John Fante: Reading Homer

Charles Bukowski Dept: LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Even when he was a notorious street punk, shooting at people and shooting up heroin, there was always something a little different about Luis J. Rodriguez, according to Winnipeg Free Press. His heroes were never the elder members of his East LA street gang, but the great Los Angeles noir writer John Fante and the city's poet laureate, Charles Bukowski and in this photo taken Monday, Sept. 12, 2011, writer and activist Luis J. Rodriguez holds a photo his late aunt Tia Chucha, at his independent bookstore and community center named after her in Los Angeles. His 1993 book "Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A." turned Rodriguez, then a struggling poet with a drinking problem, into one of America's pre-eminent Chicano writers. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes If he wasn't pulling a knife to settle a dispute or running to avoid the law, Rodriguez was just as likely to be off somewhere reading: Homer's "Odyssey" maybe; or John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"; or some other great work. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.