may 8

tokyo!

stopped in fukuoka city for a few hours, bagel lunch, met the manager of the apple store, speaks rad english, tried hard to sell me $500 buds for my pod, we both laughed. underground used camera shop, they proudly displayed a $6000 leica. went to a Gerrit Rietveld show, saw a dozen "red and blue" chairs, got a hobby kit to build my own. saw some cherry vintage nissan's, saw a russian juggling bowling pins, so obvious. local tv station was filming a segment with an actor dressed as a tiger wrestling random volunteers in the middle of a concrete park down town. fukuoka is famous for pork bone ramen being sold in make shift booths on the street, all afternoon i say guys chopping frozen pig bones right on the sidewalk. hopped on a 16 hour bus bound for tokyo, tired, started to doze, glanced at the tv, a VHS version of tango and cash was playing. arrived in shinjuku at 9 am, wondered to a nearby park to gather myself, a camp of homeless people were starting to wake up and cook a communal breakfast. met my old friend, went to shibuya, bought a tofu headed robot, got a tee shirt from a vending machine style clothing store, relaxed in a GAINT park. tried to see a Darger show, but the gallery was closed that day, went to meet a friend of a friend, we couldnt find each other in the chaos of hachiko square, walked to harajuku, 4 chee pizza, got kind of lost. went back to shinagawa and saw the Darger show. it was less about his work, and more about his mysterious life and work habits. to be more productive he opted to sleep in a dining chair instead of a bed. went to the contemporary gallery, saw the usual suspects, warhol, lichtenstein, roushenburg, delighted to see stills from barney's new film. went to takebashi to the modern gallery, fairly disappointing. back to an izakaya in harajuku, beers, met funny shoe sales girls. got on the last train of the night at 12:30, packed. walking in shibuya midday, a walking parade of japanese fascist cruised by, maybe the first time i have ever felt uncomfortable in japan. back to yoyogi park to a huge swap meet that happens once a month, mostly used junk from american garage sales. got my photo taken for a fashion mag, went to akiba, the "geek" neighborhood in tokyo, needless to say, i didnt get it! an unbelievable amount of electronics, from every angle, games, computers, spy cameras, phones, lights, really anything that has anything to do with plugging in, tons of comics and anime and porn, usually all wrapped up in one. lots of acting on the streets, full sound tracks and costumes. oh an toy stores. left akiba reeeeally confused. went to meet a friend, stopped by a legendary used under ware store, it was stranger than ANYTHING i have ever seen. walked by a KFC, the kernal was wearing a spiderman costume. went to a british pub, heard great music, got a ticket to take a "shuttle" to a UK rock club, the shuttle ended up being one of the guys working the bars moms car. 10 of us smashed in and blasted down the road to the club. went down to colours studio, four stories underground to British Pavillion, heard amazing music from a half dozen different dj's. live painting being done on the wall of the club, vintage art books on display at the bar, $7 heinikin's in a vending machine next to the bar. left at sunrise, ate dinner with the painter and his friend, took a cab to the station, witnessed an amazing car crash, slept 3 hours, went to meet a friend of a friend, she brought her 3 year old daughter who could understand english, ate, went to the beach, played in the ocean overlooking the entire tokyo metro across the bay. met a friend, went to roppongi, notorious western tourist part of tokyo, it was filthy beyond belief, we left asap, stumbled upon a club at 6 am, most patrons were in a quad out front still dancing and drinking like the sun wasnt up and the freeway next to the club wasnt mashed with business men headed to work. slept, met an internet friend of a friend and her coworkers, they all spoke cool english, wondered all over tokyo all day, ate awesome indian cheese curry and mango mousse. had some beers, went to an arctic monkeys party with a german guy, we met his old friends, my new friends, to cooool japanese rockers, danced listened to great music, the dj had a camera and projector set up, and would put the jacket to what ever her was playing then under the cam so we could see exactly what was being heard, how nice. he played fake tales of san fransisco followed by girls just want to have fun then alfie wrapped up with manic monday, huge balls eh? sat in a parking lot drinking canned beer while the final sun rose. slept a bit, rode the subway an hour to meet an old friend from california. went to an art show, got on a bus to head south for 3/4 of a day.