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Charles Bukowski Would Not Have Gotten Drunk in a Bukowski-Themed Bar

Nearly two decades after his death, Charles Bukowski remains the patron saint of drunks. Now, Santa Monica, California, has a bar dedicated to Bukowski, but with $7 beers and no liquor, they've managed to take a crap all over his legacy.

Charles Bukowski was a drunk. Not just a drunk, but the drunk. Nearly two decades after his death, he remains the patron saint of drunks. That being the case, naming a bar after him makes sense. It's been done, many times, before: New York City, Glasgow, Boston and Amsterdam all possess watering hole homages to the alpha male author. Santa Monica's week-old Barkowski can now be added to that list.

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The deification of Bukowski, and other tortured, inebriated artists of his ilk, is a task best undertaken by those who have not experienced actual suffering. There is no better place to find said demographic than Santa Monica, California, a bourgeoisie beachside burg more well-known for its outdoor shopping mall than its self-destructive poet population. According to Barkowski's website, its namesake's "writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles." Santa Monica is not Los Angeles. Los Angeles, or at least Bukowski's Los Angeles, is where you go when you want to drink $3 draft beers surrounded by human detritus. Santa Monica, however, is where you go when you want to pay $9 for a poorly poured, half-filled glass of Chimay. Barkowski sells poorly poured, half-filled $9 glasses of Chimay.

Barkowski's interior is essentially the same as that of its predecessor, the Air Conditioned Lounge; nothing has been done to alter its nondescriptly modern black and red color scheme and padded leather walls. Enormous glamour shots of Buk' drinking and gazing into the distance, alongside framed printouts of trite quotes about women and incarceration, are the only things that differentiate the new bar from the old. In one photo, he's shown cradling a Schlitz tall boy; in the interest of synergy, Schlitz tall boys are available at the bar. For $7. If Schlitzes were $7 in Bukowski's day, he wouldn't have been able to afford a drinking problem, and Barkowski would have a decidedly different theme ("Papa y Beer Hemingway's," perhaps?). When it came to preserving the authenticity of the Bukowski theme, $7 Schlitzes and the "A" health rating sign hanging above the bar were but two of a myriad inaccuracies.

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The cheapest beer available, America's least-favorite piss-like macrobrew Milwaukee's Best, was $4; most were priced in the $6 to $7 range. The "Good Eats" section of the menu advertised "nuked" White Castle sliders for $3. Below, an unrelated quote from Bukowski was written in chalk: “What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.” In fairness to the bar, however, any quote of his would have been unrelated, as I'm fairly certain the man never wrote any prose about overpriced microwaved sliders. Barkowski lacks a liquor license; the $7 cocktails on the menu get their kick from Soju, a hangover-inducing Korean grain alcohol. I decided, as Bukowski once wrote, to "stay with the beer." After all, "beer is continuous blood. a continuous lover.”  The one lover my thriftiness allowed me to consume, a $5 Blue Moon, was served with a wedge of orange on its rim. The visual of Bukowski consuming fruit, or any kind of food for that matter, with his beer tickled me.

It was 8 PM on a Friday, the bar's first day of business. A smattering of middle-aged white men, many alone, stared at their iPhones. Instead of slaving over the Great American Novel, they appeared to be penning the Great American Status Update. Slowly, the folks you assume would patronize a Bukowski-themed bar trickled in: a man-child wearing a scarf and bandaged knuckles, no doubt injured in a moment of "passion"; a group of young dweebs, who drank their beers in confused, awkward silence; a filthy-mouthed man draped in Dodgers paraphernalia.

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Behind me, two bros animatedly spoke; dialogue like "It's gonna be a great year!" implied they had a stake in this operation. Bro #1, with his manicured beard and bun, sipped an aforementioned $7 Schlitz tall boy. Bro #2, with slicked black hair and an elbow-patched blazer, drank a glass of red wine. Bro #1 sadly lamented to Bro #2, "He was supposed to be a graphics ninja." Yeah. They were definitely the owners.

Time passed slowly, as the bar wasn't exactly "jumpin." The forty minute mark felt like four hours. I decided to wait it out an hour; this goal, while meager, was still difficult to achieve because I couldn't afford to get drunk. Then, all at once, it happened. A couple of gen-u-ine degenerates, the kind that'd make Ol' Bukowski puke with pride, stumbled in.

The men, both wearing polo shirts, had been kicked out of another bar. One, the strong, silent type, said little. His companion, however, did enough talking for the both of them. Gregarious to a fault, he put his arms around everyone, up to and including a depressed middle aged man who couldn't stop gazing at his own reflection in an enormous mirror above the bar, presumably wondering what went wrong. He eventually approached the beard-o owner bros. Shaking an enormous wad of cash, he slurred, "Those people don't even know what they were kicking out." The bros, who appeared genuinely uncomfortable by this level of authenticity, met his enthusiasm with icy terseness. He was the only insufferable drunk in a shrine to one of history's greatest insufferable drunks, and his presence was not appreciated. Granted, he looked more like a stereo salesmen than a tortured artist, but still.

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The staff had no idea how to handle the drunk, who I monikered "Fistful of Dollars." His genuine intoxication, and the Bukowski-level behavior it generated, made them uncomfortable. As he belligerently wandered around the bar, alternating between hugging and talking at patrons, the bartender—gussied up in generic pinup horseshit (impeccable hair, a flower behind her ear; the whole nine yards)—helplessly stood next to the cash register and tried to stay inconspicuous. The manager, to his credit, silently slipped between Fistful of Dollars and me when it looked like I was going to be his next conversational victim.

Despite the manager's best efforts, Fistful of Dollars did approach me on my way out. He drunkenly slurred his way through a shambolic mess of a pick-up attempt, caressing my arm for emphasis as everyone employed by the bar looked on horrified yet did nothing. After a while, his girlfriend showed up. "Your boyfriend is intoxicated," I told her. "I know," she sighed, looking put upon. Her resignation was palpable. A long-suffering woman and a rich drunk? Barkowski had found its perfect patrons. If only the drunk wasn't so… y'know… drunk.

I whipped out the ol' Ouija board once I got home, and asked Buk' for his take on the establishment that bore his name. This amazing poetry flowed through my fingers. He was always such an artist!

i would rather fuck

a big pussied woman

clutch at her big pussied body in the hot cool of the dark night

than pay seven dollars

for a shit cunt schlitz can of piss fuck

@bornferal