The Way the Dead Love, it was never finished (but chapters were published in various magazines, The Los Angeles Free Press, and the books A Bukowski Sampler and South of No North). John Martin sells his rare book collection to a university for $49,500, uses part of the proceeds to launch Black Sparrow Press. [November] |
The first Black Sparrow Press publication is True Story, a broadside in an edition of 30. [April] Black Sparrow would publish four more Bukowski broadsides in 1966. Bukowski was paid $30 per poem, and they were sold for $10 each (though Martin later said he gave most of them away). On Going Out To Get The Mail Black Sparrow broadside [May] To Kiss The Worms Goodnight Black Sparrow broadside [June] The Genius of the Crowd [June] The Girls/For The Mercy Mongers Black Sparrow broadside [July] All The Assholes In The World and Mine [September] The Flower Lover/I Met A Genius Black Sparrow broadside [October] Night's Work (Wormwood Review #24 center section) [December] |
Home recording (done for LouJon Press LP, Bukowski Talking, which was never made) [March]. Recorder for session borrowed from John Martin. Audio releases: 1) Poetry - Charles Bukowski, Steven Richmond, LP, April, 1968 2) 90 Minutes in Hell, double LP, 1977 3) 70 Minutes in Hell, CD edited from original LP, 1997. |
The Beatles play their next to last concert at Dodger Stadium. Ticket prices range from $4.50 for upper deck seats to $6.00 for box seats. The final live concert of their career is the following night at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. [August 28] Los Angeles Zoo opens in Griffith Park. [November 28] |
1966 | ||
| 1967 | Takes train to visit Webbs in Tucson. [June 27 - July 5] Does an interview with the Tucson Daily Citizen newspaper. Open City column begins to pave the way for wider notoriety. Applies for Guggenheim Fellowship and is rejected. Spends $50 a month on long distance phone calls. |
2 Poems (first Black Sparrow Press Bukowski book) [April 7] Notes of a dirty old man column debuts in Open City weekly [Vol. 2 No. 2, May 12-18]. Column runs for 87 weeks, Bukowski is paid $10 per column. The Curtains Are Waving And People Walk Through The Afternoon Here And In Berlin And In New York City And In Mexico [October 13] |
Home recording [February 18] Audio releases: 1) A Cold Turkey Press Special - LP [three poems], 1972 2) Poems and Insults CD [two poems], 2004 3) 12 Great Americans CD [four poems], 2006 Records 18 poems from the upcoming At Terror Street and Agony Way for the limited edition tape (50 copies) released along with the book. [December] Audio release: At Terror Street and Agony Way, reel to reel tape, 1968. The recording has never surfaced on LP or CD. |
The first Super Bowl (though it is not called the Super Bowl at the time) is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Green Bay Packers vs Kansas City Chiefs. [January 15] At midnight on New Year's Eve, Los Angeles police raid LGBTQ bars Black Cat Tavern and New Faces in Silver Lake, beating and arresting a number of patrons. On February 11th, the largest organized LGBTQ protest (to date) in U.S. history takes place as 200 demonstrators protest the police beatings and arrests at the Black Cat. [February 11] The X-15 experimental rocket plane sets a speed record for piloted vehicles by reaching 4,534 mph (mach 6.72) in the Mojave Desert. [October 3] The passenger liner Queen Mary docks at its new home in Long Beach. [December 9] The Los Angeles Forum opens in Inglewood. [December 30] |
1967 | ||
| 1968 | Post office officials and FBI interview Bukowski. [February 8] Black Sparrow royalties from At Terror Street and Agony Way are $460. |
At Terror Street and Agony Way, book and open reel tape (tape sells for $10) [May 15] Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Window [Summer] |
LP release: Poetry - Charles Bukowski, Steven Richmond, source is the 1966 home reading that would eventually become 90 Minutes in Hell [April]. Supposedly 100 copies of Bukowski/Richmond were pressed (and sold at Richmond's Earth Rose bookstore for $1 a copy), but fewer than 10 copies are known to exist. Carl Weissner wrote about Bukowski doing an in-studio reading on KPFK, but no further details are known, and no recordings have ever surfaced. |
At John Martin's insistence, Bukowski begins keeping carbon copies of the work he submits to publishers. [May] Remington typewriter Still driving 1957 Plymouth that Barbara Frye bought new 11 years earlier. |
Senator Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel. [June 5] | 1968 | |
| 1969 | John Martin offers to pay Bukowski a quarter of his own income ($100 a month at the time) "for life" if he quits the post office and writes full time. [December] As a clerk with 10 years on the job, Bukowski was making about $625 a month at the post office. As the story goes, Martin and Bukowski sat down and figured out that Bukowski could live on $100 a month. But the fact is, Bukowski was paying $45 a month for child support alone at the time, in addition to spending more than $50 on long distance phone calls, so the numbers in the story don't exactly add up. It's also worth noting that a year later Bukowski claimed to have savings of $90,000, so while the $100 a month was likely a welcome gesture, it was not the critical financial support it is often made out to be. ($90,000 in savings may seem like a stretch for someone making $7,500 a year. Even if the number is exaggerated, considering 10 years on the post office job, the sale of his father's house, and the fact that he lived very frugally, Bukowski likely had considerable savings when Martin made his offer.) Starts magazine Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns with Neeli Cherkovski, it lasts three issues. |
Notes of a Dirty Old Man [January 24] The initial printing of 26,000 - 28,000 copies is Bukowski's largest circulation so far, and the $1,000 advance is his largest writing payday. A Bukowski Sampler [July 15] Notes of a dirty old man column is revived in NOLA Express [August] and runs until January of 1974. Bukowski is eventually paid $25 per column. The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills [December 30] Penguin Modern Poets |
Records 6 hours of poetry for Beatles short-lived experimental label, Zapple (Barry Miles left him with a dozen 30 minute tapes and Bukowski filled them all) [February 12]. The company closes in June (less than two months after being launched), so the Zapple record is never released. Audio releases: 1) At Terror Street and Agony Way (Not to be confused with the 1968 Black Sparrow tape), double CD, 1993 2) Bukowski Reads His Poetry, CD (17 of the 41 poems on the 1993 release), 1995 First known public readings at The Bridge bookstore, Los Angeles. [December 19, 20] |
Drives a blue 1962 Mercury Comet. | The last remaining house on Bunker Hill is torn down. Angels Flight Railway ceases operations after 68 years of operation. The funicular railway ran along the Third Street Tunnel connecting Hill Street and Olive Street in the Bunker Hill district of Downtown Los Angeles. [May 18] Actress Sharon Tate and six others are murdered by Charles Manson and six of his followers. [August 8] The first permanent ARPANET (precursor to the Internet) link is established between UCLA and Stanford. [November 21] First all-vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles opens on Sunset Strip, The Source operated by The Source Family, followers of charismatic leader "Father Yod." |
1969 | |
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1970 | Quits post office for the last time. [January 7] Finishes first novel Post Office. [February] Starts novel, The Horseplayer [unfinished/unpublished]. Meets Linda King. First airplane trip (to Washington state for readings). Even though he's been working with Black Sparrow Press for a few years, as of July, he is still sending all of his new poems to the Webbs for first look/right of refusal. |
If We Take (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Fire Station [March] Notes of a Dirty Old Man published in Germany, first of many German translations. |
5124 DeLongpre Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027 | Heritage Room, Cal State L.A. [February 17] The Kiva, University of New Mexico [May 15] West Washington State College [May 29] Bellevue Community College [May 30] Video releases: 1) Bukowski at Bellevue, VHS, 1988 2) Bukowski at Bellevue, DVD, 2004 The Bridge, Los Angeles [July 3] California State University Long Beach [July 22] The Other Side, Venice, CA coffeehouse [August 5] Rembrandt Hall, Pomona College, CA [November] Home recording (New Orleans) Audio releases: 1) The King of the Hard-Mouthed Poets (tape sold for $6.98 from NOLA Express), [September 8] 2) Cassette Gazette [one story], 1971 3) Cassette Gazette [poems], 1985 4) King of Poets, CD [bootleg], circa 1995 |
Underwood typewriter. | Second fire (of many) at the bankrupt Pacific Ocean Park pier burns down the Cheetah Club, a rock club that was formerly the Aragon Ballroom, where Lawrence Welk got his start in 1946. Bukowski wrote the poem The End of the Funhouse after the fire. [May 27] Los Angeles holds the world's first gay pride parade. [June 28] |
1970 |
| 1971 | Starts novel The Poet [unfinished/unpublished]. | Post Office [February 8] | The Other Side, Venice, CA [January 27] University of Southern California [April 23] Benefit for Kenneth Patchen [date unknown] Cassette release: Cassette Gazette [one story], source is 1970 New Orleans recording. |
Switches from an Underwood typewriter to a used Royal Quiet De Luxe (the last year that model was made was 1958). [January]. Used mainly portable Underwood typewriters prior to the Royal. | 6.6 magnitude San Fernando (a.k.a. Sylmar) earthquake kills 64. [February 9] Superior Court Judge Albert Gietelson sets September 1971 as the deadline for Los Angeles City schools to become fully desegregated. [February 11] That edict resulted in an assassination attempt and his re-election defeat. Despite the resistance, his landmark ruling remained in place. |
1971 | |
| 1972 | Travels to Phoenix, AZ with Linda King. [January] Monthly income from Black Sparrow Press is $300 (roughly equal to what he was earning as a full time letter carrier 12 years earlier, and only half what he was earning as a clerk two years earlier). Splits with Linda King and begins seeing Liza Williams. [May - July] Reunites with Linda King. [August] |
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness [April] Mockingbird Wish Me Luck [June 1] Me And Your Sometimes Love Poems |
St. Mark's Church Poetry Project, New York [February 3] Two readings in one day (noon and early evening), California State University Long Beach [April] City Lights Poets Theater, 555 Chestnut, San Francisco [September 14] Audio releases: 1) Poems and Insults, CD, 2004 2) Bukowski Reads His Poetry, LP, 1980 and CD, 2004 Robinson Jeffers Room at Occidental College, Los Angeles (reading started at noon) [November 7] Papa Bach's bookstore, Los Angeles [possibly two readings, dates unconfirmed] LP release: A Cold Turkey Press Special [three poems], source is 1967 home reading. |
The Los Angeles Lakers win their first championship. [May 7] | 1972 | ||
| 1973 | Receives a $5,000 Creative Writing Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. [May] (At this time he is earning $3,000 a year from magazine and book royalties.) Bukowski performs in a staged reading of Linda King's one act play, Only a Tenant, at the Pasadena Museum of the Arts. Sells film options for Post Office ($2,500) and Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness ($2,000). Neither film is made. Travels to Utah with Linda King. [July] Separates from Linda King. [August 1] Bukowski, Taylor Hackford's film premieres at Barnsdall Park Municipal Gallery Theater. [November 25] Bukowski, Taylor Hackford's film (60 minute version) airs on KCET in Los Angeles. [November 26] |
While The Music Played (Sparrow #5) [February 12] City Lights Books reissues Notes of a Dirty Old Man [October] Bukowski is paid an advance of $10,000 - ten times the advance he was paid for the original publication of the book less than five years earlier. South of No North [December 17] |
5124 DeLongpre Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027 2440 Edgewater Terrace, Los Angeles, CA 90039 (with Linda King, it lasted only 6 months; February through July) 151 S. Oxford Ave. #24, Los Angeles, CA 90004 |
USC, Pasadena, Long Beach and UC Irvine [readings and dates unconfirmed] Moorpark College [November 14] UCLA, Sunset Canyon Recreation Center [November 20] California State University Long Beach [November 28, 29] San Francisco Museum of Art, Poetry Center [December 6] Audio and video release: VHS and cassette, San Francisco Museum of Art, circa 2006 |
P. O. box 26469, Los Angeles, 90026 [October 19] Phone: (213) 661-7754 (Oxford Ave.) |
Tom Bradley becomes mayor of Los Angeles, the second African-American mayor of a major United States city. [May 29] | 1973 |
| 1974 | Rejected for Guggenheim Fellowship again. Sells his literary archive (tapes, paintings, notebooks, magazines, books, typescripts) to UCSB for $5,000 (this was previously thought to have happened in 1971, but a letter from September of 1974 says, "Just turned in my archives to Univ. of Santa B."). |
55 Beds in the Same Direction (Wormwood Review #54 center section) [Spring] Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame [June 21] Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Window German translation sells 50,000 copies. |
151 S. Oxford Ave. #24, Los Angeles, CA 90004 [March] 5526 Carlton Way, Los Angeles, CA 90027 5437 2/5 Carlton Way, Los Angeles, CA 90027 |
Illinois State University (paid $500, $300 of which he spent on the plane ticket) [April 2] Specimen 73: Poetry as Performance, Pasadena CA Art Museum [June 16] Poets Library, Laguna Beach CA [August 23] Underwater Poetry Festival, Salt Lake City [October 5] Audio release: Underwater Poetry Festival, 2007 MCCC-TV (Macomb County Community College), Warren, MI (paid $500 plus expenses) [October 31] Audio release: Totally Corrupt, The Dial-A-Poem Poets (five poems), LP, 1976 Paperbacks Unlimited, Ferndale, MI [October 31] Riverside, CA [November] Santa Cruz Poetry Festival [November 25] |
Buys a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle for $1,299 (CA license plate TRV491). Phone: (213) 462-0614 (Carlton Way) |
One of the largest police gunfights in U.S. history breaks out in Compton, where Patty Hearst kidnappers the Symbionese Liberation Army are hiding out. 500 LAPD officers shoot 5,000 rounds into the house, and the SLA returns fire with 4,000 rounds. Police eventually burn the house down, killing six people. Hearst was not inside. Nude sunbathing at Venice Beach gets national attention, before the Los Angeles City Council votes to outlaw it. |
1974 |
| 1975 | Bukowski, Taylor Hackford's film, is screened at the Whitney Museum in New York as part of their New American Filmmakers Series. [February 12-18] Meets Pamela "Cupcakes" Miller (the subject of the book Scarlet) for the first time when she brings her friend Georgia to his apartment. [November 10] Black Sparrow Press moves from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. [Fall] Linda King (possibly pregnant with Bukowski's child) has a miscarriage. [December] Starts novel Love Tales of the Hyena, which will be published in 1978 as Women. A Los Angeles Times article reports that Bukowski is earning $20,000 a year. |
Africa, Paris, Greece (Sparrow #30) [March 21] Factotum [December 18] |
5437 2/5 Carlton Way, Los Angeles, CA 90027 | University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (spent a week on campus) [January 15] Baudelaire's, Santa Barbara (paid $300, professional recording was made but has never surfaced) [February] West Coast Bodega, Long Beach [March 5] Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [May] The Road House, Santa Cruz [May 24] Telegraph Hill Gym, San Francisco [May 31] Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [June 25] Moulton Theatre Playhouse, Laguna Beach [August 15, 16] Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX [October 4] Baudelaire's, Santa Barbara [October 19] Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [October 31, Bob Lind of "Elusive Butterfly" fame was the opening act] Madison, Wisconsin "videotape reading" (?!) [November 9] Amazingrace, Evanston, IL [November 18] Northwestern University [November 19] |
Switches from Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter to a used Olympia SG-1 (The $143 cost paid by John Martin) after Linda King smashes the Royal in the street. The Olympia would be his last manual typewriter. [December] | Emperor Hirohito of Japan visits Los Angeles. Unlike Nikita Khrushchev 16 years earlier, Hirohito was allowed to visit Disneyland, though he declined to smile while he was there. [October 8] The LAPD agrees to destroy secret files that were kept on 5,500 citizens. |
1975 |
| 1976 | Major profile in Rolling Stone magazine. [June 17] Meets future wife Linda Lee Beighle at a reading at the Troubadour. [September 29] First trip outside the U.S. for a reading in Canada. [October] Rent for Carlton Way apartment is $105 a month (at a time when his monthly income was about $1,700). |
The last Poem and Tough Company (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Scarlet (Black Sparrow limited edition, 195 copies) [April 14] Art (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) [December 13] |
Two nights at the Pastime Bar in Tallahassee (paid $500 plus expenses) [February] University of Pittsburgh, S.U. Lower Lounge [March 12, 13 Tom Waits opens both nights] St. Mark's Church Poetry Project, New York [June] Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [June] Troubadour, Los Angeles (paid $1000) [July 11, opening for comedian Steve Martin] San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center [September 10] Troubadour, Los Angeles [September 28, 29 opening for country singer Larry Hosford] Troubadour, Los Angeles [October 3] Western Front, Vancouver [November 8] Santa Cruz Poetry Festival [November 13] LP release: Totally Corrupt, The Dial-A-Poem Poets [five poems], source is 1974 reading. |
An oil tanker explodes in Los Angeles Harbor killing five people and injuring 50. [December 17] | 1976 | ||
| 1977 | Bukowski, Taylor Hackford's film, is screened at USC's Annenberg School of Communications as part of their Arts and Communications Media Conference. [June 4] | Maybe Tomorrow (Sparrow #54) [March 1] Love is a Dog From Hell [September 15] |
Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [January 16] Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [January 30] Baudelaire's, Santa Barbara [June 5] Audio release: MP3 from cassette [bootleg], 2007 Golden Bear, Huntington Beach [July 11] Double LP release: 90 Minutes in Hell, source is 1966 home reading. |
Linda Lee Beighle lives with Bukowski at the Carlton Way apartment every Saturday night through Tuesday morning, then stays at her own place (and tends to her restaurant) for the remainder of the week. | Super Bowl XI is played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Minnesota Vikings vs Oakland Raiders. [January 9] | 1977 | |
| 1978 | Monthly income from Black Sparrow Press is $500. First trip to Europe for a reading in Hamburg, Germany. Meets his uncle Heinrich. [May] Travels to France and appears on (and walks off) popular arts program Apostrophe. [October] |
You Kissed Lilly [February 8] Legs, Hips And Behind (Wormwood Review #71, all-Bukowski issue) [Summer] We'll Take Them (Sparrow #72) [September 5] Women [December 15] |
1148 W. Santa Cruz St., San Pedro, CA 90731 [October] Bukowski buys the house for $80,000 (a 1979 Los Angeles Times article puts the price at $120,000), and lives at this address longer than any other during his lifetime. He was only making $6000 a year from his Black Sparrow books at the time, but his foreign royalties were rapidly increasing (from about $15,000 in 1975 to almost $90,000 in 1982), which put him in a tax bracket that prompted his accountant to suggest that buying a house would be a wise financial move. He wrote that he doubled the mortgage payments each month in order to pay the house off in five years. |
Milwaukee, U of W [April 17] Hamburg, Germany [May 18] Audio releases: 1) Hello. It's good to be back., LP, 1978 2) Solid Citizen, CD [bootleg], 2004 3) Hello. It's good to be back., CD (out of print), 2008 LP release: Hello. It's good to be back., source is 1978 reading. |
1978 | ||
| 1979 | Barbet Schroeder pays Bukowski $20,000 to begin writing the screenplay, The Rats of Thirst, which would eventually be filmed as Barfly. | A Love Poem (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit [July 25] Shakespeare Never Did This, City Lights [September] |
Viking Inn, Vancouver [October 12] Video release: There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here, DVD, 2008 Ticket |
John Martin expresses concern for Bukowski's "image" when he buys his first new car, a BMW 320I, from the Vasek Polak dealership in Hermosa Beach for $16,000 (though this is not the first time he drove a new car - while they were married, Barbara Frye bought a new 1957 Plymouth Fury, which she left with Bukowski when they divorced). The 1967 Volkswagen Beetle is relegated to the garage. [June] His Olympia typewriter in the shop for repairs, Bukowski buys a used portable typewriter, but complains that it does not have the "soul" of the Olympia. [August] |
1979 | ||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1980 | 1148 W. Santa Cruz St., San Pedro, CA 90731 | Final live reading at the Sweetwater in Redondo Beach [March 31 paid $1,000] Audio and video release: Hostage LP, 1985, CD, 1994, The Last Straw, DVD, 2008 (A biography mentions an April reading in Hermosa Beach, which would have been the final reading, but the date is unknown and the reading is unconfirmed.) LP release: Bukowski Reads His Poetry, source is 1972 reading. |
Stops using carbon paper and begins to use a Xerox machine to make manuscript submission copies. [May] | Los Angeles population reaches three million, becomes second largest city in the country (Los Angeles County is home to 7.5 million people). | 1980 | ||
| 1981 | Italian film production of Tales of Ordinary Madness starring Ben Gazzara released. [September 11] | Good-By to Hollywood (Wormwood Review #81-82 center section) [Spring] Dangling in the Tournefortia [September 25] |
Temporary split with Linda. [February] Temporary split with Linda. In a letter to Carl Weissner, Bukowski says, "Linda and I are kaput. It's final." [March] Phone: (213) 832-3170 |
The first space shuttle flight (Columbia) lands successfully at Edwards Air Force base. [April 14] Los Angeles doctor Michael Gottlieb reports on the cases of five homosexual men who had contracted a form of pneumonia normally found only in those with severely weakened immune systems. Largely ignored at the time, his report (in a Centers for Disease Control publication) turned out to be the first official notice of what came to be recognized as AIDS. [June 5] Los Angeles celebrates 200th anniversary. [September 4] |
1981 | ||
| 1982 | 1982 earnings from foreign royalty payments (does not include Black Sparrow, City Lights, etc.): $89,389.37. Starts novel, Streetwalker [unfinished/unpublished]. LA Weekly asks him to write a weekly column, he submits first installment but the weekly column never happens. [September] |
The Last Generation (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Ham on Rye [July 28] Horsemeat [December 27] |
Temporary split with Linda. [September - December] | NFL team the Raiders moves to Los Angeles from Oakland. | 1982 | ||
| 1983 | Stops working on the novel Streetwalker, and re-uses some of the material in a new novel, The Fool [unfinished/unpublished]. | Sparks (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Bring Me Your Love [July 8] Hot Water Music [September 28] The Bukowski/Purdy Letters [November] The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories [December] Tales of Ordinary Madness [December] |
Olympia typewriter breaks down and he writes letters by hand. [July 16] Temporary split with Linda. [August] Replaces the broken Olympia manual typewriter with an IBM Selectric II (he had finally "gone electric," but he still - as always - bought the typewriter used, as the Selectric II model had been made obsolete by the Selectric III a few years earlier). [September 9] |
The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art opens. [November 20] The D.A.R.E. program, a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the LAPD, sends uniformed officers into classrooms to tell kids not to take drugs. Decades of evidence-based research conducted by the Justice Department showed that the program was not only ineffective, but likely made the drug problem worse. |
1983 | ||
| 1984 | One For The Old Boy (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) There's No Business [March 28] Horses Don't Bet On People and Neither Do I (Wormwood Review #95, all-Bukowski issue) [Summer] War All the Time [October 16] Barfly (Paget Press edition) [December] Going Modern |
Phone: (213) 519-7279 | Los Angeles becomes the first city in America with two telephone area codes, as the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys are designated as 818. [January 7] The L.A Raiders defeat the Washington Redskins 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII. [January 22] Los Angeles becomes the only American city ever to host the summer Olympic games twice. [July 28 - August 25] |
1984 | |||
| 1985 | Proposes to Linda Lee Beighle. [March 20] Marries Linda Lee at the Philosophical Research Society's "Church of the People" in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The ceremony is officiated by legendary kook (or occult scholar depending on your point of view), Manly P. Hall. [August 18] |
Alone In A Time Of Armies (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Cornered (30 copies published by Martin under the fictitious "Burn Again Press" imprint) [October] Good Stuff (Wormwood Review #100 center section) [Winter] |
Barbet Schroeder short film interviews and readings Video releases: The Charles Bukowski Tapes, VHS, 1987, DVD, 2006 LP release: Hostage, source is 1980 reading. Cassette release: Cassette Gazette [poems], source is 1970 home reading. |
Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker" who murdered more than a dozen people in Los Angeles over the summer is captured and severely beaten by an East Los Angeles mob before being turned over to police. [August 31] | 1985 | ||
| 1986 | In a January 8th letter Bukowski says, "My home life has developed into nightmare proportions. I'm unable to write about this portion of my life now, and may never be able to, but if I ever get the space to, I've got a novel that will make Post Office, Factotum and Ham on Rye look like kindergarten stuff. Some people seem to envision me floating in an easy dream world now...if they only knew..." | Gold In Your Eye (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) The Wedding (Black Sparrow limited edition, 40 copies) [January] The Day It Snowed In L.A. [September] You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense [September 26] Relentless As The Tarantula |
Interview/reading Audio release: Do You Use a Notebook?, Movable Feast #3, Cassette, 1986 | P. O. box 132, San Pedro, 90731 [March] | The Central Library in downtown Los Angeles burns in an arson fire. [April 29] It remains closed until 1993. "Hands Across America" attempts to form a human chain of more than 5 million people stretching 4,150 miles from Long Beach to New York City. [May 25] A 4-seat Piper airplane collides with a DC-9 while descending into LAX, the planes both fall in Cerritos, killing all 67 on both aircraft and another 15 people on the ground. [August 31] |
1986 | |
| 1987 | The Charles Bukowski Tapes premieres in America at EZTV in Santa Monica, CA (with Bukowski and Schroeder in attendance) [January 9-11] Barfly film released. [October 16] Belgian film Crazy Love, released, based on Bukowski stories. [October] The Charles Bukowski Tapes, limited release on VHS by Lagoon Video. |
Luck (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Bukowski Photographs 1977-1987 [September] Barfly - The Movie [September] |
Though he stopped doing live readings in 1980, Bukowski makes an appearance at Homage to Bukowski at the Barnsdall Art Gallery Theater in Los Angeles and reads for about 10 minutes. [October 3] VHS release: The Charles Bukowski Tapes, source is 1985 Barbet Schroeder film interviews and readings. |
The Los Angeles area is quarantined and covered by the aerial spraying of the chemical Malathion in an attempt to eradicate he Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Medfly). It is reappearing in larger numbers after being thought to be wiped out, and attempts to eradicate the fly will continue for years. Malathion is an organophosphate pesticide that was found to cause cancer, neurodevelopmental harm, and reproductive toxicity. | 1987 | ||
| 1988 | Undergoes three separate treatments for removal of skin cancer. [Spring/Summer] Experiences fevers, fatigue, persistent cough and dramatic weight loss (37 pounds), but doctors cannot determine the cause. [November] Declines offers to appear on several television shows, most notably, 60 Minutes and Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. |
The Movie Critics (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) The Roominghouse Madrigals [May 25] Beauti-Ful (Wormwood Review #110/111, all-Bukowski issue) [Spring/Summer] |
VHS release: Bukowski at Bellevue, source is 1970 reading. [September] | Gang members feuding in Westwood kill a Long Beach woman with a stray bullet. The incident brings the problem of out of control gang violence to the forefront of the city's consciousness. [January 30] | 1988 | ||
| 1989 | After demanding a chest x-ray, finally gets a diagnosis of Tuberculosis. [July] Undergoes four months of antibiotic treatment, which forces him to temporarily give up drinking. Weird lawsuit settlement for $235 with a Dutch cafe (perhaps instigated by photographer Joan Levine Gannij). [August] |
If You Let Them Kill You, They Will (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Red (50 copies published by Martin under the fictitious "Burn Again Press" imprint) [January 30] Hollywood [April 25] |
Buys a new Acura Legend for Linda. | The Pan Pacific Auditorium is destroyed by fire. [May 24] Federal agents break a a $6 padlock and seize 20 tons of cocaine and $10 million in cash from an unguarded warehouse in Sylmar. It is the biggest drug haul in history. [September 30] The Los Angeles Herald Examiner closes, leaving Los Angeles with only one major daily newspaper. [November 2] |
1989 | ||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 1990 | Receives a $2,999 Apple Macintosh IIsi computer from Linda for Christmas. It takes him only a few weeks to embrace it as a writing tool and retire his IBM Selectric typewriter. [December] | We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Septuagenarian Stew [May 10] This (50 copies published by Martin under the fictitious "Burn Again Press" imprint) [May 25] Not Quite Bernadette [Fall] Darkness & Ice (50 copies published by Martin under the fictitious "Burn Again Press" imprint) [November] |
1148 W. Santa Cruz St., San Pedro, CA 90731 | The Metro Blue Line connects Downtown to Long Beach, returning light-rail for commuters to Los Angeles. [July 14] LAPD Chief Darryl Gates speaks before a Senate Committee and says that causal drug users "ought to be taken out and shot." [September 5] The Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro becomes the nation's busiest seaport. US Bank Tower opens. At 73 stories, it remains the tallest building on the West Coast. |
1990 | ||
| 1991 | First full-length biography published, Neeli Cherkovski's Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski. Takes Linda to Disneyland for her birthday and has a good time, despite his firmly held belief that Mickey Mouse has no soul. [November 14] Abandons the dot matrix printer he originally used with his computer and moves to a $3,299 Personal LaserWriter printer. |
In The Morning And At Night And In Between (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) In The Shadow Of The Rose (Black Sparrow limited edition, 814 copies) [July 25] People Poems (Wormwood Review #122/123, all-Bukowski issue) [Spring/Summer] |
Home recording Audio release: Two Poems, Beat Scene Magazine #12 Flexi-Disc, 1991 | Switches from the IBM Selectric to an Apple Macintosh. [January 18] Abandons the Xerox machine and now uses only a computer printer to make manuscripts. [April] Temporarily goes back to IBM Selectric when computer is out for repairs. [September] |
Rodney King is stopped and beaten by LAPD officers. [March 3] The World Wide Web is publicly announced via a posting to the Usenet newsgroup alt.hypertext. [August 6] Judge Joyce Karlin imposes a light sentence on Korean grocer Soon Ja Du who was convicted of fatally shooting Latasha Harlins, a 15 year old black girl, on March 16th (13 days after the beating of Rodney King). Du shot Harlins in the back of the head after a scuffle over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. [November 15] |
1991 | |
| 1992 | Undergoes treatment for cataracts, diminishing his vision. Monthly income from Black Sparrow Press is reported to average $7,000. July 31st check for $3500. September 28th check for $2523.50. Bukowski's foreign royalties alone exceeded this amount a decade earlier, which seems to confirm what he often said: that foreign royalties were his greatest source of income. Bukowski attends a U2 concert at Dodger Stadium, where drummer Larry Mullen Jr. dedicates the song "Dirty Old Town" to Linda and Bukowski. [October 30] |
Now (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) The Last Night of the Earth Poems [March 23] Three Poems (Black Sparrow limited edition, 1131 copies) [May 21] |
Home recording [February 25] Video release: Born Into This, DVD (extras), 2003 Home recording/interview [December 1] Audio releases: 1) Run with the Hunted, Cassette, 1993 2) Charles Bukowski: Uncensored - from the Run With the Hunted Sessions, CD, 2000 |
More than 60 people are killed in Los Angeles in a week of rioting sparked by the acquittal of the LAPD officers tried for the beating of Rodney King. [April 29 - May 4] Johnny Carson retires from the Tonight Show. [May 22] Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose is disassembled in Long Beach and shipped to Oregon. A Bellflower kindergartner becomes the one-millionth person to sign up for a library card in the Los Angeles County Library System. |
1992 | ||
| 1993 | Spends 64 days in the hospital receiving chemotherapy treatment for Leukemia, quits drinking and smoking. [May-June] Attends a Transcendental Meditation Center in Malibu two or three times a week for several weeks. On the way home from most of the sessions he and Linda stop at Gladstone's for a crab dinner. [September 19] |
Those Marvelous Lunches (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Bukowski Photographs 1977-1991 [January] Run With the Hunted (collection of previously published poems) [May 4] Screams from the Balcony (letters) [November 15] |
Double CD release: At Terror Street and Agony Way (Not to be confused with the 1968 Black Sparrow tape), source is 1969 home recording. | The Los Angeles Central Library reopens after 1986 fire. [October 3] Former LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell are convicted in Federal Court on charges of violating the civil rights of Rodney King. The first openly gay City Council Member, Jackie Goldberg, is elected in Los Angeles. L.A.'s first subway, the Red Line, begins operations. The Bullock's Wilshire store closes. |
1993 | ||
| 1994 | Bukowski dies. [March 9] Buried at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, near his home in San Pedro. [March 14] |
Between The Earthquake, The Volcano And The Leopard (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Pulp [April 22] |
CD release: Hostage, source is 1980 reading. | Writing until the very end, he uses a fax machine to send his "first fax poem" to John Martin. [February 18] Bukowski dies less than 3 weeks later. | 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake kills 57 people, injures over 8,000 and causes widespread damage. It is the third major Los Angeles area earthquake during Bukowski's lifetime. [January 7] | 1994 | |
| 1995 | Confessions Of A Coward (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Shakespeare Never Did This Black Sparrow expanded version of previous City Lights publication [June 15] Heat Wave [October] Living On Luck (letters) [November 15] |
CD release: Bukowski Reads His Poetry, (consists of 17 of the 41 poems on the 1993 At Terror Street and Agony Way release), source is 1969 home reading. CD release: King of Poets, [bootleg], source is 1970 home reading. |
1995 | ||||
| 1996 | The Charles Bukowski Society is founded in Berlin, Germany. The Charles Bukowski poem and story database (now on this site, bukowski.net) is launched on the smog.net website. |
The Laughing Heart (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Betting on the Muse [May 13] (The final relatively unaltered Bukowski poetry collection. Subsequent collections contain numerous changes to the work.) |
1996 | ||||
| 1997 | A New War (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Bone Palace Ballet [March 25] The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship [March 23] |
CD release: 70 Minutes in Hell, edited version of the 1977 90 Minutes in Hell LP, source is 1966 home reading. | 1997 | ||||
| 1998 | A memorial plaque is placed on the house where Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany (through the work of the Charles Bukowski Society). | To Lean Back Into It (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) | Cassette release: Run with the Hunted, source is 1993 home reading. | 1998 | |||
| 1999 | Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes | The Singer (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Reach for the Sun (letters) [June] What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire [September] |
1999 | ||||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 2000 | Popcorn In The Dark (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Open All Night [October] |
CD release: Charles Bukowski: Uncensored - from the Run With the Hunted Sessions, source is 1993 home reading. | 2000 | ||||
| 2001 | Pink Silks (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Beerspit Night and Cursing (letters) [May] The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps (Final Black Sparrow "Bukowski" poetry release) [September] |
2001 | |||||
| 2002 | Sifting Through The Madness For The Word, The Line, The Way (first release published by Ecco/HarperCollins) [December 24] | 2002 | |||||
| 2003 | The Simple Truth (Black Sparrow New Years Greeting) Bukowski (Photographs, Black Sparrow limited edition) Final Black Sparrow publication The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain [December 23] |
2003 | |||||
| 2004 | Born Into This documentary feature released. [May 28] | Los Angeles - Andernach, Letters to Uncle Heinrich (in English and German) | CD release: Poems and Insults, source is 1972 reading, source of two additional poems is 1967 home reading. CD release: Bukowski Reads His Poetry, source is 1972 reading. CD release: Solid Citizen [bootleg], source is 1978 reading. DVD release: Bukowski at Bellevue, source is 1970 reading. |
2004 | |||
| 2005 | Factotum film released in Europe (U.S. release in 2006). | Slouching Toward Nirvana [January 18] | 2005 | ||||
| 2006 | The bukowski.net website and discussion forum are launched. [January] Linda donates Bukowski's papers to the Huntington Library in Los Angeles. [June] Huntington Library event, "Celebrating Bukowski," to announce Linda's donation. [September 20] |
Come On In! [January 3] | CD release: 12 Great Americans [four poems], source is 1967 home reading. DVD release: The Charles Bukowski Tapes, source is 1985 Barbet Schroeder film interviews and readings. VHS and cassette releases: San Francisco Museum of Art, source is 1973 reading. |
2006 | |||
| 2007 | The People Look Like Flowers At Last [April 1] The Pleasures of the Damned (collection of previously published poems, includes a few uncollected works). [October 30] |
CD release: Underwater Poetry Festival, source is 1974 reading. MP3 release: Baudelaire's, Santa Barbara [bootleg], source is 1977 reading. |
2007 | ||||
| 2008 | Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook [September] | CD release: Hello. It's good to be back., source is 1978 reading. CDR release: Poetry of Charles Bukowski, Pacifica Radio, source is 1962 home reading. DVD release: There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here, source is 1979 reading. DVD release: The Last Straw, source is 1980 reading. |
The Los Angeles Department of City Planning's Office of Historic Resources declares 5124 West DeLongpre Avenue "Bukowski Court," Historic-Cultural Monument #912. [February 26] | 2008 | |||
| 2009 | The Continual Condition [October 2] | 2009 | |||||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES | ||
| 2010 | Charles Bukowski's Scarlet by Pamela "Cupcakes" Wood [May] "Bukowski Aloud" event at the Huntington Library to mark the opening of the exhibition, "Charles Bukowski: Poet on the Edge." [October 27] |
Absence of the Hero [April] | DVD release: One Tough Mother (this is There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here and The Last Straw in one package, but it also includes five poems that did not appear on those discs). | 2010 | |||
| 2011 | Back to the Machinegun - Manuscripts, Volume 1 - 1959-1974 [June] More Notes of a Dirty Old Man [September 15] |
2011 | |||||
| 2012 | Charles Bukowski by David Calonne [September 25] Charles Bukowski Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me) by Joan Jobe Smith [November 24] |
2012 | |||||
| 2013 | Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground: From Obscurity to Literary Icon by Abel Debritto | 2013 | |||||
| 2014 | Loving & Hating Charles Bukowski by Linda King [June 1] | Back to the Machinegun - Manuscripts, Volume 2 - 1975-1977 [November] Back to the Machinegun - Manuscripts, Volume 3 - 1978-1980 [December] |
2014 | ||||
| 2015 | The Bell Tolls for No One [July 14] On Writing [August 27] On Cats [December 1] |
Bukowski's boyhood home on Longwood Ave. (the place he referred to as "the house of horrors") is purchased by a fan who renovates it and puts "Bukowski House" on the market as a $425 a night vacation rental. | 2015 | ||||
| 2016 | On Love [February 2] Essential Bukowski: Poetry [October 25] |
2016 | |||||
| 2017 | Storm for the Living and the Dead (previously unpublished and uncollected poems) [November 7] | 2017 | |||||
| 2018 | The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way - On Writers and Writing [May 15] | 2017 | |||||
| 2019 | On Drinking [February 12] | 2019 | |||||
| 2020 | Celebrations scheduled in several countries to mark Bukowski's 100th birthday [August 16] are canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. | 2020 | |||||
| EVENTS | PUBLICATIONS | ADDRESSES | READINGS/AUDIO/VIDEO | JOBS/MISCELLANY | LOS ANGELES |
Last updated on August 19th, 2023