Fashion Forward: The Sounds of Los Angeles' Visionary Les Sewing Sisters by Keith Walsh

Photo by Stevo Rood (ARood Photo)

Here's an interview with my wife Lun*na Menoh about her Les Sewing Sisters' project:

fashion-forward-the-sounds-of-los-angeles-visionary-les-sewing-sisters

Frontier Cabin from "TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World"

Thanks to Gregory Fullerton for finding the original ad that suckered me (and my dad) into buying a log cabin when I was a very small boy. I wrote about it in my memoir "TOSH: Growing up In Wallace Berman's World" (City Lights). Even looking at it now, I still want to send $1 to this company for their log cabin. One of the first times in my life where I came to terms with the word 'disappointment.' - Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal - October 4 (A plea for supporting Tosh Berman for a Nobe...

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 4

“I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.” I have to tell ya, I’m at the end of my rope, and it fits my neck perfectly. But that’s OK because I’m keeping my eye on the ball, and I’m not going to lose that ball. So far, I have put out two books: “Sparks-Tastic” and “The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding.” One work is a non-fiction account of yours truly following a band (Sparks) I love in London, and the other book is a collection of poetry written in Japan. At this point and time, and looking at my bank balance, I really need to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 I haven’t worked at a paying job since 2012. At this time, I have lived on my wit and charm, but that can only go so far in today’s world. I somehow managed to purchase (well borrowed, to be honest) money to pay a one-way ticket to Tokyo, hopefully, to find not an adventure, but some sort of moolah. My only talent is to be able to write. I’m really bad at showing up at work or even working with co-workers. Usually, I’m despised by my fellow citizens of the time-clock, and I mostly made some dough on the side, by running an on-going crap game in the employee room at a specific retail store, even to this day, I can’t mention.

I’m the guy who came from nowhere - and I wasn’t going anywhere, but somehow I got I kicked off somewhere. At times, I feel like the dice are loaded, but not towards my favor. So dear people, my readers, and Facebook friends - I just need to ask you a favor.

I really do need to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and I can’t wait till next year, because there may not be the next year for me. It needs to be this year. Now, as I see it, my main competitor is the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. I came to Tokyo to plead with him not to accept the award if he is the chosen one. I ask, because I need the attention, and even more critical the cash prize that goes with this award. As I last heard, the award amount is now $1,100,000.00. Now, if I get the award (and the money), this will enable me to do nothing but write. I know you, people, out there are enjoying my daily postings on my blog and Facebook, and I have to remind you that I’m not being paid for this work. I did have an agreement with Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg to get a certain amount of payment if people out there pushing “like” on my page. Sadly I didn’t get enough “likes” for his taste. That is what I get for working for a guy who was born in 1984 ... if you get my drift.

So now, I must call upon you. All of you. I want you to write a letter or e-mail to the Swedish Academy in Sweden and comment that “Tosh Berman should win this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.” That is all you have to mention. I did send copies of my book to the Academy, so they know who I am. I understand that some members of the Swedish Academy even “liked” my page. Also, if you can, please do “like” this post, because that too could bring attention to the Swedish Academy. Also, it has been noted that the Academy has, at times, awarded writers who lean to the left. Well, I’m here to let you know that I’m a hardcore leftie. I don’t believe in any political party in the United States. Pro two-state solution for Israel and Palestine (hardcore pro-Palestine by the way), and for every left-wing movements that took place in Central, South, and North America. So I should fit in their category of a writer who does ‘good’ in their writing.

Here is their address:

The Swedish Academy

P.O. Box 2118

SE-103 13 Stockholm



Their e-mail address is sekretariat@svenskaakademien.se.

Do write to them, and tell them that you demand that Tosh Berman should win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Come on, people. You have read my books, you have enjoyed my daily writings here, so please do something and help support a fellow writer. A fellow artist. A fellow human being.

Also, if you can “like” (if you’re reading this on Facebook) this post, it may help me as well.


Thank you (in advance),


Tosh Berman

Writer

"A Short Treatise Inviting The Reader To Discover The Subtle Art of Go" by Pierre Lusson, Georges Perec, and Jacques Roubaud (Wakefield Press)

The Asian game GO is sometimes thought of like a brother/sister to Chess. Pierre Lusson, Georges Perec, and Jacques Roubaud think that's hogwash. In this funny beautifully designed book, the gods of the Oulipian world express their take on one of the oldest games on this planet. The book serves as a manual on how to play, but I think to most readers it's a witty take on game-playing as well as how literature plays into that landscape. There are moments of hysterical humor, and the writing of the book (not sure who did what?) is almost a parody, exposes deeper appreciation of game-playing as one does in everyday life. A remarkable little book.

Tosh's Journal: October 3 (the Mickey Mouse Fan Club)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 3

Throughout my life, I have been fond of the Charlie Chan film series and the Flash Gordon serials as well. One of the things that I picked up from my father’s generation is the love of the adventurer who faces the deadly Orient. That far-off culture that is wise and smart (Charlie Chan) and ruthlessly evil as well (Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu). As a child, one is approached by the things he sees on the massive (cinema) and small (TV) screen. It is not just one angle, but the fact that my entire culture is based on a fantasy of some sort. When I was a child, evilness came from the Orient. I used to play on the streets of San Francisco Chinatown, thinking of myself as Flash Gordon battling the aliens that were invading Earth - which was basically, from my perspective, a very white planet at the time.

What is fascinating is that the actor Charles Middleton (Ming) and Warner Oland (Charlie Chan) were white. Both played a character from the Orient. At the time, even in my childhood, I knew that these actors were non-Asian, but it never bothered or broke the fantasy for me. I was living in a world that was totally one-dimensional. Even though my parents knew and were friends of people who were otherwise not white, I still felt like I was in a white world, and that was the only world that existed. I never even question it.

The only TV show I watched as a child was the Mickey Mouse Fan Club. I was fascinated with the show because I felt that the kids on the show were like me. White. I wouldn’t have been upset if an Asian or black child would be on the show, but the fact that the issue never came up is an interesting way to examine that world. Children from all over the world probably belong to the Mickey Mouse Club, but what does that mean? But even that, the kids on the show were exotic to me. It was white, but it was a weird “white” to me. I didn’t belong to that culture. My “culture” was to adopt characters that I was fond of and pretend to be that person, as I marched up and down Grand Avenue, Chinatown lost in my fantasy of chasing dragons and monsters - mostly who were produced in the mysterious Orient. There was something sinister about the Mickey Mouse Club, but I could never put my finger on it. For one, the theme song written by Jimmie Dodd, who can be seen as the auteur of the Mickey Club clan. Probably the first song that I have ever sung to myself: and I would also sing along with Jimmie at the end of the show as well. The lyrics are:



Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! You’re as welcome as can be!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Forever let us hold our banners high,

High, high, high!

Come along and sing a song and join the jamboree!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse Club!

Mickey Mouse Club!

We’ll have fun

We’ll meet new faces

We’ll do things, and we’ll go places

All around the world we’re marching...



Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! You’re as welcome as can be!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)

Forever let us hold our banners high

High, high, high!

Come along and sing the song and join the jamboree!

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Yeah, Mickey!

Yeah, Mickey!

Yeah, Mickey Mouse Club!



Spoken:

Now Mouseketeers

There’s one thing we want you

Always to remember



Come along and sing our song

and join our family



M-I-C

K-E-Y

M-O-U-S-E



Through the years we’ll all

Be friends

Wherever we may be

M-I-C

K-E-Y

M-O-U-S-E



Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse

Forever let us hold our

Banner high



Now it’s time to say goodbye

To all our company



M-I-C

Spoken:

See you real soon

K-E-Y

Spoken:

Why? Because we like you!

M-O-U-S-E


Jimmie was in charge of the club.  He was a role model for the kids on and off the screen. Not only was he like that on the show, but also the cast was invited to his house for backyard barbecues and sing-alongs. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my love for the Orient made me aware of another world than the one that was projected into our house. There are many levels of illusion, and this is only one. As a child, I founded something quite creepy about Jimmie Dodd and his Mouse theme song. I didn’t know why, but over a short period, I realized that Ming the Merciless meant more to me than the Mickey Mouse Club. It didn’t damage me, but I know that there was a whole world out there, and I became interested in knowing where Charlie Chan and Ming came from. Totally fictional characters, I do know that, but I was curious about how they came to be in my culture. Over time, I realized that I wasn’t the focus of the world’s attention. That I was pretending to be Flash Gordon, which in fact, I much preferred Ming. It is incredible to think that the “American” culture can bring such great geniuses like Eddie Cochran, yet one would define themselves as a world that was made up of “white culture.” Not saying that it’s terrible, but actually, kind of evil when you think of it. And with that in mind, I realized that I am part of an immoral culture that doesn’t even know why it is doing what it does. To this day, we tend to see the other world as indeed “other.” When in fact we’re projecting that image to suit our purposes either by our stupidity or naiveness. As Eddie would say “, that’s really something.”

Tosh's Journal: October 2 (Richard Hell, Wallace Stevens, Jack Parsons, ...

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

Tosh Berman & Devin Johnston reading at The Observable Reading Series in St. Louis

October 7, 2019
7:30 p.m.

Tosh Berman

Tosh Berman was born in the late fifties in Los Angeles, the son of Wallace and Shirley Berman, mainstays of that scene described by the California historian Richard Candida Smith as “Utopia and Dissent.”  Raised in Topanga Canyon, his early adult years were taken up in poetry — his eighties poems The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding were re-printed in 2014 — and public access television production.  Ultimately he has been called upon to be executor of his father Wallace’s estate.  Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman’s World is just out from City Lights.  The publisher of TamTam Books, Tosh Berman vlogs on YouTube and writes cultural journalism that’s published widely.

Devin Johnston

Devin Johnston was born in 1970 in Canton, New York, and grew up in Winston-Salem.  Educated at Oberlin and the University of Chicago, he teaches now at Saint Louis University.  He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Far-Fetched (2015), Sources (2008), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Aversions (2004), and Telepathy (2001).  His prose writing includes the critical study Precipitations: Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice (2002) and Creaturely and Other Essays(2009).  A former poetry editor for the Chicago Review, Johnston co-founded and co-edits the literary publisher Flood Editions with Michael O’Leary.

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Dressel’s Public House
419 N Euclid Ave,
St. Louis, MO 63108

The Observable Readings Series, brought to you by St. Louis Poetry Center, welcomes poets to Dressel’s Public House (CWE) on first Mondays.  Reading begins at 7:30 p.m. in the upstairs loft of the restaurant.

Suggested $5.00 donation at the door.

Curated by: Jeff Hamilton & Joshua Kryah

Tosh's Journal: October 1 (Vinyl Collection, Japan, and Charles Cros)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 1

Here I’m in Tokyo, and I haven’t the foggiest idea why I’m here. I tend to get excited about doing something in the vaguest thought in my head. First things first, since I’m in the land that seems to worship vinyl as if it was the most expensive currency on the planet. People tend to collect to enhance one’s life. I, on the other hand, collect that is basically who I am. I see myself as part of a collection that is my own mind, and to be honest, I have no other interest beyond my writings and what I collect. Vinyl is thus essential to me, but I also collect my thoughts and words. For instance, I keep a detailed journal in what I “think” in the first thing in the morning or the first thought that comes to my head when I open my eyes. Then I do another journal entry around 2 PM, where I tend to organize my thoughts in alphabetical order of subject matter. At nighttime, I’m usually drunk, so that is when I get “poetic” and for a particular social circle, quite witty.

I have heard through the vinyl “underground” that there may be a copy of the original edition of the Moondog/Julie Andrews recording of “Tell It Again,” which is technically a children’s album of songs and stories. Finding a copy, and if it’s in good condition can be expensive, which again, to be honest, I may not be able to afford the desired object. Nevertheless, I took the bite out of chance and booked a ride on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagoya, where the owner of this record lives and works.

At first, I’m scared to meet the citizens of this country, due that I can’t speak a word of Japanese - nevertheless the owner of “Tell It Again” is a French man by the name of Charles Cros. It seems he’s a poet by desire and an inventor by practical means. He has lived in Nagoya since the 1960s, and it obsessed with sound. For instance, I have heard that he came up with the first idea of the compact disc, but was not aware that Sony was also developing their (and much successful) version. Cros version was more of an updated version of the Long Player Record. His contact disc looks very much like the Sony version, but the big difference was his invention, one put it on a turntable and put a needle on it. He got sound, but not the sound he was expecting, and there lies the problem. Also, the fact that when you invent a new medium, you are required to have a new player to “play” that medium. Cros is such a whacky individual by what I read about him, that I almost want to collect him as well.

When I did eventually meet him, at a near-by coffee shop that is close to the Shinkansen station, he brought with him his copy of the “Tell It Again” album. It looked perfect, and he wouldn’t allow me to touch it. He said he wasn’t going to sell it. He seemed to change his mind and was sorry that I went a great distance to see him and his record. I told him not to be concerned because I live for the experience, which of being a collector, is quite enjoyable. What happened next was quite remarkable. He told me he had a demo recording of Geoff Stephens singing his great composition “The Crying Game.” This song, this 20th-century masterpiece… is the most essential piece of music I have ever heard. Also, it helps that I’m a massive fan of Stephens’ first (and maybe only) band The New Vaudeville Band. “Winchester Cathedral.” Is another masterpiece. Some think that Stephens stole the idea from The Bonzo Dog Band, who also had a similar style or interest in British music hall music.

Nevertheless, that’s not the point of my interest. I like the record because it exists in its world, and therefore a great desire for yours truly. I bought an original mono edition of that album at Blue Bag Records in Los Angeles.

Charles Cros other great interest is that he believes that there is life on other planets - specifically Mars and Venus. He had seen pinpoints of lights from those two planets and is convinced that it is the reflection of the lights of a large city on Mars and Venus. He petitioned France to build a huge mirror that could be used to communicate with the Martians and Venusians by “burning giant lines on the deserts of those planets.” France refused to do so, and therefore that is why he’s now living in Japan. He also writes poetry, which is an art that deals with thinking outside of the box.  This is where he can rule his world. I, on the other hand, left our meeting empty-handed, but a wiser man.

Book Musik: "A Voice of the Warm: The Life of Rod McKuen" by Barry Alfonso

Book Musik Episode 8: “A Voice of the Warm-The Life of Rod McKuen” by Barry Alfonso

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Book Musik

Tosh and Kimley discuss A Voice of the Warm: The Life of Rod McKuen by Barry Alfonso. Rod McKuen was a bestselling poet (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) and singer-songwriter/recording artist. In the 1960s and 70s he was at the summit of the mainstream pop cultural zeitgeist. He was generally loathed by critics and the serious literary community and yet after discussing this book we have concluded that Rod McKuen is an essential cultural link to all that we hold dear.

Listen to it here:  Book Musik: A Voice of the Warm: The Life of Rod McKuen

"I've Seen The Future and I'm Not Going" by Peter McGough (Pantheon)

ISBN: 978-1-5247-4704-6

I'm fascinated with Dandies, either from the past or contemporary times.  McDermott & McGough are two artists that work as one, and their aesthetic is very much ignoring the 21st century and most of the 20th as well.  I'm an admirer of their paintings as well as their obsession with the Victorian lifestyle.  Extremism, as a choice has always fascinated me as well.   By chance, I came upon Peter McGough's memoir, and it's a great piece of literature that places one in the world of New York City circa the 1980s and 1990s.  I knew very little of their lives, and like Gilbert & George, the other art duo, their lives were an exciting mystery to me.  The more I don't know about them, the more I find attractive.  Still, this memoir is also about the art planet of that era, and McGough is an excellent and very straight forward prose stylist.   A delicate and sometimes disturbing narrative, but once I finished the book, the mystery now exposed, is also put me in a state of admiring the duo much more.  Although one can point a finger against McDermott in certain aspects of their lives together, it is also a vibrant life.  "I've Seen the Future and I'm Not Going" is a great companion piece to Duncan Hannah's "20th Century Boy, which is a flip of a coin.  Soho, New York life, comes back to life (in print) and it's a scary but profound journey. 

Tosh's Journal - September 30 (Japan Airlines, Shintaro Ishihara, & Marc...

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 30

I will be leaving my home, or I should say running off from my current location. I’m the type of guy who throws his hat on the bed, and that becomes my pad. But now, at my advancing age, this will most likely be my last trip… of any kind. Nevertheless, I have to keep a brave face on and not let the others down. I have always looked for a paradise, and most would like to say an island such as Hawaii or Tahiti fits that bill, but for me, it will always be Asakusa. Not an island, by itself mind you, but part of the more significant island that is Japan. Or perhaps the island that is my mind.

The airline I’m taking is Japan Airlines, where once you enter, you must take your shoes off. The entire plane has a series of tatami mats, and of course, you can only wear socks on the material that is rice straw. Once you get your seat, the stewardess offers you a hot towel to wipe your hands and neck. Once you finish refreshing oneself, you then get a foot massage from them as well. It lasts maybe only three minutes, but it’s a gentle introduction to the mysterious Orient. And one hasn’t even taken off to the heavenly blue skies.

I have high friends in high places. One is being a gentleman by the name of Shintaro Ishihara. A writer who specializes in the subject matter of the Japanese sun tribe of the late 1950s. Not the first rebellious youth movement, but surely the most nihilistic group of young Japanese boys and girls who love and live for the beach culture. He eventually made a sharp right-hand turn and became the mayor of Tokyo. Due to his reputation and fame, we in the past have met in secretly at a bar in Shinjuku.   The bar is located on the top floor of a sushi boat place that is on the floor level. It’s an odd bar that only plays the music of Marc Bolan’s first band Tyrannosaurus Rex. What makes this place even more curious, is that they mostly have photographs of Steve Took (the bongo player) than Bolan on its walls.  That is here and there, and I’m sitting on the plane reading Truman Capote’s horrible novel “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and having a glass of cold sake.

Many hours later, the plane of no hope arrives at Narita, where I decided to take an airport bus to a hotel in Meguro, Tokyo. One hour and a half I’m in the middle of a hotel lobby looking forward to getting a room. I think my adventure will start now, but who knows, I can’t predict what will happen. I’m just a writer, you know. -Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal - September 29 (Chivalry Code)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 29

As a writer, a publisher, a poet, and a lover, I very much follow the ancient code of honor, which is:


1 Believe the Church’s teachings and observe all the Church’s directions.

 2 Defend the Church.

 3 Respect and defend all weaknesses.

 4 Love your country.

 5 Show no mercy to the Infidel. Do not hesitate to make war with them.

 6 Perform all your feudal duties as long as they do not conflict with the laws of God.

 7 Never lie or go back on one’s word.

 8 Be generous to everyone.

 9 Always and everywhere be right and good against evil and injustice


In a complex and dark world, I find this code simplifies things that make me function better as a human being. For the past year, I have read nothing but books that deal with the chivalry code, for instance, “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.” A very long novel, but a work that I enjoyed much while in the bathtub. It was sometime during finishing the last page of the book and draining the tub’s water that I decided to take a trip, to express the code that I believe is essential for modern life.

I emptied my bank account and some others, to purchase a one-way ticket to Tokyo, to bring the code to the citizens of Edo. I intend to penetrate the Floating World by participating in various activities in the area, but alas, with a serious message. Every culture has two sides of the coin, and the opposite of that coin is Sorrowful World. With the lightness of my touch, I’ll bring enlightenment to the masses and therefore hope will once again regain its stature against the hopeless.

All I have is my faith in the code because there is no going back. I mustn’t look back, because the past is right behind, and my steely eyes must go forward, to the present and even beyond the entrance of the future. When I wrote my book “Drugstore Cowboy,” I was on the lam from the law. Once they caught up and sentenced me to prison, I arranged for a publisher to publish it, and even though I’m a forgotten man, the book lives on. Now that I’m released I feel I have a second chance to make things right. There is wrong, and I know that world quite well. Now that I have cut everything off, including friends that I never really had, I’m free to roam for chivalry. You may look like a windmill, but surely the devil lives inside.

Tosh's Journal: September 28 (Brigitte Bardot)

TOSH’S JOURNAL
September 28

I only like film stars who are good looking. As Vernon Sullivan once said, “To hell with the ugly.” I don’t pay money to see ugly people showing their real life. I prefer the world of make-believe, where beauty exists over anything ugly. For me, the make-believe is real. I don’t understand how anyone can say that they prefer ugliness when they can have beauty in their lives. I was four-years-old when I saw my first movie in a movie theater. The film was “And God Created Woman,” and it was playing at the local movie theater in Larkspur California. It was a dramatic event for me because my father and mother had to argue with the theater’s manager about letting me in to see the film. At the time, it was “adults only,” but my father clearly wanted to see the movie, and he had me with him that night, and it was a family gathering, so what’s the problem? I remember he refused to leave the line or the box-office, and finally the manager caved in to his demand that I can see the film at his theater.

Being in a movie theater was a new experience, and I remember being struck with the largeness of the movie screen. I have no memory of the film’s plot at the time of the showing, but what I clearly remember is the image of Brigitte Bardot on the giant screen. At the time, living in a rural area of Larkspur, I could identify with the figures in the film. Not so much the men, but Bardot. I identified with her boredom and her naturalness in the way she dressed and expressed herself in the film. I cannot recall if the movie was dubbed or had sub-titles, it didn’t make a difference to me, because due to my youth, I couldn’t understand the story. I only realized the image of Bardot.

Besides my mom, who is an iconic beauty, the other woman in my life is Bardot. Not by my choice, but my father always had an image of her on the wall - usually in his work-space or studio. The pictures I remember being on the wall were Artaud, Cocteau, Nijinsky, and Bardot. I didn’t know any of these people, but I did know their names and faces. I knew one was a dancer, and it seems Cocteau did a bit of everything, and Artaud looked insane. But Bardot, I did know. Also, I remember in the household we had a book of photographs of Brigitte Bardot. It’s odd for the home, because we had books with words, and books on painting or beautiful photography - but never a book on an actress. I don’t remember any text in this book. Just one image after another of Bardot. This was in the late 1950s, so the photos were mostly when she was a teenager to her stardom in “And God Created Woman.”

Since I wasn’t reading the text yet at a premature age, I did love books. And my favorite book was the book of photographs of Bardot. My attraction to her was her beauty. I knew nothing of her life, and I did know she came somewhere not in the United States. I was most impressed with the images of her walking down a sunny street. I knew wherever the photos were taken; it must have been warm. She is wearing shorts, sunglasses and no shoes. Viewing these images, I could feel the warm weather even though it was cold and gray in Larkspur.

As of this date, she is 85, and I’m 65 this year. Twenty years apart. When I turned 20, she was still 39. I could have dated her! But the truth is our lives are just so distant from each other. It is funny how my life is still very close to the “ideal” of Bardot. Like my father, I have a photograph of her on my work-space, and later in life, I published a short piece of fiction by her one-time boyfriend Serge Gainsbourg, as well as a biography (written by Gilles Verlant) on the great composer and entertainer. Even though I never met her or yet seen her in person, I feel very close to her presence or image. She strikes me as a person who made her world, over some time. There is ugliness, but not by her design. Like a film editor, she accepted certain practices and images, and eliminated or left what she didn’t want on the film editor’s floor. The beauty of reflection is living in a world where ugliness is held back.  My memories are as pure as the sunshine somewhere in the South of France.

Tosh's Journal - September 27 (Alvin Stardust & Jim Thompson)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 27

I’m a moody guy. I play with an identity as a cat plays with a mouse before eating it. As a performer, you have to take what is out there and make it your own. My real name is Tosh Berman, and I used to be a roadie for a band called “Shane Fenton and the Fentones.” Shane and the boys made a demo and sent it off to the BBC. Just right before they got accepted by the media giant, Shane died as a result of the rheumatic fever he had suffered in childhood. The band was about to split up, but I told them, “no, I can be Shane.” And so I did and joined the group not as Tosh, but as Shane Fenton. The first song we recorded became a hit called “I’m a Moody Guy.” After that, I never looked back. I just recently took up the name “Tosh Berman” to be a writer. I believe that name is suitable for a writer’s name. As a singer, Tosh doesn’t jell in my, or in the public’s mind.

I’m a so-so singer, but my main musical talent is as a pianist. My number one role model for that instrument is Bud Powell. An incredible composer as well, but I like how he takes a song and tears it apart and puts it back together again. The Fentones don’t do jazz or blues, but rock n’ roll. That music, to be honest, I’  ’m not that crazy about.

Nevertheless, I discovered numerous jazz recordings while on tour. I tend to like to go off by myself and visit the local record shops of towns that we visited for shows. It was around this time that I started to think I could have another music career or identity. After finishing the tour with the Fentones, I left the band and took up the name “Bud Powell the Third”.

Once I take up a new name or identity, I never allow people around me call me by my previous names. At this point, I was Bud, and like the original Bud Powell, I took up drinking. It has been reported that a single drink could change Powell into a remorseful figure. It didn’t affect me the same way, but I pretended to be drunk after the first drink. To get into the artist’s mindset, I felt it was crucial to adapt not only their musical talents, but also their habits as well. It took me 12-months to change my identity and be recognized as a jazz pianist. I even signed with Blue Note Records and put out a series of albums: “Bud Powell the Third,” More of Bud Powell the Third,” and so forth.

Critics and some of the public were down with me for taking up the name of such a classic musician, but I think they misunderstood my purpose here. There’s a need or vacancy, and I feel my role in life is to fill the void. My skills as a pianist are pretty good, but not as great as the original Bud. Still, if my work brings attention to the master, am I doing such a bad thing? I roam east 53rd street where the jazz clubs used to be. Now there is nothing there but huge buildings. Culture, or the urban life, is set out to destroy the original locations, and therefore I feel I must take a stand and re-invent a world that goes back to Bud or even my late friend Shane.

Now, it is time for me to give up music and focus on writing. I have a hard time making up narratives, so I started to focus on the books by Jim Thompson. He knew how to tell the tale. So basically I took his novels like my own. I changed a word here and there, but I somewhat made the books of my own. Of all my novels, I’m quite fond of “The Killer Inside Me.” Thompson’s father was a sheriff in Caddo County, Oklahoma. While “writing” my novels, I moved to the country to get closer to the source of Thompson’s life. Like Powell, I took up drinking again, but this time, my role model was Thompson. Without a doubt, people are confused with the name “Tosh Berman” who writes Jim Thompson’s books. There is no valid reason why I do this, except that inspiration works in strange ways. Sometimes it is done by chance, and other times it is planned out like a military exercise. Nevertheless, I remain truly myself in a world of illusion. - Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal - September 26 (T.S. Eliot, Martin Heidegger, & Bryan Ferry)

TOSH'S JOURNAL

September 26

When I wake up in the morning, I have the taste of fear in my mouth. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." I sometimes feel like I have no teeth, and my tongue is not part of my mouth. I can never get out of bed quickly. I need at least ten minutes to think where I am, and what my purpose here in life is or in this house. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." One…Two…Three, that's enough for now. I never was a fan of strong coffee. In actuality, I always prefer the coffee served in diners. What I like about it is that it's not precious. It is something to drink while you concentrate on something else. Or I should say, I'm just focusing on the space between objects. "To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky."

I reflect on the moments passing as if I was dancing with my shadow. I have a fear of moments of not being noted or paid attention to. When I look back, it is always the direction of my past. If I look forward, I'm deeply into the present. The future is the entrance of my door. "If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you." Yet, I stand very still while stirring my coffee in the morning.

There is something that I want, but I can't have it. "Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant." I had some money, but now I don't. "Part of the money went on gambling, and part of it went on women. The rest I spent foolishly." I tend to live in the moment, but alas, does that moment love me? The indifference of the world, or time passing, I really can't recall a moment when I first realized that I love you. Or at the very least, the thought of loving you. "I like having a secret life." "I've had quite a few moments I've liked, so it's good enough." So what I have I should keep, and then perhaps I can recall it back again, like an old friend who never lets me down.

Only in the middle of the night, and I start having my dreams, that I realize that I plenty to fear. All my defense mechanisms are down and being repaired by the time I wake up in the morning. But when I do wake up suddenly from a dream, or nightmare, it is the worst feeling of dread. There are two lives. One is here, writing to you, and the other is when I lose myself in a dream, and I can't control the images and people that invade my life with my eyes closed. I have awoken to see shadows briefly go by me, and I'm never sure if it is a part of the dream, or perhaps I'm indeed not alone in this world. There is a bridge between dream and awaken life.   But due to my vertigo, I don't want to look down. The bridge is just a high wire, and my balance is rather unfortunate. One thing that soothes my soul is music. "I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise." "You can never get silence anywhere nowadays, have you noticed?"

Tosh's Journal: September 25 (Glenn Gould)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 25

I mostly spend my time comparing the two versions of Glenn Gould’s “Goldberg Variations.” The first version in which he recorded in 1955 is perfection.

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg was a fantastic harpsichordist, who was fortunate enough to have J.S. Bach write the Goldberg Variations, which was written explicitly for Goldberg to perform for Hermann Karl von Keyserlingk, then the Russian ambassador to Saxony around 1737. Count Keyserlingk had trouble sleeping so to be entertained in the late hours, Goldberg would perform the Bach composition for him. Oddly enough, due that Keyserlingk paid for the pieces, he always insisted to Goldberg to “play his variations.”

Just before Glenn Gould passed away in 1982, he did a new recording of the Goldberg Variations. Gould studied and learned this piece entirely without his teacher. He instinctively knew that he had to slow down the work. What is interesting is that he commented that “the mental imagery involved with pianistic tactile is not related to the striking of individual keys but rather to the rites of passage between notes.”

Not a musician, but a brilliant filmmaker Robert Bresson wrote excellent advice in that “the most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.”

Concerning the second and much later recording, Gould felt that the initial recording of the piece was too much of a pianistic affectation. It needed a more introspective interpretation that included more calculated phrasing and ornamentation. What is fascinating that he could look at his work on the Goldberg Variations, and willing to take and accept the time difference, yet, he is still working on it.

“I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of a-dren-a-lean but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”

Going back to Gould, he makes a useful comment: “I detest audiences - not in their individual components, but en masse I detest audiences. I think they’re a force of evil. It seems to me the rule of mob law.”

What appeals to me regarding the two versions of the Goldberg Variations is that he takes his past and makes something new out of it. The past is still there, but he added either a footnote or a different work, based on one’s history. William Faulkner wrote that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

For me to hear both versions, it strikes me as being very moving to listen to a work that is one of youth. Both Gould and Goldberg were young, when first coming to the Variations, and Gould’s late recording which may or may not be his last official recording. Two bookends make a life profound with a narrative that begins, has a middle, and then an end. Goldberg had an audience of one with the Count, but I often think of Gould performing not for an audience, but his own listening pleasure as well.

Tosh's Journal: September 24 (Anthony Newley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, & Ze...

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 24

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 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 continuously. 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 couldn’t stay focused on the things in front of her. I wouldn’t say she was my muse because I don’t believe 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 into the machine that produces popular culture. I think I pretty much did my best writing already, so now I’m trying to work 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.  I 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 lucid 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.”

Tosh's Journal - September 23 (Brutes & The Scarlet Pimpernel)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 23

I loathe brutes. I’m not a fan of the brute male type at all. I think all men need to be feminine and rely on wit, a sense of proper fashion, and always be brave when danger arrives at their doorstep. What is truly a turn-off is brutish men who cry and seek assistance. If there is one thing that turns my stomach inside out, is the masculine voice crying out for understanding and sympathy. My first reaction is to reach out for a whip, and not touch them with the tool of my trade, but make them think that there is more significant pain out there, and one needs to be tough to cope with it. In most cases, they whimper more.

Due to circumstances that are obvious to any person who is under a brain, I had to take up another identity to fight these characters who have no backbone or principals. The first thing I did was organize a Members of the League, who worked in total secrecy and only answer to me. The members of excellent standing are Pinkie, Dallow, Cubitt, Spicer, and Rose. We meet once a week at various locations in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. Mostly on the property that was once the Coffee Table. I had the business torn down and kept the basement, which has secret steps, hidden from the street level, leading to the dungeon. I call the meeting in order by reciting a poem that I wrote:

“We seek him here, we seek him there,

Those masculine thugs seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven? - Is he in hell?

That damned, elusive Pimpernel.”

The Pimpernel is a small plant, with creeping stems and flat five-petaled flower. That is the reason why I limit the membership to the League to five. The stems start from the flower but eventually will grow on to attract others in our battle against the brute. I want everything to be attached to the flower itself. A flower is a wisp of a life that survives in a cruel world, and with the Pimpernel as its image, we strike back. We will destroy the brute. Wherever he may decide to live or roam, we’ll be there to suck the air out of his lungs. - Tosh Berman

Tosh's Journal: September 22 (Anna Karina, with Maurice Blanchot & Erich...

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 22

When I think of the name “Anna Karina” it brings up images of her former husband Jean-Luc Godard, but when I see a picture of her, I only think of her. I’m crazy about her. “At the moment everything was being destroyed she had created that which was most difficult: she had not drawn something out of nothing (a meaningless act), but given to nothing, in its form of nothing, the form of something.” I never fully understand the meaning of a beautiful woman as it is defined in words. Do they mean she’s pretty? I’m struck by her character, or maybe the words she says through various writers and directors. I never think of Godard as being beautiful, but when I see Karina in his films, I think she’s “beautiful.”

“I could not work with a girl who did not have a spiritual quality.” Throughout my life, I tried to find my own Anna Karina, but my lack of spirituality held me back to see the happiness that is owed me. The very image of love, I couldn’t define in words, so it became a sense of nothingness. I needed a name attached to it, to give me some meaning. “Anna Karina” represents a sea of mixed passions that as a fisherman, I have to throw a line out there, and see what bites. I watched her watching Renée Jeanne Falconetti on a movie screen that, for me, reflects on attaching an identity to another. To be so vulnerable, and to pick up on another person’s pain, is the precise definition of my unhappiness.

“We can’t do anything with an object that has no name.” But once we attach a name to it, or her, it becomes something painful. I have a faint memory of seeing a film that was 10 hours long called “Greed.” I sat through the whole movie at the Cinémathèque Française, and I couldn’t move from my fold-up chair as I watched it on the Steenbeck. The images flickered in front of me as I cringed in knowing what will happen to the leading characters. Only 12 people have seen the extended version of this film, and if we were on trial, we would find the film’s director, Erich von Stroheim, not guilty, for destroying his film. If for nothing else, the time melts in front of you, but ironically enough, most people comment how long the film is, without giving merit or praise (deservedly so) to the work on hand. It is now destroyed.

It has been re-constructed into a version that is almost like the 10-hour film. Alas, it is only a mirror image of the work. The exquisite face of ZaSu Pitts still exists, in scenes and stills, but like my memory, it’s fading fast. Anna Karina stays with me because I presume I know her through the films. Especially the ones she did with Godard. But again, it is mainly reflected through the eyes of her ex-husband. Therefore is that a ‘realistic’ knowledge of Karina? As a publisher, I want to make a book that is nothing but close-up images of Anna Karina. No text, and not even a title or copyright page. Words fail the image. Just a mass-market designed book that holds the image of the greatest treasure on earth - Anna Karina.