Tosh's Journal - October 19 (Crazy Cats, Tokyo Japan)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 19

I’m alone. There is not anyone here. To feel alone is a high. Human beings, by their nature, are social animals. My needs are food and something to read. Other than that, I have very little interest in anything else. By habit, I like to wander around Tokyo, but usually, I don’t give a thought to where I’  ’m going or what direction. I walk out the door of my family home here, and I go either left or right. I never have regrets if I make the wrong decision. Or give it special meaning if something fantastic happened on that trip. My life is simply an act of reflecting and then moving on as fast as I can.

As I mentioned, I have been out of work for the past two years. When I worked, I was a good worker; in fact, my co-workers were satisfied with me. But then I decided to change. There was no reason why I did so. I just woke up and chose not to go to work. I needed the money (still do by the way), but I said to myself, “Nah, I’m not going to work.” It was just an odd moment because there was nothing in my past or present that would make me follow such a crazy impulse. I only did something like that once before, when after a sound night’s sleep, I woke up and then sold my car and never drove since then. Why? Because I needed to leap into the unknown, but I never studied my impulses. I’m a creature of habit, but at times and unexpectedly, I can make the change into practice as well.

So here I’m in Tokyo, and I haven’t the foggiest idea of what I’m going to do in the future -meaning next year, next month, next week, and tomorrow… if I can throw that in as well. I won’t let myself be swallowed by self-doubt, because I go with the wind.

Around 25 years ago, I went to a movie theater in Tokyo that had a tatami mat, which means all customers had to take their shoes off before entering the theater. There were giant steps in front of the film screen, so everyone just sat on the tatami mat, or if they wanted to, they could easily lay down and look up at the screen. The film they were showing was such a remarkable work, and to this day, I don’t know the title of this film. All I can tell you that it starred Hitoshi Ueki and his band Crazy Cats. What is interesting about him and them is that they were musicians first, and then became successful comic actors as well. Watching the film, it reminded me of Frank Tashlin’s work with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The beauty of the film is the fact that it looked like a comic strip taking place in front of my eyes. The location where the film is set is in Shinbashi, traditionally the playground for the salaryman.

I think back at that film presentation because now I’m obsessed with capturing the moment when Ueki walks down the street in Shinbashi, not having a care in the world. He just left his job, or what one thinks may have been his job. For all, I know he may only come into the office to have a free cup of coffee or green tea. By the expressions of the co-workers, they may have never seen him before. Therefore he takes up the character of a salaryman as one takes an identity out of one’s closet.

He was that type of character in all of the Crazy Cat films. The illusion of music being played in a small traditional Japanese bar that may fit five or six people, all of a sudden turns into a big-budgeted Broadway musical. Time and place are expanded just by whatever hits Ueki’s mood. Therefore when I walk on the streets of Shinbashi, I too will live in Hitoshi Ueki’s shadow.

Tosh's Journal - October 18 (Lee Harvey Oswald, Shinbashi, Lotte Lenya)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

October 18

“To exist to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” I keep that in mind as I wander through an empty parking lot in Shinbashi, looking for a Chinese restaurant that is placed on the third floor. It is a Saturday night and not a person’s insight. Alas, the restaurant is closed.  After 20 minutes of walking overpasses that connect the large boulevard and then down steep stairs to the entrance of the lot, and then to climb two staircases to reach the floor of the restaurant - and it being closed seemed to be a slight miscalculation on my part. I should have known that these types of businesses are closed on a Saturday night. Also, it has been noted to me that this specific restaurant is the oddest eating joint in Tokyo. Shinbashi, a business district in Tokyo, is famous to me, due to the Japanese film series “The Crazy-Cats, which is a combination of Martin & Lewis mixed in with the world of the Salarymen. A lot of the key scenes in the film series were shot in this part of Tokyo.

On my journey here and on the streets of Shinbashi, I kept hearing the voice of Bobby Troup and Anita O’Day singing a duet. Oddly I don’t think they ever made a record together. Yet, in my mind, I can hear both voices singing, perhaps “On Route 66.” I always have that talent of taking something that is out there and somehow making it mine. I look at the world as one big reference library, and I’m just a guy roaming around the stack and aisles of ideas, trying to connect “C” to “Q.” For instance, I could have sworn that there was or is a store that is devoted to Lee Harvey Oswald as an iconic figure. Not that far from Marilyn Monroe or Elvis. His presence becomes more important than who he was. The more literature out on Oswald, the more obscure he gets, and eventually, he becomes a symbol that is empty.   Yet we know he is part of a landscape that caused either pain or awareness that things will never be the same again.

I was drinking a bottle of Chinese sake, which causes me to lose time and memory. Or even oddly enough, causes me to make my memory up. Therefore this Oswald store may not even exist. But why do I clearly remember the key chain being sold at this store that represented the foreign-made rifle as well as his image (the mug shot) after he got arrested for murdering the Dallas cop. There is something of a Huell Howser in me that likes to see Tokyo as a series of objects that somehow people contain these objects as livable space. It seems impossible, yet here I’m, slightly dazed and of course, confused.

Lotte Lenya of Berlin could easily be part of the Tokyo landscape, as well. Never have I ever been in a city where one can watch the daily life of going to work, being at work, and then going to Shinbashi, before going home for dinner.  Having that quick drink of beer or sake, as you gather dutch courage to make it back and knowing you will be facing the exact actions the very next day.  Ms. Lenya (Weill) had the power to convey the struggles of the mice against the machine that is society. “Metropolis” has many forms and disguises, and I see it here in Shinbashi, as I can still smell the tension of the new high-rises fighting against the low-life, and culinary level of the eating places that serve the white-collar worker. I always inspired to be the A. J. Liebling of Tokyo where “I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.” To document time as it passes by me, in such a violent manner, is truly being alive at the very moment of realizing that this is it.

My only refined moment is to attach my earphones to my ears and listen to the sarcastic voice of Catherine Ringer, and I wander the streets of Shinbashi. I’ll never go back to that Chinese restaurant in a vacant parking lot, nor be able to find the Lee Harvey Oswald store, that again, could have been part of my imagination - as well as the Chinese restaurant. All I know is that I can express myself in a world that may not exist.

October 19, 2014

October 19, 2014

I’m alone. There is not anyone here. To feel really alone is a high.  Human beings, by their nature, are social animals.  My needs are basically food, and something to read.  Other than that, I have very little interest in anything else.  By habit, I like to wander around Tokyo, but usually I don’t give a thought to where I’’m going or what direction. I walk out the door of my family home here, and I go either left or right.   I never have regrets if I make the wrong decision.  Or give it special meaning if something fantastic happened on that trip.  My life is simply an act of reflecting and then moving on as fast as I can.

As I mentioned, I have been out of work for the past two years.  When I worked, I was a good worker, in fact, my fellow co-workers were satisfied with me. But then I decided to change.  There was no reason why I did so.  I just woke up and chose not to go to work.  I needed the money (still do by the way), but I said to myself “Nah, I’m not going to work.” It was just an odd moment, because there was nothing in my past, or present that would make me follow such a crazy impulse.  I only did something like that once before, when after a sound night’s sleep I woke up and then sold my car and never drove since then.  Why?   Because I needed to leap into the unknown, but I never studied my impulses. I’m a creature of habit, but at times and unexpectedly, I can make the change into a habit as well.

So here I’m in Tokyo, and I haven’t the foggiest idea of what I’m going to do in the future -meaning next year, next month, next week, and tomorrow, … if I can throw that in as well.  I won’t let myself be swallowed by self-doubt, because I go with the wind.

Around 25 years ago, I went to a movie theater in Tokyo that had a tatami mat, which means all customers had to take their shoes off before entering the theater.  There were giant steps in front of the film screen, so everyone just sat on the tatami mat, or if they wanted to, they could easily lay down and look up at the screen.  The film they were showing was such a remarkable work, and to this day, I don’t know the title of this film. All I can tell you that it starred Hitoshi Ueki and his band Crazy Cats.  What is interesting about him and them is that they were musicians first, and then became successful comic actors as well.  Watching the film, it reminded me of Frank Tashlin's work with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.  The beauty of the film is the fact that it looked like a comic strip taking place in front of my eyes.  The location where the film is set is in Shinbashi, traditionally the playground for the salaryman.

I think back at that film presentation, because now I’m totally obsessed in capturing the moment when Ueki walks down the street in Shinbashi, not having a care in the world. He just left his job, or what one thinks may have been his job.  For all I know he may just come into the office to have a free cup of coffee or green tea. By the expressions of the fellow co-workers, they may have never seen him before.  Therefore he takes up the character of a salaryman, as one takes an identity out of one’s closet.

He was that type of character in all of the Crazy Cat films.  The illusion of music being played in a small traditional Japanese bar, that may fit five or six people, all of sudden turns into a big budgeted Broadway musical.  Time and place are expanded just by whatever hits Ueki's mood.  Therefore when I walk on the streets of Shinbashi, I too will live in Hitoshi Ueki’s shadow.