February 27, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

Albert Einstein's room in Moji-Ko, Japan

February 27, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

For the last couple of days, I have been in Moji-Ko, which is part of the southern island of Kyushu in Japan.   I'm here with my wife, and she is from this town.  In 1989, I lived here for a whole year.  It's ironic that I have always tried to avoid small towns, yet, always end up in one.  Moji-Ko is technically a port city, where across from the Japan Sea there's Korea.  Before World War II, Moji-Ko was the location to go back and forth to Korea.  It was a lively town full of adult entertainment as well as cinema, live theater, and Geisha action.  Albert Einstein came through Moji-Ko and stayed in a structure that is technically the next block where I'm writing this piece.  There's a plaque announcing the visit, but no image or photograph exists that I know of, having him here in the city.   When in doubt I always go with the narrative.  So there is no reason to question that he was here in Moji-Ko.

Moji-Ko Retro Observation Room, Japan

Compared to Kyoto or other parts of Japan, Moji-Ko's structures are not that old.  My guess is that the oldest building here is about 105 years old.  Still, there is a particular Meiji period feeling in the structures as well as the roadways.  I'm writing this report on the 31st floor of the observation deck.  The city is very much laid out in front of me, and it looks like I'm observing a google map, but I'm really here.  But have I ever been anywhere?

Dead Fugu, but still deadly, in Moji-Ko, Japan

I had dinner last night at a local restaurant.  Blow-Fish (Fugu) is the main specialized dish in Moji-Ko.  The fish is very toxic and lethally poisonous if you eat the wrong part of the Blow-Fish.   People in the West are alarmed, but the Japanese seem to take it in the style that nothing will happen to them if they eat Fugu.  The fish itself is delicious.  I ate it in many ways.  Sashimi style as well as cooked and served in soup.  I never felt in danger, because the people around me took it as being prepared by an experienced chef.   If you do get poisoned by eating the fish, the effects are similar to nerve gas such as Sarin or VX.  The victim is conscious, but their muscles will be paralyzed and eventually, one can't breathe and will die from asphyxiation. This happens time-to-time, but what are the chances of that happening to me?

Gentlemen who ate at the same restaurant

Back to the restaurant, we were sitting at the counter eating Fugu, when I notice the party next to me was sending a bottle of Shochu to another table.  They were drinking beer and what looked like bottles of Shochu.  They were bottle-keep, which means the customer buys the bottle and keeps it at the restaurant for themselves.   Hardcore Asian tradition of drinking in bars.  There were three of them.  One was a young woman, who looked like she killed a man or two.  Beautiful but I sense a hardness in her attitude.  The two guys she was with had various forms of jewelry on, including one who had two watches attached to each wrist.  He also had what looks like a diamond stone around his neck.  The other thing I notice is that anyone who walks into the restaurant made a gesture of being a friend or bowing to this trio.  To not to acknowledge them in a specific world would have been a deadly mistake.

The Author's laptop while writing this essay in the Observation Room in Moji-Ko

I made the Mojiko Retro Observation Room as my office while here.  I find it suitable to be on the 31st floor looking out to the Japan Sea and commenting on the town and people down below.  It's an idea space for a writer to do his or her's work.  From here, I can see my home in Moji-Ko. My wife and I live on the 13th floor of that building.   So at nighttime, I can sit in the outside hall and look at the place where I do my work. And oddly enough, I sit in the Observation Room watching the place where I live.

The Author lives on the 13th Floor of this buiding

I have a deep interest in my culture, especially when I'm in a foreign culture. It is what makes Americans so unique.   I had a beer, drinking some coffee now, and just had a chocolate cookie.  I'm all set, and about to go into the sunset and become one of the small people down below.

Moji-Ko Retro Observation Room at night; Photographed from my 13th Floor apartment across the way

Images of Japan by Tosh Berman

Portrait of Tosh Berman, Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo Bus, Meguro, Tokyo

Western style wedding party, Tokyo

Piss Alley, Shinjuku, Tokyo

Messed-up face display for manga series: Shinjuku, Tokyo

Bar entrance, Nakano Broadway area, Tokyo

Harajuku, Tokyo

Bar in Nakano Broadway area, Tokyo

Hotel in Broadway Nakano, Tokyo

Window display for music shop, Ginza, Tokyo

Meji Park, Tokyo

Music Shop (floor-by-floor) window display, Ginza, Tokyo

Wedding Ceremony at Meji Shrine, Tokyo

Aoyoma, Tokyo Abandoned home

Naked Dolls, but can add clothing, accessories, etc.

Ginza coffee shop, Ginza Tokyo

Ginza Street, Ginza Tokyo

Ginza, Tokyo at dusk

Tom Cruise

Brad Pitt

Doll Faces, Tokyo

Yakuza Dolls

Mid-Century design house items doll size

Rabbit Shrine, Kyoto

Kyoto Burial Grounds

Kyoto Burial Grounds

Meguro, Tokyo, Japan

February 24, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Shinkenshan Train ( Tokyo - Kyoto)

February 23, 2017

On the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) on the way from Tokyo to Kyoto.  There is something so civilized when one travels on a train compared to a flying machine.  For one, I can watch the landscape unfold onto another world.  It's a leap into the future as the Shinkansen moves at the speed of  200 mph.   From my window, I can see Mount Fuji, which is a ghost mountain.   Osamu Dazai wrote this amazing short story about Mount Fuji, "One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,"  and how it is so prominent in one's life.   The last scene of the story is when tourists come upon the narrator (who we presume is Dazai) and ask him to take a photograph of them with Mount Fuji in the background.  He gave them time to pose, and then without them knowing,  Dazai focused the camera upward on taking a  photo of the mountain, leaving the tourists out of their photograph.   Sometimes a location is even greater than the individual.

February 23, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

February 22, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

When I want to feel someone, not like me, I go to the Ginza district in Tokyo.   I like to go window-shopping and imagine that I'm purchasing objects that I can't realistically afford.  I have always been attracted to music shops that sell not only CD's but also instruments that I can't play.  I live in an imaginary world where I'm a master musician.  The great thing about Tokyo is that there are endless things to see, and therefore worlds that one can enter, without the knowledge of that world.  I'm also fond of the neon lighting in the Ginza.  Soft compared to the harsh light of such locations as Shinjuku or Shibuya.

Ginza to me represents 1960s gangsters hanging out in a bar.  I only know this due that I have watched many comedies as well as gangster films that take place in the Ginza.  Whatever this is true or not is not something I'm concerned about.  It's similar to going to Disneyland and being a concern if Mickey Mouse exists or not in real life.  I'm blessed in the sense that I never care about the reality of the place or situation, but what is important is how I imagine the place.

I leave Tokyo today for Kyoto.   I often think that there is a connection between the two cities.   Again, my knowledge is only attached to what I think - it could be just the name "Kyoto" that brings up images in my head.   I'll let you know when I get there.

February 20, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

February 20, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

The essence of failure is the self-knowledge of going down the drain, and there is nothing to hold on to.  There is a gentleman that I read about here by the name of Gensiro Kawamoto, who owns landmark property here in Tokyo as well as throughout Japan, and Hawaii extending to California.  He is one of the wealthiest men in Japan, and according to sources, he only pays in cash, and never credit.  He is one of the very few who has no debt.  One can see his logo throughout the Ginza (the Beverly Hills of Tokyo) on the side of buildings.  "Marugen" always stands for Mr. Kawamoto.   He rarely does interviews (an actual billionaire has no need for the popular press), and he rarely sleeps.  Perhaps four hours a night, and his only interest is the making of the deal.  He's addicted not to power, but the gamble of obtaining property.  There are 60 buildings in Japan with his name on it. 

Gensiro Kawamoto

Gensiro Kawamoto's shoes

Most of Kawamoto's buildings are leased to various hostesses bars, and entertainment centers throughout Shinjuku, Ginza, and Roppongi.  The essence of Tokyo, at least to my eyes, is Gensiro Kawamoto.  I often imagine my life with such individuals as Kawamoto and realize that I don't have the talent or brains to follow through life in such a challenging manner.   My weakness disgusts me to no return.   Here I imagine life within the Stephen Bannon world, and he's just an ambitious fly to a bigger piece of excrement.   I have been reading on Julius Evola's text, or what I can find on the Internet.  Bannon often drops his name in conferences at various right-wing think tanks.  This Italian Futurist and one-time member of DADA is the key to the entrance of what ills us today.   The problem is the President of the United States is a man who doesn't read, yet Bannon is an excellent reader on many levels.   I suspect Kawamoto to be in the same league as Bannon.  Ego is the downfall and the men behind the curtain rule the chicken coop. 

Julius Evola

February 19, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

February 19, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

As I write, I'm like a fuse that's burning, and once the explosion hits, the world I know will be torn into pieces of flesh and metal.   I can tell things are bad because people are avoiding me like I'm the wrong reporter in the White House press conference.   Ever since yesterday, I have been printing out images of Stephen Bannon from the internet.  I'm convinced that he's a murderer.   I saw the man once, the one who caused my father's death.   Ever since then, I wished for him to rot outward to his inners.  Bannon looks like a man that is rotting by the second.  Like a hanging banana left too long on the kitchen counter, Banner is clearly decaying in front of my eyes.  If you poke too hard, he will explode.  It makes me sick to my stomach that I approach him about helping to build a statue in the President's honor.  I now want to burn my plans and scatter the ashes into Bannon's whiskey and water.

On the other hand, it's a beautiful day in Tokyo.  I spent some quality time in Shinjuku.  I borrowed a jacket from a member of the family here, and there is something fantastic when you leave an over-warmed room into the cold air.  I never felt so clean before.  I like to lose myself in the crowd.  It's the only time that I can forget about myself, and become this force.   I even enjoy the Far Right in the Shibuya Station.  At least four vans followed an all-black van that looked like they had metal fencing around the windows.  On the top of the vehicle are four huge loud speakers.  Not sure if it's a tape they are playing or an actual person in the car with a microphone.  Free speech being allowed, but in a volume where one can hear it for miles.    If Trump were smarter, he would have a series of these type of trucks driving through rural and urban centers.  He can stay at Mar-a-Lago with "the set," and at the same time, Trump can have these trucks plow through the countryside.  Japan always have better ideas than the West.

Today I will plan for my future.

February 18, 2017 (Tosh's Diary) Japan

February 18, 2017 (Tosh's Diary)

I must have my revenge.   I can see now, that I'm in Tokyo, that the moment has risen for me to strike.  I have missed the opportunity on a continuous basis for my entire life.  I'm having a series of drinks in Harajuku bar, all by myself.   I'm not drunk.  In actuality, I'm quite sober.  The situation is, every February 18, I see appearances of my late father.  I'm used to seeing him in Los Angeles, but it's odd that this spirit has followed me to Tokyo.    I was walking in Shinjuku last night, and I noticed this foreigner in a large hat and fur coat following me.  I ducked into a Disk Union shop in hopes of avoiding this figure.  I was going over the Beatles Japanese pressings of various Sgt Pepper covers when I looked up and saw the foreign fellow. It was my father.  In these type of situations, I pretend not to notice him.  When I looked up again, he was gone.

I have accepted that I had these visions and learned to live with them.  Still, the big difference is that I'm in a foreign country - a different culture, and still, there is my father in front of me.  What bothers me the most is that I feel that he's giving me a message of some sort.  Throughout my life, I ignored any signs of bitterness on my part.  The truth is, I'm very bitter.   I live my life as if it's daytime.  Still, the night has pretty much taken over my soul.  

I'm a fiction writer, and I take daily life as a source for my work.  It's the foundation where my ideas come from.   The most traumatic thing that ever happened was my dad's murder.   In fact, I guess it was an accident, but I never accepted it as just an accident.  Because the way the case came out, it clearly is about a  man avoiding his crime, and where he is now, or if even he's alive is like a mist that surrounds me on a daily basis whenever I allow my mind to wander without any censorship or constrained in any fashion.

I walk around Tokyo because it clears my head.  I'm not really a tourist, but more of a person who puts a jacket on, and leaves the front entrance of a building, without a thought which direction to go.  If the winter wind is going a direction, I just follow that force without a thought in my head.   Stephen Bannon has been pretty much in my brain.  It was last night that I realize he looks like the guy who killed my father in a drunken so-called car accident.  Much younger then, but now he has the face of a man who has enjoyed his poison for many years.  It's odd today that I saw two weddings.  One Japanese style and the other western.  It seemed like theater.  I can never penetrate the difference between what I consider to be something real or a staged performance.   I wander now, like forever.