The immigrants...They want to sing all night long...

May 20th, 2010:

so..i decided to start writing a novel.

yes, i actually wrote the first paragraph already.

whether out of a cynical heart to contribute art..or to just put something out there that will never seen a publisher's crammed deskspace.

i have seen far too many beautiful and violent things to not put pen to paper. Maybe its the fire and smoke from the recent Bangkok riots that have stirred a change within my reluctant insides. Perhaps its these lonesome nights as a midnight migrant in Tokyo that begs me to unlock these frantic thoughts into the third person.

semi-autobiographical bipolar nonsense.

i am my father's son. i am no one.

simultaneously screwing himself over.

an ESL cowboy singing Joe Strummer songs as this insignificant life plods on.

a one-man chorus of the Ameriasian blues.

i serenade in Mestizo songs of love lost and money squandered on live music.

someday I will see both Bali and Ho Chi Minh before Christmastime.

meanwhile

i will go Straight to Hell, boys and girls...


"Can you really cough it up loud and strong?
The immigrants
They want to sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land and there ain't no asylum here
King Solomon, he never lived around here"


R.I.P. Joe Strummer

an old affectionate scarf

friends from far away
give me warmth like an old affectionate scarf.

i just cannot see the threads laid bare are the ties that bind.

i often miss people not places.

exalted queens among my female friends
i can only value them so much more these days..
 i miss them as much i miss being in Brooklyn
 the city lights that blanket me
with that knowing sense of deep, rich nostalgia....

*******************

i wander around Kyoto quite like a gaijin ghost...unsure of himself but feeling the zeitgeist of the time...

the spirit of adventure..
and child-like wonder
of seeing new and strange places..


how often we become cynical and jaded when life gets in the way of our plans..we forget to step back, breathe in deeply..and explore new countries..

so this is a story....

....a husband is having trouble relating to his wife. She seeks understanding and advice from a close friend. He happens to be a older man who is blind.

There is no speculation of adultery, the blind man is more of a big brother or a father figure to her. In his vulnerability and curiosity, the husband seeks to understand this unique friendship in the hope it will give him answers to save his marriage.

Yet, her close friend lives so far away. She misses him dearly and corresponds by mailing out weekly audio tapes of recorded conversation since he is blind. This creates a dialogue between them. He records his response and they keep this exchange of ideas going through the postal service for quite some time. The husband listens intently to each conversation from across the room, while his wife is playing the friend's messages in her outdated tape recorder. She drinks her Irish coffee and sighs while smoking her cheap cigarettes.

In her loneliness, the troubled wife invites her blind friend for a brief visit to her home. The husband is in clear anticipation to meet this blind man who has befriended his wife. There is no malice in his heart, only a void of not knowing where the next day will take him being married to someone who is so cold to his affections.

Upon the blind man's arrival to the home, the wife decides to buy some things to prepare a homemade dinner for the three of them. She promptly asks the husband to keep her friend company while she goes to the market. The husband sits down in the den with him, not saying much in a few span of minutes except to offer him a drink. An awkward silence hangs in the air between them for quite some time. Just exactly what is he is supposed to talk about with his guest is unclear to him.

The blind man quietly takes out a small pouch and begins to roll a marijuana cigarette. He promptly offers it to the husband and rolls one for himself. They begin to smoke in silence. The air is soon filled with simple laughter devoid of suspicion....

…words often left unsaid.

Prolonging the pain enough just to feel something for once. If everything is not so epic will life be just a series of mundane episodes one after another?


I am not sure if I can bear this much longer.


Adulthood creeps in ever so unceremoniously and I am not getting any younger.


I am simply too old for this Mickey Mouse bullshit…..



Buses to Bangkok but all I can think about are wheat fields with crows. Youth is passing me by. All I do is shove my fist against my teeth to stifle a scream born out of a knowing sense that certain things may not actually improve my lot in life….

Eyes closed. Mouth agape. We wonder why our chances are so few and far between for love between two sarcastic people.

Never too serious.

Never too truthful.

Always trying to be oh so clever!

Without admitting that we are both scared..

..because relationships are scary.

They are downright fucking frightening.

Relationships are scary because Paulie Bruce said so

And I have no reason not to believe him.

They are filled with fear and misguided intentions. Two people scared of liking each other so much that they think are spending too much time with the wrong person.

What does it feel like?

What it does it fucking feel like to be in love?

Maybe I got it all wrong in my late twenties to think I could have had it all figured out by now

Real people fight about real shit. Things that actually matter.

Others are just putting words into their mouths when they just want to put their tongues, names, feelings, and dreams in each other.

Why do we fight?

After all it isn’t the years it's the mileage like Indiana Jones said to me once.

My ideal mate may never exist...

and…

I always wanted to date a girl who actually knew who Joe Strummer was.

But I am tired of the fantasy…

the Rob Fleming in me is in the Rob Gordon in me except that I still listen to Tina Turner records wondering how her Buddhism calmed her down…

If my life were a novel no one would ever read it

It looks like it time to re-invent myself again…



- cousin, 25.12.08 

Life in Ibaraki-ken is beginning to stifle me a bit...

I try to be patient in that i won't always live in this prefecture and that i should learn more about its place within historical Japan.

The art of Kyudo in particular interests me.

Japanese archery has different forms and stances, and my Junior High has some strong female competitors.


These teenage girls can be quite the giggle-fest in the classroom. Yet, while practicing Kyudo, a seriousness comes over their faces like tides shifting current in the night. They control their breathing, tense their fingers on the bow, and aim their missiles to the hearts of their destinations.









The girls offered to let me try my hand at shooting the bow, but i felt inexperienced and politely declined since they take their craft in such an intense manner.

"Tired and wired we ruin too easy...sleep in our clothes and wait for summer to leave..."

July 17th, 2009:

those grey morning clouds
come out to greet me
when i walk out of my apartment...

its almost like i want to start
again...

these circumstances seem to defeat
me when i got more than i bargained for.

kindness becomes hardened
more often than not
whenever words...our words... are wielded

i beg for your pardon
why do we do this to ourselves?
it's like i can stand on the edge of a knife
forever

and i just don`t like the taste of it...
no, i don`t like the taste of it.

the after-taste
of the choices we make
still haunt me sometimes.

but how can i measure?
when the following days
don`t seem so different from the next


its all tea and theatre

i suppose.


****************************************

"I'm getting tired, I'm forgetting why.."

Sojourn to Japan...

....I tried to come to this country with no expectations.

After heeding many warnings from cynical expats and jaded teachers alike, I almost gave up on coming here.

Yet, I've always wanted to realize my eventual sojourn to Japan. After years of false starts and failed teaching contracts, I finally landed a job...not as an instructor at an eikawa in the capital as I had originally intended...but as a Junior High School ALT in Ami.


Small in comparison to Tokyo.



Flat in landscape and not much quite unique about it. Its a suburban town with a HUGE military base and low-rise buildings. The most interesting thing is that even though I work in Ami...I don't live there!

I live on the outskirts of Tsuchiura City in Ibaraki prefecture, which in itself is a promising small city. It boasts a medieval castle, a scenic park, and a celebrated fireworks festival among other things. However, since I live on the border of Tsuchiura and Ami, I am a bit far from these cultural delights. in time, I will have have to be my own personal Magellan and explore these places on foot and via train. This is caused by my circumstance of not having a car in Japan.








still.





Something about living in this part of central Japan resonates within me at this point in my life. chaotic financial decisions and lack of grad school options aside, I am eager for the opportunity to save some money to aid my wilting bank account and settle some debts.





What more can I say?