My Peter Gunn by Tosh Berman

 

"My Peter Gunn" by Tosh Berman.  

Read it here: My Peter Gunn

"My Life in the Theatre de la Huchette" by Tosh Berman (Paris)

Not too many people know this, but besides being a publisher (TamTam Books) and writer ("Sparks-Tastic, "The Plum in Mr. Blum's Pudding," and the upcoming memoir "Tosh"), I'm also a movie actor.  I did a cameo in Anna Biller's "Viva," in which I had a line, or to be more exact just one word "precious," and the role of 'Boy' in Andy Warhol's "Tarzan and Jane Regained Sort Of..."   Also, I had starring roles in various films by Relah Eckstein.   Now, due to financial issues, I have decided to become an actor for the stage, and not just any stage, but The Théâtre de la Huchette in the Latin Quarter in Paris. 

The theater is located at 23 rue de la Huchette, and since 1957 they have been presenting a double-bill of "The Lesson" and "The Bad Soprano" by Eugène Ionesco.   The playwright has the knack to convey the absurdity of life in such a manner that articulates my view of the world.  Therefore I went to the Huchette theater and told them I'm willing to work for nothing if they give me a role in the production.  They asked if I can speak French, and I said "NO."  I told them it would be faithful to the playwright's concern if I were an actor that couldn't express myself in another language.  But the rub is that Ionesco such an exact type of writer, that language, of course, is essential. But the fact that I couldn't deliver his lines in such a manner means that the director has to up his game by presenting me in such a production.  Every night I have to learn m lines in French and to remind you, dear readers, it's two plays I'm doing every night.   I do all my lines in French of course, but it has a California accent attached to it, that caused my director to winch whenever he hears me recite the lines. 

It's interesting to note that Ionesco is Romanian, and French is his second language, which is the language he wrote his plays in.  So in that sense, I feel we have something in common. I told that to the director, and he agreed that I was on to something.  "The Bald Soprano" in my mind is about language and communication.  Therefore since Ionesco wrote it in a second language, and I don't speak proper French makes this production the essential version of the play. 

I often have dreams where I'm either in a public space or at a party with friends, and I'm naked.   Everyone else is dressed, but for some reason, I either lost my clothes or forgot to put them on before leaving home.  The thing is no one says anything about my nakedness. Acting in these two one-act plays, I have that feeling, but I'm awake and aware of what is in front of me.   Which are embarrassment and shame.   My role model for acting is Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther films directed by Blake Edwards.   If I speak fast enough with a strong fake French accent, I may get away with the performance.  Hopefully, the audience, and especially the theater critics will see it as an absurd performance in a highly ridiculous pair of plays. 

Tonight is opening night, and as I walk from the 3rd arrondissement to the 5th I try not to think of the pain in my stomach, but also I realize that I forgot my lines.  My immediate reaction is to run away from the theater.  Still, as a professional, and as a representation of an American, with the 'go-for-it-spirit' I enter the backstage of the theater to face my fate. 

- Tosh Berman, Paris, September 17, 2018

July 26, 2014

July 26, 2016

Ever since I was a child, I was drawn into the nighttime world, which the Blake Edwards’ show “Peter Gunn” expressed my need for shadows and cool jazz.    As a teenager, I imagine my life as Gunn, where I had a beautiful mid-century apartment, with a gorgeous fuckable girlfriend who seems to visit him in the middle of the night.  Gunn seems to be only active in the night, where he frequents a jazz nightclub called “Mothers” in a city that is not defined, but it appears to be a dock town.  The surroundings strike me as being unnatural, even fake-like, which made me love the TV series even more.  Throughout my life I tried to find a jazz club like “Mothers, ” but realized that’s impossible, because here, the imagination rules, and I follow the rules of dream logic than the waking man’s reality.

I love the idea of a contained environment, for instance the Korova Milk Bar, where one goes to get loaded on milk laced with drugs, where one can drink the milk with knives in it.  It will sharpen you up.  I went there to take mescaline, and as I sat on a couch that resembled a woman’s ass-cheeks and back, I let my mind wander into a shapeless world, and just waiting for my ego to break down. That, will never happen. Nevertheless I left Korova and went to the Owl Drug store on Beverly and La Cienega to look at the displays of shampoo, hair creams, combs, and all sorts of beauty products.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I felt I was really seeing these objects in a new ‘enlightened’ light.  “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.  For man has closed himself up.  Till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” The essence of moving among the buildings in the night, clearly I was looking for happiness, but one knows that “happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

Around 3:30 in the morning I arrived at my home, which over time, I tried to design it as Peter Gunn’s apartment, but I neither have the money or the shopping skill to make this work.  Yet, my attempt to reproduce what I saw on television, it became a new interior.  Not even influenced by, but more of a tribute that only I can see.  I put on the song “Sonny” on the turntable which was written and performed by Bobby Hebb, but I much prefer the Manfred Mann instrumental version.  Hebb wrote it as a reaction to the John F. Kennedy assassination but also to his brother who was killed a few days after the Kennedy death.  He was inspired to write something that was ‘light’ and uplifting when his world (and others) went to hell.  I admire the beauty of someone changing their perception of the world, because if there is going to be a real change, one needs to start with themselves.   Or, we flow with the crowd, but that I don’t recommend whatsoever.