Goodbye, blue American Apparel Double U-Neck Cotton Spandex Jersey Dress. You were always a little too tight and never stopped sliding up my thighs. But inexplicably I reached for you time and time again, and somehow you became my most loyal friend. Looking back now I can't believe how many nights we shared, and how vividly I remember.
Though under a sweater or blouse you passed for ordinary, you were the sleaziest dress I ever owned. Perhaps it was your hidden sleaze that helped mebecome my sleaziest self. For that notion, blue dress, I will honor you always.
I wore you under my big yellow sweater in the white-hot nucleus of my youth, living on moyashi and whiskey as I swam the streets of Tokyo.
I wore you to Ni-Chome under a black-and-white tartan top that didn't look good with anything else. That night I got so drunk I failed to take a restroom selfie and took a nap in a parking lot. I never wore that top again.
I wore you under a flea market cape on a date with an arrogant music exec who took me to an expensive bar and talked about himself for hours.
On Halloween night in 2010 I had no plans, and I wore you with maroon tights, black pumps, and a gray sweatshirt slashed at the collar. We went shopping in Shibuya and smoking in Shinjuku, where I befriended the enigmatic gutter host named Junkie Kou.
So many years. So many memories.
And then one day last week I wore you to a cafe in NYC and realized your shoulders had lost their shape. Inching up my thighs was one thing, but flopping down my arms? I knew it was time. You've reached your end, my wonderful, sleazy blue dress. I will remember you always.
My Google stats warm my heart. I'm glad people are still coming here. I don't live in Japan anymore but I'm still mad connected to Tokyo and the people I know there, and I'll still write here when the occasion calls for it. But if you dig this blog, let me suggest some current jams you'll probably like! There are a billion Japan blogs out there, but I've always mainly stuck to the circuit that revolves around pop culture, fashion, nightlife, sex, hangovers, and romantic street shots. (Incidentally, this is a pretty insular scene -- almost all of these bloggers became good friends of mine, or were already friends of friends.)
This girl's been blogging from Japan for a long time and has commented here, but somehow I completely failed to read her until recently. That's a bummer because now she's living in Tokyo and her scene really looks like my scene. Carry that torch, Vivian! Let me add that if I'm perhaps a little prone to sulk in gutters or wake up drunk with a tobacco-soaked rat's nest in place of my hair and then stay in the same position for the next twelve hours, Vivian is pure fly. She hits hot parties, snaps good-looking people, and writes professionally. This post is a great example of what I dig about her style -- in one simple string of photos and captions she shouts out to "Shibuya at dusk," drinking "Slat," "seafoam green nail polish," "Chungking Express," and taking too many self-portraits. That's my jam, Vivian!
Homegirl hardly needs my introduction. Julie, are you not the reigning queen of stylish girl bloggers in Japan? Haha. If you are one of the small handful that didn't come here straight from Julie's blog, go there now! She hasn't been updating as often lately (bitches got lives, people -- you want us to stay interesting, don't you?) but look through her back pages. Julie tends to write much more informative posts about Japanese culture as she sees it than I do, though she keeps you in touch with a steady supply of shots from her own life and friends. She's also really good at writing interesting posts about international pop culture topics related to Japan, so for such a straight-up Japan blog hers is surprisingly full of awesome film and music recommendations.
Sarah is a South African living in Sapporo with her Japanese fiance, so there's a bunch of stuff you don't get to read about often. She's mad prolific, posting all the time about stuff we all love like convenience store snacks, purikura, arts & crafts, snow festivals -- damn, Sarah! How do you do it? I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah during my only visit to Sapporo, and she's just as fab in person.
I don't even know where to start with Selena. She is, straight up, one of the most interesting and genuine people I know. She's fly, fun, smart, socially conscious, and since the earthquake she's been working her ass off to find shelter, food, and care for the countless animals up north that were left without homes or families in the wake of the disaster. Sample writing: It's still cold as balls up in the radioactive north, but spring is starting to rear its head, for which I am hella grateful. This week, my mask-wearing mug is appearing in The Big Issue (Japan), a magazine sold by homeless vendors outside of major train stations. The article is about the work of Japan Cat Network in Fukushima, and features a big fat picture of yours truly feeding cats in the zone, as well as an inset on dear King, who we hear is frolicking happily among the hot springs of Beppu.WTF! Do you want to read more of that shit or what? Aw, the last time I saw Selena was back in April or something, when we wandered through darkened Shinjuku looking for parfaits. I miss you, boo! Keep your chin up!
I didn't know how to break it to you, but I did leave Japan.
Oh, man, it was hard. I can't tell you how hard it was. That's probably why I haven't been near this blog in so long. I mean that was an awful process, leaving Tokyo. I had so much to love there. I cried all the way to LAX. By the time I got to Portland, I felt fine. It wasn't the shock I expected. It was quieter and it took me awhile to realize, like I realize now, that my heart is still aching.
What is wrong with me? That's what I was thinking in those last few weeks. Why would I come to this place and work so hard to find these people I love so much and this life where I can do anything I want? Why would I do that and then force myself to leave it? Why am I hittin' myself? Why'm I hittin' myself?
I don't know why! I was so weary and grateful and devastated during those last days. On my date of departure, I drank coffee in Koenji with someone I cared about very much. When that person left the shop, my Tokyo life was over. There were no more friends to see and I was just waiting for my flight to leave. I couldn't stand that feeling, so I wiped my nose, cleared my table, picked up my bag, and walked across the street to get on the train.
And I'd go to Oregon and be with my family and my dog and my rivers and trees and bay, and I'd have a beautiful summer and I wouldn't cry for that other life much at all.
And a few months later it would be September and I'd be in New York and feeling lost. Here's now, and it's a strange moment to be in. I love being back in America. But nothing can take away this ache in my heart for the streets I walked, the trains I rode, the drinks I drank, the friends I loved, the city where I once said "I found myself in the white-hot nucleus of my youth!" Haha. Oh, Tokyo. You'll forget me and I can't help it, but I will remember our love forever.
Well, anyway. Now I'm in New York. Stay in touch and check back with my new blog here and/or on tumblr. Let's do it.
Most people might have figured this out sooner than I did, but the top floors and rooftops of department stores in Tokyo almost always feature an indoor/outdoor space to chill out up high, drink some coffee, read a book, smoke a cigarette, whatever. There are benches, plants, and usually a decent view.
This is from the 12th floor of Takashimaya Times Square on the South side of Shinjuku Station, overlooking Shinjuku Park. You can test your cred by picking out the distant landmarks of all the neighborhoods you've been drunk in. Or taken walks or something, whatever, I don't know what you sickos get up to.
One floor up is a patio space. The top three floors are all restaurants and cafes so you can grab a coffee, although after nearly 3 years in Japan I still make a face at paying $4 for a little cup of iced sludge.
I've always had a weird relationship with Shinjuku.
There are 56 members in the idol group AKB48, all girls aged 12 to 24. AKB stands for Akihabara, the notoriously eccentric Tokyo neighborhood where the group was invented, and where they perform for creeps on the 8th floor of Don Quixote every day.
AKB48 members usually appear as schoolgirls, popping cute little blinky faces and wiggling their limbs in talent-show dance moves. When they're not dressed in school uniforms, they're in bikinis or sexy (but sweet) lingerie.
AKB48 is used to promote an incredible variety of mainstream products, and you see images of the group in convenience stores, on train platforms, on magazine covers, on drink bottles. Sometimes it seems like AKB48 is everywhere. This distresses me because in my dreams, Akihabara is a quarantine for this kind of gross lolita bullshit.
The neighborhood, famous for its concentration of game and electronics shops, has cultivated a similar concentration of shopping and entertainment catering to anime, video game, and pornography subcultures. What you can find in Akihabara ranges from awesome (vintage game consoles and offbeat memorabilia) to distressing (pornographic comic books featuring toddlers). Unfortunately, the neighborhood leaks.
About a year ago, my junior high school and high school students started showing up with AKB CDs and writing in their class journals about going to the convenience store to buy chocolates to get AKB member trading cards. Before long I'd lost count of how many times I'd watched groups of 12 year old boys unfold the jackets of AKB48 cds to exclaim over photos of the girls in thigh-high fishnets and skimpy pastel bras and panties making pouty porno-moe faces. I'd lost count of how many times I've heard 12 year old girls discuss which AKB member is the cutest.
This is a group that was invented specifically for otaku men who fetishize young girls. The idea was to assemble a bunch of fresh young female faces and bodies to be sexually idolized, and keep them close and accessible to the guys who idolized them. AKB48's fans get chances to meet them at events in Akihabara all the time, and, like most idol groups, AKB48 makes it a point to acknowledge its otaku fanbase and ply them with sweet comments like "I consider myself an otaku, as well!"
Choose your favorite member and pretend she's looking at you while she drinks juice!
Akihabara bothers me. Idol groups like this bother me. Adults drooling over young girls bothers me. Encouraging cuteness as a major female virtue bothers me. That a sizable portion of men in the world can only think of girls as a mystifying and intimidating species, approachable only when they act like talking cupcake babies, bothers me. But AKB48 in particular bothers me.
Kiss me...
It's disturbing that someone can create a product as a porno fantasy for men who like underage girls, and then, having cornered that market, push the same product onto children through heavy mainstream exposure with singalong songs on the radio and advertising tied to bottled soft drinks, chocolates, and snacks. It bothers me that parents of young boys and girls aren't disturbed by the idea of their kids sipping this sickly sweet lolicon brew.
I've often complained about Japan being too bright. I like low brassy light, soft lamps or whatever. In Japan, cafes and bars and restaurants and drugstores and grocery stores are equally super florescent.
Post-earthquake/tsunami, we've been threatened with blackouts, so everyone's trying to save power, and the city's been dimmed. At first I sort of liked it -- and still kind of do, I mean, my eyes are spared the usual florescent assault, and we're saving electricity, and it gives a sense of community, kind of, like we're all working together to get through this.
Then I went to Shinjuku tonight, and here was the neon jungle, switched off, in the dark.
You know where this is. It's where Bill Murray first arrives in Lost In Translation -- one of the most recognized tacky blinking flashing electric vistas in Tokyo. And now the screens and signs are shut off, and you can barely see the faces of the loiterers.
It's spooky. See Kimura Takuya up there atop the ALTA? He's been there for as long as I can remember. He is the holy guardian of the East Exit and his majesty is now cloaked in shadow! You get used to seeing things as they essentially are, and then you see them like this, and it makes you uneasy. You know?
Here in Tokyo, we're just reading the news, hoping for the best, mourning for those up north. Some have left for other countries or for the south. Some of us still have emergency bags packed. Most of us are fielding scary emails from abroad, pleas to get away from here. It's a strange time to be here, but me and mine are okay, and I hope the same for everyone else. Best wishes, best luck.
The only endearing thing ever found near Tennozu-Isle Station. There were many good-natured construction workers on the job that afternoon. I saw them posing for photos for each other.
Love this picture Amanda took of Yusuke and me in Golden Gai. Golden Gai is a famous block in Shinjuku packed with tiny little bars that used to be brothels. If you can't speak Japanese, it's not really worth the table fee most of these places charge you to sit and drink -- you can find similar 5-seat dives at almost any station in Tokyo. If you can speak conversational Japanese and like paying table charges, there are some really good places in here. Good luck finding them and then remembering them. I have lost two great bars in Golden Gai.
If you CAN'T speak Japanese, go walk through Golden Gai at night anyway. The atmosphere is awesome if you're a sucker for time-warps. Probably one of the funnest walks you can take on the planet is from Shinjuku Station, out the East Exit, amble through the smoker's island, cross over to ALTA, pass through the red gates, swim through the river of hosts, and head south to Golden Gai. This walk is the best. Just pay attnetion and don't do anything I would do.
I love marketplaces. SO MUCH. So I've been meaning to go to Ameyoko, the street near Ueno Station that served as a black market after World War II, for like three years. Ah three years. TIME!
It's along and under the Yamanote tracks between Ueno and Okachimachi stations. Things I like besides markets: train tracks, bridges, places under train tracks and bridges, alleyways, stray cats near garbage cans at night. I also like tin-can stoves so I'm basically a hobo.
Ameyoko wasn't tons of excitement but it had cool side streets and alleys and roughnecks eating noodles outdoors!
And that kind of old 70s/80s Tokyo vibe that I sometimes run into on the east side of the city. Like in Koiwa.
Yeah!
Some stuff is cheap here. Big packs of dried fruit, big packs of nori, octopus legs, hairbrushes...
...beans... Heads UP, anyone who's thinking of moving to Japan, beans be fuckin pricey.
etc.
Ten buxx for shoez
Rickety tables, ramen, stray cat, brick road, the city still loves me.
Ahhh before I go home I have to be a yankii superstar for one day.
