Born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Germany and brought to the United States where he was beaten as a child by his nightmare of a father, suffered disfiguring boils across his face as an adolescent and young man, started drinking by age 16 when his friend "Baldy" Mullinax, son of an alcoholic surgeon, gave him his first cold one (about which he later wrote: "This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time"), took buses around the country during the Great Depression drinking during the day and fighting at the bars by night, lost his virginity to a fat whore at age 24, published his first story the same year and then went on a "ten-year drunk" only to start writing again to become the famous American poet you know and love and hate and admire.