Cold Dogs In the Courtyard--Bukowski's Pad

"The screenplay went well," wrote Charles Bulowski (regarding Barfly) in Chapter 17 of Hollywood,

Writing was never work for me. It had been the same for as long as I can remember: turn on the radio to a classical music station, light a cigarette or a cigar, open the bottle. The typer did the rest. All I had to do was be there. The whole process allowed me to continue when life itself, offered very little, when life itself as a horror show.

In a nicely researched and written piece in last week's Time Magazine, Matt Kettman tells the story of Charles Bukowski's former apartment (it ain't no MTV crib; see the picture above) falling under threat of tear-down. The author rented it from 1963 (around the time he wrote the poems collected under the phrase on the subject line of this post) to 1972, during which time, says Richard Schave of the "Haunts of A Dirty Old Man" tour, "his explosion of work began." A Ukranian church and (per the signage out front) apartment complex dominate the sun-washed East Hollywood block. And what better name for Bukowski's still-survivng go-to (and so often) liquor store than The Pink Elephant?