It never ceases to amaze me...the fact that we can basically empty our bank accounts, buy tickets, then get in a big metal tube and hurtle across vast distances in a matter of hours...then walk out into a new day, and a completely different world, with the dust and grit from whence we came still fresh on our shoes. Destination, Catalina Island, California. A tourist town, an hour removed by water from the less than idyllic sprawl of urbanity that is the city of Los Angeles. A slower pace. Friendly faces. Re-connecting with family. Out of the cage, it feels good. The old 'joie de vivre' starts to return. Time passes all too quickly, and almost as soon as the jet-lag has sorted itself out, it's time to climb into that metal cylinder again, and come hurtling right back. Catalina Island.
One would be hard pressed to find a place more removed from the rigid, stick up the arse joylessness that is Olde Nagoyaland, circa 2016.
Maybe it's just that I haven't been getting off of Planet Japan enough...spending years at a time towing the line, trying to keep a flagging English teaching business from totally collapsing, and dealing with myriad hostile forces that have made my extended stay here a lot more trying and contentious than it was 'once upon a time'.
While I still have an affection for this place, I've learned some unfortunate things about the J-native/gaijin 'friendship' dynamic. This is a place where I used to feel that I had a lot of friends. Being involved in the local music scene, and with bands for the better part of 20 years, I have had occasion to meet and get to know a lot of people. The term 'friend' gets flung around rather loosely. There is camaraderie in bands. Friends, a social network, events to attend...a 'scene' to be part of. It's like a social cocoon. Anyone who has ever been in a band, or been closely involved with that world will know what I mean. Over the last several years, I've seen that all pretty much evaporate. Perhaps it was a rough patch that I hit...or maybe it was just that my 'gaijin' novelty value finally ran it's course. Maybe it's actually a little of both. The music business can be nasty, and regardless of who and where you are, betrayal and back stabbing seem to be more the rule than the exception. Users, egotists, sociopaths...it's a common story. One that transcends local customs and cultures. Regardless, abandonment is a cruel truth that a lot of foreigners who find themselves in Japan for extended periods can certainly identify with. We, as non Japanese, are not REALLY people. I had heard this said to me so many times before, by embittered outgoing gaijin. To the J-locals, we are 'cute', 'interesting', 'funny'...in other words, a novelty, or worse, an accessory - to be taken out and paraded at social events like designer bags or new shoes. Or like cows, to be milked regularly, or taken out and modelled like prize heifers. There seems to be a social currency attached to being seen as affiliated with a foreigner. A lot of us kind of fall for this in the beginning. It's heady...having a lot of 'friends'. Popularity. This is something that had eluded me growing up. One could kind of get lulled into actually believing that these relationships are legitimate. Or that we have somehow morphed into the charming, witty, and talented individuals that we always wished that we were. How wonderful to be a late bloomer...and to have all these... 'friends'. What a great place.
Get into a bind, however - and you are likely in for a serious shock, as one by one, these wonderful 'friends' cut and run, and become (permanently) unavailable. They no longer know you. Gradually, you will notice your social calendar clearing, and finally realise that what those "embittered outgoing gaijin" had said was true...and that you have indeed lost your novelty value. You are no longer 'kawaii' (cute). You have become inconvenient. A social liability. You are officially a real person. Things can get messy with 'real' people. You have been discarded. De-selected. Kind of like a baby alligator...a great conversation piece until it finally got a bit too unwieldily for the fish tank, and found itself spinning around in the bottom of the toilet bowl. Or that cute baby chimpanzee that grew out of it's nappies, and reached simian adolescence, to find itself ejected from the only home it had ever known at the first sign of 'teenage problems'.
It's a humid and overcast late Saturday afternoon in Olde Nagoyaland, and I'm still smarting from the 18 hour time difference between here and Southern California. I was up at 6:30, and went for my usual morning run, after a week's hiatus. Felt good. Then it was laundry, and leftovers from last night for lunch. I didn't go anywhere, instead opting for a quiet post-travel day filled with sundry domestic duties. The bands that I spent the better part of 20 years working with are playing a big show in town today, and five, or ten years ago, the phone would have been ringing from morning, and I would have been at the venue early, in the thick of it. They still use the material that I wrote. One even continues to use a name I made up. I refuse to tell people who they are. I wish they would stop playing the material that I wrote. It kills me to think they still do. I try not to let it bother me, but it still does. It's like having your children kidnapped and paraded around for profit by degenerate assholes. Some time ago, I packed all the albums that I wrote up, and in lieu of selling them, shoved them into box at the back of my closet... far out of sight. I can't look at them. Next stop - the used CD traders. I would give away all the t-shirts, but I refuse to spread the names of these bands. I suppose they're still good for washing the windows and scrubbing grit out of the toilet, or off the bathroom tiles. In short, I was used. For years. I let it happen, too. Not a very nice feeling. My wife tells me to let it go. I really try. Maybe one day I will...but it doesn't look like that's gonna be today. My e-mail box is empty, and all has been quiet, save for a couple of texts from my sister. Oh...and the phone DID actually ring today. My wife wanted to know if we should go shopping for dinner after her shift. If we're lucky - and our timing is good - we can make it to Apita Supermarket for time-service (when they start slapping discount stickers on everything in sight) and get some really good sashimi for half price. There's a nice bottle of wine in the fridge, and some cold beer from before our trip. Doesn't sound like a half bad idea.
I still wish they'd stop playing my fucking songs.
