A Very Random Halloween

So, I had full intention of actually planning out my first Halloween in Tokyo. I did a bit of research like a good little boy and thought that I was ready for a pleasant evening. Well, the god of chaos frowned on me for turning my back on him. He sent a jolt of electric current down my spine and demanded that I bend over and do the brown eye smile. As punishment for making plans to celebrate Halloween I was cursed to a night of randomness.

A spell was placed on me and I did not wake up on the 31st until around 2:00 pm. I woke up feeling all warm and happy wrapped up in a thick soft blanket. The gal must have been nice enough to wrap me up into a comfortable position before she left on a little mini-holiday to her home town. For a moment I thought about just drifting back off into a deep sleep. It is real easy to just say screw it and not get out of bed when there is no work to attend. I knew that I had to get up because it would be a damn shame for me to sleep away my first Halloween in Tokyo. I forced myself to get up and took a long relaxing shower.

After surfing the net for a while and finish waking myself up for a few hours I started getting ready to head out. I did not buy a costume, I know that I should have pick one up but I just did not feel like going though the trouble this year. Last year in West Virginia I dressed up as a cop just for laughs. That was an interesting night. There is something about a man in uniform that drives the ladies wild. Although, this year I just dressed as my usual self. I wanted to remain low key and not attract any kind of unwanted attention.

By the time I made it Shibuya it must have been around 6:00 pm. There was plenty of people out and about. A lot of attractive, hungry for the night, types who are like juicy poison apples; they give a lot of pleasure to bit into but can send you on a trip to hell and back real quick. Now I had already slammed down a tall boy of 7 strong on the Joban line so I felt relaxed not even close to rocking a beer buzz. I kept another one hidden away in my inside jacket pocket for later.

It proved to be an excellent night for people watching in Shibuya. So many people in costume! I saw a lot of different creative and entertaining costumes that I cannot comment on all of my favorites. While just hanging at the Shibuya meet up spot it is worth noting two of my favorite costumes I laid eyes on. There was this one really sexy Japanese gal wearing almost nothing. She was wearing a bunny outfit that was something out those old playboy bars from back in the late 70`s and 80`s. It was pure eye candy for sure. I also say this guy who looked just like the joker. A real professional make-up job. It was impressive to say the least. I actually, talked to the guy for a few minutes. He was cool enough. He told me that he had a friend who did make-up for a production company in Tokyo. He was even nice enough to give me a shot from a little bottle of whisky he had stashed away in this coat pocket.

After a while I wanted to walked around so I headed to Yoyogi park. I expected the park to be alive with action but to my surprise it was all silent for the most part. I did talk to a few skater punks for a little while. One of them spoke good English so we talked about punk music and smoke a few cigs.

I ended up at the Hub in Harajuku. The gals working there were dressed up all sexy like in the spirit of Halloween. This one gal had a dead sexy little red ridding hood outfit on showing off a nice pair. I could not help but look at her way too much. I don`t think she cared too much as I was respectful enough to leave her to her work. I was setting at a round table with a couple of white guys on vacation from the states. They were a little rough around edges but hell I am used to that kind of attitude. We struck up a good conversation and swapped a few stories.

Around 11:30 pm we made our way over to Shibuya though Yoyogi park. For some damn reason we ended up at one of the Hubs in Shibuya, It was full to the brim with gaijin and Japanese college gals. Everyone was trying to get laid. This crowd would have been better off going to a swinger club than an English pub but to each his own I guess. I had started to grow tired of the my present company. The more drinks they had the more asshole came out of them. As luck would have it the gal called me which provided me a good excuse to get out of there. I found a semi-calm back street and talked on my cell with the gal for what have must been two hours.

The night ended with me passing out at a really nice internet cafe. I woke up around 6:00 am and made my way back to my apartment to get ready for work. It was a fun evening for me overall. I stayed low key and enjoyed myself in a mellow kind of way.

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die

I guess the title of this post may be the best way to describe me. The post title came from a book I read by Hunter S. Thompson. I remember reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was a freshmen in college. The book had a profound effect on my life. The one quote from that book which has always stuck out in my mind was, `He is too weird to live, too rare to die.` I have often thought about the meaning of the quote over the years. Now that I live in Tokyo I have come to understand what good old Hunter S. was talking about.

I have never been the prototype `cool` American guy. OK. So, in high school I was a starter on the (American style) football team. Also, I spent way too much time in shop class building muscle cars. Although, I was not Mr. popular. In fact, I ran with a gang of misfits who would rather hang out at the abandoned swimming pool getting drunk on a Friday night than go to the school dance.

In college I studied journalism and minored in human personality. I was the kind of person who stayed up all night in college. If someone wanted to smoke a joint, drink some beers or just have a place to hang with a gal my dorm room,and later apartment, was always open. I served on the editor staff of the student paper(although I did no copy editing. I left that job to some guy who would work for free weed). The kind of people who knew me in college were those who wanted to rebel but were too rich and too average to pull it off on their own. Those unhappy rich kids nicknamed me Mr. Vice. Those days really shaped who I am today in many ways. Although, in those more simple and carefree days I did not understand Hunter`s meaning of `Too weird to live, too rare to die.`

Tokyo has shown me what Hunter was trying to tell me. I have finally come to understand that I am not like most people. For many years I was under the impression that I was just another person in this world. I did not consider myself to be all that different from the mainline of society. I guess the reason for my lack of understanding that I was different is due to the fact that I was living in the south deep in the mountains of West Virginia. In West Virginia people tend to not point out someone who thinks or behaves differently(they simply try to beat the shit out of you when they think no one is looking) . Usually, birds of the same feather flock together in West Virginia. So, I thought that I was basically the same as most people. Although, I was fully aware that I was strange by redneck standards. I was the guy, in high school, who dated the gal from Korea so the rednecks avoided me at all cost. I should have realized that I was different the first time I took my then Korean girlfriend home to make out and smoke pot. My father, who scored me the pot in the first place, said to me, `Boy! You and that yellow girl sure are a strange pair. People are talking you know.` I brushed off his comment at the time but now I understand more then ever what he was telling me. I do not do things like most people.

Tokyo has shown me what I could never learn about myself living in West Virginia. I tend to life a lifestyle that is kind of bohemian in nature. I now understand that I enjoy living slightly outside of society norms. I enjoy doing things which are considered to be unacceptable by society. It gives me a feeling of freedom which I cannot get from walking the straight and narrow path. Tokyo allows me to fully indulge in the underground and off beat aspects of society.

In West Virginia people called me a strange version of James Dean. In Tokyo I have found people who like me just the way I am. I have made friends with people who like the idea that I carry with me a James Dean type of vibe. I often blush when Japanese say, `You look like James Dean. Have a drink and spend some time with me.`

So, for all you people who want to hate on me and point out every little mistake I make go fuck yourself. Really! Most likely you live a lifestyle I could never accept for myself. I assume that you are not different and you have never experienced anything underground and free-spirited. In fact, I think that those who take the time to hate on me actually want to break out from the norm but are too chicken shit to do it on their own. Deep down inside they hate their life but they are trapped. Instead of making a change they spend their time giving me asshole and unwanted comments on the internet. I do not hate them. I feel sorry for them. I have found myself but they are still lost. Yes it is true, I am too weird to live and too rare to die.

Under the Rader

For the past few days I have been laying low in Tokyo. My activities have been limited to work, a couple of dinner outings, and a Sunday evening hair cut . In four days I have not had a single drop of beer or other spirits. I have not ventured into the depths of Tokyo after hours in several days. I have really had no desire to be out and about much at all. This does not mean I have not been thinking and planning for the near future.

As I have been kind of living under the radar as of late it has given me time to plan out some decent merry making as a opposed to random chaos. Tokyo offers so much if a person just takes the time to do a little research and touch base with a few connections. While it is easy enough to fire a shotgun into the water and see what floats to the surface; a more refined approach can offer even larger rewards.


Tommy the Painter rides Again!

For example I was getting a hair cut in Harajuku on Sunday when my friend Tommy the painter calls me. Tommy is a real keen guy so talking to him takes a little focus. His mind moves from one thought to the next so fast that it is sometimes hard to make heads or tails of what he is trying to say. From what I able to pick up from our conversation he has been hanging out with some hippies from the mountains all weekend in Yoyogi park. They gave him some hippie stuff and something else as well. Tommy wants me to hang with him at the bridge in Harajuku Thursday. I look forward to another adventure with Tommy.


My First Tokyo Halloween!


This Halloween will be a first for me in Tokyo. I have checked-out the almost endless options to have fun on Halloween. It appears that every bar in town is offering some kind of costume party or all night drink fest. It really is hard to choose which place to celebrate the best holiday in the world. There is way too much vice for one guy to handle in Tokyo on Halloween. Tokyo offers enough vice as it is, but now the whole town will be crawling with goulash drunk city folk who want nothing more than to burn the city to the ground. I have picked out a place but I am still not sure if I will actually go. I mean, I want to be out on Halloween having a little fun but I want to make sure I pick a place that fits my personality. In the end no matter how I choose to celebrate Halloween I am sure it will be a hell of a good time.


Horror Punk at the Earthdom.

My favorite underground punk bar and my favorite Japanese punk band have finally come together. Balzac will be playing at the Earthdom in Shin-Okubo this November the third. Balzac takes a lot of their influence from the Misfits. Despite the heavily influenced Misfits look and style, Balzac stands tall as a band in their own right. I have not heard or seen anything else like Balzac come out of the underground punk scene in Tokyo. They take dark punk metal to a whole new level. I have not seen this band play in several years so I am going to be there come hell or high water. From the looks of things I can most likely finish work with plenty of time to get to the Earthdom. I hope my work schedule does not change because I usually finish work at 6:30 on a holiday but if things stay the same at work I can get off at around 5:00 on November the third. The show starts at 6:30 so I am really hoping to get off work early. Either way I am going to that show! If anyone would like to join me just let me know and I will try to set it up.



So, I may have been flying under the radar as of late but the near future is filled with more adventures. I can only guess as to the tales I will gain and the experience I will earn. Although, that is what I think of life in Tokyo in general.

Gaijin Not Welcomed here...Sorry

I have always felt that Japan is one of the most accepting places in the world. For the most part this is very true. In Tokyo for example, I see just about every color of the rainbow. People usually get along very well in Tokyo despite the mix of cultural and racial backgrounds.

Although, in the end Japan belongs to the Japanese. I have always been mindful that Japan is not my birth place. My `right` to be here is very different from the natives. I have been given permission to live in Japan. I have been given permission to call Tokyo my home. While I am grateful to live in Tokyo, a recent experience left me feeling shocked and slightly hurt.

I must say now that I do not live in the downtown area of Tokyo. I live in Adachi-ku in the Aoi area. Aoi is a little neighborhood which is almost completely residential. Oddly enough, Aoi rest in between Kita-Senju and Ayase which are hot beds of gang activity. Usually, these areas are actually pretty safe to hang out in as long as you do not get in the way of `business.` Recently, I was board and really had nothing better to do than wonder around late at night. I took the 20 minute walk to Ayase station just to see what was happening. Well, it was just the usual all night bars,internet cafes, and pink action. The only thing I was really interested in that night was a cold beer. First, I went to a bar that offered a gaijin staff. It was run by a couple of black guys. Almost no body was there but it was Wednesday after all. I did kind find it a little strange that a gaijin bar was located in a building full of pink businesses. They must have a `special` deal with a local gangs or something.

After having an over priced beer I decided I wanted to get away from that building all together. I wondered around a few streets for a while until a spotted a bar with the English name `Come On.` It seemed like an ok place so I went in. I sat down at the bar and I quickly realized that something was not right. Everyone was dressed in black and looking at me like I was the devil. In fact the entire bar, including the tables and chairs, were painted black. I asked for a beer, in Japanese, but was not given one. Instead, a guy came out from the back took me by the arm and booted me out of the place. After tossing me onto the street he simply said to me, `No gaijin sorry.`

A numb feeling took over my entire body. I was in the most extreme state of shock I had ever felt. It was like my brain knew exactly what had just happened but I was unable to feel the correct emotions. I really didn`t know how to react. I remember saying to myself, `did they really just refuse to serve me because I am not Japanese?`

I walked down the street with this numb painful feeling washing over me. I wanted to kick something. I wanted to tell someone what had just happened. I wanted to do something so I could break the unbearable numbing pain. Sadly, there was nothing I could do but just take it.

The experience does not make me hold anything against Japanese people. This is the first time I have ever been toss out of a place just because I am gaijin. I assume this is a very rare thing to happen. I did ask a few of the locals and while they had never heard of the place they did tell me that it was most likely a gangster bar. I still do not know the correct emotions to feel. I have decided to just let it slid off my back. If anyone else has had a similar experience please share it in the comments section.

It is all in the Eyes

Until I actually started living in Japan I always thought that the Japanese use very little body language. I have never seem any other culture of people who can keep a straight face in almost any situation. Sometimes it may be easy to think that Japanese people are way too serious. Even when they are really upset, a lot of Japanese, do not change the expression on their face. I have come to understand that the Japanese do use a lot of body language; just in a very different way.

Japanese body language seems to be much more slight and passive than in America. A lot of Japanese have told me that it is so easy to tell how an American is feeling and what they are thinking. They say we over express ourselves. We wear our emotions on our face. Their comments are more true than I ever realized. I have noticed myself giving away my thoughts and emotions just by the expression on my face. I have never really tried to control my facial expressions until I made Japan my home. Living in Tokyo has taught me the value of being aware of my facial expressions.

From what I have observed the two most common use of body language is the eyes and mouth; the movement of the hips and feet can also be very telling. Eyes say a million words in Tokyo. Making eye contact is a big deal in the land of the raising sun. I has raised that it is just good manners to look someone in the eyes when you are talking to them or get their attention. It appears that eye contact can take on a whole different meaning in Japan. When wondering around the streets of Tokyo never brush off a quick glance or direct eye contact. If you do you might just pass up someone who is `very` interesting in you or might even offer you something that you are really gonna want. The easist way to get someones attention in Japan, I have found, is to make direct eye contact and smile. It also helps to slightly lower my head as to show I mean to danger. I have been able to get a lot of people to open up and talk to me on the street just by looking them in the eyes, smiling, and lower my head just a little bit. Making a quick deep glare and motioning with my head to follow me ro come near me has also worked magic.

The power of a smile in Tokyo is almost endless. A smile is an invite. It says; `Come here I like you` or `I want you to come over here and talk to me.` I have experienced many times in Tokyo that a smile ended up getting me into interesting situations. If someone smiles at you on the streets it is usually a good idea to find out what they want. There is also the universal factor of if you smile at somone they will usually smile back. I have discovered that a smile is a great way to find out what someone is looking to do; what is their agenda for the day. If you are the kind of person that fits into their plans a smile can get you a piece of the action if you know what I mean. So, don`t be afraid to smile at someone who looks interesting to you on the streets of Tokyo. Just remember to stay relaxed or you might mess up the whole deal.

I should also mention the use of feet and hips. It is very aggressive to show the botton of your shoes or foot when setting down. There are a lot of people who will be set off my this action. The body language of the hips are still kind of confusing for me. Although, I have noticed that the movement of their hips to communiate is different from Americans;this is more true for women. The movements of a Japanese gals hips can say a lot about her mood. If a gal in Tokyo is talking to you and she is moving her hips a lot there is a good chance she is enjoying your company. I don`t know if this is true of all Japanese gals from in my experience hip movement is a tell tell sign.

As a spend more time in Japan I will learn more about Japanese body language. Japanese tend to not say what they are thinking or feeling. They show you though body language more often than not. This might very well become a life long study project for me.

The Battle Carries On

For the majority of my life I have had to fight for every single inch of life I have gotten. It is safe to say that I was not born with a sliver spoon in my month. I am the kind of person who was born with a wooden spoon on my month and a foot up my ass. I am no stranger to working damn hard for even the smallest amount of success or pleasure. With that said the battle carries on.

I thought that I was fully aware of the situation that I was getting myself into when I started working for my current company. I knew that things had gotten really bad and some greedy asshole had fucked everyone over. I also knew that the stability of my company was very much in doubt. Well, I wanted a job and a challenge so I accepted the position. I went though the training and got myself posted...and posted again...and again. For a while I felt like a traveling preacher. I did not think much of this but I should have.

It appears that things are not going as well as expected. While we do not think that things are going to fall apart again our profits are not in good shape. So, it has come to the point in which I may not make the same amount of money which was promised to me. This comes as a big shock to me. I thought that Japan was better than this kind of behavior. I expect this kind of thing to happen in America but not in Japan. I have been proven wrong yet again. I now find myself wondering if both capitalism and socialism are a load of crap. In capitalism you make less money because the company wants to increase their profit. In socialism you make less money because the company does not want to put forth the effort to make more money. So either way your gonna get screwed somehow.

I have been told that we must all pull together and insure that the company makes it though these dark days. Honestly, I want to believe that this is true. I want to believe that if we all just suffer a little bit things will get better. This kind of thinking is not what I am used to at all. What I am used to is that if the company ties to hurt us workers in any way, shape or form we teach them a lesson. Well, it appears that in Japan this kind of thinking simply does not fly. So, I am getting with the program and have agreed, if and when the time comes, to take a little pay cut for the good of the company.

For now I am going to give my full support to the company. I want my company to be a success. I am willing to go to bat for my company. I am going to give this new way of thinking a try. The management is being cool with me. They have been very open and honest about the situation. I must respect them for their honestly. We will strive to be a success or die trying. For the first time in my life I am being a company man. I feel a little afraid. Although, I am up to the challenge in front of me. This is going to be one wild ride for sure.

Starting to Feel Like Home

When I finally made the decision to make Tokyo my home I had no idea how long it would take to fully adjust. Sure, I have been to Tokyo several times. I had even taken up residence for an entire summer a few years back. Making Tokyo the place I call home is very different from a short visit or a summer hide out.

A total uproot from everything I know and understand is one hell of a big change. I left all my friends, family and connections behind for the land of the raising sun. In some ways it has felt like a total restart for me. In other ways it has been just a natural progression in my life. I have had a connection to Japan for almost ten years now. It started with a group of Japanese gals in college developing a certain affection for me. Those were much more simple times. Image about seven or eight young girls from Japan trying to live and go to college in the mountains of West Virginia! They had a tough time handling the 180 twist. They took up with me because I helped them out and was nice to them. They never heard `jap` come out of my mouth. I guess my early experiences with Japanese culture and hanging with those gals would make for a good blog post later down the road.

Anyway, after almost nine months of living in Tokyo I am finally starting to feel like this place is home. I got a job made a few friends and know the places to have a good time. I have never really called a city home before. For the majority of my life I have lived in the mountains. Yet, I feel that I take to city life pretty well. I remember during my teenage years spending many late nights laying on the roof of my house smoking a joint and wondering what was beyond those mountains. Well, years later I have come to understand there is a lot beyond those mountains and I am having a damn good time exploring all that the world has to offer.

I have had some people tell me that I will start to hate Tokyo after a few years. I really do not see how this could ever happen. I really love living in Tokyo. I can do just about anything I desire. I can taste the sweet goodness of just about any desire which flows from my mind. I do not even have to hunt very much to find a place which will cater to me. It is very rare that I have any trouble in Tokyo. Sure, I have had a few hard situations but it was very easy to resolve with no bloodshed.

Overall, I am very happy with my life at this point. For the first time in my life I have personal peace in my heart. A peaceful heart is worth all the gold in Egypt. I do not see my self making a trip to America in the coming years. Tokyo is my home now. I do not know exactly what will happen in the coming years but I am sure it will be exciting and interesting.