Californication and the life of a writer

There's this show on Showtime called Californication, which stars David Duchovny (of X-Files fame). It is kind of interesting, in that the main character is a New York writer who is living in Los Angeles, and he can't stand California. He's suffering from writer's block for reasons never really explicit, although the show hints that his rationality involves the fact that they turned his introspective third novel into a Tom and Katie love story, and he's upset. He's generally upset all the time. And he womanizes women all of the time.

I watched the first five episodes of the show before it finally dawned on me why the story seemed so familiar. No, it's not my story. Yes, I'm a writer, and yes, I had an interesting past involving a number of "interesting" women over the years, but that's about it when it comes to the comparisons. So, I often found myself watching the show and really not identifying with the main character, even though we both have problems with our writing and the state of California itself. And yet, I often find myself wondering why I'm drawn to the character.

And then it dawned on me. The main character doesn't remind me of me. It reminds me of Charles Bukowski. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized they practically ripped off the style of Bukowski and claimed it as their own. If you've ever read a book or a series of poems by Bukowski, you know instantly that this is the exact same story that would have been written about his life. This is the guy who attended a reading of his own work at a girls' college, and because he was still drunk from the night before, he walked out and onto the lawn. Then he found a nearby tree and vomited on it. A young woman remarked to him: "Man, you're fucked up" to which he responded: "Finally, a woman who understands me."

I guess that's why I find myself interested in this show. Even though the idea and inspiration is not original. But then, in Hollywood, what is original anymore?

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Inspection

This is a new poem in its first draft for my book of poetry, License to Quill by Davina Marconis, as found by Duane Gundrum

Inspection

At the crack of dawn
Begins the daily roll call
Like a mother pigeon
Taking inventory from the night’s losses
I inspect the ranks of the missing
For the missing
The night losses
The recently injured
The survivors
Future casualties

There’s Harold
His perch at the BART entrance
Always a smile
Greeting passer-bys with a
“Morning, Ossifer!”
When I first met him
He told me he had dreams
“Gonna find my place!”
Now he only smiles
When I ask him if he’s still
Looking for his place
He says he’s happy
…Not there
…But happy
And no longer looking
One more needle mark
In his arm
Means not having to worry
About stuff like that

There’s Muriel.
Was a beauty queen
Married and happy
Talks about her little boy Jimmy
How he could run and run
…and run
Faster than them all
But couldn’t run fast enough
One IED
One less Jimmy
Now she wanders the street
Looking for him
Saying he will come home
When he’s finished running
Because he always has in the past

Then there’s Danny
26 years old
And drunk all of the time
Says he can stop any time
Stopped twice last week
But why should he?
Will it change who he is?
Will it change what he is?
Ran away from home
Because he loved his best friend
It’s not a new story
When a family disowns one of its own
Ironically, he came to San Francisco
And he never fit in
In the place where anyone can fit in
Cheap alcohol is cheaper than
$200 psychiatric sessions

And finally there’s Jaime
Life of the party
Always something fun to say
Could make you laugh at a funeral
And then the notification
198 t-cells
Two below safety
She stopped laughing
Or making us laugh
And it kept dropping
Some one-night stand
Of lifetime proportions
I’d often try to comfort her
Today was not necessary
The police found her in a bathroom stall
Blood already dried over from
Where she opened her wrists

Each morning
I take inventory
Over the dispossessed
The forgotten
The abandoned
And I will do so
Until…
…someone finds me
It’s what we all share in common

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License to Quill

Currently, I'm working on a book of poetry that I'm trying to complete. Most of the poetry is finished, but now I'm trying to put the whole program together for publication. I had an idea on an original poem about a decade ago called "License to Quill" about a young girl named Davina Marconis who is on the streets of San Francisco after killing her father who was molesting her (yes, a happy story, of course; would you expect anything else from me?). She's intelligent for her youth and writes really powerful street poetry that is helping her come to terms with her destroyed life (which is what the original poem "License to Quill" does. My vision of this book of poetry is that it is the lost notebook of Davina Marconis, which is found by me and published posthumously, going against her wishes to destroy everything she wrote after she is gone, much as Galileo did during his time.

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