Tosh Berman's Blog, page 212

September 30, 2014

September 30, 2014

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 just 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 bigger island that is Japan.  Or perhaps the island that is actually 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 basically 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 nice 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 on 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, which 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 odder, is that they mostly have  photographs of Steve Took (the bongo player) than Bolan on its walls   That is here and there, 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.

September 29, 2014

September 29, 2014

As a writer, a publisher, a poet, and a lover, I very much follow the ancient code of chivalry, 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 greatly while in the bathtub.  It was sometime during finishing the last page of the novel and draining the tub’s water that I decided to take a trip, to express the code that I believe is essential for the modern life.



I emptied my bank account and some others, to purchase an one-way ticket to Tokyo, for the purpose of bringing the code to the citizens of Edo.  I intend to penetrate into 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 sentence 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.

September 28, 2014

September 28, 2014

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 that is ugly.  For me, the make-believe is real.  I don’t understand how anyone can say that they prefer ugliness, when clearly 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 film, 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 into his demand that I can see the film at his theater.


Being in a movie theater was a totally 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 film 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 understood 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 images 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 household, because we had books with words, and books on painting or fine 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 images were mostly when she was a teenager to her stardom in “And God Created Woman.”

Since I wasn’t reading text yet at the 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 mostly 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 80 and I’m 60 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.  Yet, 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 even seen her in person, I feel very close to her presence or image.  She strikes me as a person who made her own world, over a period of 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, and my memories are as pure as the sunshine somewhere in the South of France.

September 27, 2014

September 27, 2014

I’m a moody guy.  I play with identity like 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 band 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 really 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.  Amazing composer as well, but I really 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 mind-set I felt it was very important to not only adopt their musical talents, but also their habits as well.   It took me 12-months to totally 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 as 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.

September 26, 2014

September 26, 2014

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 truly 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 bad.  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? ”

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September 25, 2014

September 25, 2014

Your lack of strength and backbone shocks me. I think the only reason that I let you be around me is that you’re an inspiration to me.  I note everything you do here, and I mediate on that list, and eventually I will do the total opposite.   If you turn left, I’ll go right.  If you go back, I go forward.  I wake up each morning to read your Facebook page, because it is exactly like watching a car accident in slow motion.  One knows the end of the narrative, but I can’t help myself watching the gradual drain down the sewer pipes. That is your life.  You have an instinctive genius in doing the wrong things at the moment when you should make changes for the better.  I wish that you were big or important enough as a subject matter to take a bet against in Las Vegas.  Your predictable choices and how you follow them are a peaceful meditation for me.  But that’s here or there.



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.  Yet, just before he passed away in 1982, he did a new recording of the work.  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 made a comment that “the mental imagery involved with pianistic tactilia is not related to the striking of individual keys but rather to the rites of passage between notes. ”

With respect to the second and much later recording, Gould felt that the initial recording of the piece was too much of a pianistic affectation, and that it needed a more introspective interpretation that included more calculated phrasing and ornamentation. What is fascinating that he had the ability to look at his work, 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 adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”

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 totally different work, based on one’s past.  William Faulkner wrote that “the past is never dead.  It’s not even past.” The need to make up one’s identity is just as important when you deal with your past.  That is the reason why I get so annoyed with the nameless artist above (the first paragraph), because he chooses to whine about his condition, instead of doing art or making his life better.  He knows what he can do, yet, he rather plays to his audience.  Going back to Gould, he makes a good 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 rule of mob law. ”



Robert Bresson, the filmmaker, wrote beautiful advice in that “the most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.” To dwell in one’s misery for the purpose of bringing you second-rate attention, is surely, over time, will make you lose your audience.  And that is a bit of a problem.  Because you only live through your audience, not your now so-called art.

Bryan Ferry & Michael Bracewell - Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago

A recent discussion between Michael Bracewell, a writer I greatly admire, and Bryan Ferry.  A person of great interest!

September 24, 2014

September 24, 2014

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

September 23, 2014

September 23, 2014

I loathe brutes. In fact, 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 are brutish men who cry and seek assistance. If there is one thing that really 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 actually touch them with the tool of my trade, but just make them think that there is greater pain out there, and one needs to be tough to cope with it.  In most cases, they just 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, which worked in total secrecy and only answer to me.  The members of great 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 steer 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 literally attached to the flower itself.  A flower is a wisp of a life that survives in a world that is cruel, 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.