May 17, 2019 (Tokyo)

Deeply jet-lagged, I walk the streets of Tokyo without knowing what direction or desire.  I feel like I have to move or I sleep or experience some version of death.  On the other hand, for the next four days, I'm alone, and therefore I can roam from morning to evening and back to morning again.  I ended up at a chain coffee shop in Shibuya a block away from Tower Records having a cold glass of their tap water and black coffee.  I usually sit by their indoor fountain, which generally I find it meditative.  Unfortunately, they had the water turned off, so the glass fountain, or is it plastic, had old water stains on it which reminded me of the retainer for my teeth.  It's tough to clean the fastener, and I find it disgusting.  Therefore I'm in a bad mood.

To escape my dark thoughts for the day, I went to RecoFan, which is about two blocks away from the coffee shop.   When I look for records, I usually don't have a thought in my head, which, of course, is total bliss. In that state, I found a copy of the Tornados' second album "Away From it All" produced by Joe Meek.   As one knows who reads my blog, I have a thing for Meek's production.  It's interesting to note that Meek arranged to have a photo of Heinz on the back cover of the album, announcing that he is now a solo artist, but did play bass on seven tracks on this album.  It took me about three hours to find this record.  A gentleman from Asia, who speaks perfect English, asked me for advice at the music store.  Both of us had the same problem.   If you buy 5 used albums or singles, you get ¥200  off each title.  He can only find three, and I was struggling with a choice of two and having a difficult time to find other records I wanted.  Which is basically a 'me' problem, because it is one of the great record stores in the world.  It's a smaller version of Amoeba feet wise, but jammed pack with vinyl, CD, and an impressive selection of used 45 rpm singles.  They also have an excellent selection of Japanese pop/rock as well.  I did find a Guernica album there, but I already have it.  Still, the Asian gentleman wanted to know if we could put our purchase together for the discount.  I declined because even though it made perfect sense, I just didn't want to be there for the discount.  As a buyer or collector, it's essential that I purchased records that I need, and not out of a 'deal.'  

Exhausted, I went to a local market near my home here in Meguro and found an overabundance of raw tuna.   I  had rice at home and decided to buy a package of tuna, and at home, I'll make sushi rice, which is a combination of white rice, vinegar, and sesame seeds.   I actually like the sushi rice better than the fish that is either mixed in or lays on top of the tuna.  If one gives me a bowl of rice, I would be happy and content. 

I feel my life must be a great disappointment to my readers and fans.   I made a note to myself to make my self more interesting.  Perhaps even to write more about food.  The truth is, I greatly admire meditating on all sort of things, and then writing about my feelings on that subject matter.  Of course, who cares about how I feel about things!  Still,  on the way home I did go to Tower Music to buy the music magazine "Record Collector," which is cheaper to purchase here than in Los Angeles.  It's essential that I have reading material on long plane flights.  Even although sometimes I just nod in front of the small video screen, I find reading material a safety net for any chances that boredom reveals itself to my world.   Tower Records is 6-floors of music.   Each floor is devoted to a specific region or type of music.  The last time I was here K-pop (Korean) shared space with J-Pop (Japanese), but alas, K-Pop has the whole floor to itself.   Of the boy-band world, it's interesting that Korean pop acts are making a presence in America at the moment. So, the fact that a whole floor is devoted to K-Pop music is an interesting change. Also on this floor were a significant number of young girls screaming because a band or boy band was doing a signing.  Classical music used to have the entire floor by itself but now shares its space with Jazz and World Music. 

January 10, 2014

January 10, 2014

I arrived in Tokyo late last night, mostly due to the bus trip to the Meguro Hotel than the flight itself. The Narita Airport is about one and a half hours away from Tokyo, so the additional travel time is the thing that really knocks you out. It's bad enough to be in a plane for ten hours, but then having to take a bus for more travel time is the point where one says to themselves "I had enough." Nevertheless I am here because I wanted to surprise my friend Dennis Cooper on his birthday. Him and a friend of his are in Japan for the next two weeks, and I thought "wouldn't it be a good surprise if I just showed up in Japan to see him for his birthday."

From Meguro where I normally stay, I went to a coffee shop in Shibuya, where I heard that he goes to every morning at exactly 10:15. He's been to Tokyo /Japan once, and is a well disciplined figure with respect to scheduling. As a creature of habit he always shows up at this particular coffee shop every morning he's in Tokyo.

My plan was to wait around the cafe as a lurking Rasputin, maybe behind an over sized potted plant. And once he gets in line for his coffee I would just appear behind him in that line, and bingo, tell him happy birthday.

But odd enough, while I was waiting at the Doutor Coffee shop, he doesn't show up. First of all many of the customers here was looking at my way and wondering why I was hiding behind the potted plant for a half n' hour or so. I was so puzzled, because I know Dennis spent time in Hawaii, and Doutor Coffee has a plantation on that island just for the purpose of supplying coffee to this shop and its chain in Japan. A change of plans made me purchase a cup of coffee and I found a vacant seat by the water sculpture, which is one of my favorite spots to sit and drink coffee. As I have mentioned I am not a big fan or 'real' nature, but I greatly admire 'fake' nature. This sculpture represents nature to me, without being really nature and I love that.

At this time it seemed obvious that he won't appear, so after drinking my coffee I walked down to Tower Records, which is only a block away from the coffee shop. I went on the third floor, where they have American music, and I thought I should buy Dennis a CD. For whatever reason I thought it should either be a Johnnie Ray or Max Roach CD. For the life of me, I couldn't really analyze the reason why I would focus on those two artists for Dennis. I don't think he even likes that type of music. But I'm known in the free world as the worst gift giver ever. God knows that most people return my gifts, and usually I am pretty happy about that, because my gifts are normally what I would want as gifts.

I bought a compilation of Ray's recordings called "Cry" which is put out by Bear Family, a great label out of Germany, and Max Roach's "We Insist," which is normally a very hard album/CD to find. I can only hope he'll like it, if not, he will just return it back to me. Which is perfectly OK because I don't have either album in my collection.