January 21, 2021, by Tosh Berman

 

January 21, 2021

The exhaustion of the last four years is as vast and deep as my soul's misery. If he had won the election, it would genuinely be either you go or I leave. As a villain, he's not even an interesting evil fellow. He's just annoying. I watched the first two press conferences from the new White House administration. It's amazing how wonderfully boring it is, but with vital information. To show my appreciation, I plan to watch every press conference, from Monday to Friday. It's the only series that gives me a sense of peace and to be in a room full of adults. The past four years is like being locked up with a very disturbed child. You want to understand this little creature, but eventually, you want to smash his head onto the pavement. 

When the world is not sophisticated, I lose interest. To be trapped by what some call a human being is like stuck in a party and having to talk to the big bore, and there is no exit to this damn party from hell. I sit there as he rambles on and on, and I'm just smiling and thinking of every Benny Hill routine I have seen. The eros from Radley Metzger films to the beauty of Noe Itō and beyond is my only escape from the madness that's 2016 to 2021. It's like being tortured by someone giving you a thousand paper cuts and being forced to keep one's eyes on the Television screen at one of his many horrific rallies. It's a strange feeling to know that if he entered a room you are in, that I would shoot him without a second thought. I can easily see myself in the Lawrence Harvey role in The Manchurian Candidate. 

Instead, I rooted myself on the couch in front of the screen to watch Henry Paris's film of 1974, "Score." The narration takes place in the mythical European city Leisure. These days I live in a series of rooms with four walls. My view of the world is limited to my imagination: that and the films of Mr. Paris. My world is here. 

January 21, 2014

January 21, 2014

Trying to find an vintage Christian Dior dress for a woman I care greatly for is very very difficult.  For the past year or so I have been working on my first novel "The Power of Sympathy or The Triumph of Nature," which is about the dangers of seduction.  To celebrate my good feelings towards the novel, I felt a great need to find a beautiful gift for my muse.

She was a friend of a friend and I met her at a British Pub in Santa Monica, where they have an annual get together in the memory of Benny Hill.  I couldn't keep my eyes off her, she was much younger than me, well, most women I knew were much younger, but nevertheless I have the touch of genius, when it comes to promoting people or certain ideas.  I am often called the Colonel Tom Parker of the West Coast.  When I was introduced to her by that friend's friend, I found out she was interested in writing. I think what made our relationship ticked was she was very much into the writings by Blaise Cendrars, a French poet and novelist.  i never met a girl who even heard of this great writer.  

She's a great beauty, in many ways she reminds me of a younger Peggy Lee, very deep voice, and very hard for me to look at anyone else in a room full of beauties.  Even then I matched her with something elegant and beautiful like a Dior dress.  I don't know if it's the novel I am writing or just me being silly at an older age, but I just can't get enough of her.

I tried to get Jeff Koons to do a portrait of the both of us together, either in painting or sculpture, because I felt it was important to document our relationship in such a manner.  But two things, I couldn't get Koons, and she didn't want me to do that.  Surely she can't reject an original Dior!

Keep in mind that there is nothing physical between us, except that I do have a need to document her beauty in some form or fashion.  Dior struck me as a man who can see beauty objectively and I like to think that I am that way as well.  A friend of mind found a boutique in Paris, that sold vintage clothing, focusing on Dior, and I purchased the dress without even seeing a picture of it. Once it arrived I invited her over for lunch, and presented her with the dress.  She was in a combination of shock and embarrassment.  Which I found was so adorable.  She insisted that she couldn't take such a present, but already, I had a dressmaker there to measure her size, so we can alter the dress to her Peggy Lee like figure.

A few weeks later she came by and tried on the dress.  She looked incredible.  Almost like another woman.  This time she told me that there was no way in heaven or hell that she could accept this dress, and I being the gentleman, said I understand.  Although I didn't understand.  Nevertheless I do have the dress, and I purchased a mannequin and now that dress and mannequin is in my writing room slash office.  Whenever I look at it I get a sense of purpose or power to finish my novel.