Happy Birthday Buk!

Bukowski in LA, LA in Bukowski. The man was quintessential LA and our fair city informed every word, every rant, every foul-mouthed rush of brilliance that he created. In honor of Bukowski's birthday, Nobody Reads in LA will be reading from his novel Post Office. The ranting kicks-off at Charlie O's Bar in the Alexandria Hotel tonight @ 7pm. In true Buk style, drinks are served until 2am.

If you can't make it out to the bar tonight, the equally inventive and zany-but-brilliant Scoops is offering a selection of flavors inspired by Bukowski through Saturday. There might be bacon involved! Possibly ham, perhaps rye. A scoop of Chinaski and cherries?

If chinaski cream is not your thing, you could take Esotouric's "Haunts of a Dirty Old Man" bus tour to see Bukowski's favorite haunts, including Musso & Frank. Tours start tomorrow on Buk's official birthday.

If your schedule is simply too full, you can celebrate Buk in other ways. Watch John Dullaghan's delicious documentary Bukowski: Born Into This to get a complete sense of the man and to see great footage of LA.

Or you could pick a day, get drunk and start writing poems at 3 a.m. Or you could just read them. Loudly. While asking people around you to shut the hell up.

Photo of Bukowski hanging out on Maltman by pay no mind via Flickr [Ed-- not him, thankfully] photo of Charles Bukowski, the only man who could make Sean Penn smile and Madonna blush, via AP