Tosh Berman's Blog, page 194

The Sunday Series: Sunday September 20, 2015: Tokyo/Paris/Los Angeles

I’m always exhausted, when I get back from Japan.   I go every year, or maybe even twice a year.  We're sort of living there, or more likely, we go there.  We don’t live anywhere.  We just go to places, and see what happens. For me, travel is a form of escape.  When things are sucky in one place, it is time to move on.  The thing is I only like to travel to Paris or Tokyo.  I could care less about the rest of the world.   Like, your hometown has no interest for me whatsoever.   Do you like your hometown?  I don’t.



I don’t hang around here anymore.   The gold gang either got old or they died.   Either way, they’re totally useless for me.  Oddly enough, when I walk through a Tokyo street, for instance in the hills of Shibuya, I think of the Rolling Stones’ song “(Walking Thru) a Sleepy City.” I’m always singing that song to myself, and for some odd reason, always in Shibuya.   My favorite time is when the daylight slowly turns into night, and all the signage from the buildings, restaurants and bars turn on just right before it gets totally dark.   The change-over only lasts for a few moments, but it reminds me of Jacques walking through Pigalle, Paris and he’s walking towards his home after a night of gambling.   He witnesses the neon lights being turned off, and it’s both beautiful and depressing at the same moment.  I live for moments like these.   These memories are fading. Yet I hold on to them as if a thirsty man is left wandering around a drought-like conditions in Los Angeles.



Keiji Haino called me.  He called me a lot of things, but it is always great to hear him say “Hey Tosh.” I get out my rare Dalimaru electric guitar with four strings, and I’m off to a gig in Shinjuku with Keiji.  With him, I never know what is going to happen.   The truth is, we just live from one neon light opening to another.  I’m just lucky that there is FamilyMart’s throughout the route from one point to another.  I swear to God, if it wasn’t for the “One Cup Ozeki,” I would be dead by now.   Or worse, sober.



This Sunday is not like any other Sunday.  Today is the day where I’m going to skip through my past, and make it my present, so I can deal with my future.

"The Life of a Stupid Man" by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

On of the three little Penguin books I bought in Tokyo for the plane trip back home.  Here are 3 small selections of the works by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, the king of the Japanese decadent writers, as well as the famous prize given out every year to a contemporary Japanese writer.   Oddly enough, I never read his works, but I knew of him as the iconic writer of his time.  Strongly influenced by the French writers and poets of the 19tth century (he was born in 1892 and died in 1927), there are traces of that type of impressionistic dynamics in his work.  The longer piece "The Life of a Stupid Man" is a poetic commentary of a young man going under.   Romantic and death obsessed.  What writer could resist such a figure. And readers, an enticing adventure(er) to another world.  Of course, I'm going to seek out and purchase a bigger collection of his stories.   And I do have some of his books in my library.  But untouched by my eyes at this moment....
Tosh Berman

Keith Richards / "Crosseyed Heart"

Keith Richards"Crosseyed Heart" 
I pretty much gave up on the world of the modern Rolling Stones.  I find them totally not interesting.   It's corporate rock.  On the other hand, I love the 1960s Stones.  From the first album to "Let it Bleed," they couldn't do no wrong.    After Andrew Loog Oldham and Brian Jones left, they became a different type of animal.   Which is perfectly OK, I know there are people out there (even good ones) who feel that "Exile" and "Sticky Fingers" are classics.  I'm not going to argue against that, but I prefer "We Love You" to the boogie era Stones.  Which comes to the new Keith Richards's new solo album 'Crosseyed Heart."  It's 100% Keith.  It's Keith of the legendary Keith - the icon.   And that iconic Keith kind of bugs me.  On the other hand, this is a fantastic album. 
  Steve Jordan, Keith's left or right-handed man for this specific album, as well as co-author of most of the original songs, except for the two covers, I think did a magnificent job.   What makes this album great are the arrangements.  He adds unexpected touches throughout the album.  It's a beautifully textured work.  A lot of the songs or recordings remind me of Tom Waits.  Not only Keith's voice, but just how he lets the songs relax, and it rolls really well into the chorus.    Which again, is never expected.  "Heartstopper" starts off as a Keef riff thing, but the chorus is tenderly seductive.  Keith in recent interviews mentions that he doesn't like "rock" but loves the "roll."   Which I believe he's commenting on the groove aspect of a song. "Trouble" is pretty terrific, in how the back up vocals is arranged.  Almost "Shattered" (my fave post-Stones classic era cut) like, in that it builds into this great memorable and very Keith specific "groove."    Jordan I suspect, as well as being a fantastic drummer, is a classic arranger, or I suspect he's the main one here with respect to the arrangements.   There is almost a Jean-Claude Vannier touch he adds to the Keith sound.   Which means this is the closest Richards will get to Serge Gainsbourg.  If you close your eyes, and let the ears hear his version of "Goodnight Irene" one can almost hear the ghost of Brian Jones.
With someone like Keith Richards, one is often thought 'this is only a moonlighting gig," but the truth is, and with this album, he should consider a solo career as his main occupation.   His vocal work is very sexy and reflective of the personality that is his. At the tender age of 71, this is clearly his best work since the classic era of the Stones.

"My Life With The United Red Army" by Tosh Berman

I’m living near Karuizawa, and I chose to live here because of the Asama-Sansō incident that took place on February 19, 1972, to February 28, 1972, in a mountain lodge near here. Most important, it was the first live television broadcast in Japan - lasting 10 hours and 40 minutes. The final day of the standoff is a classic relationship between the Left vs. Everyone, and the futility of life, as it passes us by. Throughout my life, I have always been secretly attracted to destruction. Although I told people that I had an interest in peace and calm, the fact is I desired the exact opposite. 

The woman I once loved, Hiroko Nagata, was the co-leader of the United Red Army (URA), which briefly I was a member of. Her partner in crime and politics, Tsuneo Mori, was just as brutal as Hiroko. I often fell into the graces of the most horrid people. I met her at Meiji University, when I was going out with another girl by the name of Fusako Shigenobu. We all shared the same politics, where we felt isolated from the mainstream, which condemned us. Fusako, was an early love, decided to leave the group due to the hard-edgeless of Hiroko’s view of being part of the URA. For me, I needed to devote my life to a cause that will make me feel part of a bigger group. To be honest, I was more interested in a life, that would give meaning not only to myself, but those around me. Hiroko, often was removed from my feelings towards her. She even showed slight interest in me from the very beginning of our relationship. To her, I was just a tool to serve the cause. Her ability to look towards the image of Mao, over my shoulder, as I fucked her, always made an impression on me. 

When I first joined the URA, there were 29 members and they lost 14 by killing them less than a year. I could have easily been one of the 14 killed, except I knew when to shut my mouth and kept Hiroko happy. Both Hiroko and Tsuneo were at each other’s throats, when my name came up. Tsuneo hated me from the very beginning, and consistently expressed his opinion of me to Hiroko. The only male friend I had in the group was Moriaki Wakabayashi, who was also a member of my favorite band at the time, Les Rallies Dénudés. Sadly (for various reasons) he took part in the hijacking of the Japan Airlines Flight 351. He eventually ended up in North Korea, and what I last heard, he was still alive, but giving bass lessons to members of the North Korean Army. I can forgive him for that, but I just wished he was with me in these hard, cold and harsh times. 

Hiroko was at her most mean state of mind when attacking other females. I surely think if Fusako didn’t leave the core of the group and started up with another member of the Red Army, she would be tortured and killed by now. Not to sound impolite or even mean, but Hiroko was a real bitch. Especially when you’re working with her or I should say — working under her. I don’t know how it happened, but she just became more and more brutal. I once admired for her intelligence and her ability to question authority and what they had offered on the table. But as time went on, I sense she was seeing the world in a much narrower way. At first she would lecture the fellow members, and then eventually she would hit them. For whatever reasons, she physically attacked the women in the group. She would hate it when they showed some form of vanity-especially if they wanted to wear make-up or have colored nails. She thought that was bullshit, and would at first insist that they hand over the make-up, and she would throw it in the trash, or make them break the lipstick and throw it away. Also any romantic overtures from either male or female in the group, would cause her to go nuts on us. It seems that she always went out of her way to attack the most beautiful woman in the group. The plain-janes, at first, were left alone, but eventually they would fall into Hiroko’s sight lines and she would eventually destroy them as well. When we were fucking, I noticed that she really had no real interest in the sex act or specifically me. I think she found the sexual act as something beneath her. Hiroko, soon after our sexual affair, became obsessed with the need to see that no one in the group was having sex. Or any sexual activity whatsoever. 

Before Karuizawa, when I was dating Fusako, I wouldn’t be treated so horribly by the dynamic duo of Hiroko and Tsuneo, but both turned against her. Fusako is a very beautiful woman, and she basically left me, because she felt that I wasn’t connected to her, due to my political beliefs. In fact, she always claimed that I was passive to a silly degree. There is truth in what she says. I think there are people who are born leaders, and then there are the followers. Fusako is one of those who people are naturally drawn to. Both, due to her beauty and intelligence. I would think Hiroko just as intelligent, but never would be considered as a looker, if you know what I mean. Yet, there was something very sexual about Hiroko. She did have that ability to seduce — both due to her determination and the razor-like devotion to the group as well as for the cause. Fusako can expand or even change her view-points, but Hiroko never will change her opinion. Once the decision is made, it is written in stone, and never erased by the natural elements. When we had sex, I think she used it as a power over me. She had many techniques in conveying her strength over individuals. 
What set Hiroko off on Fusako, was her beauty. She hated attractive women, especially those who attract men. In an act of revenge, she would give Fusako less food than others - and she made sure that Fusako noticed that I was given a great deal of food, compared to the other men. Fusako would be pissed of course, but I think she was madder at me than Hiroko. She could understand Hiroko’s feelings or her sense of hatred, but had a hard time understanding my indifference. I mostly didn’t want to make waves, so I try to keep out of the hairy situation. Before it got totally nuts here, Fusako and Moriaki left the group and started another wing of the Red Army. Bad things happened to them, but that’s another narrative. As for me, I stayed. There was no question of me leaving, even if I wanted to.No one in the remaining group understood the relationship between Hiroko and Tsuneo. Both were equal under everyone’s eyes, but Hiroko was an absolute beast - and Tsuneo was just plain sadistic. They both said the exact same things and phrases - the only difference was that one voice sounded feminine and the other was masculine. Other than that, entirely the same. I had a dream once, that both of their bodies became one. And in truth, it is not that far off. What made them scary was their lack of sexual attractions to each other. Their relationship was based on their belief in the political cause and nothing else. The two supported each other and it was obvious that their stance in life would never change. If both were to go to Hell, they would go with great passion. What would happen to us, was no concern for the two. 

We were in an abandoned cabin in Karuizawa, doing our military training in the snow. The location is actually a second-home to a family that owned a company that made fountain pens in Tokyo. Hiroko managed to have a relationship with the son of the owner, and got him to give keys and other essential comforts such as cash, for the purpose of the Cause. Once we all got to the home, the clock and the very day were controlled by Tsuneo and Hiroko. To show our commitment to the group, some of us had to strip naked and be tied to a tree during the harsh winter and snowing night. Some were freed within an hour. Others were left there overnight. Those who were still chained to the trees were dead by late morning. I had no idea why they were killed, or why some were just tied up for an hour. All I know is that I was very scared of the two. Logic seemed to be thrown outside the home, and it became a landscape where the mood was totally controlled by Hiroko and Tsuneo. In ways, it reminded me when I was in a gang in elementary school. Our leader, either out of boredom or some sort of hatred within himself, would go out of his way to do cruel things to, not only the other gangs, but also to members of his gang. In a way, it is like if language had failed, and the need to do “action” took over the logic at the time. We had one hostage that we got from the village. We were able to hold out for a whole week. Hark and Tsuneo expected us to commit suicide. For those who had a different idea what is life in the group, were beaten to death. My attitude at the time was that I was either going to be killed by the duo, or the police. I thought it would be more profound to be slaughtered by the police than Tsuneo and Hiroko. 

For some odd reason, the police suspected that the hostage was already killed, and there was visual evidence of dead members of the clan. All committed by Hiroko and Tsuneo. So the police made the decision to attack the structure we are in, by sending grenades through the windows as well as the property around the house. I threw myself out the window, and had my hands up. I felt a strong arm pulling me towards the bottom of the hill, and I had my eyes closed during the whole process. 

Prison life is bad, but not as bad as spending the winter with Hiroko and Tsuneo. I have been let go, with great restrictions of course, but now in Karuizawa, thinking that there must be some sort of monument of the lives that was killed on the spot. The structure itself is torn down, and there is a Royal Host restaurant in its place. Perhaps it is best this way. Hiroko died in prison due to brain cancer and Tsuneo killed himself in his cell years ago. Both never lost their vision. I lost mine some time ago, but then again, I realized I never really had a vision about anything. It was then that I realized that my world, my culture - perhaps the world itself, didn’t have a vision as well. The horrible duo, at the very least, died for their vision. Me, I’ll die. No one cares when or, how.

Spirit image caught by Lun*na Menoh on Izu Oshima, Japan

Lun*na Menoh took pictures of her installation piece that took place at Art Islands in TOKYO on Izu Oshima island.   This one image, it seems she photographed a spirit as it walked through her installation.   Notice that the woman on the left side of the photograph doesn't have any legs, yet it seems that the legs are following her.  Not trick photography.  Image taken by I-Phone 5.

Sleep Life on Izu Oshima (images by Lun*na Menoh)

The Sunday Series: Sunday September 6, 2015 (Izu Oshima, Tokyo, Japan)

The Sunday Series:Sunday September 6, 2015Izu Ōshima, Tokyo, Japan
“If I live, I live, if I die, I’ll die.” There is very little here, except the ocean, which surrounds this island, and the mountains.  All structures, and shops are close to the water, as if it has second thoughts being in the jungle like growth of nature.  Once you’re on the island, you are here forever.  Even if you leave, the insect bites seems to stay with you for a long time.  I have rashes on top of other rashes, and for sure, me being here, must have shortened my life by at least minutes if not longer.   If I die on this island, I would haunt it forever.  I don’t believe death is the end, but really a continuation of one’s hell.   Once you throw the dice against the wall, and your numbers don’t come up - you’re fucked, and you’re fucked for life. 


I came to this island because I needed to test myself in the sense of I would choose life over death.  To me, it is basically the same.  The fact it is in the middle of summer, which means the weather is not only hot 24 hours a day, but also humid, where one’s sweat seems to attract every insect in existence on this island.  The most common insect I have here is an overlarge spider.  When you walk down one of the paths or even the street that circles around the island, which is a two-lane road, one often walks into a giant spider web.  If I take a ten minute walk anywhere, I find my hair has cobwebs and an occasional living creature of some sort.  The other creature I see here, and I see a lot of, is cats.  Most, if not all, are wild.   They don’t look approachable, but still they are beautiful creatures.  I wasn’t sure if it was due to my exhaustion from the heat, but I could have sworn I saw a cat as big as a large dog.  It was an orange kitty, and looked totally normal, except it was huge.  I immediately walked the other direction, because for sure, I felt the animal would have approached and ate me.  I think it would go for the eyes first and then the hair of my body.  I then imagined that the cat would drag me into the bushes and eat the rest of my body. 


I did see an odd sight, when walking down a dark road, there were two crows in the street, picking on something.  As I slowly approached these flying rats, I can see they were eating a dead squirrel.  Which amazingly enough, I never see these critters on trees or anywhere else.   Only once, and this squirrel is quite dead, yet still, a meal for the birds.   I even saw a deer with horns, but he or she pretended to hide from me in a bush.  The deer never lost sight of me as I slowly walked down the street.   As a human, I don’t feel that I should be on this island whatsoever.  It belongs to creatures and nature.   I often felt this way when I walk around the dog park in Silver Lake.  Humans take their dogs here, but it seems like a concentration camp to me.  There used to be grass, but now it is nothing but dirt and dogshit.   There is something depressing to me when I see humans playing with their pets - it reminds me of master and servant.  One can’t escape the horror of being human, and being part of the human system where one looks for love wherever they can find it.  Even for a dog that clearly is with you because one feeds it.   The beast must conform to the human’s point-of-view of what an animal is - in other words, their pet or animal must reflect the owner’s ego.   Here on the island, beasts (cats) run free and I find it beautiful, because here they are - as they are meant to be.  Not a human’s concept of a beast, but truly a beast on their own terms.  



I spend my time writing, mostly at the abandoned elementary school.  My wife and I set up a portable studio within the space, which is jammed full of images of students and teachers who are no longer working there, and more likely no longer alive.   Even then, nature is taking over the room.  Insects roam freely from one body to the next, and when I take my clothes off to take my daily cold shower, I look like a map, not made by human intelligence, but from an insects point-of-view.   So if I do die here, I will become part of the natural world - food for the cats, crows, and a desert for the insects.

- Tosh Berman, Tokyo, Japan
Images by Lun*na Menoh

Art Islands TOKYO 2015: Fashion Show by Lun*na Menoh

Tosh Berman Interview with 3: AM Magazine

An interview I did on the 3:AM Magazine website.  Pretty extensive.  With my publisher Rebekah Weikel (Penny-ante editions) 
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/art-is-love-is-god/

The Sunday Series: Sunday August 30, 2015 - Izu Ōshima, Tokyo, Japan

The Sunday Series
Sunday, August 30, 2015 (Izu Ōshima, Tokyo, Japan)

I began to write my own obituary, because I don’t feel I will make it off this island.  The fact that the local (and prominent volcano) Mount Mihara is fully active and ready to blow at a second’s notice, and on top of that, there is a major earthquake fault underneath the island.  Every where I go on this island I’m reminded of death.  On a walk, I came upon a monument and a little shrine that announced a plane crash that took place here which killed 30 people.   In another walk, there was another shrine that honored the 35 people who were victims of a mudslide due to the typhoon that hit the island three years ago.   And just before we arrived here, a plane went down and crashed into a house, killing the occupant, who by chance, just moved into the house.  The volcano itself, attracted hundreds to commit suicide by jumping into the lava filled crater.  The cruel joke is that one wished to be swallowed by the earth, but in fact, when you jump in, lava keeps you floating and you just burn to death by the steam coming out of your body.  Death here is no joke.

So, if you look at this statistically, I have a 50/50 chance of making it alive from Ōshima.  To be on the safe side, and concerned about not having the last word on my life, and not having the time to finish off the full memoir called “Tosh’s Unfortunate Life,” I decided to, at the very least, to write my own obituary.   Here it is:

Tosh Berman (August 25, 1954 - Sunday August 30, 2015)

Born in Los Angeles and died in Izu Ōshima, Tokyo, Japan

“Tosh Berman was a writer, poet, publisher, and gentleman.  The son of Wallace Berman and Shirley Berman.  He went to school, but the school denied that he was ever a student.   Nevertheless he never let a locked door stop him from getting a full education.   In school, Tosh had a deep interest in whatever was happening outside the classroom.  This leads him to fail Kindergarten, and he had to take that class twice.  By the second time, he realized that the school world wasn’t made for his liking.   At eleven years old, he wrote his own book of poetry “My Life, My World, My Everything” that was published in an edition of one on a notebook that his parents gave him.   Due that the hand-printed manuscript was extremely hard to read, the author is the only one to actually read the book of poems.  Even with that, Tosh gave the book a superb blurb in the back of the notebook: “Poetry is real, and this is the real deal” - Tosh Berman, Poet (author of “My Life, My World, My Everything.”)



As a teenager it could be thought of that he discovered girls, but the fact is, girls discovered Tosh.  They found him peeking through various keyholes and windows in selective residences where pretty teenage girls were found to be residing.   Being caught on a regular basis, Tosh learned to use language as not only as a tool, but also a weapon.  The girls became wary of him when he claimed he was looking for his glasses in various suspicious locations.    By the age of seventeen, he was lead tambourine player for the band “Knock Knock Who’s There.” They were the no. 1 band at Louisville High School in Woodland Hills and had a sizable female audience, due to the fact that it was an all-girl school.   Tosh became a fixture at this educational institution, and his one goal in his life at the time, was to become a janitor at the school.  Fate had other plans for him, for instance, he was kicked out of the band due to his reckless dancing, and insisting on having a microphone on stage, which in fact, he didn’t sing at all.

Tosh, it was reported, was a very bitter young man.   He seemed to drink only liquids that had a tang taste, and usually had a puckered gesture around the mouth area.   That look was quite iconic on him, and eventually many people imitated his look by holding their puckered lips together.  Since then, Tosh started to have a following - mostly guys who couldn’t function in the world, and were often called dreamers by the local High School football team.  Tosh was known for his militant “no exercise” stance, that he kept up till his death.   He deeply felt that one should read a book instead of doing exercise.  Or if one needs to do for exercise, they can clearly do so by reaching for a book on the top shelf, or do deep knee bends, when the book is located on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

  
It was only at the age of 21, Tosh decided to get a job, due that the parents refused to feed him till he found occupation.  He went to the first record store, and got the job there, when he could name every member of Freddie and the Dreamers (Roy Crewdson on guitar, Derek Quinn on guitar and harmonica, Peter Birell bass, Bernie Dwyer drums and of course, Freddie Garrity on lead vocals and lead dancing).  Tosh was profoundly moved when he read a quote from Freddie saying “The Dreamers and I have always been daft.  You couldn’t call me a sex-idol, could you?  Collectively, we’re no glamour boys.”



Tosh worked at a record store on Sherman Way in Reseda from the beginning of March 1975 to the end of March 1975.  He often commented on the enjoyment of various porn actresses who worked as a stripper on the side, would come in to get music for their act.  Tosh showed choreographed talents when he recommended the would-be strippers on how to do some of the movements.  He was eventually let-go of the job due to his naturally suggestive sexual movements while working at the store.  Customers and the fine-looking women who worked with him didn’t complain, but the city council of Reseda took notice, and requested that he be removed from the job.  Normally something like this would discourage Tosh’s love of music, but alas, it only became stronger, when he devoted his life to various punk rock clubs around Los Angeles.



It was at this time, he became a professional friend to bands such as DEVO and The Weirdos.  He would make sure the right drinks were in the right glasses, and kept the bands safe from the Los Angeles Police Department as well as the over-zealous female fans.   He would often read poetry out-loud in the dressing rooms to calm the musicians’ nerves before hitting the stage.  It has been noted that DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh would request Tosh to read Frank O’Hara’s poem about drinking a coke.  To add to the effect, Tosh would serve Mark a glass of Coke as he read the poem to him. Tosh realized that this wasn’t a good career move, due that there’s no payment in what he was doing, so he decided to devote himself to the business world of making and writing poetry.   Here he made his fame and fortune.



Tosh as an adventurer (both sexually as well as a world traveler) became an obsessed collector of rare petrified mummies that were caught in the lava flow of various volcano eruptions.  His obsession with Mount Mihara, on the island of Oshima, one of the seven Izu islands off of, but still part of Japan, had an active volcano.   In fact, a girl he was dating with at the time, Kiyoko Matsumoto, jumped into the flames of Mihara, when he refused to take her out for shaved ice near the black beaches on the island.  She survived the suicide attempt, even though she did lose some inches in height wise.



Tosh settled down in the town of Moji-Ko, and married a girl from the area.  Here, he found a publisher, Cole Swift & Sons, who had offices not only in Moji-Ko, but also in Bombay, London, and Paris.  With them, he produced his first book of poems “The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding.” The entire book was written in Moji-Ko, with a broken typewriter that couldn’t type the letter “E” due to the malfunction of the typewriter. It became the first book of poetry that doesn’t use the capital letter “E” nor a small “e.” This of course, caused a great deal of controversy in the Poetry World.  For a little awhile it was banned in all countries that have a letter E in their country’s name.  The scandal even touched Tosh personally, when for about a month or two he was known as “Tosh Brman.” (The “e” was removed from his last name).



Banned from writing poetry and told to be kept away from all workable typewriters, Tosh decided to start up a press TamTam Books, that focused on post-war French writing.  At the time, he started this press, no one was interested in the writer Boris Vian, so, he devoted his finances and time to promote the works of Vian. Not surprisingly, no one was interested in Boris Vian when he closed his press.   Therefore it was a major disappointment for him when he got turned down the highest French medal of honor, but also he couldn’t get a visa to visit France.   In fact, he became banned in France.  With that in mind, Tosh wrote his last book “Sparks-Tastic” that became an instant classic for the Kindle set.   It seemed that Kindle would malfunction whenever it tried to download the non-fictional work.  With a string of failures in his background and clearly, nothing was going to happen in his future, Tosh decided to move to Izu Ōshima, where he became a manager of the Innomaru House, an inn and a house of loose women who served not only the local population but also customers from the mainland.   It was here when he….”

This is where I had to finish off the obituary, because at this time, I’m not sure what or how my “ending” will happen.  Fate often knocks on my door, and it is that fateful moment where I either go with the wind, or against it.