Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, and he blew up my world. I had dreams every night for a whole year of obtaining the Nobel Prize for literature, and then… I didn’t get it. I brought this up before, but I can’t even begin to tell you how much it has disturbed me. I planned around my life on obtaining the prize, and the way I see it, I should have won. Day-after-day, I put words on a blank page, for not entertaining you dear readers, but to convey to the judges of the Nobel Academy my importance to my field of interest - which of course is (or was) literature. But now, and since I missed out on the award, I’m thinking of quitting writing and becoming a criminal. And no, not a literary outlaw type of criminal, but a true one. I will now devote myself to one purpose, and that one purpose will be destruction. If I can’t build up my world, then I’ll tear everyone else’s pathetic dreams down. If for not anything else, at least we will be placed on the same eye-to-eye level.
As Alfred once said, “Home is where I work, and I work everywhere.” I need to get to follow that advice to the “T,” and we’re not talking about Texas. Whenever something goes boom in the night, I’m the face behind the t-made disaster, even if you can’t see my beautiful face among the smoke. “Justice is to be found only in imagination.” Well, baby, I got a big head full of imagination!
The only one is stopping me from doing what I have to do is Kogoro Akechi, who is considered to be the greatest detective in Japan, and perhaps the world. He is a master of disguises, so I’m not sure who is around me. He can even do gender switches. One moment you’re in bed with a beautiful woman, and you wake up in the morning with a male cop. I get the impression that I’m being followed. Especially when I’m walking around Shinjuku. I often look at a window display, and through the reflection, I see a presence looking at me, and when I turn around, he’s gone. This happens a lot. I once received a letter from Akechi, mentioning that he was a fan of my writing. Even that, I suspect he is just buttering me up so he can nail me in the end. I need to ensure the end doesn’t happen.
When I step in a room, I make sure the keyhole is covered up. He’s not into technology. He likes to get his information from the old-fashioned way by looking through windows, keyholes, and occasionally reading one’s lips from a distance. He’s a very trained individual. Sort of like the shoe repairman, or plumber, he knows his trade well. Without a doubt, he’s an enemy. But an enemy I can respect. He also has manners, Unlike Alfred Nobel, who never delivers his promise.
Akechi and I share similar musical tastes. I have been told through my record store connection that he has been purchasing albums by Don Byas, and I’m not sure if he is doing that to pick up more clues about yours truly, or he has a genuine love for Byas’ music. I did see him once at a Cramps show. Both of us we’re located in the front of the pit, right in front of Lux Interior, and we both got red wine spilled on us. Lux had the bottle in his mouth, and he spat out the bottle as well as the wine. Both of us were wearing white suits, and since we were dressed alike, we also had the same splatter of wine stains as well.
To be terrorized, yet committing terrorism, is my lifestyle now. I will wander the landscape, and yet, I must keep my eyes open for Kogoro Akechi because, like Bob Ford shooting Jesse James, I must be vigilant and on guard at all times.
TOSH’S JOURNAL (Richard Hell, Wallace Stevens, Jack Parsons, & Graham Greene)
October 2
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” This evening was me wandering around the ground floor of the Shinjuku station with my eyes closed and just having the crowd pull me in the direction of not my choice. For once, I didn’t want to be conscious of where I was going, and closing my eyes at the point when everyone is leaving the station after the trains arrived was an excellent way to look for direction.
I opened my eyes at the staircase that leads one to the east exit of the station, and I felt “human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.” So this is where I’m, and this is the direction I should take. I walked up the stairs and came upon a series of neon lights. It was close to 8 in the evening, and I found myself at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Shinjuku-Dori. Without a thought in my head, I found myself on the sixth floor in the English books section. It seemed that they had every edition of Graham Greene’s “Ways of Escape,” and I found this passage in the book: “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic, and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” I have to say he makes a good point. As I read on, among the crowd there, I came upon another quotation: “But it is impossible to go through life without trust; that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.” Alas, that is true, but I can only find solitude and happiness when I’m, or what one calls, “oneself.”
I’m stranded. As a fellow spy, Graham knows that the world of solitude is the only place one can feel at home. Happy at home? Happiness is an illusion, and I don’t believe in magic unless it’s connected to Jack Parsons, a fellow traveler of pleasure. To project oneself by the power of the mind and imagination is not that different from taking an object and making it go to outer space.
“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.” The great insurance executive Wallace Stevens wrote that, and he’s correct, but then again, has he heard of Shinjuku? Artifice is death, but it’s imagined by someone alive, and there lies the irony of feeling alive and being attached to the real world. If one can stay conscious of both the artificial and the natural world, then you can beat the odds of not getting lost. But once you fully accept one over the other, then you’re a lost soul. “It’s great to be anywhere as a writer. It saves you from implication in the ugliness of the place and justifies your being there. You can spend all day jerking off as long as you describe it well.” That statement alone is why I’m such a massive fan of Richard Hell’s work. All my life, I have lived on the margins of society, and even though I can touch the world, it is a landscape that doesn’t want anything to do with me. The beauty of rejection is similar to wander around Shinjuku. As long as they keep the neon lights on, I can exist in one’s own cell. - Tosh Berman
As I write, I'm like a fuse that's burning, and once the explosion hits, the world I know will be torn into pieces of flesh and metal. I can tell things are bad because people are avoiding me like I'm the wrong reporter in the White House press conference. Ever since yesterday, I have been printing out images of Stephen Bannon from the internet. I'm convinced that he's a murderer. I saw the man once, the one who caused my father's death. Ever since then, I wished for him to rot outward to his inners. Bannon looks like a man that is rotting by the second. Like a hanging banana left too long on the kitchen counter, Banner is clearly decaying in front of my eyes. If you poke too hard, he will explode. It makes me sick to my stomach that I approach him about helping to build a statue in the President's honor. I now want to burn my plans and scatter the ashes into Bannon's whiskey and water.
On the other hand, it's a beautiful day in Tokyo. I spent some quality time in Shinjuku. I borrowed a jacket from a member of the family here, and there is something fantastic when you leave an over-warmed room into the cold air. I never felt so clean before. I like to lose myself in the crowd. It's the only time that I can forget about myself, and become this force. I even enjoy the Far Right in the Shibuya Station. At least four vans followed an all-black van that looked like they had metal fencing around the windows. On the top of the vehicle are four huge loud speakers. Not sure if it's a tape they are playing or an actual person in the car with a microphone. Free speech being allowed, but in a volume where one can hear it for miles. If Trump were smarter, he would have a series of these type of trucks driving through rural and urban centers. He can stay at Mar-a-Lago with "the set," and at the same time, Trump can have these trucks plow through the countryside. Japan always have better ideas than the West.
I’m always exhausted, when I get back from Japan. I go every year, or maybe even twice a year. We're sort of living there, or more likely, we go there. We don’t live anywhere. We just go to places, and see what happens. For me, travel is a form of escape. When things are sucky in one place, it is time to move on. The thing is I only like to travel to Paris or Tokyo. I could care less about the rest of the world. Like, your hometown has no interest for me whatsoever. Do you like your hometown? I don’t.
I don’t hang around here anymore. The gold gang either got old or they died. Either way, they’re totally useless for me. Oddly enough, when I walk through a Tokyo street, for instance in the hills of Shibuya, I think of the Rolling Stones’ song “(Walking Thru) a Sleepy City.” I’m always singing that song to myself, and for some odd reason, always in Shibuya. My favorite time is when the daylight slowly turns into night, and all the signage from the buildings, restaurants and bars turn on just right before it gets totally dark. The change-over only lasts for a few moments, but it reminds me of Jacques walking through Pigalle, Paris and he’s walking towards his home after a night of gambling. He witnesses the neon lights being turned off, and it’s both beautiful and depressing at the same moment. I live for moments like these. These memories are fading. Yet I hold on to them as if a thirsty man is left wandering around a drought-like conditions in Los Angeles.
Keiji Haino called me. He called me a lot of things, but it is always great to hear him say “Hey Tosh.” I get out my rare Dalimaru electric guitar with four strings, and I’m off to a gig in Shinjuku with Keiji. With him, I never know what is going to happen. The truth is, we just live from one neon light opening to another. I’m just lucky that there is FamilyMart’s throughout the route from one point to another. I swear to God, if it wasn’t for the “One Cup Ozeki,” I would be dead by now. Or worse, sober.
This Sunday is not like any other Sunday. Today is the day where I’m going to skip through my past, and make it my present, so I can deal with my future.
“A goal is a dream with a deadline.” I knew if I waited, I’ll lose the opportunity. The one thing I can’t afford right now is to lose that opportunity. I see there was a beautiful girl on the street, and she’s wearing a short skirt, where you can see the top of her stockings and the bare thigh before the dress trim. Some think that the most erotic woman is a naked one, but for me that one part of the leg being shown is truly the essence of eros. The sweet science is not a boxing match, but the sight of such desire as one roams the streets of Shinjuku looking for an inexpensive meal. And I can’t find the right restaurant, mostly due to my lack of Japanese, but clearly I can find my desire, because I will it to be done. I just have to keep in mind that “every adversity, every failure, every heartbreak, carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” So I went up to her to strike up a conversation.
When I approached her, she was reading her cell phone. I said “excuse me, I’m not from here, and I am looking for a place to have dinner.” I said this in English, because one, I wanted to let her know that I’m of course a foreigner and was desperately looking for a place to eat, and two, not knowing if she speaks English or not, I would know right away by my direct question. She answered me directly “what kind of food do you like.” I told her anything Japanese, but also it was the one type of food I know nothing about. I suffer extreme shyness, but when I approach someone from another part of the world, or culture, I feel brave. “Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind’s eye, and you will be drawn toward it.” With that helpful quote in mind, I continued: “If you have the time, can you lead me to a place and help me with the menu.” She said yes. That was a surprise, and even though I first saw her as an object of my sexual needs, she suddenly became someone else. A nice person. A nice smiling person. One of the things I like about Japanese people is that they don’t smile, unless they feel like smiling. In the United States, especially Los Angeles, people smile at you all the time, even if they hate you. But here in Japan, they don’t smile automatically, so once you do get the smile on their faces, you know it's genuine.
She started walking and I followed. The streets were so crowded, and the neon was so bright, that the combination could make me lose her in the crowd. Nevertheless, being behind her, I focused my eyes on her thighs so not to lose her. I think of the Jean Cocteau film “Orpheus” where the poet follows death through a maze. It seemed that everyone was moving in slow motion, but she and I were moving in a regular fashion almost against the slow moving crowd. For a moment, I was scared. I didn’t know her, and she doesn’t know me. Yet here I’m following her to a destination knowing nothing of. “We refuse to believe that which we don’t understand. ”
“When you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity - regardless of what others may do - you are destined for greatness.” I just had to trust her, and think of her as a nice person, who by chance, also has lovely thighs. But yes, when I walk through this sleepy city, I need to be open to new things, new possibilities, and in the night, everything looks so pretty. I’m so tired to walk alone, and Shinjuku looks so pretty when you’re with someone. She turns left to an alley, and I follow her up to a small staircase…
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, and he blew up my world. I had dreams every night for a whole year of obtaining the Nobel Prize for literature, and then… I didn’t get it. I brought this up before, but I can’t even begin to tell you how much it has disturbed me. I planned around my life on obtaining the prize, and the way I see it I should have won. Day-after-day, I put words on a blank page, for the purpose of not entertaining you dear readers, but to convey to the judges of the Nobel Academy my importance to my field of interest - which of course is (or was) literature. But now, and since I missed out on the award, I’m thinking of quitting literature and becoming a criminal. And no, not a literary outlaw type of criminal, but a true one. I will now devote myself to one purpose and that one purpose will be destruction. If I can’t build up my world, then I’ll tear everyone else’s pathetic dreams down. If for not anything else, at least we will be placed on the same eye-to-eye level.
As Alfred once said “Home is where I work, and I work everywhere.” I’m needing to get to follow that advice to the “T” and we’re not talking about Texas. Whenever something goes boom in the night, I’m the face behind the t-made disaster, even if you can’t see my beautiful face among the smoke. “Justice is to be found only in imagination.” Well, baby, I got a big head full of imagination!
The only one is stopping me from doing what I have to do is Kogoro Akechi, who is considered to be the greatest detective in Japan, and perhaps the world. He is a master of disguises, so I’m not sure who is around me. He can even do gender switches. One moment you’re in bed with a beautiful woman, and you wake up in the morning with a male cop. I get the impression that I’m being followed. Especially when I’m walking around Shinjuku. I often look at a window display and through the reflection, I see a presence looking at me, and when I turn around, he’s gone. This happens a lot. I once received a letter from Akechi, mentioning that he was a fan of my writing. Even that, I suspect he is just buttering me up so he can nail me in the end. I need to ensure the end doesn’t happen.
When I step in a room, I make sure the keyhole is covered up. He’s not into technology. He likes to get his information from the old-fashioned way by looking through windows, keyholes, and occasionally reading one’s lips from a distance. He’s a very trained individual. Sort of like the shoe repair man, or plumber, he knows his trade well. Without a doubt, he’s an enemy. But an enemy I can totally respect. He also has manners. Unlike Alfred Nobel, who never delivers his promise.
Akechi and I share similar musical tastes. I have been told through my record store connection that he has been purchasing albums by Don Byas, and I’m not sure if he is doing that to pick up more clues about yours truly, or he has a genuine love for Byas’ music. I did see him once at a Cramps show. Both of us were located in the front of the pit, right in front of Lux Interior, and we both got red wine spilled on us. Lux had the bottle in his mouth, and he spitted out the bottle as well as the wine. Both of us were wearing white suits, and since we were dressed a like, we also had the same splatter of wine stains as well.
To be terrorized, yet committing terrorism, is basically my lifestyle now. I will wander the landscape, and yet, I must keep my eyes open for Kogoro Akechi, because like Bob Ford shooting Jesse James, I must be vigilant and on guard at all times.
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” This evening was me wondering around the ground floor of the Shinjuku station with my eyes closed and just having the crowd pull me in a direction of not my choice. For once, I didn’t want to be conscious of where I was going, and closing my eyes at the point when everyone is leaving the station after the trains arrived was a good way to look for direction.
I opened my eyes at the staircase that leads one to the east exit of the station, and I felt “human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.” So this is where I’m and this is the direction I should take. I walked up the stairs and came upon a series of neon lights. It was close to 8 in the evening, and I found myself at the Kinokuniya Bookstore on Shinjuku-dori. Without a thought in my head, I found myself on the sixth floor in the English books section. It seemed that they had every edition of Graham Greene’s “Ways of Escape,” and I found this passage in the book: “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” I have to say he makes a good point. As I read on, among the crowd there, I came upon another quotation: “But it is impossible to go through life without trust; that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.” Alas, that is true, but I can only find solitude and happiness when I’m, or what one calls, “oneself. ”
I’m stranded. As a fellow spy, Graham knows that the world of solitude is the only place one can feel at home. Happy at home? Happiness is an illusion and I don’t believe in magic, unless it’s connected to Jack Parsons, a fellow traveler of pleasure. To project oneself by the power of the mind and imagination, is not that different from taking an object and making it go to outer space.
“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.” The great insurance executive Wallace Stevens wrote that, and he’s correct, but then again, has he heard of Shinjuku? Artifice is death, but it’s imagined by someone who’s alive, and there lies the irony of feeling alive and being attached to the real world. If one can stay conscious of both the artificial and the natural world, then you can beat the odds of not getting lost. But once you fully accept one over the other, then you’re a lost soul. “It's great to be anywhere as a writer. It saves you from implication in the ugliness of the place and justifies your being there. You can spend all day jerking off as long as you describe it well.” That statement alone is why I'm such a huge fan of Richard Hell's work. All my life I have lived on the margins of society, and even though I can touch the world, it is clearly a landscape that doesn't want anything to do with me. The beauty of rejection is similar to wander around Shinjuku. As long as they keep the neon lights on, I can exist in one's private cell.
Nothing is better than having your first cup of coffee in the morning in Tokyo. The scent of the caffeine is like perfume to me. Sadly due to my declining age, it is hard for me to pick myself up from the bedding this morning, due that it's a tatami mat. I am so accustomed to having a western style bed, where you sit, and then lay yourself down. But here I can’t really figure what the sophisticated way of laying in your bed. I can’t jump onto the futon, because it is harder than a bed. So I have to get on my knees, and then gently allow my body to fall backwards. It is very awkward because I’m suffering from a bad back. So for me to get up in the morning, I have to crawl out of bed and go to the nearest wall, and pull myself up. Once up, no problem!
Today I am obsessed in finding the legendary and some even claim it doesn’t exist, the Brian Jones solo album. It was rumored that he recorded an album sometime during the “Between The Buttons” sessions. He utilized Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman as the rhythm section, but played all the other instruments, including the complete string section. Not only was Brian the best looking Rolling Stone, but obviously the most talented as well. My sources here are told that the actual Brian Jones untitled album showed up in Japan sometime in the middle of the 70s, but eventually became bootlegged in the 1980s. It never emerged in the Internet nor in the States. Getting a CDR of this album can cost one a hundred dollar bill. The only place one can go after this CDR is in Shinjuku at a record shop that only sells bootleg Stones recordings.
The store is located in what looks like a vacant building, and on the fourth floor. There is an elevator in the building that can only fit one person, and if you’re overweight, you’re out of luck pal! The shop is called “Are You Stoned?” For some years now this has been the Mecca ground zero shop for the most obscure of the obscure Stones recordings. They also sell suits that once belong in Charlie Watt’s closet. How they got it is a real mystery to me. Perhaps Charlie has his own version of the Borrowers in his home.
Nevertheless as I move forward on the long hallway I found another interesting store. It is called “Winnipeg” and it is totally devoted to the Canadian filmmaker and writer Guy Maddin. When you walk into this store, you come upon a giant portrait of Maddin and right below the poster size image you see a lone person behind the register, who it seems is watching a Maddin film on her small VHS video screen. Here, they sell all the Maddin films that are available on DVD, as well as actual 35mm and 16mm film prints. Maddin wrote three books, and here in the shop they have every edition possible, including the editions around the world in various languages. Oddly enough, it seems there are numerous editions of his work in Finnish.
I purchased a 35mm print of “The Heart of the World” a film Maddin made in 2000. Impossible to find, especially in 35mm, but I had to have it! Sadly when I got to “Are You Stoned?” they sold the last copy of the Brian Jones CDR, and they told me (in English) that they will not be able to get more copies. My disappointment was so great, but on the other hand I was quite happy with my Guy Maddin purchase, and I knew I must be in heaven, because the next store after “Are You Stoned?” was a shop devoted to the illustrator John Tenniel. I desperately need a print of Tenniel’s illustration from “Alice in the Wonderland.” In many ways I feel like I did fall into that same hole as Alice, here in Shinjuku.
The first time I read the name "Maki" was at a record store in Shibuya Tokyo. The cover of her album "Maki 2" drew me in. I knew by the graphics that the album was either folk, jazz, or somewhere in between. The third category is it.
Beautifully almost baroque/jazz like arrangements surround her earthy vocals. She sort of reminds me of Joni Mitchell, if she was more of a jazz singer, but I actually like Maki's take on that type of jazz much better than Mitchell's. Plus the fact that she is associated with the great playwright/filmmaker Shuji Terayama is a big plus for me as well. Without a doubt I am going to track down her other albums. This one I believe was recorded in the early 1970's. Hardcore Shinjuku pop culture!
Galerie Denis Cooper presents … Tony Tasset
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‘The first question I asked Tony Tasset after looking at images of the
five sculptures in his exhibition The Weight at Kavi Gupta in Chicago was:
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Happy Birthday Elliott Gould
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Happy Birthday to one of the all-time greats and one of the coolest of the
cool Elliott Gould. From my 2019 New Beverly interview with Elliott Gould
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