Tosh Berman's Blog, page 132

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 BermanTosh 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 JohnstonDevin 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.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 AlfonsoPosted 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?"