I'm a bad man: The Shit You Do When you are Poor

Howdy Yall! Yes, I have returned to this blog to crank out from more posts. You know, bring poor is tough. All I have known for the majority of my life is hardcore poverty. When I first came to Tokyo, I was shocked by some of the things a lot of Japanese are unwilling to do in order to survive. Hell, take away their cell phone and it is as if the end world just started to go down. So many people in this city fail to realize just how easy they got it. Maybe that explains why I struggle to relate to others here in Tokyo. A lot of them were born with a silver spoon in their mouth; while I have had to fight for everything I have. I am sure if I took some of them to West Virginia they would die within a week. They just don't know how to survive. In fact, the only group in Tokyo looked down on more than gaijin is the homeless. There seems to be a certain hatred in this city toward anyone who has to fight to survive. While I grew up with the thinking that you should always try to help someone who is struggling, it seems that in Tokyo someone who is struggling should be exploited, taken advantage of and hated. Capitalism Tokyo style takes one of the most cold blooded forms I have ever experienced.

Despite the cold blooded nature of Tokyo, I will never forget the things I have done in the past in order to make it from one day to the next.

Cigarettes as currency
When you are poor there is little difference between being in jail and walking around on the street. The most common form of currency is about the same as well. If you got cigarettes you can get other stuff which you need more than a smooth smoke. I remember trading smokes for all kinds of things. Everything from CD's and porn mags to food and beer could be bought for only a few cigarettes. Hell, in high school cigarettes were even used as protection money. If you wanted to get in the good graces of the current bully, just give him a few smokes everyday and he will keep the other rocks for brains bullies off your ass. I know that sounds crazy but when everyone around you is poor and hard as nails, you have to find something that folks are willing to be nice to you in order to get.

Not allowed to be smart
When you are poor you are not allowed to be smart. What I mean is if I try hard to drag myself out of a life of poverty, most folks will tear my legs off and try to pin me down. No one wanted me to be better than the mass of poverty stricken folks who have nothing to look forward to in the future. If I got good grades in school than I was, 'a nerd who thinks he is better than everyone else.' If I could hold an intelligent conversation about something other than beer, women, drugs or lame ass music then I was,'a uptight asshole who needs to drink more beer and fuck more bitches.'  And finally, if I go to college, expand my mind, and then get the fuck out of America the first chance I got then I was, 'a traitor who has no loyalty to anyone and does not deserve to be an American.' All of those things are what it means to be considered smart in West Virginia. Now, there are exceptions of course. I knew some really interesting intelligent folks back in the mountains. They were the ones I got high with and talked about politics, society and what we can do to make our world a better place to live. I remember each and everyone of those folks who inspired me to reach for the stars and escape a life of poverty. 

Stealing!
If you want to learn how to be a master thief, just ask someone who grew up dirt poor.  From the time I was a little dirty faced boy I knew how to steal. It kind of came natural to me for some reason. Hell, everyone I knew, family included, had stole something right in front of my eyes by the time I was eight. My earliest memory of rogue behavior was one summer in 1987. My grandpa had taken me on his weekly trip into town. He called me his 'shadow' or 'partner in crime' and I did not understand what he meant until that one day in the summer of '87.

We were at the supermarket when he took me around the corner and said, 'Today I am going to teach you the basics of stealing. It will be a useful skill though out your life. Better you learn now than later.' 

The plan was simple, I was to steal a tube a super glue for my grandpa. I had to grab a bottle of superglue, hide it in my pants, go to the bathroom to get it out of the packaging then find a way to head out the door before anyone noticed. Since I was really small back then, I had the advantage of not being noticed as much as an adult. I remember my grandpa providing cover while I stuck the superglue down my pants. I then walked away from him as if I did not know him. I made it to the bathroom and discovered a major problem. One of the workers was in the bathroom shaving and brushing his teeth. There were no stalls in that cheap ass supermarket bathroom. The best they could to was put up thin metal walls between each toilet. I had no choice, I simply started removing the glue from the package. Of course, the guy in the blue work jump suit caught me. Shockingly, instead of dragging me to the managers office he gave me some advice, 'Next time steal something with a plastic seal because they are easier to open.' From that day forward I understood the value of stealing.

Which brings me to my next point

How to steal food and whiskey without(almost) ever getting caught

When you are poor there are two things which are always true: You are always hungry and always want to get drunk. Poverty will drive you to drinking faster than any stressful bullshit here in Tokyo. When you are poor stress is never ending. After a while you accept that being in a constant state of 'fucked' is normal. Both food and whiskey cost money which is hard to come by when you are dirt poor. As you might have guessed, I mastered the art of stealing those magical items at a pretty young age. I had been stealing candy bars and sodas from the time I realized my mother did not have a lot of pocket change to give me. When you are little stealing candy bars and sodas is easy because you are really short and no one notices you reaching for a candy bar and putting it in your pocket. When I got older however, things got really tough and getting enough to eat was sometimes a challenge.

Seeing that the need to eat must be tamed, I came up with a unique way to score extra food. Where I come from, there are small farms scattered around. Nothing too large mind you. Usually folks would keep a half acre or an acre of land set aside for small time farming. Also, it was easy to steal an ear of corn, a few tomatoes or a juicy sweet watermelon. The deal would go down pretty smooth most of the time. I would gather a few buddies up and sneak into a path. One guy would be lookout while the rest of us would grab a few fresh veggies. I only ran into trouble once when I was 15. It was at night and my best buddy at the time and I wanted to steal a big fat ass juicy as fuck watermelon which I had been keeping my eyes on for over a week. When we went to steal it the damn old man growing the melon was on his front patio drinking moonshine. He was a mean old bastard who still kept his pistol with him at all times. My buddy grabbed the watermelon but ran in the exact wrong direction. He came flying out of the patch right into the direct line of sight of that old man. The old bastard fucking flipped! He threw the jug of shine at my buddy hitting him square in the forehead. The blow cracked his skull wide open. My loyal friend melted to the ground. I have never seen someone go down like that. It was like watching the slow motion death of daffy duck on crack. I decided to at least attempt to not bail on my buddy. I ran up on the old man and yelled, 'You just killed my friend! You fucking murdering bastard!' The old fart got nervous and offered me a bottle of shine if I would not tell anyone about the insanity that had just happened. The old man rushed into his house to fetch some shine. By the time he came back, my good buddy was struggling to get on his feet. It was actually pretty damn funny watching that old bastard trying to say sorry because my buddy was so fucked in the head I don't think he knew what was going on at that point. After that day, we decided that supermarkets were a much safer place to steal food from.

Yeah, stealing from supermarkets proved to be easier than stealing candy from a baby. The people who work at supermarkets really don't give a flying fuck what happens to the store. As long as they got a paid check every week, the whole place could be raided by a gang of starved field hands for all they care. I remember walking into just about any supermarket, grabbing anything I wanted, and politely walking out with a shit eating grin on my face. Sometimes one little asshole who was trying to get promoted would yell 'Hay you! Stop! Thief! Thief!' All I had to do was haul ass across the parking lot and off their property. The old grab and run method usually worked every time. Lucky for me, I no longer have to steal in order to survive. Thankfully my thieving days are over.

So now you know some of the shit people do when they are poor. It was actually kind of fun to be poor at times. Although, being poor usually sucked big fat green floppy donkey dicks. At least if I ever find myself dirt poor again, I will know exactly what to do.

I'm a Bad Man: But I Don't Gun Down Angels

Howdy Y'all. I have never really considered myself to be a 'good guy.' A lot of people tell me what a good guy I am but in my own mind I know things about myself that they don't. When I look back on my life so far, I sometimes find myself thinking 'Damn! Did you really do that...oh yeah you really did do that.' Some of those things I did for my own sick pleasure, while other acts of madness were carried out for my own survival. When you are born into dirt poor Hill Billy poverty, you learn pretty quick that morality can be relative sometimes and a good man really is hard to find. I remember growing up being told by everyone, except my mother, that there was nothing good about me. I was a dirt poor piece of redneck trash in most people's eyes and there was no two ways around changing their minds. So, yall can guess what it was like growing up in such an environment. I am surprised that the grown man you see in the picture to your left has made it this far.  Yet, I have to come to terms with my background. So let's start to deal with it, shall we?

My daddy partying with his buddies while holding my sister

Guns were apart of my daily existence from a very young age. There were men carrying guns around me daily. I really did not know the idea of 'gun totting America' as the Japanese media loves to proclaim until I started to venture beyond the mountains. It was not uncommon for my house to have a gang of hard working, poker playing, beer drinking, gun packing bad asses hanging around. I remember seeing just about every type of gun one could think of by the time I was 12. For some damn reason all of them liked to show me how to use all those guns. I was damn near a fire arms expert before I entered Junior High. My mother hated the idea of me playing with guns all the time but there was not much she could do about it. It is not an easy task to tell hardcore mountain men to stop giving the kid guns to play with. The first time I actually shot a gun must have been when I was about eight years old. My daddy was drinking with his buddies and one of them had a common .45 on him. One of the guys bet my father that I could not shoot a 40 of malt liqueur off of a dog house about 15 feet away from the door. Out of stubborn pride, my father took that bet. I was so excited that I popped off too many shots in a row and ended up shooting the 40 and the guys front driver side wheel of his near by pick-up truck. I think they got into a fight over that little stunt I pulled. So yeah, guns were apart of daily life for me.

But as we all know, playing with guns are fun until something fucked up happens. 

Fast forward to my freshmen year in university. As you can expect, the college crowd did not take well to my hill billy ass. My college buddies ended up being outsiders and foreigners who were a bit too different to be accepted by my fellow Americans. I did not mind my buddies much because they liked to create a little hell on earth just like I did. I made friends with a Russian guy from St. Petersburg. No one really liked him because he was VERY Russian and did not give a fuck what anyone thought about him. We used to buy MD 20/20, get drunk as fuck, and then throw firecrackers at each other. Yeah, we were into that kind of fun.

Anyway, the first time I returned home was for Thanksgiving break. I was dating a chick from India at the time so she was coming home with me. Yuri soaked around campus a week before because none of the host families would take him in for the break because they were scared of him; and for good reason. So, I told him if he would give Sheela and I a ride to my house he could stay with me over Thanksgiving break. I had no idea at the time how much of a bad idea that would turn out to me.

The first night should have been a warning sign that it was going to be a fucked up week. When we arrived at my house Sheela was tired so she went to sleep. I called up a few buddies, got Yuri high off some weed, and took him to a high school football game. He fell in love with American football. He was yelling at the players to 'kill each other you American bastards' and trying to pick a fight with the line ref. Everyone was giving us the 'die you commie fuckers' look the entire time. Yuri did not give a fuck and was singing the damn Russian national anthem at half time. We were lucky to get out of there alive. And that was day one...

During the course of the next few days the four of us, my father included, developed a taste for cheap Tequila, arguing about everything and fists fights(the fights were was mostly my father and I after Sheela pissed him off). Yeah, we were having a good old fashioned West Virginia good time. 

It was all fun and games until one night Yuri got drunk and wanted some pussy.

On the first day I told Yuri that the guy who lives on the hill across the road will let you fuck his wife if you give him some pills. I said that as a joke but Yuri thought I was serious. One night Yuri got more drunk than usual and decided it was time to get his fuck on.  He still had some Xanax he had bought from some wigged out science major. He grabbed the bottle of Xanax, my dads condoms, and as he marched out the door proclaimed, 'I'm going up hill to trade pills for man's wife.' My dad had long ago passed out, Sheela was high off her ass, my fat ass gay cousin so too drunk and I was left to try and stopped Yuri. I tried to talk him out of it but he just kept saying, 'Good loving for good pills' and knocked me on the ground several times. I finally gave up and said to him,'fine you crazy Russian motherfucker, if you wanna get killed tonight go night ahead.' We all just waited for the gun shot to break the silence of the night.

They spoke loud and with confidence.

Yuri: Ryan said you will trade pills for the fucking of your wife? I am here to make trade.
Angry Redneck: What the fuck are you!?
Yuri: I am Russian and I come to fuck your wife! Where is she? 

A few minutes later....BOOM! 'You Russian commie bastard! Get off my land before I kill you!'

The boom sound came from the business end of a double barrel pump action shot gun. The death threat came from a man named Randy; and he was pissed the fuck off.

Yuri came rolling back to my house as cool as a penguin. He kicked open my door and coldly said, 'Where is gun? Time for American asshole with slut wife to die!'

He went right to the gun case and picked out a truly classy weapon; a rifle which had not been properly cleaned for about a year. He also grabbed a box of bullets and started to head out the door. At that point I had to stop his crazy ass from going on a murderous rampage. As Yuri was loading the gun I hit him square in the jaw, but that only dazed him. I hit the bastard again with a good old fashioned Irish upper cut and he was down for the count. It was then that I noticed that Sheela and my fat ass gay cousin had been watching the scene unfold with a look of pure horror on their faces. They looked like they had just watched a zombie take a bite out of someone. If the whole situation had not been so fucked up, I might have started laughing at them.

Seeing that Yuri was pretty much out cold, the three of us want out back and smoked a joint. We thought it was all over...but Yuri was not finished yet. When we heard his Ford Bronco start up and kick up gravel as it hauled ass out of the driveway I simply gave the fuck up. He was sure to get himself killed one way or the other. Yet, to my surprised he return within 30 minutes with some very special friends. Yuri's new friends were four cops cars and eight pissed off cops. They circled his Bronco while one of them shouted, 'One of you Smith's come out here and claim this son of the bitch.' I was the only Smith in the house who was smart enough to deal with those cops. Dad was passed out and my fat ass gay cousin was too much of a pussy to talk to the cops. I came outside and said, 'I am a Smith. What the hell did he do?'

The lead cop took me to the side and very smoothly said, 'I don't know were this guy is from but he is fucking crazy. One of our officers was on traffic duty and that bastard tried to hump the damn hood of the officers car. Now you look here Smith boy, You lock him up in a room and do not let him out until he sobers up. If we catch him out again tonight we will take him to the station and you know what will happen there. Do you understand me you little Smith asshole?'

I agreed and they cut Yuri loose. I told Yuri to go pass out in my room. I made sure to lock the damn door behind him. From that day forward he forever became known as the Yuri the redneck Russian.

As unbelievable as this tale seems, I can assure you that it is all true. I cannot make this shit up.

My life is much more mellow how compared to my days living in the mountains of West Virginia. Which is most likely why I have damn near lost my mind here in Japan. Being a good guy who is so damn polite is not easy when you come from the kind of place I have. The social pressures of Japan have damn near broke me but I am sure most people in Tokyo could never handle West Virginia.

This is the first in a series of posts about my background. I need to comes to terms with what made me who I am today. It will switch from my life in West Virginia and here in Japan. I am sure you will find these post to be entertaining and enlightening.

The Time I Almost Died in a Fight

Everyone loves to hear about a fight. There is something about raw violence which attracts just about anyone. So inspired by Chris who writes Confessions of a bad boy in Japan I thought I would share a fight story with yall.

It is important to note that fighting is a way of life in West Virginia. Back in the mountains, getting into a fight was nothing out of the norm. This tale happened around 2005. Like all good fight stories it involves drinking, attitudes and fucked up people.

The evening started out pretty mundane. I was at my place just chilling out. A buddy of mine, Jon, called me up wanting to hang and have a few beers. I had nothing better to do so I got in my car and headed over to his house. He had a pretty big house and always plenty of beer. He was a cool dude so I was all about wanting to hangout for a while. He lived in Princeton which is a fucked up town full of drug addicts and street slime. The kind of town where folks will knife you over a few pills. I was so used to the damn area that I did not give a fuck. Jon was cool and I wanted to chat and get drunk. I really was not concerned about some street slime making trouble; damn was I wrong.

As soon as I showed up at Jon house we started drinking. He must have had at least three cases of beer on hand. Beer is damn cheap in America which was good for us because we were poor hillbillies. I think we were drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and Miller Ice. Wait a minute...Yes! It must have been PBR because that is the one beer which will attract gutter slime every single time. I don`t know what it is about PBR that brews such madness and attracts the shit of the earth. Maybe it is the fact that when I lived in the states 30 cans of PBR was only 13.00 bucks. It is a fun beer as well. It is granddad`s beer. Granddad always gets a good PBR buzz and tells ya war stories about fighting Nazis. Well, in my case I drink PBR and tell ya about drinking PBR and almost dying.

Any damn way, we were getting drunk and having a good conversation about libertarianism. Jon was a hard nosed working class rebel like myself but he was smart as well. We washed dishes together at a local restaurant. I was finishing up college, he was trying to survive along with a gang of other misfits living in his house. Regardless, we were enjoying the cheap PBR and the conversation very much. Unexpectedly he received a phone call from someone he clearly had a shaky relationship with. After a lot of swearing and threats of violence, Jon hangs up the phone and lets me know that,`Some good weed is on the way.` Only a fool passes up good weed so he had my interest. At that point I should have known that shit was about to turn sour. I was a bit too drunk to listen to my natural instincts.

About a half hour later I hear someone banging on the front door and yelling, `Jon! Open the fucking door! Jon! You bastard! You know I was coming! Why is the fucking door locked!` With such a greeting, gutter slime from the street had found its way to Jon`s front door. This was the same person who Jon had had a not so pleasant phone conversation with earlier. Jon opened the door and the guy barged into the house while talking pure shit the entire time. I laid eyes on a skinny red head guy who was so pale it looked like he had been on a four day coke binge. He wore clothes that were slightly dirty, but at least he did not smell bad. He took one look at me and said,`You the fuck are you? Are you a cop?` The only thing I could say back to this dickhead was, `No I`m not a cop. But you look like you need a drink.` I gave him a can of PBR which seem to chill him out a bit. He dragged Jon into a back room apparently to do a dope deal. I don`t know what happened in those ten minutes they were alone in that back room but something went wrong...really really wrong.

I heard a large crash and thump followed by swearing. I walked into the back room to find the two of them attempting to kick each other`s asses. There were throwing punches, falling down, trying to kick each other as they got up and then throw some more punches. I was just drunk enough to find the scene funny. I stepped back and let them go. It was like watching a fucked up street brawl between two people who should not be fighting anyone for any reason. Jon was drunk and the red head fucker was too skinny to put up a decent fight. Yet, they seemed determined to fuck each other up over something I am still not clear about to this very day.

After a while they started to run out of juice. They backed away from each other, breathing heavily, and giving each other the evil eye. A few `fuck you` were exchanged as the red head fucker lit up a joint and passed it to me. I took a few drags and handed it to Jon. The fight seem to be coming to an end until Jon took a long drag off the joint and said something to the effect of,`You always act this way when I have company. You have to disrespect me and embarrass me in front of my friends. You asshole!` Jon walked out of the room with the joint. His words and actions were just enough to spur chaos. The red head fucker pulled out a knife and started making threats to Jon. That bastard was waving his knife around daring anyone to do something about it. I had finally had enough of that piece of street slime. I walked right up to him, gave him a leg sweep, and a punch directly in the jaw. We went down headed for the floor as I wanted to get him down and beat the shit out of him...things did not go as planned.

He fell all the way to the floor. Unfortunately, my head meet the end of an exposed heating knob on an old steam heater. The details of what happened after that are fuzzy. When I regained control of my brain I remember there being a pool of blood on the floor, blood on the walls, blood on me and blood on the red head fucker. I was also laying into the bastard and saying random evil things. The bastard was screaming,`Jon! Get this crazy motherfucker off me!` From what I can remember, Jon pulled me off and the red head fuck started making more threats. After that I blackouted from blood lose. I remember some kind of argument occurred as I staggered out of Jon`s house. Somehow I actually drove back to Athens.

I ended up knocking on the door of my close friend Josh. He was the only person I knew who would help me. I should have went to the hospital but I was poor and did not want to have to pay for an overpriced stitch up. I seem to remember blacking out again when Josh answered his door. None the less good old Josh came though. He took me to my apartment and called one of our good buddies to help. They discovered that I was cut all the way to my skull. Josh cleaned the gash with rubbing alcohol and  used super glue to close it up. For good measure he put several band aids over it which I replaced every day. It took several months for the gash to heal. I learned an important lesson. Never fight drunk with crazy gutter slime.  

 

Confession of a Southerner in Tokyo

I never thought in a million years that I would be living in Tokyo. The likely hood of a guy like myself living in the far east is the same as the Chicago Cubs winning the world series. In some twist of fate here I am living in Tokyo, Japan. I used to think that am not suppose to end up living on the other side of the planet. After careful thought I have realized that my life has always been leaning in the direction of Asia in some shape or form. When I look back on my life I can see how Asia has always been apart of my life. All the way back to the early days. Nick Ramsay from thelongcountdown.com recently tagged me in a post requesting to know more about me. I have had it on my mind to write a little tell-all about how I ended up living in Tokyo. Nick has finally inspired me to write this post. Well, here is my confession.


Born to Lose

I was born in West Virginia, USA. It is the poorest state in the union. I had the luck to be raised in McDowell County which is the poorest county in the poorest state in the union. Yes, I was born with two strikes against me. My father was a coal miner in a long line of coal mining, hard working, hard drinking men. My mother was the gentle native American type. My mother`s mother was full blood native American. This odd couple gave birth to me on January 5th 1980 deep in the mountains of West Virginia in a town called Welch. My parents loved Rock n` Roll which only fueled my rebellious nature from a very young age. My mother had Asian blood as my grandmother often said. My grandmother never really liked my mother and blamed my her for what she said was, `a very odd boy who spends too much time thinking and not enough time doing.`

Divorce Greasers and a Girl from Korea

As time went on tensions between the family factions lead to a lot of stress on my parents. This was made even worse when my dad had to stop working due to having an extra nerve on his heart. After going under the knife to `fix` his heart dad was never the same. This drinking and lack of a decent job lead to constant violence in the home. My mother finally had enough and packed her bags and left; taking my sister with her. So, dad and I were left on our own. Soon after my father and I started to refer to each other my our first names. We were no longer father and son. We were drinking buddies!

Due to the shock of dealing with divorce I became a misfit of sorts. I fell into a crowd of other teenage misfits and greaser types. I took an interest in playing football and building muscle cars. This is how I met a girl named Soon-Ei. She was from Korea and a greaser like myself. Her father`s company bought a controlling interest in a chemical factory in up-state West Virginia. Apparently, he hated his daughter and sent her to live with a redneck family in McDowell County while he attended to business in Charleston,WV. I first met her in shop class and we soon became hot and heavy for each other. This did not set well with most of the other kids in high school. I got labeled as the `weird kid who is sleeping with the yellow girl.` I did not care so much about what the others said because she was nice to me and a lot of fun to hang out with. Although, my relationship with her did get me into a lot of fights. A lot of guys in school liked to sexually harass her because she was very beautiful and not white. She took shop class with me and we build several kick-ass muscle cars together. We were even able to help show several rednecks in shop class the value of accepting people who look different. We got voted sexist couple at vocational school our senior year.

Sadly, after high school her father got transferred back to Korea so we parted ways. I lost contact with her. My relationship with her was my first taste of Asia(no pun intended). Little did I know it would not be my last.

College: Radio, Acid, and Japanese college girls

So off to college I went in the summer of 1999. My uncle bubba decided that the best thing for me was to go to college. Despite his name bubba is actually a real smart guy. He has a masters in Education and Engineering. He was always understanding of me and at times took me under his wing. He was the only person in my family who kind of let me be myself. He never gave me shit for anything. Well, he helped me though the process of getting accepted to Concord University. CU is a small university located in the mountain town of Athens, WV. My entire family was very proud of the fact I was actually going to college. I remember my grandmother saying, `Wow! The damn boy is actually doing something. Well, at least he is not in prison.`

When I first stepped foot on the grounds of CU I knew that I could never again live in McDowell County. College was my only way out of that redneck hell hole. They cursed me with a thick southern draw but they were not going to drag me under. I decided to major in journalism and minor in human personality. Seem like a perfect choice to me.

My friends in college were a few hippies, some metal heads, a crazy Russian and a gang of Japanese college girls. An odd bunch to run with but I have been odd my entire life. I had a few duties in college above and beyond attending class. I did the Friday night shift for the college radio station. I also earned a spot on the college news paper staff and later served as the A&E editor. These extra duties earned me a little attention on campus. It was weird but after a while I got used to people coming up to me and saying, `Are you the guy who does the radio on Friday night?`

Anyway, the hippies kept me pretty high in my free time. Hell, most of the time. It was hard to keep up with them. There was this one hippie guy named George Jones(just like the country singer). He had a thing for Asian religion and smoking lots of pot. I spent a lot of time with him in college and learned a lot from him.

It was also in college that I met the love of my life. Makiko Kono has been apart of my life since I was 19 years old. I met her while playing basketball during my first summer semester in college. Our story is way too long to tell here but lets just say that we have been connected at the hip from the time me met. The only reason I met her was because of this crazy as hell Harajuku gal attending Concord. She was the first person I met in college. I ended up usually having a gang of Japanese gals hanging around me way too often. I guess they took a liking to me because I was nice to them and helped them out whenever I could. You can image the oddness of being Japanese and attending college in West Virginia. My first apartment was with MK and a friend of hers. They really got me interested in Japanese culture. I think that was the jumping point which has led me to living in Tokyo today.

It is also worth noting that during my college years I experimented with LSD. I learned a lot form Acid. It really opened up my mind to new ways of thinking. I have my tales about tripping on LSD but I will not share them here. If you want to hear a few good Acid stories from me you are just going to have to meet me in person.

OK Things have Gotten Out of Control; Bye Bye America Hello Japan

For a few years after college I really did not know what to do with myself. I spent about a third of my time traveling to Japan to see MK. During these years I watched American turn into a real shit place to live. Don`t get me wrong I love my country but the damn government is acting like a pack of boot licking Nazi`s. With the Empire going insane and people behaving really weird I was finally fed up. On a winter trip to see MK we finally decided to get married. This was not an easy choice for me. I left everything and everyone I knew behind forever to come and live with MK in Tokyo.

So, here I am in Tokyo Japan. My southern ass is living in a place with has been calling my name long before I could hear its screams. I guess it will be many years before I return to America. I like it here overall. It is always interesting.

Ok Nick, and rest of the world, now you know a little bit more about me and how I ended up living in Japan. Maybe a few more people will understand me a little better. Although there will be those who will use this post as fuel for attacking me. I will just have to laugh at the assholes and thank those who find my willingness to share my little story interesting.