Rodney King: Los Angeles by Tosh Berman

 

Rodney King: Los Angeles by Tosh Berman

The World of Tosh Berman: Tuesday, April 13, 2021 (My

 

The World of Tosh Berman: Tuesday, April 13, 2021. My experience at the Cinerama Dome watching "Barry Lyndon." Tuesday, April 13, 2021

"Scoundrels & Spitballers: The Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s" by Philippe Garnier; Foreword by Eddie Muller (Black Pool Productions)

 

Hollywood is fascinating, because I live near there, and two, it is full of fascinating characters. What makes it great is when a foreigner writes about Hollywood as a culture in itself. Philippe Garnier is French but lived in Los Angeles for over forty years. Still, he has a foreigner's insight and attraction to a landscape such as Hollywood.  

Hollywood is a physical place, but it is also a mythical location that covers Southern California. It's a state of mind and a site with a post office (zip code 90028). Hollywood's idea has always attracted me because it is built on dreams both in reality and fictional. There is an entire industry that is devoted to making dreams, which is unusual. Perhaps Las Vegas is a city that is dedicated to fantasy, but Hollywood has a soul. Sometimes an ugly or sad soul, but still, nevertheless, a soul. Garnier specializes in Hollywood history and noir novelists (such as the great David Goodis, Garnier's biography/study is a must-read). "Scoundrels & Spitballers" is about the screenwriters who ended up in Hollywood to do films. Most of them are novelists who write to make money. Therefore Hollywood comes calling, or it's a "Go West Young Man" situation. Garnier's book's general interest is the screenwriters that fell through the cracks of time and space. Here he gives proper attention to these artists/hacks in an intimate and acknowledgeable manner. 

The writing is very three-dimensional. You only don't get the screenwriter's personality and traits, but also the daily work grind of working for a studio, such as Warner Brothers. Garnier interviewed a lot of the writers or, at the very least, family members and friends. It's a vivid picture of people concerned with the craft of writing and the need to produce works in a factory-like environment. 

I know names such as Nathanael West, James M. Cain, A.I. Bezzerides, Horace McCoy (I knew him by his novels, but not aware he was a screenwriter as well), and W.R. Burnett. But there are many writers I never heard of, such as Sam Brown, Niven Busch, Marguerite Roberts, and others. All of them lead one to another, which makes it a fascinating history. Through Garnier's voice and eyes, one gets a mental picture of Los Angeles in the 1930s that is familiar as well as exotic. Hollywood is my type of town. Although Hollywood has changed and its film industry, there are traces of the old world through architecture that still exists as well as the films themselves. Some of the buildings may be difficult to find. Still, Garnier is an expert guide to the working class's dreamy world in its methods and procedures in a factory-like existence to produce products (art) and images. 

Amoeba Music Needs our Help

One can tell from reading my blog that I'm a mega-fan of Amoeba Music.  Their Hollywood location is a magnet for my attention and physical well being.  I have purchased much but also treated this store as a museum.   Due to the Trump Virus, Amoeba needs financial help in paying bills.  Please donate if you can, or at the very least, purchase their music through their website.  Click on "Amoeba Music Needs Help link down below, and contribute.  Merci, Tosh

Amoeba Music Needs Help

Wallace Berman Exhibition at the Kohn Gallery this Summer 2019

This Summer, The Kohn Gallery has a small exhibition of Wallace Berman's artwork up for the viewer's pleasure. And ironically enough, one can also purchase my book TOSH at the gallery as well. Do go!

"West of Eden: An American Place" by Jean Stein (Random House)

ISBN:  9780812998405 Random House

"West of Eden: An American Place" by Jean Stein (Random House)

Hollywood will always be a mystical land that has a tinge of sadness and even worse, tragedy.  Not for me, mind you.  I lived in Los Angeles for my entire life, and I only know the joy of being in this city.  But then again, I'm one of those rare breeds who was born in Los Angeles, and stayed here as well.  On top of that, I'm not in the entertainment business!  But here, we have the roots of what became a certain type of Los Angeles culture.  Painfully rich, the five families that are profiled in "West of Eden," are mostly iconic families and some (at least to me) obscure.   It may be my nature but I find the obscure always the most interesting.  

Jean Stein, who is very much the queen of the oral history narrative, due to her early masterpiece (with George Plimpton) "Edie" has put together a book that is much more personal or in reality, her backyard.   The book covers five families: The Dohenys, the Selznicks, the Warners, her own family, the Steins (MCA), and the fascinating Jane Garland and her family.   What is interesting about Garland, is that she was not only a rich girl from a Hollywood family, but also quite insane.  What is even more insane was that she had a pair of male nurses: Walter Hopps and Ed Moses.  Hopps was the legendary curator and gallery owner of Ferus, and Moses is a great painter.  Both, are very much rooted in the art world history that is Los Angeles.  How these two eccentrics became a caretaker for Garland is both a fascinating tale, and an amazing map from fine art to the world of films.  

Each chapter (on each family) has a sense of sadness, and the reader is introduced to a world that although rich, is actually a landscape touched by  insecurity, madness, eccentricity, and to me, a perfect example of either an era passing or the death of a family's power and presence.  Those who are fascinated by the works of Truman Capote or F. Scott Fitzgerald, will find this book fascinating.  There is a fascination of watching the wealthy turn into dust - but there is also a beauty of that era, that won't be the same anymore.  There will always be the rich, but due to the American promise of riches and happiness - it is usually a bargain that fails in the end.  You get the wealth, but the happiness tends to unreachable.  

The Sunday Series: Sunday November 8, 2015

The Sunday Series:

Sunday November 8, 2015

Today this Sunday, I went into a very dark room to see “The Forbidden Room.” The Egyptian Theater in downtown Hollywood is a structure that was built-in 1922.  The first film projected on the screen at the theater was Douglas Fairbanks’s “Robin Hood.” It was also the first “Hollywood Premiere.” Today is another sort of premiere, where they will project “The Forbidden Room, ” which is on 35mm, and afterwards the filmmaker will burn the only existing print.   The director, Guy Maddin” made this work as a tribute to the films that were made and are now lost.  It has been noted that 90% of films made in the silent era are nowhere to be found.  Mostly due to the chemical in these movies was nitrate film, and that type of the film is highly flammable.  Also it was in practice to destroy film prints, when they were seen as not having any commercial value. 

Guy Maddin in his introduction mentioned that “The Forbidden Room” is an homage to films that no longer exist, but at one time, did.   He felt frustrated that not only were these works of cinema were lost to history, but also the fact that he wanted to see these films.  In his mind, he needed to re-make these film-works so he can watch them.   In a similar fashion of Mary Shelley making her Frankenstein monster out of used parts, Maddin and his assistants and co-director remade films out of memory or what one can presume is memory, but in reality it is a re-imagine of a work that once existed.   Maddin realized that to make this work as not only something that exists, but he also would have to make it something that once existed.  Therefore the one and only showing of “The Forbidden Room” took place this Sunday morning.

The soundtrack to “The Forbidden Room” is a compilation of memories as well.  Snippets of movie soundtrack filtered through a ghost’s sense of importance.  One can hear traces of familiar melodies, for instance Wagner, but it fades into the background as one watches the larger images on the movie screen.  “The Final Derriere” by the band Sparks is a touching part of the scene where the main character has a desire to touch and obsess about a woman’s ass.   He goes to a doctor to get a cure, and with his head split open and his brain being operated on, he now has great hopes to be free from his desire.   Alas, there is no escape from desire.  A woman’s ass is the entrance to heaven.  Only a fool would attempt to fool his sense of direction.   The same can be said for me, as I waited in line to see this film.   There are no exits once you enter the theater of dreams, known as the Egyptian. 

The smell of burning celluloid as Guy was in the projection room destroying the film  within the film cans after showing the work.  One could notice the smoke in the audience as it lingers towards the ceiling and every once in awhile, the projected light captures the texture of the smoke.  Projected and real life became one in that instant. 

After the showing, one could really feel the smoke.  Guy came out of the projection room holding a bucket of ashes, as he went through the audience going towards the front of the screen.   He mentioned that what is in his hand is the latest work from him, and therefore it will be the last screening of “The Forbidden Room.” In true spirit of lost films, this film is now only exists in one’s memory.  The experience of such a showing can last forever, and there will always be a Rashomon effect, where everyone’s memory will be different.  Just trying to remember the images and the soundtrack to the film is already fading in my brain.  Yet, the experience of living through such a screening, and its after-taste, surely will stay with me forever. 

"The Trip: Andy Warhol's Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure" by Deborah Davis

ISBN: 976-1-4767-0351-0 Atria Books

Andy Warhol, is blessed with having a lot of good books on him.  In many ways, I think he's the people's artist.  I like his artwork, but I'm not a huge fan.  On the other hand, he is really an artist that is not about taste, but more about production, vision, and how an outcast can influence a culture.  And no doubt, he is probably one of the most influential Americans ever.  Deborah Davis wrote a fascinating book on a specific car trip, Warhol took in 1963, with Taylor Mead and Wynn Chamberlain as co-drivers and Gerard riding in the back with Andy.  From NYC to Los Angeles (Santa Monica to be specific).   Or as Warhol says about Los Angeles, it's all Hollywood to him.

Warhol came at the right time, and of course, at the right place.  He had his second one-man show at the Ferus Gallery, and also started working on a film "Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort Of.  Which featured Dennis Hopper, Taylor Mead (as Tarzan, of course), Wallace Berman, Naomi Levine as Jane, and Tosh Berman (me) as Boy.  Assisted by the incredibly talented Gerard Malanga, Warhol out of the blue decided to do a feature length film then and there.  Inspired by a freeway ride in the valley, they saw an exit saying "Tarzana," therefore why not do a Tarzan film.  There are many opinions about this film, and most people told me that they hated it - but alas, it is the ultimate portrait of Los Angeles art scene in 1963.  To me, it's a home movie.  Whatever it's art or a great film, that is not so important to me.   Warhol also went to the Marcel Duchamp retrospective at Pasadena as well.    1963 was a fab year, till Kennedy was killed in November.  Then things turned to shit.  But, this book is about things before the shit.

Although the foundation of the book is about the car trip from New York to "Hollywood," it is really an introduction to Andy Warhol's aesthetic and his social world at the time.  This is not a detailed critique of Warhol's work, but more of an appreciation of him but also the world of New York and Los Angeles art world of that time and place.  One also gets information about the Ford Falcon, and how it was designed to be the people's car.   Davis is a very good writer, and she has a grasp or a hold on the nature of Pop Art, and its by-products such as graphic design, billboards, and even commercial labels.  In my opinion, Warhol wasn't the first 20th century artist to understand the nature of the 'visual' world of advertising and the importance of public images seen privately or in the cushioned world of "fine art."   But he was clearly the figure that people attached themselves to - due to a mixture of his personality, visual appearance, and on many levels - his straight ahead approach to the world around him as an artist -which I think, people picked up on as well.  Warhol speaks to the masses.  And he did so without dumbing the issues or his vision down.


- Tosh Berman

December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014

When you’re 19 or 20, you just want to ball pretty girls.  I came upon them at Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco on Sunset Bouvelard.  Most, if not all, the pretty girls I knew in High School, went to Rodney’s every Saturday night - and sometimes week nights as well.  The amazing thing was that these girls I took classes with became totally eroticize when they went to the club.  Spending time with them during regular school hours, they seemed to be edgy, like they were confined in a cage.  During the daylight hours they were restricted, but as soon as nighttime became a fact, they turned their lifestyle around - to something that was very important to them.  What was essential for me, was to be there at the right time and place, so I can get laid.

For a heterosexual male, and being slightly (and sometimes much) older than the girls who frequent the English Disco Club, was like utopia in the making.  I remember the teenage girls, because each one was beautiful, but oddly enough I have no memory of teenage boys being there.  If they were there, they appeared to be gay.   More likely if you were a straight male, you were older, and horny.  The only other club that teenage girls went to was the Sugar Shack in North Hollywood.  In theory it was only opened for teenagers, and they served soft drinks.  Not saying one can smuggle liquor inside the club and when no one was looking, putting it in the paper cups, and mixing it with Diet Coke.   Once they’re slightly buzzed, it is onward to Rodneys.

 It appeared that all the chicks got their make-up from Judy’s, which was to be found in all the malls in Southern California.   I was just so hungry for ass, that I would drive my class-mates to Judy’s and just stood by their side as they chose their favorite nail color and eyeliner.  Some of these girls, I grew up with them, and it’s interesting when they turn from friends into a monument for lust.  Once that bridge has been crossed, I never looked back.   The one (and a very big) problem was that I was very shy and insecure about my looks.  At the time, the girls I knew were not going out or balling guys like me, they were focused on the visiting musicians from the U.K., or at first, the local musicians.  Most of the musicians I knew, had much younger girlfriends.  And at the time, it wasn’t the scene to move in together, but more likely the girls were still living at home.   In my case, that home was the Valley.  That specific region of Southern California seemed to process the most beautiful girls, and all the pretty one’s ended up at the Sugar Shack and Rodney’s club.

I have always loved glam rock.  I think it has to do with the beat.  On one level it makes me think of Bo Diddley, but I feel the main influence for the glam sound is the Dave Clark Five.  Those recordings from the 60s could easily fit in with the glam sound of the 70s.  What I remember is hearing the ‘beat’ as the girls danced in front of the floor to ceiling mirrors.  Most, if not all, were looking at themselves as they danced to T-Rex, Bowie, Sweet, Cockney Rebel and so forth.  For me, I felt like such a voyeur watching them shake their young asses to the mirror.  I can picture myself as a painter, perhaps even Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, when he painted the can-can girls in the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse.  But here, on Sunset Bouvelard, I can have all my five senses attached to what I see in front of me.   I just want to ball all night, and let my self go.

Sadly it didn’t happen.  As I mentioned the girls usually went out with musicians, or more commonly, older guys who were connected to the “musicians.” Photographers, agents, or anyone close to the rock n’ roll world, got ass, and as being noted: Rodney got laid more than Robert Plant.  So, that left me sitting here in the club, and watching myself in the mirrors, watching the girls, who were watching themselves.

September 24, 2014

September 24, 2014

With respect to Hollywood, “it’s only a village, you know.  Village life around the pump.” Everyone knows each other, and even those who don’t know, do know.  I actually like it that way, because I find the illusion of life more satisfying than what I see in the mirror. Of course living in London and New York, I chose to go west, as the saying goes “go west young man.” The thing is I’m not that young anymore, and more likely if I can’t sell my writing or this script thing, I will suffer greatly.  And my name is associated with failure, at least that is the way I’m thought of in London and New York.  I threw the dice and came up with the wrong numbers on a continuous basis.  So here I’m pumping my gas in a car that I can barely drive.

What was I thinking of when I married Zelda?  An incredible fuck, and a highly talented woman, who just couldn’t stay focused on the things in front of her.  I wouldn’t say she was my muse, because I really don’t believe in that there is a “fairy” out there that chooses one to write or create with inspiration.  No, her contributions to my work are one of as a critic and knew when I was bullshitting myself.  Every writer needs an audience of some sort, or someone who can look at your work and say “sucks” or “brilliant” - and you know that he or she is going to tell you the truth.  I accepted my wife in that light, as well as being in love with her, or at least, I like the idea of being in love with Zelda.  As metal turns to rust, my love or appreciation was tested when I became a caretaker for her, and therefore here I’m in Hollywood trying to fit in to the machine that produces popular culture. I think I pretty much did my best writing already, so now I’m trying to work just to survive and pay the bills.  I do love the cinema, but I wonder if that is a hindrance in writing a script these days.  I’m much older than everyone else, and when I go to the local Starbucks, I see a group of young men with caps worn backwards, struggling with words in a script format.  If I had t re-live my youth again, “I don’t want to repeat my innocence.  I want the pleasure of losing it again.”

At the moment, I’m writing a script for an entertainer I met in London, and there is a (very) slight chance we can make this into a limited TV series for AMC.  “The Strange World of Gurney Slade” is about a guy who is trapped in a TV series and he can’t escape from it. I wrote six episodes so far, and I think that is all that is needed.  Everyone I talk to in the business says they’re “excited” about this project. I, on the other hand, have been disappointed so many times, that I just take this on the chin, and keep going.  The lead character is heroic, but as a fellow writer once commented: “Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy. ”

I really shouldn’t fool myself.  The end is near.  If I squint my eyes towards the horizon, I can see it rearing its head over the vanishing line, trying to lure me into a trap.  At the very least, if one is a good shopper, you can find some of my books in the remainder bin. I did my best, and the most clearest moments in my life are when I held a pen and put it onto paper.  Beyond that, it was drinking and arguing with my wife.  I have no regrets.  “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

April 29, 2014

April 29, 2014

Oddly enough I wasn’t paying that much attention to the trial regarding the Rodney King beating in the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department.   I figured they would be condemned, but more likely forced to resign or be transferred to some other part of the world.   When they were found ‘not guilty, ’ it was like someone kicked me in the stomach.  I wasn’t angry, but just deeply confused and hurt by the verdict, and again, if I was upset, I couldn’t even imagine how others will take the news.

I didn’t exactly feel the pain, but I could smell the smoke from our apartment in Hollywood.   It was kind of like having a zit that needed to be popped.  There is something so disgusting regarding the zit, that of course, one would want to squeeze the pus out of the pore.  The violence in the air was a perfect combination, or a cocktail of despair and the lust to let loose.   What surprised me the most, was that valley girls were coming in and looting stores on Melrose.  It seemed the passion was electronic goods, like TV sets.  The irony of all that is that there is nothing on TV.   Even my co-worker was giddy with excitement.  She hit the streets to observe, like it was a festival - and I guess in the religious sense, it was a festival.

My number one concern was the random acts of violence, especially against those who were Asian, due that I’m married to a Japanese woman.  I didn’t want her to drive around the city.  The air was thick with the random acts of cruelty, that seemed to be part of the festival feeling as well.   A friend of my wife, just came to Los Angeles from Japan on that specific night, and he didn’t speak a word of English.  He found himself in downtown Los Angeles, and he clearly noticed that no one was on the street.  He didn’t know why?  A Black American woman with a car full of kids saw him wandering around the streets, and told him to get right into the car, because it is too dangerous to walk around at this peculiar time.  He didn’t understand what was happening, but he got in the car, and him and her family had dinner together.

On the other hand, the liquor shop down the corner from me was being broken into. The occasional gunshot could be heard from that location.   It was sort of like zombies attacking living flesh, they didn’t stop arriving, and it was all sorts of people looting these places.   When I went on the balcony to get some fresh air, I heard my neighbor across from me yell “Hey man don’t point that gun at me, cool it!” I sort of did a backwards moonwalk back into my living room and got down on the carpet floor.

I crawled towards the TV set to watch a VHS tape of Maya Deren and Alexander Hamid’s “Meshes in the Afternoon.” It is one of those timeless works that I can watch anytime and anywhere.  For me, this was the true image of Hollywood, not what I was going through when I walked out onto my balcony.   To sleep that night  I put on Duke Ellington’s “Chloe (Song of the Swamp), which I think is my favorite song, and also worked as an inspiration for Boris Vian’s L’écume des jours (“Foam of the Daze”).  I can’t stop the world, or what’s going on outside, but inside my head I always turned back to art, and that is what saves me at the end of the night.

Sparks at the Fonda Theater November 11, 2013

Last night I was transformed into another space that some can call "Sparks-Land."  The beauty of the performance was pitch-perfect. And without a doubt for the Sparks' fanatic.   Their current set is deep in the catalog, and it is almost like a secret message from artist to fan.  By no means was this a causal show, but more likely a current statement on Sparks circa 2014.  

The scary thing about the Sparks unit is that they keep getting stronger and stronger.  I know this sounds like a fan's insane rave, but the beauty of their shows is the way they look back into their most obscure tunes as well as the 'hit's songs and re-invent them in a new light.   These two artists don't compromise, it is take-me-all or not-at-all, and as a fan, it is great to take the giant leap with them into new territories. 

Russell Mael, at the moment, is at his best.  Physically as well as voice-wise.  The stage belongs to him as one who takes over the personal study in a stranger's house.  The space is is, and no one else.  Ron Mael handles the keyboards, and the show is a combination of music hall via the world of Sparks and a statement of an aesthetic that can't be better. The beauty of the relationship between the brothers blossoms as an one unit, unified in presenting work that will always be challenging, yet, solid as the great American songbook.   I have seen Sparks numerous times over the past decades, and this show may have been the best.  

The illustration above (and below) is a new box-set from Sparks.   It has to be an essential must-own.