When someone invites you to a reading, your first thought may not be a crowd of a few thousand, liquored up and with gallows humor at the ready, hooting and hollering under the stars in the middle of the city. And you might not think of San Pedro first, either — Paris maybe, but not the post-industrial, punk music–addled harbor city to our south. But this is Bukowski night at Grand Performances — part of this year's regionally focused programming. (Last year Boyle Heights; this year San Pedro.) Folks tend to associate our wine-soaked laureate with Skid Row and pre-gentrification Arts District, as made famous in Barfly, the film version of the mostly autobiographical novel Factotum . But the truth is Charles Bukowski was born in Germany and lived mainly in East Hollywood until moving to San Pedro in 1978, with the woman he eventually married after the decades-long sordid, alcohol-fueled love life chronicled in his writing. He died in San Pedro in 1994, after what some would argue were his most prolific, inward-looking and artistically fruitful years. The spoken-word collective Tongue & Groove curates a rich slate of readers including Rebecca De Mornay, Harry Dean Stanton and Chiwan Choi to help bring the experience to life. Bottoms up! California Plaza, 350 S. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Sat., June 30, 8 p.m.; free. grandperformances.org.

Sat., June 30, 8 p.m., 2012

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