Yet Another Charles Bukowski Wake
Sacred Grounds, North Hollywood
by Alice Aforethought
The ghost of Charles Bukowski was no doubt heckling from the back of the room and longing for a stiff drink of whiskey at Sacred Grounds Monday night in what was a sad combination of wake and infomercial. The overdone readings by Bukowski-ites of his work and pieces of their own that were supposedly in the “tradition” (what tradition, we’re not sure), were frighteningly off base. One performer read a piece that used the verb “boil” no less than 25 times. Even the person who has had only a brief brush with Bukowski’s work can figure out that he never confused tradition with repetition. Perhaps if the reader had used “boil” as a noun he might have hit closer to the mark. Between artists, the audience was informed about the performer’s available books, CDs, and publications. Unfortunately, the hawking didn’t stop at cheap plugs for the performers. We were also told that the Sacred Grounds was selling limited-edition, numbered (only a thousand made) Buk T-shirts, and Raindog, the organizer of the event, who once served Buk a cappuccino, also informed us that if we were low on Buk books, the bookstore a few doors down just happened to be open late to service all our needs (wow, I’ll take two—he is dead, you know).
While the majority of the performers and audience were comprised of the trendy “I’m not a poet, but I play one on TV” types, there were some truly notable performances. Linda Albertano and Tom Foster were the best straight spoken word performers (and both also seemed to know what a five-minute time limit was). Another welcome sight and sound was Viggo Mortensen who read his work to the musical vision of Duke McVinnie and Danny Krieger. The main highlight of the evening was when Dave Alvin (of Blasters fame) took to the stage with McVinnie and Krieger for an inspired version of “Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame.” A close runner-up for highlight of the evening was young Henry Morgensen (son of Viggo) who accompanied his father on snare drum, toy accordion, and a whistling blow-tube-thing (so sue me if I don’t know the technical name). Henry’s sly innocence and impromptu timing were the closest thing to the Bukowski tradition that was seen all night, and well worth the long trudge through the majority of the other sacred offerings. ♦