Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles tour
This Esotouric tour focuses on Bukowski’s great passions: writing, screwing and Los Angeles. We’ll take in the canonical locations of his life and myth: the Postal Annex Terminal where he gathered the material for “Post Office,” the De Longpre apartment where he briefly experimented with marriage and fatherhood, one of his favorite bars and liquor stores, and many other spots. Along the way, we’ll explore the people and ideas that made up the warp and weft of Buk’s rich inner life. This Esotouric bus adventure is hosted by Richard Schave.
“Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s LA” spans Bukowski’s personal city, from Skid Row to once-genteel Crown Hill, to Bukowski’s favorite East Hollywood liquor store, the Pink Elephant.
Esotouric has made its name with true crime bus tours (Black Dahlia, Pasadena Confidential) and explorations of literary LA (Raymond Chandler, John Fante, James M. Cain). Now they turn their creative attentions to Bukowski, the prolific poet, novelist and screenwriter whose rough-hewn tales of boozing, wild women and rotten jobs never obscure the deep vein of sweetness and hope that runs through all his work. In one of his finest poems, he described this as a bluebird he kept caged, and that bluebird is been represented in the Bukbird, a pale blue version of his beloved alcoholic crow character, represented by a logo created by cartoonist Tony Millionaire exclusively for this tour. The Bukbird is available on T-shirts, beer coasters and fine art prints by plasticmuse.
Press clips:
LA Weekly interviews Charles Bukowski tour host Richard Schave to compile a list of L.A. sites that were important to the writer.
Flavorpill calls the Charles Bukowski tour a “City Gem” and “a poetic journey full of rare insight into the life of a man who’s come to represent the ghettoized contingency of the City of Angels.”
Slake wonders if the Charles Bukowski tour is “‘Fawlty Towers’ on wheels.”
Spike Magazine digs our literary tours.
Novelist Anna Stothard explores the hidden gems of Los Angeles for the London Guardian, including our Bukowski tour.
Annenberg News Radio covers our Charles Bukowski tour in a video/slideshow.
Marco Mannone on the Charles Bukowski bus: “Four hours after we departed, the tour drops us back off at Philippe’s. This is a terrible way to simplify the tour, filled with so much wit and insight into not only Bukowski, but lost parts of Los Angeles."
Girls Gone Wild digs the Charles Bukowski tour.
For more info, see this short film on the landmarking of Bukowski’s former bungalow on De Longpre.