Tosh Berman's Blog, page 133

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 21 (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.

Tosh's Journal: September 21 (Henri Bergson & Sex)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 21

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” When I think of my past, I immediately get an erection. The only thing I care to remember is my series of sexual conquests. Everything else is not essential. I used to know the names of my conquests, but now, all I can remember are their bodies, face, and intelligence. I was never a big fan of names because I have a hard time connecting something verbally to a face. It’s uncommon for a writer to admit this, but the visual image is far more important to me than the vocabulary. I think back to countless women I have touched, both in the literal and spiritual sense, and every one of them offered me great pleasure, that can’t be recorded by words on a page.

When I close my eyes, it is like being in H. G. Wells’ Time Machine, where I set the dials to a specific time and place, and go there. I can visit ancient civilization or the pre-war Paris years, by just imagining what it would be just like. I don’t need to be there, but just knowing a few names, for instance, Boris Vian, Juliette Gréco and of that sort, I already have a place and time in mind. So my time machine is me closing my eyes and transporting myself to that world. My sexual time-travelling sort of works the same. Some are real memories of actual fuck sessions, and others are “imagined” get-togethers where I focus on a beauty of my choice.

There is a secret club, only for men of a certain age, that I belong to called “Gas, Grass, & Ass,” where we discuss our sexual conquests among ourselves. It’s rude to discuss these things in an open forum or even in public, but within this club, we can freely discuss in detail our sexual adventures. The one rule is the fact that we never mention the name of the woman, or give any personal background on her, except what she is like in bed, and after all, we are gentlemen of a certain age and time.

One of the things we like to talk about is if we were in, or had the use of a Time Machine, who would we revisit for sexual pleasure. The irony is that this club only focuses on the past.  So in a sense, I’m in a room full of men who live in or for the past. Some say one cannot live in the past, but I think we all know that is not exactly true. The present only exists because there is a past.   How we perceive that “past” is how we see our present. The future we never know.

“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.” The one thing we all agree with is that each woman has her particular scent. I commented that I had a fantasy of sitting in a room blindfolded and the women that I share intimacy with comes in. I identify each one by their natural sexual scent. To be wrong, would be fatal! Nevertheless, it is interesting that all of us men at the club have a highly sense of smell, and that it’s a big part of our sexuality or desire. When I get home from our weekly meetings, I feel exhausted — drained even. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that “the pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already a memory.”

Tosh's Journal: September 20 (Love[sex]Dolls)

TOSH’S JOURNAL
September 20

There’s a hotel in Echo Park that I go to, and it is called “The Hotel for Lost Men.” This hotel is made for middle-aged men, to dwell in a passion where no one is watching or making demands on them. It is based on a series of ‘love’ hotels in Osaka, Japan, but this one has a twist. What you get is a room, but also a sex doll. And this is not just any sex doll, but one that if you touch it, you swear it’s human skin, and even the eyes look real. A unique blend of high-quality silicone has been applied to create the doll. Each doll is made with a skeletal structure. Their skin is “soft to the touch, and the doll’s breasts have been modified to enable a softer, more realistic touch and feel.”

I go to this hotel because by nature; I’m a shy man. Also, I don’t require a relationship because I find them annoying. If I wish to relate to another person or girl, I can do that easily with my post office clerk, or the young girl behind the counter at Starbucks. Human communication or one-on-one, of course, is essential for some, but for me, all my inner-thoughts are enough. I never feel lonely. I don’t desire companionship. I don’t want heart-to-heart conversation; I desire to stick my penis in a doll.

With that in mind, “The Hotel for Lost Men” is on a side-street, in the hills of Echo Park. The structure looks like housing from Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the 7 Drawfs, and in fact, it is suspected that Disney built these structures for his workers, due that his studio was close to these homes. Once you walk in, you are in the lobby, where you can see the various dolls. For instance, there is a doll who dresses like a hotel receptionist, and you can go up to her and order a doll and room. There is a giant menu which lists all the girl dolls, with photographs of course, and a picture of the room as well. Prices are listed as well as if you want to rest (two to three hours) or spend the night. There are various types of rooms one can order. Some are over-the-top, like “Sade’s bedroom,” or “Mustang Ranch Fantasy,” and so forth. I chose “Nightporter” room and requested Sarina, a doll that reminds me of an early girlfriend I had in Taft High School. It takes them about ten minutes to secure the doll as well as the room. I never see a live worker on the premise. Every transaction is done through the hotel receptionist, whom I mention being a sex doll as well.

The Nightporter room is based on the film and is a large room with six or seven hospital beds. Sarina was on one of the beds dressed in a black sweater and an off-white dress with a shirt collar. My high school sweetheart used to wear the same dress, and one of the wonderful things about this hotel is that you can custom made your dolls to whatever specific clothing or hair or eye color. The girls look real, and I have never seen a dead girl before, but I imagine that this is the closest one can get to a dead girl.

When you touch Sarina, she feels real, but no sign of life. Intellectually it is hard for me to penetrate a doll, but once I get in a mindset, I’m fine. I’m obsessed with my ageing, and, interestingly, this hotel caters to men in my age bracket, and I’m not sure why? But what is interesting is that I physically age, but the dolls look precisely the same. Of course, they do not age, and they remind one of the time being stopped, or perhaps a memory that one freeze, so one can observe over and over again. After each encounter, one is responsible for cleaning up the doll, and in the drawer, they have assorted cleaning tools. One would think since I’m a paying customer, would leave the dolls dirty, but I can’t do that. Not thinking about the next guy, but more out of respect for the doll, and the pleasure she gave me, or is it more about the joy I give myself?

Tosh's Journal: September 19 (Brian Epstein & The Beatles)

TOSH’S JOURNAL (Brian Epstein & The Beatles)

September 19

“I am determined to go through the horror of this world.” I don’t throw the dice, and I pretty much map out the plans on a massive desk in my office. I have four men in my office at this moment, and they are wearing leather jackets with button-up Levis and motorcycle boots. I don’t know if I should french-kiss each one, or dress them up for a party. Nevertheless, art-making and doing business is very well the same thing. John and George are, without a doubt the hottest here, and both are sort of emotionally damaged. Not sure why, more likely due to the loss of a family member, or just not fitting in the world. This is something that I totally understand, being left out in the world. I have been an outcast for my whole life, and I live in a world that hates me. So, I either drown in self-pity or make my own world. I have four young men here that will make a new world, for you, and without a doubt for me as well.

When I look back, I must have been dreaming. I was led into a cave, somewhere in Damn Liverpool, and I came upon a vision that hit me right away. I usually have doubts or have to re-think it, but here, was something that came upon me in a technicolour fashion, but clearly in a black and white world. It reminded me when I first went to London by myself, and I picked up on a beautiful man, who was rough on the edges, and eventually punched me out, and took all my cash as well as my watch, that my father gave me, for being such a good salesperson in our family business. It wasn’t a downer for me, it made me feel alive, and I was placed in a dangerous world, that I secretly have been craving for a long time.

I remember going into the cave and realizing that there was not an exit. I immediately felt the change in my life as soon as I enter the entrance opening. The heat was the first sensual overload, and it was like if I was going back to the womb, but not my mothers, but someone else’s uterus. A male version if there is such a thing. It wasn’t the audience that appealed to my senses but seeing four drunken musicians on the stage, that reminded me of the chap who punched me out and took my dole.

Before that, I just wanted to study acting, but my father was against that plan. He wanted me to work in the family business, and with half a heart, I did so. I eventually went to drama school, but I realize I hated school life. At the time, it was bad as my world but much smaller, and therefore I felt I couldn’t breathe in that environment. I then realize that I can be a performer, but I needed the right medium to work with. What I wanted to do was re-shape the horrible world and somehow make it into a better place I was ill in my stomach thinking of all the lies that I had to put up with. Here in front of me, is one way out, a new honesty at work, that will change mine as well as your life. John, George, Paul and….. Pete. That last name doesn’t fit well with the others. I must make a note to change that in the very near future.

I know very little about music, even though I work in the record store department of the family store, but I know it’s important to others. I recall a young man, or boy, who came in and asked for a song “My Bonnie,” and I remember his face being so disappointed when we didn’t have that record in stock. I almost wanted to come up to him and put my arms around him. It wasn’t eros, but more of a feeling or remembrance of my past disappointments. I feel if I could supply people a certain amount of happiness, and not deal with bitter disappointments, then I have contributed something to “this” world. Alas, there are for two worlds. I’m going to change one world and make it into my idealistic world. I have the tools or instruments right in front of me. I just need to fine-tuned or get rid of the Pete issue.

Tosh's Journal: September 18 (Greta Garbo)

TOSH’S JOURNAL
September 18

“I never said, ‘I want to be alone. ‘I only said ‘I want to be let alone! ‘There is all the difference.” One should be able to choose who you want to be with, or who you want to work with. This is my desire. This is my right. I was from Sweden and came to America to become part of the motion picture business. Well, I ended up in the industry, and I didn’t like it — not one bit. To improve my English dictation, I studied tapes made by Lord Haw-Haw, a British citizen who made broadcasts for the Nazis during the war. He at times used an upper-class British accent, while making statements over the radio, and I found it hypnotic. I try to imagine that it’s P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves whispering in my ear, but what he said sounded so beautiful, but the ugliness of the content was something I had to move aside. “The people of England will curse themselves for having preferred ruin from Churchill to peace from Hitler.” I played it over and over again, till I got his accent just entirely correct. I didn’t do this for a film role but to be part of a new world, and with that, I needed a new identity. By no means was I erasing my other personality, because I wanted to have the ability to switch roles or positions in life.

I’m going to do one more job in the film business, and then I’m going to spend the rest of my life drifting. As I approached my 60th birthday, “in a few days, it will be the anniversary of the sorrow that never leaves me, that will never leave me for the rest of my life.” One can mark success in different ways, and for me, it is to be alone with my heart and some close friends. I always believed that there were two sides to me. One being a recluse and the other, a social person. But I cannot be treated like a performing monkey anymore. I resent my directors telling me to smile, not a smile, say my lines, not to say my lines, and so forth. I don’t feel like I have a strong sense of self, and therefore acting is a way of communicating with the public or the individual. People think I’m beautiful, but what does that exactly mean?

My last role will be playing twins that are conjoined by the head, to be exact by the eye. I’m playing both roles, so it will be tricky for me to convey two separate identities, yet one body. To be honest, the script is not that great, but I think it will be an exciting role, or two roles (they should pay me twice!) and then say goodbye to my so-called public life. What I have to imagine is having a part of me that is always there. What I have done is practise my lines in front of the mirror and pretending that the image is another character or my twin sister. For one of the sisters, I chose the Lord Haw-Haw accent (“Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling”) but for the other sister, who is a country singer - I try to go for a soft southern accent. It is sometimes tricky because I feel like I’m separating my soul in doing this part.

“There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself when you tell them.” So how does one sister keep her distance from the other, when physically they are together for always. One of the sisters is non-disabled, but the other one has spine bifid, which causes a height difference. So one has to carry the other around, but she made a bar stool, because it is the exact height, and just added wheels to the bottom of the stool. The able-body sister serves as the manager as well as holding the microphone when the other sings. The script is loosely based on a real set of twins, but of course, this being a film, many things are made-up. Once I finish that film, I will focus on nothing. I won’t disappear, but I will decline to participate in the film world, or any other world that is out there. It will just be me, and the private world of the other. I walk alone, but there is always another angel inside me that guides me through the murky waters that are known as life.

Tosh's Journal: September 17

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 17

I barely exist. Well, perhaps to you, I barely exist, but for me, I am the star of my own world. I just don’t have the resources to make a proper appearance or become the person you think I should be. I’m a songwriter as well as a writer.  I don’t have a record deal nor a relationship with a publisher. Still, I can create something, make something that can be admired if you allow me that pleasure. I have the tendency, or some say the talent to choose the wrong type of woman. The ones that make me purr are usually married and married to powerful men. I want a taste of that power by being with their women. To taste what they have eaten, even though it’s a by-product of their ability, their position, it is still a high for me to get close to it. There is something in my DNA that makes me want to throw a punch before thinking it through. I don’t consider myself a vicious man, but once I taste their blood, it is like wine to my senses. I once read that there are no accidents or coincidences, that every gesture or thought is pre-planned. If I was meant to be productive, successful, and I guess happy, then it would happen.

I have been told that “You’ve got a million-dollar talent son, but a ten-cent brain.” The problem is that I need attention before anything else. I can’t stand being ignored or not to be the focus of attention. It’s always a shock to me when people don’t respond to me right away. Everything I do or see is an extension of me. I take a walk down Waverly Drive, and I know the architecture, the road signs, and even the trees as objects that should have a relationship with me. I find it odd that a thing can exist without me thinking about that thing. As I try to finish my memoir “I Am Not Ashamed,” I find myself in a deep sea of doubt, and that, to be honest with you, leave me scared. I wrote a song called “Angel of Death,” which confronts my fear of not being around. “Can you truthfully say/With your dying breath/That you’re ready to meet/The Angel of Death.”

My taste for married women came from the feeling that I’m alive and here at the moment. I don’t like to think about the next day or even the next minute. When you get to it, I want to be famous and admired - and the love or lust from a married woman brings that intensity in life. My girlfriend’s husband, Franchot, threw a punch at me the other night, he missed, and I broke his cheekbone. It felt good to do that.

On the other hand, I won the battle, but I may have lost the war. It felt right at that moment, but now people are beginning to doubt me or even worse, not caring at all. There is only so much pain to go around, and I can’t be seen as the pain giver, because people will be tired of me. And then what? “Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine/And a woman’s lies make a life like mine/Oh the day we met, I went astray/I started rolling down that lost highway.” - Tosh Berman