& Skraps [TOKYO]

I'm in my sweats, ready for bed. It's silent in my apartment, cold outside. Two towells are blowing in the wind, hanging from the clothesline outside. Will it be sunny when I wake up tomorrow? What am I doing in Japan?

These are the two questions I'll sleep with. The first isn't up to me. The second one...I feel like the towells flopping in the wind. Directionless. Not sure where it will take me. The memories from Tokyo, they're the stove that miraculously keeps me warm tonight.

Jump to More...

TOKYO videos

John Tejada, at Yellow




DJ Frankie (Franky?) at Hatos party in Nakameguro


Tsukiji Fish market live auction

Jump to More...

...7 to 11–––window dressing

These pictures aren't all of windows. I don't mislead. But they are symbolic of my week-long peek into the desert of electricity and concrete that is known as TOKYO.

I'm in OSAKA now, looking out of my window. BBC News in the background–bombs in Palestine, the idea of global warming coming to fruition. OSAKA castle–white walled and mint green roofed–stares me down through the rain and fog. It's reinforced in the front by a huge oval stadium, at back by a thick patch of forest and the OSAKA skyline, and to my right by a string of cherry blossomed trees along the river. A subdued blend of grey, pink, mint green, moldy green–and a kaleidoscope of umbrellas. It's raining, but not in my heart, Roy Orbison.

Here we go:

"Watch TOKYO wake up" window. Peace and bracelets from the sunrise over TOKYO. This is Thursday, around 5:30am, in our room at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Ginza. We were listening to PANDA BEAR. I didn't pay for this hotel. I'm happy about that.
"What do you think about this issue" window: A walk along Omotesando Ave–Tokyo's answer to 5th Ave–found us participating in a magazine survey. The question: "The income gap in Japan is widening. What do you think about this, from your experience living in America?" You can see my mom's answer below. Maggie's struck a similar note (need for equal pay/opportunity for women). I said the gap here in Japan is the smallest in the world, but if change is needed, it's got to be a reduction of the extreme hours the corporations demand from their employees.
"This smoke blesses" window. Senso-Ji, a Buddist temple in Asakusa. It was completed in the 7th century, which makes it the oldest in Tokyo.
"Which way is up" window: Prada store in Omotesando.
"Shot from the shoe" window: Kabuki-cho looking on Shinjuku. Contrast is apparent, is it? Or is it that the business district (shinjuku) isn't so distant of a cousin to the male entertainment superplex (kabuki). The sleaze of Kabuki's sex district is concentrated to the point of self-parody. The same goes for Shinjuku's enormity, and disregard for the human need to see the sky. These guys stand outside the parlours and give averted eyes. Foreigners are told not to approach. It's one of those things that, if you knew the culture and the language, walking around there at night would scare you, and you definitely wouldn't take pictures of them, from the street, behind their boots.
"Too much money, 1980s architecture" window: "How do we tell the world that we have more money than we have time to spend it," the corporation asked the architect. "Hmm....how about a topping the structure with a giant turd plated in gold?"

Magic WINDOW––come to Japan and peer out there with me.

Jump to More...

Hatos party (& the DJ Franky)

Friday night:
REI and Blunt from the Hatos crew in Tokyo (see previous post) invited us to their private party at the studio in Nakameguro. When we got to the top floor, we took to the open-air deck and saw this...
In the long room serving as the dance floor, Blunt played first. He mixes all kinds of samples over dub drum tracks. Skateboard decks and record decks; the room was lined with book shelves on the other side. Every shelf stuffed with magazines. We could imagine those guys camping out up there for days at a time getting high off art and other drugs.
Free alcohol. Priceless view. "The best sound in Tokyo," said the guy who worked at a sound company sound. He's next to Blunt in this photo.
So, about Franky. You just have to hear him to believe him, or to believe me. As you can see, he looks like John Belushi swallowed Kim Jong Il.
But on the decks he's not a drunk or dictator. He's a technician. He's a crate digger, for the most perfect dance music on the planet. He's from outer space, just came down to earth to rip up the dance floor for that Friday night. If you're out there, Franky, please give me your contact.
Luckily, it wasn't until Franky had finished that the cops decided to crash the party. This is from the deck on the morning. That person asleep in the foreground had been asleep throughout the entire party.

Jump to More...

YELLOW with John Tejada (& Sri Lankan G)

Where to begin? How about with...this city can't let me down. It just can't. It's because of you, Tokyo. You're that great. I love you, I love sweet you, everything about you. I'm drunk and high off shit you can't buy. It's 8 in the morning. I'm all over the keyboard. The last 24-36 hours were a month of living squeezing into that time.
I'll save Friday night's recap for another time. Tonight was at Yellow. The DJ: John Tejada. We got there at 1:30. It was packed; one in, one out. We got in. We got in. Met people from England and Japan and France and Germany and this girl who sounded and looked German but she wouldn't tell me where she was from and an electro band from London who had been in Austin the past week for SXSW (check 'em: Spektrum)...
... and a guy from Philly and a photographer from Manchester who had been commissioned by KSwiss to shoot the festival with Lauren Hill earlier that day and a guy from Detroit who told me about going to see Theo Parrish weekly and being one of three white guys there and a girl from Toronto and a crew of lads from London who were jawing out of their ears and a bunch of Japanese people who were super super nice and a guy from Canada who had organized the party that night. He invited me to the DJ booth with John Tejada. So I met JT and watched him cut up white vinyl, at 5 am, in front of 800 people.
In the best soundsystem in the world. Above you can see his hands, only his hands.
"They long to be close to you," says Isaac Hayes. Closer, closer, to you, Tokyo, that's where I'll be the next 5 days. Maggie is asleep. I'm eating a Starbucks sandwhich (I temporarily ended my lifelong boycott because it looked that perfect). I wish I could tell you about the last 24-36 hours in live, in person. For now, I have pictures, and later video.
Oh yea, earlier, before we went to the club, we saw the restaurant where the fight scene in Kill Bill was filmed. You know, where the shy Japanese girl with balls and chains tries to slice up Uma Thurman, and the 6, 7, 8's are playing 50's rockabilly in the background. We went there and walked around. "Never gonna say goodbye," says Isaac, "no matter how hard I try."

Jump to More...