January 16, 2017 (Tosh's Diary)

January 16, 2017

My friend promised me that he could connect me to Stephen Bannon.  If I can get Bannon to agree to become part of my board of directors, perhaps even the chair position, that would be fantastic.   He clearly knows how to raise money, or find money for a non-profit like mine, and also who knows, maybe even get funding for my (our) Trump Statue for the Silver Lake Meadow Park.    According to my friend, the hardcore Trump supporter, Bannon is the guy-to-go-to, for getting things done.  

The reason why I wanted to build the Trump statue was in the hopes of bringing people together.   Right now, the landscape in America is pretty insane.   We have the Anti-Democratic Party people who once belonged to the party but feel gypped, along with the Sanders people who felt cheated, and therefore are lost in the woods, and then on top of that, we have individuals who don't support any political party and are totally confused by Trump's victory.   And then there are the Democrats who are rapidly moving towards McCarthy era Republicans stance, while Republicans are siding with the Russians. Then there are the Republicans who are waiting behind the curtain to stab you-know-who in the back eventually.   Also, we have Republicans who are against Obamacare but haven't the foggiest idea how to replace it or even why - and then there are those who are racist, but also at the same time like world music.  On top of that, we have a current President, who is much admired and missed (even though he's still in office for another five days) and apparently a good man, but after eight years brought us all to this.  To be honest, I'm very confused what's happening to Planet United States of America.  That is why it's important to build a Trump Statue in the park, where neighbors, their children, dogs, and wildlife can meditate on the Trump world.  

Of course, there has to be the foundation to support my writing.  One of the people I admire is Ron L. Hubbard.  Not long ago, actually around a similar time now (the cold-war) he started a non-profit group to support his writing/thoughts.   I think it's clearly the time for me to fill the void that's there now and bring the folks back together.   But first, I have to return a library book, due that today is the due date. 

March 13, 2014

March 13, 2014

Like all writers, I have an obsession with what is good and what is bad.  But for me, it’s a blurry line at times.  Which makes it even more evil.  When one looks away from evil, is it because you prefer evil over good?  I never read the works by Paul Morand, but he was an aristocrat wealthy man who counted Jean Cocteau as a friend and actually dined with Marcel Proust. Yet, he was very much part of and supported the Vichy government.  He was also seen as a modernist and a member of Imagist.  That was a literary movement that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language.  Which one can gather by now, is not exactly my aesthetic!

On the other hand I have a deep interest in artists who went along the facist route, and I try to think if that is also in their own work as well.  Cocteau was a real mystery to me in a sense, because he was the poet who sees everything as an extension of poetry.  In other words, an art for art’s sake.  Which to be honest is what I pretty much follow.   But if that art leads one to a darker political path, is it good for the soul?  Is the soul important?  Often participants on both sides of the road, when it involves art, are trying to find a moral ground to stand on.  But I am not sure if that is what art is about.  I think it's about a lot of things, and it’s best to accept the good, but one has to acknowledge the evil as well.  Like Robert Mitchum’s character in “,The Night of the Hunter” when he grasps both hands to show the tattoo “love” and “hate” on the other.  

What I can’t fully understand is why Morand would be for a government that would want to stop the zazous from having a good time listening to jazz and records from America?  Why would he want to hunt down children, who eventually will turn out to be Serge Gainsbourg or Roman Polanski?  In my mind, there are two different types of “art for art’s sake” groupings.  There is the Oscar Wilde, who for sure was a man involved in his world, and acknowledge the political affairs of his time and age.  Then there are people like Morand and perhaps Cocteau, who ‘ignore’ the shit around them.  One uses art to build a wall between the outside world and themselves, and Wilde I think just wanted to make a difference or to being in a world of shit, and somehow stand beyond it.   Celine (who I love as a writer by the way), Cocteau and Morand seemed to love the company of power, or at least acknowledge that power as almost as a turn-on for their art.   Well, let me take Celine back, I reckon he was just nutty.  But Cocteau and Morand were not nutty.  They must have understood what was happening at that time, and while Cocteau’s role is sort of cloudy in those years, what was Morand’s excuse?

What’s interesting is the Imagist movement, because of its need to see things clearly.  Art to me is naturally messy, like nature.  The need to make order out of a mess is a very strong aesthetic, which I have to admit, I share.  But alas I think that need is also the root of an inner-fascism.

Around the same time, Lee Falk, who was a theater person, created the comic strip “The Phantom, ” and “Mandrake the Magician.” As a kid I loved both comics, and to this day I have an obsession with Mandrake.  Again, for me, the visual clothing Mandrake wears - the top hat, the tuxedo, and cape is very extractive to me.  Also in those comic strips there was evil, and evil had to be destroyed.  There were not any gray areas, and it makes one life easier to grasp.  I pretty much follow the comic strips and Oscar Wilde!

I’m also intrigued by someone like L. Ron Hubbard, who was a science fiction writer who somewhere down the line decided to be something much bigger than a pulp writer.   Yet, I feel the organization he started is very much in a pulp tradition.  Its history reads like a noir Southern California fantasy.  It’s interesting how an artist can make a utopia of sorts, and perhaps Morand wanted one as well, to express his wealth, and his stance in the 20th century.  Oddly enough, only one of his novels is available in English.  I must read it!