Heaven and Hell: Joe Pachinko provides a near-perfect picture
of real life
By Seth Flynn
Barkan
I'm sitting in a
bar as I write this review, annoyed that I've just run out of cigarettes. I've
just finished reading Joe Pachinko's magnificently psychotic joyride through
drunkenness and misery, The Urinals of Hell (Superstition Street, $10.00). My reward for writing this
review comes not in the form of monetary compensation (which CityLife can only dole out in small increments),
but in the shot of Jack Daniel's that is sitting in front of me, just out of
reach, like a lifeguard to my otherwise sober and responsible alter-ego, which
is currently drowning in Pachinko's madness.
Why the drunken
ceremony? Well, Urinals
is kind of like the holy grail of poetry to me. I sift through the useless
bullshit published in Poetry and other assorted literary journals and pray to find anything
this fresh, rebellious, psychotic, glorious and completely insane. If I could,
I would begin reading the book aloud to the strangers who surround me at the
bar in a fashion somewhat similar to those guys who prognosticate the end of
the world ... but I won't. I'll just take this shot instead. And toast to
Pachinko (who contributed a few A&E stories to CityLife in early 2003, prior to my own
freelancing).
Born in a
hospital on Oakland's charming and quaint "Auto Row" (where the elite
meet and everyone is happy all the time), Pachinko's back-of-the-book bio has
his family members describe him as "a disgusting, alcoholic pervert who
smokes faggot cigarettes." Obviously, they get along well. Although I've
never met the man, I can't help but agree: Pachinko is the first real,
two-fisted, cigarette-clenched-in-teeth poet I've read in ages. The massive
tumor of madness that is this book comes from some of the most hard-luck,
psychotic desperation since Charles Bukowski. Whether awakening in a bed
covered in broken glass (as in his stunning opus to life in hell, "The
Ripping of Brain Scabs") or feeding poodles to sharks as he drinks in a
shore-side bar in "Slop Tank," Pachinko tells it like it is ... or is
not.
A major critique
of those who've attempted to join the mantel of Bukowski is that, while
boozed-out depravation is all-too-common in poetry these days, the genre was
run into the ground by Bukowski. I disagree with this assertion. One of the
most endearing qualities of Urinals is its phantasmagorical boozed-out trips -- flights of fancy that
any desperate lunatic can understand and relate to. Musings like "where do
preppies come from?" or "I wonder which purebred puppy will be able
to outswim a shark?" really help elevate some of the works in the collection
from Bukowski poser-ism to real and accurate expressions of hardcore boozing.
Don't get me
wrong, though; nowhere does it feel like Pachinko is actually trying to come
off as the next Bukowski. Not at all. That's probably why he succeeds at it so
brilliantly. While there's not a trace of falsity in the works, there are (in
brief moments -- the book is 170-plus pages) some rather self-indulgent
sections. Those few moments aside, this book is a truly wonderful, comical, sad
and (ironically) poignant picture of a life lived hard.
I read somewhere
that Bukowski would occasionally disappear from his comfortable life in
suburbia to drink and live with the homeless for months at a time. If he were
around to read this book, he would curse Pachinko, drink with him, fight him
and then pass out on his couch. This is a must-buy for fans of real poetry.
Forget the academics. If you want to read a near-perfect portrait of what real
life is like, of what real human need and deprivation is all about, then hunt
this title down. You can thank me later ... with a shot.
Meanwhile, I
have to go find some cigarettes.
To order The Urinals of Hell, go to
www.superstitionstreet.com.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
They don't put
snails
in the mescal
bottle,
but they do
put in worms,
and I sit
here in Rosarito
eating a
worm.
Chewing and
swallowing
and thinking
this is good.
It's the
privilege of the living
to eat worms
because
someday
it'll be the
other way around.
--Joe
Pachinko, "Eating Mexican Worms in the Dark"