In 1970 Charles Bukowski flew from L.A. to the state of Washington to read his poetry before a bunch of students at Bellevue Community College. It was only his fourth public reading. Students videotaped the event but it was largely unseen until the late 80s when it began circulating among Bukowski’s fans. Titled “Bukowski At Bellevue”, the video is crudely shot and the tape itself damaged and battered with age. But the technical deficiencies (and a case of the nerves) don’t obscure Bukowski’s sardonic humor, wiseass growl and diamond-hard imagery. Here’s Buk before he became an international literary superstar.

Part of the pleasure for me in watching “Bukowski At Bellevue” is seeing the students in the audience and recalling what it felt like when I first discovered Bukowski in my mid-teens. His words hit my frontal lobes like a syntactical blackjack, slapping me out of my suburban stupor and propelling me into the life of a poet and provocateur. For that, he will always be my hero.

While the video occasionally freezes like a drunk wondering where the fuck he’s at, the audio is not affected.