No-Nonsense ‘Bukowski at Bellevue’

In the spring of 1970 Charles Bukowski took his first plane trip for a poetry reading at Bellevue Community College in Washington state. That he was videotaped by two students apparently was later forgotten, but the tapes were recently rediscovered and have been released by Black Sparrow press. The 60-minute “Bukowski at Bellevue” will screen at 8 and again at 9:30 tonight through Sunday at EZTV, 8547 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.

“Bukowski at Bellevue” gives us a fascinating glimpse of the man before he had to be concerned with how celebrity and financial security were affecting him. (It is said that this was only his fourth public reading.) This is Bukowski, then about 50, taken straight. No games, no irony, no self-consciousness--just an ordinary-looking guy, maybe hung over, sitting before a small group of students reading his work with gusto, humor and sensitivity. A man who clearly had lived the marginal life he wrote about with passion and at times a lyrical, even mystical beauty.

He tells us that “you can do without a woman but not a typewriter,” yet nevertheless reveals his obsession with women in comical ways that conceal a sometimes surprising tenderness and compassion. There’s an outrageous allusion to Jayne Mansfield’s grisly death and a very funny yarn about how one of his girlfriends unwittingly staked him in a poker game at a fire station.

“Bukowski at Bellevue” is a direct, no-nonsense celebration of the joy and pain of living on the edge and its primitive black-and-white video format gives its images the stylized, pared-down look of pen-and-ink drawings that is appropriate to its subject. We’re indebted to whoever was prescient enough to get Bukowski up to Bellevue in the first place, as well as to the anonymous students who had the good sense to capture him on tape with such effectiveness.

If you attend the 9:30 p.m. Saturday screening of “Bukowski at Bellevue,” stick around for the 10:30 presentation of Sophie Rachmuhl’s 90-minute “Innerscapes: Ten Los Angeles Poets,” a succinct and vibrant introduction to a highly varied group of talented, impassioned people seen and heard both in interviews and in performance.

They are Wanda Coleman, Marisela Norte, Laurel Ann Bogen, the three teen-agers--Mario Acosta, Channing Hansen and Rain Smith--who have their own magazine, Youthless, Dr. Mongo, Lee Hickman, Dave Alvin--yes, the same Dave Alvin of X and the Blasters--Jack Grapes, Kamau Daaood and La Loca. For all their differences, these people all speak of being driven to express themselves in poetry, a process that Daaood describes as “taking a little bit of yourself out and letting others look at it.” “Innerscapes,” which was shot by Willie Dawkins, leaves you wanting more. (213) 657-1532.