The Joker on Tosh Talks

The Joker on Tosh Talks



My obsession with the great American fictional character The Joker.  The main villain for Batman/Bruce Wayne.  Visually based on "The Man Who Laughs," starring Conrad Veidt.   Here I riff through the idea of The Joker.  Both in my life and in the White House.  Tosh Berman, the host of Tosh Talks.

October 11, 2014

October 11, 2014

I’m 60 and I’m fat.  How is it that such a beautiful boy like me, turns into an old fat man?  It seems like life’s revenge at the very least, and yet, what have I done in life, except show it love and respect.  And in return I get a puffy body.  Of course I could have exercised more with weights and avoided certain foods, but at the time, it didn’t seem reasonable.   When someone puts a cake with whip cream in front of you, wouldn’t it be bad manners not to eat the cake?  I barely left the plate on the dinning table, and if that was eatable I would have to digest that object in no time.

The worst is when people who I have known for a long time, look at me now, I can see the disappointment in their eyes.  When I look at images of Gérard Depardieu, and see how obscenely heavy he’s now, I think “Oh my.” Now I can see people thinking the same thing with me.   What’s even more embarrassing to me is when I see old girlfriends now, who are as stunning as ever.  I knew they went out with me because when I was younger, I was quite handsome, but now, I can see them being disgusted and even ashamed of their old passion for me.

Since my physical side is falling apart I really need to take care of my brain more.  As most of you know, I write every day under stressful conditions.  If I finish my daily writing for that day, then I feel I have completed something and I can go on with my (so-called) life.  “I’m fat, but I’m thin inside… there’s a thin man inside every fat man.” I need to focus on my inner-well being.  I often walk in the public streets, both here in Tokyo and Los Angeles, and I noticed my reflection from boutique windows and think "oh wow have I changed."  The funny thing is that I remember the moment I got fat.  I know one doesn’t get fat overnight, but that self-awareness happened to me about a month or so ago.  At first, I observed the friends who glance at my stomach and then quickly look away. I just have to tell you it’s a terrible moment.  I don’t think I can ever be skinny again. Those days are gone.  But lf I develop a bigger character to fit my bigger body, well, that would be ideal.  As Jack said: “With my sunglasses on, I’m Jack Nicholson.  Without them, I’m fat and 60.

It is at that time I really got into Orson Welles.  I have decided to become a fan of his later works, you know... when he was fat.  I wonder how he felt about himself as he gained weight.  He is likewise a fave of mine because he started at the top and worked his way down.  As he further went down, the fatter he got.  It is like each failure added inches to his waist.  As I struggle with my work, I become super conscious of my gaining weight, and I ask where it will end.  As Orson has commented: “When you are down and out something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends. ”

As age and weight take over me, I try to flow like a rapid river, but to be honest I feel like a water trapped in a damn.   Sitting there and breeding mosquitos by the millions, and not being able to move. Just sit and rot. That’s fat for you.

April 22, 2014

April 22, 2014

April 22, 2014

Yesterday I wandered around Mono Records and purchased a Paul Chambers album “Whims of Chambers” and a Charles Mingus’ “Mingus Ah Um.” I found myself in the mood to hear bass, so it was the perfect moment at a record store.  I also found this old recording by the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and Benjamin Britten playing piano for the surviving inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation in April 1945.    The recording is rough, but a very intense performance, and of course it came to mind that as a child, Menuhin lived with the Boris Vian family somewhere in the French countryside, during the depression that was hitting Europe at the time.   Also I knew the name of Britten, but never heard his music till yesterday.  Very sad, yet majestic.  

With the new music around me, I am struggling with a book I am writing, regarding Bette Page’s life after being used as a model.  It struck me that perhaps I’m not the right man to write such an intense life as Bette’s.  It is not the bondage images of her that I find attractive, but just her nude model shots that express a certain mood, and as I look at this image now, it is nice to have a soundtrack by Paul Chambers, whose bass playing skirts around the melody, and I feel I’m doing the same thing with Bette. 

As I get older I realize I have a strong melancholy attitude towards my life, and at times, I try not to think of it.  I focus on music or even literature, but of course, and with me, those two mediums are just a window to my soul.  One of the reasons why I like jazz so much is due to the foundation there, and the musician plays with the landscape to make it suitable for their temperament or pleasure.  I often hear a piece of music in my head, and I slowly eliminate certain instruments, where eventually I have just the skeleton of the melody that’s left over.  

Jack Nitzsche’s great score to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” stays in my mind as the perfect arrangement and the delicacy of the glass harp on the main theme is even more heartbreaking than the film.  I remember the grin on Jack Nicholson’s face, but nothing else in the film, except for the soundtrack, which remained with me for some reason.  I often find myself drifting into that gray cloud, and I’m watching down, and I think “surely there must be a better place.”