He bucks the entire Presbyterian ethic which I was raised, osmotically, to follow. He never lets the turkeys get him down. He maintains a dignity of soul. This is what I love most about Charles Bukowski and/or Harry and/or Henry and/or Hank Chinaski. Chinaski's a committed alcoholic, a regular at the ponies, a drifter through turbulent affairs with booze-broken women, and a writer - and it's his writing that he protects. It’s the one thing which he never allows his soul-sucking rounds as a “factotum” to touch. Throughout the bite-sized chapters of the book, Harry works a series of mind-numbing jobs - but only for long enough to lay some bets at the track, to buy another bottle, or to walk out of his shift to the nearest bar. Bukowski's narrator and alter-ego, Harry Chinaski, is an employer's nightmare.

On the surface of it, the novel Factotum isn't about much ('factotum' translating literally from the latin as 'do it all,” is an employee whose job is whatever needs doing, 'a jack-off of all trades,' as Tom Waits put it). Brent Hamer hooked me up with this one (see previous paragraph). Anyone who tells you you should read the book before seeing the movie, same. Anyone who likes to say 'movies are never as good as the books' is missing a few tricks, Brent Hamer's Factotum being one. The movie is perfect - the tone of it is perfect, it just feels like Bukowski - and it’s hands down my favourite Matt Dillon performance. Years ago, while living in Toronto on Oxford St., I rented Norwegian director Brent Hamer's 2006 film Factotum, based on Bukowski’s book, and which draws from other of his writings as well. And yes, it’s true that I spend a lot of my free hours watching movies - but hey, in my defense, it’s easier to play guitar while watching movies - AND it was a movie that put the novel Factotum in my hands. I’m always reading something, usually a couple somethings, but my life as a full-time, independent performing songwriter doesn’t make for a lot of reading-lamp/book-report time. (Doug, if you find this blog, it’s yours.)Īlso, it’s true: I’m way behind on my 100 book reports, but I never stopped reading (for those who just came in, I’ve set out to read 100 of my own, unread books before purchasing another, with a brief word about each as I go). I kept it to read for myself, which I finally did last summer. Confession: I bought my ECCO copy of Charles Bukowski’s Factotum many years ago as an intended gift for my brother, which I then never gave him.

Factotum novel