Tosh Berman's Blog, page 142

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

I drink wine.  I drink a bottle of wine with my wife, and sometimes afterward, I have a glass of sake while watching TV.   We prefer the wine label Charles Shaw, which can only be purchased at Trader Joe's.   Each bottle is $2.99, or at certain parts of the season, $3.99.   After a day of 'work,' I like to have a glass or a few and let the intoxication take over my brain.  I have posted images with music on Instagram (Here) where I'm sitting on my couch in the living room, watching the lightness leave, and the darkness enters my world.  It's the favorite time of the day, when I think back all the mistakes I made early in the afternoon, with some of the great successes as well. Pain and pleasure are married,  and we have to honor the duality that exists.



My day started at 6:30 A.M.   My morning habit is to read the Guardian and the New York Times online.  Usually, the Guardian comes first. I'm intrigued by the situation in England at the moment with the Brexit issue.  I find it totally confusing as well as idiotic.  Which I gather by reading reports others feel the same way.  It's a complicated issue which shouldn't be that complex.  Still, I understand the emotional need to feel separated from another part of the world, but to actually do something like leaving the European world strikes me as stupid.  I'm not British, but I have purchased a lot of British made books (imported Penguin books) and vinyl issued and made in the U.K.; still, that is far as my expertise goes.   It seems the decision to leave was a snap judgment, which I know is impossible (or is it?)   But Brexit winning by such a small margin strikes me as not fair to those who wanted to stay with the EU.  If it was an 80% vote to leave, then OK, take the poison and make the trip.



When I look at my calendar, I immediately become exhausted.   Nothing too crazy mind you, but I have a podcast interview tomorrow, and then I have to see my Uncle, and then come home to deal with a meeting regarding doing a podcast.  This is something I'm looking forward to, because besides "Tosh Talks" YouTube show I want to do something that is totally aural, and not visual.   We bought all the proper equipment, so hopefully, within a few weeks, we can do a proper broadcast.  It will be called "Tosh Talks" because we will still post it on YouTube, and I'm not changing the format, just another medium or outlet to deal with.

What I would want to do is be a DJ on my "Tosh Talks" podcast, but I suspect that there are legal issues involving playing music in that format.   So, I have to study up on that. I'm going to Tokyo in May, and I want to do more Tosh Talks episodes there, so not sure if a podcast or just a YouTube thing is the best.  So many questions, and so many no answers.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

I wrote a piece for Please Kill Me website on the legendary and brilliant Scott Walker.  His death was a terrible blow to me, and in many ways, perhaps my last pop music or cultural idol.  When he died last week it was hard for me to put in words how I feel about him and his music.  Gillian and Alan at Please Kill Me offered a platform to do an essay on him, and I did so.  Scott Walker.



Yesterday I spent the entire day at our home, while it was being fixed for various leaky pipes throughout the house.  I'm somewhat like a cat who doesn't like their place disturbed by neighbors or other animals.  I felt trapped in my room as the workers tore away the downstairs ceiling, and then eventually work on both of our bathrooms.  Of course, once they started to do serious work in my bathroom, I immediately needed to use the toilet.   Which got me thinking that perhaps we should get a Japanese computer toilet that can blow, wipe, and practically dress you up again after using the bog. But that will be expensive, and we decided that the American toilet is perfectly fine for our daily habitual use.  


After being stuck all day (and night) yesterday in my office space at home, I decided to spend the afternoon at Artbook at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles to do my work.  I officially work for them, by writing on books for their Facebook page.  But I also do my own writing as well as studying culture, which means long hours reading posts on Facebook.  It's chilly inside the store and in all the galleries, so I decided to sit in the 'farm' part of the complex to do work.  I'm here with the chickens and herbs and personally, I feel that the chickens here are working harder than me. 

"Scott Walker: Man of Mystery" by Tosh Berman (Please Kill Me )

My appreciation and a little essay on one of the great figures in music.  The late and always fantastic Scott Walker.  
Tosh Berman on Scott Walker (Please Kill Me)

Monday, April 1, 2019

I woke up at 5:55 A.M. because we are expecting two handymen to come in and fix numerous things that are plain wrong in our home.   They came at 8 A.M., but I need at the very least two hours to get myself ready for the outside world.  Three cups of coffee, check Facebook, read e-mail, do some writing, small breakfast (today, avocado on sourdough toast) and then a bath.   By the time they got here, I was fully aware of the world and my actions within its place.  



So far we had to tear part of the downstair's ceiling to locate two leaks that are taking place whenever I take a bath or shower.  Which is daily, so for at least 25 years, there have been leaks which caused permanent damage to the downstairs apartment.  Sometimes reality takes it time before one takes action and repair the horrifying series of incidents that took place in our home.

Financially I expect we will be wiped out.   The good news is that I have a stash of music and books to take over when the sad times arrive.

Website Focusing on the Individuals on the Sgt Pepper Album Cover (including my father Wallace Berman)

Here's a site that exposes all the figures on the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album cover, including my father Wallace Berman. A thank you to Jacques Savage for bringing this to my attention. - Tosh Berman.

Individuals on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band album

Sunday, March 31, 2019

I started my day by taking a hot bath in what seems to be a very warm day in Los Angeles.  I always read in the tub, and now I'm reading Kenward Elmslie's "The Orchid Stories" published by an interesting press The Song Cave.   I like how Elmslie plays with the language, and I have read somewhere that he is a fan of Raymond Roussel, who I suspect influenced "The Orchid Stories." 
I have spent a lifetime in the bath reading, and not once have I ever dropped my book into the bath water.   Nowadays it would be weird for me to be in the tub without a book.   I can look at my bookcase and remember which title I have read in the bath.  There is something organic and beautiful about being in a body of water and reading.  Not sure if anyone else feels that way.  


Throughout the day I have been working on a small essay on Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and although it's interesting to dwell on the novel, I find it difficult to write on.  It's not the subject matter or the book itself, but more of me wanting to go back to the bath and read more of "The Orchid Stories."  Still, I got back to my MacBook Air and kept on writing, while listening to Kristian Hoffman's radio show on LuxuriaMusic.com  called "Pepperland Spicerack" and today he's playing the late (and great) Scott Walker.  Which got me thinking of Scott and Oscar Wilde.  I wonder if he read "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and what was his thoughts on the book.  For a few moments today I tried to pretend that I was Scott writing my essay.   Actually, it went on for an hour or so, and I did come up with something else.  Still, I need to get back to my character, to write the essay. 


Tonight, as usual, we will be drinking wine at 7 pm, and then have our dinner.  I'm hoping to do our walk around the Silver Lake Reservoir before happy hour, but it's sunny outside, and I have this fear of getting skin cancer and/or my hatred of direct sunlight anywhere on my body. I like seeing a sunny day outside the window, but I dread going into the direct sunlight outside our door. 


Also tomorrow, we are having repairmen coming to the house to fix various problems we are having at this moment.  Our money situation is not so great, so I do worry about that. Then again, all that does is make me go to Rockaway Records, where I want to buy a $50 R.D. Laing album "Life Before Death."  

KENNETH PITT: The Architect Who Turned David Jones into David Bowie by Tosh Berman, for PLEASE KILL ME

KENNETH PITT: The Architect who Turned David Jones into David Bowie

My essay/article for the "Please Kill Me" website on the late manager Kenneth Pitt who was David Bowie's first manager. This is the first in a series called “Architects of Stardom”.  Tosh Berman

"Love Conquers All" by Robert Benchley (The Akadine Press)

ISBN 9781888173710
For the last ten years or so, when I think of writers who are important to me, as a writer, I think of Robert Benchley.  Which may be an odd choice, but the reasons why I like him are very sane to me.  I have to presume that Benchley had to write his essays/reviews regularly and all due to the deadline.  I sense that is what inspired his work (and his paycheck) and opened up his imagination.  He also writes about everything under the sun and stars.  Social manners, theater, eating, family life, and so on.  His topics are vast, yet, he covers it all with his 'character,' and that's important for a writer to have a certain amount of character when one writes. I learned from his books. 
And even more critical, Benchley is a great prose writer as well as a fantastic wit.  I'm a fan of literature that was written in the 1920s/1930s that come off charming, but I damn know well that things were for sure not charming outside Benchley's world or mind.  Yet, he made a choice to write about his subject matters with a strong subjective point-of-view that doesn't show him being smarty-pants, but one with an intense curiosity of how things work.   I think of him often when I type on a blank screen or a pen on paper.  If he can come up with the goods, then so can I!

Tosh Berman and Andrew Lampert discuss TOSH growing up in wallace berman...

This is a discussion between yours truly (Tosh Berman) and artist Andrew Lampert on my memoir TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World" (City Lights).  The talk took place at ARTBOOK @ MoMA PS1 in Queens New York on February 23, 2019.

Thank You from Tosh Berman

First of all, I want to thank everyone who came to my events in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Portland. What I find amazing, is that each event was different from the other one. Great attendance throughout the tour, but the conversations were different. No one asked the same questions as far as I can remember. My book TOSH is very textural, and each reader gets something personal or different from the other person. I can't explain why, but it just happens that way. I'm still high from the tour, and I'm just thrilled to see all of you out there, and such interesting comments from the audience as well. Amazing. Really amazing. - Tosh Berman