Tales of Ordinary Madness Chapter Summary & Analysis - The Big Pot Game Summary

The Big Pot Game Summary

At a party, Bukowski asks two younger men if they have a cigarette for him to smoke. They reply that they are going to Malibu, and that they are high on marijuana. Bukowski looks down on the boys because they act in such an exclusive way, that since the old man does not smoke marijuana, he is not in their crowd. Bukowksi thinks of such exclusion as being part of a cult or religion, and he approves of neither. Similarly, the boys have copied the language of the hepcats of the 1920s and 30s, men who did much harder drugs than marijuana. Yet these boys disrespect their memories by taking their words and cheapening them to apply to a gentler, toothless drug.

Bukowski thinks of the older social commentators who despise the younger generation for their sloth and drug use, but he wonders who will win the final match...
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