Stress. In the bottom of our house’s Japanese style toilet I saw all the stress of two weeks flush away into and join the stream of piss and shit that flows everywhere underneath the three story thick cement surface of this snowless-globe Metropolis.

All that may sound morbid, but ya simply caught me at the end of a wild night; the day after I did my first teaching demo. Stressed like a mane-proud Yeti in an upscale barber shop, four of us newbies did our first teaching demos. The Japanese have this great pair of words that to any English speaking ear sounds terrible. The sweet coupling goes as such, “High Tension” which, in Japan, means something kinda like ‘high energy’ or ‘enthusiasm’ or the like. ‘We lucky few’ being thrown to the lions’ den that day were certainly feeling the high tension, but I’m not sure it was exactly the “High Tension” that renders mad men zealous stoics and bored high schoolers into giddy freaks of glitter and fanfare. This was sweaty, anxious, mile-a-minute thought like tension in the way I was introduced to the word in my native tongue.

After a long day working with the mixed mediums of Total-Success and Irrevocably-Confused-Auto-Pilot-Save-Me-Now, several theatrical Something-of-Other’s were thrust upon the already unsteady airwaves. All in all, I’d say it went rather well.

What does one do after such a prolonged exposure to such high tension? Grab a bloody drink, that’s what. Three (Bobby, Brett and I) of us went out for some ceremonious eating and drinking in hopes that somewhere, somehow, in the middle of some drink we’d wake up or emerge from the perilous waters of continuous observation and monitoring.

Step one: get Korean Samgyeopsal for dinner. Objective: Met.

Step two: find bar with awesome music, grab a drink.

Objective:…

After grabbing some meat off a hot stone in the Korean barbecue joint we continued down the K-Pop Love Tunnel that is Okubo-Dori in Korean Town. Out of a staircase we hear electronic music escaping down the staired drainpipe. Like the dullest of spiders, we climbed this spout. We were “seated” above in a bunk bed like balcony. We were nearly hoisted, in fact, by our obliviousness into place. However, once in our perch our new vantage brought us into a new and unknown reality. The first thing I noticed was, “My word, this place sure is popular with women.” Why? Well, the second thing I noticed was that the staff working the bar was not only all male but the collective good lucks from Bobby, Brett and I might perhaps almost match the good looks of just one of the staff members. We had come to the wrong place. We looked like the goofiest MoFo’s, and by all rights we were. After we finished our drinks and headed out the door, Brett asked the staff if it was actually a host bar. “No,” he said, “but guys rarely come here…” which was perhaps the Japanese way of saying, “What the baby-boomers were you guys thinking to come in here?”

Luckily, I was in the proper company to take a chance on the unknown and laugh when we made mistakes. I laughed a good deal that night, and it was precisely what the witch doctor ordered. Well, after mistakenly going to a Not-a-Host-bar-but-Probably-the-Maid-Café-equivalent-for-Ladies, what more could go wrong?

Walking up the stairs to the next bar, which we thought might be a Thai bar of any sort – one English idiomatic phrase came to mind: out of the frying pan and face first onto the greasy floor.

“Is this Bar Nana?” I asked the kind old lady sweeping up a front step across from the entrance to the wooden door barred bar to my right.

“Bar Nana? No, that’s a karaoke bar.” She said, ever so politely.

Karaoke? Even better, the three of us were always down for karaoke. Who isn’t? Occasionally, and I mean on all occasions, my wallet has no desire to go out for a karaoke night because karaoke bleeds your money like Tarantino bleeds a cast. Otherwise, I myself am generally down for some off-pitch karaoke times.

We enter, and by all first observations this place looks like a tiny karaoke bar. People at the bar are singing, when they’re not singing they’re drinking, when they’re not drinking they’re smoking, when they’re not smoking they’re talking, and when they’re not talking they’re looking off into the distance remembering that time when she first sang this song to him and nobody else will ever know just what that felt like except for Mr. Masashi and his memories dancing in the dark echoes cast from the depression obliterating light of a 1980’s J-Pop love ballad.

So, the three of us were seated and over the course of the next few hours we somehow bought a bottle of whiskey, bought beers for the nice lady who sat at the table with us, sang a bajillion songs in English, and talked with the extremely friendly regulars who all happened to be, for reasons at the time unknown to us, middle aged or slightly beyond middle aged Japanese Salary men.

I eventually got tired enough to leave for home, but Brett and Bobby stayed; I couldn’t blame them, as the group was super talkative. The drinks flowed and the songs were a total blast. Paying my portion, 4000 yen, the lady said, “but, Super-Cute-O-Niichan, if you stay another hour it’s only another 1000 yen!” Exactly, I hadn’t the foresight or experience to know that I’d racked up that much yen in the first place, I couldn’t actually afford to go any further into the evening there.

The place we had found was a “Snack Bar.” Look em’ up. Snack Bars. They’re infamous. Luckily, my experience was all fun and games, good conversations and fast drinks. But, Bobby and Brett got caught with a fancy bill that they couldn’t pay – and what unknowing-new-to-Japan-adventurer of our type could possibly know before entering that place how much we’d be politely and pleasantly ushered into racking up. Apparently, the staff was extremely nice, given the circumstances, about the bill going not-quite-paid-up. Offering to do a little bit of cleaning labor helps, it seems.

So there I was standing above the toilet the morning after. Laughing at myself, at my friends, at the wonderful hilarity and good memories that are born of the silliest misadventures.. It felt good, especially after such a stressful day.

Step three: purge my belly of its alcohol, my brain of its stress, and my serious nature of its selfish blockade on silliness and absurdity. Objective: Met. It’s still one of my favorite misadventures during the trip thus far.

Its goofiness can only be matched by going to grab 9 a.m. hangover ramen from a 24 hour ramen shop to witness those at the end of their nights chatting and smoking up a storm before they go home to sleep or, just as likely, go on to work for the worst day of their lives, again. It’s 9 a.m. and everyone is coming down from their long, long night of eating and partying in Shinjuku. Well, except for me, I haven’t lasted that long since I lived in Spain. Well, except for me and except for the girl just down the bar from me. Face first on the counter, jacket over her body, half finished Bloody Mary to her right. Poor girl. When I finished my hangover ramen meal and paid up, the waiter asked me if I would like to use the bathroom and motioned towards the back. “Wow,” I thought, “I must be blitzed still, if this guy thinks I need to use the bathroom that bad.” Nope. He just wanted me to see his shop’s bathroom. Every inch of the walls in the bathroom was covered in a 1970’s playboy centerfold. I laughed to myself, knowing I’d been had. I walked out of the bathroom, and with the most devilish smile the waiter said, “Thank you! Come Again!”

These little short stories happened some time ago, now, but these days – this day – Christmas Day – everything is slowing down a bit.

Recently I’ve been hitting up a local café bar joint like a regular. I guess I’m a regular, but this is Japan after all and one never can tell just how honest or sincere someone is being when they treat you like a friend. As a friend described it, “I have a Japanese student who claims she’s learning English because just once in her life she’d like to know what it feels like to communicate with someone and trust that you actually know what that person is thinking – that they’re not concealing their true thoughts from you.”

Yikes.

Nevertheless, despite being entirely privy to such a looming social peculiarity, I find myself having some decent conversations with people. I might dare to say, ‘honestly interesting conversations.’

After a long day of work and transit, I found myself at the local wine bar, having a glass of wine, flipping through a large picture book with the fullest collection possible of famous Blue Note album covers. Blue Note album covers certainly are distinct and the Blue Note image (including Jazzers’ performance wear) may have defined what’s popularly thought of as quality jazz as much as the music itself.

As I flipped through, I got to the perhaps one page with maybe two album covers designed by Andy Warhol. At that moment the bartender, fervently polishing already spotless glasses with a pure white towel, stepped over and said, “He was just young and unknown at that time, Andy Warhol.”

Quite honestly, before looking at that page I had no idea Andy Warhol did art design for a couple of Blue Note album covers; never really got into Warhol too much, myself.

“You into Jazz?” the bartender continued.

“Yeah, it’s more or less the reason I picked up playing trumpet as a kid.”

Eyes larger, surprise registered, towel spinning, he asked, “Oh, so what kind of players do you like?”

In English I would probably have said something like, “The players whose music makes me question whether that’s really air I’m breathing or some sort of sonically induced hallucination distracting me from the greater reality that I’m much less than a moderately self aware fleshy excuse for the flow of capital towards the bank accounts of much more alive and important, albeit slightly more fortunate, individuals.”

Alas, as my Japanese “skills” are still thawing from the great intellectual freeze during my post graduation years in Madison, I said something to the effect of, “Well, I’m not too good with names. Ya know? How ‘bout you? Who do you like?”

The gentlemen like bartender strung together a bunch of famous names familiar to me. I suddenly remembered Don Cherry, Chet Baker, Dizzy G., and other cornerstones of The Yazz. Just like when someone asks you your favorite thing about autumn and you have no clue until you get a smell of dry leaves and then all your favorite childhood memories come to the forefront. Except Jazz was a great deal of my childhood itself, and it comes up along with those autumn memories. So, we got to talking Jazz and I asked him where to see some jazz around town. He recommended I go to Asagaya, three stops west of Okubo. I did, in fact go check it out and saw a little jam session in a bar called Manhattan no bigger than, fittingly, a Manhattan apartment.

Just like my conversation at the Bar Narcissus with Yuko-san about jazz which led into French New Wave film, my convo with the bartender at this local joint led to a discussion about authors. Like every other foreigner everywhere, the only Japanese author that I’d read much of is Murakami Haruki. Why? Because that’s what’s been popular with upper/ middle class white kids for the past 25 years.

He asked me if I’d read any of Murakami’s earlier works like “Dance, Dance, Dance.” I hadn’t. He didn’t directly say anything per se, but it was made pretty clear that I should either stick to Murakami’s really early books or check out and move onto other stuff.

This advice is, of course, all too late as I started reading one of Murakami’s most well-known and easy to read novels: Norwegian Wood. I thought I’d pick it up to ease myself into reading novels in Japanese. Here and there the kanji is over my head but it’s only a couple times a page and the boy-can’t-decide-between-two-girls subject matter is easy to understand, if only because I was once one of two boys between whom a girl was once not trying too hard to decide between. But hey, that’s life. And it’s this book. And, so far this book is a total delight to read; even if I have to look up the kanji for words like ‘Flag’ and ‘To Duck Under’ which pull me out of the otherwise hazy like daydream experience of reading a fun novel.

That’s kinda what this winter break is for: novels, music, meeting new people, not spending too much money, and generally letting my beard down.

On my first day off I thought I’d check out the Tokyo Station seeing as it just turned 100 years old (1914-2014) a few days ago in December. It certainly is neat and casts a stark contrast with its western style brick building against the contemporary glass-like holograms that sway in the wind 40 stories high in Tokyo, Tokyo. On my way to the station I thought I’d stop by Meiji Jingu – a Shinto shrine in the middle of a wooded park. It’s a lovely walk.

However, December 23^rd also happens to be the Emperor’s birthday. Meiji Jingu also happens to be where the majority of Shinto celebrations for the Emperor’s birthday were being observed. What at first seemed like bad luck became quite fruitful. There was all kind of festive decor and ceremony that I might not otherwise have witnessed. After all, how often during the course of one’s life is one audience to Shinto (one of the oldest traditional religions still cooking) ceremonies performed to honor the birthday of the Japanese Emperor (The Japanese Emperor also being quite the time tested and historically stand-out figure in the world’s history)? Once. Maybe once.

Then, I left the well populated park and shrine area, hopping on the train towards the Tokyo Station. Not only were there tons of tourists observing the newly deemed 100 year old Tokyo Station, but hordes of nation-loving folk were wandering off towards the Imperial Palace grounds just outside of the Station. I had randomly picked to visit the most crowded areas of Tokyo that day. I honestly didn’t even know it was the Emperor’s birthday until I got to the shrine, if I did – I might not have made my trek through the crowds.

Yet, as usual, it was totally worth it. Sunshine, a stroll, and some cultural learning: not a bad day for the first day of break. Today, my third day of vacation is Christmas. It’s interesting to observe Christmas away from home. Last year my best friend Tomas helped me cook a stuffed chicken in a toaster oven to feed other folks who weren’t going back to their countries for the holiday. One Danish girl, Two French girls, Three –no- I’m done doing that. But it was quite a nice way to spend the Christmas away from home. Spain itself dresses up with all sorts of decoration as the reigning Catholic Christmas tradition quite nearly sprouts from the earth alongside their vast fields of olive trees.

However… Japan…Christmas in Japan is certainly a bit different than Xmas in the States or la noche buena en Spain. That story, my friends, will have to wait until our next evening together, for “Night, the Fourth.”

Walking underneath the Chuou Line’s Okubo rail station, I guess left and find myself involuntarily walking up to a bundled bunch of miniature pine trees potted outside a small building that seems to have been packed into the neighborhood as though an afterthought. Where all else is somehow modern and driven by the efficiency of contemporary architectural needs, an old house remains tucked between block monsters. This house is lined and contoured by old wood and the large windows beg you to look in closer as the glare from the sun obstructs vision into the interior.

Every once in a while, waltzing through Tokyo, you encounter houses that have survived the ages. Merely stepping in front of one makes you audience to a distinct atmosphere. You feel you’re in a world between worlds. In fact, several days into random meanderings in Tokyo and the writing style of Murakami Haruki just makes too much sense. All is normal and then, inexplicably and abruptly, you’re caught in some sort of superimposed wonderland; either that – or you’ve exited the superimposed wonderland. The displacement into or out of anomaly is felt everyday.

This particular little world I had encountered was Tsune, a relic of Japan’s true coffee scene. Flannel cloth drip and  paper filter pour overs reign here in a city largely ruled by the variegated extraction methods of coffee which compose the espresso drinks we’ve all come to know and cravingly obey.

However, I didn’t know that before I walked in. All I saw was woodwork, funny little plants in an otherwise lifeless alley, and that vague curiosity which hangs behind our own reflection in windows. I read the sign, “喫茶店” and figured it was worth a shot.

Walking in the doors I was greeted by the tiniest cafe I’d seen since South Spain where all things “Intimate” are ubiquitous. An older gentleman, hair wrapped back wearing a tie-vest-new-balance-tennis-shoes uniform welcomed me in and offered me a seat.

Everything was dark wood, antique. Ancient pendulum clocks, the wackiest old fashioned coffee bean hand grinders, black and white prints from impossibly old newspapers. The table at which I sat was like a glass bottom boat, except beneath the glass of the table and between the rectangular wooden borders was a centimeter thick of variously roasted coffee beans. A beautiful aleatoric arrangement of bean colour sat beneath the table glass, observant. An upside down crystal flower whose inverted petals were cuff-linked by little black hearts was apparently also that which illuminates the table during night hours. The ash tray on the table was a hemisphere of dark groovy wood well polished and adorned in the center by green glazed ceramic mosaic tiles forming a leaf. Said hemisphere was supported on three legs, tilted – asymmetrical balance candy for the eyes in a space where so many pendulums convey reality’s standard configuration.

The actual coffee bar was left from the table, opposite the windows and in the heart of the tiny shop. I say actual, because this is the first bar counter I’ve ever seen to actually utilize coffee beans structurally. As you sit on the red brick built, cushion topped stools facing the man behind the counter all the ceremony of preparing the coffee is witheld from vision by a shield of coffee beans held up by a thin layer of glass, much like the glass covered coffee bean pool that fills the table tops.

Behind this coffee bean veil the back wall is covered with containers of various coffees from around the world and a few house made blends. I looked through the menu and decided to order his house blend of Ethiopian coffees. As I waited for my coffee to arrive I took a quiet moment to enjoy the sound of Romantic Era western classical music (18th, 19th century). A sign on the wall says, “No phone, No computer.”

I finally found it. That place I never knew I always wanted to visit someday. There it was on some back alley of Okubo in Shinjuku City, Tokyo.

Then the coffee came. Finally: flavor, texture, temperature. Served in old china wear, to boot. Who knew the first good cup of coffee I’d have would be carefully prepared in this random shop away from everything.

We talked a little bit, and eventually got to coffee talk. The guy knows his shit. I took note of the shops name, and filed it away in my brain as one of those little gems that one can only find going nowhere – looking for nothing. Everytime I go back to Tsune, it peculiarity, quality, and meticulous yet natural individuality continue to charm me.

Little, ancient coffee shops like this litter the city under the radar. No one knows where they are. At least, they’re not on the internet. Their quality varies: some ok, some not so good, some excellent. Tsune is one of those excellent establishments.

Something unique to Japan are Jazz Kissaten. Jazz Kissaten are cafe bars devoted to all things Jazz. Some establishments are meant for listening only, boasting handmade analog stereo systems that can appropriately replicate dynamics as captured on vinyl. After nearly a month in Japan without hearing interesting music and hardly any exposure to art, I found myself craving quality music in a quality space whilst imbibing some aged whisky.

My first true weekend in Japan, which came after two weeks of training followed by 7 straight days of work, I journeyed to the Avant Garde Jazz mecca of Jazz Kissaten in Tokyo – “Nacissus.” This jazz cafe bar is nestled in an extraordinarily odd location.

Deep in the heart of Tokyo’s red light district, Kabukicho (That’s right, Kabuki-cho used to be the Kabuki Theater town), one may brave the shitty neon lights, the myriad vending-beggars and club ringers, the drunk clients, and modestly hidden porn shops. In all of that loud mess of entertainment industry doing it’s finest, a little stairway will lead you to the Jazz Kissaten cafe bar called Narcissus.

Much like Tsune, entering the cafe bar from the obnoxious street made me feel like I had accidentally entered a non-sequitor, or mistakenly entered some alternate city in some unreal time.

Narcissus, on the left are three small two top tables nestled among white and yellow flowers arranged next to the wooden shutters that melt into the grounding light coffee colored walls void of distraction. In front of me was a wall of vinyl and two beautiful handmade LP players. Just to the right, a long thin bar space where a little old lady sat. I had interrupted the sound space just enough for her to notice me. She seemed surprised. I was surprised. Where the fuck was I? Above the little old lady were 4 immaculate wooden Goodman audio speakers handmade in England quite a long time ago. From the Goodman’s I absorbed a fresh dose of quality music on quality speakers in an oddly soundproof bar (especially considering the noise of the Red Light District just outside).

I sat down, ordered some whisky and started chatting with the owner, Yuko-san. Strangely, she turned off the music mid-introduction. “She didn’t have to,” I found myself thinking, “in fact I’d rather she left it on! I came all the way here just to hear it, after all.” However, she had a plan up her sleeve.

Yuko-san and I chatted a long time, about who we were, exchanging life histories and talking about the avant garde mediums of film and music. This was simply part of her service for, if someone comes all the way to her bar, she might as well offer to play music suited to their personality, likes and dislikes, experience and inexperience.

“Do you like Derek Bailey?”, Yuko-san asked.

“Yeah! It’s too bad we lost him, being such a forerunner of the improvised music scene.” I replied.

“Would you like to listen? I’ve some of his albums here. How about a Derek Bailey album recorded here, in Japan?”, she inquired with a smile.

“Absolutely.” Then, Yuko-san went straight to her collection and pulled out the very album for me. We listened in silence to the first side of the album titled, “New sights, Old sounds.” Once it was over, we agreed that it was quite beautiful indeed and broke the silence with a few minutes of chatting about the recording. As I started complimenting her sound system she put on another record. The first few notes were unmistakable, at least, for a classical guitar player. Hundreds of artists have recorded versions of Rodrigo’s Adagio from the “Concierto de Aranjuez”. My admittedly goofy shaped elf-like ears perked up. This was Jim Hall’s (jazz guitarist) version from the album CONCIERTO. The line up on Jim Hall’s Concierto album is absolutely stellar, and Yuko-san knew it. In fact as the goosebumps of the tracks initial beauty settled down she started going on a rant about the various musicians on the album. She started snap dancing to the groove on her stool behind the counter. It was very clear that this woman knew jazz inside and outside as befits a jazz connoisseur. Connoisseurs and players differ in remarkable ways. One thing I’ve noticed, generally, is that the more names someone knows, the less jazz they can actually play. It’s just a natural relationship. Sometimes people claim to play jazz, and then fret over what names you know compared to what they know. It becomes a petty pokemon like bore. Then you realize that self proclaimed musician isn’t really a jazzer, they’re a connoisseur. Thankfully, a rare breed of connoisseurs admit themselves to be just that, and they enjoy the hell out of music made by other people. Yuko-san seems to be one of those whose encyclopedic knowledge is only outshone by her unbridled enthusiasm for the art form.

After a long bout of chatting I paid up and left. She seemed rather worried about me walking alone through Kabukicho at night, but realistically walking around in Kabukicho is safer than the majority of cities in this world.

From Narcissus, I went on to another pilgrimage spot – Bar Samurai. Despite it’s hokey name, this Jazz Kissaten is rather legendary. The listening environment here is secondary to conversation, be it a date or just a chance to smooth over business with one of your clients. Or, maybe you just like to hear good jazz, eat and drink tasty things, and oggle the unfathomable amount of Japanese Lucky Cats (招き猫: Maneki-Neko) adorning the walls, ceiling, cracks, nooks, and wherehaveyous. The bar is absolutely covered with the cats. If not a Lucky Cat, sometimes it’s a trance inspiring Buddha lamp, or the Tibetan flags weaving around the air, or maybe the foot tall statues of deities, or perhaps the hanging scrolls of calligraphy, or perhaps the Jazz LP covers that all – perhaps- serendipitously involve a cat on their face. It’s a visual marvel. I’ve only been in one bar like it, “Begin the Beguine” in Madrid. Even then, however, Samurai is plenty distinct. The jazz they play here is modern and contemporary jazz but not so crazy or eccentric as the music played in Yuko-san’s bar, Narcissus. Due to the rich novelty of the environment, the music, the food, and the drinks offered – anyone (Jazz afficionado or not) can enjoy this space.

Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t just dug on old hippy sites in Japan. During my wanderings I’ve come across a cafe-bar-stationery-stencil-art-use-the-tools-and-paper-whenever-you-want-membership place called  Bunbougu cafe　（文房具カフェ）For all pen, pencil, crayon, pastel, stationery, journal, and lovers of the like – this place is pretty damn cool. One can pay a membership so that, anytime they should choose to hop in for a cafe, glass of wine, or meal they can simply use the stores reserve of craft materials to make things. Examples of patrons’ art are showcased all around the store, and their collective talent is markedly professional.

A swanky restaurant-bar-cafe called Ikiba in Jingumae caught my eye as I walked past its hanging garden entrance. The actual restaurant has several tables outside in the wonderful urban garden which hosts a tree house (yes, a tree house). Not only do they have a tree house outside, but there appeared to be some sort of trailer unhitched out back. I didn’t verify if that had seating, too, because I was too mesmerized by what I couldn’t see upstairs. I took a peak.

For some reason, there was a small library up there, with two large tables which (I later learned from the staff) can be reserved for large parties, such as the one being held there tonight. I sat in one of the three distinct indoor areas. There’s a traditional bar from which I ordered a glass of Hibiki 12 blended whisky from Suntory. While I sipped on this deliciously blended fermented homage to mashed barley, I noticed a stand for elegant pipes and cigars. Looks like this place lights up at night, and the ashtray presence was noted. The bartender himself was preparing a pipe for himself before I ordered a whisky. To my right, with an entirely different feel, was a home style kitchen with a counter at which the guests would sit. The Aoyama farmers market, which I still haven’t visited, is supposedly what fuels the fire at this restaurant-bar-cafe-library-tree-house collage of a service establishment. Speaking of fire, there’s a bunch of wood chopped up outside which leads me to believe that something wickedly scrumptious this way comes once they start up the oven.

Places like Ikiba are hidden around every corner of Jingumae in the Harajuku/Ometesando neighborhood. While I certainly can enjoy establishments of Ikiba’s order – the occassion has to come once in a rare while or my bank account might start selling itself on the street to a new account holder and I might go to jail.

To avoid such atrocities, I’ve been searching out good digs in my neighborhood of Shinjuku. Where do I live? I’m currently housed near the Shinokubo train station in the little town of Hyakunin-cho. Famous for its Korean restaurants, Korean Pop culture, and Korean cosmetics – it’s no surprise that Hyakunin-cho is commonly known here as, Korean Town. The neat thing about Korean Town is that not only Korean people live and work here (Korean Grocerey Stores!) but a whole host of other minorities live in Hyakunin-cho. Chinese, Thai, and Korean make up the vast majority of the people, but – just to give you an idea – 15 meters from my door is a Mosque, a Nepalese Momo restaurant, two Halal Grocerey stores, and Indonesian restaurant, a killer Kebab stand, a K-Pop Dance studio, 3 music stores (one’s strictly a violin shop), and just a little further in the opposite direction I can walk to a traditional ceramics store or the Spanish Casa Artista a block away. Japanese people I meet tend to say, “Eh? But there are Chinese Gangsters there!! It’s dangerous!”.

Dangerous?

This is Japan, honey. Korean Town, as a “dangerous” neighborhood, makes the Madison look like the Arkham City insane asylum from the Batman. Since it’s Japan, everyone is ultra-considerate, efficient, organized, and impeccably observant of following rules of basic courtesy. Just like every other neighborhood of Tokyo that I’ve seen so far, I haven’t encountered anything or anyone who’d make me feel in danger or inconvenienced by their socially uncouth ways; even in Kabukicho, the “sketchiest” neighborhood in Shinjuku.

Does crime or illegal activity happen in Kabukicho? Yes, it does. Will you be involved? Not unless your really, really gullible and or drunk off your hot toddy’s.

Beyond opportunities to indulge in some non-Japanese culture, Hyakunin-cho has what every other neighborhood in Tokyo has. The ubiquitous Pachinko gambling-for-teddy-bears-which-you’ll-later-trade-in-at-the-black-market parlors, the nation wide Japanese fast food chains, the Mickey D’s, the phone companies, the “snack bars”, the Izakayas (think: Traditional Japanese Tapas Bar), the enormous Karaoke buildings, the funky wall murals, the flower shops, the antique shops, the shopping centers, and obligatory hidden/not-so-hidden alley with cheap food from seemingly Lilliputian made Ma and Pa shops: all staples of any town in Tokyo.

What’s more, is there’s a place called Art Space Bar Buena. What is it? Just what it says it is: an art space, and a bar. I went there, seduced by what seemed to be a cheap cover charge which said, “1500 yen, plus one drink.” Silly me thought that might mean 1500 yen for entrance which includes one drink. Nope

1500 to get in, then buy a drink. That’s not so bad, really – because some things like tea and coffee are pretty damn cheap – but at 8 o’clock after a long day of work I’m not in the mood for coffee or tea. I need whisky. Bourbon. Scotch. Whatever, just definitely not the insanely overpriced beers by tap or bottle. (Japan’s taxes on beer are steep, best to avoid it unless you know you’re in an establishment with top notch beer. On the other hand, whiskys and imported Scotch in particular is surprisingly cheap.)

So, I walked to Art Space Bar Buena which happens to be located in an alley with cheap eats from those classic, Ma an’ Pa, Hole in the Wall, Six Barstool Counter seating Japanese food restaurants. At the end of the alley is my favorite coffee spot. Coincidence? I think not. It’s also on the way walking from Shinokubo to the highest volume train station in Japan: Shinjuku Eki. So, this little alley gets a lot of traffic and it’s the nearest corner of Korea Town towards the most central part of Shinjuku City.

Upon entrance, I open the door to a room of silent sitters spectating an improvised electric guitar solo. The bartender whispered, “Cover please” and I gave him the money. Then he motioned to the drink menu and I choose Macallan 12yr. “Please give me the extra money for the drink,” smiled the bartender, ever so nicely. “Horseradish,” I thought, “total Horseradish.” I forked up the extra change, and stood in the back of the limited space available. After the meditative guitar set, I took a seat on a stool at the front. While the next group set up, a DJ juiced beats through a rather impressive house PA system. Like every other bar or indoor establishment in the area, everyone but me started to pull out their cigs for a smoke break. It’s prohibited to smoke on the street, afterall – so everyone took advantage of this rare opportunity to be indoors, warm, and smoking. Being a typical artsy hipster crowd, everyone had affectatiously cheap clothes and expensive smelling tobacco.

The next group began. From a large suitcase opened up a live wired city of electronics which the artist manipulated manually, in analog precision, painting the space with various sound textures layered upon each other in sensitively dynamic adjustments and variations to density. Nothing like a solid sound sculpture performance. However, the music was really accompanying a contemporary dancer. She showed all the right signs of arduous study and distinct individuality concocted outside of academia. To be honest, it was all rather nostalgic calling back memories of performing improvised free music with contemporary dancers in the United States. Their performance was physically challenging, emotionally provocative, and a healthy mixture of narrative lines broken bit by bit with total abstraction. It was rather enjoyable.

From here on out, I’m gonna have to watch my money – because everything not a convenience store in this crazy Metropolis of Metropolises is oppressively expensive. Even so, I’m a month in to this journey and I’ve got a good idea of what I’m off to explore next. Beyond the Jazz Kissatens, Live Houses, Art Spaces, tiny ramen shops, odd art exhibits, and random shrines every neighborhood and city has its own distinct peculiarities, oddities, and exclusive treasures.

What really has my curiosity now, is getting to know the people; and if Spain taught me anything, that’s where the heart of travelling is.

P.S. – Sorry this post took so long to put up! I was crazy busy training two weeks for my job when I got here, hanging out with the cool cats from my training group, spending a quality friend time with SJ and Pulp-Extra, and simply starting working. However, I should have posts up with more frequency revealing more interesting tidbits, adventures and facts of Tokyo life. There’s so much that happened, I can’t possibly get to it in one post. Therefore, all the above mentioned unexplained experiences will appear appropriately interwoven through my following posts. Thanks for reading!

On this night, I regret to inform you that your narrator thus far , A.J. Grimm, has suffered a blow to the head. Being in a condition that no longer permits him to carry out the pleasurable burden slotted to those damned enough to convey the tales of the fortunate – or so inversely – A.J.’s responsibility has been bequeathed to me, as I am his rightful heir in this realm.

As gruesomely evident in the pitiably mis-titled, “The First Night” of Grimmagain’s Wake, the great pressure of setting standards to ‘sub’ in the presence of re-integration’s disintegrating integrity put great strain on his storytelling (or that milling and mulling excerpt of pickled truth); and, as one can never wash the vinegary cleanliness/sterility out thereby retrieving original freshness, the story was encapsulated in bland restraint; put precisely, an aesthetic pleasing to the the local Madisonian isthmus.{Unlike A.J., I will be incapable of sugarcoating these affairs, and no apologies in advance.}

Therefore, in his absence, allow me to pick up the story where A.J. left it off last night, in his well effort-ed but poorly named, “The First Night.” Good riddance.

Night, The First

Self imposing completion of A.J.’s vision, I poorly and apathetically perused some notes he had left in his blog drafts, things he might have shared. One blog note read, “Carousel music muffles through the unbrandished frames of my brother’s studio. Stock steams in the kitchen and footsteps from above pin down echoes into long brick resonance chambers. A cracked-cupboard-and-plastic-bag aged Hojicha stirlessly commits to the innards of this tiny ceramic pot; its muddled leaves and charcoal-twig vapors whisper from the spouted pot, to keep me.”

 

Another lugubrious blog note read, “Every day a leaf turns and a brain-leech gets torched, and as To-do’s reached annihilation I looked back and found that my once rich diary had been turned into an unsavoury monotony of the same To-do list repeated over and over, piecemeal scratched out to sizeless as I got my shit together. A once spontaneous diary became the victim of rote memorization.”

 Still yet, another rather demure note, in his diary:

“So, what’s culture shock like?” the scarlet curl willow tree asked.

“Have you ever had a dream where you knew where you were but everything appeared different? Like your friends appear to you in a dream but with someone else’s body?” I asked her. I didn’t get a chance to finish the thought, to then ask her to imagine the converse, where your friends appear in your dream but their personality and character is something altogether unexpected. Perhaps you’re in your house but despite all appearances your gut tells you that this is not home, that you don’t belong here, that you aren’t welcome. That, that’s what I really wanted to get at, but some folks strolled through the shade garden at that time and I decided not to get into the thick of it in front of an unknown audience.”

The unspoken narrative of A.J.’s grotesque cultural molting can be re-imaged with a little intuition and a modicum of imagination from these bits of diary-dic evidence alone. I’ll spare you the rest, for my tale various quite a bit from these garrulous items and Exhibit-A’s. If I could sum up the nature of these months in Madison between Southern Spain and Metropolis Japan I’d say, “6 crows, a-gossiping.” If I could write out a recipe for its manifestation I’d pen, “One shit show that walks into a cafe bar. One day of insight from Theo. One solid laugh. One walk left unattended. One pinch of snow. Two dustings of translucent leaves having crossed the river of afternoon sun between the two sugar maples on a hill.” If I could prescribe an anti-dote, it would be Humility, straight and unadultered.

But, I wouldn’t do any of that, would I? That’s all simply irrelevant.

My agenda isn’t to explain away the coming journey, simply to discover it. Where will I take you? The coming “Night, A-Zed”s and their stories will start in Tokyo, Japan. What will I be doing? Becoming acquainted with contemporary Japan, with which I am entirely unfamiliar. How will I afford to live in Tokyo? None of your business. That, in fact, will be a story completely unrelated to Grimmagains Wake, understand? I don’t want to hear any whining, any inane inquiries, or any comments concerning just how Huckleberry goes on about affording sustenance and adventure in Japan. You’ll simply have to exercise faith that Huckleberry’s methods are just, and the fountain of his bountiful finances legal. Under NO circumstances should my clandestine employment be confused with the contents or even considered related to the adventures detailed in the “Night, A-Zed”s to come.

How many nights will this tale continue? As long as the whisky flows. Should you dress up? If you’d like. What should you bring to these nightly tales? What you will. As can be observed, ‘Night, The First’ has been a rather casual affair – no one will send you home from the fireside on account of sartorial matters. Should ‘proper’ attire be required, you’ll receive a warning on the night preceding such a hypothetical night’s tale. Are you allowed to ask questions? Yes, absolutely! Just wait ‘till each night’s story has been told in its completion and then you’ll be free to ask any questions you like.

So, what’s the scene this “Night, The First”?

I’ve just woken from a deep sleep. It’s a cool November evening in Wisconsin and a fog coats the encroaching horizon. The waves of Lake Mendota, relieved of a barrier, reveal their potential composure: extended, outstretched, fearless and unhurried. They embrace movement in all directions. I envy them for a moment, and look for a way to get myself on those waters towards the reticent and unlocatable vanishing point of this night’s peculiarly absent horizon. Thick moisture flows high above hush the normally verbose luminescence hanging, waxing away. The clouds curtail her efforts now but her light will have its full effect in several days, cutting contours instead of dissipating into the fog. Then, I’ll have a great deal to tell, our second night, after I’ve arrived in Tokyo, Japan.