A writer should never ask a bartender what he does for a living

Thanks to my friend John Murphy for passing along the LA Weekly article about the bartender who served Bukowski.

“Bukowski, oh yeah. I talked to him a lot, he was a wild man,” offers the bartender. “A lot of people, they used to think he was broke, but I never seen him broke. He always got money. Once he came with two girls and he asked me, ‘What do you think I do for a living?’ I said, ‘Well, you’re ugly, you’re always drunk, you’re always with the beautiful girls and you have a lot of money. You must be a pimp.’ Oh, he got upset!”