What do Bukowski and Madonna have in common?

They share the same birthday, which was yesterday. Aside from their mutual admiration of Sean Penn, it's probably the only thread you can draw between them.

I've been reading and collecting Bukowski rarities for a long, long time. I don't know why that guy's stuff gets under my skin the way it does. My life doesn't parallel his in any way. I'm not much of a drinker. He would have disapproved of the way I've thrown my life away on office work. But we both had, shall we say, less than perfect fathers. So there's that to consider.

Bukowski taught me that you don't need a college degree in order to be well-read and literary. Until he revealed that to me, I wasted a lot of time feeling bad about myself.

Instead of a poem, which is what I was originally going to post, here are some of his words of wisdom. He was a pretty good prose writer. He would have been 90 years old yesterday. His stuff means a lot to me.

This is very important — to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything. Whether you're an actor, anything, a housewife … there has to be great pauses between highs, where you do nothing at all. You just lay on a bed and stare at the ceiling.

The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative.