Tokyo Balearic #4
16 July 2007 by jaksoul
You`re the brother of one of the world`s most famous “cult” DJs – maybe the most famous - if such a thing is possible. Such is his credibility that he only has to play a record and everyone wants it. Its price goes up a minimum of five-fold. Everything he produces or remixes sells out in days. Is discussed ad nauseum. All other DJs now grow beards and wear their hair long. You`re his younger brother. You`re also a DJ. In fact, you were organizing warehouse parties back when he was happy to hang out, get high and play drums in a punk band. Visa problems mean he can`t fly. He`s effectively trapped where he is. Its not a bad place to be – sun and surf – but a world-wide audience misses out. What do you do?
I tell you what I`d do. I`d milk it for all it was worth. The world can`t have my brother, let them have me. I`d grow the beard. Grow the hair. Play the records. To be fair half of them were mine in the first place. I`d be out every night. Cashing in.
What does Guy do? He`s clean shaven and wears a close crop. Despite the fact that he spends all his dough on records (and is on first names terms with all the shop owners – who are all DJs), in the three years he`s been in Japan he`s only had two gigs. I`ve had nine in eight months and I`m shit and by no means connected. I couldn`t believe it. He uses Japan`s most famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi, as his on-line avatar, but you couldn’t meet a more modest person
Guy spends his days teaching English and looking after his son while his wife works all hours running her business. She leaves around ten. Never comes home before midnight. Six, sometimes seven, days a week. He struck me as one of a lot of lonely people in Tokyo. To begin with I thought it was only the displaced gaijin who were lonely here. Homesick. The time difference making regular conversations with those back home impossible. Spending too many late nights, checking emails, visiting message boards. Hoping someone will have responded.
I`ve since realized that everyone is lonely in Tokyo. All the Japanese mums I meet at the nursery, never see their husbands. They`re working late. Six days a week. Often they`re abroad. In Singapore. In Thailand. The kids never see their dads – which must be why they all jump up and down chanting when they see me. My career as a clown is on the up. You`ve also got this comedy of manners where etiquette ensures that no-one says what they really feel and no-one really gets close to anyone else. They fuck for sure. The Love Hotels are……lovely. So I`m told. But that`s not what I mean. It`s like a film of Victorian England. It`s like being stuck in an E.M. Forster novel, where politeness is more important than life. Someone told me it has to be this way. There are so many people packed into such a small space, that the alternative would be chaos. Carnage.
For the gaijin, there is a way to forget the loneliness. Go out drinking every night. Do the private clubs in Roppongi. Accept every phone number. Every opportunity. But you have to keep moving. The truth is still there in the hangover and the amateur porn on your phone. It sometimes seems there are only two games in town. No inbetweens. Some of us came here with families and signing up for the Tokyo Foreign Legion isn’t really an option. Your wife`s never around, but would you risk losing your kids. You would lose them. She earns the money, she has no intention of leaving. You`d be back in Blighty, lipstick on your collar. No means of support. No kids.
I have said it out loud that I sometimes feel like a butterfly that`s been collected. An interesting specimen. A “trophy” husband. I write (kind of), I DJ (kind of), I paint (kind of). I look like a cross between George Clooney and Brad Pitt. And that pear-shaped mad axe murderer from your local estate. Wife pursues her career. I`m in my jar. Unable to communicate. Starting my second year on the couch.
Before I came out here, I compared the move to Kerouac`s stint as forestry fire warden. Six months at a time with only himself for company. He thought he`d find satori. Instead he lost his mind and ended a broken – and lonely - drunk. It`s interesting what happens when you move away. Life for loved ones goes on without you. It has to. Life without you doesn`t change. You begin to realize your place in the scheme of things. In a way its like dying. Like you never existed.
For me happiness is all about choice. I have to feel I have a choice. I cannot change my current situation, so my choices are either to spend my days as miserable as sin – chalking a tally of my time on the wall – and making everyone else miserable I might add - or to make the best of it.
For me that means coming off-line. Stop trying to lead a virtual life back where I was born (home has to be where my kids are). Start trying to meet as many people here as possible. Start making these people my friends. Start treating them as such.
I`ve got Guy a wig and beard on order and we`re taking bookings.
For an ageing DJ, music is the key.
Guy plays every second Wednesday at Bar Jam, Ebisu. An example of his work can be found as part of the “live at Bar Jam” series at www.jellycast.com
16 July 2007, on 12:57 pm
music is indeed the key!! Nice mix as always - keep ‘em coming mate. Cheers Paul
16 July 2007, on 1:10 pm
Damn man you sure can write I am actually quite choked and if I had to speak this message I’m not sure that I could. I’m glad that you went with the Doobies (though maybe it’s because I was so slack in providing the other thing) it fits me and the sentiments to a T. Can’t wait to get that beard and wig on.
All the best
Much love and deep joy to you and yours
Mu…
16 July 2007, on 1:19 pm
Mu - hope you like the piece - think its as much about me - and a few other people we know - as it is about you - i ummed and ahhed about the music for ages (as you know) - but in the end it had to be that doobies track - as i can still see you playing air guitar
it also - hopefully - finishes on an upbeat note - i`ll get the wig and beard if you`ll make that bloody cd for Kissen 
16 July 2007, on 1:32 pm
As a wise big brother once said to me ‘the past is a forgien country they do things differently there’ - of course life goes on without you but your little sister misses you a lot.
Change is good - embrace it, you might find your life and yourself being the happiest you’ve ever been
keep the faith
xxx
Ps: I love the Doobie Brother’s but their best song has to be - what a fool beleives
16 July 2007, on 1:41 pm
“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise. ”
Every second of every day throws up a choice.
And for each choice you make you open up another raft of choices until your choices stretch out infinitely ahead of you.
I don’t want to sit here and read that your only choice is to either sit on the couch feeling sorry for yourself or to go out and get fucked up.
I heard a wise man say yesterday that nothing new and good could come into his life until he learned to be grateful for what he already had.
Love you anyway, you miserable old bastard.
See you (and the Rosies) soon.
Take care,
Hxx
16 July 2007, on 2:38 pm
Another stunningly observant and thought provoking piece here Rob. I think you’ve definitely tapped into a number of our Tokyo life’s with this one.
I want to echo Mu’s comments, you certainly have a knack of describing what most of us are experiencing or feeling.
Anyway, here’s to some cathartic Doobie Brothers at the end of the tunnel.
Much love to you and yours.
Same goes for you Mu.
Hopefully, we can all sleep through the earthquakes tonight…
16 July 2007, on 3:25 pm
Hi Rob
Thanks for sending, being a trophy husband with George Clooney looks can’t be too bad, unless the trophy is a battered, third place in your school knitting competition. Hope you survived the typhoon. We miss you back in Blighty.
Cheers
16 July 2007, on 9:50 pm
On board to the way you’re thinking…facing the opportunities, communicating using your music, going to places that make you happy, sounds like you’re turning a corner. Very proud of you fella but as the Doobies once said “without love, where would you be now?” We’re all still here for you.
p.s.…remember how that girl in Brighton remarked that today’s George Clooney is tomorrow’s Rolf Harris - so keep that barnet trim. (Can you see what it is yet?)
17 July 2007, on 2:00 am
Very (uncomfortably?) acute observations, Rob. “…only two games in town” and I seem to be looking for a third one! Maybe we all are… Anyway, here’s to making the best of it
17 July 2007, on 6:17 am
nice piece, I hear you loud and clear. well, let me tell you my thoughts. well, I used to live in london for a while, it became part of me, what I do right now and what I will continue to do perhaps for the rest of my life. I too genuinely miss what I received there, during the heydays of early to mid 90s, the so-called golden era, er, when tories still ruled but think all were happy with what they had and partied and made something without much, DIY style. loved them DIY parties as well back then!
when I came back to tokyo, well, it was coming to a new place for me as well. of course, had my mates but still really missed that swinging london vibe. was continuing to search for it, somewhere. but no luck…. really.
well, I think I was looking outside and not in. well, I have found it, it is right where it should be, within me and here in tokyo. after starting to make my way into the music industry, and after 10 years living here, 911, after having a baby, etc. I started to think, hey, tokyo is not such a bad place to live, one can create what vibe they feel comfortable with and cause mayhem! endless partying, gez, how old are we now but who cares! as long as we are all healthy and wanna continue to do it!
And to say the least, there are many cats in tokyo who have what it takes, have great understanding for great music, and are carrying the great torch of eternally musak!
my feeling is that the underground music scene over here is quite exciting since we make it happen, it is up to us to make our stand! if you want to do this elsewhere, it is an uphill struggle and there are too many punters to compete with as well.
and another thing that I wished and it is coming true over the course of a few years, is that tokyo is such a wicked place to live in and safe, with wonderful people and vibe, that artists should come over here and do what they want. well, recently, my great mate, ian o’brien packed his bags and is now living here. he loves it here and he can continue producing music of his own without any distractions that he had when living in the uk.
and, also you guys are over here. it is like the ex-pat crew is trying to make their own individiual point in tokyo. I know for a fact that what you guys do is wicked and in time, people will finally notice what it is all about. it takes a bit of time for shit to happen here but once it hits, it will be happening for a very long time!
bean-san who lived in nyc as well, eventually will come back to tokyo as well.
things look very promising indeed for ex-pat crews that I hang out with, am really looking forward to how it will develop since we are different to normal japanese and have something quite extraordinary that will no doubt please alot in the end!
I love harvey and his music and he is one of my 1st djs I checked out when I was 20, along with marbo BUT the press, record shops here should believe more in their tastes and have confidence about it rather than get some assistance from a master! it helps but it is quite overloaded now though what harvey plays is true gold. why don’t they talk about his djing skills which is what he is all about!? in the way he plays/ sequences these records is the important point that is usually missed.
hangouter ken
17 July 2007, on 6:38 am
Paul – hope you sort your job out so that we can catch up and bore each other properly – still thinking about those Italian screamers
Liz - “the past is a foreign country……” wasn’t that on a waterstones shopping bag ? that`s about the depth of my philosophy – you are right – embrace the change – but to be honest I need to sort the fundamentals out first – will invest your birthday money in some yoshitomo nara prints – oh and Guy can`t play “what a fool believes” – that’s a Harvey tune
But yes you are right – there are always more than two choices (youre getting a bit “diceman” there) – getting depressed or fucked up are just some peoples default setting – what did you do in NY? 
You have to learn to be happy with what you have – but you also have to realize that all you really have is you – some of us fill our lives with nonsense to avoid this fact – maybe we don’t like ourselves that much – i`m lucky in that right now I don’t need to do any of the usual nonsense (like a proper job) – I am in a position to learn – and I am learning – but I was never the sharpest tool - am collecting phones numbers for you every day
Ah – Reesy mate – when you have kids life seems one big compromise – you have to stop putting yourself first – and man that’s hard to do
Makkun – we`re all cool – I just needed to get this month`s topic out there – we can now all move on
Tommo – you know this trophy is battered – hopefully you`ll see the beard early 2008
Simmo – never growing my Barnett again – not new age enough for a grey ponytail – the bad man arrived today – thank you very much
Gordy-san – glad you`re still speaking to me – I know I was a tit on Friday – i`d had way too much too drink – and for no good reason – now drying out – enter the next phase - party at Loop?
22 July 2007, on 9:33 pm
just wanted to let you guys know this blog (amongst others) really hit home (no pun intended), moving me deeply. I hope you guys can get though the loneliness, but remember that the grass isn’t necessarily greener and from your online descriptions you have many things for others to be envious of, not least this fledgling group bonding…
good luck with all your ventures
matt in cambridge uk x