Last month, alone, I flew home to Orlando, Florida. This time, Kantra understood that I was leaving. Haruki was stabbing me with her tears.“I will hang your underwear outside so people will think that you’re still here,” she said.When my bus pulled off Kantra chased after me. Haruki hugged her. Kantra stomped the earth.I didn’t want to go the closer it got to leaving. It’s like driving into a storm cloud on a flat plain. This was my first trip …
Category: Japan
I was a guest on The Mega Late Show earlier this month and the episode just dropped today. This was my first podcast. We were drinking beers in the wee afternoon. I sound sedated and awkward. Listening to myself made me cringe, but Mega and Late were good hosts to pop my cherry to. It was casual. Felt like we were just kicking it talking shit. Realizing that people can actually listen to me mumble rap halfway into a mic, I …
The importance of Ikeda Manabu’s work can’t be overstated or more timely. This is anti-automation. It’s what you get when you take away the screen, look at the world and just draw it. He worked 10 hours a day for three and a half years to produce his latest piece, “Rebirth.” It’s a 13 x 10 foot painting within a painting that’s within a painting. The narratives that weave throughout it are like strings of tangled sentences. “Rebirth” is Manabu’s …
It took having a child to realize that I had a temper. Thought I was cool. The most difficult thing that I’ve ever done was become a father. And I did it in one of the strangest places in the world. The pressure to model Japanese societal standards has the force of a car crusher. It’s a homogenous country that refused to talk to the world for 200 years. Spending a lot of time alone makes you weird, ask anybody …
Haruki and Kantra’s perception of me, govern my values. I’d be fooling myself to pretend like foreign judgments aren’t crowding my peripheral. My wife is working crazy hours. I feel helpless watching her go through this bulshit. We have to switch roles. It’s like I’m walking around with my balls in my back pocket. I’m in awe of her. Shorty’s a hustler, “We do what we can do,” she tells me. Like a drafted soldier doing more than she can, …
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