Sax Rohmer by Tosh Berman

 

Sax Rohmer by Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal: October 3 (the Mickey Mouse Fan Club)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 3

Throughout my life, I have been fond of the Charlie Chan film series and the Flash Gordon serials as well. One of the things that I picked up from my father’s generation is the love of the adventurer who faces the deadly Orient. That far-off culture that is wise and smart (Charlie Chan) and ruthlessly evil as well (Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu). As a child, one is approached by the things he sees on the massive (cinema) and small (TV) screen. It is not just one angle, but the fact that my entire culture is based on a fantasy of some sort. When I was a child, evilness came from the Orient. I used to play on the streets of San Francisco Chinatown, thinking of myself as Flash Gordon battling the aliens that were invading Earth - which was basically, from my perspective, a very white planet at the time.

What is fascinating is that the actor Charles Middleton (Ming) and Warner Oland (Charlie Chan) were white. Both played a character from the Orient. At the time, even in my childhood, I knew that these actors were non-Asian, but it never bothered or broke the fantasy for me. I was living in a world that was totally one-dimensional. Even though my parents knew and were friends of people who were otherwise not white, I still felt like I was in a white world, and that was the only world that existed. I never even question it.

The only TV show I watched as a child was the Mickey Mouse Fan Club. I was fascinated with the show because I felt that the kids on the show were like me. White. I wouldn’t have been upset if an Asian or black child would be on the show, but the fact that the issue never came up is an interesting way to examine that world. Children from all over the world probably belong to the Mickey Mouse Club, but what does that mean? But even that, the kids on the show were exotic to me. It was white, but it was a weird “white” to me. I didn’t belong to that culture. My “culture” was to adopt characters that I was fond of and pretend to be that person, as I marched up and down Grand Avenue, Chinatown lost in my fantasy of chasing dragons and monsters - mostly who were produced in the mysterious Orient. There was something sinister about the Mickey Mouse Club, but I could never put my finger on it. For one, the theme song written by Jimmie Dodd, who can be seen as the auteur of the Mickey Club clan. Probably the first song that I have ever sung to myself: and I would also sing along with Jimmie at the end of the show as well. The lyrics are:



Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! You’re as welcome as can be!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Forever let us hold our banners high,

High, high, high!

Come along and sing a song and join the jamboree!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse Club!

Mickey Mouse Club!

We’ll have fun

We’ll meet new faces

We’ll do things, and we’ll go places

All around the world we’re marching...



Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! You’re as welcome as can be!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Forever let us hold our banners high

High, high, high!

Come along and sing the song and join the jamboree!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Yeah, Mickey!

Yeah, Mickey!

Yeah, Mickey Mouse Club!



Spoken:

Now Mouseketeers

There’s one thing we want you

Always to remember



Come along and sing our song

and join our family



M-I-C

K-E-Y

M-O-U-S-E



Through the years we’ll all

Be friends

Wherever we may be

M-I-C

K-E-Y

M-O-U-S-E



Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse

Forever let us hold our

Banner high



Now it’s time to say goodbye

To all our company



M-I-C

Spoken:

See you real soon

K-E-Y

Spoken:

Why? Because we like you!

M-O-U-S-E


Jimmie was in charge of the club.  He was a role model for the kids on and off the screen. Not only was he like that on the show, but also the cast was invited to his house for backyard barbecues and sing-alongs. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my love for the Orient made me aware of another world than the one that was projected into our house. There are many levels of illusion, and this is only one. As a child, I founded something quite creepy about Jimmie Dodd and his Mouse theme song. I didn’t know why, but over a short period, I realized that Ming the Merciless meant more to me than the Mickey Mouse Club. It didn’t damage me, but I know that there was a whole world out there, and I became interested in knowing where Charlie Chan and Ming came from. Totally fictional characters, I do know that, but I was curious about how they came to be in my culture. Over time, I realized that I wasn’t the focus of the world’s attention. That I was pretending to be Flash Gordon, which in fact, I much preferred Ming. It is incredible to think that the “American” culture can bring such great geniuses like Eddie Cochran, yet one would define themselves as a world that was made up of “white culture.” Not saying that it’s terrible, but actually, kind of evil when you think of it. And with that in mind, I realized that I am part of an immoral culture that doesn’t even know why it is doing what it does. To this day, we tend to see the other world as indeed “other.” When in fact we’re projecting that image to suit our purposes either by our stupidity or naiveness. As Eddie would say “, that’s really something.”

February 15, 2014

February 15, 2014

My father’s favorite author was Sax Rohmer.  I’m not sure if it was literature he picked up as a teenager, or as an adult.  But I was practically raised in a household that had his Fu Manchu series in every room in our house.  Mostly mass market paperbacks that had stained yellow paper, that looks like if one touched it, the paper will crumble into dust.  It has been noted that Rohmer was part of the qabbalistic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and had ties with the Rosicrucians.  It was a mixture of being a ‘pulp’ writer but also attached to secret societies, that made him such an appealing figure to my family.

Before Rohmer became a “weird” novelist, he was a comedy sketch writer for the English Music Hall.  One of the people he met and worked with was the great Italian artist Totò, but eventually the language barrier was too much of a strain for the both of them.  Even though, they could only communicate through various slapstick skills, both artists became more obsessed with language, which in fact, Totò became known as a great poet.  Rohmer, after leaving the music hall, became totally devoted to the Hermetic Order and started writing novels and short stories for Peterson’s Weekly.   His first published book was “Little Tich” which was a biography of a well-known music hall performer.  Around this time, he invented his masterpiece Fu Manchu.

The character was drawn from the Orient, and of course was part of the “Yellow Peril” fear that was hitting Western countries at the turn-of-the-century.  Fu Manchu is a master criminal, who specializes in poison, and most, if not all, his criminal organization is funded by the drug trade and white slavery.  There were 10 full length Fu Manchu novels, where he is hunted down by detective Denis Nayland Smith, but by the last paragraph, or the last page, Fu Manchu always escapes from Smith’s clutches.

The escape artist Harry Houdini was a fan of the Fu Manchu series as well as becoming a friend of Rohmer.  Their relationship was such an odd one, with respect to Houdini’s desire to debunk mystical ties to the practice of stage magic.  He was obsessed with the thought that a magician is an artist or at the very least a craftsman who works the magic as a skill, not someone who gains ‘magic powers. ' Rohmer on the other hand believed in the mystic powers, and was a traveler in the world of secret societies and practices.  He eventually spent time in the Orient, learning secrets that were at that time, totally unknown in the West.  He was also an expert on the practices of Opium, and it has been rumored that he was the first one to turn Jean Cocteau onto that drug, that eventually he became addicted to it - up to the time he was filming “Beauty and The Beast.”

Rohmer passed away in 1959 from an outbreak of influenza - “Asian Flu. ”