Tosh's Journal - November 22 (A tribute to J.D. Tippit)

November 22 stays in my mind, of course, because of “that death,” but also there was another death that day in Dallas, Texas - The death of J.D. Tippit. He was a police officer with the Dallas Police Department.  Read the rest: http://tamtambooks-tosh.blogspot.com/2014/11/november-22-2014.html

Tosh's Journal - October 18 (Lee Harvey Oswald, Shinbashi, Lotte Lenya)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 18

“To exist to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” I keep that in mind as I wander through an empty parking lot in Shinbashi, looking for a Chinese restaurant that is placed on the third floor. It is a Saturday night and not a person’s insight. Alas, the restaurant is closed.  After 20 minutes of walking overpasses that connect the large boulevard and then down steep stairs to the entrance of the lot, and then to climb two staircases to reach the floor of the restaurant - and it being closed seemed to be a slight miscalculation on my part. I should have known that these types of businesses are closed on a Saturday night. Also, it has been noted to me that this specific restaurant is the oddest eating joint in Tokyo. Shinbashi, a business district in Tokyo, is famous to me, due to the Japanese film series “The Crazy-Cats, which is a combination of Martin & Lewis mixed in with the world of the Salarymen. A lot of the key scenes in the film series were shot in this part of Tokyo.

On my journey here and on the streets of Shinbashi, I kept hearing the voice of Bobby Troup and Anita O’Day singing a duet. Oddly I don’t think they ever made a record together. Yet, in my mind, I can hear both voices singing, perhaps “On Route 66.” I always have that talent of taking something that is out there and somehow making it mine. I look at the world as one big reference library, and I’m just a guy roaming around the stack and aisles of ideas, trying to connect “C” to “Q.” For instance, I could have sworn that there was or is a store that is devoted to Lee Harvey Oswald as an iconic figure. Not that far from Marilyn Monroe or Elvis. His presence becomes more important than who he was. The more literature out on Oswald, the more obscure he gets, and eventually, he becomes a symbol that is empty.   Yet we know he is part of a landscape that caused either pain or awareness that things will never be the same again.

I was drinking a bottle of Chinese sake, which causes me to lose time and memory. Or even oddly enough, causes me to make my memory up. Therefore this Oswald store may not even exist. But why do I clearly remember the key chain being sold at this store that represented the foreign-made rifle as well as his image (the mug shot) after he got arrested for murdering the Dallas cop. There is something of a Huell Howser in me that likes to see Tokyo as a series of objects that somehow people contain these objects as livable space. It seems impossible, yet here I’m, slightly dazed and of course, confused.

Lotte Lenya of Berlin could easily be part of the Tokyo landscape, as well. Never have I ever been in a city where one can watch the daily life of going to work, being at work, and then going to Shinbashi, before going home for dinner.  Having that quick drink of beer or sake, as you gather dutch courage to make it back and knowing you will be facing the exact actions the very next day.  Ms. Lenya (Weill) had the power to convey the struggles of the mice against the machine that is society. “Metropolis” has many forms and disguises, and I see it here in Shinbashi, as I can still smell the tension of the new high-rises fighting against the low-life, and culinary level of the eating places that serve the white-collar worker. I always inspired to be the A. J. Liebling of Tokyo where “I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.” To document time as it passes by me, in such a violent manner, is truly being alive at the very moment of realizing that this is it.

My only refined moment is to attach my earphones to my ears and listen to the sarcastic voice of Catherine Ringer, and I wander the streets of Shinbashi. I’ll never go back to that Chinese restaurant in a vacant parking lot, nor be able to find the Lee Harvey Oswald store, that again, could have been part of my imagination - as well as the Chinese restaurant. All I know is that I can express myself in a world that may not exist.

The Sunday Series: Sunday November 22, 2015

The Sunday Series
Sunday November 22, 2015

52.  52 years ago, on this date, was the first time I saw my teacher cry in front of her students.  In fact, it was the first time she showed emotion besides hatred or approval of her classroom students.  They announced the news over the school PA system, and I can see it startled her, and then the tears flooded her face.  I don’t know if it was the shock of hearing the news over the PA system, or the effect it had on my teacher's behavior that early morning on November 22.   Up to that date, and just 9 years old, I never experienced death, either by a human or animal such as a pet.  Nothing died in my life at that time.   Even cowboys didn’t die on TV.  The worst that can happen is someone would knock the hero’s back of his head with a gun butt, or the hero may shoot the gun out of the criminal's hand, but that was the worst that can happen.   After getting knocked on the head and gaining consciousness, the cowboy hero would rub his painful head up and down, and get back to business, which is to fight crime.

As I got older, I did experience death.  But what is strange is the news of hearing a famous person dying compared to someone you know who died.  The death of a friend or an acquaintance is much more abstract than a famous person’s death.    I don’t think I have ever been shocked by someone’s passing, except my dad, but everyone else it seemed not real to me.  Yet, when it happens to the famous, the death is more prominent for some reason.  When someone dies that is close to you, one can’t really share that feeling.  Yet a famous death is often shared in great detail.  If they are even really famous, one can buy a magazine or book devoted to that person’s life and more likely death.  The key thing in these publications is the last photograph of the deceased.  There is an obsessional need to know that there is such a document in place.  The last living presence of that being, as he waves to an audience in the back seat of the car, is shocking enough.  Many years later, I saw a photograph of him in the morgue, and even then, I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was seeing.   To see a body when there is no life in it, is truly shocking to me.   As for a musicians’ death, one hears music being played on the radio, and there may be various tributes being played out on various media mediums, but the death of someone in the family or friend, there is never a PA system announcing that.  

To this day, when I hear “Walking On Thin Ice, ” I think of it as the last recording by this famous musician.  Of course, his passing, brings a certain intensity to the work.   One can even feel that this was the artist’s intent, to have this song as the final message.  The truth is, the artist didn’t know what would happen that night.  It is not always fate, sometimes shit happens for no reason. And like the other individual who was shot, he looked shocking in the morgue photograph as well.  I looked at it, like the others, but I wished I didn't really see that image.  I rather think of him as being alive, not dead in the morgue.  

On November 22, and over time, it looks like a complex series of incidents happen.  There are many theories, and all of them sound possible.  But then again, it sometimes just takes one individual to aim, and shoot, that changes everything.  How big can that change be, due to one man shooting another dead.  The narration needs to be larger.  At the time of the shooting, it was bigger than life. The violence of it was the star attraction that day.  I knew the victim, but only on black and white images printed in the daily newspaper.  I don’t even remember seeing him on television, and I know he is one of the first figures to use that medium for political as well a communicative purposes.

When he was killed 52 years ago, they played out all the angles.  They talked about what direction the bullets came from, and even hinted that it came from more than one location.  It didn’t seem real.  There were so many narratives running through the act of an assassination.   A family member or friend just dies, and that is the end of the story.  But a star or a public figure, the death process and the action is always complicated for some reason.   It is almost like death is too personal, so we need a famous person to die, so we can examine the why, what, where, and how it was done.  It’s not polite to do that when a person we know dies.  We just quietly accept it.

The second time I experienced death on a personal level was when the accused assassin himself was assassinated in front of live TV.  Now that was a real death, and as they re-played the moment he was shot over and over again, one thought “oh wow he was alive at this point, and then when he’s down, he’s dead.” I felt I was watching a bridge between life and death, but I couldn’t make out the architecture of that bridge or walkway.  With respect to the first assassination, I wanted to see it over and over again, in the hopes, I get a glance of that string, road, or whatever it is from life to the other side.  When he was in his car waving at the crowd, he was so alive, and then a few seconds later he wasn’t. That shocked me.  It really disturbed me.

When my dad told me that a friend of the family died, and even though I really like this person, I didn’t know how to react to his death.   I felt like it didn’t really happen because I didn’t see it on TV.  My father’s words were not enough evidence to me that he died.  Especially since we didn’t go to a memorial or funeral for this person.  The shocking thing is that he was perfectly fine the last time I saw him.   He didn’t give out any death vibes at all.  It was really confusing.

As one gets older, more famous people die.  That is the weirdest aspect of age, is that you make note of all the TV, movie or music stars are dying on a regular basis.   Each death of a TV series actor from the 1960s or 1970s immediately takes you back to that time when you were in front of the TV set.  Due to the fact that their character, which I didn’t know was any different from their actual lives, was projected on your consciousness due to being in front of the set, seems to have more meaning for some reason.   Often on Facebook someone posts a notice a certain actor or singer has passed, and I automatically put a “like” to that post, not due to the fact that I like that they died or they’re dead, but to acknowledge that person’s observation on that star, as well as a tribute on my part by ‘liking’ that post.  It’s a strange thing to acknowledge one’s death by just liking a post.  But there you go, a passing of time is often shocking in itself.

October 18, 2014

October 18, 2014

“To exist to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” I keep that in mind as I wander through an empty parking lot in Shinbashi, looking for a Chinese restaurant that is placed on the third floor.  It is a Saturday night, and not a person in sight. Alas, the restaurant is closed, and after 20 minutes of walking overpasses that connect the large boulevard and then down a steep staircase to the entrance of the lot, and then  to climb two staircases to reach the floor of the restaurant - and it being closed seemed to be a slight miscalculation on my part.  I should have known that these types of businesses are closed on a Saturday night.  Also it has been noted to me that this specific restaurant is the oddest eating joint in Tokyo.  Shinbashi, a business district in Tokyo is famous to me, due to the Japanese film series “The Crazy-Cats, which is a combination of Martin & Lewis mixed in with the world of the Salerymen.  A lot of the key scenes in the film series were shot in this part of Tokyo.

On my journey here and on the streets of Shinbashi, I kept hearing the voice of Bobby Troup and Anita O’Day singing a duet, but oddly I don’t think they ever made a record together.  Yet, in my mind, I can clearly hear both voices singing perhaps “On Route 66.” I always have that talent of taking something that is out there, and somehow making it mine.  I look at the world as one big reference library, and I’m just a guy roaming around the stack and aisles of ideas, trying to connect “C” to “Q.”  For instance I could have sworn that there was or is a store that is devoted to Lee Harvey Oswald as an iconic figure - not that far from Marilyn Monroe or Elvis.  His presence becomes more important than who he really was.  The more literature out on Oswald the more obscure he gets, and eventually he just becomes a symbol that is empty, yet we know he is part of a landscape that caused either pain, or an awareness that things will never be the same again.

To be honest, I was drinking a bottle of Chinese sake, which causes me to lose time and memory.  Or even oddly enough, causes me to make my own memory up.  Therefore this Oswald store may not even exist.  But why do I clearly remember the key chain being sold at this store that represented the foreign made rifle as well as his image (the mug shot) after he got arrested for murdering the Dallas cop.  There is something of a Huell Howser in me, that likes to see Tokyo as a series of objects that somehow people contain these objects as livable space.  It seems impossible, yet here I’m, slightly dazed and of course confused.

Lotte Lenya of Berlin could easily be part of the Tokyo landscape as well.   Never have I ever been in a city where one can watch the daily life of going to work, being at work, and then going to Shinbashi, before going home for dinner - having that quick drink of beer or sake, as you gather dutch courage to make it home and knowing you will be facing the exact actions the very next day.  Ms. Lenya (Weill) had the power to convey the struggles of the mice against the machine that is society.  “Metropolis” has many forms and disguises, and I see it here in Shinbashi, as I can still smell the tension of the new high-rises fighting against the low-life, and culinary level of the eating places that serve the white collar worker.  I always inspired to be the A. J. Liebling of Tokyo where "I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better."  To document a time as it passes by me, in such a violent manner, is truly being alive at the very moment of realizing that this is it.

My only refined moment is to attach my earphones to my ears and listen to the sarcastic voice of Catherine Ringer, and I wander the streets of Shinbashi.  I’ll never go back to that Chinese restaurant in a vacant parking lot, nor be able to find the Lee Harvey Oswald store, that again, could have been part of my imagination - as well as the Chinese restaurant. All I know, is that I can express myself in a world that may not exist. So I made a straight line, and walked that line till…

January 22, 2014

January 22, 2014

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and watched "The Man Who Laughs" starring Conrad Veidt. It was broadcasted on the local KTLA station, and normally my TV set seems to be attached to Channel 5. Call me sentimental,but I just can't watch any station except KTLA. It meant so much to me as a youngster. I am pretty sure I witnessed the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald on this station. It was the first time I became aware of someone actually getting shot and dying, compared to watching Westerns on Saturday mornings where bad guys got shot, but mostly just shooting the gun out of their hands. So the fact that someone got shot, and not only they died, but also Oswald didn't have a gun in his hand when he got shot was just simply odd to me. 

Sometimes KTLA would broadcast a D.W. Griffith film, but for some reason it was hard for me to watch a silent film on a TV set. In a movie theater no problem. Especially when they have an organist on the bill. Actually the first time I saw a Griffith film was in Tokyo with Mie Yanashita on the piano. "Broken Blossoms" was the film, and Ms. Yanashita's music score to the film was very touching and beautiful. 

This morning, after I dressed I went to Amoeba Music to try to locate some piano or organ silent movie music. There was some titles there, but I really wanted something that would fit the mood of either "Broken Blossoms" or "The Man Who Laughs." After almost a hour in their soundtrack section I couldn't find what I was looking for. But that's life in the nutshell. You try to force a 'taste' on oneself, instead of letting it naturally go to you. I should have looked for the music with no thought to my head. 

Nevertheless I found myself in the Associates/Billy Mackenzie vinyl section in the other large room at the store. The late (and much missed) Billy always reminded me of Lord Byron, and if Byron was alive now, no doubt he would be a lead singer in some Sunset Strip band. Or maybe work in an used clothing boutique in Echo Park. 

When I got home I felt a depression upon me. Before the dark cloud takes over, I usually can fight it off by reading the poems and writings by Francis Picabia. But this time it didn't do the work, so I put on Malcolm McLaren's "Paris" album which didn't exactly cheered me up, but made the pain seem like a dream.