Post Office by Charles Bukowski (Black Sparrow Press 1971)

I was casing next to G.G. early one morning. That's what they called him: G.G. His actual name was George Greene. But for years he was simply called G.G. and after a while “he looked like G.G. He had been a carrier since his early twenties and now he was in his late sixties. His voice was gone. He didn't speak. He croaked. And when he croaked, he didn't say much. He was neither liked nor disliked. He was just there. His face had wrinkled into strange runs and mounds of unattractive flesh. No light shone from his face. He was just a hard old crony who had done his job: G.G. The eyes looked like dull bits of clay dropped into the eye sockets. It was best if you didn't think about him or look at him.

A tale of extraordinary madness

Forget about your Dillons and your Rourkes, today's entertainment news reminds me once again that this is the bloke who should have played Bukowski/Chinaski on the big screen.

Though he was quite dapper looking as a young man, a decade or three of hell raising and high alcohol consumption ensured that his face fell into that lived in cragginess look that Bukowski was lumbered with for most of his life. Torn didn't just look the part, he lived the part.

It's official: poetry panini football strickers Vblogging Rip Torn was the new rock and roll.