Can you re-imagine the LA Riverfront? Then checkout tonight's lecture at SCI-Arc. / Photo by Lush.i.ous via LAist's flickr pool. FILM* A classic Japanese double feature plays at the New Beverly tonight and tomorrow. While these films were made more than 50 years ago, the themes are timeless: Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) focuses on a housewife who’s sick and tired of her boring life with her business-minded husband as her niece......

Craby Joe's has been at the corner of 7th and Main in Downtown LA since 1933, and earned its place in local lore as a watering hole near and dear to the well-known downtrodden of the literary scene, like John Fante and Charles Bukowski. In honor of the bar's closing night, there will be a gathering of local historians and preservationists, and anyone else wishing to hoist a memorial last drink at Craby Joe's from......

Welcome to Hollywood Today, an LA City commission voted recommending that Charles Bukowski's former home to be designated a historic cultural monument. Yay books and reading! According to state representative Fabian Nunez, who represents the Downtown LA area, the biggest crisis we're facing today is foreclosures. ""It's a more immediate crisis," he told the AP. Meanwhile, protests are beginning to hit the streets over this. Drink up! It's the holidays! Caroline on Crack has......

We've been looking forward to the "big day" for a long time. Tomorrow was going to be a "big day" because the Cultural Heritage Commission was going to decide whether or not to declare Buk's De Longpre residence a historic landmark. Why should such a residence be declared a landmark? It's where he wrote Post Office & Factotum and was the very residence that plays a central role in Women. Since we're in love......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

Here are some of my favorite LAist stories from this week: Anti reviews a cd that was sent to him, he gives it a "Good", but someone from the band writes in to complain that it wasn't a good enough Peggy Archer showed us that Malibu is finding that whoring out their best beachfront homes to corporations isn't all they hoped it would be Charles Bukowski is my favorite writer, so I liked this......

Today is what would have been the anniversary of Charles Bukowski's 87th year on this planet, had he not passed away in 1994. I really wish I had it in me to writing something amazing in honor of the man, but I'm not sure it can be done. What can you write about a man who revolutionized literature with a style that has yet to be rivaled? All I can think to do on......

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......

Monday Moonday poetry reading 7:30pm @ Village Books Tuesday David Lynch signs Inland Empire 7pm @ Borders, Westwood Elaine Dundy presents The Dud Avocado 7pm @ Book Soup Warren Mar presents Descanso 7pm @ Vroman's Kiara Brinkman signs High Up in the Trees 7pm @ Dutton's Wednesday Adrienne Barbeau presents There Are Worse Things I Could Do 7pm @ Book Soup Nobody Reads in LA presents Charles Bukowski's Post Office (it's his birthday!) 7pm......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

Arguably the finest writer Los Angeles has ever known, Charles Bukowski typed away volumes of poetry, short stories, and novels in Hollywood. One of his best works, Post Office, about the ups-and-downs of a heavy drinking mail carrier was written by Bukowski at 5124 De Longpre Ave in 1969 and published two years later. The publisher was John Martin of Santa Barbara who allegedly cut a deal with Bukowski that he would pay the......

Is it possible to love a creation in spite of its creator? You have to admit that "Live Through This" rocked, even if Courtney Love is not the most likeable person on the planet. And Picasso wasn't exactly a nice guy. The same holds true for Fred Eric, one of the most controversial personalities on the LA food scene. I cannot say my one run-in with him, in which he almost ran me over......

The first time i saw Pigeon John he was the main act at "the Shack" in Anaheim. Sundays were rap nights, and before i knew it the rowdy crowd of criminals was being charmed by this rapper toting an acoustic guitar, and making wise-cracks at the audience. Pigeon John has come a long way since those days years ago, he is now signed by Quannum Projects, considered one of Los Angeles's most popular rappers, and......

Factotum starring Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, and Marisa Tomei It shouldn't be that hard to develop a great film from a great Charles Bukowski novel or screenplay, but after Barfly (from a Bukowski screenplay) and now Factotum (from one of his most overlooked novels), it seems like the big screen might not be the place to capture the humor, tone, and feeling of LA's finest poet. Matt Dillon does an excellent Buk impersonation, but......

With all our recent focus on drugs, poopie, dead winos, starlets on drugs, tattooed rock'n'roll cellphone exhibitionists, kids on drugs, guys who like young girls a little too much, kid show hosts on drugs, self-lovers, rock festivals with swear words in their names organized by guys who have various terms for self-love in their band names, and more drugs, we figured it might be time to give a little space to some good clean......

LAist likes Matt Dillon. "My Bodyguard", "Drugstore Cowboy", even "Crash" were decent films where Dillon played that tough guy with a heart. But Matt Dillon isn't Charles Bukowski. Bukowski was ugly and bloated and got laid in spite of his looks, not because of them. That's why a fucked up Mickey Rourke played a passable Chinaski in the stinker called "Barfly". Ironic because now would be the perfect time for Rourke to play the......

Charles Bukowski wasn't *just* a beer drinking machine. He was a sensitive Cancer who self-medicated and wrote all night. Maybe like some of you do. As much as we love the man, we aren't quite sure which poem this is since he had many who had "Love" in the title. But names and titles and formalities are so unimportant when you have a virtual gorilla "reading" a funny and great poem. So enjoy tonight's......

Today is Charles Bukowski's birthday. Los Angeles' greatest poet lived to 119 years old. He carried an axe and led his blue ox around with a choke-chain that he'd release whenever someone stepped to him. He worked for the LA post office for decades and drank and worked and wrote at night and drank some more and sometimes got sleep before he went to work. Even though his fine book "Post Office" told the......

The mash-up has gone to a new level with this "film". This poem comes from the classic book "Mockingbird Wish Me Luck". Only two more days until the new movie from the novel by Charles Bukowski is released, "Factotum". Can't wait.......

Charles Bukowski lived all over Los Angeles during his long life. Here he is filmed walking around San Pedro and reading "Dinosauria, we", which inspired the title of his biopic "Born Into This", which is where this clip comes from. Every night we celebrate Bukowski, LA's finest poet, as we march toward Friday's release of "Factotum", starring Matt Dillon.......

As we continue to celebrate LA poet Charles Bukowski this week, we turn our attentions to rock stars Tom Waits and Bono, who read two poems that were written at the end of the master's long life. Waits was clearly a fan of the work, and one can hear quite a bit of the Bukowski style in some of Waits' tunes, in particular the song/story "Swordfishtrombones." And Bono is just jumping on another bandwagon,......

With the release of the film "Factotum" right around the corner (going head-to-head against Snakes on a Plane), we thought that every night at midnight this week leading up to Friday we should celebrate the work of Charles Bukowski, LA's finest poet. Tonight we present "The Man with the Beautiful Eyes", a poem Buk wrote for "The Last Night Of The Earth Poems" (1992) proving that the old drunk still had it in the......

Instead of selling a large collection of rare Charles Bukowski manuscripts, originals, and books for about $1 million, the LA poet's widow has donated the works to the hoity-toity Huntington Library in San Marino. Linda Lee Bukowski told the LA Times that she thought her beer-drinking husband would have gotten a kick out of such a large chunk of his writing being housed in such a high-class joint. "It's going to be scandalous. This......

David Lawrence as Charles Bukowski and Steven Memel as Steven Memel Haven't you ever wondered what could be learned from the inspirational story of Charles Bukowski's life - alcoholic, depressive, and suicidal poet? Stephen Memel, the auteur/directeur/chanteur/Phantom Impersonateur, did, and he has given the world BUKOWSICAL!, now extended at the Sacred Angel Fist Circle Of Note Gang Theater through July 21. Yes, it's a musical about Charles Bukowski, and what better way to celebrate......

John Sylvain produces websites, films and theater. He is also a writer, actor, director and father. John possesses a singular talent for organizing performing arts troupes; a knack that enriches us all. Fresh out of college, he helped found The Annex Theater in Seattle. After moving down to Los Angeles in the '90s, he started the Sacred Fools Theatre Company, one of Los Angeles's most prolific and innovative theater companies. How can you not love......

At MOCA at the Pacific Design Center, Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena, partners at Escher GuneWardena Architecture, will be giving an art talk on the Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec exhibition currently at MOCA. The talk begins at 6:30 PM. At Spaceland, see rowdy country rockers The Gourds with Von Cotten and Brokedown. Doors open at 9:00 PM. Tonight is the second and final Cheap Trick show at the Canyon Club. Doors open at 6:00......

LAist once saw someone do a karaoke rendition of Cheap Trick's "Surrender" that involved a blow-up guitar; particularly considering that the act took place in a coffee house, it was an impressive show. LAist is willing to concede, however, that tonight's actual Cheap Trick show at the Canyon Club will probably top it. Doors open at 6:00 PM for dinner reservations; the show starts at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $42.50. In film, the Silver......