December, 31, 2022

It has been a challenging and unforgettable year for me. The passing of my mom and her brother (my uncle) was horrific, but also the death of two distant friends, Tommy Cherry and Duncan Hannah. Death is the final period after a sentence. These lives stay with me as a living experience. Their bodies are gone, but they live in my memory, and as you can gather, dear readers, that is my source of energy as a writer.

As I write by the living room window, I can see children on their bikes with their fathers, and it reminds me that I have never been on a bicycle. My father, or was it, my grandfather, put me on a bike, and for a second, I was on it, and then I and the bike fell over to the pavement. I didn’t hurt myself, but this little experiment wasn’t working to everyone’s pleasure. The lesson is one has to get back on the bike, but I have always been the fellow who tries once, and that’s enough. I don’t drive as well. I walk and have the skill to get in one’s passenger side of a car.

Lou Reed with the Velvets once sang New Age, and I’m hoping that next year will bring diet candies and zero calories non-alcoholic beer. As of late last September, I was 189 pounds, and now I’m 171, and still praying for a 165. When I got Covid last November, I was happy because I lost some weight by reading books. I can’t think of a better way of losing weight than reading and suffering from a primary virus that is hitting worldwide. Covid wasn’t so bad; it was more of a cold for me, but there was a cough that lasted way too long, and I knew that this wasn’t a common cold but something that killed and still kills people. I suspect I will get Covid again next year because I don’t think we can avoid it anymore. It will be a way of life, just like putting your pants on.

Time-to-time, I do suffer from mild depression, and the best way for me to get over that feeling or state of being is by buying vinyl records or books. The most intense period of blissfulness is going to Record Safari in Atwater Village and purchasing an armful of records. We shouldn’t worship objects, but the truth is these objects bring a sense of peace and joy. And we often think about them, which is also part of the purpose of this ongoing Substack blog.

Holidays, for me, are days of reflection. I think my favorite holiday is New Year’s Day. I have imagined the weather being extra special (I live in Los Angeles), and there is freshness. The previous year is like the food that sticks to the back of one’s fridge, and the hope is, on that first day, your possessions become more minimal and, therefore, essential. Life becomes intense as one ages, and you notice the time slipping off, like a beautiful body stripping in front of your presence. Besides being moody throughout this year, I co-wrote a screenplay based on my memoir Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman’s World. I’m planning to be behind an editing table at this time next year. As No. 6 in the TV series The Prisoner says, I’ll be seeing you.

Photographs by Christiaan von Bremen, December 20, 2022, Echo Park