I just drank in this cheap room, a young man
totally misplaced in the world.
I hardly ate anything, the wine was my
substance
and the classical records.
I lived like a god damned fly, or maybe like a
confused
rat.
Where I scrounged my few funds, I no longer
remember.
But I do remember the record store
where you could exchange 3 used albums for
2.
By buying an occasional album and by continuous
trading
I gradually listened to almost all the
albums
in that store.
But most of the time I was broke so I had to
listen to very very many of the 2 albums
on hand
over and over and
over.
I drank and listened again and
again.
each note became embedded in
me
and then
re-embedded.
now
decades later
I still sometimes hear
one of those old albums on the
radio--same conductor, same
orchestra--
and I immediately
shut the radio off.
Yet remember that time with a
melancholy
fondness.
Charles Bukowski- Excerpt from The Albums
