The Sunday Series: Sunday September 20, 2015: Tokyo/Paris/Los Angeles

I’m always exhausted, when I get back from Japan.   I go every year, or maybe even twice a year.  We're sort of living there, or more likely, we go there.  We don’t live anywhere.  We just go to places, and see what happens. For me, travel is a form of escape.  When things are sucky in one place, it is time to move on.  The thing is I only like to travel to Paris or Tokyo.  I could care less about the rest of the world.   Like, your hometown has no interest for me whatsoever.   Do you like your hometown?  I don’t.

I don’t hang around here anymore.   The gold gang either got old or they died.   Either way, they’re totally useless for me.  Oddly enough, when I walk through a Tokyo street, for instance in the hills of Shibuya, I think of the Rolling Stones’ song “(Walking Thru) a Sleepy City.” I’m always singing that song to myself, and for some odd reason, always in Shibuya.   My favorite time is when the daylight slowly turns into night, and all the signage from the buildings, restaurants and bars turn on just right before it gets totally dark.   The change-over only lasts for a few moments, but it reminds me of Jacques walking through Pigalle, Paris and he’s walking towards his home after a night of gambling.   He witnesses the neon lights being turned off, and it’s both beautiful and depressing at the same moment.  I live for moments like these.   These memories are fading. Yet I hold on to them as if a thirsty man is left wandering around a drought-like conditions in Los Angeles.

Keiji Haino called me.  He called me a lot of things, but it is always great to hear him say “Hey Tosh.” I get out my rare Dalimaru electric guitar with four strings, and I’m off to a gig in Shinjuku with Keiji.  With him, I never know what is going to happen.   The truth is, we just live from one neon light opening to another.  I’m just lucky that there is FamilyMart’s throughout the route from one point to another.  I swear to God, if it wasn’t for the “One Cup Ozeki,” I would be dead by now.   Or worse, sober.

This Sunday is not like any other Sunday.  Today is the day where I’m going to skip through my past, and make it my present, so I can deal with my future.