お正月 祖父の家

明けましておめでとうございます。
亡き祖父祖母の実家、お正月と言えばここを思い出します。

Happy New Year.
For me, new years reminds me of my late grand parents.








https://twitter.com/deuce1121/status/682795077035364352

pictures taken Jan 3rd 1988

たかし - Takashi

『たかし』だって。

神楽坂での飲み屋らしい、入ってはいないけど。


The sign says "Takashi".

Apparently a little Japanese style pub in Kagurazaka.

文京区本郷二丁目十番地

文京区本郷二丁目十番地

御茶ノ水と水道橋の間。
自分事ですみません。
祖父の時代から、僕の本籍の場所。

似てる？

自分ではあまり似ている芸能人とかいないと思ってるのですか
以前アンパンマンに似てると言われた事があります
（とうぜん嬉しくはないけど）。

でも最近、柔道の山下泰裕にも似てるって。
まあアンパンマンよりましか、、、

中三の詩

同じくロスの日本語学校で、
これが中三の文集に入れた僕の詩です。

うんん、この頃から自分のまがった性格が出てますね。
ちょっと恥ずかしい。
（左のギターのデザインはかっこいいでしょう？）

小学生の詩

A poem I wrote for Japanese school during elementary school.
Such terrible penmanship.

ロス近辺で日本語学校に通ってました。
これが小学生の時の詩です。

いい加減に作ったのがミエミエ。
しかし、汚い字！

My Hand

This is my hand print when I was five years old.
Made during my first year in the US.
Such tiny little fingers.

アメリカに来たばっかり、５才の時の手形です。
小さい指で可愛いでしょう？

part 10 Aikido

Around 1974, when the family came to the US for the second time, my parents enrolled me & my immediately younger sister into Aikido. Aikido is a Japanese martial art suitable for practically anyone since it incorporates balance and technique and, when used efficiently, can help a smaller or weaker person defend against a much larger and stronger attacker. It is primarily a defensive martial art.

I really wasn’t aware of what my parents were enrolling me into at the time. They never asked me if I wanted to take the class. They just took me and I just learned. I though it was something like school, you just go.

It was a great group of people, starting with the sensei (instructor). The class was non profit with monthly dues less than a 3rd of what other places charged. I felt a part of a great big family with our sensei the kind and knowledgeable father. Students ranged from 9 year old girls to 70 year old grandfathers.

Eventually my whole family learned Aikido at one time or another as well as a few of my friends. There were punch after class and annual picnics, group trips, and award banquets. Never questioning if I wanted to go to class or not, I even took the attendance award for a couple of years.

Eventually earning sho-dan (1st degree black belt), sensei asked me to run a few of the classes. Aikido did not come naturally to me but with constant practice, I was getting very proficient. Even more, I loved the power and attention of running the class.

I was proud of my abilities and Aikido was one of the few things I actually excelled at, But that only came from the regular trips to class and the constant practice sessions making the techniques part of my reflexes.

After I received my ni-dan (2nd degree black belt), sensei was thinking of retiring and asked if I would take over the dojo. I was still in my early 20’s and the thought of that serious a responsibility made me very uneasy. At the same time, I needed a break. I had taken Aikido for around 12 years and coming into class 4 or 5 times a week. I decided to quit instead.

Years later, I have visited a few other Aikido dojo but have never come across the warm feelings I felt at my old dojo.

part 09 first time

Is it always this hard? I can’t remember a period in my life when I was not in love, infatuated, or in lust with someone. Am I needy? Perhaps. I have always strived to be emotionally independent, the lone wolf, but know that one can not live alone, at least not for long.

During my grade school years, I was infatuated with my cousin who is 6 years older than me. There was also a girl in Japanese school that I liked but was too shy to talk to. In 4th grade, I confessed my love to a girl at school only to be told just a week later that she liked my friend etter (We secretly held hands each day during reading time at school even while she was “my friend’s girlfriend”. This was my first emotionally “sexual” experience that still gives me a rush each time I recall it.). When another girl I liked, but never confessed to, moved away, I cried in my closet for what seemed like hours. In junior high, I placed love letters in another girls desk for weeks but never signed my name. I even took a friend of my sister’s out to dinner and back
to my room for Brie cheese and sparkling wine, only to be too scared to do anything more than give her a peck on the forehead.

It wasn’t love but my first real “sexual” experience was with an american girl who was one of my students at Aikido class (I will talk about my experiences with Aikido later.). I believe I was 17 while she was only 14. Her home was on my way to class so she would often ask me to take her to class and drive her home afterwards. One day, she came to my house with a love letter. Some how I knew what the note was about but before she would let me read it, she became embarrassed and hid it in her pocket. I teased her and tried to remove the note from her pants as we wrestled on my bed. Next thing I knew, we were kissing. She caught me by surprise as she stuck her tongue in my mouth. “So this is french (deep) kissing?”, I thought to myself. It was more strange than exciting. I started feeling her body but before I could get any further, we were interrupted when my mother came into my room! After that, I was not allowed to be alone with any girls in my room.

From then on, she and I would make out in the car each night I took her home from class. She kept giving me love letters professing her undying love to me. At first, I was embarrassed to introduce her to my friends due to her age but when I invited her to a party at a friends house, her father said no. Our physical exploration escalated and after each experience, she wrote to me how wonderful my touch made her feel.

One day, without a word, her family moved away and I never saw her again. Looking back, I was not very good to her. I did not even think of her as my girlfriend. I was just enjoying my first experience with a real girl. A girl who really cared for me. I have come to regret the way I treated her and wished I could talk to her again.

It would be a long time after before I experienced anything sexual with a girl, much less love.

part 08 007

Another large influence on my life is the fictional character James Bond. Through my father, I became a fan of the movie series which led me to read all of the original novels by Ian Fleming and the subsequent works by John Gardner and Raymond Benson.

Unlike the cool superman character portrayed on the big screen, the James Bond in the books was a tormented & somewhat self destructive character always struggling with his inner demons. I found the character in the novels to be not so different with my own personal troubles while trying to become a man.

He would spend many moments preparing & thinking of every possible scenario, attitude always cold & cool, controlled. However, the struggles he went through & how he mentally over came them when things inevitably did get out of control continues to be an inspirational reminder to me that success & failure starts & ends with mental attitude & preparedness.

Plus, what teenage male would not want his life. Hard drinking, hard smoking, fast cars and even faster beautiful women, a constant dangerous life, traveling the globe, and fighting for freedom & justice. Yes, I also thought it would be cool if I could be even a little like him.

I believe I have incorporated many of the preparedness from James Bond, the professional attitude from KISS, the ability to see the joys of life from my parents, and the tolerance & open minded eyes from being a part of 2 distinctly different cultures to my professional life. However, when it comes to my personal life, I was still an amateur.

People sometimes ask me, “what kind of girl do you like” or “what is your type of girl”? My answer still is, “who ever I fall in love with is my type”. I never really cared if a girl was Japanese or american, black or white, tall or short. What is important is heart. How you feel about yourself when you are with her.

I still believe this way but I also learned that love is not easily defined. Its torture and painful and heartbreaking. But its also so spectacularly breathtaking and wonderful, like nothing else matters
in the world.

So begins my love life.

part 07 dad

As a child, I guess I idolized my father. But to this day, we have a hard time communicating. Most of my memories regarding my father from my youth are few and far between. He would come home very late during the day & often go out on weekends on work related events such as golfing. The few times I did see him at home, his words to me were “did you finish your homework?”.

At our home, all of the discipline was enforced by our mother. She would scold us when we got in trouble at school and would settle sibling fights. My sisters & I were terrified of her. But while she was very short & hot tempered, she would also turn around the next minute and laugh. On the other hand, our father was always a quiet & stern figure. Rarely did he ever raise his hands or his voice. That made us even more scared of him because we did not know when he would explode (which he never did).

Although I never really talked heart to heart with my father, I was always watching him and being influenced by his tastes. I am a Los Angeles Dodgers fan because they are my father’s favorite major league base ball team. I started getting into James Bond films because my father watched them each time they aired on TV. I even the fast way my father eats his meals has become a habit of mine.

I guess a lot of sons have difficult communicating with their fathers. Many american films & books comment about how the only thing sons & fathers can talk about is baseball. During the Dodger’s great seasons during the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, we talked a lot about our favorite team.

Career wise, my father was very sucessful. He held many executive positions at prominent international companies and even He quit comfortable positions because he wanted to live in the US. My relatives would always be impressed by my fathers accomplishments and would tell me to be more like him.

But through the years, something changes. He got old. To a little boy, his father is like god. But when he realizes that his father is human with frailness like anyone, the perception of his father changes. Now, I see him as a wonderful human being.

I guess that means I have also grown older.

part 06 KISS

For me, KISS was more than music & entertainment. For a young Japanese boy lost in America, KISS was the one identity I could focus on and call my very own. Soon, when other kids saw me at school, they would call me “hey, KISS man!”. I was no longer a nobody.

I lived and breathed KISS. My room was plastered with posters and magazine cut ups. My mother’s car stereo and the cassette player in my room was always playing my music. I stuck my long tongue out at every girl in school. I even attempted to breath fire with alcohol & simulated spitting up blood using McDonald’s ketchup packages.

Everybody in school had a favorite band or actor. It was something to talk about with friends as well as defend against other competition. It was a badge.

Then, during the summer of 1977, I saw a double page advertisement in the newspaper that left me speechless. KISS was coming to Los Angeles for 3 concerts in August. I had just turned 12 years old and have never seen a rock concert. I though for sure that my parents would not let me go. I slowly approached my family in the living room and got down on my knees and begged to let me go to what represented my Mecca. Surprisingly, my father said “yes”.

The couple of months waiting for my baptism into KISStory was both exciting and gut renching. I went to the concert with my father and the opening band was, the then unknown, Cheap Trick. I was very impressed with Cheap Trick but was more than ready to see my heroes. After Cheap
Trick left the stage, my father said, “but they weren’t wearing any make up”. He though Cheap Trick was KISS.

I once read in a magazine that the anticipation of waiting in your seat for your first KISS concert was more exciting that the anticipation of waiting for your first sexual experience. At age 12, I didn’t know anything about sex other than making love to my pillow but I had to agree
with the writer.

The lights went dark. The black curtain that covered the stage disappeared. Then the now famous announcement, “alright Los Angeles. You wanted the best, you got the best. The hottest band in the world, KISS!”. With that, the stage was lit up with thousands of lights and thunderous flash pots. Bombs exploded and flames rode up to the rafters. The large KISS logo was very bright and flashed to the music. For 2 hours, I was in heaven.

I have now been a fan for over 25 years and have seen the band go from international superstars to struggling has beens to gaining back the respectability to right back on top as the highest grossing touring band with their 1996 ~ 1997 reunion tour as well as the current farewell tour.

Over the years, KISS has represented so much more to me; professionalism, perceverence, but above all a commitment to what they believe. If you ever have the time, please take a look
at a couple of reviews I wrote on recent KISS concerts I attended.
http://www.kissasylum.com/views/tour2000/oakland1.shtml
http://www.kissasylum.com/views/tour2000/mountainview1.shtml

My dreams as a child were pure fantasy. I wanted to either play second base for the Los Angeles Dodgers, become a rock and roll star, and as well as an international spy. Besides KISS, James Bond 007 was also a major influence and obsession.

part 05 Sxxxx

I was in the 4th grade at school and started to make a few friends. But with most of them, I still felt like an outsider. Sxxxx was the first friend who didn’t view me as an outsider. Perhaps because in many ways, he also felt like an outsider.

He was a few months older than me and very tall and slim. His parents had divorces several years before and he lived with his mother in a 2 story 2 bedroom apartment about 15 minutes walk from my house. His father also lived close by with his grandmother. His mother was a nurse and worked long hours and sometimes evenings. Being an only child, he spent many hours by himself.

We were both very introverted but started talking one day and he asked me if I wanted to come over to his house after school. We would talk about sex, girls, music, and more sex. He would show me some of his Playboy magazines and I was very impressed. We used our imaginations a lot by playing with make believe fortresses and mini cars or drawing on huge sheets of paper.

We did everything together. He would sometimes come to my families vacations and his mother would take me along on their camping trips. His father let me have my first bottle of beer when they invited me over for steak & baked potatoes. It was Lowenbrau dark. We constantly talked about how nice it would be to have a girlfriend, to actually touch, feel, and taste a real girl!

I also learned a lot about sexuality & reproduction through him. At my family, like many Japanese homes, we never talked about sex or reproduction. However, his mother, being a single mother & a nurse, gave hiim many books on how babies were made and about the human body.

At this age, all of my friends were into rock and roll. However, I listened mainly to classical since that was the type of music my mother listened to and played on the piano. I didn’t think too highly of rock musicians then. It didn’t appeal to me that these highly paid and celebrated icons would get up on stage with normal street clothes or worse.

But one day, he told me there was this band I just had to listen to. It was KISS. Immediately, I was facinated by the album cover. This band was very different. They wore make up individually customized for each member with elaborate costumes. Each member wrote songs and played their own instruments. Hearing the album, “Destroyer”, it was like nothing I had ever heard before. From the rock anthem “Detroit Rock City” to the beautiful ballad “Beth” to the freightening “God of Thunder”. I was hooked. I had found my adolescent sound track.

part 04 trying to fit in

My family & I had come back to California. This time, our home was
a 3 bedroom townhouse in the city of Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach is located in Orange County, about 40 minutes drive south from Los Angeles. Its very famous for its beaches and is just minutes away from Disneyland and fashionable Newport Beach.

This was the first time that I had my own room. It was furnished only with a large study desk and a single bed but had a closet with plenty of room. When I was at home, I would spend most of my time in my room and daydream. I was still very shy and had a hard time making friends.

During the 10 months we were back in Hamamatsu, I had forgotten most of my english. I remember sitting with my father & my sister soon after we arrived in Huntington Beach and being embarrassed that I had forgotten how to spell “cat”! Even more embarrassing was that my sister could.

Trying to blend back into a public American school was just as difficult as it was back in Japan. For the first week, there was a Japanese boy who was asked to help us but I barely remember him. After that, me & my sister were on our own. To be honest, I was so confused in my own situation that It did not even occur to me to see how my sister was doing.

Understanding english was a problem. The teacher would ask us what year we were born and I would answer “40” for Showa 40. When asked what was our Zodiac signs, I answered that I was a twin and was subsequently scolded for telling a lie (Futago za is Gemini in english but Gemini means twin). While eating the lunch prepared by my mother, yakizakana, I was asked if that was “raw fish” and I said yes only knowing that fish was “sakana”.

Around this time, a funny incident occurred at our home. While my mother was taking a nap, my 3 year old baby sister just got up and left the house. She was buck naked. Hours later, while my mother was still asleep, a police office came to our door carring our naked sister. My sister & I still laugh about this to this day.

Little by little, I began to have confidence in my english and was slowly accepted by my school mates. But there was always a few boys that brought their World War II books and kept reminding me that Japan lost the war.

I rarely got into fights or arguments. Perhaps I lacked self confidence and wanted people to like me but did not know what to do.

Around this time, I met my first best friend. Outside of my family, he would be the first person to have a major influence & impact on my life.

part 03 Hamamatsu

I remember many things about our 10 months back in Hamamatsu. Even during this short period, we lived in 2 different locations within Hamamatsu.

The first house we stayed was a large but old single family home with a little yard. There was a textile factory nearby and I recall taking short cuts through the factory property and watching the fabrics being dyed in various different colors. But soon after, we moved into a 2 bedroom apartment in a multistory building. On a clear day, we could see Mt Fuji from our small balcony.

Many of my memories from this time period are from the life at this second apartment as well as from my experiences from coming back to a Japanese elementary school. It was not easy for my middle sister, and I to blend back into a Japanese school. At first, we were very popular with all of the other students because we knew a little English. But after a month, the novelty wore off and so did the attention.

I always craved attention. A part of me always wanted to be loved & needed. But as a child, the only option was to create attention towards myself. I would talk during class, make jokes, and tried to be the clown of the school. This got me into a lot of trouble and would have to stay after class and clean the hallways by hand with a cloth. I was extremely shy and insecure and was only able to come out of my shell when playing the roll of the clown.

My father is a good man but was always very hard on me. He would come home late from work everyday and when I did get a chance to see him, all he would ask me is if I completed my homework. To this day, I have a hard time talking about things with him other than baseball.

My mother was very loving but most of her and my father’s attention was on my little baby sister. I don’t really blame them but I was needing attention that I was not getting. At our family, my mother was also the disciplinarian. She would not only yell and scream at me but also hit and
bite me. I was terrified of my mother. But this did not deter me from goofing off. From about this time, when I wasn’t being a clown, I was spending more and more time by myself.

Three memories from this time period:
One morning, my sister and I over slept and was late to school. We walked together about half way and started talking about how difficult it was blending in with the other kids. We started getting scared about how everybody would see us coming in late. So we decided to go back home and skip school that day. I felt very close to my sister that day.

My sister followed me everywhere. One day, I was walking with my friends and my sister was not far behind us. We stopped by a store selling “taiyaki” and I decided to treat everybody. From around this time, I learned that people would also like you if you were generous. Unfortunately, I only had enough for myself and my friends. My sister never complained. She just watched us eat and kept following us. For years, I felt so sorry about this that nearly 25 years later, I apologized to my sister. She had no idea what I was talking about.

My third memory form this time period is a little humorous. One evening, my mother had told us that we could not turn on the television. So, being the evil genius, I asked my middle sister to turn the channel to my desired station and got my baby sister to pull the power switch. When my mother came back, she yelled at me but I calmly said, “she turned the channel and she turned the TV on. I didn’t do anything”.

I did not know this at the time but my father really liked living in the US. He quit YYYYY and joined AAAAA so that he can move back to America. And we were on our way back to California.