“If You’re Doing It For Money Or Fame, Don’t Do It”

In the poem “So You Want to Be a Writer,” Charles Bukowski cautioned, “If you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it.” But his estate has gone for the cash and let that piece of writing be used for a really crappy Dewar’s commercial, which is populated with the kind of faux tough guys and artists and carefully disheveled males he would have deplored. Hank was an ass, sure, but he was right about such people. The spot only would have been acceptable if it included footage of Chinaski vomiting scotch or showing X-rays of his damaged liver.

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