Bukowski Would Have Hated His Own Brazilian Tribute Bars

Charles Bukowskinever made it to Rio de Janeiro. He never made it anywhere remotely near Brazil, in fact. For most of his life, Bukowski—pisshead-poet of the truly broken—rarely made it outside his beloved Los Angeles. After all, his place wasn’t ever where the obviously beautiful things in life took place; his was where they didn’t. In the filthy cheap bars of the Hollywood strip, in conversations with lost halo hookers, or beside the Santa Anita racetrack, mid-week, with his fellow no-hopers.

It’s a shame Hank never shot down to Brazil, because chances are the horny old grub would have loved it. Beautiful women, cold cheap beer and a constant tension that threads the line between exotically endearing and truly dangerous; Bukowskiwould have been in heaven.

What’s more, these days Brazilians seem to like him too. I starting noticing the breadcrumbs not long after I arrived in Brazillast month. Portuguese translations of Women (Mulheres) and Post Office (Correio) at newspaper kiosks, Bukowski’s ugly mug stenciled onto walls in Sao Paulo’s Vila Madalena suburb—and “Charles BukowskiBrasil”; a Facebook tribute page with nearly 133,000 followers.

Word was there were three bars dedicated to Bukowskithere, too. The idea of that gave me the shits.

Building a bar in Hank’s honour had as much soul as a Che Guevara t-shirt, but we live in a world where nothing is holy, and everything has a price tag. Bukowski’s legacy is no different. The world over there are establishments that the writer would utterly despise. How about Glasgow gastro-pub Chinaski’s? Or the “Barkowski Charcoal Grill”? The gourmet burger establishment has two branches in London and one in Athens, with the most expensive burger—“the Obese Gringo”—costing A$24.39. Brazil’s trio was Porto Alegre’s ‘Dirty Old Man Cocktail Pub’, Curitiba’s ‘Chinasky’ and Rio’s “Bar Bukowski.”

I never got to the Dirty Old Man before it opened at 7PM (a Bukowski“cocktail” pub? Give it a rest), while the drinkers of Curitiba told me Chinasky had shut the year before. All I had left was Bar Bukowski. With World Cup joy pulsing through Brazil, surely this would be the place for the anti-social drunk poets of Rio to hide out in.

I arrived at the bar—located in Botafogo—around 11PM, and knew straight away they weren’t. From a few hundred metres away, I saw a line of pretty people snaking along the footpath. Upon entry, I was directed to a booth where I was handed a ticket that all the drinks you bought were checked up on—along with a 45 Brazilianreal (around A$21.49) cover charge. I wondered if Bukowskihad ever paid a coverage charge.

A snarling bust of the writer guarded the entrance, with a copy of his San Pedro gravestone plaque—and those immortal words “Don’t Try”—below it. I headed past the statue, down an alleyway and to one of the outside bars, buying the cheapest beer available—an 8.50 real (A$4.06) Stella. Imported beer was available too, as was pretty much any other liquor you could imagine, but everything was at least 20 real plus.

I surveyed the scene. Bar Bukowskiitself is a combination of about four bars. Two were located in the main building, while the two others were out in the courtyard. It was already pretty crowded, with a fine collection of female flesh and horny guys in well-ironed shirts, all with Caipirinhas in hand. Bukowski’s people—the flotsam and jetsam of the human race—were nowhere to be seen. Instead you had loaded young Cariocas, and plenty of gringos hoping for that Brazilianscrew to tell the lads about back home about.

Brand Bukowskiwas everywhere. There was a cabinet where you could buy t-shirts with Bukowski’s ugly face on them, coffee cups, ashtrays and cigarette lighters. Hank’s face featured on bar menus, while a projector threw up quotes from him, Dylan, and Hemingway on the wall. I shot the breeze with two good value American brothers before being swept into a group of four loud Aussie and English lads who’d already attracted some local lasses. These boys were “muito cervejas” down already, and definitely on the pull.

I made some small talk with an Argentinian girl called Ilena on the fringes of the group, and asked her if she read Bukowski. She asked me who that was. The guy whose face is on the statue at the front, I said.

“I wondered who that was,” she said. The bar was getting busier and the punters more pissed. I felt far too sober.

I found the American brothers again, who had paired themselves up with two local girls. The younger one was doing the best. His girl was running her hand up his chest, and whispering in his ear. I was glad for him, but was beginning to lag and headed inside for a look. The upstairs dance floor was a heaving sweaty orgy of limbs, but I was feeling a bit cynical now. What would Hank make of all this? I would have loved to seen him wander into Bar Bukowskiright at that moment. “The Obese Gringo” would have thrown punches and made poetically crude remarks at women before leaving for somewhere cheaper, grimier and with far more tolerable drinkers.

People—from Australia and New Zealand to Brazil—might like the idea of Bukowskiand sell coffee mugs in his honour, but they would have hated him if he were stinking drunk and six inches away from their face. It was past around 4AM now, and I was thinking too much. Time to leave. The alleyway out was an erotic gauntlet, with at least a dozen couples engaged in some form of sexual congress. One young guy had his fingers well up the skirt of his lover. The girl’s eyes were closed, her tongue was searching for his earlobe and her fingernails tight against his back.

I walked past them, paid up and headed for the door. I looked back at Hank’s snarling bust one last time. It was like he was laughing at me. “I went to the worst of bars, hoping to get killed," Bukowskiwrote, just before he died. "But all I could do was to get drunk. Worse again: the bar patrons ended up liking me."

I had found what I was looking for.

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