Tosh Berman's Blog, page 225

June 10, 2014

June 10, 2014

The moment that I became upon, the one that I was dreading from the very beginning of this writing project… has happened.  There comes a time when you wake up and you approach your laptop, you turn it on, adjust the music of one’s choice, and then… nothing.  Vapid of course, but all you are seeing in front of you is a very enormous concrete wall, and you know what you desire is behind the wall, but the problem is what do I desire?  After that, you realize maybe you’re not as good as you think you are, and other self-defeating thoughts, which at first, slowly creeps in, but then all of sudden it is like a damn breaking, and your overwhelmed with dread, with thoughts of failure.  And it is not even 9 AM!   I looked out the window.  I see the same cars parked that are always there, and I go looking for inspiration in the everyday occurrence, but alas, was that even interesting?  How can I make the uninteresting, interesting?



To change the scenery I decided to take a shower, got dressed, and went on the 96 metro bus to 6TH and Grand, and walked over to the Yorkshire Grill for breakfast.  Obviously, I wasn’t feeling hungry so I just ordered a side of rye toast and a cup of coffee. I sat at the counter of course, and oddly enough, I was the only person there. That alone doesn’t really bother me, because I like being in public spaces and being the only one there.  I often feel ‘entitled’ to areas that technically belong to everyone.  While sitting there I found myself silently humming a song to myself “A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You” written by Al Dubin and Harry Warren.  Dublin continued to be a hero to me, because I think a sense of failure was always chasing him around.  Even though he wrote the lyrics to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” and “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” the happiness that was expressed in those lyrics doesn’t fully gel with the man who wrote them.   Throughout his life he had to struggle with alcohol and drugs - especially doctor prescribed barbiturates, which eventually killed him.  At the peak of his struggling career was the depression.  The irony of his writing songs like “Lullaby of Broadway” while he was at his worst and with the whole U.S. culture dealing with the aftereffects of such a devastating era. Is very moving to me, as well as an inspiration to my occasional writer’s block issues.



My character is among misery.  I sought to hide it time-to-time, but it oozes out from either my writing, or when I’m home alone having a drink.  I don’t like to share that side of my personality with the world - or at least face-to-face.  But the truth is I don’t like to be in the presence of people that much anymore.  Usually I feel dread, then around the corner comes boredom.  As I sat on the counter slowly drinking my cup of coffee, I realized that what I fear the most is social responsibility and with that, boredom is hooked up as well.



After my breakfast, I walked around downtown, which is my favorite destination for a walk.  It is not until I travel without a map in an area that I sort of know, is where I find the greatest adventure.  I always run across a building or entrance way that I never noticed before, and I wonder why?  This starts my brain cells to make progress in a certain way, and all of sudden the concrete wall in front of me, is starting to chip away piece by piece.  The process is extremely slow, but I’m thankful that there is some sort of movement happening.  When I got back to my writing area, which tends to be in my library, I looked at a self-portrait by Gustave Courbet, a French artist of the 19th century.   The painting is called "The Desperate Man," and it wasn't till now, that I realized that what drew me to this specific painting was that I saw myself in that work.   Then I realized that it was a form of theater for Courbet, in that he used himself as a character in his own making.  Therefore I realized that as a writer, I too have to become a character in my own story.   The concrete wall now has an opening, and at this point, I can stick my head through the wall to find out what was on the other side.

June 9, 2014

June 9, 2014

Whenever I put a pencil onto a piece of paper, or type something in my computer, the one person that I always think of, almost on an everyday basis, is Cole Porter.   Ever since I was a teenager, I was enthralled with the idea of Cole, including his name, which I thought at the time (and still do) a superb sounding of two words put together.  Cole.  Porter.   Cole Porter.

It was around that time I decided to try my hand at writing lyrics, because basically, I couldn’t do anything else.   Luckily I met a friend at High School, who wrote songs - both lyrics and melody.  I offered him my services as his lyricist, and he took me up on it.   Once he said yes, I kept a school notebook and started either writing ideas for songs or actual lyrics.  Within three months, I gave him my notebook and told him to do what he must do.  Sadly I didn’t have the talent to sit around his piano and sing the lyrics to him.  It was very academic and literary to me.  Nevertheless he did make demos, and I thought that they were masterpieces.  Not only that, but that it was music that broke the boundaries that were set by my favorite bands and songwriters at the time.  Which were The Kinks (Ray), Syd Barrett, and dare I say it, even Robert Wyatt!  I was confident that we were better than those songwriters and artists, and it would be only a matter of time when the world will know about us, and eventually wealth will follow after the crushing fame.  Even then, although I secretly desired fame, I was ready to denounce it - it seemed fame was much cooler if you declared your hatred for it at the same time.  Dear reader, as you can gather by now, the fame and fortune didn’t happen.

First of all the notebook of my lyrics were stolen and held for ransom due that I wrote a put-down of a girl lyric, that is actually about a girl I know, and brilliantly (in honor of Bryan Ferry who did the same) I wrote her phone number as part of the sing-along chorus.  For obvious reasons, she hated that, and therefore took the notebook right out of Gary’s hands.  It took me about a year to get it back.  So typical of our relationship, in that it was barely a relationship.  It was more of a sinking ship with no loose lips.  And yes, that meant I never kissed her.

The doomed romantic that I was (or am). One can see or hear it through my lyrics at the time.  Basically all the songs were about being in love, then losing the girl, and then dying.   I wrote something like 100 lyrics and not once, did I change the theme or format - they were works that were full of word-play (like my idol Cole) and were intended to work on many different conscious levels.  My understanding that there are at least seven levels of consciousness, and surely my lyrics works on at the very least four or maybe five levels.  Actually on a good day, six.


On the other hand, like life, things didn’t go as planned.  The map was not the destination. It wasn’t even a pit-stop if you get my drift.  Countless years have passed, and eventually I went from doing nothing to doing nothing on a couch in my single apartment.  But then I thought, why not use the material I have on hand, and write a musical.  I was thinking of basing my musical on the great French chanson singer Barbara, but then realized that I couldn’t speak or pronounced one word in French, except for non.  Then I thought of a great idea of basing the idea of the musical on the Walt Disney “Silly Symphonies” cartoon “The Wise Little Hen.” The cartoon stars Donald Duck (his first appearance ever) and Peter Pig.  The plot of the story is that our two heroes avoid work by faking stomach aches (something I did in my youth - a lot) until Mrs. Hen teaches them the value of hard work.  Obviously I thought of the pig and Donald as me and Gary - but that as far as it goes.  I never thought of him as a pig or a duck, but alas, as an updated musical I couldn’t see how this would miss.



I sought to keep the characteristics of Donald Duck, but also added the seductive charm of Robert Cummings, who had a TV series called “Love That Bob.” Who interestingly enough was one of the first advocates of natural foods and a healthy diet, but also unknown to the public at the time was a methamphetamine addict as well. The combination of Donald and Bob made a delightful character.  So I wrote the book, the lyrics, and even the music, by humming melodies while taking a shower.  The thing is I couldn’t find a financial backer.  And worst of all, Walt Disney refused to give me permission to use either the cartoon or Donald Duck as a source for my musical. Nevertheless I gave up that dream and now focused on the world of finance by playing the stock market.  I lose big, but I retain a love for the songs I wrote with Gary, and the idea for the musical.  As long as I have my memories, I can’t really complain.

June 8, 2014

June 8, 2014
In the 1970s, I lived in the Fallingwater residence that was designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright.  The one thing that was impressive was that one could not avoid the great man’s personality while living there.  It was a structure that was the property of nature, but only symbolically so.  The thing with nature, and why I do not love the natural world, is that it always wins in the end, especially when the human element tries to control it.  The only music that I find that fits the personality of the structure is music by Edmundo Rivero, whose tango ballads fits the temperament of the place.  After awhile the beauty of the location and the building, itself got to me.  It made me feel depressed and anxious at the same time.  A bad cocktail for me. 


Wright I imagine, thought he was contributing to nature, but wasn’t he trying to control or stamp his individuality over the environment?  I can understand the urges of the Kaufman family in owning the property and having a structure over a waterfall, or to be honest, on top of the waterfall.  Even that strikes me as offensive, to be on top of a magnificent imagery of wildness and power.  The flow of water is so powerful, yet to have a structure over it, says one, that yes we have control over nature.  On top of that, living here I not only have to be under the influence of Wright, but also the Kaufman family who has their own concerns regarding the room size of their three bedrooms as well as kitchen space.  And what does one do with human waste that goes through this structure to somewhere else in the natural world. 


The only book I brought with me on this stay was a copy of George Orwell’s “1984,” because I haven’t read it yet, and I feel that since I was going to be stuck in this part of the world and this specific structure, I needed a book that somewhat expresses the way the world was heading towards.  As a writer I’m obsessed with how language is utilized in the mainstream media, and both the Orwell book and Marshall McLuhan’s “Understanding Media” expresses the anxiety of how language becomes a tool of sorts.  As I sat on a chair designed by Wright, looking outside a window designed by Wright, I sometimes wonder if Wright himself didn’t design the landscape outside the window as well. 



In the late 1990s I read about Christopher McCandless, and I was impressed that he sort of took nature as not as a partner, but that it was a world that could not be reproduced in a human sensibility.  The fact that he went into the wilderness without a map, appears to me to be the only way to wander into another world.  Compared to Wright’s attention and relationship to nature, I can clearly understand McCarndless’ desire to be part of, and eventually be blotted out by the natural world.  Also the fact that he stripped all his belongs and even identity (took the name Alexander Supertramp), to be in a sense a forgotten man, but not even forgotten, a presence that wasn’t there.  Or perhaps he wanted to be part of nature, similar to Wright, but refused to be equal to the magnificent yet horrifying world of nature. 

June 7, 2014

June 7, 2014
It is no secret among my friends that I look up to le Roi-Soleil as my man-of-choice in all manners that’s good in life.  From an early age, I had an obsession with the Sun King, better known as Louis XIV.  At the time, I lived in a single apartment on Martel in West Hollywood, that was basically a room with a small kitchen, and even a smaller bathroom. Still, it was my first home away from the family, and I treasured my little spot as if it was my Palace of Versailles.  Therefore I decorated the one-room apartment with images of Louis XIV, and even chose furniture that was not a good imitation of furniture from that period.  The fact that it looked fake, made the surroundings more endearing to me. 


At the time, I was employed in my first job, which was Licorice Pizza, a record store chain in Southern California.  I would take a bus to Reseda boulevard, and then another to Sherman Way.  At the time, I thought of the bus as my royal transportation.  It was a bus with a lot of stinky people, but to me, it was my palace as well.  I made sure I sat in the very back, and in the middle of the aisle.  I wanted the sense that everyone who enters the bus, must come to me.  Of course all of this was an illusion, and part of the time, I knew that.  But most of the time, I just forgot that fact and went on with the fantasy.  The music I played at the store was usually baroque music of all sorts.  My favorite records were recordings by Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, Jean-Baptiste Lully, and François Couperin.  The latter was my favorite of them all, and was awarded the credit of being “organist du Roi, ” organist by appointment to Louis XIV.  In the era of the Jam and the Sex Pistols, it was very hard at the time to find recordings of Couperin’s music.  Nevertheless, I insisted on making a special section of his music in our bins at the time.  As far as I can remember we didn’t even have any classical music in stock.  And what made it even more sad, was that at the time I could only find one release that was in print at this time.  “L’Espagnole, IV. La Piemontoise 1727” released on the Telefunken record label out of Germany.   My educated guess is that we were the only store in the San Fernando Valley that carried this recording, and only one copy at that.
Here, I need to be honest with you, I wasn’t that popular with people around me.  I kept my world as a very private one, and rarely did I share it with others, or allowed anyone to get close to me.  I prefer the artifice of a representation of a life than a real relationship.  It reached a peak in my life that I would make love to girls, but only in front of a full-length mirror that was in my apartment.  In a sense, I wanted to be in my own movie of my own making.  But alas, I have changed since then, and now I have not one single full-length mirror in my “now” humble home. 

June 6, 2014

June 6, 2014


I find myself drawn to 3400 Wilshire Boulevard in the Mid-Wilshire district, but now pretty much considered to be Koreatown.  I have consistently been haunted by ghost images of all sorts. I wouldn’t say I 'm attracted to death, but more of the lasting presence of people and even buildings, after they left the world, stick with me like an inoperative tumor.  I often go to a location, where it is either empty or perhaps a new structure is in place, but I can still feel the old ‘vibes’ of the landscape.  Standing at a specific location causes one to cry all of a sudden, and I have known to shed tears without knowing why, and later, I realize because I was in a specific location where a sense of great loss took place.



A grand hotel once took place on 3400 Wilshire Boulevard.  The hotel opened in 1921, and this is where the 2nd Academy Awards and the 12th Academy Awards took place.  The great silent movie actress Pola Negri lived in this hotel from 1930 to 1943.  The beautiful nightclub was home to entertainers like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Liberace, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Perry Como and even Vicki Carr.  I never went to this nightclub, but I often dreamed of it, and with a mixture of old vintage photographs plus scenes from Hollywood films, I visualize a world where I edit all the bad things, and kept the imagined memories in place.  Like the Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet film, I imagine myself chasing down a beautiful female, who I may have met last year, but more likely I just saw the film, and that alone, opened up a memory that may or may not exist.



Very rarely did I regret moments that I missed, but I always do have a sense of regret of moments that I have noticed.  We never know how well planned things are, and eventually it can be just a matter of luck, that something horrible took place.  If people would have known, perhaps they could have secured the area better - but alas, probably the scent of regret lies in the kitchen pantry.  Forty-six years ago I was awaken up by my mother, when I was around 13 years old, and she told me what was in that hotel.  News, these days are not so shocking.  I think due to the images of death that is consistently around us, including on the Facebook website, where friends pass on, yet their pages still live on in a sense, both as a tribute or someone doesn’t know the password to kill (a horrible word) the page.  Nevertheless I was quite shocked to hear the news, because at the time, the Vietnam war was raging, and it seems American culture was being ripped apart.   A series of assassinations that took place in the 1960s had a profound effect on the American psyche, and it was a very painful series of moments or time for an overly sensitive 13 year old boy.  From an artist who got shot in New York City to a politician who got shot and killed in a kitchen pantry at this magnificent hotel.   In a sense, the murder not only destroyed a man but also the hotel itself.



I walk through the vacant grounds, that now has no life, and I wonder that perhaps it is a good idea to destroy or tear down any structure that has witnessed or a death that took place at that specific location.  Then I wonder what a structure has not witnessed a death within its walls. Is there a death-free location somewhere on this planet?

June 5, 2014

June 5, 2014

There are numerous happy moments in my life, but the biggest moment is when I purchased the Jacques Demy DVD box-set in Paris.  There are countless symbolic images one can get to remind one self that they were located in Paris, for instance a little plastic Effel Tower key chain, but that would have been useless due to the fact I loathe keys of all sorts.  Alas, the Demy box-set for me, is Paris in a nutshell.  The fact that it has the ultimate Los Angeles film, “The Model Shop, ” in this set, is just an additional plus, because even though Los Angeles is technically an American city, I think it’s the most French of all American cities.  In fact, I’m sort of shocked that Southern California did not become the property of France. It would go well with Nice and the whole lie Midi vibe that is out there already.

Obviously, Demy doesn’t represent a ‘real’ Paris, but the Paris that is in my head, and that is the only Paris I’m interested in.   I often look at the album cover of Michel Legrand’s “I love Paris” and just marvel at the chubby middle-aged man carrying a huge squash over his shoulder, while smoking a tiny cigarette, which I presume is in the Les Halles Market district.   That, as a market doesn’t exist anymore, but, the image lives on.  I often dream with a Legrand musical score in the background.  Last night I had the oddest dream where I’m in a Goya painting, or that is my impression at the very least.  I was running down a slight incline into a room that was brilliantly white.  There were people there, but they were covered in sheets, and I had a whip as I ran into the room and started whipping in a frenzy everything around me.  The one thing I noticed was that there was no blood, because you think I would have caused an open wound where the blood would soak through the white sheet.   Throughout this attack, I could clearly hear a Legrand recording on a turntable that was positioned in the room.



I woke up breathing heavily after the attack in the dream.  I wasn’t that puzzled about my rampage, but more curious about the Legrand soundtrack - was it even music by him?  Yet, it was obviously a piece of music by Legrand.  I got out of bed, in pitch darkness and ran to my record collection.  I took out all the Legrand recording I have, and played each one to hopefully recognize the piece that was in the dream.  It was at this point I realized that it was music from Jacques Demy’s “The Donkey Skin.”  To be specific the title of the song is “Advice of the Lilac Fairy,” which is a beauty by Legrand and Demy (who wrote the lyrics), and an odd choice for my dream sequence where I whip people hiding behind white sheets.



One of the key attractions for me with respect to Demy’s work, is that he has characters that run through all of his films that reappears in each film.   So watching all of Demy’s films, one is stuck in a world made up by the filmmaker, and the only reference, for instance his seaport town of Nantes, as if it was a Hollywood musical from the 1950s is very much a self-contained environment, which I find pleasing.  To take a landscape and make it your own, whatever it is Paris or Silverlake is something that I admire greatly.  It is a world where even external oxygen is not allowed in, I can only smell the scents, the sights, the touch that is very much the aesthetic of Jacques Demy.   The truth is I loathe a world that is not Demy.  My dream last night is in a sense a battle between what I thought was threatening (people under sheets) agains the beauty of Legrand, and therefore Jacques Demy.

June 4, 2014

June 4, 2014

I woke up in near panic thinking today is on this day that where people will figure I’m just a fraud.   I have always thought that, but I pretty much hid that view point from my fellow (and non-fellow) citizens.  Writing is very much of a performance. Some use the stage or to be discovered in front of a camera and a set.  I, on the other hand, need a pen and paper to explore worlds that I really know nothing about.  The readers out there who read my daily posts may feel that I’m smart, a good writer even, but the truth is I’m a total failure.  I’m not being down on myself, but being honest as much as possible in front of friends, neighbors, and the general public that is currently known as Facebook.  What the hell was I thinking of when I told Jarett Kobek and William E. Jones that I would participate in their event at the Echo Park Film Center?



I have a tendency to say “yes” to invitations, including dinner, due that I’m fearful of being forgotten or not remembered in my lifetime.  Also the thought of missing a free dinner sometimes keeps me awake at night, but alas, as far as I know, there is no dinner invites after the event tonight.  More likely I should get something to eat before going to the film center.  Nevertheless I must have been insane to say yes, due to the fact that Jarrett and William are two brilliant writers and thinkers, and without a doubt it will take only moments when they realize that I’m a total fraud.  I will be talking to the two artistic figures in front of an audience, mostly there because they’re fans of William and Jarett’s books. Which, I say, I’m a fan as well.  Shouldn’t I be sitting in the audience?  Now, it is too late because I said yes and I just have to roll with the punches tonight, which if I’m lucky enough, would not mean being kicked out of the building, and the neighborhood of Echo Park.



Speaking of the Echo Park Film Center, it is run by a gentleman named Paolo Davanzo, who by coincidence was in Anna Biller’s masterpiece film “Viva.” Paolo was exceptional in the role of “Elmer” a hippie free love naked man who almost rapes “Viva” played with incredible insight by Anna Biller herself.  Surely he will know that I’m a fraud within seconds of yours truly entering his building.  At the moment, I’m dreading the entire day in front of me.  For most, the June Fourth Incident is the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but to me it will surely be my event tonight.  My stomach is already in knots, and I'm thinking of an exit plan, but nothing is clear in my head.

I feel I need to re-read the three books by Jarrett, especially “BTW” and “Atta” because they’re brilliant works, and I need to drop a quote of some sort during our discussion on stage tonight regarding the reading, but I don’t know if I can, due to my nervousness in front of an audience.  When others are chatting, I know I am going to be thinking what others are thinking of me at that moment.  I’m not even sure if they care, I mean, I even had a haircut yesterday, just for this event.  My wife will be there, and surely after 25 years of marriage she must know that there is something wrong with me.  They say “love is blind,” and I’m so grateful for that fact.  On the other hand the audience tonight may not know me, which is good in my favor, but if they do know… well, surely they don’t love me.



William, due to the fact that he’s a curator, visual artist, filmmaker & video maker, will surely know something is wrong tonight, and it is the guy with the initials TB.  In this case, the disease fits the man to a “T.” Both Bill and Jarett did a whole book on having a conversation with a prominent writer or thinker.  For instance, Bill has a new book out that is a book length chat with the filmmaker Thom Andersen.  The title says it all: “Thom Andersen/WIlliam E. Jones.” It doesn’t even need a proper title - because the book says it all.  Jarett also did a book length talk with the great thinker and writer Iain Sinclair called “Walking is a Radical Act.” Now here lies the problem, Thom Andersen, William E. Jones, Jarett Kobek, Iain Siinclair, and Tosh Berman.   The wrong music note is my very name!

Writing is a very solitude affair, and yet, one hopes that it will reach a public of some sort.  The thing is I am very untalented and not that smart as a thinker.  I do have a certain amount of charm, and there is a tad of a Tom Ripley in my soul, but beyond that I’m just a mirror that people glaze at and hopefully the reflection that comes back at them is OK.   Time will tell.

June 3, 2014

June 3, 2014

I have always been fascinated with the difference between reality and cinema life, and sometimes it is very difficult to tell the difference between the two worlds.  To be honest, I had a very sheltered life, and my exposure to the outside world was watching TV - but mostly shows that were on early in the morning and on Saturdays.  I became obsessed with a film series starring The Bowery Boys, who were a gang that hung out at Louie’s Sweet Shop at 3rd and Canal in Manhattan.  Before the Bowery Boys, they were the Dead End Kids, who got their start in a Broadway play “Dead End.” Samuel Goldwyn brought the kids to Hollywood, and soon regrets it due to the physical damage they cause his studio.  Boys will be boys as they say, but as a young tot myself, I was impressed with the idea of being a part of a gang, and for me that gang was clearly the Bowery Boys.

I was mainly impressed with the actor (and real street punk) Leo Gorcey, due to the fact that he led these gangs of New York misfits into numerous adventures.   His fictional name, Terrence Aloysius "Slip" Mahoney, or just “Slip” had a nice ring to it, and as a young boy interested in words and phrases, I found a hero of sorts.  He was famed for his consistent use of using malapropisms, which Is using an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound.  For instance, he would say “a clever seduction” for “a clever deduction, ” “I depreciate it! (“I appreciate it!”), “I regurgitate” (“I reiterate”), and “optical delusion” (“optical illusion”).   What endears me to this character is that I have the exact same problem with the English language.  I have consistently used malapropisms throughout my life (and still do) due to either a speech impairment or thinking too fast for my pronunciations.   I had a friend, who always liked to comment in front of other people while I was talking, when I did use the wrong word, and publicly I laughed it off, but in reality, it was really painful for me  to have him make fun of me in front of other friends or a crowd.  Which made me feel closer to Leo (“Slip”) than my real friend.



I think due to my speech impairment, I felt I had a choice of being withdrawn from people or better yet, utilize your imperfections and magnified it to a remarkable degree, and therefore you will stand out against any crowd or audience.  I decided to use the shame I felt and focused on that as almost a seductive tool.  I always imagined myself as a Sidney Falco trying to make it in the world.  But also memory plays a part, in that one imagines themselves more miserable than they actually were.  Like wandering through the hallways of a noble house in Marienbad, one is never sure if looking at your life is actually correct or not.  When I look back to my past, I imagine it as a film, and I have done this for so long now, I totally can’t recall what actually happened or my film version of history.



I know there is the Bowery Boys, but also around the same time there were also the zoot-suit riots in Los Angeles.  When I walk down on Main Street, Downtown, I try to imagine what it must have been like in that time or night, where the violence took place between members of the military (mostly white men) and the teenaged or young male  Mexican-Americans, who wore zoot-suits.  To wear such beautiful clothing and to be hunted down on the streets of Los Angeles for having style and a specific culture, is totally not real to me.  The photographs I have seen of the riots, always seem like a depression era Warner Brothers movie to me - even though the action takes place in World War II era downtown Los Angeles.

To this very day, I try to make sense of what I think is my history, but I can only recall the representatives of that narrative, and that, I believe was only a film I have once seen many years ago.

June 2, 2014

June 2, 2014

For many years now, I have an original piece of artwork from Lotte Reiniger, which is part of her silhouette animated film made in 1935, called “Papageno,” which is based on Mozart’s popular opera “Die Zauberföte” (The Magic Flute).  The work is in my office, and I look at it often while writing my memoir.   The piece is important to me for numerous reasons.  I have an interest in animation, especially from the 1920s to the late 30s, after that, I lost interest because in my thinking the earliest is the most dynamic, and afterwards its history being repeated over and over again.  The other reason why I like this specific work is that it reminds me of the Tarzan film series starring Johnny Weissmuller.  In the time of my childhood, I used to watch these films on a Saturday morning, which was in competition against the animated children programming on the other channels.  My loyalty belonged to Cheeta, Boy, Jane, and of course Johnny.  As well as to the Reiniger artwork.



Oddly enough, I purchased this piece without seeing the final film.  It was years later that I came upon the film, and it reminded me of the romance between Tarzan and Jane, and the playful sexuality among the two.  The silhouette figures make the work more dreamlike, but also it is quite erotic to me. Porn is a subjective category, what works for some, may not work for others, but Lotte’s film is like dipping into the pool of sensuality and I’m reminded of this every time I look at her piece on my wall.  It wasn’t that long ago, while I was resting between writing, that I was listening to Charlie Watts’ “Live Fulham Town Hall” album and glancing at the artwork.  I noticed something that was quite shocking at the time, and this was the fact that there are two silhouette figures on a tree limb on the lest side of the picture.  The odd thing was now, there was only one, and the remaining figure is sitting on the tip of the limb.  What happened to the other figure?



I went through a book on Reiniger’s work, and saw the piece I have, and yes, just to ensure that, there were two figures on that tree limb.  I went to the kitchen and made myself a tequila sunrise, and came back to my office.  I even took the picture off my wall to look behind it. Just in case the figure left the image, and somehow was hiding behind the artwork.  Not there, of course!  I took a place, with my drink, to figure this out logically, which is an error on my part, because my whole life is either controlled by the role of chance, and without a doubt logic has never been part of the picture.



I have often felt that art lives within pages of a book and of course as an object on a wall, but that was only a theory - now I’m seeing something else, that is making me re-think about how static one’s life is, and how that is expressed through art.  That night I couldn’t sleep, and I was lured into my office in the middle of the night to examine the work again.  I, at first, sat in my chair and was looking at the work in absolute darkness.  Of course I couldn’t see it, but I sat there and imagined what it would look like.  I’m aware of the great Oscar Wilde novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and I guess I was in a tad fearful that I was looking at Basil Hallward’s portrait, and like anyone else who wakes up in the middle-of-the-night, comes upon a fear that is deep and terrifying. I held my breath and turned on the light to examine the Reiniger, and what surprised me the most was the figure was back in the picture.  I took my art book out and looked at that as well, and the figure is exactly placed and position as in the book.  I now wonder if I suffered a mild insanity attack of some sort, or perhaps I entered a dimension like in the comic book Superman’s Bizzaro World. Nevertheless, after needing to examine the picture, I decided everything is well with the world and went back to bed.

The funny thing is that I avoided the office since then, and had the cleaning lady to bring my laptop to the living room, where I am typing as I address you.  Sometimes we have no control of art, and art is what leads us by the hand or mind…  I often feel alone, and I can imagine myself being embraced by Jane and Tarzan, as I wonder through the maze that is my head and heart.

June 1, 2014

June 1, 2014
Oddly enough, I don’t own “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” album.  Yet, without a doubt, it is one album that made a significant change in my life.  Around March of 1967, my father received a large envelope that was addressed from London.  He wasn’t home at the time, but I made telephone contact with Wallace letting him know that he got mail from the United Kingdom.  Over the phone, he asked me to open the envelope to let him know what was inside the mail.   What came out was a black and white photograph and a letter, addressed to Wallace.  It was a very formal business letter and it came from Brian Epstein, who I knew at the time was the manager of The Beatles.   There was no specific information in the letter, but just asking my father to sign it, and then mail it back.  It also made a comment about receiving money as well, but it was in pounds, and being 11 or 12 years old at the time, it didn’t make sense to me.  Neither did the photograph that came with the letter.  My first impression was an image of a funeral, with all the people at the ceremony facing the camera.  The image was in black and white, and the picture had a flatness to it, like nothing stands out, except the whole picture itself.  Thinking back on it now, it reminds me of a Kabuki stage. 

  I have been to the Kabuki at least twice, and what impressed me was the lighting and staging of the narrative didn’t make any of the actors to stand out from the rest of the production or even sets.  Everything fit perfectly, and was in unison with the narrative, the acting, the lighting and sets.  All of it was equivalent to each other and none stood out.  Rarely have I seen something like that on a stage or even in a picture.  So thinking back and looking at this black and white image, I couldn’t focus on one thing.  I had to take the whole picture in front of me, and it demanded my attention from the very first glance.  Especially when my dad asked me what the picture was.  I told him that I wasn't sure what it was.  We then talked about something else, but my thoughts and eyes were on the image in front of me, and I was barely paying attention to the conversation.  When all of sudden, I realized that at least four of the guys in the photograph, were The Beatles.  Why I didn't recognize them right away was due to their outfits, which were turn-of-the-century marching costuming.  That, plus they all had facial hair, and John Lennon was wearing spectacles.  It is difficult to believe, due to the Internet and instant news we have now, but in 1967, the news and images came around slower.  The last time I saw a picture of the fab four, was them dressed in "Revolver" era clothing.  They still looked like The Beatles during that time, but here on this picture, they looked like different men to me.  The photograph didn't yell out the fab four to me, and at that age, I was a huge fan of The Beatles. 


The next big shocker for me was finally seeing the image of my dad in this photograph.   Whatever our conversation was at that moment I interrupt him and told him that there is an image of him on this photo and it is with The Beatles.  Wallace wasn’t surprised or even curious at that point, he just wanted to continue with our conversation.  Eventually he told me to put the letter and photo on the table and he’ll look at it when he got home.   When he did come home, he did look at it, and realize that Epstein was asking permission to use his image for the upcoming Beatles album.  If memory serves me, there was no mention of the album being named “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the letter, although clearly it is indicated in the photograph.   Due to the black and white image, I had a hard time seeing the word “Beatles” in a floral arrangement on the ground.  
Wallace put off signing the document and sending it, due not wanting to do it, but just had other concerns on his mind.  Epstein sent him at least two additional letters and I believe a telegram as well, begging him to sign off on the photo.   Wallace did, and sent it off, and that was it.  He received the payment which was very minimal - something like $5, and we didn’t receive a copy of the album.  Which was perfectly OK, because Wallace really didn’t think much about it at the time, and to be honest, he never brought it up afterwards it was released to the world. 
Now, what is interesting to me, is how much of that cover is around, and on all sorts of objects, such as key chains, posters, t-shirts, and so forth.   Of course, whenever I look at the picture, I think of my dad right away.  Also as I look around to see the black and white image of the cover, I think of the connection with all the other individuals in that photograph.  For instance, Wallace knew the artist Larry Bell, and was among the first people to publish William S. Burroughs’ excerpt of “Naked Lunch” in his journal “Semina.” His father who passed away when Wallace was very young, left him only two objects.  They were books, one was a short story collection by Oscar Wilde and the other book was by T.E. Lawrence’s (Lawrence of Arabia) “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”   My grandmother Martha (my mom’s mother) used to work with cowboy actor and star Tom Mix at the 101 Ranch as a dancer, and Wallace met Terry Southern sometime in the early 1960s, and was a friend of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who gets a mention on the Pepper cover as well.  Wallace also had a brief meeting with Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce. 



Again, it is odd that I don’t actually own the album or the cover, except I do have the black and white image of the cover, with the additional face or two - but what’s even stranger to me is that I share a photograph with perhaps millions of people.  They have all looked at my father’s face, but it probably didn’t mean anything to them.  For me, it’s a bittersweet moment where my dad shared space with my favorite band at the time.