The ghost like visage of Bukowski hangs high above the bar at The Frolic Room

Today marks the birthday of the poet Charles Bukowski, born Aug. 16, 1920, in Germany. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a boy and in LA he weathered the Great Depression, a time “when people had very little and there was nothing to hide behind” he wrote in his poem The Lady In Red  which evokes the time as keenly as Steinbeck. Spending years leading to WWII in the Central Library, Pershing Square, in Clifton’s Cafeteria and the King Eddy Saloon, those experiences fueled  Bukowski’s later writing. And while it remains unclear if we are now in the midst of another depression, it seems highly appropriate to revisit any and all accounts of the ‘30’s, just in case. 

                  

The Frolic Room, a bar aside the landmark Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard is a location in murder-mysteries like LA Confidential and The Black Dahlia. This past April 5th reality emulated art when the bar became the scene of a grisly death. However, insiders say it is no mystery while police maintain it is not a murder.

  Gerald Thomas Andersen, one of five brothers who grew up in a small Midwestern agricultural town arrived in Los Angeles some 20 years back, like so many others gifted with good looks and a modicum of talent, to find his way in showbiz. In April, at the age of 49, never having landed that big role, Mr. Andersen returned to his hometown of Faribault, Minnesota for his funeral. And if that sounds hard-boiled, consider the location of his demise, a 1930’s era Hollywood gin mill where he worked the door and which remains an iconic backdrop for LA film noir. 

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The Frolic Room occupies a sliver of the ground floor in the landmark Pantages Theater where the starred pavement of Hollywood Boulevard begins. The theater opened in 1930, the bar sometime after and hasn’t closed a day since, remaining  the oldest gin mill in Hollywood.* The Frolic is adorned with autographed glossies of its celebrity habitués, ones that hung around after the neighborhood spiraled into shit, like Silvester Stallone and John Belushi. But above them all hangs a linocut profile portrait of the poet Charles Bukowski who was a regular before his death in 1994, and fans of the poet will gather here come Monday to discuss the literary works they share a common interest in. With neither stage nor microphone, they will casually recite their favorite poetry in the quiet time before the joint fills up around six. The bar maintains a small library of volumes “but anyone can bring stuff they downloaded from the internet” says Reece, a photographer who on a recent evening took up the authors favorite stool, at the end of the bar by the cigarette machine.

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